Well, that was easy.
How Can You Be President If You Don’t Wear A Lapel Pin?
In response to a reporter’s question about why he doesn’t wear a flag pin, Barack Obama gave what I thought to be an excellant response:
"You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin," Obama said. "Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we’re talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest.
"Instead," he said, "I’m going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism."
And in response, the conservative punditry squawked. Jonah Goldberg described Obama’s perspective as "staggeringly stupid," and "the single dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of him doing."
And:
"It just shows you he’s not ready for the big time," conservative Laura Ingrams opined on Fox News.
But here’s my favorite:
Said Sean Hannity: "Why do we wear pins? Because our country is under attack!"
Yes, Sean. Lapel pins are the best safeguard against terrorist attacks.
I used to think these guys valued symbols over substance. But they actually think symbols ARE substance.
UPDATE: Atrios weighs in:
Are we really discussing flag lapel pins?
Please kill me.
UPDATE: Eugene Volokh tut-tuts Obama’s decision with an odd amalogy:
Wearing a flag pin is not supposed to be an explanation or an argument, just as “I love you” is not supposed to be an explanation or an argument. It’s supposed to be a traditional statement of affection, powerful because it’s cliché.
If you’re in the sort of relationship in which you’ve never made such a statement — and here flag pin wearing is a little different than “I love you,” since most citizens who love their country don’t routinely say it — then you can indeed show your love in other ways. Returning to the analogy, you hear occasionally of old-fashioned couples who’ve never fallen into the “I love you” habit, but who love each other nonetheless.
Yet if you used to say this and then you stopped, the symbolic message is pretty powerful. And that’s true even though many people say “I love you” without meaning it (just as there are some who wear the flag pin but are just opportunists, not patriots). Even if this abuse of the phrase weakens its symbolism, an outright renunciation of the phrase retains its symbolism just fine.
…but I think this commentor’s rebuttal is better:
This has got to be the craziest analogy and the most absurd argument that I’ve ever seen you make. Metaphor aside, a sovereign state is not a woman, it doesn’t need to be "told" that you love it, and it’s not going to "think" anything if such professions of affection were to suddenly cease– because, of course, it is an abstraction that lacks any capacity for conscious thought. To cast the red-herring analogy aside, Obama is absolutely right that those ridiculous flag pins are nothing more than empty symbolism for some half-baked sentiment (really, is there a candidate for public office who doesn’t "support the country," whatever that may mean?), and is right–I hope– in believing that voters are more interested in substantive discussions of the multitude of real challenges that will face the next administration than in vapid symbolism. If the next presidential election is determined on the basis of which candidate wears the right lapel pin, American democracy has sunk even further than I currently believe.
Thrill The World
Mark your calendars!
"Thrill the World" is a project by Ines Markeljevic to break the Guiness World Record for the Largest Simultaneous Dance of Michael Jackson’s Thriller! It’s scheduled for October 27/28, 2007 – and you, too, can register to join in on the fun.
For what it’s worth, I still like the "Lego" version:
Five Years Too Late, Matthews Finds The Beginnings Of A Voice
Here is MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews, last night on a gala on the 10 year anniversary of "Hardball":
In front of an audience that included such notables as Alan Greenspan, Rep. Patrick Kennedy and Sen. Ted Kennedy, Matthews began his remarks by declaring that he wanted to "make some news" and he certainly didn’t disappoint. After praising the drafters of the First Amendment for allowing him to make a living, he outlined what he said was the fundamental difference between the Bush and Clinton administrations.
The Clinton camp, he said, never put pressure on his bosses to silence him.
“Not so this crowd,” he added, explaining that Bush White House officials — especially those from Vice President Cheney’s office — called MSNBC brass to complain about the content of his show and attempted to influence its editorial content. "They will not silence me!" Matthews declared.
"They’ve finally been caught in their criminality," Matthews continued, although he did not specify the exact criminal behavior to which he referred. He then drew an obvious Bush-Nixon parallel by saying, “Spiro Agnew was not an American hero."
Every thousnad mile journey begins with a single step.
Actually, I’m not under the delusion that Matthews is actually going to become a inquistor of, rather than a cheerleader for, Bush and his policies…
…but he did provide a good one-liner:
Matthews left the throng of Washington A-listers with a parting shot at Cheney: “God help us if we had Cheney during the Cuban missile crisis. We’d all be under a parking lot.”
Decline In Christianity
Andrew Sullivan points to a new study which shows that Christianity is losing the younger generation.
The reason, according to the study?
