Your news in bagel bites:
All of the Dems on Obie’s short list for VP suck. For some perspective, I’ve also learned that all of McCain’s top choices suck as well. And in fact, McCain sucks quite a bit, himself.
Senator Stevens of Alaska was finally indicted, turning a close race there into a gimme for Democrats, putting them one step closer to 60. At least he’ll have a lot of legislative and lobbyist buddies to play with while he’s in the slammer.
Apparently, the democratically elected government in Iraq is often mistranslated by Der Liebermedia, and one should always rely on CentCom as interpreter.
Just as video killed the radio star, blogs killed the attention span. But most non-blog writing is longer than it needs to be. An excellent summary. More excellence.
This week, repeated skin cancer sufferer John McCain had some “mole like” skin removed from his head. Those moles can be deadly. Six years ago, Ginny Sack had a 95-pound mole removed from her posterior. And in related news, the United States has tentatively scheduled the removal of an eight-year cancerous growth for this January.
McCain dares Obama to go to Iraq. Obie goes. I think the trip can best be described by the monologue in the made-for-theatrical-release movie There Will Be Blood, starring Daniel Day Lewis: Senator McCain, I drink your milkshake!
July 29th, 2008
The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza notes that surprisingly enough for one of the youngest presidential aspirants ever, Obie is a fairly ambitious politician. When in Chicago, he often raised money from people with lots of it, and sometimes refused to drop out of political races when opponents kindly asked him to do so. Probably good for the kool-aid drinkers to rethink the idea of Obama as a saintly reformer, and there were some things in the article that disappointed me, but I’m not sure pissing off a few Chicago pols really amounts to the calculating, ruthless soul-selling Lizza implies.
In a weekly segment of the Campaign Trail, Lizza informed us that he thought Obama refusing to take matching funds after promising to do so was the biggest disappointment of the campaign. If Lizza was really that surprised by the decision, I have a bridge in Basra to sell him. God forbid Obama deny the Republicans’ divine right to superior funding in the general election. If we’re gonna talk about disappointments, how about John McCain’s complete ineptitude in articulating a coherent policy vision on almost any issue, including his supposed bread (Iraq) and butter (TERRORISM!) go-tos. Why, that guy is such a maverick he refuses to think before he speaks.
Lizza also said that while most Republican candidates would use Obama’s EuroTrip to beat the drum of nationalism, McCain isn’t that kinda guy. Right. Because saying Obama neglected to visit the troops and would lose the war to win an election is surely a more honorable line of attack. I will give the New Yorker kudos for changing the pretentious elevator jazz theme song for the Campaign Trail, but I’m less than impressed with what they say once the music stops.
I was going to title this post “we read the New Yorker so you don’t have to“, but they really do have some good stuff.
Rather than just beating up on Lizza — which I’m sure he had enough of as a kid — I want to tie my worries over his judgment into a broader theme of… worry. But more on that later.
July 29th, 2008
