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Ramblings From the Ragged Crumbling Edge Of The Reality-Based Community

Saturday, October 11, 2008

On Republicans Missing The Point One. More. Time. 

...I love Politico. Let me make that clear right up front. It has a reliably conservative lean to it but occasionally cranks up a bit of Mavericky commentary of its own that provides a charming sort of amusement. Politico is what FAUX News would be if FAUX News would ever drop it's absurd "fair and balanced" cover story...

It's some of the stories that it tells that make me love Politico, because stories like this give such penetrating insight into the workings of the doomed crew members of a sinking ship. By all means, this is the absolutely perfect time to discuss ACORN and Obama's connection to it. This is the absolute hot ticket: start bleating about 'Democrat-backed vote fraud' at the very moment that millions upon millions of hard-working Americans are watching their 401K accounts and other retirement investments turn into simple pieces of paper that have little value other than as bookmarks in the fairy tales about the lives that they once hoped they could live...

Yep, harping about ACORN is the hot ticket, a winning strategy that will bring it all home for Huggy Bear. Politico and other reliably conservative media outlets should continue to encourage the ol' Maverick to pursue this line of attack...

The vast riches to be plundered as a result of White House residency await...
Posted by: Jack K. / 9:44 PM 0 comments

The Master Of False Outrage Rides Again 

...John McCain has, over the last eight years, become the master of false outrage. He has developed a solid, reliable record of playing fast and loose with the truth and nibbling around the edges of legitimate, decent discourse (and sometimes slipping over one or two of those edges) and then being shocked, SHOCKED, I say, at objections suggesting that he is less than the upright, honorable POW hero that we should all remember that he is. Did I mention that he was a POW?

Georgia Democratic Representative John Lewis, who is a giant in the civil rights movement, apparently decided that enough was enough from the campaign tactics from the ol' Maverick and Bible Spice over the last week and called McCain on it. Lewis didn't say anything that a host of pundits from across the political spectrum and notable Republicans weren't already saying on Thursday and Friday, but it must have apparently burned a little more, given that McCain had cited Lewis as one of the three wisest people he knew at Rick Warren's strange Saddleback Church event a couple of months ago. Huggy Bear's response was fast in coming:
"Congressman John Lewis' comments represent a character attack against Governor Sarah Palin and me that is shocking and beyond the pale. The notion that legitimate criticism of Senator Obama's record and positions could be compared to Governor George Wallace, his segregationist policies and the violence he provoked is unacceptable and has no place in this campaign. I am saddened that John Lewis, a man I've always admired, would make such a brazen and baseless attack on my character and the character of the thousands of hardworking Americans who come to our events to cheer for the kind of reform that will put America on the right track."

Two thoughts:

A) John Lewis was absolutely on the mark and in my fevered dreams tonight I will see him thundering into a microphone from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in front of 100 thousand shrieking, cheering Americans some version of the following: whatever acquaintance that Barack Obama has ever had with William Ayers, that relationship is neither part of Obama's record, nor is it a position, and yet it is all that McCain and his running mate and his campaign surrogates have been talking about for the last week in an effort to brand Obama as less than 'American', somehow strangely threatening, and at least a fellow traveler if not a full-blown terrorist in his own right.

2) Over the last week or so, those "thousands of hardworking Americans" haven't been cheering "reform"; they've been wildly cheering the defeat of the scary black man that McCain's campaign has been trying to create. Huggy Bear found himself last night in the tight, sweaty position of trying to step away from the monster his campaign created and actually made a hash of it, first getting booed for saying that his rabid winger supporters shouldn't be "scared" of Obama or calling him an Arab (which is a double dose of stupid, since his father is Kenyan in any case) and then turning around and bringing up the very Ayers connection that his campaign has been trying to milk. McCain and his running mate, who appears more and more every day to actually be "Big Dick" Dick Cheney in drag, have worked hard to intentionally create the very atmosphere that John Lewis is talking about.

