Sometimes the Republic of Media Breaks My Brain
Thursday, July 3, 2008
So, the people who want out of the Iraq war the most are going to be supporters of Barack Obama, right? So, Barack Obama's supporters are going to be the ones who would be most concerned and knowledgeable about his stated intentions to get out of Iraq right? So, why is it Republicans and the media--and not Obama supporters, as far as I can tell--who are claiming that Obama has altered his stance on the war? I don't think it's changed. No one I've read today thinks it's changed. Wouldn't we be the ones who would know if it's changed since we're the ones most concerned about his position here? Shouldn't the media actually be asking the anti-war people whether or not they see a change in his position? Oh I forgot. We don't let the anti-war people talk to the media. We let Republicans complain about Obama's supposed shift in his Iraq position to the media on behalf of the anti-war people. How nice of them to hold Obama's feet to the fire for us like this!
When will our politics start to have some relationship with reality? Really, any relationship will do.
PS What part of, "We need to be as careful in getting out as we were careless in getting in," do people not understand? Seriously. Brain=broken.
UPDATE: Digby offers something more substantial than "brain=broken" on this subject. She's a better person than I am.
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9:48 PM
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Republicans Play Up Sexism in Obama's Campaign Staff Pay
Monday, June 30, 2008
CNS News attacks Obama for having more men than women on its payroll and putting the men in higher paying positions. As expected, rightwingers are out in force calling this hypocrisy-squared on Obama's part. And while I confess that I always want to see more women in high-paid positions in all fields, I can't help but marvel at the obvious problem with this characterization. If you actually go to CNS' data breakdown, you see how McCain hires a ton of interns (making just under $6,500/year!), and on average, McCain's female interns are paid less than their male interns. The upshot:
By one measure, however, women did do better in Obama’s office than in McCain’s. When the average salary was calculated for all people on the office payroll, including interns, Clinton paid women an average of $51,948, Obama paid women an average of $48,729, and McCain paid women an average of $47,898. (Clinton’s and Obama’s average salaries are relatively unaffected by adding the interns because Obama employed only one intern, while Clinton employed none. McCain, by contrast, employed 23 interns during the period, including 15 men and 8 women.)So, that "one measure" in which women did better in Obama's office than in McCain's? They got paid more, on average. I'm sure the women in Obama's office are really pissed off about that.
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Barack Obama says: "The Center...Myyyy 'The Center'!"
There's been a lot of talk about Obama's move to "the center" recently. Much of it has revolved around the political necessity of doing so. Like many people with actual principles, I think that's crap. We liberals put the Quotes of Irony around "the center" because, in spite of our elitist over-education, we have never been able to locate this place called "The Center" on a map. "The Center" is actually "The City" in the satirically-minded The Tick comic/cartoon. It's no place that's supposed to represent all places. Which means that even trying to just get there is pointless, because you'll never be able to find it. You'll just keep going and going and going until you realize that you're completely lost. And in spite of what the media claims, nobody actually lives there. Because there is no there there.
In other words, "the center" is all about framing. The establishment media love talking about "the center" because it means less work for them. They can just trace an imaginary line between the one extremist Republican standpoint and one of the many less extremist Democratic standpoints, then casually point news consumers to an imaginary point in the center of that line, and call it a day. Republicans love talking about "the center" because they can all just hang out together on the far, far right, let the media do its center-loving job and know that, no matter where the imaginary center is found, it will be a lot closer to them than it is to people like me. If the Democrats hung together on the far, far left, this would naturally negate the Republicans' center advantage, but they don't. In the name of diversity, Democrats don't hang anywhere together but, instead, let their members go wherever the mood strikes them--preferably toward "the center" after the media tells them where that is. Then, they let the people who are supposedly living in "the center" call them unprincipled and weak. This is called politics.
Using this strategy, Democrats fight Republicans like The Tick fights crime--often succeeding in spite of themselves. They simultaneously decry the incompetence of the Republicans in power while bending over backwards trying to prove that they themselves are no liberal Democrats. They talk about how Republicans are no fans of the worker and then extol the virtues of reaching across the aisle to work with them. The inconsistencies of this position are easily discerned on a gut level, if not easily intellectualized. So, whenever Democrats do happen to get something done to advance a worker's agenda, the average person still isn't quite sure whether they did so out of principle or out of expediency. To continue with The Tick analogy, did they use their keen insight and sense of purpose to sniff out the Idea Men's plans and prevent them from blowing up The City's dam, or did they just hear about it on the news and happen to show up barely in time? These are the kinds of questions rational voters--even liberal ones--ask themselves about Democrats.
