Article 1, Section 8, Clause 5: William Blackstone, Commentaries 1:264–68: [T]he regulation of weights and measures… for the advantage of the public, ought to be universally the same throughout the kingdom…. [N]o man can, by words only, give another an adequate idea of a foot-rule, or a pound-weight. It is therefore necessary to have recourse to some visible, palpable, material standard; by forming a comparison with which, all weights and measures may be reduced to one uniform size: and the prerogative of fixing this standard, our antient law vested in the crown…. This standard was originally kept at Winchester: and we find in the laws of king Edgar, near a century before the conquest, an injunction that the one measure… should be observed throughout the realm….
[U]pon these principles the first standards were made; which, being originally so fixed by the crown, their subsequent regulations have been generally made by the king in parliament. Thus, under king Richard I, in his parliament holden at Westminster, A.D. 1197, it was ordained that there shall be only one weight and one measure throughout the kingdom, and that the custody of the assise or standard of weights and measures shall be committed to certain persons in every city and borough; from whence the antient office of the king’s aulnager seems to have been derived, whose duty it was, for a certain fee, to measure all cloths made for sale…
Government is the problem, not the solution. Government regulation is evil. In a truly free market, all businesses would have the right to set their own standards as to what length a foot is and how much a pound weighs…
The facts are hard to dispute; indeed, the historical record is now so stark that diehard Republicans are probably starting to wonder if there is a curse…. Democrats have outperformed Republicans by almost any measure of economic achievement (GDP growth per capita, unemployment, inflation, budget deficits)…. Thanks to the profligacy of the current administration… average Federal spending as a fraction of GDP… under Republican Presidents now exceeds that under Democrats over the measured period…. The pattern holds up when the span of historical analysis is extended farther back in time… using stock returns to measure economic performance…. (Data are available on my web page, at http://econ.jhu.edu/people/ccarroll/opinion/CapitalismAndSkepticism.)
An economist’s natural inclination is to say that there’s no point in pondering why Republican performance has been so dismal, because the question cannot be answered with the rigor demanded by professional respectability. But as the tenure of George Herbert Hoover Walker Bush shudders to a calamitous close, history seems to require that we try to give an answer.
That answer can’t be found by drilling down (so to speak) into the specific policy proposals of the two parties, which over the years have evolved in ways too arbitrary to permit any meaningful generalization. Nor are there any clearly identifiable differences in doctrine that should translate into a reasonable expectation of better economic performance under one party or the other….
Maybe capitalism works better when its excesses are restrained by skeptics than when true-believers are writing, interpreting, judging, and executing the rules…. Maybe… capitalism works better when it is being held accountable to some external standard…. [F]or better or worse, the defining manifesto of the latter part of the age was Milton Friedman’s Capitalism And Freedom. But that book’s power derived partly from its fierce independence from the orthodoxies of its time…. The book for the new epoch has not been written yet, but I have a proposed title: Capitalism and Skepticism…
I think what needs to be understood here is that the true-believers are merely the useful idiots. Yes, the republicans are awful for the economy. But so what. But they’re great for the billionaires. Look at it this way: under democrats blue collar workers and the middle class grow and prosper. Big business does well, but its CEOs don’t generally become super rich. They still get rich, just not buy entire third world countries rich. Under republicans, unions are busted, the middle class shrinks and many businesses, large and small, suffer. However, many other folks become fabulously wealthy. Even as the companies they once ran go belly up, and their investors loose their shirts, these people shoot into the ranks of the fabulously wealthy. You have to figure that from their perspective, things worked out just fine.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, and the fabulously wealthy may be a lot of things, but they’re not crazy. If they keep supporting the republican party despite its pretty consistant track record of wreaking the economy, there’s probably a reason for that. A healthy economy really only benefits the blue collar and middle classes. The uber rich need neither a healthy economy nor a healthy democracy to get even richer. In point of fact, healthy economies and healthy democracies usually get in their way.
Several digital images that Microsoft Corp. has posted on its Web site to trumpet its new "I’m a PC" ad campaign were actually created on Macs, according to the files’ originating-software stamp.
