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Hurricane Gustav Blows Up a Republican Storm

Monday, September 1st, 2008

Is it just me or does anyone else feel we’re entering Bizarro world with the Republican Party’s decision to put its first day of its national convention on ice because of Hurricane Gustav?

Senator John McCain and his advisers decided on Sunday to halt all but the most essential activities for the Republican National Convention on Monday, sacrificing a major televised platform for his political message…

McCain advisers said the programming for the rest of the four-day convention would be determined on a day-to-day basis, and many questions remained open, such as whether Mr. McCain, of Arizona, and his running mate…would appear here to accept their party’s nominations…

I mean, what does all this mean? Let’s think it through.

First, it means that even Republicans, those political animals so willing to be deluded by the failings of their leaders, concede that Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina was an utter disaster. This is confirmed by George Bush’s decision to forgo the convention entirely. Can someone with a better historical memory than I tell me if an outgoing president has EVER ditched his Party’s nominating convention? And I don’t even need a political historian to tell me we’d have to go back a very long time to find a convention not attended by the winning nominee, probably to the 19th century.

This seems at least historic. Beyond this, it also confirms just how extreme a liability Bush is seen to be not just by the average American, but even by Republicans themselves. The only question I have is: did McCain tell George not to come or did George make the decision himself? I can’t imagine it would be the latter. Can you imagine someone like George Bush willingly slinking around the White House with his tail between his legs while his Party turns its back on him and gives him a Bronx cheer while they’re at it??

How will America react to a Party that essentially ditches its quadrennial national convention because it’s too chicken shit that the country will remember it nightmarish handling of the last major national weather disaster? I mean, even if John McCain looks all concerned as he meets with Haley Barbour in a FEMA conference center–how is he going to turn around this sneaking sensation floating through the minds of many that he’s just runnin’ friggin’ scared?

And this comment from McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, is the height of disingenuousness:

“We really don’t have the luxury of trying to evaluate the politics of this kind of situation.”

This guy’s living in an alternate universe if he doesn’t understand that politics is at the very heart of this decision.

And can anyone tell me why any Republican delegate would want to attend a convention when its nominee might not even show up?? It seems to me that if Gustav is as serious a storm as many believe it could be, that these guys have some serious political problems on their hands. And barring a miracle (like Gustav bypassing the Republican south and hitting the Democratic northeast instead) or a Hail Mary pass completion, I don’t see how McCain pulls this one off.

There’s one really sad aspect of all this for me and all those delegates. They won’t get a chance to say a fond farewell to Dick Cheney, who plans to be shooting quail and maybe a Democrat or two, if he can find one, in the Texas back country.

In more traditional cultures, when the weather god turns his back on you and rains catastrophe down on your people, your followers would see you as cursed and turn their back on you. I don’t know if Gustav was sent by a weather god, but it sure does make you wonder whether the fates are not exactly smiling down on Republicans this election season.

Tags: bush will not attend convention, hurricane gustav, katrina, mccain, republican national convention
Posted in Humor, Politics & Society | 4 Comments »

McCain: NY Times Share Price Tanking Because It Favors Obama

Saturday, August 2nd, 2008

When the NY Times published a Barack Obama op-ed on Iraq the McCain campaign asked for equal time. But after submitting his copy, the candidate became peeved when the editors asked him to revise it and add more substance. He refused and figured he’d get some good mileage out of it with his conservative base: “Conservative Shut Out of Liberal Media Elite Club Again.”

Then the Times attacked McCain’s low-blow campaign ad likening Obama to Hollywood party girls like Paris Hilton. This was too much for ragin’ John, whose campaign aide excoriated the paper with this rhetorical non sequitur:

“If the shareholders of The New York Times ever wonder why the paper’s ad revenue is plummeting and its share price tanking, they need look no further than the hysterical reaction of the paper’s editors to any slight, real or imagined, against their preferred candidate,” said McCain campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb.

There’s little danger of anyone in the McCain campaign ever paying much attention to petty things like logic or coherence in their statements. In his eagerness to slam the paper he feasts on the Times’ financial troubles and presumes that their origin lies in its supposed favoritism toward Barack Obama. Would that the American newspaper slump was so simple. Then all newspapers would have to do was become conservative bastions (they’re not, are they?) and return, presto change-o, to financial health.

