Let's Set A Few Things Straight

We are told that Obama's victory in last night's Iowa carcasses was "decisive" (a word I heard on a major radio network newscast this morning), and that (according to CNN's interpretation of the increasingly annoying and reality-dissociated John Edwards' coy remarks) Hilary's third-place finish in those same carcasses means that there are only two candidates in the Democratic race, and that people (primarily the media) are a pack of braying idiots in desperate need of lives.

Let us examine the relevant facts. At present, winning the Democratic nomination requires 2,025 votes (of 4,049 delegates to the Democratic National Convention, known in some circles as the Satanists' Ball, and the caveats on that including delegates and superdelegates and hookers and cigar vendors are too numerous to recap here or anywhere). How many of those were at stake last night? According to CNN, which will be the information source of record for this post? A whopping 45 of them. That's about 1.1 percent. Wow.

How many delegates did Senator Obama win in his decisive victory last night? Uhm...16. Senator Edwards won 15. Senator Clinton won 14. Holy shit, she must be crushed. For those of you doing the math, that's about .8 percent of the delegates required for nomination, .75 percent, and .7 percent, respectively. Jesus Christ, stone her to fucking death and bury the body under a mound of feces.

At this writing, some 327 delegates, including those won in Iowa last night, are pledged or thought to be pledged or some such, according to CNN (as of this writing, and the linked page is dynamic, so you're gonna have to take my word for it if you're reading after today). That's about 8.1 percent of the delegates. Who, you might reasonably ask, is in the lead in the accounting for that monstrously significant chunk of delegateage?

Senator Clinton, of course. She has 169 pledged (for want of a realistic word) delegates, or 52 percent. Senator Obama has 66, or 20 percent, and Senator Edwards has 47, or 14 percent. Yes, Senator Obama has cut Senator Clinton's lead by 2 votes.

All of which is my prolix way of saying this:

Shut the fucking fuck up.

All three Senators and former Senators, and all of their fellows so unfortunate as to not meet the Iowa Democrats' 15-percent threshhold for receiving delegates, are asshats. Each and every one of them has lied to you, me, and all of us, and has done so today, and in all likelihood are doing so right now, as I write this and you read it. Each of them, like every single person who seriously runs for the Presidency, is a psychotic shitheel. The only thing separating the eight Democrats who have pledged delegates from the multiplicity of discrete puddlings of diseased afterbirth pursuing the Republican nomination is that they're slightly less reprehensible in a political sense. And so I give you some facts relating to the 2008 Presidential election:

Your next President will be an asshole, personally and politically, although the degree of political stench will vary from "Run Far, Far Away" to "Hang Curtains Impregnated With Lime Chloride" to "Might Not Fuck Up the Supreme Court Too Terribly Badly."

On January 21, 2009, there will still be American troops dying in Iraq. The Supreme Court will still lean violently to the right. Americans' constitutional rights and civil liberties will still be gravely imperiled, to no end. More humans around the world will die preventable early deaths each and every single day than died on September 11, 2001, and in fact more than have cumulatively from causes attributable to terrorism, ever. I might be one of them. You might be one of them. The chance that one or more of them will be known to or loved by you or me or both of us is overfuckingwhelming. Two distinguishable income disparities--that between the rich and poor in our country, and that between those who fucking eat and those who don't around the world--will not have noticeably improved. Religious repression and intolerance will still rule an unconscionable proportion of peoples' thoughts and dreams. Your government and mine will still suffer from grave structural problems that render it, at times, completely dysfunctional, because that's the fucking way it goes when you try to govern 300 million assholes. All of these problems and more will continue to exist regardless of who is elected President. Are these problems unsolveable? Of course not. But the identity of our next President is not integral to the solution (Republicans excluded, but that's another rant).

So please. Just do me the great and good favor of drinking a nice hot cup of Shut The Fuck Up.