COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Good Move. McCain Outfoxing Obama


"How is it, McCain exclaimed with relish, that Obama "wants to sit down" with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but has yet to have a one on one with Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. troops in Iraq?"

Nice move McCain. Punch and counter-punch. Keep inside and punk ass the rookie.

_____________

John McCain has meeting plans for Barack Obama

John McCain hardly could have been surprised that the road trip recently suggested by one of his allies received a rude reception from Barack Obama's camp.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton, responding to the idea floated by Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and quickly embraced by McCain that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and Obama visit Iraq together, dismissed it as "nothing more than a political stunt."

That reaction, as it turns out, may be exactly what McCain was hoping for. It gave him the opportunity, which he jumped on today at a campaign stop in Reno, to personalize his unrelenting criticism of Obama's pledge that as president, he would be willing to meet with anti-American leaders with a raft of preconditions.

How is it, McCain exclaimed with relish, that Obama "wants to sit down" with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but has yet to have a one on one with Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. troops in Iraq?

It's a line we suspect will become a perennial in McCain's rhetorical arsenal. Indeed, to reinforce the point, the Republican National Committee today announced the start of an "online clock" marking the days since Obama's sole trip to Iraq (871 and counting).

It worked for Fox News' Chris Wallace....


-- Don Frederick LA Times

26 comments:

  1. Didn't know he'd been there.

    Great art work deuce, you're on a roll.

    ReplyDelete
  2. CQ Answers Five Burning Questions About Saturday’s DNC Rules Meeting

    1. What exactly will they be doing on Saturday?

    Starting at 9:30 a.m., interested parties will get the chance to speak for 15 minutes to the Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) about the delegations to the Denver convention from Michigan and Florida.

    ...

    2. So, these specific challenges from Florida and Michigan, what are they?

    There are three pending before the committee:

    • From Ausman: The Florida party charter requires the state’s ex officio delegates, known as superdelegates, to be seated regardless of any penalties to the state’s pledged delegates.


    ...

    3. OK, those are the challengers. Who else is going to be there and what are their positions?

    • The Democratic National Committee: Tuesday night, the DNC sent a staff analysis of the challenges to the members of the Rules and Bylines Committee. Among other things, the memo examined the possibility of imposing a 50 percent sanction on the states’ delegations, either by cutting the total number of delegates in half or by giving each delegate half a vote at the convention.

    Rules Meeting

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  3. Olcott, the Central Asia expert, argues that Uzbek society is much less inclined toward secular values than it was 10 years ago, a shift that could eventually lead to Uzbekistan becoming a religious state.

    "There's a lot riding on transition," said Olcott, who has researched the role of religion in Uzbekistan. "I think you're going to get another Islamic state down the road.

    The question is whether it's going to be tolerant or intolerant."


    West Takes Softer Stance

    ReplyDelete
  4. After giving it some more thought...

    Obama Weighs a Visit to the Troops in Iraq


    By JEFF ZELENY, NYT
    Published: May 29, 2008

    THORNTON, Colo. — Senator Barack Obama said Wednesday that he was considering visiting American troops and commanders in Iraq this summer.

    Mr. Obama declined an invitation from Senator John McCain to take a joint trip to Iraq, saying, “I just don’t want to be involved in a political stunt.”

    In a brief interview here, Mr. Obama said he might take a foreign trip after he secured the Democratic presidential nomination. No details have been set, he said.

    “Iraq would obviously be at the top of the list of stops,” he added.

    Mr. Obama visited Iraq in January 2006 as part of a Congressional delegation to the Middle East. He has not returned since becoming a presidential contender.

    Mr. McCain and the Republican National Committee have sought to use the 2006 trip to highlight a lack of foreign policy experience.

    For weeks, aides to Mr. Obama have been quietly discussing a foreign trip, but the long Democratic nominating contest delayed concrete plans.

    “I think that if I’m going to Iraq, then I’m there to talk to troops and talk to commanders,” Mr. Obama said. “I’m not there to try to score political points or perform. The work they’re doing there is too important.”

