McCain's surrogates are getting overconfident with going to the POW well. Obama won't hit back on it directly, it's political suicide. But what is happening is that the media is starting to laugh about it, and when your sympathy card becomes are mockable as the son of a mill worker demographic, you need to watch what you pull it out for. It's rapidly becoming laughable due to the situations it gets used to defend.
Per the campaign: Obama's in Eau Claire, Wisconsin on Sunday, the Quad Cities area in Iowa on Monday, Kansas City, Missouri on Tuesday, Billings, Montana next Wednesday.
No Indianapolis....
I mean, that sounds like a bunch of places for a semi-rural midwesterner to go to. As a sidenote, there's a restaurant I forget the name of in one of the Quad Cities (Davenport) which had the best cheesy fries I've ever had. Also, East Moline, Illinois (another of the Quad Cities) is the most depressing city I've ever been in, including Cleveland and Detroit.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
McCain's surrogates are getting overconfident with going to the POW well. Obama won't hit back on it directly, it's political suicide. But what is happening is that the media is starting to laugh about it, and when your sympathy card becomes are mockable as the son of a mill worker demographic, you need to watch what you pull it out for. It's rapidly becoming laughable due to the situations it gets used to defend.
It's more becoming like Rudy's "9/11". Seriously, to steal a joke, watching McCain/Giuliani would be like watching the most disturbing episode of Pokemon ever:
This'll be tough for McCain because our current economic situation is so directly tied to the housing crisis.
Maybe McCain isn't thought of as "rich," but it doesn't take a whole lot of persuasion to convince people that he doesn't have a feel for what's going on with the economy.
I'd say that 99% of Americans know exactly what their mortgage rate is each month, not to mention how many homes they own. (McCain does not have a mortgage.)
It fits perfectly into Obama's out-of-touch Washingtonian versus new ideas for today's world frame.
And it's tailor made for late night comedians, campaign media moments, and nonstop mockery from Obama from now until November.
It took Ambinder four posts to get this.
But Obama is a pointy-headed intellectual who eats arugula, the faggotiest of all leafy greens!
Right after Obama secured the nomination Ambinder was deep in the tank for McCain. Since then I think he's actually legitimately looked at the situation and seen just how bad McCain is and just what Obama is trying to do. He definitely doesn't stump for Obama, but he isn't holding water for McCain any more either.
Basically, it may have taken Ambinder four posts to get to the kind of analysis we got to more quickly, but I'm at the point where I'm putting it down to him honestly give his objective opinion as he thought this through. He's become one of the few cases of very informed but not sold on either choice out there and is worth reading for that.
McCain's surrogates are getting overconfident with going to the POW well. Obama won't hit back on it directly, it's political suicide. But what is happening is that the media is starting to laugh about it, and when your sympathy card becomes are mockable as the son of a mill worker demographic, you need to watch what you pull it out for. It's rapidly becoming laughable due to the situations it gets used to defend.
It's more becoming like Rudy's "9/11". Seriously, to steal a joke, watching McCain/Giuliani would be like watching the most disturbing episode of Pokemon ever:
"9/11." "POW." "9/11?" "POW!"
So which surrogate gets to be the sacrificial lamb to come out and say "McCain's response to any criticism levelled at him is 'verb, noun, POW'"?
Also, sorry for the late response, but I was at lunch - props for the Kearney reference, but it doesn't make me any less right :P
McCain's surrogates are getting overconfident with going to the POW well. Obama won't hit back on it directly, it's political suicide. But what is happening is that the media is starting to laugh about it, and when your sympathy card becomes are mockable as the son of a mill worker demographic, you need to watch what you pull it out for. It's rapidly becoming laughable due to the situations it gets used to defend.
It's more becoming like Rudy's "9/11". Seriously, to steal a joke, watching McCain/Giuliani would be like watching the most disturbing episode of Pokemon ever:
"9/11." "POW." "9/11?" "POW!"
So which surrogate gets to be the sacrificial lamb to come out and say "McCain's response to any criticism levelled at him is 'verb, noun, POW'"?
