A hodgepodge of links, some more humorous than others.
Enjoy!
Total Fail: McCain's Own Aides Can't Defend Palin: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-9VW4ewI1M (PWNED!!!!! Here's the references: Article I, Sec. 3 & Article II.)
I thought we threw out that SOFA! Reuters: Thousands march in Baghdad against U.S. pact: http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSLI497299._CH_.2400 (Sorry, I can't seem to insert the link. Just copy and paste onto your address bar, or Google the bold text.)
Is history repeating itself? From PR.com: (Read in the Extened Post, the excerpt about the Gold standard).
Dear Fellow Vets;
America has a long history of supporting the underdog, of identifying with and rooting for the maverick. Our history and pop culture are ripe with characters who tug at our emotional heartstrings.... Robert DeNiro as Jake Lamotta in Raging Bull, Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey up against crotchety, bitter Mr. Potter, the United states against England in a fight for Independence, Tom Cruise's Maverick in Top Gun (or it's land based twin plot with Cole Trickle in Days of Thunder,) or countless westerns. It's in our DNA to see the good in brash, devil-may-care gunslingers like Butch and Sundance. This is a large reason why John McCain is still anywhere near Obama in the polls.
Joseph Biden's record heading the Judiciary and Senate Foreign Relations committees, as a father and husband, and non-resident of DC stand for itself. Barack Obama has shown uncanny judgement on Iraq, Pakistand, and Iran, uses his intelligence in conjunction with an ability to clearly communicate both his vision and his plans. He created and ran an efficient, winning campaign, has actually lived overseas as opposed to visiting another country by watching the Amazing Race. Obama uses a Blackberry, and doesn't stop working on weekends to take naps. Obama worked his way up the American Dream ladder as opposed to being deposited at the top by largesse or nepotism. He hasn't been in DC long enough to be bought, and he ralllies people to be better, including the citizen's of our former allies around the world, (whom we will need even more in the years to come.) Obama isn't shaking the tamberine of Peace or singing kumbayah. The world knows we have the most highly effective, powerful military and Barack isn't trying to hide it or hamstring it. Barack knows that we have to pick our battles while John McCain and the Republicans just pick fights...
Under non-wartime circumstances, John McCain would have been drummed out of the Navy flight program after crashing the first of 3 aircraft in training. ( I know this because I was a Navy Officer and went through flight training.) The fact that he suffered just short of the ultimate sacrifice in defense of his country is undisputed, and our nation owes him a debt of gratitude, not a seat in the Oval office. However, that was 30 years ago and this is not the year after WWII or the Fall of Saigon. John McCain and the Republican party have chosen to remain in a time warp, attempting to relive the "Greatest Generation's" haydays...Bring back soda fountains, and the Lindy, and long skirts covering the ankle. The beach Boys and the Axis powers. Bring back Cold War detente and Havana nights-pre Castro. Bring back the T-bird, and carbon paper, and Drive-in movies. ...or start a war in Iraq to try and erase the bitter taste of another another poorly run misuse of our great military and lost lives in Vietnam.
It's sad, but the world has gone past John McCain and the Republican party like traffic passed my Grandfather in his Cadillac Seville with his cruise-control pinned to 55 miles per hour in the left lane of the San Diego freeway. My Grandfather was a decorated Rear Admiral and I loved him dearly. He might have voted for John McCain (except, maybe if he dug into John's Veteran Care voting record,) but my Grandfather could never understand why every car swerved past him flashing him their universal sign of disatisfaction. He thought the honking horns were affirmation of his belief that, "No one should ever drive over 55.....they are breaking the law." Except that the speed limit had been raised to 65 and Presidential elections are not the place to wax nostalgic. It's time for John McCain and the Republican party to give up the keys to the Cadillac, pick one of the eleven retirement homes, and step aside.
If you think about nothing else in this opinion, ponder this...If the Republican Party's ability to influence and block McCain's top VP choices (Lieberman, Pawlenty, then Romney) is any indication of how "Mavericky" McCain's presidency under Republican rule would be, then I think it's safe to say that voting for McCain will only keep the door open 4-8 more years for Cheney/Bush/Rove/Rumsfield.
I did not warm to the sarcasm, snarkiness and outright lying Palin did on behalf of her party in a petty/whiny plea to stay "In Power." Do we really want Elaine from Seinfeld standing in the wings waiting for her chance to unite soccer moms for creationism? Or someone who already abuses her influence to remove government officials who won't do her bidding?If Palin is the anti-establishment maverishka she claims to be, she should be a little offended about being picked last to play political dodgeball. But Judging by last night's performance and reception, I think she is blinded by the opportunity. It's a little like being asked to dance by the boy your father paid to ask you. It's polite, sweet even, and everyone feels a bit better about themslves after the music stops.
