Archive | October 2008

Al Jazeera: Courting the ‘grey’ vote

by matttbatard

Elderly voters are considered to be the most reliable group of voters in the US, needing no encouragement to get down to the polling station.

So, it’s no surprise that senior citizens have become one of the most courted votes during this campaign. Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds reports.

Related: Older Voters Lag Electorate At Large In Support Of Obama: The Hartford Courant

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

Equality: Totally Not Pro-American

by matttbastard

Dennis Prager clarifies what constitutes (pro) American values:

Equality, which is the primary value of the left, is a European value, not an American value. Let me tell you that right now. I know this sounds offensive to half of my fellow Americans, because they have been Europeanized in their values. The French Revolution is not the American Revolution. The French Revolution said Liberty, Fraternity, Equality. The American Revolution said Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. We have lost touch with what our distinctive American values are. We have distinctive American values.We have a better value system, and this is being protected by one of the two parties: the Republican party.

ThinkProgress:

It’s a good thing Prager was there to explain the ideals behind the American Revolution. Otherwise, Americans might have relied on “Europeanized” documents like the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal

Or if they had looked to the United States Constitution, they may have erroneously thought “equality” was an important American value:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Thank you, Dennis, for helping this ignorant little Canuckistanian socialist (ideologically and ethnically socialist–EEK!) realize that the Founding Fathers actually hated “distinctive American values.”

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

PSA: October 30th: Be Bold. Be Red.

by matttbastard

Document the Silence:

In October 2007 people all over the United States gathered physically and in spirit to speak out against violence against women of color. Some of us wore red all day and explained that we were reclaiming and reframing our bodies as a challenge to the widespread acceptance of violence against women of color. Some of us wrote powerful essays about why we were wearing red and posted them on the internet. Some of us gathered with bold and like-minded folks and took pictures, shared poetry and expressed solidarity.

This year, on the first anniversary of the Be Bold Be Red Campaign, we invite you to make your bold stance against the violence enacted on women and girls of color in our society visible. In D.C., Chicago, Durham, Atlanta and Detroit women of color will be gathering to renew our commitment to creating a world free from racialized and gendered violence, and this time, we’ll be using a new technology called CyberQuilting to connect all of these gatherings in real time. To learn more about CyberQuilting, which is a women of color led project to stitch movements together using new web technologies and old traditions of love and nurturing, visit www.cyberquilt.wordpress.com.

This letter is an invitation for you and yours to participate in a gathering in your city on Thursday, October 30th that will be webcast to similar gatherings in other cities. We are calling on you because we recognize and appreciate the work that you and the organizations you work with are doing everyday to make this a more loving and less violent world for women and girls in oppressed communities. Please join us on October 30th so that other warriors in this struggle can be strengthened and affirmed by the energy of our collective ferocity! Also we will upload the video of the video conference on this website on October 31, 2008 so that everyone can see what happened during video conference.

h/t Sylvia/M and Kevin

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

Sarah Palin a “Complete Fiction” – David Talbot

by matttbastard

ForaTv:

Author and Salon.com Founder David Talbot dismisses Republican Vice Presidential Nominee Sarah Palin as a “complete fiction” created by Republican Party strategists.

Full video here.

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

Sarah Palin: Marxism For Me, But Not For Thee

by matttbastard

Hendrik Hertzberg in this week’s New Yorker:

For her part, Sarah Palin, who has lately taken to calling Obama “Barack the Wealth Spreader,” seems to be something of a suspect character herself. She is, at the very least, a fellow-traveller of what might be called socialism with an Alaskan face. The state that she governs has no income or sales tax. Instead, it imposes huge levies on the oil companies that lease its oil fields. The proceeds finance the government’s activities and enable it to issue a four-figure annual check to every man, woman, and child in the state. One of the reasons Palin has been a popular governor is that she added an extra twelve hundred dollars to this year’s check, bringing the per-person total to $3,269. A few weeks before she was nominated for Vice-President, she told a visiting journalist—Philip Gourevitch, of this magazine—that “we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.” Perhaps there is some meaningful distinction between spreading the wealth and sharing it (“collectively,” no less), but finding it would require the analytic skills of Karl the Marxist.

Silly coastal elite–who cares about Palin, Alaska, and her hypocritical embrace of wealth redistribution sharing and collective ownership? When pro-Americans use the term ‘socialist’ in reference to Barack HOOSAYN Obama, what they really mean is ‘uppity Negro’. As noted recently by The Artist Formerly Known as dnA, that particular dog whistle is a longstanding trope among the backlash set. Shit, I’m sure even Joe the Plumber knows this (“a tap dance…almost as good as Sammy Davis, Jr.” — how cute.)

Related: For more on Palin, Alaska, and IOKIYAR socialism, check out the aforementioned profile of Palin by Philip Gourevitch, featuring Palin’s quote lauding the virtues of wealth redistribution sharing.

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

“He’s a [rhymes with 'bigger']!” UPDATED: DKos Diarist Claims No Racial Slur Uttered

by matttbastard

The key to successful pro-American public speaking: try not to blink when your one of your fellow pro-Americans drops the n-bomb like it’s hot.

h/t Sully

Update 10/28: Or was that ‘redistributer’ that was shouted out?

I’m not at all convinced that this has in fact been ‘confirmed’, but it does raise questions about what actually was said. See The Great Orange Satan for more.

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

Obama = Antichrist Superstar (Or, John The Revelator Rolls Over in His Grave)

by matttbastard

Ed Pilkington of The Guardian ventures deep into the heart of pro-American country looking for information on biofuels, but instead uncovers the ugly eschatological truth about Barack HOOOSAAYN Obama:

I had hopped on to the GuardianFilms bus as it made its way across the US. We were joining forces to make a film about the ethanol issue, which has earned Obama the criticism of environmentalists because of his support for the controversial corn-based variety of the fuel that has helped to drive up world food prices.

We stopped at an ethanol plant in Craig, Missouri, where we were greeted by the general manager, Roger Hill, and shown around the plant. He said something odd early on in our tour, responding to the news that I was British by commenting on how Muslims had become dominant in my country. I only half heard his remark, and let it go; we were here to talk about ethanol.

Later though, he brought up the subject again, when I suggested to him that as an ethanol manufacturer he must logically back Obama over McCain, who has openly criticised federal subsidies of the fuel. That’s when he invoked Revelations, chapter 13. If you lack instant recall of the contents of Revelations 13, as I have to admit I did, it’s the bit in the Bible where the beast rears his ugly head, or rather many heads, and reveals the mark on his right hand or forehead: 666.

