Dear Maureen Dowd

I sent the following email to Maureen Dowd of the NYTimes about her appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press”. It had to do with her comment on the Camelot legend which I have written about and is linked below and particularly the sword-in-the-stone portion of the legend. We must await her reply.

Dear Ms. Dowd,

Love your column, and you looked absolutely marvelous on pumpkin head’s show Sunday morning. However, in your reference to the Camelot legend, you said Caroline Kennedy’s endorsement of Obama was like Galahad drawing the sword from the stone.

Galahad did not draw the sword from the stone. Arthur did. That’s how the people knew he was supposed to the successor to Uther Pendragon who had put it there in the first place – allegedly.

Jack Kennedy and his administration being likened to the myth of Camelot is something I wrote about when I first started blogging. Where is the sword in the stone so that I might know of Camelot’s return when and if Jack’s successor draws it from the stone?

I ask it here: Sword in the Stone

Since I know you might not want to visit some unknown site, I’ll give you the condensed version here. I didn’t hyper-link the site in this email for the reason that it might not get through if I did. (In the note I sent MoDo, I didn’t hyper link it like I did here. I've also edited my copy since then – scout29c.)

Arthur who did not know he was Uther Pendragon’s son drew the sword from the stone because he had the divine right to do so. Where is the modern day version of the sword in the stone so that we might know who Jack’s successor is when they draw it from the stone?

I think the sword in the stone is the “unconscious endorsement” of the press – or MSM in the more modern expression. The term “unconscious endorsement” is within quotes because of its significance. Professional journalists try to hold themselves above the political fray so as to not compromise their professionalism – and rightfully so, however what happens when as a collective groups they just plain like and admire a certain candidate.

Having a large number of pundits, reporters, and those dastardly bloggers liking a candidate – or President, for that matter – would be one powerful weapon. That’s my guess as to where the sword in the stone is, and I’m watching to see if Obama can draw it out.

Oh, and I’ll keep reading your column and looking for your bad self on TV.

Poll Me No Polls

So much for “Change as the New Black”. There is no new black in this election cycle – so far. Hillary proved the professional politician she is. Maybe experience is no longer mentioned as is change in election campaigning but she proved its merit in practice. The other big news item on the campaign trail is how wrong polls can be and how much newsworthiness they possess prior to being proven wrong.

And the newshounds keep going back to them – as if polls were a fickle but undeniable siren. It’s all they got and so they treat it like it is news. Like I said before: If “dog bites man” is the only news you got, then any newsperson worth his salt gets a dog that bites. Thus we have polls.

Super Tuesday will decide it all. I’m thinking Hillary has got it but who knows. It will be interesting to see how they campaign for Super Tuesday and how the press covers it.

Florida is going to be interesting to see if Giuliani’s strategy was wise. It didn’t work for Thompson in South Carolina. McCain won and gave a most interesting victory speech. Wouldn’t it be funny if someone who emphasized the legend of a Republican winning the South Carolina primary were to invalidate that tradition? Such is American politics.

I would almost like to see Giuliani’s strategy proven in Florida if only it would mean the demise of the early expectation setting primaries and the news hype that surrounds them. However, there is the more interesting aspect in the coming election of McCain being our time’s Teddy Roosevelt, so Giuliani has got to lose. Perhaps it will be like Al Gore proving a Democrat no longer needs the South to win but he lost anyway type of victory.

Is Change the New Black?

What does Obama’s win in Iowa tell us about us? Is a rally arising on the left? A new movement among the Democrats to dump last century’s baggage may (or may not) make this a year’s selection process one to remember but it is certainly more than we pundits and bloggers could ever have asked for. Perhaps the non-appearance of any defined goals for the change made the movement’s rise missed our notice, although we were getting indications by the popularity of Obama in those incessant polls that MSN must have to have news. When dog bite is the only news you got, get yourself a dog that bites.

If the voters of New Hampshire vote for change, we got ourselves a movement. Ink will run, trees felled, and coal burned spreading the word back and forth explaining, dissecting, and commenting ad infinitum on this Change that is in the air now that anyone can see it – and report on it. Let’s hope it doesn’t all end in a scream, and son-of-change doesn’t rise up to take its place. (Or would that be daughter-of-change?)

New Hampshire – maybe even Tsunami Tuesday – could result in a race between the Machine, the Progressive, and Mr. Change. Obliviously to anyone familiar with the punditry, the Machine is Clinton. She’s got the org, the money, the names, and what comes as close as we are going to get today, a political machine. And don’t forget the experience. She was selling that in Iowa, but the young voters were not buying it. They bought change.

The Progressive for anyone needing a scorecard is Edwards. Running in the old, down home political style that has been used since the populists and progressives began at the dawn of the previous century. Like any good progressive, farmers, workers – as usual in the form of union organizations – and the poor make up his grassroots campaign. Progressivism has always been a hit with the Democrats but hardly a winner.

It may take a village for us all the live a normal life but it takes a Great Depression for a progressive to get in the White House.

How Mr. Change’s campaign will affect the winter and spring of 2008 is going to be the thing to watch. It may all be a fizzle by the end of January, but we may roar into February like some political lion and roar out that way all way up to the presidential election in November.

And what’s happening over on the Republican side with Huckabee taking Iowa? If Iowa revels a movement is afoot among the Democrats, the Republican results proves how unimportant Iowa should be considered. Let’s see…a major candidate that is so catering to the self-righteous right that this supposedly well-educated man declared in a public forum that he doesn’t believe in evolution won in a state that is predominated by just the kind of people to which his declaration was targeted.

Will the cold, hard New Englanders send Huckabee back to the land of the self-righteous were they can all pray for a the miracle they know will occur if they all pray long enough and hard enough to make it happen? Pray God protect us from faith based government.

Looks like the real race on the Republican side is between McCain and Romney. We got all kinds of polls but we will just have to wait until the official poll, the one that selects delegates to see what the thinking of the Republicans are for 2008. However, McCain and Obama are drawing water from the same well of independents to over come their own parties’ rank and file which if I’m reading the more clued-up pundits will support Romney and Clinton. Whoever draws the independents will win – or do better than expectation which what today’s primary news is all about.

We must wait for Tuesday to see. Stay tuned.