From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Silly Tea Leaves
One year ago, during the "Tell Me Something I Don’t Know" segment of the syndicated Chris Matthews Show (in which Tweety's beltway pundit guests spill some magic "insider" beans so we'll think they're awesome), Bob Woodward dropped this bombshell that he probably thought no one would ever revisit:
Emotional connection.
No "secret plan" necessary.
"The White House has a secret plan to win the election. It's complex and it's secret, but… Look, Barack Obama wants to win so badly, as I understand it, everything in the White House is driven by the election, and that level of commitment will take them to a point where he's going to show some leg in a way that people are gonna say, 'Wow! He really wants the job!' And this emotional connection could take place."
Matthews' response:
"Wow! I am impressed by that!"
I've kept that exchange in the back of my mind for a year, waiting patiently for that secret, complex White House plan to be splashed across the front page of
The Washington Post. So far, all I've seen is a popular president running a tough, reality-centric, press-the-flesh, smarts and shoe leather-based campaign while his opponent runs on a foundation of bullshit and…well, more bullshit.
I know that Daily Kos is read by all the movers and shakers in the political moving and shaking world. So if you're having lunch with Mr. Woodward in the next day or two, please ask him if, um, the President has shown "some leg" yet. Because I have no idea what that even means. I guess I should've paid more attention in my first-grade Very Serious Gibberish class.
Everyone else: VOTE!
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, November 1, 2012
Note If you need 'em: DisasterAssistance.gov.....Red Cross.....Fema.gov.....Bacardi.
-
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Election Day: 5
Days 'til the Denver International Wine Festival: 9
Early estimate of the cost to clean up after Superstorm Sandy: $30-$50 billion
(Source: NBC News)
Percent of voters who believe that President Obama "understands the concerns of people like you": 59%
(Source: CBS/NYT poll)
Decrease in the number of violent crimes last year: 3.8%
Number of years in a row a decline in violent crime has been recorded: 5
(Source: FBI)
Percent of the popular vote by which Kennedy beat Nixon in 1960: .17%
-
Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
You may have noticed that many of our fellow citizens have slipped into wretched excess on the patriotism front. Yellow ribbons tied around the necks of plastic flamingos. A bumper sticker on a huge gas hog that says, WHIP THEIR ASS, TAKE THEIR GAS.
Eight veterans groups in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, endorsed a decision not to let an anti-war group use the county-owned Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall. The chairman of the hall's board explained that the anti-war group is opposed to "the flag, martial music, and everything else that is patriotic." All in all, festive days for armchair Rambos.
---April, 1991
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: In the wake of Sandy, a shoulder to lean on.
-
CHEERS to November. Thirty days of madcap madness! Thanksgiving, Veterans' Day, Election Day is the 6th (winners: Obama, Senate Democrats, marriage referendums...I GUARANTEE it), Guy Fawkes' Day, Dag van de Dynastie, Dia de la Revolucion Mexicana, the end of Daylight Saving Time (this Sunday), St. Andrew's Day, Buss und Bettag (50% off strudel all day!), Bond returns, Lincoln re-emancipates, and the Birthday of Guru Nanak Dev Ji...all in one month!!! Pass the Red Bull...and then someone tell me where the hell August went.
It shouldn't take a monster storm
to bring about bipartisanship.
CHEERS to compassionate conservaliberalism. Something you'll be reading every day for the next umpteen days: "The cleanup continues." Things are pretty much still in the draining, assessing and powering-up phase. Oh, and if there's a silver lining to Sandy's temper tantrum, it might be the conversations that are breaking out all over the place about climate change annd perhaps---
perhaps---doing something about it. So…yay for that. Meanwhile, President Obama and Governor Chris Christie
toured the damage together yesterday in New Jersey to much ballyhooing over their (genuine, I believe) display of both get-alongness and get-down-to-business-ness. No muss, no fuss, roll up the sleeves git 'er done. Just like the way things work in Congress. Minus all the words I just wrote before these.
I have SO run out of patience
with these horribly stupid people.
JEERS to the idiots among us. Have you noticed how quiet the "tea party" movement has been lately? Wanna know why? It's because they were always just the Republican base who took a shine to tricorn hats. And now that there's an election on, they've gone back to being garden-variety Republicans again, which is to say garden-variety morons who, as Atrios explains, appear to be in the process of
fucking themselves over yet again:
While our liberal media coddled and adored them, the truth was that the Tea Party never actually had anything to be angry about. Obama didn't take their guns, or raise their taxes, or give free Cadillacs to strapping young bucks. He did continue to be black, so there's that I guess. They couldn't be mad at the Wall Street bailout, because that's who was funding them. The only thing that kinda sorta made ideological sense was the auto bailout. So that became their thing.