Ok, am I the only one who is disturbed by the fact that someone who feels that an official presentation to a foreign media outlet is the perfect time to drop a 1.5 oz. shot of premillenial dispensationalism into the mix is allowed to run a motherfucking ethanol plant? Watch the video–and try not to think about how insidiously popular those goddamned Left Behind books are. Also see James Ridgeway for more on the looming Obamageddon.

Related: Hitler and Chamberlain, rolled into one? Well, I suppose Billy Kristol’s seemingly oxymoronic (and just-plain-moronic) analogy isn’t that much of a stretch if one already believes that an individual can simultaneously be a Marxist, Muslim and Black Liberation Christian. 8 more days, brethren (followed by, in all likelihood, four more years…gah.)

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

Joe Sixpack in Vegas

by matttbastard

As Pod-Parker (h/t Betty Cracker) said recently regarding the McCain-Palin Campaign’s pro-American outreach effort:

“Palling around with terrorists,” as Sarah Palin said of Obama, gets to an underlying xenophobic, anti-Muslim sentiment. Using surrogates who strategically use Obama’s middle name, Hussein, feeds the same dark heart.

This tactic, denied but undeniable, has been effective with target audiences, some of whom can be viewed on YouTube entering a Palin rally in Pennsylvania. One cherubic older fellow totes a stuffed Curious George monkey wearing an Obama sticker as a hat…

To McCain’s credit, he has tried to correct his audience—when, for example, a woman said she couldn’t trust Obama because he’s an Arab. Gosh, wonder where she ever got that idea? But the McCain-Palin bad cop-good cop routine is what it is. The hot babe lathers the crowd; the noble soldier hoses them down. This isn’t a campaign; it’s a sideshow.

Related: More from the Henderson, NV rally by Matt Toplikar of the Las Vegas Sun (h/t David Neiwert)

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

Joe Sixpack in Denver

by matttbastard

Progress Now Action:

Take special note of the children acting like monkeys and calling Obama the “monkey president”. The cursing man with the baby was also a special treat:

Family is chanting NoBama over and over.
Man #1: he ain’t no real American.

Another man is shown punching a cardboard Obama in the head.

Man #2: eight years of terrorists!
Man #3: (sarcastically) Hussein…that’s cool!
Woman to Obama supporter: Are you sick? Are you a socialist?
Woman #2: He’s a fraud…he’s Osama!
Man #3: He’s a Muslim Communist!
(the videographer asks this man if he really believes that) The response:
Man #3: Yeah, absolutely. His wife made him say he is a Christian so he could get elected.
Man #4: Socialist…communist! He’s a communist!
Man #5: You need to read the Communist Manifesto ’cause that’s what you’re all about.
Man #6: Lookit — the important thing is, God may not be on my side, but Satan is on your side.
Man #7: I don’t want to be a communist, I don’t want to be a socialist. I want to be an American.
Woman #3 holding a McCain/Palin sign: Communist! Communist!
Man # 8: He’s a stupid bum.
Man #9, holding a baby: He’s bullshit and a piece of crap he is.

Pro-Americans represent!

h/t Pam Spaulding

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

Strange Days (I give ‘em a ‘B’ for ‘buh?!’)

by matttbastard

Michelle Malkin responds to the news that PA McCain volunteer (and College Republican) Ashley Todd, who claimed on Thursday to have been attacked by a big scary black Obama supporter, made the whole damn thing up (ZOMGWTFBBQ NO WAIS!):

Final lesson: Trust your instincts. Use your brains. Stop jumping every time Drudge hypes something in Armageddon-sized font.

You know there’s something really, really wrong with everything when Michelle freakin’ Malkin (who, it should be noted, was instantly skeptical of Todd’s dubious tale) calls bullshit on a right-wing smear, assumes the voice of reason and makes sense.

Insert preferred cliche re: blind squirrels and stopped clocks here.

Related: More from Jay Bookman, Pam Spaulding, and Renee Martin, who addresses the all-too-familiar ugly racial subtext behind Todd’s fallacious claim.

Sez Martin:

The black man is the convenient scapegoat, because he has been constructed as a violent savage by society. As the mother of two black sons, the degree to which this social construction has been used to uphold the purity of white women, while resulting in the death of black men, enrages me.

Some will say that we should not judge Todd too harshly and that perhaps she is suffering from a mental disability, but the fact remains that what she did was purposeful and it was racist. Disability aside, her choice in creating a tale of a vicious black male attacker was not accidental.

[...]

The black male rapist is exactly what society expects, and the idea that a black man is not born naturally desiring to possess the white female is viewed as fantastical by some. The fact that Todd thought that adding sexual assault to her complaint would increase her believability proves the degree to which this construction has been accepted.

[...]

Whatever mental health issues Todd may or may not have, she was successful in initially being believed because of the social expectations that have been attached to both…white women and black men.

Also check out Keith Olbermann, who explores the role played by local McCain campaign officials in hyping the story to local media outlets (h/t Pam):

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

PSA: Petition for the immediate release of Esha Momeni

by matttbastard

Via For Esha, the One Million Signatures Campaign has started a petition calling for the immediate release of imprisoned graduate student and womens rights advocate Esha Momeni:

To: His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei, His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,His Excellency Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi,

His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei,
His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
His Excellency Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi,

We, the undersigned, have heard with great alarm of the arrest in Tehran, on Wednesday October 15, 2008, of Esha Momeni, a graduate student in film and communication at California State University, Northridge. This arrest was made by Tehran traffic police on the pretext that she had made an illegal turn, but we have since been informed that she has been transferred to Section 209 of Evin Prison and kept in solitary confinement.
We wish to make clear that at no time has Ms. Momeni been involved in any activities contravening the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran. She had returned to Iran for an extended visit mainly for the purpose of seeing family and friends, and also in order to carry out research related to her MA degree at California State University, Northridge. Ms. Momeni, a women’s rights defender and a volunteer of the California branch of a grassroots campaign called the “One Million Signatures Demanding Changes to Discriminatory Laws”, decided to make her Master’s thesis project a personal exploration of the shared experiences of everyday Iranians. This included interviews with some members of the Campaign. The activities of the Campaign are peaceful and merely aimed at reforming the Iranian laws in areas that discriminate against women; the Campaign has no political objectives.
Those who are privileged to know Ms. Momeni are fully aware of the sincerity and passion for justice which she brings to the promotion of a truer image of Iran outside the country, and we are therefore dismayed that she should have been arrested and detained despite not having engaged in any unlawful activities.
We, the undersigned, therefore demand Ms. Momeni be released immediately and without conditions so that she can return to complete her education. In addition we urge you to:
1.Guarantee in all circumstances the physical and psychological integrity of Ms. Esha Momeni;
2.Assure that while in detention she is granted immediate and regular access to her family, a lawyer of her choice, and any medical treatment necessary in light of her medical condition (kidney stones);
3 Ensure in all circumstances respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and with international and regional human rights instruments ratified by Iran.
Yours sincerely

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Please add your voice here. Make sure to take note of the caveat offered by For Esha:

We request you not to sign petitions organized by organizations other than the One Million Signatures Campaign. While such petitions may mean well, they often contain inappropriate language and factual errors and as such are more likely to endanger Esha than help bring about her release.

And please forward the official petition to as many people as you can.

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

Getting Used to a Black President – Melissa Harris-Lacewell

by matttbastard

ForaTV:

Political scientist Melissa Harris-Lacewell examines how Barack Obama may affect Americans’ conceptualization of race and the Presidency, should he be elected to the position.

Full video here.

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

PSA: Free Esha Momeni

by matttbastard

Update: Be sure to sign the official petition calling for Momeni’s release.

Change For Equality:

Esha Momeni, women’s rights advocate and a member of the Campaign from California was arrested on Wednesday October 15, 2008, while on a visit to Tehran. Momeni who is a photographer and graduate student was arrested in an unusual and illegal manner after being pulled over on Moddaress highway, by individuals who identified themselves as under cover traffic police on the pretense that she had unlawfully passed another vehicle while driving. Esha was arrested and taken to Section 209 of Evin Prison, managed by the Intelligence and Security Ministry.

Prior to her transfer to Evin, security officials searched her home and seized property, including her computer and films which were part of her thesis project. The security officials had an arrest warrant and court permission to search the home and seize property.

While Esha’s friends and colleagues were insistent about announcing the news of her arrest immediately, based on requests from her family this news was announced with delay. Security forces had promised Esha’s family that she would be released quickly if news of her arrest was not published.

Esha’s parents went to the Revolutionary Courts today, on the fifth day of her arrest, to follow up on the case of their daughter. Court officials told the Momeni family that they should not come to the courts again, and that their questions will not be answered until the investigation of Esha’s case comes to a close.

Esha Momeni is a graduate student at the School of Communications, Media and Arts at California State University, Northridge. Esha had come to Iran two months ago to visit with her family and to work on her Masters thesis project, focused on the Iranian women’s movement. To this end, she had conducted video interviews with members of the One Million Signatures Campaign in Tehran.

Women’s rights activists object to the unusual manner in which Esha was arrested, as well as the irresponsible treatment of her family members by security forces. Further they strongly object to the unjustified and unwarranted arrest of this women’s rights defender.

A weblog in support of Esha pressing for her release has been established, which includes interviews with her professors… . The weblog as well as the site of the Campaign, Change for Equality, will continue to provide news on developments about Esha’s case. Take a look at the blog For Esha.

Take action now–please write to the following contacts:

* Leader of the Islamic Republic, His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei, The Office of the Supreme Leader, Shoahada Street, Qom, Islamic Republic of Iran, Faxes: + 98.21.649.5880 / 21.774.2228, Email: info@leader.ir / istiftaa@wilayah.org / webmaster@wilayah.org;
* President, His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Presidency, Palestine Avenue, Azerbaijan Intersection, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran, Fax: + 98.21.649.5880, E-mail: dr-ahmadinejad@president.ir;
* Head of the Judiciary, His Excellency Mr. Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi, Ministry of Justice, Park-e Shahr, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran, Fax: +98.21.879.6671 / +98 21 3 311 6567 / +98 21 3 390 4986, Email: Irjpr@iranjudiciary.com / info@dadgostary-tehran.ir;
* Minister of Foreign Affairs, His Excellency Mr. Manuchehr Motaki, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sheikh Abdolmajid Keshk-e Mesri Av, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran, Fax: + 98.21.390.1999, Email: matbuat@mfa.gov;
* Director, Human Rights Headquarters of Iran, His Excellency Mohammad Javad Larijani, C/o Office of the Deputy for International Affairs, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Justice Building, Panzdah-Khordad (Ark) Square, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran, Fax: + 98 21 5 537 8827
* Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Chemin du Petit-Saconnex 28, 1209 Geneva, Switzerland, Fax: +41 22 7330203, Email: mission.iran@ties.itu.int;
* Ambassador Mr. Ahani, Embassy of Iran in Brussels, avenue Franklin Roosevelt, 15 A. 1050 Bruxelles, Belgium, Fax: + 32 2 762 39 15. Email: iran-embassy@yahoo.com.

- [express] concern at the arrest of Esha Momeni, and [urge] on the authorities to treat her humanely in detention, and protect her from torture or other ill-treatment;

- [ask] the authorities to ensure that while in detention she is granted immediate and regular access to her family, a lawyer of her choice, and any medical treatment she may require;

- [express] concern that her arrest was apparently in connection with her peaceful activities in support of equal rights for women in Iran and in the context of her graduate research;

- [urge] the authorities to release her immediately and unconditionally if she is not to be charged with a recognizably criminal offence and brought to trial promptly and fairly

h/t Vanessa @ Feministing (via Feminist Daily News); more from CNN, DKos, Melissa Wall, and David Blumenkrantz. Also see this article on the 0ne Million Signatures Campaign, written by Momeni in 2007.

Previous Change for Equality PSAs:

Background: More on the still-ongoing One Million Signatures Campaign for Equality from Change For Equality (more here) and Ms. Magazine.

If you haven’t done so already, be sure to add your name.

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Update: Be sure to sign the official petition calling for Momeni’s release.

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

Three Challenges for the Planet – Jeffrey Sachs

by matttbastard

ForaTV:

Earth Institute Director Jeffrey Sachs outlines what are, in his view, the three greatest challenges to peace the world will face over the next several years.

Complete video here.

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

More Cobblestones on the Road to Hell

by matttbastard

Here in the Great White North, accountability is out and banality is in as The Nuremberg Defence seems to be enjoying a resurgence in respectability.

CBC News:

The actions of Canadian officials contributed indirectly to the torture of three Arab-Canadian men in Syria, a federal inquiry has concluded.

