Multi Medium

What We Can Look Forward To

A Rick Perlstein blast from the past, from the 2006 elections:

Republicans cheat. To what extend did their cheating on Election Day keep the will of the people from being fully registered? Just how close did it come to keeping the new majority from arriving? And what does the kind of cheating we saw Tuesday — and its antecedents in the past and its likely echoes in the future — portend for the project of turning liberalism once again into the dominant force in American politics?

(…)

In California’s 50th District — where Democrat Francine Busby had hoped to win a rematch against incumbent Brian Bilbray in Republican felon Duke Cunningham’s former seat — Busby staffers shut down their phone banks because they were reaching so many callers enraged at the “Hi-I’m-calling-with-information-about-Francine-Busby” deluge. The Washington Post, meanwhile, reported receiving a tearful call from someone in Ohio explaining that she could no longer keep an open phone line to the hospice where her mother was dying on account of the calls. As for the calls’ political effect, a spokesman for Lois Murphy — who ended up going down to a narrow defeat against GOP incumbent Jim Gerlach in Pennsylvania’s 6th District — relayed, “Some of our biggest supporters have said, ‘If you call me again, I’m not voting for Lois.’”

NRCC spokesman Ed Patrus offered the defense of scoundrels, not citizens: they’d checked with their lawyers; they weren’t doing anything illegal. They were “drawing contrasts” between Democrats and Republicans, he told The New York Times…. Another NRCC spokesman said: “We are a federal organization campaigning about a federal race. We feel that New Hampshire law does not apply to what we are doing.” A third added: “Phone banking is used by campaigns of all stripes and all these calls are made between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m.” They also said the megavolume was the fault of their contractor, not the party; “It could be some kind of glitch.”

According to federal filings, the NRCC spent about $2 million on these contractors: some glitch. I’m guessing this whole project was the inspiration for President Bush’s eerily confident pronouncement on October 25: “We’re not going to lose.” Or maybe he had a panoply of dirty tricks in mind. In Maryland, homeless men recruited from out-of-state shelters were recruited to pass out flyers meant to trick voters in black neighborhoods into thinking the Republican gubernatorial candidate, Robert Ehrlich, and Senate candidate, Michael Steele, were Democrats…. In North Carolina college students asked voters if they were registered Democrats, and if they said yes, handed them a list of “our” judicial candidates — actually a list of Republicans. A California “information guide for Democrats” told voters to vote “no” on propositions backed by Democrats. Poll watchers brandishing handguns intimidated Latino voters in Arizona — a Republican trick there going back to 1962, when the late Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist was allegedly involved. On election day in Colorado’s 5th District, the campaign of Democratic candidate Jay Fawcett reported finding that their office reeked of skunk, impeding the ability of the staffers and 200 volunteers to do their work. Police looked into the matter and believe that over-the-counter chemicals had been sprayed in the office.

(…)

In Virginia, the FBI continues to investigate calls received by Democrats in the final days of the campaign such as the following, to a man registered to vote there since 1998: “This is a message for Timothy Daly. This is the Virginia Elections Commission. We’ve determined you are registered in New York to vote. Therefore, you will not be allowed to cast your vote on Tuesday. If you do show up, you will be charged criminally.”

How many Democratic votes died aborning thanks to chicanery like this? We may never know…. Calling out one of America’s two major parties for potential election theft is not the preferred activity of a timid media.

That’s a colossal problem. Cheating is by now a constitutive part of Republican culture. Such false-flag harassment was a crucial part of “ratfucking” operations in Richard Nixon’s 1972 presidential campaign — to take just one example, Nixon agents circulated fliers in the Milwaukee ghetto advertising a non-existent “free lunch” sponsored by the Democrats. The Watergate hearings in 1973 and 1974 were full of these kinds of revelations. It didn’t shame Republicans into retreating. It just made them more careful practitioners — more careful, yet at the same time more brazen: consider those NRCC spokesmen. They could have denied the hustle. Instead, they owned up to it.

From now on there should be no excuse: anticipating such inevitabilities has to be made an active part of Democratic strategizing…. The narrative should teach even low-information voters to sniff out the signs of a dirty trick…. That way, the dirty trick boomerangs: “Oh, yes. That’s what the Democrats mean when they say Republicans cheat. God, I distrust those Republicans. I don’t want them back in power ever again.”

I would love to think that there will come a day when Republican dirty tricks backfire on them, but for now I would settle for aggressive prosecutions and stiff sentencing.  I know, I’m easy to please.

2 comments October 6th, 2008 at 10:05pm Posted by Eli

I Knew It!

I knew Paulson’s bailout proposal reminded me of something…

Dear American:

I cordially correspond today to request you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused urgent need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion USD. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gramm, lobbyist for UBS, who (God willing) will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a former U.S. congressional leader and the architect of the PALIN / McCain Financial Doctrine, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. As such, you can be assured that this transaction is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred. For this inconvenience you will be rewarded with grand fees of 1/1,000,000th of 1% of possible profits due to off shore laundering of skim funds due to reprinting of said funds.

Please reply with mother’s maiden name, routing and account numbers of all of your bank account, IRA and college fund accounts and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully,

Minister of Treasury Paulson

This sounds like a really swell awesome deal, plus it’s good karma to help out a struggling third-world country in need.

(h/t All Spin Zone & Jesse Wendel)

Add comment September 23rd, 2008 at 11:18am Posted by Eli

Sarah Palin’s Real Qualifications

Orange Clouds is correct, but doesn’t go far enough:

When WE think of someone as being qualified for president or VP, we imagine that they must be capable of governing. They need to have relevant experience. They should have proven over time that they understand the issues and the Constitution. They must be capable of diplomacy. But you need to think like a Republican for a moment.

Republicans don’t need to be able to think. They just need to be capable parrots. Can Palin follow in lockstep with the Republican line? Sure. It’s easy. I could even do it if I wanted to, although I’m not old enough to legally be VP so Sarah’s more qualified than me for that reason. Abortion is bad, death penalty is good, war is good, taxes are bad… it’s easy to figure out where you stand on the issues if you’re a Republican.

If Palin ever wonders what her opinion should be on an issue, she can ask Big Business. As a Democrat, you might assume that she would need to research it and think for herself about it, but that’s just a silly liberal idea. Big Business and lobbyists will tell Sarah everything she needs to know. And if they can’t answer a question, she can ask James Dobson or Pat Robertson or something and they’ll tell her.

What about her ability to do the job? Think about Brownie and FEMA. Think about Thomas Frank’s new book The Wrecking Crew. The idea isn’t to do a good job governing. The idea is to destroy government. Again, even I could do that if it were my goal. It can’t be too hard. Start wars, appoint your friends, outsource and privatize everything, take a lot of vacations, and make speeches about loving god and country. And if, as VP, Palin ever accidentally shoots someone in the face on a hunting trip, it’s OK.

Of course Palin isn’t qualified if you imagine that she should be able to govern well - especially if, for some reason, a 72-year-old John McCain doesn’t last 4 more years. Governing well is for Democrats. It’s a crazy, liberal idea. Republican qualifications are totally different, and Sarah Palin is perfectly qualified as a Republican.

Yes, this is all true, but it does Palin a disservice by overlooking her ability to abuse executive power, or to stonewall legislative investigations of said abuse by invoking dubious claims of executive privilege, or by simply saying, “Don’t wanna.  Make me!”  It also overlooks Palin’s much-valued ability to spew ridicule and hate at her political opponents; it would be simply unthinkable to have a Republican president or vice president who doesn’t know how to sneer.

In other words, it’s not enough simply to hold right-wing views; you must be committed enough to repeatedly break the law in service of those views, and brazen enough to accuse your opponents of hating America when they call you on it.

So yes, Sarah Palin is eminently qualified to be a Republican president or vice president, but that’s pretty much the opposite of being qualified to be a good one.

Add comment September 4th, 2008 at 11:38am Posted by Eli

Jason Linkins Beats Me To It

This is what I get for not blogging stuff the instant it occurs to me:

Tonight at the RNC, the McCain campaign made their feelings about community organizers abundantly clear. Defeated primary opponents spit on their name. Conventioneers loudly mocked their existence. Sarah Palin told not one, but two jokes about them, which is certainly a comedy foul, because everyone knows you are supposed to use the Rule Of Three.

Tonight, community organizers were made to feel the brunt of the Republicans’ smarmy derision. And for what? You know, one overworked conservative trope from tonight was that the American people should not expect the government to solve all of their problems. You know who would agree with that? Community organizers. These men and women serve a public duty, taking care of those who do fall through the cracks of government largesse, motivating citizens to give their time and sweat to serve society’s needs without making an unnecessary dip in the taxpayer till.

Yep, that was my thought exactly.  If your ideology supposedly favors shrinking the government so that the initiative of private citizens must pick up the slack, then community organizers are exactly the people you should be praising.

I suppose one could argue that our government and safety net are soooo huge now after years of Democratic rule (yeah, I know, but Romney just blamed everything that went wrong over the last eight years on the Democrats, as did a McCain commercial holding Obama and the Democrats responsible for “years of deficits”) that community organizers right now are totally superfluous.  Just as one could argue that because abortion is still legal, that’s why Bristol really had a “choice” to keep her baby.  But I just don’t really buy it.  If community organizers are the substitute for government intervention, then they should deserve praise and respect, not sneers and contempt.

Perhaps someone should ask George Bush Sr. what he thinks about his son’s GOP mocking his thousand points of light as ineffectual losers.

The old solution, the old way, was to think that public money alone could end these problems. But we have learned that is not so. And in any case, our funds are low. We have a deficit to bring down. We have more will than wallet; but will is what we need. We will make the hard choices, looking at what we have and perhaps allocating it differently, making our decisions based on honest need and prudent safety. And then we will do the wisest thing of all: We will turn to the only resource we have that in times of need always grows–the goodness and the courage of the American people.

(…)

I have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the community organizations that are spread like stars throughout the Nation, doing good. We will work hand in hand, encouraging, sometimes leading, sometimes being led, rewarding. We will work on this in the White House, in the Cabinet agencies. I will go to the people and the programs that are the brighter points of light, and I will ask every member of my government to become involved. The old ideas are new again because they are not old, they are timeless: duty, sacrifice, commitment, and a patriotism that finds its expression in taking part and pitching in.

And here’s one more juicy little tidbit from Mr. Linkins:

Here’s a little bit of delicious irony. It’s been pointed out to me tonight that on September 11, Senators McCain and Obama will appear in New York City, participating in a forum for Service Nation. The topic? Community service and volunteerism. I imagine that many of you might have come out of tonight’s RNC festivities with great concerns about the future welfare of our nations’ community organizers. You might share your concerns with the event’s organizers, by contacting them here. With any luck, this forum could get quite awkward for one of these candidates!

Beautiful.  I would love to see McCain try to explain his campaign’s hatred of community organizers.

(h/t Ron Turiello for the Bush Sr. reference)

1 comment September 4th, 2008 at 07:18am Posted by Eli

LEAVE BRISTOL ALONE!!!

Those mean liberal bloggers are at it again:

Josh Marshall cuts through the GOP’s machine-produced smoke today:

Since there is widespread agreement that the children of candidates should not become topics of campaign debate, it behooves us to note that the McCain campaign has almost singlehandedly made Sarah Palin’s daughter a central figure in the Republican convention.

(…)

Overwhelmingly, reporters are pressing eminently reasonable questions — her role in troopergate, her lack of experience, her connections to the AIP, her history of earmarking and lobbyists, etc. Meanwhile, the McCain campaign is going absolutely non-stop about Palin’s daughter. It is unmistakable.

…[T]o distract attention from the first objective and to help accomplish the second one, tonight at the Republican convention we’ll be treated to the spectacle of an entire political party trying to hide behind a pregnant 17-year-old girl.

If you happen to think there’s something unseemly about using an unborn fetus and its teenage parents as the political equivalent of human shields, well, get over it.  Haven’t you noticed that shamelessness has always been an essential part of McCain’s strategy?

This is simply appalling.  Why can’t these horrible liberal bloggers respect that poor girl’s right to be the centerpiece of the McCain campaign in private?

Add comment September 3rd, 2008 at 08:20pm Posted by Eli

Question Of The Day

From MEC at Mercury Rising:

George W. Bush criticized the Chinese government for rounding up dissenters to prevent unseemly displays during the Olympic Games:

“America stands in firm opposition to China’s detention of political dissidents, human rights advocates and religious activists,” Bush will declare in the marquee speech of his three-nation Asia trip. “We speak out for a free press, freedom of assembly and labor rights — not to antagonize China’s leaders, but because trusting its people with greater freedom is the only way for China to develop its full potential.”

Is anybody going to ask him what he thinks about the police doing the exact same kind of pre-emptive strike against possible protesters in Minneapolis and St. Paul?

Well, that depends.  When you say “anybody,” do you mean media, Democrats, or filthy hippie bloggers?  My answers would be, respectively, Hell No, Possibly But Not Probably, and Hell Yes.

The answer will be something along the lines of, “We do not round up activists; the police were just using enhanced making-sure-everything-is-okay techniques.”

Add comment August 31st, 2008 at 10:31pm Posted by Eli

Damn Interesting Fun With Microbes

Not sure how many of you read Damn Interesting (currently in reruns due to some book-writing-related program activities), but it is, well, exactly what it says: A compendium of obscure and fascinating information.

F’rinstance, did you know that 2.5 billion years ago, the Earth was almost fatally poisoned and frozen by an “oxygen catastrophe,” when cyanobacteria flooded the oceans and atmosphere with oxygen, which was poisonous to almost every lifeform on the planet, and which broke down the methane that was keeping temperatures above freezing?

The planet only pulled out of its deadly stall when the surviving bacteria started metabolizing oxygen into carbon dioxide, which replaced methane as the atmosphere’s greenhouse insulation.

(Which begs the question: What if there had been no cyanobacteria?  How would life have evolved in iron-rich seas and methane air?)

Or that there’s a sub-freezing (but still liquid) lake two miles underneath the Antarctic ice, which may or may not contain micro-organisms that have never been seen before?  Drilling was halted to prevent contamination from the surface world, as well as a possible deadly geyser of pressurized water.  The Russians are currently contemplating the use of a phallic drillbot to check it out.

Bizarre, fascinating stuff.

Add comment August 31st, 2008 at 08:12pm Posted by Eli

Rant Of The Month (Decade?)

This is truly a thing of beauty:

I’ve been reading about Mrs. Palin. My head didn’t explode until I read this:

She’s a hit [Mona Charen]
I’m getting tons of mail like this:

Sarah is real!!! What a fabulous contrast with Obama, who is not real. Sarah is from America. Obama is not.

If it was meant to bait me, well nom nom nom, I am eating the bait. I now officially hate these weasel fucks. And that’s saying something.

(…)

That smelly little excrescence above, that’s it in a nutshell. These are the people I want gone. Not just out of the White House, off the national stage. I want them out of the country, put on boats and sent to the southern ocean to circle the pole until they break up in the ice and drown. Mona Charen, daughter of privilege, who went from Livingston, N.J. to Barnard to the White House to the Capital Gang to the Corner, approvingly quoting an anonymous turd-juggler calling Sarah Palin “from America” and Barack Obama not from America. [Enter: Ghost of Ashley Morris] Fuck you, you fucking fucks. [Exit: Ghost] You are un-American. You don’t deserve to live in this country. You are simply too much, dare I say, of an elitist.

Since the ascendancy of Ronald Reagan, these people have been the self-appointed arbiters of Who Gets to be American. For nearly 30 years, they’ve sat in their well-paid jobs typing with their soft little hands, making the world safe for themselves. They are liars and hypocrites of the worst sort: Divorce is OK for Peggy Noonan, bad for you. Working mothers named Phyllis Schlafly or Mary Matalin or Mona Charen are good, but your job takes you away from your precious children just so you can be fulfilled, you selfish bitch. Homosexuals who want to live together under a legal contract will destroy marriage, but homosexuals married to opposite-sex partners (Hi, Mrs. Craig!) won’t. Bill “Double-down” Bennett repackages Aesop’s fables as “The Book of Virtues” and gambles his royalty checks in casino VIP rooms, but that’s OK.

(…)

They’ll snicker behind their hands at the funny names black people give their kids but think Track and Trig and Willow are fine names for, er, white children. Palin, from the 49th state, is “from America,” and Obama, from the 50th, isn’t. Palin hunts and fishes in exurban Anchorage — good. Obama works in inner-city Chicago — bad. They’re too self-deluded to see the truth before their eyes, that they’re both “America,” an America that can support and elevate people from such divergent backgrounds, who make such different choices. But they can’t see that, because only people who make choices they approve of get to be Americans.

You might say they don’t matter, these little foot soldiers. Yes, they do. They matter now more than ever, because they’re the amplifiers. They’re the bloggers and other chatterers who pick up the talking points and talk them to death.

Read the whole thing.  It’s just perfect.  My God, but I’m sick of always hearing about how Republicans and conservatives are Real Americans, and Democrats and progressives are elitist traitors who hate America.

And why is it that the people who supposedly love America so much have nothing but contempt for the Constitution, which is practically the very definition of America?

(h/t Julia)

Add comment August 31st, 2008 at 03:24pm Posted by Eli

With Us On Everything Except The War

Pachacutec calls them on it:

We’ve been hearing from the Senate leadership since 2006 that Joe Lieberman is “with us on everything but the war.” We asked Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin to offer an example a piece of critical legislation the Senate had passed with Joe Lieberman’s assistance. The role of the Majority Whip is to count caucus votes and enforce party voting discipline.

Senator Durbin pointedly declined to answer the question and characterized it as illegitimate, ultimately putting his hand in front of the camera and asking me to account for my whereabouts and clothing as of three o’clock yesterday afternoon, as an example of - from his perspective - putting someone on the spot unfairly.

I’m not so sure he’s used to answering questions from people who do … journalism.

Putting him on the spot unfairly?  If Lieberman is with us on everything except the war, then all Durbin had to do is think of one vote about something other than the war.  Surely he should be able to do that in his sleep, right?

I mean, unless it’s total bullshit, of course.

Add comment August 28th, 2008 at 10:17pm Posted by Eli

Xenophobic Jerome Corsi Enabler Accosts Michelle Malkin

Hmm, Alex Jones, Alex Jones, where have I heard that name before…  Ah, here we go:

On August 4, author Jerome Corsi, appeared on the syndicated radio program The Alex Jones Show — the host of which is described on his website as “considered by many to be the grandfather of what has come to be known as the 9/11 Truth Movement” — to promote his book The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality (Threshold Editions, August 2008). During the interview, Corsi baselessly claimed that as a child, “Obama got Islamic instruction, and it wasn’t mainstream Islamic instruction,” after which host Alex Jones asserted that “we should not have anybody as president who — both their parents aren’t Americans,” saying “this allows infiltration.” After further discussing family members of Obama’s who are Muslim, Jones asserted of Obama: “He is a ringer, folks. He’s meant to take a dive for John McCain. So this is nonpartisan. The facts are in. He will be destroyed in this election.”

…Which makes it even more ironic that his biggest beef with Malkin is that she wrote a book advocating the imprisonment of Muslim-Americans in internment camps.  Needless to say, the right-wing bloggers are saying that Jones is a leftist.  I guess this is what happens when they can’t get any actual progressives to attack them.

Am I the only one who thinks Jones & Malkin deserve each other?

(h/t Gavin)

1 comment August 28th, 2008 at 07:08am Posted by Eli

I’ll Take “Things Larry King Will Never Say” For $800, Alex.

It sure would be awesome, though:

What American needs to hear from Larry King about Jerome Corsi is something like,”This book is filth. It goes against everything we believe in about honest, healthy civic debate.  Don’t buy it.  Jerome, you are obviously part of a shady organization that uses money to sell lies with the goal of undermining serious debate in the 2008 Presidential election.  The only reason your book is atop the best-seller list is because you have a giant political marketing machine working behind the scenes. Caveat Emptor–buyer beware.”

Alas, our so-called liberal media typically does the exact opposite, although I will at least give Larry King credit for matching Corsi up with an opposing voice rather than just giving him an uncritical tongue bath.  Two cheers for Larry.

1 comment August 14th, 2008 at 07:43pm Posted by Eli

The False Metric Strikes Again

If your movement’s credibility depended on your ability to come up with a yeah-but that makes you sound somehow morally superior to your opposition despite the dishonesty and near-omnidirectional hate that drips from your every word, what would you choose?

What may be surprising, however, is to what degree profanity seems to be a feature more common to left-leaning blogs than to right-leaning ones.

Which side of the online aisle is more likely to use profanity, though? For answers, I turned to the search engine Google to see how common swearing is in the right and left blog universes by looking up the late stand-up comic George Carlin’s “seven dirty words” in the most popular blog communities.

The results showed that online liberals tend to use profanity a lot more than online conservatives.

(…)

Dividing the number of instances of profanity by the number of pages of the sites on which they appear, then multiplying the result by 100 yields what might be called a “profanity quotient.”

The top 10 liberal sites (Daily Kos, Huffington Post, Democratic Underground, Talking Points Memo, Crooks and Liars, Think Progress, Atrios, Greenwald, MyDD and Firedoglake) have a profanity quotient of 14.6.

The top 10 conservative sites (Free Republic, Hot Air, Little Green Footballs, Townhall, News Busters, Lucianne.com, Wizbang, Ace of Spades, Red State and Volokh Conspiracy) have a quotient of 1.17.

This means that 14.6 percent of all pages on the most popular liberal sites have profanity on them, compared to 1.17 percent of all pages on the conservative sites.

That’s quite a disparity.

(…)

Notable also in these stats are the liberal blogs Eschaton, Crooks and Liars, and Firedoglake, where profanity is so common you basically cannot take part in the discussion without running into it.

On the flip side, the popular conservative community Lucianne.com, run by literary agent Lucianne Goldberg, seems to have no profanity at all.

Why such a disparity between the right and left online?

Some on the right may take this as a sign of their superior intelligence. [HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!] Others may theorize that it’s simply because liberals are angry at President Bush.

More than likely, it is a reflection of how things are offline. Conservatives, especially those who are more religious, are less likely to use profanity in their daily conversation.

All well and good, I suppose.  But tell me: Have you calculated an eliminationism quotient?  Or a racism/sexism/homophobia quotient?  Or a dishonesty quotient?  Or a harassing-12-year-old-kids quotient?

