alternative hippopotamus

“It seems that no matter what happens in Iraq, opponents of the war have one answer: retreat,” Bush said at a press conference this morning. “When things were going badly in Iraq a year ago, they called for withdrawal. Then we changed our strategy, launched the surge, and turned the situation around. . . .

“It’s interesting that many of the same people who once accused me of refusing to acknowledge setbacks in Iraq now are the ones who are refusing to acknowledge progress in Iraq.”

President Bush as quoted in White House Watch

“Hello. I have a big box of used cat and kitten hats that I have collected over the years for various occasions. As of recently my cat, Snowman, is no longer living and thus I am forced to get rid of these precious memories. I would not feel right asking money for them so I am offering the whole box for free. There are many styles from formal to cute and funny.

Thank you, Patty.’”

Actual ad from Craigslist

“What’s lost … by embracing a tyrant who puts his people in prison because of their political beliefs?” he said. “What’s lost is, it’ll send the wrong message. It’ll send a discouraging message to those who wonder whether America will continue to work for the freedom of prisoners. It’ll give great status to those … who have suppressed human rights and human dignity.

Warming to the subject, Bush continued: “Sitting down at the table, having your picture taken with a tyrant such as Raul Castro, for example, lends the status of the office and the status of our country to him. He gains a lot from it by saying, ‘Look at me. I’m now recognized by the president of the United States.’”

Bush, as quoted in Politico

WSB (World’s Stupidest Blogger):

Most lefties can’t stand Joe Lieberman, I guess they’re anti-Democrat.

That was just plain funny.

I was very sorry to hear of the passing of William F. Buckley, Jr. As an adult rapidly cruising towards middle age I can see some of the errors in Mr. Buckley’s beliefs. However, that doesn’t detract one bit from the way he lived his life: as if it mattered. As if the world was his stage. As if there is an element of duty in making one’s life a work of art.

I particularly liked this bit from the NYT obit:

Many of varied political stripes came to see his life as something of an art form — from racing through city streets on a motorcycle to a quixotic campaign for mayor of New York in 1965 to startling opinions like favoring the decriminalization of marijuana. He was often described as liberals’ favorite conservative, particularly after suavely hosting an adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited” on public television in 1982.

I do hope that the progressive movement learns this from WFB: the right ideas, while essential, aren’t all there is to changing the world. There is a magnetic quality to charm and wit, and these are faculties most necessary in a movement leader, and must be cultivated.

Or: How I Stopped Thinking for Myself, and Learned to Worship Main Stream Media from an Obeisant Position.

Salon describes a new community Digg-like intertubes contraption:

Unlike Digg, Buzz does not let people submit just any stories from across the Web. Instead, Buzz is seeded with articles and videos from about 100 pre-selected news sites and blogs, among them Wired.com, Forbes, Time, The Huffington Post, Boing Boing, Portfolio, and Salon.

I’m suspicious of any mechanism that maintains the status quo. And, Buzz will clearly have that effect. If they were maintaining a list of the top stories not on the top-100 media outlets, now that would be interesting.

While I find right-wing sites like NRO, Captain’s Quarters, etc., poisonous in their own way, there’s another category of sites that are really too odious to discuss in polite company. So, while I’m fond of pointing out how disgusting Matt Drudge is, he’s not as sick as they go.

Still, the photo-op of Obama in terrorist knee-pants that’s making its way around the tubes today is like a Drudge 2-fer. He gets the damning visual out there- a man whose middle is the same as the last name of a former Iraqi dictator, and whose wife hates America, is fraternizing with known foriners. What comes next- compulsory French lessons? Simultaneously, the Clinton campaign be damned for the desperation of putting such a photo out there.

Meanwhile, the denizens of RedSate (RedSatan?) assure us that the lizard brain of the Republican freak show will slay the Obama campaign:

By the time it’s all over, the only defense Obama is going to have is to resort to the standard liberal playbook and scream racism when anyone dares point out his voting record. And the public we have not heard from year, the public that swings elections but generally does not engage in primaries, are going to come running to John McCain begging him to save the nation from the liberal anti-gun former cokehead whose feminist wife hates America.

America has rejected liberalism. Obama thinks he can repackage it in new rhetoric and move it to the left of Hillary. He cannot. I relish the fight against the man who has no problem with porn shops across the street from elementary schools and terrorist leaders in the White House. That’ll go over real well.

Again, as over-the-top as all this is, there’s stuff I saw that made my skin crawl. SadlyNo has done the heroic spadework.

Remarkably, Obama has weathered these attacks well, and even returned volley. That’s the point of Glenn Greenwald’s latest. Obama is not just framing the debate well for a Democratic candidate. He’s doing a great job, period.

