It is not enough to say to other people that he will not allow his patriotism to be questioned. (He has already "allowed" it - the question is, will he fight back?)

He needs to speak directly to John McCain. Challenge him to come on Larry King and tell him to his face that he would rather lose a war to win a campaign.

If McCain has not apologized by the time they debate, Obama needs to stop the debate and challenge McCain directly.

This is a golden opportunity for Obama to define himself. McCain is a bully. Bullies need to be confronted directly.

Posted at August 19, 2008 11:11 AM in response to Speaking To Veterans, Obama Directly Takes On McCain's Attacks On His Patriotism

Why oh why oh why are we not hearing this from the Obama campaign?

It is clear that the U.S. has been weakened by the Iraq war. Now the people who brought us the Iraq debacle want to entwine us in another fiasco - yet the anti-war candidate is parading as McCain Lite.

No. We don't want another war.

We want a candidate who does not endorse dumb wars.

When we voted for Obama in the primaries, we thought we had one.

Posted at August 15, 2008 1:26 PM in response to Behind The Scenes, Scheunemann Shilled For Georgia

Here's the key: Bush's policies have made the United States weaker. Pro-Georgia, Anti-Russia, whatever: because we're bogged down in Iraq we can't respond to ay new threats. If China were to march into Tibet we'd be just as toothless. Before the Iraq War, the U.S. just had to imply the use of force and enemies'd have to think twice. The Republicans have made the United States weaker.

That's the point Obama needs to hammer home over and over and over. Do we want to keep dicking around in a country that never attacked us, or do we want to come up with a strategy that deals with reality?

McCain can bluster all he wants but he can't send in troops and people will laugh at him if he says he can.

Posted at August 14, 2008 8:03 PM in response to Georgia: Background to War

Seems to me the point is this: the reason the U.

Posted at August 14, 2008 7:56 PM in response to Georgia: Background to War

I'm sure that Editorial boards working late into the night to figure out spin for desperate Republican candidates is the surest way for the newspaper business to bring itself back to profitability.

I wonder if it ever occurred to the honchos at the NY Times and the WaPo that, if they'd just done their jobs competently - that is, investigate stories and report the news - that their newspaper businesss would be just fine. There is always a need for real information. It's when news organizations turn themselves into propaganda outlets that people feel the need to go elsewhere for information.

All the boo-hooing over the state of the news business is corporate self-pity and incompetence. Imagine if these august news organizations had revealed that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction. Imagine what their perceived value would be today. Instead, they abdicated their duty and turned themselves into whores. Now the whores are complaining that people don't find them attractive anymore. When Fred Hiatt spends his time fellating the Republican party, he makes himself repulsive to the rest of us.

You'd think this would be obvious, but I guess they won't learn til they're actually out of business.

Posted at July 23, 2008 1:01 PM in response to Washington Post Editorial Falsely Claims Iraqi Political Leaders Don't Support Obama's Withdrawal Plan

What is with Ahmadinejad?

Why does he go around calling Israel a rotting corpse?

What good does it do Iran to provoke Israel?

If somebody was calling me a rotting corpse, it'd put me in a fighting mood. Eventually you get sick of being talked to like that.

We get de-sensitized to these kind of outrageous provocations against Israel, and think they should just ignore them...but, Jeez, how much can a guy take?

Why doesn't Ahmadinejad shut the fuck up? What's in it for him to keep poking Israel with a stick? I'm a peaceful person, and I sure don't want to see war break out, but I can understand that people can only be provoked so much.

Can anybody explain what's in it for Iran to allow Ahmadinejad to spout the nastiness he does?

Posted at May 15, 2008 2:07 AM in response to Iran: What's the Game?

One reason we're not hearing more about this is because Mukasey wouldn't even be AG if it weren't for Schumer shilling for him. Democratic "leaders" continually shoot themselves in the foot by playing ball with the Big Boys while claiming they are speaking on behalf of the Little Guy. Somebody needs to ask Schumer and Feinstein why they wanted Mukasey confirmed so badly. I'm sick of being sold out by people who speak in our names.

Posted at April 3, 2008 1:21 PM in response to Mukasey's 9/11 Bombshell

I'm glad you mentioned that specific article. It took my breathe away with it's wilfull misprepresentation of reality. Every once in a while, the Times just sticks some pure neocon propaganda into its pages, as if no one will notice, or as if to balance out some imaginary notion that it is a liberal paper (I think it was Colbert who complained that truth has a liberal bias).

Anyway, they publish a piece like that - which reveals itself, if not immediately, then within a few hours, to be utterly wrong. And utterly uninformed. And they do it with their own reporting!

And keep in mind that the NY Times is one of the only media outlets that is even bothering to report what's going on in Iraq. The TV news is silent, preferring to concentrate on their usual trivialities. And waiting to find out what the official spin is going to be so they can parrot it!

And yet, for all their efforts at propaganda, the whole thing is unraveling. What a spectacle.

Posted at March 31, 2008 12:36 PM in response to Today's Must Read

Interesting watching this play out in the media. They obviously have not figured out how to spin this debacle. Bush put his chips on Maliki. Maliki put his chips on this offensive. And they lost. Not only did they lose, they turned themselves into complete clowns.

So, where is John McCain? Nowhere to be found. This is the government we are supposed to support for the next 100 years? Which can't even impose its will on a militia group? Which is so out of touch with the reality on the ground that it stupidly makes threats and then gets its ass handed to it by a rag-tag group of fighters riding around in the back of pick-up trucks?

The media has been downplaying this story so much it has become part of the joke. They dutifully report the government spin from hotel rooms hundreds of miles away - until, finally, the NY Times finds one guy brave enough to actually go in there to check out what's going on - and it turns out the government doesn't control anything on the ground in southern Iraq. Even today, as the dust settles a bit, and it becomes obvious that our guys lost, the story is buried under other headlines, as if it's just one more headline out of many. This is huge. Bush's war is revealed for what it is - an unwinnable farce. This is what our people died for. To bring Moktada Al Sadr to power in Iraq. Let's see you spin this one, John McCain.

Posted at March 31, 2008 10:41 AM in response to Today's Must Read

I wouldn't mind seeing Woody Allen play Hamlet. That sounds kind of interesting, actually.

But there is something quite strange about the NY Times article. Mostly it seems like what's left after the lawyers got done with it.

But it succeeds in softening McCain up for more hard questions. Whether tis the proper role for a newspaper or not, that is the question.

Posted at February 22, 2008 7:07 PM in response to For the Times, Self-Doubt on Image Poses Its Own Risk