Favorite poster from NR's "The Corner"

oh, McCarthy:

McCain is McCain. I doubt anyone at National Review has been more critical of him or is less enthusiastic about a McCain presidency than I am.* He is a big-government centrist who is more left than right on countless important issues. He became our nominee out of a crowded field no candidate dominated because of early support from Democrats and independents (i.e., non-Republicans) as well as some influential pundits who told us that only someone like McCain — a reach-across-the-aisle moderate — could win in what they assured us was a Democrat year. Now, predictably, many of those same folks have abandoned McCain for Obama, and McCain's only chance to eek out a win is to convince the very conservatives he's been jabbing all these years. In effect, McCain's Lefty-light has made beating Obama much more difficult because his many maverick forays make it hard for us to get traction on subjects like ACORN, Khalidi, speech-suppression, immigration, enhanced due-process for terrorists, etc. A real conservative could have made a much more compelling fight on the issues than McCain has.

But that's water under the bridge now, and none of it changes the obvious: Whatever typically infurating dalliances McCain may have had with Khalidi and ACORN, they don't compare to the depth of relationship that Obama had with Khalidi and ACORN — and like-minded Leftists. It's not even close.

"McCain is nasty, but Obama is NASTIER, so there."

"It's Andy. Mr. McCarthy if you're nasty."

That argument makes absolutely no sense.

Only someone who is a complete amnesiac could really think Mitt Romney or Huckabee or Fred Thompson wasn't going to get their clock cleaned just as bad if not worse by Obama.

enhanced due-process for terrorists

i will say that i doubt romney would have done something a detrimental as pick a Palin.

but yer right: i can't say how it would have affected the electoral vote, but I doubt Mittens would be doing any better than the 52.0/46.4% popular vote split 538 is calling

Sure but Romney didn't need to pick Palin. He's would have been just as detrimental all by his lonesome.

It's kind of crazy that the two most credible Republican candidates were McCain and HUCKABEE.

Huckabee wasn't really credible though. It's very difficult to campaign with no money.

That's kind of my point! He probably stood the best chance of being elected after McCain just based on who he is (affable God-botherer) and really it was the lack of campaign funds that did him in more than anything else.

Yeah it was a bad crop. Let's hope it stays that way.

K LO linked to a Corey Hart song, oh lawd

My favorite thing about these posts is that their notions of what constitutes dangerous subversive activity goes so far that I can't even manage to feel insulted or smeared by it. Do I think it was okay for people to have conversations with Edward Said? Umm, yeah, totally! Do I conceive of a world where America is no better than any other country? If that means I don't think the U.S. has some god-given standing that makes it and its citizens inherently more important and morally significant than, like, Canadians, then, umm, sure? It's like reading a blog about how the nation is threatened by OMG people who eat grapefruit! How can you stand idly by while they eat grapefruit?

Eating fruits? A sin, surely.

any mofo I catch eating my grapefruit is gonna catch a case

ps not a euphemism, stay the fuck away from my grapefruit or I'll cut you

'Anyone watch the afro-mercial last night?'

+ bonus comment on why this statement isn't racist

not the corner, but close enough

jeez, when did Edward Said become such a bugabooo on the right? In graduate school I don't remember his views re Palestine getting much play in National Review.

+ note that Obama "sounds and looks" like J.J. from Good Times

This is gonna be a fun future of trying not to bother explaining to people what's wrong with the things they say

Last night I thought I was watching Barrys Afromerical and realized after a 1/2 hour that I was wathcing Good Times...doesnt barry sound and look alot like JJ Walker???

srsly wtf

xp: hahaha nabisco hi-5

Alfred I feel like the right has spent the past 6 years or so drifting toward the position that anyone who remotely thinks there are issues that need to be addressed re: the situation of Palestinian civilians is either evil or an apologist thereof

http://kara.allthingsd.com/files/2008/06/barack-obama-official-small.jpghttp://www.tvparty.com/vgifs13/jjgoodtimes.jpg

MY GOD I'M SEEING DOUBLE

I'm almost tempted to read through their discussion of Obama's Sanford & Son / Jeffersons mix-up, as the slip has shaken my confidence in this candidate to its very foundations

Is Corey Hart a Conservative, Liberal, NDP, or Separatist?

I don't know if I can speak to you if you're going to call yourself "SHAPOOPI!"

s Corey Hart a Conservative, Liberal, NDP, or Separatist?

he's a Celine Dion Songwriter.

when you read stuff like that its hard to understand why people on the left AND the right think that its the socially conservative wing of the party that is gonna be left behind in a new inclusive GOP

tom was pretty otm when he said that having a black commander in chief will have the side effect of making racists even more obvious (and obviously racist)

i think they were always obvious - its just served to marginalize their other, non-race-related interests

(if anything related to GOP politicking can be considered 'non-race-related')

(i do think its brought more of this to the surface media-wise but these biases were always obvious in an electoral sense, 90% of black ppl werent voting dem for nothing)

We may wind up with the paradoxical wash-out of (a) more obvious racism and (b) more people deciding that racism is obviously over everyone is the same now

I think you're on to something, esp. re. b:

The survey suggested that Mr. Obama’s candidacy — if elected, he would be the first black president — has changed some perceptions of race in America. Nearly two-thirds of those polled said whites and blacks have an equal chance of getting ahead in today’s society, up from the half who said they thought so in July.

hey n what do u think of ross douthat's post here:

http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/obama_and_the_race_card.php

i think the danger in it is implying that now that this frame is in place that means the issue is 'final' or resolved in some way

'n' stands for nabisco btw

I think you're on to something, esp. re. b:

The survey suggested that Mr. Obama’s candidacy — if elected, he would be the first black president — has changed some perceptions of race in America. Nearly two-thirds of those polled said whites and blacks have an equal chance of getting ahead in today’s society, up from the half who said they thought so in July.

