After focusing on those details, Somersby zooms out for a larger view:
There are times, when you run a web site, when you’re stunned to discover the following fact: Readers have agreed with you down through the years only because they enjoy your conclusions. They’ll yelp and howl about the vile ways the words of the shirts have been misstated. But when someone misstated the words of a skin, they’ll invent endless ways to support that.Actually, Bob, a few of my readers are dumber than that: I fully expect them to say "So, you're supporting McCain?" because I didn't mouth the Approved Party Line on the "hundred years" thing.
And that is Somersby's point. Nobody cares any more about true versus false or real versus not-real. The only thing that matters is shirts versus skins.
11 comments:
McCain said it was OK with him if we are in Iraq for 100 years. I know he said if no American troops are being killed, but they are being killed, and are going to continue to be killed. The Obama campaign should be careful to accurately state McCains position,but they should, and no doubt will, hang the 100 year comment around his neck. Let's see: McCain--100 years in Iraq. Obama--his pastor's a racist and his father was a socialist. McCain will not go after Obama's father. Not officially. The 527s will. They will paint Obama as a racist, a socialist, and a left-extremist. I think it will backfire. I could be wrong. I lost $20 betting on John Kerry.
Gary, McCain was clearly thinking of an American base in Iraq like the ones we have in Ramstein or Atsugi. Not gonna happen, of course. But neither will fighting last a hundred years.
If I were a Republican, I would portray Obama as an Eldridge Cleaver pretending to be a Cliff Huxtable.
"Obama--his pastor's a racist and his father was a socialist. McCain will not go after Obama's father. Not officially. The 527s will."
... or the new and improved Cannonfire will.
Joseph, you talk like if the Republicans don't have anything against Clinton. I know you prefer to smear Obama and not compare candidates (comparing = ducking ?), but the same fallacious exercice you're doing could be reproduced for each candidate, even McCain, so what's your point ?!?
KKKliff Kincaid at AIM is going with the "Red smear" too, but with a different angle :
Obama’s Red Mentor Praised Red Army
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/obamas-red-mentor-praised-red-army/
Btw, the only advantage of the "evil racist pastor" story is that it kinda make it impossible to keep on smearing him as a secret muslim now.
"I lost $20 betting on John Kerry."
You won... but they cheated.
How many Diet-Free half-quart malt liquor bottles are in a six-pack?
http://wonkette.com/377944/are-you-as-dumb-as-americas-smartest-college-kids
Not one of his 16 Case Western Reserve journalism students knew what 'rendition' (as in 'extraordinary rendition') is, means, or refers to. It gets worse.
OT (but I couldn't find an email address): Check out http://vbonnaire.wordpress.com. Really interesting stuff about who's pulling the strings in the Dem campaign.
—gmanedit
Joe, You used a good example of your unwillingness to let yourself go against your principles. I like the shirts and the skins comparison. I am not for either the shirts or the skins so much as I am against the superior attitude and dirty tricks of the game. I oppose those who are blanketing the whole nation with their placards, posters, ads, and the face of their candidate like dictatorships do. Propaganda is a dirty trick to me. I want to scream "tell the truth" to the face everytime I see it.
I am more favorable to a candidate who is more willing to be as they are even if they aren't known well enough to like the person under the impression. I find it so difficult to judge someone because of accusations of the past toward me that were never proven true. I suffered a reputation of being a "street walker" because I didn't have parents who could buy me a car, and I didn't earn enough money to do so and holier than thous considered me a tramp. I was judged incorrectly because I walked to and from work, the movies, town to dinner, etc. Sometimes someone I went to school with would offer me a ride. I accepted. Had I any idea of how it looked to others I never would have. This was in the "happy days" period. Years later I learned of the label that had been attached to me. I was not guilty, but today when I run into someone from those years, they say "Oh yea, I remember you!" And their demeanor causes me to wither inside. I know they are recalling the slanderous title that was given me and that I will die with many still believing the lie.
