These decorations are an easy, relatively inexpensive way to acknowledge the holiday. They require little or no thought beyond which one to buy and where to buy it. The set-up is easy, so is the clean up and off-season storage.

Easy is good.

The unfortunate trade-off is that most inflatables are hollow caricatures of tradition and a lousy representation of the individuals upon whose lawn they are displayed.

I took three classes in college with a professor who made every class read George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language.

The essay warrants contemplation. The criticisms he makes of modern writing can be made of most modern pursuits. Holiday decorating for example.

He writes:

As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy. [...] If you use ready-made phrases, you not only don’t have to hunt about for the words; you also don’t have to bother with the rhythms of your sentences since these phrases are generally so arranged as to be more or less euphonious.

When you use ready-made decorations, you don’t have to untangle lights, build scarecrows or hang bats from trees. Just “gum together” a ghost and pumpkin that’s “already set in order by someone else” and you’re good to go. The result is cute, maybe. Mostly it’s uninspired and unremarkable.

The trouble with such thoughtlessness, Orwell writes, is that it feeds on itself:

[...] an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

It is rather the same thing that is happening to all arenas of our life. The more we choose to rely on the convenience of prefabricated expressions (of thought, holidays or anything else), the less effort we put into all aspects of our lives, and the more we become generic caricatures of ourselves.

Look at what passes for political discourse these days. The majority of people are vehemently arguing about which inflatable lawn ornament is better for the country – your goofy-grinned liberal scarecrow or my fat conservative, Disney witch.

The good news is that the condition is reversible – without taking a BB gun to the neighbors yard:

One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one’s own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase [...] into the dustbin, where it belongs.

I suppose that means I’ll go outside and make a scarecrow.

I’ve never been to Chicago. From what friends and family have told me, The Windy City is indeed a great place. There is lots to see and do.

But you wouldn’t be told that if you asked any number of right-wing-talking-heads. To these folks, Chicago is a cesspool of corruption, filth and slime.

Michelle Malkin:

Goodbye, “Yes We Can.” Hello, “No, You Can’t.” Like Icarus, President Obama’s giddy ego flight has ended with melted wax and fallen wings.

Laura Ingraham:

R-I-O! May this be the first of many defeats for Chicago-style politics!

Jon Henke (whom I normally associate with being a reasonable conservative) tweeted:

Rush Limbaugh:

The worst day of Obama’s presidency, folks. The ego has landed. The world has rejected Obama.

Erick Erickson:

So Obama’s pimped us to every two bit thug and dictator in the world, made promises to half the Olympic committee, and they did not even kiss him.

So much for improving America’s standing in the world, Barry O.

… and he also tweeted:

Wow. We get it everyone, you don’t like Barack Obama. That is painfully clear now. But rooting for Chicago to lose its bid to host the Olympics? Really?

Maybe you guys don’t like Chicago. Maybe you visited Chicago as a youngster and the strong winds blew your balloon out of your hands. Maybe in your young adult years, you visited Second City and were made to cry instead of laugh. Maybe you loathed The Blues Brothers. Whatever the reason you don’t like Chicago, surely it has to be more than ‘well, that’s where Barack Obama is from’, right?

You see, this notion that because Barack Obama is from Chicago his political opponents must actively root for that city to lose its Olympic bid is nothing short of asinine. Why? So that you can say something negative about the President?

It’s no secret that I was no fan of George W. Bush. I didn’t like 95% of his presidency and even more of his policies. However, if the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was considering Crawford, Texas as a potential site for the Summer Games, I would be all for it. I would support that consideration not because I liked the former President, but because that city is on American soil. It’s called patriotism.

In my view, the largest fallacy of the anti-Chicago-hosting-the-Olympics movement is the financial issue. The vast majority of the Chicago naysayers are free-market, pro-capitalism conservatives. That in itself is a contradictory stance. To be anti-Olympics-coming-to-a-city (any city, not just Chicago) is essentially the same as denying that city thousands of new jobs and millions (billions?) of dollars in revenue generated by tourism. What city wouldn’t want those things?

Lastly, let me say this; I am not saying that these people are unAmerican. They have every right to speak their mind on any issue they choose. To claim that a dissenting opinion is unAmerican or unpatriotic is dangerous and irresponsible — and I won’t do that.

However, what I will say is that this posturing makes absolutely no sense to me. I cannot understand why someone wouldn’t want the United States to host an Olympic games. If the criticism was directed at President Obama for traveling to Copenhagen to make his ’sales pitch’, then I would understand. But that is definitely not the case (see: Erickson’s tweet). These critics wanted Chicago to fail — and fail it did.

Now it is Rio de Janeiro that will get the jobs and potential economic growth.

I write one, Jason writes one, I write another, and Jason writes another.

And so I write this…

I don’t accept the premise that because the conversation isn’t less strident in the extreme left blogosphere that it creates a “disincentive” for Republicans to back health care reform. In fact, there are many more reasons for Republicans to support the Baucus legislation than to not…so let’s get in to those now…

Most hardcore liberals, especially the blogosphere variety, are completely against the Baucus bill. What this means is that the legislation will probably appeal to most independents, moderate Dems and moderate Repubs. Who decides elections? Every pollster alive will tell you it’s the swing voters. What do swing voters look for? Politicians who compromise. It’s not a difficult electoral calculation.

