I have watched the Republican National Convention this week in utter astonishment. All of the speeches, the interviews with delegates and pundits, and the overall general theme of the convention point to one thing:
The media is liberal.
This is all they have?
I have tuned in several times throughout the course of the week and EVERY single time I do, I see someone on the podium whooping the crowd into a frenzy over the elite media. Everyone from Fred Thompson to Rudy Giuliani (sadly) made comments about the media. Even the much anticipated speech by VP nominee, Sarah Palin, contained the following line.
...if you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone.
Setting aside the fact that she actually does lack experience and has some serious problems with judgment, why is that, once again, the party that preaches against a victim society plays the part of the victim so well? It's not Sarah Palin's fault...it's the media.
In addition, it strikes me as highly moronic that the Republicans, for which the media has launched an unbelievable assault in my home town of the Twin Cities, are biting the hands that feed them. As I flipped around the various news channels, all of them seemed perplexed that the Republicans would focus on them when there are so many issues that Americans want to hear about from them.
The right laments the lack of "meat" in Obama's plans and yet offers nothing of their own except more digs at the media and the ever present fear mongering (we are all dead unless we vote Republican).
And, hey, if you don't believe me...why don't we ask McCain campaign chairman, Rick Davies, what he thinks about the election.
This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.
Really?
14 comments:
Mark,
I have told you time and again: this is all the Republicans have. It's all they have ever had in the arsenal. They count on the fear and ignorance of the American people to get them elected. Their convention in St. Paul is a perfect example of this from top to bottom. They can't talk about issues because they know that they have failed on nearly all of them in the last eight years.
Too bad you missed the rest of her speech...it was a good oen.
Well, since you weren’t able to hear much of the speeches beyond the liberal media quips, I’ll provide some ongoing quotes & commentary in your stead.
Rudy Giuliani:
(after touting John McCain’s lengthy resume…)
"On the other hand, you have a resume from a gifted man with an Ivy League education. He worked as a community organizer, and immersed himself in Chicago machine politics. Then he ran for the state legislature, where nearly 130 times he was unable to make a decision yes or no. He simply voted 'present.'"
"When you're President of the United States, you can't just vote 'present,'you must make decisions."
Sarah Palin:
“Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown.
And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves.
I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening.
We tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.”
Like Obama, I thought she gave a good speech. Is it really that hard for folks to admit that or to maybe admit that voting present so many times probably wasn't a good idea? Personally, I thought everyone could have skipped the quips about him being a community organizer. Not sure why they did that, maybe they were baiting him to be more specific as to what that position actually entails. How do the communities that he worked in look today? While driving home for lunch just now (I forgot my cassarole at home...yes - I said cassarole because there is no such thing as a hot dish you Minnesotans) Limbaugh said Obama worked for Acorn when he was a community organizer. All kinds of media are up there in Alaska trying to dig up dirt on her and her family...must be that new era of politics kicking into high gear.
The main difference I saw between her speech and Obama's speech was that she basically was "porn" for the right...saying all the right things to get people out to vote. Things that have nothing to do with issues whatsoever...just divisiveness.
Obama on the other hand hit Bush and McCain hard on issues-mistakes that they made in Iraq and with the economy. The last part of his speech gave specific points as to what he would do to manage our current problems.
What is John McCain going to do? Watch his speech tonight and see how many issues he talks about and how many times he brings up crap like the community organizer thing-the latest Goebbels-esque tactic from Steve Schmidt and minions. If the latter is weighted heavier, than we know what direction the Republicans like to go in. So far, it's been that way all week. How exactly does that help the massive problems we have today?
My feeling is that, whoever wins this election, there will be a kind of civil war in the United States (down the line.. not wishful thinking.. more someone watching events and coverage from afar..)
It started in 2000, accelerated in '04 and it looks like it's going to reach a fight-stage.
We're getting two political tribes, you can argue about one of them caring a little more about the country, but mark and others are making many good arguments and points, so leaving who's better or worse / more & less virtuous aside, i can envision, if Obama wins -- there will be a backlash.
Even if he's the best Pres Administration in the world and surprises everyone with what 'lack of experience' can achieve (sarah palin's included -- women are better talkers, anyway) when given the chance, in the best case scenario: 25-35% of the country (the loudest) will not like him, never liked him and will regard him as completely irrelevant and illegitimate.
Not that that HAS to be an issue of course, since 60+% of Americans have had that feeling about the current Pres, for more than5 years, since 2003.
