Messiah McCain

One of the more effective smears against Obama was that his fervent supporters (myself included) were cult followers who treated Obama like the Next Jesus, and that he was all empty hype underneath the Messiah image and would eventually be exposed. And that sort of seemed right, as we really seemed quite strong in our support. And while idiotic smears like the Muslim thing are easily refuted and actually play to Obama’s advantage in the long run, the “Messiah” thing sounded right enough to gain traction. Yet…all one had to do was to look at who these people were to realize how foolish this was.

Because part of the construct of this meme was that we were easily influenced suckers being fooled. Yet Obama’s supporters were generally the most intelligent, politically-savvy liberals in the country. So how did it make any sense that we were naïve suckers? It didn’t. The reason we like Obama is because he was the first candidate to really hit all the right notes and push the right policies in the right way.

This isn’t about Obama. It’s about what Obama represents and what he says. And sure, maybe he’s lying about everything. But the same can be said about any politician, and if Obama’s lying to us, at least he’s lying about the right things. And if he’s smart enough to know how to lie in the right way, he should be smart enough to actually do what he says he’s going to do. And again, it’s still preferable to the people who lie about the wrong things.

Dear Leader McCain

And what’s so funny is that it’s actually McCain who is running on the Messiah platform. It’s all about him. While Obama has “change you can believe in,” McCain is “a leader you can believe in,” as if America really needs yet another all-powerful leader we can only trust on faith. And he thinks he can steal Obama’s platform and have people prefer him because he’s McCain. And even his supporters are selling him based solely on him being The Great McCain.

Case in point is some economist named Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who Atrios seems to believe was a good economist, but who now supports John McCain. And what is the basis of his support for McCain? Is it some complex economic policy that he finds a little difficult to explain to the uneducated masses? No, it’s a very simple economic policy called “John McCain.”

Joe Scarborough kept trying to get any sort of explanation for why McCain has flip-flopped on Bush’s taxcuts and the best Holtz-Eakin could do was insist that we place our trust in Dear Leader McCain, saying things like:

”John McCain has a plan to bring the budget into balance by 2013 by doing what he wanted to do back in 2001, which is control spending. Be a little careful with America’s money, I mean we’re spending hand over fist. It — I’m an economist, I can’t even count how much money’s been spent in the past 8 years. So…”

“This is all about how much you spend. When you do this in your life, if you spend the money, you might put it on a credit card, but you’re going to pay some points. So, it’s how much you spend. You know, John McCain’s got a great record of using the taxpayer’s money wisely.”

“It look — the guy’s a pretty good forecaster, right? He ran in 2000 on a tax cut that put the middle class first in line, protected Social Security and had strict spending controls. What did we see? Social Security wasn’t protected, no control on spending, so, you know, let’s do it right the next time. He’s committed to taking care of important problems and that means having the economy grow, letting people have a job and bringing the budget to balance.”

“Oh no, I think that if they had just given him the controls in 2001, we’d be fine. But the American people didn’t. Now they have a chance to give it to a man who will fufill his pledges to the American people, will take care of their business and will, you know, keep the economy going and have a balanced budget at the end of it.”

So, the plan that doesn’t even make sense to Joe Scarborough can be summed up as “John McCain, John McCain, John McCain.” He’s got a great record on spending, he’s a pretty good forecaster, he’ll fulfill his pledges, take care of business, keep the economy going, and have a balanced budget. How? Because he’s John McCain. Wow, I feel better already.

And again, that’s all they’ve got. Because McCain doesn’t have any real policies. He’s changed positions on just about everything and even his economist supporters can’t explain why he’s now supporting tax policies he once denounced. But that’s alright, because they know that, no matter what position McCain has, he’s still McCain. And that’s all that matters. Policies come and go, but the man will remain the same.

They Liked Him, They Really Did

I'm really not one to bash the recently dead, but I don't know why. I mean, why is it that we can bash the living as much as we want, and we have no problem bashing people who died many years ago, but somebody who died in recent years must be spoken of with reverence and respect? Is it that we just want to make sure they won't come back as a ghost to haunt us? Or in case a zombie potion might rain down upon a cemetery, we're trying to make sure we're nice to the younger ones who haven't decomposed enough to weaken them?

Sure, lots of folks talk about how it has something to do with the dead not being able to defend themselves, but many of these same people have no trouble attacking the shit out of living people who aren't able to defend themselves, and actually prefer it that way. Conservatives don't want Obama and his wife to be able to defend themselves against their unfair smears any more than we want Bush and Cheney to be able to defend themselves against the fair attacks we make against them. And anyone who's seen a hostile guest on Bill O'Reilly's show knows that he didn't invite them on to defend themselves. He just wanted them as strawmen he could verbally abuse. And then there are celebrities like Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan, who serve as gossip fodder for every tabloid journalist on the planet, simply because these girls succeeded at their goal of being entertainers. And one of the worst things a celebrity can do is to fight back against our tabloid tendencies, as that's the surest way to be mocked endlessly. So why are we protecting the dead in ways we deny to the living?

And let's not forget that, as an atheist/agnostic, I don't really think the dead are anything but empty bodies. So you'd think that if anyone needed protection, it'd be the living who actually have a real stake in all this. And hell, if Heaven is the magnificent place Christians say it is, you'd think the dead would have something better to do than be concerned with what we said about them. And the people who didn't make it into Heaven would probably have more pressing matters to attend to than what Doctor Biobrain is saying about them. Or so I'd think.

Letting the Dead Rest

But while I don't really understand the logic of paying respect to the recently dead, it does kind of make sense to me, and so I go along with it. Besides, I'm not one to hold grudges, and only speak ill of people as much as is necessary to make my point. And since the dead don't really have any real influence on what's going on in the world, I'm fine with letting them rest in peace.

And so while I didn't have the highest opinion of Tim Russert, I'm not going to sit here and bash the guy now that he's dead. Of course, I just did a search of my blog and see that, of all my years of blogging, I only mentioned Russert in two posts. One was mocking him for a "mindnumblingly silly pseudo-religious wankfest" he wrote in Newsweek, and in the other I referred to him in passing as a "GOP-fluffer" in a post attacking the idiot Cal Thomas. But the point wasn't to smear the guy. As usual, I was making a broader point about the media in general, and using Russert as the current example of the problem we have with them.

But that's all water under the bridge now, and I have no reason to say anything ill of the guy. I'm sure he meant well, and if the shoe was on the other foot, I'm sure I'd have done the same things he did. He might not have been the best qualified to handle the fairly important role he's played in modern history, but be was offered the job, and I doubt I'd have turned it down either. So I don't really blame him for that. It was a sweet gig and I'm sure he was glad to have it.

The Russert Fanclub

But none of that is what I meant to write about. What I really wanted to write about was Russert's fans and the fact that there are any. I guess I hang out too much in the liberal blogosphere, because it really never occurred to me that anyone really liked Tim Russert, outside of the Beltway people. Almost all liberals disliked Russert for various reasons, and the guy never really struck me as being that interesting. Again, I understand why the Beltway types liked him. I just never realized it extended to other people.

But sure enough, I happened to read a story in Yahoo about Russert's wife, and the messageboard is overflowing with people insisting that Russert was a great man who they trusted and will definitely miss. And while I suppose some people must have watched his show, it really surprised me to see people taking it so seriously.

Here are a few sample comments:

John W: The loss of Tim Russert is the greatest loss this country has known for a long time and will remain so for a long time to come. No one did for the United States as much or as well as Tim did in his causing the truth or one's true character to become revealed under the light of his scrutiny. God bless you, Tim, for being all that you were and for showing us how to live and perform. Thank

Michael M: Thanks Tim R. you have set the standard for accurate and true political reporting without all the spin as all the other programs provide. You are a true American balancing family and work, doing the best in both roles! The bar you set is very high...rest in peace and go Bills!

LuckyMe: I put very little, if any, in the media's reporting, but when Tim Russert gave his reports, I felt he had done his homework. He was not a man to sensationalize -- He was a journalist (and the best) who the public could put their faith and trust in for the facts to be accurate. Journalism has lost its "brightest" media personality.

Even the Christian Nihilists were there to defend Tim. Addressing how doctors said Russert's heart attack was caused from being overweight, Marvel B wrote "It don't matter how well you eat or exercise, that's not going to promise you a longer life. When it's your time it's your time, no matter how healthy you are. We all are going to go someday and the way the world is looking we may go sooner. God is watching over us all."

Well shit, if nothing I do matters, why do anything? I'll just eat Twinkies all day, guzzle, whiskey, and move as little as possible. Besides, the world's probably going to end soon anyway, so I might as well avoid getting a job. Don't want to interfere with my praying time. And I find it interesting to see nihilists who believe in God, particularly have often I keep hearing how atheism leads to nihilism. But I guess there isn't any real cure to the "nothing matters" meme.

Preserving the Establishment

And wow, while I was expecting people to praise him, I really felt like much of this praise was meant mockingly. Yet there were so many similar comments that I now think that most of them were sincere.

