The low down on Obama

The New York Times recently published a front-page story revealing the salacious news that John McCain was not having an affair with a blond lobbyist named Vicki Iseman. I look forward to reading future exposes reporting John McCain's similar failure to have affairs with blond columnist Ann Coulter, blond singer Deborah Harry and blond actress Goldi Hawn. Nor did the New York Times hesitate to engage in speculation about the sexual proclivities of Larry Craig, the infamous wide-stanced Republican senator.

Meanwhile, media silence continues about the specific charges that have been leveled against another senator, Barack Obama, by a Minnesota man who claims to have gotten to know the Democratic presidential candidate rather well indeed. (What is it with Minnesota and gay scandals, by the way?) On Feb. 11, Larry Sinclair filed a lawsuit against Obama, claiming that he and Obama had used illegal drugs and engaged in homosexual activity together nine years ago, so this isn't a rumor; it's an easily verifiable matter of public record, complete with a YouTube video and United States District Court filing.

Needless to say, the same New York Times that devoted such attention to whispers about an apparently non-existent affair hasn't bothered to so much as mention the charge against Barack Obama. Now, I'm as dubious about the truth of this suspiciously untimely attack as the most mindless, fainting-prone member of the Magic Negro's cult, in fact, I strongly suspect it to be nothing more than the latest fire drill by Team Clinton practicing its usual politics of personal destruction. Given very similar past allegations made about the lizard queen's own peculiar habits by some very credible sources, the accusation strikes this disinterested, but amused observer as more projection than anything else.

But whether Obama is on the down low or the victim of a vicious and underhanded attack by Team Clinton, the Sinclair story is both legitimate and important. Naturally, the New York Times is doing its best to ignore it, just as it ignored those embarrassing reports of mass starvation in Josef Stalin's Soviet Union, because no matter what the truth of the affair turns out to be, it is likely to prove devastating to either Obama or Clinton. If Obama is truly a secret coke user on the down low, he is finished as both a presidential candidate and a senator. If, on the other hand, it's determined that a desperate Clinton has orchestrated false and seedy accusations, she'll probably maintain enough plausible deniability to preserve her Senate seat, but she'll be done for 2008 even if Obama is subsequently found dead in Fort Marcy Park.

This is certainly proving to be one of the more sordid campaigns in American political history, right up there with Grover Cleveland and the "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa?" scandal of 1884. But what can you expect, considering that the three choices currently being presented to the public by the media are a madman, a shallow African supremacist and a reptile? Unfortunately, George Bush's war on American liberties means that the next president will have torture-by-toca and techno-eavesdropping at her disposal without having to bother with warrants or that pesky habeas corpus. It is said that whom the gods would destroy they first make mad, and the madness season is truly upon us.

I find it difficult to care much about how the November election happens to proceed at this point, as it makes very little difference which of the three sociopaths on offer ultimately ascends the cherry-blossom throne. I continue to support the only candidate still officially in the race who isn't a psycho-sexual wreck and supports both the United States Constitution and American sovereignty, Ron Paul. The fact that he is the one candidate that the political mainstream of left and right see fit to label a "nut job" should suffice to testify to his sanity as well as to the fact that the American electorate will get the president they deserve.