Hard News: Weekend Warriors
311 Responses
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At least he's giving political interviews. At least as many as the VP candidate.
I might even vote for Jason Bourne -- well-travelled, is a maverick reformer with national security credibility, and wouldn't take any shit from that God-damned liberal media. :)
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Joe Wylie - your wit, your humour, your perspicacity. I truly admire you.
Make that trolling for rough trade Sagie. Oughta keep you engaged till your regular domestic arrangements resume.
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I might even vote for Jason Bourne -- well-travelled, is a maverick reformer with national security credibility, and wouldn't take any shit from that God-damned liberal media. :)
And I forgot: He's been tortured multiple times. Republicans really like torture victims. :)
I can hear you point out that Jason Bourne's an entirely fictitious character. Still not seeing the downside.
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And he can legitimately run with the the Ollie North defence ("I have no recollection of that incident").
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Maybe you can point me in the direction of a campaign ad endorsed by Obama that twists the truth as dishonestly as the sex ed one yesterday? Or a show me a link where McCain defends Obama against his alleged lack of patriotism or Islamic ties? I can show you a few where Obama praises McCain's service record.
Simon,
Like I said above Obama is "sticking to the issues - economy, health, war and not indulging in personal politics". He is running a clean campaign, a campaign which I admire and think has the best chance of delivering the White House. He is running a smart campaign.
Unfortunately he is backed by an on-line community who consider no gutter too low and no smear too putrid. During the primary campaign he embraced this online support, they became his team and he became their man, it played a large part in how he managed to out perform Clinton. Last week and over the weekend the online left went into full bloviating mode over Palin, spewing out massive volumes of factoids (repeatable lies intended to have some appealing quality). They attacked the qualities of Palin - they did this because they are IMHO really stoopid.
With issues voters Obama has a 55 - 35% advantage, with qualities voters McCain has a 55 - 35% advantage. It is very simple - if the campaign can be framed in terms of qualities over issues McCain will win. If you want Obama to win STFU about whatever it is you think you know about what it is Palin did and when, because that is an issue of qualities.
But don't just take my word for it - Boston Globe has a real succinct column about it with nice graphs for the relevent stats.
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Fact Check is getting increasingly tetchy with the McCain campaign.
First for misusing a FactCheck report -- pretending that it criticised the Obama campaign. Angus and Sage, you might want to read this one.
And now over a new ad alleging comments about Palin that were never made by the Obama camp, or in some cases, anyone. Read that one too. Those ads could only have been created by someone who knew they were lying and fully intended to do so.
Simon's right. There has been grossness and stupidity at both ends of the spectrum. But in terms of the actual campaigns, there's no doubt at all about who's lying and sliming the opposition. It starkly fails to match the fine promises that McCain made about the moral tenor of his campaign.
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And the latest: Palin links the 9/11 attacks to Saddam.
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I can hear you point out that Jason Bourne's an entirely fictitious character. Still not seeing the downside.
Well there is that uncomfortably close relationship he has with Matt Damon, the stinking rich Prius driving Hollywood liberal.
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And the latest: Palin links the 9/11 attacks to Saddam.
Mmmmhhh... I can see it in the headline, but the quotation in the article doesn't support it. She reportedly said to a contingent of soldiers about embark that they would "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans," and I think nobody is disputing the fact that Al Qaeda is in Iraq now. I don't have the full text of the speech, but I'll reserve my judgment until a better quotation comes up.
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Well there is that uncomfortably close relationship he has with Matt Damon, the stinking rich Prius driving Hollywood liberal.
And those persistent rumours around his sleazy love rectangle with Sarah Silverman, Jimmy Kimmel and his original bro-mance, Ben Affleck:
Nowhere near as hot as Sarah Palin or Cindy McCain. Meow...
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OK, I'm really hoping the full Charlie Gibson interview ends up on TVNZ7 because it just can't all be as bad as these extracts.
And could someone please tell Charlie Gibson that it's not only rude - but criminal in many parts of the world -- to stick your tongue that far up the arse of a woman married to someone else. Especially in front of a live camera. (Of course, the right-wing blogisphere are considering it a "hatchet job" that she was asked any questions at all on national security, her own statements etc,)
GIBSON: You said recently, in your old church, "Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God." Are we fighting a holy war?
PALIN: You know, I don't know if that was my exact quote.
A reflexive lie, or does she really not know what she said? Spooky either way.
GIBSON: Exact words.
PALIN: But the reference there is a repeat of Abraham Lincoln's words when he said -- first, he suggested never presume to know what God's will is, and I would never presume to know God's will or to speak God's words.
But what Abraham Lincoln had said, and that's a repeat in my comments, was let us not pray that God is on our side in a war or any other time, but let us pray that we are on God's side.
No, Sarah. What Lincoln -- a man who not terribly sympathetic to organised religion - said was this: "Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my great concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right." It was directed at a Northern minister who said to the Preisdent how glad he was that God was on the Union's side of the Civil War.
Now, perhaps what Lincoln actually said was a little too subtle for Palin - so she gets a pass for quite seriously distorting his point, while claiming she was quoting exactly his words. But, again, it's hardly encouraging is it?