So, actually, the left railing against the bipartisan legislation as not pure enough should be an incentive for Republicans to support it so they can show independents that they’re learning from their historic defeat last fall.

Here’s another incentive for the Rs…their ideas get into the most important health care reform legislation in the past 50 years. Listen, they had the opportunity FOR DECADES to do something about health care and yet they sat on their hands and let millions go without health insurance, go bankrupt as a result of skyrocketing costs or simply were refused insurance because of pre-existing condition clauses. Well, now Repubs are seriously outnumbered and they’re in danger of not having a say if they don’t back the Baucus bill…which absolutely gives them a serious seat at the table. And, by the way, Dems don’t have to do that. And yet they are.

Want another incentive? How about containing health care costs? Baucus’ bill makes significant cuts in Medicare and CHIP and replaces it with private insurance. It doesn’t have an employer mandate. And the CBO actually said it’ll reduce the budget deficit after a decade. So they could actually make a very strong case to their base that this bill represents fiscal conservatism in action since Medicare is KILLING us and driving up the budget deficits.

So there are some of the incentives to sign on. I’m sure there could be some more, but those are all the high level, apparent ones.

Now then…what about the incentives not to?

First, it’ll piss off their base. But at this point do they really think the base won’t show up if they’re extreme enough to question whether or not Obama is a citizen? Again, let’s reference the swing voter logic. Any support they lose from their base will be offset by independent support due to their bipartisan nature. I think we all agree that the politicians that fall more in the middle are those who have more electoral success. Still…they could piss off their base.

Second, it’s a smart political move to oppose this because they can demagogue health care in 2010/2012. This is the only real reason I can think that makes any sense why they’d be against it, especially after they signed EVERYTHING Bush put in front of them (including that drug prescription bill). So all of sudden they’re finding fiscal conservative religion after Obama gets elected? Consider me unconvinced that this sudden turnaround is prompted by a bunch of left wing bloggers.

(At this point you’ll have to read Jason’s post to gain greater context for the next part, but he calls me naive. I take this with a grain of salt because I know Jason, I consider him a friend and I know he’s prone to hyperbole. Nonetheless…)

As far as naive, well, I’ll take the bait.

Who’s more naive…

• The guy who’s telling Republicans they better wise up, play fair and sign on to a bill (that liberals are professing they hate) so they can have some say in the legislation and possibly win independents in 2010?

OR


• The guy who’s basing the entire premise of his argument on the idea that leftist bloggers who demand ideological purity are somehow shaping the debate and moderate Dem bloggers have to answer them to such a degree that we reshape the debate or Republicans will not have incentive enough to play bipartisan ball?

Also, and let’s just get this out of the way now…hyper partisanship was started by the right wing shock jocks like Rush Limbaugh back in the 80s, was picked up by Newt Gingrich and Richard Mellon Scaife in the 90s and only until blogging started did Dems fight back in any demonstrable way. That certainly doesn’t excuse the truly moon-battiest of them all, but Republicans authored this playbook and have been using it for decades to flood the media with misinfo to shape the debate and win elections. Long story short, if hyperpartisanship is really creating the mood for Repubs to oppose health care, well, isn’t that a convenient whipping boy.

One last point and then I’m ready to bury this topic and move on since it’s pretty obvious that Jason and simply aren’t going to agree…Moderate Dems like myself do not own the tone and tenor of the debate on the left, nor are we responsible for monitoring it and calling people out. I, and my reasonable blogging friends, started this mid-o-sphere as a place where real debate can happen. That’s our contribution. It’s not sexy and it takes a lot of work, but I think we do a decent job at it. Sure, on occasion I’ll call somebody out on here, as I did with Pelosi earlier this summer, but when I’m arguing policy and intentions (as I’m doing in this health care debate) I don’t think I need to take into account the effect that some bloggers on the left are having on the mindset and motivations of Republican politicians. There will ALWAYS be people yelling on both sides, and, as I mentioned above, that should be incentive for politicians to move towards the middle, not further left or right.

As always, thanks for reading and I welcome your thoughts.

This is a difficult post to write. But some issues, no matter how distasteful, must be faced squarely. Sadly, the numbers speak for themselves. Racism is on the rise in this country.

Why the dramatic rise in racism now? I cannot answer that. Perhaps the problem was here all along and we simply chose not to see it. It was easy to ignore in the months following the election when Obama’s favorability rating was over 70%. In the euphoria of his election, many of us became too complacent about racism. With a 70% favorability rating for the President elect, we were all too willing to overlook the 30% of racist Americans who remained. It was an easy mistake to make, the racists were outnumbered by more than two to one.

Few now remember that November 2008 to January 2009 was the golden age of the new post-racial post-partisan America, ushered in by the election of our new President. Our pundits in the mainstream media helped us to understand and appreciate the deep import of the election, and the possibility of finally turning the page on our racist history.

Maureen Dowd – Nov. 9, 2008:

Joe Klein in Time – Nov 5.2008:

Keith Olbermann – Nov 5, 2008:

Jimmy Carter on Jim Lehrer – August 25, 2008

“But I don’t think there’s any doubt that there’s a spirit and a bright, new hope for America within this country and around the world. And if Obama is elected, which I think he is going to be, then I think that will be the transforming race for the end of racism, and prejudice, and hatred between races in this country.”

As always, Jimmy Carter was far ahead of the curve, predicting the golden age of a post-racial America months before it came into being.

That was then. This is now. What happened? Perhaps it was just too easy to pretend the problem was not there.

Here are the facts. Racism has been rising steadily over the last few months. In recent polls, President Obama’s approval number has dropped from 70% to 50%. This means the percentage of racists in this country has risen from 30% to 50% – a 67% increase in only eight months! Even more alarming, close to one out of two Americans are now racist. We have reached a tipping point. If this trend continues, the racists will soon be in a majority. Now, more than ever, we need the pundits and sages of the mainstream media to speak out. Racism is so insidious, so deep rooted, that we may not even know whether we are racists, unless or until bloggers and pundits make that determination through psychoanalysis.

Some of those same strong media voices who were sweeping the racism problem under the rug in January, are finally sounding the alarm now that the full scope of the problem has been recognized.

Dowd – Sep 13. 2009:
Representative Wilson shouting from the floor? = Racism

Bravo. How brave, this extraordinary willingness to make specific accusations of racism on the basis of nothing more than the imaginary voices in her head. Of course, it would be even braver if Maureen lived in a country, where, unlike here, she and her paper could be sued for slander. Sadly, some do not appreciate her principled stand against imagined racism. What are we to make of those such as blogger Clifton, who shamelessly asserts: “There is enough real racism in the world as it is; you are not helping anyone by making sh*t up!” Clearly Clifton is a racism denier.

KLEIN on Scarborough – Sep 11. 2009:
Protests in opposition to Obamacare? = Racism

Joe, keep speaking out. The administration is in denial over the real reason for the opposition to their policies. Your clear dispassionate analysis may yet snap them out of their dangerous delusions. What could they be thinking? Could anyone really believe that – a President who signs an earmark stuffed budget that quadruples the deficit, pushes through an almost $1T pork laden stimulus package that does not stimulate, takes over car companies, bails out investment bankers, institutionalizes the Bush/Cheney unitary executive, is pushing massive new energy taxes and wants an additional $1T in new health care entitlements – would raise strong opposition? Nonsense. Who could be opposed to such enlightened policies? The opposition is obviously racist. That is the only rational explanation.

OLBERMANN – Sep 8, 2009 “[video]:
Forced resignation of Van Jones? = Racism

I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude to Keith Olbermann for stepping up yet again. The attack on Van Jones was so clearly rooted in racism that one must assume anyone who would suggest otherwise is also a de-facto racist. In this context, it was particularly shocking to me that Willie Brown, Democrat, former Mayor of San Francisco, frequent MSNBC contributor, and a man who worked directly with Van Jones would sadly be revealed to be a racist. From his column Sunday:

Willie Brown – a racist. Who knew?

Jimmy Carter – September 16, 2009
Joe Wilson outburst, Protests, Obamacare opposition? = Racism

NYT – “The former president first weighed in on Tuesday during a question-and-answer session at the Carter Center in Atlanta. Mr. Carter responded to a question about Mr. Wilson’s eruption by saying that he did believe it was laced with racism. Coupling the Wilson remark with the images in recent weeks of angry demonstrators wielding signs depicting Mr. Obama as a Nazi or as Adolf Hitler, Mr. Carter said: “There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president.” He lamented the tone of disrespect toward the current president, adding: “Those kind of things are not just casual outcomes of a sincere debate on whether we should have a national program on health care. It’s deeper than that.”

Only Jimmy Carter could speaks with sufficient moral authority to attribute Joe Wilson’s outburst, tea party protesters and health care opposition all to racism. We need that clarity now more than ever. But the more these thought leaders speak out, the more racism deniers come out of the woodwork. As if they would know better than Jimmy Carter what real racism looks like. And again, the administration refuses to face reality.

With the ex-president adding his voice to the media voices speaking out loudly and clearly, perhaps we can beat back the scourge of racism once again. While we may never again return to the golden age of November 2008 to January 2009 when only 30% of the country were racists, perhaps we can at least reverse the trend and insure that the racists remain a minority of the voters in this country. Before it is too late – like – before the next election.

^{Notes on this post: As is often the case with my posts, the idea for this piece emerged from a recent comment thread here at the Donk. A version of this post was cross-posted at Divided We Stand United We Fall where it garnered some interesting comments, and was subsequently linked at The Crossed Pond generating an even longer and more interesting comment thread.}

As I said before, I’m completely and absolutely bewildered at how this even turned into a story.

And, by the way, shame on all of you who needlessly fueled this fire. If you really want to set a good example for your children, how about teaching them to not jump to conclusions. Think that might be a worthwhile lesson for the future?

Here’s the speech in its entirety…
===============

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama

Back to School Event

Arlington, Virginia

September 8, 2009

The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, “This is no picnic for me either, buster.”

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.

Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.

I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.

