Some of Nothing

Karmic Justice on Behalf of Wes Clark
Tuesday, July 1, 2008

I'm with Brandon Freidman:

The bottom line is this: If Democrats tuck tail and run from Republicans in this instance, we run the risk of ceding authority on military issues to John McCain for the rest of the campaign. Whether you like Clark or not, everyone has an interest in defending him vigorously in this case. We cannot allow the Right and the media to get away with trashing the first guy to come out in prime time to slam McCain’s military "expertise." If our organizations don’t defend Clark as being right in this case, we give in to the idea that Republicans are the parents in terms of national defense, and Democrats are the children--something those on the Right will be more than happy to reinforce.

This idea that we can’t question someone’s expertise on military matters simply because they served could very easily become the next "whoever is against the war is unpatriotic" mantra. And that’s not something I’m prepared to accept.

So, after signing the VoteVets petition, I sent this email to MSNBC:

Every time I hear on your programs that General Clark is "attacking" McCain's military service, I have to laugh. Your characterization is absurd. Simply pointing out the fact that serving in a war doesn't necessarily make a person Commander-in-Chief material is clearly not attacking the war service. My father served in Vietnam and earned the Purple Heart and a lifetime of disability. And while he's a decent man who served his country honorably, I wouldn't trust him within a thousand feet of the presidency. Do you see the distinction?

I generally don't like to personalize this stuff, but sometimes, I'm too lazy to do otherwise. Also, a belated congrats to Vote Vets for getting the new GI Bill passed! In spite of a lack of vote (!) from Senator John McCain. But don't worry, John, no one's attacking your military service. Just your public service. Do you see the distinction?

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Nothing New byslag at 11:47 AM 4 dispense karmic justice! (or just comment here)  

It's Go Time!: Why Does Cindy McCain Stay with her America-Hating Husband?
Monday, June 16, 2008

Via JedReport, John McCain says "it's tough" to be proud of his country in some respects:

Now, we know that John McCain hates America. But what we don't know is why Cindy McCain did not reject/denounce her anti-American husband after he made a statement that was clearly so incredibly offensive to her:

I mean, why didn't she just get up and walk out of that marriage? When will Cindy McCain finally denounce/reject John McCain? Inquiring minds want to know!

See more "It's Go Time!"s.

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Nothing New byslag at 10:37 AM 3 dispense karmic justice! (or just comment here)  

Does John McCain Realize That Cameras Record Things?
Thursday, June 12, 2008

Courtesy of Jed Report:

Seriously. You really have to wonder.

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Nothing New byslag at 9:49 PM 4 dispense karmic justice! (or just comment here)  

Obama v. McCain: Elitist Tax Plans by the Numbers
Wednesday, June 11, 2008

From CNN (h/t Shanna):

BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS

Here's how the average tax bill could change in 2009 if either John McCain's or Barack Obama's tax proposals were fully in place.

MCCAIN OBAMA Income Avg. tax bill Avg. tax bill Over $2.9M -$269,364 +$701,885 $603K and up -$45,361 +$115,974 $227K-$603K -$7,871 +$12 $161K-$227K -$4,380 -$2,789 $112K-$161K -$2,614 -$2,204 $66K-$112K -$1,009 -$1,290 $38K-$66K -$319 -$1,042 $19K-$38K -$113 -$892 Under $19K -$19 -$567

Summary: Obama is such an elitist that he wants to raise taxes for rich people while significantly cutting them for middle class and poor people. John McCain is such a man of the people that he thinks "middle class" means having an income of $227K-$603K/year.

$200 McCain flag lapel pin anyone?

That said, John Edwards is still my favorite when it comes to economic justice. Now that Obama has the nomination, I'll look forward to asking why he can't be more like his brother Edwards on issues, such as these.

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Nothing New byslag at 3:59 PM 3 dispense karmic justice! (or just comment here)  

Things I Didn't Know Until I Went to John McCain's Website
Monday, June 9, 2008

JedReport has posted some excellent rebuttals of Little Green Fanatics' claims of anti-semitism on Obama's website.

In that spirit, I would like to share some things that I have learned by spending a little time on John McCain's website today.

