The liberal blogosphere is buzzing -- buzzing! -- about Obama's addition to his stump speech today. It's on the economy.
Finding His Stride?
Yup
"This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison," - Brian Rogers, McCain spokesman.
Straight Talk Express Off Rails...Again, Again
I'm about 10 hours late to this story so you all might have seen it already, but if not it's another instance of John McCain, who was once a prisoner of war, embellishing facts to make a better story.
The skinny: In 1991, Cindy McCain rescued two Bangladeshi girls at the behest of Mother Theresa, one of whom, Bridget, the McCains subsequently adopted. Or at least that's what the McCains, part of whom was once a prisoner of war, would have us believe. Turns out, it's not true.
Mother Theresa was not at the orphanage. She did not urge the McCains to rescue or adopt the children. In fact, it's not even clear if Cindy McCain met Mother Theresa on her trip. But that didn't stop McCain, POW, from saying just that on his website. When the CSM contacted the campaign about the story they revised the site to reflect the truth.
Final word from John Hawkins from Right Wing News:
People will add a little detail here or there to make a story better, but it doesn't look good when a politician does it -- and since John McCain has repeated the story, it looks like Mr. "Straight Talk" is going to end up having to explain on the campaign trail why he and his wife fudged a story about something as intimate as the circumstances under which they came to adopt their own daughter. They should know better than that.
Our National Intelligence Questioned
Poland is building a missile defense system. Why? Russia. Duh. But don't let Condi tell you that:
This is an agreement that, of course, will establish a missile defense site here in Poland, a missile defense site that will help us to deal with the new threat to the 21st century of long-range missile threats from countries like Iran or from North Korea,” Rice said yesterday at the Polish presidential palace in Warsaw.Take it away, Spencer!
Just just just just stop right there. That stillness you hear is your natural tranquility returning to you. Breathe deeply, exhaling the lie. Tell yourself, as a calming mechanism, North Korean missiles cannot hit Poland; even if they someday could, they never never would; and Iranian antipathy to the Poles does not exist. It's kind of adorable that Rice expects you to believe this. You will miss her when she's gone, and you promise to visit her in the Hague.
Why I Like Sports, vol 2
The first full practice came two days after a campus memorial service for their friend and teammate. Yet even with the finality of that ceremony, Loyola Marymount 's basketball players found it hard to remember that Hank Gathers was really gone...It was only four days earlier that Gathers had collapsed and died of heart failure during a West Coast Conference tournament game against Portland on Loyola's home floor in Los Angeles . Says Loyola forward Bo Kimble , who had been a friend of Gathers 's for the past 10 years, "We had a lot to deal with quickly. It was hard on everyone. But we knew Hank would have wanted us to play in the NCAAs . At the memorial service [in Loyola's Gersten Pavilion] I looked over and saw his coffin was in the paint. I knew then we would have to find a way to win for him."
And, perhaps astonishingly, they did. Playing in the West Regional in Long Beach , Calif. , the 11th-seeded Lions beat No. 6-seed New Mexico State last Friday 111-92. Kimble scored 45 points and grabbed 18 rebounds, despite playing the entire second half with four fouls.To be sure, Kimble also had down moments last week. He didn't sleep for three days after Gathers died, and he began to realize that he was placing too much pressure on himself with his vow to make "something happen" every time he touched the ball. But he stuck to his promise to shoot his first free throw in every game lefthanded, in honor of Gathers , who had struggled so much with his foul shots this season that he had taken to shooting them lefty. "It may sound corny," says Kimble, who leads the nation in scoring with a 35.7 average, "but it makes me believe I've got a little bit of Hank inside me. I feel his strength."
Kimble's first lefthanded attempt didn't come until the second half of the New Mexico State game. The two teams had been tied at intermission, but Loyola had just blitzed the Aggies with a 18-4 spurt to start the half when Kimble was fouled in the act of shooting. As he approached the line, the partisan crowd, many wearing HANK armbands, began to buzz and then went quiet. Kimble shook his left arm, took the ball from the official and calmly made the shot. His teammates and coaches leaped in the air, many of them near tears.