I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work — that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, “I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.
===============

By the way, Reagan and the elder Bush gave similar speeches. Just in case you didn’t know.

What’s the logical conclusion here? Do we boycott and counter-boycott, until we’ve whittled ourselves down to country of red and blue companies as well as red and blue states? There’s nothing to stop us. Fox is well within its rights to retain the hosting services of Glenn Beck, and Wal-Mart is within its rights to take its advertising dollars elsewhere, and the readership of RedState.org is within its rights to take its paychecks elsewhere, too. And I suppose I can take my eyeballs to some other corner of the Internet. Three cheers for liberalism!

And yet I cannot help but think there is a crucial difference between GEICO’s decision to drop Glenn Beck and RedState’s decision to drop GEICO. The difference is this: Wal-Mart has a good reason to boycott Beck, because Beck actually did something idiotic and indefensible. It simply is not true that Obama is a racist. And what’s this business about “the white culture,” anyway? Tell us a bit more about that, Glenn.

RedState does not have a similarly reasonable claim — or a substantive argument at all — unless they are seriously interested in defending what Beck said on the merits. (Are they? Is anyone? Let’s have that argument, pretty please.) The argument for boycotting the boycotters should be more than “free speech is awesome,” since the right to free speech doesn’t guarantee you the right to massive corporate underwriting.

Links added.

What I know is this: Beck cannot stand on his original statement. This is not a conspiracy of leftists, this is a result of people who are fed up with the inflammatory rhetoric (’flamoric’?) and partisan hackery from someone who is simply trying to be shocking for shock’s (and rating’s) sake. Advertisers are going to continue to bail until Glenn Beck a) apologizes or b) loses his show (my guess is that it will be the former rather than the latter).

Either way, it’s going to likely be an entertaining ride. Now where did I put my popcorn?

[cross-posted at ThePajamaPundit.com]

“BTW, is there a reason Donklephant hasn’t covered the violence at various health care forums? Given that fistfights and shouting people down are the ultimate forms of discourse this site seeks to eliminate I thought we’d have a thread by now. For the record my group has been involved in Dingell’s forum. It was pretty clear the anti-Obama folk were there to make sure the forum was ruined, and maybe provoke a fight. Check out the Youtube videos…” – Nick

I’ll try to provide a selection of views from across the political spectrum, but will broaden the topic to a more general primer on the care and feeding of astroturf. First – I am not sure this is the clip Nick was referencing, but expect it is representative:

UPDATE: Nick provided a link in the comments to the specific clip he was referencing. Added:

From the left:
This Kos diarist attended the Dingell Town Hall as a supporter with a “cut to the front of the line” pass, regrets being outnumbered by opponents and concludes they are all insane.

Matt Yglesias explains that the reason irrational opponents outnumber rational supporters at these meetings, is that the rational supporters are waiting to learn what is actually in the bill. Matt is certain that the supporters will outnumber opponents once the bill is out, even though he does not know what will be in the bill.

Boo Man at Booman Tribune thinks it is perfectly fine for protesters to exercise their first amendment rights, unless, of course, they don’t understand what they are protesting. So I guess protesters need to be given a competence test first… or something.

From the administration:
The administration and Democratic leadership weigh in to explain exactly what the opposition is all about.

Robert Gibbs disses the “Brooks Brother Brigade” and calls the opposition “manufactured anger” all paid for by the official administration designated demon of the day (cue scary music) The Insurance Companies.

Barbara Boxer picks up on the sartorial theme, explaining that you can tell the protesters are fake, because – well- they are too well dressed.

Harry Reid waves a piece of astroturf as a prop to dismiss opposition “as phony as this grass.”

Nancy Pelosi agrees that it is all phony astroturf and throws in a few nazi references to boot.

Finally, the DNC runs an ad to make sure everyone knows that the opposition to the President’s healthcare plan are just an ugly angry mob that storms out on to the streets at the beck and call of the RNC- or something.

Not from the left:
Now, I think this kind of partisan political posturing (like astroturfing) is par for the course, pretty much the same old tried and true game of demonizing opposition to rally your team and get your bill passed. Not exactly “hope and change”, more like “same ol’ stuff”, but it doesn’t bother me. It can create problems though – if you don’t finesse it just right.

One problem is when Democrats start believing their own BS. Then you get situations like this – where a Democratic Representative at a town hall meeting calls out one of the “manufactured”, “astroturf”, “hijacker”, “mob” participants that is disrupting the meeting…

Another possible problem is when union members and other Obama supporters (not astroturf – genuine grassroots) spontaneously begin showing up in numbers at Town Hall meetings and take White House rhetoric from political strategists David Axelrod and Jim Messina to “punch back twice as hard” a little too literally.

Not all Democrats are buying into the Axelrod strategy. Claire McCaskill was quick to distance herself from the White House with this tweet:

“I disagree that the people showing concern over some healthcare proposals are “manufactured” Real folks, strong opinions.”

Not sure what she is thinking. Why wouldn’t she want to get on board insulting and belittling her constituents?