But now, when we are faced with an increasingly complex, interconnected world is not the time for a let-the-bullets-fly-I'll-count-the-bodies-where-they fall-mentality that is all too evident in John McCain's approach to life, marriage, the Economy, Energy Independence, Constitutional law, Technology, Iraq, Russia, and choosing (being forced to choose) a Vice Presidential running mate. I can't be the only one who saw the irony in a Republican attack machine attacking itself for its own record of deceipt, cronyism, fraud, warmongering, and economic malfeasance.....To quote Palin...."we are going to Washington to shake up the establishment..." Huh? In the end, everyone will vote for who they want. I for one, am secure and excited about my underdog choice... Obama/Biden.
It's official: The Bush era has made liberals so terrified of right-wing smears it has caused them to completely lose their sense of humor. Much as I hate to repeat one of Rush Limbaugh's flat, stale and unprofitable applause lines, that's the only conclusion I can draw after witnessing the left-wing blogosphere's bizarre reaction to the New Yorker cover [pictured above] depicting Barfack Obama .... . To judge from the reaction of much of the left, you'd think that New Yorker editor David Remnick had morphed into some kind of hideous hybrid of Roger Ailes and Roland Barthes and was waging an insidious Semiotic War against Obama.
In this article over at Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington really brings the hammer down on the MYTH that Barack gets special or friendly treatment from the media. No other politician in the modern era has gotten more of a pass than has John McCain.
Maybe it's because he was so severely trashed by the Bush campaign in 2000, and they feel sorry for him. Maybe it's because he's made a concerted effort to buddy up to the media, so they feel like he's their "pal" or that they owe him. But, for whatever reason, John McCain simply has not come under anything like the microscope that any other major candidate has.
While this is frustrating and disappointing, I do think it has one silver lining: the idea that the electorate already knows McCain and therefore there's no "skeletons in the closet," is bunk. And, I believe that as the Obama movement swells, and as the media sees that they simply cannot hide McCain under their collective skirts, more and more baggage will come out, and people will learn that the McCain they think they know is not the McCain of reality. That time is coming.
Call it a fast change of heart, but I think--no, I know--that I've just become a Obama supporter.
Yes, I recently wrote a newspaper column headlined "Consider Clinton," and yes, those who know me will think this is some calculated move--a political switcharound right at the time of Obama's victory--but that's not the case at all.
I guess it's all been a paradox up until now. I started out at the very beginning, like most people, thinking Clinton would surely get the nomination. Then Obama entered the scene, and of course I was somewhat hesitant of supporting him. A couple of weeks later, I turned to Obama's campaign--but unlike others, I did not remain there. Unlike others, I swayed back to Clinton, and stayed. Obama was just too good to be true. I've been used to having such mediocre experiences with politicians that I just couldn't fully accept Obama's words then. It's such an irony when you can't believe the things that are the most real.
Nonetheless, I assure you, I have gotten back my good sense. If we can't accept what's best, how will we ever experience it for real?
I'm back for Obama, and this time, I'm here for good. I just watched his address to AIPAC on CSPAN, and can I just say, that was the first time I felt good about American politics since...two months ago in my AP US History class, when we were discussing Reagan. Discussing, not seen or heard live. That's actually how long it's been--too long. I eagerly anticipate November, when finally, finally, someone will better the nation.
I've just started a blog, called Political Irony, as a place for the more twisted side of Politics.
http://politicalirony.com/
I've wanted a place for both humorous and just plain hypocritical stories taken from current political events. If you see something I should post, please send it to me (iron@politicalirony.com).
Just as February was ending, Rick Santorum, a strong critic of everybody in the running for a major party nomination for President in 2008, published a carefully crafted anti-Obama hit piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Speciously laden with inaccurate, divisive (Rovian) talking points and style, the article was nonetheless arguably well-drafted for one who's logical facility is routinely called into question for backing the so-called "intelligent" design concept and being anti-gay while employing an openly homosexual Director of Communications. Yet by the time he sought a 3rd term it seems Santorum was out of step with Pennsylvania voters. What can we learn or deduce from his piece "The Elephant in the Room: Obama: A harsh ideologue hidden by a feel-good image"?
Perhaps his sense of timing isn't so great. If your advisors or partners had given the matter more thought they'd probably have suggested you delay publication by a month or more; Penn and the Clintons can time a campaign attack better than that, and clearly they'd have saved it for the second week of April. Why hurry this to press in February?
