Favorite poster from NR's "The Corner"

lol

McCarthy fucking loses it.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDNkMDNkZWVjNzFmYTFlYjNkMDYxOTQ5OGNkODg2MTM=

Ha, noticed that last night. Hell of a rant for someone to post on a Friday night when telling others to get a life.

More nutso from Kurtz. You can tell the election is in a week.

Certainly, Obama himself bears chief responsibility for this site. Yet I challenge the people who wrote the post about Stanley Kurtz and the New Party to show themselves. Why cower behind a rock (named Barack)? Why not give your names and post pictures of yourselves? I’d like a word with you. So if you have the courage to cast aside the anonymity behind which you so conveniently hide, I call on the author or authors of this and other posts at "Fight the Smears" to go public and defend yourselves by placing your own names and reputations behind your egregious accusations. It’s time to strip away the mask, not only from Barack Obama, but from his cowardly minions at Fight the Smears.

Is it time to start a Corner Suicide Watch?

The Obama Temptation [Mark R. Levin]

I've been thinking this for a while so I might as well air it here. I honestly never thought we'd see such a thing in our country - not yet anyway - but I sense what's occurring in this election is a recklessness and abandonment of rationality that has preceded the voluntary surrender of liberty and security in other places. I can't help but observe that even some conservatives are caught in the moment as their attempts at explaining their support for Barack Obama are unpersuasive and even illogical. And the pull appears to be rather strong. Ken Adelman, Doug Kmiec, and others, reach for the usual platitudes in explaining themselves but are utterly incoherent. Even non-conservatives with significant public policy and real world experiences, such as Colin Powell and Charles Fried, find Obama alluring but can't explain themselves in an intelligent way. There is a cult-like atmosphere around Barack Obama, which his campaign has carefully and successfully fabricated, which concerns me. The messiah complex. Fainting audience members at rallies. Special Obama flags and an Obama presidential seal. A graphic with the portrayal of the globe and Obama's name on it, which adorns everything from Obama's plane to his street literature. Young school children singing songs praising Obama. Teenagers wearing camouflage outfits and marching in military order chanting Obama's name and the professions he is going to open to them. An Obama world tour, culminating in a speech in Berlin where Obama proclaims we are all citizens of the world. I dare say, this is ominous stuff. Even the media are drawn to the allure that is Obama. Yes, the media are liberal. Even so, it is obvious that this election is different. The media are open and brazen in their attempts to influence the outcome of this election. I've never seen anything like it. Virtually all evidence of Obama's past influences and radicalism — from Jeremiah Wright to William Ayers — have been raised by non-traditional news sources. The media's role has been to ignore it as long as possible, then mention it if they must, and finally dismiss it and those who raise it in the first place. It's as if the media use the Obama campaign's talking points — its preposterous assertions that Obama didn't hear Wright from the pulpit railing about black liberation, whites, Jews, etc., that Obama had no idea Ayers was a domestic terrorist despite their close political, social, and working relationship, etc. — to protect Obama from legitimate and routine scrutiny. And because journalists have also become commentators, it is hard to miss their almost uniform admiration for Obama and excitement about an Obama presidency. So in the tank are the media for Obama that for months we've read news stories and opinion pieces insisting that if Obama is not elected president it will be due to white racism. And, of course, while experience is crucial in assessing Sarah Palin's qualifications for vice president, no such standard is applied to Obama's qualifications for president. (No longer is it acceptable to minimize the work of a community organizer.) Charles Gibson and Katie Couric sought to humiliate Palin. They would never and have never tried such an approach with Obama. But beyond the elites and the media, my greatest concern is whether this election will show a majority of the voters susceptible to the appeal of a charismatic demagogue. This may seem a harsh term to some, and no doubt will to Obama supporters, but it is a perfectly appropriate characterization. Obama's entire campaign is built on class warfare and human envy. The "change" he peddles is not new. We've seen it before. It is change that diminishes individual liberty for the soft authoritarianism of socialism. It is a populist appeal that disguises government mandated wealth redistribution as tax cuts for the middle class, falsely blames capitalism for the social policies and government corruption (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) that led to the current turmoil in our financial markets, fuels contempt for commerce and trade by stigmatizing those who run successful small and large businesses, and exploits human imperfection as a justification for a massive expansion of centralized government. Obama's appeal to the middle class is an appeal to the "the proletariat," as an infamous philosopher once described it, about which a mythology has been created. Rather than pursue the American Dream, he insists that the American Dream has arbitrary limits, limits Obama would set for the rest of us — today it's $250,000 for businesses and even less for individuals. If the individual dares to succeed beyond the limits set by Obama, he is punished for he's now officially "rich." The value of his physical and intellectual labor must be confiscated in greater amounts for the good of the proletariat (the middle class). And so it is that the middle class, the birth-child of capitalism, is both celebrated and enslaved — for its own good and the greater good. The "hope" Obama represents, therefore, is not hope at all. It is the misery of his utopianism imposed on the individual. Unlike past Democrat presidential candidates, Obama is a hardened ideologue. He's not interested in playing around the edges. He seeks "fundamental change," i.e., to remake society. And if the Democrats control Congress with super-majorities led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, he will get much of what he demands. The question is whether enough Americans understand what's at stake in this election and, if they do, whether they care. Is the allure of a charismatic demagogue so strong that the usually sober American people are willing to risk an Obama presidency? After all, it ensnared Adelman, Kmiec, Powell, Fried, and numerous others. And while America will certainly survive, it will do so, in many respects, as a different place.

