The games continue on the right:
Democratic Sen. Barack Obama sought Tuesday to clarify his wife’s statement that she is proud of the U.S. “for the first time in my adult life.” He said her newfound pride is about the political system and was not meant to disparage her country.
He commented after Cindy McCain, wife of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, made a veiled reference to Michelle Obama’s recent remarks.
Cindy McCain told a Wisconsin rally on Tuesday: “I’m proud of my country, I don’t know about you, if you heard those words earlier.”
Barack Obama, interviewed on WOAI radio in San Antonio, Texas, expressed frustration that his wife’s comments became political fodder.
At this point, is it fair to ask Cindy McCain what parts of her adult life she remembers?
At any rate, Captain Ed remains unconvinced and is “not buying it.”:
And let’s not forget that American politics drove all of these accomplishments, too. It’s our representative democracy that created the force that made all of that possible. Just as with any other enterprise, it has its crooks and incompetents, but American politics has also produced men and women who have changed the world, including FDR, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan, and many more.
How can one live as an adult and not take great pride in those accomplishments?
Michelle Obama means what HE thinks she meant, and not what she actually said or what she actually claims to believe. Who would have thunk it? Do any of these people know what the word “really” means? Captain Ed has proven himself to be such a hack the past few weeks we are moving him to Blogs We Monitor And Mock- it must have been his annual dose of CPAC kool-aid, but he is now as crazy as Red State.
For a full round-up of the right-wing blog stupid, check memeorandum.
dnA
I think all we’re seeing her is Republicans realizing Obama will be the nominee.
The Other Steve
This actually seems like one of those stories, that the more it is repeated, the more it helps Obama.
So I don’t really see what Captain Ed is trying to accomplish.
Ben
John, I must give you credit for venturing into these crazy blogs and pointing out all this; I used to do the same out of odd, morbid curiosity, but this election season my stomach has been so weak that I can’t even use memeorandum to find these people without getting furious. Even moreso with that one white-supremacist from National Review (to clarify, the recent one who spewed that “Them’s misseginatin’!” rant)
Zifnab
Perhaps we can build up chants of “Obama hates America” all the way into November. Yeah. That’ll show those stoopid lie-bruls.
I can see nothing but McCain coronations from California to New York, Alabama to Wisconsin, if Obama-smearing becomes the law of the land. Cause, you know, throwing shit on the Golden Boy of Politics… that’s real smart.
Attaturk
When is her word “really” going to be added to these clips? Because she said she was “really proud for the first time” not just “proud”.
I mean, I’m pretty sure Cindy was proud she was born to wealth. Proud she handled that charitable group that helped the poor with prescriptions. And especially pround that in a country as great as the United States a rich person can avoid going to jail when they steal Vicadin from that charity to feed the monkey.
God bless America!
It makes me damn proud I can tell ya!
Anonymous Jim
I see that as the Republicans are turning from the primary season to the general election season they are stealing a page from Steve Martin’s playbook and they’re going to punt on first down.
Attaturk
This actually seems like one of those stories, that the more it is repeated, the more it helps Obama.
So I don’t really see what Captain Ed is trying to accomplish.
Neither does he, really.
Jake
Next up: Special Ed will tell us how Mrs. Obama’s hair style signal a contempt for baseball and apple pie.
Plus, I heard she’s married to a black guy.
Mr Furious
Note to Ed: NONE of those examples happened during her adult lifetime. Maybe Reagan, but I don’t expect her to be too proud of him.
Zifnab
BESTEST PRESIDENT EVAR! WHY DO YOU HATE AMERIKKKA?!
Ugh
Finally.
4tehlulz
lulz. the right hated the Roosevelts, wanted MLK in jail or dead, and…they liked Reagan. That might be the only one in the list they would truly consider a great American.
Can Ed sound any more disingenuous?
TenguPhule
Wrong question.
The correct question is, what kind of countertops does she have?
Sirkowski
Oh please! Is there one day when the wingnut bloggers don’t attack America for not clapping loud enough? Who hates America the most, uh?
Philip the Equal Opportunity Cynic
Exactly. They think this is just another round of, “We’re going to pound on the Democrat until he makes an abject apology, thus reinforcing our message that Democrats are all pansies.” It worked for Dick Durbin and a million other times; they expect it to work now.
