Amy Silverman of the Phoenix New Times offers an extended article,
Postmodern John McCain: the presidential candidate some Arizonans know — and loathe,
on her personal experiences as a journalist covering John McCain over the years, and on other people's
experiences with the man. It is not a pretty picture, and the article is rather long, but for maximum effect,
please read all of it. Short quotes will not do the work justice; you will be well rewarded by reading the
entire effort.
The comma is not an error. The late famous chef Julia Child, who taught most of us everything we know about
French cooking (very little in my case), who died four years ago Wednesday at age 91 of kidney failure
(not heart disease),
was a spy for the Office of Strategic Services.
Andrew Schneider, on his blog at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer site, tells of his own encounters with the
great and unpretentious lady, and how he learned of her other role.
If you're so inclined, you may also read my
doggerel
on the occasion of Ms. Child's passing. (Regrettably, Jeanne's blog Body and Soul is no longer around, and
I do not remember the basis of the joke in the term boeuf à parquet, but I presume it must have
referred to an incident in which the roast hit the floor.)
You thought talking on a cell phone while driving was bad? The New York city council is contemplating a
ban on texting at the wheel:
...
“It’s a risk to drivers, obviously, and also to passengers and pedestrians,” [Councilman David I.] Weprin said
in an interview. “You’re not looking at the road and you don’t have both hands on the wheel” when engaged in
text-messaging. “The probability for accidents is too high to ignore.”
Mr. Weprin said the bill would be modeled on New York State’s ban on the use of cellphones while driving, which
imposes a $100 fine for the first infraction.
He said the proposal was an outgrowth of the crash last summer in the Finger Lakes region of New York State in
which five teenage girls riding in a sport utility vehicle died. A police investigation revealed that the
driver’s cellphone was being used to send text messages at the time of the accident, in which her car swerved
into oncoming traffic and collided with a tractor-trailer.
...
Texted to death... what a fate! Then we find the real reason for Councilman Weprin's proposal:
...
Mr. Weprin said his measure would be rendered unnecessary if the State Legislature approved a similar bill that
is now pending. But Mr. Weprin, who is running for city comptroller, said that he was announcing his proposal
now in part to attract attention. He especially wants to raise awareness about a new system introduced by the
New York Taxi and Limousine Commission to dispatch handicapped-accessible taxicabs via BlackBerry.
The taxi drivers are asked to text-message back to the dispatcher if they are available to pick up a passenger
who has called the city’s 311 line to request a special cab, Mr. Weprin said.
“The problem with that, of course, is that you’re creating a very dangerous situation,” he said.
...
Given his legendary CrackBerry addiction, maybe we could call it the Karl Rove Memorial Taxi Driver
Anti-Text-Messaging Ordinance. Oh, wait; Karl doesn't yet meet one of the criteria for that name. Right... he
doesn't drive a cab.
Via the ACLU Blog of Rights,
from the Miami Herald,
we learn that Judge Stephen Henley, a military judge in charge of terrorism trials at Guantanamo including the
trial of Mohammed Jawad for attempted murder, has banned the Pentagon's Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann from serving
as a legal advisor at trial. This is the second trial at which Gen. Hartmann has been banned. Here's Carol
Rosenberg:
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- For a second time, a military judge Thursday barred a U.S. general at the
Pentagon from acting as a legal advisor in the trial of an accused terrorist at the Guantánamo war court.
Judge Stephen Henley also ordered a new top-level review of the charges against Mohammed Jawad, about 23, who is
accused of attempted murder for allegedly throwing a grenade as a teen that wounded two U.S. soldiers and their
translator in a bazaar in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann's aggressive advocacy of the trials by military commission -- in the media and other
public statements -- "compromised the objectivity necessary to dispassionately and fairly evaluate the evidence
and prepare the post-trial evaluation," Henley ruled.
Defense attorneys had argued that Hartmann had become so preoccupied with the prosecution's side of the war
crimes court -- and the Jawad case in particular -- that he pressured prosecutors to charge him.
...
So a Pentagon adviser, "neutral" in theory, has been tweaking procedure to the advantage of the prosecution,
and a judge has caught him at it, not once but twice.
