Leo is now eight months old and has already lived a richer, fuller life than most of the people you see on Wife Swap- save for perhaps the family of traveling carnies that was on recently. (I swear I don't watch this show regularly) They had it pretty good. But Leo has been living a bit of la vida loca himself lately. He's already been to two NHL games, two MLB games, and done enough airline travel to know that when the pilot says, "we'll be getting cleared for takeoff shortly," that he needn't rush to secure his seat back or tray table. He's also learned that, if its raining, even sprinkling anywhere in the continental United States, Alaska, Puerto Rico, or Guam, the airlines will claim that the delays you are suffering through are related to "bad weather" rather than their own general ineptitude- even if you are flying from Cedar Rapids to Des Moines, and the bad weather is in the Netherlands Antilles.
Leo has flown to Buffalo, New York, Boston, Albuquerque (might I suggest that this city change its name to someting easier to spell?) and San Jose. He's been a real trooper on each and every flight- and that is saying something in this era of no-frills, hi-cost, delay ridden domestic travel. On our trip home from California, we had to sit on the runway at O'hare for "just a few moments" because our gate was occupied. The "few moments" turned into just under an hour on a sweltering hot plane filled with angry people. Leo was perhaps the most content chap on the plane, however, as we authorized him to shred the in-flight and Sky Mall magazines in his seat. For some reason the boy loves to rip and shred documents. He would probably fit in nicely on Hillary Clinton or Scooter Libby's staff in that regard.
We also had to sit on a hot plane at Logan for 2 hours before our flight took off a few months ago. He was also allowed to shred during that delay as well, so the basic rule of thumb has become: if there is a delay, the boy gets to rip, otherwise he has to make due with crawling around our laps and trying to eat whatever he can get his hands on. Lord knows its not easy to avoid hunger in the air these days- you're lucky if you get a bag of peanuts, even on a long haul flight.
Being a handsome eight month old boy certainly has its advantages. Leo has strangers doting on him wherever he goes, and he lapps up the attention like a hungry dog- returning every smile that comes his way and making friends wherever he goes. Leo is so popular,that when we're in an enclosed space with a stranger that doesn't remark on him, we find ourselves wondering about the deficiencies in that persons character. A small sample size of the people that Leo has charmed lately: a cashier at a health food store in Nederland, Colorado that wanted to hold him, the Mexican waitresses at Nuevo Leon in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago- who like to carry Leo around the restaraunt and speak to him in Spanish, the concierges at the Hyatt in Denver- who remembered Leo by name and wanted to know about his every move in their city, the staff members of several wineries in the Sonoma Valley who no doubt poured us better wine because they liked Leo so much, and a slew of high school girls that played peek a boo with him for half of our flight home from Denver. Someday I aspire to be as popular as my son is now, or as my dog Homer used to be, but I'm not holding my breath.
Meanwhile, the boy's development is pretty astonishing. He can shimmy around the house as though he were a NAVY SEAL stealthily sneaking up a hill along enemy lines. Aside from shimmying and shredding, he also loves to handle cords, wires, remote controls, cable boxes, and/or any other electrical devices he can get his hands on. If he did't have my genes, I'd say he might make a really good electrician when he grows up. He's a damn good traveler-in fact, he probably throws less tantrums than his dad does while on the road. As far as his reading habits go, he's still a bit more into chewing on his literature, which is probably a good thing- the boy's a deep thinker that likes to work through the ideas in his own way. Recently, Leo learned how to use his mom's stomache to make fart noises- and this makes him very happy. He still loves to breast-feed, but he's no longer into the traditional sit down at the table kind of meal anymore. No sir- he likes to feed standing up, or better yet, take ocassional sips while jumping on his mom as though she were a trampoline while intermittently looking at me to see if I'm looking at him.
The most remarkable thing about this age, IMO, is how infectious his smile and laugh are. Leo is one happy little guy- and when he's laughing and smiling and squeling, flashing his two little teeth, you really can't help but feel the warm glow of his charm. Of course, the boy is still not without his peculiarities and phobias. His smile turns to howls of anger when you have to take his shirt on or off. Don't even think about trying to strap him into a car seat, stroller, hi-chair, etc- if he's in a cranky mood, and, don't even think about putting that damn suction thing he hates up his nose to suck boogers out. He hasn't yet learned to throw a tantrum when you take something away from him, though, and we aren't planning on giving him any lessons in this behavior either.
