The Pop View's Blogtag:www.talkingpointsmemo.com,2008:/talk/blogs/the_pop_view//17322008-09-17T21:47:49ZMovable Type Pro 4.21-enThe fundamentals ARE strongtag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2008:/talk//17.2176612008-09-17T21:47:49Z2008-09-17T21:47:49ZI believe that the fundamentals of our economy are strong.And by "fundamentals," I mean that a good portion of currency is made of of metal. Have you ever tried to bend a quarter? It's hard! Those paper bills are also...The Pop View And by "fundamentals," I mean that a good portion of currency is made of of metal. Have you ever tried to bend a quarter? It's hard! Those paper bills are also pretty sturdy; they last a long time.
I think you'd have to be pretty un-American to suggest that you don't like the fundamentals of our economy, by which I mean our coins and bills, since they all have pictures of our past American presidents on them. Well, Sacagawea and Ben Franklin are also on there, but the point is that I won't stand for people attacking our fundamentals. ]]>
McCain doesn't get it uptag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2008:/talk//17.2035382008-07-10T19:06:01Z2008-07-10T19:06:01ZThe Pop View
this clip from Morning Joe? This question posed is whether it's fair that health insurance covers Viagra and not contraceptives. Yes, it's funny to watch McCain struggle, but also instructive that he ducks the whole issue.
I think he needs to be asked this one again, if only for comedy purposes. ]]>
Bye Bye Byetag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2008:/talk//17.2031852008-07-08T17:47:34Z2008-07-08T17:47:34ZThe Pop View But the response from an aide was to point out “that boy-band ‘NSync’ also sold out Invesco twice…NSYNC was at Mile High twice, in 2000 and 2001.”
Oh, so many problems.
*NSYNC is a boy band, so this only serves again to demonstrate that McCain is old and Obama is not.
Really? *NSYNC? Are we going from flashing back to 1967 to flashing back to 1998? Can you only look back, Senator McCain?
Since Invesco opened on September 10, 2001, that would have been a neat trick for *NSYNC to sell it out the previous year.
Is the point to be that it's no big deal if Obama fills Invesco, because even *NSYNC filled it twice? So, what's the big deal with Obama - he's only as popular as one of the biggest music acts of the last decade? ]]>
Scraping at the teflontag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2008:/talk//17.2031822008-07-08T17:32:01Z2008-07-08T17:32:01ZIf you saw Countdown last night, as Rachel Maddow and Richard Wolfe discussed why Obama was taking heat over the 4th of July weekend about supposedly shifting position over Iraq, accompanied by old Obama quotes with the same position, you...The Pop View
Countdown last night, as Rachel Maddow and Richard Wolfe discussed why Obama was taking heat over the 4th of July weekend about supposedly shifting position over Iraq, accompanied by old Obama quotes with the same position, you may have gotten frustrated all over again over the disparity. I'm not worried so much about the knocks Obama takes; if he can't take the knocks, he won't be ablt to be president.
It's that McCain flips and flops and lies on a regular basis, documented by his own public record, and nobody says "boo."
But rather than getting frustrated, we should be pushing back against every media outlet, every time we catch them doing it. That means sending intelligent letters and e-mails to all media outlets, including your local TV stations and newspapers. If we keep up the heat, perhaps we can shift the tide. ]]>
Barry People - Can we chill?tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2008:/talk//17.2005022008-06-17T19:05:52Z2008-06-17T19:05:52ZThe Pop View
Was The Media Unfair To Hillary? Commenters went berserk. I understand that they think the question was asked unfairly. I understand the perception that Obama and Clinton weren't treated the same. I understand that some think Obama got treated more roughly. I understand that some think Sargent was suggesting that Obama supporters were tolerating or egging on the attacks on Clinton.
But I thought most of the points that Sargent raised were fair. He gives the Clintons far more credit than I would for having good intentions. But there's no way to prove it. I thought Obama's "likeable enough" comment wasn't very graceful. I understand that politicians don't always express things in the most graceful fashion.
My perception was that both Bill and Hillary were letting their emotions overtake their intellect. They felt under attack. They felt they were being denied things they were owed. And so they spoke in a manner that seemed to suggest additional meanings.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the Clintons are that ruthless. Maybe they meant that black politicians can only attract black voters, that hope is a fair tale, that someone might take a shot at Obama. But that way lies madness. I sure don't want Obama held to that standard.
I'm just saying, can we chill out a little? The Obama team won. Can we be magnanimous in our victory? It's ridiculous enough that Clinton supporters are talking about voting for McCain. We won. So can we stop whining about how Obama got tougher treatment than Clinton, how Clinton and her supporters were mean or nasty, how we need to keep fighting this battle?
The general has started. Let's keep our eyes on the prize. The real enemy is the Republicans and John McCain. Let's aim the anger in the right direction. ]]>
Obama Web Effortstag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2008:/talk//17.2000912008-06-13T20:46:20Z2008-06-13T20:46:20ZThe Pop View
FightThe Smears.com site. Makes sense since everyone knows this will be an incredibly ugly campaign. Ralph Reed has supposedly said recently that there's no way McCain will win this election, but Obama may lose it. I see this unfolding as the Republicans throwing as much crap as they can at Obama. If he can't do a strong enough job of responding, he loses.
The Fight The Smears site isn't really a site; that domain name simply redirects to a page on the MyBO site. My instinct would have been to make it more free-standing. I would agree with Kevin Drum's observation that the content structure will be hard to maintain once the accusations start piling up. Do you only show the newest smears at the top? What about will become of Golden Oldies by July, such as the Muslim smear? If a smear is "popular," shouldn't it be immediately apparent as you visit that page?
(I'm not suggesting Fight the Smears should turn into a All-Barry-All-The-Time version of Snopes.com.)
By the way, I haven't been paying attention to the campaign blogs, but I would draw your attention to the critique of the McCain and Obama blogs by Mike Turk. if the content he describes is accurate, then the Obama campaign is on the wrong track. Don't be scared off by the Amanda Marcotte incident; a blog should be bloggy to succeed. ]]>
Fighting for voter right? You're a little late.tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2008:/talk//17.1979722008-06-01T15:35:38Z2008-06-01T15:35:38ZThe Pop View
WaPo of Saturday's Rules and Bylaws Committee fight, both the main story and Dana Milbank's Sketch. My issue is that a great deal of attention was paid to the fight, while little was given to why - if these people are sincere about fighting for voter right - this is a little late coming.
I found Neil Sinhababu's argument convincing, that there were legitimate reasons for what the DNC did. But you might feel otherwise. You might find the DNC's decisions to deauthorize the Florida & Michigan primaries to be draconian.
But the time to argue about this was last year. Check the timeline. This didn't start in January. Each candidate knew what the rules were in advance. If Clinton supporters felt so strongly about disenfranchisement and civil rights, they've had seven months to make this case. I'm pretty sure we haven't heard a peep out of them until the issue threaten Senator Clinton's campaign.
I'd love to push these people back on this point. This is like Africa & Selma? Then where were your efforts on this front back in late 2007? Where was the fight? If this is a legitimate issue, then it shouldn't matter who benefits from the results. And if you truly care about the voters, then what were you doing to protect them before their primaries took place, when not only the rights of those who voted would be protected, but also those who chose to stay home because they knew their vote wouldn't count? ]]>
Why should W. VA be a model for anything?tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2008:/talk//17.1950132008-05-14T16:21:40Z2008-05-14T16:21:40ZThe Pop View Let's start by ignoring the "hardworking" = "white" aspect of Clinton's remarks. Unfortunate, but I'm not sure she meant it the way it sounds. And it sounds terrible when you say it like that.
But the argument is that lower income, working class white voters will go for Clinton, not Obama. And everyone seems to admit that race plays a big role (in addition to the Muslim thing and the "weird name" thing, which is also part of his race).
For example, "Racist Incidents Give Some Obama Campaigners Pause" in WaPo this week is dispiriting. If accurate, there is a certain section of the country and part of West Virginia that rejects Obama based largely (or solely) on his race. The source seems to be a mix of ignorance and/or racism.
So, if Clinton's right and she will win the vote of these people while Obama will not, what are we supposed to do with that? Is a big percentage of the electorate so ignorant or racist that Obama can't win? Should we feed that condition out of pure pragmatism?
I know I'm being naive when I believe that America is better than that. I know I'm being a little foolish when I believe that America has improved over the last 50 years, that voters are capable of being lifted above their current state, that their minds can be changed. Hope and idealism can be an audacious state.
This was the heart of my issue with Clinton's remarks about LBJ and LMK. Yes, the federal government runs the show. Hoping and wishing doesn't make change happen. But Malcolm and Martin and a lot of other people pressed on anyway. To a certain extent, they didn't achieve their goals. But we wouldn't be where we are today without their efforts. I don't want Obama to be another Carter, but I don't want 4-8 years of cautious pragmatism either.
