Is on CNN right now, and this is the second week in a row I have watched, and it really is a pretty damned good show.
Archives for 2008
Humble Pie
The new right-wing meme for Obama is that he lacks “humility.” I just hear John Kyl say it on CNN Late Edition, and Mark Steyn barfs up the humble bit here.
It is quite laughable, but I guess it is better than calling him uppity. The best thing is that it is clear what they are trying to do, but some of the dimmer bulbs in the spin machine are not going to be able to stick with “humble,” and they are setting all sorts of traps for themselves, which is kind of funny. This line of attack will end badly for the GOP.
The Phoenix Lander’s ‘Drinking Problem’
It was easier to sympathize with this after I remembered the first time that I tried to eat a dumpling with chopsticks. Hopefully NASA has some rocket scientists who can figure out how to hit the bowl before winter sets in and Phoenix goes dark for good.
***Update***
Just-released footage suggests that the Phoenix lander’s problems could be more serious than we thought.
Terrorist Fist-Jab
If Doug Feith didn’t exist, Fox News would have the fucking stupidest commentators on the face of the Earth.
***Update***
Egads. I said a long time ago, and I’ll say it again, maybe the best thing that Obama could do for the race issue is expose the festering ids that would normally stay buried if a black guy wasn’t about to become President of the freaking United States. It’s like lancing a deep festering wound to let the pus out. Eventually the haters will have had their say, and Obama will still be President, and they won’t have anything more to add to the conversation. Then the best possible resolution will come to the American race discussion as far as I’m concerned: we’ll get tired of it and talk about something else.
Biology isn’t destiny. For chrissakes, there is more genetic diversity in sub-Saharan Africa than in the rest of the world combined. Lumping all black people into a single category reifies a phenomenon that doesn’t exist. It pre-validates the assumptions of morally reprehensible people who represent the tradition of intolerance and slavery. The only reason the category has any practical meaning is because every single American with African descent still gets followed around at Macy’s. In the same way that it will thrill me when we stop validating extremist neocon frames with words like ‘islamofascist,’ I dream of the day when a ‘national conversation on race’ doesn’t perpetuate the wrong side of the argument by taking what should be disputed points for granted at the outset.
The Sincerest Form Of Flattery
It’s undeniable at this point – the McCain campaign is freaking out. In the last week, John McCain revamped his website to look almost exactly like Barack Obama’s. McCain’s new slogan (“A leader we can believe in”) is an obvious retread of the slogan that Obama has been using for most of the campaign (“Change we can believe in”). McCain’s painfully bad Louisiana speech spent most of its brimstone angrily denying the criticism that he’s running for Bush’s third term. The McCain camp is so worried by that line of attack that they had the candidate repeat it verbatim, a major mistake in terms of messaging. When that didn’t work McCain sent out a senior advisor to make the rubber-glue argument that it’s Obama who is running for Bush’s third term. So there!
Now look at the first McCain campaign ad. The vid argues that just like a certain Democratic candidate, McCain really, really hates war. If that is true it’s only because McCain had one of those sudden policy reversals that defined the campaign ever since he bought a one-way ticket to crazy base world.
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This is not a rickroll.
This is not a rickroll.
The upshot of all this is pretty easy to interpret. John McCain’s advisors know full well that the GOP brand is trash. They know that if they run on GOP values the campaign will be buried and forgotten by the third week of November. Consequently, instead of the two party race that everyone expected we’re going to get a Democrat and a guy pretending to be a Democrat in a desperate way that’s kind of pathetic. As someone once said back when the shoe was on the other foot, given a choice between a Democrat and a fake Democrat people will pick the real thing every time.
Belmont Stakes Open Thread
A triple crown would be nice.
And no injuries.
*** Update ***
Nice shirt, Brent. Jesus. He has that “New Jersey Used Car Salesman circa 1981” look down, doesn’t he?
The Whitey Tape
Here:
It really was not that shocking.
*** Update ***
Who said the following:
I now appreciate somewhat how Cofer Black, the head of the CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center, must have felt as he tried to warn Condaleeza Rice and the Bush White House about a brewing terrorist attack in the days leading up to September 11th.