Combs Spouts Off

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Posts Tagged ‘politics’

The Tonya Harding Option

Posted by Richard on March 26, 2008

Yesterday, Jake Tapper of ABC News reported on his blog a conversation with an anonymous Democratic Party official in which said official used an interesting metaphor:

The delegate math is difficult for Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, the official said. But it's not a question of CAN she achieve it. Of course she can, the official said.

The question is — what will Clinton have to do in order to achieve it?

What will she have to do to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, in order to eke out her improbable victory?

She will have to "break his back," the official said. She will have to destroy Obama, make Obama completely unacceptable.

"Her securing the nomination is certainly possible – but it will require exercising the 'Tonya Harding option.'" the official said. "Is that really what we Democrats want?"

The Tonya Harding Option — the first time I've heard it put that way

Since then, everyone from Doug Mataconis to Andrew Sullivan to ABC's Good Morning America has talked about Hillary's Tonya Harding Option. But if this was really the first time Jake Tapper "heard it put that way," he hasn't been reading the other ABC News blogs. Tom at Corrente pointed out that this metaphor didn't originate with an anonymous DNC official, but with Sen. Obama himself, and he linked to this December 28 post on the ABC News blog, Political Radar:

ABC News' Sunlen Miller reports: Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told a crowd in Vinton, Iowa Thursday that he's not going to pull a Tonya Harding on his rival candidates.

"Folks said there's no way Obama has a chance unless he goes and kneecaps the person ahead of us, does a Tonya Harding," Obama joked, referring to the female skating champion who conspired to harm a competitor during the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

"We decided that's not the kind of campaign we wanted to run," he said.

I suspect that Tom is correct, and Tapper's anonymous source is someone from the Obama campaign, not just a "Democratic Party official":

So, yes, this is the Obama people whining about the unfairness of it all. They really need to try a new frequency these days.

Be that as it may, would it surprise anyone if Clinton, Inc. really did kneecap Obama (either literally or figuratively)? If I were him, I sure wouldn't agree to meet someone in Fort Marcy Park.

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Obama Spend-o-rama rejected

Posted by Richard on March 21, 2008

Colorado Sen. Wayne Allard, a generally low-profile, unassuming politician, engaged in a marvelous bit of political theater this week. He had his staff start analyzing the 188 spending proposals that Sen. Barack Obama has so far outlined to enact his grandiose agenda. They only got through the first 111, but Allard combined the funding for those and introduced it into the budget debate as Amendment 4246 (PDF).

The 5-year cost of just 60% of Obama's agenda? $1.4 trillion. $300 billion in the first year alone, more than 60% larger than any one-year budget increase ever. How do we pay for such a spend-o-rama? Obama claimed he'd pay for his agenda by letting the Bush tax cuts expire (i.e., everyone's taxes go up) and by raising taxes on "the rich." But the math doesn't add up, as Ross Kaminsky pointed out (emphasis added):

Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), who spoke immediately after Allard, re-emphasized the point: One year of Obama’s proposed spending increase “is bigger than the 5-year increase (in federal income tax collections) that President Clinton imposed on the American taxpayer.”

Burr argued that Obama’s promise to raise taxes just on the Democrats’ “attractive target” of people earning over $250,000, will only generate $225 billion over 5 years, far short of the $1.4 trillion which Obama’s proposed programs (actually only 60% of them) would saddle taxpayers with during that same time frame.

If Obama wanted to raise taxes on only the top 1% (earning over $365,000) to fund his plans, those citizens’ tax bills would have to rise by over $40,000 annually, an increase of 57%. Given the impossibility of that scenario, even under complete Democratic control of government, the tax hikes would have to trickle down to the American middle class.

“So if Congress decides to widen the pool of taxpayers footing the bill, it would have to raise taxes on the top 5% by 38%; or the top 10% by 32%; or the top 25% by 26%; or the top 50% of taxpayers by 23%. The top 50% of American taxpayers, who already pay 96.9% of all federal income taxes, are those who earn $31,000 (AGI) or more.

