Just in case the dismal approval ratings didn’t register with Dubya, or as we call him around here, in all lowercase, governor bush. Go Washington!

By now, everyone has heard the comparisons being used to depict the Democratic presidential nomination race. There seem to be thousands of them.

• Hillary Clinton is Dunkin’ Donuts. Barack Obama is Starbucks.
• Hillary is a PC. Obama is a Mac.
• Hillary is prose. Obama is poetry.
• Hillary is analog, Obama is digital. (Which doesn’t work because analog records still definitely sound good and have their place)

Those comparisons only tell part of the story.

A more effective comparison is that Hillary Clinton is VHS, while Barack Obama is DVD.

VHS definitely had it’s day. It beat out all its competitors (like Betamax), and stayed on top of the game for some time. It got the job done during its day. Not too long after its inception, however, we knew that bigger and better things would eventually come along. We knew someday we would outgrow the format. Someday relatively soon… at least many of us hoped.

Then DVD comes along. After a couple failed attempts (ahem, Laser Disc), people thought that the format was too good to be true. It sounded better. It looked better. Everything about it seemed to make it a vastly superior product. Despite the legitimacy of DVD, people remained skeptical. While some consumers took the DVD plunge and reaped the benefits, others stuck by the tried and true dinosaur format of VHS.

The skeptics haters said things like:

• “I’ve invested so much in tapes, and they’ve always been dependable. I think I’ll just stick with these tapes for a few more years. No need to change yet.”
• “Why should I go for change? Could VHS be better? Sure, but it’s always worked for me. I think I’ll play it safe for now.”
• “DVD looks and sounds pretty, but does it actually work? How can one little disc accomplish all that stuff? There’s no way it can do all that.”

It took some time, but after a while the entire nation realized that we had outgrown VHS and its limited abilities. We moved on to DVD and never looked back.

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Something I read today has really drawn my ire.

In Jake Trapper’s “And Obama Wept,” he offers the viewpoint that “Obama supporters’ exuberance seems to be getting a little out of hand.” He points out others — like Felix Gillette, James Wolcott, Joe Klein and Kathleen Geier — who share the same POV. Some even go as far as to blast Obama supporters for worshiping him like he’s Jesus.

Excuse me, but fuck anyone who shares that opinion and the horses they rode in on. There’s a big difference between being part of a cult and being a part of a movement. It’s not our problem that you’re a bunch of jaded political hacks.

Why does this piss me off so bad? Because every election cycle I hear older people bitch and moan about how young people aren’t active enough in politics, and suddenly we are too active. WTF? I’m still pretty young, so that deeply offends me. Do a somewhat see their point? Sure, I guess, but there actually is something messianic about him to us. Especially after we’ve faced seven-going-on-eight years of George W. Bush.

Is he God? No, of course not. He’s not going to actually break bread or walk on water. So, no, we don’t believe he’s Jesus. What we do believe, however, is that he is our future. He isn’t the redelivery of God’s only begotten son — he’s the re-delivery of hope for my generation.

What’s my generation? I was born a week before Christmas, 1979. That makes me 29, and basically in between Generation X and Y. I guess I’m both the death rattle of Gen X and a Gen Y elder statesmen. It’s with both of those generations in mind that I respond to this “cult” bullshit.

No offense to the Baby Boomers and their parents, but their days of dominating the political landscape are over. They aren’t the ones who will have to face the next half century and the challenges it brings. The under-40 crowd will; That’s why I’m so irked at getting blasted for fervently rallying around the one candidate who can boldly lead us against the challenges like no other could. We might indeed be the ones we’ve been waiting for, but we’ve also been waiting to rally around someone like Barack Obama.

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Seriously, just when I thought Hillary Clinton couldn’t possibly be any faker, I read this. From The Hill:

In one instance Clinton appeared to gauge Obama’s response before showing her own.

When Bush warned the Iranian government that “America will confront those who threaten our troops, we will stand by our allies, and we will defend our vital interests in the Persian Gulf” Obama jumped up to applaud. Clinton leaned across Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), seated to her left, to look in Obama’s direction before slowly standing.

Doesn’t that sound like something a sixteen-year-old cheerleader would do at a high school talent show? Pathetic. I have to find that video clip…

My favorite line of Barack Obama’s response to President Bush’s State of the Union address was, “A politics that puts Wall Street ahead of Main Street.” Check his response out for yourself…

Bill Clinton isn’t as sly as he thinks he is.

(By the way, how could someone who’s been linked to as many affairs as he’s been — Gennifer Flowers, Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Wiley, Monica Lewinsky and Paula Jones, at least — ever really think they’re sly? I’m just asking.)

It isn’t just Dick Morris, a former Clinton strategist, that sees what Bill’s doing. We all see it. Iowa threatened his precious “Clinton Restoration” dream down to its very core, scared the Lewinsky out of him. That’s why he came out guns a’ blazing as Hillary’s hitman during the days leading up to the New Hampshire primary, and has played that same role ever since.

The Clinton camp thinks this strategy it’s working, but it’s not. They fooled us twice already, but this time it isn’t going to work. You see, Slick Willy is serving as a similar diversion to the one that his wife provided him in 1992. Bill thinks that if all of Barack Obama’s focus is on him that not only will it not be on Obama’s inspirational message, but the heat will also be off of Hill. I’ll give him some credit — it worked for a little while.

But Bill’s political thug tactics aren’t working any more.

Why not? There are several reasons.

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Isn’t it time to elect someone into the White House we can trust? Someone who isn’t going to get impeached or pardon himself for war crimes? I mean, doesn’t anybody else every get sick of this shit? Didn’t this whole thing start because he was going after a war criminal? Now he’s trying to snake his way out of being one?