Short and sweet

Nicely done.

Always bad news for Obama

I read this Kos diary and thought "Wow. A seven point lead in the latest CNN poll is great news for Obama. He has a substantial lead over McCain".

Then I went to the CNN story and it seems like Obama is losing because his lead is only 7 points.

Will someone please help me understand how the press thinks?

Paging Maureen Dowd

I wonder if she and the rest of the commentariat will breathlessly write about how McCain is an out of touch pretty boy since he wears $520 shoes (to put that number in context, that is more than what my wife and I spend in a month on groceries). I think we all remember how the traditional press behaved when they found out that John Edwards got a $400 haircut and even then it made sense. In a time where politics is largely driven by image- you need to look good for the cameras. McCain's shoes, however, are not often going to be seen when he gives an interview- which seems incredibly indulgent.

Yet, as we have seen time and time again- the narrative for McCain has already been created. He is a man of the people. It doesn't matter if he owns nine homes, travels in a private jet or has credit card debt which is more than triple the value of my home. He knows what it is like for the common man. Obama, on the other hand, shops at Whole Foods- which is a clear indicator that he is out of touch.

Fun with irony

Well, if it wasn't so serious- it would be fun...

As ThinkProgress highlights, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Right hand of God), is up in arms over the Chinese government's plan to, in his words, spy on foreign visitors when they come to see the Olympics:

BROWNBACK: This is the public security bureau in China requiring the installation of hardware that they can listen to anybody and everybody’s and their communications and their recordings that are sent over the internet in a real-time purpose or over long-term. That’s spying, John. […] Your internet communications can all be monitored in a real time basis by the public security bureau of the Chinese government. I think they’re clearly intent upon spying. they’re going to be spying.

Seems to me, that as a silly graduate student, this is pretty damn close to what our government is already doing.

Furthermore, if I was a big time TV journalist, I would ask Senator Brownback how the Chinese plan is any different from our current plan. But once again, I am just a silly graduate student.

That seems about right...

While I think that the "this will help McCain" meme regarding the indictment of Ted Stevens is enough to make me move to Bangladesh, I have to agree with the folks at Pandagon.

If the elite press thinks that Joe Blow is going to make his voting decision based upon McCain's relationship with the senior senator from Alaska- because they have a long-simmering feud; then they need to stop eating so much paste and maybe think about spending some more time at a petting zoo instead of writing. Idiots.

Obama and the Elites

There is a great article in the New York Times about Obama's tenure as a law professor at U. Chicago. In it you see all the reasons why he will be a great president: he is thoughtful, able to see multiple sides of an issue and well versed in the issues. However, there is an interesting undercurrent that runs through the article, which suggests that Obama is aloof and uninterested in his teaching peers.

Unfortunately, I think the point of this exercise is to continue with the campaign narrative that Obama is an elitist; as he continuously spurns the advances of other faculty at Chicago to join them or their causes. Furthermore, the article also mentions that he was a favorite among the students and had many followers.

You can see then, why this is such a difficult narrative to maintain- Obama avoids the famous faculty in order to hob-nob with the lowly students. Obama doesn't join the other elites, instead he tries to keep himself in the real world- which oddly means that he is out of touch.

Over and over and over and over again

On the very same day that we find out that the Bush Administration behaved criminally in their politicization of the Justice Department, we find that the Department of Homeland Security will be heightening our terror alert status over the next couple of months. As Josh Marshall writes, the reason for the change in alert status is pretty simple:

US to be place on "heightened terror alert" in response to Republican efforts to maintain hold on presidency.

Perhaps others will see this as a bit cynical, but as noted by others- this wouldn't be the first time that the terror alert has been raised when it seemed politically expedient for the Bush Administration:

I know that these are both left-leaning commentators, but I think in light of today's findings regarding the conduct of the DOJ under Bush- the traditional press has good reason to ask- not accuse, but simply ASK- whether this is politically motivated at all. Unfortunately, it looks like the press is going to buy this hook, line and sinker (from the ABC article above):

The reasons: There are no specifics indicating an attack on the U.S. is imminent, and U.S. officials do not want to be accused of trying to inject themselves into the presidential campaign.

Nailed it--

Re: my post from earlier

This is exactly why McCain made the ad:

It looks as if the new McCain ad falsely attacking Obama over his canceled troop visit may not really have a lot of money behind it, suggesting that its real purpose isn't getting it before voters directly.

Rather, the real target audience may be the media -- meaning that the McCain camp's goal is largely to get the ad debated in the press and to drive the conversation that way.

But...he's the kind of guy that you would want to have a beer with!

The headline to this story really says it all:

Goodling Passed Over Experienced Counterterrorism Prosecutor Because Wife Was A Democrat

I wonder if the traditional press will ever come to grips with how they enabled all of this. To review- the US attorney scandal only became a scandal when a sucky blogger got to the bottom of the story. Even then, there has been almost nothing written about the ways the Bush administration politicized EVERYTHING. Nor has there been anything close to official condemnation from the punditocracy.