Every odd doddering step that McCain and his campaign have made over the last 10 days has been headed in the very direction that John Lewis was referring to today. McCain's false outrage is, as is usually the case with "The Straight Talker", the tattletale that reveals that he has been caught out once again. Unless John Sidney McCain III has totally lost track of any sort of the sense of honor that his father and grandfather held toward service to the country, the raw brutal fact is that he knows exactly what the hell his campaign is doing and he knows perfectly well why a well-respected senior Member of Congress (one who has a history that can easily be considered as heroic - if not more so - than his own) is calling him out. John McCain can get up on his high hobby horse one more time to 'ride' out and express his stupidly misguided outrage at someone casting properly righteous aspersions at his campaign, but this time he's picked up the wrong horse, the wrong subject, and the wrong target...
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:17 PM 0 comments

Friday, October 10, 2008

October Surprise With A Twist 

...years ago, I was doing field work on a fire salvage project with a crew that had been picked up from other departments or hired specifically to assist in the project. It was the middle of the winter on the western slopes of the Oregon Cascades and this one particular day was absolutely miserable. Raining and snowing, windy, and just above freezing; all in all, a great day to be alive. One of the members of my crew was a fire guy who professed an undying love for being outside, regardless of the weather; in fact, early in the day when some of the less experienced folks were opining about the rather unsuitable working conditions (in remarkably colorful terms, especially when a branch load of snow unloaded down someone's neck), he said "Aw, it can't get bad enough for me!"...

At the end of that remarkably long day, as we squished our way toward our crew rig in waterlogged freezing boots and sopping wet clothes underneath our rain gear after an afternoon of working on the side of an open ridge where it was snowing uphill into our faces because of the wind, he glanced into the face of the ongoing storm and said "I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I'm not sad to see this day end." Somewhere in this great land of ours, John McCain must be thinking the same thing...

It would have been bad enough if the only news of the day was that he decided that he had to walk back from the edge of the violence-tinges precipice that his campaign was steadily approaching. Being booed by your own most ardent supporters for the benefit of probably every newscast in the next 24 hours except those on FAUX News isn't the sort of tactic that your typical campaign strategist would be expected to map out for the candidate. In McCain's case, it becomes a direct repudiation of his own promise to "take the gloves off" and started pushing the Bill Ayers connection and directly feeds the whole "erratic" theme that Obama and Biden have been pushing. Beyond that, it becomes a pointed buzzkill to all of those rabid members of his base that have wallowing in their own twisted little gore-splattered drean world of violent final vindication against the pinko-lefty agents of evil world domination. Just imagine how deflating the whole thing must have been for that Lakeville, Minnesota, audience that came into the hall hoping to have the same sort of rocking hate-fest they had seen going on all week. The sense of betrayal and disappointment must have hung visibly in the air...

But, for the ol' Maverick, that wasn't going to be "bad enough". A little while later, the Alaska Legislative Council - a committee of state legislators that is 2/3rds Republican, voted unanimously to release the report by it's independent investigator into the firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan. The report, which will get a bulldozer full of push-back from Huggy Bear's campaign, says essentially that Palin abused the power of her office by firing Monegan (this Anchorage Daily News link has it's own links to the actual report, in case you're having a slow weekend). Turns out Sarah Palin isn't a pitbull wearing lipstick. She's Dick Cheney wearing lipstick...

October Surprises can come in all shapes and sizes and the term probably earned its own page in the political dictionary in 1980, but this isn't the sort of day that normally fits into the classic definition. Normally an October Surprise is some daring move engineered by a campaign to capture the imagination of the voters and, by inference, their votes. Today John McCain turned that whole concept on its head. What a Maverick!!
Posted by: Jack K. / 6:11 PM 0 comments

Thursday, October 09, 2008

How Bad Can Tropical Storms Be? 

...it's snowing. Not hard, but it's snowing and the ground is giving off that strange ghastly white nighttime glow that it gets when the dispersed ambient light provided by yard lights and garage lights from the surrounding countryside gets caught and reflected weakly back. We are officially under a "Winter Weather Advisory", which is the term the Weather Service uses instead of "HAH! SUCKER!1! It's Gonna Be Slicker Than Goose Poop On A Wet Wooden Boardwalk Tomorrow Morning And It's Still 20 DAYS Until You Can Put On The Studded Tires!!2!1!!". Clearly, as you can see, "Winter Weather Advisory" is a much more economical use of words, not to mention just a bit less...well...Republican.

