Letters to the Editor
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Are you still beating your wife?
It's amazing how much headway the right-wing media people get pinning their 'far left' guests using this technique.
At it's most raw it is the simple but deadly - "Why do you hate America?"
More politicians need to start pushing back like Obama, once the climate of fear is dispelled these people will lose much of their power.
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SCOTUS to review warrantless searches of cars: Mother of God is this the end of FISA?
Although there is still a significant chance that Democrats will ultimately give the President most if not all of what he wants on the FISA bill, perhaps their ongoing refusal to capitulate quickly even in the face of all-out GOP fear-mongering
The playing field for using FISA and (riotous) warrantless eavesdropping for this type of slimy attack may be leveling due to other factors:
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court has agreed to decide when police without a warrant can search the vehicle of a person who is under arrest.
Rodney Joseph Gant was handcuffed, seated in the back of a patrol car and under police supervision when Tucson, Ariz., police officers searched his car.
A sharply divided Arizona Supreme Court ruled that the search violated the Fourth Amendment. The state is asking the U.S. high court to overturn that ruling. [...] (Guardian Feb 25, 2008)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/7335416
The same AP article should be easy to find on the Salon feed; I'm using the Guardian URL to paste in browsers because it's short and fits on one line.
It'll be hard for the Hands-On Chickenhawk in CHief to pretend he needs to snoop in people's cars to personally look after us -- and to castigate critics of this.
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The Anthem
Since when were we supposed to put a hand over our heart while singing the anthem? That is the act of a nitwit or a coward afraid of being bullied by the right wing.
You put your hand on your heart (if you want to, of course) for the Pledge of Allegiance because it's a pledge. You're pledging allegiance. but the national anthem is nothing of the sort, and proper behavior is to listen to it with your hands at your side, not fidgeting, or talking, or doing anything to distract others. That's all that's necessary to show respect.
What is the right wing going to ask for next, genuflecting when we pass the White House or the Pentagon? Kissing the President's ring? The more this country drifts to the right, the more it wants studied, ersatz acts of patriotism, that last refuge of scoundrels.
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Bernbart:
Obamawas right to stop wearing the flag pin. I can't even begin to tell you how disgusted i was when every memberof Congress starting wearing those pins after 9/11. It was just another component of fear mongering...you wiht us or agnist us. It reminded me of Nazi Gemrany.
I agree and I for one wouldn't cite you for a Godwin violation.
But since many would balk at any Nazi comparison no matter how limited or apt, I would suggest a better comparison comes from Heller's Catch-22 where a ridiculous Captain begins a program of "loyalty oaths" the men have to sign to prove their loyalty of course, and it quickly escalates into requirement to sign oaths to get food, equipment and so forth.
The program is ended by the mysterious Major ____ de coverly who brusquely orders in one of his few lines of dialog in the whole book "give everybody eat!"
Another comparison that comes to mind is the "Silver ring thing" virginity pledge symbols that many fathers ask their daughters (and I guess sons too, but I don't doubt women are the focus of this program).
Whatever one things of abstinence until marriage, or the desirability for teenage girls to remain chaste, the problem with this is obvious: By making the symbol obvious and public, it becomes an element of peer pressure and thus reduced to meaninglessness as many kids will wear the rings and screw their brains out, because at a certain point, not wearing the ring carries a social cost with her parents or peers who might assume she's a slut since she doesn't wear one. Hypocrisy is easier.
So all such symbols of virtue, worn proudly on one's chest quickly become meaningless since those lacking that virtue will easily adopt them and gain credibility they do not deserve for mere tokenism.
So in general, it is always more interesting to watch those who eschew such herd mentality adoption of symbols of virtue, as they display true courage of convictions.
It's always easier to just sign the loyalty oath, wear the ring or pin on a flag to your suit. Obama has chosen the more difficult path here, and this is one of those things which reassures me about him considering other issues where his rhetoric or actions have been less stellar or exemplary.
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Good for Obama
If explicit threats to assassinate McCain were made, I'm sure the media would cover it.
“OBAMA WILL DIE, KKK FOREVER,” concludes a Feb. 15 post by “Rodney” to a blog run by a person identified only as Strider333. Above that signoff, Rodney wrote: “The KKK or someone WILL assassinate Obama! If we get a NIGGER President all you NIGGER’s [sic] will think you’ve won and that the WHITE people will have to bow to you[.] FUCK THAT.”
http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2008/02/20/racist-attacks-on-obama-growing-more-heated/
H/T Orcinus
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2007/06/haters-and-obama.html
Obama? Not so much.
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2008/02/obama-haters.html
But we can have the SS, now under the control of the incompetent DHS, make sure he's got extra security.
Special Report:
Secret Service Denies Obama Security Lapse
While MSM Plays Dumb and NBC Plays Dumber;
Plus, A Reminder of Who Controls the SS
http://mediabloodhound.typepad.com/weblog/2008/02/special-report.html
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@ Kristol: This all you got?
Read the op-ed this morning. So...Obama won't wear a lapel pin, and his wife misspoke on one occasion. That's it? That's what they got on him? Is this going to enter the political lexicon for 2008? Instead of being "swiftboated," you get "lapel-pinned?" Hysterical.
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Alex116:
"And the thing that worries me most is Obamas long winded explanations for every thing. In an otherwise idiotic column in the Times this morning, Bill Kristol touch on this in a way that hard to argue with. Its going to be a long year for Obama."
There's only one thing to take away from Kristol's column - his call to attack Obama's greatest strength (Obama himself). This is Rovian Republicanism to its core.
It's going to be one heckuva year for Obama, he will face attacks the likes of which would make the Clintons blush, and the hardcore wingnut echo-chamber will reinforce their own prejudices. The question is how Obama stops the poison from infecting the wider electorate - I say more of the same of what has successfully stalled Clinton. Few politicians can pull it off, but Obama, ummm, yes he can.