Michael Scherer writes things

Shorter intrepid Time Reporter- Michael Scherer:

If Obama said that his plan for Iraq was to give everyone a gumdrop pony we wouldn't have to scrutinize his plan, but since he has addressed this topic with serious thought, he must be pulling a fast one on us.

The two faces of patriotism

Matt Yglesias is wrong about the similarity between conservative and liberal patriotism as I think there is a very clear difference between the two.

I would classify the conservative view of patriotism as 'childlike' and liberal patriotism as 'adult' in that a traditional conservative's love of country matches the love a child feels for its parent and the liberal's love of country matches the love an adult feels for his or her parent. As a child, my parents existed as infallible beings and my love for them was unquestioning. Conservatives view love for country in the same way- the entire 'Love it or Leave it' serves as a testament to this world view.

For liberals however, love of country is complicated -just like the love I feel for my parent's is complicated. As I have gotten older, I see my parents as human and capable of making mistakes. Yet, it is their humanity which makes them all the more lovable (and sometimes maddening).

Saint McCain

via John Cole, we have the following:

Bob Schieffer, on Face the Nation, responding to John Kerry stating that McCain has completely changed his position on a large number of issues:

“Are you attacking John McCain’s integrity?”

This quote is really just covered in irony. John Kerry, who will forever be known as a serial flip-flopper, brings up the fact that McCain has repeatedly changed positions on a number of issues, and the response from Schieffer is that bringing up such issues is an attack on his integrity. Wow.

The way the guardians of the discourse see it, just noting that McCain has changed his mind is beyond the pale and I can't, for the life of me, figure out why that is. I don't know of another figure in American politics who is consistently painted in such a favorable light by the media and is afforded as much room for error.

The only other person that even comes close is Colin Powell, so it may be a military thing. Yet, if it was, people like John Kerry, Wes Clark, Bob Kerrey, Chuck Hagel or Max Cleland would also be afforded the same privileges by the media- but they aren't. It could be that McCain's history as a POW has set him apart from others, so that he is viewed as having integrity than any of the others. But should his experience be valued more than triple-amputee Cleland or Medal of Honor winner Kerrey?

Could it be his support for Campaign Finance Reform? Probably not. If it was, a bevy of liberals would get the same favorable treatment from the press.

At the end of the day, I think the simple reason for this deference to McCain is part of a vicious circular logic. The press loves McCain because he is a maverick. Why is he a maverick? Because the press says that he is.

To Amelia

just kill me now

From an AP 'analysis' that will come out tomorrow:

Perhaps most damaging was Thursday's statement in North Dakota, where he said he would reassess his stand on the Iraq war after he visits the front later this summer for briefings from American military commanders. Republicans tried to play that as an expedient political flip flop — a signal Obama was moving away from his vow to withdraw all combat troops within 16 months of taking office, a defining issue of his campaign.

Obama quickly said that wasn't the case but the Republicans rushed in with a critical broadside.

Note to the AP, this is only damaging if you carry water for the republicans. As Josh Marshall notes, this is just really embarrassing for the AP on so many levels.

David Brooks is an asshat

Look, if you have decided that in your infinite wisdom you get to deem Barack Obama an out of touch elitist, the last thing you should do is extol the virtues of pomegranate water (:31 seconds in).

Just sayin'

Well put

The idea that Obama is an elitist and that McCain is a regular guy really amazes/angers me.

I think part of what bothers me is that it hits pretty close to home. I grew up in a working class family with parents that never saw schooling past high school. I was the third person on my mother's side, and the fourth person on my father's side to go to college. My wife, has a similar background.

Yet, because both of us are soon to be graduates of ivy league schools we would fall into the supposed category of elitist.

Forgive me if I am wrong but, I used to think that we were pulling ourselves up from our bootstraps. I mean, if all that conservative crap is to be believed- we are the embodiment of the American dream.

But in this new social calculus, Obama and I are the ones that are out of touch with real America. If you want to know what real Americans are like, you need to talk to a guy that was born into the aristocracy, married an heiress and owns a million homes.

Ugh

I am just going to put one of my pet peeves out there right now. I HATE this time in the election cycle, when the candidate starts gearing up for the general election and makes the shift to the center. The part I hate is when self-righteous liberals start whining that the candidate is selling out and is no longer worthy of any support.

To these people I say this- shut your cake hole- this is about building a movement. This is about changing the way politics works at the generational level. Obama is not going to be the perfect candidate, he might not even be a very good candidate (although I happen to think he is). But at the end of the day, we are that much closer to seeing universal health care, respect in the world community and the return of the middle class.

Just look at religious conservatives, the Republican party had them eating a bunch of shit sandwiches in the beginning- but they went on to become the most important constituency to the Bush administration. If we whine and throw tantrums like so many have in the past, we are going to be knee deep in McCain shit for the next 4 to 8 years.

