Monday, August 4, 2008

Is Obama Gore-d?


Welcome back to Columbine, USA, where it's once again OK to hate the cool, beautiful people.

OK, can someone please explain to me how the fuck this happened?

Sen. Barack Obama goes to the Middle East, Central Asia and Europe largely in response to McCain attacking him for not going to Iraq. He takes the world by storm, the highlight of his trip delivering a rousing, if substanceless, speech in Berlin to 200,000 adoring fans. Germans held up placards begging for Obama to be their Chancellor. He actually makes Gordon Brown smile, a feat about as easy as Rush Limbaugh getting it up without someone else's Viagra.

McCain responds with sour ads accusing Obama of being… semi-popular, a status conferred on him by what used to be almost half the nation.

Then, by the time Obama gets back from what was by all accounts a successful trip, during which he made not a single gaffe, his lead over McCain completely evaporated in the wake of the most mean-spirited attack ads this generation has ever seen?!

So, someone please bring me up to speed and tell me how the fuck this happened?

Especially during a summer in which McCain has made one howler after another, including referring to a unified Czechoslovakia, insisting that Iran is funding al Qaeda, that Ahmadinejad is the Supreme Ruler of Iran, thinking he’s in New Orleans instead of Kenner, Louisiana, underestimating troop strength in Iraq by 25,000 troops, believes Iraq borders with Pakistan and thinks the election is in January?

How can 44% of the people (And let’s not forget a recent poll that said 80% of Americans think we’re headed in the wrong direction) still think that John McCain would make a better President than Barack Obama in spite of not deviating from Bush‘s foreign and domestic policies by one iota?

Now, regular readers of mine will note that I’ve said time and again Obama is not my man. I think the man lacks a spine, one who will immediately throw under the wheels of his own Straight Talk Express anyone he’s ever met who says anything that pisses off the right wingers. I dislike the man sucking up to said right wingers, including AIPAC and certain right wing editors.

However, I dislike even more when McCain attacks Obama by likening him to Neo of The Matrix (although it ought to be pointed out that Neo eventually prevailed over Agent Smith and the machines) in his The One ad. I liked even less McCain’s sour grapes ad by comparing him to Paris Hilton (and after Hilton’s family had contributed the maximum $4600 to McCain’s campaign) that never advanced McCain’s positions on the issues as much as groused about his lack of popularity.

And somehow this had made him more popular than ever?? And McCain's comparing Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, two other airheads more famous for their nonprofessional antics than their alleged virtues?

Are we Americans, despite our higher educational system, the stupidest carbon-based life forms in the solar system? Are the people of those other countries that collectively swooned in Obama’s presence, including many of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, actually smarter than that alarming 44%?

It’s the real Olympics that are coming up in four days, not the Special Olympics! We’re supposed to be electing the best person for the office of President, not giving gold medals and “everyone’s a winner” status just because some thick-necked, uber-jowled idiot starts carping about feeling left out. Just because McCain rolls into town on his Straight Talk Express, why are we supportively clapping as if it's the SPED short bus transporting our darling special little boy from the special school?

Obama’s been Gore-d.


Those of you who didn’t have PTSD blackouts after the boondoggle of the 2000 election will remember that meme that Bush and not Gore was the guy with whom you’d rather have a beer. Gore’s too stiff and unyielding, they said, as if being as supple as Mary Lou Retton was somehow an overarching consideration when electing the next leader of the free world.

We saw it again four years later when former Connecticut native George W. Bush anticipated Saxby Chambliss by presenting himself as the true patriot after having flown in the Texas Air National Guard and not the patrician fellow who may or may not have shot himself in the foot in Vietnam.

And now here we are, with 80% of you pissed off and anxious because of the direction our nation has headed because you let the GOP steal one election after another and 44% of you are going for the ancient mariner because he’s, well, experienced. He knows war, you say, as if we need another Republican war preznit to start another war in the Persian Gulf.

That Obama fellow? He’s too full of himself. He’s, well, stiff and elitist and, well, there’s the matter of the madrassa and the middle name thing. Who does he think he is?

Well, here’s what I see:

Far from being The One, far from being an empty populist on a par with Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, all I see is a gutless wonder going the way of Ned Lamont, someone being told by his focus groups and other staffers to tone down his message as if he was some flaming liberal to begin with, someone too afraid to do anything but counterpunch.