Four of the images that Microsoft made available on its PressPass site Thursday display the designation "Adobe Photoshop C3 Macintosh" when their file properties are examined. The images appear to be frames from the television ads that Microsoft will launch later Thursday.
One of the images is of a real Microsoft engineer, identified only as "Sean," who resembles John Hodgman, the actor who plays the PC character in Apple Inc.’s iconic ads. Reportedly, Microsoft will play off Apple’s own campaign — during which Hodgman introduces himself with the line, "Hello, I’m a PC" — with its engineer saying "Hello, I’m a PC, and I’ve been made into a stereotype."
I’ve always thought that the PC in those Apple commercials should look less like an office geek and more like a gangster. Seriously…they should get Joe Pesci to play the PC…
I’m a PC. Listen to me. I got your head in a fuckin’ vise. I’ll squash your head like a fuckin’ grapefruit if you don’t give me your fuckin’ money…What? What? My licenses confuse you? You fuckin’ piece of shit…Maybe if I stick your head through that window over there you’ll get unconfused. Give me the fuckin money…
I received another email today suggesting I set my listening preferences. Here’s the problem: ever since I opened my account some years ago, Sirius has slowly taken off the air most of the content I enjoyed. Swing Street is gone. It’s replacement, the All Frank Sinatra All The Time Channel, is horrible. Spa 73 is now an International Music channel which is, to me, almost completely unlistenable. The trance channel (now Area 33) only plays trance at night. OutQ has replaced one of the only two things I ever liked about it, Sunset Cruse, with one of the things I absolutely hate: Derick and Romaine.
I actually had the factory radio in my 2005 Honda Accord pulled out and a conversion kit installed so I could have Sirius, because XM didn’t have a gay channel, and I liked the fact that you had a dedicated swing channel over XM’s 40s channel. I discovered the trance channel and Spa 73. It seems now as if you are trying to make me stop listening. I have an iPod connection in the car now and I listen to the iPod Much more then Sirius. I do not intend to keep subscribing much longer if almost all I ever listen to now is the iPod.
So, my Sirius preferences are, Sunset Cruse, Swing Street, A Better Trance Channel, New Age, Better 60s and 70s channels, and A More Listenable Gay Channel. Signorile is really the only thing worth listening to on OutQ now. All the other content on Sirius I like when I opened my account is pretty much gone. Out of over a hundred channels you apparently have no room for anything I like to listen to. I will not be subscribing much longer at this rate.
TRIBUNE – Greeley County authorities are investigating what they call an alleged hate crime that occurred early Sunday morning.
Officers responded to reports of an intruder in a Tribune home. By the time they arrived, the intruder had left, but the teenager inside had been beaten, said Greeley County Sheriff Mark Rine.
Dustin Myers, 16, of Horace, was arrested Sunday. Rine said Myers perceived the teen in the home to be gay. Myers is charged with aggravated burglary, aggravated assault and carrying a concealed explosive.
Other news reports on the crime Here, and Here. Myers apparently broke into the home of the unnamed teenager and beat the crap out of him before the police arrived. He’d brought with him some sort of explosive device, and intended to kill the other teen. In the comments section over at Hutchinson news, people are rushing to the defense of Myers…
SHOCKING : 9/20/2008
Yes i know this is shocking to everyone…yes we do need all the prayers we can get…we do appriciate all them…Rutt is not the kind of kid that would ever do anything like this…he just doesnt have it in is heart to hurt anything…we are all just as shocked as everyone else but it would be nice if people would leave us alone about this and let us handle things
WE MISS YOU!!
Let it be said there also seems to be genuine worry about hate, but it’s being expressed in vague declarations that dance around the essential homophobic nature of the crime, along with a lot of calls for prayer. Maybe my friend in Kansas can shed some more light on this one.
Chutzpa: Conducting state business via your personal email account to get around state government email retention policies, then complaining that your privacy was violated when hackers uncover your little scheme.
Priceless: You support Bush’s warrantless wiretapping of American citizens.
