Earlier today, Trish wrote about the GOP’s concerted efforts to revise a 2004 campaign tactic and characterize Barack Obama as a flipflopper. On MSNBC’s “Countdown” last week, in anticipation of this new line of attack, Keith Olbermann went looking for instances in which John McCain had flipflopped and found 30 instances in which he’d done 180-degree reversals on a wide range of important issues.
Here’s the transcript:
Want to make a statement about your lack of faith? Have I got the t-shirts and hats and crap for you.
Hexed Clothing, which you will have to do a search on MySpace to find, offers a variety of apparel with slogans guaranteed to get you tossed out of Young Life camp, including:
Although the 24-year-old founder, who lives in nearby Jacksonville, lists Taurus as his zodiac sign on his MySpace page, he makes a good point in a recent article in Folio Weekly.
“It’s definitely more to make atheist people happy than to make Christians unhappy, but people hate it. They hate it. There’s a Jesus fish on every car in this parking lot, and that’s completely fine, but then I’ll get a message saying, ‘You’re shoving your beliefs in people’s faces!'”
I know what I’m getting you all for Christmas.
Republicans, lacking any other strategy, are determined to recycle the one that might have won them the election in 2004.* Sen. Joe Lieberman led the charge on ABC’s This Week, calling Sen. Barack Obama a flip-flopper so many times I wanted to slap him on the back to make his needle jump forward.
Lieberman listed every position Obama has spoken about recently as ones where he flip-flopped in order to pander to voters, even his stand on the death penalty for child rapists. But as Andrew Sullivan and anyone who read The Audacity of Hope knows, Obama, the father of two young girls, has always favored the death penalty in such cases and said so clearly in that book.
“While the evidence tells me that the death penalty does little to deter crime, I believe there are some crimes–mass murder, the rape and murder of a child–so heinous, so beyond the pale, that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment.”
But it was the attempt to hang the flip-flopper label on Obama about Iraq that really made Lieberman appear ridiculous. With former Army Ranger Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) calmly noting that Obama is departing not in the least from previous promises to end the American occupation of Iraq, wide shots showed Lieberman huffing and puffing and fairly rolling his eyes. When it was his turn to speak, he almost shouted his flip-flop rhubarb. Then George Stephanopoulos asked Lieberman a very good question. Why, if Obama’s position is now truly the same (and therefore correct) as McCain’s, as Lieberman insisted, should people vote for McCain? I thought Lieberman might lose it.
But Obama’s position is not the same as McCain’s. It’s the same as Obama’s and it has been from the get-go.
En route to a speech in St Louis…the Senator told reporters on his plane that the news cycle his comments caused was perplexing.
“I was a little puzzled by the frenzy that I set off by what I thought was a pretty innocuous statement, which is that I am absolutely committed to ending the war,†he said.
Obama reiterated his commitment to his withdraw plan again. “I will call my joint chiefs of staff and give them an assignment and that is to end the war,†he said. “I think what’s important is to understand the difference between strategy and tactics. I have always believed that our invasion of Iraq was a strategic blunder.â€
He continued, “The tactics of how we ensure our troops are safe as we pull out, how we execute the withdrawal. Those are things that are all based on facts and conditions, and you know I’m not somebody who, unlike George Bush, is willing to ignore facts on the basis of my preconceived notions…”
Sen. Obama — who plans a trip to Iraq this month — took issue with reporters who “finely calibrated†his statements, and specific words, on his Iraq War plan. “I wasn’t saying anything that I hadn’t said before,†Obama said.
“I don’t think in anyway it is inconsistent with prior statements and doesn’t change my strategic view that this war has to end and that I am going to end it as president,” he repeated again.
If only that would end the flip-flop charges. But the Republicans have nothing else — at least not yet — so they’re going to see if they can manipulate us again like they did last time. I’m tired of it already.
* If you believe they won in 2004 despite evidence to the contrary in Ohio.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has declared that his government has defeated terrorism in Iraq.
What this means is that surge is a success only in the sense that flooding the zone with security has tamped down violence and — here is the real point — neutralized Iraq as a domestic political issue in the presidential campaign.
“They were intending to besiege Baghdad and control it. But, thanks to the will of the tribes, security forces, army and all Iraqis, we defeated them,” al-Maliki declared, referring to recent government operations against Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.
Violence in Iraq is said to be at its lowest level in four years, a factor that is attributed to the surge of U.S. forces into the country.
So if the surge has been so successful, can we bring U.S. troops out of Iraq and leave internal national security to al-Maliki and the Iraqi military?
Of course not. We’re sending more troops to Iraq. Late in June, the Pentagon was said to be preparing to send in another 30,000 troops to Iraq in about six months to replace troops currently there in order to maintain 15 brigades in country.
What this means is that the surge is a success only in the sense that flooding the zone with security has tamped down violence and — here is the real point — neutralized Iraq as a domestic political issue in the presidential campaign.
Underlying the “success,” however, the morass of internecine religious conflicts, intrigue and power struggles is far from resolved and will undoubtedly raise its ugly head again when U.S. troops come out, if they ever do.
Former Sen. Jesse Helms, the North Carolina Republican, has died on the Fourth of July — just like Jefferson and Adams, although the similarities end there:
Former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, a North Carolina Republican who became an icon to conservatives, died Friday at the age of 86, a senior congressional source said.
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, announced on its website that he died at 1:18 a.m. Friday after having been ill in recent years.
Helms retired in 2002 at the end of his fifth term in the Senate.
When the Republicans were the majority party in the Senate, Helms was chairman of the powerful Foreign Relations Committee, where he consistently moved U.S. policy toward the right, especially regarding the United Nations and Cuba.
He also held seats on the Agriculture Committee, where he looked out for North Carolina’s extensive tobacco industry, and on the Senate Rules and Administration Committee…
Helms had an operation in 2002, at age 80, to replace a faulty prosthetic heart valve put in place in 1992, when he also had quadruple-bypass surgery.
After you watch this video of Tim Gunn and Mo Rocca discussing the finer points of polygamist style, you’ll probably find yourself thinking, “Where can I get these fashions for me and my family?”
Good news! Now you can buy polygamist fashions, handmade by the sister-wives themselves, from their website at FLDSDress.com
The future Mrs. Charlie CristPull out your wallets, kids, and prepare to wager. We’ll need two separate pools. One is for the person who most closely predicts how soon Charlie Crist, 51 and gay, will call off his engagement to Carole Rome, 38 and not quite divorced yet, if John McCain doesn’t pick him as his running mate. The other is for how long the marriage will last if McCain does pick him, or alternatively, if Charlie goes through with it just to prove he’s not gay. Which he is. Gay.
But first, let’s enjoy Charile’s newfound bliss vicariously, by reading how his engagement came to be.
Crist, 51, asked Carole Rome to marry him Thursday morning at his St. Petersburg apartment, giving her a blue sapphire ring surrounded by diamonds. She immediately said yes.
“I’m very happy and couldn’t be more pleased. What a great way to celebrate America’s birthday,” said Crist, who has been mentioned as a potential running mate for Republican presidential candidate John McCain. “We’ve been talking about it for quite a while. I asked her while we were looking out over Tampa Bay and I couldn’t think of a better place to do it.”
O.K., how many men not in the closet say they “couldn’t be more pleased” that the woman they passionately love accepted their proposal? And how many describe the experience as “a great way to celebrate America’s birthday?” That would be…let’s see…rounding off to the next decimal point…carrying the one…adjusting for the Eastern time zone…yeah, zero.
But maybe Charlie was flummoxed by the scope of it all.
Asked what made him fall in love, Crist said, “Her beautiful smile, her sweetness, her brilliance — all of it.”
“All of it?” “It?” Did he really just say, “all of it?” Why not, “Et cetera, et cetera. I am the king?”
Charlie is blaming his years of bachelorhood on the bad experience he had when he attempted heterosexual marriage in his youth. That time, the union lasted days.
“It made me be very selective, candidly. Those things tend to make you gun-shy a little bit, but I’m so blessed to have found such a wonderful woman,” Crist said. “It sure is great to find the right one…
“It will be awfully nice to have her at the mansion. It’s a big place to have to be alone in,” he said.
Yeah, once she moves in they can watch movies together and try each other’s sun screens (hope hers is better than his), and swap Lean Cuisines and stuff. Fun! But here’s the kicker.
Rome was previously married to Blue Star Jets president Todd Rome. She has two daughters, aged 9 and 11, but Crist said he hopes the couple has a child of their own someday.
She’s 38, Charlie. Someday better be real soon or you might have to use third-party assists like artificial insemination. Whoops, my bad.
It’s not Friday but it feels like it is, and you know what that means! Time to goof off and kill work hours online until the parties start. And have I got the fritter-er for you.
www.HowISpentMyStimulus.com is a bizarre cross between MySpace and PostSecret, but of course the subject is how people spent their stimulus checks. Some of it is pretty stimulating.
And on and on. The site is nicely done, and for some reason I probably don’t want to understand, utterly fascinating. Go see.
It’s summertime and the season is silly.
A new Associated Press poll released Wednesday finds that more Americans would rather have Barack Obama than John McCain come to their Independence Day barbecue:
While many are still deciding who should be president, by 52 percent to 45 percent they would prefer having Obama than McCain to their summer cookout, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll released Wednesday.
Men are about evenly divided between the two while women prefer Obama by 11 percentage points. Whites prefer McCain, minorities Obama. And Obama is a more popular guest with younger voters while McCain does best with the oldest.
Having Obama to a barbecue would be like a relaxed family gathering, while inviting McCain “would be more like a retirement party than something fun,” said Wesley Welbourne, 38, a systems engineer from Washington, D.C.
Party label means a lot, with three-quarters of Democrats picking the Democrat Obama and the same number of Republicans picking McCain, a Republican. Independents are about evenly split.
“John and I would probably have a lot to talk about,” said Republican Michael Mullen, 53, of Merrimac, Mass., like McCain a Navy veteran.
One in six people saying they’d vote for McCain prefer Obama as their barbecue guest; just one in 20 Obama backers would invite McCain.
Last week we noted that John McCain had managed to complete a full 180-degree reversal on his position on offshore drilling in a mere 18-day period. Now he’s topped that record by reversing a stated position within a single news cycle. Traveling in Colombia, he told reporters that he wouldn’t criticize Obama while he was overseas, but on the plane a few hours earlier he had criticized Obama while speaking to these same reporters for, what else, changing his position on trade:
“I believe that partisanship ends at the water’s edge,” McCain said emphatically, when asked about Obama at a press conference at the Colombian Presidential retreat here.
But on the inaugural flight of the Straight Talk Express — airborne edition -– McCain felt freer to let loose.
On the plane, he blasted Obama’s opposition to the proposed Colombia free trade deal.
“He’s a protectionist and anti-free trade,” McCain said. “Now he has switched, I mean remarkably, from saying that he would unilaterally renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement in the strongest possible terms in Ohio – he went to North Carolina and said well, I’m for free trade.
“It wouldn’t surprise me to see him switch on this one,” McCain said.
For his next trick, McCain will reverse himself before he even speaks.
In the diplomatic ranks, trained professionals toil,
To keep the peace and tamp down foreign turmoil.
But for Greek ambassador,
Trump picked an artful dodger —
The grifting, drunken blackmailer Kimberly Guilfoyle.
