Wednesday, June 4, 2008

America's Historic Moment: The Giant Slayer


Across the globe, pundits and politicians of all stripes competed for hyperbole on Wednesday to applaud Senator Barack Obama’s claim of victory in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, almost as if he had already been elected to the White House. The Times of London saw Obama's victory as evidence that "the United States remains a land of opportunity." "This moment's significance is its resounding proof of the truism about America as a land of opportunity: Mr Obama's opportunity to graduate from Harvard and take Washington by storm," it wrote.

It said his victory also demonstrates "the opportunity that the world's most responsive democratic system gives its voters to be inspired by an unknown; the opportunity that outsiders now have to reassess the superpower that too many of them love to hate. "Win or lose in November, he will have gone farther than anyone in history to bury the toxic enmity that fueled America's civil war and has haunted it ever since."

The Financial Times opened a post-mortem on Clinton's campaign, indicating that her defeat was not about her shortcomings but about Obama's political potency. The Independent newspaper, however, placed the blame on "loyal husband" Bill Clinton who "more than anyone sabotaged his wife's chances by airing too many outspoken opinions on the way."

But the paper hinted the Clintons may still have another shot at the White House -- although it could be a few years away. "Hillary has been beaten. Bill has dishonored himself. And Chelsea? Chelsea need have no regrets. She may be the candidate that brings the family back to the campaign trail again. But that drama is for another decade."

The French newspaper Le Monde also examined Bill Clinton's role in Hillary's failure. The former president was both her greatest asset and her worst, the paper said, delivering a blunt assessment of her campaign with an emphatic: "C'est fini."

Find out more at: http://www.cnnpolitics.com/

Now, here's one of my poems that can slay dragons too:


A Slick Tool & Vaseline

In this scenario your name crawls through a megaphone
then sits on a stump in the shade along the river
bank to catch its breath. Daily life stands
in the bus’s crowded aisle glancing
at newspaper headlines in
Braille. It’s one of
those days
when you manage
to forge happiness’s signature
perfectly but the check bounces anyway
and you’re stranded on a deserted alpine road
with a migraine for a homeroom teacher. Someone
steals your bag of elbows while you’re taking a leak in the
woods and you are forced to run the three-legged
race alone. Romance becomes just a humid
gymnasium with jock itch. Foreplay turns
out to be a lame mare with a sway
back. The jar of Vaseline is
empty and the silly
love songs all
have rust
behind their
ears. So you wiggle
your hornet’s nest until
the bleachers fits. You puck
the hair on your tongue and will
your eyes to moor in their sockets as
your pet rock finds its way home. You take
comfort knowing that another world crisis is at
that very moment trying on another pair of kid gloves, that
a crop-duster is all set to sky-write your surrender.


Poem first published online at: http://www.myfavoritebullet.com/
Visit my ezine: http://www.concelebratory.blogspot.com/
and music blog: http://www.medleymakersant.blogspot.com/
Poem Copyright 2008 by Maurice Oliver. All Rights Reserved.

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