Some of you know that I am an, er, critic of Israel, but I am a big fan of parts of its English media, especially the newspaper Ha’aretz, and not just on its Mideast coverage. Here’s an intriguing column by Bradley Burston on the US election. He’s basically written Obama off.

Take a long walk in this land of dreams and all you’ll see is Obama. Obama lawn signs, Obama bumper stickers, window placards, lapel buttons, anklets. In souvenir stores, Obama t-shirts compete successfully with longtime best-sellers touting Bourbon Street and carousing alligators.  Read more 

Observations on Obama and McCain at Rick Warren’s anti-establishment-clause summit…

Obama

Led off by citing Matthew about “the least of us.” If you’re going to play the religion card, this is the better sort of framing. Slippery slope, though, ain’t it?

Says Bill Clinton was right about workfare. Over the course of the hour, Obama lists several things that Bill did right, such as Bosnia. Funny, when his wife was still in the race, you’d never hear that the Clinton era was so good! Also, he pops in “sexism” now and again as an issue. Just in time to repudiate all that misogynistic press against Hillary, right?  Read more 

Tomorrow (Saturday) from 8:00-10:00PM EDT online, and on Fox News and CNN.

Just from the anticipation, my bucket runneth over.

The RNC has announced a $10 Million cash shortfall in funding for it’s upcoming national convention. To help close the gap the Telecommunicating Association Companies of the United States (TACUS) has announced an effort to assist. “For the last 10 days of August we’ll be donating a portion of our profits to help with RNC’s expenses,” said TACUS spokeswoman Fisah Wyretapper. “To show how grateful we are the republicans came to our rescue we’re coming to theirs.” Asked if TACUS would also be assisting the Democrats Wyretapper said, “No, but we’ll be buying box lunches for some blue dogs.”  Read more 

Despite voting against raises in the minimum wage and years of denying worker’s rights to organize John McCain struck a chord with some employees of an Ohio company recently. Following Obama’s suggestion that Americans could improve their gas mileage by having accurate tire pressure McCain decided tire gauges would be a great way to mock him as part of the “it’s the Democrats fault gas prices are high” campaign.  Read more 

I’m jumping on this announcement by candidate Obama, because I hope to subvert the impulses of some of my fellow Fellows and some of our readers to make of this moment a chance to accuse Barack Obama of being a liar, breaking a promise, not really being about reform, undermining efforts to reform our increasingly broken system of elections, and other ways not to like Obama that I’m not clever enough to even think of.

You don’t need to go there; the VRWC is way ahead of you. As Roy notes, there is high comedy to be had in the deep disappointment of the McCain campaign, the Republican Party, and their right-winger supporters, most of whom have bellowed long and hard against any sort of limitations on the financing of political campaigns. Of course that was when they were the ones rolling in money.

Yes, I know, McCain has been an advocate, of sorts, and a sponsor, of sorts, of campaign finance reform, but when Obama states, as he does in the video message in which he announced his decision, that the entire system, including the so-called reforms of it, by which we finance our elections is “broken,” he’s right.

Here is as much of what Obama says on the video that I could get off the story as it appears in the NYTimes and Reuters:  Read more 

If it sounds like I’m assigning you homework, it’s because I am.

Not only can you get extra-credit points*, you just might feel a little better about your ultimate decision re: Election ’08.

Here’s the assignment: Please list out issues that matter to you, and what you think will happen under Obama vs. what you think will happen under McCain.

For example:

EDUCATION

Obama: No Child Left Behind is renamed, slightly liberalized, and slightly better funded. After a photo-op with the National Education Association, little focus is paid to education reform for the remaining four years.

McCain: A chunk of the unfunded mandate is targeted toward parochial schools. After a photo-op with representatives of the cutest little Baptist school you ever saw, little focus is paid to education reform for the remaining four years.

Links to sources that back up your projections will, y’know, bolster your case. Unlike my crappy example, which is mere unsupported speculation.  Read more 

A request for the case against McCain.

So far, I’m seeing some substantive suggestions and also fresh examples of why it’s hard to love some hardcore Obamaites.

The reason for my inquiry? I’m burned out from watching Obama’s shitty campaign, and I’m simply too disaffected and too exhausted to be the rah-rah Beat McCain guy.

But McCain sux, too, and as we make our respective decisions, it behooves us to remind ourselves of who will be elected if we abstain, make a third-party statement, or even vote for the mythical moderate maverick.  Read more 

What is the rush to end this thing? Why the hurry to have it over? What, exactly, are so many people concerned about? All the wrong things, apparently. There are more and better reasons for her to persist than not.