Which brings me to what I wanted to say. After the discussion of Framing the Future from last Thursday, a few of us were sitting around in the back room of Timberlake’s when the following was put to me: (obviously, I’m paraphrasing) the idea of articulating deeply held beliefs using words that have proven to evocative is all very well and good, but it’s not going to stand up to the gale force devastation of the Republican reptilian brain. A brain evolved to use fear as effectively as his ancestors once used, well, fear. Once upon a time it may have been fear of wolves, or fear of a Roman centurion, but the idea remains the same. Do as I say or die a terrible death.

Is the invocation of fear to win elections a blatant and dishonest attempt to manipulate the voters? Well, yeah. Are Democrats apprehensive about using these kind of tactics? I’d say so. And, here we have a case where Obama campaigns without using the kinds of tactics that progressives are apprehensive of. He is doing essentially what Bernie Horn does in Framing the Future. And, it appears to be working.

Jake Tapper did the right thing. He called up the Obama campaign, got in touch with the captain mentioned in the debate last night, and got the facts right.

I figured that this would shut up the right-wing attack blogs. (Here I can’t help but observe that “blogs” rhymes with “dogs.” In deference to KCinDC’s comments, I’ll note that the phrase “mongrel hordes” is somewhat apt.)

Then, I saw this on the WSWS (with apologies to Sadly No!):

Obama, last night:

They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.

Obama’s source, an Army captain, to ABC’s Jake Tapper today:

“The purpose of going after the Taliban was not to get their weapons,” he said, but on occasion they used Taliban weapons. Sometimes AK-47s, and they also mounted a Soviet-model DShK (or “Dishka”) on one of their humvees instead of their 50 cal.

Wasn’t the point of Obama’s anecdote that our troops in Afghanistan were so poorly equipped, they were forced to capture weapons because they didn’t have enough?

If you had read the WSWS excerpt you might have thought: well, it’s not really clear that Tapper resolved the issue about Iraq diverting support from Afghanistan. But the Tapper post makes it entirely clear that Iraq diverted attention from Afghanistan. Including the paragraph right before the WSWS excerpt:

“It was very difficult to get any parts in theater,” he says, “because parts are prioritized to the theater where they were needed most — so they were going to Iraq not Afghanistan.”

So, why did the WSWS attempt to weasel out of their metaphorical dog house using a quote taken out of context? It’s because that’s what these people do. They don’t care about the truth or getting the facts right. This is about winning at all costs. This, for these folks, is about the ends justifying the means.

Note: the following is a draft for a post at OpenLeft. The final version is here.

I understand how Bernie Gordon’s Framing the Future (Berret Koehler Publishers, 2008) could be mistaken for a dozen or so other books on progressive framing. While it’s true that Lakoff’s books, or What’s the Matter with Kansas are of the same general milieu, I would approach Framing the Future in different terms.

Imagine for a moment you are one of a community of survivors after a devastating catastrophe. A once great civilization lies in partial ruins. In its capital city boulders obscure the ceremonial fountains, flooding has overtaken the main streets and boulevards, the museums and galleries are looted. Where once sat cafes now is rubble.

You’d want a How-To manual to rebuild the city. The manual should describe the tools you’ll need, how to use them, and for that matter, how not to use them. Framing the Future is such a How-To manual.

Of course, in describing a city post-disaster I mean our society, and by a catastrophe I mean the Reagan and Bush years. The tools are the means of communication we use, and the How-To’s are examples of their use.

To expand the analogy a bit I should add that the city is not being rebuilt in a vacuum; neighboring tribes are anxiously plotting to retake it, and use it for their own ends.

Who is “Framing the Future” addressed to? In the analogy I’m using it’s addressed to those who have an interest in rebuilding the city. In the language of the book, it’s those who have an interest and a platform for addressing the “persuadables.”

And who are the persuadables? We see, (p. 50):
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I spent the weekend at Katsucon, an anime convention here in our fair city. There were a number of things I got from the experience, but here’s what I’d like to pass along for now.

A fundamental relationship exists between Art and Civilization. Which is why Lord Kenneth Clark wrote a book called “Civilization” that was principally about Art. Those were the days when people wrote books that stood out for decades after you read them. Books that bridged the gap between mind and spirit. Books that changed your life.

This was before Jonah Goldberg was born, of course. The idea of writing, for example “Liberal Fascism” would not have occurred to anyone, except as a concept in a distopian novel as an illustration of the degeneration of some future epoch. That would be ours. My point here is just that the birth of Jonah signified the end of a particular thread of civilization. I’m not accusing him of being the Anti-Christ. Not exactly. More the anti-Lord Kenneth Clark.

I have no doubt that anime and manga has affected our little western experiment in society. I can tell you that the experience of watching Astroboy as a child whetted my appetite for the sciences. You can see how it’s influenced our filmmakers of this time. I’m thinking of Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino, but if you look at the way each cell of manga is a coiled spring, how something explosive is just about to happen, I’m sure the impact is much wider than Ghost Dog and Kill Bill.

I also have little doubt that the intermarriage of art and technology drove the way computer games were designed.

I have little doubt that Astroboy, and descendants of this genre was for my generation the manifestation of East meeting West.