It's easy to sit back and do the Monday morning quarterback thing from my relatively obscure corner of the internet, but it's not just timing that the former Senator got wrong. The title, admittedly an attention-grabber, fails to alert those he's really talking to that he's going for a specific core-values issue. Sound-bite-wise he gets certain points for "elephant in the room" but that cleverness seems wasted on people who will react to his real thrust. Still, to be charitable the title of this bit isn't all that clever either, is it?
One difference is I have virtually no audience, whereas Santorum arguably squandered the limelight that might have highlighted the issue to focus on that "ideologue" label once he had the reader's attention. He appears to have succumbed to a desire for aggrandizement, to appear witty and biting in his diatribe.
Further, Santorum is not the first to have selected words for an attack that had the effect of focusing the charges back upon the attacker. Is it something in the human subconscious, something we really can't control, much the way the most fervent religious leaders turn out to have the most egregious problems adhering to their own doctrine? Do we simply see in others that which we most fear in ourselves? Few would argue that Santorum's not an ideologue. (Attaching "harsh" to the term is redundant in current usage although it emphasizes the irony.)
It seems simply bitterness in Santorum's case, nothing subconscious at all. I've not met the man, but evidence suggests the word choices reflect a desire to tear down another with the label he's tired of hearing applied to his own failure(s) in politics, as though to mitigate that decline by applying "misery loves company."
It must be terribly difficult to be driven to live in a world where only your career successes define you. Santorum seems bitterly mired in the echoes of his 2006 campaign. Own your failures and you'll enjoy life more. Free your mind; accept that others can and do lead ethical lifestyles, that you have no personal patent on intellect or moral rectitude. Neither the majority nor the minority is inherently correct.
None of us is perfect. We're not right every time. We can choose to either coddle our wounds, reveling in our losses, or we can heal and grow and learn and move forward. We have the scars either way. The voters in Pennsylvania grew weary of the Santorum rhetoric; they rejected the divisive campaign tactics that employed triangulation on single-issue voters which has allowed disingenuous, eristic politicians to dominate our government at so many levels, and unseated an incumbent Senator two years ago.
Still, that eristic triangulation is what Rick Santorum remembers how to do, so he's trying it again. It may even work, but at what cost? Politicians who feel a mandate to invade Iraq while millions are hungry, poorly educated, and can't afford health care in our own country while ignoring the environment and the economy? Is that the price we pay for rewarding politicians who know how to win election campaigns?
What the rest of us can deduce from his bitter, vituperative, questionably-timed, curiously-titled article isn't confined to campaigns and political self-aggrandizement: There's a better way. We're all human. Own your failures and you'll enjoy life more.
Yes, we can.
In response to the question about Putin and Medvedev on MSNBC's debate tonight, Senator Hillary Clinton pretty much denounces (but doesn't reject) her own run for President:
""I can tell you that he's a hand-picked successor, that he is someone who is obviously being installed by Putin, who Putin can control, who has very little independence," she said. "This is a clever but transparent way for Putin to hold on to power, and it raises serious issues about how we're going to deal with Russia going forward."" 1) Hand-picked successor 2) Being installed by an outgoing leader (or former leader) 3) Transparent way to hold on to power 4) Raises serious issues about how to deal with as we go forward Hmmmm does this sound familiar?
It would have been great for either Tim Russell or Brian Williams to have gone a little deeper on this with a follow-up - "So is this what you are saying: you are against a political system that appears dynastic in its operation?"
As this whole David Geffen, Barack Obama, Clinton family love triangle has escalated, has anyone else seen the same irony that I have in the whole Obama vs. Clinton situation? The press is doing everything they can to make a hateful rivalry between Clinton and Obama a big time story and to be honest the Clintons certainly do not seem to mind, with the whole Bushian “with us or against us” mentality they seem to have taken on. After all, Obama is a young, charming, charismatic politician who everyone is saying doesn’t have the right credentials to be president. Remind you of anyone? Barack Obama is in many ways Bill Clinton from 15 years ago.
The Clintons are obviously a package deal in the political world. You take on one and you are taking on both. That means facing Hillary Clinton in the primaries also means you are taking on all the political prowess and influence which they have in their camp. Clearly, it’s a group of people who know what they are doing. They managed to win a primary coming in as an underdog and a relatively inexperienced group, then they won a presidential election, followed by a landslide presidential election, followed by some pretty artful scandal-dodging. Obama will not win by trying to outfox the Clinton campaign. He will win by sticking to what has made him so popular so quickly, by being a man of and for the people, and by being a unifier rather than a divider. He would be well advised not to engage in a battle of mud-slinging with the Clinton’s. He would simply help the media along in their attempt to tarnish his golden boy image, which is exactly what Hillary’s campaign is hoping for.
