Obama: still Muslim after all these smears:
“The rule that I was sort of raised on was … you never respond at greater volume and in a bigger medium,” said Mark Blumenthal, editor of Pollster.com and a longtime Democratic pollster. “The problem with that is that no one ever held a press conference [to say Obama is a Muslim], there were no ads, no campaigns embraced the notion of Obama as Muslim, yet it’s everywhere.” . . . “If the information can be disseminated that easily, the old rule can’t apply,” Blumenthal said. “You cannot be passive and be reluctant to engage.”
In addition to being Muslim, according to Karl Rove, Obama is also a judgmental tool:
“Even if you never met him, you know this guy. He’s the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by.”
. . . Interesting that Mr. Rove would use a country club metaphor to describe the first major party African-American presidential candidate . . . .
(via TPM)
Meanwhile, the main trouble with Michelle Obama is that she’s just so…black:
She grew up on Chicago’s ethnically isolated South Side — wasn’t poor but was hardly rich, was raised with a keen awareness of racial barriers but was also raised to achieve. She went to Princeton, excelled, retained her racial conscience but also eventually commanded a six-figure salary. All of this confuses white people mightily, far more than Barack’s biracial status. In their frame of reference, Michelle has no reason to be angry and every reason to be content. Portrayed by the media as extraordinary, Michelle at heart is an ordinary black woman whose life experience and ambiguity about making it in white America resemble those of every other 40ish, middle-class black woman I know. This is wonderful news for us — we finally see an accurate reflection of ourselves in someone who may one day occupy the most exclusive address in the country. But for a good part of the nation, this is exactly the problem.
Meanwhile, McCain enjoys the benefits of being of little interest to anyone:
I just saw John McCain very gravely lamenting Barack Obama’s decision not to accept public financing for the general election campaign and opining about what it says about Obama’s ethics and trustworthiness. And I must confess that I’m a little confused why more Democrats are not hitting this preening peacock with the fact that he is as we speak breaking the campaign finance laws and specifically breaking the law on accepting public financing. Having opted into the system and gotten the advantage of it he’s now spending freely in defiance of the caps he agreed not to spend over. . . .It’s almost surreal that McCain is being allowed to get on his high horse on anything remotely connected to the public financing system.
Well, the Democratic Party typically steers clear of conflict:
Practically the entire record of the Democratic Party as a group over the past seven years is one misguided instance after another of “keeping their powder dry” in anticipation of a time when they held a stronger strategic position. . . . The GOP understands and is willing to demonstrate that “powder” is not a finite commodity that must be conserved and that, in fact, using your powder magically generates more powder.
Now, here’s how you influence public opinion:
Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the U.S. government has spent nearly $500 million on an Arabic language television and radio station. Now an investigation finds that the project has not only been poorly run and hemorrhaged taxpayer money but is also airing bizarrely anti-American and anti-semitic coverage despite repeated complaints from the State Department and Congress.
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Secret organizations, on the other hand, don’t wield as much influence as some people think (this article provides a guide to six):
I am a Freemason. . . . A meeting of Masons is as benign as a meeting of good friends around the fireplace. And yes, I know, that’s exactly what a Mason would say, which is why conspiracy theories are so hard to kill off. It is impossible to disprove the notion that somewhere out there is a roomful of people, bound by an oath of secrecy, pulling the invisible strings that make the world dance. The only way to know for sure is to become one.
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On an entirely different topic, here’s yet another article about the nothingness of contemporary art:
It is the artists, and a certain line of thinking about art, that have given the people with the cash permission to buy and sell what amounts to nothing, and to do so for ever larger and more insane sums of money.
(via A&LD)
Well, really, you can substitute any number of other things for “artists” and “art” in the above sentence, and it still holds true.
