transparentgrid.com

Nice - first force your oldest pregnant daughter, Bristol, in a shotgun marriage and then use your 7-year old as a human shield against an expected chorus of boos:

The GOP Vice-Presidential nominee said at an earlier fundraiser that she would stop some of the booing from the rowdy Philadelphia fans by putting her seven year old daughter, Piper in a Flyers jersey. She said, “How dare they boo Piper!”

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One of the things that has been bothering me over the last week of coverage of the teetering on the brink of fascism Republican campaign has been the absence of the MSM to call it what it is: race-baiting.  White pundits were unable to see “that one” for what it was — an intentional effort to objectify, and thus dehumanize a black man.  Thankfully, we have Frank Rich who accurately connects the dots from Jim Crow to Tucker Eskew.  Those people, and you know who I mean, are definitely pond scum.

No less disconcerting was a still-unexplained passage of Palin’s convention speech: Her use of an unattributed quote praising small-town America (as opposed to, say, Chicago and its community organizers) from Westbrook Pegler, the mid-century Hearst columnist famous for his anti-Semitism, racism and violent rhetorical excess. After an assassin tried to kill F.D.R. at a Florida rally and murdered Chicago’s mayor instead in 1933, Pegler wrote that it was “regrettable that Giuseppe Zangara shot the wrong man.” In the ’60s, Pegler had a wish for Bobby Kennedy: “Some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow falls.”

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The intellectual wing of the Republican party is abandoning ship, surely hoping to get back onboard the deck hosed off of the the detritus currently swirling about.  In the meantime, Christopher Buckley, William F.’s son, has just endorsed Obama, though not at his NRO post, but at The Daily Beast:

But having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama
will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves. If he raises taxes and throws up tariff walls and opens the coffers of the DNC to bribe-money from the special interest groups against whom he has (somewhat disingenuously) railed during the campaign trail, then he will almost certainly reap a whirlwind that will make Katrina look like a balmy summer zephyr.

Obama has in him—I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy “We are the people we have been waiting for” silly rhetoric—the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for.

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David Brooks finally gets it.  If the United States is a meritocracy based on reliable democratic beliefs which embraces its role in the world and knows that in these tumultuous times we need to lead, then Barack Obma is the only rational choice:

Obama has the great intellect. I was interviewing Obama a couple years ago, and I’m getting nowhere with the interview, it’s late in the night, he’s on the phone, walking off the Senate floor, he’s cranky. Out of the blue I say, ‘Ever read a guy named Reinhold Niebuhr?’ And he says, ‘Yeah.’ So i say, ‘What did Niebuhr mean to you?’ For the next 20 minutes, he gave me a perfect description of Reinhold Niebuhr’s thought, which is a very subtle thought process based on the idea that you have to use power while it corrupts you. And I was dazzled, I felt the tingle up my knee as Chris Matthews would say.

And the other thing that does separate Obama from just a pure intellectual: he has tremendous powers of social perception. And this is why he’s a politician, not an academic. A couple of years ago, I was writing columns attacking the Republican congress for spending too much money. And I throw in a few sentences attacking the Democrats to make myself feel better. And one morning I get an email from Obama saying, ‘David, if you wanna attack us, fine, but you’re only throwing in those sentences to make yourself feel better.’ And it was a perfect description of what was going through my mind. And everybody who knows Obama all have these stories to tell about his capacity for social perception.

And that is what I think what lies at the core of the venomous anger we’ve seen stoked by McCain-Palin over the past week. They whipping up the lizard brains into a frenzy who are absolutely threatened with the prospect of an intelligent black man. I am just waiting for the n-word to be shouted out any hour.

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The University of Wisconsin must produce the stupidest fucking lawyers in the world:

You know, just because the thing I saw wasn’t there doesn’t mean there wasn’t something there that I didn’t see.

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Now we know why that weird “community organizer” slur was so prominent in the convention.  The GOP is going to (a) try to paint ACORN as systemic perpetrators of fraudulent voter registrations and (b) tie Obama to ACORN through some past legal representation and then (c) say this proves why we can’t trust him.

The reason for all this crazed red meat rheotric is not to get the center.  It is to boost right wing GOTV and then try to suppress Obama voters, especially new and poor ones as much as possible.