The latest attack on Obama's bi-partisan bona fides exemplifies this problem for Democrats. Obama has worked with Republicans on securing loose nuclear weapons and helping to make government more transparent. But apparently, that's not deemed "politically courageous" enough. So, what does Obama do? Move to "the center" by giving Republicans what they want on FISA. Well, that'll show 'em. Maybe if Obama does more to help Republicans destroy the economy, lie us into war, hate on teh gayz and teh womynz, and torture some more people, he'll be "politically courageous" enough to be president. Of course, we already have a president who's that "politically courageous", so maybe we should re-think our strategery a little. Maybe when asked whether or not we've been brave enough to go out on a limb by defying the evil Democratic Party, we should actually ask which positions held by the evil Democratic Party are in need of defiance. One time Obama defied the evil Democratic Party was before we invaded Iraq. Of course, at the time, he was defying Republicans too, but apparently, defying both parties isn't "politically courageous" enough.
In summary, every time Obama is asked when he's gone out on a limb to work with Republicans, he should remind people that he's done what he thought was right but that Republicans, by and large, suck. That the notion of "the center" is a creation of Republicans and the media--both of whom, by and large, suck. That, sometimes, just because something is labeled "liberal" that doesn't mean it is, or if it is, that doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. And that, periodically, Democrats do the right thing because it's the right thing and not because they were too politically incompetent to do anything else. And it would also be cool if he would sometimes remind us to "honk if you love justice!" Just cuz that would be funny:
For more about the insipidity of "The Center", here's Greenwald and Digby to start.
And for more The Tick, here's the beginning:
UPDATE: Obama camp disses Gen Wes Clarke for pointing out the obvious fact that getting shot at doesn't necessarily mean you're qualified to be President:
"As he's said many times before, Senator Obama honors and respects Senator McCain's service, and of course he rejects yesterday's statement by General Clark," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.
Run, chicken, run! Run to nowhere and see where you find yourself. Or as Josh Marshall says:
But if it really is a fear of getting things focused on McCain's war record or experience it really is the kind of mistake Democrats habitually make. Take a look. McCain's entire campaign is about his time as a POW and the claim that his war service makes him uniquely qualified to be the country's commander-in-chief. They're pushing the fact that he's been on the national stage for four decades, whereas Obama's only been there for four years. That is almost the entirety of his campaign. So it's out there. It's already a key focus of this campaign.
John McCain's claim to experience, based in large part on his military service, is a key issue in this campaign. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away.
"The Center" sure looks like weak knees from here.
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8:08 AM
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Karl Rove and Glass Country Clubs
Monday, June 23, 2008
ABC News’ Christianne Klein reports that at a breakfast with Republican insiders at the Capitol Hill Club this morning, former White House senior aide Karl Rove referred to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, as “coolly arrogant.”Ummm...Mr. Rove...Many of us liberal elitists have never been to a country club. Consequently, we do not, in fact, "know this guy". Since you seem to be a country club expert, what other Obama characteristics should we look out for that indicate that he belongs in your club? Also, when did your club finally start allowing African-Americans? Just curious.
“Even if you never met him, you know this guy,” Rove said, per Christianne Klein. “He’s the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by.”
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7:26 PM
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No Penalty for Lying to and Terrorizing People?
Monday, June 16, 2008
Bush now says he's going to actually put some effort into finding Bin Laden:
President George W Bush has enlisted British special forces in a final attempt to capture Osama Bin Laden before he leaves the White House.If this report is true and Bush has, as many have surmised, been allowing Osama bin Laden to roam free all this time in order to use him as a political tool, he could not possibly be a more loathsome creature. And while, personally, I have always found Bush thoroughly detestable, I can't help but wonder when this cynical use of fear for political purposes will finally backfire on Republicans.
Defence and intelligence sources in Washington and London confirmed that a renewed hunt was on for the leader of the September 11 attacks. “If he [Bush] can say he has killed Saddam Hussein and captured Bin Laden, he can claim to have left the world a safer place,” said a US intelligence source.
