Dowd: And Now, Some Lies About Obama's Elitism

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Wednesday April 16, 2008 · 3:16 PM PDT

2008/04/16 · 15:16

Maybe I'm a little angry because I just woke up. Maybe it's working 10 or 11 hour shifts at night delivering pizza until the wee hours of the morning that has made me bitter, but I don't think so. No, it's the national media.

When I read Maureen Dowd's fluffy and lackluster column just now, it made me viscerally angry.

Essentially, Dowd pieced together a catalog of mistruths, misrepresentations, and outright lies in an effort to smear Obama as "elitist." Is that all it takes to make the NYT op-ed page these days? Apparently it is, with the likes of Kristol polluting the newsprint.

So, I'm going to tear her "article" apart line by line.

mastrwik

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Monday April 14, 2008 · 11:38 PM PDT

2008/04/14 · 23:38

On Monday, Dauphin County Commissioner and former Steelton mayor George Hartwick formally endorsed Senator Obama for president. Dauphin County is "guns and bitter" country in Central Pennsylvania and encompasses the greater Harrisburg area.

I have a particular interest in this endorsement because I lived in Dauphin County for three years. As endorsements go, this isn't Senator Casey, but it's pretty big for the area.

mastrwik

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Monday March 17, 2008 · 8:38 AM PDT

2008/03/17 · 08:38

Early on in the primary season, Republicans were crossing over to vote for Senator Obama, and open primaries were seen as a distinct advantage for the junior senator from Illinois.

Now, the Boston Globe cites exit polling in this story about GOPers voting for Clinton.

The story goes so far as to suggest that in Texas, where the popular vote margin was around 100,000, the 119,000 GOPers that voted for Clinton won it for her.

mastrwik

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Sunday March 16, 2008 · 10:51 AM PDT

2008/03/16 · 10:51

Watching the unfolding debacle of Senator Barack Obama's preacher, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, has been like watching a slow-motion multiple car pile-up on a foggy freeway. So many folks are eager to throw the "heinous racist" under the bus of the Democratic Party, with Hillary at its wheel, as it chugs along toward some sort of fantastical November victory.

Today, I read a diary over at MyDD entitled The Rise and Fall of Barack Obama, and it got me thinking about the Reverend's comments within the context of the Democratic Party. The eagerness with which many self-identified Democrats are willing to write off Obama's candidacy in light of Wright's comments is troubling, to say the least.

I haven't seen many folks defending Reverend Wright, and perhaps rightly so. However, careful consideration of the Reverend's words is in order, not a blanket dismissal of him simply because he directly speaks to the problem of race in America. As Democrats, we should know there is a difference between Wright and wrong.

mastrwik

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Thursday March 13, 2008 · 12:32 PM PDT

2008/03/13 · 12:32

"Hope is the bedrock of this nation: the belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us; by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be."

Senator Obama already had me when he spoke these words, but they rang so true that I've been thinking about exactly why his candidacy appeals to me so much. When he speaks about Change, the cynics say "Change what?" When he speaks about hope, cynics say "Hope for what?"

Well, in my mind, he means change everything, and hope for everything. The idea is that you or I, simple human beings existing in a nation of millions, can do something to change the world. The idea is that our voice is just as powerful as his, that our work can change just as many things, and that the nation is ours to fundamentally alter if we will just stand up and do it, if we will just stand up and say "Yes, we can!"

New Politics. It's not just a phrase to be bandied about. It's the bedrock of this website, the bedrock of Obama's candidacy, and our only hope for the future.

mastrwik

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Saturday December 08, 2007 · 12:28 PM PST

2007/12/08 · 12:28

One of the greatest failures of leadership by President Bush was in the days immediately following that darkest day, September 11, when he told Americans to get on with their daily lives, to go shopping and get on down to Disney World, to not let the terrorists win by changing our daily lives or living in fear. Could he have said anything worse?

Some of this country's greatest moments in history have come when our leaders have called us to duty, to give our labor, our hearts, and our service to the United States. Instead of calling on Americans of every stripe and persuasion, President Bush asked only that we not change, that we go about our lives as if nothing had happened.

But something did happen, and we as a nation have done nothing to change our country's course, to rise to the occasion, to show the world that we are still the beacon of freedom, the last great hope of liberty for oppressed people everywhere. Now, we are the oppressor, practicing Soviet-style renditions, replete with torture and the stripping of habeas corpus. And that's not even getting into the shame of Iraq.

On Dec. 5, Senator Barack Obama spoke directly to this failure of leadership and said exactly how he would bring about the change that this country needs. Please, read on...

mastrwik

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Tuesday November 27, 2007 · 12:42 PM PST

2007/11/27 · 12:42

That's what the newest junk forward in the conservative sphere of the internet says that all good Americans should do. In fact, if you don't support our mercenaries, you're a stinking pig Communist Defeatocrat that hates our troops, our country, and our Constitution.

Is this really happening in my beloved country? Have Americans fallen so far as to castigate those that would rightly point out just one of many gigantic follies that has come about as a result of the Iraq War?

Our mercenary army in Iraq - which before the surge was the same size as our regular army by most estimates - is a testament to the shame of the Bush presidency. Spitting in the face of all historical precedent, a lot of the money going to "support our troops" is actually going to pay exorbitant cost-plus, no-bid mercenary contracts. And now the far-right is trying to sell it. Support our mercenaries? Not on my life...

Full e-mail and debunkage after the fold.

mastrwik

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Monday October 29, 2007 · 1:19 PM PDT

2007/10/29 · 13:19

It's hard to watch the news, open the newspaper, or browse any blog these days without coming across something related to the price of oil and how high it has gotten. As Americans, the truly gluttonous consumers that we are, our knee-jerk reactions to high oil and gas prices range anywhere from glum assumptions of further price increases to outright panic to genuine outrage.

Our eyes popped out of our heads at $2 gasoline, then $2.50, then $3, then $3.50...and now the swiftly increasing price of crude oil has us shaking our heads yet again, wondering how high and how far the price of oil can really go. Instinctively, we regard the high price of oil as a bad thing. But it isn't.

Democrats, liberals, and progressives everywhere should be cheering the price of oil. We should be urging it onward, upward! Instead, we're worried. Now is the time for sacrifice, friends - an explanation after the fold.

RSS

Dowd: And Now, Some Lies About Obama's Elitism

Dauphin Co. (PA) Commish Endorses Obama

Boston Globe: GOP for Clinton?

The Difference between Wright and Wrong

New Politics - The World as it Should Be

The Need to Serve

Support Our Mercenaries?

Don't Fear the Reaper: Why We Should Cheer the Price of Oil