I would much rather read the occasional swear word than wade through a sewer of hate and lies - not to mention personal viciousness (outing liberal bloggers, publishing people’s addresses and phone numbers to encourage harassment and threats).  Oh well, different strokes for different folks, as they say.  But please, do not mistake the right’s lack of profanity for civility or decency.  It’s quite easy to be hateful without swearing, and vice versa.

(h/t Jane)

1 comment August 7th, 2008 at 07:40am Posted by Eli

I Realize That… Now.

This just in: Military action not the best way to combat terrorism:

The United States can defeat al-Qaida if it relies less on force and more on policing and intelligence to root out the terror group’s leaders, a new study contends.

“Keep in mind that terrorist groups are not eradicated overnight,” said the study by the federally funded Rand research center, an organization that counsels the Pentagon.

Its report said that the use of military force by the United States or other countries should be reserved for quelling large, well-armed and well-organized insurgencies, and that American officials should stop using the term “war on terror” and replace it with “counterterrorism.”

Wow, no kidding.  I seem to recall John Kerry being ridiculed for saying this in 2004, and I seem to recall Bill Clinton being ridiculed for practicing it prior to 2001.

So how’s Dubya’s completely-ignore-terrorism-then-start-invading-people strategy working out for us, then?

(h//t Phoenix Woman)

1 comment July 29th, 2008 at 07:11am Posted by Eli

Guns Don’t Kill People. Insane Wingnuts Kill People… With Guns.

Very very sad.  Bad enough that some right-wing madman hopped up on Savage, Hannity, and O’Reilly walked into a Unitarian Universalist church and started killing people, but once again, the hardcore nuts have concluded that Crazy Person On A Shooting Spree = Why We Need More Guns.

For all that professional martyr-bullies like Bill O’Reilly whine that liberal blogs like Daily Kos are hate sites, worse than the KKK, it sure does seem like most, if not all, of the truly violent, murderous, and hate-filled rhetoric comes from conservatives rather than progressives.  When was the last time a DKos reader went on a killing spree?  How many domestic bombers and terrorists over the last 20 years have been liberals, versus how many have been conservatives?

Also, this sure does look like rather unfortunate timing for Doc “my compassion - let me show you it” Savage.  My bet is that he’ll explain that Adkisson was a ticking time bomb because his mental condition was misdiagnosed… thus proving his point about autism.

2 comments July 28th, 2008 at 07:41pm Posted by Eli

Yo, Joe!

My advisor and one of my favorite profs at Stanford, Joe Corn, got interviewed by Matt Novak, the Paleo-Future blogger, about his book, Yesterday’s Tomorrows (which I have just ordered) and the concept of “future shock”:

Matt Novak: Have you ever read Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock?

Joseph Corn: I did. I so vividly remember reading it in a campground in the Redwoods in Northern California.

MN: What did you think of it then and what do you think of his ideas now?

JC: [long pause] They deserve re-examination now, the concept of future shock. At the time of his writing . . . I didn’t really find it that persuasive. People talk as if future shock is a major syndrome that deserves Medicare treatment today, and I sort of feel that way. The pace at which software changes and technology generally, although it is still filling in . . . Filling in the cracks is not the right metaphor . . . I’ve had a personal computer now for 25 years and it is so different. The web, plus wireless, plus speed, plus miniaturization in the laptop form makes it something different. As we carry these things around with us when we couldn’t with an IBM PC.

MN: Do you think that all this technological change that you’ve seen recently, is that harming us? Because that seems to be the main thesis of his . . .

JC: I don’t buy that. As a historian I’m very skeptical. I think we’re trained professionally to be skeptical of . . . you might put it, in terms of the Golden Age fallacy. There was a moment when things were better and everything’s been done since. I just can’t buy that. One could worry and yet, I don’t. I just see it as different. As fascinatingly different. I just don’t see civilization going to hell in a handbasket. [long pause] At least I don’t want to.

Joe Corn was (and presumably still is) indefatigably interested and enthusiastic about everything, particularly the co-evolution of technology and culture.  I read one of his earlier books, The Winged Gospel, for one of his courses, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  It was a fascinating study of the early days of aviation, when there were all kinds of extravagant claims about how flight would fundamentally change human nature.  And I don’t mean the impact of being able to travel virtually anywhere, but stuff about how being physically closer to Heaven and the angels would make us more angel-like, or that we would end up living in the air and not require any other sustenance.

Fun stuff.  A year or two after I graduated, I caught up with him on a visit to campus, and he was all excited about this new course he was teaching, on the history of technical manuals.  I know, that sounds like it would be the most boring class ever, but he started talking about how they made the propagation and popularization of technology possible, and it started sounding pretty good to me.  Had I still been a student, I’m sure I would have signed up for it and had a blast.

Thanks, Joe.  Teachers like you were what made learning worthwhile.

Add comment July 27th, 2008 at 05:58pm Posted by Eli

Those Poor, Poor Conservatives…

How will they ever get their message out?

The right is engaged in the business of opining while the left features sites that offer a more reportorial model.

At first glance, these divergent approaches might not seem consequential. But as the 2008 campaign progresses, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the absence of any websites on the right devoted to reporting — as opposed to just commenting on the news — is proving politically costly to Republicans.

While conservatives are devoting much of their Internet energy to analysis, their counterparts on the left are taking advantage of the rise of new media to create new institutions devoted to unearthing stories, putting new information into circulation and generally crowding the space traditionally taken by traditional media. And it almost always comes at the expense of GOP politicians.

(…)

But the left isn’t simply promoting its own version of the news — it’s also breaking it.

Deploying writers with backgrounds grounded in journalism rather than politics, The Huffington Post and Talking Points Memo, in particular, have already become a persistent problem for McCain’s campaign, regularly posting negative opposition research and embarrassing videos in addition to advancing damaging story lines against the GOP nominee.

There is simply no equivalent on the right to these two liberal-leaning websites.

(…)

In some cases, the stories incrementally move the anti-McCain message forward (by flagging an off-message Iraq statement by a McCain surrogate, for example). In others, the reporting scores broadside hits that inflict notable damage (such as posting controversial audio of the Rev. John Hagee that would prompt McCain to finally renounce the pastor).

Add in the increasingly aggressive online efforts of liberal think tanks such as the Center for American Progress, and it leaves the right at a severe disadvantage in the high-stakes business of distributing information about favored candidates and the opposition.

(…)

“It’s fair to say that the mainstream media…was increasingly either neutral or effectively browbeaten by the right,” says Josh Marshall, the founder and editor of Talking Points Memo.

The powerful presence of Limbaugh on the radio airwaves and the ascendance of Fox News on cable television energized liberals, Marshall says.

“People on the center-left, especially in the lead-up to the Iraq war and after the 2000 recount, realized that there was nothing on that side of equation,” he adds.

The result was the emergence of TPM and HuffPo, along with the opinion- and organizing-centered Daily Kos.

“Republicans haven’t developed a lot of that infrastructure because they haven’t been forced to,” says Michael Turk, a former ecampaign director at the RNC.

That’s the key right there.  Online conservatives don’t need to do right-oriented reporting because they have Fox News and the rest of the corporate media to do it for them.  Online progressives have to do their own reporting because that’s the only way those stories will ever get told.

Add comment July 24th, 2008 at 09:02pm Posted by Eli

The Bavarian Candidate

Oh noes!

This is pretty extraordinary. A candidate for the American Presidency is using flyers printed in German to turn people out for his campaign rally in Berlin on Thursday.

