Weeks later, the pattern continues, but in an even more intense form. The McCain campaign huffs and puffs and jumps from charge to charge: Obama consorts with terrorists; he’s a socialist; he’s a communist; he is un-American; he’s not one of us; he’s a celebrity; he’s going to take your money and give it to people who never did a day’s work; he’s going to sell out Israel; he’ll cozy up to foreign dictators; he’s measuring the drapes.
In response, Obama explains his tax policy for the umpteenth time, points out that capitalists like Warren Buffet support him, details his relationship with Bill Ayers, lists those he consults with, observes that Senator McCain, by his own boast, voted with President George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, and calls for change.
What he (or his campaign) doesn’t do is bring up the Keating Five, or make veiled references to McCain’s treatment of his first wife, or make fun of Sarah Palin (she doesn’t need any help), or disparage his opponent’s experience, or hint at the disabilities of age. He just stands there looking languid (George Will called him the Fred Astaire of politics), always smiling and never raising his voice.
***What’s going on here? I find an answer in a most unlikely place, John Milton’s “Paradise Regained,” a four-book poem in which a very busy and agitated Satan dances around a preternaturally still Jesus until, driven half-crazy by the response he’s not getting, the arch-rebel (i.e., maverick) loses it, crying in exasperation, “What dost thou in this world?”
How long before the following headline rockets across the wingnuttosphere: “Radical Leftist Academic Calls Obama Jesus, McCain the Devil.”
Some days it is a good thing these guys don’t read the NY Times.
Xenos
Reminds me of my favored advice for panicky clients: "Don’t just do something: Stand there!"
In any case, the Devil certainly had a point there…
Comrade Stuck
Simply "Radical Leftist Radical" won’t get the job done. It needs to be preceded by Far Far Far Far Far. By the time Obama gets in office, the world will run out of Fars for wingnuts in describing Democrats.
Punchy
Obama is Hindi for "Brown Jesus of Roanoke". Trust me.
Laura W
Languid…such a yummy, sexy word.
Languid and bittersweet
This is the day
Of the expanding man
That shape is my shade
There where I used to stand
It seems like only yesterday
I gazed through the glass
At ramblers
Wild gamblers
That’s all in the past
You call me a fool
You say it’s a crazy scheme
This one’s for real
I already bought the dream
So useless to ask me why
Throw a kiss and say goodbye
I’ll make it this time
I’m ready to cross that fine line
This is the night
Of the expanding the man
I take one last drag
As I approach the stand
I cried when I wrote this song
Sue me if I play too long
This brother is free
I’ll be what I want to be
Pseudofool
Is there a ‘text’ in this blog?
boonagain
donald fagen is a better poet than sarah palin
Brian J
The more I think about this pick, the more disgusted I am. It’s not because I think she’s necessarily stupid. It’s because she’s unengaged, willfully ignorant, and intellectually insecure in a number of ways, or so it seems from what she’s given us. Do we really need someone like her in Washington? I get that as vice president, her responsibilities aren’t nearly as enormous as those of the president, but still, she’s in a position of relative power, and there was a far greater chance of her stepping into the role of president than there has been in some time.
Eric U.
I just told the fund raiser from NPR why I don’t listen any more. I forgot Mara Liasson, Cokie Roberts and Juan Williams. Darn.
Rick Taylor
@Brian J
I agree entirely. I’d thought I was cynical, but I was astonished when McCain chose her as VP, and floored when so much of the right wing blogosphere embraced her. It destroyed what respect I had left for them.
This last decade, Republicans have had a history of placing ideology and winning over competence. I’m not sure when it started, but the nomination of Thomas to the supreme court was a landmark. And I remember thinking a light weight like George Bush who was so obviously unqualified for the Presidency couldn’t possibly win; the joke was on me. As doing this has worked for them, they’ve pushed it further and further, and here we are.
Comrade The Other Steve
Our MPR is actually pretty good, and the station has been growing quite well.
