You are currently browsing the daily archive for July 18th, 2008.
The Nation doesn’t quite remark on the quality of Moveon’s teeth – but to its credit makes some good points:
*70 percent voted to endorse Obama over Clinton.
Some, though, were surprised. “I was slack-jawed,” says one netroots activist, noting that Obama had failed to vote on the Senate resolution that chastised the group for its General Betray Us ad. “They were at the mercy of their membership, who really were enthusiastic about Obama. But this was the guy who threw them under the bus, and they basically said, Beat me! Treat me like shit!”
About that 70% myth (almost said fairy tale but caught myself – no racist slurs here): I got a ballot as well – 15 minutes before the closing of the ballots. I think I did get it because I always voted in their surveys that ending the war was my #1 priority. So, the tiny sample was skewed from the get go.
***There was not a vote of the whole membership – just the 10% who considered war their priority #1****
Which makes the 70% more like…7%
And what made Moveon fix their poll – and want to endorse during the primaries? The article says it:
The subtext here is the larger issue of MoveOn’s relationship to a Democratic Party that many feel has co-opted it.
They were more concerned with being on the same page with the Democratic leadership than with the rest of the antiwar leadership.”
Examples continue about how they let down the anti-war movement – as if sticking with Obama wasn’t enough. But to me this is a sad story: what started as a genuine grassroots movement became a propaganda machine of the Democratic party. One that is publicly spat on but faithfully asks its members to pretend it’s just raining.
Pretty pathetic.
No one thought of keeping it – so as to not lose count, I thought it may come in handy.
This list may occasionally overlap with the flip-flop list or even the Schadenfeude count – but it’s probably longer than all of them (at least for now)
It’ll be a work in progress – updated as the crowd under there grows:
Not for 20 years of Gd America, but for calling B0 a politician! Them’s fighting words, I tell ya!
GRANDMA & THE REST OF WHITE PEOPLE
.
“… .. The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn’t. But she is a typical white person who, uh, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know there’s a reaction that’s been been bred into our experiences that don’t go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way and that’s just the nature of race in our society. We have to break through it…”
Turns out that when he didn’t vote on the censure bill for betrayus, it wasn’t as he said “to not dignify it” but to leave room to attack it later, after the “clinching” when Petraeus became
a general providing his best counsel on how to move forward in Iraq
MOVEON (again)
his time they take a hit at McCain for his support of off-shore drilling.
Unfortunately for MoveOn, their candidate just today changed his position on off-shore drilling. He now favors “limited off-shore oil drilling”.
The B.H.O. shorthand is frowned upon inside Mr. Obama’s campaign headquarters, a warning for any Clinton staff members coming aboard.”
But…Some people’s trash is other people’s gold:
on the very day he was speechifying using Clark’s campaign theme (Dissent is patriotic)
“of course he rejects yesterday’s statement by General Clark.”
The signs were there since Samantha Power was telling foreign countries: don’t pay attention to what he says, but when Bill Clinton brought up the fairy tale…it was racist. He reassured Iraqis first
The ace in the hole, meant to keep women in line. What he said was not a mere chip at the concept of freedom of chice: Backtrack Obama wants to change the law of the land, limit Roe as it now stands
Turns out the moral standing for ditching the campaign finance rules was merely
Even his own chief money collector, Penny Pritzker, suggests that the magic of $20 donations from the Web was less a matter of principle than of scheduling.
NETROOTSp.
Those small donors who were also attacking everyone not worshiping their guy
Update
A Jon Stewart fitting joke:
“Both McCain and Senator Barack Obama are trying to woo voters who are outside their natural demographic. In this election, for Senator Obama, that means trying to reach working class, non-Muslim white women who love America.” –Jon Stewart
Cleland has told associates he was asked to appear at an Obama fundraising event in Atlanta on July 8, only to be told at the last minute that he wouldn’t be welcome.
Cleland is registered to lobby for a company whose products are aimed at helping soldiers recover more quickly from battlefield industries, Tissue Regeneration Technologies.
“Sen. Cleland is definitely not doing lobbying work. He gives speeches and campaigns for a few friends, but mostly he’s spending his time taking care of his father
update
n a memo to reporters, described as “a few guidelines we sent staff before departure to the Middle East,” Obama advance staffer Peter Newell laid out rules on attire for Jordan and Israel.
First among them: “Do not wear green.”
