Reactions to story from Media Matters

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  Ben Stein goes off the deep end. Suggests Obama is similar to Hitler.

  http://stupidevilbastard.com/index/seb/comments/ben_stein_go...
  44 days ago in Stupid Evil Bastard: Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger. · Authority: 133

  Its bad enough that Ben Stein buys into the Intelligent Design nonsense. Now while chatting with Conservative douchebag pundit Glen Beck he suggest that Obama could be Hitler reborn: STEIN: I wantIm glad you brought up this Denver thing. I dont like the
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  Ben Stein Compares Obama to Hitler

  http://www.cynical-c.com/?p=11073
  43 days ago in Cynical-C Blog - · Authority: 488

  Even Glenn Beck didnt go that far during the interview. He just compared Obama to Mussolini. Summary: On Glenn Beck, Ben Stein, while discussing Sen. Barack Obamas plan to deliver his speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination at Denvers
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  McCain Chooses Self-Described “Hockey Mom” as VP

  http://bahumuth.bitfreedom.com/mccain-chooses-selfdescribed-...
  7 days ago in Political Rants · Authority: 1

  The McCain campaign has been relentlessly attacking Obama on not having “experience”, because, you know, he only first became a state Senator in ‘97, and then McCain taps Sarah Palin, who would be the least experienced vice president in U.S. history, having only been a governor of the crowned-king of backwater states for 20 months. Only 2 months ago she said she said she couldn’t answer whether she would accept a VP nomination because she didn’t know what the Vice President did, and now she’s going to be 1 heart attack away from the most powerful office in the world. Oh yeah, and she’s also being investigated by the ethics committee on charges that she tried to get a state trooper fired for divorcing her sister. But hey, she’s perfect for Republicans, since she can pick up all the Hillary PUMAs (Party Loyalty My Assers) who wanted a woman in the White House. http://www.wptv.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=d7ed3b72-8de4-481e-9a9c-68a2a3a12090 http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/29/palin-corruption-investigation/ http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/08/29/sarah-palin-july-2008-i-dont-even-know-what-the-vice-president-does/ http://www.thrfeed.com/2008/08/commander-in-ch.html Also, a new report from a non-partisan military think tank says the military actions rarely solves terrorism. http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9351/index1.html ====== Also, since it’s the anniversary or Katrina and I’m going to be running away from Gustav later this evening (but really because I was talking about this with my friend Im), I’m reposting this quote from Mary Landrieu it in a Slate article about how Bush spent more time on his own damage control than Hurricane Katrina: “So George and I went up in the helicopter and for three hours his jaw was dropping. Then I said, ‘George, before we finish I have to show you one positive thing because I can’t send you back to Washington to produce a story that shows nothing but devastation and disaster.’ So I told the pilot to tack right so I can show George the 17th Street Canal and the work that was going on there. I swear as my name is Mary Landrieu I thought that what I saw with the president was still there — people working, trucks, sandbags, everything. Then I looked down and saw one little crane. It was like someone took a knife and stabbed me through my heart. I lost it.” There, in the cabin of the helicopter, as they flew above the breached canal below them, Landrieu sat devastated. “I could not believe that the president of the United States, staged by Karl Rove himself, had come down to the city of New Orleans and basically put up a stage prop. It was like you had gone to a studio in California and filmed a movie. They put the props up and the minute we were gone they took them down. All the dump trucks were gone. All the Coast Guard people were gone. It was an empty spot with one little crane. It was the saddest thing I have ever seen in my life. At that moment I knew what was going on and I’ve been a changed woman ever since. It truly changed my life.” http://www.salon.com/books/excerpt/2008/06/06/rove_katrina/index2.html Even the head of FEMA who Bush installed, Michael Brown, has admitted that there was no plan and that he was told by White House officials after the disaster to lie to put a more positive spin on the Federal response: BROWN: The lie was that we were working as a team and that everything was working smoothly. And how we could go out, and I beat myself up almost daily for allowing this to have happened, to sit there and go on television and talk about how things are working well, when you know they are not behind the scenes, is just wrong. O’DONNELL: So let me get this clear. Someone in the White House was telling you to lie? BROWN: Well, yes. They give you the talking points. Whenever you go out to do any interviews they always have the talking points. Here’s what the message for today is and here’s how we are going to spin everything. That’s just the way Washington, D.C. works and that’s just wrong. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14570837/ Bush Warned Before Katrina Hit http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11627394/ =========== And let me also repost the stuff I’ve said about the “liberal media”: It’s a simple fact that there are a lot more conservative talk shows than liberal talk shows on basic cable and the radio, due mostly thanks to the huge tilt from Fox News. As far as I know, Countdown With Keith Olberman is the only openly liberal television news show on cable, discounting comedy shows (I don’t have reception right now, so this may not be up to date). Here’s a comparison I did of Fox News vs. CNN/CNN Headline News pundits: http://bahumuth.bitfreedom.com/liberalconservative-news-pundit-comparison “Look at the op-ed pages. Compare the number of conservative columnists with liberal columnists. Listen to talk radio. Count the number of nationally syndicated liberal talk-show hosts. Watch the cable TV talk shows. Count the number of liberal and conservative pundits. Conservatives far outnumber liberals.” http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/02/21/column.billpress/ “Unlike BBC’s network of reporters and bureaus, CNN International makes extensive use of affiliated reporters that are local to, and often directly affected by, the events they are reporting. The effect is a more immediate, less detached style of on-the-ground coverage. This has done little to stem criticism, largely from Middle Eastern nations, that CNN International reports news from a pro-American perspective. This is a marked contrast to domestic criticisms that often portray CNN as having a “liberal” or “anti-American” bias.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN “Examining the ‘Liberal Media’ Claim” http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2447 “How the Liberal Media Myth is Created” http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/003973.php http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/003980.php “Fox’s vitality comes as a consequence of another significant change in the media landscape. Political polarization is increasingly reflected in the public’s news viewing habits. Since 2000, the Fox News Channel’s gains have been greatest among political conservatives and Republicans. More than half of regular Fox viewers describe themselves as politically conservative (52%), up from 40% four years ago. At the same time, CNN, Fox’s principal rival, has a more Democrat-leaning audience than in the past. The public’s evaluations of media credibility also are more divided along ideological and partisan lines. Republicans have become more distrustful of virtually all major media outlets over the past four years, while Democratic evaluations of the news media have been mostly unchanged. As a result, only about half as many Republicans as Democrats rate a variety of well-known news outlets as credible a list that includes ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, NPR, PBS’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, the New York Times, Newsweek, Time and U.S. News and World Report.” http://people-press.org/report/215/news-audiences-increasingly-politicized “A new study shows that patrons of Rupert Murdoch’s brand of journalism are most likely to be misinformed about key facts of the Iraq war.” http://www.alternet.org/story/16892/ “Survey: Daily Show/Colbert Viewers Most Knowledgable, Fox News Viewers Rank Lowest” http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/16/daily-show-fox-knowledge/ Fox News Airs Altered Photos of Journalists http://mediamatters.org/items/200807020002?f=h_top “In covering the Iraq war last year, 73 percent of the stories on Fox News included the opinions of the anchors and journalists reporting them, a new study says. By contrast, 29 percent of the war reports on MSNBC and 2 percent of those on CNN included the journalists’ own views.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32631-2005Mar13.html “In January 2006, Ken Jautz, president of CNN Headline News, hired conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck, giving him a primetime show which premiered May 8, 2006. Jautz stated that Beck was “cordial,” and that his radio show was “conversational, not confrontational.” However, Media Matters for America and FAIR have reported that Beck had a history of controversial statements made on his radio show, including calling Jimmy Carter a “waste of skin”, calling the people who stayed in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina “scumbags”, hoping for the deaths of Dennis Kucinich and Michael Moore, [28] and telling a caller who claimed to have tortured foreign prisoners for the U.S. military, “I appreciate your service”.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN_controversies This website also provides some examples of liberal bias as well, but in my opinion, they are minor and unimportant (as are some of the “conservative bias” ones listed). For example, CNN didn’t report on Saddam Hussein’s atrocities while journalists were stationed in Iraq for the sake of their safety. Another time there was a technical glitch that caused an X to flash over Cheney’s face. I don’t consider those to be instances of liberal bias, but people I know do. As a side note, if you think someone at CNN is retarded enough to believe flashing an X over someone’s face will change their political views, you should look into the number of times Fox News has identified a Republican going through a scandal as a Democrat. But seriously, anyone who employs Glenn Beck can hardly be oozing with Leftiness. Here are some examples of misinformation put out by CNN favoring conservative stances: http://mediamatters.org/items/200807240001?f=s_search http://mediamatters.org/items/200807310011?f=s_search http://mediamatters.org/items/200807310010?f=s_search http://mediamatters.org/items/200807310009?f=s_search http://mediamatters.org/items/200807290005?f=s_search http://mediamatters.org/items/200807270002?f=s_search http://mediamatters.org/items/200807270001?f=s_search http://mediamatters.org/items/200807180013?f=s_search http://mediamatters.org/items/200807180006?f=s_search http://mediamatters.org/items/200807170006?f=s_search
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  Ben Stein Compares Obama to "the Fuhrer"

  http://countrycaravan.blogspot.com/2008/07/ben-stein-compare...
  43 days ago in Country Caravan · Authority: 12

  Seriously. No out of context bullshit here. Ben Stein was on Glenn Beck's show (two brilliant political minds here, I know) talking about how he didn't really like the idea of Barack Obama giving a big speech in front of 75,000 people. This is what he said:"Seventy-five-thousand people at an outdoor sports palace. Well, that's something the Fuhrer would have done."Ummm...yeah...also...David Bowie?Stein's real gripe really does seem to be about the number of people Obama was talking to. You can't have serious political things to say unless you're talking to a controlled group of 200 people in a "town hall" with pre-written questions. Are these really the arguments they're bringing against Barack Obama at this point?Here's the clip via Media Matters:Not to be outdone, Glenn Beck says we're heading for a "Mussolini Presidency."I can't wrap my head around some of this nonsense anymore.
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  Convention Season: The Pot Calls the Kettle a Nazi

  http://www.funnybookbabylon.com/2008/08/26/convention-season...
  11 days ago in Funnybook Babylon · Authority: 45

  Ben Stein, on the Democratic National Convention: I don’t like the idea of Senator Obama giving his acceptance speech in front of 75,000 wildly cheering people. That is not the way we do things in political parties in the United States of America. We have a contained number of people in an arena. Seventy-five-thousand people at an outdoor sports palace, well, that’s something the Fuehrer would have done. The Republican National Convention’s set design:
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  onlinebeerbellygirl and Obama

  http://rwcs.com/blog/?p=2083
  28 days ago in Document Dump .com | Steal This Blog · Authority: 4