Apple vs ... Jerry Seinfeld?
Microsoft is launching a new ad campaign, apparently to combat the awesome "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads. Jerry Seinfeld is their man. I guess that makes sense since he's so hip and cool and no one's seen him for like, 10 years.
Swift Reax From Obama
Yesterday John McCain, who was once a prisoner of war, admitted he couldn't remember how many homes he owned. This morning the Obama campaign jumped on the gaff with an effective new television spot.
I'll leave you with what Thomas Schaller had to say about this:
Obviously, there is but one logical conclusion we can draw from this: Barack Obama is an out-of-touch elitist.
Inspired Marketing
Gamer finds glitch in EA's Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08 that allows Woods to walk on water. He uploads a video of the glitch to YouTube. EA responds with their own YouTube video of Tiger Woods walking on water with the tagline "It's Not A Glitch. He's Just That Good."
Awards! Get Your Awards!
Want an Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator? Don't worry if you don't own a restaurant or wine bar. You can have one regardless.
Some of our (potential) clients are only interested in awards. We should totally sell them with this.
Yippie
(I'm cribbing this from Andrew Sullivan.)
Think of how much happier people would be if they encountered stuff like this throughout the city.
From the artist's statement:
This project is a study into different ways of bringing play back into public space. It focuses on ways of incorporating incidental play in the public realm by not so much as having separate play equipment that dictates the users but by using existing furniture and architectural elements that indicate playful behaviour for all.
Darwin Award Nominee
Sticking with the theme of natural selection I present this video of a dude kite surfing during a hurricane. Or a tropical storm. Whatever that thing was that just hit Florida, this guy thought it would be a good idea to kite surf. Which is probably a double dose of idiocy. I mean kite surfing? Hate to say it, but dude had it coming.
Natural Selection
More proof that a) natural selection is real and b) that country singers have low fitness:
A performer at a free concert Saturday night at Michigan International Speedway shouted, "Anyone got a beer?"
One cool can of suds soared from the audience onto the stage, and then another, striking country singer Pat Green between the eyes.
The impact knocked him out cold, ending the concert late in his 75-minute set, a Michigan State Police trooper said.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
The Fiesty Reporter
I saw this last night and had to post it. I heart Helen Thomas (met her years ago at a luncheon in Austin) and think she's so bad ass.
Why Biden
Remember Biden's "subject-verb-9/11" quip about Giuliani last summer? That's what Obama needs right now as the POW meme becomes more powerful (even as it grows more ridiculous). This is what we're getting today from John McCain's, who was a prisoner of war, campaign:
It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others.
Quick Blog Thoughts
(NB: Since we're a publishing company, kinda, sorta, for at least the next week, I figured this might be relevant.)
The best baseball writer in the country is also the best sports columnist in the country is also one of the best writers in the country. His name is Joe Posnanski. He writes for the Kansas City Star. For the past year or so he's also been blogging. His blog is routinely funny, thoughtful, and whimsical. If you're a baseball fan it's required reading, but he writes about much more than that.
Anyway, this morning Joe announced that Sports Illustrated has offered to start publishing his blog on their website. They'll also give him a weekly online column.* Good for him. Good for humanity.
Here's the thing: How badly must the KC Star be kicking itself this morning?
Sports Illustrated isn't going to have any editorial control over Joe's blog. There's no overhead to republish his blog. He was doing it for free to begin with, so pay incentives were probably nil. Sports Illustrated is just going to publish it. So why didn't the Star offer to do the same thing a year ago, when his blog started generating a national audience?