Obama claims to want to “balance the budget and stop spending the Social Security Surplus.” Combining that laudable goal with Obama’s massive new spending would cause the tax bills of the average taxpayer earning $62,000 to rise $5,300, or 61%. For taxpayers earning $104,000, the increase would be over $12,000, or 74%, and for the top 1%, earning over $365,000, “their income tax bill rise by an astounding $93,500 (132%)!

And remember, that's only to pay for 60% of the Obama agenda announced so far. There's another 40% yet to be analyzed and added to the bill. And it's nearly eight months until the election, so there's plenty of time for more pandering and promises and additional spending proposals.

Allard's "Obama Spend-o-rama" amendment was rejected 97-0 Thursday. But Allard had made his point: the far-far-left agenda of Barack Obama and the massive, unprecedented tax and spending increases they'd require are either unserious, cynical posturing and pandering … or totally insane.

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Fallon aiming for veep spot?

Posted by Richard on March 13, 2008

Does being an inept and insubordinate admiral qualify you to be Vice President? In the Democratic Party, it just may. I can hear them crowing, "Admiral Fallon is a military leader who brings national security credentials to the ticket." Frank Gaffney suspects that's what's behind the Admiral's sudden resignation:

Here’s a radical thought: The abrupt resignation Tuesday of the combatant commander of U.S. Central Command, Admiral William J. “Fox” Fallon, is not the end of a career but a move calculated to catapult the former naval officer into the vice-presidential sweepstakes. After all, a military man who has proven himself utterly unserious about the Iranian threat would be perfect running mate for either Senators Obama or Clinton.

The superficial appeal of such a cynical gambit may prove short-lived, however. The more one knows about Admiral Fallon’s conduct as a senior officer in sensitive positions around the world, the more unappealing his candidacy should be. Would any president want on his (or her) team an individual who had engaged in serial acts of insubordination and sabotage of a previous commander-in-chief?

Read the whole thing, so you'll know something about this clown when he takes to the national stage. 

HT: Stephen Green, who quoted Camille Paglia — “Only a masochist or castrate would want to be Hillary’s V.P.” — and suggested that Fallon may be the castrated masochist for the job.

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Good riddance to Spitzer

Posted by Richard on March 12, 2008

Ann Coulter's rabid social conservatism is far from my cup of tea, but I do admire her gift for language and ability to turn a phrase. As a fan of puns, I think "Whoreable Behavior" (title of her latest column) is by far the best Eliot Spitzer quip I've heard. And then there's this zinger: "Hillary Clinton couldn't feel worse about the Spitzer case if she were an actual New Yorker." <rimshot />

If you want to know why some of us are pleased to see Spitzer run out of office (and hopefully have his presidential ambitions dashed), read Roger Donway's 2005 article (when Spitzer was running for Governor), "Eliot Spitzer: Ayatollah General," from The New Individualist.

I'm delighted by the downfall of this arrogant, sanctimonious SOB, who never met a capitalist he didn't want to destroy and never had any scruples about how he went about it.

I initially felt sympathy for Spitzer's entire family, but then I saw a report that his wife had urged him to stick it out and not resign. So I'll save my sympathy for his poor daughters. Every day at school must be torture for them.

UPDATE (3/13): See also John Fund's column in the 3/12 Wall Street Journal, which makes it clear that Spitzer brought his arrogance, disdain for the rule of law, and unscrupulousness with him to the governor's office.  

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Pot, meet kettle

Posted by Richard on March 11, 2008

Geraldine Ferraro, who's on Hillary Clinton's finance committee and works as hard as her health permits on the Clinton campaign, is the latest member of the Clinton machine to play the race card (emphasis added):

"I think what America feels about a woman becoming president takes a very secondary place to Obama's campaign – to a kind of campaign that it would be hard for anyone to run against," she said. "For one thing, you have the press, which has been uniquely hard on her. It's been a very sexist media. Some just don't like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign.