But again, my point here isn't to knock Russert or even the people who clearly thought quite highly of him. My point is merely to express surprise at how many people really seemed to like the guy and think he was doing an excellent job. Not that I thought most people thought the same of him as liberals did, but I always assumed that, at most, people tolerated him. But it really never occurred to me how many people truly thought he was doing a great job. Or that people outside of the Beltway really bought into his regular guy image that he liked to project of himself, rather than that he was yet another out-of-touch millionaire who long ago forgot how the normal people live.

Again, I'm not saying that as a way of knocking him now, but rather conveying what my feelings of him were from when he was alive. And while I still believe that the media isn't as influential as they're given credit for, it really does worry me when people consider Russert's performance to be the epitome of great journalism. And while his work was considerably better than that of Fox News, or even the vapid CNN, it still was fairly biased towards his personal friendships with Establishment politicos; which includes his assumption that everything was off-the-record unless the source said otherwise (which turns him into a dictation service) as well as his silence on the whole Plame-leak thing.

But again, I think he had good intentions in all this and if anyone is to blame, it was NBC and the Beltway for giving him the power they did, rather than to blame him for failing to understand his profession better. Unfortunately, our entire media structure is biased to the preservation of the Establishment. It's not that media elites like Russert are to blame for the problems with the media, but rather that the system will only allow people like Russert to be in such positions. I don't blame Russert for doing the job the way he thought he should, but rather blame the media for wanting someone who did the job that way. Unfortunately, the only media players who can get ahead are the ones who play ball, and until that changes, they'll always find someone to do the job.

McCain's VP Debacle

Carpetbagger's got a post mocking the idea of McCain picking Bobby "The Exorcist" Jindal as his VP choice, highlighting Jindal's moronic idea of allowing students to decide which scientific facts are the truth. And another post mocking the idea of McCain picking Rudy "911911911" Giuliani as his VP choice, highlighting what a disgrace Rudy's failed presidential bid was. But the truth is, I can't imagine how any candidate doesn't drag McCain down. From my perspective, they're all losers who make McCain's problems worse.

Not that McCain's such a great candidate on his own, but once you add the flaws of any other candidate to the mix, you've got a horrible horrible ticket. And the big question is whether they want a candidate with McCain's own drawbacks, which heavily emphasize McCain's drawbacks; or if they want a candidate with a completely different set of drawbacks, which then covers all the bases of loserdom. And both of these two potential choices fit those categories decently.

The Uber-McCain

On Giuliani's side, we've got a candidate who is even more absurdly heavy in toughguy foreign policy rhetoric than McCain, for the same reason McCain is so heavy in toughguy foreign policy: They've both adopted non-conservative positions for domestic issues which they had to flip-flop on, and emphasize attacking other countries as a gimmick to distract from their lack of having anything good to say on anything else. And even still, they're both spew foreign policy views that make GI Joe seem nuanced and can only be considered heavyweights in comparison to other conservatives.

And then there's the fact that they're both adulterers who abandoned their wives. And while Giuliani is a "cafeteria Catholic" who would certainly have been excommunicated in prior times and even now doesn't know much about his faith, McCain doesn't really seem to know what religion he's in. And without a doubt, neither of these guys fit into the "culture warrior" role and won't look good at all if they try faking it. Obama, by comparison, looks much better. He's still on his first wife, the "Muslim" smear has made it natural for him to emphasize his Christian faith, and he really does seem comfortable talking like a preacher.

And the main thing here is that, rather than Giuliani adding anything new to the mix, he's a more flawed version of McCain. For all of McCain's drawbacks, Giuliani beats him. Rudy would most definitely bring down the ticket. The only way he helps McCain is that it'd make him look better by contrast, but that's probably not the help McCain wants.

Evangelical Heretics

And then there's the Exorcist, Governor Piyush "Bobby" Jindal. Now, I can't say that I know much about this guy, but he really doesn't help McCain much at all either. Because while McCain and Giuliani have lots of flaws that hurt him with conservatives, Jindal's got the flaws that hurt him with everyone else, as well as a few biggies that could hurt him with conservatives.

First off, he's brown. Never a good thing for a Republican. Even worse, he was a Hindu until high school, which would muddy up the Muslim smears against Obama. Sure, they're not hated as much as Muslims, but I'm sure many in the religious right wouldn't see the difference. And finally, he's brown.

And then there's the religion thing; He's got too much of it. Specifically, he's a Catholic who has apparently said that Protestants are heretics, which really is going to make all those church potluck suppers he'll make on the presidential circuit more than a little awkward. And then there's the exorcism. And then there's his belief that school kids should decide for themselves if evolution is real. But of course, that's not really what they mean. They really mean that the parents should decide for the kids and the schools shouldn't contradict them.

And one of the biggest marks against him is that he has little experience and is very young to be president; which again makes it difficult to attack Obama for these things. For as much as the VP slot is often marketed as a training course for the presidency, there's always that possibility that the VP could be taking over before the Inauguration begins, particularly when we're talking about a candidate as old as McCain. And even still, he's still in his first year as Governor; which is the only part of his resume that really recommends him for the presidency, and was only in the House for three years. And that's it. Again, as a President-in-Training, that's fine. But that's only a side-effect of the VP slot. We're supposed to have a guy who could be president in his own right, not one who won't be ready for eight more years.

And finally, both Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich thought Jindal would be great for the job. 'Nuff said.

Well dammit, I just ran out of steam on this one. I like enough of it to not delete it, but not enough to want to finish it. I actually started it the night before, but it got so late that I left it for the. Needless to say, I really wasn't as enthusiastic about it as I was. But you get the general idea of where this was going, even if it's not as polished as I might like, so I'll just wrap it up like this. Better luck next time.

McCain the Enabler

This is just too funny, from Jed Report:


As I’ve suggested before, McCain made a big mistake by not embracing the only sensible position he had available: To argue that he’s the competent version of Bush and that he’s the guy people thought they were voting for in 2000 and 2004. That’s a pretty lousy pitch to make, but it was the only one he had. Now he looks even more like a flip-flopper who will say anything to get elected. I'm not sure why Republicans imagine they have the ability to flim-flam everyone, but you really can't do it at the level McCain's trying to when you've already got a record as long as McCain's. It was easy to make Bush look like a "Compassionate Conservative" because he didn't have any record which suggested otherwise. But with McCain on record stating inequivocably that he supported Bush, it makes him look utterly disgraceful.

And even from a strategic standpoint, it's a big mistake. This is part of the strategy that Republicans picked up from the Clintons, where you adopt a moderate version of your opponent's position in order to undercut their arguments. But in this case, they're doing it wrong. This works if the issue is spending cuts, and you can position yourself so that you're asking for more moderate spending cuts than your opponent; or with taxcuts, and you're asking for more moderate taxcuts than your opponent. And it worked for Bush in 2000, when he convinced people that there were no policy differences between him and Gore, and that people should focus on who they liked better.

But this time, they're not using it as policy triangulation as a way to make people focus on his character. They're actually using this as part of his character resume, and that doesn't work at all. Because he’s now running on Obama’s turf and making Obama’s job easier. If both of them are arguing that Bush caused big problems, then Obama’s the guy you’d turn to, not McCain the Enabler.

This isn't about making people focus on McCain's loveable good side by minimizing policy differences. It's to distract people from the fact that he's one of the ones who helped get us into this mess, and the more he distances himself from Bush, the bigger the mess he's admitting he helped make. And that only emphasizes why we need to get rid of Bush and his enablers, which doesn't help McCain at all. As I said, McCain needed to sell himself as The Competent Bush, not the Anti-Bush. And now that he's committed to it, the best he can do is reverse himself again and hope that everyone will forget what he said. They won't.

Debate by Attrition

I didn't have much to write about, so decided to repost my latest response in my long, long on-going debate with conservative nutjob Professor Donald Douglas, of the esteemed American Power Blog, who refuses to acknowledge that there was nothing wrong with me saying it was "obvious" that Obama didn't agree with his former pastor. Yes, I know this non-issue has been decided in my favor long ago in the real world, but in the world of the conservative nutjob, even the debate over ONE WORD can last for years.

As it is, I'm still debating the use of ONE WORD that I wrote on March 24 whichwasn't even important to the point I was making. But no matter, Donald imagines that he's finally found one thing he can prove that I was wrong about and is now stuck trying to debate this forever. Anyway, just thought I'd post this as a reminder to how nutty these people can be in their arguments. We're talking about a guy who thinks I'm trying to score debate points when I call him a "nutjob," rather than realizing that I'm doing so as a comment outside the framework of my actual debate points. But to conservatives, insults are the debate points, so I guess I understand how he could make this mistake.

Anyway, if you really want, you can read the comment I was reponding to, though I think my response is all you need to understand the context of what he wrote. But if you click through, you can't say I didn't warn you. I started with a quote from his comment and moved on.

The Endless "Debate"

Remember, we're not referring to YOUR opinion about what Obama knows ... you said that Obama's views are knowable, that they are obvious, and you still haven't directed anyone in this debate to that source of information.

