Please stay on topic. Please don't be asses.
i'm surprised corsi's history of gay child molesting hasn't come up yet.
Why don't the victims of this kind of sliming *sue*? Just because a person's famous doesn't mean you can say or write falsehoods about him or her. I believe it's called defamation. I'm not sure that hitting back hard in the courts would be so bad in the court of public opinion, and a multi-million dollar verdict might make the major publishing houses think twice. On the other hand, I'm sure that's why these books are published by subsidiaries - to limit the financial damage when someone does finally haul them before a jury of their betters (since I think mollusks are exempt from jury duty.)
dobbs says that it is on the best seller list "so that must tell you something" ... but remember the lawsuit awhile back by, iirc, regnery authors claiming that despite all their so-called sales, they weren't actually making any money.
of course, you cant expect dobbs to understand such complex issues.
but who is making these bulk orders?
"so that must tell you something" - Lou Dobbs
It most certainly does Lou, it pretty much confirms my suspicions that the right will fork over resources & consume just about anything, if you put the appropriate candy coating of the day on it...not very conservative behavior if you ask me.
i'm surprised corsi's history of child molesting hasn't come up yet.
type 4
I'm shocked he's even appearing on television. Someone told me they saw a tabloid headline, Heartbroken Anne Coulter Heals New Face In The Hamptons With Love Slave Jerome 'Bottom' Corsi. That, and those epic nights of Goat Blowing with Mickey Kaus.
But this story couldn't be true, because, you know -- Coulter has no heart.
How Matalin and Carville exist under the same roof, I'll never comprehend!!
Corsi's just a nutcase, whose books are bought in bulk by right-wing groups with LOTS of $$$ to squander, then handed out for free at gatherings.
I'm really kind of a babe in the woods about this, but I have, one time, observed the fact that a certain amount of publishing business exists to serve unconscious motives.
So, for example, I once started reading a "self-help" book, until I realized what I was looking at. It was a book that, quite literally, was written for people addicted to buying self-help books. Actually, you could hardly say it was "written" at all. The publishers understand that if you sandwich a bunch of "self-helpy" sounding claptrap between two pieces of 4-color bookcover cardboard, you can depend upon an acceptable level of sales.
Well, I consider the Corsi book to be a species of this effect, albeit a little different.
The idea is that Corsi's book addresses a need for people whose intellects still wrestle somewhat with primal fears. Although from the standpoint of directness, intelligence, sensibility, humor, realism, compassion, and most any other metric you can think of, Obama would make a better President of the United States than McCain, people are still people and as such are subject to their fears. But they can't just toss their intellect aside; they need a reason to throw over the plain evidence of their eyes.
And Corsi's book exists to provide that permission to toss aside reason and "go with" your fears. It's much more comfortable and familiar that way.
Over the last few decades, the media and the right have successfully forged this equation into the American mindset - Democrats=liberals=socialists=communists - and until we find some way to break the chain, we will see more of this type of treatment in the media.
type 4:
I have heard that Corsi and Mickey Kaus share an addiction. I'll let you guess what it is. 
The best way to deal with the Villagers you rightly deplore is a) contempt, b)on every public appearance, someone on this side must say, "you make x (insert ludricrous TV contract here) to lie to the American people." NOBODY likes these people. Call David Broder's public speaking gigs out on Meet the Press. Like that.
You know, to the attentive observer, conclusions can easily be drawn from the plethora of information literally at your fingertips. As I've commented here and elsewhere numerous times, even we out here in the hinterlands know what's going on. And while I agree with the sentiment making the rounds both Left and, surprisingly, Right that this guy is nothing but a whacker, I find it disconcerting that y'awl treat with such derision the desire that the truth about America's Reichtag, 9/11, be made public.
Perhaps I've afforded you too great a measure of credibility.
Arj:
Has anyone ever invited Carville to a Netroots get together? They should, so they can ask him about this stuff.
As long as the villagers are in agreement that the only people who are truly beyond the pale in American politics are on the left, then this will continue.
Funny how you can hold this idea in your head at the same time as this one:
a nut who associates with 9/11 truthers
Which is especially ironic in view of your open skepticism for the government's explanation of the anthrax attacks.
So, to summarize Digby,
1) The official explanation of the attacks of 9/11 is gospel, and anyone who questions them is a "nut."
2) The official explanation of the anthrax attacks were a lie covering a conspiracy reaching the highest level of government.
3) The problem with our political discourse is that anyone who holds controversial views on the left is marginalized, while those on the right who hold controversial views are mainstreamed.
Good luck with that, Digby.
How that marriage works, I'll never understand. Someone's bluffing it.
@ Joe Klein's conscience:
I don't like quoting myself, but: "...That, and those epic nights of Goat Blowing with Mickey Kaus."
A night spent gutter-crawling through barnyards with Mick can mark a man. It's seen in their eyes; always, in the eyes.
VOTE DIGBY-CLARK-2008---VOTE THE INTERNET where there's a will, there's a way.
Liberals talk about ideas. Conservatives don't have any ideas worth talking about, so they advertise. But guess which form of communication the average American is more familiar with?
I think the primary difference between left wing and right wing boogeymen is that left wing extremists generally go after the democratic party, and so do the conservative extremists.
Club for growth for example genuinely goes after Republican targets and they aren't nearly as liked by the media.
The point being is that corsi isn't really an extremist. He is just a liar.
So to compare him to the genuine left and right wing extremists is a misake because the extremists hate both parties.
I thought we were entering a hopeful new era of post-partisanship, where it was our obligation to agree that the left is just as bad as the right.
From "The Audacity of Hope": "Depending on your tastes, our condition is the natural result of radical conservatism or perverse liberalism, Tom DeLay or Nancy Pelosi, big oil or greedy trial lawyers, religious zealots or gay activists, Fox News or the New York Times."
So, let's please learn from the new head of the Democratic party that today’s Dems are as extreme on the left as the Repubs are on the right. Tom Delay vs. Nancy Pelosi, oil execs vs. trial lawyers, religious obsessives vs. equal-rights gays, and Fox News vs. the New York Times are fair match-ups of disreputable, polarized extremists.
Thus Corsi must be no worse than, say, Michael Moore, in this healing spirit of equivalation.
And I don't think the progressive movement has fully come to grips yet with just how powerful this image of scary left wing freaks still is in the national imagination...
The rightwing nuttery has done an incredible job of demonizing anyone to the left of Joe Lieberman, assisted and enabled by the majority of the elected Dems, and the majority of the so-called "liberal" talking heads on the teevee. How many people in either of these groups truly represent you? All I can come up with is Kucinich and Feingold, and on teeve, Rachal Maddow and Olbermann (sometimes).
The rightwing freaks are destroying this country, and I'm the bad guy.
I daydream about all of the lefties just refusing to go to the polls in November. Let McSame win and cause all the damage he can. In four years, if there is still a country, the Dems might think twice about taking us for granted.
Btw, Matlin and Dobbs are total scumbags.
Fuck 'em. I'm sick of it.
Lou Dobbs, whom I never liked much, has become a complete pontificating blowhard. He poses as some kind of "populist" for the middle class but he's really just a poser. Like all the egomaniacs with TV shows he's about one thing only, Lou Dobbs.
So...after the past eight years... "the only kooks in the country with whom it is unacceptable to be professionally or financially involved with are on the left."
Meanwhile, Rush, Fox and their hyena brethren are considered legitimate mainstream voices. Mary Matalin is just seeing how far she can push the envelope.
This is some dangerous dysfunction. And it's only gotten more ingrown and infected over the years. And since the nutcase right has been so rarely called out on their ruthless crap-spew, they're encouraged to escalate.
Bush's two terms have been a case study in how to hobble government, how to destroy a free press and how to privatize, deregulate and contract everything in sight.
But as long as it's too impolite to mention the stench, the wound isn't going to be repaired.
Once again, the phrase "cultural hegemony" comes to mind. Maybe it's time for the "scary left-wing freaks" to go hit the books again and figure out how the really scary left-wing freaks of yesteryear managed to deal [more or less] with the problem. It might turn out we have some new tools that our forebears didn't.
"But they can't just toss their intellect aside; they need a reason to throw over the plain evidence of their eyes."
This is utter bullshit. People, and by this I mean people in the aggregate but it's especially true of Americans, absolutely do not need a reason to throw over the plain evidence of their eyes. Often, all it takes is a well-crafted television advertisement, run repeatedly and frequently, during prime viewing hours. Seriously, go back and read your McLuhan again until it sinks in...
Publishing is infested with neo-Nazis. Neiwert's publisher, Macmillian, employs a number of them. It's covered up or swept under the rug as "free speech." (What about a fact-based product, which should be publishing's goal?) Worse, to retain their jobs, pseudo-liberal editors (cheap whores, all) go for the "quick fix" to hold their jobs and sign demented right-wing authors, who bring in the bucks with their inane, often illiterate drivel.
Different identity and affinity groups on the "non-Right" will address
it in their own different ways. Those
ways can all be studied by onlookers, and if any of the identity and affinity groups appear to be trying something designed to achieve an actual victory, onlookers might add their own efforts to those groups' efforts.
If the "non-Right" wants to win by making its enemies lose, it might study the mechanics of Right Wing book
hyping and Catapulting the Corsi. If the non-Right can gain power against the Right by using those methods; then
the non-Right can either adopt those methods to Win Ugly or abjure those methods to Loose Pretty. The non-Right has a choice to make.
(oops, time's up. back to work...)
The "staid, old ACLU" was, of course, founded by a Communist, but that doesn't mean they've let it get them down: they're currently collaborating with a foreign government to possibly sue the U.S. government. The ultimate reason? Because the U.S. enforcing its laws would cost that foreign government money and would cost the ACLU and their allies power.
And, Corsi's opposition to illegal activity as well as things like the SPP and the NAU would likewise cost important people money and power, and that probably explains part of the smears against him.