Since virtually every newspaper in America faces the same woes as the Times, I’m assuming that McCain’s home state paper, the Arizona Republic, must be hurting as well. Does that mean that the Republic has been shilling for Barack too?

In a few months time, I’m hoping that McCain’s fundraising revenue will be ‘plummeting’ and his campaign’s ’share price tanking.’ Then I’m gonna ask John whether perhaps it’s because American ’shareholders,’ that would be us citizens, aren’t taking too kindly to his hysterical attacks on Obama.

Tags: mccain, new-york-times, obama
Posted in Politics & Society | 5 Comments »

McCain Invokes ‘Race Card’ in Obama Attack

Friday, August 1st, 2008

Barack Obama made what most people would consider an entirely reasonable claim:

“…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,” Mr. Obama said in Springfield, Mo., echoing earlier remarks. “You know, he’s 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.

To this John McCain responds by invoking the old “playing the race card” accusation:

“Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck,” Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, charged in a statement with which Mr. McCain later said he agreed. “It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.”

What is interesting about the McCain campaign strategy is that they are pre-empting what had been the Obama campaign’s preferred tactic during the primary against Hillary Clinton. When she, or more likely her husband, made a statement perceived to slight Obama’s race or African-Americans, it was the Obama campaign that noted its opponents were “playing the race card.” This of course, was extremely effective in putting Clinton off her game. That’s not to say that her comments weren’t racially insensitive and worthy of such condemnation.

McCain’s people are seeking to deny Obama that cudgel to use against their candidate. Which means that when McCain DOES begin making racially insensitive remarks about his opponent (can you believe this isn’t in the offing?), Obama’s criticism will (they hope) be blunted by their own pre-emptive strike.

I think there can be no doubt that a Willie Horton style campaign is in the offing. Perhaps they can’t use anything quite as blatant as that considering Obama, unlike Dukakis, is African-American. But if they successfully used the Swift Boat campaign successfully against Kerry, there can be no doubt that there’s more where that came from–and it IS coming.

The Swift Boat campaign was extraordinary to me because it was a full frontal attack on what should’ve been one of Kerry’s strongest suits–that he was a decorated war hero. It was like a military campaign that decides not to probe for an enemy’s weakness, but rather to attack its strongest defensive position relentlessly until it crumbles. To me, this indicates that McCain will attack all of Obama’s strongest virtues and seek to lay waste to them: his ethnicity, his idealism, his youth, his eloquence, his policy wonkishness.

This promises to be a very ugly campaign. If you support Obama you do so because you think he represents some of the highest ideals of being an American. It is precisely those ideals that the Republicans will attack relentlessly trying to persuade the rest of America that they are suspect. This is going to be dirty. Really dirty.

It is beyond strange, not to mention hypocritical–considering they were his worst enemy during his presidency–to see right-wing Republicans jumping to Bill Clinton’s defense:

…We will not allow John McCain to be smeared by Senator Obama as a racist for offering legitimate criticism,” he said. “We have waited for months with a sick feeling knowing this moment would come because we watched it incur with President Clinton. Say whatever you want about President Clinton, his record on this issue is above reproach.”

Interesting that Republicans would consider themselves experts on Bill Clinton’s approach to black-white relations. It must be because of their own party’s stellar record on the subject and its especial sensitivity to minority rights.

Tags: mccain, obama, race card
Posted in Politics & Society | No Comments »

McCain Abuses Holocaust for Political Gain

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008

Today, Barack Obama made his required political stop at the Yad Vashem Museum to memorialize the six million victims of the Shoah. While there he recommitted himself to ensuring the survival of the State of Israel invoking the phrase “Never Again.”

It’s unfortunate that a slogan first popularized by Meir Kahane has been absorbed into the American political discourse and embraced by both McCain and Obama, but that’s a different story than the one I want to tell today.

John McCain’s campaign made the unpardonable gaffe of impugning Obama’s commitment to prevent genocide. But not genocide against Jews. Rather genocide against…Iraqis. That’s right. Here’s the McCain attack:

“Today he says ‘never again.’ A year ago stopping genocide wasn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces in Iraq. Doesn’t that strike you as inconsistent?”