1. Hillary Clinton is chanting "si si [sic] pueda", which actually means "I want the keys, I want the keys...", which is the "same thing" that Barack Obama is chanting in South Carolina. (This must be some kinda Eastern thing that I just don't understand.):

2. Apparently, both Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama are "b-tch" lawyers, a fact which clearly means that John McCain will win:

3. Aunt Jemimah is Obama's aunt, and he puts her syrup on his waffles:
4. By calling someone out for playing the race card, you are actually the one playing the race card...Just like Reverend Wright:

5. If we elect a woman or an "AA", we are going to open up a "whole can of worms with problems":

6. I, and other Obamabots, eat "Oreo" cookies and drink KoolAid:

Plus, Hillary kills people:

Posted at 8:44PM on 1/18/08 by JBStephens
...
Anybody who has Hillary as a VP needs to be very, very careful. If I were an insurance salesman, I would not sell that person a life insurance policy, if you know what I mean!

may make us kill ourselves:

Posted at 3:30AM on 9/15/07 by BradMarston
If we are not careful, MITT happens. If we are suicidal Hillary happens.

and is a she-devil:

Posted at 10:31PM on 2/2/08 by SouthernSpirit
HELLO DAVE, Senator McCain is an honorable and forgiving man. I admire him and respect him. However, I’m a mere mortal who would like nothing better than to “Taz” the “she-devil” off her pedestal. Tomorrow – NY

In the end, the most important lesson I've learned from spending time on McCain's website is that KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!

UPDATE: More fun on this topic from Americablog and Comments from Left Field. Apparently, the racist, misogynist, anti-semitic waters run deep in McCain country.

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Nothing New byslag at 11:48 AM 4 dispense karmic justice! (or just comment here)  

Obama Wins the Coveted Sci-Fi Geek Vote
Sunday, June 8, 2008

For what it's worth, both Mark Hamill and George Lucas have joined the Obama for President rebellion. In his explanation, Lucas said:

"We have a hero in the making back in the United States today because we have a new candidate for president of the United States, Barack Obama," Lucas said when asked who his childhood heroes were.

Obama, "for all of us that have dreams and hope, is a hero," Lucas said.

John McCain refuses to hear the news of Lucas' endorsement of Obama:

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Nothing New byslag at 1:41 PM 3 dispense karmic justice! (or just comment here)  

The Real Question: Why Does Senator McCain Believe it's so Important to Run for Bush's Third Term?
Friday, June 6, 2008

In his speech on Tuesday, John McCain asked why Senator Obama believes it's so important to remind Americans that McCain is running for Bush's third term.
Or as Jed Report puts it:



Well, in the interest of helping one of our nation's most prominent (and confused) Republican senior citizens, here's my answer to Senator McCain: Because YOU ARE running for George W Bush's third term!

Or as Glenn Greenwald puts it:

On Wednesday, I documented John McCain's complete reversal of views -- in the last six months alone -- on FISA, warrantless eavesdropping and executive power. McCain's diametrically opposite views were contained in a questionnaire McCain completed for The Boston Globe last December (wherein he rejected many of the Bush/Cheney theories of presidential omnipotence and warrantless eavesdropping) and then a statement McCain issued this week to National Review (wherein he embraced those same theories in order to persuade the Right that he approves of and would continue Bush's lawless surveillance policies).
[...]
There are two critical conclusions highlighted by this episode: (1) whether McCain embraces the Bush/Cheney/Yoo theories of the omnipotent executive is, far and away, one of the most vital questions of the campaign, since the vast bulk of the radicalism and accompanying controversies of the last eight years -- from spying to detention to torture to extreme government secrecy -- arise out of those theories; despite that fact, those issues have been missing almost entirely from the media's coverage of the campaign -- until now; and (2) despite how central these issues have been, McCain is simply incapable of forming a coherent position on what he thinks about any of this, dramatically changing his answers almost from one day to the next depending on who is asking. This behavior, culminating in his embrace this week of the Bush/Cheney/Yoo theories, severely undermines the two attributes the media relentlessly uses to depict him -- his "moderate" ideology and his straight-talking, principled independence.

Or as my imaginary Tim Russert-McCain interview puts it:

Russert: Senator McCain--Today, the headline in the AP: "McCain Wins Bush's White House Embrace." Do you accept the support of President George W Bush?

McCain: I'm very honored and humbled.

