A day after retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, now an Obama supporter, discussed McCain’s experience as a Navy pilot and prisoner of war in Vietnam on a Sunday talk show, his remarks set off the pattern that has become familiar from innumerable earlier flaps over surrogate remarks during the presidential election year: The candidates, Obama and McCain, took the high road while the bare-knuckled language was left to their surrogates.
Amazing, isn’t it, how that just happens all by itself? How with no help from anyone at all, a “pattern” is set off? A “firestorm” is created? All by itself. No, no siree, ain’t nobody here marching to anybody’s tune but his own. Fuck me black and blue, there is not enough $5 sauvignon blanc to get me through this election season in one piece. Every morning I resolve not to get worked up about this shit, and every afternoon, something so catastrophically dumb happens, like this meeting of the Solipsistic Dumbass Society, Associated Press Chapter, up in here. Screw it, pass me the bottle, just stick a straw in it. Puck, run fetch Mommy a straw.
Clark has said as much before, but drew little notice.
Goddamn, I wonder why that was. Don’t it just make you wonder? Why it’s a big deal today and not yesterday, yesterday and not the day before? Don’t it just confound the ever-loving shit out of you? Could it be because this sort of crap isentirely manufactured and thusentirely worthless not to mention arbitrary? And could those observations perhaps lead just one or two members of our national press corps to wonder if maybe, just maybe, Republicans howling about whatever it is they pull out of the hat this week isn’t fuckingnews anymore?
I mean, if somebody’s a proven liar, and the lies he’s spouting aren’t new, you have yourself right there two reasons not to run with any kind of a story. Yes, Beth Fouhy, even if it’s a phenomenon on the Internet. Even if it’s all over TV. Even if Chris Matthews is pissing himself and Brit Hume’s turning purple with orgiastic glee. Even then, you can still look at the set of circumstances and say, “eh,” and go home for the night. Seriously, have a little pride, people. Have a little pride in what you do, and realize that at this point you’re not just being played, you are literally WRITING ABOUT YOUR BEING PLAYED AS THOUGH IT IS HAPPENING TO SOMEBODY ELSE AND YOU’RE NOT EVEN IN THE ROOM.
Puck, sweetheart, c’mere. Mommy’s going to show you how to mix her a Wildside. Come over here. Bring the liquor cabinet with you.
A.
Is there enough booze for two? This whole thing makes me want to gather foodstuffs and live in my basement with two books and a porta potty.
And then Obama’s campaign “rejects” Clark’s “attack” on McCain…whichnever fucking happened. And all the news outlets act like Clark somehow “disparaged” McCain’s service when anyone who reads at the 4th grade level knows he didn’t. And McCain’s campaign sends outone of the fucking Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to talk about how horrible Clark is for “attacking” McCain’s military service.
Seriously, I can’t take the stupid anymore. How do you keep going when the stench of the bullshit blinds you and you can’t keep your gorge down any longer?
What’s a Wildside? Maybe that’s the secret.
The ratio of total bullshit to actual quote is enormous.
You know in the trade press they know when a manufactured campaign is happening. Because it is their job they sigh and go to the press conference or read the lameo press release about “The greatest hardware product since The Mac!” Then they call the “experts” to see if it is worth mentioning and then write the story. “Next!” they say.
The people writing the background materials for the “GREATEST PRODUCT SINCE THE MAC!” know what their job is. Sometimes it’s embarrassing, but it’s not like they are selling weapons of death (except in the case of the NRA) so they just go through the motions expecting the press to stripe out the hype.
Dday spotted the prep for this even Sunday. This was just yesterday. But we should know that the right prepares for this stuff all the time because you KNOW that someone will say something that they can use as a hissy fit. I heard last week that the right was all pissed off by the fake seal that Obama had that said “Yes we can” on it in latin. HORRORS! That is defacing the Great Seal of the President! Alert Drudge! They even looked up some stupid code that had nothing to do with the Seal Obama created.
Some of these stick, others don’t. Even the press can’t get THAT stupid. But this is one of those places were we can make a difference.
I think we should brainstorm on what the next hissy fits are going to be on their side. Them brainstorm on what the Hissy fits could be on our side.
What will it take to take the wind out of their hissy fit sail? Do we want to create our own hissy fit or just call up the press and say, “Hey by the way, if we were republicans this would be a hissy fit. Just so you know, we expect them to do another hissy fit on X, Y or Z. Remember that I told you first before you run the hissy fit story. I also told you that it was bogus and I predicted it so maybe you want to alert your readers to the hissy fit games of the Republicans.”
spocko, I used to think that would do it. Now I don’t know. That whole AP atory is all … so this happened, which was totally predictable, and then this happened … it pretends to a simplicity that is simply not credulous.
Dorothy, a Wildside is when you take the entire contents of your liquor cabinet and pour it all into one big plastic sports-team cup and then down the sucker. Ordinarily I don’t recommend it, but upon the return of those scumsucking Nixon bagmen to our national discourse, I felt desperate measures were called for.