  [SOURCE: The Weekly Update from Media Matters for America] by Jamison Foser Obama coverage finds dark lining around silver clouds Looking at recent media coverage of Sen. Barack Obama, it’s hard not to be a bit amused at the contortions reporters have gone through to portray the Democratic presidential candidate in a negative light. News organizations that know Sen. John McCain’s campaign is lying about Obama adopt those lies as the framework for their coverage. Reports on campaign polling obsess over Obama’s inability to garner the support of more than 50 percent of the public — all the while McCain struggles to stay above 40. And, increasingly, reporters and pundits have taken to describing Obama’s seemingly positive qualities as fraught with electoral peril. None of this is particularly surprising. Two years ago, I wrote: No matter who emerges as a progressive leader, or a high-profile Democrat, they’re in for the same flood of conservative misinformation in the media. Too many people chalk up outrageous media treatment of, say, Al Gore or John Kerry to the men’s own flaws, pretending that if they were better candidates, they’d have gotten better press coverage. That’s naïve. The Democratic Party could nominate Superman to be their next presidential candidate, and two things would happen: conservatives would smear him, and the media would join in. The eagerness with which the media have spread some truly bizarre criticisms of Obama confirms this theory. Just think about some of the things Obama has seen the media portray as weaknesses. He’s too popular and respected. He’s too well-educated. His great speeches are attended by many enthusiastic people — just like Hitler! He’s too fit. Yes: The Wall Street Journal would have you believe that Barack Obama faces an uphill electoral climb because he may be “Too Fit to Be President.” Journal reporter Amy Chozick devoted more than 1,300 words to exploring this pressing topic: [I]n a nation in which 66% of the voting-age population is overweight and 32% is obese, could Sen. Obama’s skinniness be a liability? Despite his visits to waffle houses, ice-cream parlors and greasy-spoon diners around the country, his slim physique just might have some Americans wondering whether he is truly like them. Just for good measure, the Journal included a graphic depicting Obama, McCain, and five presidents. For four of the five presidents, along with McCain, the Journal respectfully chose photos in which the men were wearing suits (though Taft was without his jacket.) In the photo the Journal chose for Bill Clinton, he was in mid-jog, in shorts, T-shirt, and a baseball cap; Obama was in exercise garb, with a basketball in his hand. Chozick apparently had some trouble finding people to support the crackpot premise that Obama’s physical fitness might cause voters to question his fitness for office, so she turned to trolling Internet message boards in desperate search of someone — anyone — she could quote. As the blog Sadly, No! revealed, Chozick posted a Yahoo! Message Board thread on July 15, asking, “Does anyone out there think Barack Obama is too thin to be president? Anyone having a hard time relating to him and his ‘no excess body fat’? Please let me know. Thanks!” About three-and-a-half hours later, Chozick got her first response — a post ridiculing her for her focus on “totally meaningless drivel.” Nearly an hour after that, Chozick finally got the response she was looking for. A user posting under the name “onlinebeerbellygirl” wrote, “Yes I think He [sic] is to [sic] skinny to be President. … I won’t vote for any beanpole guy.” Chozick quoted the post in her article — one of only two quotes agreeing with the premise of the article. She did not, however, disclose that the quote had come only after she started a thread encouraging people to make such comments. After she got caught, the Journal acknowledged: “The article should have disclosed that the reporter used the bulletin board to elicit the comment.” There may be more to it than that. A post in a subsequent Yahoo! Message Board discussion thread devoted to Chozick’s article noted that “[n]either Chozick nor ‘onlinebeerbellygirl’ has made any other posts on Yahoo before or since, and both profiles appear to have been created on 7/15, the day Chozick started the topics. It certainly looks like Amy Chozick constructed the whole thing.” Another post wondered: “Do WSJ reporters make up fake IDs and make up fake quotes?” Chozick’s original thread has been deleted (a cached copy is available here). Even more curiously, a search of the Yahoo! message boards for “onlinebeerbellygirl” comes up empty. Whether “onlinebeerbellygirl” ever really existed at all or was a Chozick invention, running a 1,300-word article suggesting Obama is too skinny to be president, based upon a random Internet message board post, is insane. As Slate.com’s Tim Noah noted, “In the vastness of cyberspace, you can always find somebody who will say whatever you want.” You might think that The Wall Street Journal’s speculation that Obama’s failure to be overweight might cost him the presidency was so inane and baseless that no other journalist could possibly repeat this nonsense. You might think that, if you haven’t been reading Maureen Dowd. Sure enough, Dowd raced to quote the Journal article in her Sunday New York Times column: In The Wall Street Journal, Amy Chozick wrote that Hillary supporters — who loved their heroine’s admission that she was on Weight Watchers — were put off by Obama’s svelte, zero-body-fat figure. “He needs to put some meat on his bones,” said Diana Koenig, a 42-year-old Texas housewife. Another Clinton voter sniffed on a Yahoo message board: “I won’t vote for any beanpole guy.” It’s a good thing The New York Times keeps Maureen Dowd around. How else would their readers be exposed to crackpot theories found in ethically questionable Wall Street Journal articles? But the most cynical assault on Obama has been the suggestion that he’s “too presidential.” That’s what much of the media criticism of Obama’s recent trip abroad boiled down to, James Rainey explained in the Los Angeles Times: The candidate’s crowning demonstrations of hubris, according to those building a case, came during his extended trip to Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East and Europe. Recall the pundits demanding the freshman Illinois senator prove he could be presidential in the foreign arena? So he appeared at ease with world leaders, talked animatedly with beaming American troops and drew huge civilian crowds. Then the pundits — who had been taking a round of bashing for supposedly going easy on Obama — told Obama he needed to beware of appearing too presidential. What makes this criticism so distasteful is that throughout the primaries, the media kept saying various candidates looked “presidential” or “like a president.” The pundits rarely explained what it means to “look like a president,” but those candidates had at least two things in common: They were white, and they were men. I don’t remember Barack Obama (or Hillary Clinton) being described that way. So, after excluding Barack Obama from their lists of candidates who “look presidential,” the media have moved on to suggesting he looks too presidential. Too popular. Too well-educated. Too fit. Too presidential. The guy doesn’t stand a chance. No wonder media coverage of poll results that show Obama beating McCain makes it sound like McCain is winning.
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  Ben Stein: A misogynist, racist, homophobic elitist - and the mainstream media loves him