The lingering remnants of last year's remarkably heavy snowfall finally melted away just after Memorial Day, that after six months of not seeing the ground. Now, just barely four months later, it's snowing again. This won't last, and by the weekend the ground will be bare again - although the forecast high temperatures over the weekend will be in the 40's and low 50's. In contrast, in Georgia (where my first-born is attending college), it's in the high 70's even though it's raining...

It makes one pause for a moment and think: yes, they have hurricanes down in that country and, yes, terrible things can happen and, yes, if the fauna isn't trying to devour you the flora is. But, still, one doesn't have to live right on the coast in harm's way and there are very few souls for a couple of states in any direction who know or even understand why an 8-horse snowblower is an absolute minimum or why the State list of approved traction tires matters. I think that maybe I should move to the southeast. After all, how bad can tropical storms be?

Update: Of course I know perfectly well how bad tropical storms can be, and I honestly can't imagine actually moving to hurricane country. One does go momentarily crazy, though, when the snow starts falling just over a week into October...
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:44 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

The Failure Of "The Surge" 

...it doesn't matter what Huggy Bear wants to say about The Surge. It really doesn't matter what his running mate wants to say about The Surge (for way more reasons than you can shake a stick at, y'know?). What matters is what people who are actually are skilled, informed, experienced subject matter experts on the subject have to say about The Surge. What that anonymous but valuable group has to say about The Surge is that it actually hasn't worked...

This report represents the core of what is and has been called by Republicans the "white flag-waving" surrender strategy of the Democrats even though it is presented, in this instance, in a clear-eyed and coldly realistic fashion by people who have a strongly vested interest in the success of this particular ill-advised nation-building effort. The leaked tidbits from the report reflect directly back on the very reasons that the unheard America-hating Dirty Frickin' Hippie class said that invading Iraq was a fool's errand to begin with. All the basic topics are covered:

-- intransigent historic conflict between Sunni's and Shia's that threaten to destroy the underlying foundation success of The Surge, which was the recruitment of the Sunni "Sons Of Iraq"

-- the open fight between Kurds and other factions in northern Iraq that threatens not only the stability of the north but also the ability of the country to develop a national coalition

Lots of people have said that The Surge didn't do the things that it was advertised to do. Despite the flag-waving pronouncements by presidential candidates who really don't have military credentials that matter in the real world, the simple fact is that The Surge hasn't achieved its original goals. We are no safer and Gee Dub's Great Iraqi Nation-Building Adventure isn't anywhere near being accomplished. The Surge was a new coat of paint layered on a rotted-out worthless idea that shouldn't have seen the light of day in the first place. We are stuck with it for now, though, and the Pottery Barn rule is fully in effect...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:40 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

The Enduring Shame Of Stephen Colbert Comes Home To Roost 

...just like his hero John McCain, Stephen Colbert once had a close personal family relationship from which he has turned away. There was a time, long ago in a simpler, happier place, where we all celebrated with Colbert on the arrival of Stephen, Jr. It was a special time where we could finally penetrate that stiff, hard carapace of conservative righteousness that drives Colbert and see the touching, loving pride of parenthood that so powerfully infused Colbert's thoughts and actions during those heady days...

It was all eventually swept away, sadly. As right-wing blowhards are wont to do, Colbert abandoned poor ol' Jr. when it was no longer of value to talk about that promising young...er...bird. We've seen this tragic diminution of family values before by those on the right, so there was no reason to be surprised when it happened one more time. There would be no good reason to expect any future for Jr. better than living under some bridge telling a gaggle of other skeptical outcasts that, once upon a time, he was SOMEBODY. For once, however, those destructive anti-family tendancies that sorry wingers like Colbert Sr. have so comfortably grown accustomed to have been defeated by the shear will of the abused, abandoned victim! Stephan Jr. is ALIVE!!