It is this particular aspect of the whole scandal which is so anger to-the-point-of-blind-rage inducing, we will hear nothing about how the Bush administration put millions of Americans at risk because someone's wife was a Democrat- there will be no public hand-wringing, no sternly worded editorial from the Washington Post, no call for criminal prosecution, NOTHING.

same shit, different election

I think we can see where McCain is putting all of his chips now, as the thrust of his campaign is going to be on why Obama hates the troops- literally. As I noted before, this is a line of attack which is beneath contempt, but unfortunately one that will ultimately work for McCain. The reason for why this is going to work is not because the press will support the claims, but because they will breathlessly talk about it.

Furthermore, the focus for this story is not going to be on how McCain is behaving dishonorably, but on Obama. In the 'he said/he said' way that the press reports on the campaign- the debate will be framed as "McCain says that Obama hates the troops, but Obama says that isn't true". With this framing, I think it is easy to see just how it benefits McCain. Case in point.

Ultimately, however, what makes this so frustrating is that the Democrats don't fight on these terms- there are plenty of issues that Obama could connect McCain to and in a way that generates endless debate which paints McCain in an unfavorable light. I think a great line of attack on McCain would be to say that he is in league with oil companies to maximize their profits. Why? Well, you have his recent reversal on coastal oil drilling, his support for the gas-tax holiday (which would be framed as a give away to the oil companies), the public perception that Republicans put corporations first, the fact that Americans are increasingly angry with the oil companies and the added bonus of linking McCain to an industry that Bush and Cheney were heavily involved in.

McCain has officially jumped the shark

I think there was a time, a long time ago- where John McCain was a sensible, honorable man.

That time has passed.

Nice Headline- jackasses

This is the current headline from MSNBC:

Bush and McCain seem to diverge
in foreign policy

At first glance, what this seems to suggest is that McCain does not agree with Bush's more aggressive foreign policy. HOWEVER, if you actually read the story- the article suggests that the recent moves by Bush, in regards to Iran and North Korea, make McCain more hawkish than President Bush.

I know this is a trifling thing, but if you are following the campaign- one of the strategies that the Obama campaign has used has been to compare President Bush to McCain. You would think that the editors at MSNBC would be sensitive to the fact that such a headline would be read as favorable to McCain. Perhaps a more accurate headline would be "McCain's foreign policy more hawkish than President Bush's", but really- what do I know.

Skinny Love

I think it might be impossible not to feel what ever is going on with this dude

Capturing THE voting block in 2008

While I think Cynthia's who skipped their high school reunion and live with three miles of a Pottery Barn are going to be an important voting bloc this fall, the most important voting bloc really is going to be twice divorced white Lutheran woman who are dating men who went to bartending school after failing out of tractor-trailer driving school.

I mean seriously folks, if you want to make those kind of distinctions- you are going to need some more data than a 1,000 person random sample with selected cross-tabs. They should really throw every political reporter into at least two graduate level stat's class- this is just embarassing.

I have met the enemy, and they are just incredibly stupid

oh my

Doing the work for me

When I wrote that Jib-Jab sucks hard, I had a longer post in mind that I was going to write explaining my position and why I think it is that the traditional media seems to love them so much. Fortunately, if you wait long enough- someone else will usually come along and say what you had intended and in a way that is much better said. To wit- here's Atrios commenting on someone else's post at Open Left:

As many others have observed, it's an odd thing about political journalists that they hate much about the subject they cover, specifically the messy business of politicians actually doing things to attract supporters and voters. While one can certainly hate certain structural aspects of politics as institutionalized in this country and wish them to change, the part about politicians trying to do things to get voters to vote for them is pretty much a constant in a democracy.

To be a good critic you actually have to have the capacity to love what you cover, otherwise you're just a cynical curmudgeon.

This is why they love the inanity that is Jib-Jab, as they both share a deep contempt for the political process. They all want some magical land where all politicians can be like Martin Sheen, Michael Douglas or Kevin Kline, presidents who say exactly what they mean and not have to worry about what the voters will think. Now, how does this president get elected? I have no idea.

Robert Novak- Ladies Man

This story has been all over the interwebs:

Syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak was cited by police after he hit a pedestrian with his black Corvette in downtown Washington, D.C., on Wednesday morning.

A few thoughts came to mind when I read this-

1. Hitting a pedestrian is only a citation? Note to self- NEVER JAYWALK IN DC.
2. How do you not know that you hit someone? I guess when all you get is a citation, you can be pretty cavalier about the whole thing.
3. Robert Novak drives a BLACK CORVETTE. Is there a more perfect car for him to drive? I can totally see him hitting on Georgetown undergrads at some swanky bar and thinking "wait til they see the 'vette, it's an A.P.R.S, (Automatic Panty Removal System)". What do you think he has in the tape deck? Boston? Aerosmith?
   

Ring of Fire's Weekly News 19

Wow...just, wow

The next person that says the media is in the tank for Obama, I am going to beat with Disco's beard.