Russert: Do you reject his support?

McCain: Ummmm...no. I just told you. I am eager for his endorsement.

Russert: You recently touted the idea of bombing Iran and the need for spending 100 years in Iraq. You do realize that George W Bush started the war in Iraq, don't you?
[...]

Or as Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow put it:


So, the real question is: Why, John McCain, why? Why do you insist on running for Bush's third term?

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Nothing New byslag at 11:34 AM 0 dispense karmic justice! (or just comment here)  

John McCain, Putin, Germany, Nothing to See Here
Wednesday, June 4, 2008

President Putin of Germany...

Not sure what McCain was thinking here. But I do know that if Obama had made this mistake, right wing blogs would all get together and spend days blathering about how Obama doesn't know anything about foreign affairs and that because he's a Nazi appeaser, he thinks everyone's German, etc, etc. So, why don't liberals blow up little non-stories such as this quote to create McCain-Nazi-Fascist-Commi-Appeaser conspiracy theories?

Lack of forethought? Lack of imagination? Lack of infrastructure? Lack of interest?

I'm going with that last one.

(h/t Kerry So Very)

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Nothing New byslag at 1:14 PM 0 dispense karmic justice! (or just comment here)  

Jon Stewart Supports the Troops. John McCain-Not So Much.
Friday, May 30, 2008

I'm now waiting for the day when Bush replaces his entire cabinet with Support the Troops magnets. It's time for life to stop imitating art!

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Nothing New byslag at 7:41 PM 0 dispense karmic justice! (or just comment here)  

In Honor of Memorial Day, John McCain Defends a Position on the New GI Bill That He Failed to Take
Monday, May 26, 2008

From the Caucus:

ALBUQUERQUE — In a Memorial Day speech to veterans and their families here, Senator John McCain kept alive a debate about a new G.I. bill making its way through Congress, which he opposes, arguing that his own counter-proposal would be better for the military.

Mr. McCain faced criticism from Senator Barack Obama for opposing the measure to expand veterans’ benefits, but the Arizona senator declined to take on Mr. Obama directly in defending his position, as he did so forcefully last week. Mr. McCain has expressed concern the bill might lead to reduced enlistments.

Question: When a senator strongly opposes a bill, is it not a custom in the senate to vote against said bill?

From the Boston Globe:

The Democratic National Committee accused John McCain of being AWOL from the Senate vote yesterday for a new GI Bill to provide better education benefits for returning veterans. McCain was in California on a campaign and fund-raising trip, while both Democratic contenders, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, left the campaign trail to vote for the bill, which passed by a veto-proof 75-to-22 majority.

Question: In missing the vote on the new GI Bill, is McCain demonstrating a loss of short-term memory or of moral courage?

So many questions, so little media interest in the real John McCain.

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Nothing New byslag at 4:15 PM 0 dispense karmic justice! (or just comment here)  

Other People's Genius: "Who's Being Naive Now, McCain?" Edition
Friday, May 23, 2008

Since McCain's been busy trying to brand Obama as "naive and inexperienced", this edition of Other People's Genius is dedicated to him.

* Speaking of naive, the Situationist addresses the particularly conservative trait of "naive cynicism":

Those attributional styles also help define the walls of the broader liberal-conservative crevasse. Broadly speaking (with some notable exceptions), conservatives tend to be more dispositionist and progressives tend to be more situationist. That is true, in part, because, as Situationist contributor John Jost has demonstrated, (e.g., here), conservatives exhibit stronger needs for order, structure, and closure, a more potent sense of system threat, greater intolerance for ambiguity, and a greater acceptance of inequality, among other things — interior factors that align with the elements underlying dispositionism.

As this blog is devoted to documenting, despite being the dominant framework, dispositionism is a less accurate attributional approach than situationism. The mystery of how dispositionists nonetheless maintain confidence in their attributions is only explained by understanding a dynamic that we call “naïve cynicism”: the basic subconscious mechanism by which dispositionists discredit and dismiss more accurate situationist insights and their proponents.