Like when John McCain, who was once a prisoner of war, confuses the geography of the Middle East, placing Iraq next to Pakistan, these are the small moments in history when you can see an institution show its age. 100% of all newspapers are behind the eight ball when it comes to the internet and 99% of them look like lost school children in the face of this challenge, which is really a golden opportunity only they don't realize it.
(Mike Silver covers football for Yahoo. For the better part of the decade he was one of two senior football writers for Sports Illustrated. Last week in his Yahoo column he published the following email from an angry Packers fan who was upset with Silver's coverage of the team: "I personally think you are FOS and could care less what you think of this town and the the fact that you are some geek writing for yahoo can’t get a real job writing for a newspaper."
This guy is representative of the old guard who's too [fill in the blank] to realize which direction the wind is blowing. Silver moved from newspaper to magazine to internet. That's the hierarchy.)
These small moments make it all the more clear that as the newspaper industry confront the internet it's going to be a survival of the fittest and no one should shed a tear for those who don't make it. It'll be their own damn fault.
*How Joe finds time to eat and be a father is beyond me. His blog posts are usually over 1,000 words long, often approaching 3,000, and he's also writing a book after having just published one last year. And he's also a newspaper columnist. Basically he puts most other metro columnists to shame.
John McCain: Victim
David Brooks writes in today's NYT about John McCain, who was a prisoner of war, and his campaign. The column is absolute shit. Here is the thesis:
When McCain and his team set out to win the presidency in 2008, they hoped to run a campaign with this sort of spirit. McCain would venture forth on the back of his bus, going places other Republicans don’t go, saying things politicians don’t say, offering the country the vision of a different kind of politics — free of circus antics — in which serious people sacrifice for serious things.
It hasn’t turned out that way. McCain hasn’t been able to run the campaign he had envisioned. Instead, he and his staff have been given an education by events...
McCain and his advisers have been compelled to adjust to the hostile environment around them. They have been compelled, at least in their telling, to abandon the campaign they had hoped to run.
It's amazing the lengths people will go to to absolve John McCain, who was a prisoner of war. It's not his campaign, it's the world, man.
If John McCain, POW, cannot stay true to his beliefs in the face of a campaign, what hope does he have of staying true to his beliefs once he's in the White House?
Things That Baffle Me
Bill Kristol having a column in the New York Times.
For the fourth time since January, when he began writing his column, the Times has had to make a material correction to something he's written. Is Kristol the best conservative voice the Times could find to write a column in the most influential newspaper in the world? Were there no better candidates?
Interestingly if unfortunately, the Times has opted to revise the column instead of issuing a formal correction.
Monday, August 18, 2008
On Pakistan
My friend Pakistani friend Sehban just sent me the following email, which I thought was worth passing along in light of today's news:
The tragedy of [Pakistan] is that it suckles at the teat of feudalism and ignorance. That the only non feudal leader to hold office in the better part of two decades was the one who brought about social progression is no surprise. It is even less of a surprise that he was so unceremoniously forced out of power by the feudal parties. The passion for any given issue in Pakistan is inversely proportionate to the understanding of it.
It is tragic that Zardai, a man of at the very least a deplorable character and possibly guilty of acting in accordance with it is now the puppet master of that country will cause more despair than before.
The Islamists and feudalsshould rejoice, while anyone with an IQ superior to kumquat should mourn this day, not necessarily because of the man who was deposed but rather what he was deposed for.
Watching the Rich Beg
Just arrived in my inbox, from the $100M man himself, Mr. Bill Clinton:
And if you contribute before the midnight deadline, you might have the chance to join Hillary and me in Denver next week for a truly exciting and historic convention. You're going to get to see an amazing display of Democratic unity in person -- you don't want to miss it.Just a heads up. Next Friday I'm having a dinner at my apartment. If you contribute towards lowering my debt -- I have a complusion at the horse track for betting on horses that cannot win -- I might serve you a lobster.