Not only is Jr. alive, but he has been hanging out a few miles west of me on the Deschutes River, presumably killing Republican ducks and Limbaugh-loving fish as he angrily lashes out against the wayward father who abandoned him when the bright lights and big city came calling. The shame that Colbert should - but probably can't - feel (he is a committed wingnut, after all) is right out there, for all the world to see! Poor Jr., festooned as he is with the bald eagle version of horned rimmed glasses because of that stupid tracking patch that all but guarantees he will be all fail with the young hottie girl eagle set, is doing his best and trying to make his way in the world, even as he has to struggle with the issues surrounding his abandonment by the man whose name he carries and who left him behind when fame and fortune called...

Enduring shame is the legacy of Stephen Colbert, Sr. Colbert and the brightly-lit celebrity world in which he now lives may not remember the Jr. he so happily celebrated once upon a time, but those of us out here where the pain of eaglet abandonment never goes away and where the emotional damage may never be repaired (how, after all, does one try to reach out to an eagle, other that with a really long stick) will never forget...


[/snark]
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:54 PM 0 comments

Monday, October 06, 2008

OMG!!1!Eleven! Be Very Afraid!!! 

OK, so anyone who had October 6 on the B.S. Bingo Terrorist Alert needs to line up at the prize window. All the bets are down and the McCain campaign has finally slid all of their chips to the middle of the table, courtesy of his benefactor's administration...

What's scary is that one of these days they just might let it all blow out at the most readily available seam just to show us they really, really were serious - even if they really weren't. The scariest part of life as we now live it is that even suggesting the sort of thing that I just suggested doesn't seem all that implausible anymore...
Posted by: Jack K. / 9:58 PM 0 comments

Now, See? This Is More Like It 

...whether it is because of the strange media desire to try to maintain the horse race element of the presidential race, or whether it is as a result of the editorial influence of certain bureau chiefs to perhaps remind the Republican party of their faithful service, this article shouldn't come as any surprise...

One way or another, an Associated Press version of "October Surprise" against the Democratic nominee was to be expected. We haven't seen - and won't see - any reports from AP about Huggy Bear's involvement in land exchanges that favored donors or any exploration of the veryof earmarks to which he claims that he has always been opposed. There was a brief glimmer of hope that maybe...just maybe...there would be the sort of even-handed reportage that we didn't see during the last two presidential campaigns, but the fleeting evidence that this would be some sort of dawning of a new journalistic era was apparently a chimera. There is a clear degree of opinionated shading and thematic inference in this current article that illustrates the main reason I decided back in college to abandon a major in journalism in order to seek a degree in a more respectable field of endeavor (degrees weren't offered in either male prostitution or used car sales, so natural resources management was the next best choice)...

The gloves are truly off all the way around. The next month is just simply going to be an ugly grind, and all that high-minded talk back in the spring about a campaign about "ideas" is as dead as all of John McCain's promises about running a "respectful" campaign...
 sort
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:17 PM 0 comments

Sunday, October 05, 2008

The Apocalypse Is Upon Us 

...or at least it is if the foundation of this story is any indication. The reason you should probably scrounge around to try to find a Bible that you can open up to the Book of Revelations to figure out which of the Four Horsemen John McCain represents can be found in the money quote in the second paragraph citing Newsmax as being one of the primary sources for the alleged "information"...

[one of course can't actually excerpt AP stories because they want to charge by the word, probably more in an effort to discourage eventual embarrassment resulting from discussion of their reportage rather than because of any sort of claim to proprietary rights, but there ya go again, you betcha.]

So what we have here is a fishing expedition based on...well, I'm not sure what, but even NPR 2 1/2 hours ago mentioned Newsweek as a source, but only an hour ago little more than Newsmax was all AP could point to. Maybe NPR editors read the press release wrong. The RNC better hope that the public radio folks didn't somehow misinterpret the leading media accuser's name. Just to be safe they should make sure to mail their complaint to the Federal Elections Commission, because if they walk through the door with paperwork in hand demand that the FEC audit every single dollar that the Obama presidential campaign has ever collected based on evidence provided primarily by Newsmax, FEC staffers will drive them from the building with brandished staplers...

It's hard to escape the notion that this is little more than another example of what political groups will do when they are out of touch, out of ideas, and running out of time. It certainly is an apocalyptic demonstration of what the Republican party will do to hang on to it's last tattered vestiges of relevance...
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:36 PM 0 comments

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