When young people were asked to identify their impressions of Christianity, one of the common themes was "Christianity is changed from what it used to be" and "Christianity in today’s society no longer looks like Jesus." These comments were the most frequent unprompted images that young people called to mind…
The negative perceptions of Christianity are high among non-Christian youth:
Among young non-Christians, nine out of the top 12 perceptions were negative. Common negative perceptions include that present-day Christianity is judgmental (87%), hypocritical (85%), old-fashioned (78%), and too involved in politics (75%)…
But negative perceptions of Christianity exist in high numbers for Christian youth, too!
Half of young churchgoers said they perceive Christianity to be judgmental, hypocritical, and too political. One-third said it was old-fashioned and out of touch with reality.
It’s so bad, in fact, that being "unChristian" is considered by many young people to be a good thing. Being "unChristian" means you are unjudgmental, unhypocritical…
The study notes one emerging trend that has led to the general disgust among young people — the Christian obsession with homosexuality:
Interestingly, the study discovered a new image that has steadily grown in prominence over the last decade. Today, the most common perception is that present-day Christianity is "anti-homosexual." Overall, 91% of young non-Christians and 80% of young churchgoers say this phrase describes Christianity. As the research probed this perception, non-Christians and Christians explained that beyond their recognition that Christians oppose homosexuality, they believe that Christians show excessive contempt and unloving attitudes towards gays and lesbians.
Most Christians I know don’t show contempt for gays and lesbians. Certainly the gay Christians I know don’t!
But that perception is still quite real, because Christian leaders — the ones with the megaphones — do so ceaselessly harp on and on an on about homosexuality.
One of the most frequent criticisms of young Christians was that they believe the church has made homosexuality a "bigger sin" than anything else.
And, if one were to listen the Christian media, they indeed have. The Bible rarely mentions homosexuality, yet the handful of ambiguous passages where it comes up seem to be a fave of evangelicals.
Let me put it this way. The way Christian leaders pontificate about the "sin" of homosexuality, you would think it was one of the seven deadly sins. Yet, the Bible doesn’t consider it a deadly sin. When the Bible mentions homosexuality (which is rare, and assuming for argument’s sake that the translation actually mean "homosexuality"), it’s often within the same breath as the "sin" of eating pork, or planting two different crops side-by-side.
It’s no wonder that young people get turned off by the hatred spewed from the pulpits and TV ministries.
RELATED: Speaking of young Christians, I find this story very very sad. Poor girl.
Bro To The Defense
David Limbaugh comes to defend his brother, Rush. Unfortunately, I can’t get past the first sentence:
My brother Rush has nothing for which to apologize concerning the left’s maliciously manufactured "phony soldier" scandal.
That sentence is one whose meaning of which I have yet to grasp.
“Conservatives Are A Joke”
Read Krugman. He’s good today.
The Ed Brown Standoff Ends
A follow-up to something I blogged about in August —
Ed Brown and his wife have been finally taken into custody, after a five month standoff with police:
They were convicted of evading $1.9 million in taxes — a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. The Browns were sentenced in absentia in April.
But they refused to go to prison.
I’m still not sure why it took so long. Yes, I understand the desire for it not to turn into another Ruby Ridge deal, but c’mon.
Brown doesn’t believe the tax laws are valid. A jury of his peers disagreed.
CORRECTION: The members of the jury, having brains, are not Brown’s peers.
Phoenix Airport Death
Accident? Suicide?
Whatever it is, it’s tragic.
I don’t know why, but I’m fascinated by this story.
The new video doesn’t help much. It looks like the police may have been a little quick to tackle and cuff her (she certainly didn’t attack them), and probably could have spent more time trying to calm her down. But with no audio and the participants at a distance, it’s really hard to tell what is going on.
The Torture Regime
Todya’s New York Times covers how the Bush Adminstration covered its ass about torture by changing the definition of torture, telling nobody about the change, and then assuring the American public that it wasn’t breaking any laws. You see, if you get to define the law, then you can’t break it. That was the shell game.
But if the Times coverage is to long and highbrow for you, I suggest you visit The Rude Pundit, who tells the same story in a more earthy way.
Nah, screw it. I’ll put the relevant parts up here:
In essence, what that [New York Times] article by Scott Shane, David Johnston, and James Risen said is that conversations went on in the White House and the Justice Department in the United States that went something like this: Bush might say, "Hey, all that fucked-up shit we’ve been doing to prisoners, how much of it can we still do?"
To which some random bloodthirsty Yoo or Addington would say, "Oh, fuck, we can do whatever the fuck we want."
And some plaintive Comey or Goldsmith would say, "Umm, we kinda got treaties and shit, maybe a few laws that might say we should back off."
And some Cheney or, to a lesser extent, Gonzales would say, "Yeah, right, fuck you, Comey or Goldsmith. Yoo or Addington, kick out the enhanced interrogation jams and tell those CIA pussies who wanna know if shit’s legal that we got their backs."
And some sighing Comey or Goldsmith would say, "Uh, not to be all buzzkill, but McCain’s got a hard-on for stoppin’ the waterboardin’. Congress might just put the kibosh on the whole deal."
And some lip-licking Yoo or Addington would say, "Are you fuckin’ kiddin me? Fuck Congress. Imperial presidency, cuntface. Constitution sez the Prez can do whatever the fuck he wants, long as he’s makin’ us safe. And McCain’s a little bitch. He’ll shut the fuck up or Lindsey Graham’ll fuck him in the Senate cloak room."
And some increasingly sad Comey or Goldsmith would say, "Don’t really think the Constitution means that."
And some Cheney or, to a lesser extent, Gonzales would say, "Dude, dude, you don’t really get this do you? It ain’t just that we get to make up the laws as we go. We get to make our own motherfuckin’ dictionary. Ain’t nothin’ torture ‘less we sez it is."
And some pathetically frustrated Comey or Goldsmith or Ashcroft would say, "Fuck this. I’m out." And leave.
And some Yoo or Addington would be all like, "Woo-hoo. In yer face, motherfuckers."
And some Cheney or, to an even lesser extent, Gonzales would go, "Call the CIA. Tell ’em naked, drownin’, sleepless brown people is a-okay."
And Bush would say, "I’m glad we decided we’re not war criminals"…
The actual words are clearly not accurate, but that’s really how it went down. For years, the White House line has been "we do not torture" (even today, that’s the line), but the reason they can say that is because they internally (and secretly) define "torture" as anything they want it to mean. Or, as Sen. Patrick Leahy says:
"It appears that under Attorney General Gonzales they reversed themselves and reinstated a secret regime by, in essence, reinterpreting the law in secret."
The secret authorization of brutal interrogations is an outrageous betrayal of our core values, and a grave danger to our security….It’s time to stop telling the American people one thing in public while doing something else in the shadows. No more secret authorization of methods like simulated drowning. When I am president America will once again be the country that stands up to these deplorable tactics. When I am president we won’t work in secret to avoid honoring our laws and Constitution, we will be straight with the American people and true to our values.
Perhaps a sudden, panicked decision by the president to use torture after 9/11 is understandable if unforgivable. But the relentless, sustained attempt to make torture permanent part of the war-powers of the president, even to the point of abusing the law beyond recognition, removes any benefit of the doubt from these people. And they did it all in secret – and lied about it when Abu Ghraib emerged. They upended two centuries of American humane detention and interrogation practices without even letting us know. And the decision to allow one man – the decider – to pre-empt and knowingly distort the rule of law in order to detain and torture anyone he wants – is a function not of conservatism, but of fascism.
There is no doubt – no doubt at all – that these tactics are torture and subject to prosecution as war crimes. We know this because the law is very clear when you don’t have war criminals like AEI’s John Yoo rewriting it to give one man unchecked power. We know this because the very same techniques – hypothermia, long-time standing, beating – and even the very same term "enhanced interrogation techniques" – "verschaerfte Vernehmung" in the original German – were once prosecuted by American forces as war crimes. The perpetrators were the Gestapo. The penalty was death. You can verify the history here.
We have war criminals in the White House. What are we going to do about it?
Thompson’s Failing Campaign
It was only a couple of months ago that Republicans were looking to Fred Thompson as their savior: the great whie (male) hope of the 2008 election.
What a difference a few weeks makes. Rather then energizing his party, Thompson has proven to be perhaps the least capable candidate of the 18 people running for president.
Twenty-four minutes after he began speaking in a small restaurant the other day, Fred D. Thompson brought his remarks to a close with a nod of his head and an expression of thanks to Iowans for allowing him to “give my thoughts about some things.”
Then he stood face to face with a silent audience.
“Can I have a round of applause?” Mr. Thompson said, drawing a rustle of clapping and some laughter. “Well, I had to drag that out of you,” he said.
Eeeey-ouch. This comes just a few weeks after Thompson, while campaigning in Florida, drew such blank stares from his audience that he asked no one in particular if his microphone was on. It was.
The NYT notes that Thompson, in addition to not knowing much of anything about current events, doesn’t even seem to like campaigning.
After his events, he tended to stay for only a few minutes to sign some autographs or pose for some pictures. Mr. Thompson does not appear to share the taste of some of his rivals for lingering at the rope line shaking hands; he tends not to ask many questions of the people he meets and not to make prolonged eye contact with them.
Why is this guy even running?
UPDATE: So I guess they’ve got a new great white male hope….
UPDATE: Kos has more….
This guy is truly hilarious. From a radio interview yesterday, talking about tougher sanctions against Iran:
I’m afraid that the Soviet Union & China are not ever going to do anything that’s going to hurt them that badly but we need to ratchet those up if at all possible.
The Soviet Union.
You know, the country that hasn’t existed since 1991, or 16 years.
But then again, we know for a fact that Thompson doesn’t keep up on current affairs. He didn’t know about a landmark death penalty case in his home state, he didn’t know that a debate he was eager to attend had been cancelled, he didn’t know anything about the Jena Six, he didn’t know anything about the Schiavo case, he didn’t know about the oil-drilling controversy in the Everglades, he didn’t know that Republicans controlled Congress in 2005.
We knew he was boring and lulled audiences to sleep. Literally. We knew he demanded to be chauffeured around his little golf cart, lest he get pig shit on his Gucci loafers.
Ann Coulter Dreams Of The Day When Women Can’t Vote
Coulter in the New York Observer:
If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It’s kind of a pipe dream, it’s a personal fantasy of mine, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.
It also makes the point, it is kind of embarrassing, the Democratic Party ought to be hanging its head in shame, that it has so much difficulty getting men to vote for it. I mean, you do see it’s the party of women and "We’ll pay for health care and tuition and day care — and here, what else can we give you, soccer moms?’’
It’s quite true that there is a gender gap when it comes to presidential elections, and that women primarily vote Democratic. But it’s matter of less than 10 percentage points.
And besides, it’s no surprise, particularly when you have people like Ann Coulter — shills for the GOP — calling women (half the voting block of this country) "stupid" and not being called on it by the conservatives.
I would like to see that quote, "If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democratic president. It’s kind of a pipe dream, a personal fantasy of mine," as the header on GOTV mailers along with pictures of Coulter and whichever candidates were stupid enough to associate themselves with her earlier in the year. I would like to see it on television ads.
Or you could use the phrase "women are voting so stupidly, at least single women."
Of course, when it comes to the issue of women voting and stupidity, Ann is the poster girl. She can’t even vote correctly and/or legally, a simple task mastered by millions of American men and women.
Palm Beach Post’s Jose Lambiet now reports …that the sheriff’s office "punted a voting fraud probe in April" but "the Florida Elections Commission now is investigating" the February 2006 incident in which Coulter — who’s also an author and lawyer — allegedly cast her ballot in the wrong precinct in a Palm Beach election after registering with an address that wasn’t hers.
"The Coulter voting saga is now known as FEC Case No. 07-211," Lambiet continued. "The investigator assigned, Tallahassee’s Margie Wade, wouldn’t confirm she caught the case; FEC complaints are supposed to be confidential. Still, [I’m] told Coulter already has been notified she’s under investigation.
Pravda Gives Me Credit
Yeah, it’s true. Nobody is more surprised than me.
But there it is. Follow the link, and look at the credits under the picture of Hillary.
Listen, comrades Russian journalist guys. I didn’t take that picture of Hillary Clinton. I stole it from the web, just like you did.
And for the record: "I am not now and never have been a member of the Communist Party".
Just sayin….
The GOP Logo For the 2008 Presidential Convention
Yes, this is really it.
Features:
(1) A blue elephant: Republicans? In blue? I guess they don’t have a lot of confidence this election.
(2) Elephant is doing what?: Your guess is as good as mine. Gay dancing? Trying to engage in fornication with ‘2008’? All of these are good guesses. But in actuality, he is looking over an imaginary bathroom stall. After all, check out his wide stance (and he is, after all, in Minneapolis).
(3) Wearing prison stripes: Because that’s where they all end up eventually…
(4) Elephant apparently stoned: Seriously, what’s up with its eye?
(5) TM symbol: Because the GOP just can’t get away from government regulation which protects large corporations
The Impossible-To-Spin Zone
Tony Blankley gives "spin" the college try:
The GOP is now less trusted than the Democrats on every issue except terrorism — and even on that issue, they are a point or two down.
So… ummmm …that means …let’s see …the GOP is less trusted than the Democrats on every issue, period. Right?
Eleanor Clift must be laughing her ass off.