Barack Hussein Obama has taken the nation by storm. From obscurity, with zero executive experience, or much of any kind, he has vaulted into the position of Presidential frontrunner. It is stunning. On the surface, it appears attributable only to his eloquent oratory and his race. But an invisible factor may be a strong spiritual force behind him, causing some people to actually swoon in his presence.
I have been very concerned that he has publicly said that he does not believe Jesus is the only way to heaven. This makes both the Bible and Jesus a liar, and it means that Christ has died in vain. A person cannot be a true Christian who believes that there are other ways of forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life with God. Only Jesus has paid the price for that.
Therefore, there is, indeed, another spirit involved. And this spirit has come into our national life like a flood. Last week at Obama’s acceptance speech, that spirit exalted itself in front of a Greek temple-like stage, and to a huge audience like in a Roman arena. Omama was portrayed as god-like. His voice thundered as a god’s voice.
At the end, Democratic sympathizer Pastor Joel Hunter gave the benediction and shockingly invited everyone to close the prayer to their own (false) gods. This was surely an abomination, but it was compatible with Obama’s expressed theology, and Hunter’s leftist leanings.
God was not pleased.
And God says, "When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him"(Isaiah 59:19).
Enter Governor Sarah Palin. With incredible timing, the very next day, Sarah Palin also appeared out of nowhere. Her shocking selection as John McCain’s running mate stunned the world and suddenly took all the wind out of Obama’s sails.
We quickly learned that Sarah is a born-again, Spirit-filled Christian, attends church, and has been a ministry worker.
Sarah is that standard God has raised up to stop the flood. She has the anointing. You can tell by how the dogs are already viciously attacking her. But they will not be successful. She knows the One she serves and will not be intimidated.
Back in the 1980s, I sensed that Israel’s little-known Benjamin Netanyahu was chosen by God for an important end-time role. I still believe that. I now have that same sense about Sarah Palin.
Today I did some checking and discovered that both her first and last names are biblical words, one in Hebrew the other in Greek:
Sarah. Wife of Abraham and mother of Isaac. In Hebrew, Sarah means "noble woman" (Strong’s 8283).
Palin. In Greek, the word means "renewal." (Strong’s 3825).
A friend said he believes that Sarah Palin is a Deborah. Of Deborah, Smith’s Bible Dictionary says, "A prophetess who judged Israel…. She was not so much a judge as one gifted with prophetic command…. and by virtue of her inspiration ‘a mother in Israel.’"
Only God knows the future and how she may be used by Him, but may this noble woman serve to bring renewal in the land, and inspiration.
Jim
Unlike President Junior…it’s a safe bet that Palin actually sees herself this way.
This e-mail isn’t the only instance of Palin being seen this way. Sarah Posner, who has an interesting article about Palin’s time as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, in Salon today, previously wrote about this phenomenon on TAPPED: "Many evangelicals are talking about Palin being like the biblical Queen Esther, who saved the Jews from the genocidal Haman, and believe that Palin has come, like Esther did, ‘for a time such as this.’ (The same narrative built around George W. Bush when he was running.)"
It seems the Post’s Karen DeYoung isn’t buying Randy Scheunemann’s line that McCain wasn’t confused just hardcore (from an online chat this morning) …
McCain seemed sort of foggy in the interview, much of which was about U.S. relations with Latin American baddies Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales. Then interviewer asked about Zapatero and McCain seemed to be winging it, appearing to think that Zapatero was the leader of someplace in Latin America and reciting the same rote answer as for the others about not meeting with leaders who don’t support freedom and the U.S.
Meanwhile, Joe Klein thinks it’s not such a hot idea to put "a chill in the relationship with one of our NATO allies simply because McCain misheard a question."
Meanwhile, Marc Ambinder gave Randy Scheunemann another bite at the apple after it became clear that McCain said precisely the opposite in April of what Scheunemann says he intended to say yesterday. Saith Schuenemann …
In this week’s interview, Senator McCain did not rule in or rule out a White House meeting with President Zapatero, a NATO ally. If elected, he will meet with a wide range of allies in a wide variety of venues but is not going to spell out scheduling and meeting location specifics in advance. He also is not going to make reckless promises to meet America’s adversaries. It’s called keeping youtr options open, unlike Senator Obama who has publically committed to meeting some of the world’s worst dictators unconditionally in his first year in office.
