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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

My Pipple!

They make me so proud:

Among the most high-profile Jews in Congress, Lieberman is viewed far more unfavorably than the presumptive Democratic nominee, according to a new poll. Only 37 percent of Jews view the Connecticut Independent in a favorable light compared to 48 percent who have a negative perception. As for Obama, 60 percent of Jews view him favorably while 34 percent view him unfavorably.

The findings were released as part of a recent survey of American Jews by the new progressive pro-Israel group J Street. They seem to upturn some of this year’s conventional political wisdom.

Obama, who is set to travel to Israel this week, is often described in the press as facing significant obstacles to winning Jewish support, in part because of false claims that he is a Muslim. Lieberman, meanwhile, is regularly quoted disparaging Obama’s credentials on topics considered dear to the Jewish voter’s heart: toughness on Iran and support for the Jewish state. Asked recently whether he should be questioning Obama’s commitment to Israel, the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee responded, “why wouldn’t I do that?”

Lieberman does score better among the 900 Jewish voters polled than other major political and religious figures. President Bush is viewed unfavorably by 74 percent of Jews, compared to 22 percent who see him in a positive light. McCain, meanwhile, is viewed favorably by just 34 percent of Jews, while 57 said they had a negative perception….

(…)

…As Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent noted in a review of the J Street poll, Jews are “liberal as hell.”

“Seventy-four percent of us view Bush unfavorably and 83 percent of us disapprove of his job performance,” Ackerman wrote. “While 76 percent of the country as a whole says the U.S. is on the wrong track, an astonishing 90 percent of American Jews say the same. Only 21 percent of us approve of the Iraq war and only 29 percent think Bush is good for Israel, and those are clearly the shmucks that kissed ass in Hebrew school and snitched when the rest of us used the synagogue phone booth and cloakroom to make out.”

Now I’m all verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves. Here’s a topic: Joe Lieberman is neither moderate nor a Democrat. Discuss.

Joe Lieberman does not speak for me.

Add comment July 22nd, 2008 at 11:33am Posted by Eli

Barack Obama, Statesman

I like what Pelosi and Reid are doing here:

Pelosi:

President Bush has long maintained that the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq should be governed by the situation in Iraq. It is now clear that the situation in Iraq is that Prime Minister al-Maliki and other Iraqi leaders want the withdrawal of our combat forces to be completed within a 16-month period, as recommended by Senator Obama.

Reid:

As Senator Obama visits Iraq to listen to our troops and commanders and meet with Iraqi leaders, it is becoming clear that America, Iraq and the world are coalescing around Senator Obama’s plan to end the war.

This weekend, Prime Minister Al-Maliki spoke in favor of the Obama plan. Today, despite pressure from the White House, Iraqi government officials publicly reiterated their support.

They are establishing the idea that Barack Obama is the man with the plan to get us out of Iraq, and that even the Iraqis are on board with it.  This will be a very effective message in November, especially when contrasted with McCain’s “We’ll stay in Iraq a hundred years even if the Iraqis clearly don’t want us there.”

Add comment July 22nd, 2008 at 08:01am Posted by Eli

They Write Letters

Another frothing-at-the-mouth bleeding-heart liberal heard from on Obama’s FISA cave and the media’s coverage of it:

Re “Obama Supporters on the Far Left Cry Foul” (news article, July 13):

I resent the implication in your article that those of us unhappy with Senator Barack Obama’s vote on wiretapping are a bunch of left-wingnuts.

Support of our Constitution is not a radical position, and it is troubling that the media, including The New York Times, have lately been characterizing such support as such.

I was an enthusiastic Obama supporter, but now after his vote to nullify the Fourth Amendment, I am understandably less so. But I am no pinko.

In fact, I consider myself somewhat of a conservative in the former sense of the world. I am opposed to welfare, government bailouts and affirmative action. I’m wary of the military-industrial complex, but I support a strong military. I like the Constitution a lot, and believe in balanced budgets, living within our means and small government, most particularly the kind that doesn’t illegally spy on its citizens.

If these beliefs are “far left,” then I’m George Orwell.

Damn hippies.

2 comments July 20th, 2008 at 07:18pm Posted by Eli

Stupid Or Evil?

It’s always so hard to tell with Republicans:

It is becoming increasingly clear that it is really one or the other; either John McCain is addled and confused in the face of trying to keep up with all that he must as a candidate for the most powerful position in the world, or he is a dishonorable cad that will blithely pass out confidential information and place important people’s lives in danger to serve his own vain powerlust.

The last time there was an insinuation made that McCain was confused and couldn’t keep things straight, there was much consternation and soiling of undergarments by the McCain camp and across the board covering of his butt by the mainstream media. (See here and here). But these are not occasional incidents with McCain. Sunni or Shia? Sudan or Somalia? He is for immigration reform or against it? Does Czeckloslavakia still exist or not (Um, no Senator, it ceased existence over 15 years ago, and you’ve been there since then more than once). And then there is this painful example of cognitive dysfunction.

Yesterday John McCain went all in with his chips of mental incompetence. From Reuters:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain commented on Friday on the unannounced timing of a high-security trip by Barack Obama to Iraq, saying he believed his Democratic rival was going this weekend.
…
“I believe that either today or tomorrow — and I’m not privy to his schedule — Sen. Obama will be landing in Iraq with some other senators” who make up a congressional delegation, McCain said at a Republican fund-raiser.