Extremely old news
As a convert to the church of W, Mr. McCain has been talking a lot recently about following Osama bin Ladin to the gates of hell and whatnot. But, I'm just curious if any of you have seen this video from the BBC in which Benazir Bhutto makes a reference to Osama bin Ladin being killed by Omar Sheikh. There was a ruffle about it in the indie news, claiming that the Pakistani press had reported Osama death. Because the BBC reporter doesn't seem to bat an eye when she mentions his death, I feel this argument might have weight. Just wanted to get y'alls take on this one:
It's All Good
If you don't subscribe to the best magazine out there (in my humble opinion), you should sign up right now.
Not only does the entire (modest) $20 subscription fee go to the charity of your choice, this magazine's tag line is "For People Who Give a Damn." Gotta love that.
And this month's education issue tackles everything from the failing policies of NCLB to new innovative playground designs. Plus, the art is unreal.
Color-Coded Campaign
I started reading this story last night (on why Obama isn't doing better in the polls), but fell asleep shortly after I opened it. That said, I plan on finishing it tonight, and if you can get your hands on a copy of this week's New York magazine, you may want to check out several of the stories—the art alone is pretty clever. If not, check out the selected links below.
Black and Blacker, the racial politics of the Obama marriage.
How the Obama generation will lead the world.
For Your Consideration
Emmy voters are receiving this cool DVD set promoting the USA series Burn Notice. The DVD box is white and includes a flashlight for seeing the invisible ink printed on the box. The show is about a CIA agent. Hence the invisible ink. All that's missing is word scramble and a decoder ring.
Obama / Publishing
There's a new book coming out soon by Robert Kuttner called Obama’s Challenge: America’s Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency. Read Hertzberg's full blog post here, but I found this ad-on at the end interesting:
Kuttner’s book, by the way, is a pioneering exercise in cutting-edge publishing. The publisher, Chelsea Green, plans to have two thousand copies ready for distribution at the Democratic National Convention. That will mean a lapsed time of about one week between final edit and finished book. (I’ve written blog posts that took longer to make their way online.) The book won’t be in the stores till September 15, but you can get it sooner, thanks to a deal Chelsea Green has made a with BookSurge, Amazon's new print-on-demand subsidiary. You order it, they print it and bind it, and it’s in your hands forty-eight hours later.Sweet.
He Was a POW, Ergo Stop Asking Questions
More Saddleback....
Andrea Mitchell said the following on MTP yesterday:
McCain's camp is disgusted that a journalist would raise this issue even though McCain was en route to Saddleback during Obama's portion of the event and not actually tucked away in that cone of silence. So Rick Davis fired off an email to NBC crying about Mitchell.
"The Obama people must feel that he didn't do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context, because what they are putting out privately is that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama. He seemed so well-prepared."
But more interesting is this little exchange from Sunday night:
Don't you get it? John McCain was a POW so leave him alone.Nicolle Wallace, a spokeswoman for Mr. McCain, said on Sunday night that Mr. McCain had not heard the broadcast of the event while in his motorcade and heard none of the questions.
“The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous,” Ms. Wallace said.
Saddleback
I watched a bit of Saddleback on Saturday night. The consensus seems to be that McCain won, where 'won' means something like 'generated more rousing applause more frequently than the other guy'. So congrats to John McCain on pandering a little bit more, a little bit better than Obama.
That said, entering into this exercise it was hard to imagine Obama walking away in a worse position with the evangelical community than when he started. This dwindling bloc of voters was never going to come out en force for Obama anyway and so the only direction he could go -- realistically -- was up. I think he did that. He may have relied upon that devil nuance too often, but the voters he isolated when doing so weren't going his way anyway.
For McCain his concern had to be drawing these voters back into the tent. Perhaps this is why his rhetoric was dialed up tremendously while the substance remained awfully lacking.
(This post blows. I cannot string a coherent sentence together, let alone a sustained thought. I feel like I'm gesturing wildly if lazily in the hope that one of you folks picks up on what I'm trying to say.)