So saying he might meet with Zapatero might amount to making "reckless promises to meet America’s adversaries"? It’s not easy being as deep in a hole as Randy is at the moment. But America’s adversaries? He might want to take a glance back at the NATO charter, which of course commits the United States to treating any attack on Spain as an attack on America. He’s really willing to create a diplomatic incident just to avoid admitting that McCain got confused about what he was being asked. On the other hand, I guess Randy’s nonchalance about binding NATO treating obligations puts his insistence on getting Georgia into NATO into a rather different light.
Ya Think? Read the Newsweek story for a taste of what government will be like under Dubya II…
In fairness to McCain, the reporter has a strong accent and sped through Zapatero’s name. After displaying a detailed grasp of his subject matter for three minutes, McCain suddenly goes Sarah Palin, giving generic talking points about being willing to meet with friends, then he goes off on what seems to be a tangent: "And by the way, President Calderon of Mexico is fighting a very, very tough fight against the drug cartels. I’m glad we are now working in cooperation with the Mexican government on the Merida plan, and I intend to move forward these relations and invite as many of them as I can of those leaders to the White House. "
That last bit about inviting as many Mexican leaders as possible to the White House seems to be the key. The guess here is that McCain didn’t catch the question, heard "Zapatero," mistook it for "Zapatista," and thought it was a question about Mexican politics. Hence the diversion to Calderon and the discussion of inviting Mexicans to the White House.
The reporter repeated the question and McCain, presumably realizing that Mexico was not the subject at hand, retreated to platitudes about standing up to those who would do us harm.
"Honestly, I have to look at the relations and the situations and the priorities, but I can assure you I will establish closer relations with our friends and I will stand up to those who want to do harm to the United States of America," he said. "I know how to do both."
She tried again.
Again, I don’t [he seems on the verge of saying he doesn’t know who she’s talking about]—all I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not, and that’s judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America and the entire region.
The hemisphere? Latin America? The entire region? She tries again: "But what about Europe? I’m talking about the president of Spain."
This is where McCain should have laughed and said, "Spain? How funny—I misheard you." Then, he should have spouted his Spain talking point. But he plodded on:
"I am willing to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for humans rights, democracy, and freedom. And I will stand up to those who do not."
(One would think that our NATO ally is with us on those principles and philosophy, but the Spanish did cut and run in Iraq, so you never know.)
All of this would be recoverable if the McCain campaign came out and said: "The reporter had an accent, he had a cellphone, it was simple case of miscommunication. Of course Senator McCain doesn’t think that Spain might wish the United States harm."
But here’s what Sheunemann told the Post:
"The questioner asked several times about Senator McCain’s willingness to meet Zapatero (and ID’d him in the question so there is no doubt Senator McCain knew exactly to whom the question referred). Senator McCain refused to commit to a White House meeting with President Zapatero in this interview," he said in an e-mail.
So…John McCain isn’t sure whether Spain is an ally or an adversary?
Of course not. That kind of thing is something only the Reality Based Community obsesses about…
Breunthor:so, what does this mean for me personally? I suck with big picture scenarios
Have you heard about the Hadron collider that could tear a hole in reality and end the world? Like that, except in your 401k. That’s the way it’s been explained to me.
Gold went up from around $783 to $862 today. Maybe I should hold on to my gold after all. I was going to sell it to pay off some debt. Maybe right now is not the time…
The Down Jones Industrial Index is now lower then it was the week Bush took office…
But you know what? Even allowing that he may not have actually won either election fair and square, enough people voted for him that it was close enough to steal. If the economy is in a mess now, it’s because enough Americans decided that this spoiled rich man’s kid who failed at everything he ever put his hands to in his entire life, cheerfully knowing that either daddy or daddy’s rich friends would bail him out, was good enough for them. They didn’t want to elect a president. They wanted to elect someone who would put his thumbs in the eyes of all the people they hated. All the democrats. All the liberals. All the heathens and the dirty fucking hippies. All the uppity darkies, women, and faggots. They put a moral runt into the White House, as a way of pissing on all of them, and all the other undesirables who mistakenly thought that the American Dream belonged to them too. If they couldn’t have America all to themselves, then they might as well trash it.