John McCain must have a far different definition of “high security” and “Senatorial courtesy” than has been known and understood throughout the history of this country. Apparently McCain not only doesn’t care about Obama’s safety, but has a similar disregard for the health and well being for the other fellow Congressional members with Obama on the trip, their staffers and the secret service personnel that have to protect all of them. As Teddy Partridge noted, this isn’t quite on the level of outing a covert CIA spy, but it is sure in the ballpark. For a comparison, consider how when Bush travels to Iraq they often don’t even tell the press, much less publicize the specific dates he will be going; pretty much the same for even lesser Bush Administration officials. McCain’s trips are kept secret as to most details for security reasons.

(…)

Irrespective of McCain’s motivation for callously leaking the details of Obama’s trip into the war zone, or the leaking source of his information, it was a foolish, ignorant and pathetically selfish act. Is McCain such an addled septuagenarian that he can’t help but make these fundamental errors? Does McCain not have the mental faculties remaining after all these years to keep even the most basic things straight? Perhaps he is just no longer up to the task.

Because it is either that or he is such a dishonorable vindictive cad that he did this intentionally. Which one is it Senator McCain, the citizens of this country deserve an answer once and for all. Either way, he is patently unfit for the job he is applying for, President of the United States.

You know, it could always be both…

Add comment July 19th, 2008 at 07:53pm Posted by Eli

More Willful Stupidity

Okay, this is really complicated, so please try to follow along with me here:

Saying that McCain’s military service does not qualify him for the presidency is not the same as saying that it disqualifies him from the presidency.  Nor is it the same as saying that his military service is bogus in any way.

Also, as McCain Source points out, McCain himself agrees with Clark.

But no, saying that getting shot down and taken prisoner and tortured for five years doesn’t qualify you to be president is the same as saying that Kerry lied about his service in Vietnam and shot himself to get a Purple Heart.  Awesome.

Add comment July 1st, 2008 at 08:59am Posted by Eli

Reality-Proof Democrats

So I’m reading Chris Dodd’s brilliant statement about why the FISA “compromise” is unacceptable, and how it’s just one of the many symptoms of the Bush administration’s fundamental lawlessness, and I’m having this depressing thought:

Dodd makes a very eloquent, comprehensive, and compelling argument against the FISA bill, and… no-one cares.  I doubt that he convinced even one Democratic senator to join the paltry 15 who voted against cloture, and obviously no Republicans.  The merits of Dodd’s arguments were simply irrelevant in the face of political calculation, party loyalty, and corporate money.  There was literally nothing that he could have said to sway any of them.

And that’s what saddens me: This sense that the merits don’t matter, because hardly anyone in Congress is making decisions based on them.  Dodd is pouring his heart out, and his esteemed colleagues are looking at their watches or playing with their Blackberries, saying, “Yeah, that’s great, Chris - can we get on with servicing our corporate bosses now?”

Most dispiriting of all, that group includes our presidential nominee, who couldn’t be bothered to vote, and who has already said that he will vote for the “compromise” whether immunity has been stripped from it or not (he says he’ll work to strip it, but there’s no way he can succeed).  I don’t know whether Obama’s feeling insecure about his national security credentials as compared to McCain’s, or if he’s beholden to telecom contributions, or if he simply doesn’t want Nominee Obama to mess up President Obama’s chances at extraordinary powers, but it doesn’t really matter.  None of those reasons is an excuse for Obama’s pathetic failure to lead on something this important.

And I’m not going to give one whit of credit to anyone who voted for cloture and then votes against the bill so they can grandstand about how awful it is.  “This bill is a grave threat to our constitutional liberties and the rule of law… but I felt that it deserved an up-or-down vote” is spectacularly bad messaging.

I’m going to be pissed and resentful about this for months, and refuse to give time or money to the Obama campaign.  Way to depress your base in a presidential election year, geniuses.

1 comment June 25th, 2008 at 10:32pm Posted by Eli

The More Things Change…

Over three years ago, I was urging Democrats to lay some groundwork to ensure that Republicans couldn’t turn a terrorist attack or other disaster (this was several months before Katrina) into an undeserved political windfall:

Another thing that the Democrats must keep in mind is the very high probability that Republican policies will lead to a financial or terrorist-inflicted disaster. An electoral scandal and constitutional crisis is also a possibility: I believe there are limits to just how large a margin election “gaming” and fraud can cover up without leaving behind a gun too smoky for the media to ignore. What happens if that threshold is exceeded, at least to the point where the election outcome is severely in doubt? What mechanisms do we have for resolving such a situation?

In theory, Democrats should be able to capitalize on any of these negative outcomes, as they can all be laid clearly at the doorstep of the Republicans. In reality, they would be pilloried by the Republicans and the media for opportunistically “politicizing” a national tragedy.

Therefore, what I’m advocating is that the Democrats get out in front and periodically raise a big stink (and for the love of God, don’t capitulate!) about the various ways that the 100% Republican-controlled government has made us vulnerable…

(…)

[M]y point is that the Democrats need to be vocal about these issues in advance, so that everyone knows where they stand before the unthinkable occurs. It’s very easy to denounce terrorist attacks or stock market crashes after they happen, and both sides of the aisle will be doing exactly that. But the Democrats will be on the record as having warned of disaster, while the Republicans will be on record as steamrolling and shouting them down. This will give the Democrats standing and credibility to point the finger of blame after the fact.

(…)

Am I rooting for catastrophe? Of course not. I think it is highly probable, if not inevitable, but I desperately hope to be proven wrong.

What I am rooting for is that the Democrats will not let the Republicans get away with saying, “Well, these things happen, no-one could have seen it coming, we must all pull together now and do whatever we say,” as they did after 9/11. They must be held accountable for their willful refusal to protect America from harm.

