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Is it ok to produce a graphic that is reminiscent of the presidential seal or isn’t it?
Partisan conservatives like those mocking birds at Illinois Review, among many other nattering nabobs, are downright apoplectic that Obama’s graphic design team came up with a graphic that looks kinda sorta like a presidential seal. (Of course, the Obama campaign had been using an engraved image of an eagle for a while before this non-issue was raised anyway. Why didn’t cons gripe about it before? Must’ve been a slow news weekend.)
Problem is, plenty of Republicans have done the exact same thing — producing graphics that mimic the presidential seal and the seals of other branches of government. In fact, Republicans from local replacement candidate Martin Ozinga to presumptive presidential nominee John McCain have also been mimicking Obama’s other graphics so it’s abundantly clear that conservatives used to be ok with echoing earlier design work.
So which is it? Either it’s ok for all candidates to ‘borrow’ graphic design or it isn’t. Conservative partisans can’t whitewash and ignore instances of their candidates parroting designs but then go bonkers when the presidential front-runner (who also happens to be a Dem) does it.
Which is it, con whiners? Or are the cons perhaps really just upset because McCain didn’t think of it first instead of borrowing a chiseled star from graphics related to the US military?
(And so much for the tattered, faded myth of “liberal” media seeing as how this non-issue seems to be all they can talk about, now that they’ve stopped overanalyzing Michelle Obama’s pantyhose, or lack thereof…)
(h/t Mark Nickolas)
Unfortunately for Mark Kirk, when he makes statements over the airwaves they get heard by the public at large. Yesterday, he appeared on conservative radio’s WLS-AM and got caught telling a few whoppers, while apparently being caught up in the partisan vapors.
Progress Illinois recorded the conversation for posterity and noted that Rep. Kirk was infopimping the already debunked “China is drilling off the coast of Cuba” lie that was all the conservative-partisans’ rage last week as the cons tried to push for drilling off the coast of the tourist-dependent Sunshine State. (They ought to talk to the president’s younger brother about why he, smartly, wouldn’t let the rigs drill off his state’s sun-filled shores).
This Cuba lie was so easily and so quickly debunked that even Vice President and former Big Oil CEO Dick Cheney had to eat his words within days. Apparently, Congressman Kirk didn’t get the memo to stop lying.
Now, why a guy who claims to believe in a clean environment and went to town for photo op after photo op when BP Amoco wanted to dump poison in our Lake Michigan drinking water would be advocating for drilling off Florida’s beaches is unclear and not the least bit hypocritical. If he can work to find Federal dollars for solar panels at schools, he ought to also be able to work for alternative fuels instead of mimicking the drill-drill-drill lemmings.
A bit later in that same radio program, Progress Illinois also noted that Mark Kirk repeated the oft-heard ‘mistake’ that seems to plague conservative-partisans: swapping the names of “Osama” and “Obama”.
Rep. Kirk did rightly apologize publicly and to Sen. Obama as soon as the ‘error’ was pointed out, but even worse is the fact that he was bald-faced lying while talking about Obama’s stated positions on Osama bin Laden. To wit (via PI):
DON WADE: In fact, yesterday in a conference call, Barack Obama’s advisers were asked, “If Osama bin Laden were caught, should he get to challenge his detention in U.S. courts?” And the advisers said that — should that right to challenge detention that they get at Gitmo based on the Supreme Court ruling, should that be applied to bin Laden? — and Obama’s advisers said, “Yes.”
KIRK: Yeah, and I would much rather have a policy where if we see Obama there’s a shoot-on-sight order.
That, unfortunately, was only half of what the Obama camp has discussed regarding bin Laden.
The rest of the story actually comes pretty close to precisely what Kirk was advocating. From Nedra Pickler of the AP:
“First of all, I think there is an executive order out on Osama bin Laden’s head,” the Illinois senator said at a news conference. “And if I’m president, and we have the opportunity to capture him, we may not be able to capture him alive.”
Obama’s campaign said he was referring to a classified Memorandum of Notification that President Clinton approved in 1998 - revealed in the 9/11 Commission report - that would allow the CIA to kill bin Laden if capture weren’t feasible.
Obama said he wouldn’t discuss what approach he would take to bring bin Laden to justice if he were apprehended. But he said the Nuremberg trials for the prosecution of Nazi leaders are an inspiration because the victors acted to advance universal principles and set a tone for the creation of an international order.
“What would be important would be for us to do it in a way that allows the entire world to understand the murderous acts that he’s engaged in and not to make him into a martyr, and to assure that the United States government is abiding by basic conventions that would strengthen our hand in the broader battle against terrorism,” Obama said.
It’s unfortunate that the WLS hosts were so ill-informed but hopefully this is clear enough for Rep. Kirk and he’ll stop repeating his fibs and half-truths.
Or does Mark Kirk not believe in Truth, Justice and the American Way?
I wrote on Sunday about another of the lies Sen. Lindsey Graham told America during his “This Week” appearance on ABC.
Sen. Graham’s bit was ostensibly to talk up John McCain but in reality he ended up mostly muddying waters and blurring lines. In the process, he told the whopper I noted last Sunday about McCain’s campaign not being full of lobbyists when the fact is not only are there lobbyists working at the highest levels of Camp McCain but they even do their lobbying from the back of his Straight(ish) Talk Express and are clearly influencing his policy statements, both foreign and domestic.
