Patterico's Pontifications

10/12/2008

An L.A. Times Article That Mostly Mocks Itself

Filed under: 2008 Election,Dog Trainer,General — Patterico @ 11:46 pm



An L.A. Times article, presented mostly without comment — because comment really isn’t necessary:

After a week of increasingly nasty rallies in which John McCain and Sarah Palin hammered Democratic rival Barack Obama over his “association” with a 1960s-era radical, the Republican candidates changed tactics Saturday during campaign swings through two presidential battleground states.

. . . .

Emotions — particularly anger — have been running high at GOP gatherings.

. . . .

On a day when an important civil rights figure condemned the tone of the McCain campaign, Palin seemed to acknowledge the nastiness.

Who is the important civil rights figure? Why, someone who compares McCain to George Wallace. Because they’re pretty much comparable figures, dontcha think?

On Saturday, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a central figure in the civil rights movement, accused McCain of poisoning the political atmosphere, comparing him to former Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace, a proponent of racial segregation.

“He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who only desired to exercise their constitutional rights,” wrote Lewis, who is black. “As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all. . . . The American people deserve better.”

Get ready for four years of the race card, folks. You want to criticize The One? You’re a racist.

Get used to it.

P.S. I just read parts of this article to a friend who is an athiest and thinks McCain and Palin are a joke. “That’s the opinion page you’re reading from, right?”

PBS Poll on Palin’s Qualifications

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 6:52 pm



PBS is running a poll asking whether Sarah Palin is qualified. Leftists are sending viral e-mails trying to get people to vote no. One of my readers received the viral e-mail by accident, and suggested I post the link.

The poll is currently dead even. Go here and vote.

Obama’s Tax Plan and the Plumber (Updated)

Filed under: 2008 Election — DRJ @ 6:50 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Barack Obama campaigned today door-to-door in a middle class Ohio neighborhood where he ran into a plumber who questioned Obama about the impact of his tax plan on a business the plumber planned to buy. Obama explained that the plumber should vote for Obama even though he would raise his taxes because:

I’m gonna cut taxes a little bit more for the folks who are most in need and for the 5% of the folks who are doing very well – even though they’ve been working hard and I appreciate that – I just want to make sure they’re paying a little bit more in order to pay for those other tax cuts,” Obama said.

It’s not that I want to punish your success – I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you – that they’ve got a chance at success too.”

Compulsory redistribution of income from a plumber to other working people. What’s fair about that?

UPDATE 10/13/2008: Gateway Pundit has the video.

— DRJ

An American Carol

Filed under: Movies — DRJ @ 3:30 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

An American Carol is a conservative-leaning movie that is not doing as well as I hoped in the box office rankings. In fact, it’s battling with Bill Maher’s Religulous for 9th place.

My family buys a lot of DVDs but we rarely go to movies. However, in a show of support, we decided to go see An American Carol this afternoon. We live in an affluent and conservative community, so this is the perfect location to show it. But An American Carol is not showing in my town and I’ve seen comments online that suggest other conservative communities were also passed over.

Anyone know who makes these decisions? Is it the distributor, Vivendi Entertainment, the theatre chain, or someone else?

— DRJ

Change You Can’t Trust

Filed under: 2008 Election — DRJ @ 2:19 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Gateway Pundit says the Obama-sponsored Fight the Smears website is altering its page on Barack Obama’s ties to ACORN after it was revealed they had not been telling the truth about Obama’s extensive ties to that organization.

Maybe they should rename it Erase the Smears.

— DRJ

Obama Rallies Turn Ugly

Filed under: 2008 Election,Crime,General,Humor,Media Bias — Patterico @ 2:04 pm



PHILADELPHIA, PA — In a sign of increasing nastiness on the left, supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama have been booing rivals John McCain and Sarah Palin, and even screaming “liar!” — with no response from Obama.

Yesterday, at a Philadelphia hockey game, Obama supporters booed Sarah Palin — despite the fact that Palin was accompanied by her 7-year-old daughter. Some notoriously conservative news outlets, such as MSNBC, have reported that there were cheers mixed in with the boos. But it appears clear that there was significant booing, all from Democrats — and the trend towards ugliness is clear.

The emotion of anger has been distressingly present at Obama rallies. Stephen Hayes reports the disturbing details.

This morning at a McCain rally here, a bearded young man in the crowd responded to a McCain critique of Barack Obama by shouting: “You’re a liar John!” He then hoisted a young woman with an antiwar poster onto his shoulders and began yelling antiwar gibberish as McCain tried to continue his speech. When McCain supporters ripped up the woman’s sign, she unfolded another one and the spectacle continued.