Leo is 3/4 of a year old- and he has improved the quality of our lives immensely- when I'm gone, I miss him within an hour, and when I get home, I practically want to run up the steps to get my hands on him. More experienced parents say it'll just keep getting better. Ummm, right, but only up until a point right? When they start requesting Hannah Montana tickets and iphones- surely that won't be better than the hi-times we are having now?
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
The Ignorance Files- Ignorant Customer Service
Ignorant Customer Service Interlude #1: 5/16ths of a Pound of Baloney
The other day I asked a deli clerk at my local supermarket for a third of a pound of swiss cheese. The plump young gal taking care of me started slicing away on her machine vigorously. She kept churning and churning and I began to wonder if she might have heard me incorrectly. Sure enough, she plopped a massive stack of swiss cheese slices on her scale- a bit more than 3/4ths of a pound.
"I just wanted a third of a pound," I protested.
She looked at the scale and said, "it is a third."
"But it says .77," I countered, beginning to wonder if she was putting me on.
"Well, its a bit more than a third," she conceeded.
"A bit more?" I asked, "its more than 3/4ths of a pound, I wanted 1/3rd of a pound."
She looked totally confused so I added, "point thirty three on your scale", acknowledging that they friendly, portly young lass must have been absent the day they taught fractions in grammar school. The clerk nodded her head as though she understood. But then she took all of the slices off the scale save for just one, and then said, in all seriousness, "i didn't realize you wanted like just one slice of cheese." I looked at her puzzled until I realized that she was trying to make her scale read .033 instead of .33. After some remedial math tutoring, I eventually got my cheese- and managed to refrain from asking her for anything involving even more complex fractions.
I arrived home eager to tell my wife about my fuzzy math problem at the Jewel deli counter, but she was not sympathetic.
"A third? You asked for 1/3 lb? No one does that- you have to deal in quarters," she said, looking at me like I was the ignorant one, instead of the clerk.
" I wanted 1/3- 1/4 wasn't enough, and 1/2 was too much, i mean, its not like I asked for 5/8ths or something really challenging."
My wife may have had a point, but if I were hiring deli slicers- I'd probably only ask them 3 questions- 1) do you have any communicable diseases? 2) ever accidentally slice off one of your fingers?, and 3) can you do fractions?
Ignorant Customer Service Interlude #2: The Customer is Always a Piece of Shit
I arrived at the Budget Rent-A-Car desk in Albuquerque, New Mexico after a long flight from Chicago at nearly 10pm on a wednesday night. My wife Jen, and 8 month old son, Leo, took a seat as I joined the back of a line that was 5 or 6 customers deep. We planned to drive an hour to Santa Fe, check into our hotel and get Leo to sleep, as it was already 3 hours past his bedtime. The line didn't move for what seemed like ages- every single customer in front of me seemed to have some kind of problem, but I coudln't hear exactly what people were saying.
When I'm stuck waiting in a long line, I have the unhealthy habit of trying to speculate on why others are taking so long, while formulating strategies on how I believe the people behind the counter could be doing their jobs more efficiently. In this case, there were three clerks "working" but one of them kept disappearing into the back room for extended periods of time. The other clerk was shadowed by a man who- if i had to speculate on his formal job description- appeared to have no other fuction besides looking over his colleagues shoulder and staring at his computer screen while furrowing his acne covered brow.
By the time I reached the counter, years later, I was nearly elligible for a senior citizens discount on my car, but I tried to let by-gones be by-gones and present a friendly face in the hopes of getting a good car. My wife, Jen, has frequently accused me of demonstating a "Mr. Nice Guy" persona while requesting flight, hotel or rental car upgrades that bears no resemblence to my actual cynical, impatient and mean spirited real self. She may have a point. In any event, i pulled out my best self in the hopes of snagging a good car.
"We only have mini-vans," said the sullen Latina clerk, who had spent most of the previous half-hour plotting the destruction of planet earth from the back room while those of us in line cursed the gods and pondered the meaning of life while wondering what the hell she was up to "back there."
"But I reserved a compact car," I protested, brandishing my priceline.com confirmation e-mail.