Does anyone believe that a comparison of the six million killed in the Shoah compares to preventing Iraqi Shia, Sunni and Kurds from slitting each other’s throats? The respective causes of hostility and the magnitude of the suffering pale in the comparison. Besides, McCain is comparing a genocide that actually occurred with one that has not yet occurred, and which we’re not even sure would occur. This is a base, shallow and treif attack that abuses one of the central historical events of Jewish history to smear a presidential candidate.

The ADL makes a point of attacking (largely) liberals who abuse the Holocaust for political gain. But you won’t hear any geshrei’s from Abe Foxman this time since he and McCain are likely on most excellent terms.

Jeremy Ben Ami of J Street had no such divided loyalty and accused McCain of:

shamelessly exploit[ing] the sacred memory of six million victims of the worst crime in human history to score political points in the heat of a partisan election campaign.

Tags: abe-foxman, adl, genocide, holocaust, mccain, obama, yad-vashem
Posted in Jews & Judaism, Mideast Peace, Politics & Society | 3 Comments »

Obama, Socialist

Saturday, July 19th, 2008

First he was Muslim, then an Islamic terrorist, and now he’s a socialist according to John McCain:

…[In] an interview, published Friday in The Kansas City Star…Mr. McCain suggested that Mr. Obama might be a socialist. At a campaign event in Kansas City on Thursday, Mr. McCain accused Mr. Obama of having the “most extreme” voting record in the Senate. When The Star asked about the comment, he said Mr. Obama had taken positions “more to the left than the announced socialist in the U.S. Senate, Bernie Sanders of Vermont.” The reporter then asked Mr. McCain if he thought Mr. Obama himself was a socialist. “I don’t know,” Mr. McCain answered.

First, Bernie Saunders has never “announced” he was a socialist. This is the first I’ve heard that calling yourself an independent means you are a socialist. Under those terms, Joe Lieberman ought to be very careful he doesn’t get the same label. Returning to Sanders, interesting to note that this same “socialist” shares McCain’s anti-gun control position. Maybe some of that “socialism” is washing off on McCain himself? Or maybe Bernie Sanders isn’t a socialist after all.

Second, by what criteria is Obama’s voting record the “most extreme” in the senate? Did he just pull this out of a hat?

Third, you’ve got to wonder what kind of campaign staff this guy has. Can you imagine they sat around in a room and actually came up with this as what they considered would be an effective line of attack against Obama? If this is going to be the tenor of the McCain campaign, Obama may win this thing in a cakewalk.

Tags: mccain, obama socialist
Posted in Politics & Society | 14 Comments »

McCain: No Habeas for Osama, ‘He Will Be Executed’

Sunday, June 22nd, 2008

John McCain is trying to paint Barack Obama into a corner regarding the question of whether Osama bin Laden deserves due process if or when U.S forces capture him. Leaving aside the fact that McCain’s good buddies Bush and Cheney haven’t been able to capture him for seven years despite their “best” efforts, perhaps the question of whether Osama deserves due process should be preceded by capturing him.

In attempting to turn Obama into the typical bleeding heart Democrat on national security issues, McCain has painted himself into a very deep, dark corner. In a message entitled I Will Deliver Justice (yeah, just like Bush has done), he writes:

…After enthusiastically embracing the Supreme Court decision granting habeas in U.S. civilian courts to dangerous terrorist detainees, he is now running away from the consequences of that decision and what it would mean if Osama bin Laden were captured. Senator Obama refuses to clarify whether he believes habeas should be granted to Osama bin Laden, and instead cites the precedent of the Nuremburg [sic] war trials…There was no habeas at Nuremburg [sic] and there should be no habeas for Osama bin Laden.

…Let me be clear, under my administration Osama bin Laden will either be killed on the battlefield or executed.

How can a president of the United States guarantee that someone will be executed before he has been tried or even apprehended? I’ve never heard to such a thing before. Hasn’t McCain heard of a mere formality called judicial due process? Or have we gotten to he point where we can dispense with that too as we have with so many of our other civil liberties?

This statement sounds like an open invitation to those who might capture Bin Laden to execute him summarily. That would be handy because then there would be none of those messy legal proceedings in which he could string out the execution McCain so desperately seeks.

In McCain’s message we have a perfect crystallization of the different outlooks of the two candidates. Obama believes in justice. McCain believes in vengeance. In my Jewish religion, vengeance is reserved for the Lord. I’d prefer to keep it that way. Osama Bin Laden deserves justice when and if he is caught; not vengeance.

Vengeance is what Bin Laden has wrought on the world on behalf of imagined Muslim grievances against the west. Why should we embrace his twisted code in meting out punishment to him? What message will that send to the rest of the world and, in particular, his followers and potential supporters? Don’t we want them to think that we live by a code that is fair, consistent, and civilized? Or do we want them to think that we are as bloodthirsty as the jihadists?

Hat tip to Sol Salbe and the Lowy Institute blog, The Interpreter.

Tags: bin laden, habeas corpus, mccain, national-security, obama, supreme court
Posted in Mideast Peace, Politics & Society | 10 Comments »

McCain Invokes Kahane’s ‘Never Again!’ in Defending Israel Against Iran

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

Jim Lobe notes that McCain’s AIPAC speech predictably invoked the Holocaust to explain why the U.S. and Israel must stand alone as a bulwark against Iran:

…While he did not repeat the Bush administration’s mantra that “all options”, including a military attack, should remain “on the table” in dealing with the alleged threat, he suggested that he would resort to such measures when he focused on the post-Holocaust promise of “never again”.

“(W)hen we join in saying ‘never again,’ that is not a wish, a request, or a plea to the enemies of Israel. It is a promise that the United States and Israel will honour, against any enemy who cares to test us,” he declared to enthusiastic applause…

It’s a nifty sound bite, especially before a hard-right Jewish audience like AIPAC. However, it completely twists political reality. While Ahmadinejad articulates hatred for the U.S. and Israel and the wish that they would disappear (and don’t we feel the same way about his regime?), he has never advocated genocide against Israel. He certainly realizes, unlike McCain and Israeli right-wing politicians like Bibi Netanyahu, that Iran doesn’t have the capacity to seriously damage, much less eradicate Israel. This is yet another example of misusing the Holocaust for pure partisan political gain.

Another point to keep in mind is that the slogan “Never Again!” was first popularized by Meir Kahane. Is this the Jewish model that McCain wishes to embrace? It tells you how poorly McCain’s advisors are guiding his efforts that he should embrace the words of the foremost Jewish racist of the past 50 years. Whoever’s advising him is either Jewishly ignorant or has a very bad case of amnesia.

Let’s also keep in mind that most Americans, including several of McCain’s own foreign policy advisors, reject the candidate’s “Nyet” approach to Iran:

…A new poll just released by the Gallup organisation found that nearly six in 10 U.S. voters, including nearly half of all Republican respondents, believe a U.S.-Iranian summit would be a “good idea”…

Obama['s] views on engaging Iran without conditions reflect the views of much of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, including even two of his [McCain's] key policy advisers, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and neo-conservative thinker, Robert Kagan. They have called for direct talks with Tehran…

Personally, I’m beginning to think a McCain candidacy is going to echo the clueless, out of touch 1996 campaign Robert Dole ran against a far younger, more politically nimble Democrat by the name of Bill Clinton. If 6 in 10 Americans and some of his own key advisors believe the precise opposite of what McCain espouses regarding Iran, how long before we all see that the Republican emperor is hopelessly out of touch and has no clothes?

Tags: aipac, holocaust, iran, kahane, mccain, never again
Posted in Jews & Judaism, Mideast Peace, Politics & Society | 3 Comments »

Osama Endorses McCain

Sunday, May 11th, 2008

News reports from Pakistan claim a new audiotape from Osama bin Laden speaks favorably about a McCain presidency:

Inshallah, we’re looking forward to four more years of Bush policies with this McCain fellow. George Bush has been good for us and we think McCain could be even better. Imagine, he might even widen the war against us and persuade more shahids to join our cause. McCain, we wish you well in ‘08.

Barack Obama immediately released a statement attacking the “endorsement:”

“If Senator McCain is favored by Al Qaeda, I think people can make judgements accordingly.”

John McCain complained that Senator Obama had “lost his bearings” and that he, McCain, reserved the right to jump into bed with any Christian evangelical and Islamist slimeballs crazy enough to endorse him.

On a separate tangent. I’ve thought of some new smear names for Barack Obama: Obamasama and Obamahama[s]. Cool, no? How long before you start seeing them in the right-wing blogosphere? Bets anyone?

Thanks to reader SimoHurtta for the above idea.

Tags: mccain, obama smear, osama-bin-laden
Posted in Humor, Mideast Peace, Politics & Society | 7 Comments »