Friday, March 21, 2008

Obama is responsible

With one sentence, Obama could employ the moral force necessary to stop Kos and the other prog-bloggers from spreading smears. The fact that he does not do so proves his complicity.

We now know that the Bush State Department has peeked into the passport data of McCain, Huckabee -- and Hillary Clinton. I was curious to see how the Kossacks would handle this revelation.

As always, they did not disappoint:
Wasn’t it reported that in Hillary’s case there was no real breach but her name was used during a training session?

Then we have McCain which looks like it was done as a cover up.
As though that "training exercise" explanation would suffice if offered in the Obama case.
yep this smells to high heaven
What better way to cover up a political hit-job than to show equal disdain for all the candidates of both parties.
No one wants McCain's passport records. And I seriously doubt if anyone really wanted Hillary's.
The Kossacks have pounced on one "damning" piece of info, which, in their view, proves Hillary's perfidy:
The supervisor was Maura Hardy, a former Clinton appointee (a former Ambassador),
To which Kagro X, one of the few sane voices left in progland, responded:
Maura Hardy? The Maura Hardy who's worked for the State Department in every administration since Reagan?

Now she's a Clinton crony because she got a career civil service appointment as ambassador to that plum assignment, Paraguay?
Keith Obermann himself has decided to blame Hillary before learning the facts. I do a pretty good Murrow impression myself: FOR SHAME, SIR!

Can anyone name any a single sin committed by the Republican smear machine that has gone unreplicated by the "progressive" media? The left has degenerated into an unreasoning mob. I began this blog to argue the case for John Kerry. Four years later, I find that that the people I used to see as comrades have decided to mount a particularly harrowing production of The Crucible.

The ghastly erosion of principle and decency on the left is no trivial story -- arguably, this development is more important than is the election itself.

I hold Barack Obama himself partially responsible for the left's transformation into a slavering pack of beasts. Look at his latest campaign announcement:
In a “60 Minutes” interview, Senator Clinton refused to confirm that Senator Obama is a Christian, even though she knows the facts.
An utter lie. Here is the transcript:
Q: You don't believe that Senator Obama's a Muslim?

A: Of course not. I mean, that, you know, there is no basis for that.
And:
Q:No. No, there is nothing to base that on. As far as I know.

Q: It's just scurrilous…?

A: Look, I have been the target of so many ridiculous rumors, that I have a great deal of sympathy for anybody who gets, you know, smeared with the kind of rumors that go on all the time.
When they progblogs recount this tale, you don't see the words "smeared" and "ridiculous rumors" and "scurrilous," do you? (Yes, "scurrilous" was the interviewer's word, but Hillary ran with it.) To repeat one of my favorite Oscar Wilde-isms: "Quotation can be slander/When you gerrymander." Anyone who can parse Clinton's words in such a way as to justify the Obama campaign's smear-job is simply being inane -- and history will judge harshly.

Much else in the recent Obama mailer deserves to be deplored. I will here note only this:
A new Gallup poll...shows a staggering figure: far fewer Americans think Clinton is trustworthy than think she isn’t, by a margin 44-53 percent.
Yes -- and for years, the polls also said that the vast majority of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein engineered the 911 attacks. In 2000, polls showed that the majority of Americans were affected by the unconscionable "Gore the liar" meme.

(Incidentally, the most recent polls also say that the American public prefers McCain to Obama. McCain beats Clinton as well.)

The anti-Hillary numbers are the way they are because the Clintons have been subjected to the most vicious, long-running smear campaign in American history. As the old Rogers and Hammerstein song says: "You have to be carefully taught..." They were "taught" about Gore, they were "taught" about 9/11, and they've been "taught" about the Clintons. Has the nation profited from this education?

A few years ago, the previous paragraph would have been uncontroversial on the the left-wing sites. But now the progs feel no remorse in repeating all of the old fabrications and innuendos.

Those Gallup numbers show only that the Obama/Limbaugh/Murdoch/Kos/Moon/DU/Free Republic/TPM smear tactics have worked.

I cannot keep company with the Obama supporters because they now keep company with the very people I have sworn to fight.