As for the smearts coming from the BHO campaign, they had to "creatively edit" one of his quotes in order to make him look bad. In fact, they took out a whole sentence from inside a quoted paragraph without in any way noting they removed it.
Publishing is infested with neo-Nazis.
Inside Publishing
At last -- an explanation for the printing and distribution of Liberal Fascism.
"Depending on your tastes, our condition is the natural result of radical conservatism or perverse liberalism, Tom DeLay or Nancy Pelosi, big oil or greedy trial lawyers, religious zealots or gay activists, Fox News or the New York Times."
... So, let's please learn from the new head of the Democratic party that today’s Dems are as extreme on the left as the Repubs are on the right. [vastleft | Homepage | 08.16.08 - 9:49 pm | # ]
Here is a perfect example of how vastleft and others like him among the PUMA select alter the context of a quote/statement in order to make it sound as if it is saying something other than it is. Correntewire has been doing this for months in the case of Obama, just as Corsi does in his book. Below is the fuller context of the excerpt Vastleft has manirulated above to construct his entirely false and misleading premise:
"What we hear instead, not only in campaigns but on editorial pages, on bookstands, or in the ever-expanding blog universe, are deflections of criticism and assignments of blame. Depending on your tastes, our condition is the natural result of radical conservatism or perverse liberalism, Tom DeLay or Nancy Pelosi, big oil or greedy trial lawyers, religious zealots or gay activists, Fox News or the New York Times. How well these stories are told, the subtlety of the arguments and the quality of the evidence, will vary by author, and I won't deny my preference for the story the Democrats tell, nor my belief that the arguments of liberals are more often grounded in reason and fact."
*
I do think corsi's book should be recognized...as having a terrible pun.
Groaningly , laughably bad.
anyone wanna guess when we start hearing (and using) "obamanonics"?
Farmer,
Obama continually cycles through various contradictory positions in his speeches and writings, yielding what one former cult-member (his description of his one-time religious affiliation) and former Obama supporter (he lost faith in Obama after the FISA vote), described to me as "The Forer Effect."
I describe this circular communication style in detail (the progressive-bashing and the often muted retrenching from it) in the post where I examined the first chapter of Audacity in some detail, and from which I excerpted my comment here.
What concerns me, and evidently not you, is that he constantly throws a bone to the radical right, putting forth framing that makes the GOP the party of ideas, Reagan as transformative, and so on and so forth, then sometimes backing of some from that brink by noting a degree of preference for the Democratic position. What good does it do us for him to keep offering up that kind of framing, even if he follows up by tempering it to a degree?
His fundamental frame is that the problems in Washington come from an excess of partisanship, with the frequent implication that this problem is substantially caused by a left that is little better than the right. Do you deny that he does that, and that it weakens our case and our resolve to do as Digby urges here, which is to promote understanding of the massive difference between today's rightwing and true progressives (such as there are any, and not Republicrats)?
"they're currently collaborating with a foreign government to possibly sue the U.S. government. The ultimate reason? Because the U.S. enforcing its laws would cost that foreign government money and would cost the ACLU and their allies power."
I'm not calling you a liar, but your wording of "a foreign governement" who, obviously may not be named, leaves me no choice but to assume you are until you both name the foreign government and provide a link.
To the posters that ask why Obama or others do not sue: Because litigation is nasty, hard and distracting.
Generally, the plaintiff (e.g., Obama) bears the burden of proof and must show (1) a false statement, (2) known by the defendant to be false or pulished in reckless disregard of its falsity; (3) and having defamatory content, (4) referring to the plaintiff. That's not easy.
More importantly, in my view, factor in all of the litigation games that would be employed - depositions, document demands, etc. - and all you can expect is a giant time suck that has almost no chance to obtain a result prior to the election, presenting your antagonist with additional opportunities for distortion (as a defendant, might as well move all in on your smear gambit at this point), with a difficult legal standard and little to show for any victory.
It's not hard to see why a person would forego litigating this questions.
I examined the first chapter of Audacity in some detail, and from which I excerpted my comment here.
and completely misrepresented its meaning.
What concerns me, and evidently not you, is that he constantly throws a bone to the radical right, putting forth framing that makes the GOP the party of ideas, Reagan as transformative, and so on and so forth, then sometimes backing of some from that brink by noting a degree of preference for the Democratic position. What good does it do us for him to keep offering up that kind of framing, even if he follows up by tempering it to a degree?
This isn't Obama's framing... its your framing. And you obviously still don't understand this reference to Reagan (and, i suspect are not really interested in understanding it because it might upset your shallow pool of talking points) nevertheless, if you are interested in understanding what Obama was getting at with respect to the Reagan trajectory... etc... you can go read this Ezra Klein / American Prospect article here: The Democrat's Choice / March 2008.
That might help you out some (although I doubt it). Cute use of the word "cult" there too Vastleft (since you are the guy who spent weeks during the primaries writing blogposts accusing Obama supporters of being members of a personality cult.) Did Corsi send you a free copy of his book for helping out with the subtitle?
and that it weakens our case and our resolve to do as Digby urges here, which is to promote understanding of the massive difference between today's rightwing and true progressives
yes, and it weakens our case and resolve when smug propagandists like you spend months accusing the likely Dem nominee of being some kind of double talking cultic fraud with a messiah complex who was "selected" as opposed to elected and on and on and on as you do at correntewire every day. Look, if you want to throw a little tantrum - and prove to us all that Obama is actually Ronald Reagan in disguise - help get him elected.... and then you can throw all the tantrums you like and prance around sqealing "I told you so!" and promote the difference between the rightwing and "true" progressives. Just do it AFTER John McCain is defeated. Ho-k? Until that happens you are serving as little more than a rightwing tool (as Jerome Corsi's book demonstrates since it parrots many of the same anti-Obama themes you yourself have been massaging for months.) Which might suggest that the "massive" difference between a "true" progessive like you and Jerome Corsi's rightwing isn't as "massive" as you (a "true" progressive) might fancy it to be.
---
Corrente - not Correntewire.
*
Doesn't the fact that the right wing nut jobs, and the corporations that love them, own probably 99.9% of the media that reaches the average citizen explain most of this?
The media filter is a powerful incentive for politicians to express views similar to the views of the guy(s) that owns those T.V. cameras they are talking to. How else are they going to reach the voters? Through the tubes? now that would be radical...
> whois 24ahead.com
Oh look: yet another sneaky blogwhoring vanity domain registered to Chris 'TLB' Kelly.
How many of those do you have now? A veritable spammer's worth.
Get a life, you fucking obsessive.
and completely misrepresented its meaning.
So, "Audacity" isn't a book that frames our nation's major problem as being excessive partisanship on both the right and left? Who knew?
This isn't Obama's framing... its your framing.
Obama's framing was that the Reagan was transformative, an answer -- if not an ideal one -- to Democratic tax-and-spend bloat. Really puts the Democrats and their agenda of good government in a flattering light.
That might help you out some (although I doubt it). Cute use of the word "cult" there too Vastleft (since you are the guy who spent weeks during the primaries writing blogposts accusing Obama supporters of being members of a personality cult.) Did Corsi send you a free copy of his book for helping out with the subtitle?
Nothing "cute" about it. My friend studied cults after he left the one he grew up in and thus learned about concepts like "The Forer Effect." Once he became disillusioned with the Obama "Movement," he saw it as being something quite similar; he felt he'd been taken for the same kind of ride that his religious sect had taken him on. Since I'm quite sure that Obama is damaging the Democratic Party and other progressive institutions, I guess I should be intimating that you're in league with Corsi, Karl Rove, etc. -- if I may borrow from the Obama non-cult's playbook.
smug propagandists... tantrum... prance around sqealing... serving as little more than a rightwing tool
Ever the class act, Farmer!
"The 'staid, old ACLU' was, of course, founded by a Communist..."
It sure is embarrassing when a Communist is a better American than you are, isn't it, TLB?
It's something that needs to be addressed in a much more cohesive way.
How?
Seriously.
The diagnosis is pretty clear. It's been pretty clear for years. But the prognosis hasn't changed.
You and I can't change who CNN & co. choose to put on TV, except maybe by diselecting those people who are there by virtue of holding some office, which a) takes years and years, and b) doesn't necessarily get them off the TV anyway.
You and I can't make Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer or Steny Hoyer or any of the rest grow spines.
Should we go out and buy copies of The Real McCain in bulk? I doubt it - that would absolutely be the first thing said about the book in any mention that it did happen to gain. 4 legs good, 2 legs bad.
So how do we "address" this stuff? Who is we?
Or do we just return to our regularly scheduled circular firing squad, already in progress?
So, "Audacity" isn't a book that frames our nation's major problem as being excessive partisanship on both the right and left?
Ah, the old change the subject ploy. Look, you took a quote out of 'Audacity" and presented it out of context and tried to pass it on as something it wasn't.- you know you did - you just don't own the nutsack to admit it. Why don't you just own up to it you coward?
And, do us all a favor Vasty (self proclaimed "true" progressive) - throw your little "true" progressive Purity Ball snit seven months from now will you (sometime in March 2009). Whats the difference to you, afterall, since you want us to buy your snakeoil that Obama is some kind of a stealth Republican anyway... then what do you care if Obama or McCain is elected? You get to run around with your hair on fire squealing like a stuck pig either way. Now wouldn't you rather run around squealing like a greased pig at an Obama country fair than roasting on a spit at a McCain BBQ? Which party do think a "true progressive" like you (eyes rolling here), might enjoy being stuck with?
Do us all a favor dumbass - and that goes for the rest of the PUMAlike pisspots over at CuckooWire - just remember you stand a better chance of having your so called "true" progressive agenda enacted under an Obama administration than under a McCain administration. The sooner dimwits like you realize that the better. The sooner dimwits like you stop pouring fuel on the political campaign coals that could ultimately roast us ("true" progessives") all at the McCain BBQ the better. Figure it out, idiot.
Stay classy, asshole.
*
Here's an alternative idea, Dear Farmer:
How about if Obama starts defending the Democratic brand and building on the country's deep upset at the GOP, instead of pushing that disempowering post-partisan hokum, which isn't working?
I know that's a K-R-A-Z-Y idea, but just putting it out there.
How about if Obama starts defending the Democratic brand
that would be fine.
"[Obama]...and I won't deny my preference for the story the Democrats tell, nor my belief that the arguments of liberals are more often grounded in reason and fact."
OMG! - Vastleft, left out that part! Anyway...
Meanwhile, how about you (Vastleft) start defending the Democratic "brand" too. And that way you can continue "defending the Democratic brand" well into 2009. See, Vastleft, how hard is that to figure out? Of course if there is no Democratic "brand" to defend, in 2009, well, I guess that it is ok with you since you helped defeat it?
Try to re-read my earlier comments and comprehend the ramifications of a McCain BBQ (yooo, the stuck pig on a spit)... okie dokie? Really Vastlost, there is more here to be lost if McCain wins - and despite your sanctimonious pride and the windswept strawman arguments you have erected for yourself along your vast windy way - some of us would rather argue with a Dem in the WH in 09 than argue with a Dem in a campaign in 08. How hard is that for you to figger out?
Huh? Stay classy, roar!
*
Re: Matalin & Carville -- the reason some of you people don't get it, is because you think CARVILLE is real.
He's an utter fake. He is exactly like Matalin. Understanding how they get on together is easy.
What they have in common is that They Don't Care About Anyone.
To paraphrase the immortal words of WS Burroughs "They got theirs -- screw you bums."
The sadder part is how anyone on "the left" is fooled by Carville's shtick.
and while we are at it Vastleft (and while you are playing amateur reporter) why don't you explain to everyone why you took Obama's quote out of context in your earlier comment. You still haven't explained that. [see: vastleft | Homepage | 08.16.08 - 9:49 pm] --- and --- [the farmer | 08.16.08 - 11:26 pm ]
Your chance to be classy, and actually account for yourself.
*
"The right...has fully integrated even their extremist fringe into the mainstream and everyone accepts it.
...Yet MoveOn taking out an ad that has the word "Betrayus" in it is worthy of a congressional censure.
...And I don't think the progressive movement has fully come to grips yet with just how powerful this image of scary left wing freaks still is in the national imagination --- or how thoroughly the right's extremist views have been accepted by the political establishment. It's something that needs to be addressed in a much more cohesive way."
Digby, you're so close! But this is not a question of what the progressive movement can "come to grips with" because there is no progressive movement.
A progressive movement wouldn't be surprised at the prevalence of right-wing themes in our media and politics. A progressive movement would recognize that the inevitable result of giant media domination of culture is that "the center" will be defined in terms friendly to huge concentrations of power and profit. A progressive movement would see that demonization of anything remotely related to critiquing the US business system is a natural outcome.
So yeah, the poor Democrats do have a vague relation to communism and socialism. To the extent they can shed that, they can become more acceptable in mainstream media and political discourse, duh. That's called "moving to the center" in American politics and it obviously means that even Democrats are required, eventually, to condemn "the left" ritually. Joeseph Lieberman is the vanguard of the Democratic party, friends.
The way forward for the left, if there were one, would be to begin seeing the Democrats as what they are. Some people get the scales lifted from their eyes by Noam Chomsky, some by Bob Somerby. Dennis Perrin has a pretty good handle on it as well.
The problem for people like you Digby, will always be who you see as on your side. Is farmer right or is vastleft? As long as we curse and kick the people who criticize the Democrats, from the left, we are part of the problem, not the solution.
As long as we curse and kick the people who criticize the Democrats, from the left, we are part of the problem, not the solution.
Stig | 08.17.08 - 4:35 am
this is a very simple solution to "the problem"... try it out yourself for a chancge... curse and kick the Democrats (from the left) after you actually have one in the White House.
O-Kay? Is that so hard a kicking order to figure out? Now how do you suppose you might arrange for that kicking order... ?
*
Oh, and re: Ah, the old change the subject ploy. Look, you took a quote out of 'Audacity" and presented it out of context and tried to pass it on as something it wasn't.- you know you did - you just don't own the nutsack to admit it. Why don't you just own up to it you coward?
Farmer, I agree with you that Obama's follow-on comment is of interest -- in fact, I included it in my longform takedown of the chapter. But you are wildly misrepresenting it to claim it's the missing "context," in your zeal to make the length of a quote the magic bullet that makes all of my and other Obama skeptics' legitimate concerns disappear.
As I have documented again and again and again and again and again...
(Haloscan won't accept this many links in a comment, so here are those "agains"
http://www.correntewire.com/
the_...er_one_and_done
http://www.correntewire.com/
what...ma_really_meant
http://www.correntewire.com/
the_...our_year_effect
http://www.correntewire.com/
what...anopoulos_today
http://www.correntewire.com/
afte..._wallace_and_me )
... Obama makes a habit of saying terribly disempowering things about progressives and then, frequently, muting them to a degree with follow-up statements.
Evidently, you think his half-assed attempt to put the toothpaste back in the tube means that the quote I excerpted hadn't conflated all those things I'm perturbed about him conflating. Does the additional "context" you're demanding change that? Well, no, but you're not concerned with that, because your haggling about the length of the quote -- like your hurling of epithets -- is a smokescreen. You can quote the whole rest of the book after the excerpt I noted, and my point stands -- he constantly, needlessly, and senselessly acts as though the left is troublesomely partisan on a scale that's relatively comparable to the right's behavior. Cited as-is, or with the additional verbiage you think is essential, you can't refute the point: Obama's entire frame is based on pretending that DC is gridlocked between bickering far-right and far-left partisans. The "food fight" he alludes to.
His occasionally sprinkling in a good word for the lefties (usually after he's put them down) doesn't make that not so, not untrue, and not bad for progressives.
Anyway, I thought I'd made the point about Obama's gambit of Dem-bashing followed by a but-Dems-are-kinda-better coda in my previous reply. And in any case, it's odd that you say I'm changing the subject, when I was responding to your then-latest claim that my write-up about the first chapter of "Audacity" was mis-framed. Or were you announcing that you were executing the change-the-subject-ploy, as you conveniently sidestepped answering whether I had properly characterized his book.
Anyway, I thought I'd made the point about Obama's gambit of Dem-bashing
No, that "point" is your own subjective framing. And you still haven't expplained HERE why you misrepresented Obamas quote (and you never will).
Here's another idea, i got, this election year, lets kick Dems from the left after thay are actually in the White House first! --- OH MY God, I can't believe I thought of that idea all by myself!
roar.
*
He didn't misrepresent the quote.
You saying so doesn't change the fact.
Obama doesn't like "partisanship"? Check, vastleft.
Obama disses left and right partisans in a way suggesting equivalence? Check, vastleft.
Obama follows up by saying he prefers the Democratic story? Check, farmer.
Obama's follow-up proves that he doesn't diss the left? No check, farmer.
But the bigger question is Digby why do you have a troll on your blogroll anyway? Is it just for the "hilarious" McCain/beefcake jpgs?
Farmer, we can agree that you will insist that I've done Obama a grave injustice with the length of the excerpt I used in this thread and that you'll consider it a great and important refutation of the many concerns I and others have about his candidacy. Wow, I'm feeling a post-partisan glow already!
Interesting idea you've got there, that we should stop worrying and love the Obama until he's elected.
Here's another blue-sky idea... demonstrate to Obama that:
1. His base needs energizing both before and after the election
2. He will run a stronger campaign if he stands for something, instead of being buffeted by fear of being anything but Republican Lite. Even Obama partisan Michael Moore is bugging him to do this: "We can't take four more years of this madness, Barack. We need you to be a candidate who will fight back every time they attack you. Actually, don't even wait till you have to fight back. Fight first! Show some vision and courage and smoke them out. Keep asking why these lobbyists are McCain's best friends. Let's finally have a Democrat who's got the balls to fire first. So Barack, by denouncing me, you can help McCain get elected. Because when you denounce me, it's not really me you're distancing yourself from — it's the millions upon millions of people who feel the same way about things as I do."*
* I hope that's enough of the quote to meet your discerning standards.
Full text is here:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/must...dex.php?
id=1036
Avoiding the ongoing with vastasshole, Frank Rich offers the template on how to take Corsi down:
If Republican warriors like Hannity and Matalin think so highly of Corsi’s research into Obama, then perhaps we should take seriously Corsi’s scholarship about McCain. In recent articles at worldnetdaily.com, Corsi has claimed (among other charges) that the McCain campaign received “strong” financial support from a “group tied to Al Qaeda” and that “McCain’s personal fortune traces back to organized crime in Arizona.”
Simple as that. The Obama camp ensures that everyone interviewing Corsi knows what he said about McCain during the primary, asks about those claims, and then... if you don't stand by what you said about McCain, why should we believe you now?
farmer, I say this as someone who's going to vote for Obama no matter what. I went back up and read the entire Obama quote as you posted it, and there is an undeniable "damning with faint praise" tone about it. Rather than just preferring the stories of Democrats and the arguments of liberals, it would have been nice if he had noted (in polite language, of course) that what conservatives have been spouting for the last 40+ years is utter bullshit.
And around and around we go, and will continue to do so until some people in the blogosphere grow some balls, put down their keyboards, pick up nominating petitions, and run for office their own damn selves.
The Jerome Corsi book seems to have been effectively rebutted by both the campaign and Media Matters.
I'm sure that will impress the .01% of the population that pays attention to such things as details and facts and has the capacity for critical thinking, but this is the absolute dumbest nation in the world, and all that matters here is believing whatever flatters your ego and vanity. (Is the abnormal religiosity for a developed nation a coincidence, then? I think not!)
"The way to counter John McCain's campaign to convince America that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim is to tell America that John McCain is a baby-fucking pederast and his wife is a pill-popping slut. Only one is true, but who cares? Flap the cape and spin, bitches."
this is a very simple solution to "the problem"... try it out yourself for a chancge... curse and kick the Democrats (from the left) after you actually have one in the White House.
Been there, done that all through the 90s, and got the same tired excuses and rationalizations and accusations of being traitors for not circling the wagons around a piece of shit who would have thrown us overboard at the first opportunity. So do forgive me for telling you to go pound yourself in the ass for recommending more of the same now.
What a joke: Wes Clark says getting shot out of the sky doesn't qualify you for being C in C, and he's vilified as if he ate a live goat-baby.
Matalin publishes this tripe and she's just another happy Villager on a stroll thru the meadow. Isn't life grand?
The idea that you can just post anything at MediaMatters and consider something effectively rebutted is nonsense. People read what is posted there and make up their own minds about whether something was a slur or had a basis in fact.
Obama's own 40-page rebuttal is not particularly effective. It admits to most of the facts and disputes the spin or interpretation of them. This is part of the problem -- people genuinely seeking explanations from Obama are not going to get them because Obama doesn't deal with most of the stuff circulating about him, except to dismiss the right of people to ask such questions (by calling them smears and the questioners racists or other names). Voters have the right to ask Obama to explain some of the complicated facts of his past. Inconvenient questions are not the same as smears.
One of the bulk buyers of both anti-Obama books is Costco. Implying that these books are only bestsellers because of the rightwing buys them is silly. People want to know more about Obama and they are not getting the info about key questions from his self-serving bio and website. If Obama cedes this territory he will get Corsi explaining about his experiences with Rezko or Muslim schooling because the surest way to accomplish that is to leave a vacuum by pretending such questions are inappropriate and refusing to answer them fully. A candidate for president cannot evade issues by refusing to talk about them. They will be talked about anyway, and framing this as smear doesn't work because voters do not consider themselves smear artists for wanting to know more about things they consider important.
Yep, Tim Rutten and Digby have it right. I doubt that will change anything.
The Corsi thing is largely a victory for Obama.
The point isn't whether Media Matters or the Obama camp wrote something. It's that the media isn't going into feeding-frenzy mode on Corsi's accusations.
That's not to say that some of Corsi's seeds won't find purchase, but overall score this a victory for Obama's popularity in the Village.
The big winner of this campaign is the media, which proved that it still gets to pick our candidates. Having done so with great success this year, it has the challenge of two media favorites running against each other. My money says that this is advantage Obama, but he still needs to gain some momentum, and playing defense-only won't get him there.
Just wondering, is part of the hopeful new politics reliance on the rhetorical device, Argument from Calling People "Asshole" (argumentum ad vulgarium)?
I thought there was something fishy about that Obama guy.
I mean his name, Barrack HUSSEIN Obama, sounds like some kinda secret muslim name to me.
And didn't he graduate from a Taliban school? That's what I heard.
And that preacher of his- Rev Wright? I mean have you heard that guy slamming America? How can he call himself a christian when he hates white people so much?
Obama refuses to wear a flag pin on his fancy suit, won't say the pledge os allegiance to the flag and from what I hear he lives in a big expensive house.
I won't even mention that he's married to a black woman.
And now we find out he's been having an affair while his wife had cancer?
Can you imagine what's gonna happen if he gets elected?
I sure am glad they're not gonna let that happen!
Sorry all but the simple fact is that the right will always have one more weapon in their arsenal to win elections than the liberals do. They have a win at any cost, tell or repeat any lie, and sacrifice any principal to win attitude. I'm proud (or should I be embarrassed) to say that my side won't go there.
regnad inquires about the ACLU collaborating with a foreign government.
Here's the link. Click the first link in that post to read the ACLU press release announcing the collaboration.
Jitter, exaggerating the rumors into ridiculousness isn't dealing with them. Obama was listed as Muslim on an application to a Catholic school (photo via AP), but he doesn't trust the voters enough to explain that. Instead he says "I was never a Muslim." His sister describes him doing Muslim things in a Muslim household in Indonesia, a Muslim country. We can all accept that Obama is not currently a Muslim and most of us know what it is like to be a child born into or raised in a religious tradition not of our explicit choosing. But, Obama cannot simply say "I was never a Muslim" and expect that to be the end of it, because it is simply not true. We all get it that he wishes he had his real father, so he could truly be an Obama instead of a Soetoro. What we don't get is why he thinks he can lie to people about his background, contradicting the words in his own books, and not be called on it. As a politician, you don't get to simplify the facts of your life to be more appealing to the simple-minded, without being accused of manufacturing your past. Obama is no exception, and when he tries to make his story prettier he gives fodder to people like Corsi. That's why someone with Obama's background would have, before this election, been considered unelectable because of it.
The Democratic candidate is a deceitful jihadist drug addict who, if elected, plans to impose a black supremacist, socialist regime.
Goddam, I wish I could vote twice, or even more often. They have to drag me from the booth.
BTW friends, I am getting a real good disliking for the word "progressive".
Oh, I know what it means when we refer to "The Progressive Party" and an earlier era in American politics. What it means today? Can anybody tell me.
I have a funny feeling before it's all over everyone is going to hate that word as much as I do.
I had a guy insisting, until he became quite abusive, that he was a "progressive libertarian"!
I told him contortionists were always in demand. Carny is such an interesting life, too.
So sad. So true. And why aren't there left wing nutcase books being bought in bulk by George Soros so they get to no. 1 on the NYT "best seller" list?
Dems just DO NOT have the killer instinct.
I'm completely depressed by the Dems' inability to learn to either combat this crap effectively or use it against the Reps.
SpongeBob sez: "That's why someone with Obama's background would have, before this election, been considered unelectable because of it."
Everything you say is true, except this last part.
Look at Bush; a boorish drunk for most of his life. But he slides by on the fundie shibboleth defense; "I'm saved!" By your logic (which says that some people are unelectable, right out of the gate), George shouldn't have run.
Again, your main point here is well-taken; "Q: When is Muslim not a Muslim? A: When he was registered as a Muslim before he was at an age where he could account for himself."
But you only hint at another truth, and that is that the only defense against one's past--the only way to make a "clean break"--is either to exploit the loophole afforded by fundie "forgiveness" or to just deny it and hope no one notices.
But there is another way; which you also (sort of) hint at: As forthcoming as many would say Obama had been after they had read his books, he could/should have been a little more forthcoming about the reality of his upbringing, especially concerning the matter of his religious affiliation.
I'm touchy about this because I've pondered the tragedy of vast hordes of good-hearted, true-blue Americans who see themselves as being unfit for public service because of their pasts, or (for that matter) because of facts about their present that shouldn't matter, but sadly do.
I've said that they can find other ways to make a significant difference, besides public office. But when I think of ol' George W. getting the presidency...
Old George W blatantly lied and hid from the public until it was too late, then he and his powerful cronies stole the 2004 election (with help from Kerry himself and some guys in black robes). Obama watched carefully and is using the same moves. He may be using them in a better cause (not sure about that), but it is the same game plan and I, for one, don't like it any better this time.
There are way too many parallels between Bush and Obama for my taste. More than between McCain and Bush, if you ignore the party labels.
As long as elections are media-driven we are going to get the lowest common denominator and that may not be sufficient to cope with troubled times ahead. Gaming the system is not the same skill set as fixing the world.
Man! Are we in the Big Cat House at the Bronx Zoo? The PUMAcrap is so deep its coming in over the tops of my
galoshes.
Digby said: "But money isn't the motive of the people who buy those books in bulk. They are making an investment in Republican politics."
They are making an investment in Republican politics...which will result in more money for them because of lower taxes, more and bigger loopholes, and fraudulent government contracts.
It isn't all about money...I'm sure a lot of these creeps really believe in a white, English only, rich-eat-the-poor society, but when you have to be rich to get dinner and dessert Republican politics look to them like the surest road for them to follow.
I just received an email from my sister who has written a letter to the corporate headquarters of Borders bookstore. Apparently, Borders has a corporate directive to place a display of Corsi's book greeting shoppers as they enter the store. She lives in Delaware, which teeters Republican. I am going to take some of my little free time and find out if any other corporate book store has the same policy.
Corsi may be a nutcase, but being associated with truthers should not have anything to do with it. That sounds like a "villager" response in itself. Because not all of them are nuts and they don't get mainstream airtime either. I wouldn't put any emphasis on his association with great "unwashed" of said village. They are plenty marginalized as it is and I'm sure many of the more reasonable truthers would just as soon not have someone like Corsi on their side.
Through a strange twist of fate, I've been invited to hear Carville & Matalin speak (@ the Phoenix CofC, of all places).
If nobody else brings it up, I'll be sure to ask about this, and to post about it on my diary at Kos, FWIW:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/20...7/12/1609/
87884
Feel free to drop by and suggest a question I can ask.
I have been noticing that for some time now, every time you hear the word "liberal" on the talk shows, be it radio or TV, it is always said with added emphasis and a sneer. It is a well planned attack from the spin masters of the right to make "liberal" more than just a dirty word, but more something something you resent even having to speak of, like child molesters or puke.
And just the tone that word now carries with it is more powerful in the minds of the masses than the facts or lies surrounding it.
"9/11 truthers and racists"
Real subtle, there. So, anyone who questions the pack of lies and the joke of an investigation surrounding 9/11 (this includes respected, silenced figures like Sibel Edmonds) is in the company of "racists" and creeps like Corsi.
You're part of the problem when you lazily frame things like that, digby, and it belies your greater argument. Way to help the right wing wedge the Overton window, and to stifle legitimate inquiry.
Yeah, whoever wrote this article is full of it.
9/11 was done by the elements within the banking, defense, and intelligence complex.
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