Friday, September 5, 2008
It Is Time To End This “Fact Free Personal Attacks Bull Shit Campaign” And Get Down To The People’s Needs And The Real Issues In This Country.
Posted by ed. dickau at 8:42 PM
It Is Time To End This “Fact Free Personal Attacks Campaign” And Get Down To The People’s Needs And The Real Issues In This Country. And I Guess We’re Just Going To Have To Demand It!Analysis: Despite Palin, GOP still faces tougher odds
Obama's challenge will be to deflect Republican attacks, repeated frequently this week, that he lacks the experience and accomplishments needed to step into the presidency. McCain's challenges include parrying Democratic assertions that, on the big issues of the Iraq war and the economy, his administration would continue the policies of President Bush. But he also hopes to convince voters that he more than Obama would bring real change and bipartisan governance to Washington.
The other key for both is to take hold of the economic issue, which remains paramount for more voters than any other. Democrats spent more time at their convention on this subject than Republicans did, but strategists on both sides say that neither candidate has taken charge of it.
Earlier in the week, McCain advisers openly acknowledged the steep hill they must climb to overcome the Democrats' advantages. They said that to win the general election, McCain must run past, if not away from, his party, which means winning over voters who do not consider themselves Republicans, making McCain's route to victory more difficult than Obama's.
"We actually have to go find votes because right now if the election were held today we probably don't have as many votes as Barack Obama," Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, told Washington Post reporters and editors Tuesday. But the Palin reception may have begun to redress some of that disadvantage.
GOP Convention Analysis Blacks and Republicans Divided; Only 36 ...Afro American - Baltimore,MD,USACJ Jordan, McCain’s African American Coalition coordinator, said the figures reflect the division of Black conservatives in the primary election. ...See all stories on this topic
Up for election: two competing visions of 'change'McClatchy Washington Bureau - Washington,DC,USAHe added that McCain could fall into the same trap that Hillary Clinton did in the Democratic primaries if he thinks his experience will trump Obama's. See all stories on this topic
Palin may bring more Georgia evangelicals into McCain campAtlanta Journal Constitution - GA, USAThirty-eight percent of Georgia voters in 2004 identified themselves as evangelical, according to an exit poll analysis by the Pew Forum on Religion ...See all stories on this topic
Let’s Bring Sanity Back to America - Let’s Put Obama in the White ...By emiwest By Senator Edward M. Kennedy. The White House is supposed to be sacred ground, a symbol of American pride and power — not a tool for divisive politics. (more…)Massachusetts Impeachment Coalition - http://www.mass-impeach.org
The Reviews are in: America Loves Palin?By kerry It looks like the book banning little fascist from Alaska is wildly popular with the masses. According to Rasmussen, Americans currently have a more favorable than unfavorable view of Sarah Palin. In fact, Yahoo News is reporting that ...Diatribune - Vox Populi - http://www.diatribune.com
Palin Power: Fresh Face Now More Popular Than Obama, McCain
Sarah Palin Republican convention speech watched by 37 million in US
Putting Words in Palin's Mouth
There was a flutter of attention when McCain campaign manager Rick Davis told a group of Post reporters and editors yesterday that his team was having to rework the vice presidential acceptance speech because the original draft, prepared before Gov. Sarah Palin was chosen, was too "masculine." While we all wondered to ourselves what might make a speech masculine or feminine, no one batted an eye at the underlying revelation: that the campaign was writing the nominee's speech before knowing who the nominee would be.
What We’re Not Hearing: The Real Issues, Not Political Theater!
Remember: Where’s The Beef? We Ought To Be Asking: “Where Are The Issues; Where Are The Answers?”
Palin Pick Is GOP Hypocrisy at its Best
Laura Flanders, AlterNet
Election 2008: Will the media test her on substance or let her play "Ms. Congeniality?" It is up to the public to see through the fact-free diet we're being fed.
Pure Sarcasm By ROGER SIMON
ST. PAUL, Minn. — On behalf of the media, I would like to say we are sorry.On behalf of the elite media, I would like to say we are very sorry. We have asked questions this week that we should never have asked.
We have asked pathetic questions like: Who is Sarah Palin?
What is her record? Where does she stand on the issues?
And is she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency?
We have asked mean questions like: How well did John McCain know her before he selected her?
How well did his campaign vet her?
And was she his first choice?
Bad questions.
Bad media.
Bad.
It is not our job to ask questions. Or it shouldn't be.
To hear from the pols at the Republican National Convention this week, our job is to endorse and support the decisions of the pols.
Sarah Palin hit the nail on the head Wednesday night (and several in the audience wish she had hit some reporters on the head instead) when she said: "I'm not a member of the permanent political establishment. And I've learned quickly, these past few days, that if you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone."
But where did we go wrong with Sarah Palin?
Let me count the ways:
First, we should have stuck to the warm, human interest stuff like how she likes moose burgers and hit an important free throw at her high school basketball tournament even though she had a stress fracture.
Second, we should have stuck to the press release stuff like how she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere (after she supported it).
Third, we should never have strayed into the other stuff. Like when The Washington Post recently wrote: "Palin is under investigation by a bipartisan state legislative body. … Palin had promised to cooperate with the legislative inquiry, but this week she hired a lawyer to fight to move the case to the jurisdiction of the state personnel board, which Palin appoints."
Why go there?
What trees does that plant?
Fourth, we should stop making with all the questions already. She gave a really good speech.
And why go beyond that?
As we all know, speeches cannot be written by others and rehearsed for days. They are true windows to the soul.
Unless they are delivered by Barack Obama, that is. In which case, as Palin said Wednesday, speeches are just a "cloud of rhetoric."
Fifth, we should stop reporting on the families of the candidates.
Unless the candidates want us to.
Sarah Palin wanted the media to report on her teenage son, Track, who enlisted in the Army on Sept. 11, 2007, and soon will deploy to Iraq.
Sarah Palin did not want the media to report on her teenage daughter, Bristol, who is pregnant and unmarried.
Sarah Palin thinks that one is good for her campaign and one is not, and that the media should report only on what is good for her campaign.
That is our job, and that is our duty.
If that is not actually in the Constitution, it should be. (And someday may be.)
The official theme of the convention's third day was "prosperity," but the unofficial theme was "the media are really, really awful."
Even Mike Huckabee, who campaigned for president this year by saying "I am a conservative, but I am not mad at anybody," discovered Wednesday night that he is mad at somebody."I'd like to thank the elite media for doing something," Huckabee said, "that, quite frankly, I didn't think could be done: unify the Republican Party and all of America in support of John McCain and Sarah Palin."
And could that be the real point of the attacks on the media?
To unify the Republican Party?
No, that is simply the cynical, media view.
Though as Lily Tomlin says, "No matter how cynical I get, it's just never enough to keep up."
I couldn't resist that. For which I am sorry.
Mark Belling called Gloria Steinem a "grizzled old bag," "old witch"
Summary: Radio host Mark Belling called Gloria Steinem a "grizzled old bag," "old witch," and "embittered old has-been" and also stated that the "previous generation" of feminists "were so ugly you couldn't stand to look at them."
On the September 4 broadcast of The Mark Belling Late Afternoon Show, radio host Mark Belling called author, activist, and Ms. magazine co-founder Gloria Steinem a "grizzled old bag," and an "old witch." Belling made these remarks while discussing Steinem's September 4 Los Angeles Times op-ed, in which she criticized Sen. John McCain's choice of Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate.
Belling also asserted: "She [Steinem] was the cutting edge feminism. Feminists prior to her were the old bags, the previous generation prior to the [The Feminine Mystique author] Betty Friedans of the world, the women that were so ugly you couldn't stand to look at them. Here came Gloria Steinem wearing the mini skirts and dating the famous people and being the glamorous representation of what American feminism is. Well now Gloria Steinem is just nothing more than a 74-year-old, embittered, old has-been sitting out in Los Angeles."
Belling's show is carried on News/Talk 1130 WISN-AM in Milwaukee, owned by Clear Channel Communications. Talkers magazine includes Belling in its "Heavy Hundred" list, which it describes as a list of the "100 most important radio talk show hosts in America."
This Idiot Is Typical Of The Barely Literate Media Blow Hards Who Substitute Their Venom For Any Serious Intelligent Discussion. I’d like to See This Guy Debate Gloria. At 74 Gloria has probably lost more brain cells than this idiot ever had!
http://mediamatters.org/items/200809050018
In a September 4 post on Tribune Washington bureau blog The Swamp, Chicago Tribune White House correspondent Mark Silva repeated Gov. Sarah Palin's claim that "the Obama-Biden Democrats have been vicious in their attacks directed toward ... my family." But, unlike ABC News senior national correspondent Jake Tapper, NBC News deputy political director Mark Murray, and Associated Press writer Sarah Kugler, Silva gave no indication that he had challenged Republican aides to substantiate Palin's charge with examples of purported attacks. Tapper, Murray, and Kugler all reported that when asked to provide examples of such attacks, Palin aides, the McCain campaign, and the Republican National Committee did not provide any.
