Entries Tagged 'idiots' ↓

Is anyone surprised that the Reverend Wright has struck a blow against his favorite son Barack Obama? (I’m not, as anyone who has been reading my blog knows.)

Here’s Rasmussen:

In the week before the media frenzy over Wright, Obama and McCain were essentially tied in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll. Less than a week later, and two days after Obama’s speech, McCain had opened a seven-point lead over Obama. Significantly, by Thursday’s polling, McCain had pulled slightly ahead of Obama among unaffiliated voters. McCain also enjoys unified support from Republican voters while Obama only attracts 65% of Democratic votes at this time.

Obama’s favorable ratings have also fallen below the 50% mark since the world learned of his former Pastor. This can be seen as part of a larger trend that began shortly after Obama’s victories in the Wisconsin Primaries. At that time, just before Hillary Clinton began raising questions about her competitor, Obama was viewed favorably by 56% of voters nationwide. That had slipped to 52% just before Pastor Wright’s views became big news and to 47% just before Obama’s speech. Two days after the speech, Obama’s favorables remain at 48%.

As Rasmussen notes, all eyes—particularly the superdelegates’—will be on the electorate.

Note that all eyes will not be on the media, which is what I’m focusing on here on this blog.

Rasmussen doesn’t say it, but I will: after his much-lauded speech, the MSM gave Obama an assist in attempting to put the Rev. Wright behind himself.

I predicted that on March 16; (it wasn’t hard to do, considering the history of Obama-mania):

Well, we’re at the point now where the PR-concocted images and ugly reality keep colliding. And Obama is bound to keep “disappointing” us (or those of us who believed that Obama really is the “transcendent character” that David Axelrod created for our benefit from the exotic strands of Obama’s life).

From now on, Obama and his advocates and surrogates will have to work really hard (though they’ll have the help of a favorably disposed media) to get us to keep our minds off the things that make us doubt him.

Now, with on-the-ground results in stark contrast to the rosy optimism on offer from most MSM outlets (which claimed that with the Speech, Obama had put the Rev. Wright controversy behind him) the MSM is once again exposed as trying to lead (and mold) the electorate’s opinion*** rather than reporting on what it finds and presenting a snapshot of it.

————-*** More specifically, the cable “news” channels are leading the electorate—trying to influence public opinion—via pseudo-events created by the Obama campaign: the Philly speech; the Chicago Tribune interview in which he answered Rezko questions; the interviews he granted PBS and CNN [this from a candidate known to keep his distance from the press] after his Philly speech—to cite just the examples I know of without doing further research, although a cursory spin on Google News provides evidence that he went further into damage control mode. I see he did an interview with ABC, too. And with WITN.

And those are only a few instances of damage control that he’s preoccupied with this week. He first went into overdrive last week, as ETP’s Rachel Sklar reported.

Hillary Clinton and John McCain were all but missing from this week’s news, except as they related to Our Hero, Barack, the protagonist whose quest for the White House is presumed to be the cable “news” audience’s favorite story of the year. We shall see!

Philip Weiss discovers anti-democratic extremism.

I was shocked by Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. Any fool knew it was coming, that is the not the point. It was the pure evil infamy of it. They hate democracy. Who hates democracy? Well, some elements of radical Islam. When David Axelrod of Obama’s campaign yesterday hinted that Hillary Clinton was somehow responsible because she voted for the Iraq War, I thought, Don’t be an idiot. …

After the Cold War, Susan Sontag famously said that the National Review was more reliable than the Nation on the Soviet Union. This time around the left must show that it is more reliable than the Weekly Standard and the New Republic about “the war on terror”. We are winning this ideological battle because we have not overstated the threat, and they have, and we do not ignore the fact that the Palestinian situation is a red flag across the Muslim world. Yet we can’t forget: there are forces of darkness out there.

The sewer rats in his comments section are none too pleased about Weiss’s revelation:

We liked you better when you blamed everything on the Jews.

