Triumph of the Willie -2

We had a first Triumph of the Willie moment when B0 wanted to use the Brandenburg gate as a backdrop for his awesomeness. That went sour

. In the past, the location has only been used on very special occasions for political speeches by world leaders. And it has been reserved for use only by elected American presidents, not candidates.

So thy negotiated a new backdrop – one with an actual falic symbol to make my title even funnier.

“The Siegessäule in Berlin was moved to where it is now by Adolf Hitler. He saw it as a symbol of German superiority and of the victorious wars against Denmark, Austria and France,” the deputy leader of the Free Democrats, Rainer Brüderle, told Bild am Sonntag. He raised the question as to “whether Barack Obama was advised correctly in his choice of the Siegessäule as the site to hold a speech on his vision for a more cooperative world.”

Oh, well, people here won’t know who this Adolf person was anyway, so who cares what they think?

Obama-Iraqi PM – part Deux

We first had the little known Part one in which we found out that

He said he was reassured by the candidate’s response, which caused him to think that Mr. Obama might not differ all that much from Mr. McCain.

Now we have Obama and his surrogate,the media trying to sell us some kind of endorsement from this guy.

Who wants to set the record straight:

But a spokesman for al-Maliki said his remarks “were misunderstood, mistranslated and not conveyed accurately.”

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the possibility of troop withdrawal was based on the continuance of security improvements, echoing statements that the White House made Friday after a meeting between al-Maliki and U.S. President Bush.

In the magazine interview, Al-Maliki said his remarks did not indicate that he was endorsing Obama over presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain.

“Who they choose as their president is the Americans’ business. But it’s the business of Iraqis to say what they want. And that’s where the people and the government are in general agreement: The tenure of the coalition troops in Iraq should be limited,” he said.

“Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic,”

Update with the Iraq Speech – a review

Here’s a tip. When Obama begins a sentence with “As I have said many times,” this means that he is about to announce a totally new position that contradicts everything he has said before.

and a few more observations:

Note the part about the “residual” combat force, whose size Obama never specifies, which will target the remnants of al Qaeda and train and support Iraqi forces–which is precisely the end result envisioned by the Bush administration if the current progress in Iraq continues.

But maybe the big difference is that Obama will stick to his 16-month timetable no matter what, while Bush and McCain want to make withdrawal dependent on conditions on the ground. Well no, Obama would “make tactical adjustments” after consulting with “commanders on the ground and the Iraqi government.“

Get over it, PUMA! Down, I say!

Aww, how nice! Two people who were trying to fight the RBC fix to tell us Obama won, Hillary lost…

As if another party hack going to the dark side is going to make me care less about democracy…

But Donnie, thanks for the “immature” jab! Finally, a GOOD age reference!

Here’s how they dispose of us

I must confess a bit of fatigue and irritation with people who continue to carp, complain, and criticize the results of the primary and lay down conditions for their support. The Los Angeles Lakers didn’t establish conditions to recognize the Boston Celtics as NBA Champions; Roger Federer did not demand concessions before recognizing that Rafael Nadal defeated him at Wimbledon.

It is time to act in a mature and resourceful fashion. It’s time to put the primaries behind us. It’s time to support Barack Obama without conditions or demands.

Aww, now I see the light! There’s a guy who knows how to talk us! It’s a well known fact bitter women can’t resist…sports metaphors? really, being treated like “one of the guys” is refreshing.

That’s the ticket! To think I was going to be courted…Oh, well, there’s always McCain making efforts to get my vote! And to “party officials”

I left for the ending the little sweet acknowledgment of fear:

In a sign that senior Democratic officials remain deeply concerned that post-primary bitterness could imperil Barack Obama’s chances….

Guess what, guys? We just saw you sweat! keep it up, PUMAS!

Adding my letter to Alice and Donnie

Let me first say how sorry I am for causing you fatigue and irritation.
Me and my silly notions that all votes should count…Remember that? It was like yesterday….
eh, who has time for silly stuff like that when it’s time for the coronation?
I mean, I got over Florida 2000, why can’t I get over Florida 2008? After all, my Michigan delegate is due any day now….