Palin would actually do herself some favours if she meditated on this passage from Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, talking about the Civil War (emphasis added):
**Both [Union and Confederate] read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh."
I couldn't imagine such words coming out of the mouth of any Republican, certainly not Palin -- generous, judicious, thoughtful and disinclined to use God as a battering ram.
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I’m loving Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight. Who knew you could romance polling?
Five Thirty Eight is headed for the open road. We may have built a reputation for the numbers, but don’t be fooled: there is poetry in our souls. We are in the middle of an epic election, and for the final eight weeks we’ll be bringing you not only an intense daily polling menu, but also the story of the battleground states’ ground game.
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Just spotted at onegoodmove.org
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If you want Obama to win STFU about whatever it is you think you know about what it is Palin did and when, because that is an issue of qualities.
So we give McCain a pass on Palin and move on, despite what it says about the moral corruption of his campaign and his soul as a politician..I think not.
Sorry it's not that easy. McCain bought her in, and the slow unravelling of Palin..which will happen bit by bit, is his burden to bear.
Unfortunately he is backed by an on-line community who consider no gutter too low and no smear too putrid.
Both sides have sunk at various times (I don't think it was Dem central that orchestrated an email campaign that said Obama was an Islamic Manchurian Candidate...millions of those went out..I got one for gods sake) but there is a very clear and defined difference. Obama verbally and clearly distanced himself from the dirt, McCain, as recently as yesterday, continues to embrace it as a campaign cornerstone. I'm guessing because he has little else than that and a good ol' girl that eats moose but isn't sure what 9/11 was about. Once again, can you point mee towards a campaign ad that says that Obama is not an 'islamic agent'.
And when you bang a few drums of war, talk about those Islamic Fascists and toddle out a stream of jingoistic cliches there are a fair number of folks who are going to see those as admirable qualities. But the shame of it all is that this man, who once demanded the respect of folks across the political spectrum knows that much of what he's spouting is crap, knows that Palin is not fit for the job and knows that he's crossed a line but does it anyway.
McCain..sold his country down the river to get elected. qualities you want in a POTUS.
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and I think nobody is disputing the fact that Al Qaeda is in Iraq now.
I think, from what I've read over the years, that the link exists only in the name and the Iraqi operation used it more as a flag waving exercise than to denote any operational tie at any level.
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Both sides have sunk at various times (I don't think it was Dem central that orchestrated an email campaign that said Obama was an Islamic Manchurian Candidate...millions of those went out..I got one for gods sake) but there is a very clear and defined difference. Obama verbally and clearly distanced himself from the dirt, McCain, as recently as yesterday, continues to embrace it as a campaign cornerstone.
I don't think it's grossly unfair to link DailyKos to Obama, actually. He has written diaries for the site, so have other prominent democrats - Elizabeth Edwards no longer than a month ago. The Netroots are very important to his campaign, even if there is no direct operational link, and DKos is a major voice in the Netroots. The site sided with him during the nomination, and I'm sure it helped him quite a bit. The thing is, too, that the left is always so quick to attribute every single smear campaign to 'Republicans', lumping guys operating out of basements with the people in charge of the top campaigns. So I think it's defensible in the circumstances, especially given the prominence of the source, that Republicans should do the same when the tables are turned. The tarring with the same brush has to go both ways.
Now, sure, Obama has come down against the basest attacks, but so has McCain on occasion. Remember when he chastised that guy who kept saying Hussein Obama when he was introducing McCain to the stage a while back? It was seen by many on the left as cynical posturing on McCain's part, a convenient way of giving more air time to the slur and insulating himself from the dirty politics. I think you could make the point that since Obama keeps benefiting in so many ways from his Netroots support, people should be allowed to be sceptical of his motivations here too.
I still can't believe Moulitsas was so monumentally stupid.
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Now, sure, Obama has come down against the basest attacks, but so has McCain on occasion.
Writing diaries for the site and then using that to link him to the Bristol story is a hell of a stretch IMO, Giovanni. Kos is just that, a series of diaries, none tied to each other beyond common cause and none having any responsibility for any others. And that is the key word..responsibility...
The fundamental difference between the two campaigns to date has been, to me at a least, McCain's willingness to explicitly put his name to the slurs. They say 'endorsed by John McCain'. It's a massive difference. And even the press is calling foul now..AP ran an opinion piece today, very unusual for them at a time like this, pulling up McCain for willful distortion for the twists and smears of recent days. As did the WaPo and other broadsheets.
Like Angus, I'd like to see a return to a discussion about something more than this (and I think Palin is fair game) but McCain seems to have found his mojo for this campaign and it's in a place that the old McCain, the one who slammed the swift boating in 2000, would've been ashamed to go.
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I don't think it's grossly unfair to link DailyKos to Obama, actually. He has written diaries for the site, so have other prominent democrats
Um... well, that's like saying Helen Clark has contributed to The Standard; there's been some truly vile things and cretinous comments on the thing; therefore Helen Clark is "linked" to The Standard. Not exactly the kind of syllogism that going to score an A in first year logic.
