Familiarity Breeds Contempt

It looks like it’s Proverb Day here at The Glittering Eye. In my previous post this morning I mentioned the old English proverb “Give him an inch and he’ll take an ell”. And I dropped a comment on another blog not long ago that referred to Poor Richard’s observation that “You can catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than with a gallon of vinegar”

Hillary Clinton’s negative approval ratings are already remarkably high for a leading presidential aspirant. As Steven Stark pointed out this morning the exposure that Barack Obama and John Edwards are receiving in the recurring nightmares that are the joint press conferences we’re calling “debates” is doing them no good whatever:

But every time Edwards goes to his left, Dennis Kucinich — who has no chance to be president and therefore can take any stand he pleases with impunity — goes further left. This has the effect of making Edwards look like just another timid moderate, which is hardly what he is.

If anything, Obama fares worse in these debates. His advantage is that he’s different and new, with all the excitement that comes with those attributes. But the more he appears on a stage with seven very conventional politicians, the more he appears as conventional as they are. In every debate, he loses a bit more charisma.

The problem isn’t peculiar to Democrats. After Rudy Giuliani published his views on foreign policy in Foreign Affairs, James Joyner pronounced Giuliani’s views “dangerously stupid”. I take it that Giuliani is no longer on James’s list of acceptable candidates. Indeed, James expressed a preference for John McCain, the likelihood of whose candidacy seems to be plummeting.

Is knowledge really power? Or is it truer that no man is a hero to his valet?

One more little saying for you. As the late Mayor Daley put it, “Regardless of what things looks like now somebody will be elected”. And the person elected will, no doubt, be one of the unacceptable idiots who are currently running.

4 comments… add one
  • And the person elected will, no doubt, be one of the unacceptable idiots who are currently running.

    No doubt. But, man, if it comes down to Clinton vs. Giuliani, it might be time to buy a plane ticket to Australia.

    The irony is that John McCain started out as my least favorite among the likelies but now seems positively statesmanlike in comparison. I still don’t know much about Thompson and Romney but what little I do know is unappealing.

    I haven’t seriously contemplated the Dems but the ones that are most attractive, Biden and Richardson, have about as much chance of getting elected as you or I. Clinton and Obama are both highly intelligent but their ideology leaves me cold.

  • Like the good centrist that I am my preferences have been Richardson on the Democratic side and McCain or Giuliani on the Republican side. Giuliani’s recent foreign policy statement was, well, odd enough that I think I’ve struck him off the list.

  • You can catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than with a gallon of vinegar but at what fly peltries are bringing right now it’s hardly worth the effort.

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