Ditto for McCain, if he wins by a hair or 1 or 2%, the rest of the country will feel cheated -- not for a night -- but for 12 years.
So, i think it's going to turn into the 60s all over again. i'm not talking about mass anti-war protests on the streets (yes, you can definitely expect that if america gets dragged into any new me adventures.. thinking of two obvious venues..) i'm talking about americans versus americans, a split, that's not political or rhetorical, but spills over into the streets.
and just like the 60s (i wasn't born! :) i can very easily envision, one side (of americans) being labeled the new '--ists' no longer soviet-funded and fuelled from outside (though the accusation, remains a distinct possibility, thanks to a new cold war) but dissenting americans being labeled 'whatever whatever' working for 'whomever: x y or z country or group' -- is this REALLY the direction, anybody wants to go in? Looking on the up side :) it will distract from peoples' mega economic depression. And those who are fanning the flames of hate or new enemies (at home...no longer 'Arab Americans' or imports) are the ones, i would personally guess, who care a little less about the country. Joanne.
Thhhhhaaaaaaarrrrr she blows!! The obligatory National Socialists reference. I knew you had it in you.
Well Markadelphia, even your buddy Bill Maher sees it. Why can't you?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhNGKpiYDTs&feature=relatedhhhhh
dave the labeler :) right on cue.
this is very funny.. (i mean insightful -- & was most emailed on Yahoo News.)
SARAH PALIN, QUEEN OF THE NOBODIESThu Sep 4, 7:58 PM ET
Experience is Overrated. What About IQ?
NEW YORK--Until four years ago, no one had heard of our current Democratic nominee. "Who is Barack Obama?" asked CBS News after he was picked to deliver the keynote address at the Dems' 2004 confab. "Not exactly a household name." Four years later, that speech remains his biggest achievement. No landmark legislation bears his name. His claim to fame is his gift of gab.
But Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's newly-minted fame makes Obama, saddled with a resume so thin he pads it with the entry "community organizer," look like an elder statesman. Governor of one of the nation's least populous states for a mere two years and the ex-mayor of a municipality that's home to 7000 souls, Palin is now positioned to be a proverbial heartbeat away from the ability to order ICBMs fired at Russia. (On January 20th McCain, a cancer survivor and hardly the picture of health, will be two years away from the average life expectancy for an American male.)
At least Obama went to law school. Along with a solid background in history, knowledge of the law is essential for a president.
Palin is a total unknown. A McCain adviser admits to The New York Times: "The campaign's polling on Mr. McCain's potential running mates was inconclusive on the selection of Ms. Palin--virtually no one had heard of her."
Welcome to the year of the nobody, when people you've never heard of can blog or reality-show or, in the case of the political class, schmooze their way to fame and fortune. My favorite nobody of 2008 was a kid named Efraim Diveroli, the fast-talking 22-year-old president of a two-man arms trading outfit by the name of AEY, Inc. (Speaking of thin resumes, his business partner was a masseur by trade.)
On the strength of a charming smile and the lowest bid, the Pentagon awarded this joker a $300 million federal contract to supply munitions to the U.S. puppet government in Afghanistan. Three hundred million dollars!
"By 2005, when Mr. Diveroli became AEY's president at age 19, the company was bidding across a spectrum of government agencies and providing paramilitary equipment--weapons, helmets, ballistic vests, bomb suits, batteries and chargers for X-ray machines--for American aid to Pakistan, Bolivia and elsewhere," reported The Times. Alas, all good things end. Diveroli's firm sluffed off a bunch of repackaged, outdated and substandard Chinese-made shells from Albania to the Afghans, who knew enough about war materiel to complain to their American masters.
Lest I make myself misunderstood, I'm not claiming that experience is a reliable indicator of performance. The members of George W. Bush's cabinet had collectively spent more than a century of their lives serving in federal government. That didn't prevent them from bankrupting the treasury or standing by passively as a hurricane destroyed New Orleans. Nor am I impressed by fancy credentials. As many financial services workers can attest, few employees are more poorly prepared for real-world economics than those with MBAs. Journalism schools produce stenographers, not journalists.
Resume entries aside, history shows that certain personality traits--especially intelligence and open-mindedness--make for better presidents. Also helpful are a variety of life experiences, such as familiarity with other countries and cultures and overcoming tough times.
By most measures, Palin is a weird choice. Like Geena Davis in the 2005 TV series "Commander in Chief," she could wake up one morning to find that McCain has shuffled off to the great POW camp in the sky. We would probably be in trouble.
As far as we know, Sarah Palin faced her biggest personal challenge a year ago. According to official accounts, she learned that she was pregnant with a child with Down Syndrome. She decided to keep him. It has to be heart-breaking. Still, as a right-wing opponent of abortion rights, however, the decision not to abort had to have been simple to make. Also on the knocked-up front, she and McCain actively attempted to cover up the fact that her 17-year-old daughter has a bun in the oven. Icky, icky. Zero integrity points for sucking up to the Christianist Right.
Palin's teen daughter intends to carry the child to term--a decision one hopes she was able to make free of pressure from her ambitious mother.
More worrisome is an incurious intellect that dovetails regrettably with Palin's past as a beauty queen. "Ms. Palin appears to have traveled very little outside the United States," reported The Times. "In July 2007, she had to get a passport before she visited members of the Alaska National Guard stationed in Kuwait." Yet Anchorage is a major hub for flights to Japan, Korea and China. She never felt like checking out Canada?
Asked about rumors the Alaska governor was being considered as McCain's running mate, she told CNBC: "As for that VP talk all the time, I'll tell you, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day? I'm used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things that we're trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the U.S., before I can even start addressing that question."
"Working real hard"? Doesn't the University of Idaho require its graduates to learn English? Does she know that she isn't running for VP of Alaska? Or that the VP presides over the Senate? With the nation facing enormous economic, political and military challenges, do we need another numbnut in the White House?
At least Palin knows something many other Republicans don't. "We are a nation at war," she told Business Week, "and in many [ways] the reasons for war are fights over energy sources." Palin has grammar trouble. But she knows why we're in Iraq.
Two of Palin's opponents in the 2006 Alaska governor's race were baffled at Palin's lack of substance. "She wouldn't have articulated one coherent policy and people would just be fawning all over her," Republican-Independent Andrew Halcro told The Times. "[Democratic candidate Tony Knowles] and I looked at each other and it was, like, this isn't about policy or Alaska issues, this is about people's most basic instincts: 'I like you, and you make me feel good.'"
God bless America. We're going to need all the help we can get.
(Ted Rall is the author of the book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.)
...a cut & paste from a zero like Ted Rall? Please...
...still haven't figured out how to work that "identity" button, Joanne?
I do agree w/ your point in a way; and have addressed it in a spoof a while back. But working in downtown St. Paul; getting up close to liberalism's finest, I don't like your odds in this bout. Seems to me the pot-smokin' coffee-house weenies are more adept at throwing poop-bombs from an anonymous mob than direct confrontation. Better to continue the path of electing leftists when possible to slowly chip away at our nation than risk a conflict that would only serve to crush & embarrass them.
Hey Mark, you get out of jail yet? Ha ha
Well McCain has spoken. It was a good speech. I know Mark didn't get the answers he was looking for on economic issues but it seems to me like the speech wasn't geared toward people like us, it was geared toward the average joe who doesn't pay attention to politics as much as folks like us do (not to mention they know that people like us have already made up our minds as to who we are voting for). He didn't get specific about economic issues but then again, I still don't know how the hell Obama is going to get all that Natural Gas without drilling.
McCain went on his strengths, which is his life story. Sure he left out his weak points, that was to be expected.
Now people will all be looking at the polls. Are polls really accurate anymore due to so many people only having cell phones? Do pollsters call people on cell phones or is it only home phones?
Interesting thing is, last, I think conservatives make a good argument when they talk about less government. And there is a case to be made for some of their economic policies.
At the same time, though, we have had conservative ideology plus out of control spending for the last eight years and I don't think you can just blame the spending.
I'm also open minded on the drilling thing. To say YES or NO vehemently on this issue is very short sighted.
Cel Phones-yeah, that is a very good point. I know for a fact that it is only on home phones and it is only registered or likely voters and those two groups represent the most McCain voters. Obama has 17 million new voters that registered to vote for him just this year and they aren't being polled. You'd have to ask David Axelrod where those numbers are but if many are in Ohio, Colorado, Virginia, New Mexico, and Iowa, McCain better send Palin to everyone of those states to get the base out.
One more thing...even though McCain didn't say much in his speech last night regarding specifics, much of it on his web site. In the next two months, I am going to be looking at the issues and seeing exactly where each person stands.
I've more or less already done this with their respective views on Al Qada/Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan and it is clear to me that Obama has the better plan.
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