Setting the record straight

It hurts him, though, because it goes to his credibility. To paraphrase California's criminal jury instructions, if voters decide that a candidate deliberately lied about something significant to their case for being elected, they should consider not believing anything that witness says. It's not good enough for Obama to act like any other politician, because he has held himself to a higher standard. If any other politician did something shamelessly self-serving regarding money, you shrug, because that's politics as normal. But Obama has condemned politics as normal, and for him to be caught engaging in it hurts him in ways it couldn't possibly hurt someone else. It adds hypocrisy as a multiplier to the baseline criticism engendered venality of the act.

[W]hen I switched from Hillary to Obama[ I wrote] ... "it's about more than policy papers now. Its about being sick to death of Atwater-Clinton-Rove politics."

That's quite an ironic comment given that you yourself pointed to an article by David Brooks noting that Obama's move yesterday is so breathtakingly cynical that even Lee Atwater himself would be floored.

It's about being nauseated by the idea of more automatic, tit-for-tat partisanship, more strategic divisiveness. Enough of Republican fear-mongering. Enough of the Democratic politics of envy and resentment. Enough of using patriotism as a weapon. Enough of triangulating. Enough with the seething and the ranting and the rage-aholism.

And as I said, if you thought for an instant that Obama was any different in that regard, you were taken in. You were taken in by a politician who told you what you wanted to hear. That seems a lot like politics as normal before. And now we can see that this politician doesn't consider himself bound by what he said on the primary campaign trail - if you thought before that he might be serious about all that stuff you liked, you can't seriously do so now.

Your mistake was taking off the chainmail, which I assume is a metaphor for switching off the part of your brain responsible for critical thinking.

As to selling McCain, I see no need to play door-to-door salesman. This here's a blog - you can get a sense of my views on policy issues from reading it, and McCain is much better than Obama on foreign policy, domestic policy, judicial appointments, and, frankly, temperament. For the life of me, I can't see why that isn't enough. He isn't perfect, but better is good enough.

Bill and Hill are one, politically. They had every advantage

Bovine scatology, Michael. Hillary is her own, and visibly separating from Bill gained her traction, not lost it. He's a has-been. And I've been here on the electoral lines since last summer, watching from nice and up close and personal, front row reserved seat. The DNC's "fifty state strategy" was staffed up by the Deaniac "progressives" and both infiltrated and handed over early on to the Obamites, who thereafter had most of the internal DNC national/state ground apparatus at their disposal, while denying same to Clinton. This was readily apparent in key early states. I've only been writing about this ongoing internal power struggle since, oh, 2002 or so.

Repeating the same dodge-ball rhetoric doesn't address anything. Try again.

Oh, and BTW: I have been actively repudiating Stupid Obama Rumors for over a year, including with original reportage from source material. When the facts said the rumors were crap, I said so loud and clear. NO ONE HERE has been spreading the "Michelle whitey video" rumor, and we've actively debunked much BS. So pitch that line of crap somewhere else. We could equally as well accuse you of things YOU haven't done--but won't. It would be refreshing of you to employ the same standard.

t's been flag pins and nonsense for the most part, not sound arguments. It's been empty fear-mongering, not policy. Which is particularly strange given that even I -- supposedly a member of the cult -- can do a take-down on any number of Obama positions. Why are we talking instead about "whitey" and Jeremiah Wright and flag pins? Because a coherent policy position is beyond Republican capabilities at this point, given that the party is so clearly uncomfortable with their own candidate.

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Michael;
I think you've been confusing some criticisms with all critisms. And I think on this blog there's been both but of course it requires you to LISTEN/READ CLOSELY. Flag pin? meh! Rev. Wright? I was disturbed as an elder in a church as to THE "church politics thing", otherwise, meh! "Whitey"? C'mon. So if I say (as I said over a year ago) my three main goals are 1)character 2) competence and 3) centrism, is it ok to say that I haven't seen enough ACTION (read: legislation AND collaboration) to confirm the competence criteria and that his voting record is too far too the left for my taste (i.e. far from the center). Is that "reason" enough. The rest so far have just been "plot diversions".

