Completely Unnecessary

I promised to write a (brief and recent) history of political ties, but haven’t the time tonight.

Instead, lest you think my prognostications false, check out the neck decor on Obama and Biden tonight at the convention:

Biden and Obama

Also, check out Bill Clinton, who is sporting the same trademark Obama light blue - no one is stepping on the nominee’s power turf:

Bill Clinton at the Convention

I’ve never seen Bill Clinton wear a tie that color; doesn’t really look that natural, does it?

If I had to guess, I would say that Obama will probably switch back to casual, hope-y blue for the next couple of weeks, but he’ll be wearing red for the debates - and a brighter red at that.

I’m really not sure what he’ll wear tomorrow though; depends on the tone of the speech. If they think Biden was enough of an attack dog tonight, probably blue - if they need Obama to throw some punches, then red.

Don’t you wish we had more colors than red, white and blue in the US? Who could go wrong with a nice kelly green?

Tomorrow -  a deconstruction of the 2004 candidates’ wardrobe choices. We do it to the women all the time; but both Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton looked great (as did Pelosi), so let’s take potshots at the men for a change.

ps - anyone know what time Obama is speaking tomorrow (and timezone please)?

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Not that I spend my time obsessively watching Barack Obama, but my impression is that he tends to favor the ‘man of the people’ blue tie. The image currently running on the website, is a perfect example:

Taken from www.barackobama.com

It’s a calming tie - a tie that says, “Come hope with me, etc.’

Even during the debates, I never saw him wear the bright red tie that we usually associate with presidential power.

But now that he’s chosen a running mate, I bet we’re going to be seeing the red ‘power’ tie a lot more often. For instance, during his introduction of Biden as a running mate:

Richard Perry/The New York Times

I bet we’re going to see a much more aggressive Obama now that he has a friendly, loquacious running mate to carry the hope. Biden’s tie is the exact color worn by Obama in so many of his promotional photos.

And lest you think I’m over-analyzing the wardrobe choices - I guarantee the Obama campaign but way more thought into those ties than I put into this post. (Though, we could say that of almost anything, couldn’t we?)

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• Biden to be Obama’s Vice President

Well, supposedly the cat’s out of the bag. Eight minutes ago, the NYT posted that Biden’s been selected to fill the other half of the Obama ticket.

If it’s true, it’s certainly not the way Obama would have liked it to get out - Friday night via ‘people told of the decision’.

I’d actually really like it if the Obama camp pulled a big ’syke!’ on the press. That seems unlikely, though, since it would incurr the wrath of the people that Obama needs to communicate with voters.

All the buildup, though, seems rather… blah. The NYT’s Adam Nagourney’s been saying all week it’s Biden. It was supposed to be announced on Saturday, and now it’s announced by Nagourney and Jeff Zelney on Friday night instead.

It’s unclear to me if I’m supposed to be thrilled by this. (Also, if Nagourney’s paper really gets that many accolades for breaking a story that they’ve pretty much had all week.)

I’m hoping for an Obama bait-and-switch. American politics is supposed to be all drama and circuses.

I demand absurd surprises. If McCain selects Alan Keyes, I’ll vote for him.

ps - They’ve got Biden saying that Obama was ‘not yet ready’ to be president. Can’t wait to see those commercials run on loop for the next couple months. (Oh yeah, I don’t have to. Yay!)

Update- Obama’s website now has the Obama/Biden ticket up. Way to steal the Democratic ticket’s thunder, liberal media.

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Yay. Supposedly Obama’s set to name his running mate tomorrow, ending months of media speculation and prognostication. The list currently stands with Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia and Senator Joe Biden of Delaware in the lead.

Apparently, the current favorite is Biden, which is such a surprise to me. Though a happy surprise. I like Biden a lot, and he’s got the foreign policy chops.

The problem, however, is how much he contributes to the 50-state plan that Dean and Obama are running. Also, two senator ticket - gives McCain the advantage should he nominate a governor.

Seriously though, I can’t wait for this announcement since it will finally inject some wind into the pre-convention doldrums in which we’re currently languishing. I mean, McCain’s Cone of Silence?

Though one of my students did say yesterday that she thought Clinton got more favorable coverage simply because she was a woman and different from the other candidates. So then the entire class took a trip to a online gallery of unflattering Clinton photos, and were treated to a diatribe about the choices the media made in selecting pictures of candidate Clinton. And the pictures they’ve selected since.

Bring on the veeps - I’m sick of picking the candidates to pieces. The more obscure the better; let’s really get to know these (most likely) guys.

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I was reading this article on TPM Election Central today, and, gosh, if the older gentleman with bills didn’t look familiar!