See, this is exactly what I’m talking about. Like most conservatives, you somehow imagine that I have to prove to your satisfaction that your assertion is false, and until I do that, you’ll pretend that your assertion is already established fact. But it isn’t. The word “obvious” can be used to describe both facts and opinions, as I’ve shown repeatedly, and I’ve always insisted that my statement was opinion and not factually knowable. But you’re forced to keep blowing past this point because it entirely undermines everything you’ve written.

And once I explained to you that I wasn’t making an empirical statement, it should have ended. That was the only point you were trying to make and once I clarified my intent at the beginning of this debate, it was over. We disagreed over the use of one word, but once you heard my clarification and realized that we were basically in agreement, you should have let it drop. But you couldn’t. Why? Because it’s all you’ve got. A normal person would have accepted my clarification, but I’ve learned long ago that you are definitely not normal. So you had to keep attacking me over semantics while insisting that I was the one making the semantics debate. Why? Because you’ve convinced yourself that there are no logical liberals and couldn’t stand the fact that one kept demolishing you in these debates.

So when you misinterpreted one word I wrote, you decided to hang your entire debate on that misinterpretation, and now find yourself in the unenviable position of having to defend the indefensible. So you keep tossing out big word gibberish and empty insults in the hope to confuse and tire me; which I’ve found is your standard method of “winning” debates. You imagine that the person who gives up debating first is the loser and have developed a Debate by Attrition method, where you substitute the standard rules of debate with your own rules which are designed to frustrate people so they won’t ever want to deal with you again. And then you declare victory.

And in the end, the only thing you’re trying to make me concede is that I used one word improperly. Yet, I’ve shown over and over that I used the word correctly. Not only does it fit within the dictionary definition, but it fits with how it’s used in the real world, as well as at your own blog. So you’re wanting me to concede on a idiotically minor point on something I’m right about. You’re too funny, Donald. But of course, you’re really just trying to force me to quit the debate, as it’s the only possible way you could “win.” Pathetic. I’m not sure where you got the idea that debates are endurance contests, but they’re not. They’re logic contests, which makes it understandable why you’d prefer a different criteria for victory.

The Quotes

And sorry to break this to you, but those sentences I quoted from your blog were most definitely opinions. Was there an “external basis” for making those opinions? Yes. Were they objective statements? No, they weren’t. Remember, the standard for objectivism is: Are these statements provable? And in each case, the answer is that they’re not. They’re opinions that you said are “obvious,” just as I had an opinion that I said was obvious. I’ll explain, giving the initial quote and hyperlink first:

“If there's anyone in this presidential race who has cause for hating war, it's obviously John McCain.”

Yes, it’s a fact that McCain was a POW and was tortured. But is it a fact that McCain hates war more than Obama or Hillary? No, that’s an opinion. And it’s not an opinion I agree with at all. I completely reject that opinion because I believe that anyone who supported and continues to support our optional war in Iraq must not hate war as much as the people who oppose it. Now, I understand why you people believe that McCain doesn’t like war (though it has nothing to do with him being a POW and everything to do with people hating the war and him wanting to get elected in spite of his support for the war), but it’s not a factual claim. You can’t prove it and there are millions of people who think you are wrong. Nor is it “universally recognized,” which was one definition you once insisted that obvious statements must be.

Oh, and in case you didn’t know, McCain’s suggestion that he hates war more than people who haven’t served in war is meant to be an underhanded slap in the face to Bush, Cheney, and the other warhawks who avoided service in Vietnam. In essence, it’s the equivalent of the chickenhawk smear that you conservatives hate so much. Pretty funny, when you think about it. McCain has to keep insulting Bush and the Republicans to get elected, and you people don’t even notice because you’re too busy attacking Obama. Funny.

“Are we ready to employ America's unprecedented military preponderance in wars of total, scorched earth annihilation (and is Israel)? Obviously not.”

Now this one is definitely an opinion, as it’s a prediction that hasn’t happened yet. How can a prediction be factual? Now, I happen to agree with this one, but it’s still an opinion because it can’t be proven. I can also predict that I'll see the sun tomorrow, but until it happens, it's not a factual statement.

“Let’s start with the obvious. Sullivan is a lunatic.”

Are you honestly trying to suggest that you can prove that Andrew Sullivan is a lunatic? Really? Again, I happen to agree with this opinion, but it can’t be factual. You can’t prove that he’s a lunatic, and if you could, I wish you would do so and get him some professional help. Or at least get him to stop blogging.

Your “Objective” Opinions

But then again, a careful reading of your comment seems to indicate that you’re now admitting that these are opinions and that they don't need to be "universally recognized" to be obvious (though you've been careful to not admit that you've changed your definition of "obvious" to include opinions). So you had to create an arbitrary standard that your quotes pass and mine doesn’t. You write that opinions can be obvious when “all participants to an exchange have access to a raw objective data point which then can be used to make a subjective evaluation,” which is Donaldese for saying that we need an objective basis for our opinions. You then pretend as if there is an objective basis for your opinions, which is different from my quotes of Obama. So let’s look at these again, in search of this alleged objective basis.

Sure, McCain was a POW and has seen the horrors of war, but that doesn’t mean anything. Hitler saw the evils of war, suffered a leg wound in battle and was hospitalized by a WMD, yet he didn’t hate war at all. Far from it. So is there an objective standard that says everyone who suffers from war automatically hates it? No, there isn’t. The very idea borders on non sequitir, as there is no specific link between being hurt in war and hating war. Sure, maybe McCain hates war more than Obama, though I don’t believe it. But there is no objective basis for that opinion. It’s based upon a subjective belief and one that really doesn’t make much sense. Again, your objective link from “hurt in war” to “hates war the most” is missing.

Even worse was the “objective” basis for your opinion that Americans wouldn’t stand for scorched-earth annihilation. Because there is no objective basis for that at all. While I happen to agree with you on that, it’s based entirely on opinion. I also once believed that we’d never be stupid enough to invade Iraq, and we saw how wrong that prediction was. At best, you might be able to cite opinion polls which are mildly subjective and even that isn’t conclusive proof of anything.

And the fact that you think your statement was actually objective is entirely laughable. Every reason you cited is opinion and many Republicans disagree with it. The whole thing is opinion all the way up, starting at the opinion polls and then working up through the subjective analysis of them. Who knows, maybe we’re both wrong and people would accept scorched-earth war with Iran right now. It’s certainly possible. And that excludes it from the world of objectivism, because objective statements are provable and yours wasn’t, because it was a prediction. Sorry.

And then we move on to your “obvious” opinion that Sullivan is a lunatic. Again, I agree with this opinion, but what is the basis for that opinion? His words. That’s it. The things he wrote. Yet…you’ve said that we can’t use Obama’s words as verification that he disagrees with his pastor, so how can we use Sullivan’s words as the basis for his lunacy? Even worse for you, Obama directly stated that he disagreed with his pastor, while Sullivan, to my knowledge, has never stated that he is a lunatic (that would actually be the first sign of his sanity). So how can we use his writings to justify your opinion when we can’t use Obama’s words to justify mine?

Valid Opinions

The truth is that all of these were valid opinions, right or wrong, but none of them have a truly objective basis. Your opinions were no different from mine. I didn’t pull my opinion out of my ass. I based it upon Obama’s words and my belief that he was being truthful. Just as you based your opinions on your belief in McCain’s hatred of war, America’s hatred of annihilation, and Sullivan’s lunatic writings. And while there were valid reasons for you to think these things, they were just as valid as the basis for my opinion of Obama.

Face it, Donald. It’s over. It was over a long, long time ago. You keep flailing about like a blindman in a riot, and can’t even land one punch. This is pathetic. We’re both in agreement about everything we’ve debated here, except you refuse to admit it and have to keep reinventing my positions in order to imagine that I haven’t destroyed you repeatedly. But I have. You can misinterpret what I write all you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that you lost.

And rather than admit to this and move on, all you can do is to keep embarrassing yourself further and hope I’ll just give up. I keep telling you Donald, I won’t. This is much too fun. Rather than admit that you were mistaken over this insignificant point of semantics, you’re stuck debating this forever or risk damaging that little ego of yours.

Ready with that concession, Donnie? Of course not. You'll just keep tossing out even more arbitrary rules, lamebrained hairsplitting, bizarre phrasing to confuse everything, and topping it off with more insults and childish name-calling that would embarrass a third grader (or do you imagine that "Dr. Biopukesampler" was a valid description of me?). And I'll just keep laughing at you all the way.

The Power of McCain

I'm not making any promises on this one, but I'm fairly sure that John McCain is in for a big hurtin' from the media before November rolls around. Not that it's necessary, as the media's never had the influence that people imagine they do; and that power has decreased significantly now that the internet has allowed regular citizens to open the information gateway. And even as it is, media adoration has given McCain a false sense of security regarding what he can get away with and he continues to spout out nonsense under the belief that he'll never be held accountable for it. Big mistake.

But I think a hard rain is going to fall on McCain and even we'll feel a bit sorry for him. Do I think they'll completely rip the guy a new one? No. But I think there are a lot of assumptions about John McCain that even the dopes in the media won't be able to continue thinking for long. In case you hadn't seen it, watch this clip featuring Vice President Elect (fingers crossed) Wesley Clark talking to some brainwashed media admirers of McCain.



And that was a truly disgraceful display, particularly from the female anchor person who just seemed dumbstruck by the idea that anyone could possibly question McCain's national security experience. The fact that Clark had to establish his credentials before he was even allowed to continue just shows how convinced these fools are of McCain's expertise. He's a fricking general who once ran for president and who was invited on the show as some sort of important talker, and yet they make the dude recite his resume like he was some rabble-rouser speaking gibberish on a street corner. Thus is the power of McCain, that even retired generals have to remind us they're retired generals in order to be believed.

McCain Equal to Obama

But after he did so, the best they could do was to suggest that Obama's experience wasn't any better than McCain's. And, hello, that totally undermines John McCain, because McCain's supposed to be the big national security expert. And if the best they've got is to say that Obama isn't better, that destroy's McCain. I'm not sure why they imagined that this was some sort of crucial counterpoint to what Clark said, but he was quick to point that out. And their reply? Nothing. While the female anchor person thought it was a good point, nobody could defend against Clark's rebuttal. Hell, they didn't even seem to understand the point and just had to let it drop. I swear, I could actually smell the smoke coming from their ears.

And this is a big problem for McCain because, as much as these people assumed he's a Big Dog in national security, they couldn't come up with anything to dispute Clark's statement. Nothing. Yet that was the whole reason they had him on the show and had apparently discussed it the day before. Yet when he actually defended his statement, they couldn't think of a damn thing to say to defend McCain anymore. It was over. And if this kind of substantive attack on McCain continues, and I think it will, these people will at least try to find some justification for their beliefs and I'm positive they're going to come up empty. And that's the beginning of the end for McCain.

And it's possible that this adoration will continue forever and that the media will remain in love with McCain long after he's disgraced in November. But I don't think so. It's not going to happen overnight, but even in this one interview we saw a tiny lightbulb of reality flash in each of these people's minds. You could tell because they at least knew to shut-up and stop defending McCain. Sure, they didn't give up on him, but it clearly got them to at least start thinking about it, and that's half the battle.

Even in this one interview, we moved from them assuming that it'd be dangerous to even try to question McCain's credentials to them not even being able to justify their belief in those credentials. And even if this only gets them to start trying to think of justifications for their beliefs, that's a lot further than they were at the beginning; back when they assumed everyone was in agreement about McCain's supposed expertise. And when you're dealing with pack animals like these people, that's the first step.

Oh, and Clark for Vice President! Hooyah!

The Politics of Slasher Flicks

I LOVE slasher flicks. And by that, I’m not talking about the generic horror movie, or zombie films, or even the Crazy Rural Cannibals genre. I’m talking about straight-up slasher flicks where the plot is about a crazy dude with a knife going around slashing people. Fun stuff.

But I really wasn’t sure why I like those kind of horror movies in particular. I’m definitely not scared by them. Nor do I have fantasies of going around stabbing people. But there’s just something particular about the crazy guy killing teenagers sub-genre that I find fascinating beyond any of the other horror sub-genres.

But while I was watching Don’t Go In The Woods tonight at the Alamo Drafthouse (which was an excellent flick, btw), I finally got it. What I like is how they emphasize the power of the individual and teach us that society shouldn’t fuck with people or allow people to get fucked with. Because you never can know when someone will just snap and want a little payback. And that's a moral that fits right into my belief system.

The Motivation

Of course, that’s not to say that the victims deserved to get killed, as they usually don’t. Or that the killer was justified in his killings, as he usually isn’t. And even if he was greatly wronged in the past, he generally doesn’t kill the people that did it to him. He’ll kill their kids, or the people with similar jobs (ie, camp counselors), or maybe he’ll just kill random people who had nothing to do with his craziness. And hell, some of the best slasher flicks never explain why the killer did it, and that’s all part of the fun. You just never know what these crazy fuckers are up to.

But the point is all the same: Society let these people down and now they’re getting their revenge. This isn’t like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, where the victims walked into the wrong society; a rural hellhole where the rules are all different. These films focus on the dangers of allowing people to slip through the cracks; of allowing them to be so isolated from their fellow man that they feel it acceptable to kill them.

And one of the things I like about these films is that it isn’t personal. They’re not going to torture you. They’re not going to force you to eat your girlfriend while waving your buddy’s eyeball in your face. They’ve got a job to do and they do it. You might not have deserved to die, but they’re going to kill you as quickly as they can. Why? Because they can. They’re showing the world that even a lone individual has power. You might not even see it coming. You’re just walking along, happy that you’re about to get laid, and before you know it, you just got your throat slashed or an arrow through your eye and you’re dead. It’s just that easy. And the killer doesn’t even pause to look at the victim, he just moves on to his next one. It’s strictly business with these guys and I respect that.

Society's Problem

And I think that’s why I’ve always liked these movies, because I think it’s important for society to take care of the weak and the abused and the crazy. Because we’re all in this together and even one crazy person can cause a whole lot of hurt for a whole lot of people. Well, plus these movies are generally quite funny, as Don’t Go In The Woods was. But I do think there is a bigger purpose to all this and that’s what I’ve always found to be so appealing about them.

The moral of these movies isn’t that you shouldn’t go in the woods alone (though you shouldn’t) or that you shouldn’t have sex when a killer’s on the loose (though you shouldn’t). The moral is that we all have a responsibility to take care of our fellow man and not allow them to go down the crazy path that makes them think of us all as mindless victims. We need to remember that every individual has worth and that we’re all in this together. Not because it’s the nice thing to do, but so that all those individuals think of us as being the same as them.

Just as terrorists seek to prove that the powerless can also have power, the slasher is meant to teach us that a single man can do horrible things. And the point isn’t strictly limited to real-life killers, though it definitely applies to them. The point is that even little things can make a big impact on society and that we need to do our duty to make it work. If we want the advantages that a big society gives us, we need to deal with the negative side. And we allow people to fall through the cracks at our own peril.


Oh, and regarding the movie, if you're the type who likes Hollywood polish and character development and plots, avoid this movie. You'll hate it. But if you're the type of person who will take their entertainment any which way it comes and doesn't try to force their pre-conceived ideas of what a movie should be upon the movie they're watching, you might just love this movie. I did. It'd be best if you got lucky and saw it in a good theater that serves good beer, like I did; but if you can rent it, you should. It's not good filmmaking, but it's entertainment and that's all that really counts.

Update: Holy shit! I just realized that today is Friday the 13th, which happens to be my favorite slasher flick. In it, we saw the dangers of allowing a kid to swim without proper supervision and it wasn't pretty. This might not be the best made slasher flick, but it was the first one I ever saw and I still have a soft spot for it. What a great day to have written my slasher post.

Sucky Young Hippies

I hate old hippies. I'm not talking about the ex-hippies who sold-out and turned into the very people they despised (though those guys aren't great either). I'm talking about the burn-outs who still held on and can't stop talking about how much better everything was forty fucking years ago. Some old dude in 1968 talking about how much better things were in 1928 would have gotten laughed at. Yet now I'm supposed to put up with these whiny bastards telling me how much better things were forty years ago? Please. Life is what you make of it, and if you're at a party and can only bitch about how much better things used to be, then I can understand why you'd say that. But please don't try to tell me that I'm not having as much fun as I would have had back then, because I always have fun wherever I go. The biggest downer I ever have at the few parties I go to are these crusty assheads telling me about how much better everything used to be, because that's all they ever really want to talk about.

But even worse than the old hippies who won't let go: Dumbshit young hippies who weren't alive in 1968, but who insist that everything was better back then and that everything sucks now. Those people are insane. It's like they've only lived life through Best Of collections and don't realize that most music, movies, TV shows, and people totally sucked back then, just like they do now. And that's not to mention the internet, which was waaaaaay slow. And you couldn't go to 24 hour stores or fastfood places, and television stopped at midnight and you only had a handful of channels. No VCR's or DVD's or Wii's, and it really wasn't all that easy to get drugs either. Hell, I remember that kind of existence and I wasn't alive in the 60's either. I honestly believe this is the best time to be alive and things keep getting better.

And again, I think the problem is that they listen too much to the old hippies and watch the movies that make it look like wild parties all the time, and don't realize that everyone glamorizes their past. And the Baby Boomers were horrible about that, as they were all convinced they were the center of the universe and that nobody's lived like they lived. Hell, I betcha most of the old hippies complaining about how much better things used to be were real lame-asses back in the day and used to complain about shit back then too. Or maybe they were really cool and lost it. But whatever it is, you can make of life what you want. Nothing is stopping these people from having the parties and music they had back then, besides their sucky attitudes about how much better things used to be. Especially here in Austin, which is the coolest city in the world. Sure, there are sucky people here, but there's always been sucky people here. The question is whether you can block them out and enjoy the good people.

