Not That There's Anything Wong With That

Obama's not Muslim, people.

Nothing is more disappointing or amazing to me than seeing a smear campaign from the far right take hold in the average American's mind. We've seen it happen over and over again, from the old Vietnam War-era chestnut of hippies spitting on troops to the modern-era version of the same story: Clinton staffers trashing the White House and ripping W's off of computer keyboards. In case you didn’t know: neither story is true.

I'm not smart enough to know how to take a fake story and sew it onto the American narrative in such a way that no one sees the stitches. But we all know it happens: look at that iconic American myth of the "Wild West," for instance. It's so far removed from the truth, yet we rewrite our own history to match the story, not the fact.

I bring this up because this week I volunteered to drive senior citizens to the polls for early voting. It’s a lot of fun, and you get to meet some interesting, wonderful people. One such person was a vibrant, vivacious lady who lives in the north part of town. All I had to say was “good morning,” and she launched into rapid-fire conversation about Nashville, the news media, politics, you name it. What a fun lady!

She was a hard-boiled Democrat, said she remembered back to “when FDR had to clean up Hoover’s mess. Every time a Republican comes into office they mess things up, and a Democrat has to clean it up and make it right.” Oh, this was a lady after my own heart!

But I was shocked when she said to me:

“You know who scares me? That Muslim-- that Obama.”

I explained to her that Obama is not Muslim, he’s a Christian. She said:

“I don’t believe it! That’s not what I read!”

Let me be clear: this was the third time a senior citizen told me Barack Obama is Muslim.

How does this happen? How does a lie become prevailing truth in the mind of an average American?

It shouldn’t matter whether Barack Obama is Muslim or not. But the sad truth is, to millions of Americans, it does (Or rather, it would). Which makes it all the more difficult to beat back the lie. Because there’s nothing wrong with being Muslim, it just so happens that Barack Obama is not. How do you fight that phantom? You lose either way.

I wonder how the Obama campaign could have tackled this smear better. Appearing with Donnie McClurken was probably a lame attempt to coddle Christian audiences, though it pissed off the GLBT crowd.

The sad reality is, the “Obama is Muslim” lie has legs. And even though it shouldn’t be, for lots of folks it’s a negative. That’s just reality. And I’m starting to wonder if it wouldn’t cost him the election, were he the nominee.

Hacked!

[UPDATE]:

TN Democratic Party website and blog are back up and running.

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Looks like some hackers got ahold of the Tennessee Democratic Party's website (not sure how safe this is, so click at your own risk.)

It says the site was hacked by "Lion"of DevilByteCrew, whoever that is. I'm just old enough and square enough not to understand what the point of any of these cyber shenanigans may be.

So the blog, Donkey's Mouth, is down. The site has been hacked and plays loud obnoxious rock music. And it's apparently been this way for a couple of days now. Come on, Democrats, get with the program! Have you even noticed? How can you protect us from Al Qaeda if you can't keep your site hacker-safe?

Fred Watch

[UPDATE]:

Fred Thompson is out.

Ironically enough, it's too late to take him off the ballot in Tennessee, where he's a shoe-in shoo-in. So, to whom will he release his delegates? Are we thinking John McCain?
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Fred Thompson has lost some key GOP supporters to Mitt Romney and John McCain today; now word is out that he is bowing out of Thursday’s GOP debate, prompting speculation that he’ll soon announce the end of his presidential campaign.

Interestingly, from a human nature perspective, I’m seeing signs on the 'net of conservative anger directed at the candidate himself.

Things like this:

"His rivals would do more in a day than Fred would do in a month," said one disaffected Thompson insider. "He created the perception, fairly or not, that he was just going through the motions."

Ouch. A post at the conservative Townhall.com is headlined "Why I Never Drank The Fred Thompson Kool-Aid”. And in this post at RedState (which I linked to over the weekend), the anger is palpable:

We waited with bated breath, as expected announcement date after expected announcement date passed by, with little or no action on your part. As the summer wore on, and gave itself over to autumn, though, the game became a bit less enjoyable for the rest of us.

