Monday, July 11, 2011

I turn my back for one minute and I miss out on another big-name blog fight.

Although whether it’s actually a “fight” or not…well, I dunno. In this corner, Robert Stacy McCain, who practices his own traffic-friendly Rule 4 by picking a fight with a bigger-traffic blog than his own defends the honor of anyone who was pretty damn sure President Obama was going to be bad news. Cameo appearance by Smitty.

In this corner, Ann Althouse, who seems pretty bemused by the whole thing, and why not? A 40 million-plus-hit blogger pricking the honor of a 7 million-plus-hit blogger, resulting in multiple links between the two? Genius!

Don’t expect me to interfere. People wanna have their arguments, I’m all for it. Instead, I'll take the opportunity to get two things off my chest.

In 1988, I voted for Sen. Paul Simon (D-Illinois) in the Democrats’ presidential primary.

Yeah, I know. An Illinoyance. What was I thinking? Dunno. He wore a bow tie, which was just stupid, but I was a college student who wanted to prove how tolerant he was. See? I was oozing tolerance! Viva difference!

Or, more likely, I was a dumbass 18-year-old who wouldn’t have known an opportunity cost if it was loaning him a fake I.D.

Fast forward to 1992. I didn’t vote that year due to my being an idiot 22-year-old living in California, and neglecting to do whatever it was I had to do to obtain a Wisconsin absentee ballot, or become a registered voter in California.

But if I had voted, I’d have voted for Bill Clinton.

Well excuuuuuuuuuuse me. It was totally rational, dammit, for an dumbass 22-year-old who paid very little attention to politics or economics or current events. Clinton was better looking, and smoother, and had a down-homey accent, and represented Change, and while I was as fired up as everybody else about the Gulf War, what had Bush done for me lately?

Completely rational, given the circumstances.

Do I regret it? Sure, along with about a zillion other stupid things I did between the ages of zero and twenty... um, I mean thirty... uh, lemme get back to you on that. The point is, all these things I regret now seemed entirely rational at the time. Sure, they look ridiculously irrational now, now that I'm looking back on them with the advantages of history, maturity, education, and experience. But doesn't everything?

None of that changes the fact that, yeah, I should have known better. But, feh. I’m sure I’ll look back on this blog post ten years from now and think: what the hell was I thinking? And then, from the lofty height of my skull-encrusted throne, direct a minion to erase all vestiges of it from existence.

And then I’ll regret that, too. Is there never any end to it?

2 comments:

  1. [...] = {"data_track_clickback":true,"ui_language":"en"};Yes, I’m talking about Troglopundit:In 1988, I voted for Sen. Paul Simon (D-Illinois) in the Democrats’ presidential primary.There are still a lot of dumb people in Wisconsin. But it was much worse before Sean Hackbarth moved [...]

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  2. Really wasn't contradicting @rsmccain so much as wondering about the utility of thumping the repentant.

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