Chris

I don't agree that the critiques of Obama at SF have been wholly substance-free. Usually not Tully's, and sometimes not Simon's. I regard some but not all of these critiques as non-substantive or close to it, and easily dismissable. But points about the incongruence between promises made and funding, expected available for example, are on he mark. Obama has to cpnvince me his idea of governance and compromise is legitimate bipartisnship, not "if we win we make all the new rules."

Where I do agree with you Michael is in noticing that for whatever reason and much to the dismay of Obama's critiques, Obama has shown a durable teflon quality. Substantive or not, the criticisms don't seem to be sticking. And that's one among several solid reasons why the GOP must do a far better job of focusing on the positive case for John McCain.

The problem for the GOP of course is that for so much of the party base, their heart is not in such an effort. The sale has never been made...the base isn't really buying. The base is really not especially motivated by the positive case for McCain. They are only motivated by the negative case against Obama. Motivated enough to show up at high rates and vote against him? That's the 270-electoral-vote question.

I think you are on target in mentioning Dole, because a similar thing happened that year. The bland and aged Dole evoked precious little enthusiasm, and the GOP focused its message against McCain, and got beat in a contest that while not a rout, was never IMO a contest that was much in doubt. The only thing the party achieved then was to make the base angrier and angrier.

And that may be the outcome here. Almost like a subconscious recognition of the impending defeat. If they can't win, the GOP wants their side to be foaming at the mouth come 1/20/09. Feed the beast, feed the beast, feed the beast!

__________
I have often said, and oftener think, that this world is a comedy for those who think, and a tragedy for those who feel. -Horace Walpole

First it would require Sen. Obama to pick a stand on a given issue and, you know, stick with it. Which of Obama's positions on public financing of the campaign are we to contrast with McCain's, the one he had before he thought he could raise more money than the Republicans, or the one he had once he decided he had the fund-raising advantage? Which of his positions on NAFTA are we to contrast, the one where he thinks it's pure evil or the more "nuanced" one he's adopting for the general election? And is he the "new politician" wanting a "new kind of politics," a "politics of hope," or is he the same old tough-guy Chicago pol you now claim has been obvious to everybody since day one? Are we going to contrast with Obama's position on the flag pin back when he first started the campaign, or when he started wearing one after he called all the middle-Americans in the flyover states "bitter" people who are "clinging" to their guns and their religion?

And it's really time for you to take that "whitey" dreck elsewhere. You're beginning to sound as bad as the idiots with McCain's "100 years in Iraq" foolishness. Simon didn't mention that tape or the controvery or the rumor AT ALL until after Obama himself had spoken about it. You may have noticed (at Amba's place and elsewhere) that I criticized quite a few bloggers (in their comment section, not here) for helping out the (probably Clinton-hired) campaign dirty-tricksters responsible for starting the rumor, just by talking about the rumor at all. If you're willing to say that it was political foolishness for McCain to make the 100 year comment (even as you defend it's proper context), than surely you must admit it was political foolishness for Obama to have addressed that rumor at all.

And finally, as for Rev. Wright, you keep trying to play moral equivalence between his relationship with Obama and the various questionable religious figures which McCain and other GOP folks have associated themselves with. But there's not an equivalence there, which is the point many of us have tried to make. Show me a rabid, bigoted white preacher who served as a MENTOR for John McCain, who served as the inspiration for the book which helped launch him into the national eye, who was responsible for actually bringing McCain into Christianity itself, and I'll agree that it's an equivalent issue. If you're unwilling to admit that Obama and Wright had a much closer relationship, politically and personally, than just pastor and congregant, then you're ignoring reality.

In case you missed it and just misread, Pat didn't say you were spreading that one, he was noting WE haven't asked you to defend things you've not said. But you're demanding just that of others here. See above.

You're playing CPD®, insisting that no one can legitimately criticize Obama unless they ALSO give some kind of equal time to criticizing McCain. What a diversionary pants-load.