Knockout Ed
That line makes me think of voxday. Has anyone ever been to that site? Woo boy! I went there just to heckle ’em today, man people get riled up. Quoting the Bible & spouting all kinds of racist jingoism at me. I laughed, than sincerely wished them a good day. One person had the decency to wish me well also & another mouth breather said he was "groveling".
Ed Marshall
I’ve completely substituted NPR for an XML podcatcher feed from WBAI, New York on the shows I want. It beats the living fuck out of NPR. They were the only outlet that I know of that carried live audio from Winter Soldier 2008. That should have been required viewing on every major network.
jenniebee
I got a real kick out of listening to her talk about what she’d be doing. It became so obvious that McCain had never talked to her about what her actual responsibilities as veep would be (beyond some vague "ask for her advice on energy policy" BS). He’d brought her on the ticket for the politics, but if his intention was not to make her the least involved veep since Hubert Humphrey and Spiro Agnew it sure didn’t show. If it wasn’t for his age and his health, it’d have been pure entertainment.
burnspbesq
Speaking of Alaska, the Anchorage Daily News is reporting that Begich now leads Stevens by three votes. There are approximately 35K yet to be counted.
nabalzbbfr
Thank God not everybody is on board the Obama love boat. The feisty Sarah Palin for one is not climbing aboard. In her interview with Wolf Blitzer she makes it clear she will remain politically incorrect and continue to dredge up Obama’s embarrassing associations with terrorists Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan. May God’s grace be with her and bring about the swiftest possible end to this most shameful chapter of American history!
Dennis - SGMM
In her interview with Wolf Blitzer she makes it clear she will remain politically
incorrectignorant…Fixt
Comrade Jake
Kos has video of Dick Morris being as smarmy as humanly possible, detailing how (I kid you not) Sarah fucking Palin saved the GOP. Unfuckingbelievable.
Ed Marshall
I was just thinking that. It wouldn’t be any fun without thinking how irrelevant what your pack of filth thought about anything was. You are the icing on the cake, and I do thank you.
slip
Take a good look at Charlie Crist.
Doesn’t he remind you of Emmett Kelly?
Thursday
"Some days"? Do they ever? I mean, other than Palin, of course. But then, I suppose "read" doesn’t mean "understand", does it?
Josh Hueco
Yes she should, NoballsBBWluvr. It worked so well during the election. Maybe she can also talk about the whitey tape and how Obama really wasn’t born in Hawai’i. It’s full of win.
DougJ
Fish is actually quite far to the right. He’s got a big "kill all the Arabs" streak and he believes that history will vindicate Bush.
After his reaction to the Sokal spoof, I never had much respect for the guy regardless.
gwangung
DUDE! If’n yer gonna troll, do it right and get better material!
McCAIN has CLOSER financial ties with Ayers than Obama does!
DougJ
@ComradeJake
Where the hell does Dick Morris come up with the estimate that Democrats would have won 62 seats without Palin? I guess he must mean Georgia, Kentucky, and LA (plus the MN and AK which Dems may win anyway).
JasonF
DougJ: Mary Landrieu won re-election in LA, so is already counted in the total. Assuming that without Palin driving Christian Conservatives and/or Alaskan Republicans to the polls Democrats would have won definitively in Georgia, Kentucky, Minnesota, and Alaska, that still only gets us to 61. Probably the Wicker-Musgrove race in Mississippi is the other one Morris has in mind.
Joshua Norton
Flashbacks to sophomore English lit. Trying…to…stay…awake…
Hell is reading Milton’s writings about Hell.
DougJ
DougJ: Mary Landrieu won re-election in LA, so is already counted in the total.
I meant Mississippi. Sometimes I get the poorest, most backwards state in the county mixed up with the second poorest, most backwards state in the country.
handy
@gwangung:
When has a fact ever stood in the way of a right wing troll?
gwangung
@handy: Hey, I think demanding competence in this country should extend to the trolls, as well.
