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, September 17, 2008

The Democrats Flipped a Coin in Selecting Obama...

... and they got a bad flip.

Vacillating, imperious, effete and rudderless describes the pompous pretender who is dangerously close to being President of The United States. Obama, an inexperienced, untested academic came onto the national scene by opportunism and serendipity. Barack Obama is the Democratic candidate of Hope. The Democrats and their pimps in the media do hope that most of the American people do not notice what should be obvious. There is no there there.

__________________________

Obama's Panic

By Michael Gerson Washington Post
Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Seldom has there been a larger contrast between the style of a candidate and the strategy of his campaign.

Barack Obama is cool, firm and permanently unruffled. It is precisely this quality of steadiness that has made him seem a credible prospective president with the thinnest of résumés.

But Obama's campaign is rootless, reactive and panicky. At every stage since securing the nomination, it has seemed fearful of missteps and unsure of its own organizing principle. So it has invariably adopted the Democratic conventional wisdom of the moment.

Obama's first major decision was his running mate. He could have reinforced a message of change and moderation with a Democratic governor who wins in a Republican state, or reached for history by selecting Hillary Clinton. But his choice came soon after Russia invaded Georgia, and the conventional wisdom demanded an old hand who knew his way around Tbilisi. When the Georgia crisis faded, Obama was left with a partisan, undisciplined, congressional liberal at his side. This has served to undermine Obama's message of change -- and has allowed Sarah Palin to pilfer a portion of that appeal.



Obama's second decision concerned the tone and content of his convention. Here the Democratic conventional wisdom was nearly unanimous. Obama should shelve his highfalutin rhetoric and talk like a real Democrat. Go after McCain. Talk about "bread and butter" issues -- code words for class-warfare attacks on consumers of blinis and caviar.

Obama took this advice to the letter -- at the cost of his political identity. In his Denver speech, it seemed that every American home was on the auction block, every car stalled for lack of gasoline, every credit card bill past due, every worker treated like a Russian serf. And John McCain? He was out of touch, with flawed "judgment." His life devoted to serving oil companies and big corporations. And, by the way, he didn't have the courage to follow Osama bin Laden "to the cave where he lives." In obedience to the best Democratic advice, Obama managed to be conventional, bitter and graceless.

Now Obama has made his third major campaign decision -- to finally get really tough on McCain. In response to attacks and dropping polls, the Democratic wisdom is once again nearly uniform: Democrats lose because they are not vicious enough. And once again, the Obama campaign has taken this advice without hesitation. "We will respond with speed and ferocity to John McCain's attacks, and we will take the fight to him," says Obama's campaign manager.

Obama feels provoked -- and he has been. There is no evidence that Obama supported explicit sex education for kindergarteners, as a McCain ad implied. Having already accused McCain of being a cowardly corporate tool who is disconnected from reality, escalation is not an easy task for Obama. But he has managed. In one recent commercial, McCain is clearly mocked for his age -- compared to a disco ball and a 10-pound cellphone. Another ad uses the word "dishonorable" next to a photo of McCain -- an attack from a candidate who has little practical familiarity with the cost of honor.

Who is hurt most by this race to the bottom? McCain, by the evidence of his own convention, wants to be a viewed as a fighter -- which a fight does little to undermine. Obama was introduced to America as a different and better kind of politician -- an image now in tatters.

Even worse for Obama, all these shifts to catch the prevailing winds confirm the most serious concerns about his political character. As a senator, he has almost never opposed the ideological consensus of his party. (The ethics reform he often cites as his profile in courage eventually passed the Senate 96 to 2.) And now as a presidential candidate, Obama has run his campaign with all the constancy of a skittish sailboat on an erratic ocean.

Here is a different strategy. Obama could attempt to "beat back the politics of fear, and doubt, and cynicism." He could try to build a coalition that "stretches through red states and blue states." He could reject "the politics where we tear each other down instead of lifting this country up."

The candidate who said those words the night he won the Iowa caucuses did pretty well. But whatever the outcome of this presidential election, that candidate is no longer in the race.


13 comments:

  1. "Obama feels provoked -- and he has been. There is no evidence that Obama supported explicit sex education for kindergarteners, as a McCain ad implied."
    ----
    People get so good at avoiding the obvious, namely that when these programs get their foot in the door, they immediately do just what they promise they will not.
    ---
    For the record, Obama claims Michelle taught her girls about same sex marriages when they were six.

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  2. All well and good, duece, I guess.
    Still not one State has swung

    RCP, "No Leaners"
    Obama/Biden 273 McCain/Palin 265

    48 days
    Only Time Will Tell

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  3. Plus, he could always jettison Biden for someone that would garner some votes.
    That would be...

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  4. Say what you want, doug.
    But can you point to the status que with pride?

    I guess the GOP does.
    In Educational and Immigration

    The challenge, according to this CDC report seems to be with the same segment of the population that has historically been mismanaged by the education establishment.

    Also seems, that as a daughter of a Native Alaskan, Ms Palin is in a higher risk demographic group, for teen pregnancy. More than twice as high as nonHispanic white folk.

    Health Disparities
    Major disparities exist in pregnancy, birth, sexual transmitted diseases (STDs), and HIV rates. In 2005, Washington, D.C., had the highest teen birth rate in the country (63.4 per 1,000), and states Texas and New Mexico with the highest rates (61.6 each); New Hampshire had the lowest teen birth rate (17.9).4 In 2006, the overall birth rate for 15– to 19– year-old females was 41.9, but—

    the rate was 83 among Hispanics (twice the overall rate),
    63.7 among non-Hispanic blacks (however, blacks have a slightly higher teen pregnancy rate than Hispanics),
    54.7 among American Indian or Alaska Natives,
    and 26.6 among non-Hispanic whites.
    Sixty-nine percent of HIV/AIDS cases diagnosed in 13– to 19– year-olds in 2005 were among black youth, although only 17% of youth in the 33 reporting states were black. Among male youth aged 13–24 years, the vast majority (over 75%) of HIV/AIDS cases involve transmission of the virus through male-to-male sexual contact.5 Among females aged 13–24, the main route of HIV/AIDS transmission is through high-risk heterosexual contact (85% of cases).5 CDC’s 2006 STD Surveillance Report show higher rates of all STDs among minority racial and ethnic populations when compared to whites, with the exception of Asians/Pacific Islanders. While some of these disparities may be because of increased testing and reporting among some populations; such as, public health clinics, much work remains to improve health promotion and prevention efforts among youth and communities facing these disparities in adolescent reproductive health.


    The higher rates for minority populations, should they be seen as educational failure, or sub-cultural success?

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  5. Oh, wait, McCain said it was Obama that killed Comprehensive Immigration Reform, not the GOP.

    Right, almost forgot.

    Thanks a million, Barack!

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  6. Obama/Biden 207
    157 Solid 50 Leaning


    McCain/Palin 227
    172 Solid 55 Leaning

    Toss Up 104

    How do they calculate the
    "No Leaners?"

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  7. Who ever is ahead, today, no matter the size of the lead gets the State.

    With a 0.6% lead McCain holds VA.

    While it is well within the margin of error.

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  8. Well, that is not 100% accurate, doug.
    Today it seems that RCP has Virginia TIED, EVEN Up.

    But I guess since McCain has held the lead there, until he is down, he'll hold VA, for the sake of the "No Leaners" map.

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  9. But, in Virginia, seems Obama has pick up the momentum, post Palin bounce.

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  10. real news that is being ignored


    iran hides 60 tons of uranium that was being watch by the iaea

    iaea tells of iranian nuke missile program

    syrian forces seize 7 lebanese towns

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  11. You assume it is hidden, wi"o", and not being processed.

    Wide range of options of what could be happening to that radioactice material, today.

    A missile using nuclear fuel?
    No, I doubt that.

    A missile capable of lifting a viable payload, that'd be reasonable. Now, do you want the US military to limit Iran's ability to launch communication satellites?

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  12. dr:

    You assume it is hidden, wi"o", and not being processed.


    No I assume it is diverted for being processed into enriched uranium

    DR:
    A missile using nuclear fuel?
    No, I doubt that.


    You can doubt it, however the pattern suggests otherwise...

    Last sept's israel & usa strike in syria of Nkor, Iran & syria's nuke missile factory is part of the pattern

    for the IAEA to tell of iran's missing uranium from the very PLANT they monitior, COMBINED with the iaea's OWN report of iran nuke missile research is startling at worst, alarming at best...

    the iaea is the very last place I'd expect anything except praise for Iran...

    DR: A missile capable of lifting a viable payload, that'd be reasonable. Now, do you want the US military to limit Iran's ability to launch communication satellites?

    I want IRAN to have limits on the number of bread toasters it's allowed UNTIL it changes the jihadist, terrorist path it's on...

    Iran has forfeited any right to "national defense or industry" after calling for the genocide of Israel & the USA

    As a signer of the UN charter, Iran crossed red lines...

    and now it's pursuit of NUKES combined with it's murderous behavior since 1978 are now coming to fruition...

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  13. oh and the latest Hillary Palin issue?

    It's a complete CLINTON BOMB...


    ON OBAMA

    It's a perfect cover...

    Hillary has a 90% rating among american jews... (except for the arafat's wife french kiss)

    By pulling out of the Mr Dinnerjacket event at the UN (a BI-partisian event for YEARS) she will cause jewish voters to VOTE McCain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Thus causes mr messiah to falter, look to reaction in Ohio & FL

    Hillary is genus...

    Obama just got sacked by....... Hillary

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