OBAMA FLIP-FLOPS ON IRAQ!!!

How does the media get, 'I will change my position on Iraq' from the phrase 'will continue to refine my policies'? Really, how the hell do they get there? The word that they are focusing on is 'refine'. What do you do when you refine? You can refine oil or coal. Now, does that mean that you change the actual substance into another? No. When you refine, you get closer to the substance's 'pure' state.

Quite simply, what Obama was saying was that he was working on a more perfectly articulated plan of getting out of Iraq. I am not shoehorning here. That is what he literally said. Yet, the media went crazy saying that he flip-flopped, and when Obama came back to say 'you are all idiots' (he actually didn't say that), they say that he had to clear up some inarticulate phrasing.

I mean really, this is what they have to do to show that he is a flip-flopper? Really? Meanwhile, McCain is changing his policies mid-sentence and he is still a straight-talkin' maverick.

I think as we get closer to the election, I am going to be drinking my own weight in whiskey.

Going to the Red States

I have long thought that the whole Red State/Blue State idea was just the work of a feeble mind. Unfortunately, however, it has become a fixture in the public discourse and has come to be THE way that modern punditry sees political life in the US. Most importantly, Red America has become the authentic America, while Blue America is the fake America. Blue America is the home effete, out of touch liberals and Red America is beer drinkin', hard workin' America.

This is why the news out of Montana is so great. If Obama can win in this 'conceptually' deep red state then many of the pundit claims that he is out-of-touch with regular Americans is, potentially, mortally wounded.

The end-all, be-all argument for voting Obama

The long national nightmare will be over.

The key to November

If Obama wants to win, he needs to convince some of the 19% that a McCain presidency is a continuation of Bush's presidency. That seems pretty easy, all he really needs to do is burn this image into the voters minds:

Reform, Prosperity, Peace, Bitching, Moaning

I thought Republicans were supposed to be the "Daddy Party"?. They cry more than my four month old does.

How long until the media's fainting couches come on out?

All Aboard!

This piece makes me angry on so many levels, it is hard to see straight. Here is the intro:

Straight Talk Express Gets an Upgrade

Sen. John McCain and his wife Cindy walk off his campaign plane after arriving in Allentown, Penn., June 30, 2008. (Associated Press)

By Juliet Eilperin
ABOARD THE STRAIGHT TALK EXPRESS -- The Straight Talk Express has gone airborne.

Hmm...I wonder if there is any straight talk on that express? But wait, the media fawning gets worse- a hell of a lot worse...

McCain senior aide Mark Salter quipped this morning that "only the good reporters" would get to sit in the specially-configured section for interviews. "You'll have to earn it," he said.

You wonder if the press will ever realize how their mancrush on McCain impacts the lives of everyday people and our standing in the world. Once again, we have an election that will be decided, not by policies or ideas, but on which candidate is cooler to hang out with.

Reason #2398 the press bothers me

A week or so ago, the public editor to the Times offered a well-deserved rebuke of (civilization ruining) Maureen Dowd, for her unfair treatment of Hillary Clinton. Unfortunately, that did not mean that Dowd would be relegated to her proper place in the press world, which would mean that her writing would be filling the pages of Maxim, People or Glamour.

Not to fear, however, as intrepid colleague-Gail Collins- publicly rushes to Dowd's defense:

As a Times columnist, I never envisioned myself writing a letter to a fellow resident of the paper’s opinion section. But I feel compelled to respond to your assault on Maureen Dowd.

Your complaint about Maureen seems to be that many supporters of Hillary Clinton found her columns offensive. As a former editorial page editor, I can absolutely assure you that supporters of many, many candidates from both parties have found Maureen’s columns offensive over the years.

The sharpness of her wit makes her commentary particularly painful to those who are on the receiving end. That’s also why so many readers love her and exactly what The New York Times pays her to do.

When the public editor laces into an opinion page columnist for making fun of a controversial political figure, it sounds like a suggestion that all of us tone things down. I hope I’m hearing wrong.

What I think this shows is two things. The first is the mindlessness with which members of the pundit class view criticism. They have one metric- are people from both sides angry? This is just stupid. Rather than splitting it down the middle, writers like Dowd would be far better served to take a look at the nature of the criticism. The complaint from the left is not that she skewers too sharply, it is that her view on the political stage is written for a grade school audience.

The second is that this episode shows quite clearly, that the pundit class doesn't do introspection. The problem is NEVER them.

End of June prediction

You might notice that I have added a link to the right-hand side for the blog 538. This is a really great place to go for polling info and for predictions and, as of now, the folks over there are predicting a big win for Obama in November.

