Comments Posted By michael reynolds
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AYERS-OBAMA: THE VOTERS DON'T CARE
Rick:
On a blog I edit I said that our goal was total world domination. I don't think this means that the writers who post for me there are committed to attempting the overthrow of the government.
So Ayers is nuts. And he has a rich fantasy life. He's obviously an egomaniac. (Not that I'm in a position to criticize that.) And in Ayers' little crazy-town mind he's going to start a revolution. Do you honestly think Obama -- the Obama we've all been watching closely for two years now -- also believes in launching a revolution from the Chicago Public School system? Is there some evidence that Obama is crazy as well as liberal?
Obama is not a secret radical. He's a secret bore. His administration will be a very conventional affair.
This is fantasy and paranoia. I'll tell you what, I personally undertake to pay you or your favorite charity $100 for every genuinely "radical" thing Obama does as president.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 7.10.2008 @ 10:59
. . .poorly disguised efforts to turn schools from places of learning into revolution training academies.
I used to live in Chicago. I know the public schools. If Ayers thinks they're the launching point for . . . well, anything . . . he's crazy.
McCain's wife is a drug addict who stole drugs from her own charity. McCain was apparently oblivious, or perhaps, given his long association with Cindy, he actively covered up for her as she stole drugs from sick, desperate African children. How many African children died because McCain was covering up for Cindy? Was that the essence of the conspiracy? A racist plot to kill African children by giving the drugs to a bored rich girl? That makes McCain a known associate of a self-confessed junkie and embezzler and possibly murderer. And . . . horrors! He is still associating with her.
That's the level of these Ayers accusations. Guilt-by-association, absurd exaggeration, deliberate misreadings of reality. Obama and Ayers were working together to breed new members of the Weather Underground in Chicago public schools? Really? In this universe, or are we in an alternate universe now?
As for Wright we all know why Obama was at that church. He's a manipulative, opportunistic, self-serving politician, and there were a hell of a lot of votes there. Same reason McCain went crawling back with his tail between his legs to embrace crazy right-wing preachers who blamed hurricanes on gay people and 9/11 on abortion supporters.
The American people aren't ignoring this bull because they're in a state of panic, they're ignoring it for the same reason they didn't go rushing off to impeach Bill Clinton. Because they are more-or-less rational people not ideologues.
You weren't far off when you mocked me for saying that Obama was enabling Ayers to "breed new members of the Weather Underground."
What the fuck does his sound like to you?
Ayers in Venezuala talking about education:
"For instance, at a November 2006 education forum in Caracas, Venezuela, with President Hugo Chávez at his side, Ayers proclaimed his support for “the profound educational reforms under way here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chávez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution. . . . I look forward to seeing how you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane.” Ayers concluded his speech by declaring that “Venezuela is poised to offer the world a new model of education—a humanizing and revolutionary model whose twin missions are enlightenment and liberation,” and then, as in days of old, raised his fist and chanted: “Viva Presidente Chávez! Viva la Revolucion Bolivariana! Hasta la Victoria Siempre!”
Nope. No radical here. Move along, nothing to see says Michael.
ed.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 7.10.2008 @ 09:31
I'm pretty sure I was around these parts months ago suggesting that Republicans would need to be able to do more than smear Obama. They'd have to come up with some sort of vague clue as to the future and not just think Wright and Ayers would bail them out.
All this time has passed and I guarantee you the number one answer of commenters here to the question, "Why should we vote for McCain?" is still, "Because he's not Obama."
Fear and smear alone doesn't do it. And erotic adoration of Vice Presidential candidates doesn't do it. You guys needed to figure out why you liked McCain. You never did. Why? Because you don't actually like your own candidate. Americans are about the future, not the past. And they are more about hope than fear. Funny that the alleged ideological descendants of Ronald "Morning in America" Reagan could have thought all they needed was mud.
It is not a smear to ask the next president of the United States why he is on a first name basis with a terrorist. Especially since any idiot who has a passing familiarity with his association to this lunkheaded radical knows that Obama assisted Ayers in trying to initiate radical reforms in the Chicago school system - "reforms" in name only as they were poorly disguised efforts to turn schools from places of learning into revolution training academies.
Nor is it a smear to ask the candidate how much of his "spiritual mentor's" (his words, Michael) kookie ideas rubbed off on him. No one is saying there is not racism in America. But Wright is a nauseating bigot and a crackpot to boot. It is not a "smear" to ask him questions about Wright any more than it is a smear to ask questions about McCain's naval service. Both campaigns would love to avoid the questions but that doesn't mean they are correct.