Hillary should continue her pursuit of the Democratic nomination because:  Read more 

Part 4 of Misogyny, Sexism, & the Gender Gap in the 2008 Election

In choosing a nominee, the Democratic Party will not merely be deciding who deserves to win, or who would make the best candidate. It will also be a decision about which poisoned landscape the Party wishes to compete upon —- one in which toxic wildflowers of misogyny and sexism are in full bloom, or one in which the poisonous weed of racism is a constant part of the environment, and needs the merest watering to completely despoil the land.  Read more 

100 Years of War in Iraq
(sung to the tune of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall”)

100 years of war in Iraq
100 years of war
You burn it down
Down to the ground
100 years of war in Iraq

99 years of war in Iraq
99 years of war
You burn it down
Down to the ground
99 years of war in Iraq…

Continue lyrics to “zero” years of war, then begin the negative numbers*, i.e.:

Minus one year of war in Iraq
Minus one year of war
You burn it down
Down to the ground
Minus one year of war in Iraq

++++

*Two negatives make a positive. Go figure.

++++

I’m glad to hear that Obama’s finally getting ready to draw some contrasts between Himself and McCain.

Just one thing though: I do have just a little problem with the idea that neither candidate has been drawing contrasts with McCain, and that both should start.

In reality, Hillary’s been drawing a sharp contrast all along.  Read more 

As the MSM largely ignores what is truly occurring in Iraq, the bumper-sticker tactics of the Republican Party (and their minions) seem to be working.  Read more 

Excellent Times op-ed about John McCain, “the first real postmodernist candidate.”

Frank Luntz-isms live on in the Bush White House.

From today’s Presidential Radio Address:

Where do we start?  Read more 

Once you hear McCain warm-up guy Bill Cunningham’s confusing assholery, stick around to hear Andrea Mitchell’s LOLzy bloviations.

I’ve diligently read the posts here at the Mighty Corrente Building regarding Senators Clinton and Obama over the last months. And, until now, I’ve kept my trap shut. Please allow me to open it once again and say, “Enough!”  Read more 

[via]

Last September 10, as David Petraeus was giving Congress a rosy evaluation of the situation in Iraq, a poll of Iraqi public opinion was released that belied Petraeus’ reporting. The poll received little attention amid the media’s love-fest for David Petraeus. But the findings of the poll should send shivers down the spine of anyone concerned with the lives of Iraqis and American in Iraq.

The poll (conducted in August 2007) found increasing resistance to the occupation, especially when compared to Iraqi public opinion polling from five months earlier (March 2007). Among the poll’s findings:  Read more 

Quoth the mythical moderate maverick:

Sen. John McCain told a crowd of supporters on Sunday, “It’s a tough war we’re in. It’s not going to be over right away. There’s going to be other wars.” Offering more of his increasingly bleak “straight talk,” he repeated the claim: “I’m sorry to tell you, there’s going to be other wars. We will never surrender but there will be other wars.”

Today, John McCain said this:

“There is only one man who should decide when to withdraw from Iraq and that is…”

The complete sentence appears below. Take a moment to think about how that sentence should end.

Then read on.  Read more 

The romantics in the current Republican Party herald back to the 1980 Reagan coalition and his victory born of the “three-legged stool” of Reagan Conservatism: a strong defense, a strong economy and strong social values.

Now, over two decades later, the incongruity among those three ideals haunts the Republican presidential nomination process. As the plethora of Republican candidates stake their claims, the dissatisfaction of the Republican electorate over their choices reflects the fact that it is impossible to obtain all three of the Reagan goals simultaneously.  Read more 

[Welcome Drunk Report readers.]

I swear I’m not making this up! And it saddens me, just a little, truly. I would have thought that McCain, having been tortured, would be the very last Republican candidate to throw his hat in this particular ring:

But doggone it—hat tip to alert reader muttley66—once again I just wasn’t cynical enough.

Follow me to the grand guignol below:  Read more 

From Senator McCain today (speaking to the NRA), referring to the 70% of OUR Country that is against the war in Iraq:

“My friends:
We beat you yesterday, we beat you the day before, we’ll beat you today [inaduible inexplicable] we’ll beat you tomorrow. We won’t choose to lose. We won’t choose to lose this conflict.”

Which “conflict” is that, dear Senator?  Read more