Personal Asides: The More I Think It Over the More I Think We Ought to Get Over the Obama Craze by Praying He Gets Nominated…This and the Poem for Old Geezers: “The Land of Sandra Dee.”

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Obama.

I have taken various positions on Barack Obama. First, I said he’s so new in his job that all he has to trade on is white liberal guilt…which is a slender asset indeed for the presidency. Then I said: if he was as dark as John Stroger instead of looking somewhat like a reincarnated light-skinned Sidney Poitier, he wouldn’t make it. This was taken to be racist and anti-black. Not so, it was anti-white liberals who believe this tall, slender, easily-smiling guy would be the kind of African American they wouldn’t mind their daughters marrying…white liberals being the most phony group in the country—who preach equality and weep for the ghetto while they send their kids to white-only private schools in exurbia.

Now I feel that the Obama craze must play itself out. He uniquely fits the Democratic party in its present fix right now. It is a party that had first-class warriors and intellects: Henry Jackson, Hubert Humphrey, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Richard Russell…and which now is entirely bankrupt, bereft of ideas. In substitution they have found a kind of movie star whose whole attitude is non-polarization…let-me-sit-down-with-you-and-hear-you-out…and you-have-a-point. The Democratic party rightly sees that kind of thing as superior to the howling of Rahm Emanuel… Nancy Pelosi…and the nasal meanness of Chuck Schumer. Right they are. So they should nominate this guy. I mean it: they should nominate him. And we Republicans ought to shut up for once and stop bellyaching about how vacuous he is. We’ll have a chance to find out in the 2008 campaign—and we ought to let the Obama phenomenon crest, knock out the Hillary Clintons and John Edwards and John Kerrys. It’s the right thing to do.

After having interviewed Obama on my program a number of times, I think we ought to lie down and let the great Democratic party nominate him and not make a squawk about it. The nature of a presidential campaign which begins early in 2007 is to grind down the edges of candidates until the country can see fully what it has. If Obama doesn’t run and is allowed to run around the country as Destiny’s Tot who’s not on the national ticket, he would be an insuperable weapon in their arsenal. It’s time now for us to accept this rock-star and urge them to nominate him.

The Land of Sandra Dee.

I’m indebted to good friend. constant Blog reviewer and thoroughly bright contributor Frank Nofsinger for this playoff of “Puff the Magic Dragon” attuned to old geezers like me. I wish I had written it and Frank wishes he has, too. My guess is that its author is a woman—a smart one.

Long ago and far away/ In a land that time forgot/ Before the days of Dylan/ or the dawn of Camelot/ There lived a race of innocents/And they were you and me/ Long ago and far away/ in the Land of Sandra Dee.

Oh, there was truth and goodness/ In that land where we were born/

Where navels were for oranges/ and Peyton Place was porn/ for Ike was in the White House/ and Hoss was on TV/ and God was in His heaven/ in the Land of Sandra Dee.

We learned to gut a muffler/We washed our hair at dawn/ We spread our crinolines/ to dry in circles on the lawn/ And they could hear us coming/ All the way to Tennessee/All starched and sprayed and rumbling/ in the Land of Sandra Dee.

We longed for love and romance/And waited for the prince/ And Eddie Fisher married Liz/and no one’s seen him since/ We danced to “Little Darlin’”/ and Sang to “Stagger Lee”/ and cried for Buddy Holly/In the Land of Sandra Dee.

Only girls wore earrings then/ And three was one too many/`And only boy s wore flat-top cuts/ Except for Jean McKinney/ And only in our wildest dreams. Did we expect to see/ A boy named George with lipstick/ In the Land of Sandra Dee.

We fell for Frankie Avalon/ Annette as oh, so nice/ And when they made a movie/ They never made it twice/ We didn’t have a Star Trek Five/ or Psycho Two and Three/ or Rocky-Rambo Twenty/ in the Land of Sandra Dee.

Miss Kitty had a heart of gold/ And Chester had a limp/ and Reagan was a Democrat/ whose co-star was a chimp/ We had a Mr. Wizard/ but not a Mr. T/ And Oprah couldn’t talk yet/ in the Land of Sandra Dee.

We had our share of heroes/ We never thought they’d go/ At least not Bobby Darin/ or Marilyn Monroe/ For youth was still eternal/ And life was yet to be/ And Elvis was forever/ in the Land of Sandra Dee.

We’d never seen the rock band/ That was Grateful to be Dead/ And Airplanes weren’t named Jefferson/ and Zeppelins weren’t Led/ And Beatles lived in gardens then/ And Monkees in a tree/ Madonna was a virgin/ in the land of Sandra Dee.

More, more of this classic stuff tomorrow. I don’t know who Jean McKinney was, do you? Anybody?