It's too bad about West Virginia. I'm frustrated not that Clinton won, but that Obama lost by so much. It appears that the state and so many of those "hard-working Americans, white Americans" were hostile or indifferent to Obama's message. But means that Obama just has to work harder to sell his message. I'm hoping he can find a way to better connect with the working class, with Latinos, with different sort of white voters who fear him.
Let's not give in to the tides of West Virginia. Let's aim higher. ]]>
"So we were wrong, so what?"tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2008:/talk//17.1947842008-05-13T17:10:38Z2008-05-13T17:10:38ZThe Pop View
this from the neocons. It also came up with Doug Feith on The Daily Show last night (see uncut interview part 1 & part 2).
The Bush administration pushed a specific set of arguments in favor of going to war, based on the threat of Hussein & Iraq. I think there's a great deal of evidence that they wanted to go to war even before they came into office in January of 2001 and I also think there's also evidence that they deliberately ginned up evidence. But let's put those two points aside.
They were wrong. Totally wrong. They weren't even in the suburbs of the neighborhood of Right. But five years later, they brush this aside. They thought there was a threat, so isn't that justification enough?
...a known murderer walking down a dark alley with his hand stuck inside his jacket. The police shout at him to put his hands up, yet he continues to walk toward them. After he ignores still more warnings, they shoot him dead, only to discover he was unarmed. Were they wrong to shoot him?
I guess with this mindset, they would argue that we can put up with a few Amadou Diallos and Sean Bells in the name of safety. I think Ron Suskind's The One Percent Doctrine makes it clear that if you assume every potential threat is a probable threat, then you waste your resources and end up less safe. You can't assume that if you're wrong about Saddam's threat, there's no harm. Safer to knock him out first based on the hypothetical and ignore the consequences.
Watch the last minute or so of the Stewart interview. Feith's defense is that if Bush had left Saddam in power and "if the things we were worried about as an administration and a country had materialized," then people would be criticizing them. But that standard of evidence can justify anything, as the Bush administration proves all the time. I should be able to do whatever I want, because I'm acting in good faith, and if I'm wrong, we shouldn't worry, because what if I had been right?
Enough. You were wrong. Take your goddamn beating. ]]>
The People Made Me Do Ittag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2008:/talk//17.1942622008-05-09T20:15:19Z2008-05-09T20:15:19ZThe Pop View
McCain is claiming he can't help it? Clinton had to raise the dirt because the Republicans would eventually do so. McCain has to raise dirt, even if unfounded, because it's a fact that is of interest to the American people?
You know, if you're going to be a bastard, as least own your bastardry.
Worth noting that when McCain got hit with the "100 years" TV ad that used his own words, he wasn't so crazy about it being "true" and "of interest to the American people." ]]>
Why Clinton failed & the netrootstag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2008:/talk//17.1942582008-05-09T19:50:01Z2008-05-09T19:50:01ZHow scary is it that two examples this week of trenchant analysis of the failed Clinton campaign came from Time Magazine and Charles Krauthammer?In general, for someone who believes in the r/evolution of the netroots and who desires change from...The Pop ViewTime Magazine and Charles Krauthammer?
In general, for someone who believes in the r/evolution of the netroots and who desires change from the nonsense of the past decade, this feels like a great moment. Let's hope Obama doesn't screw this up.
From the OED: 1912 McClure's Mag. "From the Roosevelt standpoint, especially, it was a campaign from the ‘grass roots up’. The voter was the thing."]]>
Hillary's choice of wordstag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2008:/talk//17.1942462008-05-09T19:12:25Z2008-05-09T19:12:25ZThe Pop View When she said Obama wasn't Muslim, as far as she knew, why did she have to add the qualifier? One can attribute it to the usual political strategy of always leaving wiggle room, but does she think he's going to turn out to be secretly Muslim after all? I'm not sure she intended to make the suggestion, but she sure didn't try to clean it up later either.
Bill's comments in South Carolina about Jesse Jackson may have not been meant racially, but they were dismissive enough to count as such.
It's when you look at all of these comments together. When you misspeak or just express yourself in a way that can be taken in a negative fashion, and you do it again and again over the course of months, when does it stop being simple misunderstanding? Maybe it's just their defensiveness. Maybe it's the way Bill tried to claim the race card had been played on him. Maybe if they showed the slightest sensitivity to the aftermath of their actions, they might not be in this trouble.
But since they seem incapable of thinking of anything other than personal victory, I guess it's hard to tell what might have been. I suppose we'll all kiss-and-make-up. A tiny part of me, the vengeful part, would like to see the Clintons pay a price. I guess not winning is punishment enough. God knows we'll need 'em for the general.