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TechnoratiReady on Day One!!!
In order to be READY ON DAY ONE, as both Hillary Clinton and John McCain claim they will be, you have to be ready a long time before that.
You have to come in with a plan. You have to come with a good organization. You have to understand the issues and problems and have some ideas of how to deal with them.
The American campaign process, long, grueling, insanely expensive, with the media jumping on bizarre trivia like flies on garbage, while ignoring the true nutrition of substantive debates, is widely criticized.
But what the campaigns do is force the candidates to show how they conduct themselves under pressure. Their ability to plan. To organize. To build an organization. To raise money. To spend it effectively or badly. To strategize. To communicate through the media to the public. To deal with attacks and unexpected surprises.
Hillary Clinton entered the race with the majority of the big time connections and huge sums of money. She hired the most expensive and well placed operators and consultants that Democratic money could buy. The race was hers -- to win or to lose.
But, apparently, she didn't have a plan. Her organization gave her bad advice. (Or if they gave her good advice, she didn't take it.) Her organization was top heavy. She came in loaded with money. But she spent it less effectively than her opponent did.
Then, he outdid her in fund raising.
She had a strategy of going after the big states. Apparently, she and her team imagined that the system was winner take all, like the national elections with the electoral college, and failed to understand proportional representation.It was the wrong strategy, one that neglected reality.
Once she was under pressure, she began to behave badly. She told stories like the one about being under attack in Bosnia. She tried to cheat, insisting that the Florida and Michigan delegates be counted, even though the rules had said they couldn't be and she hadn't complained when the ruling was made.
She was NOT READY on DAY ONE of the CAMPAIGN. We should expect that she will NOT BE READY on DAY ONE of the PRESIDENCY.
Her record in government tells us much the same thing.
I called her Senate office and asked, "Can you tell me what Hillary Clinton has achieved as Senator."
The answer was, "Go to our website."
I said, "Been there. Didn't find anything substantive. She's my senator. Can't you tell me?"
The staffer hung up. (No, I'm not basing my analysis on one rude staffer. This was just symptomatic of a much longer research effort.)
Which leaves me on my own to figure out how to judge her record in office (and semi-office as first lady).
Ms. Clinton faced two big tests.
The first was health care.
Bill Clinton ran on a platform that called for national health. When he was elected he turned the program over to her. She was to study it (as opposed to have been ready with one on day one), come up with a plan, and then present it.
She did the planning in secret. Even the names of the members of the task force were kept secret, Dick Cheney style. This, rightly, offended many people in the field.
When the proposal was finally released, it was over 1,000 pages long and madly complex. That insured that no one could read it. Except corporations and lobbyists determined to oppose it and who could afford to pay professionals to go through it.
Wikipedia describes the plan this way, "the core element ... was an enforced mandate for employers to provide health insurance coverage to all of their employees through competitive but closely-regulated health maintenance organizations (HMOs)."
In sum, it combined the worst of all possible worlds. It went through insurance companies, thereby insuring that it was the most expensive method. It relied on regulations to control costs, thereby creating maximum government bureaucracy. It pushed HMOs, which we now know from experience to be extremely problematic. It went through employers, making them less competitive in the international market.
Finally, she did not prepare for the industry reaction, the lobbyists and the advertising campaign against her.
Hillary Clinton WAS NOT READY and she set the sensible idea of national health back by at least twenty years.
The second big test was the vote on the Iraq War.
She did not read the national intelligence estimate before she voted.
It was possible to figure out that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, that he didn't have weapons of mass destruction and that the post war occupation would be a quagmire without access to "secret" government documents.
But she didn't figure that out. Neither -- and this is important -- did her staff.
She, and they, were conventional Washington insiders and accepted the conventional wisdom.
When it came time to run for president, she staffed her campaign with similar people, and if she is president, we should expect them to trundle along.
She now claims that she didn't know how George Bush would use the authorization. That shows she's a bad judge of character.
It is most likely that she voted as she did so as to appear "tough on terrorism." That is, she was afraid to take the really tough position, because her eye was on presidency, and the pose was more important than the realities.
CLINTON WAS NOT READY to do the work, and not ready to deal with reality -- instead of political considerations.