As we explain in a forthcoming article, naïve cynicism predicts that, like most humans, dispositionists put great faith in the veracity of their perceptions and conceptions of how the world works. They see themselves as objective and reasonable and expect other reasonable and objective people to reach the same conclusions as they do. As a result, when a dispositionist encounters a situationist attribution that conflicts with his own causal story, that person experiences a cognitive conflict, and naïve cynicism provides a ready resolution: explaining the opposing attribution as the product of bias, ignorance, or some other flaw. Rather than engage the substance or merits of the conflict, naïve cynicism involves an attack on the perceptions, cognitions, or motivations of the individuals and on the institutions associated with the situationist conception. Without it, the dominant person schema—dispositionism—would be far more vulnerable to challenge and change, and the more accurate person schema—situationism—less easily and effectively attacked. Naïve cynicism is, thus, critically important to explaining how and why certain legal policies manage to carry the day—and why certain presidential candidates carry an election.

I love it when science helps to explain my own personal observations. It makes me feel omniscient. Of course, that could just be my bias talking.


* Steve Benen reports that Joe Biden's been schooling McCain on foreign policy:

The election in November is a vital opportunity for America to start anew. That will require more than a great soldier. It will require a wise leader. Here, the controversy over engaging Iran is especially instructive.

Last week, John McCain was very clear. He ruled out talking to Iran. He said that Barack Obama was “naïve and inexperienced” for advocating engagement; “What is it he wants to talk about?” he asked.

Well, for a start, Iran’s nuclear program, its support for Shiite militias in Iraq, and its patronage of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

Beyond bluster, how would Mr. McCain actually deal with these dangers? You either talk, you maintain the status quo, or you go to war. If Mr. McCain has ruled out talking, we’re stuck with an ineffectual policy or military strikes that could quickly spiral out of control.

All good questions. I hear McCain's going to deal with the dangers by giving Iran the dreaded stink eye. Many a global catastrophe has been averted using that very tactic.


* Cliff Schecter at FDL cites the Heritage Foundation who determines that maybe McCain really isn't the economist he admits to not being (sometimes):

Like other analysts, Riedl was mystified by McCain's argument that previous year's earmarks automatically become a "permanent part of the budget." "I don't understand how they come up with that," he told me.

Excluding those programs McCain has promised to preserve, the draconian slashing of earmark expenditures might save around $10 billion a year. But that is still a long way from the $100 billion in savings that McCain says that he can identify "immediately."

Ten billion here, ten billion there, and still it takes a while to get to a hundred billion. McCain's almost as good at math as Clinton has become.


Happy Other People's Genius Friday!

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Nothing New byslag at 11:42 PM 0 dispense karmic justice! (or just comment here)  

McCain Republican Talking Points Comments
Wednesday, May 21, 2008

The Mr. and I have been talking lately about comments he's been seeing on blogs and news sites. Having recently joined the Some of Nothing Karmic Justice League in earnest, he's been going online and fighting the good fight in comments sections across the land. I try to keep him from getting all extracurricular about it since he's generally wasting his time, but he's sometimes more optimistic about people than I am. And he's good at talking to people on their own individual levels. I have no such skill.

Interestingly, the Mr. has said multiple times now that there must be some sort of concerted effort to get Republicans to post comments on these sites. He's been struck by the consistency of the misinformation found in them and by the overall lack of spelling ability. Having discussed it several times, I told him I'd post on it if I ever found any facts to support it. Well, facts are found on the John McCain website, apparently:

John McCain to unleash 101st Fighting Keyboarders - Concern Troll Division:

John McCain's campaign is using their campaign website to encourage supporters to post supportive comments on political blogs, including the most well-known liberal site in the blogosphere. And to make things easier, they're including talking points with which sympathizers can use to get out the McCain message.

If I were a gambling person, I would bet a lot on the notion that McCain's fighting keyboarders are just the beginning of seriously organized Republican infiltration of comments sections everywhere. I strongly suspect that either the RNC or some 527s are employing the same strategery using a much more negative message. The words "socialist," "Marxist," and "Muslim" are coming up far too often in both general news and liberal blogs sections everywhere to be just a bunch of average morons mindlessly repeating talking points. It seems too concerted and intentional. And if I were a conspiracy theorist, I would suggest that some comments coming from people supposedly supporting Clinton or those supposedly supporting Obama are actually part of the program. Since Republicans recognize that they have absolutely nothing at all to say in favor of themselves, their only recourse is character assassination. And what better way for Repubchickens--unable to abandon their fetal blogging positions--to go about it than to hide behind a hillaryis44 alias?