An Obama aide explained to reporters that green is the color associated with the militant Palestinian group Hamas.
Not sad about it, considering, but it was his favorite:
“This song is not only outrageously offensive to Senator Clinton, Reverend Jackson, Senator McCain, and President Bush, it is offensive to all of us who are trying to raise our children with the values we hold dear. While Ludacris is a talented individual he should be ashamed of these lyrics.”
and they are:
Hillary hated on you, so that bitch is irrelevant
A senior Obama adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity, said his boss has expressed impatience with what he calls a “reverence” inside his campaign for his message of change and new politics.
Update: proving that only HIS lobbyists are allowed, B0 uninvited Max Cleland
Cleland has told associates he was asked to appear at an Obama fundraising event in Atlanta on July 8, only to be told at the last minute that he wouldn’t be welcome.
but
Obama spokesman Bill Burton also declined to comment on Cleland’s exclusion from the Atlanta fundraiser.
“Sen. Obama has nothing but respect for Sen. Cleland’s service to our country and appreciates his support,”
Also, another take on B0’s June fundraising
Original entry:
remember the guy who said that he doesn’t take money from lobbyists? yes, I know he lied, but here’s a whiff of the “new politics” if he gets his claws on power:
“Should ‘CHANGE’ occur in November as polls indicate, we should see a lot of people from Illinois moving to Washington, D.C., and taking key spots in an Obama administration. Now is the time to anticipate these changes.”
“We will be in Washington, D.C., August 4, 5, and 6, and we’re interested in scheduling a meeting with your government affairs team to discuss the changing political landscapes and our services and capabilities,”
So writes to K street Dan Shomon, who was political director of Obama’s successful 2004 campaign for the Senate. regrets and distancing follow from both Shomon and the Obama campaign….
What polls is Dan reading anyway? Cuz the one on my internet say there’s going to be a thumping…
Maybe they are trying to get contracts signed fast, before lobbyists figure this one too…
Too late. Lobbyists have a nose for wind change – or else this correspondence would not have been leaked to Politico
In related news, Reid & gang are doing the same – in a slightly less cravenly way
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who managed the meeting for the leadership, called in the CEOs of the city’s most powerful trade associations to circumvent what Democrats consider their more partisan lobbyists — many of whom are Republicans with long-standing ties to the power structure that got toppled in 2006.
If it was a step-in-line message Democrats were hoping to send, they were treading on sensitive terrain. After taking control of Congress in the 1990s, Republicans hauled corporate leaders into meetings, first to tell them to help with legislation and later to pressure them to fire Democrats and hire Republicans for top jobs. The effort, known as the K Street Project, led to PR troubles, ethics flaps and a string of criminal cases involving Jack Abramoff.Democrats dismiss the comparison….
A Democratic aide who helped organize the meeting said the groups worried that Reid would “yell” at them about hiring more Democrats. “‘No, we don’t have a reverse K Street Project,’” he said he replied repeatedly.
madamab at Confluence nicely sums up how the “progressive blogosphere” – or some part thereof threw away their credibility.:
IOKIYAR, the ironic bloggy appellation for “It’s OK If You’re A Republican,” suddenly morphed into IOKIYO – “It’s OK If You’re Obama.” No matter how many rightwing frames and positions Obama took, no matter how he insulted women, gays or African Americans, no matter how much he lied about Bill Clinton’s record and smeared him and Hillary as racists – It Was OK. He was Obama, and besides which, he was not a Clinton, and….because that’s why! Nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh!
Who can forget the hubris of the Bushes in telling Ron Suskind
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
It led to the “reality based community” badge of honor that bloggers adopted. Some of them, only to give it up in favor of a different brand of manufactured reality.
A St Petersburg Times column comes to my conclusion:
Be forewarned: If you say, sing, write, draw, paint or sculpt anything unflattering about Obama, expect the Spanish Inquisition. The salvational fervor and unfiltered euphoria surrounding the man have cast a halo around his head. A halo, as you know, suggests something otherworldly.
and then takes it to the logical conclusion:
If Obama’s swooning, humorless supporters continue to force critics to whisper, to shut up or to explain their artistic renderings, our precious gift and right of free expression will diminish if Obama is elected in November.
These people need to know that some of us cherish free expression. They also need to know that if Obama needs to be protected from the satirist’s rapier, he doesn’t deserve to be the president of the United States of America.
