Meanwhile, Noam Scheiber writes about reporters’ efforts to get their hands on a copy of Barack Obama’s senior thesis, all copies of which have apparently gone missing from Columbia. The thesis was about nuclear negotiating strategies of the United States during the Cold War, and Obama’s professor says it’s unlikely to be controversial, and Noam concedes that it’s an “exceedingly small deal” but still that “your default posture as a journalist, rather than a partisan or an operative, is that you always want more insight into the person your covering. I don’t think it’s at all unreasonable for us to push to see a project that Obama labored on for a year.”
This is worth wondering about. When I was in college, I wrote a senior thesis. It was even, in a sense, on a politically relevant topic having to do with John Rawls’ Political Liberalism. You might think that if you really wanted to understand what I thought about certain political issues you’d need to dig up that paper to gain some insights. But realistically, insofar as I can recall what the thesis said (I don’t have a copy, but I believe it’s in the university archives) it says stuff I don’t believe anymore. If you really want to gain additional insights into what Matt Yglesias thinks about the issues, you should probably read my frequently updated blog.
Matt simply does not get it. You see, with the modern right-wing, what you do, and what you say, and how you vote are irrelevant. What really matters is the true meaning that only they can derive by taking something you said out of context, distorting it, and then adding some convoluted malicious intent. Then they repeat it over and over and over again.
Zifnab
The sad thing is that it would be genuinely intriguing to see what Obama said in his thesis. I’m honestly curious and I’d want to read it. But that’s not the name of the game here. It’s all about trying to cram Obama into the “faux-American Manchurian Muslim Elitist Super Communist” mold that the wingnuts have build up in their heads. They can’t get him to gaff on stage, so they’ve got to go back 20 years in order to find mud worth slinging.
Of course, the man’s released – what? – two autobiographies? If there was mud to sling, you’d at least think they’d try plowing the “he did cocaine in the 70s!” angle a bit farther.
calipygian
The right-wing is going to shit themselves when they find out that Obama wrote in his senior thesis that the United States and the Soviet Union should find someway to abolish nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth.
What kind of naive asshole would say something like that? Obviously they aren’t qualified to be Commander in Chief if they are stupid enough to pine for a nuclear free world.
smiley
Weren’t they looking for Michelle’s also? Haven’t heard about that in a while so maybe they found it and there was nothing there. Or maybe they found it and it’s a communist black-power screed that they’re waiting to unleash on the naive population just before the election.
RSA
John McCain was graduating in the bottom 0.5% of his Naval Academy class while Obama was still in diapers. I wonder if he wrote a senior thesis?
SpotWeld
Why are they so focused on getting Obama’s thesis? I mean they just need to dive into the thesis archives at around the right time period and find one of a contemporary student of sufficiently inflammatory content. Then it’s just a matter of making that the exemplar of what “Obama’s must be like, only worse”. From there on they can just (falsely) shift the burden of proof over to Obama saying “Hey, if we’re wrong then give us your thesis”.
If he doesn’t then they can just spin out hypothetical’s. And if he does then they can go into “Kerning Paradise” (where the serifs are made of candy don’tcha know).
PeterJ
Someone at, if I remember correctly, Politico, asked for it and got a copy. And then they put it up on their site.
Nothing there.
PeterJ
It was Politico.
The Other Steve
Actually I think a lot of people will be surprised when they find out the thesis endorsed the Mutual Assured Destruction policy. :-)
cmorenc
Think of the tremendous damage the Wingers could inflict on *anyone* if they could get ahold of just about any paper that person wrote during sophomore year at college, and parade it as evidence of the character and thinking of that person at age 45. Part of what college is about is being able to explore and deeply think through tons of seductively attractive and superficially profound, but foolish, wooly-headed thoughts so you get that out of your system before you go out into the real adult world. Unfortunately, this scheme doesn’t seem to work well for far too many people.
jake
Isn’t the fact that he wrote a senior thesis enough to prove he’s an elitist Marxist Obamhomosexual?
And the fReichtards tried to read it and the long words like “and,” “the,” and “or,” made their head’s ache. Wanking about birth certificates is much easier.
cmorenc
I said:
I should add that this scheme works especially poorly with people who latch onto any of the works of Ayn Rand as 19-year olds, many of whom never seem to successfully recover from the penultimate sophomoric crap.
Zifnab
“On why aeronautics safety is for suckers and you’re going to love this kick ass barrel roll.”
