Month: August 2008
The Rats Remain on the Republican Ship — Good People Leave
Posted on August 31, 2008 in Campaign 2008 Liberty
Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of [[Eisenhower|DDE]], left her grandfather’s party because she was sick and tired of the Rovian takeover:
This week, I changed my registration from Republican to independent. The two political parties as they exist today, and the partisanship that they foster, reflect the many fights of the cold war, the Vietnam era, the post–cold war and the 9/11 periods. Today we are in a different place altogether, where our security as a nation is challenged not just from abroad but also close to home. The energy, health-care and financial crises threaten our national prosperity and well-being, just as surely as any confrontation overseas or an attack by radical terrorists.
The word is out: if you like Republican politics as they stand now, you are an extremist. And, given the state of affairs in Minneapolis where they are locking up demonstrators against Bush and McCain, this extremism is not in defense of liberty, therefore a vice.
I doubt Barry Goldwater would have anything to do with this crowd.
[tags]Campaign 2008, Eisenhower, Karl Rove, Mean John McCain, John McCain, extremism[/tags]
As New Orleans Drowned
Posted on August 31, 2008 in Campaign 2008
Five years ago, while Katrina surged towards New Orleans, John McCain was eating cake with George W. Bush.
Ironically, it looks as if Hurricane Gustav will hit on the very anniversary, just in time for Bush’s speech at the Republican Convention. Seems that James Dobson prayed for bad weather to afflict Obama and God decided to give him a different kind of sign.
In the meantime, the Republicans are coming down hard on protestors at their convention.
Being a POW Does Not Make a Good President
Posted on August 28, 2008 in Campaign 2008
To hear John McCain tell it, he was the only resident of the Hanoi Hilton from 1967 to 1972. Or maybe the only one who was tortured — for the entire period! Phillip Butler became a resident in 1965. And for 4 1/2 years, he endured the kind of torture that John McCain endured for two years. Being a POW, Butler tells us, isn’t a solitary activity, but one which the 600 residents of the Hanoi Hilton went through together:
John McCain served his time as a POW with great courage, loyalty and tenacity. More that 600 of us did the same. After our repatriation a census showed that 95% of us had been tortured at least once. The Vietnamese were quite democratic about it. There were many heroes in North Vietnam. I saw heroism every day there. And we motivated each other to endure and succeed far beyond what any of us thought we had in ourselves. Succeeding as a POW is a group sport, not an individual one. We all supported and encouraged each other to survive and succeed. John knows that. He was not an individual POW hero. He was a POW who surmounted the odds with the help of many comrades, as all of us did.
I furthermore believe that having been a POW is no special qualification for being President of the United States. The two jobs are not the same, and POW experience is not, in my opinion, something I would look for in a presidential candidate. (Italics mine.)
Butler goes on to characterize McCain as anything but a moderate Republican but a man of the extreme right and temperamental: “that is not the finger I want next to that red button.”
As Joe Biden pointed out, McCain has been WRONG on every foreign policy gambit the US has made in the last eight years. His opponent, who knows a great deal about foreign policy despite the claims of the sound bites drooling from McCain’s rabid mouth, has been right. The months to come should expose Mean John McCain for the extremist that he is (one of his policy advisers insists that every American is insured!).
In the meantime, reflect on John McCain’s treatment of others who have served in our country’s armed forces. He has not been there when they needed his vote for better veterans’ benefits and he has voted to keep them in the Middle East in a war that the majority of them don’t believe in. In McCain’s mind, it appears, the only POW experience out of the 600 at the Hanoi Hilton, which counts is his own and the only American hero (8 residents of the Hanoi Hilton won the Medal of Honor but McCain was not among them) is himself.
We need a president for all the people — veterans and nonveterans alike. And that is Barack Obama.
[tags]campaign 2008, Mean John McCain, POW, Hanoi Hilton[/tags]
No Longer a Maverick
Posted on August 25, 2008 in Campaign 2008
During the Olympics, McCain ran a commercial calling himself “The Original Maverick”.
This, as any keen watcher of the political landscape is both historically untrue and no longer true of Senator McCain. The latter has sold himself out to Mr. Bush with 100% of his votes in 2008 going to support the president. Among the positions he has reversed, for example, is his stand on torture: where he spoke out against it, he now supports it.
The tagline of the new commercial is “Maverick No More”. McCain’s flip-flops to the Bush camp will be enumerated, culminating with his sellout to Big Oil. In the end, the commercial might say “People change. Sometimes for the worse” linking this to pictures of McCain with Bush.
The objective is to take away McCain’s claim to the title which he doesn’t deserve anyways.
On another note, people might be getting tired with McCain answering every criticism with “I spent time in the Hanoi Hilton.” The question here is do we just let them figure out for themselves or does the campaign point it out? A commercial could start with a mention of his heroism there and then list the times he ducked questions on other subjects using it. Come on John, we might say. This election is about more than that.
Obama in the Neighborhood
Posted on August 24, 2008 in Campaign 2008
Obama and McCain came to town last week — we live about two miles up the hill from Saddleback Church where Rick Warren interviewed the two of them. We weren’t able to get tickets, not being members of Warren’s congregation, but we had brushes with the event as we drove places.
Most exciting for me was to see a pair of Orange County firetrucks emblazoned with bright yellow “Fire Fighters for Obama” signs zooming around a corner. Hopefully the locals will remember who saved their asses nearly a year ago and show a little appreciation.
People gathered around the entrances of the Foothill Expressway to catch a glimpse of the candidates as they passed. I didn’t join them — you never know who you are going to be rubbing elbows with — but I was glad to see that, for once, the Democrats did not neglect my corner of California.
