Dispatches From the Sausage Factory

At this point I'm sure you've all seen the images of Mike Huckabee from his victory celebration in Iowa, after coming from entirely off the radar to take the First Sort-Of-Primary Which Is Actually Just A Caucus Whatever That Might Be, and have seen the circled face on television of your favorite internet star and mine, Mr. Chuck Norris.

In a sign of the degree to which this has galvanized the Republican field, John McCain has announced that he will be accompanied everywhere by Tila Tequila, Rudy Giuliani is hoping to be endorsed by and appear with lolcats everywhere he goes, John Edwards has committed to campaigning every day for a month, and Mitt Romney has leaked that he will be the subject of a soon to be released sex tape.

Welcome to political internet 2.0 people... it's only going to get weirder.

As to Giuliani, to be frank, as a New Yorker and an American, I feel like his message of

"9/11!
9/11!
9/11!
9/11!
9/11!
9/11!
9/11!"*

is subject to a bit of bad timing.

Had "America's Mayor" (though almost half of us New Yorkers didn't like the guy at all, we'll give him that meaningless media induced title) been campaigning a few years ago, the Endless Bloody Shirt Waving Strategy might well have paid some dividends, but at the moment I think it's ill conceived.

It feels a lot like the American public has had a moment that is effectively like waking up from a real Jingoism bender, and his having those morning after regrets, much like a GBH toting frat boy after a night of Jaeger Bombs...

"Man, I can't believe how jacked up on flags I was last night. Jeez, did we invade someone? Afghanistan or something? It really seemed like it made sense at the time. Whoah, Iraq too? Damn. I can't believe how wasted we were. The UN is never going to hang out with us again after that."

We all have metaphorical Sharpie-drawn penises all over our international political visage, and yelling about 9/11 is something we really don't want to indulge in anymore, it's just kind of awkward right now... we totally made out with that dictator** while we were out at the bar last night, and it's just not cool to remind us, okay?

For those of you who don't recognize it, the title of this post is brought to you today with a shoutout to someone really important from my second nation's political past:

"Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made." --Otto von Bismarck




*I'm not entirely sure this is a direct quote, but I think it's pretty close to the campaign message he's working on.

**Or this one (Rest In Peace), or these guys, it's frankly all pretty hazy right now... it was a crazy night, man, crazy.