Month: August 2008

Talking Points Memo | How The Obama Camp Should Respond:

Just as John McCain bought his ad time for right after Obama’s speech last night, they should get their own for right after Palin.

And here’s the ad: A one-minute spot featuring Hillary Clinton herself, talking to the camera and laying into Palin on the issues, her complete lack of qualifications, and the temerity of the McCain campaign to think they could get away with this. Then she urges anyone watching who might have supported her to get out there and support Barack Obama.

Then it closes simply with Obama walking on to the set to shake Hillary’s hand: “I’m Barack Obama, and I approved this message.”

That could be what we call a “crusher.”

What do you call nostalgia for a past that never existed? In 1984, they simply swept the unwanted bits into the memory hole and didn’t replace them.

TBogg » Losing my religion :

Not wishing to see Rod [Dreher] make a fool of himself, which is like asking him to not pray or breathe, reader JPL sums up Dreher’s entire life in just a few acid-etched paragraphs:.

Rod, you’re the living embodiment of the old phrase “there’s a sucker born every minute.” Look, regardless of this woman’s qualities, many of which do truly seem to be fine, she isn’t the President. And, before Cheney, VP’s didn’t get to do a hell of a lot. It’s still McCain at the top of the ticket, and everything that was wrong with him before remains wrong with him now. More war, more tax cuts, more support for the rich and powerful, more torture, more unilateral international relations, more Bush. He’ll just have an attractive woman near him who shares your values, and who, given his treatment of women in the past, he will completely ignore. Your best hope is that he drops dead, leaving her in charge. And then you’ll discover that all those nifty Alaskan values don’t get you very far in the rough and tumble of global politics..

(It’s worth noting, I lived in Alaska for years, and though I hate stereotyping, most Alaskans were the most short-sighted, backward people I’ve ever lived among. And I’ve lived in 8 countries.).

But there you are, bursting with eagerness to pull that lever for the Republicans again. And two years in, when things have gotten even worse, you’ll do just what you did with Bush…just what you did with Catholicism. After singing their praises endlessly, you’ll turn on them, with surly descriptions of how they fooled you, and how could you have known?.

Except that millions of people did know. They don’t fool you…you keep fooling yourself. You’re so desperate for the world to be the way you think it should be, the world you’ll feel safe in, that you just can’t accept that it isn’t now, and it’s never going to be that world again. Hell, I doubt it ever was, except in your own fevered fantasies. But you’ll blame it on someone else, switch teams again, and wait for the next wunderkind to show up and promise a blissful return to traditional Christian values and a bucolic life on the farm..

It’s a good thing you’re happily married. As a single man, it would be hard to imagine how any even vaguely clever gold-digger wouldn’t take you for all you’re worth in a few months. I think you should consider renaming your genre from Crunchy Con to Gushingly Gullible..

If it didn’t mean the continued ruin of our nation, and the future of my children, it would be almost endearing. As it is, it just seems sad how traditional Conservatives will keep selling this country right down the gutter for the smallest possibility that their values will once again dominate the public discourse.

Ouch. That’s gonna leave a stigmata…

Did he miss anything? I don’t think so.

Pot O’ Gold?

Originally uploaded by alaska12.

The folks on the ship had no idea. I’m guessing the PR staff at Maersk could do something with this . . .