The Audacity of Hype?

The Audacity of Hype?: "Is Barack Obama exaggerating when he compares his campaign to the great progressive moments in US history?"

I guess we'll see, if this election fulfills its early promise to be a seachange in political power and governance.

digby at Hullabaloo: "I think the most interesting thing about the answers is the degree to which just about everyone sounds ambivalent or confused. It's a very odd array of answers from people who are immersed in politics and history and who should be able to rattle off a compelling rationale for the candidate without any problem, even if they disagree with the notion that it's a movement on par with civil rights or the labor movement. I think all of the people queried want Obama to win, but virtually none of them seem to be sure what he's going to do."

I think Obama regards his role as being to preside. He wants to be in a position to give permission for progressive reform. The right question, in Obama's view, is: "What are you going to do, when you can?"

Just like him?

Jack McCafferty - CNN: "I am sick and tired of the president of the United States embarrassing me. The world we live in is too complex to entrust it to someone else whose idea of intellectual curiosity and grasp of foreign policy issues is to tell us he can look into Vladimir Putin's eyes and see into his soul."
"George Bush's record as a student, military man, businessman and leader of the free world is one of constant failure. And the part that troubles me most is he seems content with himself.
"He will leave office with the country $10 trillion in debt, fighting two wars, our international reputation in shambles, our government cloaked in secrecy and suspicion that his entire presidency has been a litany of broken laws and promises, our citizens' faith in our own country ripped to shreds. Yet Bush goes bumbling along, grinning and spewing moronic one-liners, as though nobody understands what a colossal failure he has been.
"I fear to the depth of my being that John McCain is just like him."

Real Men

Sometimes, it helps to have a clear view of the Right's point of view. Hattip to digby

Lou Aguilar on John McCain on National Review Online: "Real Men Vote for McCain"

Real Men Vote for McCain
Top 10 reasons why.

By Lou Aguilar

1. Barack Obama spent 20 years sitting in church while his preacher and others bad-mouthed the United States of America. Navy pilot John McCain spent five years being tortured in the Hanoi Hilton, and refused a chance to walk out ahead of fellow POWs with more seniority.

2. Obama wants to cut and run from Iraq regardless of conditions on the ground or future consequences. McCain took on the president and secretary of defense in demanding more troops for Iraq, a policy that is inarguably winning the war. He also has two sons who fought in Iraq.

3. McCain supports nuclear power. Obama backs wind energy.

4. Obama wants restrictive gun control because only economically depressed middle-Americans “cling to God and guns.” McCain unwaveringly supports the Second Amendment.

5. McCain has deviated from his party’s conservative base on several occasions (McCain-Feingold Bill, Gang of 14, McCain-Kennedy Bill, opposition to torture). Obama has voted the left-wing line every single time, and been designated the most liberal Senator in Congress.

6. Obama is willing to meet with hostile state leaders like Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez without preconditions. McCain will set conditions first, talk later — maybe.

7. Obama is married to a bitter, angry lawyer who became “proud” of her country for the first time this year. McCain’s wife is a beer heiress who founded an organization to provide MASH-style units to disaster-torn world regions. Did I mention that she’s a beer heiress?

8. Obama supports higher taxes for a government-run nanny state that will coddle all Americans like babies. McCain trusts people to spend their less-taxed money however they wish.

9. The name John McCain sounds like “John McClain,” the action hero played by Bruce Willis in the manly Die Hard series. “Barack Obama” sounds like the kind of elitist villain John McClain has to outwit and defeat.

10. McCain is endorsed by Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Obama gets support from Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks, and every weenie in Hollywood. Plus, Susan Sarandon has vowed to leave the country if McCain gets elected. Case closed.

— Lou Aguilar is a fiction writer and former Washington Post video critic, Washington Times television critic, and USA Today reporter.

Good Lord, save us. Is parody even possible?

Putting out the Fire

The News Media has a compulsive need to make the Democratic and Republican candidates seem alike. It is all about eliminating policy choice from politics.

Los Angeles Times: Obama, McCain agree on many once-divisive issues

Sure they do.

McCain and Obama: two peas in a pod. . . . NOT!