Posted by: Realist | December 28, 2007 at 07:57 AM

For his cheerleading of those other blamers of the Jews, Weiss made a Top Ten Moonbats of 2007 list:

Weiss has become an “Israel Lobby” fundamentalist. In his eyes, to question the scholarship of Walt and Mearsheimer is to question truth. Every page of their book is gospel. Any negative review of their work is automatically dismissed as a “smear,” and every day that passes without an expose of the “Israel Lobby” on “60 Minutes” or the cover of Time magazine is further evidence of Jewish control over the media.

This mild critique doesn’t do Weiss justice. He has to be read to be believed. I’ll give you all the pleasure of finding out for yourselves, but I won’t provide another link.

‘Cause his name rhymes with “Osama.” No, really. It’s a good thing:

[H]aving a man whose last name rhymes with our collective, demonic arch-villain, and a middle name the same as the surname of the Saddamite monster dethroned–not to mention the paradigm-shifting nature of having a first African-American President–all of this would certainly force the world to stand up and take notice that a significant change had taken place, and that a dramatic course correction was imminent.

—Greg Djerejian (aka Belgravia Dispatch)

guest-blogging for Andrew Sullivan.

Roger L. Simon nails Brian DePalma (and all the others in our cohort who haven’t had a new idea in at least 30 years):

We are all creatures of our times and of our great successes. This is perfectly human. DePalma, quintessentially a man of my generation, equates Iraq with Vietnam not just because he may think they are the same (ridiculous as that is) but because Vietnam made him the man he is today. … Why change? Indeed, why not drill down further into the old well when things aren’t as they once were. Why think about the specifics of the current situation or about history?

Why not think about today? Because thinking about the “specifics of the current situation,” with the world order in wild disarray while the world’s economies are inextricably linked to one another, offers only uneasiness, uncertainty, and anxiety rather than the easy answers and release from anxiety that we crave. And nothing releases anxiety better than finding a culprit—any old one will do—and demonizing him. For DePalma, it’s the evil military arm of Culprit America. Yawn.

At the same time that people seek easy answers for their anxieties, the
New York Times, for one, counsels them to stomp out all thoughts and memories of the event that started it all. Indeed, downplaying the commemorations of 9/11 seems to be just the ticket:

Each year, murmuring about Sept. 11 fatigue arises, a weariness of reliving a day that everyone wishes had never happened. It began before the first anniversary of the terrorist attack. By now, though, many people feel that the collective commemorations, publicly staged, are excessive and vacant, even annoying.

“I may sound callous, but doesn’t grieving have a shelf life?” said Charlene Correia, 57, a nursing supervisor from Acushnet, Mass. “We’re very sorry and mournful that people died, but there are living people. Let’s wind it down.”

The NYT’s N. R. Kleinfeld is down with that. After all,

On Feb. 15, how many turn backward to the sinking of the battleship Maine in 1898?

Indeed. No need for the French to get exercised about the Bastille, either, I suppose, or the Armenians about their genocide, or the Cambodians about their killing fields, or Americans about Pearl Harbor, for that matter. Who cares?

Professor Jeffrey Zimmerman, quoted at the very end of the Times piece even though he is one of the only ones cited who makes sense, cares:

“It’s true that commemorations can take on bombastic and ritualistic forms that trivialize them, but 9/11 is with us every day. Every political issue in our times is refracted through this event. I can understand why some people are sick of hearing about it, but they should get used to it.” [e.a.]

Who said this about Michael Vick?

Commenters on my favorite channel (ESPN) keep saying that Michael Vick may never play football again. Why? Because he committed heinous acts? It sure looks like he is going to be punished for them, and that he will apologize. I’m sick of criminalizing black youth. Once he’s out, Vick should be allowed to play again. That’s America. We believe in renewal, redemption, and paying your price. Also talent. Vick is a gifted athlete. Let’s see him back on the field, after he does time. [e.a.]

That’s Philip Weiss, who I promised not long ago to mock mercilessly.

How’m I doin’?