The reason I'm pondering this now is that I spoke to the wife of my Republican father on Father's Day and reticently broached the topic of presidential politics. During the conversation, she said that all they hear about Barack Obama is that he was a scary Muslim. Being a relatively sane person, she made this statement in a somewhat dismissive tone. Of course, I told her that was absurd, and she acknowledged that the rumor was a little far-fetched. But because her personal investment in politics is minimal, she's probably not going to bother discussing the reality of the situation with my father (who's less relatively sane).
That said, because I know my father hasn't gone completely senile, I know that he doesn't really, truly believe the rumor either. He doesn't need to. All he needs is a minimal excuse to vote for the old-white-military-guy who's-ok-even-if-he-doesn't-hate-the-Mexicans-nearly-enough*, and that excuse might as well be fear of the black dude. Which made me wonder: How long can people accept being lied to and terrorized before they start to resent it? I mean, my father--someone who fancies himself a big, tough man--is willingly going along with a lie that, on some level, he knows is actually intended to make him afraid. And the person he's voting for is the one who's enabling the lie and fear. If nothing else, why doesn't that just piss him off?
I don't get it.
*=Yes, my father has said some things that have been so offensive to me that I probably should have shunned him for eternity just like Obama should have shunned Jeremiah Wright. But here in the real world, things are complicated.
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11:21 AM
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It's Go Time!: Why Does Michelle Malkin Hate America?
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Via Atrios and from Salon, Fox "News" displayed this while bashing Michelle Obama:
And personally, I've had it. Guess what, Fux EwesTM, we're not taking your sexist, racist, jingoistic crap anymore! Michelle Obama is not "Obama's Baby Mama". Nor is she anti-American or elitist or anyone's whore. She's a mother, a wife, a lawyer, and soon-to-be First Lady of this country. And if you want to take her comments out of context and mold them to fit your own ridiculous narratives, that's fine. We'll play that game.
On November 24, 2007, Michelle Malkin--the jackass Fox brought in to question Michelle Obama's patriotism--called America a "tin foil hat nation". Personally, I find this kind of America-bashing quite shocking! Is this really the way you see our wonderful, glorious country, Michelle Malkin? Why do you hate America, Malkin? Why? Why? Tell us why!
Also, on November 27, 2005, Michelle Malkin talked about a "movie to make America proud." A movie? We don't need no stinking movie to "make America proud". America's already proud, Michelle! Why do you hate our country, Michelle Malkin? Why? Why? Are you a Hollywood elitist, Malkin? Are you? Is that what makes our country proud...Hollywood?!? Shame on you, Michelle Malkin! Shame on you!
.
.
.
OK. I feel better now. Needless to say...It's go time!
PS I'm too lazy to find any more examples of Michelle Malkin's anti-Americanism. But if anyone else feels so inclined, please let us know what you uncover about her devious unAmerican underbelly. Also, I'm curious to know if she has granite countertops.
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9:38 AM
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Abortion is the New Gay Marriage
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Once again, the Republicans have a relative failure for a presidential candidate. So how are they going to get their sheepbase out to vote this election? Why...by trying to take away my rights, of course! (As if you even had to ask.) Actually, this year, it's the women in Colorado who are getting the rare opportunity to vote themselves into third-class citizendom:
DENVER (AP) — A proposed state constitutional amendment defining a fertilized human egg as a person was certified Thursday for the November ballot, moving Colorado a step closer to an election battle over abortion rights.Don't they know that if the law allows eggs to be people, next people will start marrying their chickens? Where's Man-on-dog Santorum when you need him?
Secretary of State Mike Coffman said backers of the proposal turned in an estimated 103,000 valid signatures, far more than the 76,000 required.
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10:10 PM
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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 JBStephensmay make us kill ourselves:
...
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!
Posted at 3:30AM on 9/15/07 by BradMarstonand is a she-devil:
If we are not careful, MITT happens. If we are suicidal Hillary happens.
Posted at 10:31PM on 2/2/08 by SouthernSpiritIn the end, the most important lesson I've learned from spending time on McCain's website is that KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!
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
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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11:48 AM
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Speaking of Liars...
Sunday, June 8, 2008
I sometimes get comments on this blog from right wingers reviling Barack Obama for supposedly making a comment that they perceive to be a lie. Now, I'm all fine and good with calling out people for making overtly incorrect statements, should they actually do so. But when the same right wingers go on to extol the virtues of Still President Bush, I honestly can't say that I truly understand where they're coming from. Let's look at Friday's WaPo article about the lead up to the Iraq War for example:
President Bush and top administration officials repeatedly exaggerated what they knew about Iraq's weapons and its ties to terrorist groups as the White House pressed its case for war against Iraq, the Senate intelligence committee said yesterday in a long-awaited report.
While most of the administration's prewar claims about Iraq reflected now-discredited U.S. intelligence reports, the White House crossed a line by conveying certainty about the threat that Saddam Hussein posed to the United States, according to the report, approved over the objections of most of the committee's Republican members.
"In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when it was unsubstantiated, contradicted or even nonexistent," Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), the committee chairman, said at a news conference. "As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed."
I haven't posted on this Senate Intelligence committee report until now simply for the reason that it basically confirms old news. No one's surprised that Still President Bush was jonesing for war from day one and wasn't entirely forthcoming with facts as a result. Hell, back in 2006, people were posting Zork ripoffs about what was already an old joke by that time:
But at some point, we need to move beyond the "I told you so"s to figure out what we're going to do to fix the problem that we've created. I mean, these little deceptions are all fun and games until somebody (or A LOT of somebodies) gets killed; nonetheless, some questions remain. First, how do we get people to actually recognize what is and isn't a lie and how different lies can have vastly different effects? Second, how do we get Bush-lovers to actually look in the mirror? Upon reflection, maybe those are the same question.Iraqi Invasion: A Text Misadventure
Revision 88 / Serial number 54892Oval Office
You are standing inside a White House, having just been elected to the presidency of the United States. You knew Scalia would pull through for you.There is a large desk here, along with a few chairs and couches. The presidential seal is in the middle of the room and there is a full-length mirror upon the wall.
What do you want to do now?
> INVADE IRAQ
You are not able to do that, yet.> LOOK MIRROR
Self-reflection is not your strong suit.> PET SEAL
It's not that kind of seal.[...]
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10:45 AM
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Michelle Obama "Whitey" Tape, "Terrorist Fist Jab" Saturday
Saturday, June 7, 2008
The online controversy around a supposed video showing Michelle Obama ranting about "whitey" has been...well...tedious.
Luckily, John Cole has finally tracked down the tape for all to see. As he said, it's "not that shocking":
Neocons are now claiming that this "scandal" is bad for Barack Obama because people are willing to believe that a video exists. In other words, it's bad for Barack Obama that people can believe that neocons are slimy enough to take words out of context, put them together into a video, and use said video to proclaim that the black folks are, as always, out to get them (you know, typical "victimology 101"). And in reality, I agree that it's bad for Barack Obama that neocons are that stupid, mean, and easily frightened. But then, it's bad for the rest of us as well since we have to share a country with them and all.
For more fun and games, a Faux News moron had something unusual to say about the bump/pound/dap that Michelle initiated before Obama's speech on Tuesday (via atrios):
It is bad for Barack Obama that people are willing to believe that a video exists of he and Michelle making "a terrorist fist jab". In other words, it is bad for Barack Obama that neocons are slimy enough to take a moment of video, postulate absurdly ridiculous intent, and use said video to proclaim that the black folks are, as always, terrorists out to get them (you know, typical "victimology 101"). And in reality, I do think it's bad for Barack Obama that neocons are that stupid, mean, and easily frightened. But then, it's bad for the rest of us as well since we have to share a country with them and all.
But I repeat myself.
Honestly, there are times when I have very mixed feelings about my country. Somebody bring me a flag lapel pin! Stat!
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4:49 PM
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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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1:14 PM
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The Obama Speech Some are Afraid of
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
In other words, people are afraid that Barack Obama, elitist liberal presidential appeaser, will turn into this:On the June 2 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program, while discussing Sen. Barack Obama's presidential candidacy, Rush Limbaugh asserted that the Democratic Party was "go[ing] with a veritable rookie whose only chance of winning is that he's black."I think we can take a look at the 230-year record of African-Americans in the electoral arena and make a decent judgment on this one. But this is standard-issue Nixonland backlash stuff. "The blacks" get the jobs, the government handouts, the special treatment, and now they're being handed the Presidency. That's the particular view of the world that Limbaugh is endorsing here. The Republican Party, demoralized and frustrated, is hoping to rile up the country with an identity politics-based campaign intended to speak to white people as a captive, persecuted minority against the big, bad un-American black majority waiting to install themselves in the White House and send every Caucasian to a re-education camp. As Jesse Taylor (welcome back!) at Pandagon writes, by the end of this campaign...Obama is going to become Blackazoid, the Nubian Avenger, here to right all the perceived wrongs black people illegitimately feel were heaped on them since we solved racism in 1963...
