Month: September 2011

Obama Campaign Launches Website to Fight Misinformation

Buck Banks

Forming the first line of defense against a barrage of misinformation won’t be easy. Our success will depend on a team of researchers and writers to stay on the lookout for false claims about the President and his record, bring you the facts, and hold our opposition accountable.

— Obama campaign manager Jim Messina, on the launch of a new website to handle misinformation against President Obama.

Republican Tea Party is Shaking Up the GOP Base

Buck Banks

For years I have tried to prove that the GOP isn’t the Party of elitist, stereotypical people that lack compassion. When did creativity and growth become secondary to hate? Hearing the debate crowds go crazy over things like executions and the uninsured dying makes me sick and sad for my Party that I devote my time and efforts.

— Sarah Reidy, the national director of scheduling for Jon Huntsman’s presidential campaign, quoted by The Ticket.

When Ron Paul’s Campaign Manager Became Ill and Uninsured in 2008, Dr. Paul Did ‘Let Him Die’

Jon Ponder

In Monday’s Republican presidential debate sponsored by CNN and the Republican Party front group, Tea Party Express, moderator Wolf Blitzter asked Rep. Ron Paul a hypothetical question. How would Paul and his followers handle it in their everyone-for-himself fantasy world, if a 30 year old man who had chosen not to buy insurance were to get sick and require long-term care.

Rep. Paul, a physician, dissembled for a few seconds before Blitzer prompted him, “Are you saying that society should just let him die?”

Before Paul could answer, several of his followers in the audience were heard cheering and shouting, “Yeah!”

But, as Mark Karlin at BuzzFlash/Truthout pointed out yesterday, the question was not actually hypothetical:

[…]

George Bush Never Ceases to Amaze …

Buck Banks

The adrenaline was coursing through my veins, and the ball felt like a shotput. And Todd Greene, the catcher, looked really small. Sixty feet and six inches seemed like a half-mile. And anyway, I took a deep breath and threw it, and thankfully it went over the plate. The response was overwhelming. It was the most nervous I had ever been. It was the most nervous moment of my entire presidency, it turns out.

— Former President George W. Bush, in a Time/HBO documentary, saying that the most nerve-wracking moment of his presidency was throwing out the ceremonial first pitch during Game One of the 2001 World Series. Yep — after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

9/11 and Our Nation’s Not-So-Secret Secret Shame

Buck Banks

Paul Krugman posted the following in the New York Times Op-Ed blog Sunday. He has since come under some pretty fierce criticism, but, as Dave Weigel pointed out, “denying that 9/11 and counterterrorism strategy became ‘wedge issues’ is denying a few years of political history. The criticism is of Krugman for expressing it.”

The Years of Shame

Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?

Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?

The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.

I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.