The Audacity of Axelrod
This is where it gets almost surreal. We have the administration and leading Democrats throwing the “astroturf” pejorative at Republicans and (cue scary music)The Insurance Companies and yet – the guy who practically invented the term “astroturfing” …The guy who is known as “The Astroturf King”… is none other than Obama’s right hand man and political adviser – David Axelrod.

Recall that prior to the campaign Axelrod was a founding partner in two firms co-located in the same office. One, the political consulting firm hired by the Obama campaign, and the other ASK Public Strategies – the gold standard in astroturf consulting firms (Axelrod is the A in ASK).

The MSM mostly gave him a pass during the campaign as he claimed he was on leave from ASK (while working in the same office for the co-located political consulting firm) and said he had no intention of being part of the administration. I highlighted this relationship during the campaign, when I though it a little too cozy that ATT was a big client of ASK, and Senator Obama conveniently flip-flopped on Telecom Immunity. But nobody really cared about that, so let’s move on.

How about an update now that the Astroturf King is Obama’s right hand man in the White House and his bio has disappeared from ASK’s website?

Per the Sun-Times, when he accepted the position with the administration in January, he “sold” his stake for $3M to be paid out out over 5 years. It was also disclosed that he received a partnership check of $151,914 from ASK in 2008. That was in 2008, when he was on “leave” from ASK. I guess it was a paid leave. So in 2008, ATT money went to ASK and ASK money went to Axelrod. Nothing to see here. Move on.

Let’s walk through this buyout again. ASK Public strategies is a going concern, and will continue to have funds flow from their corporate “astroturf” clients into their coffers. Then money from the ASK coffers will flow into “Astroturf King” David Axelrod’s pockets to compensate him for the buyout over the next five years, -coincidentally- exactly enough time to get past Obama’s first term and election campaign. Of course, by then, he may get tired of politics, and ASK may want sell his share of the partnership right back to him. Who knows? It could happen.

Audacious.

UPDATED 08/10/09: Added video, fixed typos and links
Cross-posted at “Divided We Stand United We Fall“

Republicans can call Arlen Specter an opportunist all they like and maybe they’re right. But the fact remains, the senator’s party jump is the direct result of the Republican’s increasing intolerance of moderates within their party.

I understand that Specter is not a model Republican and that a primary challenge is often the price a politician pays for refusing to toe the party line. But usually the main powerbrokers support the incumbent (as happened with Specter in 2004) and the official stays in office. Except, here in 2009, the Republican party is effectively controlled by talk show hosts and hardcore activists who seem to think the path back to power is through purification of the party.

This is not a syndrome exclusive to conservatives. We shouldn’t forget the purging of Joe Lieberman which resulted in the longtime Democrat becoming an Independent. Lucky for Dems, Lieberman chose to continue caucusing with the blue team, even though he did campaign for John McCain. Now with the Democrats on the verge of a 60 vote majority in the Senate (as soon as Al Franken gets his seat, God help us), I think Democratic purists may better understand the usefulness of a big tent. Without Lieberman and other less-than-pure Dems like Evan Bayh, Jim Webb, Ben Nelson, et. al., the Democrats wouldn’t be so close to a filibuster-proof majority.

Arlen Specter most likely defected because he would lose his primary. But that should still tell the Republicans something: if they want to return to power quickly (rather than waiting for the pendulum of history to swing back away from the left), they’d be better off building a broad-based coalition rather than trying to create a pure, but powerless party.

“The time has come for both left and right in this country to rediscover what philosophers call the “principle of charity” which asserts that a discussant’s argument should be interpreted in the way most compatible with the assumption that they are reasonable and well-intentioned.”
- Jason Arvak in his post “On Lowering The Partisan Heat.

Here’s more…

Allegations that conservatives love torture as some kind of core value or that liberals are all authoritarian “socialists” trying to recreate the Soviet kulaks in some bizarre post-modern form are not only rhetorically excessive, they are actively poisonous to any potential for reasonable debate even on other issues. As such, they should be rejected by those who share their general ideological leaning as much (if not moreso) than by their opponents.

When it becomes possible to disagree on principle while conceding that the opposition is in fact at least principled in the abstract, then it may be possible to have a meaningful debate about “torture” and other hot-button issues in this country.

Well said.

Why?

Because some dishwasher detergents are being banned in Washington.

I’m not kidding.

Between this and the Tea Party stuff, I really think Republicans are cutting any credibility out from under them when it comes to demanding support for a future Republican President. Because now a pretty specific precedent is being set. If it’s a democratic idea, you should actively protest it against it and (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) there might be violence.

Erick Erickson puts it this way…

At some point soon, it will happen. It’ll be over an innocuous issue. But the rage is building. It’s not a partisan issue. There is bipartisan angst at out of control government made worse by dumb bans like this and unintended consequences like AIG’s bonus problems. [...]

Were I in Washington State, I’d be cleaning my gun right about now waiting to protect my property from the coming riots or the government apparatchiks coming to enforce nonsensical legislation.

So, yes, of course I’m not talking about the majority of Republicans, but definitely the partisan mouthpieces on the right wing who tend to drive the conversation. And remember, these were the same folks who were talking endlessly about how unamerican liberals were for opposing obviously illegal policies. And now they’re hinting at violent revolt?

