the workings of the mind

i read this:

"Obama tossed the entire United States under the bus and played the race card before an America-hating international audience."

and think this:

the smart questions

marc ambinder can piss me off, but damn if he isn't an insightful reporter. like today, he asks:

Assuming that Gov. Tim Kaine and Gov. Kathleen Sebilius are both on Obama's short list, I wonder what the tight-lipped Obama world thinks about the leaks coming from Kaine allies as compared to the nada-nothing-bupkis coming from Sebelius's orbit?

this is a very, very good question. and, quite frankly, of the four remaining candidates that those in the proverbial "know" have agreed constitute obama's short-list - kaine, sebelius, biden, bayh - the latter two don't seem very likely, if only because they voted for the iraq war. which really leaves only the former two. and of them, despite her lukewarm sotu response, i think sebelius is the better choice.

update: i'm not sure if i'm down with the more conspiratorial view floating around that the kaine float is a faint, if only because democrats, in general, leak like a sieve. but i do agree that, intent or otherwise, whether or not kaine is selected as veep that floating his name is strategically beneficial, just like with the ann veneman thing.

again with the meta

as noam helpfully elaborates, the mccain camp's reponse to phil gramm's comments - to deny the very existence of the concept of surrogates - is a real non-starter. keys in nicely to their hilarious desperation, still four months out from election day.

chill pill

to whom it may concern.

i'm sure you make a fine product. really. it looks pretty nifty.

but please. for your sake and mine.

relax. take a deep breath. calm down. watch this for a while.

are we cool? good. good.

the politics of the politics of fear

as the obama campaign starts to get meta-meta-meta-meta, i prepare to go meta-meta-meta-meta-meta-meta by linking to and reposting a comment i made at balloon juice.

first, i think they’re anticipating the fact that images such as that one will be circulating far more frequently come october, and it’s easier simply to condemn all then pick-’n’-choose; they don’t want to get into a fight over why it’s ok for some publications to publish an image like that and not others. plus, as john’s final comment suggests, by making the controversy about the cover, the obama campaign can gobble up enough of the news cycle to make everyone forget about the story. for a brief time last night, the top story at halperin’s page was the part of lizza’s story where obama allegededly threatened to kick a fellow state legislator’s ass. yet that vanished when the obama campaign fired back at the cover and not the article. so:

a) they prep the media to view any image, even from “friendly” quarters, unfavorable to obama in certain ways (racial, religious, patriotic, etc) simply off-bounds.
b) they get to start a fight with the new yorker, and put symbolic but not substantive distance between themselves and a bastion of old-guard liberalism.
c) they put the mccain campaign in an awkward and impotent position; they really don’t have anything to do say or do, but if they do or say nothing they’ll be completely ignored for a day or two during a time when they’re trying to “refocus” the campaign and tighten the message.
d) everyone ignores the article about what an ambitious and ruthless political operator barack obama is!

so, in short, brilliant tactical politics.

now go read this right now.






...and if you're smarty mcsmarty pants and you're already done read this.

ugh

jamie kirchick writing for the new republic was always kind of a joke. but now it's just pathetic. i wonder if this is the kind of serious, thoughtful engagement with politics and the issues they thought they would receive by actually paying this man real, spendable money to write this kind of thing under their venerable title.

i could use some of that money.