But enough about the Mac team’s attempts at smoke and mirrors on lobbyists.
Sen. Graham, of course, lied about other stuff too. To wit, on the heels of the discussion of McCain’s cozy association with lobbyists came this whiney subject-changer in the form of a weak try at guilt-by-association:
“John McCain didn’t borrow money from a guy going to jail to build his house.”
- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) discussing Barack Obama on Sunday’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulous.”
Neither did any other presidential candidate, including front-runner Barack Obama.
Eric Zorn of the Tribune describes 8 basic points as he tries to set Sen. Graham, and the record, straight on Rezko. In short:
1. The deal could have gone down without Rezko. …
2. The Obamas did not get a special discount on the house. …the sellers have confirmed that the sale price was the result of routine real estate negotiations and was the best offer they received on the house.
3. The sellers rejected two lower bids from the Obamas. …
4. The Rezkos did not pay an inflated price for the vacant lot. …
5. The Obamas did not get a special discount from the Rezkos when they later purchased a one-sixth strip of the vacant lot to enlarge their yard. …
6. The Obamas did not receive or borrow any money from the Rezkos to buy their house. …
7. Obama hasn’t done any political or personal favors for Rezko since this saga began. …
8. The reason Obama is nevertheless correct in describing his actions here as “boneheaded” is that Rezko is and was a sleazeball.
ArchPundit has a ton more details in his series on Tony Rezko for anyone who’s actually interested in the truth.
If all the Republicans have on Sen. Obama are lies (which would fit an emerging pattern of other lies)… what does that mean for the McCain campaign?
On this morning’s This Week with George Stephanopolous Senators Lindsey Graham (Bush and McCain supporter) and John Kerry (Obama supporter) decided to tell a little fib and George let it slide…
The topic was lobbyists’ influence and DC status quo. Sen. Kerry correctly pointed out that GOP nominee John McCain’s campaign is full of lobbyists including those who’ve tried to spin away the mortgage crisis because they lobby for the very banks at the heart of the bad loans…
Sen. Graham carried water for McCain and his lobbyist friends everywhere by laughably claiming there are no lobbyists in the McCain camp…
(No wonder some of his ’staff’ could forego pay when his campaign tanked earlier.)
Apparently those in the national media tend to pout when they are called out on their sins of ommission… Must be why they’re being so conspicuously quiet now that the rug has also been pulled back to reveal their sins of commission in the run-up (and on-going cheerleading) for the Iraq War.
Unfortunately, while our nation may eventually recover its sullied reputation on the world stage, all our brave GIs who’ve sacrificed so much won’t find much solace even if the media realizes once again it ought to be the Fourth Estate (keeping a check and a balance on the three official branches of government) instead of zombie-like stenographers… McCain barbecue sauce and flowers for mum or not.
Check out Team America and friends carrying water (or should I say “carrying gas”) over at Rich’s place while trying to spin his best baloney about Dan Seals gas price promo at a Lincolnshire station the 10th district.
Two points while TA and Co try to come up with more hollow rants opposing Seals..
- First, despite TA’s willful, partisan-induced ignorance, Mark Kirk also “gives away” things of value and material benefit to voters. There are plenty of Kirk for Congress shirts and caps on parade routes, and folks who go to his events are treated to free goodies like cookies, pop, etc.
All politicians give away items of value.
All.
- Second, a Republican in neighboring Indiana gave away gas for free — yes, for free — just last month.
Republican Luke Puckett, also a challenger just like Dan Seals, pumped free gas a month ago in South Bend while bending drivers’ ears about his plans to drill for oil in pristine natural areas of California and Alaska. (Wouldn’t weening our nation off what Pres. Bush calls an “addiction” to oil be smarter in the long run? Even if we destroyed God’s Creation to get at a few more barrels of oil, even those rigs will eventually run dry — and then what?)
John McCain had to write his own jokes for this YouTube piece.
I wonder why the national press following his campaign doesn’t pick up on this more… (Could you pass that sweet BBQ sauce … and a beer?)
And his ideas are different than Pres. Bush’s failed conservative policies how?
Someone pass the ribs basket while we wait for the not-so-liberal media to report on the many shady deals McCain’s chief campaigner and lifelong lobbyist Charlie Black has under his belt…
Is McCain’s chief Charlie Black a…
(a) Lobbyist to the Dictator Stars?
(b) Lobbyist Cashing in on Taxpayer-funded Pork?
(c) Lobbyist with ties to Fake Astroturfing PR Efforts?
Congrats John McCain — thanks to the lobbyists you’ve hired to run your Double Talk Express your “maverick judgment” is going the way of those used wetnaps from your Sedona Resort BBQ For the Media… and it’s unlikely any SNL sketches are going to help.
While it’s despicable that GOP “leaders” such as Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) would choose to slice out only the few phrases that would make the presumptive Democratic nominee for president look bad (and they have to actually ignore those phrases’ real intent even at that), it’s equally deplorable that a well-respected journalist such as the Sun-Times’ Washington Bureau chief and political columnist Lynn Sweet would let them get away with the distorted half-quoting via her own half-baked he-said/they-said stenography at her to-the-minute blog.
Either immigrants are the worst thing ever* and they’re stealing all our jobs or we don’t have enough people in this country willing to fill all the manual labor, low-wage, hourly positions to keep up with demand.