Well, there’s a reason - he’s the same bill-checking older gentleman that was concerned about the economy at three am! Here’s him blue-hued by the Clinton staff to indicate ‘nighttime’:

How many thousands of hours of stock footage do you think there is available to both these campaigns?

So, it is just laziness or do you think the McCain campaign is trying to bring up memories of the Clinton campaign? Perhaps a subtle way of reminiding those anti-Obama Clintonites of their vows?

Yeah, or just laziness.

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John Edwards slept with that lady after all. Whatever, as far as I’m concerned, but it’ll probably end his career. His whole rep is based on being a man of the people, a guy who tells it like it is.

And he actively lied about the affair when asked earlier this year.

So that’s not going to go well. Plus, everyone loves Elizabeth Edwards and she has cancer and… yeah, just not good for him.

To his credit he did release this statement after his interview with Bob Woodward:

It is inadequate to say to the people who believed in me that I am sorry, as it is inadequate to say to the people who love me that I am sorry. In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic.

Ouch.

What I love about this story, however, is the lack of quotes for the story the NYT wanted to write:

The revelations brought swift reaction from those who know Mr. Edwards.

“My thoughts and prayers are with the Edwards family today and that’s all I’ve got to say,” Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said during an event for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in Nevada today.

Hell yeah, Hillz!

Wait, what?

Clinton’s ’swift reaction’ was more or less ‘no comment’. Zing!

Elizabeth Edwards asked the media to lay off:

“The toll on our family of news helicopters over our house and reporters in our driveway is yet unknown,” she wrote. “I ask that the public, who expressed concern about the harm John’s conduct has done to us, think also about the real harm that the present voyeurism does and give me and my family the privacy we need at this time.”

Man, Elizabeth Edwards is going to be wildly popular - I’m sure she’s thrilled.

Seriously though, everyone hated Clinton. And then her philandering husband cheated on her, and everyone was all, ‘Awwww, Hil!’. Imagine the outpouring of goodwill to a woman everyone loves during her golden boy husband’s fall from grace.

Anyway, hopefully someone gives the NYT a juicer comment than Clinton. Hate to waste a good turn of phrase like, ‘brought swift reaction’. Good luck, guys.

Edwards Admits to Extramarital Affair [NYT Caucus Blog]

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Wow. I did not see that coming.

An internal report at the Justice Dept. concluded that aids to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales violated federal law by using partisan criteria in the hiring of non-partisan positions.

Gonzales, of course, said he knew nothing about the conduct of his subordinates. Then again, he didn’t ever manage to remember anything about anything, despite frequent trips to the Hill for questioning.

Taking the brunt of the blame is Monica Goodling, one of Gonzales’ top aides. She denied people jobs for a host of reasons: having Democrat wives; rumors of possible lesbianism, Internet searches returning the words “abortion,” “homosexual,” “guns,” or “Florida re-count”.

Goodling last made news testifying in May 2007 on the firing of US Attorneys. She was granted immunity in that investigation in return for her testimony before the Judiciary Committee, but it appears she may be charged in this case. Today’s DOJ report cited her (and others’) activity as patently illegal. The man who would have to prosecute her, however, is Attorney General Michael Mukasey, also a Bush appointee.

Perhaps to encourage Mukasey, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers is considering perjury charges against Gonzales, Goodling and Kyle Sampson, Gonzales’ former chief of staff who fell on his sword for his boss during the US Attorney scandal.

Reflecting on this absurd level of corruption, I think it’s a good time to remember that there are less than 100 days til the election. Are you registered?

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Let’s watch media priming in action, shall we?

Priming (and this is the short version) argues that the media help shape the way people think about issues - either through highlighting a particular issue or through the way an issue is presented. Essentially, people don’t use all the knowledge they know at any given time; our brains tend to travel down paths created through repetition or recent exposure.

Man, how boring is media theory?!?!

Here’s the lede from the NYT/Reuters story about the Green Party convention and nomination:

The U.S. Green Party, which captured far less than 1 percent of the vote in the last presidential election, chose former Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney as its 2008 presidential candidate on Saturday.

The most important information comes first in hard news. So, the most important thing about the Green Party according to Reuters is that its candidates and the party are wildly unviable. They do not and cannot win elections.

Two paragraphs later, this information is reiterated and expanded upon, just in case you missed it:

In 2004, the Green Party drew 119,859 votes, or 0.1 percent of the total, finishing in sixth place behind the two major parties and three other third-party tickets.