I'd pay to find out more about this.

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Nothing New byslag at 2:27 PM 2 dispense karmic justice! (or just comment here)  

Obama Grants Wishes! Calls McCain "Afraid".
Monday, May 19, 2008

Apparently, Obama is stealing McCain's ability to grant wishes because he granted my wish to see him call McCain out on his big chicken tendencies. From TPM:

McCain said [calling Iran weak compared to the USSR] revealed Obama's "inexperience and reckless judgment." Here's the key part of Obama's reply...

"Here's the truth: the Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear weapons, and Iran doesn't have a single one. But when the world was on the brink of nuclear holocaust, Kennedy talked to Khrushchev and he got those missiles out of Cuba. Why shouldn't we have the same courage and the confidence to talk to our enemies? That's what strong countries do, that's what strong presidents do, that's what I'll do when I'm president of the United States of America."

Obama also said: "What are George Bush and John McCain afraid of"?

Watch it on video in all its glory (and to find out what McCain's really thinking when he talks, just replace his words with "Kokokaw" over and over again in your mind):


More of this please!

Best screenshot ever from TPM:And what do voters think about Obama's recent responses to Bush/McCain? From Gallup:

Obama Opens Up 16-Point Lead, Biggest Yet

More of this too, please!

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Nothing New byslag at 1:53 PM 2 dispense karmic justice! (or just comment here)  

Obama's Loving It (and so am I)
Friday, May 16, 2008

Watching the back and forth between Bush/McCain and Democrats over Obama's foreign policy strategy today has been a thing of beauty. Seriously. I'm this close to feeling that thrill that Chris Matthews gets up his leg. As Mark Murray explains:

When President Bush -- thousands of miles away in Israel -- decided to fire his thinly veiled shot at Obama yesterday, it was a giant gift to the Illinois senator and his campaign. Why? One, it essentially kept Clinton on the sidelines just two days after her big West Virginia victory. Two, Obama’s opponent was no longer Clinton or McCain, but the man with the 27% job-approval rating. And three, it rallied Democrats to Obama’s side. Even neutral Dems, like Joe Biden, Rahm Emanuel and Harry Reid, quickly leapt to Obama’s defense.

President Bush finally living up to his promise to be a uniter not a divider by kindly uniting the Democrats to Obama's side. Love is in the air today.

As far as the actual Bush/McCain foreign policy position goes, I'm with Obama (and Steve Benen):

“They’re trying to fool you. They’re trying to scare you. And they’re not telling you the truth [because] they can’t win a foreign policy debate on the merits,” Obama said. He went on to call the Bush/McCain approach “naive and irresponsible.”

This is what campaigns are all about. Forget pins and preachers — the president and his would-be Republican successor have a specific, misguided worldview about America’s role in the world, and how we can use our international influence to the world’s benefit. That is to say, a failed worldview, which Republicans are anxious to pursue for another four years, starting in 2009. To get there, Bush, McCain, and their cohorts are returning to the cheap and predictable talking points that have gotten them this far — those who reject their ideas are “weak,” “naive,” and putting the nation at risk.

I would add one word to describe Bush/McCain: they are "afraid". Or as JFK said:

Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.

"Afraid" is the word that I'd like to see Obama use the most on Bush/McCain. He's talked a lot about the politics of fear and how damaging it is to our national discourse, but what I wish he'd do more of is turn it around. Explain that they're only trying to scare us because they're the ones that are scared. Scared witless of all enemies--foreign and domestic--simply because they look different, have different lifestyles, speak differently, or have different belief systems. Scared of their own shadows if they ever got out from under their beds.

We, as Americans, simply need to start drawing upon our own faculties and inner strength to protect ourselves. We need to be inspired to rally our courage and not let the fear mongers drive us to our dark scary place. Obama knows we need to feel hope. But we also need to feel anger. We need to be angry at the scared little reprobates who have spent the last seven years playing games with Terror Alerts, Osama bin Laden tapes, and opportunistic bogeymen. The real "hysterical" weaklings in this country are those who are willing to enthusiastically trade liberty for security. The With Us or Against Us chickenhawks who are more than happy to send other people's kids off to war while they hide under their covers at home--maybe periodically skipping a golf game or two. Or, as the new Republican slogan puts it:

Kokokaw. Kokokaw. Kokokaw...Chickens don't clap!