I, however, am not so optimistic. I think this is going to be an incredibly close election with a very good chance that McCain pulls it out. Why? Because McCain enjoys a relationship with the press that no other major politician enjoys. They love him and will not cover him in a critical light. This is very reminiscent to the way that the press treated Bush, except they managed the press through fear and not through camaraderie.

We have already seen a few examples of how this is working itself out on the campaign trail. For example:

1. The post below- McCain's military record cannot be questioned
2. Similarities between Bush and McCain- Josh Marshall has a lovely rundown on how the media has made it clear that McCain is not like Bush
3. McCain's dust up with the FEC- He has broken campaign finance law but there is barely mention made of this.
   
4. McCain's wife- Terry Heinz had to report all of her income in 2004, but Cindy does not have to offer full disclosure.
   
5. C@#tgate- while this is a rumor, the press has happily spun thinner ones against Obama.

In an election where everything should point to a landslide, we would be foolish not to focus on the press coverage of either candidates. It is going to play huge in November.

The Great Wes Clark Treason Comment of 2008

Oh my f-ing word. I really don't have much to add to this, in terms of what exactly Clark said or what the reaction has been. I think any sane person will recognize that this is just all very silly.

The part that is a little more interesting is how the media reaction to this comment differs from the reaction to the rumors regarding Obama's background. Wes Clark made no disparaging comments about McCain's service (in fact, he praises him at length earlier in the interview), all he was saying was that McCain does not have any command experience during wartime. Which (I think) is an important contribution to the debate, and if the press had half a mind to treat the American populace like adults, we could reasonably discuss the merits of the claim. Like it or not, McCain is campaigning heavily on his military background, so he the first one to make it an issue. However, the press has gone batty over what Wes Clark said (here, here, here) and has equated the comment to swiftboating McCain.

Now, contrast this reaction to the one provided by the press over whether Obama is a secret Muslim, Marxist, homosexual, America hater- which are actually still talked about as potential problems for Obama. Instead of leaping all over these baseless claims, the great Commentariat sit and wonder if it is going to be a problem for Obama.

Hence, if you are keeping score at home:

Asking if John McCain's military background is actually something that relates to his performance as president: TOTALLY OUT OF BOUNDS
Wondering aloud if the baseless rumors regarding Barack Obama's background are going to damage his chances in November: A-OK.

awesome.

Testing the saddle again

Lots of stuff has happened since the last time I graced these parts, namely the birth of my first child. But, with the prez election coming up in such a short time, I figured if I didn't add my two cents to this horrorshow, I would probably go crazy. Hopefully my other two contributors will follow along.

They Need to be Stopped

It pains me to realize that we have over 10 months of this to look forward to:

So President Bush has delivered his last State of the Union. And what everyone in the House press gallery is talking about isn't the speech. Rather, it's the snub.

Sen. Barack Obama refused to make himself available to greet Sen. Hillary Clinton before the speech.

When members of the Senate entered the chamber, Obama came in before Clinton. He went out of his way to greet as many House members as possible and walked halfway across the chamber to greet members of the Supreme Court, the president's cabinet, the military joint chiefs.

That made what happened next even more striking. Obama returned to stand by his seat next to Sen. Edward Kennedy who endorsed Obama today in a widely watched event that reverberated across the political world.

As Clinton approached, Kennedy made sure to make eye contact and indicated he wanted to shake her hand. Clinton leaned towards Kennedy over a row of seats and Kennedy leaned in towards her. They shook hands.

Obama stood icily staring at Clinton during this, then turned his back and stepped a few feet away. Kennedy may've wanted to make peace with Clinton but Obama clearly wanted no part of that.

The sense in the press gallery was that Obama didn't cover himself in glory. Someone even used the word "childish." (Not this writer.) Judging by how much conversation there was about this brush off in the press gallery, Americans will be hearing a lot more about this tomorrow and in coming days.

I am not sure if this happened or not and I don't give a flying f#%k if it did. Do you want to know why? Because I am an adult and realize that in real life these things happen. I realize that in politics not everything can be gumdrop ponies and ice cream castles. Unfortunately, the press corps would rather act like a bunch of chattering school girls and gossip then actually give us something of substance.

Who did what to who?

From the write up for 60 Minutes tonight-

For a man who drew America into two wars and countless military engagements, we never knew what Saddam Hussein was thinking. But you are going to hear more than has ever been revealed before.

After his capture, Saddam met every day with one man, an American he knew as "Mr. George." George is FBI agent George Piro, who was the front man for a team of FBI and CIA analysts who were trying to answer some of the great mysteries of recent history. What happened to the weapons of mass destruction? Was Saddam in league with al Qaeda? Why did he choose war with the United States?

There is no doubting Saddam's general horribleness, but did he really draw us into war the second time? I thought there was a general consensus that this was a war of choice for the Bush administration. It kind of scares me to see this framed as Saddam's choice.