“Pulling the Race Card”
Erick Erickson (among many other right-wingers) is apoplectic over Obama’s response, here, to John McCain’s series of invective-filled, substance-free attacks on him.
An Old New Meme
Lately, I’ve been noticing a new meme on the right in general, and in John McCain’s campaign rhetoric in particular, about Barack Obama. He’s not humble enough; he thinks he’s president already; he’s conceited; who does he think he is; he’s presumptuous; he’s arrogant; he’s…. uppity.
A Stunningly Dishonest Campaign Ad
Here is John McCain’s campaign ad accusing Barack Obama of blowing off wounded American troops in Germany so he could go to the gym:
McCain Denies He Said Obama’s Timetable Looks Good
Two days ago, John McCain told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that the 16-month withdrawal timeline proposed by Barack Obama and endorsed by Nouri al-Maliki “is a pretty good timetable,” adding that it had to be based on conditions on the ground.
The Right’s Ahistorical Analysis of the Surge
Bob Herbert in his column today critiques the premise behind the media’s coverage of Barack Obama and John McCain: that the latter’s character and political history are known to all but Obama’s isn’t:
No Charitable Explanations on the Right
See Update at the end of this post.
Yesterday, Ed Morrissey picked up on a news item about Sen. Obama cancelling a planned visit to wounded American soldiers at two U.S. military bases in Germany. Noting that military personnel at the base did not know why the visit had been cancelled, Ed came up with his own explanation… er, make that explanations, plural, via multiple updates:
That Was the Sheikh That Was
McCain’s attempts to get his cart before the horse analysis of the surge to make sense have only dug him in deeper:
Traveling Back in Time To Justify the Surge
Here’s the bottom line about McCain’s verbal typos: People would not make so much of them if McCain’s statements on foreign policy made sense in a larger, general context. Obama sometimes misstates facts that obviously he knows, out of exhaustion (like “57 states”), but he does not make extended statements or speeches about foreign policy that are substantively and factually wrong.
Fun With Maps
Matthew Yglesias has some irresistible snark on that fictional border between Iraq and Pakistan.
Domenico Montanaro explains that McCain “probably meant to say the Afghanistan-Pakistan border as they were talking about Afghanistan and there is no Iraq-Pakistan border. ” Montanaro also passes on the Republican defense to McCain’s many flubs:
Republicans have pointed out Obama telling CBS he’d be dealing with Maliki for the next eight to 10 years. They have snarkily said apparently Obama wants to change the Constitution because the most a president can serve is eight years. If Obama were to serve two terms, that would be about eight-and-a-half years from now. Republicans also point out that it’s been 925 days since Obama has been to Iraq, but McCain has been there eight times.
And he still doesn’t know which countries border Iraq.
The Articles That Got Away
I admit, I missed some:
The great thing about Tom Friedman is that he never gives us a chance to forget what an idiot he is.
Colonialism off: Pres. Bush will not get his Status of Forces Agreement before he leaves office.
Jeralyn’s post about the Omar Khadr interrogation video includes links to transcripts of previous trial proceedings and TalkLeft’s prior coverage of the case.
Matthew Yglesias’s post, “War for War’s Sake,” is one of his last as an Atlantic contributor (he’s moving to the Center for American Progress).
Ron Beasley writes about a radioactive river.
We already know that John McCain called his wife a “cunt.” Now we find out he is a fan of rape jokes as well.
Did you know that the only way to get around Arizona is by small private plane?
Over 100 University of Chicago professors have signed a letter to the university president objecting to the university’s new $200 million investment.
The Bush administration is trying to push through a new rule requiring recipients of federal health aid funding to certify that opposition to abortion or to contraception will not be a bar to employment. (To bypass compulsory free registration, go to www.bugmenot.com.)
Maliki wants the Green Zone back, too.
Sneaky, Sinister Goings-On Over at Obama’s Website
Another example of pathologizing evolving responses to changed fact sets:
Obama, Iraq, and the Media
The New Republic takes the media to task for the way it’s framing Obama’s position on Iraq:
The Bush Legacy
The Bush legacy goes much deeper than the disastrous, ill-conceived, and abominably managed invasion and occupation of Iraq. Andrew Bacevich explores the war’s ideological underpinnings in a masterful essay published in today’s Boston Globe:
A Slight Break From the Script
Joe Klein is having a quarrel with the folks over at Commentary: Klein is miffed by Max Boot’s reiteration of his boss John McCain’s 100-years-in-Iraq proposition, and Jennifer Rubin takes exception to Klein’s notion that right-wing Jewish supporters of Israeli military policy — like Joe Lieberman — pushed the invasion of Iraq because they believed destroying Iraq would be good for Israel, and that they favor war with Iran for the same reason.
American Privilege
Part of the privilege that comes with being an American living in the United States is selective awareness. Nowhere is this more true than in Iraq, where media pundits and right-wing bloggers supportive of Bush’s war policies blithely superimpose their own template on that country with never a need to see Iraq through anyone’s eyes but their own.
A Debate We’re Happy To Have
Seriously, the deja vu couldn’t be more defined; the latest salvo in the current national security debate in the presidential election so frighteningly similar to the nature of the debate four years ago it’s enough to make your head spin.
And at the heart of it, despite all the talk that McCain is somehow a different form of Republican, he’s already telegraphing that he intends to use the dirtiest of the Republican dirty tricks. Not push polls, not whisper campaigns, but the politics of fear.
Somehow, I’m simply not all that shocked.
Following up on the SCOTUS Habeus Decision
People have been asking what are the long-term implications for detainees still at Gitmo. Emptywheel addresses that question: