Letters to the Editor
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Sadly, No!
is of the best and brightest! It is, like I always say, "just the stuff to give the troops", alternatively, it may also be compared very favorably to the stuff mother makes.
Every post at Sadly, No! is a real sockdolager, filled with boffo yocks.
Would that I had a groatsworth of their allotment of mirth. They've got hogsheads, firkins, meteoric tons even, of the best japes around!
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Let me put it this way, Gerry
Left brain, right brain is bad science, but it's good metaphor.
Personally, I think the country would be well-served if we had more people who could solve fourth-order equations in their heads and shake their booties.
Now, Gerry, I ask you, is that more likely to be black people, white people, or something in between?
Obama, in other words, is right. He's also taking a risk in running on his instincts, the kind of risks genuine patriots must sometimes take. If he fails, he won't be the loser.
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Silash
Well, Joe McCarthy was a tailgunner in a B-17 in WWII. In fact, his nickname was Tailgunner Joe.
And no, before irrational people like William Timberman and LWM start jumping in making silly remarks, I'm not comparing Wright to McCarthy.
My point is that military service does not immunize one from being (or becoming) a hatemonger.
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@William Timberman
GWB's cracker apotheosis either
Apotheosis. Good Faulkner word. See, your lips say ambivalence, your words say ... :>
No, I'm with you. It's funny though, how much more effective the GWB style schlock has been than anything the Dems have tried. That I was having serious arguments with people in 2000 about W's alleged superior authenticity v. Gore is telling.
My theory: somebody like W actually *wants* to be that person. Howard Dean (to take only the 2004 edition) wants that person's vote, but does not know how to talk to that person without condescending or perceiving that person as a victim (one of the few categories allowable). Same with veterans.
It's a problem for our party, and not just 'cuz it's been under my skin the last couple days.
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Ferry from Gibsonton
And LWM, who turned over your rock?
-- Gerry from Tallahassee
I think it was the Gibsonton Lobster Boy. A rich uncle of yours, perhaps?
/PoP!ing snark bubble.
Carry on.
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Jeremiah Wright, his motivations, audience and act
Wright did not have an audience or the press corps with him when he was interviewed by Bill Moyers. At his Washington press corps speech, he brought an audience with him that loves him, just like when he preaches in a black church. He got carried away and clearly comported himself in a manner that was not at all helpful to the candidacy of Obama. He also clearly dissed Barack as just a politician who panders to the media and voters. While I like most of what Wright has to say, he let his ego and his “Look at me, I’m on the really big stage now,” cause him to do damage to the chances of the first serious black presidential candidate. He essentially did the same thing at his speech to the NAACP audience in Detroit.
I don’t know how narcissistic Wright is or what his internal motivations may have been, I do know that he left Obama no choice but to sever their ties.
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Imagine a presidential candidate
who claims he's qualified due to his National Security Experience, yet who doesn't know the difference between Sunni and Shia, and who would defer to Allen Greenspan on all matters economic.
Now imagine a candidate who claims she's qualified, in part, because of the number of years she served in a largely ceremonial, albeit important, role, and who claims she risked life-and-limb to bring peace to Bosnia.
Now imagine a candidate who claims he's qualified because he represents a new kind of politics that enables us to solve our problems by transcending partisanship, and who turns out to be a typical pandering politician.
Of course, when the media point out that McCain or Clinton is full of crap, it's OK to broadcast that 24/7.
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@WT
If Obama, heaven forfend, should quit the race today, he would still leave behind him a huge increase in the number of Democratic voters, and an organisation which is finally, instead of fighting for the same slice of "independents and swing voters" (translation: "low information" voters; you can look it up) reaching the potential voters and trying to make up ground for what I see as Democratic negligence of the past twenty years.
Many people do not know: Obama could quit today and still have had an enormous and positive effect on American politics.
That is what many people do not know.
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Sadly....
Truly, quickstrategy, it's not a problem for me, 'cause I grew up one thing and became another, and have genuine attachments to both camps, kinda like Obama himself. It is a problem for our party, though, right enough. Couldn't we help them with it? If not us, then who?
The old Democratic Party sure didn't put on any airs. Maybe if we were real democrats -- small "D" -- we wouldn't either.
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Is that your point?
My point is that military service does not immunize one from being (or becoming) a hatemonger.
-- Gerry The Pinhead from Gibsonton
On your pointy little head.
Hatemonger:
http://www.halturnershow.com/
Jeremiah Wright:
Black pastor full of righteous indignation and a talent for saying some really stupid shit but he's not a scientist or academician or even a Nelson Mandela but Mandela got it out of his system. He had to take up arms to throw off apartheid. He's not a hatemonger and comparisons to Charles Murray are not appropriate. He's a preacher, for Christ's sake! I take him about as seriously as any of them but he's got cause. Falwell, Hagee, Robertson and the rest, do not. Not IMHO.
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Gerry from Tallahassee
I will not disagree that crazy or stupid people can serve in the military. However, your point takes the military service comment out of context; it was only one piece of the puzzle. I used it in tandem with a wide variety of other evidence (Presidential commendations, ministries for youth, education and the poor, etc) to paint a broader picture.
The simple fact is that Jeremiah Wright has spent his life improving the lives of others, mostly people who are unrelated to him. His military service was one point among many. What have these pundits done? How many of them help the poor or homeless? How many of them have served in the military?
That is the irony. A man with a long history of helping Americans is painted as anti-American by people who only help themselves.