(Yes, I'm going to be playing this slogan every time Republicans happily sound off their inner chicken squawk because it cracks me up.)

And allow me to agree with Steve Benen once again:

You know, after months of malaise, I’m actually starting to enjoy this campaign again.

Right on! Go Obama!

Obama: If George Bush and John McCain want to have a debate about protecting the United States of America, that is a debate that I'm happy to have any time, any place, and that is a debate that I will win because George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for.

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Nothing New byslag at 3:43 PM 2 dispense karmic justice! (or just comment here)  

Pink Hearts, Yellow Moons, Orange Stars...
Thursday, May 15, 2008

The effort to re-brand McCain's Republican Party continues. It appears that McCain is dissatisfied with Huckabee's Frosted Flake suggestion and is trying to sell himself as Magically Delicious instead:

McCain promising a stabilized Middle East by 2013 is all fine and good, but if he's going to be granting wishes like this, he really should focus on something important. I, for one, will only vote McCain for president if he promises to get me an all-carb diet that promotes weight loss. That, and I want him to make our economy and education system bad enough to turn me into a poor uneducated white person so that my vote for Barack Obama will finally count for something.

I'm pretty sure only one of those wishes will be granted during a McCain presidency, but hey, a girl can dream.

What's your McCain first-term wish?

PS My apologies to the Irish for America's distasteful breakfast cereal marketing ploys. And apologies to America for McCain's distasteful presidential marketing ploys.

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Nothing New byslag at 10:16 PM 2 dispense karmic justice! (or just comment here)  

Mike Huckabee Offers McCain a New Brand: Frosted Flake
Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Democrats have been taking open Republican seats left and right (pun intended) lately, the latest of which was in Mississippi (via Crooks and Liars):

The best part of the video (aside from the fact that the Democratic win in Mississippi is another display of Obama's mile-long coattails)? Mike Huckabee takes a break from congratulating Canada on preserving their national igloo to say this:

It really does indicate the Republican brand is badly damaged. John McCain can't run the Republican brand. He's got to run a different approach...But people ultimately don't buy the brand; they buy the cereal. They're not buying Kelloggs; they're buying Frosted Flakes.

I'm thinking that Frosted Flake is McCain's best nickname to date. It remains to be seen whether McCain will now run to his media moms complaining about how Huckabee is taking cracks at his age.

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Nothing New byslag at 11:12 PM 7 dispense karmic justice! (or just comment here)  

Take a McQuiz
Monday, May 5, 2008

MoveOn.org offers the Bush-McCain Challenge--a quiz helping us determine whether or not we can distinguish between Bush and McCain. Some of the questions are kind of tricky, but it's still worth taking.

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Nothing New byslag at 11:32 AM 0 dispense karmic justice! (or just comment here)  

John McCain Accidentally Tells the Truth about Iraq
Friday, May 2, 2008

According to John McCain, our war over WMD terrorists Iraqi Freedom is actually a war for oil:

(via Crooks and Liars)

My friends, I will have an energy policy which will eliminate our dependence on oil from Middle East that will then prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East. [emphasis mine]

More stuff I'd pay to find out: How do the Iraqis feel about this (now that we have successfully won their hearts and minds, that is)? Would this mean that we'll be giving up on our plans to bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran as well? Is American Imperialism going by way of the dinosaur (to eventually be turned into oil, also)?

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Nothing New byslag at 5:16 PM 0 dispense karmic justice! (or just comment here)  

Can Obama Help Us Break Free from the Matrix?
Tuesday, April 29, 2008

I've mentioned before how those of us who want to start being treated like adults by politicians and the media have a vested interest in Obama's success this election. Reading about Obama's rebellion against a purely pandering gas tax holiday proposal reconfirms my sentiments (from the Boston Globe):

Barack Obama is not backing down in his opposition to a so-called gas tax holiday this summer. If anything, he's becoming more vocal in calling it a bad idea and slamming John McCain and Hillary Clinton for proposing it.

