A quick note on hope and change.

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Wednesday April 21, 2010 · 12:03 PM PDT

2010/04/21 · 12:03

As a general rule, republicans are not about change. Sure, you've got your republicans who adhere to a gradual change as a function of the will of markets -- the invisible hand and all that. Then you have your republicans who long to return to some kind of recent Eden -- some time they remember, but of course without too much detail. Basically, it's an ideology built out of two strains of ugly utopianism. And republicans have been very quick to criticize what they see as the radical agenda of their opponents, who are all about progress and aggressive change. And every time it looks like change isn't going to happen, republicans hop on the very idea...just recently, as everyone knows, Sarah Palin was quick to deride the "hopey-changey" thing.

Should we be surprised that in a recent interview Sarah Palin invoked hope and change?

More below the fold...

JCHallman

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Sunday February 21, 2010 · 4:18 PM PST

2010/02/21 · 16:18

There's been a lot of discussion and speculation here lately about why the same people who chose to believe Bush's lies fail to accept truths from Obama. There's a reason for this, and it's not just because they don't like Obama. Here's what I think -- they never actually see him, because all they do is watch Fox. Democrats, liberals, progressives can spend all the time they want on all the other networks, and all over the web, and the simple truth will remain that the message won't be heard unless someone tells it to them directly...on Fox.

And Obama should do it. He owned Bill O'Reilly when he appeared with him during the campaign, and when Obama visited republicans a couple weeks back he owned them too -- and the effects are measurable. It doesn't matter whether Obama wants to actually be bipartisan, or just appear it...either way he should recognize that he can change the climate and mood of the country by speaking to actual republicans.

Poll

136 votes Show Results

Obama should...

136 votes Vote Now!

Obama should...

...suck it up and go on Fox and tell truth to sleazy power.

76 votes

...stay away from them forever.

13 votes

...forget all this and hire Howard Dean.

30 votes

...plot a new 50-state and 4-network strategy.

17 votes

I like a little schadenfreude, too, but how about this...

JCHallman

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Thursday June 25, 2009 · 6:31 AM PDT

2009/06/25 · 06:31

It's been a little while since I posted a diary here, and I've been enjoying the Sanford coverage as much as any one...but if we're going to take pleasure in another's suffering (when he damn well deserves it), we'd better acknowledge, at the same time, that there is some suffering going on that is not all that funny. And unfortunately, the coverage it's getting is making it sound less like something we should be outraged about, than like a great story of human triumph. Bullocks on that.

JCHallman

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Sunday October 12, 2008 · 6:02 AM PDT

2008/10/12 · 06:02

I think there are a couple clearly identifiable trends among republicans right now. There are some who are revealing the extent to which they've succumbed to political propaganda: the darkest corners of their personalities are poking through as the McCain campaign becomes more and more desperate. And there are others who, either out of some pragmatic sentiment or perhaps out of a genuine change of heart, are giving Obama a second look and asking whether he's the way to go after all.

I've been thinking about this second group, and I've become concerned by some of the rhetoric I've been reading here.

JCHallman

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Saturday September 06, 2008 · 5:53 AM PDT

2008/09/06 · 05:53

It seems to me that battle of the surge isn't being waged properly. The republicans are getting a pass on a significant bit of hypocrisy and spin -- but there's a way to fight back.

JCHallman

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Thursday September 04, 2008 · 4:45 PM PDT

2008/09/04 · 16:45

Okay, I couldn't get too close, but it seems like no one can. Local media reported that about 500 protesters crossed the John Ireland bridge, trying to climb down into St. Paul. They were stopped by police and began what the radio called a sit in. I live just a few blocks away...so I hoped on my bike and rode over.

It's like a police state...

JCHallman

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Monday September 01, 2008 · 6:41 AM PDT

2008/09/01 · 06:41

Long before Sarah Palin hit the national scene, she wrote an op-ed making the exact argument that now applies to her own vice presidential candidacy. In it, she claimed that Frank Murkowski's support of the Violence Against Women Act -- written by Joe Biden -- made him a better candidate for governor than his female opponent, Fran Ulmer.