Essentially McCain is going to try to win with destruction, not persausion.

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Donna Brazile rocks the house.

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From Swampland regarding Stan Greenwald’s focus group of undecideds:

[V]oters who thought Obama was “too liberal” actually decreased throughout the evening. That could be because Obama used tougher foreign policy rhetoric than Americans are used to hearing from Democratic nominees. But he also got an assist from McCain, whose efforts to make him seem risky instead often position him as more hawkish than McCain. If viewers come away from the debate thinking Obama will do more to go after bin Laden and al Qaeda than McCain would, that’s probably a plus for Democrats. And it makes it harder for the “liberal” charge to stick.

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I’m sure I’m not the only black man in America who, when McCain dropped his “that one,” sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, “Hey, I think I’ve heard s**t like that before.” And his smirk. By the end, when he clearly thought that he was putting Obama in his place, it was so embarrassing it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little drops of privileged white old guy spittle through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America.

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In my eyes, Obama won hands down, but several moments jumped out at me:

1.  The “that one” comment.  We’ll see how it resonates down the line.  Chris Matthews and Howard Fineman may have thought it was McCain sounding like and old man, but to anyone familiar with the Black American experience it sounded intentionally demeaning.

2. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.  McCain walked right into that counter-punch.

3. Health care is a right not a responsibility.  The advantage of going second on a huge question.  This answer, invoking his mother, was a hugely effective for Obama.

4. For years, Democrats have avoided strong action verbs, instead relying on verbs reflecting intellect and soberness.  Frankly, this made them look like pussies year after year.   These words by Obama were music to my ears: “We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda.”

5.  Just like Hillary, McCain relied on the “I” pronoun while Obama talked about “we.”

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We’re a month away now, so might as well start up the poll porn.

First up, pollster.com which shows such an Obama surge, that Missouri and Indiana, states once deemed safe for McCain, are now considered toss-ups.

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Well, New York is , actually.  But who knew that Iceland was so tied into the global financial stream that the nation is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy?

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The wingers are starting to see the writing on the wall and are getting more unhinged than ever.

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A pretty stupid headline, right?  Yet, that is the level of today’s discourse by the mighty Republican smear machine.

Regardless of the desperation two minute hate drill being run by McCain-Palin, comes word out of the intelligence establishment that another AlQaeda attack, or at least a new threatening video, would not be a surprise right before the election.  From Richard Clarke writing at USN&WR:

What would be the purpose of any attempted manipulation of the U.S. election? It could just be to use the election to magnify the media coverage of their terrorist activities, make al Qaeda look even more capable than it is, and remind everyone they are still around. Such a media-amplified attack might help them with recruitment and fundraising. Even more likely is the possibility that al Qaeda would hope the attack would benefit John McCain. Opinion polls, which, as noted above, al Qaeda reads closely, suggest that an attack would help McCain. Polls in Europe and the Middle East also suggest an overwhelming popular support there for Barack Obama. Al Qaeda would not like it if there were a popular American president again.

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At least Dick Cheney was subtle.  With Palin the question is, does she (a) know what she’s talking about but inartfully exposed her agenda of unabashed vice presidential power; (b) is merely repeating someone else’s view of an imperial vice presidency or (c) really stepped in it Thursday night when she garbled her view of the vice presidency and is now covering for it?

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Is there really anything as disturbing as a right wing hack wandering around in grey sweatpants sporting a boner?

I’m sure I’m not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, “Hey, I think she just winked at me.” And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America.

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Andrew Sullivan won’t let the matter go of the Palins refusing to disclose her medical records regarding the birth of Trig.  I say, good for Sullivan.  The issue is being treated so off limits out of fear of charges of sexism.  For that matter, where are McCain’s?  Don’t the American people have the right to now what the condition of 72-year old cancer survivor is who wants to be president who has a less then qualified vice presidential candidate next to him?

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Corpus Callosum has a really good post on the hidden meaning of some of Palin’s statements during the debate.

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Here is an interesting snap poll from Media Curve which used cell phones as an instant response tool.  Notice how well Biden did among independents.  He consistently carried at least two out of three of that cohort.

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The latest trade as for midnight Eastern time was 9.3:

Update: Krugman does his own bit of Intrade analysis.

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