First, is anyone really surprised that the Pentagon is trying to stack the deck against the defendants in these
travesties of due process? Second, how do you think this will affect future trials of Americans brought before
the courts of other nations? Finally, how many deliberate violations of the basic principles of due process must
the world witness at these sorry tribunals, before the American public cries "Enough!" and forces an end to the
proceedings and a redirection of the trials of Gitmo detainees to the processes of conventional American justice?
This is the problem with intermixing justice and politics. By constructing special procedures that allow
or even require prosecutors and judges to stick their thumbs on the scales of justice, the Bush/Cheney/McCain
administration (let's face it; McCain is on board with this, and too many cowardly congressional Democrats have
been complicit in sanctioning these procedures) shames not just themselves but America as a nation
before the eyes of the world.
Detainees at Gitmo should be tried as appropriate in standard military or civilian proceedings according to
conventional due process rules. Anyone who cannot be convicted of illegal activities in accordance with such
rules is surely not by any reasonable standard a terrorist. Conversely, anyone who is in fact a terrorist...
in other words, anyone who committed an act of terrorism, demonstrably terrorism, not just crime and not just
military combat, and not just on a "because Bush said so" basis... surely can be convicted in an appropriate
court. The whole notion of "enemy combatant" is an obscenity, a deliberate subversion of the basic principles
of American justice, military or civilian, and it is heartening to see military judges and military juries, who
surely have the least sympathy of any American for actual terrorists, ruling that way. Perhaps all is not lost
after all.
McCain says he wants to privatize Social Security. But the essence of the "security" in Social Security is that
it applies to virtually everyone, regardless of their wealth or poverty, and that it is a contract across
generations, in which working people pay benefits for today's retired people in the expectation that their own
retirement benefits will someday be paid. Privatizing retirement would of course spoil both principles on which
Social Security is based. Remember, as noted by James Roosevelt, Jr. in the video, before Social Security,
"nearly half of America's seniors lived in poverty."
The thing that amazes me is that we are even talking about this. Self-designated "conservatives" ... what a term
for people who have been going through your money like drunken sailors on leave... have somehow, over a mere two
or three generations, rendered it acceptable to talk about dismantling the social safety net that makes our
society civilized. Social Security must be "privatized," i.e., limited to people who can afford to retire, and
too bad for people who can't. Medicare must be "privatized," i.e., replaced by a system of private insurance,
and once again, those who can't afford it would be out of luck... and life.
John McCain thinks he has the perfect retirement plan, and that you should, too. Well, why not; who wouldn't
like to have his beer budget. But he'd better give it some thought: his retirement plan sprained her wrist this
week...
Gunman Critically Wounds Arkansas Democratic Party Chairman
By SHAILA DEWAN and STEVE BARNES
Published: August 13, 2008
Bill Gwatney, the chairman of the Arkansas Democratic party, was shot and critically wounded in his office in
Little Rock Wednesday morning, police officials said.
The officials said a single gunman fired three shots at Mr. Gwatney, a former state legislator, in his office a
few blocks from the state Capitol and then drove away.
The suspect, driving a Chevrolet pickup truck, was chased south for about 25 miles by police officers and was
shot after he was stopped, said Lt. Terry Hastings of the Little Rock Police Department. The suspect was
airlifted to a hospital but he later died of his wounds.
...
We'll never know just why the gunman did this, and I am reluctant to speculate or generalize. I will observe
that if it was an attempt at a political assassination, it is the most un-American of gestures. My hopes and
prayers are with Mr. Gwatney and his family tonight.
(I am a bit under the weather today; please excuse my lack of posts and responses to your comments.)
UPDATE (time unknown): via
Suburban Guerrilla,
the killer had recently been laid off by Gwatney's auto dealership, so it was personal, not political. It's
still a tragic incident, but at least it doesn't appear to be a broad attempt to intimidate Democratic leaders.
UPDATE (Thursday morning): via Bryan in a comment on this post,
the previous update has been
discredited,
though apparently, according to witnesses, the gunman (identified by KARK and KTHV as Timothy Dale Johnson, 50,
of Searcy, Arkansas) did make a statement about losing his job.
The Bush administration yesterday proposed a regulatory overhaul of the Endangered Species Act to allow federal
agencies to decide whether protected species would be imperiled by agency projects, eliminating the independent
scientific reviews that have been required for more than three decades.
