Friday’s Mini-Report

July 25, 2008

Guest Post by Adam

This time I promise asterisks. Er, bullet points.

  • Zbigniew Brzezinski doesn’t think more troops in Afghanistan are the answer. Both candidates now essentially favor an increase in troops in the area.
  • McCain now likes the idea of a Nuremberg style trial for Osama Bin Laden. Weeks ago McCain mocked Obama for saying the same thing. This will be disappointing for all the people who wanted OBL’s execution by beheading committed by people in masks and recorded on a handycam.
  • After stating that setting a timetable was a “strategy for defeat,” McCain has decided he likes Maliki’s sixteen month timetable. But he doesn’t like Barack Obama’s sixteen month timetable, apparently because Obama is a “real jerk” and wouldn’t trade his twinkie for McCain’s juicebox. Nominally though, it’s because Maliki’s is based on “conditions” and Obama’s isn’t, a line that will only work on people who haven’t been paying attention.

  • Sarkozy really, really likes Obama. Remember when the Right was all jubilant over Sarkozy being elected? I think that American conservatives often don’t realize how far right on the political spectrum they actually are. Also, Christiane Amanpour asked Sarko about some of his comments on race while he was standing with Obama, which is kind of awesome.
  • Can we put the term “tar baby” to bed? Srsly. No one born after Carter knows what it means, so they have to ask, and then everyone is embarrassed for you.
  • The CBC is split over proposed legislation that would ban flavored cigarettes, except for menthols, the kind of cigarettes most black smokers smoke. Menthols comprise a huge share (28%) of the cigarette market.

That’s all I got. Thanks for having me CR readers, and I’ll see ya’ll over at TAPPED next week.

Bravo. Nicely done covering for CB, Adam.. Hard guy to follow. With asterisk…uh, I mean, bullet points even…. 🙂

Hope to see you back soon, or like if Steve ever decides to take another day off…sheesh, the guy is a machine!

Peace

  • a line that will only work on people who haven’t been paying attention.

    In other words, the Washington Press Corps.

  • Thank you, Adam (and Ron and Steve) for covering for CB. While you’re not Steve Benen, you did a smash up job.

    Kudos all around!

  • I haven’t see a post on this.

    The Wall Street Journal has an Op Ed. that declare the new Batman Movie, Dark Night, to be about the Bush Administration and that the role of Batman was an ode to George Bush.

    Bush = Batman. He’s BatBush now.

    Not only that RedState is comparing McCain to Luke Skywalker today. McCain Skywalker is surrounded and fighting the enemy on today’s version of the Death Star.

    I kid you not.

    You would have a hard time making this stuff up.

  • McCain now likes the idea of a Nuremberg style trial for Osama Bin Laden

    Can you spell, Official John McCain Flip-Flop List?

    When will someone take notice of the fact that this Obama guy, with no foreign policy creds, has already influenced the national discourse on the role of negotiation in foreign policy, moved us toward getting out of Iraq, and shown he can improve the perception of the US among our allies? The guy is leading and he’s still just a candidate.

    Nice work, and thanks, Adam, Rod and Steve M.

  • Thanks Adam and Ron and Steve M. Great job today.

    Can we put the term “tar baby” to bed? Srsly. No one born after Carter knows what it means, so they have to ask, and then everyone is embarrassed for you.

    Agreed, but what will we replace it with? It has an unfortunate origin but it’s such a great shorthand image for arrogant people getting mired in situations that they misiimagine. Falling in a hole and continuing digging is so prosaic.

  • TCG

    The Batman/Bush stories are among those I’m considering for a weekly feature at Liberal Values, SciFi Friday, which reviews science fiction along with other media material. I’ve delayed this weeks installment due to posting here. (In reality SciFi Friday has appeared later in the weekend than Friday quite frequently since the primary race got hot, increasing the amount of time spent on politics during the work day.)

    Batman isn’t the only comics related story I’m considering this week. Other big news includes a report that Supergirl is going to stop being a slut, and that a gay actor might play Captain America. Will conservatives adopt a don’t ask, don’t tell attitude towards Captain America or will they drum him out of the superhero corps?

  • McCain will next complain that Obama’s overwhelming powers of leadership are unfair to use in an election.

    It’s amazing how fast things change in this world of political fashion, one week McCain is sporting the full Hundred Years head to toe, today he struts the runway, a seventy year old man wearing nothing but a Timeline.

  • Completely unrelated to anything, I’d just like to note the passing of Charles Wheeler, who worked at the BBC from 1947 until his death this month, aged 85.

    For many people, he was the man who explained America to Europe. He was the BBC’s America correspondent from the sixties onwards, covering all the major stories such as the Civil Rights Movement and Watergate. He was still reporting from America to the last.

    He belonged to that old school of journalism, reporting news with clarity and without bias. Farewell Charles.

  • Oh, well, I was born WAY before Carter, and I do not have the same emnity for the use of the term “tar baby.” Call me what you like.

  • Let me join in thanking Adam, Rod and Steve M for their excellent job.

    Can we put the term “tar baby” to bed? Srsly. No one born after Carter knows what it means, so they have to ask, and then everyone is embarrassed for you.

    I have to admit, I was born in ’64, and the only connotation that term had for me was a scene from the Disney movie “Song of the South”.

    It wasn’t until I really started getting into politics in the (very) late 90s that I learned more of the racial background. Personally, I’ve always felt this was akin the the brouhaha about a congressman’s use of the work “niggardly” (meaning stingy or parsimonious) a few years ago. I never associated it with any racism, and I grew up in cowboy country in southwestern Wyoming, fer cryin’ out loud. Granted they tend to be a red state (though the majority of voters are Dem, from what I’ve read), but I don’t remember any overt or blatant racism there while I was growing up. In the past with the Asians who worked on building the railroads, then definitely yes, but that was looked on as a period of shame in our state’s history.

    I guess I’m just luckily naive about stuff like that.

  • Let me join in thanking Adam, Ron and Steve M for their excellent job.

    Oh, except for one thing. Three of you and you only put out 9 items today? 😉

    Steve Benen, you rock!!

  • …it’s because Maliki’s is based on “conditions” and Obama’s isn’t, a line that will only work on people who haven’t been paying attention.

    Was it one week ago or two that Obama was supposedly reversing himself by embracing a conditions-based withdrawal?

  • Michael W,

    Oh, except for one thing. Three of you and you only put out 9 items today?

    You’ll have to keep your running count open. I tend to write later in the day than Steve, and I’m still working on another post for the late night readers.

  • Ron, you rock! I love your blog almost as much as this one.

    You keep writing and I will keep reading. And seriously, man, good job!!

  • Strange. I am black and have certainly had a number of racial epithets thrown my way. Even recently. Until I read the linked post, I was completely unaware that “tar baby” even had negative racial connotations. I have never, ever heard the term used that way and I have heard the term used a lot particularly in academic settings. I find that discussion at feministing pretty odd in that context.

  • In the open-thread vein:
    http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/clicking-for-dollars/
    my 3-cent contribution might not be all that much but, can some of you ‘puter-whizzes tell me how to avoid contributing even that little? I find the very idea that, when I look for “Obama”, I might be supporting RNC totally preposterous and unacceptable. OTOH… I use Google, not yahoo; does it make a diff?

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Thanks to all the guest posters and especially to Adam (or is it dnA?), who’s done the most to fill in for Benen. But, “bullet points”???? “Bullet points” is such a… *Repub* term; for us, it should be “flowers and chocolates”. Though I’m comfortable with “asterisks”, what with “per aspera ad astra” being the Dem way to go.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    I never associated it [tar baby] with any racism — Michael W, @13

    Until I came to this country, I never heard the term (and not much since). But I knew, the first time I heard it, that it was derogatory *and* that the “target” was blacks (ie it was racist). Probably from reading all the Brit lit of the Victorian Empire era. “a touch of the tar” was a description of descendants of mixed — Anglo and *Indian* — origin (though, sometimes, “Israelites” were also covered by it). Black hair and brown eyes were often enough to suspect it; skin tone that was slightly darker or more sallow than “healthy pink”, in addition to those, was enough to confirm it and to allow exclusion from “us” (clubs etc)

  • Very surprised to see the glaring absence of any note regarding the House’s non-impeachment impeachment hearing today. Is this another gatekeeper site?

  • You’ll have to keep your running count open. I tend to write later in the day than Steve, and I’m still working on another post for the late night readers.

    Thanks, Ron. I’ve always liked your work, and really appreciate your helping Steve out when he takes a well-deserved day or two off. I love the “late night” posts, especially since I’m now on the Pacific coast and most of you guys are on the Atlantic coast.

    I noticed another item from you above this one. I’m looking forward to reading it.

  • Libra (#20) said:

    Probably from reading all the Brit lit of the Victorian Empire era. “a touch of the tar” was a description of descendants of mixed — Anglo and *Indian* — origin (though, sometimes, “Israelites” were also covered by it).

    I guess I must be dense not to have picked that up. I’ve been reading English lit, going back to Chaucer, since I was 10 or 11 years old. I almost always picked up on the puns and the double entendres (especially in Shakespeare), but the racist connotations never made a dent.

    I guess I have to give my mother great plaudits. I know she grew up in a somewhat racist environment, but she raised her children to look beyond that and see the person underneath the skin. There’s more to the old gal than I ever knew.

  • John McCain, talking about the surge with Wolf Blitzer today: “General Petraeus, one of the great generals in history, disagrees with Senator Obama.”

    I guess that makes John McCain’s Surge one of the greatest military strategies in history. The man is truly a visionary in his own mind.

  • I think McCain is living in a dream world, all of a sudden he was the cause of decreased violence in Iraq. He seems to be re writing history.Like an old old man his tales get more and more wilder each time he tells them. He cannot be excused for conspiring with the Pentagon to stop Obama from visiting the wounded troops. In my 26 years married to an Air Force Medic (and I have certainly been to Landstuhl) I have never known of a visitor being barred from a patient who was able to have visitors anyway, especially a senator, who I thought the soldiers were excited to see.

  • In order to try OBL, in any venue, first you have to catch him, which as far as we can tell no one is trying to do. That only reinforces the assertion that he’s dead, and has been for quite some time. An uncaught, dead, OBL is still a valuable propaganda tool, and he’s been used precisely in that fashion. In the abstract I suppose a Nuremberg style trial(s) would be help clarify some events, but for McSame and Obama to engage in any serious discussion is pure nonsense.

    Better they should talk about war crime indictments of the current regime. BushCo are still walking around and easily caught.

  • Criticizing the niggardly (since the Carter days) understanding and use of “tar baby” in its proper context in order to tar the clear, spic-and-span usage of the term as somehow being racist shows the chink in the armor of political correctness. That is – that “PC” is now itself twisted into being used derisively as meaning thin-skinned to the point of ridiculousness- where the original application of “politically correct” referred most specifically to thinking about the words you were used to saying all the time (ie: mailman), and substituting different words that were more accurate and that conveyed the proper respect for another’s sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.

    I guess casting aspersions on a clear idea well conveyed by a term that people who used to read books picked up on as an easy term to convey a complex idea (mostly those from before the Carter administration and Gore’s invention of the internet ) just gives people with too much time on their hands another thing to bitch about. Very queer.

  • Zbigniew Brzezinski doesn’t think more troops in Afghanistan are the answer. Both candidates now essentially favor an increase in troops in the area…

    Trying to read Brzezinski’s “Between Two Ages” his stuff is real wordy

    Or is it time out, lets think through this stuff.

    So I read the article that describes Brzezinski admitting to fund Afghanistan’s Mujahedeen in 1979. One could guess this was the start of what Osama Bin Laden created and was reinforced, supplied, pay-rolled, and trained by Reagan and Company for another eight years. This was something I needed to look at and weave through the news because Mainstream Media totally avoids that Ronald Reagan implication. Central America was in hell at that time anyway, so again here America had two conflicting areas of the world.

    Americas Frankenstein is in the making while creating the other monster Saddam Hussein during this same period, isn’t that just Jim dandy. But first we needed to murder those in Central America who did not want to work with America. Commander Oliver North a pardoned felon parading around Fox News Network is the finest example of the ancient sin hubris. Oliver North a serious part of that history, but pardoned as a convicted felon now defines war stories, Yikes! Here the War stories Context is draped by a felon and likely written by screwed up intelligence. Needless to say I am a rookie at this stuff and still learning.

    The new political party that is taking shape is the Mainstream Media “Con-Textuals”. Whats funny about this kind of politics, after something is said anyone can say, what they said was taken out of context. Here giving definition after what is said, or even changing definition after making a definition. It’s absolutely incredible to hear a political analyst say “this is what that person is tying to say”. Then an analyst goes on to express every personal bias feeling they can incorporate in the debate. No wonder a guy like Chris Mathews has fun doing this stuff. Brzezinski’s daughter is Mika of MSNBC ? There is a whole lot of insider stuff here. Sheesh and I thought Allen Greenspan wife Andrea Mitchell was a whole lot of insider stuff, yep like trillion dollar federal reserve board deals. Its no wonder CMSNBC is a money station. Gad zooks America is surrounded by these corporate biased money crunchers and you really believe your getting news.

    So, now Brzezinski is implying in what I had a gut feeling about along time ago. The Russians are doing exactly what America did twenty years ago in Afghanistan only then the Russians learned after loosing fifteen thousand troops killed and some were around sixty thousand troops wounded, finally the Russians decided to withdraw from Afghanistan.

    Brzezinski is trying to point out the obvious; the surge in Bagdad did not work totally. It is as if Mainstreams Media points out something and it is a success, something else pops up some where else. And, considering 911, there are no boundaries so it’s fair to say America can parade around the world surging all it wants, but highly and likely so will the Mujahedeen. The object is to spend our resources and Obama and McCain are falling in that trap.

    America we have been in a proxy war with Russia and the Middle East for decades now. Only Mainstream Media is just coming around to finally admit Russia is as powerful as ever, they like China, India and Japan are closer to the largest reserves of fossil fuel left in history. They have the advantage, always have. And the world knows America is just trying to take these resources. All the while watching American greed in political circles bankrupt our selves.

    My God, to understand that American imports seventy percent of it oil is astonishing to me. With that known at the time America went to war with Iraq, George Bush place America in jeopardy. That in it self enough to impeach the president.

    Misdemeanor charge is more than worthy here with that said, America what we see here is a wide open sober disorderly conduct in decision making by George Bush with malice and intent to achieve goals and missions that also violated domestic and international law that harmed or murdered individuals by legitimizing torture. This is George Bush’s legacy.

  • Bob Burton

    Is this another gatekeeper site?

    No intentional decision was made with regards to keeping out any particular story. I was blogging while also working all day in the office, leaving limited time to choose among a tremendous number of possible stories to cover. It is pretty much true every day that there is far more going on than I could possibly blog about.

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