Also, sorry for the late response, but I was at lunch - props for the Kearney reference, but it doesn't make me any less right :P
That would be one Joseph Biden.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
"This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison,"
Amongst other bullshit.
Oh my fucking God. McCain's use of the POW card is completely disgraceful. Over just the last week, the POW card has been used to excuse:
-McCain's love of ABBA
-McCain's infidelity with his first wife
-McCain owning 7 houses
It doesn't make any fucking sense how his POW days apply to any of those. It seems to me like McCain thinks that being a POW just excuses you from ever being wrong. What a douche.
I'm not saying America isn't a superpower. Even McCain thinks America is no. 1 etc. I'm saying that the way 'America' is bandied about in such a way that makes average Joe think he IS America (wheras in actuality it is the guys in power as you say), and by definition, better than the rest of the world.
The way 'un-american' is used as a definition of morality and not questioning authority is bad enough. But even the positive patriotism in Obama's speeches is part of a world where 'America' can never do wrong. No one knows quite what America is except that it is such a state of perfection. And that, to me, is a dangerous rhetoric because it isn't really talking about the realities of America the country when the world is invoked, but is instead invoking this synonym for perfection 'America' - which when the general pop start combining the fact that they are American with the sort of 'America' being discussed, it is problematic IMO.
We get like that occasionally, particularly in a 'they took our jerrbs' reaction to Immigration... and that is just as bad. But, the few political discussions I have gleaned focus on making our country better (none sounding particularly succesful, but...) , using 'better' as the word to mean 'better' , rather than saying something like, 'making our country more British' (a view taken more by the BNP and seedy tabloids) to mean the same thing.
This is a ramble, so to find my summary. Not denying Americas power. Complaining about the association with the word 'America' and the concept of perfection. A focus which I feel is a rhetoric designed to lead people away from actual issues, as who is right can easily become the one who namechecks America the most.
Again: I think Obama had the right view... I just wasn't overly fond of the way he expressed it.
I'm not saying America isn't a superpower. Even McCain thinks America is no. 1 etc. I'm saying that the way 'America' is bandied about in such a way that makes average Joe think he IS America (wheras in actuality it is the guys in power as you say), and by definition, better than the rest of the world.
The way 'un-american' is used as a definition of morality and not questioning authority is bad enough. But even the positive patriotism in Obama's speeches is part of a world where 'America' can never do wrong. No one knows quite what America is except that it is such a state of perfection. And that, to me, is a dangerous rhetoric because it isn't really talking about the realities of America the country when the world is invoked, but is instead invoking this synonym for perfection 'America' - which when the general pop start combining the fact that they are American with the sort of 'America' being discussed, it is problematic IMO.
We get like that occasionally, particularly in a 'they took our jerrbs' reaction to Immigration... and that is just as bad. But, the few political discussions I have gleaned focus on making our country better (none sounding particularly succesful, but...) , using 'better' as the word to mean 'better' , rather than saying something like, 'making our country more British' (a view taken more by the BNP and seedy tabloids) to mean the same thing.
This is a ramble, so to find my summary. Not denying Americas power. Complaining about the association with the word 'America' and the concept of perfection. A focus which I feel is a rhetoric designed to lead people away from actual issues, as who is right can easily become the one who namechecks America the most.
Again: I think Obama had the right view... I just wasn't overly fond of the way he expressed it.
I think your reading your own opinions into his speech.
All of the people running for president right now are trash, but Hillary is brilliant and evil trash. I can live with that.
o_O
Shhh someone still thinks its 2007.
Most of you like Obama because it's the hip thing to do. Kid's a product of the Daley machine in Chicago.
McCain is old, ditched his crippled wife for a hot new one, and apparently is rich, although it's funny to hear how he's going to be Bush 2 after all the Dems who praised him during the last few years for not being anything like Chimp.
Hillary is the most evil of the three but damn do I like seeing her work, which is why I'm looking forward to Denver.