I am against lies as I think you are. I, as yet, am not turned against Hillary, and will probably stick with her, because of my own experience with false accusations and the self important carriers of those accusations.
I am not sure if her team is the shirts or the skins, so I cannot root for either.
What is more important is as long as her opposite keeps showing his true self she has a chance to do well this year, and maybe become POTUS afterall!! I sure hope so!
Sure am enjoying your commenataries.
Karen KB
For a clear idea of what was said by McCain back in New Hampshire in January, including video, please see:
http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/01/6735_mccain_in_nh_wo.html
Joseph, you are correct to point out that McCain was equating an enduring presence in Iraq with permanent basis in former enemy territories such as German and Japan.
Where one must quibble with McCain, and I don't understand why neither Dem candidate has done so, is this:
Germany and Japan had surrendered! In order for McCain's equation to accurately reflect and justify maintaining a military presence in Iraq, the combatants there must surrender!
Any chance that'll happen any time soon? Any prospective end date in sight? How many losses will McCain consider acceptable while waiting for that date and those conditions to obtain on the ground?
These are the hard questions that must be put to him, and I do not understand why neither Dem will ask them. It is a perfect way for them to differentiate themselves from McCain [a 3rd Bush term in all but name, perhaps], and to point out his lapse in logic by making the erroneous comparison he did.
Then again, I would once have expected you to catch and champion that bit of nuance, too. But it seems that you are now less interested in providing the Dems with their winning talking points than in just kneecapping them.
Joe,
I think it was Chomsky who said it but I am not sure, that journalists have learned to internalize censorship (conditioning from childhood, school years and even in universities). He (?) further says that the few who manage to maintain any integrity look for any opportunity to inject "truth" into their columns. He (?) suggests that if such courage is to be found, it rests in the last paragraph of the post ( harder to detect by the editor).
So we, the readers have learned to look there as well.
This rule applies to Newspaper article more so than blogs, but hey, you can't teach an old dog new tricks (or at least not that fast).
And frankly, you tend to have the punch line in your titles and use the article to argue your point.
Somersby's conclusion does not apply to you.
And BTW, "Are you ducking" my question (you know from the last post)?
So Here it is again:
Should Dems rise above Rovian Politics of the past 8 years (actually the past 12 years) and fight clean? Or is it time to play the game as it is played?
You know this question reminds me of what Rummy said once:
" You fight with the Army you have, not the Army you wish you had".
So, I say, you fight with rules as they are, not as you wish them to be!
CJFKG, you are right that McCain's "prophecy" is based on some fantasy of a Battleship Missouri-style formal surrender ceremony. Just won't happen. So the guy is no oracle -- but at the same time, he did not talk about a hundred years of bloodshed.
As for your kneecapping remark: You're right; I have become that cynical. I used to be a rah-rah partisan, but when the sites I used to respect turned into the Free Republic, my 'tude soured.
Alas, I have a small hammer and those are some pretty big knees.
beeta: Not many months or weeks ago, I would have agreed. Fight with what you have. The game of politics is now played according to dirty rules, so you gotta get just as dirty.
But now...
Again, it all goes back to the stomach-churning sight of the Kossacks and DUmmies recapitulating all the anti-Clinton lies that made me hate the Republicans in the first place. I want a party that adheres to the principles outlined by Al Gore in The Assault on Reason. Instead, the left has turned into an unreasoning mob.
I keep flashing back to that guy on Kos who screamed "Vince Foster! Vince Foster! Vince Foster!" That message seems to summarize everything that went wrong.
The trouble with Kos is, he's young. He grew up with Rush Limbaugh. And he thinks that Limbaughism is how things get done.
Maybe he's right.
But if so, then we are engaged in battle for the sake of battle, not battle for a cause.
Count me out.
Joe,
I always suspected that you are.... well you know....
And I can't hate you no matter what you say....
What a F----ing place to find oneself, isn't it?
But then again, it beats the hell out of being a "hick", a "Jesus freak", a "self righteous Repub", a "know it all Neocon", a "Valley girl wannabee anchor-woman".......
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