Someone who does not read the best available information, who has staff around her who don't do any better, someone who did not have the forethought to ask about the consequences and the downside risks, is NOT READY TO BE "COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF."
Also, this business of prancing around about being "commander-in-chief," is a George W. Bush innovation. And a very, very bad one. It is a PR ploy, like the staged "Top Gun" carrier landing when for "Mission Accomplished," to imply that the president is out there in the battlefield, rallying the troops, risking life and limb to protect us. More perniciously, it has been used to usurp a host of fundamental powers that do not belong to the president, to violate civil rights, and it has even been used to legitimize the defense that "I was only following orders," for people who commit war crimes.
John McCain has a big problem.
Republicans have been flat out running the country for the last seven years. They've had pretty much a free hand to put their policies in place. Their ideas sound great as sound bites. But now that they've been tried, reality has revealed them as bankrupt.
The economy is in the tank and still swimming toward the bottom. Osama bin Laden is on the loose. The Taliban is making a comeback. Iraq is quagmire. The justice department is a joke. More and more people don't have health care and those that do are discovering their coverage doesn't cover them. Gas is about $4 a gallon and heading up. Food prices are up. Wages are down.
So what is John McCain ready to do on day one?
Continue, down the same road.
Why? Because MCCAIN is NOT READY TO CONFRONT REALITY.
McCain has actually said that the American economy is better than it was in 2000. He believes that tax cuts worked. He wants to make them permanent. Presumably so that the progress he imagines we've made in the last seven years can continue unabated.
McCain said, "The fact is, we are succeeding in Iraq." So he wants to stay there. Doing what we are doing now.
He said, "I intend to win the war in Iraq."
One wonders, how?
McCain is going to "trust in the proven judgment of our commanders there." He refers specifically to Petraeus, "he's one of the finest generals that our military's ever produced." Petraeus is the man who was supposed to train the Iraqi forces to "stand up so that we can stand down." They haven't and we haven't. Then he was put in charge of the whole war, with the surge, so the country would be stabilized, make political progress, and get their police and armed forces to "stand up so that we can stand down."
None of that happened either.
McCain is NOT READY on DAY ONE to do something new, that might work. He is only ready to continue to continue the policies that have already failed.
Like Hillary Clinton, McCain did not read the National Intelligence Estimate before voting to authorize the war in Iraq. He does not appear to think he should have done so.
He thought Iraq represented a "clear and present danger."
He predicted that US forces would be greeted as liberators.
He continues to think it was a good idea to have gone to war in Iraq.
All these are failed ideas. He has not done or said anything to demonstrate that he is now more ready to make good decisions than when he made those foolish ones.
McCain believes in the idea of pre-emptive and preventive wars. This is symptomatic of the Republican sound bite mentality. It ignores reality. Although there are exceptions and complexities, the three best examples of wars started on the assumption that we'd better "do it to them before they do it us," are the current War in Iraq, the German invasion of Russia, and Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.
In addition to being disasters, such wars were, and theoretically still are, crimes. Though we will never get near to a trial for Bush's War, the other two were called "wars of aggression," the people who perpetrated them were put in the dock, convicted, and some of them were hung.
McCain also would be willing to attack Iran without going to Congress first.
John MCCAIN is NOT READY TO BE COMMANDER IN CHIEF. Or president.
In his campaign for the Democratic nomination, Barack OBAMA has demonstrated that he is the kind of person who is actually READY ON DAY ONE.
Because he got ready before day one.
Obama did his homework. He studied the issues. He came up with policy positions. They were based on reality. He assembled a good team. He developed a national organization, one of great depth. He disavowed lobbyists and raised an astonishing portion of his money from ordinary people.
They came up with a strategy and a plan to win the nomination. It was a better one than Hillary's.
Once he started running, his team worked smoothly. Which demonstrates that he has good judgment in picking people, and that he's good at running an organization. When a crises came up, the Reverend Wright eruption, he not only handled it without losing his balance, he took the occasion to elevate the entire campaign, with one of the greatest speeches I've ever heard.
The real split in this country is between fantasy and reality.
George Bush, the Republican Party, and now, John McCain, represent fantasy.