Well, here we are three years later, and (as I predicted in that same post), the Democrats haven’t really gotten that message across, much to RJ Eskow’s dismay (and mine):

I’ve been privately warning Democrats for some time that Obama and the party need emergency preparedness plans. Major events between now and November could change the course of the election - especially a U.S. strike on Iran, or a terror attack against Americans at home or abroad.

We’re not seeing any signs of such plans. Not that we should -except that one outcome would be to explain now why Americans are much less safe as the result of GOP policies.

If it seems crass to weigh political considerations in the face of war or tragedy, remember that the future safety of civilians here and elsewhere will be greatly affected by this election. And they - the Republicans - are certainly thinking politically. When McCain’s chief political advisor, lobbyist Charlie Black, said yesterday that a terror attack “would be a big advantage for him, his biggest mistake was excessive honesty. That’s one of the few imaginable scenarios that could lead to a McCain victory in November.

(…)

So what should Obama and the Democrats be doing about these two possibilities? Some of their planning should be invisible - for the speeches that Obama might gave, the surrogates (military and otherwise) that would appear on Democrats’ behalf. But we should be seeing some groundwork being laid now, and we’re not.  So, what should be happening?

[Main bullet points only - check out Eskow's post for the meat behind them]

Guanatanamo and Abu Ghraib should be described as Bush-created “terrorist factories.”

Democrats should explain that torture is un-American, that it breeds terrorists — and that it doesn’t help catch bad guys.

If we surrender our freedoms, the terrorists win.

…Democrats owe it to themselves - and more importantly, to the nation - to start telling the real story immediately. There should be no equivocation and no calculation.

Their motto should be: Hope for the best, plan for the worst, and do what’s right in the meantime.

I still believe that something terrible is going to happen, that the Republicans’ criminal mismanagement of, well, everything, has made it inevitable.  Indeed, some pretty terrible things have already happened, like Katrina and the subprime meltdown.  But when the next terrible thing happens, if Democrats haven’t already shown (or, better yet, tried to fix) how the Republicans have left us vulnerable, they will be unable to fight off the Republicans’ this-is-why-you-need-a-strong-daddy narrative.

(h/t Elliott)

Add comment June 23rd, 2008 at 09:56pm Posted by Eli

Don’t Hold Your Breath, Russ.

I love Russ Feingold.  He’s one of the few congresscritters out there that I have any faith in to consistently do the right thing, and he’s not afraid to call out politicians of either party when they thumb their noses at the Constitution.  Alas, I don’t think he’s going to get much satisfaction here:

Many Americans rightly expect that the new president will abide by the law. But we can’t take that for granted. Americans deserve a guarantee from the next president that the abuses we’ve witnessed over the past eight years won’t happen again. The 44th president of the United States, whoever he is, must renounce the Bush administration’s abuses of executive power and make clear that his administration will uphold the rule of law.

It’s possible that they might say it, but there doesn’t seem to be much evidence that either McCain or Obama will mean it.  McCain has consistently supported the Bush administration’s stance on both carte blanche wiretapping and the abolition of habeas corpus, while Obama just came out in favor of the latest FISA “compromise” which gives the telecoms retroactive immunity if they can jump over a matchbox, offering only a vague assurance that he will “work” to remove it from the Senate version.

It appears that President Bush has pulled off the unthinkable: By portraying the Constitution as the terrorist’s best friend, he has turned it into just as much of an enemy as al Qaeda - for both parties.  I guess the Constitution hates us for our freedoms.

Add comment June 22nd, 2008 at 12:32pm Posted by Eli

Obama Cleaning Up In The All-Important Novelty Cola Demographic

Fortunately for Obama, it appears that novelty cola drinkers don’t care about FISA either.

They really turn out in droves, too.

Add comment June 20th, 2008 at 07:01am Posted by Eli

Where’s Waldobama?

I’ll just link to Glennzilla’s post, since all the relevant info is there.  Basically, the Democratic “compromise” FISA bill is every bit as bad as we thought it would be, and probably even worse.  The “judicial review” over telecom complicity basically amounts to, “Did the Bush administration tell you it was legal?”  No determination of whether it actually was.

This is like those slasher movies (think Halloween and Friday The 13th) where every time it looks like the baddie is dead, he keeps coming back to life again and again again.  Only in this horror movie, the monster keeps coming back to life because the people who are supposed to be the good guys keep giving him CPR.

Glenn has the best argument yet that the “compromise” is, as Russ Feingold calls it, actually a capitulation:

And isn’t it so odd how this “compromise” — just like the Military Commissions Act, the Protect America Act and all the other great “compromises” from the Bush era which precede this one — is producing extreme indignation only from those who believe in civil liberties and the rule of law, while GOP Bush followers seem perfectly content and happy with it? I wonder if that suggests that what the Democratic leadership is supporting isn’t really a “compromise” at all.

Yes, funny how whenever the Democrats enter into a bipartisan “compromise,” that conservatives are pleased and progressives are pissed.  Perhaps conservatives just have a milder, more accommodating temperament than we do, and aren’t as accustomed to always getting their way…

But here is the $500 million question: Where’s Obama?  Isn’t he the standard-bearer and de facto leader of the Democratic party now?  Shouldn’t he have something to say about the FISA compromise?  Does he really expect anyone to buy his lame excuse that he hasn’t had a chance to read the whole thing yet?

The fact that the Democratic leadership is trying to push this abomination through with only 24 hours for review is a disgrace in itself, but it didn’t take individual liberal bloggers very much reading time to spot the problems with the bill… but I digress.