Tostitos on
The internet gives me a native +2 bonus in Craft (Disturbing Mental Image).
All of the people running for president right now are trash, but Hillary is brilliant and evil trash. I can live with that.
o_O
Shhh someone still thinks its 2007.
Most of you like Obama because it's the hip thing to do. Kid's a product of the Daley machine in Chicago.
McCain is old, ditched his crippled wife for a hot new one, and apparently is rich, although it's funny to hear how he's going to be Bush 2 after all the Dems who praised him during the last few years for not being anything like Chimp.
Hillary is the most evil of the three but damn do I like seeing her work, which is why I'm looking forward to Denver.
<babytalk voice>
Aww, it's Ralph Nader! Your so cute!
</babytalk voice>
All of the people running for president right now are trash, but Hillary is brilliant and evil trash. I can live with that.
o_O
Shhh someone still thinks its 2007.
Most of you like Obama because it's the hip thing to do. Kid's a product of the Daley machine in Chicago.
McCain is old, ditched his crippled wife for a hot new one, and apparently is rich, although it's funny to hear how he's going to be Bush 2 after all the Dems who praised him during the last few years for not being anything like Chimp.
Hillary is the most evil of the three but damn do I like seeing her work, which is why I'm looking forward to Denver.
"Obama is from Chicago" is all you can come up with?
So McCain has decided to build up an innocuous-sounding alternative called a "League of Democracies". It would be an alliance of countries the US labels democratic that can be used to legitimise US military actions. Charles Krauthammer, the conservative journalist who invented the plan, says: "What I like about it is, it's got a hidden agenda. It looks as if it's about listening and joining with allies... except the idea here, which McCain can't say but I can, is to essentially kill the UN. Nobody's going to walk out of the UN. There's a lot of emotional attachment to it in the US. How do you kill it? You create a parallel institution." Gradually – over decades – McCain hopes it would make the UN wither away.
All of the people running for president right now are trash, but Hillary is brilliant and evil trash. I can live with that.
o_O
Shhh someone still thinks its 2007.
Most of you like Obama because it's the hip thing to do. Kid's a product of the Daley machine in Chicago.
McCain is old, ditched his crippled wife for a hot new one, and apparently is rich, although it's funny to hear how he's going to be Bush 2 after all the Dems who praised him during the last few years for not being anything like Chimp.
Hillary is the most evil of the three but damn do I like seeing her work, which is why I'm looking forward to Denver.
"Obama is from Chicago" is all you can come up with?
You're being glib. [/tomcruise] Try, "Obama is from the insanely corrupt Daley political machine which happens to be located in Chicago."
I know, I know, I'll never be the cool kid online unless I think he's awesome.
Tostitos on
The internet gives me a native +2 bonus in Craft (Disturbing Mental Image).
All of the people running for president right now are trash, but Hillary is brilliant and evil trash. I can live with that.
o_O
Shhh someone still thinks its 2007.
Most of you like Obama because it's the hip thing to do. Kid's a product of the Daley machine in Chicago.
McCain is old, ditched his crippled wife for a hot new one, and apparently is rich, although it's funny to hear how he's going to be Bush 2 after all the Dems who praised him during the last few years for not being anything like Chimp.
Hillary is the most evil of the three but damn do I like seeing her work, which is why I'm looking forward to Denver.
"Obama is from Chicago" is all you can come up with?
You're being glib. [/tomcruise] Try, "Obama is from the insanely corrupt Daley political machine which happens to be located in Chicago."
I know, I know, I'll never be the cool kid online unless I think he's awesome.
Your rhetoric really is, like, nine months behind.
All of the people running for president right now are trash, but Hillary is brilliant and evil trash. I can live with that.
o_O
Shhh someone still thinks its 2007.
Most of you like Obama because it's the hip thing to do. Kid's a product of the Daley machine in Chicago.
McCain is old, ditched his crippled wife for a hot new one, and apparently is rich, although it's funny to hear how he's going to be Bush 2 after all the Dems who praised him during the last few years for not being anything like Chimp.