I still can't believe Moulitsas was so monumentally stupid.
Now that I can totally agree with, but we've both said from the beginning that FakeBabyMamaGate was just wrong. But let's remember when Obama was saying loud and clear that Palin's family was "off limits" and calling on everyone to back off.
Obama became annoyed when asked about a Reuters news service report that quoted an unnamed senior McCain aide saying that Obama's name appears in liberal blogs speculating about Trig's parentage "in a way that certainly juxtaposes themselves against their 'campaign of change.'
"I am offended by that statement," the Illinois senator retorted, not letting the reporter finish his question. "There is no evidence at all that any of this involved us.
"We don't go after people's families; we don't get them involved in the politics. It's not appropriate, and it's not relevant," he added. "Our people were not involved in any way in this, and they will not be. And if I ever thought that there was somebody in my campaign that was involved in something like that, they'd be fired."
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Um... well, that's like saying Helen Clark has contributed to The Standard; there's been some truly vile things and cretinous comments on the thing; therefore Helen Clark is "linked" to The Standard. Not exactly the kind of syllogism that going to score an A in first year logic.
If The Standard also happened to be a major cash cow of the labour party and its candidates, and prominent members of the party that Helen Clark is the leader of kept stroking it and writing for it, then I'd ask the tutor to consider at least a B+.
Writing diaries for the site and then using that to link him to the Bristol story is a hell of a stretch IMO, Giovanni. Kos is just that, a series of diaries, none tied to each other beyond common cause and none having any responsibility for any others. And that is the key word..responsibility..
No, sorry. A series of diaries it may be, but Daily Kos is hardly a place where anything goes and everybody is responsible for his or herself. It bans users all the time (including plenty of democrats seen to cross this or that line - see most recently the Edwards affair) and it deletes diaries all the time. There are no ironclad guidelines except for, ironically, conspiracy theories, which are an absolute no-no. So there is a reason why half the commenters on that diary were screaming for a moderator to come and delete it. And it was generating so many hits and comments, that the mods couldn't possibly pretend not to have noticed it. They kept it going for a political calculation, and it was deleted only after Bristol's pregnancy was made public (which was extremely cowardly, at that point).
I'm with you on everything else, but especially since the distinction in strategies is so marked, having given fodder to the republicans to claim it's all tit-for-tat is inexcusable.
Then there is the vile factor: I haven't heard the other side say anything quite as repulsive about Obama. And that's no mean feat.
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I don't want to give the impression that I think of the standard the things that Craig said - I was just following the line of argument. I know you all care a lot about this particular distinction I'm making.
I so wish I wasn't working at ten past midnight on a Friday. Blah.
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I don't want to give the impression that I think of the standard the things that Craig said - I was just following the line of argument. I know you all care a lot about this particular distinction I'm making.
Fair enough - though I'd like to make clear that I've not problem with The Standard being a clearly partisan blog. I just have little patience with the more egregiously hacky posts and fucktard commentators who tip the signal to noise ratio in entirely the wrong direction. Much like Kiwiblog really.
And I've got to say turning the death of Gottlieb Braun-Elwert into an opportunity for crass political point scoring was no more palatable the right than it was from the left. Though, to their credit, both blogs actually asserted some editorial responsibility that I'd like to see happen more often. And without a death being involved.
I can see why both Obama and McCain's campaigns are trying to develop relationships with the "netroots" -- but, given the levels of toxicity around, it's certainly got serious blowback potential. While I don't entirely agree with your argument, Giovanni, you can't deny that there's an element of truth in the old saw that you are judged by the company you keep -- fairly or not.
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But it's fascinating to watch the narrative change.
Clearly the tack is now to use Palin's selection, and the corruption that implies in McCain camp, as a way to discredit McCain. You can see it in the Sullivan piece I posted earlier, and now in an increasing number of places including this Joan Walsh editorial on Salon.
It's also appearing in the mainstream media, which is I guess where it's targeted. The Palin interviews, even if the Republicans get a bump from the fact that she's simply out there, has given the argument that she should never have been chosen by a responsible candidate huge ammunition.
I think this is gonna be a core theme from hereon and it potentially has legs. It says so much about McCain that could really hurt him if it gets traction.
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Apologies Russell. I typed your name into the Palin baby name generator
via mudflats and from now on the algorithm refers to you as 'Speck Backfire Palin'.Sincerely
'Filter Skate Palin' -
Clearly the tack is now to use Palin's selection, and the corruption that implies in McCain camp, as a way to discredit McCain.
Well, considering that it's (effectively) the first insight anyone really gets into the judgement and decision-making processes of a potential President, I can't really see how it wouldn't be. Especially when, for the first time since 1928, there isn't an incumbent President or Vice-President on the ballot.
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I think, from what I've read over the years, that the link exists only in the name and the Iraqi operation used it more as a flag waving exercise than to denote any operational tie at any level.
Got to agree with Giovanni here. They almost certainly were't there when Bush et al started their little adventure. They almost certainly are now, five years on.
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