Dumb and dumber.
Okay, so I’m not a big fan of Barack Obama (and his dick of a handler not letting the Commentator through the press line last night didn’t help score any points, but I’ll let CJ post about that…). I don’t think he’s the best choice for President, and I don’t like the messianic everything-to-everyone posturing of his campaign. As far as I’m concerned, there are tons of perfectly legitimate criticisms of the man. Nevertheless, I’m beyond tired of all the drummed-up “controversies” that keep cropping up every couple of weeks or so on right-leaning blogs. Until now, the most idiotic of these was the Case of the Missing Flag Lapel Pin. Heinous!
Alas, after dragging my hung-over self out of bed this morning to check my usual blogs, I see that not one but two silly new stories are making the rounds. First off, evidently Senator Obama mis-spoke during a speech up in Beaverton and said that he’d visited 57 states.The horror! How can he not even know how many states there are in the Union he wants to lead?! How such a dolt could ever be considered qualified for the Presidency is impossible to imagine.
Second, scholars of history are savaging the benighted Senator for suggesting that he would consider meeting with unfriendly heads of state, in the tradition of other American Presidents like FDR, Truman, and Kennedy. Evidently FDR and Truman meeting with Stalin doesn’t count, despite the fact that the United States had been staunchly anti-Soviet from the very start, because we were both fighting Nazi Germany at the time. Citing Kennedy’s meetings with Khruschev is also apparently off-limits because um… Kennedy had more experience in politics than Obama does… or something. And never mind Nixon going to China or Reagan meeting with Gorbachev. None of that matters, you see, because Senator Obama clearly needs a history lesson, otherwise he’ll end up just like poor old Neville Chamberlain.
Jack Kelly ends his post on Real Clear Politics thusly: “The lack of historical knowledge among journalists is merely appalling.” I couldn’t agree more, chum.
Fox News has nothing on Evanescence, but it’s still bad.
You’ve really hit on the key point though: the 24 hour news cycle has effectively destroyed what remaining semblance there was of a constructive dialogue in this country, replacing it instead with perpetual outrage fueled by contrived controversies.
Vince – Well, also, there’s a lot of dead air in 24 hours otherwise. CNN and Fox News (along with Evanescence) are proof that there is no God.
I wasn’t trying to imply that it’s purely ‘right’. I was just wondering why, on the right, a lot of people’s problems with candidates (as far as these silly contro’s go) are pretty retarded…or, unintelligent maybe….or, hell, I can’t think of the right word to describe something like the lapel pin issue. Even with the plastic turkey and other myth, I don’t remember hearing about them as much as the lapel pin issue or others like it. They surely wouldn’t have come up as a debate question…I think.
I guess partisan gets it…but, well, I don’t know.
Chris,
As Tim notes, one should be wary of seeing this purely as a “right” phenomenon. I mean, the left has spent the last eight years acting constantly outraged against everything President Bush says or does, whether or not what he’s said or done really warrants any outrage at all.
Remember the “Bush served a plastic turkey to troops in Iraq on Thanksgiving” story that the New York Times later admitted was wrong?
Or the “Bush said there’s no French word for ‘entrepreneur'” myth?
What Tim said about partisans is spot on: they have no brains and they have no principles, so they resort to “flag pin” and “plastic turkey” “controversies” so they have something to talk about with other people.
Happens from the left, too. I think that people who care over much about whether Team Red or Team Blue is busy taking our freedom (or think it particularly matters which team, or what freedoms) are probably just the helmet wearing kind of special.
Partisans are all idiots, they drank the kool-aid to avoid the heavy mental lifting that goes along with things like “principles”.
I might still vote for Obama because he appears marginally less crazy than McCain, but it’s not like it matters. Four years from now we’ll still be in Iraq, whichever power-mongering sycophant we elect president will have caved to the xenophobes and done something retarded like back out of NAFTA, and probably tried (at the very least) to socialize healthcare.
What is the underlying cause to ‘controversies’ like that anyway? Are a lot of right-wing folks just stupid, do they crave unintelligent discourse, or is it just being shoved down their throats by the punditry? Or whatever else it could be.
I don’t think there’s ever a perfect politician for a position, but in 2008 it’s hard for me to see how Clinton or McCain could be any better. Of course, it’s sad that we only get two candidates (with a chance) in our democratic system…
God damn America!
Well, there’s that…and the fact that FDR never actually sat down with his enemies, but declared utter and complete war against them. Specifically Tojo and Mussolini.