~J. Sidney McCain III
Libby Spencer
A bit off topic and forgive me if this was already flagged in another thread, but remembering John’s contest for who would use the term “innocent abroad” to describe Obama’s trip, it looks like David Brooks wins.
Libby Spencer
By the way, David Brooks is on my DNR (do not read) list, so I have no idea what he said, but I’m sure it’s irritating.
zzyzx
NO QUARTER FINALLY HAS A SCOOP!!!!!!
There’s then tons of comments about how Obama is a Scrooge and not a real Christian and…
Errr, if you go to the article they link,
Yep, that scary Obama is so freaky that he doesn’t give his kids presents, Santa does. Sheesh.
sstarr
Sadly, the main thing that McCain and the GOP have to fall back on in this election is that he’s the white guy, and he’s a known commodity. If all other issues fail to convince the swing voter, those are his two aces in the hole. It all comes down to the old chestnut: better the devil you know.
That’s why it’s so important for the GOP to depict Obama as new, strange, inexperienced and alien. It’s really THE issue of this election.
Here’s what Republicans want the voters to think when they enter the voting booth: I like what Obama says, but can I trust Obama? He’s so… different. What if he doesn’t do what he says he will do? What if he can’t handle it? McCain is a bastard like Bush, but at least I know he won’t do anything crazy…
That’s why finding and repeating anything that Obama has ever said that may appear even slightly odd – like the odd things we all put in our college papers (which often were written to appeal specifically to the prejudices of our professors) – is critically important to the GOP.
That’s also why the GOP treats the age issue like it’s radioactive. It’s an evilly effective counter narrative: Obama may be sort of strange, but McCain’s losing his grip on reality… Similarly, talking about McCains uncontrollable temper may also be effective.
Yes, I know these aren’t the “issues” but I think we all know how much those matter…
jake
Hey John, shouldn’t you be at your family reunion? There’s lots of aunts and uncles waiting to pinch your cheeks and coo “I remember when you were this big.”
jon
Can’t find the senior thesis at Columbia? Maybe because the original has been put in a special collection library, it’s been stolen by someone who thinks it will be valuable someday, or it was digitized and discarded years ago and the only copies are available, well, on Politico. Or maybe something else is happening…
Clearly, the watermarks and stamps and official grades of the professor (let’s do a heat transfer imagingizing to see if it’s a forgery, call for techdude!) will not be enough to prove if this is a real senior thesis! How can we be sure he did not use paper provided by the Soviet embassy? How will we know unless we have access to the original? What is the cause of this? Are they trying to submit a forgery to get us to not look at something completely different we can make up? Did he even attend classes? Did any of his classmates die under mysterious circumstances? Let’s get some guy who knows someone’s sister who married some guy who used to work at the FBI and CIA to comment on the paper. And I bet an Iranian agent can be quoted for some reason or another. And Obama has large ears and is sexist, like Iranians with large ears. What is that?! (switches cups) Have some more Kool-Ade.
FAILURE TO GET THESE ANSWERS ONLY SOLIDIFIES HILLARY’S CLAIM TO THE PRESIDENCY!
Incertus
So no one has made the claim that because Obama’s thesis can’t be located right this moment that he’s the American Harold Saxon?
Koz
That’s just plain bullshtt. Of course the press is going to want to see the senior thesis of anybody who is a major party nominee for POTUS. What’s embarrassing about Obama is that the idea content of the Obama campaign has all the nutrional value of cotton candy from the State Fair.
Ricky
Speaking of Navel Gazing, I have added a new slogan to my bag of rants as a result of a Gabriel Sherman article in the New Republic. http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=6e9f4a42-9540-4d99-aba2-25adc276c25d
In response to the obsessions of the right wing media as embodied in an article about a phony FOX news poll I wrote:
Ignore Fox. Their audience is lost anyway. If you want to see a push poll, see the New Republic article on press dissatisfaction with Obama. It could have included this question for the travelling campaign press:
Q: As a reporter are you:
A. Satisfied Obama recognizes he is where he is because of you?
B. Disatisfied because Obama’s people want to keep him on schedule so you don’t write articles about how is is late like Bill Clinton?
C. More the subject of a Carly Simon Song than you care to realize.
The TNR article proves my slogan:
American Media: Incompetents feeding Stool Softener to the Incontinent
My new slogan:
New Improved American Media: Now 100% More Self Absorbent
Zifnab
And his issues politics are like the rubber tires on a 1940s twin engine aircraft.
Furthermore, his fund raising techniques have a all the slimy texture of a three week old dead frog.