“I found no evidence that any of these officials were seeking to do anything other than carry out conscientiously the duties and responsibilities of the institutions of which they were a part,” former Supreme Court of Canada justice Frank Iacobucci concluded in his report, made public Tuesday, 22 months after the inquiry began.

The probe focused on whether the detentions of Abdullah Almalki, Muayyed Nureddin and Ahmad El Maati resulted from the actions of CSIS, the RCMP and the department of Foreign Affairs and whether Canadian consular officials acted appropriately in the cases.

“It is neither necessary nor appropriate that I make findings concerning the actions of any individual Canadian official, and I have not done so,” Iacobucci wrote.

More from The Toronto Star:

The Iacobucci report concludes that all three men were detained and suffered mistreatment that amounted to torture as defined in the United Nations convention banning torture.

El Maati, Almalki and Nureddin were, separately, detained and imprisoned in 2001, 2002, and 2003 respectively while travelling in Syria.

All were interrogated and, Iacobucci concluded, tortured at the same Syrian military prison as Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian who was deported by U.S. authorities to Syria.

El Maati was also sent to Egypt where Iacobucci accepts he underwent further torture.

The men claimed their interrogators relied on information that could only have been gleaned from Canadian authorities, and that Canadian security and police agencies were complicit in their mistreatment.

But Iacobucci stops well short of indicting the Canadian officials for complicity.

And what do the Little Eichmanns in Canada’s New Government™ have to say about the matter?

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day declined to apologize, telling reporters, “This government can’t take responsibility for processes in place under a previous government.”

He claimed the procedures and “deficiencies” identified in this and the previous Arar inquiry have been “vastly improved,” and suggested that if the reforms his government had made were in place at the time, the incidents might not have occurred.

But Day did not single out any agency or officials for blame. He pointed to the Iacobucci report which said people were carrying out “conscientiously” the duties of their institutions.

“It’s more a case of good people acting with deficient procedures and deficient policies.”

“Justice, truth, the value of a single human being”? Pfft–go back to your September 10th fantasy world, Haywood, and tell it to Jean and Paul. Partisanship über alles.

Related: Almalki, Nureddin and El Maati discuss how their lives have been upended by their horrific experiences, along with the sense of betrayal felt thanks to the (indirect!) actions of Canadian government officials; Amnesty International Canada condemns the inquiry, warning that the probe “extended secrecy to everything, not just the national security concerns” and, as a result, “[excluded] the suspects and public from the proceedings in their entirety“. The 544 page public (read: heavily redacted) version of the Iacobucci whitewash report is available here (PDF)

Update: More from Alison @ The Beav

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

Spot the Logical Fallacy (Or, How Colin Powell Stopped Being Every White Conservative’s Token Non-Threatening Black Friend)

by matttbastard

I’ve never heard of this Gordon Campbell asshat before today, and, judging by his totally satirical depiction of Colin Powell as Benedict Arnold in blackface, that is something to be thankful for.

Quoth Mr. Campbell:

“No sane person would question his patriotism toward the United States or even the Constitution and the principles of democracy… .  But his support of such things as affirmative action and Roe v. Wade placed him too left of center for the bulk of the GOP electorate… .

“”The only reasonable explanation for such a public political “about-face” in the midst of this important election is that Colin Powell, perhaps understandably, wishes to see someone who looks like himself in the White House… .

“It’s my opinion that General Powell has based his endorsement of Barack Obama on the color of his skin, not his qualifications, his experience or the content of his character.”

Just so we’re clear, Campbell freely admits that Powell’s “support of such things as affirmative action and Roe v. Wade placed him too left of center for the bulk of the GOP electorate”.  Indeed,  John McCain has stated that he supports neither affirmative action nor Roe v. Wade, and his running mate, in addition to supporting the overturning of Roe, opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest.  Yet, for some reason, rather than putting two and two together (ie, Powell, much like McCain-supporting dissident Democrat-turned-Independent Joe Lieberman, chose to endorse the candidate who he believes best represents his ideals, regardless of partisan affiliation), this observation instead inexplicably leads Campbell to conclude that “[t]he only [emphasis mine] reasonable explanation for such a public about-face…is that Powell…wishes to see someone who looks like himself [ie, a fellow neeegro] in the White House”.

Which, in turn, forces yours truly to surmise that the only reasonable explanation for Campbell’s painfully contorted reasoning (to say nothing of the FRICKIN’ BLACKFACE CARTOON–SWEET BABY JESUS!) is that he’s a cross-burning, sheet-wearing bag of racist douche who vigorously masturbates to Mein Kampf every night before bed.  One would have to be insane (or, at the very least, unreasonable) to conclude otherwise.  There is no alternative.

h/t Paul the Spud @ Shakesville

Related: More Powell-inspired Party of Lincoln outreach to teh black community from George Will, Pat Buchanan, and RedState (h/t Think Progress).  Also see Renee, who asks an obvious question: “Why is it that whites who have been voting for white people since the US became a country were not engaging in racial solidarity voting, and a black man endorsing another black man is?

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

That didn’t take long…

by matttbastard

Aannd here we go –as expected, former Secretary of State (and Republican) Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama:

(h/t Petulant for the vid)

Already some pro-American residents of Outer Wingnuttia have declared that Powell is only voting for Obama because they are both scary neegros. Which, according to airtight wingnut lawjick [sic], makes Powell a big fat RAAACIST!!!!11 jerk. (Wingnut lawjick [sic] also apparently dictates that USING BLOCK CAPS BUTTRESSES YOUR POINT!!!)

"Hang on--I've nearly found some support for my argument..."

Still, in all seriousness, there is admittedly some substance to Realipundit’s carefully-crafted “big fat racist jerk” thesis. Racial solidarity would certainly help explain why well-known GOP soul brotha Chris Buckley, along with a number of other prominent chocolate-coated Obamacons, are also wearing ‘Team Obama’ t-shirts in public–and why Powell famously stumped for Alan Keyes in 2000.

So, does this mean (apparently) prominent Democratic something-or-other Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild broke partisan ranks to support McCain out of racial solidarity, too?

*cough*

Related: Colin Powell is a big fat socialist jerk, too (h/t skdadl @ BnR):

Partial transcript:

We can’t judge our people and hold our elections on that kind of basis. Yes, that kind of negativity troubled me. And the constant shifting of the argument, I was troubled a couple of weeks ago when in the middle of the crisis the campaign said ‘we’re going to go negative,’ and they announced it. ‘We’re going to go negative and attack his character through Bill Ayers.’ Now I guess the message this week is we’re going to call him a socialist. Mr. Obama is now a socialist, because he dares to suggest that maybe we ought to look at the tax structure that we have. Taxes are always a redistribution of money. Most of the taxes that are redistributed go back to those who pay them, in roads and airports and hospitals and schools. And taxes are necessary for the common good. And there’s nothing wrong with examining what our tax structure is or who should be paying more or who should be paying les, and for us to say that makes you a socialist is an unfortunate characterization that I don’t think is accurate.