But I doubt things were ever as good as they remember them. They just want us to feel like shit because we're not as cool as people used to be. And I don't put up with that shit when it comes from conservative a-holes and I'm certainly not going to put up with it coming from hippy a-holes. Life is whatever you want to make of it and if you think life sucks now, then I'm sure it does. But it doesn't have to.

McCain and the Old, Old Politics

The McCain people are in big fucking trouble. Every successful president in recent years has added a new evolutionary step to how to win elections. The Bushies built upon the Clinton constant war room and triangulating strategies by adding classical GOP dirty tricks to it. Reagan combined Nixon’s ugly politics with a genuinely likable personality. And now Obama’s completely revolutionizing everything, including the use of the internet as the greatest campaign tool since bribery.

But McCain? McCain’s campaign represents a HUGE step back in evolutionary terms, sending things back to the stone age. In everything from message discipline, message delivery, and outright dirty politics, the McCain people aren’t getting ANYTHING right. For example, any of the people in his campaign who didn’t realize that his recent ugly green background set him up for a HILARIOUS use of greenscreen technology deserves to be fired and sent back to the Eisenhower Administration where McCain first dug them up.

Here's my favorite so far: McCain Was There


Good stuff.

Wrong and Old

The latest McCain blunder is a perfect storm of bad politics. Here’s how it goes: McCain says yet another unpopular remark showing that he’s out of touch and wrong about Iraq. The Obama campaign says that this shows that McCain is out of touch and wrong about Iraq. And thanks to a McCain pushback against the “He’s too old” issue, the media asks the Obama people if they're trying to say he’s too old. The Obama campaign then gets to take the highroad by blasting McCain yet again for his mistake.

And they just keep walking into these attacks and make it hard for the Obama people to NOT take advantage of it. I mean, McCain saying that getting the troops home is “not too important” is a dumb, dumb thing, akin to Bush saying he wasn’t interested in catching Bin Laden. But it's compounded by McCain's defensiveness about his age. And this just isn't how the Bushies would do it. They took an idiot, put a cowboy hat on him and sold him as the Cowboy President. And whether or not that worked to their advantage, they certainly acted like attacks on Bush's ignorance played to their advantage, and I believe did for some people. For my part, I couldn't stand when liberals would call him a cowboy and act like they scored points on him, as that was exactly what he wanted.

McCain's people, on the other hand, act like mentioning McCain's weakness is off-limits and have gone so far as to link any McCain mistake that might possibly be age related to an attack on his age. And that's just dumb. I know, it’s part of the grenade-style of politics, where you attack the positions you really don’t want your opponent to make in order to force them into the position that's easier to attack them from, but it’s still a huge mistake. Because it just reminds people of how old McCain is and draws attention to it. And rather than people thinking that Obama’s unfair for attacking McCain’s age, it’ll just remind them of how damn old McCain is and how sensitive he is about it. And Obama doesn't even have to say a damn thing about it.

As I suggested at Carpetbagger’s this is the equivalent of Republicans accusing Kerry of flip-flopping and him telling everyone that this was an attack on him for being a Massachusetts liberal and reminding people that Massachusetts liberals like him always flip-flop but that he was flip-flopping for a different reason. Hey, why bother attacking your opponent if you can just link your opponent's attack with a negative personality trait you have?

McCain the Terrible

And so we’ve got McCain making these terrible statements and then spending all his time trying to provide context that doesn’t really make anything better. And this allows the Obama people to make substantive attacks on him with impunity. And even as much as the media wants to help out McCain, the best they can do is remind people of how old McCain is in ways that the Obama people wouldn’t even have tried, setting them up for even bigger attacks on McCain.

And again, McCain has nobody to blame here but himself. It’s bad enough that he’s saying things that would have been unpopular in previous elections and sheer poison this year, but his defense against it is only making matters worse. He’s making excuses when he needs to go bold and he’s going bold when he needs to make excuses. And his best attacks on Obama all help remind people of why they shouldn’t vote for McCain. McCain better pray that they get some footage of Obama at an Al Qaeda training camp pronto, and frankly, I’m not sure that’d be enough.

And what's ironic is that this is part of the reason his age should be an issue, because he's just too out of touch with how things are done. I'm not sure why anyone imagined that he'd be great on the campaign trail, as he's never really had competition in Arizona, got the tar beat out of him by Rove in 2000, and the nomination was only handed to him by default because the other candidates had too many flaws; and many of those were only flaws in a Republican primary, not a general election.

But it's obvious that he's only really good when he's unopposed and doesn't have people challenge his bizarre statements. This was already going to be a tough year for Republicans, but McCain has really made this much too easy.

George and the Republican Nightmare

One of the sad things about the Nixon Whitehouse was how totally dysfunctional it was. For as much as it seemed to be an all-powerful machine from the outside, we now know it was a just a bunch of isolated scared men who were much too afraid to trust each other enough to form an effective cabal. That they were as scary as they were just shows how effective they were at manipulating power, but it was their ability at being so mean that also undermined their ability to sustain it.

And that’s what’s so sad about this story about how Bush supposedly told Rove that he was being fired during a church service. Because I always kind of imagined Rove and Bush as being kind of tight. I don't know why I'd assume that, as I'm sure Bush resents Rove's brainy image and I find it hard to believe that Rove would actually enjoy being around anyone as dull as Bush. But all the same, I always thought they'd be fairly close, even in bad times. I mean, Rove first worked for the guy in 1978 and had been by his side for at least fourteen years. You'd think in all that time they'd have grown close enough that this sort of thing wouldn't be necessary.

But again, that's what's to be expected from Republicans: They really don't like each other. More importantly, they don't trust each other. Because that's what the entire Republican system is about. It's about selfish greed and screwing everyone else over. And sure, they can buddy up when it's to their advantage, but in the long run, you're likely to get screwed.

The Republican Pyramid

Of course, that's not to say that all Republicans are aware of this game, as the party wouldn't work if they did. But the entire system is based upon a certain level of exclusionism and the higher up the Republican pyramid you are, the more exclusionist you are; while the people lower down don't notice that they're being excluded. That's just the way it is.

And so on the low end, you've got lowly bigots who are just happy to exclude blacks or Mexicans or gays or whatever. And it moves on up through the people who exclude anyone who gets in their way, like feminists or liberals or people of other religious beliefs. And then there are the ones who want to screw the non-rich. And it moves up to only helping rich people who give to the party. And it eventually ends up with some tiny little group of rich old a-holes who are laughing at everyone underneath them. And the higher up you are, the more direct benefit you'll receive from the party. While the rich a-holes at the top save millions in taxes, the bigots at the bottom don't get a god damn thing besides the satisfaction of believing they got to vote for a bigot.

Now, that's not to say that everyone higher than the bigots are also bigots; far from it. Just that the people higher than the bigots have exclusionist lines which transcend race. But they'll still be screwing many of the same people the bigots want to screw, as well as the bigots themselves. You have to remember that Republicans don't woo bigots because they like bigotry. They like bigotry to woo bigots. And they've got them all so well trained that hating bigots is now considered politically incorrect for them. But all the same, the bigots are getting as screwed as the people they want to discriminate against, so the joke's really on them.

But, wow, that really wasn't where I was going with all this. My point is that being exclusionary and not trusting people isn't a symptom of a handful of Republicans like Nixon and Cheney; it's in their very DNA and they all suffer from it to varying degrees. It's what makes them Republicans. They feel that it's all about screwing the other guy, and the "other guy" ultimately is everyone else. They'll accept you into their group for as long as they need you, and then you become the enemy. Just ask Scott McClellan about that.

The Very Odd Couple

And so it shouldn't be surprising that after thirty years of working together that Bush and Rove still don't know each other well enough that Bush could be open about Rove's dismissal Hell, I don't even know if the story is true, and actually think it sounds too weird to be real. But all the same, it really got me thinking about Bush's life and how sad and alone he must really be.

Not only is it unlikely that Bush and Rove were still chumming it up on a regular basis, I bet they never had that sort of relationship. I bet there was always a certain level of resentment between the two of them. Bush is so competitive that I'm sure he hated the "Bush's Brain" jokes and the fact that Rove really was much smarter than Bush. And I'm sure Rove was always upset that he could only be the puppet-master and never the master in his own right. Plus, I bet they're both total assholes and nobody likes a total asshole. And so even at their closest, they could never be too close; and they probably haven't been that close for years.

And that really is sad. Even Laura Bush probably isn't the solace Bush needs, as she seems like a very shallow person who lacks empathy almost as much as Bush does. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure she's nice enough, but just very empty inside and not much comfort when things go wrong. And things have gone very, very wrong for Bush and I doubt he can talk openly to her about it. I'm sure he's just kicking himself that Jeb wasn't the one who got to be President, making him the blacksheep brother who kept mooching off the Bush name forever. And even that makes me sad.

But what's saddest of all is that I'm sure there are very few Republicans who can understand the sadness I'm talking about, because they have the very core defects that I was just describing. And that's what makes me a liberal, because I care about people, including those who get all the bad things they deserve. I'm definitely glad that everything fell apart for George and the Republican Nightmare, but all the same, I really do feel sad for them.

Iran Forever

I just invaded Iran. I know, it sounds cool, but trust me, it wasn't worth it. It really wasn't. Sure, the oil was nice, but the rest of it was a long hard slog that really wasn't worth the effort. Just lots of hot desert and a bunch of pissed off people who don't appreciate all I did for them by invading and bombing their cities. Filthy ingrates. Now I kind of wished I hadn't done it at all. Oh well, I'm there now, so there can't be anything finer than for me to stay there forever and ever and ever. Once a mistake, always a mistake; that's what I always say. Always.

Guess it's now time to give Syria a try. Why the hell not? They already hate me. So what harm could it do? They can't hate me twice. Besides, I've already got all these troops just sitting here in Iran, where they don't want to be. So they really can't complain too much when I have them move somewhere else. They did volunteer, after all. They should just be glad they're not stuck in my position. I've got to make all the tough choices. All they have to do is follow orders. Sure wish I had that kind of luxury. And they get to kill people too! Lucky duckies.

The Upside of Political Mistakes

One of the big mistakes Republicans make is the assumption that there are only upsides to their plans and that it’s possible to get everything they want without negative repercussions. For example, they think they can woo racist votes without being stuck with the racist label. Or that they can woo rabid cultural warriors who refuse to compromise on cultural issues without actually giving them any cultural victories. Or that they can bully everyone as much as possible without facing any kind of backlash or pushback, and that the more you bully people, the more they’ll allow themselves to be bullied. But the truth is that every action has a reaction and there’s always a downside to every decision you make.

But it’s not even just that they’re making poor decisions. In reality, they don’t really have much choice. The current Republican crew is stuck with the decisions previous GOP leaders made, but all the same, they have no other choice. Without racists, cultural warriors, and all the other a-holes the Republicans appeal to for votes, they couldn’t possibly win elections; and even still they barely win. The reality is that Republicans got stuck wooing an increasingly shrinking voter bloc because they’re making the best of a bad situation.

Even the Iraq War and Democratic opposition to it was a double-edged sword that paid big dividends before finally burning them. Were it not for these "mistakes," Republicans would never have stolen Congress in the 90's or the Whitehouse in the 00's. The real problem is that the Republican Party only stands for protecting the Republican Party and everyone else is just getting hosed. That's why their only hope is to beat us by grabbing the voters we don't want, and who are too angry at us to realize they're getting hosed. But again, these were the choices that Nixon and others made decades ago and isn't something that could just be undone overnight.

Similarly, McCain is stuck with the decisions BushCheney made, whether he likes it or not. And I suspect that McCain’s going to realize he’s trying to defy gravity with his recent attempts to distance himself from Bush. He definitely doesn’t like the options he’s been left with, but imagines he can do the impossible by dumping Bush and pulling a “Me Too” strategy” on Obama; as if people would be happier to see Obama’s theme with a “leader” like McCain attached to it. But if he were smart, he’d acknowledge reality and sell himself as Competent Bush, the guy you thought you were voting for in 2004.

Not that I think that’s a great sales pitch, but it’s the only one he’s got. Because his current deception makes him look like a joke, especially as there are quite a few Bushies who just don’t want to let go. McCain might be pushing a “change” mantra, but most Republicans still want to stay the course. And the people who don't want another Bush aren't going to buy him as Obama's wise grandfather.

About the Benjamins

And that’s what’s so weird in reading all the post-mortems of Hillary’s presidential campaign. Carpetbagger has a post which highlights a great number of Hillary mistakes as given by various pundit-types, but the main thing that strikes me is the assumption that these were all blunders. But the truth is that these were decisions that had good and bad sides, and had Hillary not made these “mistakes” she might not have gotten as far as she did. In many cases, these “mistakes” represent Hillary making the most of a bad situation.

For example, one big “mistake” was how she ran out of money because she was going for an early knock-out blow. And while I agree that this was a problem, isn’t it obvious that she wouldn’t have done as well as she did if she hadn’t spent as much money as she did? Had she spent less in New Hampshire and lost, she wouldn't even have made it to Super Tuesday. Similarly, she only did as well as she did on Super Tuesday because she shot her wad, and Obama would have knocked her out if she had spent less. She’s hugely in debt because that was the only way she could compete with Obama, and if she had spent $20 million less, she’d have done a lot worse. Just imagine how bad off she'd have been if she had to spend big in Florida and Michigan.

Same goes with her “mistake” of not working hard enough in caucus states or her decision to let Obama win lots of small states in February. She had finite resources and anything she spent in these places was less money and time she could have spent in Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. In many respects, this was a zero-sum game and every vote she wooed in Georgia was a vote she would have lost somewhere else. And had she done so, we’d be talking about how she made the “mistake” of focusing on states she was going to lose and didn’t work hard enough to win in the big states. Everything looks like a mistake when you lose.

Invincible

And this high spending all tied in to her overall “invincible” strategy, which was also listed as a mistake. But can it really be argued that it didn’t give her many advantages? Much of the political world acted as if the nomination was Hillary’s and everyone else was an after-thought. And that surely gave her a HUGE advantage. For example, fundraising was surely helped by the fact that donors assumed their money was helping to bribe the next President of the United States (yes, “bribe” is a strong word, but let’s be real here folks).

Another big “mistake” was in emphasizing her experience and acting like she was the incumbent candidate. But as I suggested in a previous post on Hillary, what choice did she have? Her Senate record wasn’t spectacular and as much as she differed from the standard Democrat, she was on the wrong side. She had bet heavily on being a foreign policy hawk who was friendly to big business, which was an extension of Bill's policies, and was completely unprepared when the political winds shifted against Republicans.

The reason Obama was Mr. Change wasn’t because he decided on January 1, 2007 to have change as his message. It was ingrained in everything he’s done and is a part of his general personality. He's the fresh, new face with the energy and voice we've been waiting for. Hillary, on the other hand, just didn’t have any kind of real record to stand on after the Clinton presidency, and was stuck with hoping people just liked her for what she did in the 90’s. Had she gone for a change theme, she'd be playing on Obama's turf and he'd beat her. She either had to play it as a 90's retro-theme or not at all.

Dressing Up the Pig

And the problem here is that you can't use a sales pitch that doesn't fit you. No matter how popular health drinks are, Coke can never sell itself as one. Walmart will never be considered high fashion. McDonald's will always be greasy fastfood. That's just the way it is. The secret to good marketing is finding out what your niche is and finding the best way to convince people they need what you've got. But if your product doesn't match what you're selling, people won't buy no matter how good your sales pitch is.

Just ask Garth Brooks, who tried to shed his tiring cowboy image by adopting a moody alternative persona and turned himself into a punchline overnight. And that's not fair, as I'm sure the cowboy image was just as fake as the alternative one. But no matter, people had their idea of who he was and no amount of marketing could change that. Rather than letting him reinvent himself, it showed the world exactly how fake he had been the whole time and he ended up losing both personas. Even Madonna wouldn't attempt such a drastic reinvention, and she's famous for changing her image. But no matter how often her music changes, she's still the same shallow popstar, which is what her fans like about her. Brooks, on the other hand, tried something completely different and only ended up embarrassing himself.

And that's exactly what happened to Hillary and what's happening to McCain right now. Hillary and McCain are both Establishment candidates who only offer their experience and name recognition. And had Hillary won the nomination, we'd have been stuck with a very boring and bitter election as two old warhorses battled it out from within their bunkers; neither of whom had anything to offer outside of negative spin against their opponent. Rather than any real discussion, both sides would only talk to their base while complaining about how unfair the other side was being. It'd have been entirely personal because neither side has anything to offer us and could only engage in defensive tactics to woo voters to their side.

It'd have been like the 2000 election, except that we just didn't know what problems we needed solved back then; so neither Gore or Bush had anything real to talk about. This time, we know what we need, but neither Hillary or McCain are particularly well-positioned to give it to us. They were both responsible for getting us into this mess and if they can't even acknowledge how we got here, they can't possibly be the ones to get us out. And with nothing real to talk about, this would have been one hard slog to November.

Being Obama

But just as Obama forced Hillary out of her bunker and into a series of embarrassing personality shifts (which BagNews sums up well), McCain's also finding himself completely off-script and clueless as to what his next line is. But it's not because he's clueless, but rather that he's not the solution that we need this year.

And to be honest, I don't think he was ever our solution. I'm not sure why McCain ever imagined that he should be president, but it really isn't within his skill-set. As I've suggested before, McCain would be perfect as a mediocre college football coach and he'd have been happier and angrier if he had chosen that profession. But the guy was never cut-out to be president and would find that he hates the job even more than Bush does. At least Bush loved campaigning and being treated with the respect he always imagined he deserved but never received. But McCain would find the job a huge headache and prefers talking to his buddies in the media rather than the riff-raff on the campaign trail. Whether he knows it or not, Obama is doing him a huge favor by beating him in November.