He told voters in Winston-Salem, N.C., this afternoon that suspending the 18.4-cent-a-gallon federal gas tax between Memorial Day and Labor Day would save them only about $25 to $30.

Some economists, he said, believe the proposal could backfire and actually raise prices by increasing demand. "We don't know that the oil companies will actually pass on the savings," he added.

And by taking revenue away from the Highway Trust Fund, which finances road and bridge repairs, the gas tax holiday could delay badly needed improvements and cost thousands of construction jobs, including 7,000 in North Carolina, he told voters.

"This is the problem with Washington," Obama declared. "We're arguing over a gimmick that will save you half a tank of gas. It's not an idea to get you through the summer. It's an idea to get them through an election."

The Clinton and McCain strategy here is to placate voters by pretending that a gas tax holiday will solve a problem when it won't. They know this, and we know this. And McCain and Clinton are relying on the willingness of voters to be lied to while knowing they're being lied to. This type of politics--transactional politics--is exactly what's on trial in this election. Are we going to continue telling politicians that we're stupid by validating their behavior toward us? That we are happy to continue being pandered to? That we accept their kind of politics as "just the way it is"?

Or are we going to choose a kind of politics--transformational politics--that is about washing away the pretense and getting to the root of our problems? Obama has had moments of proving that he thinks higher of us than others do. He has had moments of speaking to us in a way that challenges us to be better than we're used to being treated. Sometimes--like before the Pennsylvania primary--he has shown signs of doubt. Either unsure about our ability to live up to expectations or unsure about his own ability to help us live up to them. Sloughing off the old politics is scary and tough. So, we need to be committed and know to our bones that it's possible.

This gas tax holiday proposal may seem like a minor issue--unworthy of this big debate. But the real questions in this election are much bigger. Can Obama help us help ourselves out of this fake reality in which we are confined by pretense and distraction? Can we prove ourselves worthy of a president who doesn't try to cajole us with lapel pins, jello molds, and phony legislation? Can Obama prove himself worthy of an electorate who is going to challenge his ideas and force him to be secure in himself and in us? Fighting back on the little issues is a necessary step toward fighting back on the big ones. And by fighting back on the gas tax holiday, Obama is reminding us why he has gotten as far as he has in this election.

Deep down, people crave the red pill.

Donate to Obama's campaign to get yourself a new kind of politics!

UPDATE: Here's someone who agrees (h/t BryAnn and via the Kos):


UPDATE 2: Here's a not entirely new video clip of George Stephanoupolis agreeing as well:

Old is new again.

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Nothing New byslag at 9:36 PM 4 dispense karmic justice! (or just comment here)  

John McCain Loves America's Lawyers (for now)

John McCain is none too happy with this ad from the DNC:

Apparently, using his own words against him is not one of McCain's American values. Luckily, however, John McCain does find some value in this country in the form of its legal system:

The RNC is ginning up the threat of legal action to give weight to their criticism of the ad's content. [RNC lawyer Sean] Cairncross would not say whether the party will sue CNN or MSNBC, the two cable networks airing the ad, if they refuse to kill it.

The RNC's content charge is not black and white. The DNC wrote the ad carefully. Nowhere does the narrator or any chyron state that McCain is fine with the Iraqi war persisting for 100 years. The visuals -- explosions, bloodied troops -- take care of that association.

Wait a second! I thought Democrats were the only ones who liked to sue people. And wait a second! I thought the war was a winning issue for McCain.

So, lawyers are generally bad except when John McCain needs them to prevent the airing of a commercial that shows McCain--himself--talking about his position on an issue that he thinks he can win on. No wonder we can't discuss any meaningful issues this election. These little things are all so confusing.

And of course, the press gives McCain a helping hand here:

The AP article lede reads:

"The Republican National Committee demanded Monday that television networks stop running a television ad by the Democratic Party that falsely suggests John McCain wants a 100-year war in Iraq."

So, as you can see, the AP begins by stating as fact the McCain camp's claim that the ad is false. Then it actually directly misstates what the ad says.

In other words: what atrios said.

PS Wasn't the reason that John McCain opposed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act because it would give those crafty trial lawyers more business? I guess fair pay for everyone isn't nearly as important as John McCain winning the presidency. Who knew?

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Nothing New byslag at 12:09 PM 0 dispense karmic justice! (or just comment here)