  http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/08/ben-stein-mis...
  29 days ago in Shakesville · Authority: 1,643

  Ben Stein spent years tantalizing the mainstream media with his lazy facial muscles, his past as a speechwriter for Richard Nixon, and myopic views on economics. For this, the mainstream media rewarded Stein by making him a go-to conservative pundit on myriad issues. And while the mainstream media still loves portraying Stein as the harmless guy who starred as the teacher in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," Stein's true ugliness comes leaping out whenever he writes something outside the mainstream. Like in his recent misogynistic rant against Paris Hilton: First of all, Paris Hilton was a total nobody party girl in West Hollywood until she and her boyfriend made AND then "someone" SOLD a hard core video of Paris Hilton having sex. So basically, she got her start as a porn star. And she's being trotted out by the media barons to smear John McCain, as brave and patriotic a man as lives in this nation. This little tramp, who isn't even close to being pretty, is belittling a man who spent six years in brutal captivity for defending his country. Paris, get this: in modern day America, we don't mock people because of things they have done that are unavoidable and not in any way blameworthy. We don't make fun of blacks for being black. We don't make fun of women for having breasts. We don't make fun of old people for being old. This is uncool from any source. It is downright disgusting coming from a porn star -- and not a very good porn star at that (yes, I have seen the tape). And we especially don't like being told how to vote by porn stars. If this is the best the Hollywood pals of Barack Obama can do, maybe John McCain has more of a shot than I thought he did. This is the real Ben Stein - A shallow, stupid misogynist. But a shallow, stupid misogynist that still is beloved by his pals in the Mainstream media who will publish his work, regardless of the fact that he has gone out of his way to be a sexist extremist. In the past month alone, Stein has been published by the New York Times, CBS and Yahoo. And, of course, CNN Political Editor Mark Preston penned a love-letter of a Q&A to Stein. Basically, the mainstream media loves Ben Stein, and they will give him all the column inches he could want. He is in the club and no matter how anti-social and extreme you get, once you're in, you're in. Angrily calling Paris Hilton a "little tramp" and a "porn star" is no reason for them to stop promoting Stein as some type of intellectual. In fact, no matter what prepubescent garbage comes out of Stein's pen or mouth makes no difference to the mainstream media. After all, they've deftly ignored Stein: -- Getting together with fellow extremist traveler Glenn Beck to compare Barack Obama to Hitler. -- Comparing environmentalists to Hitler. -- Comparing critics of the Hurricane Katrina response to Nazis. -- Saying that scientists are comparable to Nazis on Trinity Broadcasting Network. -- Accusing the Minneapolis Police Department of using Gestapo tactics and aiding terrorists following the arrest of Republican Senator Larry Craig while on extremist ground zero Fox News. - Calling gay males pedophiles. -- Comparing "Moslem" extremists to Hitler while calling the U.S. the least racist nation on the planet. Simply put, Ben Stein is a misogynist, racist, homophobic elitist that doesn't have the courage to put his true beliefs into print in the mainstream media. But give Stein some space at an extremist site like American Spectator, and his real beliefs overcome him. In the end, however, the mainstream media could care less that Stein spouts sexist, homophobic, racist garbage. After all, he repeated "Bueller" on a movie set a couple decades ago. And to the media, that's far more important than noticing that Stein is a complete piece of shit. --WKW
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  This Week In Obama

  http://bedsitter23.livejournal.com/494580.html
  34 days ago in Viva Hate! · Authority: 2