That sounds like sarcasm, but it’s not.  Ruffini is genuinely perturbed by this - or at least believes that it’s somehow an effective talking point against Obama:

I’m surprised at this lapse in judgment in an otherwise well-oiled and professional Obama campaign. The last time they printed up campaign paraphenalia in a foreign language, it didn’t work out so hot for them.

So, this isn’t just some sober, high-minded foreign policy speech, part of a foreign trip occurring under the auspices of his official Senate office. It is a campaign rally occuring on foreign soil. They are using the same tactics to turn out Germans to an event as they would to any rally right here in America.

Hey, did you know that German was the official language of THE NAZIS???  This is conclusive proof that Obama is just like Hitler.

(h/t Thers & Blue Texan)

Add comment July 23rd, 2008 at 05:58pm Posted by Eli

This Just In

Apparently journalistic standards apply to everyone except journalists.

Okay, I may be using the word a little loosely…

Add comment June 10th, 2008 at 10:50pm Posted by Eli

Thanks, I Needed That.

Pessimist that I am, I have a tendency to imagine the worst-case scenario, and then get myself all worked up and furious about my own dark imaginings.  Fortunately, Barry Crimmins was there to reel me in this time:

Lots of people voted for Hillary Clinton this year for lots of reasons. Few believed they were doing anything but expressing their preference concerning the Democratic Party’s 2008 presidential nomination. The vast majority of these people will vote for Barack Obama this fall. A deluded minority think that they remain in a cohesive unit with all of Senator Clinton’s other primary and caucus supporters and hold great sway by doing so.

Good luck to them. Primary season voters chose Clinton for myriad reasons, including:

[Insert myriad reasons here]

…and so on and so forth. The point is, these people have not been alloyed into some sort of political super element.

Today, Mrs. Clinton will formally encourage her supporters to join the Obama camp. This gesture is as much for her as it is for Senator Obama because she will be suggesting that people do what would have done anyway. Despite this, some Clinton dead-enders will continue to threaten to break with Democrats while talking as if they represent that mythical super-alloyed bloc of 18 million voters.

But most of those millions didn’t intend to hand their perpetual political proxy to Mrs. Clinton when they cast a ballot or walked to her side of a caucus. They simply weighed in on which candidate they most supported in the Democratic field. Prior to making their decision, had Mrs. Clinton’s supporters known anyone would suggest that their vote would represent an eternal splinter affiliation, it’s likely many would have chosen Mr. Obama instead.

Most Clinton voters chose her as their first preference in a campaign during which they plan to vote for anyone who will end an eight-year nightmare of Republican rule. A few tough months on the campaign trail hardly trumps eight years getting ground under the boot-heels of Bush, Cheney and their operatives. This nation is involved in protracted, foolhardy war. The economy is in petroleum-fueled flames. The environment is on the verge of epochal ruin. On the other hand, a few bumps and bruises were incurred on the campaign trail. Boo-hoo!

I think Crimmins is probably right - it’s just hard to remember sometimes, because the dead-enders are the ones doing all the shouting.  But being loud doesn’t make them representative.  And hopefully not influential either.

(h/t bdr)

Add comment June 9th, 2008 at 11:05pm Posted by Eli

Post-Primary Vocab

Two words to keep in mind:

Rival, n.

1. One who attempts to equal or surpass another, or who pursues the same object as another; a competitor.
2. One that equals or almost equals another in a particular respect.
3. Obsolete A companion or an associate in a particular duty.

Enemy, n.

1. One who feels hatred toward, intends injury to, or opposes the interests of another; a foe.
2. 1. A hostile power or force, such as a nation.
   2. A member or unit of such a force.
3. A group of foes or hostile forces.
4. Something destructive or injurious in its effects: “Art hath an enemy called Ignorance” (Ben Jonson).

Please try to remember the difference.

2 comments June 9th, 2008 at 07:36pm Posted by Eli

Revealing Right-Wing Word Choice Of The Day

From the latest crazy right-wing “_______watch” blog, Think Progress Watch:

Scott McClellan who is a snitch is also a pawn of the Left.

A snitch, eh?  Not a liar?  Interesting.

Shorter right-wing loons: “We liked Scottie better when he was lying.  Lies good, truth bad.”

(h/t Oliver Willis & Matt O)

Add comment June 2nd, 2008 at 07:02am Posted by Eli

Happy Memorial Day From Bob Geiger

I think I may have actually found someone who hates Dubya more than I do - and with good reason.

Dead Troops Remembered By President Who Had Them Killed

Yes, that’s a harsh headline for this piece.

But I’ll ask you to forgive me because, as a Veteran, there isn’t a day on the calendar that causes my hatred — and I do indeed mean hatred — of George W. Bush to bubble over the top more than Memorial Day.

“On Memorial Day, we honor the heroes who have laid down their lives in the cause of freedom, resolve that they will forever be remembered by a grateful Nation, and pray that our country may always prove worthy of the sacrifices they have made,” reads Bush’s official Memorial Day proclamation, issued by the White House on Thursday.

The Chickenhawk-in Chief says a lot of things that make this Vet’s blood boil but stuff like saying that he prays “…that our country may always prove worthy of the sacrifices they have made” is almost vomit inducing.

This statement comes from the same man who himself began dishonoring the sacrifices of all Veterans in such huge ways in March of 2003, when he invaded Iraq behind a veil of lies and deceit and started spilling barrels of military and civilian blood to start a war with a country that posed no threat whatsoever to our national security. These stirring words of remembrance come from an administration that began with a stolen election in 2000, which goes entirely against what I was taught way back when I was in the U.S. Navy, which was that part of the “way of life” we were protecting was symbolized by the ability of all of our citizens to have their votes counted.

“These courageous and selfless warriors have stepped forward to protect the Nation they love, fight for America’s highest ideals, and show millions that a future of liberty is possible,” continues Bush’s proclamation. “Americans are grateful to all those who have put on our Nation’s uniform and to their families, and we will always remember their service and sacrifice for our freedoms.”

The words Bush puts forth are true — it’s him being the one to say them that I find so sickening and personally offensive.

It is positively nauseating to have George W. Bush ever talk to us about “America’s highest ideals” when his administration has started a bloody war for no reason, imprisoned those suspected of being “terrorists” without trial or benefit of legal counsel, tortured prisoners in America’s name and done everything but grab the original U.S. Constitution from the National Archives and run it through a paper shredder.

I also don’t believe for one minute that the majority of the planet now holds our country in such extreme contempt because we’re right and they don’t understand our “highest ideals.” This Veteran will go to his grave believing that the years 2000 through 2008 were a dark time in our history when much of what I believed when I served in uniform was made invalid and debased.

According to the Defense Department, we have now lost 4,082 men and women in Bush’s war of choice in Iraq and we should not allow the man who sent them needlessly to their deaths to lead our nation today in mourning their loss. Make no mistake about it, George W. Bush is as responsible for the deaths of those men and women as if he himself had fired the bullet or set the IED that ended their lives.

(…)

The least Bush can do is stay in the White House today, keep his lying mouth shut and understand deep in his craven soul that the next day the Congress should declare a national holiday is January 20, 2009, the day he leaves office and his days of dishonoring our war dead are forever done.

The thing is, Dubya - and Republicans in general - know that the troops are iconic, and held in the highest esteem by Americans in general, and conservative Americans in particular.  So he gushes about their courage and poses with them and bathes in their reflected glory every chance he gets… but he doesn’t actually give a damn about them, or about any other American making under $1,000,000 a year.