The new rules, which will be subject to a 30-day per comment period, would use administrative powers to make
broad changes in the law that Congress has resisted for years. Under current law, agencies must subject any
plans that potentially affect endangered animals and plants to an independent review by the Fish and Wildlife
Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service. Under the proposed new rules, dam and highway construction and
other federal projects could proceed without delay if the agency in charge decides they would not harm
vulnerable species.
...
"I am deeply troubled by this proposed rule, which gives federal agencies an unacceptable degree of discretion
to decide whether or not to comply with the Endangered Species Act," said Rep. Nick J. Rahall (D-W.Va.),
chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, who asked for a staff briefing before the proposal was
announced but did not receive one. "Eleventh-hour rulemakings rarely, if ever, lead to good government -- this
is not the type of legacy this Interior Department should be leaving for future generations."
Bob Irvin, senior vice president of conservation programs at the advocacy group Defenders of Wildlife,
questioned how some federal agencies could make the assessments, since most do not have wildlife biologists on
staff.
"Clearly, that's a case of asking the fox to guard the chicken coop," Irvin said, adding that the original law
created "a giant caution light that made federal agencies stop and think about the impacts of their actions." He
said, "What the Bush administration is telling those agencies is they don't have to think about those impacts
anymore."
...
Sen. Barbara Boxer, chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, expressed doubts whether such
regulations are legal, and I share those doubts: Congress may, if it desires, allow the Executive broad
discretion in the regulations it issues to implement a law, but I think it is unlikely that such regulations
could ever be allowed literally to overturn or ignore provisions of the law. Even ignoring three decades of
tradition in actual practice... in this case, the independent scientific evaluation of proposed substantive
changes to assure the changes are not made by bureaucrats with no scientific expertise... seems perilously
close to a willful violation by the Bush administration of the spirit of the law.
But the Bushists don't give a good damn what I think, or what Barbara Boxer thinks, or what an assortment of
scientists over a span of more than 30 years think. If they cared even a little bit, they would not have
ignored members' requests for briefings, the lack of which probably renders the 30-day comment period nearly
worthless. Like almost everything else done by this administration, these regs are a deliberate stab in the
back, intended to circumvent opposition rather than defeat it through legitimate debate. The Bushists are
dictators, and they have behaved accordingly in this matter.
Time and again, it has been shown that Americans... a great majority of them, of whatever political
affiliation... are enthusiastic protectors of the environment, if they are given the facts and honest
evaluations of how that protection can be accomplished. Our task in the political arena is to make the
Bush/Cheney/McCain forces pay at the polls for their indifference to the public's love of America's flora and
fauna. It won't be easy: endangered species aren't sexy (and they certainly aren't sex, human sex, which is the
one thing guaranteed to capture public attention), and explaining the environmental relationships that lead to
the endangerment of species may tax many people's patience. But the groundwork has been done over the past 50
or so years, and now we must use all that preparation to convince people of what will be lost if the Bushists
are allowed to proceed with this environmental bait-and-switch. It must be done.
What’s easy about guaranteed health care for all? For one thing, we know that it’s economically feasible:
every wealthy country except the United States already has some form of guaranteed health care. The hazards
Americans treat as facts of life — the risk of losing your insurance, the risk that you won’t be able to
afford necessary care, the chance that you’ll be financially ruined by medical costs — would be considered
unthinkable in any other advanced nation.
The politics of guaranteed care are also easy, at least in one sense: if the Democrats do manage to
establish a system of universal coverage, the nation will love it.
...
Damned right we will! Why is this even remotely controversial?
A hacker has discovered a downloadable "kill switch" that would presumably allow Apple to disable
particular apps installed on the iPhone. The finder's comment was amusing:
...
"We do not know just how active this mechanism is," Zdziarski said. "It might vaporize applications. It
might simply prevent them from using the GPS [global positioning system]. For all we know, it could trigger
world war three, or it could cause some computer somewhere to spit out recipes for buttermilk pancakes."
Apple was unavailable for comment.
Zdziarski discovered in the iPhone a cache that can hold a list of unauthorized applications and a URL to a
page on Apple's servers. The URL is apparently used to download a new list from time to time.
"That's all we know -- nothing more," Zdziarski said. "And just to clarify, it only downloads a list of
applications -- it doesn't 'tell Apple' what apps you are running -- get your facts straight."
Zdziarski later said in an update that he was able to feed his own list into an iPhone and effectively kill
applications that tried to use the GPS.