Comrade Darkness
@burnspbesq,
Dang. The fun I thought we would have watching Palin try to ship herself to DC on any train with an open railcar door.
kay
57.2 percent turn out for the Palin ticket in Alaska. 66.6 percent in 2004, for Bush/Cheney.
That’s COUNTING the (estimated) as yet uncounted 60,000 absentees.
That’s remarkable, in my opinion.
Alaskans didn’t turn out for Sarah Palin. Just a fact.
I think we’re getting gamed on her. Maybe she wasn’t at all effective or well-liked, anywhere, other than among media types.
Comrade Jake
@DougJ:
I’m pretty sure he was just making shit up, while the anchor sucked his Johnson. That network is such a joke.
Comrade Kevin
@DougJ:
That whole Sokal thing was hilarious. I worked at a bookstore at the time, and I believe that was the only issue of Lingua Franca we ever sold out.
GSD
Didn’t Dick Morris pen that prescient book that forsaw this years election with laser like psychic precision?
Condi vs . Hillary.
-GSD
Cain
@nabalzbbfr:
I bet that makes you hard, doesn’t it, nbalzbbfr you cheetos eating, basement dwelling sockpuppet you :)
cain
Dennis - SGMM
@kay:
This is what we get in the news vacuum at the end of a very long campaign. Obama is preparing to govern, Palin is preparing for noisy obscurity and is therefore much more available. No respect to our hearty brothers and sisters in Alaska but, I get the feeling that they’d elect a miniature Schnauzer if it meant a bump in their oil money checks.
Comrade Stuck
@Dennis – SGMM:
Oh Noes! That can’t be. Why?. Because they’re Republicans, and every great American knows R’s don’t take no gubmint handouts.
Comrade Stuck
OT
The Motor City Madmen bring the crazy for the new Wingnut Permanent Majority.
Wingers, please listen to this man. He knows how to shoot straight.
forked tongue
OHMIGOD NO!!!! According to my calculations, if she convinces a mere 4,168,413 people to call up their polling place and say "Hey, now that I know the truth about Obama’s embarrassing associations, I wanna change my vote," the results of this election could be REVERSED!!! Comrades, we MUST MAKE SURE SHE DOES NOT FOLLOW THROUGH ON THIS THREAT!!!
Rick Taylor
Meanwhile, it seems the treasure gave 140 billion dollars to the banks while no one was looking. Via Hilzoy.
handy
@Comrade Stuck:
Interesting how in the wake of the ’04 losses, the DNC’s response was the "50 State Strategy," in other words: work hard to sell liberalism to as many Americans as possible.
Yet for these clowns, it’s just the opposite, the "Red State Strategy." Purge as many of the "sell out purplish" elitists from your camp as you can, until you end up with the pure core that appeals to–the core itself.
By the way, look at this map and tell me how "red" America really is.
Comrade Stuck
@handy:
Demographically, the GOP is screwed ever which way. And the core is too small to be anything but a very loud and obnoxious minority party. Crazies like Nugent and Palin and the shrieking fools who worship them, will finding comfort in their purified wingnuttery, but that is all.
Brian J
Let’s see. I’m not sure where he gets 62 from, because reading the fivethirtyeight.com list of seats that were even remotely competitive and locks for the Democrats (everything from Georgia to Virginia), you only get 11.
As for his assertion that Palin helped with white women who voted against Democratic senate candidates, I’m not sure what to make of it. For one thing, they could still get to 60 seats, and if they do, it’s pretty impressive even with the small margins of victory. (Then again, that’s usually how incumbents are knocked off, if I am remembering my history correctly.) But looking at the statistics, as he says to do, I’m really not sure. Take Kentucky, for instance. (The links are below.) In 2004, Bush got 62 percent of white women, and Kerry got 38 percent. In 2008, McCain got 63 percent of this group, while Obama got 36 percent. Three points, as they say, ain’t nothing, but is it really enough to save a Senate seat? Besides, Obama did a point better overall among the white vote compared to John Kerry in 2004. More than that, while the black voting percentage was eight percent in 2004, it was 11 percent in 2008. McConnell did better than McCain amongst black voters by four percent.
