There's something at the Democratic National Convention in Denver called the "freedom cage," and some of the rhetoric spouted from within is decidedly anti-Obama in nature.
"[D]on't put all your hopes in Obama," said one Adam Jung, an organiser with the Tent State University protest group. "He's not an anti-war candidate. He's billing himself as that. It's not true."
I need not say anything else about this except, just how far to the Left would you have to be to regard Barack Obama as the antithesis to all the hopes, aspirations and principles you hold dear to your heart as a committed pinko? Cripes, didn't the man score 100 percent with the ACLU? (Just kidding, I know it's only 79 percent.)
Better tell R.E.M. Those dudes are flashing images of Mr. Obama on the screen behind them at their concerts. They ought to rethink that. In fact, I would actually derive great pleasure from hearing Michael Stipe tell foreign audiences, like the one in Ireland the other day: "We love our country, but hate our government. And it's not going to get any better over there. Just as Bush stole the Presidency from Gore, Obama stole the Democratic nomination from Hillary Clinton!" You want to get political, shiny happy people? There you go!
But, seriously, speaking of Barack Obama — I have nothing but the most serious contempt for the backward, toothless, rednecked crackers who attempted an assassination on him. It's about as dispiriting as things can get.
Bad enough trying to kill someone simply because you don't like their politics or way of doing things. But to qualify your reasons for attempting to take someone out as "because he's the wrong color?" It just blows my mind.
I certainly don't like Barack Obama, but I don't wish him dead. I don't even want him to stub his toe. (I even pulled for Bill Clinton during his heart troubles.) I am content that he lives a long, happy life should he be so blessed.
I only hope that he loses his bid for the Presidency.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Zedd
Where's the substance? I don't think the fluff will work any longer Mark. That era is ending. What is your point? Designing obscure issues to fake indignation about on a person just doesn't have an effect any more. Making up a sorta bad thing (that is not really clear) about someone then deriding them for it just to create negative feelings about them is a sign of weakness. The Republicans are weak cheats. If you've got the stuff, make your point, state it clearly and come up with a simple solution. If you don't know how to do that, go do some reading and develop a real ideology.
2 - Pablo
I agree totally with the above comment.
3 - Silas Kain
Michael Stipe tell foreign audiences, like the one in Ireland the other day: "We love our country, but hate our government. And it's not going to get any better over there. Just as Bush stole the Presidency from Gore, Obama stole the Democratic nomination from Hillary Clinton!" You want to get political, shiny happy people?...
I knew I loved Micheal Stipe! Yes Barack STOLE the nomination. And after all the fluff and pomp and Invesco Field circumstance dies down Democrats will go home. And in about a week, many will rise and say "what have I done?" Get ready for buyer's remorse. It all sounds nice and pretty and politically correct to nominate a humble lawyer from Illinois (who just happens to be Black). I resent Obama supporters who coin me as being a closet racist because I refuse to vote for him.
If this election cycle were held during the time of J.Q. Adams or Andrew Jackson the citizenry would be apoplectic by the vicious press. Unfortunately, our kids don't know about the colorful role the press played in politics during the first Hundred Years of America. I've read some of the pieces. I've looked at some of the cartoons. This nation is so hungry for something that they substitute "something" with living vicariously through celebrities. It is pathetic.
4 - RJ Elliott
Numerous lefty bloggers are now calling this convention a failure. And McCain has actually gained ground in the tracking polls since Biden was named as Obama's running mate!
A negative bounce? Hilarious!
Obama better give one hell of a speech in that stadium, with all that faux-Greek architecture behind him. And he better hope it doesn't rain...
Could McCain actually win this thing in a landslide? It's looking more and more likely...
5 - zingzing
now it's a mccain landslide? as predicted by mr. elliott?
go back and look at your communications homework, rj.
it's closer than it should be at this point, but only because obama is running a divisive campaign, which he shouldn't be doing. the only person who can beat obama is obama. mccain is barely running a campaign at all. or at least it seems like it.
last time i remember mccain, he was standing in a supermarket aisle. other than that he looks like he just got out of the grave with the rigor mortis just loosening up.
6 - Arch Conservative
I don't understand this fascination with Obama...well actually I do as I know there are a lot of stupid people out there who would rather have someone else assume responsibility for their lives and Obama fits the bill.
Obama is as transparently fake as any politician I have seen in my lifetime. Oh he has core values all right and they are most certainly to the left of the majority of America. However he has shown that he is more than willing to cast aside those core values in favor of his political ambition. Sadly this is par for the course in American politics today on both sides of the aisle. What scares me is that if he wins election he has reached the acme of his political aspiratiosn with the excception of a second term, whcih would be the only thing keeping him and a Dem lead congress from acting on his far left beliefs and sending the entire nation on a mad dash toward big government european style socialism.
