The Sunday Deck Bass

The first nominee for today’s Desert Beacon Sunday Deck Bass, northern Nevada’s highly uncoveted, thoroughly unwanted, and utterly unsought dubious honor is the corporate (mainstream, whatever) media which tried valiantly to declare a ‘winner’ in the Nevada caucuses, and to find evidence in the results to substantiate its narrative du jour.

Chastened by their misinterpretation of the polling in Iowa, information that was actually rather close to the mark if they had acknowledged the margin of error, and clutching to their bosoms the notion that New Hampshire’s primary constituted some sort of ‘comeback’ by the Clinton campaign which had led there for months, the chatteratti announced that Nevada polling was ‘useless’ because there were no historical trends. That polling showed Senator Clinton with a 5% point lead. [UPI] And, the results were? Clinton 51%, Obama 45%. [CNN]

An element of the party system under-reported, if not downright unreported, is the number of ‘super-delegates’ of which Nevada has 8. These at-large delegates are reserved for the party leadership and will likely go to the ‘winner.’ Those watching the delegate count intently might be well advised to note the number of these at-large delegates when determining in whose camp they may ultimately reside. For those counting this minutia, Iowa has 12 at large delegates, New Hampshire has 5, and Michigan’s 156 delegates will likely end up on the Clinton side of the ledger, however that is hard to determine given the confusion over the Michigan primary situation. [CNN] Why is this important?

For one thing, it allows the punditry, both corporate media and online, to blather endlessly about imagined scenarios, some of which come perilously close to conspiracy theory status. “Ah, Clinton wins the Nevada Caucuses but Obama gets more delegates.” [Nation] Probably not in the end, but this won’t stop the ink from flowing, or preclude the pixel pounding online. [WaPo] [MSNBC] When all the posturing stops and the convention begins a significant portion of those at-large delegates from Nevada will be toted in the Clinton column and the “12-13” headlines will have been long forgotten except by those who take their conspiracy theories as gospel. All this requires much spinning, twisting, and turning, thus earning a nomination.

The second nominee for the Sunday Deck Bass is the former mayor of New York City, one Rudolph “Noun, Verb, 9/11” Giuliani. If media-star Chris Matthews is to be believed and the Clinton Campaign signaled lowered expectations in Nevada, Giuliani took this strategy one step further and declared he had no expectations. It might not be too much of a stretch to believe that he might at least have had a tiny gleam about his chances in the Silver State, after all as of November 16^th he was scoring 29% in the polls, leading Romney who had 21%. [CNN] After achieving a dismal 4% in Nevada, [CNN] he has to hope that adding Louis Freeh and John Voight to his entourage in Florida will work some form of miracle. [Chron] As of September 30^th Hizzoner had spent $30,603,695 to earn his one pledged delegate to the 2008 GOP convention. [OS] Spinning this one requires great flipping, while Rudy is flopping.

Our third nominee is the government of Canada, which on January 16^th added the United States of America to its list of countries on its Torture Watch List. [CTV] The Khadr and Arar Cases precipitated this move, but one could assume some ‘diplomatic pressure’ has been applied such that the manual will be re-written because it “wrongly includes some of our closest allies.” [BBC] (Read: U.S., Israel, Mexico) via Think Progress Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier said he “regretted the embarrassment.” [Star] Bernier may regret the embarrassment, but likely not half so much as the two Canadians who had to endure American “enhanced interrogations.” What’s a little torture among friends?

The winner of the January 20^th highly unwanted, thoroughly dubious, and utter unsought Sunday Deck Bass is (insert flourish here) is: The Canadian Government! Politics may ebb and flow, various campaigns may lead and falter, but flip flopping on the subject of basis human values is truly the stuff of which Deck Bass are made.

*Nevada caucus headlines at Blue Sage Views