2008 USP(G)ET pt. II: counting the days to 2012 primary thread 1

anxiously awaiting hitchens followup piece on "The Mulatto McGovern"

Hitchens writes: "...Obama does not, and perhaps even cannot, represent "change" for the very simple reason that the Democrats are a status quo party."

Renouncing wars of aggression and torture would be a break in the status quo.

But wrt to economic policy, Hitchens is right that the Democrats are a party of oligarchs. Obama will likely do little to change that in the near-term.

However: Hitchens ignores the real change that Obama has been promising since the campaign began, and is delivering: the building of a large, sustainable, progressive grassroots network. This is more important for the long-term health of the USA than whatever political stances Hitchens thinks Obama should take in September of a very close election year.

Plus Hitchens is a jackass.

hahaha where ya been ethan

x-post

More people doubted Obama's qualifications for the presidency in September than had told the pollsters they had doubted these credentials in July. "So what he ought to do," smiled this man, "is spend his time closing that gap and less time attacking McCain." Obama's party hacks, increasingly white and even green about the gills, are telling him to do the opposite. I suppose this could even mean that Sarah Palin, down the road, will end up holding the door open for Hillary Clinton. Such joy!

beside the fact that this literally sounds like a rant of a schizophrenic wtf is "increasingly white" supposed to mean??

hey remember when hitchens actually made sense and took on people who deserved it

seriously how do you fall from correctly shaming henry kissinger for war crimes to writing the kind of bullshit head-up-ass journey through the looking glass bullshit about mainstream party dems that's normally reserved for pseudoacademic handwringers like dinesh d'souza

It's pretty terrible, and Hitchens is smart enough not to quote campaign hacks like they're Robert Conquest.

the sad thing is i can remember a time not too long ago when he was still largely wrong but fulfilled a pretty useful contrarian role in political writing instead of just shitting out cranky jonah goldberg style hack pieces

increasingly white (and even green) about the gills

fwiw

hey remember when hitchens actually made sense and took on people who deserved it

I seriously think that alcohol abuse has had an effect on his mind/mental health.

eh he always held contrariness to be the highest virtue - a slight shift in perspective revealed how loony that is

increasingly white (and even green) about the gills

fwiw

― update prefs (ice crӕm), Monday, September 22, 2008 11:46 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

The Emerald Eagleton

I seriously think that alcohol abuse has had an effect on his mind/mental health.

XTREME MAKEOVER

http://www.jossip.com/wp/docs/2007/09/christopher-hitchens-nakedshower.JPG

seriously, the dusky dukakis? the fuck?? is there some other interpretation to this beyond lol darkie cuz id like to hear it

plz c&p "dusky dukakis" graph so as i dont have to read the article

Why is Obama so vapid and hesitant and gutless? Why, to put it another way, does he risk going into political history as a dusky Dukakis? Well, after the self-imposed Jeremiah Wright nightmare, he can't afford any more militancy, or militant-sounding stuff, even if it might be justified. His other problems are self-inflicted or party-inflicted as well. He couldn't have picked a gifted Democratic woman as his running mate, because he couldn't have chosen a female who wasn't the ever-present Sen. Clinton, and so he handed the free gift of doing so to his Republican opponent (whose own choice has set up a screech from the liberals like nothing I have heard since the nomination of Clarence Thomas). So the unquantifiable yet important "atmospherics" of politics, with all their little X factors, belong at present to the other team.

^^ wtf does this even have to do with contrarianism?? oh lets wait 5 weeks for hitchens' take on the election which is exactly the same as everybody who posts on the nro blog

well you could consider it contrarian in the sense that obama is obv winning the presidency as we speak

but yah "dusky" o_O

yeah, i mean seriously, slate published it with that headline? wtf?

it is seriously bad enough that he's become utterly incomprehensible 80% of the time, there's no need to add any whiffs of racism to the mess, guys.

maybe they're trying to get rid of him

ie been saying for a long time that his entire shtick is an ovb cry for help and everyone will feel bad when he finally kills himself

I don't think he's mobile enough to kill himself

his entire shtick

That's not true: I'll defend most of his columns from the eighties through mid decade, his Orwell and Kissinger books, and whenever he turns his attention to literature. But what we are seeing is how contrarianism is always doomed to collapse.

alfred why u always defending this beast

I'll defend most of his columns from the eighties through mid decade, his Orwell and Kissinger books, and whenever he turns his attention to literature.

No, his literature reviews are pretty crazy, too:

Reviewing Roth’s Exit Ghost in these pages some months ago, I speculated that he sometimes urged his flagging prose along by giving himself something to jerk off about: in extremis, the very word panties was enough to bring young Alexander Portnoy to the sorry peak of yet another shuddering and solitary ejaculation. I lost count of the number of times Roth summoned the same magic term in this, the most hard-working and hard-worked passage of his latest book. So much effort, alas, for such scant effect.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200810/hitchens-roth

Jury/witness selection for the Ted Stevens trial has begun

Powerful lawmakers on Stevens trial witness list
Several powerful senators and former Secretary of State Colin Powell are among possible witnesses at the corruption trial of Sen. Ted Stevens.

WASHINGTON —
Several powerful senators and former Secretary of State Colin Powell are among possible witnesses at the corruption trial of Sen. Ted Stevens.

Jury selection began Monday in the trial of the Alaska Republican. A federal judge listed dozens of people who might be called at the monthlong trial.

Among them are Democratic Sens. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Daniel Inoyue of Hawaii. Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah is also on the list, as is Powell.

to my knowledge hitchens has never written about policy or economics

ahahahahaha "dusky dukakis" i think i have come around to kind of loving chris hitchens because wtf.

he was never any good, either, at writing or thinking.

whirl of change sounds like snickers ice cream

One Sweet Whirled is the Dave Matthews flavor of Ben N' Jerry's.

http://wpcomics.washingtonpost.com/feature/08/09/09/po080909.gif
ARGLE BARGLE

DAM'

...boxcar?

"i will hate the gooks as long as i live" vs GLOOKA SLOBBER BLARTOGGER

wonka burble

what does it mean when sarah palin says "fremme neppa venette"?

it means Jesus told me to charge you $1000 for the rape kit

classy

GOD I HATE HER FLAMES ON THE SIDE OF MY FACE!!!

wha

i hope that stays in the news as long as it can

it's been all over blogs for weeks, glad to see it hit the MSM finally

Based on that CNN piece, it doesn't seem like the connection between Palin and the rape-kit policy has the legs for lots of coverage.

even so I kinda wonder if/hope there will be a similar "Mr. Dukakis what if your wife were raped" question at the debates for her

"Mrs. Palin, what if your wife were raped?"
"Well, I would pray to God for strength-"
"LOL U GOT A GAY WIFE, BUSTED"

"Governor, what would you do if the First Dude got pegged? Would you make him give you $1000 for admitting it?"

TRACK!

"darky dukakis" vs http://michellemalkin.com/2008/09/18/chicago-thug-urges-cult-followers-to-get-thuggish-too/

Based on that CNN piece, it doesn't seem like the connection between Palin and the rape-kit policy has the legs for lots of coverage.

there SHOULD be enough there to lambast her. i mean, either she was fully aware of this reprehensible policy and condoned it, which the majority of people are going to say is a very bad idea and discourages reporting crime in the highest rape-per-capita state in the union, OR she had no fucking idea what was going on in the town she purports she ran, making her a viable presidential candidate. which is it?