"It doesn't matter- all I have is minivans!" she said, before adding, "do you want one or not?"
I had already pre-paid for the car via www.priceline.com, so not taking the car wasn't an option, but with gas at $4 a gallon, the last thing I wanted was a massive gas guzzler.
I asked to speak with the surly Latina's supervisor.
"You'll have to wait," she said.
By this point, I would have rather been granted immediate access to hell rather than join a queue to get into Hugh Hefner's mansion, such was my level of impatience, so I asked my surly friend why there weren't any cars smaller than the size of your average Wall-Mart greeter's ass, or something along those lines.
She went on a lengthy diatribe against priceline.com and those who use it- essentially branding us cheapskates who want the world served to them on a silver platter- while admonishing me to book directly with budget in the future.
"So let me get this straight," I said, in my best prosecutor delivering his final arguments fashion, "if i had booked directly with budget- you would find something other than a minivan for me?"
"Well, no, we only have minivans," she conceeded.
"So then help me out here- what's the relevance of your whole diatribe against priceline customers? Either way I'd get stuck with a minivan, right?"
This query seemed to send her over the edge.
"I've been dealing with angry customers all night, and I'm just sick of it!" she railed, "if you keep yelling at me (note: she was the one yelling, not me) i'm not even going to rent you the car, now do you want the minivan or not?"
"Yessssss, I would love a minivan," I said sarcastically.
So i took the damn minivan, and wouldn't you know it, as we dragged our refugee like mass of belongings across the Budget parking lot, we noticed that there were several regular cars in the lot, and not just minivans. Lacking the strength to tromp back inside to do battle with the surly Latina, I approached a Budget employee sitting in a glass hut in the parking lot.
"I reserved a compact car- why can't I get one of those?" I asked, pointing towards a row of Hyundai Sonata's.
"Oh the Hyundai's- no those are premium cars, you couldn't get one of those!" he said, as though the very notion of me- obviously an unkempt street urchin with a compact car reservation- driving a Hyundai were out of the question. Someday, someday I tell you, I will aspire to drive a Hyundai. (but for now, i'll just drive un-cool minivans or whatever other shit I get foisted upon me at rental counters)
Ignorant Customer Service Interlude #3: Commando Style
Later on in this same trip, we arrived at Denver's gleaming international airport, which is conveniently located amidst vast empty fields only 3 hours from downtown Denver. The airport is also conveniently situated only about three hours away from the offsite car rental counters. We were delighted to walk into Thrifty rent-a-car's vast car rental salon and see four counter clerks and not a single customer! Nirvana. The only problem was that with no line, our friendly clerk, a recent immigrant from Ethiopia, was in no hurry at all. After nearly 20 minutes- yes- twenty minutes of agonizing questions interspersed between amharic language banter with his Ethiopian colleauges behind the counter, he told us we'd be getting- you guessed it- a Hyundai! My new Ethiopian friend described it to us as "small SUV that is goot on gass". I was thrilled to find a company willing to let me get behind the wheel of some real serious Korean engineering.
We lugged all of our worldly posessions- including Leo's stroller, car seat, food supply, diapers, toys, sippy cups, and what not-out to our designated spot. Only there was no Hyundai, but instead a truly collosal behemoth called the Jeep Commando or some such thing. It looked like it might get about a furlong to the gallon, on a good highway, if you were driving 45mph. "Where the hell is my freaking Hun-dai?" I muttered to no one in particular. I marched back inside while Jen and Leo stood by our belongings, which were stewn about the parking lot.
The Ethiopian man whom I had dealt with previously was nowhere to be found. The hall was still devoid of customers, but now there was just one clerk- an indifferent young man that seemed to be the only non-Ethiopian working there on this day.
He looked at my reservation.
"You reserved a small SUV," he said.
"Right, and your colleague was sorting me out with a Hyundai, but when I got out there it was this huge Commando thing, I don't want a huge SUV," I said, "I noticed that there were several Jeep Laredo's in the parking lot, can I have one of those?"
"The Commander is a better ride than the Lardeo," he said.
"Look- I don't want a huge SUV- just give me something that's going to be more fuel efficient."