What’s amazing to me is that this isn’t obvious to everybody.

1 comment May 26th, 2008 at 01:36pm Posted by Eli

Welcome To The 2008 Campaign Metanarrative

I think the #1 story - and deciding factor - of the 2008 campaign is going to be the efforts of McCain and downticket Republican candidates to distance themselves from the unpopular awfulness of the Bush/Cheney administration and position themselves as Reasonable Pragmatic Moderates.

Dick Morris thinks it’s doable, at least for Straight-Talking Maverick McCain:

McCain needs to not run as a traditional Republican, which is easy, since he’s not one. After all, how did an anti-torture, anti-tobacco, pro-campaign finance reform, anti-pork, pro-alternative-energy Republican ever emerge from the primaries alive?

I wasn’t aware that one did.

…McCain can win by running to the center.

His base will be there for him; indeed, it will turn out in massive numbers. Wright has become the honorary chairman of McCain’s get-out-the-vote efforts. It would be nice to think that race isn’t a factor in American politics anymore, but it is. The growing fear of Obama, who remains something of an unknown, will drag every last white Republican male off the golf course to vote for McCain, and he will need no further laying-on of hands from either evangelical Christians or fiscal conservatives.

So McCain doesn’t have to spend a lot of time wooing his base. What he does need to do is reduce the size of the synapse over which independents and fearful Democrats need to pass in order to back his candidacy. If the synapse is wide, they will stay with Obama. But if they perceive McCain as an acceptable alternative, there is every chance that they will cross over to back him in November.

(…)

Earlier in the race, Iraq might have been a deal-breaker. But a kinder, gentler war has emerged. U.S. combat deaths are way down, and the de facto U.S. alliance with Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province against al-Qaeda in Iraq seems to have dramatically improved the security situation. Still, most Americans don’t like the war, and McCain must deal with their opposition if he wants to win.

(…)

….Unlikely as it sounds, the soon-to-be former president needs to get out of the White House, reenter the political arena (much as it will pain him) and go around the country telling us two things: First, we are winning in Iraq; second, the economy is not as bad as most people think….

Right, because Dubya hasn’t been doing that at all for the past four years.

Bush can help McCain, but that doesn’t mean that McCain should support Bush. As Bush makes the case for himself, McCain must put distance between them. A lot of distance. Once, McCain ran against Bush. But since then, he has basked in the glow of Bush’s warm welcome back to the mainstream of the party. Now McCain needs to free himself of Bush’s spell, go out again into the cold and show the country the difference between his agenda and Bush’s.

Meanwhile, McCain should highlight his credentials as a reformer and a maverick to attract Democrats and independents who worry about Obama. Forget about the base. It will be there. Obama’s liberalism, his pro-tax agenda and his proposed weakening of the USA Patriot Act — as well as fears that he would appoint to office people such as Rev. Wright and William Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground — will all assure the full mobilization of the right. Immigration reform and McCain’s other acts of apostasy will be forgiven for the sake of beating Obama. So McCain needs to go after the swing voters:

[Laundry list of things that McCain will mostly never do, but might conceivably pretend to have intentions of doing]

(…)

Meanwhile, the right wing will carry the attack against Obama. McCain is not a mudslinging politician by nature, but he doesn’t need to be. The collected quotes of Rev. Wright will be a bestseller this summer. Obama once had to prove to us that he was not a Muslim; now he must convince us that he never really went to church much….

Wow, Dick really has put all his eggs into the racism/Reverend Wright basket, hasn’t he?  And he obviously wants us to believe that McCain really is as honorable and independent as he pretends to be.

Frank Rich doesn’t think it’ll work:

The G.O.P.’s best hope would be for both the president and Dick Cheney to lock themselves in a closet until the morning after Election Day.

Republicans finally recognized the gravity of their situation three days after Jenna Bush took her vows in Crawford. As Hillary Clinton romped in West Virginia, voters in Mississippi elected a Democrat [by eight points] in a Congressional district that went for Bush-Cheney by 25 percentage points just four years ago. It’s the third “safe” Republican House seat to fall in a special election since March.

(…)

The vice president’s visit was last Monday, the centerpiece of a get-out-the-vote rally in DeSoto County, a G.O.P. stronghold. “We’ll put our shoulders to the wheel for John McCain,” the vice president promised as he bestowed his benediction on Mr. Davis. Well, he got out the vote all right. In the election results the next day, the Childers total in DeSoto County increased 142 percent, while the Davis count went up only 47 percent.

(…)

The McCain campaign is hoping that… showy, if tardy, departures from Bush-Cheney doctrine will constitute a galaxy of Sister Souljah moments, each with headlines reading “McCain Breaks With Bush on…” and the usual knee-jerk press references to Mr. McCain as a “maverick.” Enough of these, you see, and those much-needed independent voters might be flimflammed into believing that the G.O.P. candidate bears no responsibility for the administration’s toxically unpopular policies.

(…)

But are independents suckers? They’d have to be to fall for the pitch that Mr. McCain is an apostate in his own party in 2008. He has been an outspoken Bush defender since helping him sell the Iraq war in 2002 and barnstorming for him in 2004. Despite Mr. McCain’s campaign claims to the contrary, he never publicly called for the firing of Donald Rumsfeld. He is still one of the president’s most stalwart supporters in Congress, even signing on to the president’s wildly unpopular veto of an expansion of children’s health insurance.

(…)

Hard as it is for Mr. McCain to run from the Bush policies he supports, it will be far harder to escape from Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney themselves. When Mr. McCain accepted Mr. Bush’s endorsement at the White House in March, he referred three times to the president’s “busy schedule,” as if wishing aloud that the lame-duck incumbent would have no time to appear at, say, get-out-the-vote rallies. Alas, Mr. Bush and company are not going gently into retirement.

Just look at Mr. Rove. Some Democrats are outraged that he is now employed as a pundit by Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal as well as Fox News. Instead of complaining, they should be thrilled that Mr. Rove keeps inviting Republican complacency by constantly locating silver linings in the party’s bad news. His ubiquitous TV presence as a thinly veiled McCain surrogate has the added virtue of wrapping the Republican ticket in a daily and suffocating Bush bearhug, since Mr. Rove is far more synonymous with his former boss than Mr. Obama is with his former pastor.

And what of the loyal base that Dick Morris doesn’t think the Republicans have to worry about?  Check out the comments on this NRCC blog post where Tom Cole hypes the rollout of a kinder, gentler Republican Party.  They uniformly bemoan the sellout big-government liberalism and vow to stop contributing and stay home on Election Day.

So this is the dilemma that McCain and the Republicans face: How do they thread the needle between pretending that they have absolutely nothing in common with Dubya, nope, never heard of him, and pissing off the die-hard conservative base that is completely unaccustomed to not being pandered to? Even with the corporate media’s unstinting assistance, I don’t think it can be done - not if American voters still have functioning memories.

I’m looking forward to watching the Republicans alienate both the independents and the base for a truly epic implosion.  And if Bob Barr really does end up running to siphon off the crazy base vote, McCain will have absolutely zero chance.