What's a Nubian?Barack Obama: Christo-Muslim-Atheist-Marxo-Fascist-Appeasing-Nubian-Elitist. I would try to acronym-ize this, but I'm sure there will be more.
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4:40 PM
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Republicans Want Affirmative Action from the Media
Friday, May 30, 2008
One of the things I dislike about the Pew study on how the press treats the presidential candidates is that it gives jackasses on the right a reason for fake outrage. When McCain gets less positive media coverage than either Clinton or Obama, one such jackass says this:
Glenn Greenwald crowed yesterday that Scott McClellan’s book somehow disproved the existence of liberal-media bias. He spoke a day too soon. In this case, the media doesn’t have the fig leaf of claiming that the bias comes from the natural role of the media to challenge the government. All three candidates are members of the same body, the Senate, which now runs under Democratic control, not Republican. That excuse for prior studies by Pew showing the same negative bias about Republicans can now be discarded entirely.I don't know who was suggesting that the Pew study is flawed because the media is generally more critical of people in power, but it certainly wouldn't have been me. The biggest problem I have with the Pew study is that it doesn't factor in this little thing called REALITY. The reality is that the Republicans right now pretty much suck in comparison to Democrats. So, the fact that the media chooses to only cover one small portion of Republican suckage compared to that of Democrats really doesn't persuade me that the media is partial toward liberals. Even Republicans know their presidential candidate sucks. But when Michelle Malkin and Right Wing News write negative stories about John McCain, why isn't anyone bitching at them for being part of the "liberal media"?
I know that Republicans subscribe to the "fair and balanced" standard, which means that we are supposed to overlook their lameness just so we can say as many nice things about them as we do about smart, competent, decent people. But the rest of us just don't subscribe to that belief. So, I think it's important for all of us--media included--to force Republicans to pick themselves up by their bootstraps and to not praise them just for their existence. The Participation Award has already been given out for the year. Maybe if the media actually does their job this election, Republicans will finally stop whining about how mean we are to them and start being better stewards of this country for a change. We can only hope.
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5:05 PM
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Back Under their Rock
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Sometimes, one almost feels sorry for the neocons. Here, we have one brave blogger trying to unearth what may be the greatest scandal of our time--whether or not Obama's uncle's middle initial is a T or a W--and he gets no respect. Really, he's trying to find out if Obama is telling tales out of school about his uncle's WWII service (from Sadly, No!):
...Steve Gilbert of Sweetness & Light did some digging and discovered a website dedicated to preserving the history of the 89th Infantry Division of World War II, the division in which Obama’s great uncle served and helped liberate the Ohrdruf satellite of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Seeking to get to the bottom of a mystery that had been solved hours earlier, Gilbert dutifully fired off an email to the site’s owners, Ray and Mark Kitchell, thus setting up the greatest bitch slap in history...And what kind of response does our fearless blogger receive? What was the essence of said bitch slap?
Apparently, Mr. Kitchell was in no mood to play with our intrepid neocon blogger. Of course, that wasn't the end of their exchange, and after a few back and forths, it looks like Steve Gilbert's commenters are none too pleased with the response that their hero blogger received from that pesky World War II veteran. Here's some of what they have to say from back under their rock:Please crawl back under the rock you came out from.
Good day
Raymond Kitchell, veteran 89th Inf Div
“Like 90% of this administration, they don’t have the foggiest idea what we went through or what we saw at Ohrdruf.”I fail to see why this commenter would be concerned about diminishing anyone's service. As we've seen from John McCain's stance (or lack thereof, since he didn't show up for the vote) on the new GI Bill, it's not their service that we care about. It's whether or not they stayed in long enough to get themselves killed. Because if you aren't in war long enough to be killed, you cost us money when you get back. And no one wants that:Not to diminish anyone’s service, but the 89th only got to Europe in March of 1945 and saw less than two months of the war.
Also, only a handful of soldiers went into Ohrdruf, and from what I have read they were only there a very brief time.
[John McCain] should understand how hard it is for veterans to transition back into civilian life.John McCain's way of transitioning back to civilian life was dumping his wife and marrying an heiress. If veterans had any love for their country, they would just man-up and do what McCain did. Or simply die in war. It's the American way.
