The Ministry of Truthiness Strikes

Uh-oh

Someone from the McCain camp must have hard a pretty stern talk with former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger. He just went on Fox with a bracingly abject apology for saying that Sarah Palin wasn't qualified to be vice president. So abject in fact that I must say that it had something of the feel of one of the Maoist self-criticism sessions or perhaps one of the public apologies during the Moscow show trials.

For the original story, see here.

Voices in their heads

Michael Moore, this morning, on Democracy Now:

People on our side usually aren’t as driven to involve themselves in a political process that they view, somewhat cynically, as not having operated in the best interests of the people. And so, they’re not often as—often—not as much as the other side is motivated to go to the polls, whereas the other side, under, you know, strict orders from, they believe, the voice of God that’s in their head telling them that they must go to the polls and vote for these good people or remove the heathens that are in violation of whatever it is they’re listening to in their head. So, I’m telling you, I think that’s pretty powerful. They’ve been very successful at it. They’ve always been well funded. They’re very smart about it. They are committed. They are up at the crack of dawn, and they will be on Tuesday. Trust me. We have not lived under the Republicans for twenty of the last twenty-eight years by their side being a bunch of slackers. That’s not the case. So they will be out in full force. And I don’t think we need to wake up on Wednesday with that feeling that we all know too well, that—you know, “Woah, what happened? What happened?” I just—I think that’s happened one too many times.

Life and Times at Wingnut U

There are just so many levels of precious in this (front page) Washington Post article on Liberty University (the late Jerry Falwell's creation), but I'll just single out this julicious nugget of gobbledygook:

Metallo takes the class through Britain's government structure, at one point explaining how voting rights were gradually widened, and not always for good. "The expansion of the electoral franchise led to the growth of the welfare state," the professor says. "People are able to vote money out of your pocket and into their own."

Well, bless their Jesus-loving hearts. Too many people vote. Or vote the wrong way. Yes, by all means, let's roll back the clock on voting rights, maybe throw in a poll tax or two, just to make sure that if the gubmit is going to be working for anyone, it will continue to be rich, right-wing evangelicals and not for the unwashed masses.

"Miss America Conservatism"

Mark Schmitt:

This is the apotheosis of what I once called (long before the former Miss Wasilla joined the ticket), "Miss America Conservatism" in which conservatives express disdain for all of government except for their single “platform” issue on which they lavish money and attention (as Palin says, “it’s not all about money”) to show their human side. Yes, governor, it is all about money, and when your priorities are tax cuts, war and freezing spending, special needs children are not going to be a priority.

Simple Answers to Simple Questions

Oliver Willis:


If Sen. Obama wins, and Democrats increase their majorities in the House and Senate, will conservatives/Republicans still incessantly try to lecture those of us on the left about what “real” and “patriotic” Americans believe? I honestly thought they would tamp it down a little bit after the “thumpin’” of 2006, but they still lecture us about everything under the sun. Would losses across the board really shut their pieholes?


No.


This has been another edition of Simple Answers to Simple Questions.

UnRighteous Anger

Glad to see the angry, divisive and hate-filled beliefs and rantings of the rabid right wing are finally getting some exposure. Of a similar right-wing hate fest at the 1992 GOP convention, conservative George Will remarked that indecent exposure can be of the mind as well as the body. And so it is.

Then, as now, much of this anger and hate is fundamentally religious in nature, or at least, religious profession is a strong correlate of it. Among religious fundamentalists, Roman Catholic as well as Protestant, hate, resentment and divisiveness are key features of doctrinal thought. Sure, religious leaders have tried at times to dress itself up in more palatable sounding garb, emphasizing God's Grace, or Love, or how God sets them Free. But at its core, religious fundamentalism is inherently exclusionary, divisive and eliminationist. As for the latter, consider the doctrine of Hell or any theory of the End Times. And as for God's Grace and Love, well, most of the time what fundamentalists really mean when they mention those words are God's Love and Grace towards themselves, not to those outside "the faith".

