Monday, September 8, 2008

Blood Pressure Rising

I wrapped my weekend round-up entry with the following:

Obama has run a smart, impressive, if imperfect, campaign thus far. Every time it seems like he's adrift at sea, he comes back with something impressive and redeeming.

I said this partially as a reminder to myself not to get so caught up in the bullshit spin cycle that I start to lose hope, as it were.

I bring it up again because when the first thing you see on a Monday morning is that not only was McCain's bounce pretty big, but that: ...it is interesting to note the enthusiasm the choice of Sarah Palin has brought to the Republican ticket...the poll also shows that Palin's speech in St. Paul, Minn., overshadowed McCain's. Forty-two percent of respondents rated Palin's address as "excellent...", one starts to get a little deflated.

Can you blame me for being a little paranoid about the US populace when it seems to get excited about voting in another science-ignoring, power-abusing, half-ass-planning, reform-promise-failing Republican into the White House?

No, I don't think you can.

That said, it's still too early to say that these numbers are meaningful...I'm just not gonna relax, is all.
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Giving further proof to the lie about the MSM having a liberal bias, Glenn Greenwald reports that MSNBC is caving in to Right wing demands/whingeing by removing Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann from the anchor spot during their news.

Nevermind that the Right has an entire channel dedicated to spewing their vileness; nevermind that they have an operative in every news organization in existence; nevermind that a news organization shouldn't be kowtowing to anyone. Apparently, Olbermann pointing out that graphic footage of 9/11/01 being aired just before the Reps roll out McCain might be just a teensy bit exploitative is too tough for the extremely sensitive skinned little mama's boys on the Right. Oh, and Rachel Maddow is also too mean. (My fantasies take Maddow over Palin in a heartbeat, for the record.)

I don't know about you, but I'm writing a letter. I don't care if MSNBC has hidden the email address to the head cheese over there, I'm fuggin' blowing my top and sending it to: letters@msnbc.com

Dear god, people.
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Finally, I'm seeing a lot of rational discourse on these issues, but no narrative-spinning from the top. Let's get to it, folks.

2 comments:

JJisafool said...

The Right is damn good at drawing false parallels, like the idea that the theories of evolution and creationism deserve equal time, regardless of the fact that creationism doesn't fit into any kind of scientific debate. And, personally, I've found that they can whine about everything, always convinced someone else has more - witness them casting themselves as beleaguered victims when they controlled the White House and Congress and were busily reshaping the SC.

As for the Palin pick and the McCain bump, he actually made, at least in the short-term, a smart pick. She's a great smoke screen, and has managed to deflect any sense of an issues-based campaign for the moment.

Recall that these bumps often don't last. Vigilance.

And, yeah, let's see some of that damn vision-thing in narrative form - tell me a story about tomorrow's America, Mr. Obama.

Deni said...

We should also remember, as we learned from the first Grover Cleveland-Benjamin Harrison race (and one more recent one that I can't recall right now), that the overall popular vote doesn't mean shit.

Look at the state by state polls, and Obama right now leads in enough states to put him over 270 electoral votes. And that's with giving Ohio and Florida to McCain.