  In the past few weeks, we have seen Obama slandered as Adolf Hitler, and the biggest comparison, that Obama is just like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. So, we wondered what was next. We anticipated attack ads where Barack Obama was being compared to Amy Winehouse, Lindsey Lohan, Suge Knight, Gary Glitter, OJ Simpson, Kim Kardashian, Perez Hilton, Josef Stalin, Tom Cruise, Paula Abdul, and Robert Blake. Of course, what has happened has been even more bizarre. The GOP has spent the last few weeks making unusual ads for their website that portray Obama as a cult leader, a messiah. You haven't heard as much about as these ads as you have about the Britney Spears/Paris Hilton one, proving indeed that Britney Spears is bigger than Jesus Christ. Anyway, I didn't really plan on posting about this, but I think it's possible that you have missed out. So here goes: In fact, until the recent controversy that Obama is playing the race card, saying that he doesn't look like the Presidents (sic) on the Five dollar bill, this ad totally flew under the radar. Ho ho! Obama wants to put himself on currency, on the Statue of Liberty, and Mt. Rushmore. The irony of course being that these are the same people who have spent the last ten years petitioning to put Ronald Reagan on stamps, money, and Mt. Rushmore. Though that ad is pretty out there- making the implication that Obama like any good third world dictator would put himself on currency, build statues of himself, and walk around in military uniform. Still, that wasn't enough. No, it's not enough that Obama can draw a crowd of a half a million at Nuremberg, or that he can sell 30 million copies of his album Oops... I did it again. No, you see Obama is the second coming. Or at the very least, an important prophet. Yes. You can imagine that the parting large bodies of water would be a big crowd draw. On the other hand, good luck trying to pass those 10 commandments through Congress. Yes, it's real. Which draws so many questions. Why wouldn't you vote for this guy? Is this an attack on Obama? Is this an attack on the masses? I have no idea. Still, given the choice, aren't you going to vote for the guy who can turn water to oil. Besides, I thought for the last 20 years Moses was a Republican. That wasn't the only big Obama news this week. Basil Fawlty has endorsed Barack Obama.
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  Is the new McCain ad suggesting Obama is the Antichrist?

  http://blog.reidreport.com/2008/08/is-new-mccain-ad-suggesti...
  38 days ago in Reidblog [The Reid Report blog] · Authority: 54