Hillary is the most evil of the three but damn do I like seeing her work, which is why I'm looking forward to Denver.
God, I'm so sick of hearing this crap. For one thing, it's unfounded and completely unsupported, for another, people keep acting like the Daley machine is fucking Tammany Hall and this is 1890. Just shut the fuck up about it.
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
<babytalk voice>
Aww, it's Ralph Nader! Your so cute!
</babytalk voice>
/pinches Tostitos cheek
Thank you, person from Canada. You know, you probably could still actually vote in this election if you sneak into the US now, considering the way that both the Democrats and Republicans collectively fellate the concept of illegal aliens.
Tostitos on
The internet gives me a native +2 bonus in Craft (Disturbing Mental Image).
All of the people running for president right now are trash, but Hillary is brilliant and evil trash. I can live with that.
o_O
Shhh someone still thinks its 2007.
Most of you like Obama because it's the hip thing to do. Kid's a product of the Daley machine in Chicago.
McCain is old, ditched his crippled wife for a hot new one, and apparently is rich, although it's funny to hear how he's going to be Bush 2 after all the Dems who praised him during the last few years for not being anything like Chimp.
Hillary is the most evil of the three but damn do I like seeing her work, which is why I'm looking forward to Denver.
"Obama is from Chicago" is all you can come up with?
You're being glib. [/tomcruise] Try, "Obama is from the insanely corrupt Daley political machine which happens to be located in Chicago."
I know, I know, I'll never be the cool kid online unless I think he's awesome.
And each and every one of us who has been following both primaries since there were a good dozen candidates on either side and weighed the pros and cons of each before deciding who we like to support couldn't possibly actually have come to the conclusion that Obama was the candidate who we support. We're too busy trying to look cool on the interwebs.
All of the people running for president right now are trash, but Hillary is brilliant and evil trash. I can live with that.
o_O
Shhh someone still thinks its 2007.
Most of you like Obama because it's the hip thing to do. Kid's a product of the Daley machine in Chicago.
McCain is old, ditched his crippled wife for a hot new one, and apparently is rich, although it's funny to hear how he's going to be Bush 2 after all the Dems who praised him during the last few years for not being anything like Chimp.
Hillary is the most evil of the three but damn do I like seeing her work, which is why I'm looking forward to Denver.
God, I'm so sick of hearing this crap. For one thing, it's unfounded and completely unsupported, for another, people keep acting like the Daley machine is fucking Tammany Hall and this is 1890. Just shut the fuck up about it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like your point is that Chicago is not actually fucked up and corrupt on a scale that boggles the imagination?
'Cause, wishful thinking doesn't make that not true.
Tostitos on
The internet gives me a native +2 bonus in Craft (Disturbing Mental Image).
<babytalk voice>
Aww, it's Ralph Nader! Your so cute!
</babytalk voice>
/pinches Tostitos cheek
Thank you, person from Canada. You know, you probably could still actually vote in this election if you sneak into the US now, considering the way that both the Democrats and Republicans collectively fellate the concept of illegal aliens.
All of the people running for president right now are trash, but Hillary is brilliant and evil trash. I can live with that.
o_O
Shhh someone still thinks its 2007.
Most of you like Obama because it's the hip thing to do. Kid's a product of the Daley machine in Chicago.
McCain is old, ditched his crippled wife for a hot new one, and apparently is rich, although it's funny to hear how he's going to be Bush 2 after all the Dems who praised him during the last few years for not being anything like Chimp.
Hillary is the most evil of the three but damn do I like seeing her work, which is why I'm looking forward to Denver.
"Obama is from Chicago" is all you can come up with?
You're being glib. [/tomcruise] Try, "Obama is from the insanely corrupt Daley political machine which happens to be located in Chicago."
I know, I know, I'll never be the cool kid online unless I think he's awesome.
And each and every one of us who has been following both primaries since there were a good dozen candidates on either side and weighed the pros and cons of each before deciding who we like to support couldn't possibly actually have come to the conclusion that Obama was the candidate who we support. We're too busy trying to look cool on the interwebs.