10/25 09:29 PM

(Yes, it was posted on The Corner as one long paragraph.)

Haha wow.

This comment, responding to this post on my favorite Cuban right wing blog, is my favorite in weeks:

I gather those who are going to vote for Obama in the Cuban camp are either these young Cubano resentido types who hate all things Cuban, who think they are hot shit because they went to college, and think they are Americanos, or these sketchy types who have recently come from Cuba, complain that BUSH doesn't let them visit their family members on the island, and who still have the lingering effects of the spiritual sodomy they got all their lives in Cuba when they lived there. You know the type, the type of Cubans that live in Miami because they couldn't wait to get the hell out of Cuba, but still hate America because they expect a handout at every instance and get into a hissy fit when the State or Fed doesn't give in to them, the type that just want to mooch off the system. A far cry from our parents who came here and struggled and worked hard.

Let's just put it this way, any Cuban American who is still a Democrat (After JFK, after Carter and Mariel, after Clinton and Elian), and who votes on the Oba-munist ticket, is an asshole (a word I don't like to use often) and they deserve every God damn miserable policy this supposedly Kenyan born Manchurian candidate will grace us with. Do you people know what it is to be "mau maued" ? Well, it's a Kenyan word, and that's what Obama is going to do to us as the Kenyans like Obama's dad did to the British.

Do me a favor fake Cuban Americans who want to vote for Obama, DON"T VOTE, and go back to Havana and stay there.

Not as good.

ok I am smiling @ The Obama Temptation [Mark R. Levin]. I love that I can't tell if it's for real, or if he's just paid to pump up the team like a cheerleader.

George Packer has a wonderful counterpoint up (though with a sobering conclusion):

A roundup (via Andrew Sullivan) of conservative anti-Obama blogging during the election. Much of it has appeared on popular right-wing Web sites, including National Review Online, disclosing the “news” that Bill Ayers wrote “Dreams from My Father,” Obama was involved in domestic terrorism during the South Africa divestment campaign of the early 1980s, Michelle Obama used the word “whitey” in recorded conversation with Louis Farrakhan, Obama has had a female lover as well as a gay lover with a criminal record, he was fed answers during the first debate via a clear plastic device in his ear, and his birth certificate was forged, casting doubt on his citizenship (which is why he’s now in Hawaii—to preserve the cover-up, not to visit his very ill grandmother).

Wading for a few minutes through the sewage of these Web sites reminds me uncannily of the time I’ve spent having political discussions in certain living rooms and coffee shops in Baghdad. The mental atmosphere is exactly the same—the wild fantasies presented as obvious truth, the patterns seen by those few with the courage and wisdom to see, the amused pity for anyone weak-minded enough to be skeptical, the logic that turns counter-evidence into evidence and every random piece of information into a worldwide conspiracy. Above all, the seething resentment, the mix of arrogance and impotent rage that burns at the heart of the paranoid style in politics.

The problem isn’t lack of education—it’s that of a self-isolating political subculture gone rancid. I heard an Iraqi engineer claim that American soldiers allowed Kuwaitis to steal hundreds of Iraqi cars as revenge for the first Gulf War. I heard a Shiite cleric argue that the Kerry campaign was behind suicide bombings. Bloggers like Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor who peddled the Ayers theory, and Ann Althouse, a law professor who pushed the plastic-device story, hold diametrically opposed views to those of Islamists and Arab nationalists. But their habits of mind are just the same.

It will only get worse if Obama wins.

It will get worse, but it only matters if anyone outside of the crazy clique pays attention.

packer is otm. but the one thing out of all the muck that sticks with me -- a little -- are these questions about obama's small donors. i'm sure most of the small donors are legit; lots of my friends have made small donations, and as far as i know my friends are all real people. but i don't like that mccain discloses his small donors and obama doesn't. and it does sound like there are some basic credit-card security measures that aren't in place in obama's online system. there have been reports of this all year, and not just in the right-o-sphere.

anyway, based on the trajectory of assorted rightwing media, it looks like the fundraising and rezko are going to be among the last-ditch topics for this week. and assuming obama wins, i'm sure there'll be more agita about the fundraising, postfacto.

kinda otm

i mean, its a problem with the system and im sure O's campaign hasnt done anything wrong, but the fact that there is no way to check large donors making lots of very small donations is pretty weird

While I agree that this is an issue, the Times made it sound like this is basically around $40K of $150M (or was it $40K out of everything he's raised?) which kind of minimizes it's importance in my mind.

so, like, a bunch of soros types decided they were going to make 100,000s of dinky $100 credit card transactions with a bunch of different people and different cards to get the democrat elected, but the RNC couldn't figure this out? what?

there is no way to check large donors making lots of very small donations is pretty weird

I have a way to check that, it's called that would be insane, plus those people get busted all the time, especially democrats.

Another reader tells me Governor Palin called him "Barack the Spreader". You go, girl!

yeah i seriously doubt we're going to have some big scandal where it turns out $50 million in small donations really came from a casino operator in macau or whatever. and i know that the biggest part of the problem is that obama's processing so many donations, it's hard to keep on top of. but it does sound like their credit-card security measures are defaulted to the low side. (not that i know much about credit-card security.) and with any pile of money that big, some of it's gonna be dirty, there's no way around it. i'm not sure that effectively killing off the public financing system is going to seem like such a great idea a couple elections from now. but i guess we'll see. one nice thing for a president obama to do would be to try to figure some more techno-savvy kinds of campaign finance reforms and reporting requirements. mccain-feingold (which is hardly perfect anyway) was written for the pre-internet-fundraising age. if we're going to have half-billion-dollar campaigns, the existing regulations probably aren't sufficient.

I just keep wondering when the Jay-Z designed t-shirt that I bought on the Obama website's "Runway for Change" is going to arrive. Because I've only got nine more days to rock that shit.

Mona Is So Right ... [Cliff May]

...in her latest column when she says. “Democrats are so much better at placing blame.”

I love the total lack of self-awareness here.

Granted, it's Newsmax via McCarthy but:

Obama Campaign Bans TV Station For Asking Biden Hard Questions [Andy McCarthy]

From Newsmax:

Angry over a hard-nosed interview during which Barbara West of Orlando’s WFTV peppered Sen. Joe Biden with the kind of probing questions the pro-Obama mainstream media refuses to ask, the Obama campaign has completely banned the television station from future access and interviews.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, Biden was so disturbed by West's searching questions that the Obama campaign canceled a WFTV interview with Jill Biden, the candidate's wife. "This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best, for the duration of the remaining days until the election," wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign.

McGinnis said the Jill Biden cancellation was "a result of her husband's experience yesterday during the satellite interview with Barbara West."

During the interview, West asked Biden: "Aren't you embarrassed by the blatant attempts to register phony voters by ACORN, an organization that Barack Obama has been tied to in the past?"

Biden appeared flustered by the question, but quickly gained his composure and denied that Obama had been close to ACORN. Biden claimed that the campaign had not paid ACORN any money to register voters. West did not challenge Obama on this point, though during the Democratic primary in Ohio, the Obama campaign had, in fact, paid more than $800,000 to an ACORN-backed group. West did note that Obama has worked with this group in the past. (See: Obama and ACORN: You Can Run But You Can't Hide).

West again stung Biden, asking him about Obama's statement to Joe the plumber that he planned to "spread the wealth around."

West queried: "A Gallup poll showed 84 percent of Americans prefer the government focus on improving economic conditions and creating more jobs in the U.S., as opposed to taking steps that distribute wealth. Isn't Senator Obama's comment a potentially crushing political blunder?"

Dodging the question, Biden attacked the Bush economic and tax policies and Sen. John McCain's tax program. West bored in, quoting Karl Marx's "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs," and asked Biden, "How is Senator Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?"

Biden appeared stunned and asked, "Are you joking? Is this a joke?"

He then insisted that despite Obama's declaration that he would spread the wealth around, Obama "is not spreading the wealth around."

West then asked Biden about his now-famous statement that Obama would be tested and would not be able to stand up to the challenge without help. "Are you forewarning Americans that nothing will be done and that America's days as the world's leading power are over?" West asked. An obviously annoyed Biden responded by asking West who was writing her questions. West is a veteran TV news journalist who had worked as Peter Jennings' producer at ABC News. Biden responded that whoever is elected will be tested, and then attacked McCain's record.

West returned to the “spreading the wealth” question, asking Biden what he'd "say to the people who are concerned that Barack Obama will want to turn America into a socialist country much like Sweden?" Biden again ducked the question, saying only that he didn't know anybody who thinks that, "except the far-right wing of the Republican Party." ...

10/27 07:38 AM

They're actually trying to rep for Barbara Fucking West, Incredulous TV Hack Of The Year (No Matter What Side You're On)

emphasis mine

Clingin' [John J. Miller]

Wash Post:

Americans have cut back on buying cars, furniture and clothes in a tough economy, but there's one consumer item that's still enjoying healthy sales: guns. Purchases of firearms and ammunition have risen 8 to 10 percent this year, according to state and federal data.

10/27 10:11 AM

TGTBT (Kathryn Jean Lopez)

This day is for the history books: Jonah and I became Facebook friends. (He asked ... and was getting nervous because it had been a few days .... )

That's another way of saying: Jonah has a Facebook page. Evidently I do too.

ignorance bliss etc

Ted Stevens (Kathryn Jean Lopez)

has been found guilty.

I know that numbers in the Senate matter, but this is one seat I didn't care to win with. Republicans should have pressured him to resign long before today. But they, of course, didn't. And so here we are.

oh Klo's inbox today will be fresh

My god that's the first sensible thing I've ever seen her write?!?!

i just friended katie jean and jonah

(No longer is it acceptable to minimize the work of a community organizer.)

lol

Jonah has a Facebook page. Evidently I do too.

It's complicated.

Should I facebook friend K-lo?

Get them hooked on WordTwist.

Why bother? When Jonah starts losing he'll just quit the game to be with his "daughter".

Re: Projection Alert [Ramesh Ponnuru]

An email:

That's all Hitchens has got? Palin is an "ignoramus"—no, a "proud ignoramus"—because she's against earmarks and Hitchens thinks she "probably" believes things he doesn't? Anyone who describes himself as a "prayer warrior" is a bullying theocrat? His last line brings down the hammer on his own toe: "On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity." Because the Constitution takes a firm line against being a prayer warrior?

Yup, that's his argument—if religious bigotry and snobbery can be so called. And the "bullying" business is just more projection from the atheist Cotton Mather of our benighted age.

"the atheist Cotton Mather"

That is... I kind of wish I'd come up with that. That is hysterical.

http://slog.thestranger.com/files/2008/10/shitstorm-flyer.jpg

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/10/27/whelan/

Gallup Tracking [Mona Charen]

Hmm. Gallup tracking has race almost even. Dow up 400.

10/28 03:07 PM

Not the Atlantic Monthly favorite poster thread, but I can't find that right now :(

Sullivan posted one of my emails on his blog! Yay!

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/10/tzadik.html

"Hmm. Gallup tracking has race almost even. Dow up 400."

Haha yeah the model that no one in their right mind is taking seriously.

50-43 is "almost even"?

I'm sure she is looking at the Likely Voter Model that pretends it's 2004 and none of the newly registered voters are going to vote.

On a Brighter Note [Rich Lowry]

The McCain campaign says their internal polling still shows tightening, and their track shows them down three in the swing states. Fwiw...

10/28 06:14 PM

This is going to be exactly Like the K-Lo Sanatorium fiasco, isn't it

That one is 49-47 with a 2 pt margin of error.

"That one"

Sullivan posted one of my emails on his blog! Yay

Hahah, nice, I was just reading that.

The McCain campaign says their internal polling still shows tightening

"It's weird -- all the registered Republicans we talked to half support us."

Strange that this tightening STILL isn't reflected in external polling.

This is going to be exactly Like the K-Lo Sanatorium fiasco, isn't it

― Mordy, Tuesday, October 28, 2008 5:48 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha what was this

Revive the 2006 Congressional election thread.