Like the townspeople who tired of hearing the young sheepherder cry "Wolf!" over and over again when there was no such threat to his flock, those who had supported you wholeheartedly at the beginning of this process began to waver in their commitment, and the field of "FredHeads," as so many of those enthusiastic supporters called themselves, began to dwindle.

[...]

Finally, in September, you made the announcement that so many had been dying to hear in April, in May, even in July. At that point, though, it was too late for any but the most dynamic of campaigners to make up the ground lost to the rest of the field in this longest primary election in my memory.

I find this all very interesting. Democratic voters don’t tend to blame their candidates when they don’t win primaries; at least, I don’t hear anyone blaming Dennis Kucinich or John Edwards for underperforming this primary season. I DO hear lots of criticism of the media for ignoring these two candidates, and barbs at the Obama and Clinton camps for some dirty politics.

I have to wonder what’s behind the Fred anger. It seems small at the moment (though his support was small), but if it spreads, it certainly won't help Thompson land the VP slot, if it should come to that.

Oh, The Irony

Memo to all the folks furiously hammering their “Vote Ron Paul” and “Who Is Ron Paul” signs to every public utility pole and every square inch of public right-of-way in Davidson County: let me point out that if Libertarians had their way, you would be trespassing, because there would BE no public utility or public right of way under a Libertarian world view. Someone would own that grassy corner or utility pole and it is they, not you, who would have the say-so over the messages posted on their land.

That is all.

Clean Your Own House

There’s been a lot of discussion about bipartisanship lately; I got into a discussion (okay, mostly it was me ranting) over at Sharon Cobb’s place yesterday with someone pleading for an end to partisan divisiveness. There’s even been mention of it in comment threads here.

It’s just really hard to take these pleas for unity seriously when conservatives play the same old games and pull crap like this:

The Tennessee Republican Party has chosen this occasion to diminish Dr. King's message of peace, hope, and equality and instead use it to score political points.

From their weekly message:

It was the Democrats who fought to keep blacks in slavery and passed the discriminatory Black Codes and Jim Crow laws. The Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan to lynch and terrorize blacks. The Democrats fought to prevent the passage of every civil rights law beginning with the civil rights laws of the 1860's, and continuing with the civil rights laws of the 1950's and 1960's.

[..]

Today, Democrats, in pursuit of their socialist agenda, are fighting to keep blacks poor, angry and voting for Democrats. Examples of how egregiously Democrats act to keep blacks in poverty are numerous.

You know, liberals have been getting kicked in the teeth by an elephant for at least the past 10 years, and as the above example proves, the right is still dishing it out. This goes further back than the Clinton impeachment, and continues today with such blatant examples as Jonah Goldberg's fact-light book calling liberals and liberalism “fascist.” (And that is almost a complement compared to what Ann Coulter has said about us in her books: Godless, Slander, and Treason.) The Republicans in Congress have been more obstructionist and threatened more filibusters than in any other period in modern Congressional history (Digby wrote the definitive post on this back in December), prompting "unifiers" like Trent Lott to gloat: "The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail … and so far it’s working for us.”

Apparently when liberals defend themselves against such absurd things, it’s divisive and partisan. But doing these absurd things, well, that’s okay. I just don’t get that.

Look, I’m just as sick of living in these Divided States as the next person, but I don't think any of this is anything new. Partisan sniping has been part of politics forever. In 1952 presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson uttered one of my all-time favorite quotes on the campaign trail: "I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them."

You think a line like that comes during a campaign of unity, hugs and kisses?

People are tired of the “lack of civility” in our public discourse I get that. I’m tired of it too. But these pleas from the right for Democrats to put aside partisanship for the good of the country just sound an awful lot like “shut up!” when the GOP and its henchmen in outter wingnuttia keep dishing out the mud.