― "John Kerry dissed me, I'm trippin!" (Nicole), Friday, October 31, 2008 2:17 PM (57 seconds ago) Bookmark

im interested in how this survey breaks down racially too - ta-nehisi was arguing earlier that current black politics is more conservative and inward-looking now than in previous generations as well.

although i do wonder if thats an issue of perception - obviously the ppl advocating for a slow resolution to pressing civil rights issues are seen on the wrong side of history NOW

Here's the thing re: (b); that is not really an incorrect perception. I can only really look at my own experiences but I know for a fact that I've had it much, much easier than even my brothers, who were only 9 and 5 years older than me. I can't think of a single important thing in my life that I wanted that I missed out on due to the color of my skin; these days, I have the impression it's a lot tougher to overcome prejudice based on social class than it is to overcome prejudice based on race.

the problem is that allows space for systemic inequalities like educational disparities, how public schooling is funded etc.

one of the things i think allowed obama to really do well in downstate IL was his pointing out the obvious fact that downstate schools and inner city schools were both underfunded in comparison to the chicago suburbs.

i think spending per pupil downstate is like 2,000 vs 19,000 at new trier high school in wilmette

I don't see why stating that racial issues and class issues are being conflated in modern American society allows space for systemic inequalities like blah blah blah, unless you're assuming I think it's okay for poorer districts to be underfunded compared to more affluent areas.

one of the tricks w/ class though is that by some huge margin, white ppl are more likely to live in economically integrated communities than black people. That is to say that a poor white person is statistically much more likely to live in an area with public schools that are well-funded than a poor black person.

So then you focus your efforts on the schools that aren't well-funded.

I get the "trick" but it seems kind of willful to just throw your hands up and say "oh well, can't do anything due to all the racism!"

haha im not arguing we should do that! my intent in that first post was more about urging caution in celebration than it was saying 'same as it ever was.'

i wasnt trying to argue with you or say you were wrong actually, just trying to add dimension to it for the strawman ilxor reading this conversation

Yeah, Dan, I don't disagree that (b) is far from wrong or delusional -- I agree that we've gotten to a point where most black people as individuals aren't going to be denied anything they'd otherwise have achieved solely on the basis of race. And people are totally seizing that equal level of opportunity, and as I get older I get more and more convinced that, if I'm lucky enough to get nice and old, I'll one day be sitting in a country with a large black middle class that nobody even has to think of as some kind of "achievement."

The only reason I'm tempted to keep an eye on these things right now is that ... this conclusion that racism isn't so actively holding individuals back has to come with some historical recognition that there are large black demographics that are, in the aggregate, starting from a really limiting position, and that the reason they're there isn't because of some failure to seize opportunities, it's part of a broader legacy. Because when there's not that historical recognition, I think there's a tendency for some people to start backsliding into the mentality that there's something wrong with the people themselves. (Something that's occasionally true about white segments of the underclass, but not nearly as true, or true in the same ways.)

Let me also note that the interaction of (a) + (b) depends on individuals and where they're coming from. I think it's possible for a lot of people to be surrounded by bad attitudes about race but not have that actually bar them from a lot of achievements, if only because those bad attitudes aren't organized (i.e., even if two out of ten people you apply for jobs with have bad attitudes, that hurts you, but it doesn't sink you the way across-the-board racism once did). But I do believe there are a lot of people who are surrounded by enough bad attitudes and bad expectations (both internal and external!) that it still actively diminishes their possibilities in life, especially in areas that aren't as open and packed with possibilities/opportunities as urban centers.

Actually let me add a caveat to this:

I agree that we've gotten to a point where most black people as individuals aren't going to be denied anything they'd otherwise have achieved solely on the basis of race

^^ By this I mean in a very loose, aggregate sense -- specific things, maybe, but I do think we're hitting a point where someone's overall life path isn't being radically shifted by external stuff having to do with race in the here-and-now. Economic class, social class, and class-having-to-do-with-race, different story

Yeah, I don't disagree with that very much. I do feel, though, that real headway isn't going to be made unless we (plz forgive me I cannot help myself) call a spade a spade and deal with the classism problem in this country; I often feel people would rather call this a problem with racism so that they can just shrug and say "oh well, that's how people are!"; it seems to me to be a rather blatant and petty divide-and-conquer technique.

I'm not sure I entirely follow. Or, well ... I was going to say that there's a weird part of me that thinks Americans might sometimes be less shruggy about framing things as racism than as classism, because we have a very firm and hard-to-counter national delusion that people's economic turnouts are based on their own actions. But in terms of national politics it's really really hard to separate those things from ideas about race, since our last periods of really talking about poverty managed to be almost entirely about people's perceptions of race!

Personally, I'd much rather the racists in our society wear their prejudices on their nametags than secretly harbor their opinions. It's probably a sign that we're moving past race (or moving in that general direction), that The Corner is no longer keeping their bullshit to themselves but flaunting it. It's desperately overt.