This has been another rousing edition of “Which is it?” … brought to you as always by divisive partisanship.
* - keep in mind about 99 bajillion percent of Americans are either immigrants or descendants of immigrants…
Check out conservative strategist Dan “The Saddest Clown” Proft at about 2:50 into this Chicago Tonight interview with WTTW’s Carol Marin.
Ms. Marin had asked Mr. Proft and Chicago legal eagle and Daily Kos contributor Georgia Logothetis about the effect of the blogosphere in relation to traditional media. Ms. Logothetis stated that the left blogosphere had acted as a fact-checking foiling the traditional media’s meme that the Democratic presidential race was somehow close when, in fact, it was mathematically near impossible for Sen. Clinton to overtake Sen. Obama’s pledged delegate count.
Here’s Mr. Proft’s response to the notion that the blogosphere was playing the part of fact-checker to the traditional media’s meme that the Dem primary season was ‘a close race’:
I mean Barack Obama? Until last night, he hadn’t won a primary in about three months. Err, yeah. Since… since Super Tuesday.
He was trying to say that the media got it right because Clinton was indeed somehow “close”… But perhaps Mr. Proft needs his own fact checker.
Some facts…
Super Tuesday was February 5th, 2008.
This Chicago Tonight interview was May 7th, 2008.
Barack Obama won the delegate count in 13 primaries and caucuses in the three months since Super Tuesday.
What’s that? Thirteen wins?
“…Err, yeah. Since… since Super Tuesday.”
(You want to get uber-technical and point out that Mr. Proft said only that Obama hadn’t won a “primary”? Fine. It’s still a a fallacy since among those 13 states he won there were several primaries, including one right next door in Wisconsin a full two weeks after Super Tuesday.)
Either the man was lying or he’s a complete dunce.
Watch Mr. Proft for yourself:
Why did well-respected Chicago telejournalist Carol Marin not call him out?
Surely she knew about the primaries and caucuses in Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington state, the US Virgin Islands, Maine, Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia, Hawaii, Wisconsin, Vermont, Wyoming, and Mississippi…
And will Mr. Proft be asked back to Chicago Tonight … or any other self-respecting media outlet for that matter?
Only time will tell.
But one thing is for certain. No matter how poetic Mr. Proft’s spin and fibs, nobody’s “fearful” of such dim-wittedness.
PS Dan: the garden’s doing fine, thank you very much. 
How are your cats and sock puppets?
(h/t Illinois Review “Conservative vs Liberal on Chicago Tonight”)
Recently resigned Bush administration official Lurita Doan is alleged to have scheduled meetings and planned ribbon cutting type ceremonies with partisan aims in mind (ie, positive media stories) and generally pulled other strings to shine favorable lights on incumbent GOP legislators — while doing the opposite as retaliation against Dems.
Having the head of the taxpayer-funded general services administration committing such blatant political favoritism is of course a big no-no and apparently, after years and years of not being caught, she got caught and the WH asked her to resign. (Whether Bush wanted her to leave because what she did was unethical or because she got caught we may never know.)
All of which lead Time magazine blogger Karen Tumulty to wonder “what took so long”.
Atrios and several commenters to her own Time blog post give her the answer she least expected, but the most obvious for those paying attention — that darned (not so) liberal media ‘in action’ again.
Question:
Why is it that a reverend who quotes an ambassador as evidence of his assertion that a nation cannot go to the four corners of the earth arming despots and tolerating intolerable regimes is lambasted endlessly for more than a month by our bloviating pundits and sundry partisans while another reverend with truly radical interpretations of scripture (calling the Catholic Church the Great Whore of Revelation) to promote his notion that the End Times are nigh while also declaring that an American city deserved to be damned by God (note that NOLA lost 1000 churches but Bourbon Street was fine) is sloughed off with only a few softball questions and “oh, by the way” mentions?
What is different between Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Rev. John Hagee … except skin color?
Both are well-known, nationally-recognized preachers.
Both are bombastic in a fire and brimstone way.
Both are American and active in American society.
Both interpret Scripture in a manner they deem appropriate to advance their perceived calling and mission. And, in that vein, both have declared that God damns America for what they declare are her sins.
There is only one difference between them… skin pigments.
Actually, two differences when you consider their impact on presidential campaigning.
While it is true that Rev. Wright was Sen. Obama’s former pastor and he officiated the Obamas’ wedding and baptised their daughters, Sen. Obama did not seek his endorsement nor any particular support from him at all. In fact, he has now given two speeches — alternatively described as “strong,” “displaying true leadership,” “groundbreaking” and “very presidential” — forcefully denouncing Rev. Wright’s sometimes outlandish and hammy claims. Rev. Wright, quite simply, was Sen. Obama’s pastor and that’s it — not a kitchen cabinet guy, not a political confidant, not a pursued endorser.
Obama has had to give two landmark speeches clarifying his positions and presidential goals (and denouncing his former pastor’s remarks) and still the media won’t let go of their most recent ’shark week/missing blonde’ fetish even as they virtually ignore the deeper controversies swirling between Rev. Hagee and Sen. McCain, which could impact national security when you stop to consider what is being suggested.
