And the issues, apparently, from what I am reading from those intrepid angels who DID dare to tread, are flag pins, the word "bitter", who people associated with when they were in their 20's, and pastors who say mean things.
The war in Iraq doesn't matter because it's going SO swimmingly, even after a suicide bomber hit a funeral procession just north of Baghdad today Iraq is not "standing up so we can stand down" and VP-wannabe Condi "Totture Dominatrix" Rice says that diplomats who refuse posts in Iraq will be terminated. The economy doesn't matter, even though oil has topped $115/barrel, housing starts have reached a 17-year low, there's a global shortage of rice which is already causing a humanitarian crisis in volatile North Korea. Bank stocks are tanking so badly that when the results are slightly less horrendous than expected, the Dow picks up over 200 points -- for one day. States with no money to burn are using band-aids to stop the crack in the mortgage dam and keep the foreclosure mess from destroying their towns and cities. If you're arrested for any federal crime (not convicted, just arrested), your DNA will be captured and kept by the government forever, even if you are exonerated via trial or charges are dropped. And just to top things off, they're fighting in the Gaza Strip again.
But does any of this matter to the Washington pundit corps? Not one bit. What a bunch of multimillionaire pundits are telling you should be important to you is not your dying neighborhood, or your lost job, or your son in Iraq, or the trillions of dollars in debt with which your new grandbaby is going to be stuck. No, the candidates weren't asked about any of these things. Here's what they were asked:
GIBSON: There have already been many votes in many states, and you have each, as you analyze the vote, appealed disproportionately to different constituencies in the party, and that dismays many in the party. Governor Cuomo, an elder statesman in your party, has come forward with a suggestion. He has said, look, fight it to the end.
Let every vote be counted. You contest every delegate. Go at each other to the -- right till the end. Don't give an inch to one another. But pledge now that whichever one of you wins this contest, you'll take the other as your running mate, and that the other will agree if they lose, to take second place on the ticket.******
CHARLES GIBSON: Talking to a closed-door fundraiser in San Francisco 10 days ago, you got talking in California about small-town Pennsylvanians who have had tough economic times in recent years. And you said they get bitter, and they cling to guns or they cling to their religion or they cling to antipathy toward people who are not like them.
Now, you've said you misspoke; you said you mangled what it was you wanted to say. But we've talked to a lot of voters. Do you understand that some people in this state find that patronizing and think that you said actually what you meant?******
GEORGE SUCKUPAGUS: Senator Clinton, when Bill Richardson called you to say he was endorsing Barack Obama, you told him that Senator Obama can't win. I'm not going to ask you about that conversation. I know you don't want to talk about it. But a simple yes-or-no question: Do you think Senator Obama can beat John McCain or not?
GIBSON: Senator Obama, since you last debated, you made a significant speech in this building on the subject of race and your former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. And you said subsequent to giving that speech that you never heard him say from the pulpit the kinds of things that so have offended people.
But more than a year ago, you rescinded the invitation to him to attend the event when you announced your candidacy. He was to give the invocation. And according to the reverend, I'm quoting him, you said to him, "You can get kind of rough in sermons. So what we've decided is that it's best for you not to be out there in public." I'm quoting the reverend. But what did you know about his statements that caused you to rescind that invitation? [...] And if you knew he got rough in sermons, why did it take you more than a year to publicly disassociate yourself from his remarks?******
SUCKUPAGUS: Senator, two questions. Number one, do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do? And number two, if you get the nomination, what will you do when those sermons are played on television again and again and again? [...] But you do believe he's as patriotic as you are?******
SUCKUPAGUS: Senator Obama, your campaign has sent out a cascade of e-mails, just about every day, questioning Senator Clinton's credibility. And you yourself have said she hasn't been fully truthful about what she would do as president.
Do you believe that Senator Clinton has been fully truthful about her past?******
MR. GIBSON: And Senator Obama, I want to do one more question, which goes to the basic issue of electability. And it is a question raised by a voter in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, a woman by the name of Nash McCabe. Take a look.
NASH MCCABE (Latrobe, Pennsylvania): (From videotape.) Senator Obama, I have a question, and I want to know if you believe in the American flag. I am not questioning your patriotism, but all our servicemen, policemen and EMS wear the flag. I want to know why you don't.
SUCKUPAGUS: [...]if you get the nomination, you'll have to -- (applause) -- (inaudible).
I want to give Senator Clinton a chance to respond, but first a follow-up on this issue, the general theme of patriotism in your relationships. A gentleman named William Ayers, he was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol and other buildings. He's never apologized for that. And in fact, on 9/11 he was quoted in The New York Times saying, "I don't regret setting bombs; I feel we didn't do enough."
An early organizing meeting for your state senate campaign was held at his house, and your campaign has said you are friendly. Can you explain that relationship for the voters, and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?
Need I go on?
This media obsession with nailing Democrats to the wall infuriates me because it's gone on in every single election since 1980. I linked above to Glenn Greenwald discussing the way the media portray every single Democratic nominee as some kind of elitist freak, even as they cave into the macho iconography of the parade of wealthy true elitist Republicans that come down the path every four years. It's one thing to ask tough questions, it's another thing for a major news network to air what it's billing as a debate after it's gotten its marching orders for questions to ask from Sean Hannity.
Here you have a Republican nominee, John McCain, whose father and grandfather were four-star Admirals in the U.S. Navy. who got into the Naval Academy at Annapolis as a legacy admission, and graduated fifth from the bottom. His wife is heiress to a $100 million beer distributorship fortune. You have a Democratic candidate whose husband, a former president, left office in debt up to his eyeballs and now is worth $109 million, most of it from speaking fees, just eight years later.
And Barack Obama is the elitist?
This relentless obsession that people like Chris Matthews and Maureen Dowd, pundits who like to point themselves as the product of hard-working blue-collar families but now make millions of dollars a year telling Americans what they like and what they are looking for in a president, with "regular guy" stuff is sickening. I don't want the president to be some guy holding forth at the corner bar, or someone in a bowling league chowing down on chili dogs. Troubled times require a president who can string two coherent thoughts together. The president SHOULDN'T be just a "regular guy", because "regular guys" don't spend their time thinking about how we can get out of Iraq, or how we can invest in this country's future when the current occupant of the White House has spent us into oblivion.
You would think that after eight years of a president who's about as faux a "regular guy" as there is; a guy born in Connecticut who got into Yale as a legacy, drilled a bunch of dry holes in Texas using the money of people who wanted access to his father, gained one of the weakest governorships in the country, bought a "ranch" in a scrubby part of Texas to be used as a prop setting to bolster his cowboy cred and to which he is NOT retiring when he leaves office, and as president who has shown himself to be the same fuckup he's been all his life, that Americans would be smarter than this. And perhaps they are, at least so far, since polls seem to indicate that not only aren't people concerned with Barack Obama's pastor, but they aren't concerned about the word "bitter" either, because yeah, Obama is damn right they're bitter.
But memes like "elitist" have a nasty habit of becoming ingrained in the public consciousness when they're repeated again and again and again, as they will be no matter WHO gets the Democratic nomination. And this, from Tuesday night's pr0n flick that was Chris Matthews' interview with John McCain, is what we can expect from the press where the Republican nominee is concerned:
MATTHEWS: So this is what it‘s like to be president, right this moment. It‘s going to be like this if you make it. You‘re a flip of the coin away from being the president of the United States, based on all the polls. You‘re about 50/50. The toughest question first is for you.
(LAUGHTER)
MCCAIN: Can I—can I...
MATTHEWS: The question is...
MCCAIN: Can I ask you a question first?
MATTHEWS: No.
MCCAIN: Cheese steaks, Pat‘s or Gino‘s?
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERS)
MCCAIN: Do you refuse to answer?
MATTHEWS: The answer is, take your chances!
Of course this show was at Villanova, about as Guy a Guy School as you're going to find. So here's the kind of questions the audience THERE asked him:
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good afternoon, Senator McCain, Mr. Matthews. My name is Matthew Brady (ph). Senator McCain, the day following Barack Obama‘s speech on racism at the National Constitution Center, he remarked on comments he made during his speech about his racist grandmother, referring to her as a “typical white person.” Would you characterize yourself, as Barack Obama would phrase, as a typical white person?
(LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)
[...]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, Senator McCain. My name is Peter Doocey (ph). I‘m a junior here. And I‘m sure that you saw your—one of your Democratic opponents, Hillary Clinton, recently drinking whiskey shots with some potential voters. Now, I was wondering if you think that she‘s finally resorted to hitting the sauce just because of some unfavorable polling. And I was also wondering if you would care to join me for a shot after this.
(LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)
[...]
MATTHEWS: Why do you think a guy, Barack Obama, who grew up in not exactly easy circumstances—he—his father went back to Africa after he was just born, basically. He was raised in Indonesia, a Third World country, a white American mother, basically never had any breaks, except he‘s a smart guy, obviously.
But why do you think he thinks like an elitist, or talks like one, if he‘s not an elitist?
And because Matthews can never, ever, ever use the name "John McCain" in a sentence without using the "M" word, here we go:
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about your Republican party. You‘ve been a maverick, and a lot of people like you because of that. I want to ask you how much of a maverick you are. Would you put a person on the ticket with you, like the former governor of this state who is very popular, Tom Ridge, even though he may disagree on the issue of Roe v Wade and abortion rights? Would you put somebody on the ticket like that, on that one issue? Would that stop him?
Welcome to Campaign 2008. Just like Campaign 2004, and Campaign 2000, and Campaign 1996 and Campaign 1992 and Campaign 1988 and Campaign 1984 and Campaign 1980.
Will Americans finally get smart this time?
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