Powell's Endorsment Based on Race?! WTF!?

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Sunday October 19, 2008 · 4:59 PM PDT

2008/10/19 · 16:59

There is a reason Barack Obama may get close to 99% of the African American vote, and it's not because he's black. It's because the Republican Party has become almost openly insulting to black people. This tone deafness is likely the result of the lack of African Americans in the party's leadership. If my wiki research is correct, there hasn't been a single black republican elected to Congress since J. C. Watts in 2000. The treatment of Colin Powell makes me believe there won't be any black leaders in the Republican Party in the near future either. The reaction of some on the Right to Powell's endorsement of Obama reeks of racism. Colin Powell was Ronald Reagan's National Security Adviser, George H. W. Bush's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and George W. Bush's Secretary of State, he has a long history of serving the country. He is deliberate, he is cautious, and he is thoughtful (at least when he is not cheerleading for the Iraq war). So what was the conservative reaction to such a distinguished person's endorsement of Obama? "Well obviously he's going to side with the black guy. He can't help it." This is incredibly, INCREDIBLY insulting.

CalexanderJ

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Monday October 06, 2008 · 10:39 AM PDT

2008/10/06 · 10:39

The conventional wisdom, at least in the traditional media, seems to be that Sarah Palin "won" because she didn't hurt McCain in her debate. Because she didn't implode by falling flat on her face and because she sounded slightly more intelligible than she did with Katie Couric, the debate was a net plus for the McCain camp. This logic ignores the fact that McCain is behind in the polls and lost another opportunity to make up ground, a "tie" is a victory for Obama who just needs to hold serve for the next 30 days. But it also completely ignores how Palin was damaging to McCain throughout the course of her debate, and how she completely undermined the meme that McCain was desperately trying to sell throughout the course of his.

CalexanderJ

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Saturday October 04, 2008 · 3:54 PM PDT

2008/10/04 · 15:54

I've always loved Joe Biden (and by always I mean since the primaries started). I thought he was easily the winner of most of those early debates, and I was thrilled when he was picked by Obama to be VP. There's a great article by Jonathan Alter of Newsweek about Biden that is a must read. The article was written (at least in part) after Thursday's debate and covers a wide range of subjects, from the circumstances under which Biden accepted the VP job, to Biden's emotional moment in the debate, to Biden's thoughts on John McCain. I highly recommend you read the entire article yourself, but after the jump I'll have a few excerpts along with my thoughts.

Also see Jackbauer8393's diary about this article.

CalexanderJ

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Friday October 03, 2008 · 12:23 PM PDT

2008/10/03 · 12:23

This a blatant rip-off of Maher's shtick (except I'm not really funny) but there definitely needs to be some new rules put in place for the rest of this election especially for future debates. Palin didn't choke on her own tongue during the debate, but her performance left much to be desired. She would been well served to followed these rules:

New Rule: You are not allowed to refer to yourself as a maverick, especially not multiple times during the course a debate. That's not how it's supposed to work. Here's an idea, why don't you mention something wild and crazy (or independent and original) that you've done, and have people think, "wow these guys are a team of mavericks". "John McCain is a maverick" is not an answer to how will you reform government.

CalexanderJ

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Wednesday October 01, 2008 · 1:40 AM PDT

2008/10/01 · 01:40

We've all heard it. "Joe Biden needs to be careful in this debate. He can't be too condescending. He can't be too aggressive. He can't attack too much. He needs to hold back. He has to be careful with his words. He should just focus on McCain." Every single pundit who's commented on the upcoming Vice-Presidential debate, has uttered one (or some variation) of those phrases. I've heard it from "strategists" on the left and the right. Now obviously in any debate, there are extremes you can't go to. We demand a certain level of civility from our politicians (at least when they are debating face to face). McCain very well may have lost his debate because he was too condescending and had a poor attitude towards Obama. But with Biden the advice isn't to just stay within the boundaries of political etiquette. With Biden the generally accepted wisdom is that he needs to treat Palin with kid gloves because she's a woman.

CalexanderJ

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Monday September 29, 2008 · 3:42 PM PDT

2008/09/29 · 15:42

I love (hate) listening to campaign surrogates on tv because no matter what they have to paint whatever their candidate does/says as being the greatest most selflessly patriotic thing any politician has ever done or said ever. As a result of this we get to witness incredible suspensions of logic and arguments which make absolutely zero sense delivered earnestly from straight faces. From time to time even the anchor who's interviewing the spokesperson has to break MSM protocol and chuckle in disbelief (like we saw in the Tucker Bounds/ Campbell Brown interview). The following is the video of Douglas Holtz-Eakin interview with David Shuster, his answers are so bad you would think he's being coached by Sarah Palin, below I distill the interview and Holtz-Eakin's arguments to their essence to get a clearer look at the logic (or lack thereof) of his answers.

CalexanderJ

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Sunday September 28, 2008 · 4:45 AM PDT

2008/09/28 · 04:45

The 2004 debate questions that is.

I wanted to take a look at the types of questions Ifill asked in 2004 to see what we could expect this year as she'll be moderating the Vice Presidential Debate again. How Palin does in this debate (really that's the only question, Biden will be fine), will be determined largely by the job that Ifill does as moderator. As we saw in Friday's debate, Lehrer asked really broad questions, just introduced a topic really, and then stepped back and allowed the candidates to speak. I think that a similar format would have been beneficial to Palin, as it would have allowed her to more easily stick to her talking points. Any question on the economy be answered by talking about to earmarks and reform (as we saw McCain do), and any question on foreign affairs could be brought around to needing to win and stopping terrorists. The format this years VP debate, ninety-second answers, followed by two-minute discussion for each question. Two-minute closing statements, might be harder for Palin because it allows for more and more specific questions. This is similar to the format of the 2004 debate and the questions Ifill asked then weren't softballs. Let's take a look.

CalexanderJ

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Thursday September 25, 2008 · 4:03 PM PDT

2008/09/25 · 16:03

"[The] two things I will never do are lie to the American people, or put my electoral interests before the national interest"

- John McCain

That's a quote from John McCain made to Carl Bernstein in 2000. In 2008 it is laughable. The transformation of McCain from who he was in 2000 to who he is now is total and complete. John McCain is now completely unrecognizable from the man he once was. I'm not talking about the changing of his position on some (most) on issues. I'm talking about an abandonment of the deepest core values that McCain once professed. The following is an examination the two things which McCain claimed were sacrosanct: straight talk and putting country first.

CalexanderJ

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Monday September 01, 2008 · 9:04 PM PDT

2008/09/01 · 21:04

I'm a guy, and probably more tone deaf than I should be on issues of sexism. The primary season and some of the treatment of Hillary Clinton revealed to me that sexism is still very prevalent in our society. As someone who believes in equality, I feel that any discrimination is uncalled for and should be called out. Now having said that, McCain's campaign spokespeople are going WAY overboard in their charges of sexism towards Gov. Palin. I know there have been diaries on this site imploring people to treat Palin respectfully and not use sexist terms in referring to her and many of those diaries have validity, but that's not what the McCain camp is referring to. They have turned ANY questioning of Palin's experience into a sexist attack. WTF? Does that make their mocking of Obama's experience racist?

CalexanderJ

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Sunday August 31, 2008 · 11:10 PM PDT

2008/08/31 · 23:10

It's been documented on this site that Gov. Palin was for the bridge to nowhere before she was against it. My criticism of her in this diary is not directly related to her flip flop. My criticism lies with how she and the McCain camp are currently talking about the courageous stand that she made against that bridge. Take a look at what John McCain and Lindsay Graham had to say:

CalexanderJ

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Saturday August 30, 2008 · 2:33 AM PDT

2008/08/30 · 02:33

There have been about a million diaries, blogs, and articles spawned today about the pick of Sarah Palin as McCain's VP. Virtually all the intelligent analysis agrees that she would make a terrible vice president, it will be frightening to have her a heartbeat away from being the "leader of the free world" (there's a great article summarizing most of the reasons why here), and even that her very selection is an insult to women. But that's the intelligent analysis made by people who research, and analyze, and compare, and think. This pick was not made for those people.

CalexanderJ

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Saturday August 23, 2008 · 4:14 PM PDT

2008/08/23 · 16:14

McCain please pick Mitt Romney as your VP. As a democrat I could not think of a more perfect choice for you (other than Jeb Bush). The contrast between the tickets could not get any more striking. Romney is the anti-Biden and so many levels: authenticity, experience, and likability.

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Playing the Gender Card from the Bottom of the Deck

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Another #$%&ing Palin Diary

McCain Please Pick Romney as Your VP