McCain delegate in B0 commercial
Dillard is an unabashed admirer, one whose high praise for Obama led the campaign to feature him in Obama’s first biographical television ad.
All of that wouldn’t be so unusual except for the fact that Dillard is a Republican. And a delegate for John McCain.
Dillard said he will continue to speak up about Obama, though he favors McCain for president because he agrees with the presumptive GOP nominee on the issues
The issues? You mean, McCain has some, Obama – not so much…
I wonder if Dillard was “democrat for a Day” in the primaries…
But hey, it’s said B0 might pick Hagel as a VP so dean and Donna will have to find fresh accusations for PUMA
Update to the July 7 article re: fundies response to Obama
Predictably, all the genuflecting
Barack Obama dusted off a Ronald Reagan line from the past at his recent meeting with religious leaders in Chicago. In a 1980 convention of Evangelical Ministers Reagan once famously said, “I know you can’t endorse me, but I endorse you.”
to the fundies brought Obama bubkus
Mr. Obama has tried to have his cake and eat it too when it comes to faith in this election. He has touted his spiritual journey, most recently in the current issue of Newsweek, but has then said that he didn’t go to church often enough to hear his pastor’s outrageous sermons. He has accused the right of politicizing religion but has acknowledged in his memoirs that he picked his church based on his “community organizing” goals. And now he says that he won’t pick a new church until after the election. Most sincerely religious people would find this odd, to say the least.
Mr. Obama’s 100% approval rating from Naral, the abortion-rights organization, his support of the California Supreme Court’s gay-marriage decision and his desire to pull out of Iraq no matter the cost to American security may tell religious people — especially evangelicals — all they need to know.
Update
In the lipstick on a pig tradition of SD’s endorsements in the primary every time B0 lost, Planned Parenthood finds the right time to make their endorsement
This is a historic moment for our organization — it is only the
second time in our long history that we have endorsed a
candidate for president.
Well, I shudder to ask which was the other one – another glaring betrayal we won’t forget.
PP, you’re 
to me
Kate Michelman lets us know of new betrayals on the way:
Sojourners founder Jim Wallis, have suggested that the party may need to take another crack at tempering its strong platform support for abortion rights by making “abortion reduction … a central Democratic Party plank in this election.” In a recent interview with ABC News, Wallis said he planned to talk to his “good friend” Barack Obama about an abortion reduction plank, and said he had discussed the idea with party chairman Howard Dean and had the support of at least one member of the Platform Committee, the Rev. Tony Campolo. “Abortion reduction should be a central Democratic Party plank in this election,” Wallis told ABC News. “I’ll just say that flat out.”
Hey, what about that ace in the hole?
Updating this with this Confluence entry containing numerous embarrassing WORMs
Obama had attempted to “clarify his remarks” by telling reporters on his campaign plane that
mental health exceptions…can be “rigorously” limited to only those women with “serious clinical mental health diseases.” He said mental health exceptions are not intended permit abortions when a woman simply “doesn’t feel good.”
“It is not just a matter of feeling blue,” Obama said.
WTF?!! Is he serious? Could he be any more patronizing? Yes, Barack, we know. Women “periodically when they’re down…
And from Marie Cocco
But I do wonder why a candidate praised for his rhetorical gifts talks about women in the way that he does. During the primary campaign, he said Hillary Clinton launched political attacks on him “periodically, when she’s feeling down.” He called a Detroit reporter “sweetie” when she was trying to ask him about job creation. Now he has incorporated a myth created by the right — that women who seek late-term abortions should not be allowed to do so if they are “feeling blue” — into his own lexicon. And this is enough to make me see red.
This fantastic article needs to be linked here: The Object and the Phallus:
We had a chance to elect someone both capable and responsible for that
job, enough of our people were ready, but our party leadership and
media power holders weren’t. So now we’ve got two guys running, Mr.
Phallus vs. Mr. Phallus, totally unprepared vs. maybe even worse than
totally unprepared, and this this is not the time to throw dice with our
universe.
Where’s your “progressive” candidate now , 
ers?
The first person he met was Guila Jackson, who demanded that the party put Hillary Clinton’s name into nomination at this summer’s national party convention.
“We want a nominee who’s elected, not selected,” she said, gripping Dean’s hand as he sought to get away. Jackson’s part of a pro-Hillary group, PUMA – Party Unity my Ass
Go PUMA! (and go to the comment section after you read the original article
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