Opinion> Alexander Cockburn> O Donnell A Fragrant Echo Of The Gipper

	25 May 2012 Brave New World, Brave New Majority The news is in. White births are no longer a majority in the United States. The Bureau of … Read More.
	18 May 2012 Gay Marriage and the Shackles of Matrimony I think gay marriage is an incredibly boring subject; though, I do like to hear right-wingers say that it … Read More.
	11 May 2012 Police Brutality Let's suppose that the blind Chinese dissident, Chen Guangcheng, remains spunky once he's settled in at New … Read More.

O'Donnell -- A Fragrant Echo of the Gipper

Plump as a boudoir cushion, her dimpled countenance as rosy and excited as those of Watteau's most gamesome courtesans, Christine O'Donnell established Wednesday night in a debate at the University of Delaware that she is most certainly qualified to take a seat in the U.S. senate. This is admittedly an awfully low bar, but in her eagerly awaited debate with Democrat Chris Coons, O'Donnell skipped lightly through, barring a stumble or two.

O'Donnell has been wallowing in the polls, as many as 19 points behind Coons in the past few days. Battered by comedians for her strictures on masturbation, and with her imperishable campaign ad proclaiming, "I am not a witch," a national joke, O'Donnell held her own against Coons and the CNN's Wolf Blitzer, who asked three times with increasing asperity whether she believes in evolution — a theory of biological development refuted on an hourly basis by C-SPAN's coverage of the deliberations of the U.S. Congress.

Turning aside Blitzer's challenge, O'Donnell deprecated her personal beliefs as "irrelevant," when set against her commitment to the U.S. Constitution — a clue that actually this tea party favorite is somewhat pragmatic in her politico-religious doctrines. A religious fundamentalist would have insisted that over and above the U.S. Constitution there is the divine law.

O'Donnell offered another clue to her pragmatism when invited to sketch out her program for the U.S. Department of Education. A conservative Republican would answer promptly, "Burn it to the ground." O'Donnell said she did not see the need for so drastic a step. She's also on record opposing the cutting of Social Security benefits and isn't sold on the idea of private accounts — two prescriptions held by almost all Republicans and many Democrats.

Then she dimpled up again and declared, gazing at the somewhat nerdy-looking and balding Coons that he was a Marxist. Coons plaintively tried to explain that his self-description as a "bearded Marxist" made many years ago in a student paper had been a joke, allowing the national audience to reflect that maybe O'Donnell's high school cavortings as a witch should be forgiven as somewhat of a joke too.

O'Donnell offered some definitions of Marxism worthy of that great master of offhandedly insane definitions, Ronald Reagan: "My opponent has recently said that it was studying under a Marxist professor that made him become a Democrat.

So when you look at his position on things like raising taxes, which is one of the tenets of Marxism; not supporting eliminating death tax, which is a tenet of Marxism — I would argue that there are more people who support my Catholic faith than his Marxist beliefs." Coons tried to come back with the declaration that he's never been anything but a "clean-shaven capitalist," but O'Donnell won the round.

There's no point in trying to evoke substance in the debate. Almost everything said was a rich mulch of distortion or absurdity, but it was clear that O'Donnell is actually smarter and quicker on her feet than the patron saint of the tea partiers, and booster of O'Donnell, Sarah Palin. (Again, a low bar.) She's shown Republicans in Delaware that they can vote for her without undue embarrassment.

Alas for O'Donnell, even as she was winching herself off the shoals of national ridicule, Indiana University released some of the results of a huge new survey of America's sex habits. O'Donnell's strictures on masturbation as wrong (because it's an expression of lust largely conducted outside the passionate physical conjunction of married partners of differing gender) are out of step with national preferences.

Culled from detailed responses from 5,865 Americans between the ages of 14 and 94, the university surveyors disclose in the October issue of The Journal of Sexual Medicine that among people 70 or older, 80 percent of men and 58 percent of women have masturbated solo over a lifetime. Among people aged 25 to 29, rates peak at 94 percent among men and 84 percent among women. Worse news yet for O'Donnell: Masturbating with a partner is becoming increasingly popular.

So the question is not whether the American people deserve O'Donnell; it's whether O'Donnell deserves this nation of wankers.

Alexander Cockburn is co-editor with Jeffrey St. Clair of the muckraking newsletter CounterPunch. He is also co-author of the new book "Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils," available through www.counterpunch.com. To find out more about Alexander Cockburn and read features by other columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.