Don’t think for a minute that when the misery of a broken economy reaches their own doorsteps that they’ll have second thoughts. No status or wealth or plenty could ever ease the pain of knowing that the people they despise are peacefully and contentedly living their lives as though what the gutter thinks of them doesn’t matter.
I’m pinching this from the Benz World Forum. It’s from a Mercedes owner who did the go to Germany and pick up your new Mercedes at the factory thing. I’ve wanted to do that ever since one of my uncles bought his that way back in the 1970s…
I picked up my USA spec C350 this on Sept. 8 and thoroughly enjoyed the factory tour of chassis fabrication and assembly sections of the MB plant in Sindelfingen (10 miles SW of Stuttgart). Following are some observations and facts given by the tour guide.
1. Delivery center is stunning. Modern, stylish, spotless, with auditorium, restaurant, mini-museum, accessory and gift shop, a waiting lounge with continuous free snacks and drinks, observation deck of delivery hall, and the delivery hall where you are introduced to your car.
2. The earliest departing english speaking tour is now 11:20 AM, not 9:45 AM as noted on the MB factory tour website. The regular tours are conducted in German. We opted for a German tour and it worked out OK as the intro movie uses translating audio headsets and our guide spoke also spoke english and would provide a separate "side-session" to answer our questions. I am also very familiar with auto factory assembly processes. The tour takes exactly two hours (they bus you around for two stops).
3. The Sindelfingen plant was proudly displaying large banners draped on the buildings noting their "1st in World" status awarded by the J.D. Powers folks for factory build quality. C, E, and S Class built in plant, but the C Class is the only line equipped with the all robotic sub-assembly; these yield the highest precision and speed of assembly. The new E Class will soon switchover to the new process, followed by the next S Class. The cars must be engineered from the onset to make best advantage of the robots, the current E and S pre-dated this epoch.
4. Tour does not cover engines, transmissions or major sub-assemblies like the dashboard. These just appeared just-in-time as needed in the assembly area.
5. Tour is of C Class chassis fabrication (hundreds of steel stampings placed into the robots’ loading trays’ by fork/skip-loader drivers. Robots weld stampings into three chassis units (forward, center, rear); several hundred pounds apiece, but robots can whip these around like they were paper. Robots use synthetic vision, laser measuring, and tactile sensors to maintain perfect fit/placement that automatically adjust for robotic tool wear and joint positioning error between calibration cycles. No people allowed around robots as they move too fast; sensors used to detect human incursion and stop robots for safety.
6. Leather upholstery and all steering wheels leather wraps are hand fitted and stitched. Very skilled job. Ditto the final shaping/sanding, staining, and sealing/polishing of wood trim pieces. Guide says this cannot be done by robots to MB quality standards; still need the human touch.
7. More robots weld 3 chassis pieces into one…getting tired of robots.
8. Side walls, roof, and aluminum/plastic front fender welded and bolted. Then off to robotic paint booth. Chassis done, sans doors, then robot installs entire finished dashboard assembly as a unit; functional checks come later.
9. Human assembly workers begin installing interior in painted unibody. Side airbags, console, steering wheel, etc. Assembly work reserved for senior, fully apprenticed workers; 90% German, the rest appear to be Turks who have worked their way up to the top skilled assembly jobs. They look very focused/careful and use portable combo barcode reader, tester, and laser probe to verify assembly tolerances.
10. Tour jumbs to body to engine/tranny, suspension merger with bodies. Brake rotors appear to be coated with some sort of grey powder coated protectorant/break-in layer. Vayring springs and shocks placed by workers as body and suspension are compressed together under load.
11. Tour jumps to glass enclosed area where C350 Avantgarde has cutaways allowing inspection of all component placements. Film and demo of seat technology and fabrication. Final questions then back on bus, finished.
