Suspended Edublog Campaign Day 2: Political Web Round-up 10/12/2008

• Op-Ed Columnist – The Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama – NYTimes.com – Annotated

  An excellent op-ed that addresses the subject we’re all uncomfortable talking about.

  tags: obama, mccain, history, politics, elections08, racism

  • Don’t for an instant believe the many mindlessly “even-handed” journalists who keep saying that the McCain campaign’s use of Ayers is the moral or political equivalent of the Obama campaign’s hammering on Charles Keating.

    What makes them different, and what has pumped up the Weimar-like rage at McCain-Palin rallies, is the violent escalation in rhetoric, especially (though not exclusively) by Palin. Obama “launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist.” He is “palling around with terrorists” (note the plural noun). Obama is “not a man who sees America the way you and I see America.” Wielding a wildly out-of-context Obama quote, Palin slurs him as an enemy of American troops.

    By the time McCain asks the crowd “Who is the real Barack Obama?” it’s no surprise that someone cries out “Terrorist!” The rhetorical conflation of Obama with terrorism is complete. It is stoked further by the repeated invocation of Obama’s middle name by surrogates introducing McCain and Palin at these rallies. This sleight of hand at once synchronizes with the poisonous Obama-is-a-Muslim e-mail blasts and shifts the brand of terrorism from Ayers’s Vietnam-era variety to the radical Islamic threats of today.

    That’s a far cry from simply accusing Obama of being a guilty-by-association radical leftist. Obama is being branded as a potential killer and an accessory to past attempts at murder. “Barack Obama’s friend tried to kill my family” was how a McCain press release last week packaged the remembrance of a Weather Underground incident from 1970 — when Obama was 8.

  • McCain, who is no racist, turned to this desperate strategy only as Obama started to pull ahead. The tone was set at the Republican convention, with Rudy Giuliani’s mocking dismissal of Obama as an “only in America” affirmative-action baby. We also learned then that the McCain campaign had recruited as a Palin handler none other than Tucker Eskew, the South Carolina consultant who had worked for George W. Bush in the notorious 2000 G.O.P. primary battle where the McCains and their adopted Bangladeshi daughter were slimed by vicious racist rumors.
    • It amazes me how little press is given to the campaign MANAGERS in all of this.

      That McCain would hire the guy who smeared him with insinuations that his and Cindy’s ADOPTED Bangladeshi baby was actually McCain’s LOVE CHILD from an affair with an African-American woman is so newsworthy.

      And credit to Obama, whose character is under 100% negative McCain ad attack, for not pointing this out as a far more damning indication of bad character in the new McCain. – post by cburell

  • No less disconcerting was a still-unexplained passage of Palin’s convention speech: Her use of an unattributed quote praising small-town America (as opposed to, say, Chicago and its community organizers) from Westbrook Pegler, the mid-century Hearst columnist famous for his anti-Semitism, racism and violent rhetorical excess. After an assassin tried to kill F.D.R. at a Florida rally and murdered Chicago’s mayor instead in 1933, Pegler wrote that it was “regrettable that Giuseppe Zangara shot the wrong man.” In the ’60s, Pegler had a wish for Bobby Kennedy: “Some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow falls.”

    This is the writer who found his way into a speech by a potential vice president at a national political convention. It’s astonishing there’s been no demand for a public accounting from the McCain campaign. Imagine if Obama had quoted a Black Panther or Louis Farrakhan — or William Ayers — in Denver.

    The operatives who would have Palin quote Pegler have been at it ever since.

    • Again, Palin quoted Pegler in her speech, but the McCain campaign managers wrote that speech. Responsibility goes to the top of the ticket for allowing it. – post by cburell
  • But we’re not at Election Day yet, and if voters are to have their final say, both America and Obama have to get there safely. The McCain campaign has crossed the line between tough negative campaigning and inciting vigilantism, and each day the mob howls louder. The onus is on the man who says he puts his country first to call off the dogs, pit bulls and otherwise.
    • Great last line.

