McCain and his allies believe that if the American public associates Iran with al Qaeda, it will support a (presumptively necessary) attack on Iran. Thus the project of war with Iran, desirable on its face and at any cost, drives a cynical view of public discourse according to which anything that one says to further the given outcome is justifiable.

And of course the press goes along with it for all the various reasons that we already understand.

So how do you counteract this? By attacking the process at the source — show that there is a cost to spinning this line, that a cynical view of the the electorate's poor memory and gullibility will backfire early and often, and that the more McCain lies the more his Democratic opponents will benefit.

Otherwise he won't stop, and it will eventually work.

You're welcome... and I appreciate your response, since otherwise, all I got was grief. A reason I usually stay out of those cat fights.

You mentioned the signal to noise ratio. I think it correlates to the ratio between those who are trying to have an entertaining discussion and the (growing) few who just like to troll. It feels (to me) as if the ratio has shifted in the time I've been reading Glenn.

I gargled and found the shoe's proper name. Wear pairs of Winkle Pickers.

Maybe Capital Hill can smoke three packs per day and smell like a Camel?

Is there a legal Sage blend with desert tumble weed that can be pipe-smoked for world peace?

If we go back to the 50's style pointed male shoes, the nation may be redeemed?

If we have another GOP conference where flip flops are used for clapping? Trouble.

Let's hope that we can all find a cheap pair of earmuffs to help us through 'our' times.

The Bush Administration (Mal) reminds me of the wife who was married 7-years and got up the courage to ask....

~ "Why have you not kissed me since you said 'I do' at the wedding alter rail?"

For 7-long years we itch, and ran out of pink calamine lotion. They itch to kill.

The nation needs to question politicians more. Why on Lincoln's Birthday, and Veterans Day, are there are many mattress sales to honor Abraham and war vets?

There ought to be a Bush Led Moslem White House conference.

The last days of the neoconservative era.... GWB can invite The Baptist, The Jewish, The Mennonites, and The horse and buggy Amish for the best doggone survival advice ever.

Accurate, but incomplete....

That's Arizona just desserts, Señor Celery, if you please. No peaches or blueberries here. We barbecue whiptails instead, fight the javelinas for the nopalitos, and dream of the broad Potomac. If we were better people, we might be vouchsafed a glimpse of it one day. As it is, well....

______________________________________________________________

The Potomac is brown usually.

Sometimes it's a dull green, like moss. I see it every day, and it's nothing to write home about.

Truth be told, I ought not get betwixt Mr. Celery and WT, salami scent notwithstanding. Such discussions are poetically licensed and fraught with erudition. I have no such license, and my prose is comparatively a bit amateurish. ;-)

I'll stick to McSame, The BarackStar and Hillacious. Mrs. Bubba can give a good speech, and make clear concise points. She can even make points extemporaneously, in a Q&A session. Must be that whole trained lawyer thing. Barack can handle these tasks too, despite Charles Krauthammer's vehement screed to the contrary.

Saint John not so much... he needs Holy Joe (or Cindy) to keep his ass is line.

My opinion is that McCain's al-Qaida-Shi'a conflation has a long history and is especially popular among that segment of his base that believes Islam to be irredeemable. If 13% think Obama is in fact a Muslim, I'd suggest--strongly--a greater percentage believe this is a 'clash of civilizations.' This posit is popular elsewhere than in the Christian fundamentalist camps.

It goes like this:

al-Qaida enjoys support on the so-called Arab street.

Islam proffers a conception of its being the last Abrahamic revelation.

This conception makes a duty of converting the un-believer.

All Muslims are called to this unless they are themselves heretics and unbelievers.

The above conceptions enjoy support on the Arab street.

Islam is equivalent to the Arab street.

Islam wants to convert the non-believer.

Thus: IT HARDLY MATTERS WHAT THE NUANCES HAPPEN TO BE.

It would be charitable to state this is poppycock. Yet, it would be a mistake to underplay the support of the American street that is vulnerable to hooking up 'we don't do defeat' with 'Islam wishes to defeat us.'

...just my opinion, yet, McCain does seem to play to this crowd. His job is to scare enough of the middle undecideds into going along for the ride such a clash of civilzations promises.

drdave39.

That was great. I always think of the Leo Tolstoy's, Anna Karinnah (sp)book, mention that all families are "screwy" in different ways. Leo wrote it on the first page much more eloquently. Maybe somebody can research and go to K-mart and buy a tube of Elmer's Brown Wood Glue and paste it?

The best part of the Family Therapy? comment...

... the how it came across... "spanking" each other... and Listening. Great. Thanks. Paste A.K.?

Anonymust-

thanks for the response. It's probably just a coincidnce, but it does appear that after my rant, the discussion became at least somewhat more topical.

There is a concept in family therapy known as the inadvertent intervention- once, in training, I was working with a toally chaotic, out of control family, and lost my own cool- screamed "will all of you SHUT UP FOR ONE SECOND???" They all stared at me in stunned silence, then after a moment th father said "are we really that bad?". I said "you're not bad people, but you need to learn how to liten to each other- this isn't working!" From that point, we actually started working on the concept of boundaries, taking turns spaeking and listening, disagreeing with an idea without attacking the person, etc., etc. Sometimes we do the right thing for the wreong reason..

As I think about it, therewas some discussion about the issue of geting people to face reality when its not waht they want it to be. All I can say is that its difficult if the person is aware that its not working- if they are unaware, its impossible...