Moving on…

Not surprisingly, Walter Olson is angry. He zones in on one particularly offensive paragraph of the editorial and destroys it.

Well, I’m pretty angry myself. So I think it’s worth doing a full fisking of this stinking heap of ignorance. The editorial starts:

The American International Toy Fair in New York City this week has offered the newest and most tantalizing playthings in the world: walking plastic bugs, 3-D coloring sets, even Barbie, now 50 and wearing a golden outfit for the occasion. Yet one question hovered over the fair and its glittering new gizmos. Can the federal government assure consumers that the toys are safe?

Knowing a little bit about the Toy Fair, I can assure you, loyal readers, that the actual question hanging over the Fair was “Does anyone have any idea how you are going to comply with this law when it goes completely into effect without going out of business?”

As many parents, and ultimately manufacturers, learned the hard way, the Bush administration did not make the safety of toys and other products a priority. That led to the recall of millions of toys — some because of lead paint, others because of hazards such as small and powerful magnets that children swallowed. The Obama administration now has an opportunity to fill that regulatory gap by appointing new leadership for the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

So the problem here is that the Bush Administration failed to enforce existing safety laws, thereby leading to the recall of millions of toys? Now, I’m no fan of the Bush Administration, but this seems a little silly. How does the Times think that these toys were recalled? Isn’t the remedy for a prohibited product getting on the market to recall it and to penalize the importer? And isn’t that precisely what happened? And how many injuries were reported as a result of these products getting recalled? The answer is one (sadly it was a death) – except that the product that caused that death was perfectly legal under the then-existing standards, and is actually still legal under the new CPSIA standards since it was made for an adult.

Perhaps the Times is saying that the CPSC should have caught the products before they entered the stream of commerce, if only it had different priorities. This most likely is unrealistic to expect a tiny government agency to accomplish. But one thing is for certain, passing a law that creates unprecedented levels of paperwork for that tiny agency to review is a pretty good way to ensure that the agency will spend an even greater percentage of its resources looking for paperwork errors rather than actual safety hazards.

Last year, Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, giving new authority and resources to a shockingly understaffed agency. The law has been described, accurately, as providing the safety net that consumers assumed they already had.

Unfortunately, the commission has yet to implement important aspects of the new law.

Really? So, Congress passes a law that provides unprecedented authority – and responsibility – to a “shockingly understaffed agency” and expects them to implement the entire law within six months – and the Times is shocked, SHOCKED, when the agency is unable to do so within that time frame. But perhaps I’m being unfair to the Times – after all, the law provides the agency with “new resources” as well. One problem – the agency didn’t actually get new resources until several months later, and the “new resources” are added incrementally over the course of six years. So the idea that CPSIA’s problems are merely a result of a lazy CPSC is patently false…..and that all says nothing about the fact that CPSC regulations, like all regulations, are subject to a sixty day notice and comment period before they can be implemented.

The delay has caused confusion and allowed opponents to foment needless fears that the law could injure smaller enterprises like libraries, resale shops and handmade toy businesses.

This is the most offensive paragraph. For a full explanation of why, see Walter Olson’s post. But simply put, the idea that any business would threaten to close and/or actually throw out thousands of dollars of inventory upon which they rely to make a living merely because of “needless fears” fomented by shadowy opponents is utterly absurd. Indeed, the guidance that the CPSC has issued on this point, far from being overly soft on product safety, specifically recommends that businesses owners discard many of these products.

The law provides ways to address such concerns without undercutting its new and vitally important protections against lead or other toxic substances in children’s products. Even so, the commission decided last month to delay for a year any real enforcement of the law, which was supposed to have taken effect on Feb. 10.

First of all, the law DID take effect on February 10 – what was stayed for a year was the enforcement of two or three specific elements of the law, including the certification and testing requirements. The lower lead limits and ban on phthalates – even for products intended for use by children with no realistic chance of ingesting the substances – still apply, with extremely stiff penalties for violations. Also – the new law deputizes State Attorneys General; while the CPSC has requested the states hold off on enforcement of the testing and certification requirements, there’s no guarantee they will do so.

As for the alleged “ways of address[ing] such concerns,” proponents of the law never seem to specify what, exactly, these ways are. To be sure, the law allows the CPSC to exempt some products from the lower lead requirements – but this allowance only applies, so far as I’m aware, to the lower lead requirements (and certification thereof). In addition, the CPSC may only exempt “specific product[s] or material[s]” “after notice and a hearing….on the basis of the best available, objective, peer-reviewed, scientific evidence….” In other words, it’s not as if the CPSC is allowed to just categorically exempt any products for which this law would be an undue and unnecessary burden.

President Obama must quickly replace the commission’s acting chairwoman, Nancy Nord, who opposed adding new resources and authority to her agency. He should then choose the kind of enlightened leadership that every parent and toy lover needs and that will give consumer safety the priority it deserves.

Because the idea that Congress may have just put forward a poorly drafted law with no consideration of how it would affect small business is just too simple.