McCain's core values and worldview are much harder to discern. He appears to be a political schizophrenic who isn't happy unless he's pissing EVERYONE off. I think McCain would be a much happier soul if he was allowed to die and be reincarnated as George Patton or Harry Truman.
McCain seems intent on starting at least one more war if elected. Probably with Iran but it appears resurecting the cold war may be all the rage now if McCain makes it to the White House. Hey if he can't be Truman or Patton at least he can be Reagan right?
But I am more inclined to cut McCain slack as he was he a prisoner of war in a Vietmanese prison camp for 5 years and I cannot even begin to imagine what he went through. So yeah he's a butter, angry, spiteful old man......but you know what....he has every right to be. I'm justnot going to support him for president.
In any event our two corporate media selected choices that we're told we must pick in order to defeat the other unimaginably evil side suck beyond belief.
A significant number of recognize this and could vote third party.............
Nah fuck it....let's just go back to our ipods and reality Tv programming..........
7 - Clavos
it's closer than it should be at this point, but only because obama is running a divisive campaign...
Nope. It's the Democrat's time-honored tradition of internecine squabbling, with the inevitable result of the party shooting itself in the foot once again.
8 - Joanne Huspek
I must be in a distinct minority. I thought this piece was actually humorous.
Or maybe I have a very twisted sense of humor.
9 - Dr Dreadful
Obama stole the nomination? Sure he did. Couldn't have been that more people voted for him than voted for Clinton, oh no...
So what if you think Hillary would have made a better candidate? She LOST. The process is the process. Deal with it. She has.
Crying foul and threatening to take your ball and go home just because your favorite didn't win is... well, infantile.
10 - Zedd
Clav,
Nope. It's the Democrat's time-honored tradition of internecine squabbling, with the inevitable result of the party shooting itself in the foot once again.
You are correct. But I think they did a good job of repairing that last night. Democrats aren't as strategic and that is good in a way but in this climate it doesn't produce landslides.
11 - bliffle
Zedd is right.
12 - Silas Kain
So what if you think Hillary would have made a better candidate? She LOST. The process is the process. Deal with it. She has.
Why are we so ready to accept the candidates the two parties have nominated as the ONLY candidates? This is America, folks. Our system wasn't designed to allow just two political parties to rule the roost. We've been complacent, handing over our lives to the two major parties and they've taken great advantage of our own apathy.
YES, Hillary IS the better candidate. I don't agree with all her politics but of Obama, McCain and Hillary she is the ONLY candidate who I believe could actually do something. Regardless of her politics, I love her tenacity. She's a scrapper. And, finally, whether Conservatives like it or not she did the "Christian" thing when her husband got caught with the blue dress down. She stuck by her man. That to me says a lot about Hillary Clinton.
13 - Jordan Richardson
Why are we so ready to accept the candidates the two parties have nominated as the ONLY candidates?
Because that's how the process works?
This is America, folks.
So? Forgive the tangent, but I never got the point of saying that. It'd be like me running around up here and saying "This is Canada, this can't happen here! I need Tim Hortons on every street corner, god damn it!" It makes no sense to me.
Our system wasn't designed to allow just two political parties to rule the roost.
Certainly not, but it has evolved to that point by hook AND by crook. I'm not sure how voting for another Dem adds another political party or option to the mix, as Hillary is just another Obama with slightly preferable policies (at least in my opinion, as every single little quiz I've taken online re: the candidates marks me as a pretty clear Clinton supporter). So a vote for Hillary, whether you write it in on the back of a napkin, still winds up being a vote for the same two-sided coin. You guys need new money.
We've been complacent, handing over our lives to the two major parties and they've taken great advantage of our own apathy.
Agreed, but your statements would probably ring with a little more "tenacity" if they were accompanied by support for someone NOT at the forefront of one of those two major parties and someone NOT a Clinton.
14 - Dr Dreadful
Why are we so ready to accept the candidates the two parties have nominated as the ONLY candidates?
No reason why you should, but that wasn't the tone of your comment.
You lot would benefit from having a significant third party, as does the UK with the Liberal Democrats sitting in between Labour and the Conservatives (although they're actually to the left of Labour on many issues these days). There are many advantages to this system. The other two parties can make themselves feel better by calling the Lib Dems irrelevant (which gets rather amusing when they actually hold 10% of the seats in Parliament as they do now!). The Lib Dems can develop an honest political platform without the fear that they'll end up actually having to enact it. And because the party has a significant presence in the legislature, a vote for them needn't be perceived as a wasted vote: people can say, when Labour and/or the Tories screw up, "Don't blame me - I voted Lib Dem!"