You've got to stop parroting talking points Michael. You are losing your reputation for objectivity.
ed.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 7.10.2008 @ 09:04
I'm not sure the possibility of being turned into France or Netherlands is quite what the McCain campaign is going for here. I thought Barack Obama . . . excuse me, Barack Hussein Abdul Vladimir Stokely Josef Yassir Osama Obama . . . was going to plunge us into a nightmare world where we were simultaneously an Islamic theocracy, terror state, corrupt godless communist dictatorship and Paris Hilton sex tape co-starring OJ Simpson.
I didn't know all we had to fear was France. I was just in France. Terrific freeways, though the tolls are high.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 5.10.2008 @ 12:55
Correction: the CNN poll went from 42 to 46 for Palin. Her "not qualified" number dropped by 1% to 53. Both insta-polls have Biden as clear winner, and as winner of the "cares about you," question.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 3.10.2008 @ 04:02
Democrats shouldn't waste much time complaining. This was the best we were likely to get. She was never going to fall over in a dead faint. She was necessarily going to exceed expectations. She was always going to connect with the base.
The take-away in electoral terms was that 42 percent number in the CNN poll that now thought her capable of being Veep. She had that going in, she had it coming out. If she had stopped halfway through the debate to impale herself with a salad fork she'd have still had that 42%.
The game was not changed. But it never is by Veeps or Veep debates. Palin will probably cost McCain 1%. A really great Veep might have gained him 1%.
The McCain problem is McCain, and specifically his lack of a rationale for his presidency other than, "I'm not Obama." I've been pointing to that here for a long time while Rick hammered Obama.
We all get that Republicans don't like Obama, and that they do like Palin. The missing element is McCain, the invisible man of the right wing blogs. He's the one losing this election and getting very little help from his friends in the blogosphere who spend all their time attacking Obama and praising Palin.
McCain's pulling out of Michigan. What's next? Wisconsin? Colorado? Minnesota?
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 3.10.2008 @ 03:46
I think anti-Americanism is vastly exaggerated. I live in Italy (for the last 5 months) and in the last couple of years have traveled extensively around Britain, France, Netherlands and Spain. And I don't see it. I think it's mostly paranoia.
I drive around Italy and France in a car with North Carolina license plates. My over-fed, over-loud, over-here family and I could hardly be anything other than American -- everyone knows what we are, it's not a secret we keep. And so far, in six months, I've had exactly one guy flip us off. No one spits, crosses the street, rolls their eyes or threatens us.
I was just at Omaha Beach. The visitors to the American graveyard were primarily French. They didn't stand gazing respectfully over those crosses because they hate Americans.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 29.09.2008 @ 02:38
CONSERVATIVE COLUMNIST ASKS PALIN TO WITHDRAW
If Palin were a man, let alone a Democrat, Republicans would be screaming from the rooftops about her ignorance and apparent inability to alter that ignorance.
She's had weeks with McCain's people. Weeks to get up to speed. And she makes honest Republicans cringe and all Democrats laugh.
Furthermore, the McCain people know it. Why was Biden out there as a surrogate on the networks and Palin was not? Because McCain's people know she's a disaster. Every time she does an interview she looks worse. That's not a "learning curve," that's someone unteachable.
I know the righties love her, but I'll bet you her numbers with indies are dropping and she'll end by being a drag on the ticket.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 27.09.2008 @ 06:23
It's not that you're always right -- you're not. Or that you're always above partisanship -- you're quite partisan. It's that you're incapable of the complete betrayal of your own intellect and the complete abandonment of consistency and honesty. You actually have a certain integrity. You actually care what the capital "T" truth is.
That's why you're never going to get Sean Hannity's job. You're just not enough of a tool, Rick.
It's why I read you every day, for whatever that's worth.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 25.09.2008 @ 11:54
OBAMA THROWS 'HOPE AND CHANGE' UNDER THE BUS
But the millions of new voters who answered Obama’s call and saw him as a different kind of politician will, unless they are completely unaware of what is going on in the campaign, have second thoughts about this new version of Obama.
One of the funnier things you've written, Rick.
The Right invents a caricature of Obama, decides that he's moved away from that caricature, and now we'll have no alternative but to go rushing into the arms of the candidate you still can't bring yourself to say a kind word about?
McCain's got nothing. Zero. Nada. As evidenced by the fact that you folks on the Right spend 99% of your time attacking Obama, and 1% touting your candidate. And that only in glancing references in peans to Palin.
Yeah, now that Obama is adjusting his campaign message we'll have to shift to the 72 year old mudslinger who picked an ignoramus for his running mate. Let the stampede begin.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 15.09.2008 @ 16:01
