Poopy Party Politics and Pool

Obama’s taken the bait, Bill Clinton’s goal to roil O’s visionary campaign is working. Bob Sheer admonishes Arianna Huffington on (Santa Monica NPR) KCRW’s Left Right and Center never to imagine that anything those two Clintons do is random, unscripted. Will voters get sick when they realize they’re in for at least four more years of this Washington insider crap if the Dems win? Mitt Romney says the worst thing of it would be having Bill rattling around the White House with nothing to do. Think of it.

Will America then (lacking a “change” candidate in the Dem’s Obama) go for the yellow-ribbons-of-patriotism candidate, McCain, just to “avoid admitting we were wrong after all in Iraq,” yielding another version of the Washington as usual game. See Frank Rich on Clinton/McCain.

Certainly it’s good news that Guiliani is running way behind, if not down and out, in Florida. The New York Times outed him today as vindictive and mean spirited. Whew, just in the nick of time. Even as the NYT threw support to McCain and Clinton. What?!

Looks like it’s all downhill from here. I feel like I felt after 2004 when Bush was swiftboating Kerry. What a mean spirited country we live in. While we do terrible things in Iraq, and to the environment, and to the poor, and to the Mexicans, and to the economy.

More than ever, we need someone who could bring us a New Deal.

Well, how about my other fixation, Matteo? He goes into swimming this morning giving no quarter to those of us who hope he’ll get off the noodle and swim with arms free.

But we get to the pool early, and Carolyn, the staff person who gives him candy canes, is in the water instead of on the side. Of course, he won’t come in to her. “Papa!”

After he gets his floaty pack on, he demands the green noodle. And kicks around for a while.

But then, somehow, after five minutes, he lets me eject him out on the side, he drops the noodle beside him at his feet, and jumps in, into my arms. He doesn’t instantly freak out. So I set him loose – noodle-free – as Carolyn (now on the side above us) and I both gush our amazement. He tools around like a sea captain in his element, not a care in the world. Carolyn catches my eye, and we’re both like, what just happened, anyway?

It doesn’t last. The noodle is called for, and recovered, and he reattaches. I play with the big ball, splashing like a whale as I leap out to make stunning catches. I get bored, and decide it’s time to re-engage. I move in.

There’s a teary interregnum during which he refuses to give up the noodle, and I stick to him. We become a poopy-party of sorrow and doom. It doesn’t end up being much fun having the noodle anymore, if it comes with a Papa clinging to it. This state of affairs lasts 20 minutes, half the pool time. During which I extricate him from the noodle. But it’s only when another mom and baby claim it, that the loss results in more tears and hopelessness.

And ends abruptly. “I’m better now,” he announces, and pushes off to swim to a ball floating by. He gets it, and swims around with a ducky in one hand, the green ball in the other, for the rest of the time.

New Deal?