Cross-posted at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen

Hmmm… I wonder if Nancy is commenting here on the Donk with sock puppets.

h/t Joe Gandelman at the Moderate Voice

Over the last few months, there has been much finger-pointing as to which particular sect of the old GOP coalition is to blame for the policy failures of the last 8 years and the electoral failures of the last 2 years…..I think these accusations are deeply misplaced – the problems have not been caused by religious conservatives or adherence to free market beliefs, but instead by a sort of “talk radio” dogmatism in which any given issue becomes a litmus test for whether one is a “true” conservative or Republican.

This dogmatism has become terribly pervasive, dominating the party infrastructure and including many of the most prominent faces of conservatism both online and on the air. It is a dogmatism that is in some ways pushed by a wide variety of conservatives – free market conservatives and libertarians, religious conservatives, and defense conservatives. And yet it is also a dogmatism with which large elements of each of those groups take significant umbrage.

In and of itself, though, a little dogmatism is not necessarily a unique hindrance to a political party or movement’s electability or even its legislative agenda – political dogma has existed for at least as long as political parties have existed, and without some of it political parties cannot distinguish themselves from their competitors.

Instead, the problem with this particular form of dogma is its all-around meanness. Under this dogmatism, dissenters of any stripe are treated as the enemy, regardless of whether the dissenter’s general viewpoint could be described as “conservative,” and regardless of the dissenter’s political affiliation. Wide nets are cast to stereotype anyone who may be adversely affected by implementation of one of the dogma’s tenets. Where a particular tenet relies on a particular fact, and a suggestion is made that the fact is inaccurate, the personal loyalties of the questioner are called into question – even if the fact is demonstrably wrong.

What’s important here isn’t that GOP dogmatism (or political dogmatism more generally) is overly ideological – quite the opposite, actually. Instead, the problem is that it doesn’t recognize its lack of a firm ideological basis, turning the individual policy preferences of whichever strain of conservatism is most passionate about a given issue into a litmus test for some imagined “master conservatism.” Because this dogmatism represents the conclusions of numerous different philosophies, though, it cannot rely on the ideological arguments that gave rise to the policy preference in the first place. For instance, relying on principled libertarian arguments for a particular economic policy is not possible when you take a position on social policy that is inherently at odds with those arguments; similarly it is not possible to rely on principled religious conservative arguments for social policy when you take a position on economic policy that is directly at odds with those arguments. In short, the problem with dogmatism isn’t that it elevates principle over the common good – it’s that it is almost completely devoid of principle in the first place, a fact which Conor Friedersdorf seems to get. The result is that this imagined “master conservatism” is forced to rely on arguments that rely on a sense of fear and an “us against them” mentality.

This is not to say that this type of dogmatism is without value – it’s useful as a means of creating party unity and “getting out the base.” Nor is it particularly the province of conservatives – liberals and Democrats most certainly have their own type of fear-based, “us against them” dogmatism. Instead, the problem here is that the dogmatism has become far too pervasive, both in terms of those who insist on this dogmatism and – as importantly – in terms of the number of issues to which it extends (even extending to issues that have no inherent connection to policy preferences, such as whether Iraq had WMD’s, whether global warming is real or imagined, or whether AirTran was morally correct in its refusal to permit a Muslim family to reboard a flight after they were cleared by the FBI).

For instance, it’s one thing for talk-show hosts to rant and rave about “Defeatocrats,” the “homosexual mafia,” etc., since their purpose is not to persuade but is instead almost exclusively to rally the people who are already predisposed to agree with them. It’s a far different thing, however, when that attitude extends to campaign tactics, and/or a huge percentage of “talking heads,” whose purpose is at least nominally to persuade people to either vote Republican or to support a particular policy position.

Similarly, it’s one thing to rant and rave against a particular group as a means of motivating your “base” and maybe to scare the bejesus out of some fence-sitters into supporting your position. It is a far different thing, though, to do this on virtually every issue. So while Muslims, for instance, may be a tiny minority group whose support on any given issue is not worth being concerned about losing, the combination of Muslims, gays, social safety net beneficiaries, Latino immigrants, war opponents, etc. is a pretty large group.

By relying on rhetorical arguments that demonize so many groups and by making those arguments through so many different mediums, this form of dogma dramatically reduces the “pie” to whom conservatives may appeal – both for voting purposes and for purposes of winning support on policies that have nothing to do with the issue on which that group has been demonized. As Rod Dreher points out: “…if you build your political movement around constantly pointing out that it’s Us vs. Them, pretty soon you’ll find that there aren’t too many of Us left.”

But again – this problem is not one that is uniquely the province of conservatism or the Republican Party. Instead, it is a problem that will inevitably arise as any particular political coalition becomes ever-larger and attains a certain level of political success on issues where there is near-uniform intra-coalition agreement; in order to maintain the successful coalition, the party needs to manufacture loyalty on issues where there is less intra-coalition agreement. This is, however, an unsustainable strategy due to the way in which it “shrinks the pie” by demonizing policy opponents, even if they happen to be in the same political party. Eventually, the pie becomes small enough that the party can again find a coherent set of positive principles around which to build, and the cycle will begin anew.

The extremes of this cycle are just exacerbated today due to the way in which modern technology allows politics to pervade so much of everyday life. Eventually, the Dems will face similar problems as a result of their own successes, even as the GOP rebuilds around some as-yet unknown set of principles with a relatively broad appeal.