"It looks like that's all it's set to do right now, but I may just not have found the 'vaporize' switch,"
the developer said.
...
I want the buttermilk pancake recipe!
<rim_shot />
But seriously, folks...
People are often dismayed to find that I dislike Apple, as a company more than as a technology. This kind of
thing is the reason: it is raw arrogance on Apple's part to ship a premier product with such a parental
feature built into it. When I buy a multi-hundred-dollar device with a large monthly service fee, it damned
surely should not have a secret kill switch built into it.
It's true for McCain signs, too. I am not surprised at anything Republicans do, but I am astonished that
the Obama campaign wants you to pay for their yard sign. Gary Mauro explains:
...
When supporters of Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain buy signs or other campaign gear, they also turn over personal
information that will be used by the campaigns over and over again. The campaigns even report the purchase
of yard signs as political contributions to highlight their grass-roots support.
"In the future you're going to see a lot of people charged, not because ... [the campaigns] want the money,
but because it gets you into their database," said former Texas Land Commissioner Garry Mauro, who led
Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign in Texas. "If somebody gives you $5 or $10 for a bumper
sticker, they will give you $5 or $10 later on. That's the real reason to do it."
...
Stupid, stupid, stupid. In the past, I have physically distributed yard signs for at least three different
Democratic campaigns. It's hard work in hot weather, in Houston at least. That's one volunteer service I
won't provide anymore. The notion that literally everything must be connected to fundraising is damaging to
the traditional Democratic Party ideal that everyone is a participant in a campaign in a way that suits her
or him best. Forcing everyone to become a fundraising target is not of benefit to the notion of
participatory democracy.
I have no news of Stella's father this morning. He looked and sounded good when we saw him in the hospital
yesterday, but last night, it was discovered that one of his regular treatments was mistakenly withheld by the
hospital for a couple of days. They're investigating how that happened, but that kind of thing makes me
understand why
some studiesshow
the U.S. ranks last among wealthy industrialized nations in the health care it provides its citizens. There is
simply no excuse for that.
Sixty is an excellent number base,
especially in combination with positional notation, for all sorts of computations; it's been around since at
least 3100 B.C. Sixty as an age reckoned in years? it's probably been around a lot longer than that, and
starting today, I can begin to extol its virtues and curse its debilitating aspects. So far, five minutes into
the condition, I agree with
Maurice Chevalier:
"Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative."
UPDATE 10:53pm Tuesday: Edouard did not, at least in our location, live up to
expectations. That is probably no comfort to those whose property was damaged, mostly up the coast from here,
and there were some flooded places here and there in Houston (not near us) and some vehicles got in trouble in
those places, but nothing significant happened here today. Stella went in to work. I wish all our encounters
with tropical weather were as painless as this one. Unfortunately, we have most of the season yet to come...
UPDATE 10:44am Tuesday: it's rain and more rain here. There's not much wind yet;
more is expected this afternoon. Edouard moved west at a much higher speed than expected overnight, and turned
very slightly north, so that areas east of us are affected more than our location... when I first got up this
morning, it was barely raining at all. Stella is trying to reach someone at her workplace to determine whether
she is expected to go in; given the tendency of the roads between here and there to flood easily, and also given
that the surface area of her vehicle makes it almost like a sail, I have discouraged her, but it's her decision.
A lot of other parts of the county have lost power, but we still have it. I'll post occasionally as long as I
can.
UPDATE about 7:15pm Monday: I think we can disregard the last update; a lot of
sources seem to think Edouard is coming to Galveston and then Houston tomorrow.
The apartment maintenance people have tied down all the pool furniture, removed large potted plants and other
loose objects, etc. Stella is taking down her forest of wind chimes (she has more than a dozen). These
apartments have fared pretty well in tropical weather in the past. If I don't post for a day or three, please
assume it's a loss of power or net connection, rather than something more dire.
The rest of you who may be in the way of this thing... please stay safe.
UPDATE 5:03pm Monday: will Edouard take a
strange turn
toward the Texas/Louisiana border? It's not in the official forecast or the computer models yet, but SciGuy says
some of the forecasters are talking about the possibility that a high-pressure ridge north of Edouard may turn
it in that direction. This is a storm we have to watch closely.
