On Mike Gravel
Where does Lyndon LaRouche get off claiming that his Trotskyite name “Lyn Marcus” was a riff of of the nickname “Marco Polo”?
It’s such questions that animate my mind in shuffling through old LaRouche debris. I need to compartmentalize these things a bit better. I was preparing to take a long gander at Mike Gravel, and I was sucked back into de-constructing Lyndon goddamned Larouche.
I realized that the only two politicians I have, unless I still have George Bush and John Kerry categorized (the Skull and the Bones of the actual namesake for my blog) keyed up, are that aforementioned political cult leader and the rather generic Republican congressman with the nickname “Doc” and the actual name of Richard Hastings. Which is why I can’t just create a “Mike Gravel” category whole-slotted without at the same time finesing it by creating a category for the presidential candidate I’ve tentatively endorsed — Bill Richardson. I may as well make the creation of a category something other than suggestive of a Hall of Shame.
What fascinates me about Mike Gravel is that his political place screws up the boundary line that the mainstream media (and the Democratic National Committee, for that matter) places on these things. Nobody is going to actually going to cover the Mike Gravel campaign, but is he mentioned or is he not mentioned when you list the candidates? The answer varies. (Actually it seems Ron Paul is in much the same position, which I find a bit amusing as — he is a current Republican Congressman.)
I do believe and I will state again and again from the mountaintop that I do not believe Mike Gravel’s campaign is about anything other than promoting his two pet issues, which at least strikes me as a better use of a presidential campaign that whatever Carol Mosley Braun and her phantom 2004 campaign appartus was trying to accomplish (refurnishing a tattered image of a politician that was booted out of office in an ethical cloud, I suppose).
I was basically dared by a Mike Gravel supporter to interview him. Upon reflection, I don’t know that that’s not a bad idea — on my part, at least, if not his. He, so far as I can tell, gains nothing from any interaction with this blog — which has about as small an audience as a blog that is kept regularly updated can have. If Mike Gravel ever gets an opportunity to be interviewed by dailykos, he should jump at the chance.
Within a week, I will psot “Ten Questions for Mike Gravel”. It will then float in cyberspace, either answered or unanswered. Should they be answered, I will then have a most peculiar choice. 5 Follow Up Questions for Mike Gravel? Move on to other candidates and have “10 Questions for Ron Paul” or “10 Questions for Dennis Kucinich” and march on to the point where I demand Hillary Clinton answer my questions, lest she show herself to be scared, I say, SCARED of the awesome might of the hard hitting Skull / Bones blog?
Okay. Coming soon: “10 Questions for Mike Gravel”. If anyone has any questions they’ve always itched to ask Mike Gravel, feel free to either post them in the comments, or post on your own blog so that Mike Gravel may have the opportunity to make this an innovative part of his presidential campaign routine.