And his religious affiliations rank among the fabberwitzes of yesteryear, banana purple monkey dishwasher.
So I’ll be voting for John McCain.
Notorious P.A.T.
Through in a look at his counter tops for good measure.
Neo
The point that Matt and John seem to miss is that viewing his thesis, no matter how old and dated, allows us to determine just how Obama has grown since it was written.
This week, we were treated to the spectacle of Obama showing that he managed to learn nothing from his two year old position on the “surge.” This after hours and hours of Congressional denunciations of the current POTUS that he has learned nothing.
Meanwhile, McCain has a clear record of changing when the facts change.
Gus
I must have missed the big hunt for McCain’s senior thesis…or Bush’s…or Kerry’s.
Davis X. Machina
What’s embarrassing about Obama is that the idea content of the Obama campaign has all the nutrional value of cotton candy from the State Fair.
Based upon a close reading of this, no doubt.
I mean, no one would make that assertion second-hand.
The most important thing to remember about American politics is that in 2000, people who watched the debates thought Gore won, and people who watched the coverage of the debates thought Bush won. Because that’s what the coverage told them.
Those same people are being told today that Obama’s an empty suit who gives good speech.
libarbarian
FOUND: Real name for so-called “Fist-Bump”
Respek Knuckles
Courtesy: SeaLab 2021
The Moar You Know
GW Bush: “How To Get Out Of A DUI By Abusing The Bush Family Name”
Missed that one in 2000. Probably would have made for some interesting reading.
jake
This almost makes up for the continued Darrellessness of the blog.
Zifnab
I don’t know about that. I’ve heard his speeches criticized quite a few times for being too elitist or too idealistic or too popular.
CT
Wow, only 27 comments so far, and this is already overflowing with winosity. Zifnab, Jon, Rickey-I proffer my outstretched fist for some Respek Knuckles.
TenguPhule
Whereas Koz’s cockbuddy McCain has the nutritional value of plutonium. Same lifespan too.
The Moar You Know
(slaps forehead) My God, I finally got it. Your username is a play on Kos. Wow! Yeah, the guy we all get our talking points from. You know, both he and George Soros run the entire Democrat party!
Boy, I sure feel foolish now! Don’t you feel foolish, fellow Balloon Juicers? He’s on to us!
TenguPhule
TenguPhule
Yep, McCain is as wrong today about the ‘surge’ as he was then.
Still a failure, still a giant sucking chest wound to US prosperity and safety.
Davis X. Machina
I’ve heard his speeches criticized quite a few times for being too elitist or too idealistic or too popular.
Any man who can talk over my head and insult my intelligence at the same time is way too smart to be President.
OriGuy
An open letter From the Rest of The World to John McCain
Punchy
Yes, he did, and it’s a masterpiece. It covers 3–count ’em, THREE– cave walls and written with both colored stone and Wooly Mammoth blood. Something about the needing to give tax breaks to the rich Homo Erecticans.
The Moar You Know
I’ll give you this one. When the fact is that McCain’s Depends are full, he does frequently change them.
Tony J
Incertus, I just fucking love you with the passion of a thousand man-hugs right now.
Vote Obama – Listen to the sound of the drums.
Dum Dum-Dum DUM
Dum Dum-Dum DUM
Dum Dum-Dum DUM
cmorenc
Such as, when he figured out the “fact” that winning the GOP nomination was impossible unless he sharply changed a hoarde of supposedly deeply-principled positions to ones more in tune with wingnut thinking within his own party, and also required a public photo-op of an enthusiastic man-love bearhug of George Bush, the very man responsible for a viciously dishonest slander campaign against McCain in South Carolina in 2000. Let’s take the tactical uses of torture for just one example (from so abundantly many we could pick from of at least equal significance).
Ricky
Gee CT, and I thought McCain was the one with the “Press Loves Obambi” video. Saw it over in the Whine and Cheese Aisle at the grocery store, and you can get it with your cheese puffs at the Fudge Haus. It is also available alongside Bobby Jindals Greatest Exorcisms at all the finer oil rigs.
cyntax
Clearly all our base are belong to Koz.
Ricky
And one more gd thang. Don’t go knockin that State Fair Cotton Candy. Coupled with a Corny Dog, it has all the nutritional value of a cheese puff from the Fudge Haus.
Course that’s the Texas State Fair in Dallas, where George is a house huntin cause the Missus can’t stand Crawford.