When McCain goes on the attack then pats himself on the back for attacking without advancing his own positions, here’s what Obama ought to do:

Contact Robert Greenwald from Brave New Films, have him do some attack ads for the Obama campaign but here’s what they do instead of attacking McCain for whatever strengths his asshat supporters insist on seeing: Have Greenwald play over and over again McCain’s every gaffe, the Iraq/Pakistan border, the shipping hot water to dehydrated babies, the killing Iranian civilians with cancer joke, everything.

Stick to the facts, damn McCain with his own idiotic, spittle-flecked words.

But Obama won’t do that because Barack Obama still insists on believing in his Pollyanna world that politics is some gentlemanly sport played by men in starched shirtsleeves and handlebar moustaches, in which the Marquis of Queensbury still is the final arbiter over what is or isn’t permissible.

And that attitude is what will lose Obama this election unless he smartens the fuck up, because he insists on pandering to right wingers who not only can’t but won’t be pleased or satisfied, because he insists on believing that McCain will not kneecap him like Tonya Harding’s goons.

13 Comments:

At August 4, 2008 at 9:51 PM, Blogger Stan B. said...

First off, so many American "independents" even considering voting for Obama just need the very slightest excuse to note vote for him- and insane McCain will be providing them with all they need. Why so fickle- the great and DARK unknown. That simple.

And that said, the last election could also have been won just by replaying Bush's plethora of gaffes. Yes, Obama better start landing some one-two combos, and in flurries- or else he'll be rejoining his equally statesmanlike colleague, Senator Kerry, in Congress next year.

 
At August 5, 2008 at 11:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

As I have said before there is only one answer that makes any sense at all:

The Democratic Leadership is owned and controlled by the GOP. Since 1980, the Dems have done everything they can to intentionally lose to the GOP. The Dems have done everything they can to protect the GOP president from any accountability.

The Democratic Leadership is controlled by the GOP, that is the only explanation that makes any sense of all of this. It is the Grand Unified Theory of Everything.

Obama is doing everything he can to lose in November, his handlers are all GOP operatives. He was up in the polls when he was to the left of center. So they have him run to the right, and now his poll numbers are dropping.

Now Obama is refusing to point out how idiotic McCain is, to make sure that McCain's lies are unrefuted in the media.

The only explanation that makes any sense: the Democrats are controlled by the GOP. They are clearly engineering Obama's loss in the election. It would be so EASY to beat McCain. It is obvious that they do NOT want to beat McCain. Obama is intended to lose. There is a permanent Republican Majority in the US.

 
At August 5, 2008 at 11:27 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It will be a sad day for the country and the world if McLame
and his GOP handlers are elected.
Comrade rutherford is right the
Dems are playing ball with the
GOP to preserve their seats that
bring them money; awesome health
coverage; perks galore and a good
life for all their family members
and friends. They don't want to rock the boat.

 
At August 5, 2008 at 1:35 PM, Blogger Mister Roboto said...

Anonymous at 12:52 = a "St. Obama" cultist?

I'm surprised nobody has yet mentioned The Big Deal Breaker about St. Barack Obama. He voted for the "spy bill" despite the fact that it granted retroactive immunity to the big telecoms for helping BushCo illegally spy on American citizens. His justification was that we needed that spy bill, but that makes it even worse, because that spy bill essentially sets up the infrastructure for a nascent police-state.

It's bad enough that like most spineless Democrats, he won't go to bat for a single-payer national health-care system that this country needs so badly. But in his initial handling of the whole Jeremiah Wright flap, he seemed to demonstrate himself to be a cut above the usual blow-dried party hack the Dems are so fond of digging up to be their presidential candidate. That's why I put my concerns about health-care on hold just as long as he had a little something in his platform for responding to this crisis.

But then he thought it was appropriate to take a big fat crap on the Constitution. And let us not forget how quickly he began to backtrack on his anti-war rhetoric WRT Iraq as soon as he won that US Senate seat back in 2006. And let us not forget that the Democrats in Congress have essentially given BushCo everything BushCo has wanted without much of a fuss.