The clerk tried to tell me that he couldn't give me any of the cars in the parking lot, other than the monster Commander or Commando or whatever the hell its called, because all the other cars were reserved for "blue chip" members.
"So, since I'm not a blue chip member, I can't get the car I want?" I asked.
"Well, we reserve certain vehicles for our loyal blue chip customers," he said.
"So how much does it cost to become a blue chip member?" I asked.
"Oh, its free," he said.
"So if I sign up for your program, you'll give me the Laredo?" I asked.
"I'm giving you the Commander," he said.
"Look, I don't want to spend a fortune on gas," I said, hoping to appeal to his sense of logic and "thrift".
"I could prove to you that the Commander gets the same gas mileage as the Laredo, but even if I showed you, you still probably wouldn't believe it, would you?" he asked smugly, shaking his head in disgust. (note: i looked it up later and the commander does NOT get the same gas mileage as the Laredo)
I wrote his name down and asked to speak to his supervisor.
"Do you want my employee number too?" he asked, seeing me write his name down.
Nearly an hour after we arrived at their empty office, we drove off in the Laredo. These days, if you want to rent anything smaller than the Titanic, better wear a suit of armor with you to the rental counter and be prepared to fight.
The other day I asked a deli clerk at my local supermarket for a third of a pound of swiss cheese. The plump young gal taking care of me started slicing away on her machine vigorously. She kept churning and churning and I began to wonder if she might have heard me incorrectly. Sure enough, she plopped a massive stack of swiss cheese slices on her scale- a bit more than 3/4ths of a pound.
"I just wanted a third of a pound," I protested.
She looked at the scale and said, "it is a third."
"But it says .77," I countered, beginning to wonder if she was putting me on.
"Well, its a bit more than a third," she conceeded.
"A bit more?" I asked, "its more than 3/4ths of a pound, I wanted 1/3rd of a pound."
She looked totally confused so I added, "point thirty three on your scale", acknowledging that they friendly, portly young lass must have been absent the day they taught fractions in grammar school. The clerk nodded her head as though she understood. But then she took all of the slices off the scale save for just one, and then said, in all seriousness, "i didn't realize you wanted like just one slice of cheese." I looked at her puzzled until I realized that she was trying to make her scale read .033 instead of .33. After some remedial math tutoring, I eventually got my cheese- and managed to refrain from asking her for anything involving even more complex fractions.
I arrived home eager to tell my wife about my fuzzy math problem at the Jewel deli counter, but she was not sympathetic.
"A third? You asked for 1/3 lb? No one does that- you have to deal in quarters," she said, looking at me like I was the ignorant one, instead of the clerk.
" I wanted 1/3- 1/4 wasn't enough, and 1/2 was too much, i mean, its not like I asked for 5/8ths or something really challenging."
My wife may have had a point, but if I were hiring deli slicers- I'd probably only ask them 3 questions- 1) do you have any communicable diseases? 2) ever accidentally slice off one of your fingers?, and 3) can you do fractions?
Ignorant Customer Service Interlude #2: The Customer is Always a Piece of Shit
I arrived at the Budget Rent-A-Car desk in Albuquerque, New Mexico after a long flight from Chicago at nearly 10pm on a wednesday night. My wife Jen, and 8 month old son, Leo, took a seat as I joined the back of a line that was 5 or 6 customers deep. We planned to drive an hour to Santa Fe, check into our hotel and get Leo to sleep, as it was already 3 hours past his bedtime. The line didn't move for what seemed like ages- every single customer in front of me seemed to have some kind of problem, but I coudln't hear exactly what people were saying.
When I'm stuck waiting in a long line, I have the unhealthy habit of trying to speculate on why others are taking so long, while formulating strategies on how I believe the people behind the counter could be doing their jobs more efficiently. In this case, there were three clerks "working" but one of them kept disappearing into the back room for extended periods of time. The other clerk was shadowed by a man who- if i had to speculate on his formal job description- appeared to have no other fuction besides looking over his colleagues shoulder and staring at his computer screen while furrowing his acne covered brow.
By the time I reached the counter, years later, I was nearly elligible for a senior citizens discount on my car, but I tried to let by-gones be by-gones and present a friendly face in the hopes of getting a good car. My wife, Jen, has frequently accused me of demonstating a "Mr. Nice Guy" persona while requesting flight, hotel or rental car upgrades that bears no resemblence to my actual cynical, impatient and mean spirited real self. She may have a point. In any event, i pulled out my best self in the hopes of snagging a good car.
"We only have mini-vans," said the sullen Latina clerk, who had spent most of the previous half-hour plotting the destruction of planet earth from the back room while those of us in line cursed the gods and pondered the meaning of life while wondering what the hell she was up to "back there."
"But I reserved a compact car," I protested, brandishing my priceline.com confirmation e-mail.
"It doesn't matter- all I have is minivans!" she said, before adding, "do you want one or not?"
I had already pre-paid for the car via www.priceline.com, so not taking the car wasn't an option, but with gas at $4 a gallon, the last thing I wanted was a massive gas guzzler.
I asked to speak with the surly Latina's supervisor.
"You'll have to wait," she said.
By this point, I would have rather been granted immediate access to hell rather than join a queue to get into Hugh Hefner's mansion, such was my level of impatience, so I asked my surly friend why there weren't any cars smaller than the size of your average Wall-Mart greeter's ass, or something along those lines.
She went on a lengthy diatribe against priceline.com and those who use it- essentially branding us cheapskates who want the world served to them on a silver platter- while admonishing me to book directly with budget in the future.
"So let me get this straight," I said, in my best prosecutor delivering his final arguments fashion, "if i had booked directly with budget- you would find something other than a minivan for me?"
"Well, no, we only have minivans," she conceeded.
"So then help me out here- what's the relevance of your whole diatribe against priceline customers? Either way I'd get stuck with a minivan, right?"
This query seemed to send her over the edge.
"I've been dealing with angry customers all night, and I'm just sick of it!" she railed, "if you keep yelling at me (note: she was the one yelling, not me) i'm not even going to rent you the car, now do you want the minivan or not?"
"Yessssss, I would love a minivan," I said sarcastically.
So i took the damn minivan, and wouldn't you know it, as we dragged our refugee like mass of belongings across the Budget parking lot, we noticed that there were several regular cars in the lot, and not just minivans. Lacking the strength to tromp back inside to do battle with the surly Latina, I approached a Budget employee sitting in a glass hut in the parking lot.
"I reserved a compact car- why can't I get one of those?" I asked, pointing towards a row of Hyundai Sonata's.
"Oh the Hyundai's- no those are premium cars, you couldn't get one of those!" he said, as though the very notion of me- obviously an unkempt street urchin with a compact car reservation- driving a Hyundai were out of the question. Someday, someday I tell you, I will aspire to drive a Hyundai. (but for now, i'll just drive un-cool minivans or whatever other shit I get foisted upon me at rental counters)
Ignorant Customer Service Interlude #3: Commando Style
Later on in this same trip, we arrived at Denver's gleaming international airport, which is conveniently located amidst vast empty fields only 3 hours from downtown Denver. The airport is also conveniently situated only about three hours away from the offsite car rental counters. We were delighted to walk into Thrifty rent-a-car's vast car rental salon and see four counter clerks and not a single customer! Nirvana. The only problem was that with no line, our friendly clerk, a recent immigrant from Ethiopia, was in no hurry at all. After nearly 20 minutes- yes- twenty minutes of agonizing questions interspersed between amharic language banter with his Ethiopian colleauges behind the counter, he told us we'd be getting- you guessed it- a Hyundai! My new Ethiopian friend described it to us as "small SUV that is goot on gass". I was thrilled to find a company willing to let me get behind the wheel of some real serious Korean engineering.
We lugged all of our worldly posessions- including Leo's stroller, car seat, food supply, diapers, toys, sippy cups, and what not-out to our designated spot. Only there was no Hyundai, but instead a truly collosal behemoth called the Jeep Commando or some such thing. It looked like it might get about a furlong to the gallon, on a good highway, if you were driving 45mph. "Where the hell is my freaking Hun-dai?" I muttered to no one in particular. I marched back inside while Jen and Leo stood by our belongings, which were stewn about the parking lot.
The Ethiopian man whom I had dealt with previously was nowhere to be found. The hall was still devoid of customers, but now there was just one clerk- an indifferent young man that seemed to be the only non-Ethiopian working there on this day.
He looked at my reservation.