UPDATE 10:22am Monday: an excellent source of information is the
live-blogging of Edouard
by the Houston Chronicle's SciGuy (Eric Berger). More casual than the detailed discussions over at
Weather Underground's tropical weather site,
Berger's blog is worth skimming occasionally for good, basic info on the status of things, and clear, easily
comprehensible graphs, charts and maps. As I write this, SciGuy's blog compares the intensity projections of
a half dozen forecasting models; most of them indicate that we will not see hurricane force winds. There's no
certainty of that, of course; besides, since Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, news of low intensity does not
necessarily comfort Houstonians very much.
(Original post...)
Tropical Storm Edouard is forecast to make an appearance in Houston sometime Tuesday morning. They say it may
reach hurricane strength, just barely, by the time it makes landfall, though it's anybody's guess what this odd
storm will really do. We are, as usual, prepared for a hurricane, though not exactly happy about it. I'll keep
you posted as long as we have power and a net connection.
An astonishing amount of BS has been flung by the McCain campaign in commercials advancing the notion
that Obama is a celebrity. (Sorry; no link from here. I am confident you can find the commercials yourself.) I
understand that the intent... one intent at least... is to convey the notion that Obama is a mere
celebrity, a popular figure with no other redeeming virtues. Whether the commercials succeed in that intent is a
matter for legitimate discussion; personally, I think they fail miserably, but nobody on either side can be
objective and nonpartisan about it.
But the commercials undeniably fail... the McCain campaign fails... to acknowledge the component that sheer
celebrity has always played in Americans' opinions of their winning presidential candidates:
Think of JFK: along with Jackie, Jack Kennedy was a major part of "Camelot," both of them beloved for their
persons, their public roles, as surely as for JFK's actions and policies as president. I clearly recall
riding to school in a carpool driven by a woman who said (as nearly as I can quote), "I'm voting for Kennedy
because he's soooo handsome!" Make what you will of her opinion, but I'll wager the electorate was full of
women (and probably more than a few men) who agreed with her.
A bit earlier... how about FDR? He was elected four times, and it was sung of him in a song by one of
America's greatest songwriters,
And Franklin Roosevelt's looks
Give me a thrill.
Did that have anything to do with FDR's actions as commander-in-chief, or his role in leading America out of
the worst depression any Republican ever caused the nation to blunder into? ("Yet," I should add; the year
is still young.) No; it was an acknowledgment of Roosevelt's (yes, you guessed it) celebrity.
What about Ike? If he wasn't a celebrity in the conquering-hero mold, who ever was?
Ronald and Nancy Reagan? Retired movie actors with outsized egos exceeding at least Ronnie's ability to do
anything useful? Are you going to try to tell me Dutch was not a celebrity? Give me a break!
I'm not going to make the case for Bill Clinton as a celebrity, but I think it's there to be made. Those who
insist on deprecating the impact of his personality on his presidency must nonetheless acknowledge the clear
evidence of his personal attractiveness.
So there you have it: if Obama becomes president, he will be the latest celebrity president in a long line of
exceedingly popular celebrity presidents of both major parties. Are these presidents better or worse than our
less flamboyant occupants of the office? Probably not, but they do have more appeal. In the era of TV and the
'net, it's part of the nature of the typical American citizen to enjoy the well-spoken, good-looking president
in preference to the ancient, whining scold. Can you blame us?
I've
read
that McCain's campaign is spending over $140k a day running ads that show Obama speaking to enthusiastic crowds
of hundreds of thousands of people around the world, ads that try to connect Obama with beautiful young people,
etc., in an avowed attempt to convey the notion that Obama is a lightweight. On the whole, I wish to thank
Senator McCain for devoting his campaign money to Senator Obama's aggrandizement. What greater gesture of
goodwill could a Republican give an opponent than to spend a third of his campaign money showing how attractive
that opponent is? Maybe I'm missing some salient fact here, but I tend to think these ads will backfire on
McCain.
(We'll set aside the racist subtext of those ads for the moment. I agree that McCain has succeeded in
introducing racial bias into the debate without immediately paying the penalty for doing so. We don't know yet
whose advantage that serves in the long term, but I think he's taking an awful chance playing that game.)
UPDATE:James Wolcott
says much the same thing, but not surprisingly, he says it much better than I have done. If I had read his post
before I wrote my own, I might have simply referred you over there. I still hope you'll read it, if for no other
reason than to enjoy the pleasure of Wolcott's language.