As a matter of fact, Sen. John “Not So Straight Talk” McCain obviously has gone back on his words of 2000 in which he declared radical conservative religious leaders “agents of intolerance” and “un-American.”Yet in preparing for 2008 McCain pursued Rev. John “Catholicism is the Great Whore” Hagee and similar radicals vigorously, as if he were getting ready for the prom and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Now that he has Rev. Hagee’s hand in support, McCain says he’s “glad to have” it.
For those who claim questions about Rev. Wright are questions related to Sen. Obama’s judgment, what does this two-faced sophistry say about Sen. McCain’s judgment?
And all McDouble-Talk has to say are the magic words “Of course I denounce it” to dust Hagee’s repeated radical and controversial sermons and public statements off his dark suit’s sleeves (each laden with anti-Catholic, anti-American, and anti-common decency themes).
But no one in the media has bothered to ask if this relationship means that if McCain’s elected president he’ll be “glad to have” Hagee’s counsel on matters related to, say, the Middle East and … Armageddon? We already know Jewish leaders don’t want Hagee’s support because of his anti-peace and anti-democratic views and even Catholic conservative pundits have rebuked him and McCain’s gleeful acceptance of his support.
In 2000, McCain said, “Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance.”
What changed?
And why does the media routinely give McCain a pass on his double-talk?
(Maybe they’re still craving those “delectable” BBQ ribs, which apparently come with sweet and tangy cognitive-reducing sauce…)
Some folks need to grow up. This is a publicity stunt, nothing more. If these pictures covering up most of the celebrity’s body are somehow “nude photos” we’ve got a heckuvalot more nude beaches in this country than anyone apparently realized — one-piece swimsuits are more “revealing” for the pervs out there concerned about such things.
Say, isn’t there some trouble brewing with the economy? And what’s this I hear about some war going on?
And how about all those war-profiteering generals who were paid to propagandize in favor of the war on national TV for years, even though they personally and privately saw the war going fubar almost from the get-go?
Shh, there’s some underage club-hopping rich girl celebrity showing off her spine: Priorities.
How f’ing sick do you have to be to tie in Chicago’s recent rash of gun violence and murdered children to the Presidential campaign???
Congrats, Anne Leary and Gang… You’ve gleefully skipped right over trying to actually find a solution to the problem and instead dove headfirst right into that disgusting cesspool of partisan politicking; a sewage pond you’re now choosing to fill with the still fresh blood of those children whose souls you’re now abusing.
Ms. Leary is promoting yet another trite guilt-by-association smear — a low-budget YouTube ad, hoping to be picked up and endlessly replayed for free on the boob tube — from yet another con partisan who has no interest in actual, honest conservative principles but rather a near-prurient need to score evermore partisan chits. Ms. Leary finds herself applauding the news that ABC’s Jake Tapper will be promoting the video as well as the alphabet network apparently continues down its path of turning the news division into just another version of their soaps.
While Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain are actually trying to have an issues-based campaign debated on high standards, Ms. Leary and her con comrades would rather try to smear Obama with any shred of “violence” or “radicalism” by playing Six Degrees of Bullshit. (Then again, Ms. Leary, you’re admonishing your own nominee because he doesn’t see a place for the unprincipled uber-partisanship you espouse … just so we know where you’re coming from.)
Say, who’s behind this propaganda effort to try and overtly connect Obama to the concept of “violence” as a means to tarnish him through the use of the common propaganda technique of “transferance”?
None other than Floyd Brown, a low-brow GOP operative known for producing vitriolic guilt-by-association ads that do absolutely nothing to actually prevent the violent crimes he exploits for his partisan gain.
I don’t know of a word in the English language that accurately describe just how pathetic, amoral and debasing such partisans who would use the murders of children for purely partisan gain really are. But Ms. Leary, you’re right there with Mr. Floyd in whatever ring of hell that peccant place is.
Those kids are dead — and you’re using their murders to channel your hatred for Sen. Obama?
Again, a strong enough word does not exist, though loathsome comes close.
(PS: Contrary to popular belief, the death penalty has been proven time and again to not deter murder and other violent crimes as it is … so what on earth are Ms. Leary and Mr. Brown trying to accomplish?)
–
As an aside, Rep. John Fritchey makes several very good points in his discussion of the actual topic — gun violence. Ms. Leary and her cohorts would do well to stop shooting up with their partisan syringes for a time and think about practical means to prevent such violence instead…
Ladies and gentlemen, your so-not-liberal-they-look-like-conservative-propagandists media in action…
To the public, these men [retired military brass] are members of a familiar fraternity, presented thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the post-Sept. 11 world.
Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.
The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances and a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.
Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, executives, board members or consultants.
The companies include defense heavyweights but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for billions in military business generated by the administration’s war on terror.
Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major networks.
Hmmm… Billions of dollars for the military-industrial complex dangled like cheese on a trap? Check. Feigning objectivity while manipulating the media for positive political points and potential self-indulgent profits? Check. Controlling access to information rather than being open and honest? Check.
Heckuva job, disinformation services. Heckuva job.
It’s not like the Bush administration has ever played the media for tools or wasted billions on unethical war profiteers, have they?
Are those crickets I hear chirping instead of media conglomerates owning up to their ineptitude?
Thought so.