I don’t think I’m making any huge mistake in analyzing the numbers, and if that’s the case, I don’t see where Morris is getting his claims from. Is he using results certified by the state governments? It seems like all of these small movements canceled each other out in the end and that because a candidate like McConnell had more support overall, he won.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/KY/P/00/epolls.0.html
http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=KYP00p1
http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=KYS01p1
Jess
I even bought the book LF put together about the hoax and all the various responses to it. Fish and the other "radicals" looked radically idiotic, I must say. It cracked me up when the neocons began to adopt the same deconstructionist "we create reality/facts are biased" bullshit. I knew then that they were doomed. Especially when Howard Dean started bringing back Enlightenment talking points–I hope other Dems get smart and follow his lead.
Brian J
I felt like I had something, or more than one thing, that was really deep, but I guess not. But yes, the contrast in strategies is rather striking.
Pockmark Notorious
It’s pretty simple.
Obama is Virgil Tibbs.
jcricket
I love how awesome this is. Do, do bring up Ayers. Someone no one cared about this time around, and will probably throw a parade for if you bring him up in 2012. We’re all socialists now, Sarah, thanks to your tactics.
If the GOP keeps it up, the party identification differential will double in 4 years. Independents will decide, "I’m gonna be a Democrat just to piss that crazy lady off". Already happened to my dad (not Palin, per se, but all the other GOP bullshit).
I’d say 100% of Democrats want Palin to be a national figure in the GOP and to run in 2012. We could add Montana, North Dakota, Arizona and probably Missouri to our "win" column, along with picking up another 20 seats in the house, a couple of Senate seats, the presidency again, governorships (coattails in reverse), and so on.
Pretty please, let Palin be the GOP’s shining light.
r€nato
directly from his rectum.
Dick Morris is an idiot. I can’t believe this guy was at one time a guru in the Clinton WH. Did he drink too much and destroy his grey matter between then and now?
ninerdave
WotLK installing bitches.
Yes, I’m a geek and was there at midnight to pick up my pre-order. My wife was more excited than I. I remember having a female companion back in the day used to shield you from "geek"….not so much anymore.
Nancy Irving
Other things Obama didn’t mention about McCain: that he broke under torture in Vietnam, and gave the Vietnamese American military secrets; Cindy McCain’s criminal acts committed while abusing drugs.
The first at least of these would not have gone unmentioned, were the boot on the other foot.
By any measure McCain-Palin ran a dirty campaign, while Obama ran a clean one.
Mwangangi
Since we are sharing so much pie, I’ll take the Sweet Potato…
oh really
I always assumed he figured she’d make the coffee and if he died, she be president, he’d be gone, and we’d be screwed.
Game, set, match…to the Saint.
Oh, but then the Marxist won. Oops!
As much as I despise him, Leon Wieseltier said it best when he said:
Gravenstone
@ninerdave:
Suck it! I have to wait until I get off work in a few hours before I can pick up my copy. Curious to see how high I can get my shammie on BC content before he makes the move North. He’s got nearly three full BC zones worth of quests to go yet since hitting the cap so I’m hoping 73ish (wondering how steep the exp curve will be in the expansion).
And women are neither curative nor preventative of "the Geek". Thank the heavens – we simply are.
kommrade jakevich
Completely OT: Is it me or does Michelle Malkin look positively unhealthy in her PJTV ads? I don’t like her, but I’m not joking. She looks sick.
grandpajohn
I would expect he is getting them from where he usually gets them, pulling them from his ass.
robertdsc
Her skin color looks gray, so I agree. She does look unhealthy.
Liked the pigtails in one shot, though.
TheFountainHead
Camile Paglia, concern troll extraordinaire!