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," she continued. "And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. …"

In case you've forgotten or are too young, Geraldine Ferraro was Walter Mondale's vice presidential running mate in 1984, and if she wasn't a woman, she would not have been in that position. 

OK, I couldn't resist that bit of snarkiness. But I suspect Ferraro is correct to this degree: I believe there are more Americans who might be inclined to use their vote to reject racism than to reject sexism.

I think she's wrong about a "woman (of any color)," though. I think far more Americans might be inclined to reject both racism and sexism than to embrace either.

Too bad for the Republicans that Condi Rice wasn't interested in higher office. 

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Perverting the process

Posted by Richard on March 5, 2008

When Democrats crossed party lines in the early Republican primaries to vote for John McCain, members of the media thought it was interesting, exciting, and an expression of democracy in action.

When Republicans listened to Rush Limbaugh and crossed party lines to vote for Hillary Clinton, the same people described it as "causing mischief" and perverting the democratic process. 

Personally, I think Hillary owes her resurgence more to Lorne Michaels than Rush Limbaugh. Two weeks in a row, Saturday Night Live opened with wickedly funny skits portraying the news media as "in the tank" for Obama. Not only did those skits influence voters, they apparently shamed members of the media into finally throwing Obama something other than softballs:

It took many months and the mockery of "Saturday Night Live" to make it happen, but the lumbering beast that is the press corps finally roused itself from its slumber Monday and greeted Barack Obama with a menacing growl.

The day before primaries in Ohio and Texas that could effectively seal the Democratic presidential nomination for him, a smiling Obama strode out to a news conference at a veterans facility here. But the grin was quickly replaced by the surprised look of a man bitten by his own dog.

I can't wait to see the next Saturday Night Live

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Don’t Democrats care about Mexicans?

Posted by Richard on March 5, 2008

"NAFTA-gate," the story about the Obama campaign reassuring the Canadian government that his anti-NAFTA campaign talk was just to fool the rubes, is still resonating (and may have hurt him in Ohio). I missed it initially, but apparently there are allegations that the Clinton campaign also contacted the Canadian government about Obama's promise to "opt out" of NAFTA, and questions continue to be asked.

But here's a question I don't think has been asked of either campaign: Did you contact the Mexican government about this issue?

Clearly, threats by leading U.S. presidential candidates to scrap NAFTA have caused concern in both Ottawa and Mexico City. At least one and possibly both Democratic campaigns thought the Canadians deserved some explanations, reassurances, or at least respect. There's no indication that either campaign thought to extend the same courtesy to the Mexicans. 

Interesting.  

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Obama lied, relations with Canada died

Posted by Richard on March 3, 2008

So let me see if I've got this straight: Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton, campaigning in Ohio, both denounced free trade, and Obama promised the adoring, fainting throngs that when he becomes President, he'll scrap NAFTA. Then, Canada's CTV network reported that Obama's campaign had previously contacted the Canadian government to assure them that the anti-NAFTA talk was just to fool the rubes.

The Obama campaign called the CTV story a lie and a smear.  So CTV named names — Austan Goolsbee, Obama's chief economic advisor, and the Canadian Consulate General in Chicago — and confirmed the story with a "high level source" in the Canadian government.

Well, it turned out that one of the consular staff who attended the meeting with Goolsbee took notes. The Canadian government, apparently more than a little annoyed by the Obama campaign, has widely circulated his memo, which confirmed the CTV account of the meeting. 

The Obama campaign, in a hole and still digging, insists that the Canadians are either stupid or liars.

Won't it be great when Obama restores respect and affection for America throughout the world? 

No word yet on what the rubes in Ohio think about this cynical pandering. 