“[T]axes are necessary for the common good” = not pro-American. Go back to Northern Virginia where you belong, hippie!

Update: Donovan McNabb fanclub president Rush Limbaugh puts down the pill bottle long enough to once again prove how so not racist he is (or isn’t).

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

“Real” and “Unreal” Americans

by matttbastard

Well, looks like we’ve finally established where one of those anti-American domestic strongholds that Palin mentioned the other day are located: the Obamabot enclaves of Northern Virginia!

Think Progress:

On MSNBC this morning, McCain adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer asserted that “real Virginia” does not include Northern Virginia:

I certainly agree that Northern Virginia has gone more Democratic. … But the rest of the state — real Virginia if you will — I think will be very responsive to Senator McCain’s message.

MSNBC host Kevin Corke gave Pfotenhauer a chance to revise her answer, telling her: “Nancy, I’m going to give you a chance to climb back off that ledge — Did you say ‘real Virginia’?”

But Pfotenhauer didn’t budge, and instead dug a deeper hole.

Real Virginia, I take to be, this part of the state that’s more Southern in nature, if you will.

Thorpe ended the segment noting that Pfotenhauer was appearing via satellite from Northern Virginia. “Nancy Pfotenhauer, senior policy adviser for the McCain campaign, joining us from Arlington, not really Virginia.” “Alright, I’m just gonna let ya– you’ll wear that one,” Corke responded.

Ok. Real Virginians don’t support Obama. Gotcha.

But then there’s this, straight from the horse’s mouth (so to speak):

My opponent’s answer showed that economic recovery isn’t even his top priority. His goal, as Senator Obama put it, is to “spread the wealth around.”

You see, he believes in redistributing wealth, not in policies that help us all make more of it. Joe, in his plainspoken way, said this sounded a lot like socialism.

Socialism–totally un-American, natch. So is all this simply boilerplate campaign rhetoric, or is there a more disturbing subtext at play? Adam Serwer looks at the historical context of the ‘socialist’ smear as it relates to POC (h/t Jill):

Conservatives, now and in the past, have turned to “socialism” and “communism” as shorthand to criticize black activists and political figures since the civil-rights era. In The Autobiography of Malcolm X as written by Alex Haley, Malcolm recalls being confronting by a government agent tailing him in Africa, not long after his pilgrimage to Mecca. The agent was convinced that Malcolm was a communist. Malcolm spent years under surveillance because of such bizarre suspicions. Likewise, J. Edgar Hoover spent years attempting to link Martin Luther King Jr. to the communist cause. King, for his part, welcomed everyone who embraced the cause of black civil rights, regardless of their ideological ties. This included communists and socialists, but the idea that a devout man of God like King saw black rights as a mere step in a worldwide communist revolution was absurd. Malcolm was a conservative. King was a liberal. To their enemies, they were simply communists.

The feeling that black-rights activists were part of a front for communism and socialism was widespread. Jerry Falwell famously criticized “the sincerity and intentions of some civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer, and others, who are known to have left-wing associations.” Falwell charged, “It is very obvious that the Communists, as they do in all parts of the world, are taking advantage of a tense situation in our land, and are exploiting every incident to bring about violence and bloodshed.” For the agents of intolerance, things haven’t changed much. On October 9, a McCain supporter told the candidate that he was angry about “socialists taking over our country.” McCain told him he was right to be angry.

The right wing continues to link the fight for black equality with socialism and communism. At the website of conservatism’s flagship publication, National Review, conservatives like Andy McCarthy argue whether Obama is “more Maoist than Stalinist,” and National Review writer Lisa Schiffren explicitly argued this summer that Obama must have communist links based on his interracial background. Schiffren mused, “for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics.”

[...]

John McCain is no George Wallace, and a direct comparison may not be what [John] Lewis intended. Rather, Lewis was expressing concern that the McCain campaign’s rhetoric could lead some of their supporters to conclude that violence is the only rational response to an Obama victory.

Also keep in mind some of the highlighted right-wing sentiments from this post as Billmon repeals Godwin’s Law, once and for all (h/t pogge @ BnR):

Powerful elements of the Republican Party and the conservative “movement” aren’t just preparing themselves to go into opposition, they’re preparing themselves to dispute the legitimacy of an Obama presidency — in ways that could, if taken to extreme, lead to another Oklahoma City.

[...]

I’ve been following politics for going on 35 years now, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Republican candidate publicly refer to his Democratic opponent as a “socialist” — not even while hiding behind a cardboard cutout like “Joe the Plumber”. This from a man who told the entire nation on Wednesday night that believes an obscure nonprofit group is “perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.”

Likewise, I don’t think there’s ever been an American vice presidential candidate who explicitly referred to entire regions of the United States as “pro-American” — with the clear implication that other regions are something less than “pro-American.” Not since the Civil War, anyway.

We’ve crossed some more lines, in other words — in a long series of lines that have made it increasingly difficult to distinguish between the ultraconservative wing of the Republican Party and an explicitly fascist political movement. And John McCain and his political handlers appear to have no moral compunctions whatsoever about whipping this movement into a frenzy and providing it with scapegoats for all that hatred, simply to try to shave a few points off Barack Obama’s lead in the polls.

To call this “country first” only works if you assume your opponents (and scapegoats) are not really part of that same country. And we all know where that leads.

As Colbert King put it in Saturday’s WaPo, “[t]ell a rabid audience that Barack Obama is “palling around with terrorists” (as Palin has done), imply that Obama is friendly with people out to destroy America (as she also has done) and what do you expect?”

DJ rewind:

Powerful elements of the Republican Party and the conservative “movement” aren’t just preparing themselves to go into opposition, they’re preparing themselves to dispute the legitimacy of an Obama presidency — in ways that could, if taken to extreme, lead to another Oklahoma City.

Rhetoric–yes, mere words, Senator McCain–can have consequences.

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Just Don’t Call ‘Em ‘White Trash’

by matttbastard

Hey, remember that teapot tempest over Heather Mallick’s now-infamous (and since 404′d) CBC News online op-ed [link corrected -- thanks, Alison] about Sarah Palin’s redneck pro-American support base?

From an upcoming NY Times profile of Palin’s overwhelmingly male booster club:

“You rock me out, Sarah,” yelled one man, wearing a red-checked hunting jacket as Ms. Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate, strode into an airplane hangar here on Thursday. He held a homemade “Dudes for Sarah” sign and wore a National Rifle Association hat. Kenny Loggins’s “Danger Zone” blared over the loudspeakers, and the man even danced a little — yes, a guy in an N.R.A. hat dancing in a hangar, kind of a Sarah Palin rally thing.

*blinks*

Dancing to “Danger Zone” while rockin’ a flannel hunting coat and a (presumably meshback) NRA ball cap. If the stereotype fits…

I mean, Jesus — Bocephus even wrote a fiery, factually challenged Wallace voter anthem in honour of the 2008 Palin-McCain backlash campaign:

“John N Sarah tell ya/Just what they think/And they’re not gonna blink/They don’t have terrorist friends/To whom their careers are linked.”

It doesn’t get more ‘What’s the Matter With Kansas’ than that, true believers.

In light of all this overwhelming evidence, methinks that, rather than teh poor, put-upon Palin or the ever-aggrieved Fox News fanatics (and their Northern kin), it is Heather who’s owed an apology–and/or a dry Elderflower Martini.

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

The Stench of Desperation (I am [not] Joe).

by matttbastard

Right wing identity politics and carefully-manufactured pseudo-populist rage against ‘vote fraud’; Race/red/God-baiting Obama to ridiculous extremes; the hyperbolic overreaction to McCain’s latest campaign stunt FAIL.

Oh, and my personal favourite, McCarthyism redux from Rep. Michele Bachmann:

Everywhere you turn, it seems doctrinaire right-wingers, in concert with the McCain campaign, are flailing wildly, lashing out with every trick they know, every demonstrative tactic that used to be filed under ‘slam dunk’ in the wingnutosphere handbook.

But you know what?

None of it means a goddamn thing, because–sorry, wingnuts–it’s still the fucking economy, stupid; all the irony-free ‘I am Spartacus’ circle jerks in the world won’t magically reverse the real average Joe and Josephine’s negative home equity, protect their jobs, nor will it restore their 401k, inoculate them from losing it all. Like it or not, in this election cycle, issues are trumping (trouncing, trampling) identity. Which is why your out of touch, totally overwhelmed and over-matched Maverick is losing.

Deal with it.

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

Mistress of Spices.

by Isabel

Has anyone seen Mistress of Spices?

I’m a sucker for movies about cooking, and while Mistress of Spices isn’t technically about cooking, it IS about spices. And love. And duty. And precognition. All very interesting things. It’s a beautiful movie, exquisitely shot, and perfect for watching while you create dozens of won-ton ravioli by hand. The protaganist is a mystical purveyor of spices who can see potential futures and use different spices to affect the outcome.

4 tbsp of cinnamon out of 4.

What I really want to see next: Como Agua Para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate)

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

Chris Floyd: “[T]he money to maintain, secure and improve the lives of their families and communities was always there”

by matttbastard

Chris Floyd on the destructive legacy of doctrinaire market fundamentalism and neoliberal dogma as we enter the post-capitalist era:

Beginning with Margaret Thatcher’s election in 1979, government after government — and party after party — fell to the onslaught of an extremist faith: the narrow, blinkered fundamentalism of the “Chicago School.” Epitomized by its patron saint, Milton Friedman, the rigid doctrine held that an unregulated market would always “correct” itself, because its workings are based on entirely rational and quantifiable principles. (See John Cassidy in the NY Review of Books for more.) This was of course an absurdly reductive and savagely ignorant view of history, money and human nature; but because it flattered the rich and powerful, offering an “intellectual” justification for rapacious greed and ever-widening economic and social inequality, it was adopted as holy writ by the elite and promulgated as public policy.

This radical cult — a kind of Bolshevism from above — took its strongest hold in the United States and Britain, and was then imposed on many weaker nations through the IMF-led “Washington Consensus” (more aptly named by Naomi Klein as the “Shock Doctrine”), with devastating and deadly results. (As in Yeltsin’s Russia, for example, where life expectancy dropped precipitously and millions of people died premature deaths from poverty, illness, and despair.)

According to the cult, not only were markets to be freed from the constraints placed on them after the world-shattering effects of the Great Depression, but all public spending was to be slashed ruthlessly to the bone. (Although exceptions were always made for the Pentagon war machine.) After all, every dollar spent by a public entity on public services and amenities was a dollar taken away from the private wheeler-dealers who could more usefully employ it in increasing the wealth of the elite — who would then allow some of their vast profits to “trickle down” to the lower orders.

This was the cult that captured the governments of the United States and Britain (among others), as well as the Republican and Democratic parties, and the Conservative and Labour parties as well. And for almost thirty years, its ruthless doctrines have been put into practice. Regulation and oversight of financial markets were systematically stripped away or rendered toothless. Essential public services were sold off, for chump change, to corporate interests. Public spending on anything other than making war, threatening war and profiting from war was pared back or eliminated. Such public spending that did remain was forever under threat and derided, like the remnants of some pagan faith surviving in isolated backwaters.

Year after year, the ordinary citizens were told by their governments: we have no money to spend on your needs, on your communities, on your infrastructure, on your health, on your children, on your environment, on your quality of life. We can’t do those kinds of things any more.

Of course, when talking amongst themselves, or with the believers in the think tanks, boardrooms — and editorial offices — the cultists would speak more plainly: we don’t do those things anymore because we shouldn’t do them, we don’t want to do them, they are wrong, they are evil, they are outside the faith. But for the hoi polloi, the line was usually something like this: Budgets are tight, we must balance them (for a “balanced budget” is a core doctrine of the cult), we just can’t afford all these luxuries.

But now, as the emptiness and falsity of the Chicago cargo cult stands nakedly revealed, even to some of its most faithful and fanatical adherents, we can see that this 30-year mantra by our governments has been a deliberate and outright lie. The money was there — billions and billions and billions of dollars of it, trillions of dollars of it. We can see it before our very eyes today — being whisked away from our public treasuries and showered upon the banks and the brokerages.