Steve Rauschenberger may be gearing up for another run for statewide office, or a midling spot in a hypothetical McCain administration…
Rauschenberger, the man who helped bring the Alan Keyes Flying Circus to Illinois, has been making the rounds of any ol’ conservative wurlitzer that will have him and our friends at Illinois Review have been dutifully following his trail of breadcrumbs as if he’s actually saying something of note.
His latest quips were printed by the conservative Wall Street Journal, and reveal the sublime irony that is Rauschy, post-State Senate:
“Barack was one of the smartest people I ever worked with, but he was more interested in moving up,” says Republican Steven Rauschenberger, who served with Mr. Obama in the state senate. “I never thought he was very engaged in the state senate, because he didn’t think that much of it.”
First off, that doesn’t explain why State Sen. Barack Obama has so much legislation under his belt and a stint as a committee chair. If he wasn’t “very engaged” why’d he work so hard at it?
Second, this quote is coming from a guy who was otherwise preoccupied in 2004 and 2006 doing … what was it? … ah, yes … running for higher office. Then-State Sen. Rauschenberger ran for that same US Senate seat opening that then-State Sen. Obama ran for and won. (Rauschy lost in the primary, pretty soundly too.) Two years later, Rauschy hadn’t lost that fever and ran for governor. When that was going nowhere, he joined the Ron Gidwitz campaign as the lt. governor add-on. That couple still lost in the primary to Judy Baar Topinka and another fellow who seems to perennially be seeking higher office, Joe Birkett.
Did Rauschy not think that much of the Senate Chambers himself?
What a bunch of hot air.
Update: Rich Miller describes the rantings of Rauschy in more detail, debunking spin after spin. Mr. Miller concludes: “Again, Rauschenberger makes a few very good points, but overall his message seems, well, ‘bitter.’”
Con partisans are positively giddy claiming that Sen. Obama is somehow “whining” about Wednesday night’s True Hollywood Story - “On Stage” … “debate”. (Methinks they need to get their mock-o-meters checked. Making fun of how odious that Reality TV programming was is not the same as “whining”.)
Would conservative complainers like Anne Leary, John Ruberry and Dan Curry be saying the “hard questions” needed to be answered had it been Sen. John McCain … and if he had been asked a litany of Heathers fodder such as:
- McCain’s role in Keating 5
- when the violence will end in Iraq in order for the proposed 100 (or million, take your pick) years of American deployment to begin
- “Bomb-bomb-bomb-Iran“
- the blonde lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, riding on McCain’s “straight talk” bus
- McCain’s divorce from his injured first wife (who remained true to him as he was held as a POW) and affair before his divorce
- why would John McCain’s Florida co-chair offer $20 to perform oral sex on another man
- Keating 5
- Pastors Parsley and Hagee and their anti-Catholic, pro-Armageddon preaching and why McCain would specifically seek out endorsements from such men
- why did he wear a bulletproof vest and require a large military escort (replete with gunship helos) while declaring a Baghdadi market that has seen many horrific bombings (including within days of his visit) was just jim dandy
- the blonde lobbyist riding on his bus
- Keating 5
- tax cuts for the wealthy while mainstream Americans (the other 90% of us) are struggling
- the blonde lobbyist riding on his bus
- why McCain caved on unAmerican torture
- is McCain Episcopalian or Baptist and why switch if switch he did
- the blonde lobbyist riding on his bus vis a vis McCain’s reputation as a skirt-chaser
- McCain’s record of coziness to lobbyists in contrast to his media persona as a straight talker
- McCain’s relationship with conservative pastors who blamed 9/11 and Katrina on Americans, thus making them anti-America conservatives
- the patriotism of conservative pastors who blamed 9/11 and Katrina on Americans
- is McCain an elitist because he married into a $100 million fortune
- his current wife’s past drug habit
- why Americans should vote for someone like McCain who admits he doesn’t know much about economics and, of all people to advise him, turned to the architect of much of the nation’s current credit woes, especially during a widespread downturn
- would John McCain consider Florida State Rep. Bob Allen for VP
- the blonde lobbyist riding on his bus
My hunch is conservative partisans would be hopping mad. In fact, we’d likely be hearing weeks’ worth of “Woe is me, the mean media is soooo snively and (gasp) lib’rul…”
Their concern would likely be especially acute if some of the questions were initially raised a day or two before in an interview the supposedly neutral moderator had with, say, Sam Seder or Rachel Maddow. Seeing as how former Clinton White House staffer George Stephanopolous apparently got some of his “debate” questions in his interviews with conservative pundits Sean Hannity and Steve Malzberg I’m sure Curry, Ruberry and Leary would be fine with a debate moderator using questions verbatim from Rachel Maddow.
Then again, as Mr. Ruberry’s excuse-making declares, those lines of questions also get to a more fundamental query, “Does he have good judgment?” … at least in a push-polling, rumor-mongering kind of way.
If the media is going to buy into these conservative partisans’ character-assassination-as-legit-campaign-tool efforts (and, indeed, further that cause by chewing up and regurgitating opponents’ tired and old attacks for half of a debate) then Sen. McCain ought to answer “tough questions” that have little or nothing to do with what the American people actually care about.
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As an aside… I wonder how long it’ll be before we’re back to being told by these same con partisans that the media is too soft on Sen. Obama.