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Obama’s agenda

Posted by Richard on February 25, 2008

One of the chief criticisms of Barack Obama is that he mouths empty platitudes about hope and change and the future, but doesn't actually say anything specific or concrete about his agenda. That may be true of his speeches (and, hey, they make women faint, so empty platitudes are obviously working for him). But his campaign website is actually chock-full of information about his agenda. Some of the proposals are not all that specific and concrete, but there's certainly no shortage of them.

To save us the effort of wading through many, many pages of Obama's website, an Obama supporter at Democratic Underground has compiled a list. I checked it a bit against the Obama website, and it appears to be accurate, but not complete — it's limited to those proposals and positions that have reasonably clear one-line titles or summaries. 

To spare you the trip to Democratic Underground (I know some of you try to avoid that kind of neighborhood), I'm reproducing the entire list here. If you can make it more than a third of the way through without gagging, you have a stronger stomach than I do — or you're a True Believer. Here it is:

Opposed the Iraq war from the start.
Voted to end the war in Iraq.
Supports capturing and killing Osama Bin Laden.
Favors a $1000 tax cut for every working American family.

Will implement tax form simplification to reduce filing time.
Provide tax credit for all middle class homeowners.
Provide a tax cut for all families making less than $75,000 a year.
Amend NAFTA to protect American workers.
Amend NAFTA to strengthen environmental protections.
Providing Flex Ed training accounts for workers.
Extending Trade Adjustment assistance to service workers.
Supported Patriot Employer Act of 2007 that gives tax credits to large companies that keep workers here in America.
Double funds for basic federal research.
Implement a long term research and development tax credit.
Invest in green technologies.
Reduce carbon emission gases.
Tackle the challenges of global warming.
Create an energy focused youth jobs program.
Create Federal Renewable Portfolio Standard.
Extend the Production Tax Credit.
Expand Broadband into every community.
Keep the Internet tax free.
Expand high speed internet access in rural areas.
Fight for passage of Employee Free Choice Act.
Ensure freedom to unionize.
Would overturn "Kentucky River" classifications of Bush's NLRB
Protect rights of striking workers.
Increase the mininum wage to index it to inflation.
Crack down on predatory lenders.
Provide a universal mortgage tax credit for homeowners who don't itemize.
Sign the Stop Fraud Act to prevent lending fraud.
Mandate accurate loan disclosure.
Create a fund to protect people from foreclosures.
Close the bankruptcy loophole for mortgage companies.
Establish a credit card rating to improve disclosure.
Ban utilateral credit card charges.
Apply interest rate only to future debt.
Prohibit credit card interest on fees.
Prohibit Universal defaults.
Require prompt and fair crediting of cardholder payments.
Protect working people from unfair bankruptcy laws.
Ban executive bonuses for bankruptcy companies.
REquire disclosure of pension investments.
Cap outlandandish interest rates on payday loans.
Implement legislation to drive unscrupulous lenders out of business
Create a bankruptcy exemption for people that went broke because of medical bills.
Double funding for after school programs.
Extend Family and Medical Leave Act.
Encourage states to adopt Paid leave.
Expand the Child Care Tax Credit
Supports ratification of UN Convention Rights of Persons With Disabilities.
Supports independent, community based living for people with disabilities.
Expand educational opportunites for people with disabilities.
Expand job opportunities for people with disabilities.
Strengthen civil rights enforcement.
Sign into law the Fair Pay Act.
Sign law reversing recent SCOTUS rulings that permitted discrimination against women.
Sign law reversing recent SCOTUS rulings that permitted discrimination against racial minorities.
Strengthen federal hate crimes legislation.
Eliminate the sentence disparities regarding crack cocaines.
Establish drug courts for first time, non violent offenders.
Create a prison to work incentive for those transitioning back into society.
Passed a law to prohibit the practice of racial profiling.
Supported reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act.
Opposes all discriminatory barriers to voting.
Helped reform death penalty system in Illinois to protect innocent people on death row.
Voted to ban cluster bombs.
Provide high quality affordable child care to families.
Will quadrulple Early Head Start funding.
Will increase Head Start funding.
Creates early learning challenge grants.
Abolish overly rigid teach to the test curriculum in schools.
Improve accountability in public schools.
Invest in intervention strategies to reduce dropout rates in schools.
Increase funding for afterschool programs.
Supports Step Up program to increase summer learning opportunities.
Support English language learner programs.
Expand college outreach programs.
Create teacher service scholarships.
Requires all public schools to be accredited.
Create teacher residency programs.
Create the American Opportunity Tax Credit for higher education.
Streamline financial aid application.
Introduced legislation to increase Pell Grant to $5,100.
Reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050.
Confront deforestation.
Promote carbon sequestration.
Accelerate commercialization of plug in hybrids.
Promote development of commercial scale renewable energy.
Invest in low emission coal plants.
Transition to new electric digit grid.
Double science funding for clean energy products.
Create Green Jobs Corps.
Invest in programs to help manufacturers make transition to green products.
Create clean technologies venture capital fund.
Deploy cellulosic ethanol.
Expand locally owned biofuel refineries.
Increase renewable fuel standards.
Establish national low carbon fuel standard.
Increase fuel economy standards.
Invest in solar energy.
Invest in wind energy.
Establish a centralized database to track lobbyist activities.
Appoint an independent watchdog group to oversee congressional ethic violations.
Favors campaign finance reform.
Sunshine on legislation proposal.
End abuse of no bid contracts.
Release presidential records in a more timely fashion.
Prevent political appointees from working as lobbyists within two years after employment has ended.
Reform political appointment process.
Sign ethics legislation that he proposed as a Senator with Russ Feingold.
Obama sponsored a bi-partisan bill allowing regular people to track federal grants.
Take leadership in the global fight against AIDS.
Provide tax cuts to small businesses.
Provide income tax cuts for all senior citizens making $50,000 a year or less.
Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Protect workers from caregiver discrimination.
Increase mentoring programs for beginner teachers.
Provide universal health care for all Americans within 4 years.
Combat fraudulent subprime loans.
Expand Nurse Family Partnership.
Provide automatic workplace pensions for workers.
Expand savings credit for retirement accounts.
Reinstate pay as you go budget rules.
Repeal Bush tax cuts for top 1% which led to lower middle class standard of living.
Slash earmarks to pre 2001 levels.
Abolish obsolete wasteful government programs.
Voted against raising the minimum debt in 2006.
Supports wiping out Al Qaeda wherever they may be.
Opposed Kyl Lieberman.
Supports tough attempts at diplomacy with Iran to protect America's interests.
Will work to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Restrengthen NATO.
Passed a bipartisan law with Senator Lugar to prevent smuggling of WMDs.
Introduced a bill with Senator Hagel to reduce nuclear arsenals around the globe.
Supports securing loose nuke arsenals from the former Soviet Union and elsewhere.
Strengthen Non Nuclear Proliferation Treaty.
Expand size of Army by 65,000.
Expand size of Marines by 27,000.
Provide our troops with new equipment and the tools they need.
Provide National Service troops with adequate leave time.
Will insulate the Director of National Intelligence from partisan politics.
Guarantee that health care can never be denied because of a pre-existing condition.
Introduce a health care plan similar to the one members of Congress have and give all Americans access to this plan.
Simplify the paperwork in health care costs.
Make premiums and co pays affordable.
Require mandatory coverage of all children for health care.
Expand SCHIP.
Expand Medicaid.
Reduce costs of catastrophic illnesses for employers and employees.
Support disease management programs.
Require hospitals and providers to have full transparency over costs.
Promote patient safety by requiring providers to report medical errors.
Establish an independent institute to guide reviews + research on comparative effectiveness in health care.
Strengthen anti trust laws to prevent insurance companies from gouging medical providers.
Lower medical costs by having electronic health info systems.
Increase competition in prescription drug markets.
Advance biomedical research field.
Improve mental care coverage.
Reduce mercury deposits to help prevent miscarriages.
Increase funding for autism research.
Cosponsored Healthy Kids Act of 2007.
Cosponsored reauthorization of SCHIP in 2007.
Obama introduced legislation to establish guidelines to monitor fuels from nuclear power plants.
Sponsored a bill with Senator Lautenberg to protect chemical plants from possible terrorist attacks.