UPDATE: Here's an interesting quote from
Susan Eisenhower,
Ike's granddaughter, who announced her endorsement of Obama back in February:
Obama seems like a leader who can deal with challenges that are highly complex, nuanced and interconnected, and
he has the language and communication skills and temperament to engage a set of world leaders who are his
generation.
However many problems I may have with some of Senator Obama's policy positions, I have to agree with Ms.
Eisenhower about his communication skills and his capacity for nuance.
Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border
No Suspicion Required Under DHS Policies
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 1, 2008; Page A01
Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an
unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department
of Homeland Security recently disclosed.
Also, officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language
translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS
agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"The policies . . . are truly alarming," said Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), who is probing the government's
border search practices. He said he intends to introduce legislation soon that would require reasonable
suspicion for border searches, as well as prohibit profiling on race, religion or national origin.
...
No, of course they don't exclude U.S. citizens from their border search policies; Fourth Amendment be damned.
So... what can they examine without reasonable suspicion, while they have your electronic devices?
...
The policies state that officers may "detain" laptops "for a reasonable period of time" to "review and analyze
information." This may take place "absent individualized suspicion."
The policies cover "any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form," including hard drives,
flash drives, cellphones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes. They also cover "all papers and
other written documentation," including books, pamphlets and "written materials commonly referred to as 'pocket
trash' or 'pocket litter.' "
Reasonable measures must be taken to protect business information and attorney-client privileged material, the
policies say, but there is no specific mention of the handling of personal data such as medical and financial
records.
...
The policy has been in place for a while, though revealed only recently.
If this policy is allowed to stand, we are well on our way to becoming a "security state" of the sort we have
seen in Nazi Germany and the old Soviet Union. "Ihre Papiere, bitte" is but a short step away.
For now, the only thing I can suggest to the ordinary business traveler is to pack minimally. Leave your laptop at
home, or arrange for your company to provide you a "clean" laptop each time you travel. If you have critical
data you need on the trip, encrypt it somewhere on a secure web site, and for goodness' sake, don't write your
usernames and passwords on scraps of paper. And far be it from me to suggest that you carry with you a CD
containing a few meaningless spreadsheets for the curious to examine, sheets with passwords like "pass" or
"admin" ... oh, no, I'd never suggest such a thing.
These warrantless, suspicionless electronic searches must cease. America must not become in effect an old
Soviet bloc country: the irony would be more than most of us could bear.
No, really, I'm serious. But Mad is not. Indeed, she's been recognized as the truly funny lady she is,
winning the Robert Benchley Society Award for Humor,
as judged by... again, I'm not kidding... Bob Newhart. Congrats, Mad; it's good to see you winning
well-deserved praise for your humor!
For a variety of reasons... Stella's busyness, my busyness, Samantha and Tabitha's busyness... I haven't gotten
any suitable photos of the girls this week, so we'll feature another of Stella's psycho-ceramic*
cats:
* I have no idea what material this artsy kitty is made of. But it seems to me a psychotherapist's decorative
cat should be ceramic... a psycho-ceramic, a crackpot.
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Some very recent posts may be included in their entirety.
I Love Paris In The Summer
We all know about John McSame's new
campaign commercial
linking Obama-the-celebrity to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.
After all, he's on record as having contributed a large amount to the McCain campaign. Indeed, in the true
Republican spirit, Rick Hilton attempted to give the McCain campaign twice as much as the law allows.
Miraculously, the excess was returned by the campaign. Didn't the worker who returned it understand that
IOKIYAR?
I understand this is part of McLame's attempt to go negative. But showing one's opponent appearing on the world
stage, before hundreds of thousands of cheering people, does not seem the wisest way to tag him as incapable of
leadership. If I were running against a handsome, well-spoken man in the prime of middle age, I don't think I'd
use my own advertising dollars to show him at his world-dazzling best.
Then again, what do I know... apparently, the polls are close in some battleground states. And we know from
previous (s)elections that McShame need only come close; he doesn't actually have to win to take the office.
Maybe Contemptuous Karl has it figured just right: maybe Americans really don't give a damn enough to respond
with outrage to outrageous campaigning.
Better the occasional faults of a government that lives
in a spirit of charity than the constant omissions of a
government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
- FDR
I belong to the Democratic Party wing of the Democratic Party.
- Paul Wellstone
I am a Democrat without prefix, without suffix, and without apology.
- Sam Rayburn