(Cross-posted at Publius Endures).

Brokaw certainly put the screws to him, and I think it’s fair that Lieberman was taking the “Look, McCain was my friend and I supported him. What do you want from me?” defense.

Still, what’s important for Dems is that Joe is caucusing with them. That’s it. End of story.

So why don’t the netroots get this?

“With its congressional majority, the Democratic Party has refused to seriously try to end the war, to stop the bailout and to stop the trampling of civil liberties, just to name a few off the top of my head,” wrote David Sirota on the popular liberal blog OpenLeft, decrying the serial betrayals of Obama and the congressional Democratic majority. The Democratic Party, he wrote, has “faced no real retribution” for its manifold heresies, something that Sirota believes he and his band of angry bloggers must change. “We better understand why this happened,” he fumed. [...]

“He wasn’t sanctioned,” seethed Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos. “And Senate Democrats trying to make that claim are dishonestly trying to cover up the extent of their betrayal of the American people’s vote for change.”

Do these people not understand the idea of unity? I mean, come on here folks…do you really think the best use of Obama’s and the Dems’ political capital is to punish one of their own? Seriously…what kind of signal would that send?

Moving on…

Well, I got duped. But then again, so did MSNBC.

And not only that, Martin Eisenstadt does it in the blogosphere.

What a petty, sad hack.

Boy, yeah, that’s damning. How dare he.

jeezus…

Remember she of SNL fame?

Well, she apparently thinks that Obama may literally be the devil.

And no, it’s not a joke…

I don’t want a political label, but Obama bears traits that resemble the anti- Christ and I’m scared to death that un- educated people will ignorantly vote him into office.

You see, what bothers me most, besides being a Communist, and a racist (Obama writes in his book, From Dreams of My Father, “I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and and animosity against my (white) mother’s race.”) (Obama’s “religion” of the last 20 years is Black Liberation Theology. What is that? “It is simply Marxism dressed up in Christian rhetoric. But unlike traditional Marxism, Black Liberation Theology emphasizes race rather than class. It’s leading theorist is James Cone who says Jesus was black, African-Americans are the chosen people, and whites are the devil. Cone says, “What we need is the destruction of whiteness, which is the source of human misery in the world.” The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor), is that he is a LIAR. He pretends to be a Christian and he incriminates himself everytime he speaks about Christianity. To lie about being a believer in Christ is very dangerous. Lightning could strike him at any minute! But seriously, he doesn’t have a clue what the Bible says and yet he pretends to be a church- going Christian to win votes. That is sooooo evil.

Now, I have to give Victoria Jackson credit. Because that first sentence in the second paragraph is craziest use of parentheses I have ever seen.

Seriously…this entire thing is a sentence (parentheses italicized)…

You see, what bothers me most, besides being a Communist, and a racist (Obama writes in his book, From Dreams of My Father, “I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and and animosity against my (white) mother’s race.”) (Obama’s “religion” of the last 20 years is Black Liberation Theology. What is that? “It is simply Marxism dressed up in Christian rhetoric. But unlike traditional Marxism, Black Liberation Theology emphasizes race rather than class. It’s leading theorist is James Cone who says Jesus was black, African-Americans are the chosen people, and whites are the devil. Cone says, “What we need is the destruction of whiteness, which is the source of human misery in the world.” The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor), is that he is a LIAR.

In any event, it looks like BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) is going to be replaced with ODS if Obama does get elected.

Now used with equal zest by presidential candidates and unknowns running for low-level office, the calls that have generated controversy this month have been fixtures of national campaigns since the mid-1990s – despite little statistical evidence that they do anything more than annoy recipients.

“We, so far, found a perfect record of it never working,” said Donald Green, director of Yale University’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies, who studied the effect of robocalls in campaigns since 2000. “No one particularly welcomes these calls, even when they’re from an organization to which one is generally sympathetic.”

Understandably, the purveyors of this automated chatter disagree…

Gilmore, president of Democratic Dialing which makes calls for Democrats, said he is “obviously not convinced” by Green’s conclusions.

“The value of the calls is proven,” he said, when callers avoid inconvenient times and negative content. “The people who win campaigns use robocalls. They use them sensitively.” [...]

Originally, firms charged about 25 cents per call. But now they’re down to four cents – and some cost less than a penny, said Shaun Dakin, founder of the National Political Do Not Contact Registry.

So budget-conscious campaigns use them. Sixty-four per cent of registered voters received an automated call in the last two weeks of the 2006 congressional mid-terms, a Pew poll reported.

Just my guess on this…if people get swayed by an automated voice on a phone, then they were probably going to vote that way anyway.

In other words, I don’t think they work. And they’ll work even less as generations pass.

TIME has more messaging…

Mailer says Obama “thinks terrorists just need a good talking to” and is “not who you think he is.”

Being mailed in Missouri and Virginia.

Here’s McCain’s response…

Absolutely?

By the way, if Obama isn’t who we think he is…WHO is he? That’s the question I’d like McCain to answer. Tell us who he really is and maybe people can then make up their minds.

Anti-Americanism is now the mantra for the right wing.

Expect this to be the meme if Obama wins.