12. Noticed some blue coverall clad workers and asked about them. They are interns who attend the onsite MB Institute. Very desirable job for high school grads who apply, take examinations, and are then interviewed. The attend classes and then spend part of each day being mentored by a journeyman or master level worker. It takes 1-2 years before they are fully trained and "on there own" in skilled positions. The are among the top blue collar in Germany (good pay and benefits for life).
13. Sindelfingen plant has 7,000 engineers and technicians who design, program, and maintain the plant and assembly systems. The maintenance of the robots requires lots of information technology types, networked communications, and cybernetic systems engineers; highly trained and skilled… big bucks too.
14. Sindelfingen plant has 8,000 fabrication and assembly workers to produce about 2,000 cars per day.
15. European Delivery destined vehicles are track tested to shake-out any problems before the customer’s the post-dellivery trip begins. Normally, this is left to the delivery dealerships to find and fix any flaws. My car was delivered in perfect condition and, as far as I can tell, everything functioned perfectly for the 575 miles I drove.
According to the VIN code, Traveler was made in Breman, not Sindelfingen. But the door sticker says Stuttgart, which would make Sindelfingen the factory. Either way…the car is the most solid thing I’ve ever owned. I’m surprised to learn the leather stitching on my steering wheel, and all the interior wood trim was hand done. That’s straying into über luxury car territory and it’s only a ‘C’ class.
I would love to take this tour someday. I doubt I’ll be buying another Mercedes for a long, long time though. Unless they actually start importing that really fuel efficient four cylinder Diesel into the U.S. I’d be strongly tempted to trade in if they did that.
This same user says another American they met there was worried that their Mercedes might not be legally registerable in the U.S. They’d bought a U.S. spec ‘C’ class but with the new "Blu-Tec" Diesel engine, expecting it to be EPA approved by the time they took delivery and it isn’t yet.
The entire financial system is practically collapsing and they’re lamenting the possibility of more regulation. I don’t think the sports/referee metaphor is perfect, but it’s probably good enough. People who prattle on about "the free market" are usually too stupid to have a clue how complicated and pervasive the "rules" had to be to to get a well-functioning modern market system: sophisticated concepts of contracts and enforcement, property rights, legal entities, proper accounting, bankruptcy, limited liability, etc… etc…, did not descend from the heavens but were, in fact, created.
Dig it. For those of you still willing to prattle on while Rome burns that regulation is the antithesis of freedom and destructive of property rights and free markets, please bear in mind that the power to enforce a contract is a kind of government regulation. And yes, as a matter of fact, government has always distinguished between good contracts and bad contracts. Like for example, if you sign a contact with a hit man to kill someone and they just run off with your money instead…no, you can’t sue them for breach of contract. If you talk a four-year old into signing over all their income for the rest of their adult lives in exchange for a nice cookie, no, you can’t enforce that one either. Which probably does bother a lot of lenders.
If you listen to these jackasses yap, yap, yapping about how evil government regulation is, and you find yourself thinking that they’re not so much arguing for limited government as anarchy, you’re almost right. Their ideal government can be summed up in two words: Money talks.
As John McCain’s manufactured "lipstick on a pig" story was taking flight last week, Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball, kicked off the hour by teeing up the story. In a note to viewers that telegraphed his disdain for the lipstick controversy, he announced that during the show, he’d share his own thoughts "about how, with a troubled economy, crumbling bridges, rail and roads, a failing educational system, a war that is now going on for five years, and an uncertain American economic future, we’re sitting here talking about lipstick."
Later, he complained the story was "an insult to the intelligence of our democracy."
Did you hear the media are mad? According to Howard Kurtz at The Washington Post, the press is angry at McCain for his patently untrue lipstick attack ("It’s false. It’s ridiculous"), and they’re seething over how Sarah Palin keeps telling her demonstrably false Bridge to Nowhere tale even after members of the media pointed out her stump-speech applause line was a lie. (A "whopper.")
During the past week, virtually every major news outlet has produced welcomed, hard-edged fact-checking pieces about how the Republican ticket goes far beyond bending the truth and just plain snaps it out on the campaign trail.