      If nothing else, the depressing race to racism in the McCain campaign has inspired some excellent prose among those decrying it. – post by cburell

• LIVENEWS.com.au > World > Palin probe rocks McCain campaign

  Palin’s “abuse of power” as AK governor will make it harder for her and Mccain to use the “maverick reformer” brand.

  tags: palin, elections08

  • The report said that Palin had “the authority and power to require Mr Palin to cease contacting subordinates, but she failed to act.”

    The probe was the latest blow to Palin, who electrified the Republican Party when she was first picked but has seen her impact diminish amid questions about her qualifications.

    The damaging report could make it tougher for the McCain camp to portray Palin as a crusading reformer set to flush out corruption in Washington.

    Meanwhile McCain has been forced to try and tone down his supporters at his rallies as they increasingly shout out “terrorist”, “liar” and even “kill him” when Obama is mentioned.

• McCain tussles with Palin over whipping up a mob mentality – Times Online – Annotated

  Dissension between McCain and Palin – Palin positioning herself for 2012 presidential run.

  tags: mcain, palin, elections08

  • “Sarah Palin is no fool. She sees the same thing and wants to salvage what she
    can. She is positioning herself for the future. Her best days could be in
    front of her. She wants to look as though she was the fighter, the person
    with the spunk who was out there taking it to the Democrats.”

  • A McCain official confirmed that there was dissension in the campaign. “There
    is always going to be a debate about the costs and benefits of any
    strategy,” he said.

    “After November 4, the feelings of individuals will come to light. It is only
    natural and will be expected.”

    Palin’s frustration with McCain has led to clashes over strategy. When she
    learnt he was pulling resources from Michigan, an industrial swing state
    leaning heavily in Obama’s favour, she fired off an e-mail saying, “Oh come
    on, do we have to?” and offered to travel there with her husband Todd,
    four-times winner of the 2,000-mile Iron Dog snow-mobile race.

    She also told Bill Kristol, the conservative New York Times columnist, that
    she wished the campaign would make more of Obama’s 20-year association with
    the Rev Jeremiah Wright, his controversial former pastor, who said, “God
    damn America”.

  • McCain’s allies responded by suggesting that she had her own pastor problems,
    such as the African minister who prayed to Jesus to protect her from
    witchcraft when she was running for governor.

  • A spokesman for McCain denied he and Palin had fallen out over her aggressive
    attacks. “Vice-presidential candidates are typically the tip of the spear
    and further out in front than the candidate for president. This is pretty
    standard fare,” he said.

    However, Palin is no longer helping to attract women and independent voters to
    the Republican ticket. A poll for Fox News last week showed that while 47%
    of voters regard the Alaska governor favourably, 42% now have an
    unfavourable opinion of her.

    Palin remains far more popular than McCain with the Republican party base. He
    regularly has to endure the spectacle of members of the audience leaving for
    their cars when it is his turn to speak at joint rallies.

    • So sad for McCain. – post by cburell

  • In Wilmington, Palin’s many admirers were in no doubt that she should run for
    president next time. Nancy Ross, a hairdresser, 45, said if the Republicans
    lost the election, she would be cheered up by the thought of Palin as the
    2012 nominee.

    “I would absolutely love her to run in four years’ time. By then most of her
    kids will be grown,” she said. “I’d like her to run against Hillary
    [Clinton]. She would squash her. She is a real person and we need people
    like her in Washington.”

    • Can somebody get Muthee to pray for my protection from a Sarah Palin presidency in ’12? I hear he’s good at magical warfare with witches. – post by cburell

• G.O.P. Officials Hope for Stability From McCain – NYTimes.com – Annotated

  Doesn’t it seem like YouTube, by giving us a 24/7 window into campaign rallies anywhere and everywhere, is making the quiet, local attacks of the pre-web 2.0 days less easy to pull off?

  tags: elections, politics, web2.0, mccain

  • Mr. McCain’s aides said that he had been hurt by a series of high-profile rallies with Ms. Palin in which supporters shouted insults and threats at Mr. Obama, prompting Mr. McCain on Friday night to chide audience members who did that.
    • “High profile” because we see them viral on YouTube. Here in Korea, I get more campaign video from YouTube than I do from the TV. Fascinating. 21st century politics, as long as the web is democratic and free, will never be the same. – post by cburell

• Crushed by the Elephant | Print Article | Newsweek.com

  A good analysis of McCain’s path from maverick to sheep in the past year, and what that cost him.

  tags: elections08, mccain, palin

  • Restoration. It’s a powerful vision, and one that McCain understood in 2002 when he tried to force the money contributors from their high seats in the Capitol as part of McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform. In those days, McCain built a powerful independent brand in American politics. He recognized that the conservative movement was going off the rails. He voted against Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy because they offended his “conscience,” and talked with Tom Daschle about sitting with the Democrats in the Senate and with John Kerry about going on the 2004 Democratic ticket.

    But McCain wanted one more shot at the top job. To get it, he tacked right during the GOP primaries this year. He felt he hadn’t been tough enough when he lost to Bush in South Carolina in 2000, and he wasn’t going to make that mistake again. The hypocrisy of McCain’s adopting the Rovean tactics he once decried has been endlessly noted, but it misses the full point. If McCain were truly the independent hard-ass he claims to be, he would have courted the GOP conservative base right up to the moment he clinched the nomination, then galloped to the middle, which is where most American voters live. A true tough guy would have said, in effect, “Hey, this is my party now, with my platform and priorities.”

    This was McCain’s instinct, and it’s why he wanted Joe Lieberman, who has a moderate to liberal voting record on everything except Iraq, to be his running mate. (The fact that everything is personal with McCain, and the two are close friends, was also a factor.) Picking Lieberman, who is pro-choice, would have led some delegates to walk out of the GOP convention. But Harry Truman survived a walkout of Southern Democrats who loathed his civil-rights platform in 1948, and McCain would have, too.

  • But succumbing to the choice of his advisers and going with Palin was not only cynical and irresponsible, it was weak. It was a confession that McCain could not, by himself, wrest control of the Republican Party built by Tom DeLay and Grover Norquist, who once loathed McCain but looked plenty happy in St. Paul, Minn.

    Those gents and the House Republicans who almost drove the economy off the cliff last month got into politics because of their hatred of regulation and taxation, the twin bogeymen of the GOP for three decades. But guess what? In the span of three weeks, those words have taken on a positive connotation (at least as applied to Wall Street). When the tectonic plates of American politics shifted, only one candidate was ready.

• McCain and Palin Are Playing With Fire – washingtonpost.com

  Good argument.

  tags: mccain, racism, elections08

  • What I find most unconscionable is the refusal of the McCain-Palin tandem to publicly condemn the cries of “traitor,” “liar,” “terrorist” and (worst of all) “kill him!” that could be heard at recent rallies. McCain is perfectly capable of telling hecklers off. But not once did he or his running mate bother to admonish the people yelling these obscene — and potentially dangerous — words. They may not have been able to hear the slurs at the rallies, but surely they have had ample time since to get on camera and warn that this sort of ugliness has no place in an election season. But they have not. Simply calling Obama “a decent person” is not enough.

    Is inaction tantamount to consent? The McCain campaign certainly thinks so when it comes to Obama and incendiary remarks from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. By their own inaction, then, are McCain and Palin condoning these slurs? Or worse, are they willfully inciting the angry and venomous response that we have been witnessing at their rallies? If not, then what reaction are they hoping to evoke by their relentless public suggestions that Obama is basically an anti-American liar who won’t put “country first” and has an affection for terrorists? Do they not understand the kind of fire they are playing with?

