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My ex-boss explains the dark and awful road ahead:
Let’s see how this works. McCain runs his Britney/Paris ad on the alleged but improbable basis that they’re the #2 and #3 celebs in the world, according to Rick Davis. McCain camp seizes on Obama statement that Obama has made multiple times before, accuses him of playing "race card". Now McCain repeats Race Card, Race Card, Race Card a hundred times.
McCain has made the strategic decision that he can only win the election on the basis of Obama as friend of terrorists, unpatriotic suspicious outsider and radical, black guy who’s really more a flashy showbiz star (call it playing the Diddy card) than someone with the heft to be president. He’s probably right. That’s his only chance. And it may work.
It’s important to remember that Race Card is a euphemism. It’s a device to scare white people into believing the Dark One is out past the fence, sending signals to his Dark allies that stoke their resentment. It’s meant to cause the political equivalent of the mental shudder that makes white women grip their purses tighter on the subway. To stoke an impulse that ugly is evil.
I don’t believe John McCain can win the election. The hurdles — financial, electoral — are too great, the GOP base trusts him too little, and the narrative of his campaign is too solipsistic. But what he can do is prepare the country for four years of vile, small ugliness, in which new euphemisms are invented to allow white people to say This country’s gone to shit ever since they let Those People in charge… Is there something worse than Nixonland?
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Oh, Obama’s going to have a bitch of a time if elected. Everyone is going to be on him like he’s the lone black man in the 7-11 of America. Even setting aside his race, American zeitgeist has a tendency to build someone up and then take great glee in tearing it down. What was once cool quickly becomes mock-worthy. Interesting perspective somewhat on point: One Drop at Two Sense has an excellent essay entitled “How Long Will It Take for Obama to ‘Fail’”.
Spencer:
When did you become a Springsteen fan?
Naaahhhhh.
People get used to almost anything.
If Obama can get elected, he can govern.
The last fifty years have demonstrated that the American electorate will follow any asshole if the right labels are slapped on him.
Post-Bushland. Can’t imagine why anyone would want the President’s job now, but aren’t we extraordinarily lucky that a smart fellow like Barack Obama is willing to try?
It may not be fixable, but we can’t let Them blame Barack for everything that’ll go wrong. It’s the GOP’s fault. And we need to keep saying so as we circle the drain.
It’s also important to acknowledge that the role that stupid, hysterical, liberal bloggers have played in attributing the race card to things that simply don’t coontain it and by doing so have pushed this meme into the realm of legitimate discussion and attribution.
I don’t read the front page here, but I’d be surprised if I couldn’t find an example there. I did however read Oliver Willis saying “WTF are you white people on about?”, which should be a kind of hint.
The stupidist part about this is, none of this is necessary. They’re shit adverts that ain’t going to do shit. I shouldn’t have to point out how lame and all out of ideas you are if you are pointing to popularity as your opponent’s big weakness, while you’re running in a popularity contest.
They could have been dismissed as such, as pretty much everything else carrying the McCain label has been for months. Yet instead they’re being analysed as though the most incompetant presidential campaign in recent memory (even worse than Kerry’s) somehow deserves to be treated like this.
As though people have convinced themselves that this is somehow the one area where McCain’s otherwise dormant smart, cunning, strategic thinking political minds have surfaced to create this stunning work of psychological art. One that combines subliminal messages of race, rape and nazis if you just want to believe it does hard enough.
Then bitch about the meme they pushed into existance, being discussed as though it exists, like they wanted it to. Awesome.
Unfortunate typo.
See, that’s hard to discern. Or at least the intent is hard to discern. Just because you or I may not be so sensitive that we perceive racial issues doesn’t mean it was not intended that way. Giving the benefit of the doubt would be easier if it were coming from a source with fewer outright lies in their mouths.
Indeed. I’m trying to decide if that typo’s worse than the guest post at Ackerman’s last blog about lesbian issues that said “If at fist you don’t succeed…”
Ha! I remember that.
I think I’ve got her beat.
We don’t have the N word here in Oz. We do have the co-word though, both as a racial slur and, surprisingly, the name of most popular brand of cheese.
While we’re on the topic of race, I don’t think anyone’s stopped to consider the avalanche of “engrish” we’re going to see when the olympics starts.
He forgot to mention Obama as Antichrist
Whether he’s the antichrist or not remains to be seen, but his birth certificate is a fake. He’s a cyborg people. Which means this may not be a coincidence…
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7419751.stm
Can you say “Rise of The Machine” ?