Via Josh Marshall:
If Sarah Palin’s $150,000 wardrobe had a life of its own, it would get a tax cut from a President Obama.
Vent.
by Tim F| 72 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Via Josh Marshall:
If Sarah Palin’s $150,000 wardrobe had a life of its own, it would get a tax cut from a President Obama.
Vent.
by Tim F| 68 Comments
This post is in: War on Terror aka GSAVE®, Clown Shoes, I Read These Morons So You Don't Have To
Remember this?
John McCain’s campaign is seizing on a Hamas adviser’s recent “endorsement” of Barack Obama[*], trying to suggest that the Democratic front-runner brought the unsavory praise on himself.
In a fund-raising letter sent out Friday, the McCain campaign excerpted the words of Hamas political adviser Ahmed Yousef, who in an interview Sunday with WABC radio and WorldNetDaily said the terrorist group supports Obama’s foreign policy vision.
Aaron Klein on FOX News:
I think it’s very legitimate. I think that it’s important to understand how the enemies of the United States of America…how the enemies of the west view the presidential campaign and who they favor. I think it could be legitimate…I think that this is a very legitimate campaign issue.
John McCain at the same link:
It’s…a fact that the spokesperson from Hamas said that he approves of Senator Obama’s candidacy.
Right Wing News chimed in:
Now that prominent members of Hamas are endorsing Obama, can Hizbollah and Al-Qaeda be far behind?
Right Wing News forgot that al Qaeda usually saves its endorsements for the last minute. Surprise.
Al-Qaeda is watching the U.S. stock market’s downward slide with something akin to jubilation, with its leaders hailing the financial crisis as a vindication of its strategy of crippling America’s economy through endless, costly foreign wars against Islamist insurgents.
And at least some of its supporters think Sen. John McCain is the presidential candidate best suited to continue that trend.
“Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election,” said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group. It said the Arizona Republican would continue the “failing march of his predecessor,” President Bush.
The Web commentary was one of several posted by Taliban or al-Qaeda-allied groups in recent days that trumpeted the global financial crisis and predicted further decline for the United States and other Western powers. In language that was by turns mocking and ominous, the newest posting credited al-Qaeda with having lured Washington into a trap that had “exhausted its resources and bankrupted its economy.” It further suggested that a terrorist strike might swing the election to McCain and guarantee an expansion of U.S. military commitments in the Islamic world.
[…] [T]he comments summarized what has emerged as a consensus view on extremist sites, said Adam Raisman, a senior analyst for the Site Intelligence Group, which monitors Islamist Web pages. Site provided translations of the comments to The Washington Post.
“The idea in the jihadist forums is that McCain would be a faithful ‘son of Bush’ — someone they see as a jingoist and a war hawk,” Raisman said. “They think that, to succeed in a war of attrition, they need a leader in Washington like McCain.”
The idea that we should care what some hate-filled fringe groups have to say about our election is obviously ridiculous. Stormfront probably supports McCain and I don’t doubt that somewhere the Zapatistas have a humorously written communique that offers tepid support for Obama. The only reason I would give a crap what these people think is if, as with the right over Hamas, there is some short-term tactical benefit from ginning up an outrage party. If rightwingers find themselves sitting on a smoking petard it ain’t nobody’s fault but theirs.
***
Incidentally, in this case I don’t think that al Qaeda’s internal conversations are faked for American consumption. They did attack America to provoke another Afghan war. Bin Laden’s group did want America out of the mideast, yes, but they saw a crippling occupation fight as a necessary first step. These guys grew up kicking around Soviets and they thought that they could do the same thing to us. That didn’t work out as well as they hoped, but for reasons that future historians will lose hair trying to puzzle out the Bush administration decided to replace an almost certain win with a magnificent, epic fail.
Five years and eighteen torture scandals later we still have over 150,000 American troops in Iraq. We’re broke. Thousands of Americans are dead and the world hates our guts. The question of whether we caused more death and torture per annum than the guy we replaced is a matter of bookkeeping. We took out one of al Qaeda’s least favorite secular dictators and we keep trying to pick a fight with Shiite Iran, a regime that al Qaeda hates even more.
Osama bin Laden will die of old age. In all it is hard to imagine a credible aternative that would have promoted al Qaeda’s strategic goals (insofar as they had any) better than post-Iraq Bush administration. The president’s extreme advisors, who almost always outmaneuvered cautious voices like Colin Powell, relentlessly advocated poorly planned invasions that would leave blood and American bootprints on Islamic holy sites. So did al Qaeda. The “more rubble, less trouble” line that Glenn Reynolds coined, and which accurately describes the neocon perspective on the mideast, dovetails exactly with what al Qaeda hoped to make us do. For Sunni anarchist cults like bin Laden’s ‘creative destruction‘ is practically a mission statement.