Tony J
But seriously, can you imagine a world where the MSM treated the attempt to manufacture an issue out of Obama’s senior thesis with the same rigorous exactitude they practised when it was, say, the issue about El Residente’s National Guard records?
By which I mean, if the people making a deal about it can’t provide the original stamped and sealed documents proving their case, and then back up ever single claim they have ever made – along with every claim their detractors have strawmanly pretended they made – with 100% percent accuracy, then they should be ignored and ridiculed in a way that reflects badly upon the presidential candidate their political leanings would suggest they must favour.
I can imagine a world like that, but we don’t live in one.
jake
Negative. As a mindless Baby Jebus-hating myrmidon of the coming Obamalypse I am incapable of feeling anything.
Punchy
So glad these fuckers take their jobs so seriously
Fuck, if I’m Reid/Pelosi, I put this up for a vote. Show the country what a bunch of sick, petulant, childish fucks these guys are. Dare the R’s to actually vote for this.
w vincentz
Wow! I just saw that McInsane found his way out from being lost in the grocery store. I don’t know if someone was kind enough to give him directions to the exit or if the lady with the two little kids finally got tired of him bothering her and complained to the manager who subsequently escorted him from the premises.
Koz
I wish, because Barack Obama _is_ an empty suit who gives a good speech.
Brachiator
Wow! You must be taking some serious mood altering drugs.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, the French president delivers some smackdown to both McCain and Hillary (Obama urges Iran to end dispute):
Apparently, McCain didn’t much impress Sarkozy when they met.
The Grand Panjandrum
But this one is still not up to The Other Steve’s spoofing a few months ago. But you go with the trolls/spoofs you have, and not the ones you may want.
But I will say that McCain changing with the facts does explain all those spots on him. Jesus I guess McCain isn’t a leopard, eh?
YellowJournalism
Ugh. I cringe when I think of the papers I wrote for my education classes. For most of them, I think I could have written “I love Alfie Kohn” and “homework sucks” over and over again for twelve pages, and I would have scored an “A”. I was the queen of bullshit for all the years I was in school. If anything, I learned how to tell people what they wanted to hear (Or at least, make it seem that way.), which always comes in handy. It was only with the better professors and instructors that I was allowed and encouraged to express my own opinions and ideas about the subjects we studied, even if it differed from the prof’s point of view. Sadly, many profs wanted papers that repeat their ideas. For that reason and others, I would hate to see Obama, or anyone else for that matter, judged by what they wrote in college.
gil mann
You would one pusillanimous chimera.
demimondian
I wish. If he really were, at least you concern trolls would have an issue which you could ride. As it is, the balance of the campaign looks like one failed Republican smear after another…boring.
jake
He might, Rabbit. He might.
Hmmm. It sure is crowded in this handbasket…
smiley
I read somewhere today (sorry, don’t remember where) that the lady was a GOP plant. So, since I don’t have the source, I’ll just say that some say that she was a GOP plant.
Brachiator
While we don’t yet have that bootleg pdf of Obama’s senior thesis, apparently we do have the contents of the prayer that he placed into the Western Wall (Israeli paper publishes Obama Western Wall prayer).
Confirming the worst suspicions of the the rightwingnuttia, the prayer drips with arrogance and elitism, and confirms that Obama is an atheist Marxist stealth terrorist:
Dr. Squid
True.
Also true, but the real reason for it is because Obama is one of them uppity nigras who must be an illegitimate player on the national stage because of who he is. Therefore, all attacks on him are fair in the minds of the right wing.
Libby Spencer
I saw that somewhere this morning too. I forget where myself.
Libby Spencer
Found it.
Newsweek blogger, who pretty much wrote a fluffer even though he included that.
nightjar
Poor little wingnuts. They ask for a juicy and hopefully incriminating bit of Obama’s distant past and what do they get? No less than a modern prayer of grace published in the place most likely to warm the hearts (voting hearts) of Jewish South Floridians, not mention the GOP Evangelical Base.
Cry me a river wingnuts. Once again you’ve been PWN’ed by the skinny black guy with a funny name.
jake
No surprises. You’d have to be a vegetable to vote R.
Meanwhile we’re stuck with yahoos who scream for blood because someone took a communion wafer out of a church.
Corner Stone
jake says:
Except Awesomeness, right? You do feel the awesomeness?
FOR GOD’S SAKE PLEASE TELL ME YOU FRICKIN FEEL THE AWESOMENESS!!!
Brachiator
I really don’t like GOP plants. They are mushy and have little nutritional value.