Introduced legislation to upgrade monitoring of water supplies.
Introduced legislation to protect localities from radioactive leaks.
Create secure borders with additional personnel and infrastructure.
Remove incentives for people to enter this country illegally.
Crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants.
Invest in transitional jobs.
Improve transportation access to jobs.
Fully fund community block grants.
Create an affordable housing trust fund.
Establish a program called 20 Promise Neighborhoods.
Invest in rural areas, especially small businesses, schools, and doctors.
Implement a payment limitation program to help small farmers.
Protect family farms from anti-competitive monopolies.
Implement tough fines for CAFO violations.
Establish country of origin labeling for all products.
Support regional food systems.
Encourage organic farming.
Provide tax credits for young farmers.
Increase capital for small farmers.
Modify FCC so all rural residents have access to modern communications.
Upgrade rural infrastructure.
Supported legislation to reverse 2 billion dollars of agriculture cuts under Bush.
Cosponsored Emergency Farm Relief Act of 2006.
Sponsored a bill to combat the scourge of methamphetamines.
Expand Americorps.
Double the Peacecorps in 8 years.
Expand Service learning in all our schools.
Offer an opportunity tax credit for college students in exchange for 100 hours of community service.
Promote college work study programs with public service.
Expand on the YouthBuild program.
Create a Social Investment Fund Network.
Create a non profit entrepreneur agency.
Protect Social Security.
Reform corporate bankruptcy laws.
Strengthen laws protecting against age discrimination in the workplace.
Ensure heating assistance for senior citizens.
Protect the openness of the Internet.
Encourage diversity in media ownership.
Protect children from Internet predators with strict law enforcement.
Support transition of the internet into the digital world.
Preserve artistic expression.
Keep inappropriate advertising away from programs for children.
Enhance safety standards for toys imported into this country.
Protect the right of privacy of every law abiding American.
Update surveillance laws under the rule of law.
Higher salaries for teachers.
Work with the FTC to cut down on cyber crimes.
Eliminate teach to the test curriculum and restore true learning to the classroom.
Open up government to citizens by providing transparency.
Provide all our schools with broadband technology.
Modernize public safety networks.
Make the research and development tax credit permanent.
Protect intellectual property at home and abroad.
Reform the patent system to encourage innovation.
Allow all veterans back into the VA.
Strengthen VA care for all veterans.
Fight veterans employment discrimination.
Fix the benefits bureaucracy to help veterans.
Expand vet centers across the country.
Obama passed legilsation to slash red tape to help wounded soldiers at Walter Reed.
Introduced legislation to direct the VA and Pentagon to fix its veterans record systems.
Introduced legislation to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Rebuild the roads and bridges that need to be rebuilt.
Will end the genocide in Darfur.
Will restore habeas corpus to America.
Reject torture.
Close down Gitmo.
Pledges to obey the Constitution of the United States.
Will fully implement and enforce the Equal Pay Act.
End tax breaks for US companies sending jobs overseas.
Voted to reinstate 1.15 billion to the COPS program to reduce crime.
Wants to keep drinking age at 21.
Supports grants to local educational agencies.
Voted to protect ANWR.
Voted to protect the Great Lakes from polluters.
Favors labor and trade standards with trade with China.
Opposed CAFTA which hurts American workers.
Voting to give the District of Columbia its proper vote in Congress.
Voted to expand enrollment period for Medicare Part D.
Favors repealing the discriminatory don't ask don't tell policy.
Provide first responders with the health care and equipment they need.
Voted to implement the 9/11 commission recommendations.
Voted to restore money to ports and first responders.
Voted to establish a Guest Worker program.
Voted to increase the minimum wage.
Voted against anti-Constitution radicals Alito and Roberts.
Voted against the repeal of the estate tax that only applies to 1% of the wealthiest of estates.
Supports the first amendment freedom of religion clauses and establishment clauses.
Introduced a bill requiring public companies to give shareholders an annual nonbinding vote on executive compensation.
Protects our schools by opposing voucher schemes.
Introduced Biofuels Security Act in 2007.
Favors closing corporate tax loopholes.
Understands that global warming is a real problem that must be addressed.
Supports civil unions for LGBT couples.