    I — and, I suspect, millions of Americans like me, Republicans and Democrats alike — couldn’t care less about Obama’s middle name or the ridiculous six-degrees-of-separation game that is the William Ayers non-issue. The Taliban are clawing their way back in Afghanistan, the country that I hope many of my fellow Americans have come to understand better through my novels. People are losing their homes and their jobs and are watching the future slip away from them. But instead of addressing these problems, the McCain-Palin ticket is doing its best to distract Americans by provoking fear, anxiety and hatred. Country first? Hardly.

    Khaled Hosseini is the author of “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns.”

• Did Obama “lie” about Ayers? – Fact Checker

  Find another smear, quick! How about dusting off Rev. Wright? Wait – damn, then they’d have to deal with Palin’s witch-hunting Kenyan dispensationalist guest preacher.

  tags: mccain, elections08

  • The Pinocchio Test

    The McCain campaign is distorting the Obama-Ayers relationship, and exaggerating their closeness. There is no evidence that Obama has “lied” about his dealings with Ayers. It would be more accurate to say that he “told the truth slowly,” a regrettable but commonplace practice among politicians seeking to avoid embarrassing questions.

    

• U.S. to buy shares in struggling banks – Los Angeles Times

  So first we bail out the bankers by buying their bad assets, THEN we do the socialist move and partly nationalize the banks – which a large number of economists proposed INSTEAD of the bailout.

  In other words, Bush just fear-mongered us out of the equivalent of what we spent on Iraq over 5 years, and it failed (failed us, not the Wall Street folks).

  Voters get the governments they deserve.

  tags: politics, economics, bush

  • The Treasury’s equity-purchase program was widely favored by economists, who contended that it would be preferable to the approach of buying bad mortgage securities from banks, the centerpiece of the financial bailout bill.

    “Buying mortgage assets is plagued with problems,” said R. Glenn Hubbard, dean of the Columbia Business School and former chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors.

    Hubbard made his comment shortly before the Paulson announcement but after it became clear that the Treasury secretary was leaning toward the new approach.

    “It’s very helpful that Treasury is pivoting in this direction,” Hubbard said. “This is a crisis that policy can fix — it’s not beyond our ability.”

    Paulson offered few details about the equity program, declining to say how much of the $700 billion would go to such purchases. He said U.S. officials were “working around the clock” to develop the program.

• Joe Bageant: Not new ideas, but identifying new enemies

  tags: elections08, neocons, fundamentalism

  • Before he
    again rode off on his white horse Mescalero, he left this silver bullet
    for us to contemplate — the answer to the question: “Why the neocon
    bastards always seem to put six rounds into the chests of earnest
    liberals in every political gunfight, and why the Christian
    fundamentalists always cheer for the bad guys?” 

  • The genius of the economic right and the neo-conservatives has been their ability to ignore this fact and work instead to fill in the blanks in the vast empty spaces within the worldview of the religious right with militarist and pro-corporate ideas.

    The tasks of progressives is to tear apart the conservative consensus of the past thirty years by advocating agendas that will consistently split the constituencies of the religious right from its corporate right partners.

    If progressives are serious about winning victories that can realign our politics, they must find a way to marry the legitimate criticism of the decadence of popular culture with criticism of the decadence of an economic system that create the savage inequalities we see in America today. Once that is done, the entire project of the right collapses under the weight of its own contradictions.

    The mastery of the political right over the past thirty years has been primarily to better understand the irrational factors in politics. Conservatives have always understood that when it comes to politics, people rarely act in their rational self-interest but instead on emotion, fears and the perception of their interests.

    The first principle of organizing any successful new political movement is not new ideas but the identification of new enemies.