As it is, he seems somewhat content with himself that he's able to ad lib as well as he has, but he's not doing nearly as well as Hillary did; and it was obvious that Hillary couldn't pull off the shape-shifting changes she needed either. But she really did quite well under the circumstances. The problem here wasn't that Hillary made lots of mistakes, but rather that this wasn't her year and she did as well as she did because of the choices that many folks see as mistakes. While I think she could have done better than Kerry in 2004 (though I'd have preferred Kerry), being too Republican is a definite liability in 2008.

Because ultimately, her big "mistake" was not being Obama, and that's an even bigger problem for McCain, who has even fewer of the traits that make Obama a winner. She was a slightly used Cadillac in a year that people wanted a cool new hybrid, and McCain's the beastly Ford Excursion whose gas mileage has just gone down since 2000. While both Hillary and McCain have selling points that clearly got them as far as they did, voters just need to see their gas mileage rates to know who to vote for.

Remember, nobody thought it was a mistake for Hillary to be invincible until Obama showed that it wasn't enough. Nor was McCain smearing Bush in the primaries. Both Hillary and McCain were making the right moves, but in the wrong year. And now McCain's figured out it's Obama's year, but wrongly thinks he can change his moves. He can't. And the sooner he tries to work with the bad options he's got, he can avoid choosing the absurd ones he wants.

The Big News

I just got some great great news from my presidential exploratory committee, I mean really fantastic stuff. As you all know, my presidential exploratory committee's exploratory committee decided some time ago to give the go ahead on forming an exploratory committee to do the groundwork in determining if I should run for president. And we've got their announcement tentatively scheduled to be made at midnight on November 3 announcing that I am, in fact, running for president. That way, we've got a sort of November Surprise that saps all the news coverage in our favor right before the election. At the same time, we're filing an injunction against the Republican and Democratic parties using the all-powerful RICO laws in order to pushback the election to the time of our choosing. Of course, I can't have any of you blabbing this about, or it'll ruin the surprise. But needless to say, this will definitely be giving us the Big Mo we'll need to win in December.

But as it turns out, because we had this big plan already laid out, that really didn't give much for my presidential exploratory committee to do. I mean, I wouldn't have bothered with all this if I hadn't expected to be crowned elected president by the end of it all. So this kind of left them with a lot of freetime on their hands, and holy shit did they make the most of their time. So I'm now proud to announce that Barack Obama has agreed to be my running mate and will soon be the next Vice President of the United States of America.

That's right, my people rang up Barack on his cellphone (it's a listed number) and discovered that he was a bit freaked-out at the idea that he actually won the nomination and was hoping for some kind of easy out. It turns out he was only in it for the chicks and hadn't realized anyone would take him seriously. And so not only has Mr. Obama hopped on the Biobrain BioTrain, but he's also promised me all his delegates. So guess what guys, I'M GOING TO BE PRESIDENT!!! Woohoo! Overnight stays in the Lincoln bedroom will be issued on a first come, first serve basis, so you better leave your reservation requests here in the comments section. See you in D.C.!!!

The Year of Obama

This wasn't Hillary Clinton's year. For as well as she did (and she really did fantastically well for how many strategic blunders she made), her success was based upon who Hillary Clinton was before this year, not what she was this year. And if people based their votes on what Hillary represented to Democrats in 2008, she would have been trounced as badly as all the other Dems were. People picked Hillary because they liked Hillary, not because she offered them something they couldn't get elsewhere.

And even if she had tried this "Gas Tax," anti-elitist, Obama-bashing crap throughout the campaign, she would have been hurt even more. Liberals in California, New York, and other places would have been really turned off if this had been the Hillary that had campaigned in their states. But all the same, even her faux-populism didn't really win her any votes. It may have staved off Obama's push into her base, but it didn't win her new converts. And even then, I suspect it didn't help at all. It may have finally established why she was running, but it only seemed to appeal to the same people she was winning before her transformation (ie, low information voters who knew her better than Obama).

And the reason why is because she just didn't have anything to give to people this year. If you voted for her, it was because she was Hillary Clinton in 2000 and you approved of what she and her husband did in the 90's. Her Senate career, while ok, really wasn't the stuff presidential campaigns are made of. Had she not been so famous, it's quite unlikely she'd even have attempted to run for president. I mean, for as much as her supporters attacked Obama for being a political neophyte, he's held political office longer than she has. Nor was she particularly strong at wooing crowds, like Edwards and Obama. But she was the best known and trusted candidate for a lot of people who didn't know or trust Obama and that was enough to almost win it for her...almost.

The Republican Dynasty

In a year people were clamoring to get rid of George Bush and the Republicans, all she really had to offer people was a record built on being DLC Third-Way Republican-lite; and even she knew that wasn't what people wanted. When she entered the Senate in 2001, she had made the wrong bet based upon her experience during the 90's, and come 2008, she was forced to rely upon her reputation from a decade earlier. But she had nothing to give people in 2008.

Hell, many of her supporters in the blogsphere wrongly attributed many of her weaknesses to Obama, accusing him of being the DLC candidate or believing him to be the Democratic Establishment's candidate with the Big Money Donors. Why? Because she wasn't even the candidate her supporters wanted. They were voting for First Lady Hillary Clinton, not Senator Hillary Clinton, and never realized it. While she had positioned herself well for 2002 or even 2004 by latching onto the imagined Republican Dynasty the media kept telling everyone about, by 2006 it was obvious the anti-GOP writing was on the wall.

And in 2008, all she had to offer people was her name. For as much as people attacked the Cult of Obama, it's obvious that Clinton had built her strategy in 2007 solely on name recognition alone. That's what the "Invincible" strategy was all about. Her entire sales pitch was premised on the idea that she couldn't be beat. Oh sure, she'd give them a potporri of policy positions to look at, but they were all recent inventions to make up for the fact that she didn't have a particularly liberal record in the Senate. Even the "Fighting Hillary" had no history of actually fighting Republicans in the Senate.

Because again, like too many politicians, she bought into the Republican Dynasty theory and were caught flat-footed once it became obvious that the Dynasty was a curse to anyone who touched it. When the political winds shifted, she had become too conservative even for a general election and she hadn't counted on a primary battle at all.

The Big Bush Problem

And if Hillary had a Bush problem, it's quite obvious that John McCain is royally screwed. And he totally knows it. Things have gotten so bad that he's now just totally ripping off Obama's slogan, logo, branding, and campaign theme. It's like if Pepsi replaced its product with Coke in hopes that you just preferred drinking Coke out of a Pepsi can, and even changed the can to look like Coke's. Or in this case, he's promising to give you what Obama's giving you, but with the added bonus of getting a crusty old guy with a creepy smile and an anger that barely simmers under the surface at all times. How tempting!

And without a doubt, McCain is finding himself working all this on Obama's turf, the way that Dems typically work on Republican territory. But the problem isn't that Obama's taken some sort of stranglehold on politics the way Republicans do with issues like communism and terrorism; where they tell scary stories to spook people into voting incorrectly. No, this is a backlash against that exact sort of scaremongering, where the Republicans pushed imagined mandates waaaaay too far, and are now reaping what they sowed.

And now, we see McCain putting out defensive campaign ads where he casts himself as the anti-war candidate who is forced to fight wars for reasons which even he doesn't try to explain. As if him claiming that he doesn't like war is enough to prove to us that we must fight this one; hoping that all the folks who oppose this war somehow forget that it's optional. Call me crazy, but I don't think they're that stupid.

It's the Intelligence, Stupid

And really, the one big breakthrough for this campaign season is that we finally have a candidate who doesn't treat us like idiots. And that's the thing, for as much as his critics try to cast him as "elitist," all they really mean is that he'll speak to us like adults rather than slumming and pretending to be as dumb as they imagine we are. Essentially, they've flipped logic on its head and it's elitist to assume that voters aren't idiots.

And now we've got Obama, whose strategy is to actually give people what they want. Not what people tell pollsters they want, but what they really really want. It's sort of the flaw with the MTV-Mainstream Radio method for picking music. Music can only be popular if the people can hear it, but MTV only wants to play what's popular. So you get this chicken-egg conundrum, where the only stuff that can be popular is what is already popular and there's no reliable way of introducing anything new to the mix. And then, seemingly out of the blue, you get a band like Nirvana pop-up and change the music scene overnight. But it wasn't that Nirvana discovered a new form of music; merely that the corporate whores picking our music finally learned that there was something else that could be popular.

And that's exactly what we see with Obama. He didn't invent this shit. I swear, about 90% of the stuff he's saying is what I thought Kerry should have been saying in 2004, except he's saying it even better. The big problem is that the political establishment just didn't have any good way of finding this out. They thought they already had all the answers and it was just a matter of finding out how best to sell it to us. Rather than giving us a new product, they thought the problem was how the old one was packaged.

Repackaging McCain's Old Shit

And in this case, we are extremely lucky that the new product was able to get through. The way this was supposed to work is that we were supposed to get two established products for the general election, and Hillary would have sqeaked through with 50.1% of the vote in a bitter, bitter political season that would force Dems to flock to her aid throughout a bitter, bitter eight years of political travesty. And what's sad is that if you remember back to the post-Iowa days, this is exactly what Hillary and her supporters were promising us. They assured us that any Democratic president would get the shit beat out of them, and the sales pitch for Hillary was that she was already accustomed to this kind of thing. Again, it was about selling us what they had, rather than what we wanted.