I'm sorry, but I am really through with the goddamn Democrats. Face it. The Republic is as dead as a thousand-year-old petrified tree-stump. I don't even read the liberal blogs as much as I used to because so many of them are still drinking the Dems/Obama-will-save-us Kool-Aid.

 
At August 5, 2008 at 1:54 PM, Blogger jurassicpork said...

Well, of course the right wing won't take Obama to task for the FISA "compromise" because he was doing his job shoring up national security in the old-fashioned Republican way- suppressing our fourth amendment rights.

So they choose, instead to attack him on his personality, his compromised popularity in this country, without advancing their own absurd positions. Meanwhile, all the GOP can do is hand out tire gauges with "Obama's Energy Plan" on them because they haven't anything but ignorant ridicule to throw at him.

And, Anon, please learn how to spell before posting here or do I have to break out the little rubber bouncing ball so you can keep up with the class?

 
At August 5, 2008 at 2:07 PM, Blogger Mister Roboto said...

JP:

I wouldn't expect that from the right at all, I was referring to commentors here pointing out the Dems lack of substance and seeming as though they want to lose.

For me, it's a matter of reaching a threshold where you realize you are being conned by a group of con artists who clearly don't have your best interests at heart and never will because of the inequities built into the system. I'm reasonably certain that given time, most regular commentors in Left Blogistan will see it the way I do, simply because there will be no other way to see without being utterly delusional.

 
At August 5, 2008 at 4:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why get so worked up over a poll that's still almost four months ahead of the election? So McCain has a momentary lead. Big fat hairy deal. Plenty of time for things to sort themselves out yet.

And "Anonymous" should explain what a "nivel" is.

 
At August 5, 2008 at 6:03 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

We appreciate the outrage. It is warranted.

As to "how"? Easy. The vast majority of registered voters know nothing about reality that is not mediated via the corporate media -- chiefly, television, radio and daily and weekly magazines and newspapers. Less than 1% of registered voters read books. Less than 1% reject television and corporate media in lieu of alternative sources of information.

I mean, c'mon. About half those who bothered to vote in 2004 voted for GWBush -- demonstrably the biggest moron and worst president in U.S. history -- a guy who presided over a gargantuan national debt and a collosally disasterous war against Iraq. Yet, 42 million people voted for him rather than a guy who,say what you will, was at least able to string two sentences together and could claim some record of public service.

Americans are gullible fools. Nothing demonstrates that more surely than the last election cycle. There is no reason -- none -- why McCain could not win the presidency. If Bush can get elected in the first place, much less re-elected when he was to most hated and reviled president in U.S. history, well, then anything is possible, can happen and will happen.

 
At August 5, 2008 at 6:34 PM, Blogger jurassicpork said...

Actually, over 60,000,000 people voted for Bush in '04, if we're to believe Diebold.

In other words, we're more fucked than even you believe, pip.

 
At August 5, 2008 at 10:35 PM, Blogger Nyc Labretš said...

Given the front page article in today's NYT about how voter registrations for Republicans have plummeted nationwide since 2005 and the fact that the Iowa Electronic Market, (using the principles of the futures market trading model, one of the most accurate predictors of events known to man, thus far) has in its "Winner Take All" 2008 Presidential prognosis, has not seen any Democratic Presidential candidate go below 50% since October of 2006, (the presumptive Democrat is currently above 60% in that market as of this writing), how is it even remotely possible that the contest is a neck and neck horse race as is being reported in the mainstream media?

Obviously somebody is not telling the truth, the question is whom?

I wouldn't pay attention to a word of any of this horse-hockey and if you find yourself getting into a lather about it you're just falling for their bullshit.

Quit listening to it, they're lying and you know it and they know that you know it, so what's the point in getting all exercised about it?

Go out with your wife to a nice and affordable place, go play w/yr grandkid, take a nice leisurely stroll around the block and stop to smell the flowers while they're still in bloom, watch the sun set

 
At August 6, 2008 at 7:20 AM, Blogger jurassicpork said...

Watch the sun set on what, democracy?

The last 2 polls I've seen (admittedly, one is a Zogby phone poll) show McCain either ahead or tied with Obama. It should never be this close.

 
At August 6, 2008 at 8:35 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Who's "we" white man?

Not even in your hemisphere.

 
At August 6, 2008 at 8:45 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Latest AP poll released testerday
has Obama ahead by 7 points.

 

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