The time is 2002. Palin is just hitting the scene -- people are beginning to write letters to the editor asking that she be considered for higher office. But she gets passed over for lieutenant governor and then makes the argument that women should vote for a male candidate over a female candidate for governor of Alaska.

The actual statement, from the Anchorage Daily News, Nov. 4, 2002 (you have to buy it from their archives, so you can't link to it), below the fold...

JCHallman

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Sunday August 31, 2008 · 5:26 PM PDT

2008/08/31 · 17:26

The picture one gets of Sarah Palin from her days as a mayor is not a pretty one. And just as she was coming to be considered for a higher office, she found herself making the argument that women should not vote for a woman just because she's a woman. (See below.)

Interestingly -- and someone ought to make hay of this -- Palin's first newsworthy stance appears to be in favor of a tax increase (Anchorage Daily News, Oct. 8, 1992):

Voters in Wasilla bucked tradition Tuesday and, by a slim margin, approved plans to start a police department financed by the city's first-ever sales tax. "I'd feel safer saying this if the margin was wider, but I think Wasilla finally sees the light. People see the need for change," said Sarah Palin, 28. Palin, a political newcomer, was one of two supporters of the police-sales tax plan elected to the city council Tuesday.

It gets scary from there...

JCHallman

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Wednesday August 27, 2008 · 4:29 AM PDT

2008/08/27 · 04:29

I was watching media coverage of Hillary's convention speech this morning, and what was more disturbing than the way it was being characterized was what came immediately after it -- a segue to a lede about whether "a new cold war is about to begin."

This wasn't Fox News. I think it was CNN, but I was switching around. What's disturbing about it is both the fact that the media is more than willing to take their narratives from conservative talking points if it makes for a good cock fight, and that it is so incredibly wrong.

Something needs to be done to make sure this election does not become a referendum on a hugely outdated model of Russia.

JCHallman

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Tuesday August 26, 2008 · 7:36 PM PDT

2008/08/26 · 19:36

It's three a.m., January 25, 2009, and the phone in the White House is ringing. Cindy Lou McCain answers.

"Hello? Just a minute."

She rolls over, but the other side of the bed is empty.

"Is it important? He's sleeping. Um-hm. Okay, yes, that's important. I'll wake him."

JCHallman

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Sunday August 24, 2008 · 12:28 PM PDT

2008/08/24 · 12:28

It seems to me that McCain's habit of invoking his POW status to explain himself might be best rebutted by pointing out all the things he SHOULD have learned from the experience, but apparently didn't. Indeed, what's obvious now is that he learned far more by having his ass handed to him in South Carolina in 2000.

I offer the following list as a brief introduction, with the hope that others will contribute their own offerings.

Because McCain was a POW, he should never have agreed to do any kind of business whatsoever with an administration that argued he had never been tortured.

Because McCain was a POW, he should know better than to own 7 or 8 or 11 (or even 2) homes when there are 250,000 homeless veterans.

Because McCain was a POW, he should not side with a strategy of preemptive war under any circumstances.

More after the break...

JCHallman

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Thursday August 21, 2008 · 10:02 AM PDT

2008/08/21 · 10:02

Now that the presidential debates have been finalized, it might be worthwhile to remind the moderators (Lehrer, Brokaw, Schieffer) that they need to do a little bit more than toss up conservative softballs like Rick Warren. (Indeed, thinking back on the Faith Forum, Warren looked a whole lot more like an overweight softball pitcher, beer in hand, gently leaning forward to underhand those babies McCain's way, than he did like a serious interviewer.)

I thought it might be useful to look back at Tim Russert's series of one-on-one interviews conducted with the candidates in the pre-primary season.

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A quick note on hope and change.

Why Obama Should Go on Fox. A Lot.

I like a little schadenfreude, too, but how about this...

A Slight (and respectful) Beef I Have With Kos

The Battle of the Surge

St. Paul is a Police State

Palin: "Don't vote for female candidate" (2002 AK gubernatorial election)

Palin from the Archives

MSM and the the Russia narrative

It's Three A.M., and McCain is president...

BECAUSE McCain was a POW...[Updated]

Russert's McCain Interview as lesson for debate moderators