Yes, yes. You liked him while he was still underground.
+5 hipster points to you.
Tostitos on
The internet gives me a native +2 bonus in Craft (Disturbing Mental Image).
All of the people running for president right now are trash, but Hillary is brilliant and evil trash. I can live with that.
o_O
Shhh someone still thinks its 2007.
Most of you like Obama because it's the hip thing to do. Kid's a product of the Daley machine in Chicago.
McCain is old, ditched his crippled wife for a hot new one, and apparently is rich, although it's funny to hear how he's going to be Bush 2 after all the Dems who praised him during the last few years for not being anything like Chimp.
Hillary is the most evil of the three but damn do I like seeing her work, which is why I'm looking forward to Denver.
"Obama is from Chicago" is all you can come up with?
You're being glib. [/tomcruise] Try, "Obama is from the insanely corrupt Daley political machine which happens to be located in Chicago."
I know, I know, I'll never be the cool kid online unless I think he's awesome.
Offer even one example of his corruption.
I dare you
Examples of Obama being corrupt, or the Daley machine?
Tostitos on
The internet gives me a native +2 bonus in Craft (Disturbing Mental Image).
<babytalk voice>
Aww, it's Ralph Nader! Your so cute!
</babytalk voice>
/pinches Tostitos cheek
Thank you, person from Canada. You know, you probably could still actually vote in this election if you sneak into the US now, considering the way that both the Democrats and Republicans collectively fellate the concept of illegal aliens.
So McCain has decided to build up an innocuous-sounding alternative called a "League of Democracies". It would be an alliance of countries the US labels democratic that can be used to legitimise US military actions. Charles Krauthammer, the conservative journalist who invented the plan, says: "What I like about it is, it's got a hidden agenda. It looks as if it's about listening and joining with allies... except the idea here, which McCain can't say but I can, is to essentially kill the UN. Nobody's going to walk out of the UN. There's a lot of emotional attachment to it in the US. How do you kill it? You create a parallel institution." Gradually – over decades – McCain hopes it would make the UN wither away.
Interestingly, I was running around Washington visiting think tanks and whatnot a few months ago, and this question kept coming up- and pretty much everyone thought it was totally retarded. For one, most democratic countries would have no interest in becoming members.
It's completely impractical from an implementation standpoint. Even without going into the "result" aspect, I consider this plan to show McCain has a dubious attachment to the realities of international politics.
Posts
Those aren't mutually exclusive so it doesn't necessarily show that its a lie, but given some of his other comments I would guess that it is.
I mean, that sounds like a bunch of places for a semi-rural midwesterner to go to. As a sidenote, there's a restaurant I forget the name of in one of the Quad Cities (Davenport) which had the best cheesy fries I've ever had. Also, East Moline, Illinois (another of the Quad Cities) is the most depressing city I've ever been in, including Cleveland and Detroit.
It's more becoming like Rudy's "9/11". Seriously, to steal a joke, watching McCain/Giuliani would be like watching the most disturbing episode of Pokemon ever:
"9/11." "POW." "9/11?" "POW!"
Nevermind I read the huffpo article that was linked in the atlantic article.
Right after Obama secured the nomination Ambinder was deep in the tank for McCain. Since then I think he's actually legitimately looked at the situation and seen just how bad McCain is and just what Obama is trying to do. He definitely doesn't stump for Obama, but he isn't holding water for McCain any more either.
Basically, it may have taken Ambinder four posts to get to the kind of analysis we got to more quickly, but I'm at the point where I'm putting it down to him honestly give his objective opinion as he thought this through. He's become one of the few cases of very informed but not sold on either choice out there and is worth reading for that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awQkJNVsgKM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UDKXKGZ3PY
So which surrogate gets to be the sacrificial lamb to come out and say "McCain's response to any criticism levelled at him is 'verb, noun, POW'"?