Did you see Barack Obama go on The O'Reilly Factor last night-right into the belly of the beast? While we didn't want Obama to appear on FOX initially, he wisely chose the same night John McCain delivered his RNC speech (the same night FOX received some of its highest ratings) to make an appearance. Talk about stealing the GOP's thunder!
Obama was no doubt trying to appeal to conservative voters, since 88% of FOX viewers voted Republican in 2004. But FOX won't let their conservative base go without a fight. That's why O'Reilly needled and interrupted Obama, trying to get him to simplify many of his answers-a far cry from the softballs O'Reilly lobbed at many prominent Republicans like Rudy Giuliani in the past. And that's why FOX has been attacking Obama with the same relentless smear tactics that they used against John Kerry four years ago. Watch them use the exact same attacks.
Watch the video and spread it to everyone you know.
GOP's Plan for Palin: Reignite the Culture Wars Jay Rosen, Huffington Post Republicans will try to spin Palin's shortcoming into strengths, by revving up the culture wars.
The “P” in “POW” Does Not Stand for “President”
Post by ZP Heller
McCain's Speech: Worst Acceptance Speech in Almost 30 Years?Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on September 5, 2008 at 9:22 AM.
So, I pretty much hated John McCain's speech.
It was boring as all fuck, not just because McCain is a miserable orator who never manages to hit any kind of compelling rhythm, but because it was the same damn speech I've heard at every GOP convention for my entire life injected with a shot of POW, the potency of which had been thoroughly undermined by every other convention speaker having taken possession of McCain's history during their speeches. Even the video package introducing McCain talked about his being a POW. There's a not-particularly-fine line between marketing relevant and evocative personal experience and Tragedy Branding. This convention sailed over that line into farce.
It gives me no joy to say that. And it doesn't change one iota the fact that McCain's service was intrinsically brave and honorable. I'm just really mystified by the decision to use something as intimate and distressing as the details of imprisonment and torture as the primary selling point of a candidate. Which is not to suggest McCain shouldn't have talked about it himself—but doling it out to everyone else to discuss onstage on his behalf had the twofold effect of diluting its effectiveness and disconnecting McCain from his own highly personal experience.
It certainly wasn't a good design for people tuned in to lots of the convention, at minimum.
I won't pick apart much of the actual content, because, quite frankly, it's too dry and dull to require it. There are two passages I wanted to mention, though.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Fox News: 'McCain's TV Commercials Contain ... Out-Right Lies'Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on September 5, 2008 at 2:01 PM.
We talked the other day about a surprising Washington Post editorial, which criticized John McCain's demonstrably false claims about Barack Obama's tax policies. Hiatt & Co., hardly a reliably liberal bunch, didn't pull any punches, concluding that "McCain's ads on taxes are just plain false," and noting his campaign's message is peddling a "phony, misleading and at times outright dishonest" line. The Post indirectly noted that candidates shouldn't "outright lie" about each other's policy positions.
How transparent are McCain's bogus claims? Even Fox News has noticed. Consider this report from Major Garrett:
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
The Republican Priorities: What The GOP Focused On (And Ignored) During The Convention
Posted by Staff, Think Progress on September 5, 2008 at 6:35 AM.
During the Republican National Convention this past week, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) campaign worked hard to put distance between the senator and President Bush. Bush spoke briefly via satellite and Vice President Cheney didn’t address the crowd at all.
Despite these attempts, what was most evident during the convention was how similar the two men’s policies were. New ideas to address the country’s problems and actual policy discussions were given little attention. As FiveThirtyEight notes, instead, much attention was given to “the three P’s — Palin, Petroleum, and POW.”
ThinkProgress has put together an analysis based on the prepared remarks (a total of 38,055 words) of the convention speakers, looking at how many times Republicans said various words. A glimpse at conservatives’ priorities:
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Sarah Palin May Be a Pit Bull in Lipstick, but She's No PopulistPosted by Jim Hightower, JimHightower.com on September 4, 2008 at 6:06 PM.
"Perfect populist pitch." That's how CBS political pundit Jeff Greenfield described Sarah Palin's VP acceptance speech.
Excuse me, but real populists don't support profiteering schemes of Big Oil or embrace the extension and expansion of tax giveaways to Wall Street speculators and corporate chieftans. Palin might claim to be a pit bull in lipstick, but she's damn sure no populist. As Greenfield must surely know in his less infatuated moments, she is to populism what near beer is to beer -- only not as close. Indeed, she's the candidate of the plutocrats. Mary Ellen Lease -- a real hell-raising populist from the 1880s and 90s -- would be appalled at the media's perversion of this historic and proud term.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment