Serenity November
Sorry for the conspicuous silence. Four days of no blogging left some of you poking a toe at the corpse. Presumably no one’s ever heard me go so long without talking. (Not heard?)
Anyhow, there are a couple things on the back burner, but a cold, papers and someone’s clever idea of a bottle of champagne at 4am kind of trashed the weekend.
I’m in the midst of reading Frank Rich’s column:
Then again, in his frantic efforts to explain why he sided with Mr. Bush to oppose an expanded G.I. bill that the Senate passed by 75 to 22, Mr. McCain has attacked Mr. Obama for not enlisting in the military.
Besides making Mr. McCain look ever angrier next to his serene opponent, this eruption raises the question of why he chose double-standard partisanship over principle by not applying this criterion to the blunderers who took us into Iraq.
And I wonder if Obama can win the general by appearing ’serene’.
I have a cartoon above my desk of Kevin Rudd and John Howard in a boxing ring. Rudd’s snuggling a puppy, while Howard raises a fist in the air and screams in frustration, ‘HIT ME!’
He never did, and he won by letting Howard hang himself on his own record (and interest rates).
Part of Clinton’s problem in this campaign has been that Obama won’t come out and hit her. The Clintons know how to deal with direct attacks; as has been made clear throughout the campaign, they don’t know what to do when their opponent sort of pretends that they don’t exist.
Perhaps after eight years of a bellicose cowboy, the American people (or at least more than half) might be drawn in by a thoughtful professor who might actually run the country. And not attack everyone that looks at us askance.
This is not to say that Obama’s a puppy snuggler. He’s a Machine candidate, and he’s got Axelrod. There are stories being flogged and dirt being dug, but the Obama campaign’s best move in the campaign has been to have their candidate appear above the fray. They let him sit up top the mountain whilst Clinton and McCain take potshots at him. Most of their missiles have thus far fallen back on their heads.
If someone can get Trinity United to stop taping sermons until after November, Obama’s place on that mountain might be pretty safe.
We might need some good t-shirts, too. Nothing really rhymes with ‘Barack’.
Obama: Great in ‘08?
Sphere: Related Content
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:41 am
Kerry lost by being too ’serene’. BO’s talent is that he hits back without looking frantic.
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:12 am
Nine reasons I’m linking to John McCain:
1) John McCain wants to align himself with Bush on destroying Social Security.
2) John McCain thinks working-class Americans don’t matter by refusing to support raising the minimum wage.
3) John McCain thinks the GI Bill is too generous for our veterans.
4) John McCain is “fine” with us being in Iraq for “a hundred years,” and thinks America could be there for another “thousand years” or even “a million years.”
5) John McCain thinks NAFTA is fantastic.
6) John McCain’s economic policy was written by a lobbyist. A maverick? Not so much.
7) John McCain wants to make abortion illegal by overturning Roe v. Wade.
9) John McCain supports Bush’s Iraq strategy, and plans to continue it.
These articles on John McCain all come from mainstream news sources, and most quote John McCain directly. John McCain: we can’t afford another 4 years of George W. Bush.