Also, sorry for the late response, but I was at lunch - props for the Kearney reference, but it doesn't make me any less right :P
That would be one Joseph Biden.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
o_O
Shhh someone still thinks its 2007.
pleasepaypreacher.net
-McCain's love of ABBA
-McCain's infidelity with his first wife
-McCain owning 7 houses
It doesn't make any fucking sense how his POW days apply to any of those. It seems to me like McCain thinks that being a POW just excuses you from ever being wrong. What a douche.
The way 'un-american' is used as a definition of morality and not questioning authority is bad enough. But even the positive patriotism in Obama's speeches is part of a world where 'America' can never do wrong. No one knows quite what America is except that it is such a state of perfection. And that, to me, is a dangerous rhetoric because it isn't really talking about the realities of America the country when the world is invoked, but is instead invoking this synonym for perfection 'America' - which when the general pop start combining the fact that they are American with the sort of 'America' being discussed, it is problematic IMO.
We get like that occasionally, particularly in a 'they took our jerrbs' reaction to Immigration... and that is just as bad. But, the few political discussions I have gleaned focus on making our country better (none sounding particularly succesful, but...) , using 'better' as the word to mean 'better' , rather than saying something like, 'making our country more British' (a view taken more by the BNP and seedy tabloids) to mean the same thing.
This is a ramble, so to find my summary. Not denying Americas power. Complaining about the association with the word 'America' and the concept of perfection. A focus which I feel is a rhetoric designed to lead people away from actual issues, as who is right can easily become the one who namechecks America the most.
Again: I think Obama had the right view... I just wasn't overly fond of the way he expressed it.
Yep. He's got 3 kids younger than me, and one born the same year, but I'm not sure exactly when.
I think your reading your own opinions into his speech.
Most of you like Obama because it's the hip thing to do. Kid's a product of the Daley machine in Chicago.
McCain is old, ditched his crippled wife for a hot new one, and apparently is rich, although it's funny to hear how he's going to be Bush 2 after all the Dems who praised him during the last few years for not being anything like Chimp.
Hillary is the most evil of the three but damn do I like seeing her work, which is why I'm looking forward to Denver.
<babytalk voice>
Aww, it's Ralph Nader! Your so cute!
</babytalk voice>
/pinches Tostitos cheek
"Obama is from Chicago" is all you can come up with?
You're being glib. [/tomcruise] Try, "Obama is from the insanely corrupt Daley political machine which happens to be located in Chicago."
I know, I know, I'll never be the cool kid online unless I think he's awesome.
Your rhetoric really is, like, nine months behind.
God, I'm so sick of hearing this crap. For one thing, it's unfounded and completely unsupported, for another, people keep acting like the Daley machine is fucking Tammany Hall and this is 1890. Just shut the fuck up about it.
Thank you, person from Canada. You know, you probably could still actually vote in this election if you sneak into the US now, considering the way that both the Democrats and Republicans collectively fellate the concept of illegal aliens.
And each and every one of us who has been following both primaries since there were a good dozen candidates on either side and weighed the pros and cons of each before deciding who we like to support couldn't possibly actually have come to the conclusion that Obama was the candidate who we support. We're too busy trying to look cool on the interwebs.
Don't worry he's also marginally accusing us of drinking the kool aid which is like 4 months behind.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like your point is that Chicago is not actually fucked up and corrupt on a scale that boggles the imagination?
'Cause, wishful thinking doesn't make that not true.
/pats on head
You'll be a big boy some day too, don't worry.
Offer even one example of his corruption.
I dare you
Yes, yes. You liked him while he was still underground.
+5 hipster points to you.
If you'd like to cite specific instances of his political machine abuses, lets hear them. Until then, we will mock you.
Examples of Obama being corrupt, or the Daley machine?
I'm on to your little game, sir.
Interestingly, I was running around Washington visiting think tanks and whatnot a few months ago, and this question kept coming up- and pretty much everyone thought it was totally retarded. For one, most democratic countries would have no interest in becoming members.
It's completely impractical from an implementation standpoint. Even without going into the "result" aspect, I consider this plan to show McCain has a dubious attachment to the realities of international politics.