Oh No! We're Podcasting!
Here's my opening shot.
You know spring has come to Washington. Not just the cherry blossoms. But the flowering of all those pie charts and bar graphs lugged up Capitol Hill by General Petraeus. And then there's that unmistakeable whiff of cow dung in the morning air.
Here's a text version as it appears in my latest column.
April 10th, 2008 at 9:15 am
Of course its theatre and you media types love it. If you really wanted to inform rather than rant you’d note the single most important part of the Senate Dog-And-Pony show. That was when Joe Biden asked what was the central fron on the war on terrorism: Iraq or Pakistan border/Afghanistan and got the dynamic duo to admit that it was the latter - case closed. Also note that Sen. Warner once again asked if our operations in Iraq were making us safer and Petraeus had to answer again that he didn’t know - this time saying you should ask the President.
Point, set, match. But that was not the story now was it? People know this is a farce. But no thanks to you. Its a wonder that 70% want out.
April 10th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
If Afghanistan/Pakistan is the central front in the war on terror (WOT), then the WOT is in serious trouble. Here is where I part company with Obama, who wants to shift our troops there–did we learn no lessons from the Russian experience?
April 10th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
“….did we learn no lessons from the Russian experience?”
No, you didn’t.
April 10th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
See no progress. Hear no progress. Speak no progress.
The left are wetting themselves for another Vietnam, and getting more angry they aren’t going to get it.
No drilling, no nuckes, no oceans, no energy for 30 f__king years. We will be in the Middel East as long as we are dependent on them for blood transfusions. Which may be 100 years, depending on how stubborn and backward the Democrats remain, regardless of whose President.
Live with it or leave.
April 10th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Oh, I guess Michael did. To a country less stubborn…….and paranoid.
April 10th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
‘Nuckes’ is ‘nukes’. ‘Middel’ is Middle’ damn it.
April 11th, 2008 at 2:27 am
Jim R’s take on things might have been part of the mainstream discussion a couple of years ago, but now it is just pathetic. The world moves on…
April 11th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Jim R: lefties are “wetting themselves…”?
Are you suggesting incontinence in old age?
An ideological wet T-shirt contest (in honor of spring break)?
April 11th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
- Barack Obama
Discuss among yourselves.
April 11th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Idiots like bob williams would never even be curious about the actual context for these remarks–eg, the several hundred words that preceded them–which make them entirely reasonable, and, in fact, very insightful. Keith Olbermann discussing this tonight among others.
April 11th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Anyone else? Balter seems kinda touchy tonite.
April 11th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Here’s the full transcript, which bob williams had just as easy access to as I did. I do get touchy when I realize that our Constitution allows assholes to vote along with the rest of us.
OBAMA: So, it depends on where you are, but I think it’s fair to say that the places where we are going to have to do the most work are the places where people feel most cynical about government. The people are mis-appre…I think they’re misunderstanding why the demographics in our, in this contest have broken out as they are. Because everybody just ascribes it to ‘white working-class don’t wanna work — don’t wanna vote for the black guy.’ That’s…there were intimations of that in an article in the Sunday New York Times today - kind of implies that it’s sort of a race thing.
Here’s how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn’t buy it. And when it’s delivered by — it’s true that when it’s delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter).
But — so the questions you’re most likely to get about me, ‘Well, what is this guy going to do for me? What’s the concrete thing?’ What they wanna hear is — so, we’ll give you talking points about what we’re proposing — close tax loopholes, roll back, you know, the tax cuts for the top 1 percent. Obama’s gonna give tax breaks to middle-class folks and we’re gonna provide health care for every American. So we’ll go down a series of talking points.
But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
Um, now these are in some communities, you know. I think what you’ll find is, is that people of every background — there are gonna be a mix of people, you can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you’ll find Obama enthusiasts. And you can go into places where you think I’d be very strong and people will just be skeptical. The important thing is that you show up and you’re doing what you’re doing.
April 11th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
I don’t know if I am against pro-trade or for anti-trade. I don’t know about Obama, either.
April 11th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Well, I think what Obama said had much truth in it. Certainly he knows the South side of Chicago where steel mills once ruled and the largest USW local was a power. All gone. But what he did was dangerous because it could, and is being , misconstrued as an elitist attack on blue collar america. Both Hillary and Johnny Bomb-bomb went that route. Funny, in Michigan McCain told the auto workers that their jobs weren’t comming back but that was straight talk.