In the past, that kind of truth-telling would have embarrassed campaigns and likely caused a dramatic change in the rhetoric. But what do McCain and Palin do in response? They pretty much ignore the press and its critiques.
Writing on The New Republic‘s website, Eve Fairbanks spelled out the conundrum, capturing the dumbfounded realization that spread through the press corps. It’s like that scene in a movie when the superhero realizes his unique power (for the press, it’s collective indignation) has suddenly been rendered useless:
Reporters demolished the claim that the Palin opposed the Bridge to Nowhere, and yet the McCain campaign insolently still uses it. Writers dismantled the McCain campaign’s untrue assertion that Barack Obama compared Sarah Palin to a pig yesterday, and yet the campaign put out an audacious ad featuring the ridiculous allegation, presumably on the assumption that Real Americans don’t care what the elite press says anyway.
Instead of recoiling, the Republican ticket seems to have adopted a post-press approach to campaigning in which the candidates simply don’t care what the press does or says about their honesty. More to the point, the candidates don’t think it will matter on Election Day.
They may be right. And that’s the media’s fault. They’ve reported their way right into the margins. Submerged in trivia and tactics for the past 18 months, the press, I think, has damaged its ability — its authority — to referee the campaign.
For the past 18 months? How about for the past several decades. They absolutely hated Bill Clinton, and it wasn’t anything to do with his policies, which actually left the nation with a budget surplus and a healthy employment outlook. It wasn’t that Clinton lied about anything. It wasn’t Clinton’s character flaws. If lies and poor character were problems for the news media they’d have been all over Bush during the 2000 primaries. But they fucking worshiped him. Oh no…it was the bubba factor. Picture beltway pudit David Broder huffing that Clinton "came in and trashed the place and it wasn’t his" and then review his nearly eight years of Bush worship you see all there is to see about the news media.
Proof? Let’s go back to the pissed-off Matthews for a perfect example. Raise your hand if, in the past six months, you’ve seen an entire episode of Hardball devoted to discussing our "troubled economy," the sad state of America’s transportation infrastructure, the failings of our educational system, the never-ending war in Iraq, or the "uncertain American economic future."
Matthews claimed those are the key issues that face our country and, by implication, are what are important to this campaign. Yet Matthews hosts a cable news program that pretty much refuses to discuss those issues.
Remember, Matthews is part of the same Beltway press crowd that told news consumers Hillary Clinton’s laugh was extremely important and needed to be analyzed for clues about her true character, that John Edwards’ haircuts raised serious doubts about the man’s candidacy, and that Barack Obama’s bowling score spelled trouble on the campaign trail.
And it wasn’t that long ago that the campaign press stressed how important it was that John Kerry windsurfed and that Al Gore spent time as a politician’s kid growing up in a Washington, D.C., hotel. These were issues of paramount concern for the media.
And now they’re shocked, shocked, to discover the republicans know they can lie through their teeth and nobody cares anymore what the press has to say about it. You fuckers sold out America to the rats, and now there isn’t anyone left to speak truth to power but the grass roots bloggers and web masters that you’ve been helping the rats vilify, because you were more worried about defending your jobs more then keeping the American dream alive.
You could have seen what these people are ages ago, if you’d just cared one whit to look. Gay and lesbian Americans have been seeing it for decades. Yes they lie. Yes they don’t care who knows it. The lies aren’t meant to fool anyone. They’re war cries meant to whip themselves up for the fight. They’re the bloody flag waving in the wind. They’re spit in the enemy’s face. And the enemy is all of us…every one of us who thinks that the promise of liberty and justice for all belongs to us too. For decades your gay and lesbian neighbors have known that they hate us. For decades we have seen how that hate trumps every other value they claim to hold. Now you know they hate you too. They hate everyone who isn’t in the gutter with them. Because anyone who rises their head above the gutter reminds them of everything they are not. They want to bring it all down, so they won’t have to know what brave and decent and moral humanity looks like. You didn’t want to see it. You didn’t care enough to do your godamned job and look it squarely in the eye and call it for what it is. You cared about your jobs more then you cared about your country. You sold America out to the rats. Rot in hell.
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