progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital
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.
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hip·po·pot·a·mus n. A notion, perhaps distinct from conventional wisdom, that needs to be verified by reality-based scrutiny.
95. Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.)
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
The best way to make sense of this legal tangle is to mouse over the title of an individual scandal, which will highlight everyone implicated. [Link]
A 22-year-old bicyclist was struck by a garbage truck and killed just north of Dupont Circle today, authorities said. Police and fire vehicles converged on the scene at 20th and R streets NW, snarling Connecticut Avenue traffic during the morning rush. [Link]
We're asking you to put some of the money you plan to give Obama "in escrow" until he demonstrates progressive leadership on the issues we care about, like warrantless wiretapping. [Link]
The report notes that the administration has gone to “unprecedented lengths to control and suppress information about the human cost” of the wars. [Link]
"We see a tipping point occurring right before our eyes," Hansen said during his appearance at the National Press Club. "The Arctic is the first tipping point and it's occurring exactly the way we said it would." [Link]
It appeared to confirm for the first time in an official examination many of the allegations from critics who charged that the Justice Department had become overly politicized during the Bush administration. [Link]
"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be ans [Link]
It gives me a terrible mental image of the whole country linking arms and goose-stepping in unison, with the politicians out in front doing a straight-armed salute. [Link]
BOULTON: There are those who would say look, lets take Guantanamo Bay, and Abu Ghraib, and rendition and all those things and to them that is the complete opposite of freedom. BUSH: Of course, if you want to slander America. [Link]
In a subsequent e-mail to the employee, Cargol described himself as “a rub-your-belly, grab-your-balls, give-you-a-hug, slap-your-back, pull-your-dick, squeeze-your-hand, cheek-your-face, and pat-your-thigh kind of guy.” [Link]
Democracy Now! Radio and TV News [Link]
Let's take a look at how the Los Angeles Times covered the new Senate Intelligence Committee report on the claims made as part of selling the Iraq war, and compare it to how the editorial page of the Washington Post, by which I mean Fred Hiatt, sees the e [Link]
Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that the Iraq war was sold to the American people with a sophisticated "political propaganda campaign" led by President Bush and aimed at "manipulating sources of public opinion" an [Link]
Hertzberg's analysis is noteworthy because he appears to be able to allow several ideas to coexist in his head simultaneously, which quite an achievement these days. [Link]
That night, George Stephanopoulos, who was then a top aide to Mr. Clinton, declared that it was “mathematically impossible for Brown to get the nomination” — the start of a campaign to declare Mr. Clinton the presumed nominee, even as several other [Link]
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