(h/t dakine, Mike Stark, & Julia)

2 comments May 18th, 2008 at 02:13pm Posted by Eli

MSNBC Misses The Point

Well, this is certainly an interesting take on the reaction to Wednesday’s debate:

Curious of what the bitterness and anger could look like if Obama is somehow denied the Democratic nomination? Check out the reaction from the ObamaNation over Wednesday’s debate. To put it simply, ABC was under siege yesterday. This may only be a taste of how the ObamaNation would react to a Clinton nomination. If MoveOn is motivated to do a petition campaign against the media over a debate, imagine what Clinton delegates and undecided superdelegates would face this summer if there is doubt. And as the Politico’s Ben Smith pointed out yesterday, it’s also what the GOP would face in the general election, especially if Obama is nominee. The level of devotion among Obama’s supporters rivals what Bush had with his flock in 2004. The left-wing blogosphere is MUCH more powerful than what you see on the right this cycle and it reminds us of the advantage Bush had in ‘04. While we all know about that so-called right-wing voice machine, don’t forget that there is now a left-wing noise machine (on the internet) as well. And it has found its voice.

So everyone who complained about the terrible questions and moderation was only upset because they were Obama loyalists?  Really?

MSNBC has completely missed the point.  This was exasperated backlash against yet still more useless timewasting right-wing gotcha questions instead of substantive ones.

But considering the behavior of MSNBC’s own debate moderators, I can understand why they might want to miss that particular point, and make this a story about Those Mindless Fanatical Obama Cultists instead.

(h/t Bill Scher)

Add comment April 18th, 2008 at 09:15pm Posted by Eli

The Occupation Of Northern Aggression

I guess Pat Buchanan isn’t the only crazy one:

Earlier this week, I mentioned that the conservative blog RedState is trying to pressure the traditional media to treat critiques of John McCain’s embrace of a 100-year occupation of Iraq as lies and distortion.

Today, RedState sent an email alert to readers to further push the point … making a, shall we say, novel argument (emphasis added):

Clearly McCain was talking about a peace time standing presence … Someone should ask the Democrats if they think we’re still at war with the confederacy, the Germans, and the Japanese given all the standing American armies in the South, Germany, and Japan.

As I said in my previous post, “Claiming a 100-year occupation in Iraq would be like Germany or Korea reveals an immense lack of foreign policy knowledge, judgment and vision. The situations and political dynamics have absolutely no similarity.” (For more on that point, check out Agence France Presse, Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy, Talking Points Memo, Booman Tribune, The Newshoggers and Juan Cole.)

But hey, at least Germany and Japan are like Iraq in that they are other countries.

I can’t believe I am wasting 15 seconds of my life to type this, but having military bases in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina does not constitute a permanent occupation. Does RedState really believe that 140 years after the Civil War, American troops have a “peace time standing presence” in the American south?

On the other hand, the government still hasn’t withdrawn those troops after all those years - so what are they afraid of?

Add comment April 9th, 2008 at 08:57pm Posted by Eli

The Age Of Bullshit

Bonddad and Barry Ritholtz are disturbed by the “Post-Fact World” we are all now living in… as am I. Barry first:

Many of the stated economic gains have been a false ghost. Whether it was overstated job creation (NFP), understated inflation (CPI) or “inflated” growth (GDP), a shocking amount of the debate about the economic expansion has been primarily spin.

That’s what attracted me to this book by Farhad Manjoo: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society. That such a book is even necessary boggles the mind. Consider the myriads of benefits and standards of living improvements we have seen from the reality-based community — and by that, I mean Scientists (Physicists, Biologists, Medical Doctors) and Engineers (Technology, materials and mechanical)….

…Why have we as a nation been increasingly reluctant to confront objective reality? What is it about the present social mood, political leadership, and economic environment that has so totally led us to a world of denial? Up is down, black is white, good is bad — its all very Orwellian.

(…)