Here are a couple of take-downs:
The Carpetbagger Report: The drive to downplay differences between Obama, McCain — redux

The Reality-Based Community: Los Angeles Times: Sub-zero stupid

Digby at Hullabaloo is more optimistic: " . . . the LA Times is signaling that it believes that non-proliferation, global warming, stem cell research and comprehensive immigration reform are safe middle of the road positions. Even on the war, they seem to be admitting that 100 years in Iraq and the whole 'victory' concept is an extreme right wing position."

One of the most disturbing lines in this general, coordinated effort to neuter this election will be the effort of the Bush Administration to create the impression that the U.S. is about to declare victory and get out of Iraq, and in Atrios's words, "suggest Obama is a big spoilsport for wanting to 'surrender.' " Atrios points to this piece in the International Herald Tribune, as an example of the genre.

More aggressive is Martha Raddatz: Obama's Iraq Plan: Mission Impossible?. Raddatz quotes various officers in Iraq, asserting progress on the ground, rejecting a timetable for withdrawal and, finally, asserting that withdrawal might be logistically "impossible". It is all crap, and the usual "he said, she said" convention of allowing contrary voices is, of course, thrown aside, for this, from General Jeffrey Hammond:

I'll speak for the coalition forces, men and women of character and moral courage; we have a mission, and it's not until the mission is done that I can look my leader in the eye and say, 'Sir, Ma'am, mission accomplished,' and I think it is dangerous to leave anything a little early."

Your Liberal Media at Work

Daily Kos: John McCain's assigned reporter

Ms. Howell (Washington Post ombudsman) gave her usual tortured rationalizations to excuse shoddy reporting. But there was one interesting bit in her explanation:

The Post has teams of reporters on each candidate. Stephens, who came from the investigative unit, has been assigned to report on Obama; another reporter, Kimberley Kindy, is doing the same on McCain.

Joe Stephens is an investigative reporter who has won three Polk Awards, and is a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. And Kimberly Kindy? She was hired by the Washington Post in May and hasn’t been heard from since writing two articles about McCain at the end of May.

The Financial Crisis is BACK!!

U.S. Considers Takeover of Two Mortgage Giants - NYTimes.com:

Alarmed by the growing financial stress at the nation’s two largest mortgage finance companies, senior Bush administration officials are considering a plan to have the government take over one or both of the companies and place them in a conservatorship if their problems worsen, people briefed about the plan said on Thursday.

The companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have been hit hard by the mortgage foreclosure crisis. Their shares are plummeting and their borrowing costs are rising as investors worry that the companies will suffer losses far larger than the $11 billion they have already lost in recent months. Now, as housing prices decline further and foreclosures grow, the markets are worried that Fannie and Freddie themselves may default on their debt.

Under a conservatorship, the shares of Fannie and Freddie would be worth little or nothing, and any losses on mortgages they own or guarantee — which could be staggering — would be paid by taxpayers.

I've written many times that the Perfect Storm must have an economic basis. Economic pain is a required element, even if it seems tangential to policy problems or personalities.

Gas prices, alone, would be enough to sink John McCain's increasingly ridiculous Presidential campaign.

The failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could easily take down the mortgage market, ending all house buying for a time, and threatening the solvency of the U.S. banking system, which is already in serious doubt. Yet, rescue would involve vast sums, and could well imperil the credit of the Federal government. And, of course, rescue is unmistakeably an act of class warfare.

Good times!

Congress abolished; President rules by decree

Bipartisan Group to Speak Out on Detainees - NYTimes.com:

"A bipartisan group of 200 former government officials, retired generals and religious leaders plans to issue a statement on Wednesday calling for a presidential order to outlaw some interrogation and detention practices used by the Bush administration over the last six years. . . .
"A White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, noted that Mr. Bush last year issued an executive order on interrogation that outlawed torture and other abuses while preserving the C.I.A.’s right to use some coercive interrogation methods. He said Qaeda terrorists should not be treated the same way uniformed soldiers were."

An Executive Order is now necessary to "outlaw" torture, because Congress is no longer the legislature, I guess.