Romney---the self-described "car guy"---strapped his campaign to the roof of Rush Limbaugh's station wagon and all that's left is to wait for the loud "Crunch!" as it veers into the ditch five days from now. I coulda told 'em: friends don’t let friends drive Republican.
JEERS to Republican shills on the bench. On November 1, 1991, Clarence "Did Somebody Say Porn??" Thomas took his place as associate justice on the Supreme Court. In 21 years, he's never asked a question from his perch. But a couple years back his wife apparently made up for all that silence by making creepy, harassing phone calls from her liquor cabinet. That's the great thing about relationships: teamwork.
CHEERS to reminding myself why I like Ike. Dwight Eisenhower's granddaughter, Susan, left the Republican party four years ago (she's now an independent) because it had morphed into something resembling more of a Salem Witch Trial. This year she's re-upping her support of the sensible Democrat:
Given Romney’s shifting positions, he can only be judged by the people with whom he surrounds himself. Many of them espouse yesterday’s thinking on national defense and security, female/family reproductive rights, and the interplay of government and independent private enterprise. In this context, Barack Obama represents the future, not that past. His emphasis on education is an example of the importance he places on preparing rising generations to assume their places as innovators and entrepreneurs, workers and doers, and responsible citizens and leaders. … I believe that he deserves four more years in the White House.
And Romney? Four more years in the wilderness.
CHEERS to the virus slayer. Dr. Peter Neumann has long been a pioneer in computer security, and at age 80 he's embarking on a new five-year project that could make all our gizmos safer from hackers:
What do I use to protect my PC?
Say hello to Colonel Whupass.
Neumann reasons that the only workable and complete solution to the computer security crisis is to study the past half-century's research, cherry-pick the best ideas and then build something new from the bottom up. Neumann is one of the most qualified people to lead such an effort to rethink security. He has been there for the entire trajectory of modern computing. ...
To combat uniformity in software, designers are pursuing a variety of approaches that make computer system resources moving targets. Already some computer operating systems scramble internal addresses much the way a magician might perform the trick of hiding a pea in a shell. The Clean Slate project is taking that idea further, essentially creating software
that constantly shape-shifts to elude would-be attackers.
To learn more about Neumann's work on cyber security, you can get on his computer and download all his files. The login code is 123456789 and the password is PASSWORD.
-
Four years ago in C&J: November 1, 2008
JEERS to her (yeah, her)...again. Sarah Palin actually believes that media criticism might be violating her First Amendment rights. Glenn Greenwald embarks on a suicide mission to get inside her intellectually booby-trapped head and translate:
Happier days. Still
nutso, but happier.
According to Palin, what the Founders intended with the First Amendment was that political candidates for the most powerful offices in the country and Governors of states would be free to say whatever they want without being criticized in the newspapers. The First Amendment was meant to ensure that powerful political officials would not be "attacked" in the papers. [Is it] even possible to imagine more breathaking ignorance from someone holding high office and running for even higher office?
As soon as Obama wins, we need to start mapping out how we're going to secure his re-election. Namely, by
doing everything we can to ensure that Sarah Palin is the GOP nominee in 2012. Step one: yard signs!
[11/1/12 Update: We got Romney. Rats.]
JEERS to disengaging brain before opening mouth. Oh, this is just a little inconsequential tidbit, but funny: Saturday afternoon on MSNBC I heard a pundit (one of ours) say, "Barack Obama isn't just American, he's uber American!" And to prove it, he always plants an American flag in his wienerschnitzel.
-
And just one more…
CHEERS to doing better the second time around. Three years ago---admittedly during an off-off-year election---voters overturned the gay-marriage law that had been duly passed by our legislature and signed by our Democratic governor. The opposition hammered us with sleazy ads and the response from our side was pretty weak tea. I'm happy to say this year it feels quite the opposite. The pro-equality forces are playing offense, responding to NOM's lies quickly, and producing a series of excellent ads to make the case that allowing same-sex couples to get a marriage license isn't going to destroy civilization. Check out this new one:
And this new one:
Authentic people, superior production values, simple message, positive impression, and yet they still respond unambiguously to the other side's phony-baloney arguments. It gives me hope that Maine will reclaim the "live and let live" reputation it lost three years ago. That will make me very happy. Better yet, it'll make the other side really mad.
Have a decent Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-
Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
“Cheers and Jeers production will not be moved from the United States to China.”
---Sergio Marchionne
10/30/12
-