"You reserved a small SUV," he said.
"Right, and your colleague was sorting me out with a Hyundai, but when I got out there it was this huge Commando thing, I don't want a huge SUV," I said, "I noticed that there were several Jeep Laredo's in the parking lot, can I have one of those?"
"The Commander is a better ride than the Lardeo," he said.
"Look- I don't want a huge SUV- just give me something that's going to be more fuel efficient."
The clerk tried to tell me that he couldn't give me any of the cars in the parking lot, other than the monster Commander or Commando or whatever the hell its called, because all the other cars were reserved for "blue chip" members.
"So, since I'm not a blue chip member, I can't get the car I want?" I asked.
"Well, we reserve certain vehicles for our loyal blue chip customers," he said.
"So how much does it cost to become a blue chip member?" I asked.
"Oh, its free," he said.
"So if I sign up for your program, you'll give me the Laredo?" I asked.
"I'm giving you the Commander," he said.
"Look, I don't want to spend a fortune on gas," I said, hoping to appeal to his sense of logic and "thrift".
"I could prove to you that the Commander gets the same gas mileage as the Laredo, but even if I showed you, you still probably wouldn't believe it, would you?" he asked smugly, shaking his head in disgust. (note: i looked it up later and the commander does NOT get the same gas mileage as the Laredo)
I wrote his name down and asked to speak to his supervisor.
"Do you want my employee number too?" he asked, seeing me write his name down.
Nearly an hour after we arrived at their empty office, we drove off in the Laredo. These days, if you want to rent anything smaller than the Titanic, better wear a suit of armor with you to the rental counter and be prepared to fight.
Next Up for Hill: A Spot on VH1's the Surreal Life?
Even by the Clinton's trailer park standards, last night's non-concession speech was particularly base,self-serving and hypocritcal. Baruch College's gymnasium was packed to the gills with defiant, screaming Clintonistas who were whipped into a frenzy with tunes like Tom Petty's "Won't Back Down", and Clinton campaign chair Terry McAuliffe laughably introduced their hero as "the next president of the United States" despite the fact that every news organization had already called the race for Obama.
The carefully assembled crowd- which included a handful of African Americans strategically placed directly behind Hill- exhorted their leader with cries of "Denver, Denver!" indicating their clear preference for her to refuse to acknowledge the obvious. Clinton, for her part, only vaguely congratulated Obama- delighting her intransigent fans by refusing to concede, despite the fact that- by any count- she had lost the race. "What does Hillary want?" she asked, vainly refering to herself in the 3rd person, before attempting to masquerade her own selfish ambition and thirst for power by answering her own question with an absurd justification for her refusal to concede the race. Hill would have us believe she's staying in because of all the little people- the woman in Sioux Falls with no health insurance, the second shift worker, the single mother, blah, blah, blah. Of course, this is complete bullshit, and everyone knows it. Everyone that is, save for the angry hooligans in the auditorium (and those of their ilk watching from home) who- in a truly surreal spectacle- jumped up and down and whoooped and hollered as though they were celebrating a victory rather than conceeding a defeat. The only thing that was missing from the twilight-zone like presentation was a rendition of "Happy Days are Here Again" and confetti falling from the rafters.
Commentators keep telling us that Clinton has earned the right to go out on her own terms, and that she shouldn't be rushed into conceeding the race. The truth is that its too late for a graceful exit- last night should have been Obama's night- but the Clinton's still cannot come to grips with losing and so they couldn't let the man have his due. Even if she conceedes the race today- which I doubt-its too late- the time to bow out was last night, if not weeks ago.
If Clinton's ultimate goal truly is to advance the policies she espouses rather than just to re-inhabit the White House, she would have conceeded long ago. Instead she and her campaign have duped their core constituency- working class women, white collar feminists, senior citizens uncomfortable with the idea of a black candidate and just plain old rednecks- that the sexist media and the DNC have stolen the election from her by unfairly refusing to count the votes in Michigan and Florida. Never mind the fact that she herself conceeded that those elections weren't going to count back when she didn't know she'd need those votes.