So the religio-political rantings and ramblings of some of Christianism's unfinest is pretty par for the course, and the kind of stuff many of them are used to reading in their church-sponsored texts or hearing from the pulpit. It's only natural that this kind of stuff will begin to form the basis of the congregant's political and social expressions.

Deep Thought

Watching President Logan the other day on an old episode of 24 made me wonder how much like the erratic, overly emotional and borderline out of control, Gregory Itzin character, a president John McCain would turn out to be.

Reality Check

I was listening to Democracy Now this morning, with host Amy Goodman interviewing progressive writer John Nichols on the state of the U.S. Senate races. Nichols described two Democratic opponents of Republican incumbents, Jeff Merkle in Oregon and Al Franken in Minnesota, as waging particularly progressive insurgencies, being against the war in Iraq, the FISA compromise, the Wall Street bailout, etc. Except that in the campaign ads being run by Merkle and Franken that Democracy Now selected for our edification, and which Nichols responded to, didn't mention any of those progressive issues. Instead, Merkle and Franken both played up the issue of--wait for it--middle class tax cuts. I know Obama has made this a staple of his message, too, so in this sense it's not surprising. But it's a little disconcerting to have supposedly progressive campaigns and candidates, when the environment for progressive change has probably never been greater, largely playing on the GOP's "tax cut" field.

Obama will still win

I'm going to go out on a limb here, even after watching the sad spectacle that is cable teevee "news" and state I still think Obama will win. I just think the zeitgeist, the public mood, has changed, that a majority of the public recognizes the sad state of affairs in the country, and accurately knows who is to blame. Meanwhile, while the media still laps up it up, the standard right-wing attacks don't pack the same sting as in other years. I also think Obama has ridden enough of a wave here of where expectations are of his winning, and in most election cycles, that's how these things tend to play out; the candidate who is seen as being ahead for much of the race, ends up winning. 1992 was like that. Same with 1996 and even 2000, where w lead throughout much of the race. Ditto 2004.

One other thing. I think the national polls are still the key. Obviously a 49%-49% race means it will come down to a few key states. But if the spread is even 51%-49%, the electoral college will mostly likely reflect that. At the same time, with O ahead by increasingly consistent and comfortable margins in states like Colorado, Virginia, and now even Missouri, I think there's still reason to feel good. Kerry was never in this good a position four years ago. I think the winds of change are still blowing.

Crazy World

Here we go again. Cable teevee "news" still thinks joe da plumber makes $250k and shouldn't be taxed. And my cable teevee "news" is still talking about how much "sharper" mclame was in the debate even though opinion polls indicated the public scored the last debate a landslide Obama win. Geeesh.

Deja vu all over again, again

Previous Bulworth post:

Bush 2003: Bring them on.

McLame 2008 (right before second debate): The gloves will come off tonight.

OK, whatever.

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Today:

"I'll crush Obama in debate", says Mclame, and

Mclame aide: "Turnaround" starts today.

I'm just getting all warm and tingly inside.

Neither will I

Steve Benen:

On Friday, Palin was found to have violated the public trust in an abuse of power scandal. On Saturday, it was on the front page of the major dailies. And on Sunday morning, NBC's "Meet the Press," ABC's "This Week," and CNN's "Late Edition" ignored the story altogether, despite lengthy discussions about recent political events, as if a major scandal involving a candidate for national office isn't particularly interesting. I'll simply never understand this.

Guess it's just our liberal media again.

Deja Vu All Over Again

Bush 2003: Bring them on.

McLame 2008: The gloves will come off tonight.

OK, whatever.