Earlier, at a rally in Philadelphia, Obama praised John McCain’s service to America and called for a civil debate over the final days of the campaign. He was lustily booed by his angry supporters.

And yesterday, at a McCain rally in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, another angry heckler shouted “Liar” and other insults at McCain from the crowd.

There are indications that Obama has been spurring his crowds to anger, sometimes launching into what Reuters as described as an “attack” against the former POW and military hero, even as McCain has been cautioning his supporters to respect Obama.

In addition, reports indicate that Obama failed to bring his rallies to a grinding halt to remonstrate the hecklers. Some say that Obama must have heard the hecklers, since reporters heard them. Other experts suggest that Obama is creating an atmosphere that could well turn to violence. As James F. Treacher, Professor of Media Studies at Noesutch University, notes: “If Obama isn’t an evil, racist, fascist hatemonger of hateful hatred, why hasn’t he conceded the election?”

Syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin warns that the recent Democratic anger is part of a larger trend of death threats and other concerning behavior from the left. Malkin, who routinely receives racist attacks and death threats from Democrats, notes in a comprehensive post the hate-filled attacks on McCain and Palin, such as artwork calling Palin a “MILP” — “Mother I’d Like to Punch.” Malkin’s post is replete with examples of the left suggesting that President Bush be killed, and that McCain and Palin be attacked in violent ways.

“Holy crap,” New York Times columnist Kall Prugman said in a brief phone interview. “I had no idea we were worse than the people at the McCain rallies.”

UPDATE: Thanks to Instapundit for the link. Here is some more stuff that would be Very Significant if done by McCain supporters, but hardly merits any mention, because it was done by Obama supporters:

  • Vandals spray-paint “Republican means slavery” at a local GOP Headquarters. (By the way, the linked story continues to spread the canard that someone yelled “Kill him!” about Obama at a McCain rally. That is a lie. If the phrase was yelled (a commenter of mine says the man was yelling something else), it was about murderous terrorist Bill Ayers and not about Obama.

At the L.A. Times, blogger Andrew Malcolm is asking very sensible questions: Does political restraint apply only to Republicans? And if the Democrats fail to exercise restraint, will the media notice? I hope he is asking his colleagues this question — and I hope his colleagues are listening. So far, however, his own paper seems interested only in painting Republicans as “nasty.”

Chris Matthews in Pennsylvania

Filed under: 2008 Election,Media Bias — DRJ @ 1:26 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews is (or was) reportedly traveling with Obama in Pennsylvania, giving rise to a Politico post that suggests MSNBC and Matthews are blurring the line between reporting and becoming part of elections:

“According to Politico’s Ken Vogel, the MSNBC host [Chris Matthews] not only schmoozed the crowds but gave a couple bear hugs to Gov. Ed Rendell and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter outside a diner in the northeastern part of the city.

Such glad-handing begs the question: Is Matthews doing work this weekend for MSNBC or laying the groundwork for that much-rumored 2010 Senate run?

Here’s what the Politico means by a “much-rumored 2010 Senate run”:

“MSNBC’s Chris Matthews sat front and center as an attendee at the Pennsylvania delegation’s breakfast this morning [August 26, 2008, during the Democratic Convention], fueling speculation that the cable talk show host is seriously considering a Senate race against Republican Sen. Arlen Specter in 2010.
***
Dan Wofford, a former congressional nominee whose father, Harris, served in the Senate, said that he thought Matthews, a Philadelphia native, was giving serious considerations to entering the political arena.

“I think he’s seriously looking at it based on the limited conversations I’ve had with him,” said Wofford.”

Chalk this up as one more reason Chris Matthews wants Obama to win.

— DRJ

The Start of a Tribal Area Awakening? (Updated)

Filed under: International,Terrorism,War — DRJ @ 10:27 am



[Guest post by DRJ]

This may be good news from the tribal areas on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan:

“Pakistani tribesmen are raising armies to battle al-Qaida and Taliban militants close to the Afghan border – a movement encouraged by the military and hailed as a sign its offensive there is succeeding.

The often ramshackle forces lend force to the campaign in the lawless and mountainous region, but analysts question their effectiveness against a well-armed, well-trained and increasingly brutal insurgency.

The extremists are increasingly targeting the militias, an indication they believe them to be a threat.”

Al Qaeda and the Taliban have been targeting these militias, called lashkars, with bombs and beheadings — just as insurgents did in Iraq against US troops and members of the Awakening Council.

If Gen. Petraeus’ theories work in Afghanistan and Pakistan, I assume the next step will be to improve the local infrastructure to make it more likely the lashkars will align themselves with our interests.

UPDATE: Bill Roggio thinks it won’t work because the lashkars don’t have sufficient back-up from the Pakistan military, unlike the Sunnis in Iraq.

— DRJ


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