Is there any group he hasn't pandered to? Is there any aspect of our daily lives he doesn't want to control? I can see why he's ranked as the most leftist member of Congress, even further left than Bernie Sanders, the Socialist Senator from Vermont.

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SNL: CNN is “in the tank” for Obama

Posted by Richard on February 24, 2008

If you missed the Feb. 23 return of Saturday Night Live, you missed one of the best opening sketches they've had in years. It parodied the latest CNN debate between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. In the SNL version, the CNN personnel made it abundantly clear that they're "totally in the tank" for Obama, and it was hilarious. The first question posed to Obama was, "Is there anything we can get you?" The follow-up question was, "Are you sure?"

NBC is stupidly forcing YouTube to pull all posts of the video as copyright violations. Have these people never heard of viral marketing?? The broad dissemination of this 9-minute sketch would do more to build SNL's audience than all their on-air promos. What morons.

Anyway, here's the last 2:51, courtesy of the NBC's SNL video page:

UPDATE: For some bizarre reason, audio seems to work only in Internet Explorer (at least for me) — sorry. Take it up with NBC


 

If you know of a source for the whole thing or a transcript of it, please post it in the comments. 

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Unpersuasive

Posted by Richard on February 19, 2008

Former President George "Read My Lips" H.W. Bush endorsed Sen. John McCain and said McCain can carry "our conservative values" to the White House. Yeah, that's the same George H.W. Bush who scoffed at "that vision thing," abandoned his "no new taxes" pledge, and squandered the Reagan legacy he inherited.

<snark>I'm sure all the economic conservative / libertarian Republicans will rally around McCain now that he has George H.W. Bush's blessing.</snark>

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Depressed

Posted by Richard on January 25, 2008

Sorry I haven't posted anything all week; I plan to do better going forward.

I've been somewhat distracted and just plain unmotivated. Plus, I was a bit bummed by Fred Thompson's poor showing in South Carolina and subsequent withdrawal. 

And I'm totally depressed by the prospect of a McCain-Clinton race. 

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Thompson in South Carolina

Posted by Richard on January 19, 2008

Erick Erickson is on the Fred Thompson bus in South Carolina:

The Fred Thompson in South Carolina this week is the one America saw knock into Mike Huckabee as a pro-life liberal with “blame America first” beliefs whose economic policies would destroy the economy. And the crowds love it.

The crowds are enthusiastic and relieved. Finally, the Fred Thompson they hoped for is on the campaign trail. “Saying the Reagan Coalition is dead is like saying the Constitution is dead,” Thompson began one speech, taking on Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee. “The Reagan Coalition was never about the man. It was and is about the principles and values we apply to issues.” He continued, “The issues may change, but the principles do not.” The crowd roared its enthusiasm.

I hope Thompson does well in South Carolina. I like most of what I've read by and about him. One of Erickson's commenters said "Fred is like Ron Paul, but with testicles." Yeah, and without the disturbing past, unsavory friends, and hints of looney conspiracy theories.