Dicky Morris

I got A Woman in Charge at some point towards the end of the primary season, read the first chapter or two and set it down, only to find myself picking it up again recently. When the book was released sometime last year I think, the perception was that it was critical of the junior senator from New York State. What I've read so far leads me to think it's a relatively straight-forward take of HRC, although Bernstein raises some points that had Clinton been nominated, certainly would have found their way into negative ads from Palin/McLame. It certainly is no hagiography, the type of which conservative sheep are used to reading of their illustrious leaders. But the book was causing me to regard HRC with a measure of grudging respect. Until I got to the part where--and I'm at the part of where she and Bill get together--where Bernstein finds a reason to quote Dicky Morris, the former but longtime consultant to the Clintons who now spends his days writing anti-liberal screeds for the neocon NY Post and being thrown the welcome mat on Teevee at Faux News. I have a hard time imagining how the Clintons took up with Morris, but Dicky's most recent prognosticating indicates he hasn't improved much.

Does Palin drink?

Is being a joe or jane six pack consistent with being a Christian?

CNN is replaying the Biden-Palin debate, but Faux News is not

I have no idea why* or if that's at all relevant to anything. Just puttin that out there for ya.

*Although Faux News' Fox & Friends hyped Palin's down-home, Joe-six pack performance, post-debate polls indicated Biden won the debate handlely.

Waaaahhhhambulance coming

Uh Oh. Bible Spice is Annoyed. And that Couric lady didn't ask enuff issue questions and stuff.

Palin also commented Friday on her widely-panned series of interviews with Katie Couric, telling Fox interviewer she did not think the CBS News anchor asked enough issue-based questions.

“I did feel there were a lot of things she was missing in terms of an opportunity to ask what a VP candidate stands for, what the values are that are represented in our ticket," Palin said. "I guess I have to apologize for being a bit annoyed, but that’s also an indication about being outside that Washington elite, outside that media elite also, and just wanting to talk to Americans without the filter and let them know what we stand for."

In two separate and lengthy interviews with Couric over the last week, Palin seemed to struggle with a number of answers, including a defense of McCain's record on regulation issues. She also appeared to stumble when relating her views on the financial bailout, her foreign policy credentials, her preferred news sources of news, and a Supreme Court case she disagrees with.

"Man, no matter what you say you are gonna get clobbered," Palin told Fox about her heavily-scrutinized performance. "You choose to answer you are going to get clobbered on the answer. If you choose to pivot and try to go onto another subject that you believe Americans want to hear about, you get clobbered for that too."

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Life sure is hard and unfair, huh? All them filters and stuff.

Dissension in the ranks

This is a pretty interesting article on the politics of the bail-out, particularly as it pertains to the split in the Republican ranks between southern "populists" and mostly non-southern Republican moderates.

The Decider

If Obama goes on to win this thing, the key issue in most campaign post-mortems will be why a GOP administration declared an economic crisis whose solution was deemed to be a massive bailout of Wall Street six weeks prior to a general election. This was about the worse sort of development the McCain could have imagined, and it was for the most part, a crisis declared from above, not from the media, or talk radio, or from the public. I think there will be many a pundit and strategist who will look back from February to September and wonder why the administration didn't try to weasel out of taking any kind of responsibility for the economic state of affairs. Nobody in this crowd has been especially known as truth-telling straight-shooters after all.

Debate-a-thon

I'm not usually one to feel confident of anything politically, but I have a hard time seeing how anything Palin does tonight changes the current dynamic of the race. The simple fact is that if issues were major league baseball standings, the economic crisis would be leading the pack by about 30 games with 12 games to play. And while Biden's populist bonafides aren't much to get excited about, the usual tools available in the right-wing kit for selling their candidates don't much help here. And the other simple fact is that six weeks prior to an election for his successor, a Republican president has declared an economic crisis exists. I doubt the media or public will be much inclined to rally around a snarky one liner or two from a one-year governor of Alaska given the political and economic climate. The Republican specialty is identity politics, and the wedge-issue grievances they seek to exploit and the personality cult they seek to enhance is poorly suited for the current situation. Anyway, let's see how wrong I am.