My fear is that this may be the dark side of the strong-on-national-security pitch that Wes Clark was making on Obama’s behalf - that this is Obama’s way of showing that he’s not afraid to… give telecoms immunity and let Dubya spy on people whenever he feels like it in order to fight terrorism effectively.

Either that, or he’s another corporate sellout, hiding behind a mask of changiness while doing the telecoms’ bidding.

If Obama has a good reason for playing Moody Prince Hamlet and being unable to make up his mind or lead on this, I would sure love to hear it.

Also, oh-by-the-way, Nancy Pelosi continues to be completely worthless.

4 comments June 19th, 2008 at 09:29pm Posted by Eli

Raise Your Hand If You’re Surprised…

…That Americans find it easier to relate to Michelle Obama than to a beauty queen beer heiress known for stealing drugs and recipes.

Yeah, I know - shocking, isn’t it?  I think all the bad blood the Republicans stirred up against Theresa Heinz Kerry is boomeranging back on them.

1 comment June 19th, 2008 at 11:21am Posted by Eli

Go Wes, Young Man?

Wes Clark shreds McCain’s credibility on national security.

I gotta say, the more I think about it, the more I like Wes Clark for Obama’s running mate, or at least a high-profile surrogate for national security.  McCain is using his service and his uniform to enhance his credibility on Iraq, Iran, and foreign policy/national security in general, but the reality is that he doesn’t have any better understanding of it than Dubya.  As Clark says, McCain’s approach is simply “force, force, and more force” - and we’ve seen how well that’s worked in Iraq.

Putting Clark on the ticket, or at least on the Obama campaign, reminds me of the great scene in Annie Hall, where Woody Allen brings Marshall McLuhan out from behind a sign to shut up a pontificating know-it-all.  After all these years of hearing Republicans tell us that Democrats (and especially Obama, who McCain is portraying as young and green and maybe even some kind of draft dodger, even though he was 12 when Vietnam ended) don’t understand military matters, I would love to see Obama pull Wes Clark out to say, “Excuse me - I’m the military, and you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

(h/t looseheadprop)

2 comments June 19th, 2008 at 07:19am Posted by Eli

More Obama Rumors

Christopher Beam at Slate offers up some rumors that Obama should encourage:

Barack Obama wears a FLAG PIN at all times. Even in the shower.

(…)

Barack Obama is a PATRIOTIC AMERICAN. He has one HAND over his HEART at all times. He occasionally switches when one arm gets tired, which is almost never because he is STRONG.

(…)

Barack Obama goes to church every morning. He goes to church every afternoon. He goes to church every evening. He is IN CHURCH RIGHT NOW.

Barack Obama’s new airplane includes a conference room, a kitchen, and a MEGACHURCH.

(…)

Barack Obama buys AMERICAN STUFF. He owns a FORD, a BASEBALL TEAM, and a COMPUTER HE BUILT HIMSELF FROM AMERICAN PARTS. He travels mostly by FORKLIFT.

Barack Obama says that Americans cling to GUNS and RELIGION because they are AWESOME.

It would be irresponsible not to speculate…

(h/t shadowy & mysterious Codename V.)

Add comment June 18th, 2008 at 09:26pm Posted by Eli

Phrases I Never Thought I Would See In Print

“The Kathleen Sebelius experience”

The story also points out that Sebelius couldn’t even deliver Obama her home state if she were his running mate, but so what?  It’s six electoral votes, and it’s probably not a state that he’s going to be counting on.  If she can deliver votes elsewhere, then I see no reason not to consider her.  Especially if he gets the “George Bush screwed us by sending all the National Guard to Iraq” version rather than the State Of The Union rebuttal version.

Add comment June 10th, 2008 at 11:40pm 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

Supporting The Troops… Dubya-Style

Yeah, Dubya loves the troops so much that he’s using them as hostages…

President Bush is threatening the lives of American troops if Congress doesn’t give him the money he wants for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan….  The Commander-in-Chief  has also pledged to stop paying troops in combat if America’s wallet isn’t handed over straightaway.

From The Hill:

Bush said that if Congress does not act promptly, “critical accounts at the Department of Defense will soon run dry.” He added that civilian employees may face “temporary layoffs,” and the Pentagon would be forced to “close down a vital program that is getting potential insurgents off the streets and into jobs.” If the supplemental spending bill is not enacted after July, Bush said, the department would “no longer be able to pay our troops,” including ones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I just want to be clear about two points:

1. Insurgents kill Americans.  So when the President says that the Pentagon would be forced to “close down” a program that gets “potential insurgents off the streets,” he’s really saying that he’ll deliberately allow the threat to American troops in Iraq increase if he doesn’t get his money.  He’s playing chicken with Congress at the expense of American lives in Iraq.  Make no mistake about it: More insurgents on the streets would lead to more American deaths.

(…)

2. Bush is also threatening to stop paying troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.  This is funny, because I don’t hear him threatening to cut the contracts of Halliburton, Blackwater, SAIC, and DynCorp–and thus cutting their employees’ inflated salaries.

This is a clear indication that the Bush administration is more loyal to contractors than to soldiers. When forced to cut spending, Bush would rather starve members of the Armed Forces than cut the exorbitant pay checks given to those who work for privatized military companies.

Impeachment is too late at this point, but there’s no reason that this appalling behavior shouldn’t be hung around John McCain’s neck–thus ensuring that the betrayal of the American military doesn’t extend past January 2009.

At the very least, Obama needs to put McCain on the spot and force him to either repudiate Bush on this and pledge that he would never make these kinds of threats if he became president.  Either McCain helps pressure Dubya to abandon this stance, or he clings to him and destroys what’s left of his own pro-troop, independent-from-Dubya reputation even further (opposing the new GI Bill really didn’t help).

True, it’d be giving McCain an opportunity to score some points at Dubya’s expense, but I don’t think he’d take it.

2 comments June 8th, 2008 at 01:13pm Posted by Eli

The Obama Treatment?

“The Johnson Treatment,” by George Tames

I do so hope this is true…

In a move that could further imperil his already weakened status in the Democratic Caucus and fuel talk about his split loyalties, Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) Wednesday took center stage in the GOP’s mounting attacks on the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).

Lieberman participated in a media conference call Wednesday morning organized by House Minority Chief Deputy Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) criticizing Obama’s stance on the Middle East.

Lieberman’s criticisms came in response to Obama’s speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which was his first major address after claiming his party’s nomination late Tuesday night.

(…)

[D]uring a Senate vote Wednesday, Obama dragged Lieberman by the hand to a far corner of the Senate chamber and engaged in what appeared to reporters in the gallery as an intense, three-minute conversation.

While it was unclear what the two were discussing, the body language suggested that Obama was trying to convince Lieberman of something and his stance appeared slightly intimidating.

Using forceful, but not angry, hand gestures, Obama literally backed up Lieberman against the wall, leaned in very close at times, and appeared to be trying to dominate the conversation, as the two talked over each other in a few instances.

Still, Obama and Lieberman seemed to be trying to keep the back-and-forth congenial as they both patted each other on the back during and after the exchange.

(…)

While Lieberman Wednesday declined to say whether he would continue acting as a surrogate for McCain in attacking Obama, he stated that he would not put his work in Congress in jeopardy by participating in the McCain campaign.

“Obviously I support Sen. McCain … but I can only do so much as long as it doesn’t interfere with what I’m doing here,” Lieberman said.

When asked whether his activities should bring his role as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee into question, Lieberman said he would leave that decision up to the Democratic Caucus. “That’s up to my colleagues,” he said.

Nobody puts Lieby in the corner!

I am very, very happy to see Obama finally taking on the Democrats’ sacred monster, Senator With-Us-On-Everything-But-The-War (and the judiciary, and torture, and choice, and who the next president should be, and…).  As Kagro notes, Short Ride may finally be realizing that he won’t get a free ride as a McCain campaign surrogate.

1 comment June 5th, 2008 at 11:27am Posted by Eli

Finally!

MSNBC calls the nomination for Obama.

Can we all focus on taking down John McCain now?  Please?

Add comment June 3rd, 2008 at 09:48pm Posted by Eli

This Sounds Familiar…

Can’t fault the Republicans for lack of chutzpah…

You’d think with a presidential candidate who sought the endorsement of someone who praised Hitler (yes, you Mr. Hagee), they’d be careful not to get into Holocaust talk.

But then again, this is the RNC we’re talking about.

Barack Obama made a statement referencing his great uncle’s helping liberate Auschwitz. It turns out it was Ohrduf he helped liberate, which was a subcamp of the infamous Buchenwald. Obama made a mistake, yet the important part of the story was correct.

But leave it to the RNC to even politicize the Holocaust. Even Alex Castellanos, he of the infamous “black hands” Jesse Helms ad, thinks this criticism is beyond the pale:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alfPknAoivI

It’s the Al Gore Fibber McFibbypants playbook all over again.  Looks like the GOP is going to try to make Obama out to be the bastard child of Algore and Johnkerry.  And if McCain manages to lure Obama out to Iraq with him, they may manage a Dukakis moment as well. (I personally would like to see Obama walking around, pointing and saying, “Dog. Pony. Dog dog dog, pony pony pony,” but that would probably be out of character…

Add comment May 27th, 2008 at 10:52pm 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

Wankers Of The Day - Religious Right Edition

Shooting at Democrats is hilarious!!!

Yes, that’s right - Mike Huckabee finds the idea of an assassination attempt on Barack Obama amusing.  I’m sure Jesus made assassination jokes all the time too.

But hey, at least he doesn’t think Jews have “dead souls” and that the Holocaust was actually a good thing:

In his 2006 book “Jerusalem Countdown”, [notorious McCain endorser Pastor John] Hagee proposed that anti-Semitism, and thus the Holocaust, was the fault of Jews themselves - the result of an age old divine curse incurred by the ancient Hebrews through worshiping idols and passed, down the ages, to all Jews now alive….

(…)

In the following audio sermon, which I have put into a video [and that includes other viciously anti-Jewish statement from John Hagee], Hagee says:

- Jews are not “spiritually alive”.I have a copy of John Hagee’s “Prophecy Study Bible”, which makes quite clear Hagee is talking about all Jews now living - whom Hagee singles out, from among all other non-Christians on Earth, to note that they specifically do not have living souls. Indeed, Hagee says the souls of all Jews now living are dead. Dead souls. McCain endorser John hagee says Jews have dead souls.

- Hitler and the Nazis were sent by God, to chase Jews back to the land of Israel. Because that’s where God intends them to be. So, the Holocaust was a gruesomely inefficient system of divine “persuasion”, and Hitler and the Nazis were doing “God’s work”. But Hagee also depicts this divine ethnic cleansing imperative as a future project: it will happen [see bolded section of transcription, below].

- In Hagee’s 2006 “Jerusalem Countdown”, Hagee says anti-Semitism, and the Holocaust, were and are the fault of Jews - a divine curse for worshiping idols.

Shorter Hagee: Ethnic cleanliness is next to godliness.

Ya know, if there ever is a Rapture which comes and takes all the right-wing fundamentalists away, they won’t be heading in the direction that they expect.

1 comment May 16th, 2008 at 07:06pm Posted by Eli

Co-Wanker Of The Day, Part I

Mike Norman:

Marietta tavern owner Mike Norman says the T-shirts he’s peddling, featuring cartoon chimp Curious George peeling a banana, with “Obama in ‘08″ scrolled underneath, are “cute.” But to a coalition of critics, the shirts are an insulting exploitation of racial stereotypes from generations past.

(…)

Just down the street from Marietta’s famous Big Chicken, Mulligan’s has carved a provocative niche in an increasingly multicultural area, thanks to its owner’s ultra-conservative political views. If you live in Marietta, it’s impossible not to know what’s on Norman’s mind, as he posts his views on signs in front of Mulligan’s.

Among his recent musings: “I wish Hillary had married OJ,” “No habla espanol — and never will” and the standard “I.N.S. Agents eat free.”

“I’m saying out loud what everyone in this town whispers,” Norman said in an interview before Tuesday’s protest.

Whatever residents think of the signs, organized opposition to his blunt commentaries — ongoing for 16 years — had been nonexistent. No longer, says Pellegrino, who, though familiar with Norman’s politics, said he was still surprised by the stark imagery of the Obama T-shirts.

“There’s a lot of people hurt by this,” he said.

Norman said those offended are “hunting for a reason to be mad” and insisted he is “not a racist.”

Norman said he sees nothing wrong with depicting Obama as Curious George. “Look at him . . . the hairline, the ears, he looks just like Curious George,” Norman said. He said he did not design the shirts himself but bought them through a Web site.

He said he views it as just coincidence that the character on the T-shirt is a monkey. Norman also said proceeds raised from sales will be donated to the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Oh yeah, that totally looks like Obama, nothing racist about that at all, nope.  Plus the proceeds are going to fight muscular dystrophy, which makes Norman a total humanitarian, and the protesters hateful, horrible people who want everyone with muscular dystrophy to just die.

(h/t Blue Texan)

Add comment May 13th, 2008 at 08:50pm Posted by Eli

This Is Not Your Father’s Presidential Election

Frank Rich has an interesting perspective on this year’s election, and why it looks promising for Obama:

This is not 1968, when the country was so divided over race and war that cities and campuses exploded in violence….

This is not 1988, when a Democratic liberal from Massachusetts of modest political skills could be easily clobbered by racist ads and an incumbent vice president running for the Gipper’s third term. This is not the 1998 midterms, when the Teflon Clintons triumphed over impeachment. This is not 2004, when another Democrat from Massachusetts did for windsurfing what the previous model did for tanks.

Almost every wrong prediction about this election cycle has come from those trying to force the round peg of this year’s campaign into the square holes of past political wars. That’s why race keeps being portrayed as dooming Mr. Obama — surely Jeremiah Wright = Willie Horton! — no matter what the voters say to the contrary. It’s why the Beltway took on faith the Clinton machine’s strategic, organization and fund-raising invincibility. It’s why some prognosticators still imagine that John McCain can spin the Iraq fiasco to his political advantage as Richard Nixon miraculously did Vietnam.

The year 2008 is far more complex — and exhilarating — than the old templates would have us believe. Of course we’re in pain. More voters think the country is on the wrong track (81 percent) than at any time in the history of New York Times/CBS News polling on that question. George W. Bush is the most unpopular president that any living American has known.

And yet, paradoxically, there is a heartening undertow: we know the page will turn. For all the anger and angst over the war and the economy, for all the campaign’s acrimony, the anticipation of ending the Bush era is palpable, countering the defeatist mood. The repressed sliver of joy beneath the national gloom can be seen in the record registration numbers of new voters and the over-the-top turnout in Democratic primaries.

Mr. Obama hardly created this moment, with its potent brew of Bush loathing and sweeping generational change. He simply had the vision to tap into it. Running in 2008 rather than waiting four more years was the single smartest political decision he’s made (and, yes, he’s made dumb ones too). The second smartest was to understand and emphasize that subterranean, nearly universal anticipation of change rather than settle for the narrower band of partisan, dyspeptic Bush-bashing. We don’t know yet if he’s the man who can make the moment — and won’t know unless he gets to the White House — but there’s no question that the moment has helped make the man.

For five years boomers have been asking, “Why are the kids not in the streets screaming about the war the way we were?” The simple answer: no draft. But as Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais show in “Millennial Makeover,” their book about the post-1982 American generation, that energy has been plowed into quieter social activism and grand-scale social networking, often linked on the same Web page. The millennials’ bottom-up digital superstructure was there to be mined, for an amalgam of political organizing, fund-raising and fun, and Mr. Obama’s camp knew how to work it. The part of the press that can’t tell the difference between Facebook and, say, AOL, was too busy salivating over the Clintons’ vintage 1990s roster of fat-cat donors to hear the major earthquake rumbling underground.

The demographic reshaping of the electoral map, though more widely noted, still isn’t fully understood. From Rust Belt Ohio through Tuesday’s primaries, cable bloviators have been fixated on the older, white, working-class vote. Their unspoken (and truly condescending) assumption, lately embraced by Mrs. Clinton, is that these voters are Reagan Democrats, cryogenically frozen since 1980, who come in two flavors: rubes who will be duped by a politician backing a gas-tax pander or racists who are out of Mr. Obama’s reach.

Guess what: there are racists in America and, yes, the occasional rubes (even among Obama voters). Some of them may reside in Indiana, which hasn’t voted for a national Democratic ticket since 1964. But there are many more white working-class voters, both Clinton and Obama supporters, who prefer Democratic policies after seven years of G.O.P. failure. And there is little evidence to suggest that there are enough racists of any class in America, let alone in swing states, to determine the results come fall.

(…)

[T]his isn’t 2004, and the fixation on that one demographic in the Clinton-Obama contest has obscured the big picture. The rise in black voters and young voters of all races in Democratic primaries is re-weighting the electorate. Look, for instance, at Ohio, the crucial swing state that Mr. Kerry lost by 119,000 votes four years ago. This year black voters accounted for 18 percent of the state’s Democratic primary voters, up from 14 percent in 2004, an increase of some 230,000 voters out of an overall turnout leap of roughly a million. Voters under 30 (up by some 245,000 voters) accounted for 16 percent, up from 9 in 2004. Those younger Ohio voters even showed up in larger numbers than the perennially reliable over-65 crowd.

Good as this demographic shift is for a Democratic ticket led by Mr. Obama, it’s even better news that so many pundits and Republicans bitterly cling to the delusion that the Karl Rove playbook of Swift-boating and race-baiting can work as it did four and eight years ago. You can’t surf to a right-wing blog or Fox News without someone beating up on Mr. Wright or the other predictable conservative piñata, Michelle Obama.

This may help rally the anti-Obama vote. But that contingent will be more than offset in November by mobilized young voters, blacks and women, among them many Clinton-supporting Democrats (and independents and Republicans) unlikely to entertain a G.O.P. candidate with a perfect record of voting against abortion rights. Even a safe Republican Congressional seat in Louisiana fell to a Democrat last weekend, despite a campaign by his opponent that invoked Mr. Obama as a bogeyman.

…[E]ven if Mr. McCain keeps his word and stops trying to portray Mr. Obama as the man from Hamas, he can’t disown the Limbaugh axis of right-wing race-mongering. That’s what’s left of his party’s base.

Now that the Obama-Clinton race is over, the new Beltway narrative has it that Mr. McCain, a likable “maverick” (who supported Mr. Bush in 95 percent of his votes last year, according to Congressional Quarterly), might override the war, the economy, Bush-loathing and the bankrupt Republican brand to be competitive with Mr. Obama. Anything can happen in politics, including real potential game changers, from Mr. McCain’s still-unreleased health records to new excavations of Mr. Obama’s history in Chicago. But as long as the likely Democratic nominee keeps partying like it’s 2008 while everyone else refights the battles of yesteryear, he will continue to be underestimated every step of the way.

Rich is more optimistic than I am about the diminished impact of smear campaigns - I think they will always be effective unless countered decisively and authoritatively (indeed, Kerry’s passive reaction to the Swift Boaters might have been more damaging than the smears themselves).

But overall, I think he’s onto something important: America hates Bush like they’ve never hated any president before.  Nixon might have come close, but he was already two years out of office by Election Day.  Dubya will still be there, and he’ll still be trying to throw his weight around to prove how relevant he is.  If Obama can effectively tie McCain to Dubya and his most unpopular policies, he should win in a landslide.

The good news is that McCain has given Obama plenty of ammunition; the bad news is that the corporate media will be doing all they can to debunk and “fact-check” him at every turn.  My hope is that the media overplay their hand and end up discrediting themselves instead of Obama - because without the media, the Republicans have nothing.

Add comment May 11th, 2008 at 11:58am Posted by Eli

Fact-Checkiness

Oh, goody!  The WaPo is diligently protecting us from misinformation in all its forms, debunking Reverend Wright’s claims that the US government invented AIDS.  What a relief!

I now eagerly await their followup, in which they explain that American public schools are not, in fact, performing abortions or teaching “precursors to witchcraft” as John McCain’s BFF Pastor Hagee says. I hope they get on that right away - I’m sure a lot of parents are very worried.

(h/t dakine)

Add comment May 5th, 2008 at 08:25pm Posted by Eli

Endorsement Update

Washington Post:

With endorsements coming in from California, Iowa and Indiana, Sen. Barack Obama yesterday pulled even with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the race for support on Capitol Hill, as Democratic lawmakers shrugged off his recent struggles.

Obama (Ill.) received the backing of Rep. Baron P. Hill, a conservative from a critical district in southern Indiana; Rep. Bruce Braley, an Iowa freshman who grabbed a Republican seat in 2006; and Rep. Lois Capps, who has held her liberal Santa Barbara, Calif., seat for five full terms and whose son-in-law works for the Obama campaign.

Hill also spills in The Hill about why he’s thrilled to shill for Obama (Ill.) over Hill on the Hill.  Which fills Bill with ill will.

I think I may have sprained something.

(h/t TeddySanFran for the WaPo story)

Add comment May 1st, 2008 at 07:25pm Posted by Eli

Did I Miss It?

Has anyone compared Rev. Wright to Sister Souljah yet?

And how come Republican candidates are never obliged to denounce right-wing crazies to reassure Americans about how reasonable and moderate they are?

2 comments April 30th, 2008 at 11:22am Posted by Eli

Odumbass

Really, what was he thinking? And why does he think we’re all gullible fools?

It was a mistake for Obama to go on FOX’s Sunday show and treat the experience as if it was a real news interview. Democratic politicians need to understand that FOX is a Republican mouthpiece masquerading as a news outlet. When dealing with FOX, you either burn them or they will burn you.

…Robert Greenwald’s videos have shown FOX’s consistent pattern of smearing Barack Obama, smearing Hillary Clinton, smearing African Americans, and denying global warming.