Why did Obama rely on the politics of prevarication? Because he brings nothing else to the discussion beyond a reliance on emotionalism:
IMO, he is grossly underqualified and unprepared for the presidency. I base that viewpoint on a thorough study of his life and resume. Obama himself has acknowledged his relative dearth of experience, even though his more fanatical supporters never will. I reject the argument that experience is not an important factor in job performance. Obviously, it is not the only factor.

IMO, the claim that his "good judgment" will compensate for any deficiency in experience may be comforting, but my study of his speeches and policy positions convinces me that there are all too many examples of "poor judgment," not adequately tempered or illuminated by experience.

He advocates a "coalition of faith and bipartisanship." The latter is impossible except for an occasional, isolated issue. The former is a deplorable intrusion of religious thinking into public life. I do not want a Democratic Ministry in Washington, any more than the Republican Ministry that currently exists. Obama has not clarified how his congregation's racist doctrine (published on their website) would or would not influence his policies or decisions as president.

His economic proposals are weak and mostly a rehash of positions previously developed by Clinton. He has repeatedly articulated an unsound linkage between foreign policy decisions and domestic initiatives. His excessively broad finger-pointing at Corporate America and Big Business will make it impossible for him to enlist these powerful interest groups in participating in his agenda.

Whereas Clinton's team features policy-wonks and pragmatists, Obama's advisors and campaign feature his personality and appeals to emotion. We badly need a wiser, more rational citizenry to decrease our vulnerability to propaganda and disinformation. As an educator, Obama should understand that need.

Obama's claim to strong anti-war credentials is a gross exaggeration and based almost entirely on one tepid speech given in 2002 as an Illinois State Senator.

Obama's foreign policy ideas, as reiterated in his Iraq speech this week, are dangerous in their naiveté and advocacy of unilateral military adventurism. He proposes a new "central front" for the war in the Middle East, along the Pakistani and Afghanistan border, with or without the consent and cooperation of our crucial regional ally, Pakistan.
This otherwise fine analysis errs when describing Obama's economic views as a xerox of Hillary's. What about Social Security? When did that stop being the untouchable "third rail" of American politics?

Obama has allied himself with economic aides who rely on the libertarian Cato Institute's argument that Social Security needs "fixing." As Al Franken demonstrates in his most recent book, the Cato crowd have spewed fake numbers for ideological reasons.

Somehow, Barack Obama has become a Rorshach test onto which the gullible project their hopes and dreams. One day the dreamers will awake, and they will discover that the Obama of their hallucinations is not real.

Note: If you have something new and relevant to say, then say it. But don't just repeat the old lies. Progs seem to be under the impression that certain fibs, such as the "Fairy Tale" hoax and the "darkened video" falsehood, can win the day through sheer repetition. Check first to see whether I have already addressed your point; the search engine is at the top of the page. I will delete any comment that goes over old ground.

I will also delete any comment that simply insults me without mounting an argument. If you know how to argue, then you may also heap denigration on my head, if doing so makes you feel better.

I will delete any comment that dodges and switches subjects.

If you feel these rules are unfair, simply go away. I neither need nor want you -- and I have a phobic reaction to mobs.

10 comments:

AitchD said...

"... and for years, the polls also said that the vast majority of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein engineered the 911 attacks."

First I heard it this way: Can you believe who watches FOX News? A new poll says that 20 percent of FOX viewers believe Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

Even if it was 100 percent of FOX viewers, it still wasn't a huge number of idiots.

Then Bill Maher or someone morphed it into 20 percent of Americans. Now it's the 'vast majority' of Americans? Something like the opposite of the Heisenberg thing happens sometimes, it's like too much high-fructose corn syrup has leached into public discourse.

Today is Full Moon Equinox Coincidence Day:

"I cannot keep company with the Obama supporters because they now keep company with the very people I have sworn to fight."

According to Norman Mailer's "The Fight" (Ali-Foreman), when Ali set up his training camp in different places, some of the guys in Ali's entourage would soak a bunch of new athletic supporters in onion and garlic, and sell them to local leather shops as Ali's worn supporters.

Joseph Cannon said...

H, you are wrong.

On September 13, 2001, a CBS News poll held that only 3 percent of the American public blamed Saddam.

By 2003, that number had risen to 70 percent:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-09-06-poll-iraq_x.htm

gary said...

"With one sentence, Obama could employ the moral force necessary to stop Kos and the other prog-bloggers from spreading smears. The fact that he does not do so proves his complicity."

Really? I looked over at Daily Kos and DU a couple of hours ago, following your links. A few nutballs made some idiotic comments, some of which you quoted. The left has nutballs too. Obama is addressing some pretty serious charges against him, he's supposed to respond to anonymous comments on blogs too? I barely had time to do more than quickly scan the comments today. Obama's running for President.

Neither Obama or Clinton have accused the other of playing the race card, or made racially insensitive remarks, so far as I know. Some of their surrogates have, perhaps at the request of the candidate and perhaps not. The anonymous commenters, I am fairly certain, are acting on their own.

Joseph Cannon said...

gary, the actual writings of Markos Moulitsas have been beyond the pale. And he reaches more people than Fox News does.

Besides, I happen to be of the opinion that a blog owner bears some responsibility if his commentary becomes a cesspool.

What if dozens of racist or anti-Semitic comments suddenly appeared on my site? You would hold me responsible.

Besides, it's not just a matter of a few nutcases on the left. Daily Kos and DU have become just as toxic as the Free Republic is. (Or was. I don't really know. I haven't visited FR in ages.)

That is an important development. For one thing, the left no longer has any moral authority to criticize the barbaric tactics of the right. The examples of right-wing brutishness that used to appear in left-wing books have ceased to have any power, since the liberals are now just as vile.

We have ALL been carefully taught, alas.

AitchD said...

What's 'wrong' about suggesting that one valid survey about FOX viewers turned into subsequent false positives? 20 percent of FOX viewers became 20 percent of Americans in less than a week of sloppy amusement. You know how that can become 'many Americans' or a 'very significant number of Americans'. The poll article you mention didn't include any of the questions, such as, "When you watch TV, do you usually talk on the phone and watch the scrolling headlines while helping your kid with his science homework?"

It's too easy to look back and say the WHIG et al. seared the Saddam = 9/11 meme into our consciousness. At the time, I paid attention, and it appeared to me as a deadly version of the Telephone Game.

progprog said...

I think you are right to an extent. Yes, every drop of news flows down the right side of Kos with some Hillary-bashing attached.

But why blame Obama for that? If one looks for a root cause, perhaps one will find it in Hillary refusing to concede when all odds tell us she's foolish to continue? Or blame Obama and his surrogates for seeing racism in Ferraro and Bill's comments? Or Hillary for assuming the inevitability plan would pay off? Or Obama and Edwards for trying to make it a race? Or...

Knee-jerk reactions by a site with tens of thousands of members are easy to sift for nonsense. Bill O'Reilley does the same on HuffPo.

Yes, Obama is flawed. No, he can't police all of his followers. The same is true of Hillary.

Anonymous said...

"Besides, it's not just a matter of a few nutcases on the left. Daily Kos and DU have become just as toxic as the Free Republic is."

How true! And this site is the blazing case in point!

In fact, I never spent much time at Free Republic, but I ever encountered such vile, toxic, rude, and hate-filled nastiness as I've seen here.

Pot, meet Kettle. Kettle, meet Pot. And you're both black!

Ick.

-DB-

Joseph Cannon said...

Mark, about concession...

Ask yourself: If Edwards were in exactly the same position, delegate-wise, would progs be crying for him to concede?

See? The issue looks very different when seen outside the haze of Clinton-hate.

Joseph Cannon said...

DB...

I could have ten-times more hate on these pages and be ten times more popular -- IF the hate were directed at the Clintons.

What pisses you off is not hatred, but the socially unacceptable target.

progprog said...

Joseph, it's not that Hillary is still in the race. In fact, many 'prog's, including Kos himself, were supportive of an extended battle between Clinton and Obama because it would suck all manner of attention away from McBush, continue to rally the impressive crowds, etc. Then things went negative. You feel that Obama is equally if not more negative than Hillary. Many disagree.

If Edwards had an all-but-zero chance of winning mathematically, and it went ugly, then those that saw Edwards as having brought on the ugliness out of desperation would call on him to throw in the towel. Reverse also true if roles reversed.

But if, as folks originally thought, no one had the gall to go negative during nom process for fear of bloodying up the eventual nominee, then we're not having this conversation.

We won't agree, I suspect, on who went negative first or more often, or who has crossed a line/the line/some line. But we can probably agree that Dem v Dem sucks rocks compared to DemS v McBush, which is where we all need to be. True?