But, wait… didn’t they do pretty well once? (Next paragraph)

The party’s best performance came in 2000 when Ralph Nader headed the ticket, and won 2.8 million votes, or 2.7 percent of the total. Some political analysts say Nader, a political and consumer activist, may have drawn votes from Democrat Al Gore and helped tip the election to Republican George W. Bush. Nader is running for president again this year as an independent.

That information comes before a description of McKinney, meaning it is more important than her qualifications or fitness for the presidency.

There’s a real sense of trying desperately to fill the story out. What is this sentence about?

The U.S. Green Party says it is a partner with the European Federation of Green Parties and the Federation of Green Parties of the Americas.

It ’says’ it is? And what does this signify? We’ll never know. (Sounds vaguely un-American though, doesn’t it?)

And, lastly, we get a quote from what is clearly the Green Party press release.

It’s pretty obvious that Reuters sent no one to the convention. There’s no one quoted in the story; they don’t even use a direct quote for the spokesman in the 3rd par, as would be standard.

So this story is just a combination of a press release and knowledge the Reuters writer thought was important enough for reiteration to readers. These facts are essentially:

• The Green Party loses elections by vast margins.
• When the party does well, they siphon votes from real candidates (and we get George W. Bush)

I don’t necessarily disagree with the bit about Nader (and Jeremy will explain why I am both wrong and a bad person in the comments), but these are the facts that we are constantly told about a party that - by its very position as a third party - challenges the status quo.

Imagine if the story about Obama’s nomination in Denver started this way:

The Democratic Party, which lost the presidency in both 2000 and 2004, chose Senator Barack Obama as its 2008 presidential candidate on Saturday.

Does that sound like a party you want to vote for?

As a small, realatively unfamiliar party, the Green Party relies on the media to introduce it and its candidate to the public. The US paper of record just ran with an agency story based on a press release that says, ‘Don’t waste your vote.’

Democracy served. Or primed.

Link:
Green Party Names McKinney as Presidental Pick

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Senators Feingold and Dodd have delayed the Senate vote on the bill that would grant immunity to the telecom companies for their role in the warrantless wiretapping.

In December, Obama:

unequivocally oppose[d] giving retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies and has cosponsored Senator Dodd’s efforts to remove that provision from the FISA bill. Granting such immunity undermines the constitutional protections Americans trust the Congress to protect.

The situation today is somewhat different, Obama saying:

“Given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as president, I will carefully monitor the program,” Obama said in a statement hours after the House approved the legislation 293-129.

Glenn Greenwald and Keith Olbermann are screaming at each other across the interwebs, the latter seeming to suggest that a President Obama would be able to take advantage of the poorly written bill to get the telecoms.

That’s not a good enough answer. Aside from the fact that Obama hasn’t stated this ’secret plan’ as his reason for supporting the bill, Greenwald’s argument that no political leader should be given that much blind faith is compelling. Blind faith is what the Right gave Bush for - well - about seven years.

Granted, I’m no legal scholar, but from everything I’ve read, it’s a bad bill that erodes Fourth Amendment protections. Secret Plan or no, it’s time to restrict the power of the executive. I like Obama a lot, but I still want him to have far less power than Bush has claimed.

Obama’s promise to make sure that he doesn’t abuse his power is not a reason to vote for a bad bill. Bush promised to ‘carefully monitor’ all sorts of things and has paved our lovely little road to hell.

Which brings me to my point. I’m in the position of not only being an Obama presidential supporter, but also an Obama senatorial constituent- as are a goodly number of those to read this blog (thanks Google Analytics).

Senator Obama can be contacted here. Tell him to stick to his (December) guns on the FISA bill and not to get involved in political expediency. Make sure to check the box asking for a reply.

You can also call the Chicago office on (312) 886-3506 or the DC Office on (202) 224-2854.

Two weeks ago, Obama demonstrated that Democrats can and should push back on issues of national security. We don’t need to run to the center on this one either.

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Okay, look - I’m not one of those people screaming at the media at the moment. I don’t think Clinton lost because of sexist treatment - though it certainly didn’t help.

This blog, however, has been like a treasure trove of unflattering pictures of HRC. See yesterday’s post, por ejemplo.

So, why - why, is this run now?! (And you can click on the pic for a larger version)

“Now, in her diminishment…” she finally gets a good picture?

I don’t want to sound like a feminist conspiracy theorist, but there’s something odd about the lovely words and images poured forth upon a woman who’s finally stopped being too brassy.

I mean, I’ve seen The Philadelphia Story. Katherine Hepburn learns to be ‘yaw’ and then everyone loves her. It’s a great movie.

But there’s also a reason for that.

NY Magazine Table of Contents

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