This was linked earlier in the thread with the Salvation Army ad, and described as devastating. This is probably the most heartbreaking commercial I have ever seen:
So sad.
Archives for 2009
The Joy Of Blogging
One of the real joys of blogging is the mail, and since Obama was inaugurated, every single day I get spammed email from Clinton supporters about “how all my whoring for Obama” paid off or something to that effect, complete with a cut and paste of an entire Glenn Greenwald post (I read him every day as it is, folks, so you can save yourself the time) and a little note explaining to me that Obama’s human rights sins are worse than the Bush era and might even rival the Khmer Rouge.
Seriously. Nowhere does it seem to occur to them that as Hillary is working with Obama, there is no reason to think that were she President things would be much different. Nor has it occurred to any of them that the first few weeks of an administration is a touch early to judge the record and overall direction.
The weirdest thing is these are allegedly lefties- but at no time during the past eight years did I get the steady email trashing me for voting for Bush. Just weird. The Clinton cult is a strange, strange thing.
Plus ça change
The Note last week:
The (stimulus) bill will be judged a political success not simply if it becomes law, but if it’s deemed ‘bi-partisan,’
Despite some public opposition to Congress’s action (see below) the Republican leadership seems to have succeeded in framing the discourse around a moral question: if Congress can do something to prevent a woman’s death, shouldn’t it?
[…]Simply saying that “Congress has no business here” does nothing to get those butterflies out of our collective stomach when we see the image of a smiling, very alive, woman in her hospital bed.
[….]Once again, clearing away the personal part, the Republicans are on the offensive and the Democrats are on the defensive. That’s a Notable fact.
At least we can take pleasure from the fact that the two people who wrote The Note in 2005 have disappeared from our public discourse, right?
Boys in the bubble
Thomas Frank has a good piece today about my favorite topic, the difference between the public’s overwhelming support for the stimulus package and the punditry’s contention that the last three weeks have doomed the once-promising Obama administration:
It is always a disappointment to turn from forthright consideration of some subject — whether from the left or the right, a poet or a plumber — to the Beltway version, in which the only aspects of the issue that matter are the effects it will have on the fortunes of the two parties and the various men in power. Today, though, with the nation facing the deepest economic crisis in decades, there is something particularly perverse about the Washington way.
We are watching industries crumble, Wall Street firms disappear, unemployment spike, and unprecedented government intervention. And our designated opinion leaders want to know: Is Obama up this week? Is he down? And is his leadership style more like Bill Clinton’s, or Abraham Lincoln’s?
Above all else stands the burning question of bipartisanship. Whatever else the politicians might say they’re about, our news analysts know that this is the true object of the nation’s desire, the topic to which those slippery presidential spokesmen need always to be dragged back.
When last week’s passage of the gigantic stimulus package is judged in this light, only one verdict is possible: Obama failed to deliver. He talked big about reaching out to Republicans, and yet he received only three votes from them in the Senate, and none in the House. Yes, the bill passed, but what a disaster!
Right on cue here’s some punditizing complete with one of our favorite lines:
[…]
It would have been hard to predict, as the stimulus debate began, that President Obama would end up losing more Democratic votes than gaining Republican ones.Republicans didn’t win the stimulus debate, but they managed to deflate Obama’s dream of bipartisan hand-holding, tarnish the stimulus as stuffed with lefty pork, and — to borrow a phrase from the inauguration — pick themselves up and dust themselves off.
“After the November elections the party was beat back and defenseless,” GOP strategist Ed Rollins told me. “I think this allows them to stay unified and will help rebuild their financial base. They at least have a pulse.”
Damn the opinion polls, full meme ahead!
Effective Ads
I was putzing around a moment ago with some new Adobe software, and in the background CNN was on, and this ad came on:
There is just something about that ad that seemed to me to be very effective. I’m not sure what it is, and need to think about it, but rarely does an ad stick out like that for me. It just grabbed me.
This Made Me Laugh
The NY Times has a piece up on the California mess, and a part of it just made me laugh:
A delicate budget fix crafted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders was on the brink of collapse early Wednesday after Republicans in the Senate ousted their leader. The late-night coup could derail already strained budget talks by requiring them to renegotiate with a new Republican leader.
The current package containing billions in tax hikes, spending cuts and borrowing took leaders more than three months to put together as the state tries to pass a midyear budget fix and avoid fiscal calamity.
Lawmakers viewed the leadership change as a major setback after they fell short by just one GOP vote, but Democratic leader Darrell Steinberg said he didn’t want to speculate what it would mean for the package.
”We’re after one reasonable person who puts California first,” Steinberg said as Republicans voted to remove Sen. Dave Cogdill.
Republicans replaced Cogdill with Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Murietta, whom they saw as more capable of resisting tax increases.
Heh.
Open Thread
Happy Valentine’s Day.
***Update***
I just saw Tim Geithner’s now famous press conference for the first time. Knowing nothing else about the man or his plans (apparently me and him both), my reaction is that he sounds like Mclovin and we are doomed. Will history prove that he’s really Tracy Enid Flick? I hope so. I guess.