The reality is that we were attacked by Osama bin Laden, not by an Islamo Fascist Empire of Evil. The reality is that Iran sometimes supports our enemies and sometimes, as they did in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban, supports us against our enemies. The reality is that tax cuts for the rich don't pay for themselves. Nor do they improve the lives of everyone else. The reality is that we have government, government policies and regulations for a reason. The reality is that taking money from big corporate donors obligates politicians to them and the result has been that they and their lobbyists literally write our legislation and use the government as a tool to enrich themselves.
This is not to say that Democrats, with a few exceptions, have been able to stand up for reality. To articulate that that there are real problems that require real solutions, not boogie man enemies and sound bite slogans that promise to magically slay them.
Obama has stepped out of the fantasy box. He is willing to examine the realities. And, as he has demonstrated in his campaign so far, come up with a plan to effectively deal with them. Even in a situation as unbelievable as a black man becoming a major party candidate for president.
As the only one of the candidates who deals in Reality, OBAMA is the only candidate who will be READY ON DAY ONE, as "commander-in-chief," or as president.
I didn't write this because I'm an Obama supporter. I wrote it because this "Ready on Day One!" sounded like George Bush nonsense to me. I became an Obama supporter by analyzing the claim and by watching the campaign.
Larry Beinhart is the author of Wag the Dog, The Librarian, and Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin. All available at nationbooks.org. His new novel: Salvation Boulevard will be published in September, 2008, by Nation Books. Responses can be sent to beinhart@earthlink.net.
33 Comments so far
Show All"The way a candidate runs a campaign is a direct causality to the way they would govern"
Hmmmmm....Bush ran flawless, highly disciplined campaigns both times. Took in buttloads
of money and never broke a sweat. All it means is that a successful candidate knows how
to win. Doesn't mean he knows how to govern, that's a whole 'nother thing.
I will say that Barack (worship ME or else!)Obama is charismatic, highly intelligent
and very very cunning.
I've figured out what he means when he says he wants to change the way politics
is done in Washington. He want to change DC style politics to Chicago style politics
which are even more ruthless.
Democratic circular firing squad, ready, FIRE, aim!
I'm not voting for McCain, dumb*ss. And re-read my post ... I'm right. You're guy is goin' down.
atheist
That's a direct quote from Ms. Clinton. Next time you tell me to "shut up", I'm going to respond with a hearty "f*** you!" By the way, John McCain appreciates your support.
Oh shut up, purvis. You don't make any sense at all. You hate Clinton and her supporters so you pull any sort of illogical theory out of your butt and poop it onto these web sites. Just knock it off, you're all wrong.
I'm really amazed that anyone thinks that any VP for Obama other than Clinton will net him a win. Think about it: Clinton appears to have as many supporters as Obama does, just check out the tiny difference in votes between them so far, and remember that the caucuses favored Obama's demographic. Do you really think that the Clinton supporters are going to vote for Obama if he's the Dem nominee ? The last poll I saw, a full 30% of Clinton supporters said they would NOT vote for Obama. I'll bet it doesn't matter who Obama would pick for VP, and I can say with certainty that for myself and the people I have spoken to directly, it most definitely doesn't matter.
If Obama does not get the votes of 30% of the Clinton supporters, HE WILL LOSE THE GENERAL ELECTION. It's laughable to think that Jim Webb can fix this problem.
The ugly little secret that goes unmentioned by any of the pro-Hillary posters is her covert and occasionally overt appeal to racism. When she says she stands for "hard working WHITE people" her willingness to play the race card becomes glaringly obvious. Do the Hillary supporters approve of her tactics and share her prejudices?
By the way, the President is Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, not the American people. In fact, they are his commander-in-chief. In theory, that is.
Is Our Article writer Ready on Day One?
Sounds more like the swiftboaters attack on John Kerry then any real concern for the Democratic party choice for President.
And the business about Senator McCain?
Could it be our dear writer is hoping and praying Bush declares Marshal Law and continues as Cheney's puppet dictator ?
Ok lets talk First lady Hillary's attempt to give this nation heath care?
If you recall First Lady Hillary was just a chairwoman over that heathcare thing. Was she even paid ? does anyone know?