  It sounds absurd, but consider this: Some evangelical leaders are hinting at exactly that, as the HuffPo points out: ... several blogs have noted a growing number of conservative evangelicals alleging that Obama is the anti-Christ, or at least a precursor to that end-of-days figure. For example, Hal Lindsay, a prominent evangelical writer, charged in a recent WorldNetDaily article: Obama's world tour provided a foretaste of the reception he can expect to receive. He will probably also stand in some European capital, addressing the people of the world and telling them that he is the one that they have been waiting for. And he can expect as wildly enthusiastic a greeting as Obama got in Berlin. The Bible calls that leader the Antichrist. And it seems apparent that the world is now ready to make his acquaintance.Much of the fear mongering about Barack has been directed at Jews: prominent neocons and assorted right wingers, including Charles Krauthammer and Ben Stein, openly compared Obama's Berlin speech and proposed Denver acceptance speech to the rantings of Adolph Hitler, implying that he is, if not the Antichrist himself, and evil prophet of doom for the Jewish people. But the push to scare evangelical Christians about Barack has been well under way for some time. It appears the McCain squad simply picked up on it. Winger blogs routinely refer to Obama as the "Obamessiah," a derision designed to imply that his supporters (and the media) are being mesmerized by a kind of modern day political cult (which should sound familiar to Bush II loyalists, who literally worshipped the current president after 9/11...) but one which some evangelical extremists might take very seriously. Take this sample of letters to The American Spectator, for example, entitled "The Good News According to Barack": ... As for these evangelicals who're falling for Obama, they need to reexamine whether they really have a genuine relationship with Jesus the Christ. Maybe they, like Obama, are not what they say they are? For them to even entertain supporting him, they have to turn their backs on Jesus. That means, among other things, joining Obama's lies to then support things such as infanticide, homosexual marriage and, generally, his character flaw of lying as he does. As for Rick Warren's actions? Someday he'll have to answer to the Highest Power as to why, given the visibility and influence he has been granted, he will have given his apparent imprimatur to one of such character as Obama -- and, thus, influenced others to do the same. Also, he'll have to answer for how, whether intentional or not, he has given Obama and his devotees reasons to condemn and ridicule Christians who have the discernment, courage and love of Christ Jesus and what He represents to see the falsity of what Obama and Warren are doing -- and to say so. For Warren and Obama, I pray that they realize, sooner than later, that there are consequences far graver and eternally life-changing than losing an election or having your face on television and in the news. I pray that they -- and those Christians, Catholic or Protestant, who now allow themselves to be deceived by Obama -- come to their senses and realign their lives with the real Messiah in whom they all profess to believe. -- C. Kenna Amos Princeton, West Virginia(The reference to Warren was about his invitation to Obama to speak at his church. He has also invited John McCain) Again, this from a cadre of evangelicals who literally worshipped President Bush, and taught their children to do the same: This as we come to the end of the presidency of a man who said out loud that God chose him to be president, and that God told him to invade Iraq. This from evangelical nuts who believe that Bush's wars in the Middle East will bring on the Armageddon. Now they've turned that argument completely on its head, begging the question: if the idolatrous worship of George W. Bush was proper, than mustn't the supposed worship of Barack Obama be the worship of the Antichrist? From Beliefnet's Mara Vanderslice, co-founder of the Matthew 25 Network, a Christian group that supports Obama: I don't know about you- but I found this McCain campaign ad "The One" to be one of the most offensive ads we have seen in American politics to date. At best, this ad implies that those who plan to support Senator Obama are looking for a new savior or a replacement Messiah. But many are reading it even more darkly as an attempt to portray Obama as an anti-Christ figure. A vote for Senator Obama is a vote for the man we think will make the best President, not for a new Messiah. As Christians, we have one Lord And Savior. Jesus Christ. It is blasphemous to suggest otherwise. And it is beyond offensive to suggest that Senator Obama is a false Messiah or the anti-Christ himself. How low can we go? It shows the McCain campaign is willing to make a mockery of our faith to feed people's fears. Christians need to reject this out of hand.... Beliefnet is starting an email campaign calling on McCain to pull the ad. Previous: Six degrees of stupid: A half dozen reasons why the new McCain ad is dumb (in addition to it just being dumb) |
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  Republican Tactics

  http://livingliberally.org/drinking/blog/Republican-Tactics
  35 days ago in Drinking Liberally | Living Liberally · Authority: 143

