Here is Barack Obama’s TV special, his closing argument infomercial that aired last night on all of the major networks and cost a few million dollars. There are stories about “average working Americans” followed by Obama detailing his plans and then images of Obama being greeted or hugged by older white women. I suppose it is moving if you’re a Democrat and over-the-top if you’re Republican. And if you’re not American, then all you can say is “only in America.” Not once did he mention or criticize McCain or Palin.
Michelle Obama on Leno
Once again, Michelle is proving that she is an ideal American and the most normal, gracious and well-spoken of any of the candidates, running mates, or their families.
Filed under Obama 08
Synchronized Presidential Debates
Thanks, William, for the heads-up.
How McCain Lost His Media Base
Recently I wrote about how the McCain campaign felt like it was being treated unfairly by the press. There I mentioned how prior to the GOP Convention, McCain was actually getting proportionally more positive coverage than Obama. Politico has written a story about how since the Convention, McCain has clearly “hosed in the press.”
The Project for Excellence in Journalism’s researchers found that John McCain, over the six weeks since the Republican convention, got four times as many negative stories as positive ones. The study found six out of 10 McCain stories were negative.
What’s more, Obama had more than twice as many positive stories (36 percent) as McCain — and just half the percentage of negative (29 percent).
So if the media was once McCain’s base, as he used to call them, what has changed since the GOP Convention to turn the press again McCain? Continue reading
Dave’s Top Ten
I hate to spread the hate, but I was just watching the latest Top Ten list from the Late Show with David Letterman, and it was pretty funny. Here it is:
Top Ten Sarah Palin Excuses For Spending $150,000 On Clothes
- The difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull: lipstick, Prada shoes, a Gucci handbag, and a few $3,000 suits
- In addition to every newspaper and magazine, I also read every catalog
- Hmm…excuses? I’ll find some and I’ll get right back to ya!
- Because the dollar is so weak, it’s really like I only spent $50,000
- I fell for the liberal retailers’ ‘gotcha sales tactics’
- Maverick, Joe the plumber, maverick, maverick, William Ayers, you betcha!
- Wanted to impress the American voters in the evening gown competition
- Auditioning to be Paris Hilton’s BFF
- The old man spends more on Polident
- Need to look good for the Russians who can see me in Alaska
In his monologue, Dave also had this good one-liner: “Sarah Palin doesn’t shop at low-end stores. As a matter of fact, she thinks Old Navy is John McCain’s nickname.” Jokes aside, I do think, as I have stated before, that the McCain campaign is to blame for the $150,000 shopping spree and not Sarah Palin.
Filed under Obama 08
McCain’s Shaky Performance
For the past few days, I have suffered from presidential election writer’s block. Actually, it’s not that I couldn’t think of anything to write, but there was nothing that interesting or novel to say that warranted a post. Nevertheless, today I finally decided to get my act together and write a few lines about some of the more interesting things we learned this week about the candidates and the election:
- Sarah Palin, though I do not believe she is directly to blame for the $150,000 wardrobe, the expensive stylist, and professional acting/speech coach, has not given a credible explanation. Rather, she has proven herself to be, as Maureen Dowd has repeated, nothing more than a My Fair Lady remake.
- The feeling of inevitable defeat has already begun to plague the Republican Party, and there is tension around the handling of Sarah Palin. While everyone panics and tries to save their own skin, Palin has gone from maverick to renegade, concentrating on her own political future.
- A valid worry is that the McCain Palin campaign’s mismanagement will infect many of the other state and federal races, giving the Democrats majorities nationwide and ousting Republican incumbents. McCain’s best argument, now much too late in the game to be successfully articulated, should have been about divided government and the perils of Democratic majorities in the House and Senate and a Democrat in the White House.
- As I wrote previously, the Obamas have become more representative of “America” than Mcain Palin’s small town “only served here” sign. Forget about whether or not a black man can become president, McCain’s own campaign has already conceded that Obama is the “mainstream” candidate with the mainstream media favoring him. As Frank Rich writes, white Americans already support Obama in higher numbers than they did Bill Clinton, Al Gore, or John Kerry. Would a fringe, angry, radical African American break all campaign finance records by rasing $150 million in a single month? I don’t know how Palin thinks Obama sees America, but a lot of Americans sure see Obama as worthy of their campaign donations.
While I was preparing to elaborate on the above, I took a short break to watch McCain on Meet the Press. I was stunned. While I have criticized McCain for his overly military-centeric and extreme shift to the right (including his choice of Sarah Palin), I have consistently avoided disqualifying him due to age. But on Meet the Press, McCain looked exhausted. His voice was shaky, his hands trembled, his tone was offbeat, and at one point he seemed to lose his bearing — giving him that forgetful senior moment that everyone has been hoping would not happen. Continue reading
Podcasts
After about a month and a half, I have only reached 1918 in Morocco Since 1830. That’s pretty slow, especially considering that I had been averaging about one book per week. So what’s going? The culprit is this darn election and me resorting to a combination of podcasts and other online sources of media. What is pretty amazing is that in both 2000 and 2004, I had trouble keeping abreast of the elections while living abroad, where now there is so much information (and disinformation) available online that is easy to stay tuned. That’s good news, except for the fact that I have a stockpile of interesting books waiting for me.
Luckily, the presidential race will come to its finish line by next week (in the absence of recounts, inshallah), and I can get back to reading. In the meantime, here is my podcast playlist: Continue reading
Filed under Digressions
With God’s Blessing, inshallah
In Arabic, all statements about the future are tempered by adding the phrase inshallah, meaning “God willing”. This comes from the Muslim precept that only God knows and determines the future; and therefore, it is a sign of arrogance and blasphemy to speak of the future without conditioning it on God’s will. Examples would include: I will see you later, inshallah; tomorrow I have an exam, inshallah; or I am going to Florida for Christmas, inshallah. Furthermore, its use is widely accepted by all Arabic speakers regardless of their religion (Islam, Christianity or Judaism). Even Spanish, heavily influenced by Arabic, adopted its own version of the expression — ojalá— to denote when one hopes for something to occur, i.e., ojalá que llueva café.
I wasn’t sure whether we had something similar in English until this morning when I heard Sarah Palin’s recent CNN interview. When asked what her role would be as vice president, Sarah Palin responded,
Well, we’ve talked a lot about that, John McCain and I have, about the missions that I’ll get to embark on if we are so blessed to be hired by the American people to work for them.
The “if we are so blessed” expression in American English is most commonly used by fundamentalist Christians to show that same degree of humbleness before God as does the Arabic inshallah. While I won’t doubt Sarah Palin’s sincerity, I can only imagine that by saying “if we are so blessed” she was also giving a wink out to her Christian voters.
Here’s what I would have liked to ask Sarah Palin in response. If ultimately you are not “so blessed”, but rather the will of God and that of a majority of American voters determine Barack Obama to be the next president, does that mean that Obama and Biden “are so blessed”? Could an Obama presidency be God’s will? And if so, wouldn’t you then have to accept God’s will and give Obama your full support?
Filed under Digressions, Essays, Obama 08
Grave Error 