But instead, we got Obama. And this is going to be a picnic with Obama, because he's the product we really wanted. He's the fuel efficient car during times of rising gas prices and the comfortable shorts during a hot summer. And while he's a great communicator who can sell his position well, it's not necessary; he sells himself. Because he's what we've wanted the whole time. And while he would have been great in 2000 or 2004, he's best of all in 2008 when everyone hates Bush. And it's obvious that even McCain realizes this. His ads emphasize how bad war is and how serious our problems are. As Carpetbagger mentioned, McCain used the word "change" 33 times in his greenscreen speech.

McCain's totally given up trying to sell John McCain and is now trying to convince people that he's Barack Obama. Why? Because he knows this is Obama's year. But it can't work. If anything, the hotshot Obama could sneak-in and use McCain's playbook better than McCain can; which was essentially the Clinton's DLC strategy, to give people a better version of whatever the GOP was offering. But this can't work in reverse. Even if the products were the same on the inside, nobody's going to prefer the old beat-up version that can't even smile properly.

And these products aren't the same at all. McCain's trying to jam an obsolete PC inside a cool new iMac without understanding that it just won't fit at all. Particularly not when there's about 30% of the population that still demands the previous version of the obsolete PC. I'm honestly wondering if McCain's going to end up pissing off everyone. I should add to all this that I find it extremly unlikely that McCain could get less than 40% of the vote in November. But even 45% would be an Obama landslide, and I think that's quite possible.

When a presidential nominee dumps his campaign strategy by mid-May and adopts his opponent's by June, it's obvious this isn't going to be a very good year for the guy. But of course, that's merely an admission that he's paying attention. He still hasn't shown that he's got any real answer to it besides embarrassing himself. And frankly, I don't think there is a good answer. The problem isn't the sales pitch; the problem is the product.

The Shitty-Ass Green Speech

Shitty-ass green, that's all I could think about while watching John McCain's crappy-ass "prebuttal" to Obama's stirring nomination speech. And a crappy-ass speech it was. This didn't sound like a guy ready to pounce on the presidency. It sounded like the same kind of crappy-ass speech that makes people hate political speeches. Forget about presidential, this wasn't even a Senator level speech. Honestly, McCain's speech reminded me of the hotshot speaker that might come to your highschool to give some peptalk on why you need a goal in life. And while that guy might have been one of the more exciting speakers you tuned-out, you still tuned him out. Needless to say, this was not an Obama speech.

Not that I think speeches are the primary guideline to determine who should be president, but it helps. But it wasn't even that McCain's delivery sucks, which it totally does. The speech itself really sucked. And that was the worst part, in that it was obvious McCain had to pump the speech by giving it a false sense of urgency, but he failed miserably. Rather than make us believe that he was saying something interesting, it just made him come off as cheap and phony. And while I definitely believe these words would have sounded better coming from Obama's mouth, he just wouldn't have delivered this speech.

Heck, at least Obama knows how to work applause into his speeches, in order to get the audience involved; while McCain often seemed surprised and sometimes annoyed that anyone in the audience had any interest in participating. But isn't that indicitive of how their presidencies would be? And the few times he did pause for the audience, it was for set zingers against Obama that didn't even seem to fit in the speech. Like the guys who came up with the zingers weren't the same guys who wrote the speech, and the speechwriters had to figure out afterwards where to put the zingers. You could almost feel the cut-and-paste going on in that thing.

And don't get me started on McCain's mixed messages. It's obvious these boobs don't even have a gameplan, and while I welcome all the opportunities McCain will give us by embracing Bush's legacy, I also welcome every time he starts dissing Bush too; like he did in this speech. McCain's in a lose-lose, and the more he's stuck talking about all the "change" he's planning to bring, the more he'll be reminding everyone of how badly Bush and the Republicans screwed everything up.

McCain's fighting this game on Obama's turf and can't possibly come out ahead. It's like Kool-Aid trying to beat Coke by telling kids they can make it carbonated by farting in the glass. Sure, you get bubbles, but who wants them?

Shitty-Ass Green

But all the same, my main thoughts were on that shitty-ass green. And this is the clearest sign that the Bush Era is over. Because if the Bushies were good about one thing, it was making Bush look better. And that was entirely necessary as Bush really does look like Alfred E. Newman's idiot brother. And so they always made sure his surroundings looked powerful and presidential, even when he looked weak and flakey. As I've learned over the years reading BAGnewsNotes, while the Bushies were incompetent at most things, they knew how to stage an event. The McCain people, on the other hand, don't even seem to understand why it's necessary.

And for as much as McCain's "A Leader We Can Believe In" background was a fairly lame reminder that the Republicans are trying to saddle us with yet another authortarian we'll just need to trust, it's the green background that just makes McCain look like shit. It's like they're not even trying. And the fact that they had McCain give this speech on the same night as a historic Obama speech shows that this isn't even the B-team. It made what otherwise would have been a bad but forgetable speech into a bad speech to be remembered. And that's the last thing they needed.

While I'm sure they imagined that just getting him on TV for a big speech was enough, it wasn't. Either they needed to have McCain ready with a bigger speech than Obama's (including a bigger rally, rather than the gym-like atmosphere he had), or he just should have stayed home. But in no case do you show your candidate giving a minor speech to a few hundred interested people while your opponent is giving a major speech to thousands of excited people. That's just not how it works and isn't a mistake the Bush team would have made.

And this is all just more evidence that McCain's just a patsy in this election. They want him to beat-up Obama as much as possible, but they sure as hell won't do much to save him. And with this sort of political manuevering going on, all they're doing is making Obama look better. Again, McCain's trying to go toe-to-toe with Obama on Obama's turf, and it was a blow-out. I'm not sure why McCain imagines it's a good idea to get into a speech-pissing contest with Obama, but it's no worse than his insistence on bad-mouthing Bush and the Republicans who empowered him.


On a side note, am I the only one who thinks of Austin Powers every time McCain smiles? I didn't watch the whole thing, but I noticed it at the 7:10 mark, and even worse at the 8:10 and 9:15 marks, where he even breaks into a perverted sort of Austin Powers laugh both times. Just thinking about it makes me like those movies less. Oh, behave!

The Sales Plan

Check it out, guys! I have just come up with a GREAT business opportunity and I'm letting you, my loyal readers, in on the groundfloor. I can't actually tell you exactly what we'll be selling, because I haven't really figured that part out yet. I'm thinking it'll be something in the line of electric cars or perhaps a better iMac or possibly something involving space travel, I just don't know yet. But it doesn't matter, because I have got The Plan.

And yes, it deserves to be capitalized, because it is the plan to end all plans. With this sort of gameplan in operation, we can't lose no matter what we sell. And just to show you how much faith I have in this plan, I'll just tell you the whole thing right now, as I'm sure each and every one of you will want to invest once you hear it. But try to keep this just between us for now, as my competitors are certain to want to get in on this action and we're not yet far enough along to be able to fully implement our counter-measures at this time. Needless to say, my lawyers are working up the patent papers for this business strategy as we speak.

The Plan:
Kick ass! If somebody tries to stop the march of our products, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell! This Enron stuff, this is not even close. It is a mind-set. We can't send that message. It's an excuse to prepare us for withdrawal from the markets. There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!

Pretty good, huh? With a solid strategy like that behind us, we can't possibly fail. And the best part about it is that it's short and sweet and doesn't require lots of Powerpoints which I still have a little trouble with (somehow, they all turn up blank). And yes, this was just sort of a tweaking of President Bush's awesome plans for Fallujah, which as we all know eventually led to the awesome surge that has totally totally worked for us in Iraq. But hey, I don't think anybody has thought yet to implement Bush's brilliant strategy in the world of business, and if it's good enough for the United States Military, it's good enough for whatever it is that we'll be selling.

Anyway, I have no doubts that shares of my company will be selling like hotcakes, so you really need to take advantage of this now while you can. I've got a limited number of shares set aside for you guys at a special Loyal Reader price of $10,000 a share, so you know they aren't going to last forever, so you better pony up the cash now while you've got the chance. Don't Blink, order now!


Oh, and for all those who doubt Bush's prowess at understanding economics, I offer you these words of Bush wisdom I found at the bottom of that page:

"And so the fact that they purchased the machine meant somebody had to make the machine. And when somebody makes a machine, it means there's jobs at the machine-making place."

Jobs at the machine-making place. Genius! It's like the perfect combination of Ralph Wiggum in Howdy Doody's body. And you can bet that's the kind of outside the box thinking I'll be using in my machine-making/space travel place. Invest now!

One for the History Books

Guess what! I just won Puerto Rico today. That means that George Washington doesn't have a chance to win in the General Election and should step aside for the sake of the Party. There are already enough rich white dead guys in the history books. I think it's time for a living middle-class white guy to be our new first president. The people have spoken: No Mas Wooden Teeth!