Letters to the Editor
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Huh?
those images were manipulated by Republican ads and Fox to make the candidates look like idiots. --jeffbw
Huh? First, Fox News did not exist in 1988 when the Dukakis tank thing happened. Second, none of those images appeared in Republican ads. They were seen in news reports.
The image of Dukakis was devastating because it showed him trying to be something he wasn't. That's why the bowling thing with Barak hurt. Who cares if he can't bowl? But if he pretends to be like a regular guy and shows that he's not, it hurts. This is a case of shooting yourself in the foot.
The John Kerry windsurfing was not what hurt him; it was him dressed in camouflage pretending to be something he wasn't--a regular hunter. Again, it's the phoniness. (Oh, and "I voted for it before I voted against it" sealed his doom.)
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-- O Brother Where Are Thou?
"They were seen in news reports."
Glenn should put you on retainer so you can post on all his threads since you seem to agree with him.
Meanwhile, as long as we're discussing photos, click my signature line for one of Shooter.
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Hmmm
Interesting article on how the media, far from beating up on Obama, are actually enabling him.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9718.html
Remember that after Obama gave his supposedly moving speech about race how suddenly journalists like Joe Klein were running interference for him, saying the topic was now out of bounds, even though Obama's speech raised more questions than answers.
And now the media are singing in unison about how "unfair" this week's "debate" was, even though an analysis shows that the overall mix of questions had more balance than previous debates. And it is totally inbound to ask Obama about his lies and flip-flops regarding previous statement.
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Oh brother/sister where art thou...
I voted for Teresa (Theresa) Heinz. I read the background of the 11-year old tomatoey Lady with red hair.My son was working the farm fields at seven. It won't hurt you. My hope was that Ms. Heinz would have a women's persuasive influence... intuit. I hoped.
It was a unique wish. A hoped. I could not vote or give John Kerry sincere acclaim.
I hoped Mrs T. Heinz would invite a old time kitchen cabinet with diverse opinion.
I don't know? I wondered. I don't know if Ms. Heinz Ketchup was sad, not happy,
and I did like her children.
I wondered if Teresa Heinz whether, in her private thought... She thought ~ 'John Kerry,
You don't darn damn get it!'
If she sighed and thought that,
we lost a chance for good ketchup. grunt.
I'm saying, 'I liked Ms. Heinz.' I voted for her.
Besides, there is something about red heads. huh.
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"O Brother"
O'Brother (a man of constant wrongness) approves of gotcha games in lieu of actual issues, and approvingly cites an "interesting article" by GOP operatives Harris and Vandehei:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9718.html
[...] Moreover, those questions about Jeremiah Wright, about Obama’s association with 1960s radical William Ayers, about apparent contradictions between his past and present views on proven wedge issues like gun control, were entirely in-bounds. If anything they were overdue for a front-runner and likely nominee. [...]
- - Vandehei and HarrisBut that was too much even for the right-wing and Bush-supporting Chicago Tribune:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/chi-0418edit3apr18,0,3956587.story
Guilt by association
Tribune editorialFirst, you have to wonder why ABC News thought it was a good idea to have George Stephanopoulos, who was one of President Bill Clinton's highest-ranking aides, serve up questions at a debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Second, you have to wonder why Stephanopoulos, who has been resurrected as a television commentator, thought to ask Obama about . . . Bill Ayers.
Obama knows Ayers, a former radical and member of the Weather Underground who is now an academic in Chicago. They met years ago. They served together on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, which provides money for anti-poverty efforts.
Ah, we know Ayers too. And his wife, Bernardine Dohrn. If you know people in Chicago academic circles, chances are you know Ayers and Dohrn.
They have not been repentant about their days in the radical, anti-war movement in the 1960s and their time fleeing federal authorities. They should be. There is still time for them to be.
But they have done good work in Chicago—Ayers at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Dohrn at Northwestern University Law School's Children and Family Justice Center.
So we're going to side with Mayor Richard Daley on this one:
"There are a lot of reasons that Americans are angry about Washington politics. And one more example is the way Sen. Obama's opponents are playing guilt by association, tarring him because he happens to know Bill Ayers," Daley said Thursday. "I don't condone what he did 40 years ago but I remember that period well. It was a difficult time, but those days are long over. I believe we have too many challenges in Chicago and our country to keep re-fighting 40-year-old battles."
- - Mayor DaleyWell said. Now how about getting back to the real campaign?
- - Chicago Tribune editorial
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Jebbie? out/gone to supper? as that Yoo? Boing.
Boing!
Are you, Jebbie, into truffles?
If I ever meet your former wives.
what fun conversations we'd surely have?
My hypotheses is ~ no wonder they left you.
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O Brother
The image of Dukakis was devastating because it showed him trying to be something he wasn't. That's why the bowling thing with Barak hurt. Who cares if he can't bowl? But if he pretends to be like a regular guy and shows that he's not, it hurts. This is a case of shooting yourself in the foot.
Right. Because no politician who has won a presidential election in the last 20 or so years - especially no Republican - has ever transparently tried to portray himself as something he was not. And even if one had, the media and the country as a whole had no tools or capability to point out the fraud. What a shock that George W. Bush turned out to have only the wealthiest of Americans at heart! Here we all thought he was such a trail-dusty, trusty wrangler.
The John Kerry windsurfing was not what hurt him; it was him dressed in camouflage pretending to be something he wasn't--a regular hunter.
Wrong again - the windsurfing image was at least as damaging as the hunting image, probably more so. The damage repeatedly and systematically done to Democratic candidates is due to the false millstone of weakness, elitism, and unmanliness hung around their necks by those who often embody those traits themselves. This is how Kerry, a certified combat hero in Vietnam, became sullied as the precise opposite - his very credentials as a war hero were dismissed summarily as fruits from the poison tree of manufactured valor - a valor that he had to stage, due to his assumed indecision and weakness.
"Flip flop," "voted for it before I voted against it," and every other manifestation that you might categorize simply as "pretending to be something he wasn't," was in fact shorthand for spinelessness, indecision, and unmanliness. While it's true that Kerry's own statements and behavior, to an extent, enabled these false themes, the tribal right would still have been able to smear him as effete and feeble, because this is what they have learned to do best, with relentless efficiency. Their pursuit of personal destruction is as singular and absolute as the hunger of an animal. It cannot be accommodated, mollified, or tamed. It can only be caged - muzzled by overwhelming public ridicule and discredit.
So, no, the kerfuffle over Obama's bowling score had absolutely nothing to do with his trying to seem like something he wasn't. If that was the case, we would have heard as much about his feeding a calf or going through the many other "Pennsylvania" motions. The bowling nonsense - just like his shocking order of orange juice instead of coffee - was instead about Obama somehow not being sufficiently Homer Simpson for those most elite figureheads with one eye so self-consciously fixed at all times on imagined stereotypes of the Salt of American Earth, the frogs calling the salamander slimy, the multimillionaire airheads who still fancy themselves "blue collar" because dad used to work with his hands and they didn't start making seven figures until they were at least 40.