According to CNN, one of the Rovian Republican tacs for this election is going to be to paint Obama as "arrogant." Because what could be worse than an arrogant guy in the White House, right? I mean, it's not arrogant to refuse to attend any of the funerals of the soldiers who were killed in Iraq -- the war that you started to show your daddy you have a bigger set than he does -- and it's certainly not arrogant to fly over Louisiana, pissed off that you had to end your 6-week vacation early, and gaze down at the flood waters from Air Force One, musing, "Wow, that's really bad." It's not arrogant to have your Chief of Staff have to force you to sit down and watch a DVD of news reports about Hurricane Katrina that he made so you'd finally focus, instead of thinking about important things like clearing brush from your ranch.
It's not arrogant to insist that the two other branches of government have no power, that only the executive branch gets to call the shots. It's not arrogant to refuse to listen to dissenting opinions. It's not arrogant to try to make the tax cuts for your wealthy friends permanent. It's not arrogant to decide that the Justice Department should be filled only with people who think just like you, because only your opinion matters and is important, even in matters of the law, which are supposed to be impartial. It's not arrogant to subsequently tell your attorney general to fire people who might have their own political views, ones that differ from yours. It's not arrogant to interfere in a family's personal agony over whether to take their brain-dead daughter off life support, turning a private torment into a national spectacle. It's not arrogant to think that it's your right to listen in on people's conversations and then if they object to this invasion of privacy, tell them they're unpatriotic. It's not arrogant to always have a smirk on your face, and to crack jokes when you're meeting the mothers of soldiers who have died in Iraq.
You know what Karl? I think you absolutely should make arrogance an issue in this election. Bring it on.
A few days ago Bill Clinton issued an extremely terse "endorsement" of Obama. It sounded as if he was frogmarched into a parole hearing and forced to say what the parole board wanted to hear or else they wouldn't release him. Obviously, he's peeved about how things turned out. So what exactly are his complaints? Here's what they're saying on the Internets (as reported at TheAtlantic.com):
The former president remains "miffed" for two reasons. 1) He feels that Obama’s candidacy was essentially an anti-Clinton candidacy; that Obama ran against Clinton’s presidential record at times...and 2) Clinton is convinced that the Obama campaign went out of its way to portray the former president as a racist.
Um, dude? Maybe you wouldn't have been "portrayed as a racist" if you and your wife hadn't said racist things?
Also, it's not about you anymore. And I'm sure that sucks. But Obama's candidacy wasn't "anti-Clinton." He and Hillary were running against each other, so they, you know, campaigned. It's what politicians do. 'Member? I mean, using your logic, couldn't we say that Hillary ran an anti-Obama campaign? Come on. Shake it off, Bill. Sit down with the guy. Let's all be friends.
Ralph Nader believes that Obama is trying to "talk white" and appeal to "white guilt."
But what he believes even more is that he has to say something stupid and offensive and incendiary enough for him to finally get mentioned in the media after 14 lonely months, or else the .0003% of the population that are still vaguely paying attention to him might forget his name, too.
Ralph, you've become unsafe at any speed.
"You and Hillary can write the next chapter of America's history together. By helping us pay off our campaign debt, you're not just helping Hillary elect a Democratic president and grow our majority in Congress. You're making it possible for her to work as hard as she can on the issues we care about." (From HillaryClinton.com)
Let me get this straight: By paying off Hillary's debt, we're helping her elect a Democratic president.
Hey, you know what? By paying off my credit card debt, you'd be helping me elect a Democratic president too. Please donate!
Karl Rove on how Republicans should go after Obama: "Even if you never met him, you know this guy. He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by."
The guy at the country club????? That's rich. I guess this is Rove's code for painting Obama as an "elitist," but if I may muse aloud about the obvious: Are the country clubs that Rove and his cronies belong to actively courting the scholarship-student sons of Kenyan fathers these days? Just curious.
Last week CNN.com reported that John Edwards was on Obama's short list for VP (along with retired senator Sam Nunn). The same piece also said that when told by a Congressional Black Caucus member that Al Gore was her "favorite," Obama team members "just smiled." (Does this mean they smiled knowingly? What could those cryptic smiles mean?) Within days Chuck Hagel (R-NE) was bandied about as a running mate. And of course all of this came after speculation that Claire McCaskill of Missouri was a serious contender. I'm getting dizzy!
Now today Joe Biden says that if asked he'd say yes. (Reminder: This is the guy whose Presidential campaign ended about 60 seconds after it started when he described Barack Obama as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.")
Who do you think Obama will choose? And who's on your own personal shortlist? I'm quite keen on Brian Schweitzer (Democratic governor of Montana). I like the idea of a Western state running mate for a lot of reasons.