There were a parade of syncophants and cheerleaders who, despite knowing better, continued to cheerlead punk data. These pundits, politicos and pinheads are now confronting the ugly reality they can no longer ignore. Consider the progression the motley crew of fools and liars went through: First they denied what was happening, then we got the whole contained thingie, then they blamed da Bears. Now, they have unwittingly embraced Marx, and have successfully pled for the central planners to rescue them from their own stupidity.

~~~

Here’s my question: Are we stuck with these fantasists? Has Truthiness replaced Truth? Are we going to be saddled forever with these damaging, hallucinatory hacks?

And Bonddad’s response, after pointing out that the national debt is huge (>$9 Trillion) and growing, and jobs and wages… aren’t, and conjecturing that this is due to not seven, but twenty-seven years of conservative economic policies:

The Right Wing Noise Machine is well aware of these facts. They can read numbers just like us. Larry Kudlow (and other Republican economists) knows where the St. Louis Federal Reserve’s website is. But that doesn’t matter. They can’t believe that their wonderful policies actually created the current problems. So they engage in spin rather than analysis.

Compounding this problem is the Republican dominance of the AM radio dial. I live in Houston Texas and all be have on AM radio is Republican talk radio all day long. All day long. Once those folks get on theme, they all repeat it ad infinitum until it becomes fact. I swear to God, if Rush Limbaugh said “the sky is purple today” within four days there would be a discussion on all the Republican talk radio shows about how the Democrats caused the sky to turn purple.

The point I’m getting to is the right wing noise machine has a lock on certain types of “information” distribution. And they use it to maximum advantage. They have dumbed down the conversation in multiple ways and done incredible harm to this country’s political dialogue.

And I have no idea how to stop it.

See, the way to learn and grow from mistakes is to look at the problem and try to figure out where you went wrong so you can get it right next time. The conservative approach, however, is to either deny that there’s a problem (consider Bush and other conservatives assuring us that the economy is fundamentally sound and Iraq is going great), to explain why the problem isn’t their fault (”Sure, I supported the war, but I thought Bush was a competent, moral, truthful guy!  There was absolutely no evidence to the contrary!”), or possibly even both at the same time.

Which, of course, is a guaranteed recipe for repeating the same mistakes over and over again, because, well, they’re not actually mistakes.  And certainly not avoidable ones.

Like Bonddad, I don’t know how to get truth heard over spin, truthiness, and outright lies.  The blogs and alternative media have a very small voice compared to the cable and network news, the major newspapers, and - guh - talk radio.  We’re talking and shouting as best we can, but until we get some mainstream megaphones of our own it’s like we’re at a dance party with laryngitis.

1 comment March 24th, 2008 at 09:17pm Posted by Eli

Reassurance From Kung Fu Monkey

For those of us who were starting to feel a twinge of concern:

Attention, Fellow White People:

There seems to be some cultural panic initiated by the recent Rev. Wright controversy. One e-mail sent to us recently asked :“I don’t understand! We let between two to three hundred black people become incredibly rich in professional sports and pop music! Why are some of them still so angry?!”

We sympathize with your confusion, but wish to clarify –

If Senator Obama becomes President, we will still run everything.

Everything.

Please remain calm and return to your assigned duties. Thank you.

Phew! That’s a relief! I was pretty worried for a while there.

3 comments March 23rd, 2008 at 09:35pm Posted by Eli

Rupert Murdoch’s Hate Sites

Hey, remember when Bill O’Reilly called Daily Kos a hate site, and said it was the KKK(!)? Like, repeatedly? Well, um, about that…

[Rupert] Murdoch owns FOX, for whom O’Reilly works. Murdoch also owns MySpace.com. Therein lies the problem. An astute observer pointed us to some of the users of Mr. Murdoch’s site. There are numerous users of MySpace.com in states that sponsor terrorism, like Iran, Syria and Sudan. That alone should warrant intervention from O’Reilly using his own standards for doing business with terrorist nations. But, that’s not the biggest problem. It’s the Web sites honoring terrorist organizations that give us pause:

There is the self-described “Offical Hezbollah MySpace” page.

There’s a page for Hamas…

There’s also a Death to Israel” site.

There are many other similar sites on MySpace, like this one that honors Ayatollah Khomeini and contains a number of other troubling-looking videos….

O’Reilly has a very strict standard for accountability from others, even when they’re not really responsible for the hate that may appear on their Web sites. Let’s see if Bill O’Reilly and FOX News hold Murdoch’s MySpace to that same standard of accountability.

Too much of a reach? Okay, how about some filth from Fox News itself:

The Factor has turned their attention away from attacking Daily Kos over and over again so that Bill O’Reilly could embark on a sick crusade against the Huffington Post over anonymous comments posted on Arianna’s blog. BillO had his team of producers harassing her at the Take Back America conference yesterday before she went on a panel. You know, coming after her, yelling, “why do you allow these to appear on the HuffPo?” Well, with billions of dollars at NewsCorp’s disposal, what’s Ruppert Murdoch’s excuse for these kind of posts to find their home on FOX, Bill? From this post:

Comment by THayne843

March 19th, 2008 at 5:57 pm

Wow! Jan L. nailed it right on the head! Reparations? I’m waiting for my thank you! You blacks would be naked and eating bugs if it weren’t for white people. Name ONE successful society started by blacks. Any sign of civilization in Africa was started by Europeans. Any city in America with predominately black leaders is a cesspool. Look at New Orleans, Philadelphia, D.C., Detroit�

Comment by David Tucker
March 19th, 2008 at 5:47 pm

I am sooo tired of hearing how the black man has been mistreated since he was shipped over here to help build America! All I hear is them groveling over being victims. They are the ones making themselves the victims with their attitude that whites owe them something for bringing their ancestors to the best country that has ever existed. All my life I have only witnessed the blacks with their hands out to the government expecting it to give them everything they want and shouting racist if they don’t get it! No wonder most whites have the opinion that blacks are worthless, lazy sloths who know only how to make more babies and steal everything not nailed down. Barak Lenin Obama, the big eared Muslim, is only fostering this “wo is me” attitude with his obvious prejudices. I, for one, like my white race over that of any other, so does that make me a racist? I don’t thing so. The black man will not break free from his self-imposed shackles until he picks himself up, dusts himself off and begins to provide for himself just like every other race has done who came to this country. Before the blacks can do this, however, they have to rid themselves of the likes of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Farakan, and the good reverend Wright.

Pretty insane comments. H/t to Mike who alerted me to this and as he pointed out from FOX’s rules:

please note that all comments are moderated and therefore may not appear immediately after submission.

So these were deemed acceptable? Most liberal bloggers with open comments try their best to weed out horrible anonymous comments, but we miss some. If we had millions of dollars at our fingertips to hire a huge staff to make sure outrageous stuff never appeared then they probably wouldn’t. Now that FOX News is sanctioning them, I guess the media will consider it a non-issue. What say you, BillO?

Jebus. That sure looks like “hate site” material to me. But the Fox mods don’t seem to mind. Worth noting the “may not appear immediately after submission,” which suggests that their mods have to actually release comments before they appear. So did someone at Fox News actually read those two comments above and said, “Okay, yeah, this totally meets Fox News’ exacting standards of discourse”? Or is it more of a filtered deal, where only comments containing certain key words go to the moderation queue?

Even so, shouldn’t someone have read those comments at some point? Anyone have any stories of liberal comments being instantly pulled by Fox mods? If they’re hypervigilant against liberals and laissez-faire towards racists, that makes the “hate site” case against Fox a slam-dunk.

Add comment March 20th, 2008 at 08:07pm Posted by Eli

Not Just For Hippies Anymore

Yet another blogger bursts onto the scene:

It was a month or so before the start of spring training, and Phil Hughes had no weekend plans. Hughes is 21 and single, a Californian living in Tampa, and he needed some advice.

“So tomorrow I have nothing going on and have the option of either a monster truck event at Raymond James Stadium, or a George Strait concert at the St. Pete Times Forum,” Hughes asked readers of his new blog on Jan. 18.

“I’m not really a fan of either, but I wanna get out of the house and am going more for the experience than anything. So what will it be? The Gravedigger crushing a few 1990 Ford Tempo’s or ‘All my Ex’s live in Texas?’ ”

Hughes had just joined the online community that week, yet 61 fans posted comments with suggestions. Hughes, a Yankees right-hander, went to the concert and said he had fun.

(…)

Hughes has seen a lot on his Web site, philhughes.wordpress.com, since starting it Jan. 16. Through Monday afternoon, the site had attracted more than 340,000 visitors from six continents.

Hughes has posted entries on 27 of the first 41 days, offering contests, chats, song lists and the occasional cellphone picture — an alligator on a golf course, Ian Kennedy’s changeup grip, buckets of fan mail in the clubhouse.

There are also illuminating and inoffensive slices of a young player’s life. On Jan. 31, Hughes admitted, “I can’t get enough Food Network!” After the Super Bowl, he wrote, “That catch by Tyree in the 4th quarter had my house shaking.” On Feb. 17, he let a teammate have a turn: “Jeff Marquez says hi. He wanted me to post that.”

(…)

As a homegrown Yankee with talent, Hughes was bound to be popular. But his blog has forged an uncommon connection. A young medium has further endeared a young player to the fans.

“I think his blog is a success because it makes Hughes more than a number or a grouping of statistics, it makes him not only human, but approachable,” Alex Belth, who has run the blog Bronx Banter since 2002, wrote in an e-mail message. “It makes him seem not so very different from his readers, no small deal in an era when fans feel the distance between themselves and the players more than ever.”

(…)

“Fans get enough baseball information from you guys; that’s your job,” Hughes said, referring to the news media. “I don’t try to do any of that. I want them to feel they have a connection with me. That’s kind of the main idea.

“To me, baseball players always seemed so larger than life. I guess one of the points I’m trying to make is that it’s not really that way. You can idolize players, but you realize they’re just guys. That’s kind of what I want to get across. I’m not any better than anybody else. I just happen to have this ability that not many other people have.”

Good for Hughes. I hope he makes it big, and that he keeps blogging.

Add comment February 26th, 2008 at 07:54am Posted by Eli

My Tasteless Analogy Of The Day

James Boyce makes The Swiftboating sound an awful lot like 9/11:

Democrats remain obsessed with stopping ’swiftboating’ and ending the smears. They are lining up to fight the last war in droves, no one will get swiftboated this time, they cry.

Well, that part is right, no one will get swiftboated because the Republicans aren’t going to use the same tactic twice. Yes, swiftboating is a tactic not a strategy.

(…)

The strategy is to use the money of extremely wealthy Republicans, T. Boone Pickens, Bob Perry, men who invest in projects created by right wing consultants and strategists. Invest I say because the payout that they receive from winning the election is a tremendous return on investment….

The strategy then is to use the money to attack and destroy and ridicule the Democratic opposition in a race. With the Swift Boat Veterans, it was attacking John Kerry’s military record. With Democrats last cycle and the Economic Freedom Fund, funded with $5,000,000 of Bob Perry’s money, it was to go off the “Democrats will raise taxes” mantra.

The strategy is to lie and diminish and attack Democrats, always has been, always will be. Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, all greatly impacted by this strategy, none swiftboated.

Boyce then lists numerous reasons why the swiftboating was unique to Kerry (I would think the fact that neither Hillary or Obama ever served on a swiftboat would be sufficient, really), of which I found this one particularly interesting:

The failure of John Kerry to respond, personally and with full force.

Politicians and their advisors have learned this lesson, perhaps too well. Now, Democrats overreact and fight back too hard and too fast ironically.

(…)

It will never happen again.

And just as Democrats in 2004 poured money into Florida only to lose Ohio as well, so now, we seem obsess