–
(adapted from a shorter DKos comment; h/t to smintheus and georgia10 for their ABC sideshow “debate” synopsis as reference)
Review this front-page, top-of-the-fold headline in today’s Tribu carefully:
Democrat
debate is
a slugfest
Now, I could see “Democrats’ debate…” or “Democratic debate” but unless the Dai Tribu is going to start dropping all its derivational suffixes as some sort of funky new standard, there’s a headline writer that needs to retake 3rd grade English. I understand their editorial page is staunchly and historically conservative (even endorsing George W. Bush not once, but twice), but there’s no need to start taking writing style tips from the RNC.
For that matter, I’m not sure which debate Tribu reporters Mike Dorning and Christi Parsons watched but most of the rest of America — including a healthy sampling of their fellow journalists (Washington Post, Phila. Daily News, Editor & Publisher, and more) — were rather disgusted when they tuned in thinking they would see a debate but instead were treated to a weak display of Reality TV meets All My Children, with a dash of True Hollywood Story for good measure.
Enough wallowing in the “talk” about talking about doing something already… Time to do something about bittergate and orangejuicegate and myopic-partisans-and-reporters-missing-the-point-gate.
(Earlier, I wrote more about Sen. Obama’s accurate assessment that hard-working mainstream Americans are at times bitter about our country’s economic situation… I agree with Robert Reich’s assessment here.)
In a moment of clarity, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer notes that the Iraqi government has billions in savings thanks to Baghdad budget surpluses.
Meanwhile, we Americans are spending $340 billion million a day to fight the Iraqis’ battles and build the Iraqis’ roads and schools and police stations — all while running up such huge debts that the formerly Republican-controlled Congresses had to keep raising our national debt ceiling for their trillion-dollar shell games.
From Mr. Blitzer’s blogpost:
Just before and immediately after the U.S. launched its invasion of Iraq, Bush administration officials optimistically predicted that Iraqi oil exports would soon finance the reconstruction of the country. That didn’t happen. U.S. taxpayers were stuck with the literally tens of billions of dollars in bills.
Now, five years later and with the price of oil reaching more than $100 a barrel, Iraqi oil exports are generating huge sums [...]
[Democratic Sen. Carl] Levin notes that the Iraqis by and large are still not using their money to build new roads, bridges, schools and hospitals. Why should they? Uncle Sam is still doing that for them.
One clarification - Uncle Sam is not doing that for them. George Bush is (through his veto of reasonable plans for strategic withdrawal and other hijinks).
Manya Brachear is the Chicago Tribune’s faith issues reporter.
Early last year, just after Sen. Barack Obama announced his presidential bid, Ms. Brachear helped write an article which had the unfortunate effect of promoting a fringe view that completely misrepresented the now-well known Trinity United Church of Christ. In other words, Ms. Brachear unwittingly helped a bunch of partisan Obama opponents info-pimp their misinformation campaign, an effort that (given the amount of explanatory information available with a 0.21 second Google search) can only be described as an intentional attempt at distorting Trinity’s beliefs and deliberately working to foment discord against both Obama and his church.
That article’s title says all that needs be said:
Race is sensitive subtext in campaign
South Side church’s tenets spark criticism of Obama by some conservatives
With articles like that and others the traditional media inadvertantly helped bolster the conservative partisans’ efforts to paint Obama’s church as somehow “other” — illegitimate, racist, anti-American, …simply “wrong” according to their partisan politicking.
Trinity’s tenets didn’t “spark criticism”. Deliberate partisan attempts to misrepresent a theology with which many Americans were unfamiliar manufactured an info-pimped “controversy” where none, when all the facts are on the table, actually exists. But that theology — based on Christ’s own teaching found in Luke 4, Matthew 25, etc. — was in and of itself not at all wrong.
In later weeks and months conservative talker Sean Hannity (among many other conserv-o-partisans) subsequently labeled his church “separatist” and “segregated” while conservative WorldNetDaily columnist Erik Rush referred to it as a “cult” on Hannity’s FOX show. Whether Ms. Brachear cares to acknowledge it or not, that Trib article helped set the stage for such bullshit by lending the smears an air of legitimacy with the implication being “If the Chicago Tribune is covering some controversy over that church then it must be controversial….”
Sure the Tribune has had out-of-the-blue endorsements for Dems before — notably Melissa Bean over been-in-Congress-longer-than-forever Phil Crane just a few years back.
But this morning’s endorsement was a bit of a surprise. Sure, myself and others have noticed Mr. Jim Oberweis‘ pattern of lying, skirting the law and distorting the facts as he tries to buy himself an elected office, any elected office… But would the “Vote for Rubber Chicken, Republican” Tribune?
Those cows have come home and now the Milk Dud is covered in his own bullpuckey as the Tribune also recognizes (smells?) that pattern of overwhelming BS clear as a barnyard on a hot summer’s day.
[...] This page is closer to Oberweis than Foster on several economic and foreign policy issues. But we watched Oberweis in his races for the U.S. Senate in 2002 and 2004, and for governor in 2006. We’ve watched this race for Congress. His campaign style has consistently been nasty, smug, condescending … and dishonest.
[...] This year, Oberweis’ campaign is based on the notion that his opponent is a big-spending liberal. Oberweis’ TV and radio ads quote Foster saying, “There’s nothing in life that you can’t improve by pouring money at it. …”
Foster did say that, at a League of Women Voters debate. But the transcript makes it clear he was talking about thefederal government’s “poor efforts” to improve air-traffic-control safety. His conclusion: “This is one example of a place I would look to save taxpayer dollars.” (emphasis added)
The Trib didn’t forget Oberweis 2006 incident of using them like a tool, making up headlines about his opponent and attributing those false headlines to ye olde Chicago Daily Tribune.