The real subtext, to which they’re absolutely tone deaf, is, “Republicans have become such fascists that any deviance from, ‘My country is always right’ must be rooted out and punished.” If they want to remind the other 70% that they’ve completely abandoned the principle this nation once held dear of vigorous good-faith debate, let them.
It’s just key for the Obama camp to hold firm and not get scared by this fluff into becoming the wimps that the GOP would like to run against.
CaseyL
Hey, Capt Ed has to take a back seat to Pat Buchanan. Last night, Buchanan citred the fall of the Berlin Wall as a reason to be a proud American.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Michelle Obama was not alive when FDR and Eleanor were doing their thing. Martin Luther King WAS ASSASSINATED. Only a right-wing bigot would find pride in that. Ronald Reagan’s mythical “welfare queen” and his embrace of South Africa would also not be something a black woman would be proud of. The Republicans thought Mandela was a terrorist for chrissakes.
We haven’t lived in “America” for almost a decade.
ThymeZone
Lovin it. Every day that the Republicans focus on this kind of crap is one day closer to the gigantic thrashing they will receive in November.
They have a candidate who is already tired and we haven’t even started the real race yet. A guy who can’t stop talking about Vietnam, and World War Two, and the surge, and permanent tax cuts to stave of a plummeting economy, the oldest guy that ever ran for the job, and this is what they want to go with? McCain has a rich blonde wife who inherited her family’s beer distributorship and is prouder to be an American than the other guy’s wife is?
Man, I can’t wait for November right now so I can see that sorry sonofabitch get his 35% of the vote, and I lose my bet with DougJ by one percentage point.
Cyrus
Yeah, in 1989, wasn’t it? A fact I love, and mention in conversation whenever I can, is that people born after the Berlin Wall fell will be voting in 2008.
I think that puts accusations of socialism in a new light. For everyone under 25, maybe even under 30 depending on where you live and your family’s political beliefs and stuff, communism and socialism are about as relevant to your life and worldview as “Back to the Future.”
Tsulagi
What Michelle Obama said was dumb during an election cycle. Barak’s “clarification” sounds reasonable and I’ll buy it. Don’t know her, and don’t really care one way or the other as she’s not on the ballot.
But for the patriot warriors like the all hat and no ship Captain Eddie to spin up their faux outrage is just precious. Let’s take a look at what our valiant horse-hating cowboy all-male prep school alumni distinguished in cheerleading had to say when signing a defense bill during the 04 election cycle. Direct from the whitehouse.gov archives…
One of the inadvertently most true things ever said by the spoiled brat. I remember watching that signing ceremony. Flanked by military, Rummy, and political leaders no one even flinched when he said that. No change in expression. No reason to. Everyone knows he’s retarded and anything coming out of his mouth is just a result of random synapses firing.
So I guess in a way Captain Eddie is paying Michelle Obama a compliment. He doesn’t recognize her as retarded and holds her to a higher bar than the gutless retarded spoiled brat he’s cheerleaded for eight years. Progress.
wasabi gasp
Coming Soon: Vote for Hillary or the fuckin’ bunny is back on the chopping block!
wasabi gasp
Jeez, wrong thread.
{{ reaches for coffee }}
Chuck Adkins (Yes, I'm still around)
I think it’s just sour grapes, these bastards are going to lose the election and they know it. and they’re just pissed.
Pass out the cryin’ towels, I say.
Jake
Win.
That’s one thing about the “Gotcha” moments from the fRight that makes me laugh. I’ve even heard them argue that it’s not fair (waaah!) to make fun of the Addict in Chief’s speechifying problem. But it isn’t just the BushBaby, the entire sAdministration is a bunch of lying, language mangling idiots who are constantly taking refuge behind the passive voice. I mean, have you ever listened to Dana Perino? Have you ever listened to Dana Perino and not wondered what the hell she’s smoking?
srv
Why does Barack not just play the tapes from the different speeches and show she flubbed her line? Jeez, no, let’s make shit up and spin it!
Not so different from Hitlery.
Jake
Bildo O’Reilly, class act or classiest act?
demimondian
I’m suffering through a glucose challenge test, you insensitive moron. I’ve eaten nothing since last night at 9 pm, and I’m NOT ALLOWED COFFEE UNTIL AFTER THE SECOND BLOOD DRAW.
— demi “feeling very crotchety this morning” mondian
gypsy howell
Shorter Billo:
“Is Bill OReilly gonna have to lynch a bitch?”
wasabi gasp
Sorry, Demi.