A.
ahem, it’s not nice to drop a survival hint and not follow through – please to share just what a ‘wildside’ is? 🙂 Yahoo is not helping me…
Regards – and unless I find out soon, Elspeth will be relegated to the dregs of her cocktail trolley…
😉 Elspeth
I don’t get it. A GENERAL with MASSIVE amounts of policy experience, says that military experience doesn’t qualify one for foreign policy. And this is an attack against the man and his military service.
Is this the same stupidity that says that an MBA can take over any business because they’re an MBA – whether they know the first thing about that business or not? (Kind of Like Bush taking over the Oil Business, or Pro sports, or…)
Not to mention the questions about McCain appearing in N Viet produced films which would be questioning his service.
It isn’t a slam dunk that Wes Clark, with all of his experience as a General, commanding a lot of troops, is qualified to be President. Being a military commander and being President aren’t exactly on the same career path. But, McCain, for all of the valor with which he endured his POW term, has never had a major command, and left the Navy without ever being an admiral. Any qualifications he has for being president are based on his Congressional experience, not his military or POW experience.
I’m embarassed to even post this, as obvious as it is. Just scroll on by this, please.
I think the Village milk is finally souring and a majority of people today pay as much attention to the media as pay attention to Bush which is to say not fucking much attention. It’s not 2004 anymore. As you’ve chronicled many times the people making business judgements in the news business aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer. Instead of, you know, reporting the news everybody is busy doing Entertainment Tonight: Politics Edition. That’s a niche market. We’re all news fetishists so we go OMFG when the press goes a wanking jag but I think the more typical reaction is “Of course the press sucks!”. And, of course, they suck hard.
Obama isn’t covering himself in glory in this general election campaign so far but I think he’s realized that until he’s elected he’s playing a poker hand with the cards dealt by the media and political establishment. He’s got the money infrastructure figured out but the amount of citizen involvement and direct action isn’t quite there yet. When he’s President, he’ll deal the cards and when he starts dealing in THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES the media and political establishment is going to howl.
There’s a line from Elliot Ness in ‘The Untouchables’: “I have foresworn myself. I have broken every law I have sworn to uphold, I have become what I beheld and I am content that I have done right!” I think sometimes Obama has “forsworn himself” a few times because he’s after something that is so important he can’t fail. Unlike Ness who had to sometimes act like a gangster to get a gangster Obama has to act like an asshole to win the asshole game that our elites have contructed to elect a president.
how DOES being a POW qualify you? THAT’S the BS we are being served. should it be required now???
what a wimps the republikkkans are. take it like a man. whah whah whah.
I’ll have a double wildside…and thanks Obama, for kicking Clark under the bus.
Goddamn, why can’t for once my cynicism be unfounded?
I think it is safe to say now that Wes Clark will not be Obama’s VP candidate. And, I think if we don’t get ourselves braced very firmly, perhaps being seated, and well oiled, we are in for another ulcer starting event when he does announce his choice.
Hey, Athenae, jus’ to let you know that in California we have what we call Two Buck Chuck. Thassa (hic) $2!! omg! sauvignon blank which they sell at Trader Joe’s, winery name of Charles Shaw. ‘N’ I jus’ chekked ‘n’ you havem too. In Illinininoise. Capital I looks two much like lowercase l. Anyway, Trader Joe’s exists in yer state too. Chicago even. Mebbe there ain’t enough $5 bottles of the stuff for you, howzabout $2 (urp), is wha’m saying. You can get 4 times as much!!
Yer friend in cheap inebriation,
Michael
P.S. All errors above, sic.
P.P.S. Happy Canada Day!
spocko, what we should do is light bags of dog shit on the front porches of the offending newscasters.
if anything, obama just waved a finger at clark. don’t do that. nowhere near a bus.
For my money, the most troubling aspect of the maelstrom of media attention on GEN Clark’s comments is that they ignore the fact that “flying in an airplane and getting shot down” ISN’T – and never will be – a singular, qualifying factor to serve as President. As GEN Clark states there and as many, many, others have said, McCain has never held “executive responsibility.” That doesn’t denigrate his service; nor does it automatically disqualify him from the office.
Obama moved reflexively on this one; he bit, hook, line, and sinker on the media spin of Clark’s remarks and – seemingly without hearing Clark’s statement in full – distanced himself from a perfectly rational viewpoint -that military service, no matter the circumstances, cannot independently qualify anyone for political office. Neither does lack of military service automatically disqualify a candidate.
These are the times that I wring my hands and lament the lack of CRITICAL THOUGHT from journalists and elected officials. Firstly: for FUCK’S SAKE – he didn’t lampoon McCain’s service. Secondly: when GEN Clark ran for office, he said as much about his own military career – that it did not, COULD NOT independently qualify him for office and shouldn’t be the sole basis for anyone’s vote.
Where’d I put my Tums?
If being a POW qualifies one to be president, does that mean that the residents of our fine penal institutions are similarly qualified?