Thank you for calling me immature – finally a positive age reference!
And all that sports talk – yeay! Finally being talked to like “one of the guys”
How could I possibly not be persuaded by such arguments? I mean, they counted the scored points in those games just like…oh, nevermind!
I never got over the 2000 Florida theft – and I am never going to get over this.
Whatever pixie dust they dropped on you to make you forget – it didn’t touch me. Still remember. Now and in November.

and my answer at TPM

linking Riverdaughter “Correct sports metaphor“for reality context

Move over MLK, JFK – it’s Reagan time! Obamaroni!

Politico reports: that noq Obama is pretending t be…the Great Pretender!(irony levels warning)

It could have been a coincidence when Barack Obama gave a major policy speech last week at a building named after former President Ronald Reagan. But it comes from the same campaign that until yesterday had pushed to hold a major foreign policy address at the Brandenburg Gate, where Ronald Reagan in 1987 famously demanded of his Soviet counterpart, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Barack Obama keeps returning to strategies Ronald Reagan embraced.

Photo: Composite image by Politico.com

Recently when courting the fundies he quoted Reagan

“I know you can’t endorse me, but I endorse you.”

When Hillary challenged him in a debate to explain what good ideas did republicans have he equivocated.

But this is the guy who wrote this in his book Audacity of Hope page 31:

“That Reagan’s message found such a receptive audience spoke not only to his skills as a communicator; it also spoke to the failures of liberal government, during a period of economic stagnation, to give middle-class voters any sense that it was fighting for them. For the fact was government at every level had become to cavalier about spending taxpayer money. Too often bureaucracies were oblivious to the cost of their mandates. A lot of liberal rhetoric did seem to value rights and entitlements over duties and responsibilities. Reagan may have exagerrated the sins of the welfare state, and certainly liberals were right to complain that his domestic policies tilted heavily toward elites, with corporate raiders making tidy profits throughout the eighties while unions were busted and the income for the average working stiff flatlined.

Nevertheless, by promising to side with those who worked hard, obeyed the law, cared for their families, loved their country, Reagan offered Americans a sense of common purpose that liberals seemed no longer able to muster.“

and on page 156:

“The conservative revolution Reagan helped usher in gained traction because Reagan’s central insight–that the liberal welfare state had grown complacent and overly bureaucratic, with Democratic policy makers more obsessed with slicing the economic pie than with growing he pie–contained a good deal of truth.”

Maybe to Obama. Not to those of us living through it. Says Krugman

For it did fail. The Reagan economy was a one-hit wonder. Yes, there was a boom in the mid-1980s, as the economy recovered from a severe recession. But while the rich got much richer, there was little sustained economic improvement for most Americans. By the late 1980s, middle-class incomes were barely higher than they had been a decade before — and the poverty rate had actually risen.

Kinda funny how Obama paints democrats in entire states as racists but emulates someone who

told the bogus story of the Cadillac-driving welfare queen — a gross exaggeration of a minor case of welfare fraud. He never mentioned the woman’s race, but he didn’t have to.

More than 40 years have passed since the Voting Rights Act, which Reagan described in 1980 as “humiliating to the South. (Krugman)

But then, Obama was not so much “into the fights of the 60s and the 70’s”

So, as I predicted, with the help of the media, he’ll now try to out-Reagan McCain.

some comments from the article:

Skipping the rich in irony approval from both Mondale and Ferraro, most are miffed

from the right

Reagan’s chief speech writer Tony Dolan, who drafted the 1983 “evil empire” speech, said of Obama’s attempt to speak at the Gate, “This is a French critic endorsing German opera. It’s that shocking. Believe me — the Sens. Obama of his day were among Reagan’s harshest critics.”

and from the left

Mario Cuomo asked, rhetorically, “What did Reagan transform?”

He answered: “It wasn’t morning in America. If you are saying he transformed Americans toward a new hopefulness, hopefulness doesn’t buy peace, it doesn’t buy jobs.”

“What [Obama] is trying to do obviously is look big, look important, the way Reagan looked big,” Cuomo said. “Having 80,000 people in an auditorium is probably a way to do that, it’s huge,” he added, referencing the arena scheduled for Obama’s convention speech. “And now the Brandenburg Gate.”

and right again

“Those men both went with something profound to say,” Robinson said of Reagan and Kennedy’s famous German speeches. “And so far Barack Obama is a politician who speaks nicely. If what you are seeking is a photo shoot where giants stood, he could look small.”

hey, nobody said B0 was not  a Pretender in waiting

Appearances aside, he is once again throwing his entire base under the bus. While helping the GOP rewrite history. Purge it of democratic presidents, elevate their media wonder.

please vote this