February 2007

Keyes’ Company: Alan Keyes Lives in Bill Kristol

ArchPundit February 12, 2007 1 Comment

There’s something about Obama that makes people opposed to him explode into a burst of hot gas with the most recent example being Bill Kristol (video on C & L):

KRISTOL: We’re electing a war president in 2008. If I can go back to Obama and Lincoln for just one second, Lincoln’s “house divided” speech in 1858 was a speech saying we cannot live as a house divided on slavery. And he implicitly says we’ll have to fight a civil war if necessary on this.

Obama’s speech is a “can’t we get along” speech — sort of the opposite of Lincoln. He would have been with Stephen Douglas in 1858. Let’s paper over these differences, rise above politics and all get along. That’s not Giuliani’s mode. And I think in a war context, social conservatives want to win the war against Islamic jihadism.

Last guy to say something this dumb: Alan Keyes:

So, have to give it to Keyes, when he says something most people would find embarrassing and over the top and is called on it, he doesn’t shrink from it. This morning on CNN when called on the Slaveholder line they showed him saying it and then they showed Obama responding. Obama responded slowly, surprised it was this wacky this quickly, and actually twitched and then said the bit about Keyes needing to look to Republican Party leaders about whether such language is appropriate.

Keyes then defended the quote and in effect reiterated it saying he doesn’t have to look to his party because he (Keyes), knows his heritage. He didn’t just embrace the quote, he grabbed on it and wrestled it to the ground.

Daily Dolt Obama

Daily Dolt

ArchPundit February 12, 2007 No Comments

The weekend produced a lot of candidates, but the winner is….

Australian PM John Howard:

n the same question-and-answer session with reporters, Obama had harsh words for Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who said Obama’s proposal to withdraw combat troops by March 2008 would “just encourage those who want to completely destabilize and destroy Iraq.”

Obama said Australia had sent only 1,400 troops to join the effort in Iraq, a fraction of the 140,000 U.S. troops there.

“I would suggest that he call up another 20,000 Australians and send them to Iraq,” Obama said. “Otherwise, it’s just a bunch of empty rhetoric.”

Yeah, Obama might actually get Osama bin Laden too.

Send me the video if you have it on You Tube or I’ll find it later.

Uncategorized

Yeah, I was there

ArchPundit February 12, 2007 2 Comments

But when Rich says we had a communication break down, it wasn’t we–it was me. I was a bit late getting there and didn’t think to catch up with him. It was fun and cold and I wouldn’t have missed it.

Shomon’s party was a blast and I had a great time–glad to meet everyone I did.

I got home on Sunday (I was in Bloomington with my daughters later on Saturday) and my power was out. Again. Landlord problems. Anyway, blogging will be a bit slow until the power is back on and my new motherboard arrives (Newegg shipped within 24 hours of receiving the bad one–I highly recommend Newegg now).

Almost everything besides the announcement was just fun and so I don’t write about it, but I will say the act of introducing Kwame Raoul as the next Barack Obama to two Japanese reporters was an act of cruelty that has absolutely hysterical. For those who don’t get it–Senator Raoul replaced Obama in the 13th, but in translation this doesn’t come out the same way.

Oh, and e-mail is way behind, but I’ll be getting to it.

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My generation

Daniel Biss February 10, 2007 3 Comments

So I was in Springfield today for the Obama announcement. Very exciting, very cold, and a very, very early departure from Evanston (5am!).

A lot of commentators have remarked on Obama’s many uses of the phrase “Let us be the generation…”

What’s he talking about? Surely the man’s far too savvy to think he can win a Presidential race without reaching out to voters older than himself.

My reading of the word “generation” is a different, looser one; it doesn’t refer to chronological age. The last 10 years have seen an incredible awakening among progressives, the beginnings of a real movement. From the 1998 impeachment circus (which gave rise to Moveon.org) to the 2000 recount fiasco, to the Iraq war and the Dean and Clark campaigns and the birth of the progressive blogosphere, to the urgency so many of us felt when working to get John Kerry elected, the past decade has been chock-full of wake-up calls.

And we’re waking up. A movement is coalescing.

Maybe I’m just hearing what I want to hear, but when Obama talks about our generation, I hear him calling this new movement to action. I hear him predicting that after the anger of 2000 and 2002, the heartbreak of 2004, and the tentative elation of 2006, our movement is ready to elect its first President.

That’s why this passage feels like the critical part of the speech to me:

That is why this campaign can’t only be about me. It must be about us – it must be about what we can do together. This campaign must be the occasion, the vehicle, of your hopes, and your dreams. It will take your time, your energy, and your advice – to push us forward when we’re doing right, and to let us know when we’re not. This campaign has to be about reclaiming the meaning of citizenship, restoring our sense of common purpose, and realizing that few obstacles can withstand the power of millions of voices calling for change.