Many people in my area have seen the value of their homes drop thanks to the Bush Administration. Plus there was the matter of the Forest Service not being in a state where they could adequately douse the Santiago Fire — it lasted for weeks. We may not turn into a Democratic district, but the margin between Obama supporters and McCain supporters has closed.
Liberal Bias, my Pancreas!
Posted on August 17, 2008 in Campaign 2008 Liberals & Progressives
This item from the LA Times got missed:
The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, where researchers have tracked network news content for two decades, found that ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Obama than on Republican John McCain during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign.
You read it right: tougher on the Democrat.
During the evening news, the majority of statements from reporters and anchors on all three networks are neutral, the center found. And when network news people ventured opinions in recent weeks, 28% of the statements were positive for Obama and 72% negative.
Network reporting also tilted against McCain, but far less dramatically, with 43% of the statements positive and 57% negative, according to the Washington-based media center.
What do the neocons and Republicans want? No positive coverage of Obama at all! In other words, total control over the content of the news!
Assassination as an Indirect NeoCon Way
Posted on August 14, 2008 in Campaign 2004 Terrorism
Ever notice how most of the attacks on politicals in this country (maybe all?) in the past are against moderate and liberal members of the Democratic Party? Not much of a surprise when you consider that the corporate-owned media in this country employs monsters such as Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh who openly call for the murder of liberals in this country. Once there was a time when these outlets policed themselves and threw these jingoists out onto the street where they begged for book deals. But since the murder of the Three (John, Martin, and Robert) conservatives have regarded assassination as a tool for keeping liberal leaders from running for office.
I remember people telling me when I went door to door politicking for various candidates “Why vote? They only shoot the good ones.”
I think the solution is to keep electing the good ones, to press corporations to throw the ogres off the air and the newspapers, and to clamp down on domestic terrorism.
By the way, next time someone you know wrings her/his hands about John Edwards, start reciting this list. Republicans are to sex scandals what Democrats are to being assassinated. John McCain is no exception to the rule. After his wife was injured in a car accident, he divorced her to marry his longstanding mistress.
[tags]campaign 2008, terrorism, errorism, hate radio, hate watch, assassination, assassinations, Democrats, liberal, Republicans, neocons[/tags]
I’ve Got to Avoid a Redundant Title
Posted on August 7, 2008 in Campaign 2008
McCain thought he was so cool when he sprang his little piece last night, but the DNC has already cooked up a response. They may have been caught offguard last week because McCain had, after all, promised to keep the campaign pointed to the issues, but seems the machine is on point now.
What Obama needs to do is hit at McCain’s “celebrity”. McCain is hardly a man of the people, what with his $500 shoes and six homes strewn across the wreckage of the American landscape. McCain is a hero but not presidential material. He is offensive to women and out of touch with the economic plight of the American people.
Charles Schumer is talking about this as one of those intervals where the American political landscape changes, changes utterly like Roosevelt in 1932 or Reagan (gasp!) in 1980.
“I’m very sorry about it,” McCain said in a Saturday interview at his Arlington headquarters. “I think we could have avoided at least some of this if we had agreed to do the town hall meetings” together, as he had suggested, during the summer months.
So, we’ve seen yet another example of the infamous McCain temper. If you don’t run your campaign the way I want you to run it, I’ll go amok.
Aw just take your ball and go home next time.
Actual title seen at a conservative blog: “Why Obama’s Flip-Flips Matter and McCain’s Really Don’t”
[tags]campaign 2008, Mean John McCain, John McCain, McCain, Barack Obama, Obama, negative campaigning[/tags]
Could Obama’s VP Be a Republican?
Posted on August 7, 2008 in Campaign 2008
“To question your government is not unpatriotic — to not question your government is unpatriotic.”
“I took an oath of office to the Constitution, I didn’t take an oath of office to my party or my president.”
“National security is more important than the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. And to use it to try and get someone elected will ultimately end up in defeat and disaster for that political party.”
Senator Chuck Hagel
R-Nebraska
How would Mean John McCain respond if Obama’s running mate was [[Chuck Hagel]] of his own party? There are other candidates said to be in the mix including [[Hillary Clinton]], [[Evan Bayh]], [[Joe Biden]] (Mr. Foot in the Mouth), [[Kathleen Sebelius]], [[Sam Nunn]], and [[Chet Edwards]]. Word is that it will be “someone from left field” (does that disqualify Nunn and Hagel?) You could be sitting in the state or the district of the man or woman who is the next VP of the United States.
It is said that Clinton supporters might not like it if she is not on the ballot, but if they are thinking of defecting to Mean John McCain, they should check some of his recent activities and think twice. Obama wouldn’t call any woman a buffalo chip, much less attend a topless beauty pageant.
I think Hagel might well be the best choice. He and Obama are friends. Hagel could position himself as the “real maverick” of the Republican Party and, in the role of hatchet man, could tick off the number of times McCain was just a another member of the herd with the GOP brand across his rump roast rather than a true independent. Obama could then reach across to disaffected Republicans and proclaim a [[National_Union_Party_(United_States)|National Union Party]], the likes of which has not been seen since the Civil War.
Check this article by The Financial Times for further background.
[tags]campaign 2008, barack obama, obama, vice president, vice presidency, candidates[/tags]
Obama on how Republican Leaders Take Pride in Being Ignorant
Posted on August 6, 2008 in Campaign 2008
For a few days we were worried, but then Barack Obama didn’t sweat a drop. He just came right back….
I confess that for the past few days, I’ve been worried about how Obama would fare out there among the “big boys” like John McCain. But just as prisons are filled with eight year olds in the bodies of men, so the Republican Party leadership is filled with prep school bullies wearing suits.
[tags]campaign 2008, barack obama, obama, obama strikes back, mean john mccain, mccain, negative campaigning, positive campaigning[/tags]