TheFountainHead
Wow, you’re right. She looks like something out of a Blizzard game. I doubt it’s anything more than a really badly botched photoshop session, I don’t think actual humans can descend that far into the grayscale while still living.
ppcli
"…would not have gone unmentioned" is putting it mildly. Given the way they turned Kerry’s war wounds and saving a soldier’s life under fire into a *handicap*, I shudder to think what they would have done if McCain had been a Democratic candidate. Some well-funded arms-length group called "POW’s for Truth" would have published a book claiming that half the POW’s in the Hanoi Hilton were captured because of information McCain gave, and broadly hinting that he wasn’t tortured at all: he gave information freely to get better food. The entire Republican convention would have been led in a choreographed "stoolie dance", like the chicken dance except mocking McCain’s arm movements. And so on…
Brick Oven Bill
In order to keep his confident cool, Barack surrounds himself with goofy-looking people. I think that his self-image is based in large part upon what he perceives to be a physical advantage over the others on the stage. Thus the gym obsession and salads.
Cosmetic-surgery Joe Biden is one example of an associate, Tim Kaine another. I don’t know how tall Rohm Emmanual is, but he’s pretty short relative to Barack.
Notice how quickly Barack lost it when Joe the Plumber, who is taller with a stronger physique, looked him in the eye.
I wish President Obama the best, but he now has a real job with real challenges. I do agree with Joe Biden that he will be challenged. I don’t know how he will respond.
ppcli
What are you blathering about? Obama was perfectly calm and gracious throughout the encounter, even while Sam the Tax-dodging Plumber-apprentice kept missing the point. Watch the tape.
Gravenstone
@ppcli:
This BOB you’re responding to. He specializes in pointless blather. He also tends to be willfully obtuse, so bad that he actually forced Hilzoy the Tolerant to ban his sorry ass at Obsidian Wings. Engage him at your own risk.
Brick Oven Bill
The desire to avoid challenge is not unique to Barack; it is a common human trait. John McCain was clearly intimidated by Romney’s height, physique, business success, and hair. McCain resented Romney’s presence on the stage. You could watch McCain’s eyes dart back and forth.
It is not just politicians. I myself would probably give a more forceful speech to a Star Trek convention than I would to the offensive line of the New England Patriots.
Russia’s political system is different than ours and puts a strong Alpha male in charge. Same with China. It is not fair, but neither is life. Unfortunately, our idealistic society is in competition with these less idealistic societies.
Try to tell Putin to abandon the internal combustion engine. He would chuckle. He might end up with Alaska.
ppcli
Gravenstone: Thanks for the tip. Can’t tell the trolls without a scorecard these days.
Paul L.
Great job NY Times fact checkers.
ksmiami
Speaking as a fake American woman living in a battleground state, all I can say is that the GOP has become the party of fat fucker assholes (see Goldberg, Jonah) and know-nothings (Palin). They celebrate greed and ignorance while casting aspersions on anyone who has the temerity to offer a critique or opposing view. In other words, they are stupid bullies and Palin is a mean and petty person who is so far out of her league that it would be like Michael Phelps racing the NJ polar bear club in the 100 meter. I swear, I am tempted to write a letter to Palin saying:
Dear Sarah:
FAKE AMERICA VOTED AND YOU LOST – NOW PLEASE GO AWAY..
BTW, I am really a moderate and think this is a bad development for America as GOP rhetoric is as poisonous as their dysfunction. We need 2 functioning parties in a two party system to make it all work.
jake 4 that 1
Don’t forget stalking refugees from war-torn countries.
zzzz
He did "hint at the disabilities of age" sometimes, and part of the reason he didn’t need to make fun Sarah Palin was that The Media did it for him.
MNPundit (still a Jackass)
This is not correct. Obama’s campaign hinted at the disabilities of McCain’s age regularly in their adds. I think Obama might have done it himself a very few times but regardless the campaign adds to paint him as "erratic" were ageism.
I supported it completely because it was obvious McCain was acting nuts. But don’t pretend Obama didn’t do it.
I agree with the other stuff though.