• Former McCain Strategist Warns Against “Angry Mob”

  Republicans and former McCain supporters express their shock at the “new” – and dishonorable – John McCain.

  tags: mccain, election08, racism

  • Former McCain supporter Frank Schaeffer, writing Friday in the Baltimore Sun, concurred:

    John McCain: In 2000, as a lifelong Republican, I worked to get you elected instead of George W. Bush. In return, you wrote an endorsement of one of my books about military service. You seemed to be a man who put principle ahead of mere political gain.

    You have changed. You have a choice: Go down in history as a decent senator and an honorable military man with many successes, or go down in history as the latest abettor of right-wing extremist hate.

    The Washington Post‘s Dan Balz warned that McCain is headed down the same dirty path George W. Bush took in the 2000 South Carolina primary.

    “McCain’s tactics are over the line, with no restraint in sight, and threaten to provoke reactions among partisans on both sides that will continue to escalate.”

    …

    I was in contact over the last 24 hours with another veteran of recent Republican presidential campaigns and asked, on a not-for-attribution basis, whether he believed McCain’s campaign is taking a big risk with its negative turn. “Yes,” this strategist replied. “Big mistake. If this stuff mattered, then why didn’t they raise it five months ago. Sad.”

• sarah Palin acted ‘unlawfully’ in feud with state trooper, report says – Telegraph

  tags: no_tag

  • Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, unlawfully abused her
    position as Alaska governor to exert pressure for her former brother-in-law
    to be sacked as a state trooper, an independent investigator has concluded.

• Check Point – On Obama, Acorn and Voter Registration – NYTimes.com

  Fact-checking the latest smears about Obama’s relation to ACORN: he represented them once, and the Justice Dept. found in favor of ACORN.

  Next.

  tags: mccain, elections08

  • “Barack Obama has made very inconsistent remarks about what his relationship with this organization is,” Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, said in a conference call.

    Mr. Davis said Mr. Obama had worked as Acorn’s lawyer and conducted training events for its leaders. He also noted a payment the Obama campaign made in February to an Acorn affiliate, Citizens Services Inc.

    While Mr. Obama did represent Acorn in a lawsuit in 1995, Acorn was on the same side as the Justice Department. The training events involved two hours of work. And the payment to the Acorn affiliate was reported in campaign filings, although they had to be revised because of an error.

• “WANTED FOR TREASON” – Democratic Underground

  This poster was placed in a Dallas newpaper the day before Kennedy was assassinated. The Palin-McCain hate-fests (“traveling lynch-mobs,” in Glen Greenwald’s phrase) are yelling “Treason!” when McCain and Palin tie him to “terrorists.”

  tags: palin, mccain, election08, history, politics

  • 

• McCain booed by rabid supporters for defending Obama as a “decent person” | Crooks and Liars

  McCain must be aghast at the lynch mob he’s unleashed with all the
  “Obama pals around with terrorists” innuendo over the last week.

  It’s good to see him trying to walk it back, but the fact that he approved it in the first place begs the question: Is he doing it out of a sense of decency, or because most of the country abhors his failed tactic – which is actually _losing_ him swing voters?

  Whatever the case, good for him, even if belatedly.

  tags: mccain, elections08

• Esquire Endorses Barack Obama for President – Election 2008 – Esquire

  The best analysis of the state of the union and the importance of this election I’ve read so far. Eloquent, serious, and by no means flattering for Obama, it gives both candidates their due, and closes with the over-looked issue of the Supreme Court and the Bush appointees in the bureaucracy. Stately. Chilling. Patriotic.

  tags: elections08, obama, mccain, palin, neocons, writing

• “Hey Sarah Palin” Song | The Chancellor’s New Clothes

  tags: palin, humor, music

  • “Oh, if you become v.p, oh, it’s Canada for me.”

    Pretty witty compilation.

1. Suspended Edublog Campaign: Political Web Round-up 10/11/2008
2. Edublog Suspended: Politics Around the Web 10/18/2008
3. Edublog Suspended: Politics Around the Web 10/13/2008
4. Edublog Suspended: Politics Around the Web 10/15/2008

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