By the way why isn't recalled how muuch the lobbiest spent to threaten any public office holder with funding there election opponents bigtime ,if they were to support any kind of health care reform?
And does our beloved writer recall the price the democratic Congresspeople paid tat next election?
First Lady Hillary tried to give this nation a Heath Care . Would this writer care to name anyone else before or after Hillary Clinton that did even as good a job?
As for Hillary Clinton being a good Senator.She represents her state well.
and that famous vote about attacking Iraq?
Does our writer forget that 90 percent of the public at that time wanted something done about terrorism.(Most Thought Iraq was involved)
It seems our writer isn't even a good monday morning quarterback. just another hack in the same form as a swiftboaters.
And by the way . This crying by the Obama people everytime Senator Clinton says something they do not like. Do they really think people want a crybaby for President?
The swiftboaters will not apoligise when they go after Obama.
And facts are facts there are people that do not want a black President, And screaming at Senator Clinton for mentioning the assasination of Robert Kennedy . It happen and the world lost a great chance to be a way better place.Crying you should not say anything about him be assasinated is childish.
If Obama really wants to be President then he better start acting the part.
The Repubilicans are not going to apoligise for anything and neither will the world leaders.
As far as race ? Barack Obama even does a poor job representing Black Americans.
Hillary has always tried to treat everyone equal.You all seem to forget her Arkansas days as First Lady. Or even her and Bill going back To Arkansas to try and make a difference when they could have trading their law degress for money and power instantly.
I swear when Obama loses this election by a landside you so called political experts will blame it on the Clintons.
The Limbaughs of this world did a better brainwash of the public then anyone could have hope.
You will probably say to yourselves after the Obama defeat"Well Atleast Senator Clinton Never Ran"
You all deserve what you are about to get President McCain or Dictator Cheney/Bush
Ready For Day One Are You?
genaman
Hillary IS a Republican! Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we have had since Ike. They are both centrist, corporatist Republicans, and they could both care less about the Democratic party or the progressive agenda. This should have been clear to even the most casual observer when she said that she and McSame were both qualified to be president, and Obama gives a good speech. Democratic Party rules forbid promoting the candidate of the other party over the Democratic candidate, but that is exactly what she did. She should be driven from the party before she causes any more damage, and she is determined to take her bid for the nomination all the way to the convention in August. That would be disasterous to party unity and to the chances for either Hillary or Obama to win the presidency. If I ever hear the names Clinton or Bush again in my lifetime, it will be too soon!
I don't think one can flatly assert that we were 'attacked by Osama bin Laden' as Beinhart does. That's the party line, but it has not been established yet.
I don't get the point of this article. Hillary supporters won't read it anyway. To still support her you have to be willfully blind to the ugliness of her campaign, which has been increasing daily.
When you read the Wikipedia website about Obama, it is clear to anyone that he is not Hilary or McCain. Though I am uneasy about his plan for 'universal health coverage' with the blessing of the insurance companies, his foreign policy stances are far more rational that the BS we hear from Congress and this bandit administration.
No one has to be thrilled by Obama, but history is far more flattering than that of his opponents. The million dollar question is whether he can stand up to corporate America and their predatory, neo-con ideology once he assumes the White House.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#Political_positions
From the website of the Prince of Peace himself, ready from Day 1:
"Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda."
Don't be fooled, the troops are not coming home, the troops will remain in the ME (or anywhere else) to fight "al Qaeda" (or anybody else that stands in the way of US world domination). Obama is ready from day 1 as is Hillary to continue the task of imperialism and the rape and plunder of Iraq. Neither will commit to having all the troops out even within their first term (read the fine print). How can Obama take out ALL combat brigades while keeping them there to "carry out targeted strikes" on al Qaeda as his website boasts? You figure.
US helicopters massacred at least eight civilians, including several children, in an operation in northern Iraq on Wednesday. "Targeted strikes" always seem to find a way of killing some kid looking out the window don't they? How immoral of the Democrats to continue the war for one more day just so the rich can get richer. Many Democrats voted for more war funding the other day. The money passed 70-26. Hasn't Big Oil already made a killing? How much more do the Repugblicrats think they need?