Here’s hoping the denizens of the fine 14th remember that this Saturday: For Congress: Bill Foster, the one who wants to save taxpayer dollars… Not the one who tries lying his way into office.
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PS: Typically, the League of Women Voters asks all candidates to sign off on an agreement to not disseminate recordings or transcripts of their debates and fora. The LWV hopes to avoid just what the Milk Dud and the cash-strapped Republican Congressional Committee have done: cast negative ads using a League-hosted event, which puts the LWV in a bad light. Way to go win-at-all-costs pachyderms.
Kagro X warns us:
Killer terrorist vacuum cleaners. Fucking hell!
Good on Fox Propaganda for keeping the citizenry informed of the dangers of Roomba. We wouldn’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud… or a dust bunny.
Recent AP news headline:
Obama fights false link to Islam
Dan Curry doesn’t like that the AP is reporting on the Obama camp’s defense of their candidate’s faith. He thinks that the simple act of reporting on Obama’s actions somehow means the AP is coming to Obama’s “defense” against conservative-partisans’ xenophobic lies against him.
Worse, he compounds the cons’ lies about Obama (the “false link” which he “fights” back against) with a lie of his own about the AP, claiming they didn’t “defend” Mitt Romney of all people (didn’t he drop out about 9 eons ago in campaign time?) which I take to mean he thinks the AP never ran stories about Romney defending himself.
I don’t recall AP jumping this quickly to the defense of Mitt Romney and the many smears of his religion. (link original)
Except that Mitt Romney is a Mormon. Ergo, it would not be false to call him a Mormon and there would be no need to defend against false “links” to the Mormon Church.
On the other hand, Barack Obama is a Christian and not a Muslim. Ergo, it would be a lie to call him a Muslim, especially if it is done in an attempt to simultaneously deride Islam and smear Obama. And in this modern political age such fallacies require vigorous, continuous defense with the bright light of truth (whether the lies stem from conservativedom in general vis a vis lying chain emails or one con in particular, say, Mr. Curry).
Shouldn’t the AP (and all media) be reporting the truth? Why does Mr. Curry take issue with reporters reporting actual fact-based news? Simply reporting the truth is not “defending” this or that candidate. It’s just being honest.
What doesn’t Dan Curry get about that? Perhaps he’s just so dizzy from all his frantic spinning that he’s now flipping out … or maybe he’s kept his partisan blinders on so long he’s lost all capacity to actually see reality.
Or is it the case that Mr. Curry would prefer to have the AP stop reporting on Republicans’ defense of their own candidates (seeing as how he doesn’t like it when they report on Dems defending against cons’ lying)? He best start whining about the myth-busters at Snopes.com also seeing as how they’ve also pointed out that cons’ claims of Obama being Muslim are false (big red “false” icon and all).
Now, it could very well be that Mr. Curry is sore that his fellow conservative partisans did indeed attack Gov. Romney’s faith (similar to their lying about Sen. Obama’s Christian faith) with falsehoods, innuendo and downright sectarian bullcrap as this Illinois Review post lays bare.
It’s not the AP’s fault that Mr. Curry’s partisan allies decided to put the “con” in “conservative” and lie about one of their own; though such lying clearly does appear to be par for the course.
Besides, the AP actually did report on Gov. Romney’s defense of his own faith many times over. Again, maybe Mr. Curry is too dizzy from all his spinning to “recall” Romney’s ‘major speech on faith’ in Texas last year but the AP covered it and other instances of “Mormon defense” quite handily here, here and even here in quotes that CNN picked up from an AP reporter’s earlier work… The list of media stories from the AP and others covering Romney’s and other Latter-day Saints’ defense of the Mormon faith are plentiful if Mr. Curry had bothered to deal with the truth instead of spinning his bs.
By the way — following what passes for the conservative-partisans’ own logic — we find that lying about a Christian, smearing his good name and distorting his bedrock faith means that conservatives are themselves anti-Christian. Who knew? [Shrug.]
Let me start by saying that no matter who it is or whatever party banner or independent effort they run under anyone who runs for president must, by default, love their nation. Why else would folks from Ron Paul and Mike Gravel to John McCain and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama subject themselves to years’ worth of bullcrap if not for the chance to convince their fellow Americans they have solid plans to make our nation better.
Yet last week CNN and MSNBC asked readers what they thought of Obama’s patriotism, taking the partisan criticism of him as facts rather than opinions… And AP reporter Nedra Pickler, wife of a FOX News propagandist, told newspaper readers what to think about Obama’s heartfelt loyalty to America…
Essentially, the newsies were simply following up on conservative partisans’ charletan rants and flailing fibs about Sen. Obama’s hands, suit jackets and wife (not necessarily in that order).
Regarding his hands, cons are squawking that he doesn’t hold his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance which is odd since he does. Even more strange, some cons apparently don’t think that lie is enough of a lie so they’ve exaggerated it into claiming he refuses to even say the Pledge. Again, he actually does say it and has in fact led the Senate’s reciting of the Pledge on occasion, as seen on C-SPAN.