In other words, stop costing us money and not being helpful in your responses to our stupid inquiries about the details of Barack Obama's uncle's past, you anti-American veterans!
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9:53 AM
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Liberal Media v. Rationality
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Pursuant to Scott McClellan's recent book release, Glenn Greenwald notes the following conundrum:
In a minimally rational world, this extraordinary passage, from the new book by Scott McClellan, would forever slay the single most ludicrous myth in our political culture: The "Liberal Media":While I appreciate Glenn's ire here, in a "minimally rational world" the bizarro notion of the "liberal media" would have been quashed long before Scott McClellan pointed out the absurdity. Here are just a few other things you'd have to believe in order to believe the media is liberal:If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.Just consider how remarkable that is. George Bush's own Press Secretary criticizes the American media for being "too deferential" to the Government. He lays the blame for Bush's ability to propagandize the nation on the media's uncritical dissemination of the Republican administration's falsehoods. And most notably of all, McClellan actually uses cynical scare quotes when invoking the phrase which, in conventional political discourse, is deemed the most unassailable truth of all: The Liberal Media.
The collapse of the administration's rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. . . . In this case, the "liberal media" didn't live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.
- You'd have to believe a liberal media would completely ignore an anti-war speech by Ted Kennedy.
- You'd have to believe a liberal media would give Bill O'Reilly an Emmy Award.
- You'd have to believe a liberal media would be all about the xenophobia.
- You'd have to believe a liberal media would be all about the misogyny.
- You'd have to believe a liberal media would regularly slander liberals.
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Nothing New byslag
at
4:08 PM
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Character Assassination Games
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Having an utterly lackluster candidate of their own, Republicans have been in the process of making Barack Obama "unacceptable" to voters. How do they do this? In the usual way--lying. First, Politico reports on the unprecedented quantity of viral emails intent on assassinating Obama's character:
What began as a demonstrably false attempt to cast Obama as a Muslim has now metastasized into something far more threatening to the likely Democratic nominee. The spurious claims about his faith have spiraled into a broader assault that questions his patriotism and citizenship and generally portrays him as a threat to mainstream, white America.One of the many consequences of Al Gore's invention of the interwebs is that the quantity and kinds of information available to us are now significantly more vast and varied. And sadly, our educational system has proven itself not up to the challenge of teaching us how to critically filter and evaluate said information. As we all know, Republicans have always depended on the ignorance of strangers. So, this insidious email campaign, combined with the organized comment patrol, represents a huge threat to our ability to focus on meaningful issues this election.
The spread of these e-mails has forced Obama to embark on a campaign to Americanize his image and his biography. Pivoting away from his pitch to a primary election audience uninterested in flag-waving and nationalism, he’s returning to the message that first brought him to the national spotlight in 2004: the idea that his is the quintessential American story.
[...]
Ironically, the smear campaign represents the dark side of the Internet’s emerging dominance in American politics — a phenomenon that has driven Obama’s unparalleled grass-roots and financial campaigns. After harnessing the Web to great advantage, Obama is now struggling to beat back the viral threat from the same uncontrollable medium.
Seems to me that the Obama campaign, the DNC, MoveOn.org, etc, should put as many resources into finding the origins of these smears as they possibly can. If the can get at least one or two sources loudly and publicly discredited, that may help with others. That said, people generally believe what they want to believe, so Obama's real goal probably needs to be getting people to like him.
And in conjunction with email smears, Republicans are re-hiring their chief character assassination consigliere to sniff out the dirt:
The Republican National Committee is hiring one of the party's toughest oppo-researchers -- former Karl Rove protege Tim Griffin, who was also at the center of the U.S. Attorney scandal -- to dig into Barack Obama's past and unearth info to damage his general election candidacy, a senior Republican operative confirms to me.The mere fact that this garbage is all these people actually have to offer elicits both repugnance and pity from me. I mean seriously...what a bunch of pathetic losers.
Griffin played a lead role in the GOP oppo operation during the 2004 campaign, unearthing info that damaged John Kerry's presidential bid. According to the senior GOP operative, who's familiar with Griffin's past work, he was instrumental in unearthing a videotape of a 1971 interview that Kerry did in which he appeared to confirm that he renounced his medals to protest the Vietnam War.