Read what he said - even the excerpt from Williams. Anyone here really think they still think elections matter? Do you? Obama makes a lot of people believers in a way that Hil can’t.
But given our media environment never assume anything. We are not a serious people.
April 11th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Balter: Keith Olbermann discussing this tonight among others.
Well, that should be a fair and objective explanation.
April 11th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Yes we’ll gather at the ri-ver!
[Bang! BANG! Damn furriners!]
The beau-tee-ful, the beau-tee-ful RI-ver!
[Bang! Stupid furrin trade! Bang!}
April 11th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
LBrent Bozell - Real good Woody!
April 11th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
RLC,
That’s all he’s got: an echo chamber.
April 11th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Here bob…
http://tinyurl.com/58sdcu
http://tinyurl.com/56ah3n
Try again.
April 11th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Mr. Obummr, Is you a say’in if’n we stop cling’in to our gun and stop have’in bad think’ins about people who ain’t llike us and start a praise’n you instead’a our Jesus, you will be forgivin us of our our bad thinkin and there will be peace in the valley someday?
Like Hell! Praise Jesus and pass the ammo.(Bang! Damn CarpetBaggers! Bang!)
—————————
Not as good as yours Bob, but then I ain’t a real asshole. Thanks for the comedic relief. I challenge Michael to lighten up and do us one better.
If he does, Im buying the White Lighting.
April 12th, 2008 at 1:30 am
Actually the only people condescending to those people in places like Allentown and Latrobe are the folks like Jim R who must feel that the yokels are so dumb they don’t know that DC’s Great and Good have been dumping on them. I’ll give them credit. They know the pols have lied to them and their lives have stayed in a downward path as a result. But then people here probably think of factory work as inherently demeaning anyway.
April 12th, 2008 at 4:08 am
Reg:
I know this is a lefty blog, but I assure you: It’s perfectly possible for normal Americans to believe that a) the Clintons are corrupt, sleazy and ruthless; and b) Obama is arrogant, condescending, and comically inept outside his his left-academic/urban political milieu.
Damn. I just said “milieu.”
April 12th, 2008 at 6:23 am
“arrogant, condescending and comically inept outside his… milieu”
Sorry bob, but that would be John McCain - the testy, egotistical guy, married to money, who can’t keep the factions straight in Iraq five year into the war among other absurdities of his V.2008. I’m waiting for the first McCain public blow-up…I can’t remember a candidate in my lifetime more dependent on the “MSM” to paper over his lack of coherence and flip-flopping, nor his ridiculous conceits about himself as “maverick” or “straight-talker.”
And of course, bob, it’s perfectly possible for “normal Americans” to believe almost anything. But abnormal folks like you - the kind who post on blogs - would do well to try to make a coherent argument from evidence. The notion that Obama is perceived as arrogant, condescending and comically inept by “normal Americans” sounds like one of those “Chris Matthewsisms” wherein someone who’s utterly disconnected from reality invokes the notion of “the regular guy” to provide cover for their own cluelessness and condescention.
April 12th, 2008 at 8:45 am
milieu? I don’t do well with French. Stick to Texan words.
April 12th, 2008 at 10:07 am
“the testy, egotistical guy, married to money”
So, reg, now that we know how you feel about Kerry…..
April 12th, 2008 at 10:35 am
You’re stuck with him GMR, but I still contend he’s the best of the GOP lot. And I think he’ll do about as well as his friend John Kerry…
April 12th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Reg, as usual, you are wrong… I’m not stuck with any of the big three and probably won’t vote for anyof the big three. In fact, I’m just as likely to vote for Obama or Hillary as McCain and there IS NO WAY I’LL VOTE FOR HILLARY OR OBAMA… So, what does that tell you. Hillary, McCain and Obama are all three phonies, liars and power hungry. You think Bush is bad, wait till you get one of the three stooges.
April 12th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Sorry…I forgot about the Bob Barr option. Good luck. If it’s any consolation, I hope Barr does better than Nader.
April 12th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
I don’t think Woody will support Bob Barr.