This generation stuff isn’t some crass suggestion that we should vote for him over Hillary because he’s younger. It’s about his campaign representing a new kind of politics, a participatory, inclusive, and democratic politics. On the Evanston bus, I sat with a bunch of really active Northwestern University Democrats, as well as with a good friend of mine who’s 57 years old and got her start in politics with the Draft Clark movement. It sure felt like we were all part of the same generation.

Uncategorized

Slow

ArchPundit February 9, 2007 1 Comment

Through the weekend–you might check in, but I’ll largely be busy with some personal errands and then the announcement. Say hi if you are in Springfield.

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Threading the Needle

ArchPundit February 8, 2007 7 Comments

It’s about as good as he could do given the story had taken off, but it should kill it and shows some backbone:

Subject: EDWARDS STATEMENT ON CAMPAIGN BLOGGERS AMANDA MARCOTTE AND MELISSA McEWEN

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 8, 2007

EDWARDS STATEMENT ON CAMPAIGN BLOGGERS AMANDA MARCOTTE AND MELISSA McEWEN

Chapel Hill, North Carolina – The statements of Senator John Edwards, Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwen in reference to their work as independent bloggers before joining the Edwards campaign are below.

Senator John Edwards:

“The tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte’s and Melissa McEwe n’s posts personally offended me. It’s not how I talk to people, and it’s not how I expect the people who work for me to talk to people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone on my campaign, whether it’s intended as satire, humor, or anything else. But I also believe in giving everyone a fair shake. I’ve talked to Amanda and Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone’s faith, and I take them at their word. We’re beginning a great debate about the future of our country, and we can’t let it be hijacked. It will take discipline, focus, and courage to build the America we believe in.”

Amanda Marcotte:

“My writings on my personal blog, Pandagon on the issue of religion are generally satirical in nature and always intended strictly as a criticism of public policies and politics. My intention is never to offend anyone for his or her personal beliefs, and I am sorry if anyone was personally offended by writings meant only as criticisms of public politics. Freedom of religion and freedom of expression are central rights, and the sum of my personal writings is a testament to this fact.”

Melissa McEwen:

“Shakespeare’s Sister is my personal blog, and I certainly don’t expect Senator Edwards to agree with everything I’ve posted. We do, however, share many views – including an unwavering support of religious freedom and a deep respect for diverse beliefs. It has never been my intention to disparage people’s individual faith, and I’m sorry if my words were taken in that way.”

Obama

Self-Organizing and the Obama Campaign

ArchPundit February 7, 2007 4 Comments

Markos criticizes Obama for his statement that he saw something new at the George Mason rally that could reshape the political world.

There’s a bit more to the story though than what he said in that story and it reminded me of a good post I forgot to link to the other day just before the motherboard went kaplooeey.

Not Paul Begala at Blog PI picked up on a link to an old Chicago Reader article I had linked to which contained the following:

What makes Obama different from other progressive politicians is that he doesn’t just want to create and support progressive programs; he wants to mobilize the people to create their own. He wants to stand politics on its head, empowering citizens by bringing together the churches and businesses and banks, scornful grandmothers and angry young.

His own words:

In America … we have this strong bias toward individual action. You know, we idolize the John Wayne hero who comes in to correct things with both guns blazing. But individual actions, individual dreams, are not sufficient. We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations.

And what people said about him then — Johnnie Owens of the Developing Communities Project:

A lot of organizers you meet these days are these self-anointed leaders with this strange, way-out approach and unrealistic, eccentric way of pursuing things from the very beginning. Not Barack. He’s not about calling attention to himself. He’s concerned with the work.

And Madeline Talbott, “lead organizer of the feisty ACORN community organization”:

He is committed to organizing, to building a democracy. Above all else, he is a good listener, and we accept and respect him as a kindred spirit, a fellow organizer.

It might be stretching it to call the campaign an organization as of yet–it’s staffing up and the shortened time frame it’s operating on shows–though I think there are some incredibly bright people who will get it up and running soon enough. And as such the online activities are pretty weak as of yet and I hope to see it get off the ground.

Obama was organizing when Markos and I were still in High School and he ran one of the most effective GOTV and voter registration drives in Illinois partially based on the principle of empowering people to act on their own. The internet adds an entirely different dimension to this, but he’s a quick learner.

I do have a criticism of the Dean campaign however, and I think it’s effort at creating self-organizing wasn’t nearly effective as another campaign that year–the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign. It’s often an undertold story about how Bush increased his vote percentages nearly everywhere–even in deep blue states where he didn’t spend any money–like Illinois.