Hey no doubts here, I am sure both Democrats are ready from DAY 1 to defend the profits of Big Oil and the military industrial complex (Haliburton, KBR, Blackwater etc.) For that, either one will do from Day 1. Trust me, and that's the truth!
Oh PLEASE!!! If this author is the kind of fan Obama has attracted, then Good Night America. Another 4 years with a Rep in the White House.
Alienating Clinton voters right now is REALLY ingenious, isn't it?
You want them to vote for McCain instead of your darling? Just continue like that.
Your only excuse would be to have appeared here because you're a Rep and you want to split the Dem vote in November.
Eric Barth May 23rd, 2008 2:30 pm
Forget the Jim Webb for Vice President idea. This is not the time to try to inoculate the Democratic Party against charges insufficient patriotism or military macho.
Don't really know much about Jim Webb do you? He's a very accomplished Marine, emmy winning journalist, writer and a very good Senator. If he would serve with Obama it would be to Obams benefit. I sure wish you'd read his new book.
If something doesn't change radically we are going down to defeat in November. Lets hope the Senators VP pick helps!
Do you really think our military makes us less safe? I'd refer you to Lebanon or Darfur, or Burma, etc.
Its like calling America racist and ignoring South Africa.
sphne May 23rd, 2008 1:36 pm
An Obama-Jim Webb canidacy would wipe the floor with McCain.
You certainly have that right! It would remove many doubts about Obama.
Using foul language is usually the sign of a weak argument.
Mr Beinharts piece here captured for me just what I and others on the Canadian side of this continent have been debating since the start of this campaign. Mr Obama has started something good he is believable and if he gets the chance to prove it, it will be good for the whole world it will demonstrate that the US is the place it claims to be and not the hollowed out flag waving guns bibles and bombs folks that we cringe at the thought of. It is often said that the US has since 9/11 squandered the good will that poured so freely from around the world at that tragic time. I believe if Obama is elected president it will be the start of America earning that good will back. His mistake will be if he chooses Hillery Clinton for Vice then all will be lost once again as she simply reeks of insincerity. Lapel pin indeed.
Wow. Clinton just said that she's staying on till June because Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June. She's hoping for an Obama assassination! Crazy!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vyFqmp4wzI&eurl=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/23/clinton-kenne...
http://www.wethepeoplefoundation.org/Update/Update2008-05-22.htm
Forget the Jim Webb for Vice President idea. This is not the time to try to inoculate the Democratic Party against charges insufficient patriotism or military macho. The direction away from patriotism as defined by militarism begins NOW! Obama must get the message across that more weapons make us less safe and have begun to bankrupt the country. What happened to the Soviet Union is happening to us. If the Democratic president wants to re-create something, how about President Obama going back to American University and channeling JFK's speech on the nuclear test ban treaty to renounce the military-industrial complex and the idea of "perpetual war for perpetual peace?"
Obama is ready because he is ready to do the bidding of corporate America. Obama is no different than the other political whores in D.C. They belong to the Uncle Buck Party and are managed by corporate America and their PR Department, the mainstream media.
American people don't see it but there is now a middleman between them and their government. The D.C. Lobbyists, or pimps, now control all the doors into the offices of the ones who serve "we the people". We've lost the Magna Carta and habeas corpus just in the past few years. Fascism is the final stage of a dying empire.
Hoa binh
mairs, you misread Rich's post. He didn't say the article was misogynist. Read his post again.
paragraf22, it's absurd for you to claim that Clinton drove her campaign into the ground when 1) the Obamabots and the media all declared her dead after Iowa, and then repeatedly declared her dead after just about every other primary and caucus, and 2) she's a VERY close second ! Your hatred of Clinton is obvious, so don't bother trying to justify it with pseudo-logical arguments.
The Clinton's only care about power. They don't have any principles or even ideals. They simply want to be President-to be President. I believe Obama wants to make changes in the office and especially Washington. Will he? I doubt it. But I would rather vote for someone who has some idea of what they are going to attempt as President than someone who's only goal is to be President. Just like Bill. He talked a great game before he took office but once he became President he threw out every ideal he showed in in the campaign for political expediency. He passed welfare reform that the GOP couldn't pass in 12 years holding that office. Why? Because he was against welfare? No, because his approval ratings were in the tank. So he triangulated. And he won his election by a wide margain. Meanwhile all the Dems he sold out in Congress got railroaded and we ended up with 12 years of the most regressive Congress in memory. Nothing is below these people. It gets more pathetic by the moment. And the Dem party is equally as sickening by not ending this a month ago.