As they say, read the whole damn thing

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

Final 2008 Presidential Debate Livetweeting/blogging

by matttbastard

I’m not drinking this time ’round (mumblegrumblestupidworkinthemorning) but will still be flexing my snark muscles in 140 characters or less via Twitter. Feel free to follow and join in the fun.  Oh, and, if so inclined, have a drink or three on my behalf.

twitter.com/matttbastard

election.twitter.com

Also check out the (interactive!) liveblogging going on over at Feministe and Angry Brown Butch, where the booze shall be flowing like wine.

Um.  Yeah.

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Quote of the Day: Blog Action Day 2008 Edition

by matttbastard

Deceit and manipulation has convinced that masses that social programs are too costly and any move toward *gasp* socialism would bankrupt the country/world economy. Yet if you look around after decades of rampant unfettered capitalism and corporate welfare the world economies are in collapse and governments are resorting to enormous amounts of socialist cash infusion into the banking industry to try to provide a solution to a world wide depression. No where near the amount of money spent on this fiasco could have provided decent housing, health care, eliminated, or vastly decreased, child poverty And proper regulations surrounding the treatment of workers and the expectations of corporations to keep jobs in Canada would have resulted in good jobs and plenty of cash influx into the economy. Yet instead we are told to tighten our belts while CEO’s reap obscene amounts of money even in a crashing economy.

- April Reign, 2008 Blog Action Day: Poverty

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Quote of the Day: Christopher Buckley is Shrill

by matttbastard

So, I have been effectively fatwahed (is that how you spell it?) by the conservative movement, and the magazine that my father founded must now distance itself from me. But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me.

While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of “conservative” government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case.

So, to paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan: I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me.

- Christopher Buckley, after getting shitcanned tendering his resignation from The National Review because he committed the cardinal sin of endorsing Obama.

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

Shorter David Frum

by matttbastard

“I’ll show those playa-hatin’ motherfuckers at The Corner who’s down with the Georgetown cocktail party circuit!

(Yeesh. Only a partisan hack born and bred in the Great White North could launch an ad hominem attack with such oily, passive aggressive guilelessness while simultaneously bemoaning the sorry state of contemporary political discourse. Frum’s bullshit-coated doe-eyed innocent routine is as Canadian as maple fucking syrup–just ask Jason Cherniak.)

h/t Lauren (by way of J&JP)

Update: Also see Dr Prole @ ACR

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Conservative MP Suggests Stephen Harper Party Will Reopen Abortion Debate

by matttbastard

Oopsie–somebody’s slip is showing:

This is what happens when you don’t hand out enough muzzles to keep the pack from howling…

h/t A View from the Left

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Om nom nom

by boomgate

Remember kids, always eat your vegetables

John McCain: “Be Respectful”

by matttbastard

I would like to sign up for Khaled Hosseni’s newsletter:

I prefer to discuss politics through my novels, but I am truly dismayed these days. Twice last week alone, speakers at McCain-Palin rallies have referred to Sen. Barack Obama, with unveiled scorn, as Barack Hussein Obama.

Never mind that this evokes — and brazenly tries to resurrect — the unsavory, cruel days of our past that we thought we had left behind. Never mind that such jeers are deeply offensive to millions of peaceful, law-abiding Muslim Americans who must bear the unveiled charge, made by some supporters of Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin, that Obama’s middle name makes him someone to distrust — and, judging by some of the crowd reactions at these rallies, someone to persecute or even kill. As a secular Muslim, I too was offended. Obama’s middle name differs from my last name by only two vowels. Does the McCain-Palin campaign view me as a pariah too? Do McCain and Palin think there’s something wrong with my name?

But never mind any of that.

The real affront is the lack of firm response from either McCain or Palin. Neither has had the moral courage, when taking the stage, to grasp the microphone, turn to the presenter and, right then and there, denounce the use of Obama’s middle name as an insult. Instead, they have simply delivered their stump speeches, lacing into Obama as if nothing out-of-bounds had just happened. The McCain-Palin ticket has given toxic speeches accusing Obama of being a friend of terrorists, then released short, meek repudiations of some of the rough stuff, including McCain’s call Friday to “be respectful.” Back in February, the Arizona senator apologized for the “disparaging remarks” from a talk-radio host who sneered repeatedly about “Barack Hussein Obama” before a McCain rally. “We will have a respectful debate,” McCain insisted afterward. But pretending to douse flames that you are busy fanning does not qualify as straight talk.

[...]

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.

DJ rewind:

The McCain-Palin ticket has given toxic speeches accusing Obama of being a friend of terrorists, then released short, meek repudiations of some of the rough stuff, including McCain’s call Friday to “be respectful.”

[...]

[P]retending to douse flames that you are busy fanning does not qualify as straight talk.

[...]

Simply calling Obama “a decent person” is not enough.

In other words: fuck that “credit where credit is due” bullshit. There’s a damn good reason why John McCain’s (largely mythical) “honour” has evaporated quicker than your 401k and his reputation is now mired in negative equity.

Glenn Greenwald breaks it down:

The mass accusations of “terrorist” and “Arab traitor” against Obama didn’t just get randomly blurted out by a few hard-core, isolated ideologues. Rather, that is exactly the message being spewed systematically from McCain and Palin themselves (“pallin’ around with terrorists”), their parade of ads, and the coordinated efforts of opinion-leaders on the Right. Even veteran campaign reporters for whom Balance is a religion have been acknowledging that the McCain/Palin rallies are unique in their mass-crowd vitriol and intense rage.

One half-hearted, insincere attempt by McCain to restore some of the lost moral capital with his original base (a divestment that, according to Jamison Foser, has been greatly exaggerated) should not be immediately rewarded with a plate of cookies and a pat on his balding pate.

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

Sarah Palin’s Secessionist Pal Speaks

by matttbastard

Does Sarah Palin hobnob with radical extremists?

You betcha!

On the afternoon of Sept. 24 in downtown Palmer, Alaska, as the sun began to sink behind the snowcapped mountains that flank the picturesque Mat-Su Valley, 51-year-old Mark Chryson sat for an hour on a park bench, reveling in tales of his days as chairman of the Alaska Independence Party. The stocky, gray-haired computer technician waxed nostalgic about quixotic battles to eliminate taxes, support the “traditional family” and secede from the United States.

So long as Alaska remained under the boot of the federal government, said Chryson, the AIP had to stand on guard to stymie a New World Order. He invited a Salon reporter to see a few items inside his pickup truck that were intended for his personal protection. “This here is my attack dog,” he said with a chuckle, handing the reporter an exuberant 8-pound papillon from his passenger seat. “Her name is Suzy.” Then he pulled a 9-millimeter Makarov PM pistol — once the standard-issue sidearm for Soviet cops — out of his glove compartment. “I’ve got enough weaponry to raise a small army in my basement,” he said, clutching the gun in his palm. “Then again, so do most Alaskans.” But Chryson added a message of reassurance to residents of that faraway place some Alaskans call “the 48.” “We want to go our separate ways,” he said, “but we are not going to kill you.”