  Republican Tactics Submitted by Dan Henry on Thu, 07/31/2008 - 10:28am. Conservatives in America have perfected a campaigning technique – it's often credited to Karl Rove, but it has roots that go back to his mentor, Lee Atwater. If there's an issue where they have a severe deficit, they try to convert the strength of their opponent into weakness. In 2000, the GOP selected a fairly dumb candidate. So they converted their opponent's intelligence into a weakness by labeling him an elitist intellectual who couldn't be trusted. In 2004, they faced a veteran with a heroic record, who had the sense to reject the reasons behind both Viet Nam and Iraq. Their candidate was a coward who went AWOL during his duty, and who was a rank incompetent in prosecuting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. How do you fight that? By attacking the veteran's war record: mock his convention salute, wear purple-heart bandaids, fund slimy attacks like those of the Swift Boat liars, etc. What do they face in 2008? A very popular black candidate. How can you attack that? Well, you attack his popularity by making it seem like a weakness. When he draws 80,000 people in Portland, you start talking about Obama-bots and his cult status. When he announces that his acceptance speech will be in a stadium with 75,000 people, or when he draws 200,000 in Berlin, you compare him to Hitler. The race part is problematic. You will have a tough time attacking his blackness. You can try to use side issues to make him seem different, foreign, unAmerican. By doing that, you have his blackness working for you. People who are already uneasy about electing a black man will connect all the dots – he's a scary, Muslim black man who hates America. The other thing you can do is take away the power of the racism accusation. You can make it impossible for people to accuse you of racism. That way you pave the way for more nasty racist arguments to be used later. How do you do that? By exaggerating what people say into false accusations of racism that look totally absurd and baseless. I experience that tactic this last week in the IdahoFallsToday.com (formerly IdahoFallz.com) website. On a thread about the New Yorker cover, I commented (as 'Idahogie') that a small subset of people who forward horrible lies in emails like "Obama is a Muslim" and "Michelle hates America" were just covering for racism. A poster named Bundy did his part to take a little bit of power out of the racism card by exaggerating that to the extreme: "I am intentionally calling you on your baloney liberal theories that paint any opposition to Obama as racist." That is obviously not true. I did nothing of the sort, and Bundy was just lying. I corrected him nicely once, but he kept at it, repeating his lie 4 or 5 times. He even got some defenders to support him. I don't think that Bundy knew that's what he was doing. I think your run-of-the-mill right-wingers just pick up these techniques through osmosis and emulation. But his lie had a purpose – to weaken the racism accusation in general. If the conservatives do this enough, they will be able to paint any racism claim as just the absurd accusations of politically correct liberals. There was another example of this tactic from the GOP last weekend on the national scene. John McCain had badgered Obama about his lack of foreign trips to visit the troops and talk with the commanders for so long that he was faced with a huge problem when he saw Obama's trip going so well. So he took advantage of a particular incident to smear Obama. The US Army command at the military base in Landstuhl, Germany, denied Obama permission to visit the base, giving the reason that they didn't want a political event to take place, politicising the troops, etc. They would have transported Obama there alone, but Obama didn't want to go without his advisor - a retire Air Force officer (and, given that he'd already been ambushed by a lying McCain supporter in Afghanistan, I can understand why he'd want his team with him at all times). Instead of making a big deal of it, Obama deferred to the Landstuhl commanders. After his plane left Germany, the Landstuhl commanders also rejected the press's request to accompany him to Landstuhl. That was a separate request, which was moot at that point anyway. McCain's campaign then put out as slimy and underhanded an ad as you could concoct. I'm sure that Karl Rove was proud. And now, he made time to go to the gym, but cancelled a visit with wounded troops. Seems the pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras. Did you see that? Besides lying through deceptive juxtapositioning of facts, McCain used the wounded troops as a club to attack Obama. He politicized them, when Obama's decision not to visit was based on avoiding that outcome. McCain took an Obama strength and tried to make it a weakness. The good news is that it seems to be backfiring in McCain's face. This countering tactic is really the only thing the right has. They certainly can't run on their record (ha!). Or their basic philosophy – most Americans are liberal on the issues – they support abortion, public education, universal health care, getting out of Iraq, social security, support for the poor, immigration, speaking foreign languages, etc. So conservatives have to be sneaky to get people to vote against their own best interests, and to defend horrible candidates like Bush and McCain. They're doing what they have to do. And people like Bundy fall in line to help them. Don't fall for it. This conservative tactic relies on all of us to ignore the deceptions that they are purpetrating. Call it out when you see it. When you read someone like Bundy making absurd claims, point it out and tell her that you're not falling for it. If you have a wingnut friend who forwards stupid emails about Obama, send a correction back in reply, and include every email address from the original. Don't sit back and say "it's just a he-said/she-said thing – we can all just have our own opinions and agree to disagree." Show them that deceptive political tactics can't be used to steal power in this country. Dan Henry's blog

• Obama uses Berlin symbolism to rally allies

  in http://cnn.com

  44 days ago

  As people in Berlin prepared for Sen. Barack Obama's highly anticipated speech, the Democratic presidential hopeful made it clear he's not holding a political rally.

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