Let's hope this schmuck is correct

Jim Nuzzo, an aide to former President George H. W. Bush, recently told the U.K. Telegraph that "there is a ready made conservative candidate waiting in the wings. Sarah Palin . . . is the new Ronald Reagan."

Really? Sarah Palin is the new Ronald Reagan? Let's hope Sarah Palin really is the future face (she certainly won't ever be the brains, obviously) of the Republican Party - that is, if super-schmuck Jim Nuzzo is correct and Sarah Palin is in fact the next Ronald Reagan - then the Democrats will be able to roll out the corpse of Adlai Stevenson and still take the next election. Outside of her loyal voter base - that is to say, the most completely ignorant, paranoid, women-hating, minority-fearing, gun-toting, blindly loyal nutjobs to hold American citizenship - Sarah Palin is a complete joke. And not a very funny joke at that. Henry Higgins wouldn't know where to begin with Sarah Palin, folks. So I sincerely hope her idiotic supporters get their wish because that would be nothing but good news for the United States.

If Barack Obama predicts the future while everybody watches and nobody notices, did it still happen?

July 30, 2008

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama – an African-American with a non-Anglo surname – said in regards to the type of campaign he expected his Republican rival John McCain to run: "Nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face, so what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me." Obama went on to say that the McCain campaign would also say things such as "he's [Obama] not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all those other Presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He's risky. That's essentially the argument they're making.'' [emphasis added]


July 31, 2008

John McCain's campaign manager, the always historically astute Rick Davis, responded to Obama's comments with these harshly critical words: "Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck. It's divisive, negative, shameful and wrong." [emphasis added]


October 4, 3008

Sarah Palin, Republican John McCain's vice-presidential running mate, said these words in three separate speeches: "Our opponent ... is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country . . . this is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America." [emphasis added]

It could have been a fluke when Barack Obama predicted the disastrous path of the Iraq War with near-absurd accuracy; then he predicted with near-perfect accuracy the McCain campaign's inevitable descent into dishonest fear-mongering as its tactic of choice. Not that it was a bold prediction on Obama's part – after all, doesn't every Republican campaign eventually come to revolve around dishonest fear-mongering? – but it was nonetheless accurate. That particular statement by Sarah Palin, along with a couple of recent McCain television ads that link Obama to Vietnam-era radical-turned-professor William Ayers, are the only pieces of evidence one needs to see in order to confirm the accuracy of Obama's prediction.

The media's treatment of Obama's prediction, of course, is the problem. When the story first broke, the mainstream media – like a broken record – presented it from the Republican point of view. "Is Obama being fair?" many in the media asked. "Is it a good strategic move?" others asked. "How does McCain respond to the charge?" was another common theme. Stunningly, almost nobody asked the most important and obvious question: "Based on the recent history of Republican campaigns, is Obama correct to make such a prediction?" Sure, the question is so simple it answers itself; nonetheless, this transparency should not have disqualified it from being asked in the media. In other words, the relevance of the question should not have been negated by the ease with which it could be answered. That question is essential to understanding the Republican philosophy of electioneering and needed to be asked. Naturally, it wasn't.

Now that Obama's prediction has proven to be wholly accurate, the media has returned to the story, hasn't it? Right? Umm . . . no. Returning to the story – and thereby acknowledging its severe lack of competency in covering it from an objective point of view – would be responsible of the "liberal" mainstream media. With the 2000 and 2004 elections as sufficient proof, we should all know by now that the mainstream media is not ready to act as an adult just yet.

Is it wrong to wish for this?

With John McCain's nagging condescension towards Barack Obama over foreign policy near the end of last night's debate, is it unrealistic or unfair to wonder if the "straight-talking" senator from Arizona is going to address Barack Obama as "son" or "boy" in one of the next two debates? Seriously. How many times did McCain say that Obama "fails to understand" some aspect of world affairs? More importantly, how many times did McCain make this claim despite the fact that Obama showed greater understanding of and clearer foresight into the complex nature of world affairs than did McCain himself? But Senator McCain's arrogance did not end there. Of course he pulled out that old reliable Republican trick of loudly and entirely misquoting (or taking out of context) many of Barack Obama's past statements on foreign policy matters while assuming nobody - even Obama himself - would call him on it. At one point McCain even had the nerve to become agitated when Obama accurately cited Henry Kissinger's claim that the United States should enter into talks with Iran without any pre-conditions. McCain's response to Obama's citation of Kissinger's public disavowing of the horribly unrealistic, juvenile and failed approach to foreign policy initiated by President Bush was sadly predictable: "I've known him [Mr. Kissinger] for thirty-five years" and . . . and . . . and well, ok, Senator, you are seventy-two years old, so you've probably known plenty of people for a long time. We get that point; but "I've known Mr. Kissinger for thirty-five years" is not the same as "I've known Mr. Kissinger for thirty-five years and therefore know every comment he's ever made about foreign policy in his entire life." This is the best McAngry can bring to a national debate on foreign policy?

After twenty-six years in congress, one would think John McCain could play the game with a cooler head - not to mention more facts - but that is simply not the case. McCain was becoming agitated by Obama's reference to Kissinger, and with the truth (or, more accurately, the knowledge that he didn't even know the truth) not on his side, McCain began to lose the battle at hand and had to change focus. Historically speaking, once McCain starts to lose an argument or lose his focus, it has often been just a matter of time before he loses his cool as well. This is why, however unlikely, it may not be completely unfair to wonder if John McCain will slip in a "son" or a "boy" somewhere in a drawn-out emotional exchange with Barack Obama during one of the debates. After all, jokingly or not, the man did call his wife a cunt in public.

It would be outrageous and offensive if John McCain were to make such a slip of the tongue, of course. Nonetheless, I kind of hope he makes it. Realistically, if it were to happen, any fair-minded and undecided voter who had not been turned away by the Sarah Palin nomination surely would be turned away by that kind of racially-tinged condescension. And after all the lies presented by the McCain campaign, it would be ironic – and infinitely delightful – to see a moment of revolting honesty from the senator himself become the final nail in the coffin of his own sleazy campaign.