Conservatively Liberal
Fixed.
If Obama’s positions have about as much sustenance as cotton candy, McCain’s are like sawdust. Now eat both and tell me which one tastes good and gives you sweet smelling breath and which one will have you crapping Pres-To-Logs.
chopper
indeed he did. it was entitled “Yee-ouch, Them Pins Is Pointy”.
chopper
he wasn’t born, so much as he fell out.
Brian
What’s so insanely frustrating and amazing is that there are so many puppet heads in the media that go along with it. Take Sean Hannity, for instance. I don’t watch him, because there’s no reason to unless I’m looking to waste time, not learn anything, and raise my blood pressure, but during the 2004 election, I watched and listened to him and others just to see what they were saying. He was little more than a robot-like figure who would spout off the same tired phrases like “weak on terror” and “flip flopper,” doing little more than change the tenses when necessary. Does he really think that he’s contributing anything to the debate? And if he realizes he’s simply passing off Republican talking points, does it not bother him?
Kevin
Does he have a giant hits discotheque album?
libarbarian
Think we could get a rise out of them by protesting that using wine as a sacrament is offensive to Muslims?
montysano
The thesis thing is small potatoes. I’m sure that the next 3 months will be a walking nightmare of wingnut dementia.
I noted this yesterday, but I’m still slackjawed about it: local talk radio was spinning BO’s “we must tear down the walls between Christian and Muslim and Jew” as a call for a unitary religion as part of the New World Order.
Whatever the outcome, BO and David Plouffe have shown the world how to run a political campaign in the 21st century. It’s an incredible thing to watch in action.
west coast
I’d say the fact that Obama’s Senior Thesis can’t be found is proof that there’s something really damning in it.
After all, there’s no other reason it wouldn’t be there, right?
flavortext
Nope. In fact I’d go so far as to say that’s the point of his show. His listeners want to hear someone use that kind of silly and tired rhetoric. It provides an emotional and psychological fulfillment in the same way as the two-minutes’ hate from Orwell’s famous book. It’s perverse, but very effective – and part of the reason McCain is polling anywhere near Obama right now.
Stating the obvious here, but politics is as much a psychological battle as it is a battle over policy or leadership ability.
Zifnab
Dude is getting paid seven or eight figures to go to high end Washington cocktail parties and parade around on national TV spouting gossip to the eyeballs of millions of adoring fans.
He’s not bothered, he’s loving it. This is every wingnut’s dream job.
Delia
I expect the senior thesis hunt means the great birth certificate investigation has about died a deserving death. And strange that this comes to light just when Obama’s fact-finding world tour that was going to give him a chance to make gaffes on a monumental scale and give all the goopers a chance to kill off his campaign has only enhanced his standing. If only they can find that thesis. There must be something they can use against him. Maybe back then he made spelling errors. Or at least overused the passive voice.
PeterJ
And the same thing was said about Michelle Obama’s thesis.
More grasping at straws…
rawshark
The other part is Obama’s skin color. If the dems had nominated a white guy McCain would have conceeded already.
rawshark
Yes. He thinks he’s a major player. If you listen to his ads for his radio show here in phoenix you’d know he thinks he can convert liberals to conservatism with his mouth noises. I never listen but I imagine he does this by disseminating wingnut ‘reasons to be dismissive’ (part 3).
Dennis - SGMM
So they’re looking for Obama’s senior thesis. Interesting. Obama earned a B.A. in political science, with a specialty in international relations, from Columbia in 1983. After working as a community organizer he went to Harvard and earned a JD, magna cum laude, in 1991. Apparently, McCain learned all he needed to know by graduating fifth from the bottom of his class at Annapolis. That McCain wasn’t washed out is due more to the Navy’s regard for his father and grandfather than McCain’s own modest abilities.
None of the wingnuts will be in the least bit deterred by the fact that McCain doesn’t have a senior thesis. Republicans like ’em dumb. They like ’em even better when they will chuck any principles they may have had in order to be elected.
Hopefully for him, none of McCain’s close advisers (In a bit of drunken humor) will advise him to blow a dead pig in the interests of sewing up the farm vote.
Zifnab
Honestly, I disagree. Part of Obama’s dynamic appeal is his skin color. There are large segments of the population who really will vote for him just because he is black, and they’ll tune out any criticism against him as racist. Things that would fly against Al Gore or John Kerry come off looking far worse when thrown against such a historic candidate.
Combine this with the fact that a great number of the wingnut partisans are acting extremely racist, and Obama is able to shrug off a greater number of smears than John Edwards or even Hillary Clinton could have managed.
Faux-criticism comes across less as politics-as-usual and more as trying to keep a brotha down.
That, and I imagine Obama’s fund raising – particularly from the black community – draws a great deal of strength from his skin tone. People are just more energized at the idea of a black man leading the Democratic ticket. It’s historic. It’s galvanizing. It gets people moving like a Howard Dean or a John Edwards just couldn’t accomplish.
The only candidate who could have done as well is Hillary Clinton, and I think that is in large part because of the same dynamics.
nightjar
Or may he should get caught in a toilet stall with Dolly The Sheep. It’d be a two-fer. The Farm vote and the pervert vote. That about covers the wingnut base.
HRA
“I’d say the fact that Obama’s Senior Thesis can’t be found is proof that there’s something really damning in it.
After all, there’s no other reason it wouldn’t be there, right?”
Oh there are valid reasons. First and foremost it all depends on the system Columbia adopted for their collection in archives. Some archives are not readily available if they are not cataloged. Those are usually stored haphazardly in several kinds of containers any place there is space for them. Some are eventually thrown out. It’s been 25 years in which a lot could have happened towards their being lost, disintegrated, etc. .
w vincentz
Confession:
I’ve been playing with my thesis for quite a while.
Sometimes it’s really hard.
Sometimes not.
It all depends how hard I try to stroke it and try to remember thoughts of twenty years ago.
If I tantilize my memories, the thesis comes.
Golly, I feel so much better now that I’ve said that!
Saves me the time to show up and have that priest try to get at my thesis again.
Beej
Scott McClellan stated on Hardball tonight that the White House routinely sent their talking points to Fox commentators like O’Reilly and Hannity, knowing that these shills would talk them up. Olbermann commented on it too. Like he said, we all knew Fox was the Bush administration’s propaganda organ, but having it confirmed is still sort of shocking.
Jane_in_Colorado
Oh, man, did I ever Mondegreen that line. I thought he was saying “Giant head discotheque Albert”. I thought it was some kind of obscure British cultural reference. I mean, I even sort of came up with a weird visual.
*is embarrassed*
Dennis - SGMM
Reporters (Ha!) are missing a bet. They should go after Michelle and Barack Obama’s library records. I’d bet that they checked out any number of books. And we all know what reading books can do to impressionable minds. Canny Republicans avoid reading and knowledge. Why read about boring stuff like history and economics when you can make it all up?
Brachiator
This item probably deserves its own thread.
McClellan did not say that O’Reilly and Hannity were the only ones to receive talking points. There are talk show hosts who would have nothing to say, and reporters who would have nothing to write about, if they could not depend on talking points provided to them by the Administration.
And while I partly understand why radio progam directors insist that their hosts pretend that show topics represent original thinking (ratings!), TV news managers and newspaper editors who do not insist on full disclosure from reporters and pundits are not being fair to their readers.
A while back, Michael Medved and other conservative talk show pundits were invited to an “off-the-record” meeting with Bush. When some callers to his show called to complain that this taint his show, he simply replied that since he was not a journalist, he had no obligation to be objective.
But his assertion, while true, glided over the intellectual dishonesty of mixing his own opinions with active advocacy of the Bush Administration’s policy, especially when he insists that his is devoted to “the truth.”
It is pointless to try to pretend that Fox News is Propaganda Central, when a more insidious process has developed by which the Bush Administration (and other politicians) can exploit the fact that too many reporters are simply too stupid, shallow, or lazy to do any original reporting or thinking, and eagerly depend on talking points for their livelihood.
grumpy realist
It’s pretty unusual for universities to hang onto students’ senior theses–the amount of paper they would end up accumulating is mindboggling.
(Heh, I’d love running for POTUS just to see what the newscritters would make of a hard-core physics Ph.D. thesis….)
smiley
He just signed a 100 million dollar contract so, um, no.
SATSQ
ACK
Especially considering the very first thing on most of his issues is about race or civil rights.. Even his defense stance talks about “cultural awareness” in the first paragraph of “investing in a 21st century military”…
Gimme a break… All he thinks, talks, eats and shits is race.
Just a modern day Jesse Jackson. Yeah, going to that non-raci$t, forgiving, and loving church for 20 years didn’t affect him. We all know forgiveness is only applicable on some instances.
That is the most important reason he does not get my vote. His take on the issues are the second reason.
Both these clowns are bad for America.