How many elections are we going to have our heads handed to us on a daily basis? Obama finally launches an excellent line about lipstick on a pig in reference to John McCain, the republicans twist it into being about Palin, and what does he do in response? He CLARIFIES it. Which, given the context, is really just a backhanded apology.
WHY?!!? What is the value of telling the truth and being clear? It is not the fact that Obama is truthful or clear that is the problem; it is that he betrays a lethal NAIVETE when he behaves as if facts will win out over emotion if only given their rightful presence in the debate.
Any cognitive scientist can explain to us how and why visceral falsehoods take root deeper in our brains that facts ever will. Obama -- and everyone on this blog and elsewhere who somehow think facts matter more than emotions, but especially Hunter
Honestly. I know I keep repeating myself, in recent posts, but is this really what we have devolved to? That, quote, "these little facts" are secondary, in elections, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it? Candidates for the presidency can simply lie through their teeth, and it is a good thing, because the ability to affect the narrative via a repeated lie is much more useful than any possible blowback for telling that lie?
are getting only more shrill fighting a losing game of insisting on the facts. Do you remember a sunset because it was chromatically and thematically beautiful, or do you remember it by explaining to the naifs that, in fact, the sun is not 'setting' at all but that it is an optical illusion created by the earths rotational orbit at 60,000 miles per second around the sun?
Has NO ONE in the Obama campaign ever read "Irrational Exuberance?" "The Experience Economy?" Watched people gamble or by lottery tickets? Watched a tv show or a movie where there is no way the characters portrayed can in any semblance of reality afford the lives they are living, and yet the show is enjoyable and memorable just the same? In fact MORE memorable than, say, a sociologically accurate documentary on the same types of people?
And now we're going to waste more time and energy chasing Palin around the country sreaming about the facts. If that tactic is going to matter it is not because of the content of the facts, it will have to be because the visceral peril that people experience in the presence of a pathological liar will make them not want to have that person a 72 year old heartbeat away from the presidency. It WILL NOT be because the facts are 'true'.
I'm sorry, I hate every facet of infuriating stupidity with which Palin continues lying with impunity. But, apparently, this is the game. We can sharpen our elbows and start using a little more fabrication and innuendo or we can whine to the refs until the buzzer sounds and we lose.
Obama is laboring under a pious misapprehension. Voters are not tired of 'politics as usual'. Voters are only tired of their politics as usual when the other party practices them. The sooner he realizes that the better.
More Dennis Rodman. Less Kiki Vandeweghe.
UPDATE: fixed the Hunter link (I think).