Though Chryson belongs to a fringe political party, one that advocates the secession of Alaska from the Union, and that organizes with other like-minded secessionist movements from Canada to the Deep South, he is not without peculiar influence in state politics, especially the rise of Sarah Palin. An obscure figure outside of Alaska, Chryson has been a political fixture in the hometown of the Republican vice-presidential nominee for over a decade. During the 1990s, when Chryson directed the AIP, he and another radical right-winger, Steve Stoll, played a quiet but pivotal role in electing Palin as mayor of Wasilla and shaping her political agenda afterward. Both Stoll and Chryson not only contributed to Palin’s campaign financially, they played major behind-the-scenes roles in the Palin camp before, during and after her victory.

Palin backed Chryson as he successfully advanced a host of anti-tax, pro-gun initiatives, including one that altered the state Constitution’s language to better facilitate the formation of anti-government militias. She joined in their vendetta against several local officials they disliked, and listened to their advice about hiring. She attempted to name Stoll, a John Birch Society activist known in the Mat-Su Valley as “Black Helicopter Steve,” to an empty Wasilla City Council seat. “Every time I showed up her door was open,” said Chryson. “And that policy continued when she became governor.”

But but but but…WILLIAM AYERS! ACORN! SCARY NEGRO WITH FUNNY NAMEZ!

Jesus fucking Christ.

Make sure to also check out David Talbot for more on Palin’s not-so-mainstream associates.

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

More on Bill Ayers and Guilt by Association

by matttbastard

Gail Collins FTW:

The McCain folks have been obsessed with William Ayers, a neighbor of Obama’s who is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Back in the 1960s, Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, were leaders of the Weather Underground, an antiwar group whose penchant for violence was exceeded only by its haplessness. Ayers has since become an education expert and was named Chicago’s Citizen of the Year in 1997. He gave Obama a house party when Obama was running for the State Senate.

In my experience, most State Senate hopefuls are so thrilled at any sign of interest that they would happily attend a reception given by a homeless couple in their cardboard box. But even though Obama was 8 years old at the time the Weathermen were in the news, that house party puts all their misdeeds on his platter. Sarah Palin has been telling her increasingly scary rallies that he is somebody “who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists.”

[...]

Before we go any further, I have a confession to make. When I was a college student, I believe I attended a party with Bernardine Dohrn. This was pre-Weather, when Dohrn was a leader of the Students for a Democratic Society, better known as S.D.S. Some of my friends wanted to meet her because they were interested in establishing an S.D.S. chapter at our campus. I was opposed, under the presumption that S.D.S. meant Students for Decent Styles, a group that had been active in fighting spaghetti-strap dresses at my high school.

Still, under the new rules, I believe I may now be held partly responsible for all of Dohrn’s misdeeds, including aggravated battery, bail jumping, the Days of Rage and unreadable political tracts.

McCain’s favorite supporter, Senator Joseph Lieberman, recently called the Obama-Ayers connection “fair game.” This reminded me that Lieberman once came to a party at my house. It was years ago, when he was still a Connecticut state senator, and we have already established that state senators will go to anything. Still, I can’t help but feel that I am not only a potential victim of the new guilt-by-association standard, I am also somewhat complicit in establishing it.

As they say, read the whole damn thing.

Recommend this post by Progressive Bloggers

John Sidney McChickenshit III.

by matttbastard

Josh Marshall:

McCain’s moral cowardice has been one of the subtexts of this campaign ever since he wound up the nomination and turned his attention to Barack Obama. But I did not realize it would reveal itself in such a physical dimension.

The tell came this week as McCain unearthed the Ayers story which, for whatever its merits, was fully aired months ago and has no clear relation to the particulars of October other than McCain’s collapsing poll numbers. He’s on it. Palin’s on it. He’s releasing slashing new TV ads like this one. Both of them are ginning their crowds up into spiraling gyres of right-wing delirium — a ready-made Lord of the Flies (and let’s admit that’s a gentle allusion, given the tone of these barnburners) if Obama happened into one of the auditoriums at the wrong moment.

He ever swaggered on for a couple days about how he was going to ‘take the gloves off‘ when he met up with Obama in Nashville. But when the two of them were there in each others physical presence … nothing. By a myriad of gestures and reactions Obama owned him.

Nor is it a matter of shifting off the tactics, because as soon as McCain made his hasty retreat from the stage at Debate #2 he was right back at it. In every other aspect of life, high and low, refined and unlovely, we have a word for that kind of behavior: cowardice.

And now Obama can lightly taunt McCain with that very cowardice, his inability to just say it to his face. And if my take on the inner workings of McCain’s mind at the moment is right that should simply unhinge him even more.

Ta-Nehisi Coates:

Frankly, I’ve always believed that the quickest way to show you’re a chump is to run around telling everyone about that aren’t one. You want to prove to the American people that you aren’t shook? Don’t talk them to death. Get in the ring and kick the other guys ass. It’s that simple. Screw all this talk about who’s tougher than who. Here is what I know: McCain will talk that shit about Ayers and brag about taking the gloves off. He will send his wife and Sarah Palin out to do his dirty work. But when faced with the man who he believes “palls around with terrorist” he played his position.

Joe Biden:

“All of the things they said about Barack Obama in the TV, on the TV, at their rallies, and now on YouTube … John McCain could not bring himself to look Barack Obama in the eye and say the same things to him,” Biden said this morning. “In my neighborhood, when you’ve got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him.”

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

Joe Six-Pack in OH

by matttbastard

h/t Jonathan Martin, video courtesy blogger interrupted

Related: George Packer on the challenge Obama faces in Ohio:

Gabe Kramer, the S.E.I.U.’s chief of staff in Columbus, told me, “You talk to people about the issues and the issues resonate. But what you hear people talking about on the street and on TV and radio is the other things. Is Obama like us? Does Obama share our experience of the world? Which is not the same thing as racism, but overlaps with it.” Obama, Kramer added, is “very good at talking to professionals—people who care about policy—and comes across as judicious, careful, thoughtful. But he has a harder time talking about them in a way working-class white Ohioans can relate to.”

h/t Eric Martin & Gary Farber

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