How did that happen with Barack Obama heading up the Illinois ticket and Alan Keyes depressing the Republican turnout–self-organizing in churches. Karl Rove seldom talks about this, but he is a master at using the networks created by religious conservatives to do a lot of the work without ever telling them or even communicating directly with them. They are motivated because the man they were backing seemed to them to be their guy and they set up phone banks and canvassing operations in their own community.

In contrast, Dean’s campaign attracted people from around the country to go to Iowa. Not the same effect as having your neighbor do it for you.

So, yeah, there is something to Obama’s statement sounding naive (I think it might, just might, have been a bit of useful naiveness), but it’s not Dean for America that deserves to be the model, it’s Bush-Cheney 2004.

Blog

On Marcotte and Edwards

ArchPundit February 7, 2007 2 Comments

While it isn’t resolved, Josh Marshall makes the point I’d like to see taken away from this:

Given how edgy blog writing is (some more than others), it seems inevitable that bloggers who go to work for campaigns will get their past writings scrutinized and then have their employers dogged to fire them. If there’s anything that surprises me about this dust-up with the Edwards campaign, it’s this. Is it really possible that they hadn’t figured out who they were hiring, figured something like this would happen and planned for how they would react if and when it did?

That said, the ‘incendiary’ quotes I just heard referenced on CNN didn’t really strike me as all that incendiary. And second, Bill Donohue? Chief rabblerouser and bullyboy of the ‘Catholic League’? Please. I think he gave up his ‘incendiary’ language complaint rights when he said that ” “Hollywood likes anal sex” or that “Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular.” I can’t wait till he comes with the dig that gets Jews, Christians and anal sex all into one long smoldering sentence.

Please. Please. Please. Let’s get someone on the right to complain who’s not a complete nutball and Jew-basher and then we can talk.

If you are a campaign hiring a blogger you have to do your due diligence and that includes ensuring what they have written is something you can live with. This might entail looking at the writings and insisting on something apologizing for some over the top language/idea, it might be simply getting ready for the inevitable right wing smears, or it might be deciding to go a different direction.

The Edwards campaign could have quashed this days ago and earned points doing it by having Amanda make a statement concerning the posts in question and preemptively dealing with it. When the whines started, it’s a dead story and simply don’t comment on it again. They didn’t and now they have let it languish and build up steam to get on cable news. That’s mismanaging the story and it has a lot in the blogosphere on edge largely because they see it as a betrayal to Amanda. Killing the story would have been easy, but now by being wishy-washy, the story continues taking away from the day’s message and getting coverage for loons on CNN and Fox.

Being prepared means preempting the idiots. But once you screw up, don’t back down.

Uncategorized

Don’t Hurt Him

ArchPundit February 7, 2007 1 Comment

He’s Comedy Gold

What’s right, and what’s not
by: pam
Wed Feb 07, 2007 at 13:30:00 PM EST

A CWA piece up today alerted me to the fact that there was a string of comments in a subthread of a particular post from a while back, that not only published private information about Peter LaBarbera, but contained threats. Whether they were real or not is irrelevant; it’s reprehensible — and it’s not what this community is about.

Given the amount of traffic and limited time I have, I don’t get to comment on or read every exchange in every post; there are community standards that were clearly violated by the exchanges, and I have rightfully deleted the comments.

I have never advocated threatening physical harm toward anyone, as I have been on the receiving end of the same treatment — and it doesn’t feel good, let me tell you.

We may be on the opposite sides of the fence on most matters from the people we discuss and comment about here on the Blend, but on this we can agree — our families (whether LaBarbera regards mine as such) have a right to be safe.

To be serious for a second, good for Pam and you are banned permanently if you pull any crap like that here.

Daily Dolt

ArchPundit February 7, 2007 4 Comments

Rush Limbaugh:

On the February 5 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh, responding to media coverage of Chicago Bears quarterback Rex Grossman, stated “they’re dumping on this guy — Rex Grossman — for one reason, folks, and that’s because he is a white quarterback.” Limbaugh later insisted in conversation with a caller that, “they just want this guy not to do well ’cause he’s a white quarterback,” and that Grossman was “targeted for destruction.” The Bears lost to the Indianapolis Colts 29-17 in Super Bowl XLI.

I think Grossman gets more flak than he deserves, but it isn’t because he’s white. It’s that tendency to throw the ball to the other team.

Keyes’ Company: Alan Keyes Lives in Bill Kristol

Daily Dolt

Yeah, I was there

My generation

Slow

Threading the Needle

Self-Organizing and the Obama Campaign

On Marcotte and Edwards

Don’t Hurt Him

Daily Dolt

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