Steve Benen has a must-read post on efforts by the right wing to find a negative frame for Barrack Obama. They still have nothing.
I’m warming up to the idea of Obama as president, even relative to my 2004 pick Wesley Clark. At the very least he seems to have a good sense for making useful things happen in the real world. Another promising quality is that he seems comfortable defusing adversarial situations in a way that both parties benefit, which is as accurate a description as any of what a good president does. A great president, of course, builds an unstoppable mandate and shapes the country in his image. But that is also what a catastrophically terrible president does. We have had enough of those lately, so for now I’ll settle for good.
Chat about whatever.
Jackmormon
B-A-R-A-C-K
cleek
2 years
Zifnab
But his middle name is Hussien. Shouldn’t someone ask him if he’s a terrorist?
TenguPhule
Too late. The Freepers already are.
Krista
Well, it’s an open thread, so I’ll ask something I’ve been wondering for awhile. Tim, John, do you have a way of sorting out the comments by commenter? I ask, because I’d love to someday see a compilation of BIRDZILLA’s comments — I’m convinced that put together, they spell out some sort of mystical prophecy. (Either that, or he’s just completely out there — either way, it would be very diverting to read…)
TenguPhule
Oh joy, Reuters is reporting yet *another* food contamination outbreak in an Olive Garden.
Tim F.
Krista,
You mean like this? Site administrators have a way, and you could eventually get them all by doing the right Google search. But there isn’t an easy tool for everybody as far as I know.
ThymeZone
So far so good for Obama. I’m rooting for him because I don’t want Hillary as the Dem nominee. One advantage of being relatively new to the fray (aka “inexperienced”) is that there is not a lot of negative material available on him. Since the GOP wins mainly by demonizing its opposition, I see that as a big plus for Obama. Not much there to demonize.
yet another jeff
Unless that is how they’ll demonize him. “Barack Obama has nothing for us to demonize. Can you trust a man that hides his past so well?”
Krista
Exactly. It’s the BIRDZILLA Code. And if I can only crack it, I’ll discover the secrets of the universe. (Or at the very least, the KFC secret recipe.)
Sherard
THAT was a must read ? Oy.
Rush called him Odumbo. Yeah, MUST.READ.
Z
I think ‘Moron’, in one of the comments following that article is right, though. They are attacking his masculinity. They know there are plenty of people out there who truly believe that having a less ‘manly’ president makes us look weak, and that freaks them out.
TenguPhule
And strangely enough, those exact same people keep supporting pussies like Bush.
t. jasper parnell
Listen to how Obama is always already demonized. go figure.
t. jasper parnell
Yoiks, did you miss the point.
McNulty
Then maybe you can explain it, because I’m not seeing the “must-read” aspect of it either.
Basically, you have some conservatives calling him a liberal, a homophobe that nobody’s ever heard of complaining that he goes to a gay-friendly church, and a radio blowhard, along with a narcissistic NY Times columnist, making fun of his ears.
McNulty
whoops, hit enter too soon.
I meant to finish with the point that, this is pretty lame and insignificant stuff, unless the “point” that tjasper is making is that what makes it a must read is that they really wanna smear the hell out of him, but this is all they have, which I guess would be a point worth mentioning, but hardly “must-read” material.
t. jasper parnell
McNulty (is that from Jakie Gleason?) yes, I think that that is Tim F’s point; perhaps one could even tease out of this point, the desire to smear without the goods, as it were, to spread, indicates a kind of intellectual poverty among the three individuals and, perhaps, by extension the whole intellectually corrupt cohort they represent, pundist lefty and righty, and lunatics, religio and otherwise. Perhaps, we might find in disapprobation of the the smearing and jeering the desire for an open debate based on facts of the matter, policy proscriptions, and the like as the time for leadership selection grows ever nearer.
But then again, may Obama bin Dumbo is just so damn funny and insightful that we have to read it.
t. jasper parnell
And of course you are right, pointing out that the idiots polluting national discourse are idiots is a point hardly worth making, right?
McNulty
Actually, I’m a big fan of “The Wire”.
Getting back to the subject, and not to harp too much on the “must-read” thing, but I don’t think it’s all that unusual that they wouldn’t be cracking out the big guns 23 months before the election, against a guy who isn’t even the nominee yet.
t. jasper parnell
What might the big guns be? the cut of suit, oh wait been done. Persumably, the idear here is that we nip in the bud, Barney Fife (quoting unnamed parenting experts) always advocated bud nipping when it came to bad actions by Opie) the use of the smear and the personal aside in the next go round. Granted, this is somewhere between unlikely and impossible, but still bud nipping.
What’s the Wire?
Z
TenguPhule,
Exactly. Bush is macho, but completely ineffective and incompetent. Yet, he got re-elected.
Zifnab
Dude, Tim just wanted you to read the post. Lay off the flak cannons.
Regardless, it’s nothing new. Obama is evil because he’s a Demoncrat. The ‘Pubs are merely compiling their “evidence”, which consists of his pointy tail, horned head, and tieless business apparel. How this is different from “Franken-Kerry” or “San Fransisco Values of the Damned Pelosi” or “Dirty Harry Reid” or any of the other gross mischaracterizations the right-wing noise machine has perpetuated is beyond me. I think the real “must read” aspect of the piece is exactly how desperate the right is getting to attack people. At least with “Third Most Liberal Senator Kerry” they were in the ball-park. But this stuff is more comic than insulting.
Otto Man
Simply the greatest thing ever broadcast on television.
Seriously, go rent season one. Now.
t. jasper parnell
Few if any police procedurals can improve or have improved on Andy and Barney, maybe Homicide.
SeesThroughIt
Excuse me, but I think you both are overlooking a little slice of genius known as Sledge Hammer!
Bombadil
Krista, try this.
t. jasper parnell
Sure Sledgehammer is good, but it’s no Salisbury Hill nor yet Games without Frontiers.
SeesThroughIt
Thank goodness we have wingnuts like Mark Noonan to, first of all, tell everybody why they like Obama:
Also, Noonan can explain why Obama is evil:
Black liberal Chicago pol? I think you might know him better by his more common name–SATAN!!!!!!!! Obama is TEH EVIL!!!111
Otto Man
First, it’s not a police procedural. This isn’t a neat and tidy show where there’s a new bad guy each week and the cops catch and convict him. Much more complicated, nuanced and layered than that. As one reviewer noted recently, this is the closest thing to a novel ever seen on television.
And second, it’s actually a creation of the same guys who made Homicide. They felt that network TV limited what they could do there, and The Wire is their second effort to get it right.
Do yourself a favor. Take a week off your job and watch the past five seasons. Trust me.
t. jasper parnell
Oddly enough, I found this video via Tom “Stop me before I hurt America again” Delay’s blog. It seems his readership is enlightened.
The reviewer is wrong, when I had a TV there were serveral novels on it, much like a Penguin, and some underneath it, much like the Real Presence at Lutheran communion.
t. jasper parnell
And what lying liar says I have a job?
t. jasper parnell
I have a career opportunity, the one that never knocks.
Pooh
I just died a little inside…
The best show in the history of television
Salty Party Snax
Rush Limbaugh seemed pleased with the comeuppance David Duke delivered to Wolf Blitzer today. Rush says he “loves the fact that Duke spoke back to Wolf in a manner he is not used to.”
I wonder why the GOP refuses to acknowledge the great debt it owes to Duke?
Maybe he’s “undercover” or something.
Pooh
Also what Otto Man said. The “cases” last seasons and beyond. The denser and more leisurely pace allows them to spend a whole lot more time on ‘character,’ with the plot flowing from the characters in a more naturalistic process than most TV or even film.
Incidentally, McNulty how doomed (DOOMED) is your namesake in season 5?
Krista
Excellent…
t. jasper parnell
This is truely an embarrasing admission.
Zifnab
Kirsta, remember to give us a hint as to what it all means before you Ascend to the heavens in enlightened rapture.
Krista
Will do. I’ll put it in a pdf and ask John to post a link to it. :)
Jake
Arrgh, that makes Steam come out of my ears.
Pooh
Perhaps. But my obsession with the show (and my evangelism for it) borders on Trekkie-like.
t. jasper parnell
Even more so then.
t. jasper parnell
Why? Like you better the fat drummer?
Dan
Agree on The Wire, best show ever. Aftet the first season i didn’t think they could improve, but i thought season 2 was better. Then they come out with season 4, which was just beyond anything i’ve seen on tv.
There’s actually an easy attack out there on Obama: he admitted to doing coke when he was a teenager in his first book.
rachel
Or In Your Eyes. Wallflower, Fourteen Black Paintings and Mercy Street are my favorites, though.
VidaLoca
I don’t see Darrell here at the moment which is kind of a shame, I’d like to hear his response to this:
Border Fence Firm Snared for Hiring Illegal Workers
SeesThroughIt
These assholes are making satire damn near impossible.
In other news, four-fifths of Gitmo detainees freed after transfer. And they’re overflowing with warm fuzzies for the United States, no doubt. (Cue right-winger making the “if they were in Gitmo, they were terrorists” argument.)
Steve
No, no. The proper winger argument at this point is “we’re obviously working hard to sort out the innocent ones, that proves everyone still there is a terrorist!”
Plus, a couple of the ones we let go have been recaptured on the battlefield, so that goes to show you we shouldn’t be letting anyone go, blah blah blah. Come on, we’ve heard them all at this point.
scarshapedstar
Nothing? *snicker*
Sorry, I just can’t help but wonder how long it will take for the whisper campaigns to focus on the Big Smear. The old warhorse. You know what I’m talking about.
The Other Steve
More important is the great debt they owe Wolf Blitzer for giving airtime to the GOP’s extremists.
lard lad
What all the devotees of The Wire said and then some. Television gets no better. Hell, visual entertainment gets no better. The crackling dialogue, the stellar acting, the bold direction, the unflinching realism, the obsessive care put into getting the details just right, the labyrinthine plot lines (at least a dozen per episode, every one compelling)… the sheer goddamn scope of the thing. I still love The Sopranos, but The Wire kicks the ass of Tony and Company.
Rent Volume One. Watch at least the first three episodes. (The show takes time to build, getting you familiar with its many characters before shifting into overdrive.) Don’t be surprised, though, if you end up blazing through all three DVD-available seasons in a couple of weeks.
Redhand
Obama as next President? Why? He’s a super junior senator with no serious government experience. (Not that Kerry, for all his longevity, was a good choice). Seriously, I’d want to know a lot mere about the guy before saying “yes.”
On an (unrelated?) note, Rummy left office yesterday amid reports that Cheney described him as “the finest secretary of defense this nation has ever had.” Even as partisan hyperbole, how f*cked up is that, I ask you? Just amazing.
Is there is one, over-arching bad actor responsible for the train wreck that is the Bush Administration, surely it is Dick Cheney. I never dreamed I could despise someone on the Right as much as I loathed Clinton in the 1990s, but at least Bubba didn’t get us into a disaster like Iraq. Of course Bush bears ultimate responsibility, but we would not have pursued this insane policy without Bush letting Cheney call the shots.
God I hope the Dems investigate that prick to death come January. We have to extricate ourselves from Iraq in a way that doesn’t make the region’s problems worse that they are now. But Congress truly needs to investigate how we got there. There has to be an accounting for this man’s conduct and decisions, so that something like this never happens again.
jake
Dear Former Detainee:
Since it is no longer politically expedient to keep you locked up and tout you as the most dangerous men on the planet, we’re letting you go. Hope you’re not angry or anything. After all, what’s three years? And as Mom says, you didn’t have much to begin with, and you got a free trip to the Carribean. So no hard feelings, right?
Your former captor,
G. W. B.
p.s. Remember, don’t talk about what we did to you or Dick will hunt you down and shoot you! Heh. Heh.
jake
U.S. to Mr. Arar: When you’re a threat, you’re a threat from your first torture day to your last cigarette.
Although I imagine the “logic” runs: We were responsible for kidnapping him and handing him over to torturers so of course he might be a threat to us!
aaron
You nailed it! Obama should have Clark be his VP! Clark will bring all of his military and leadership (something completely lacking in the current VP) while Obama can be the passion..the dreamer grounded reality.
I like….
Punchy
I will now call it “I’ll Live Garden”, since for some in Indiana, that’s questionable.
Punchy
Uh…”The Wire”? For real, Pooh? Never seen it, never heard of it. The Sopranos? Now THATS a great show. That, and Mythbusters. Color me weird.
Pooh
Yes, I’ve heard of the Sopranos and loved it. The Wire is better, and it’s not close.
TenguPhule
Those fracking lawyers are bound and determined to put all snarkers out of a job.
TenguPhule
U.S. hopes early Palestinian elections will quell violence
At some point you’d think this administration would stop hoping for the fairy election pony to sprinkle magic purple finger dust. But you would be wrong.
TenguPhule
NOw who was it that who claimed women were worse off in Iraq *before* the invasion and occupation?
…
Punchy
(the sound of gloves coming off…)
Jake
One of the few shows that makes the cable bill worth it. And who would have guessed “I reject your reality and substitute my own!” would become the Bush Admin.’s unofficial motto?
Yep, that was one of the key arguments against the Hussein/bin Laden/Taliban love fest theory. Hussein was too much of a sinner, letting the females run around and go to school and all of that. I also recall that after Sept. 11th it was suddenly really, really important that we whack the Taliban not just because they were harbouring a stone killer but they were mean to the ladies and generally no fun to be around. (How is that working out? Not to good, huh?)
I thought people were supposed to have more freedom after a dictator was over thrown by the forces of justice. Silly me.
Otto Man
Agreed. Sorry, the Sopranos is one of my favorite shows, but The Wire beats it by a mile.
Imagine if the Sopranos had “good guys” who were as richly drawn and complexly followed as the bad guys. Instead of the cartoonish FBI agents, you’d have people you knew as well (and liked as well) as Silvio and Paulie Walnuts. That’s what the Wire does, giving complex portraits of both sides, and those caught in between, too.
Each episode is densely packed, and storylines play out not just over a season, but across seasons. Nothing ever feels wasted — like some of last season of the Sopranos did, frankly — and it all works so, so well.
You folks really don’t understand what you’re missing. If you like the Sopranos, you’ll love the Wire.
Hyperion
i want to thank the several commenters here who recommended The Wire months ago. i checked it out and it IS fabulous…on so many levels. i love Baltimore and so do the makers of this series. (and McNutty, i guessed the reason for your handle. my favorite character by far is Omar! but Bubbles isn’t far behind.)
oh, and Krista, i also got into Battlestar Galactica after you spoke so favorably of it. Excellent sci-fi. And it reeks of canuckistani values IMO. i can’t wait until season 3 is available on dvd.
Krista
Glad to hear it! The cliffhanger for the first part of season 3 is on in exactly 3 minutes. I have a cold beer, some homemade nuts ‘n’ bolts, and my comfy red blankie.
Life’s good.
Krista
Damn. The bf told me it was on at 9pm, but it’s on at 10.
He’s lucky he’s cute…
The Other Steve
I was driving down the highway today and saw Acute Injury Clinic.
I was trying to understand how you can have a cute injury.
lard lad
Now we have to get John to watch it. I assume that he has yet to partake of The Wire’s delights, as he has yet to rave about the show on this site.
Didn’t you used to work with drug addicts, John? This show gets the hardcore drug street scene down better than most Hollywood films, never mind television… and without a trace of sanctimonious bullshit.
And the plots and subplots of the just-ended Season 4 that deal with the inner city Baltimore high school are almost too good to believe. I know several Oakland teachers who were flat-out blown away at how precisely detailed the frustrations and struggles of their profession were rendered. Anyone who thinks that Bush’s No Child Left Behind hogwash has an iota of worth should watch this season and get some illusions shattered.
Punchy
I’m not sure I’ve witnessed such show-gasms before. Seems like y’all just don’t enjoy the show, you want to sleep with it. “The Wire” is apparently just like meth…I’m afraid to even try it…to be sucked into it’s unreleasing grip….losing my grip on show objectivity…
Pooh
One of the co-creators is both a former BPD cop and a former Baltimore public school teacher, so it’s not surprising that they get the details right.
jh
Echoing the comments of others here,
The Wire is the best thing ever put on TV. It encaspulates what the collective efforts of Hollywood and the well meaning liberal establishment have been unable to do for the past 3 decades – tell the story of urban America in a realistic, non-pandering fashion.
Seasons 1-3 are breathtaking in their scope, but Season 4 is another level altogether.
Disclaimer: I grew up on the equally-as-mean streets of Washington, DC in the 1980s and I could barely bring myself to sit through an episode of Season 4, so closely did it resemble my youth. It moved me to tears on more than one occasion.