UPDATE: Digby has more on these issues:
I think that any of you who've read Somerby over the years know very well what a pernicious meme the "Gore lies" turned out to be --- a character assassination of disparate "facts" to create a totally inaccurate narrative. There is no margin in thinking that just because your candidate is clean or has little history that he will not be subject to this treatment.Fun fun fun.
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Nothing New byslag
at
3:12 PM
4
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
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New Brand Looks a lot Like the Old Brand
Thursday, May 15, 2008
So, if the Republicans are going to take so much time (and ink) to "re-brand" their party, shouldn't someone let Still President Bush in on the news? From Crooks and Liars:
In an astoundingly ignorant interview with The Politico’s Mike Allen Tuesday, President Bush insinuated that electing a Democrat in November would lead to another attack on America, and revealed that he made the ultimate sacrifice by giving up golf shortly after the start of the Iraq War — the timing of which he lied about. Naturally, Keith ripped into him tonight — with all the anger and passion you’ve come to expect from a Special Comment — for continuing this despicable fear-mongering, and for failing to understand what true sacrifice is.Wow. Fear-mongering, false martyrdom, lying about war...sounds like the same old Republican Party to me.
And then, from the AP:
In a speech to Israel's Knesset, Bush said: "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.Wow. Political opportunism, linking diplomacy to Nazism, more fear-mongering...definitely sounds like the same old Republican Party to me.
"We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."
Barack Obama responds:
It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence to launch a false political attack. It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally, Israel. Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all the elements of American power, including tough, principled and direct diplomacy to pressure countries like Iran and Syria.Well, since some Republicans have, through the branding process, come to realize that their new slogan--Republicanism is the New Prozac--is a non-starter, I have a suggestion for them (I'm feeling very helpful these days). Their new slogan should both speak to the heart of the Republican Party and tell the world how Republicans respond to their adversaries. It should be simple, precise, and honest. Cerebrally elegant but with a touch of down-home rustic charm. Ladies and gentlemen, the new Republican Party slogan:
Kokokaw. Kokokaw. Kokokaw...Chickens don't clap!
UPDATE: Or, if you want to get serious about it, check out Keith Olbermann:
(via The Jed Report)
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Nothing New byslag
at
10:46 AM
8
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Corporate Secrecy Sucks
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Lately, I've been doing some work on expanding the Some of Nothing empire into other areas. One thing I'm trying to do is go predominantly organic and open a store on Amazon.com, thereby capitalizing on Amazon's currently well-traveled marketplace and getting Some of Nothing Designs in front of more eyes. However, I've heard some negative things about Amazon Corp in the past, so I've been hesitant.
One thing I've heard (via BuyBlue.org, which is now defunct) is that Amazon donates heavily to the Republican Party. Since part of Some of Nothing's mission statement is to build an empire on the backs of Republicans, it would be counterproductive of us to be helping the Republican Party in the process. So, I decided to email Amazon and ask whether or not they do, in fact, donate heavily to Republicans.
The response I received:
Please note that who Amazon.com donates funds to is internal information and not available to the public, nor is our department given this information.It's true that I received this response within hours of my inquiry, so from a customer service perspective, I guess we could give Amazon Corp a tiny plus there. But as far as information transparency is concerned, what is a consumer/empire builder to do?
Hello, OpenSecrets.org:
Contributions from this [Amazon] PAC to federal candidates (61% to Democrats, 39% to Republicans)Doesn't it seem like, if corporations are allowed to donate to political campaigns, they should have to tell us what they're doing with our money? Neocons tend to complain heavily about how the government uses their money (especially when they think it's being mean to Jesus). But the only way they know how their money is spent is that the law requires quite a bit of governmental transparency--except in the case of National Defense. Not so much for corporations. So, if neocons can get all bent out of shape over how the government uses their money, why don't they care to know how corporations use it?
Just askin.
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Nothing New byslag
at
4:03 PM
4
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Yo Mama is a Marxist
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Anyone who has spent any amount of time with neocons is well aware of their extreme dependence on rumor, innuendo, and presumed guilt-by-association to help them explain their world view. If you don't know any neocons and want to find out for yourself whether they have this dependence, turn on the Fox "News" channel for about 10 minutes. For a group of people who are so strident in their claims that they judge people as individuals and not as groups, the contradiction here is self-evident. But, as we have already seen this election, being internally contradictory doesn't seem to stop them.
For instance, we've all been privy to the whispering campaigns about Obama's presumed Christo-