    Mr. McCain responded to the possible trip by saying he was “glad to hear that Senator Obama is now, quote, considering a trip to Iraq.”

    “It’s long overdue,” Mr. McCain told reporters in Los Angeles. “It’s been 871 days since he was there.”

    ReplyDelete
  5. tick...tock...

    tick...tock...

    tick...tock...

    ReplyDelete
  6. The U.S. needs to act now to relieve the economic stress that high fuel costs are exacting from regular working people, Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-Hurley, said Wednesday in a news conference at his Middletown office.

    We need to cut consumption, encourage alternatives to oil-based products and rein in price gougers and hedge-fund speculators who drive up prices, Hinchey says. He says a current congressional proposal sets a cap at $2.59 per gallon.

    Since 2000, he says, the dollar's value has fallen 37 percent compared with the euro, and oil prices by the barrel are 28 percent higher than in 2004.


    Action on Oil

    ReplyDelete
  7. American Rickshaw Companies--Your Complete List

    "A Taxi Without
    An Attitude"

    Everything from "A" to "Z"

    "Secure Your Traveling Future Today"

    Long Distance hauls by appointment and reservation, on the reservation or off.

    ReplyDelete
  8. HILLARY IS THE NEW WALLACE

    By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN

    Published in the New York Post on May 28, 2008.

    Printer-Friendly Version

    In its final days, Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign has come to echo George Wallace's 1968 run.

    Like Clinton, Wallace as a candidate stalked the Northeast exploiting white anger. Like her, he bypassed the nation's more educated and liberal parts to focus squarely on those who felt left behind, rallying animosity against elites.

    But behind the mask of populism, it was race that fueled Wallace's campaign from the start. And it is race that has brought new life to Clinton's campaign in its final days.

    Like Wallace, Clinton doesn't address racial prejudice squarely, but cloaks the appeal to our darker fears in seemingly neutral issues. He used opposition to school busing; she has played off Obama's alleged elitism and ties to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

    To be fair, neither appeal is totally invalid.

    Busing failed to integrate our schools and led, instead, to greater segregation as whites fled to the suburbs and/or to private schools.

    Rev. Wright, meanwhile, is enough to scare the daylights out of anybody. To have a president who sat willingly in his pews, absorbing and seemingly condoning his hatred, is a worrisome prospect indeed.

    But the basic fact remains that Clinton, like Wallace, is relying on race. Their tactics are similar, appealing to the same kind of voters for parallel reasons.

    No, Clinton isn't a racist - but she's still using race to win elections. (So, by the way, did Bill Clinton in 1992, with his criticism of Sister Souljah and his much-publicized backing for capital punishment.)

    Racism is as racism does. When a politician consciously exploits racial divisions, fears and animosity to win an election, he or she deserves condemnation.

    But Hillary Clinton is neither a racist nor a populist; she's an opportunist. Discovering that the establishment consensus has left behind millions of disgruntled voters - the angry white men of yesteryear - she, like Wallace before her, is creating new fissures in the electorate in the hopes of upsetting a harmony that doesn't serve her ends.

    Her advocates say that Clinton has found her voice. But this new voice is but an echo of a a discordant note in a discredited past.

    In the coal mines of Kentucky and West Virginia and the former factory towns of Western Pennsylvania and Central Ohio, the anger into which this voice taps remains alive, hot and glowing. But most of America has moved beyond prejudice, beyond diversity, beyond even tolerance, into a post-racial era.

    It was a proud feature of our politics in 2008 that we seemed to have crested this wave of progress - until Clinton, embittered by frustrated ambition, blew on the smoldering embers of racial fear to stage a comeback for the nomination.

    It isn't her proudest moment.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The Giant Pool of Money

    1 hour NPR piece on CDO's and the housing/credit bust.

    (one guy figures they owned parts of 60 million mortgages!)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Well, it may be a good move, but the timing certainly sucks.