Die-hard Clintonistas want to believe that the nomination has been stolen from them and the facts aren't going to get in the way of that. They are convinced that she is the stronger candiate despite the fact that at least 40% of the country despises her. Years of experience with the Clintons tells us that they aren't going to go quietly from the scene- so now the only question that remains is- will Obama allow himself to be held hostage by Hill's selfish demands? Will she withold support until Obama agrees to put her on the ticket and pay off her campaign debts? No one would put it past her.
I'd like to see Obama put some other woman on the ticket- if for no other reason than to just prove a point- most American men aren't opposed to women in power- they're just opposed to Hillary being in power. Hillary for Veep? Nah, I have another idea- I think Bill and Hill are more well suited for VH1's Surreal Life House ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Surreal_Life) than the White House- perhaps the producers could even arrange to have them room with the "scumbag" reporter that wrote this recent Vanity Fair piece on Bill's shady business and personal dealings. http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/07/clinton200807
Check your inbox Hill- you may have missed the memo- you lost- its all over, there won't be any 3AM phone calls for you to answer, no more fake tears to shed, no more vast right wing conspiracies to fend off, no more having to unfairly field the first question at sexist debates. Extinguish your torch and get off the island. The tribe has spoken.
The carefully assembled crowd- which included a handful of African Americans strategically placed directly behind Hill- exhorted their leader with cries of "Denver, Denver!" indicating their clear preference for her to refuse to acknowledge the obvious. Clinton, for her part, only vaguely congratulated Obama- delighting her intransigent fans by refusing to concede, despite the fact that- by any count- she had lost the race. "What does Hillary want?" she asked, vainly refering to herself in the 3rd person, before attempting to masquerade her own selfish ambition and thirst for power by answering her own question with an absurd justification for her refusal to concede the race. Hill would have us believe she's staying in because of all the little people- the woman in Sioux Falls with no health insurance, the second shift worker, the single mother, blah, blah, blah. Of course, this is complete bullshit, and everyone knows it. Everyone that is, save for the angry hooligans in the auditorium (and those of their ilk watching from home) who- in a truly surreal spectacle- jumped up and down and whoooped and hollered as though they were celebrating a victory rather than conceeding a defeat. The only thing that was missing from the twilight-zone like presentation was a rendition of "Happy Days are Here Again" and confetti falling from the rafters.
Commentators keep telling us that Clinton has earned the right to go out on her own terms, and that she shouldn't be rushed into conceeding the race. The truth is that its too late for a graceful exit- last night should have been Obama's night- but the Clinton's still cannot come to grips with losing and so they couldn't let the man have his due. Even if she conceedes the race today- which I doubt-its too late- the time to bow out was last night, if not weeks ago.
If Clinton's ultimate goal truly is to advance the policies she espouses rather than just to re-inhabit the White House, she would have conceeded long ago. Instead she and her campaign have duped their core constituency- working class women, white collar feminists, senior citizens uncomfortable with the idea of a black candidate and just plain old rednecks- that the sexist media and the DNC have stolen the election from her by unfairly refusing to count the votes in Michigan and Florida. Never mind the fact that she herself conceeded that those elections weren't going to count back when she didn't know she'd need those votes.
Die-hard Clintonistas want to believe that the nomination has been stolen from them and the facts aren't going to get in the way of that. They are convinced that she is the stronger candiate despite the fact that at least 40% of the country despises her. Years of experience with the Clintons tells us that they aren't going to go quietly from the scene- so now the only question that remains is- will Obama allow himself to be held hostage by Hill's selfish demands? Will she withold support until Obama agrees to put her on the ticket and pay off her campaign debts? No one would put it past her.
I'd like to see Obama put some other woman on the ticket- if for no other reason than to just prove a point- most American men aren't opposed to women in power- they're just opposed to Hillary being in power. Hillary for Veep? Nah, I have another idea- I think Bill and Hill are more well suited for VH1's Surreal Life House ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Surreal_Life) than the White House- perhaps the producers could even arrange to have them room with the "scumbag" reporter that wrote this recent Vanity Fair piece on Bill's shady business and personal dealings. http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/07/clinton200807
Check your inbox Hill- you may have missed the memo- you lost- its all over, there won't be any 3AM phone calls for you to answer, no more fake tears to shed, no more vast right wing conspiracies to fend off, no more having to unfairly field the first question at sexist debates. Extinguish your torch and get off the island. The tribe has spoken.
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