The hysterical broad-brush islamophobia typified by Richard Perle and the Malkinites is incredibly useful if you hate America and want to see it fail. Our best bulwark against domestic terrorism is American cosmopolitanism. It is the main reason why not a single muslim American turned to terrorism [Update: or, to be more accurate, extremely few] while more culturally closed European countries continue to turn out radicals in frightening numbers. The extremist preacher doesn’t have much pull on your average teenager when he can step out the door and be just as American as his neighbor from Vietnam. However, enough hate at school, on the television and in crude epithets spray painted on the family house will eventually make him see things differently.
Hysterical islamophobia blinds us to allies and pressure points. For example, Iran hates al Qaeda as much as we do. They convinced the Northern Alliance (an Iranian ally) to work with us against the Taliban. They offered meaningful support after 9/11. Picking a fight with both at the same time is silly. Dirty icky communism did not keep us from wedging China away from the Soviets.
Still, who gives a shit what online takfiris say to each other. Their vote doesn’t count. The only relevant point is the reminder that the Bushist movement that conquered the Republican party and Rightwing blogs, while no doubt putting first priority on the fight against al Qaeda**, has in effect accomplished the reverse.
(*) Hamas revoked the “endorsement” after Obama reiterated his support for Israel.
(**) A less generous observer would note that GOP policies, banking on fear and dishonest liberal demonization, seem better designed to fight the next election.
This post is in: Clown Shoes
This election keeps getting better and better:
The Republican National Committee has spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.
According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.
The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.
Ambinder says Republican donors are PISSED. I may have been wrong about my Peak Wingnut theory, but I am reasonably sure we will reach Peak Schadenfreude on 5 November.
BTW- Has anyone asked Joe the Plumber what he thinks about this spending spree? Would he approve? We need answers, folks.
by John Cole| 34 Comments
This post is in: Election 2008
Sullivan asks if anyone will ever hire Steve Schmidt again, which of course elicits the obvious response- Bob Shrum. So, yes, sadly, Steve Schmidt will work again.
Beyond that, though, this election is not over. I am terrified of premature triumphalism. ActBlue is to the right, there. Go knock on doors. Drive people to early voting. Go. Now.
Oh- and also at the Sully link– Sarah Palin was, as we all suspected, a last minute choice and completely unvetted.
by John Cole| 62 Comments
This post is in: Election 2008, Republican Stupidity, Assholes, Clown Shoes
I hadn’t paid much attention to the Bachman Traitor Overdrive since noting she said something crazy on Hardball, but apparently there has been some huge fall-out. I just saw CNN run a piece comparing what Rep. Bachman said on Hardball to her denials to the Washington Times, showing she is completely full of it, and apparently her opponent has raised near a million bucks to defeat her since her HUAC revival. Now that the denials have fallen flat, she is claiming a misstatement.
I have to say, that is pretty awesome. If I had my way, we would dump a million dollars into every campaign against the core wingnut crew, but this alone is fun.
by Tim F| 99 Comments
This post is in: Media, General Stupidity
While we’re on the topic, Sarah Palin’s interview didn’t work out so well for CNN either. The guy who got the get, sometime investigative reporter Drew Griffin, already has a reputation as a hack but nobody guessed that his worst moment would come like this. For once in my life I’ll recommend that you head over to National Review and read the story. Griffin should resign and save his network the trouble.
by Tim F| 65 Comments
This post is in: Election 2008, Clown Shoes
During the Sarah Palin interview, CNN passed along a question from a third grader at a local elementary school.
Q: Brandon Garcia wants to know, “What does the Vice President do?”
PALIN: That’s something that Piper would ask me! … [T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.
This is the second time that Governor Palin has tried and failed to explain the job that she’s running for.
Sarah Palin may not have broken the glass ceiling for failed female nominees for Vice President (an incensed Geraldine Ferraro no doubt would add that she can at least update her own resume without help). Be that as it may, Palin’s fast waltz across the public eye will not be without accomplishment. She set a record for public dishonesty that will take a slugger with Barry Bonds’s drive, and possibly a similar level of chemical enhancement, to match. She made Dan Quayle look like a genius. Voters are more worried about her than they are worried about Bush.
Years from now when she’s mostly forgotten, Sarah Palin can at least look back and say that she accomplished something that most of us couldn’t do if we tried.