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Unraveling Ron Paul

Posted by Richard on January 17, 2008

I subscribe to both The New Individualist and Reason. Each magazine features a cover story on Ron Paul in their latest issue. The former has a scathing critique (by blogger Stephen Green), while the latter's article is almost hagiographic. I thought about comparing and contrasting the two, but didn't get around to it. Had I done so, I'd have sided mostly with Green, although I thought he overstated the case against Paul a bit.

It no longer matters. Green's criticisms have pretty much taken a back seat to last week's New Republic story about the racist and hate-filled writings in a Ron Paul newsletter from 1989 through the early 90s. Really ugly stuff. Paul denied writing any of it, which is apparently true, and claimed he knew nothing about it, which is pretty hard to believe.

I guess I was just about the only libertarian who didn't know about Paul's long association with Llewellyn Rockwell, editor of that newsletter and probable author of much of the vile material (see this Reason article). Lew Rockwell is scum, IMHO, and crazy to boot — the libertarian movement's combination of David Duke and Lyndon LaRouche. Even though his Ludwig von Mises Institute hosts some useful resources, especially in the field of economics, I long ago stopped visiting either it or Rockwell's blog (I'm not going to link to them). 

For everything you need to know about the whole sordid tale, read the Reason article linked in the preceding paragraph and Bob Bidinotto's fine post about the controversy (which also gives you a chance to see the provocative TNI cover illustration of Paul). 

Also, read Bidinotto's earlier post about the TNI article, to which he's appended a very interesting short essay that explains why he holds candidates promoting a philosophy/ideology (like Paul or Kucinich) to a different standard than "pragmatic careerists."

I'm not entirely persuaded. Bidinotto argues that "Philosophical ideas are much more basic, powerful, and important" than the pragmatic policy proposals of most politicians, and thus can do much more good or harm. But isn't the rejection of principles/ideology and the embrace of pragmatism itself a powerful idea that does much harm?

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Another conspiracy unearthed

Posted by Richard on January 10, 2008

Last Friday, in the wake of the Iowa caucuses, I remarked that, "If I were a Republican muckety-muck, I'd hire Karl Rove to secretly help the Clinton campaign." You think maybe they did? Apparently, many of the nutroots think that's exactly what happened in New Hampshire. And that Diebold is now rigging its machines to help the Clintons.

Joe Tobacco bravely ventured into the Bedlam that is Democratic Underground and linked to thread after thread full of paranoid ravings. I just skimmed a few, and especially liked this comment:

What struck me is how they programmed Edwards to maintain 17% ALL NIGHT

That was some pretty transparent programming, if you ask me.

THIS is what a gerrymandered, computerized voting machine election looks like. From start to finish.

Made me sick.

Here are a couple that express a popular sentiment:

I wouldn't put it past the Neocons to be buggering the vote for Hillary

especially since neocons REALLY WANT HER as the Dem nominee…someone they can "work with" win or lose in the General

is clinton a preffered oponent for the republicans?

hmmm. clinton was trailing, then she finished ahead. the exit polls predicted otherwise. the exit polls were never this far off before diebold became so heavily involved in the game. it is just like the elections of 2004. so what am i saying… i personally think hillary poses both, a candidate that is easier for the republicans to beat, and, if elected, a president who more entrenched in the traditional political system. so guess what, it doesn't surprise me that the diebold machines once again felt a candidate that aligned closer to their views pulled ahead. coincidence?  

As in 2004, large numbers of the nutroots left remain utterly convinced that polls are infallibly accurate, while actual vote counts are unreliable and suspect.

They call themselves the "reality-based community." 

UPDATE: Sen. John Effin' Kerry has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama. Obama thanked him. I think Obama would have been wiser to follow the Scrappleface version: 

(2008-01-10) — Sen. Barack Obama today declined the endorsement of Sen. John Kerry, saying his presidential campaign is about “hope and change”, and he doesn’t want to “send mixed messages.”

Heh. 

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