Cynical, I know, but those are valid and valuable mechanisms in the British political system.
15 - Jordan Richardson
Same thing goes for Canada, btw. God bless Jack Layton and his craaaaaazy NDP.
16 - Silas Kain
I need Tim Hortons on every street corner...
Sorry, Jordan. I'm a huge Tim Horton's fan. I'd welcome a Tim's on every corner in this market.
You guys need new money.
Indeed we do. The dollar loses value by the minute.
17 - El Bicho
"It's the Democrat's time-honored tradition of internecine squabbling, with the inevitable result of the party shooting itself in the foot once again."
Gerald Ford, George HW Bush, and others would point out the Republicans have the same tradition.
18 - Clavos
Point taken, EB, but the Reps are rank amateurs compared to Olympian squabbling skills of the Dems.
19 - RJ Elliott
"Obama stole the nomination? Sure he did. Couldn't have been that more people voted for him than voted for Clinton, oh no..."
There were actually about equal numbers of voters for each candidate. Obama won more delegates only because a bunch of small-state caucuses in February went his way, before his extremely-close relationships with Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers became national news.
"So what if you think Hillary would have made a better candidate? She LOST. The process is the process. Deal with it. She has."
Change a few words, and you sound almost like a Republican talking, about 7 years and 9 months ago. ;-)
"Crying foul and threatening to take your ball and go home just because your favorite didn't win is... well, infantile."
Everyone is entitled to their own feelings. And Hillary's supporters are not at all obligated to support Obama, simply because he has a "D" next to his name. They can vote for Nader, or McCain, or Barr, or refuse to vote altogether. (We don't have compulsory voting here in the States, like they do in some other countries.)
20 - Dr Dreadful
Change a few words, and you sound almost like a Republican talking, about 7 years and 9 months ago. ;-)
OK, but the point is that Obama was the clear winner according to the rules of the primary/caucus process. There was never any serious suggestion of underhand shenanigans the way there was with the 2000 fiasco, and the final result was democratically, not judicially, decided.
In fact, if anyone had an unfair advantage it was Clinton, who campaigned in Michigan (and put her name on the ballot) and Florida, even though Obama had agreed not to.
Of course the Silases of this world are entitled not to vote for Obama if they don't want to. But don't whine about unfairness just because Hillary lost.
21 - bliffle
DD has it right.
22 - Live Free or Die!
"I need not say anything else about this except, just how far to the Left would you have to be to regard Barack Obama as the antithesis to all the hopes, aspirations and principles you hold dear to your heart as a committed pinko?"
OMG! Someone who is "left" doesn't like Obama??? People are either "liberal" or "conservative", there's nothing else!!! (Neocon's head explodes.)
Strangely enough, despite becoming disgusted with the Republican party in 1992, I would have voted for McCain if he had been running against Gore in 2000, but part of that is that I really really really hate Gore. 8 years later, I consider McCain a traitor to this country for his support of GWB.
The Democratic party is not liberal, they are authoritarian. The Republican party is not conservative, they are authoritarian (big government neocons.)
Dissent highest form of patriotism. I have the highest respect for protesters even when I disagree with their viewpoints. The "Free Speech Zones" are an abomination to every true freedom loving American.
If you think protesting should be illegal or required to get permits or restricted to "free speech zones" then you should go back to the Democratic party where you belong. Or better yet, move to China where they agree with your "right to not be offended" and take the Democrats with you.
23 - Dave Nalle
I don't agree with all her politics but of Obama, McCain and Hillary she is the ONLY candidate who I believe could actually do something.
Which is exactly why she had to be stopped. Why would we WANT a candidate who's going to do anything? Good lord, think of all the trouble we'd be in.
Dave
24 - Mark Edward Manning
"If you think protesting should be illegal or required to get permits or restricted to 'free speech zones' ..."
Whoa, when or where did I say that?! All I did was write a "fluff" piece (according to Zedd), expressing my amazement that there could actually be liberals out there who don't trust Mr. Obama.
That is, of course, their absolute right to do so. I never said it wasn't.
25 - Mark Edward Manning
"Why would we WANT a candidate who's going to do anything?"
Exactly. We Americans just want soundbites, large stages made up to look like Roman temples to hear our cult-of-celebrity candidates deliver their speeches, feel good about ourselves and go back to watching American Idol.
It's so much easier that way. After all, no-one actually has to do anything like reading ... or even thinking. We're too busy consuming today's products while trashing yesterday's.
That is, after all, the American way.
Besides, Obama is the second coming of Jesus, apparently, so we know we're gonna be alright.