Brains!

[elfs]

WND: Obama Thinks He's Better Than You

One would think when millions of Americans campaign for and contribute to a virtually unknown commodity like Obama, it would create within the candidate a sense of awe: A humility that would overwhelm the average person, an outpouring of love and support which might bring a mere mortal to tears, a heart so filled with gratitude the candidate would thank the American people for the vote of confidence.

Man, are you tired yet of hearing code words for "uppity" yet? (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars )

Dan Savage on John McCain offering his wife to the men of Sodom

People think it's cute when the elderly pretend that they've still got it and say mildly racy (not racist!) things about their leathery ol' spouses. These comments would be interpreted very differently if Obama made them not because Obama is black (or a Democrat) but because Obama is young and virile and his wife is a total fucking fox. If Obama had suggested that Michelle enter a topless beauty pageant we would be forced to actually conjure up mental images of Michelle taking part because Michelle could. (And she could win.) When McCain says it about Cindy, we don't picture Cindy entering the contest because she couldn't and, on the off chance that she did, she certainly wouldn't win it.

People don't perceive sexual heat, or sexual tension, in McCain's marriage and therefore they don't perceive any in his comments. The people in that crowd–and the people watching the clip on YouTube–interpret them like this: "Hey, the old dude still thinks his old wife is hot–awww, isn't that cute?

I could buy that if we didn't have a record going way back of McCain's casually sexist attitudes towards women: his calling his wife a cunt and a trollop in public, or his saying that Chelsea Clinton was "ugly because Janet Reno was her father," or the joke about a woman unlucky with "nice guys" being beaten and raped by a gorilla, only to awake in the hospital asking for the gorilla to do it again.

McCain is a creep. This is just McCain continuing to be creepy. (via Andrew Sullivan )

Justin Fox asks for better conservative criticism of Obama.

As dead-armadillo-in-the-middle-of-the-road centrist, I've been really unimpressed with most of the conservative critiques of Barack Obama's economic plans that I've seen. (Michael Boskin's WSJ op-ed piece of a couple of days ago serves as a pretty good proxy for the lot of them.)

First, they tend to be inordinately alarmist about the economic consequences of proposed tax changes that, for the most part, would simply return us to the tax rates of the Clinton era. Which was, in case you've forgotten, not an economic disaster.

Fox goes on to quote approvingly of Manzi, who's take is, I think, one of the better, but Manzi points out correctly that McCain's campaign seems completely disinterested in these questions or putting forward alternatives.

What I don't see from either Fox or Manzi is a call for middle-of-the-road tax restructuring like the Clinton years combined with an aggressive push to reduce corporate tax loopholes and corporate welfare.

Listen to Obama, Win A Hundred Dollars.

Barack Obama joins with Arnold Schwarzenegger in telling Americans that if they want to save money on gas now they should raise the pressure on their tires. John McCain and his campaign... make fun of the idea... The only way to understand it is that John McCain is so rich neither he nor anybody else thinks that Americans might actually want to save money by spending less on gasoline. Keeping your tires inflated is worth about $100 a year to the average American family--McCain's wife's portfolio earns that much in fifteen seconds.

Paris Hilton's Energy Policy

(via just about everyone this morning)

Comments

[doodlesthegreat.livejournal.com]

I still think Paris Hilton is a skank, but she's obviously a skank with a wicked sense of humor about herself and her celebrity. Doesn't hurt that the energy plan actually made some sense, either. =};-3

[gromm.livejournal.com]

You mean, she is *now*, since the whole sowing her wild oats bit started when she was what, 19?

Now, I'm sure that daddy let her run some flower shop or something right out of college as an applied lesson in capitalism, but I'm pretty sure that was well *after* the sex tape.

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

needs moar nuclear power.

[rhonan.livejournal.com]

If McCain doesn't think he's better than me, he has no place in the race.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

I think that's where GWB's strength lies. He's a good ol' boy just like everyone who voted for him, and he doesn't make his constituents feel stupid.

Which of course, makes him wholly unqualified for the job of President. But noone ever said you had to be *qualified* to fill the position. (well, that's not true, it's been said again and again and again, and proven wrong more times than not.)

[norincraft.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, most good ol' boys I know went to expensive private schools as children, ivy league colleges and have a MBA from Harvard.

The reason he doesn't make constituents feel stupid is because he can barely string together a coherent sentence (even in those key moments when he is on the world stage), not because he has some gift at making people feel at ease.

I think the reason he is not qualified for President is because he's intellectually lazy and a borderline demagogue.

[amythis.livejournal.com]

I like the Paris clip, and she probably would make a better President than some we've had.