{{ slurp }}
Graeme
I do think it’s funny to watch the Right melt down. I think it’s just now sinking in how fucked they are in November.
All they can do is complain about the Donks and pray for a miracle in Iraq and another one on the economy.
So… There’s still a lot of denial, but some reality does seem to be sinking in.
The landslide repudiation of the last 7+ years is going to be a hoot! I may have to take a vacation for the entire month of November (and most of 2009) just to read all the simpering and sour grapes.
The Other Andrew
I’m definitely loving McCain as the “America isn’t a flawed nation, let’s keep everything like it is!” candidate…
Face
Shorter, actual Ed: How dare Mrs. Obama try and sit in the front of the bus.
Krista
Wow. That’s pretty damn disgusting. So if she wasn’t proud of America, Bill’d be there with the rope? Charming.
Jeff
Dirty Trick Alert!!
Revealed on today’s Thom Hartmann…
One of the most-circulated clips of Michelle Obama has been edited to remove the word “really” from the phrase “I am [really] proud…”
Get this out there!
Mark
i’m really getting tired of politicians “clarifying” remarks that need no clarification all to try to appease loons that should be mocked and driven from the public sphere. The country is on the WRONG track. Large majorities of the public believe that is true. Torture is nothing to be proud of. Spying on americans is nothing to be proud of. Running up a massive deficit so Dick Cheney’s stock options will be worth $100 million instead of $10 million is nothing to be proud of.
I’d have more respect for Obama if he told these people to STFU in no uncertain terms.
Robert McClelland
Fuck me. When will you dumbocrats learn. Obama’s response does nothing but reinforce my fear that the Dems are going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The correct response to this faux outrage generated by the right whingers was to launch a counter-attack. Good gawd, it’s Kerry all over again.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go petition my government to begin builing a wall between our countries before President McCain decides to invade us for our oil.
Googootz
There aren’t many of them left, and every day that passes, there are fewer still — African-American veterans of World War II.
Why did they volunteer to fight for their country – a country that treated them like second-class non-citizens? Can anyone on this blog imagine coming home from the wars in Europe or the Pacific, after killing brutal enemies, sustaining combat injuries and wounds, enduring sickness and physical hardship on a daily basis, and being told you are not welcome to buy a house in this neighborhood because you’re black? Or you can’t use this rest room? Or eat in that restaurant?
I doubt those brave men were proud of the way their country treated them. They were proud of their accomplishments and hopeful that their sacrifices would realize a better country – for their children and grandchildren.
I think a lot of political hay is being made out of Michelle Obama’s statement. And what exactly did she say? “…for the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country…” So she is especially proud? Even more proud than usual? Why does that imply that prior to that moment she was not proud at all?
Some folks really need to screw the cap back on that jug of haterade and park it in the ice box for a while.
Dug Jay
Sounds especially appropriate advice for John Cole, who in the course of only a year has become one of the most craptacular shits in the entire blogosphere. He hit another one out of the ballpark with his comment in this post: “At this point, is it fair to ask Cindy McCain what parts of her adult life she remembers?”
Given the kind of shit Cole slings around so freely, it is clear that anything the Obama’s opponents care to say about them should be equally in order.
Jeff
Good job Brownie. Uh, I mean Captain Ed and Cindy McCain!!
John Cole
Because Cindy McCain lying about what Michelle Obama said in order to publicly question her patriotism is just part of the game, right?
Go fuck yourself, Dug Jay. I am tired of sewer trout like you questioning people’s patriotism.
Hypatia
Under other circumstances I’d be coming to Mrs. Obama’s defense, but now it’s her turn to get a taste of what Senator Clinton has been taking on the chin for years and from which the Obama campaign has been willing to benefit, so forgive me for indulging in a bit of schadenfreude just this once. Have a nice campaign as the Supportive Wife, Michelle, in whatever distant locations to which your husband’s people consign you.
Timb
Before you take that on the road, Googootz, probably more than 90% of African-Americans, like all other Americans, were drafted into WW2, and many of them complained when they returned home. A few were lynched. One had his eyes gouged out. The war and it veterans were the catalysts to the creation of the Civil Rights movement (after all the idea had been around since Emancipation). I say don’t defend Michelle, let the righties twist in the breeze, because no person who was either on the fence or in the Democratic camp will even remember this kerfluffle come November.