Don’t tell us not to complain "in the spirit of unity" when the Tennessee GOP calls us racists and blames us for oppressing minorities, just in time for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We have every right to be offended.

Instead, get on the phone and call the TN GOP office and tell them you don’t think it honors Dr. King’s legacy to use him as a partisan tool. Threaten to withhold donations. Tell them to cut it out, “for the good of the country.”

How does that sound? If people really want unity, if people really want an end to partisan sniping, then let each side demand it from themselves first.

Because otherwise, all you’re doing is telling the other side to shut up. And that’s not in the spirit of unity, is it?

(h/t, Tennessee Views)

Bye, Bye Fred?

Fighting for a distant third in the must-win South Carolina primary must be a disappointment for Fred Thompson, and McClatchey observed the former Senator sounds close to dropping out--though for the record, the campaign says it’s still moving forward:

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson didn't drop out of the Republican presidential field after his disappointing finish in Saturday's South Carolina primary — but he sounded close to it.

About an hour after the polls closed, Thompson addressed a ballroom in a college student union, an event that featured as many students enjoying free beer as it did hardcore Thompson supporters. He delivered a lengthy soliloquy, speaking in the past tense about "clear conservatism," the cornerstone of his campaign.

A surefire way to draw a crowd to your event is to stage it in a student union and offer free beer (and excuse me, but what university in South Carolina doesn’t have a no-alcohol rule?). Reminds me of the college rock band that named itself “Free Beer” to draw bigger crowds.

Anyway, despite what the campaign says, the folks at RedState have stuck a fork in Fred:

Though South Carolina may not even be the official final nail in the coffin of your candidacy, for those who took the realistic view -- unencumbered by their support of your bid for office -- the proverbial handwriting had long since been on the wall. After the third-place Iowa finish, there still may have been hope, even though your assured place among the frontrunners had been taken by another out-of-nowhere candidate, Mike Huckabee. However, after the abysmal performances in New Hampshire and Wyoming -- not to mention Michigan and, today, Nevada -- it became abundantly clear that any talk of Fred Thompson, Republican Nominee for President was, at best, a non-starter.

So, as the results come back in South Carolina, with exit polls showing it a McCain-Huckabee race with Thompson a nonfactor, it seems to be as good a time as any to thank you profusely for your time and for your ideas, to wish you luck in all of your future endeavors, and to turn out the lights once and for all on the Fred Thompson for President experiment.

Sorry, Tennessee Republicans. I know this is a huge disappointment to you. The folks at RedState blame the candidate himself:

Unfortunately, the campaign itself never came together. Despite the fact that it was built around the people's chosen White Knight candidate, and around the most solid slate of conservative ideas in the race, the Fred Thompson for President campaign suffered from being one of the most lackluster, disorganized, and uninspired electoral efforts that I can remember. For whatever reason, you as the candidate never quite took the ownership of your own campaign that was necessary to make it successful -- and, as a result, it foundered before ever really getting out of the harbor.

Indeed, this was the huge flaw in the Fred Thompson candidacy that gave liberals so much comedy gold from the beginning. Folks, when picking future GOP stars, make sure the candidate likes politics. Everyone knows Fred Thompson hates politics and hates campaigning--he’s made no secret of that since he was a Senator--and yet, for some reason felt he should be anointed POTUS anyway. You have to work for these things, Senator. No one hands you the reins of power on a silver platter.

Just as you can’t expect someone who doesn’t believe in government to govern well, you can’t expect someone who doesn’t like politics to run an effective campaign.

Anyway, I’m sure a lot of Tennessee conservatives are in mourning today, possibly even deep denial. As I posted last week, it's hard out there for a Fred Thompson supporter.

Sorry, folks. It's over. Stick a fork in him, he's done.

(For more on this, read Newscoma's excellent post.)