The one (1) photo they are actually referring to comes from last summer’s Tom Harkin Steak Fry event in Iowa in which he stood at attention during the National Anthem. Now, not everyone holds their hand over their heart for the Anthem and there’s no law in this supposedly free country saying citizens must place the palm of their hands X number of inches from their heart muscle. But it’s clear that he sang the song (and it wasn’t even the Jimi Hendrix version) and that he also recites our Pledge.
So, there’s one lie for the conserv-o-partisans regarding Obama’s staunch patriotism.
Regarding his suit jackets, cons complain that Sen. Obama does not wear a flag pin on his lapel. Hypocritically enough, several of the Republican presidential candidates also do not wear flag pins, including one John McCain.
Why are there no day-long news segments questioning John McCain’s patriotism?
Senator Obama’s response is basically, “Bring it on.” If cons want to question his patriotism while supporting a GOP party that sent our troops into war undermanned and ill-equipped, has handed over billions of taxpayer dollars to war profiteers in no-bid contracts, and has neglected and abandoned our troops once they return … well then these folks are much further gone than we all originally thought.
While that’s not a lie it certainly is a healthy helping of hypocrisy.
Finally, and perhaps most telling in their attempts to smear Sen. Obama’s dedication to our nation, cons are now going after his wife, Michelle. Recently, Mrs. Obama told a rally crowd , “Hope is making a comeback and, let me tell you, for the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country. Not just because Barack is doing well, but I think people are hungry for change.”
Given the context of that rally, and the fact she has said similar (though differently worded) things in the past, it’s abundantly clear that Mrs. Obama was discussing her pride in America’s (little-d) democratic process and in this sense “country” means her fellow voters. And why shouldn’t she be proud of her fellow voters “for the first time in her adult life”? It’s clear that, unlike the past two or three decades, entirely new groups of Americans are now engaged in the process in record-breaking numbers from sea to shining sea.
That is something to be proud of.
But when the cons get a hold of that string of words, they not only remove the context but also highlight the half-quoted portion that they can make sound the most siniste… and so Michelle Obama’s pride in her fellow voting Americans becomes a conservative-partisan smear against her patriotism and, by extension, a smear against the presidential candidate himself.
So now we even have a half-quote that the cons are working on turning into a lie, as evidenced by Rep. Joke Jack Kingston (R-GA) string of fibs and ever-longer nose during his recent Bill Maher appearance (Kingston hit just about every lie on the books while making a complete ass of himself on national TV).
If all the conservatives have against Obama are lies about his love for America, a patriotism that is clearly very deeply woven into the fabric of his being rather than the “last refuge” sort of patriotism eminating from scoundrels like Rep. Kingston and other cons, why isn’t the media explaining the truths these partisans are trying to mask rather than infopimping their attacks?
But no, no. Obama supposedly gets a “free pass” from the “liberal” media… Yet another lie from conserv-o-partisans on top of a stack of lies and daunting doses of double-talk.
It matters not if the media promotes this roll of baloney out of an irrational fear of continually (and erroneously) being labeled “liberal” or because they think these non-issues are somehow legit news stories and they have 24 hours of newstime to fill. The credibility they lose by engaging in these lazy partisan he-said/she-said pissing contests directly affects their bottom line — as ad revenues, readership tallies and viewer ratings all indicate — because Americans are smarter than that.
For weeks (even months) conservative-partisans and other Obama haters have been trying to build up at least two themes against the Senator. The first is this notion that the media is somehow giving him a pass and the second is this bizarre plug-n-play infopimping about Obama’s strong patriotism (they pulled this same plug-n-play move against Kerry and Gore… go figure.)
While certainly both Obama and McCain have enjoyed some deferential treatment from the media, they are also both hit hard on a regular basis.
The current conservative retort to McCain being a “media darling” is to point to the recent stories in the NY Times, Washington Post and elsewhere regarding his coziness with a lobbyist and the favors he tried to pull for her clients. But even griping that the media is somehow turning on McCain isn’t accurate since the Times held off on that story for months — and the actual first-run article was simply a recitation of facts (McCain’s staff did distance him from the lobbyist out of concern about “appearances”, etc.).
But for some reason, cons keep whining that Obama too is getting a “free pass” from the media, a claim that simply isn’t true.
For years, the Trib and Sun-Times have been pouring over Obama’s legislative records, his donor forms, and even the real estate records on his home purchase in the hopes of finding something dire regarding Rod Blagojevich’s friend, Tony Rezko. But there’s no there there (and I’ll be the first to eat crow if something is ever found).
More recently, the tee-vee newsies have been jumping onto the slightest things — and echoing con talking points in doing so — in what conservatives would likely claim would be a concerted effort to tarnish Obama had he been a Republican.
Last week, CNN and MSNBC both gratuitously infopimped the cons’ meme questioning Obama’s staunch patriotism. Even the Associated Press got in on serving up the pig slop with a story doing little more than promote the conservative partisans’ baseless attacks.
And, of course, Tim “Meet the Press” Russert just decided to jump on the Six Degrees of Kevin Farrakhan trolley with a weak game of “gotcha” vis a vis a line of questioning that could best be described as pointless drivel and guilt by association malarkey.
So, conservative partisans, just how is it that playing up these sorts of non-issue, partisan-based stories is a “free pass”?