FOX’s power lies not in its audience size – which is puny and consists mostly of unpersuadable voters. Instead, FOX’s power comes from tricking politicians and real journalists into treating their “breaking stories” like real news, thereby propelling smears like the Swift Boats and Rev. Wright into the mainstream political dialogue. That’s why progressives fought (successfully) last year to deprive FOX of the legitimacy that comes with hosting a Democratic presidential debate. And that’s why Democratic politicians should never treat FOX like a real news outlet - including FOX’s Sunday show.

Barack Obama’s campaign made a promise before this weekend’s appearance. They said he would “take Fox on” – inspiring hope among those who watched Bill Clinton in 2006, Chris Dodd in 2007, and progressive activist Lee Camp in 2008 delegitimize FOX on the air. But Obama didn’t do that, and he suffered as a result.

The interview began with a question about Obama’s race – implying that white people won’t vote for him. Instead of “taking FOX on” and saying FOX’s questions are premised on Republican talking points, Obama simply answered. So, Wallace kept going – asking more than 10 straight race-related questions, all skewed against Obama. (One laughably began with, “I wasn’t sure whether I was even going to ask you about your former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, but…”) One of these rigged questions got Obama to say, “The fact that he is my former pastor I think makes it a legitimate political issue” – resulting in John McCain quoting Obama hours later, hinting to right-wing allies that Rev. Wright is fair game.

FOX also asked a bunch of questions aimed at getting Obama to distance himself from Democrats and progressives. Because Obama didn’t “take on” the Republican framing of these questions, Obama was cornered into saying things like, “I think there are a whole host of areas where Republicans in some cases may have a better idea [than Democrats]” and parroting the right-wing caricature of “Chablis-drinking limousine liberals” and boasting about being “fiercely attacked” by bloggers at Daily Kos.

Enough. Democratic politicians, for your own benefit: stop legitimizing FOX.

You know, I bet Howard Dean could have given Obama some great pointers, had he bothered to ask.  First and foremost would have been, Don’t accept the premise of anything they ask you, and point out their role as a right-wing propaganda outlet every chance you get.  Obama did neither.

He even made the Great Orange Satan cry.

2 comments April 29th, 2008 at 07:20am Posted by Eli

Irony Of The Week

In case you were wondering why the GOP isn’t making a big deal about Obama’s connection to Tony Rezko…

With federal investigators closing in, Illinois political insiders hoped to avoid prison by having Bush administration architect Karl Rove oust U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, according to accusations made in federal court today.

An attorney for Rove and the Republican insider accused of leaning on him, Bob Kjellander, flatly denied the accusations this afternoon.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago dropped the bombshell allegations as part of the federal corruption trial against Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a former Gov. Rod Blagojevich fundraiser and confidant.

Federal prosecutors say two witnesses could testify that they were told by two separate people close to Kjellander that he was working to get Fitzgerald removed by leaning on Rove, his old friend.

The power play was allegedly plotted before Fitzgerald received a questionably low ranking by the Bush Administration and the controversial ousting of eight U.S. Attorneys.

The first hints of the far-reaching accusations came out in court late Tuesday when Assistant U.S. Attorney Carrie Hamilton read the grand jury statements of Steven Loren, a co-schemer in the Rezko case.

Veteran insider Bill Cellini “said it was Bob Kjellander’s job to take care of the U.S. Attorney,” Hamilton read from the transcript, which recounted a 2004 meeting between Cellini and Loren over how to handle the deepening federal probe.

(…)

…Hamilton… said Rezko business partner Ali Ata is expected to testify Rezko told him the same thing in 2004.

“Mr. Kjellander is working with Mr. Rove to have Mr. Fitzgerald removed so someone else can come in (and end the corruption investigation),” Hamilton said in summarizing Ata’s expected testimony about Rezko’s statements.

(…)

Kjellander, an Illinois lobbyist, is a national Republican party player who recently served as treasurer to the Republican National Committee. He has been friends with Rove since the early 1970s when the two got their start in politics while still in college.

Kjellander helped orchestrate George Bush’s Midwest campaigns.

(…)

In late 2004, Fitzgerald was also the special prosecutor probing the Valerie Plame leak in which White House officials were accused of illegally disclosing her CIA identity in retribution for her husband’s opposition to the Iraq war.

Rove was questioned in that case. The investigation ultimately ended in the conviction of Dick Cheney aide Scooter Libby for perjury.

In 2005, the Bush administration ranked Fitzgerald as one of several U.S. attorneys who did “not distinguish themselves” - at the same time he was pursuing landmark cases covering Plame, the Chicago Outfit and former Republican Gov. George Ryan as well as the administrations of Blagojevich, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and Cook County President John Stroger.

The rankings later evolved into the notable ousting of eight U.S. attorneys in 2006, a move that was widely criticized as being politically motivated. Two of those attorneys fired were given the same ranking as Fitzgerald.

(…)

Blagojevich spokeswoman Abby Ottenoff said the governor was unaware of any moves to oust Fitzgerald.

This is rich.  Rove and the Republicans actually tried to sabotage the case that would have otherwise been the centerpiece of their campaign against Obama.  Of course, they didn’t know that at the time - they were just reflexively gaming the system to defend Republican criminals, like they always do.  But now they can’t draw too much attention to Rezko, lest they draw attention to Rove’s involvement, and to the US Attorney firings.  Even so, Obama should have a good strategy to bring the pain if the Republicans do come after him on Rezko.

But he’d better be careful - being tied to Rove is the worst thing that could happen to him.

(For the record, I think the Obama-Rezko connection is tenuous, and it’s a manufactured scandal - but that doesn’t mean the Republicans wouldn’t have made a big deal about it.  Quite the contrary.)

(h/t Twolf)

3 comments April 23rd, 2008 at 08:30pm Posted by Eli