It's All My Husband's Fault

He's been humming this song for three days now, which I think should be grounds for divorce:

More Brilliant Ideas!

ACK at Volunteer Voters links to this proposed piece of legislation coming out of Kentucky:

Bill Would Require Women To See Ultrasound Before Abortion

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- Women seeking an abortion would first have to undergo an ultrasound under a new bill proposed in Kentucky.

[...]

The new bill would make it mandatory for doctors to perform ultrasounds on a woman seeking an abortion, provide an explanation of the results and provide the ultrasound images to the pregnant woman and review them with her.

“I want to make sure women understand fully what is happening if they get an opportunity to see the little fingers and toes of the baby that they're thinking about aborting,” said Sen. Jack Westwood, R-Crescent Springs.

Thank you, Sen. Westwood! Your assertion that women have no clue what is happening inside their own bodies is stunningly patronizing!

Forget the logistics of such a bill, the fact that it places yet another economic roadblock before women seeking a safe, legal abortion.

Forget the irony that Sen. Westwood decries “government intrusion into the private lives of families” on his website.

I just can’t get past the arrogance such a bill reveals. That a state Senator would just assume that he knows what’s going on in women’s minds as they make this decision. It’s just stunning in its condescension.

So here’s my idea. How about we make visual aids a requirement for all sorts of things? How about before we vote on the next war funding bill we make our representatives in Congress look at pictures of the wounded and war dead?

On a state level, before Sen. Westwood votes to cut funding for social services programs, how about forcing him to look at pictures of the kids and elderly who will be affected? How about forcing state legislators to look at pictures of environmental damage caused by the coal industry in eastern Kentucky?

I can see all sorts of benefits to such a plan. What do you think, Sen. Westwood? Fair's fair, right?

Chris Matthews: "I'm Sorrreeeee"

Chris Matthews' serial misogyny sparked outrage among women's groups and women in general, to the point where even the National Women's Political Caucus staged a rally outside NBC's Washington office today. Leaders of women's groups sent NBC President Steve Capus a letter, and then there was the deluge of viewer mail.

The result: Chris Matthews is very sorry! Really! Not for all his leering at women guests and condescending attitude toward powerful women, but for dissing Hillary Clinton. Well, it's a start:



(h/t, Digby)

Draft Lou Dobbs!

Well, this was inevitable. Following the collapse tremendous success that made the very existence of Unity 08 no longer necessary, the 2008 election needed fresh comedy gold. And where better to look than the immigrant-hating populist with the polo ponies, CNN’s own Lou Dobbs.

Yes, the Draft Lou Dobbs campaign is off and running, brought to you by ALIPAC (Americans for Legal Immigration PAC):

Lou Dobbs is right about the issues concerning illegal immigration, no AMNESTY, and secure borders! Lou Dobbs is right about our deplorable trade agreements and the war on middle class America. Lou Dobbs is right about the rising military threat from communist China!

Lou Dobbs does not want to run for President and does not consider himself a politician. Sometimes, history demands that good people do what someone must do!

Okie dokie.

If you’re interested, check out their platform. Oh wait, don’t bother, since they say, “Only Lou Dobbs could tell us what his campaign platform would be, but those of us that are fans can tell what many of Lou's top issues are on the show. ”

You people realize that Lou Dobbs is a television personality, right? Kinda how Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly and Stephen Colbert are personalities?

Sigh. Never mind.

Draft Lou Dobbs really does read more like a fan site than a serious political effort. CNN claims ALIPAC president William Gheen said the group has “over 25,000 active supporters” for Dobbs but the Draft Lou Dobbs site shows they’re still a little short of that: they’ve registered 1,239 supporters who have pledged $171,603 as of this writing.

One of them is me. Because, you know, the kabuki theater that is the 2008 election just isn’t bizarre enough. I think we need the rantings of a phony populist like Lou Dobbs, who makes up statistics about leprosy just for the entertainment value.

Go, Lou Dobbs, go!