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Archives for 2008
Round Two
Following on the false flag controversy, Dean Barnett barfs up round two of the anti-Obama pushback from the fringe right.
Shorter Dean Barnett– Obama can’t speak without a teleprompter.
Really- that is all Dean said, although it took him a couple thousand words to say it. I think we can officially call Obama the frontrunner now.
BTW- Has Dean ever heard President Bush speak? With or without a teleprompter?
*** Update ***
Lately, “the person formerly known as the Commissar” and I are forming some sort of bizarre pro-Obama vulcan mind-meld. At any rate, what he said.
*** Update ***
And Jake Tapper proves that he can swallow any choad from the right-wing just as well as Howard Kurtz:
Barnett writes for a conservative magazine, but he is an admirer of Obama’s oratorical gifts.
And the observation – which I have not seen anywhere else – gets at what could be a real vulnerability for Obama. Take it from a TV reporter, speaking with a Teleprompter and speaking without one are not remotely the same thing.
Sure, it could be a vulnerability- IF IT WERE FUCKING TRUE. And even then, it probably wouldn’t be. I repeat, have any of you seen Bush speak?
It is just amazing watching the right-wing spin machine at work now that I am no longer part of the problem. In fact, I expect Barnett’s piece to be Insta-linked, repeated by Malkin, regurgitated at the National Review, and on Brit Hume tonight and in the Washington Post with Howie tomorrow.
And again, it does not matter if it is complete bullshit (watch the video at the Politburo)- it is about flinging shit at the wall and hoping it sticks. And no one is better at it than the right-wing bullshit artists, the folks who were pretending the role of the blogs was to “fact-check” the media.
Bunch of hacks and bullshit artists.
*** Update ***
By popular demand.
*** yet another Update ***
And Instapundit gives Barnett a “Heh, indeedy.” Anyone want to bet Kurtz will pick this up?
Primary Open Thread
Have at it.
An Alternative Theory
I have cooked up an alternative theory on why the CPAC right is doing their best to sabotage the McCain candidacy, and I think I may have an alternative working theory for what is going on. Some quick facts:
1.) Large numbers of Republican congressmen are leaving Congress to “spend more time with their family,” choosing to get the hell out rather than gut it out and rebuild. The most recent retirement is Rep. John Shadegg, and I can not express how bad this is for the GOP. As recently as Summer 2006, Shadegg was pinned as one of the few remaining true conservatives, and received the support of Red State for his bid for Majority Leader.
2.) Bush’s polls numbers are somewhere in between the clap and the plague.
3.) Conservative ideas are being manifestly rejected, and Democrats are now the trusted party.
4.) There are a number of looming crises, none of which are going to be easy to deal with. We are more than likely already in a recession, the Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan, Iraq is the same-old same-old, the subprime mess is really starting to heat up and we haven’t even hit the Option A (or Alt A or whatever it is) mess the commenters here assure me is going to blow the sub-prime mess out of the water, Bush’s budget predicts deficits as far as the eye can see, and so on.
5.) Democrats are well-funded and enthusiastic, and there are two very viable candidates that more than likely can beat anything the Republicans throw at them.
So here is why they are sabotaging McCain- they want him to lose, or at the very least are hedging their bets. They want and need to paint him as not conservative, not pure enough to really represent the wildly successful (in their minds) conservatism that makes up the Bush dead-enders. That way, when they are blown out of the water in 2008, they don’t have to do any reflection, they don’t have to assess, re-prioritize, or re-think their policies. They can simply pin it all on McCain, claim he lost because he didn’t offer the voters a “real” conservative alternative, and get back to championing the end of the “death tax” and other important issues without skipping a beat.
In other words, McCain is the fall guy, and they are just distancing themselves from him.
We’re All Subprime Now
A continuing saga:
The credit crisis is no longer just a subprime mortgage problem.
As home prices fall and banks tighten lending standards, people with good, or prime, credit histories are falling behind on their payments for home loans, auto loans and credit cards at a quickening pace, according to industry data and economists.
***Until recently, people with good credit, who tend to pay their bills on time and manage their finances well, were viewed as a bulwark against the economic strains posed by rising defaults among borrowers with blemished, or subprime, credit.
“This collapse in housing value is sucking in all borrowers,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com.
***An example of the spreading credit crisis is seen in Don Doyle, a computer engineer at Lockheed Martin who makes a six-figure income and had a stellar credit score in 2004, when he refinanced his home in Northern California to take cash out to pay for his daughter’s college tuition.
Mr. Doyle, 52, is now worried that he will have to file for bankruptcy, because he cannot afford to make the higher variable payments on his mortgage, and he cannot sell his home for more than his $740,000 mortgage.
“The whole plan was to get out” before his rate reset, he said. “Now I am caught. I can’t sell my house. I’m having a hard time refinancing. I’ve avoided bankruptcy for months trying to pull this out of my savings.”
Don’t worry, Mr. Doyle! You should have a $600 stimulus check in a couple of months.
Of course, noting this is a bad thing means I am some sort of pinko-commie leftard. After all, this is capitalism! The market will sort things out! Mr. Doyle gambles and lost!
Why Not McCain
Jon Henke has a interesting piece up about the freak-out over McCain, and points out exactly what has confused me the last couple of weeks:
So, why is the Right so angry about McCain? I understand the vehemence of the disagreements, but the anger – including my own, in the past – is disproportionate.
For instance, McCain is perceived as an almost wholly unacceptable Republican (primarily) for his positions on immigration and campaign finance reform, with additional anger directed at him over a few other issues. Yet, President Bush presided over/supported, e.g., No Child Left Behind, the immigration reform bill, McCain-Feingold, the Medicare Drug Bill, a massive expansion of federal spending, egregious agriculture and energy bills, a badly conceived and conducted war in Iraq, and myriad other anti-limited government positions. And he did most of that with a Republican Congress.
Bush is worse in almost every respect – having actively introduced and supported outrageous violations of the putative ideals of the Right – but he is not regarded with the same anger. Why?
Years from now, when people look back at this administration, Bush will have turned out to be less conservative than Bill Clinton in almost every regard, yet he gets a pass. Not only that, his most ardent supporters, people who absolutely refuse to say a bad word about Bush are the same folks who reject McCain.
Go read the whole thing.
Comcast Sucks
Just wanted to throw that out there. Cable goes out, I call their help desk, which is automated, and after asking me what my problem is (I selected #2, my internet is out), it directed me to check out comcast.net
*** Update ***
I actually was contacted by a Comcast representative because of this post. All hail the intertrons.
I really have no options regarding my service, so I hope Comcast gets it together. It sure seems like things have gone downhill in this area since Adelphia (who I really thought was great), but we shall see. On the upside, I do have a ton more HD stations than I ever did in the past, and all of my connection issues are of a recent vintage, so maybe it is just a glitch.
My main problem, though, is with their customer support. It really is sub-par.