    As I viewed the morning shows, it was Scott that was getting the minutes, not John or Barack.

    Seems that Scott went back to Texas and got a reality check, once he was out of the influence of the "architech".

    "Not the Scot I knew", is the White House line.
    Often happens when the victim is removed from a cult enviorment, they revert to normal norms of behaviour. Becoming a stranger to the remaining cultists.

    This is seen often, in Texas, the 400 children that Texas siezed from their mothers, the most current example of cultists returning to normality.

    It's a Texican thing.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Barack goes to Iraq, as the nominee, listens to General P ...

    Declares victory has been achieved, from his personal experience, there in Iraq.

    Maliki is in control
    We can start to withdraw.

    McCain is left holding "the War"

    As likely a scenario, as any other.

    ReplyDelete
  12. ...safe in foster homes, where abuse is only twice as prevalent as in those w/parents.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Joey Cheek My New Olympic Dream Team Darfur
    ---
    After he had an article in the WaPo, China may keep him out of attending the Olympics!

    ReplyDelete
  14. You're right, Rat. McCains's an idiot. A bought and paid for by Saudi Arabia-idiot.

    A smart man would have waited till Sept/Oct to snap off this trap. All he's done is give Obama an idea.

    ReplyDelete
  15. At least he won't drill in the Grand Canyon!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Dam The Canyon. We Need
    The Energy!

    nah, just joking.

    Often happens when the victim is removed from a cult enviorment, they revert to normal norms of behaviour. Becoming a stranger to the remaining cultists.


    cult, cabal, coven, criminal enterprise....capitalist cult, cabal, coven of criminals....

    :)

    Your descriptions of the cabal are becoming more fervered, Rat!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Lakota Sioux for the Paleface Billary

    Hillary comes roaring back in South Dakota threatening to scalp Obama. Billary ahead in Puerto Rico. Let all the votes be counted! Let the fix be in, in Florida, Michigan. Let the blood flow!

    ReplyDelete
  18. White
    Entitlement and Supremacy Denounced At Black Entitlement and Supremacist Church


    Hillary thought she'd win "bacause she's white."

    May they all be one, saith the Lord.

    ReplyDelete
  19. McClellan: Publisher Using Me Unwittingly to Sell Books

    by Scott Ott for ScrappleFace

    (2008-05-28) — Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, who claims in a new book that Bush administration officials used him to promote the president’s policies and to defend top officials, today said he suspects he’s being used unwittingly by his publisher to pass along information “just to sell books.”

    “I’m afraid I’ve become the innocent accomplice to another propaganda effort,” said Mr. McClellan. “It turns out that my publisher is engaged in a highly-choreographed campaign to move books through distribution points in cities throughout the country, as well as through internet portals.”

    The author of What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, said that during visits to his publisher’s headquarters he has seen editors and marketing people stepping into offices for “mysterious private conversations as if they were plotting something.”

    “I’m concerned,” said Mr. McClellan, “that, like Bush, I may have engaged in self-deception and convinced myself to believe what suits my needs at the moment — mostly my need to convert my undistinguished White House tenure into an endless stream of cash.”

    Mr. McClellan said he plans to “ask a lot of questions and get to the bottom of this, as soon as the checks all clear.”

    ReplyDelete
  20. and winning(Hillary winning) virtually all the contested primaries since February when the Reverend Wright story surfaced.

    Obama's Woes

    The election seems McCain's to lose. Rev. Wright has really hurt him, and there may be a video out there of Michelle screeching about "whitey".

    Beware the working class embittered gun hugging Bible thumping whites.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Coulter says the book was written some time ago and could not get any traction from publishers until they paid McClellan enough money to put his name on it.....

    ReplyDelete
  22. Did she win Ideehoe after losing the Cockus?

    ReplyDelete
  23. Lost by 18%, in Idaho, bob reported yesterday.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Goldwater supported damming the Canyon. He is the touchstone for all conservatives.

    He said the peoples needs came first.

    ReplyDelete