The liberal blogosphere was aflame with new accusations that Obama is trying to win the 2008 presidential election. Here are just a few of the blog quotes:
Obama is “betraying the Democratic Party’s losing tradition.”
“Barack Obama seems to be making a very calculated attempt to win over 270 electoral votes. He must be stopped.”
“Any Democrat who voted for Dukakis, Mondale or Kerry should regard this as a betrayal.”
“Barack Obama still has a chance to pick someone disastrous [for VP] as a sign that he wants to lose this thing. If not, he should brace himself for some really mean blog posts.”
At a Fourth of July celebration at Monticello (Jefferson’s home) President Bush misquoted Jefferson. Here’s what Bush said:
On the 50th anniversary of America’s independence, Thomas Jefferson passed away. But before leaving this world, he explained that the principles of the Declaration of Independence were universal. In one of the final letters of his life, he wrote, “May it be to the world, what I believe it will be — to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all — the signal of arousing men to burst the chains, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.”
But what Jefferson actually wrote contains an anti-religious statement:
May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.
It is ironic that Bush, who edited Jefferson, so actively promotes “monkish ignorance and superstition”.
So far, the Republicans have staged 77 filibusters during the current Senate session, already beating the previous record of 58 filibusters held during the 1999-2002 Senate term by a significant amount. So the next time you wonder why Congress can’t get anything done, you know where to look.
McCain has refurnished his campaign airplane with a special section that is reserved for the “good reporters”. How does a reporter get into the VIP section? “You’ll have to earn it” says campaign aide Mark Salter.
Also fighting for her seat on the Straight Talk Lap Dog Express, Jennifer Loven produced an Obama hatchet job that was so devoid of truth it made one reporter’s eyes bleed and another called it mind numbing.
In may not be a coincidence that most of these bad articles are coming from the Associated Press, since Rupert Murdoch (owner of Fox News) joined the AP Board of Directors in April.
UPDATE: The Jed Report put together this great video of the media fawning over McCain’s new airplane:
Filed in Hypocrisy|Comments Off on McCain rewards lap dog reporters
I am repeatedly amazed that politicians (especially older ones, like McCain) don’t seem to get the fact that everything they say is now available on the Internet for instant review. That must be why they keep denying things they said against solid evidence to the contrary.
For example, McCain’s repeated statements that he doesn’t know much about economics:
In December 2007 “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should. I’ve got Greenspan’s book.”
In November 2005 to the Wall Street Journal “I’m going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated.” He repeated the same quote a month later in an interview with the Boston Globe.
In 2000, during his run for the presidency, the (former maverick) McCain rejected “tax cuts for the rich” and said he had previously been in favor of supply-side economics because “he didn’t pay … attention to those issues in the past”. But now that he has clinched the Republican nomination, he has once again flip-flopped to become a born-again supply-sider, even though his (new) claims that cutting taxes for the rich stimulates the economy have been debunked.
So in an interview on Fox News last week, McCain was asked “Was it a mistake for you to suggest that overall your attentiveness to the economy is subordinated by national security?” His response was to claim that was a statement taken “out of context”.
And back in January, Tim Russert asked McCain about his “I still need to be educated” comment, McCain denied it, saying “I don’t know where you got that quote.”
Regardless of what he has said, it is clear that McCain doesn’t know much about economics. He still claims that he can save $100 billion a year by eliminating earmarks and pork-barrel spending, a claim that seems to be based entirely in fantasy.
Filed in Irony|Comments Off on McCain lies – claims he never said he wasn’t an expert on the economy
In 1998 Osama bin Laden complained that Americans have stolen $36 trillion from Muslims because they purchased oil from Muslim nations at low prices. Interestingly, he said that oil should cost $144 a barrel, which is just what it costs now.
I would like to impress upon this Committee that $144 a barrel oil will be perceived as a victory for the Jihadist movement and a reaffirmation that the economic warfare component of its campaign against the West is a resounding success. There is no need to elaborate on the implications of such a victory in terms of loss of U.S. prestige and our ability to prevail in the Long War of the 21st century.
Or, to put it in far blunter terms, Osama bin Laden can now say “Mission Accomplished”.
Is Charlie Crist, the bachelor Republican Governor of Florida, gay?
And just to add to the weirdness, Republican dirty trickster Roger Stone (who worked for Crist during his 2006 gubernatorial campaign) is distributing a video showing Crist making out with a girlfriend. Supposedly this shows that Crist is not gay. Except, well, the purported girlfriend is married, and not to Crist.
Interestingly, the Washington Post lists the price as $19.99, but the website says $29.99. Maybe with all the extra publicity they were able to raise the price. Who says the Republicans don’t know anything about viral marketing?
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George Lucas won’t answer the question of whether or not Darth Vader is an appropriate name for Dick Cheney, other than to say that Cheney seems to like the nickname (some people think he came up with it himself). But he did say that Obama is definitely a Jedi Knight. “I would say that’s reasonably obvious” says Lucas.
Limbaugh scoffed at the idea that African Americans are disproportionately arrested on drug charges, and suggested that the solution should be to arrest more white drug users. Of course, once it was his own ass on the line, this white drug user changed his tune pretty quick, and championed rehab for himself.
Filed in Irony|Comments Off on On this 4th, remember the Right to Free Speech and Drugs
The McCain campaign tries to blame Obama and attack his lack of patriotism, even though Clark was not speaking on behalf of Obama, and even though Obama publicly rejected what Clark had said. Obama, who frequently calls McCain a “genuine American hero”, is forced to defend his own patriotism.
Fox News says (repeatedly) that if Obama is patriotic, then why did he not vote to condemn Moveon.org when they ran their “General Betray-us” ad against General David Petraeus. Watch them do it in this video: