Whiskey Fire

Over the Smelly Waters

The Wisdom of Ben Politico Smith.

One brief contact with the media out of the way, and the Republican candidate stands by his campaign's message.

"All I can say is we’re proud of that commercial," McCain said. "We think Americans need to know that I believe that we should base this campaign on what we can do for Americans at home and how we can make Americans safe and prosperous and that’s the theme of our campaign."

"I respect and admire sen Obama, but we have stark differences," McCain said.  "And those differences need to be drawn."

"These campaigns are tough," he said, "But I'm proud of the campaign we've run."

McCain's discipline -- in the past, he's reeled in campaign attacks -- will be a source of relief in Arlington. But it also basically works in McCain's favor that he's considered an arbiter of his own campaign ads. [my emphasis]

Yes, that would be a tremendous advantage for someone heavily invested in projecting an image of himself as a Straight Talker of Incredible Integrity. Or, you know, maybe not:

What the McCain campaign doesn’t want people to know, according to one GOP strategist I spoke with over the weekend, is that they had an ad script ready to go if Obama had visited the wounded troops saying that Obama was...wait for it...using wounded troops as campaign props. So, no matter which way Obama turned, McCain had an Obama bashing ad ready to launch. I guess that’s political hardball. But another word for it is the one word that most politicians are loathe to use about their opponents—a lie.

Advantage, McCain! What a brilliant arbiter!

The Politico is a wonderful new addition to our public discourse.  Whenever I read it  I see something and say, "wow, that is just fucking amazing." No kidding.

From the Well They Pull an Empty Pail

The delightful cherry on top of this sundae of bullshit that is the Obama-wounded troops pseudo-scandal is this bit from Ben Politico Smith:

The accurate story, which the Obama campaign never told particularly clearly because it isn't all that flattering, seems to be that they were afraid the trip would be criticized as political.

I suppose in media-land it is "unflattering" to not want a visit to injured servicemembers to be turned into a revolting political circus of gotcha clowning about "hating the troops." Elsewhere it's called "common sense."

The simple fact is that no matter what Obama does ("One thing is certain — he did cancel the trip. We don't need any evidence of that and it is damning in and of itself. Whatever the rationale"), McCain and the wingnuts are going to screech that he "hates the troops," because they have nothing else but slander and a vague hope that somehow Obama's popularity is "cultish."

The real story here is that when you're reduced to nonsensical smears that get debunked in real time, as well as yelling that the other guy is in trouble because people like him, you got nothing. Hell, even the NYTimes knows it, which means you know it, I know it, dogs know it.

I Write Music for Soundtracks Now

So apparently we're all supposed to hate Jon Voight, all us pinkos. Hope you got the memo. I'd missed it and so thank K-Lo for the heads-up. As she intones, "It's tough to be conservative in Hollywood." Apparently Jon Voight is a conservative and therefore has suffered worse than anyone HUAC ever went after back in the day. See, look at Voight's IMDB page. It is a record of indescribable human suffering. Waterboarding would be kinder.

Though, on the other hand, the man was in Anaconda of his own free will. So I have no sympathy. None.

This all seems to have some damn thing to do with Voight's recent op-ed in the Washington Times, which really is awesome and excellent all-around, but this brief extract gives the full flavor:

If Mr. Obama had his way, he would have pulled our troops from Iraq years ago and initiated an unprecedented bloodbath, turning over that country to the barbarianism of our enemies.

So he's a gin-soaked elderly grouchy right-wing lunatic. Fair enough. I bear no grudges. At least he won't show up at my family reunions, has an Academy Award, and probably can afford to have someone trundle him home after he passes out on the couch after scaring the piss out of the toddlers. And anyway that's better writing than usually appears at the Washington Times. I think he would make an excellent ass-kickin' Horshack in Return of the Kotter: The Kottering. Blacklists be darned!

Sign of Coming Events

Matt Yglesias:

My take on this is that the election is more unpredictable than the "Obama in a landslide" crowd thinks primarily because the fundamentals themselves are unpredictable. I don't think it's likely that there'll be a marked turnaround in economic conditions over the next few months, but macroeconomic trends are famously hard to forecast. Similarly, none of us really know what's going to happen in Iraq over the next few months. Elections are primarily determined by the fundamentals, and thus are in that sense more predictable than journalists usually imply, but it's not as if the fundamentals are all that easy to predict.

Sure they are. The economy can't possibly rebound sufficiently soon enough to change public opinion so that it will affect the election. As to Iraq, that argument is over -- the public will never go back to thinking the war was ever a good idea, and the candidate who says he can end it will have an edge.

Another fundamental is that Bush will be in the White House through the election. Oh, I suppose something dramatic could happen and this won't be the case, but this scenario is on the same order of probability as either the economy or Iraq  being  other than what they are in the months before the election.

That said, I don't believe this election is in the bag by any means. As a progressive of Irish extraction, my money is on a clear Sauron victory.

Sister I Need Wine

Uh....

Here's the explanation. And here's a comment I completely predicted when David asked me to be a judge:

Althouse = Paula Abdul.
No contest.
Drunk and batshit crazy.

Here's where you're wrong, oh, predictable "guest" commenter. Paula is on the "American Idol" panel to love and support the kids and cushion them from Simon's meannesss. I will not be performing that function. You need to think a lot harder— and identify yourself with a real name so I can come over there and kick your ass. You took a comment cliché and did nothing even to attempt to make it your own.

Least. Convincing. Rebuttal. To charges of acting "drunk and batshit crazy." Ever.

But I do actually have some sympathy for Althouse's assertion that she is "not Paula Abdul." A far better reality show homologue would be Flava Flav of Flava of Love, only without the gravitas. Her commenters are more in the category of the contestants on the Tila Tequila program, only less sympathetic.

Heavy Metal Country

Over at NRO the gang recently got all giggly over a comparison between Obama's Berlin speech and "We Are the World" lyrics. Droll. Though, as Roy points out, this particular pop culture reference is more than a little stale for anyone who isn't an aging Alex P. Keaton.

Because, you know, this isn't the 1980s. That decade was all great big giant "RELAX" T-shirts, evil empires, cocaine, nuclear weapons, ridiculous haircuts, Reagan, and illegal arms deals with rogue radical Shiite states in order to fund Central American death squads. So it was a sunnier time. For conservatives, at least, although the rest of us had Walkmen and Swatches and baggy pastel clothing, so we couldn't complain too much.

But this is far grimmer decade. Iraq is not Grenada: say what you want about Reagan, but that befuddled ancient old buzzard was at least smart enough to make sure his bullshit wars didn't last more than a weekend or so. Today's zeitgeist demands a different kind of comedy than gentle swipes at the (admittedly hilarious) notion that trying to alleviate appalling human suffering might be a nice thing to do.

We instead need to compare John McCain speeches to Dëthkløk lyrics. Let us explore the shared weltanschauung of a violence-obsessed cartoon death-metal band and the violence-obsessed cartoon GOP death-presidential candidate. Why not.

Here is befuddled ancient old buzzard John McCain on War.

John McCain has always held the position that any withdrawal from Iraq must be based on conditions on the ground. With the incredible success of the surge, which John McCain advocated, it is increasingly likely that U.S. troops will be able to withdraw with victory in hand. John McCain had long urged Barack Obama, who opposed the surge, to return to Iraq in order to see the immense changes in the security situation there since his last visit.

And here is Dëthkløk's immortal "The Lost Vikings":

Many days ago we left our homes
With swords to ride into the night
Fighting side by side to destroy our foes
And leave them without life

We stop, consider the land that we traveled
Our map's at home, direction unraveled
But we ride
We ride....

We come upon a witch who takes us in
To let us share her mighty fire
She asks of us our story and we lie and say
We ride around for hire
She asks us if we'd like to have her map
And points us in some direction
But we are far too proud and strong so we keep silent
And ignore her suggestion

Lost but still we ride
Search until we die
All the fault of pride
The gods weep in the night

Sounds about right. Of course, it need hardly be said that while John McCain may be a crazy person who wants a lot of people to die, he is still not metal. Intriguing!

UPDATE: This thing below works too. I submit that McCain's last chance is to go totally Death Metal. As of now he's all like Michael Bolton doing Samhain covers, anyhow.

Knives in the Back of Me

by Molly Ivors

You gotta feel a bit bad for Barack Obama, all things considered. He's so clearly the better candidate. I know it. You know it. Dogs know it. He spends the week touring the globe facing millions of people who literally expect him to Save the World, and his reward is to get a private sitdown with the Prom Queen of Sulzberger High, who is allowed to needle him endlessly with bullshit questions and air raids and her snide smoking asides.  (Patent pending on those, Ann Althouse! Step off, beeyotch!) It's enough to give a guy the bends.

In MoDo's world, Obama, a Dem, is sexually suspect, two terms which inspire thoughts of the Department of Redundancy Department. And so his encounter with French president Sarkozy, that wingnut twat, was not a meeting between a world leader and a presumptive world leader designed to make up for five years of Freedom Toast, but a cinq à sept, a liaison in the afternoon, languorous and stolen.

Passing acquaintances collide in a moment of transcendent passion. They look at each other shyly and touch tenderly during their Paris cinq à sept, exchange some existential thoughts under exquisite chandeliers, and — tant pis — go their separate ways.

Sarko, back to Carla Bruni. Obama, forward to Gordon Brown. A Man and a Man. All it needed was a lush score and Claude Lelouch.

(And yes, in case you're wondering, there are days when I wish deconstructing MoDo's psyche was not my avocation, because you gotta wonder who gets a pup tent or a wide-on from standard photo-ops of political meetings. That's just weird. Brokeback Ballroom?) Note  that Sarkozy gets to go home to the hot chick, Obama to the milquetoast New Labour guy. Clearly, Sarkozy isn't really "like that," but Obama is. And he was sad, so sad, to be leaving Paris. Bet you were too, Mo.

The funny part is, MoDo likes Obama, at least as much as she's capable of doing. And he seems to have figured out how to handle her, more or less. But he can't control the way she writes, the collection and accretion of elements she's using to build the narrative against him. And I'm not entirely sure she can, either, though identifying the urge to trivialize as a compulsion does seem to let her off the hook somewhat. Still. I may be compelled to eat a tube of raw cookie dough, but I don't.

Today's outing has two established narrative threads: the gay thing (which will never really go away for her, I don't think), and the Chosen One thing, noted in moments such as these:  "After 200,000 people thronged to see Obama at the Victory Column in Berlin, christening him 'Redeemer' and 'Savior,' it turned out Sarko was also Obamarized, as the Germans were calling the mesmerizing effect." And, "How does he like the McCain camp mocking him as 'The One'? 'Even if you start believing your own hype, which I rarely do, things’ll turn on you pretty quick anyway,' he said. 'I have a fairly steady temperament that has at times been interpreted as, ‘Oh, he’s sort of too cool.’ But it’s not real.' "

Nicely done, Senator. Deft. The only way, really, to face down MoDo and her ilk is to turn the narratives against her. Not that she's figured out that he's figured that out, of course: since she follows the above immediately with, "Obama kept his cool through a week where he was treated as a cross between the Dalai Lama and Johnny Depp."  But Obama has already done and end-run around that narrative, and another nascent one MoDo notes here: that in his incredible popularity abroad, he's going to alienate dumbass rednecks:

I asked how his “Citizen of the World” tour will go down in Steubenville, Ohio.

“There will probably be some backlash,” he said. “I’m a big believer that if something’s good then there’s a bad to it, and vice versa. We had a good week. That always inspires the press to knock me down a peg.”

(A disclaimer to the dumbass redneck population: my family roots are in Bellaire, Ohio, a scant 30 miles from Steubenville, where my beloved older brother attended some sort of Catholic evangelical college.)

But in noting that he expects this line of attack, Obama largely defangs it. (Remember the reports of John Kerry speaking French with his brother? Clearly, a faux-French fag.) Obama's on to the game, the structure of innuendo and destruction in which the press has gleefully participated while Rome burns under their feet, MoDo most of all. Except I think he seems to miss one thing: the relentless need to pump sex and sexuality into the narrative.

In Berlin, the tabloid Bild sent an attractive blonde reporter to stalk Obama at the Ritz-Carlton gym as he exercised with his body man, Reggie Love. She then wrote a tell-all, enthusing, “I’m getting hot, and not from the workout,” and concluding, “What a man.”

Obama marveled: “I’m just realizing what I’ve got to become accustomed to. The fact that I was played like that at the gym. Do you remember ‘The Color of Money’ with Paul Newman? And Forest Whitaker is sort of sitting there, acting like he doesn’t know how to play pool. And then he hustles the hustler. She hustled us. We walk into the gym. She’s already on the treadmill. She looks like just an ordinary German girl. She smiles and sort of waves, shyly, but doesn’t go out of her way to say anything. As I’m walking out, she says: ‘Oh, can I have a picture? I’m a big fan.’ Reggie takes the picture.”

I ask him if he found it a bit creepy that she described his T-shirt as smelling like “fabric softener with spring scent.”

He looked nonplussed: “Did she describe what my T-shirt smelled like?”

Clearly, this reporter needs to work on her inner Parker Posey if she wants to be the German MoDo. At least she got a workout out of this. What did MoDo get?

Well,maybe she got to go shopping in Paris. But she didn't score any points against Obama today, much as she tried.

The King and Caroline

No, wow.

Why go here?

Dude, if you have to ask.

Seriously, though. Wow.

See also here. The amount of nothing the GOP has never fails to amaze.

A simple rule for life is to never trust incompetent liars to run stuff if you can help it. Often you can't; see Bush. In the case of McCain perhaps this pitfall may be avoided. Maybe. Anyhow, Dan Riehl is an asshole, but maybe you knew that.

Acorns & Orioles

I apparently missed this. John McCain addressed the issue of his failure to understand when Teh Surge occurred in a grocery store dairy section, right after a big applesauce spill. I shit you not. Video below. It's astounding.

In this video he quite literally says that The Surge is responsible for the success of The Surge. And he also says some other stuff that's less defensible but equally odd. Wow. No snark -- this video is scary in that it shows just how bananas & muddled John McCain really is on foreign policy.

Matt Yglesias asks in reference to Teh Surge if McCain ever really did back in the day call for any of the sort of "talk to the terrorists" kind of thinking that really constitutes Teh Anbar Awakening, and the answer would appear to be "no." And, you know, this is not exactly a minor point. McCain is claiming props for a policy to which he attributes an anachronistic efficacy and which he doesn't seem to genuinely understand or have supported anyhow. WOW.

Anyone looking for McCain's "real" foreign policy ideas ought to confront the fact that  he never ever seems to know what the fuck he's talking about on this score. The applesauce video is below. Here he is in a 2006 speech that Yglesias links to:

Madam President, there is an old line about those of us who ignored the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them. Afghanistan is the classic example of what could happen in Iraq. After years and years of incredible assistance to those who were seeking freedom from the then-Soviet Union occupation of Afghanistan, the Russians were driven out. Then, incredibly, the United States of America totally disengaged from Iraq. I recommend to my colleagues the reading of a book called “Ghost Wars” by Steven Cole, which won a Pulitzer Prize. Of course, came the Taliban. The Taliban then obviously was not only a terribly oppressive, brutal, cruel regime, but it also became a hotbed of training for terror today. A failed state in Iraq would pose a clear, present, and enduring danger to the security of our country.

I mean, holy shit. Insert some misspellings and arbitrary punctuation and the man could be posting in the You Tube comments.

And then we have this, where McCain solemnly displays his extensive foreign policy experience and expertise to a Serious Journalist. This is long, but I think instructive:

McCain is known for being a gut thinker, averse to overarching doctrines or theory. But as we talked, I tried to draw out of him some template for knowing when military intervention made sense — an answer, essentially, to the question that has plagued policy makers confronting international crises for the last 20 years. McCain has said that the invasion of Iraq was justified, even absent the weapons of mass destruction he believed were there, because of Hussein’s affront to basic human values. Why then, I asked McCain, shouldn’t we go into Zimbabwe, where, according to that morning’s paper, allies of the despotic president, Robert Mugabe, were rounding up his political opponents and preparing to subvert the results of the country’s recent national election? How about sending soldiers into Myanmar, formerly Burma, where Aung San Suu Kyi remained under house arrest by a military junta?

“I think in the case of Zimbabwe, it’s because of our history in Africa,” McCain said thoughtfully. “Not so much the United States but the Europeans, the colonialist history in Africa. The government of South Africa has obviously not been effective, to say the least, in trying to affect the situation in Zimbabwe, and one reason is that they don’t want to be tarred with the brush of modern colonialism. So that’s a problem I think we will continue to have on the continent of Africa. If you send in Western military forces, then you risk the backlash from the people, from the legacy that was left in Africa because of the era of colonialism.”

The United States faced a similar obstacle in Myanmar, McCain went on, shaking his head sadly. “First of all, you’d have to gauge the opinion of the people over time, whether you’d be greeted as liberators or as occupiers,” McCain said. “I would be concerned about the possibility that if it were mishandled, we might see an insurgent movement.”

It's fucking breathtaking. Absolutely fucking breathtaking.

The Serious Journalists might call this "gut thinking" and not some sort of pointy-headed fan of "overarching doctrine or theory."

But, you know, I think you'd also be justified in thinking that this man ought not to be president, because he's a loony.

When You Clean Out the Hive

So watertiger & Dan & I put together this irresponsible parody video that is kind of silly but still funnier than any New Yorker cover ever. It is, so far, a total success, receiving some nice comments and about 13000 views over at You Tube.

But of course we're most flattered by the feedback in the You Tubes comments section, as always the Agora of the Digital Age.

wastedlifefightclub (2 days ago) Show Hide

 I almost peed laughing. Too bad its true. He has ties to black panthers and the Weathermen, who praised the murder (and responsible for) 2 police officers - From his book, ''I don't regret setting bombs,'' Bill Ayers said. ''I feel we didn't do enough.'' Mr. Ayers, who spent the 1970's as a fugitive in the Weather Underground"

Obama is a Marxist, and you Democrats are so concerned with teh Patriot Act stealing your rights? You just WAIT

bennyh12345 (2 days ago)
Obama belonged to a racist church for 20 years.  End of story.

RICKWILLFRAGYA (1 day ago)
barrack is the antichrist soo dont vote for him or were doomed so dont vote for him im foreal you vote for him its going to be judgement day beileve me or dont but youll see and when im right dont say srry barrack *anti*christ

luisumanzor (1 day ago)
A stupid white greendo had to made this video. Well what can you expect from persons like those, 50% of your population is fat. Sorry For you all. I hope you get to think one day.

Gangsterteddybear (14 hours ago)
RICKWILLFRAGYA you know nothing about the anti-Christ. You're foolish to think Barack Obama is the anti-Christ! For one the anti-Christ was born in Rome, second he is going to hold the power of the world not just the United States, third the third temple in Jerusalem needs to be built. So get your facts straight before making a generalize statement!!! Obama '08!

ColdHeat16 (11 hours ago) S
wat was so scary but any of those black ppl they said where frightning

Pretty freaky, but a lot saner and more coherent than anything you'll find at The Corner.

Remember, Barack Obama is scary.