Rich, it's hysterical that you all of sudden believe that misogyny is the reason Clinton lost the nomination. Hysterical, because Hillary just brought this up this week as well. It seems like you might follow your own wisdom and give us some facts as to how a hatred of women led to Clinton's demise. And how no one noticed this until AFTER Obama had the majority of elected delegates. And make no mistake a HATRED of women would not be easy to mask, so why now?
The first post here (Rich Griffin) as well as the last (atheist) prove the article's point. The last, especially. Commentor "atheist" exhibits the contradiction in terms of believing in HRCs delusion. I've been saying in many posts (mainly on Huffpo) that the way a candidate manages a campaign has a DIRECT CAUSALITY to te way they would govern. She's DEMONSTRABLY driven her campaign into the ground -- exactly like our CEO president has driven the country into the ground. We do NOT need another round of delusional mis-management. She's minimum $11.4 in DEBT. How is that not a believable reality and portent of things to come. It's NOT Obama's fault. It's not even her campaign's fault (though her selection is unquestionably up for crtique). It's HER lack of capability. Why is that so hard to see? Why are her supporters so vitriolically blind to establishable fact? Her CHIEF STRATEGIST reportedly didn't understand the electoral process. FACTS, people.
I totally agree with Rich, it's just more pro-Obama BS. I guess the McCain bashing was tossed in with the Clinton bashing to make the article appear more objective. Well, it didn't work. WE'RE NOT STUPID, COMMON DREAMS !!! HELLO !!!!!!!
An Obama-Jim Webb canidacy would wipe the floor with McCain.
How Obama handles his VP pick is the measure of how "ready" he is. He either will "manage" to win by teaming with an ideological ally against Republican enemies, or he won't.
This is the same skill one uses, by the way, for making alliances in foreign affairs and in the arena of legislation.
"Ready", first of all means ready to win the election.
"Not ready" means going the election alone (sort of like Bush into Iraq) and then making a mess. We'll see.
Great commentary Larry. I couldn't agree more. You've hit the nail on the head.
Pull your head out of your ass, Rich.
Rich Griffin 12:36, Could you please explain how Obama's campaign is a "do nothing, say nothing" campaign that has no relation to substantive issues. Also, I'd like to know what "lies" he's told.
It seems to me that you spout this crap to either get a reaction, or you're so deluded by Hillary's failed efforts that you're blinded to the obvious truth of the above article.
Hillary Clinton is an neocon and would use anything to gain power. She is a very weak candidate and without the blind loyality of women over 60 she would not even gone as far as she has gone. She also has clearly demonstrated that she cannot lose gracefully which really tells you a lot about her. One George Bush is enough.
And even despite this some people still like Bush and Hilary.
The ability of some people to delude themselves never ceases to amaze me...
This article is the usual b.s.! Why do these type of articles, without substance, keep on getting on here? It's all strategy and no substance! Misogyny, an out of control media that has to "like" you first, idiotic voters who don't look at substantive views at all, and a do-nothing say nothing candidacy (of Obama) is what derailed Hillary Clinton. She would have been President had Obama not run. It's not because he deserves to win; it's because enough idiots voted for him and believe his lies, that's all.
I'm speechless. To attribute that article to misogyny is beyond absurd. It put into words what I've been thinking all along, that Hillary has run on nothing but a facade. She lost her huge advantage, she ran her campaign into the ground, her wounds were entirely self-inflicted and Obama didn't have to do a thing to bring her campaign down. It's been all her doing. I have no confidence in her running the country, based on her running her campaign. I have no confidence in her retaining any grace under fire, or sticking to logic when under duress, because I haven't seen any evidence that she can do that. I can well imagine heads of state scratching their heads when she takes leave of reality as president as she has done while campaigning. I think her presidency would be a disaster because of her bizarre, venal, and selfish personality traits that simply make me turn away in embarrassment. It's like peering it at someone's dysfunctional family and wishing that you hadn't.