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/desegregation/large/
Chris Johnson
Inside the brain of O’Reilly: “waaaait a minute- if America has no flaw, why are there liberals?”
*splode*
ANOVWL
ThymeZone
Yes, yes it is. And the question should be posed by Chris Matthews, who will frown so as to look vewy vewy sewious while asking it:
“Which parts of these specific years do you remember, and which parts do you not remember, Mrs. McCain? Answer now.”
Jake
Fixed.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Captain Ed:We liberated an entire continent from the scourge of Naziism in the 1940s, and then in her lifetime liberated Eastern Europe from the scourge of the Iron Curtain that followed.
I wasn’t aware Ed was Russian. Why is he using “we” to identify with Stalin and Gorbachov?
Chuck Adkins (Yes, I'm still around)
LOL! :lol:
Good one.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
People might legitimately question why she only feels proud of America (and its periodic desire for hopey changitude) now that there’s something in it for her personally, and whether that’s indicative of her character. But she’s not running for anything.
They might legitimately question why she is so uninformed about the pride-inspiring programs the US has undertaken in Africa under Bush.
But she might just not read the papers, or be interested in Africa policy. And she’s not running for anything.
They might legitimately question if, more likely, she’s just a political hack, using gross hyperbole to tell the trained seals what they want to hear — that Obama offers a once-in-a-lifetime combination of changeyness and hope (as opposed to the hopeful changitude offered in the 90’s by those charlatans, Bill and Hillary) that should somehow inspire them to get aboard the Shetland of Love. But she’s still not running for anything.
Anyway, I’m sure she got the message from this episode loud and clear — she’s playing the big room now, so she’s got to watch her flowery rhetoric. She’ll be asked dozens of times now whether she’s ever been proud of America, and her answer will be a beaming YES, and people will forget about this week.
John Cole
Such a contribution to America you and your ilk have made there. Everyone, just bob your head up and down like an automaton and say ‘Yassir, I loves my country.”
Loser. When did the GOP turn into a bunch of Stalinists?
Dug Jay
John Cole, you are among the most intellectually dishonest shitheads on the web. Nowhere did I question anyone’s “patriotism.” And neither did Cindy McCain. Your weak as shit defense of the disgusting Cindy McCain comment that you initially made was nothing but an attempt to distract attention to just what a shitty slur you made against the woman. Have you no shame, sir? Obviously not.
John Cole
You should change your handle from Dug Jay to “Dumb as a Sack of hammers.” If claiming Michelle Obama is JUST NOW FEEELING PATRIOTIC is not questioning someone’s patriotism, then what the fuck is? That is what that whole bullshit line of attack was about- claiming Michelle Obama is not patriotic.
get the fuck out of my website you foolish troll. Go tell cockslapping jokes at Goldstein’s.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
Really? A Southern Mammy accent? Wow.
But yeah, what kind of country are we living in when someone speaking on behalf of a candidate for the highest office in America can’t claim disdain for the country’s history and its ideals? And why can’t a candidate for head coach of the Steelers get hired by saying, “Steelers? Fuck them, I’m a Browns fan. The Steelers only won Super Bowls by juicing and paying the refs.”
It’s fascism, I tells ya!
I’m perfectly willing to let Michele stick to her guns (more willing than Barack, I’ll guarantee you), even in the unlikely case that she meant what she said. However, I’m guessing that the reason no candidate in American history has ever gone negative on the subject of America is because “my ilk” (which was “your ilk” until Terri Schiavo destroyed America) since the time of the 13 colonies wouldn’t have too taken kindly to that person living in the White House.
The GOP and the Clinton camp, you mean. Yeah, John, everyone who disagrees with you and the Horsie Of Brotherhood is a Stalinist. That’s right.
Dug Jay
Neither I, nor in any press reports that I have read or heard about, has Cindy McCain said anything remotely close to “just now feeling patriotic,” relative to Michell Obama’s idiotic, ignorant and stupid as dirt remark.
PaulB
Dear heart, when it comes to “idiotic, ignorant and stupid as dirt remarks”, you might want to look in the mirror.
Still, you are good for a laugh.
Oh, and Lambchop, dear? Do try to grasp the fact that there are more than two choices between “I’m really proud of my country” and “I hate my country.” You see, dear, Michelle Obama only expressed “disdain” and “went negative” in your fevered imagination, not out here in real life. You really should try to join us here someday.