We’ve reported exclusive first-hand accounts of Chris Mathews’ dickish personality and him flying off the handle here before on Meds. Unfortunately, it was a whole lot of drama for us from a large publishing company. Luckily we don’t need to look any further than MSNBC.
TAGS: Chris Matthews, Democratic convention, Denver, Hardball, Keith Olberman, MSNBC, punditsThe talkingheads thought that Hillary wasn’t effusive enough in her praise of Obama last night, but she came through brilliantly for Barack. She had a tough hurdle to overcome, with everyone looking to her to unify the party despite the fact that she’s undoubtedly still upset about how the primary went. She rose to the challenge, telling her diehard supporters to look into the mirror and ask themselves whether they just supported her or the policies and the ideals that she stood for. The message was clear: Obama is her candidate, and if you supported her in the primary, you should get behind Obama.
Tonight, her husband had a similar challenge. Some in Hillary’s camp claimed that there was a rift between Bill Clinton and Obama, but the former president left no doubt that Obama would be getting his vote in November. Although the Clintons themselves questioned Obama’s experience and readiness to lead during the primary, Bill delivered for Obama. Talking about his bid for the White House in 1992, he said:
Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be commander in chief. Sound familiar? It didn’t work in 1992, because we were on the right side of history. And it won’t work in 2008, because Barack Obama is on the right side of history.
Again, more on the readiness issue:
Everything I’ve learned in eight years as president and the work I’ve done since, in America and across the globe, has convinced me that Barack Obama is the man for this job.
The bottom line is that the Clintons came through for Obama, setting aside whatever personal animosity arose during the primary to do their part (some would say it came a little late, and it’s a fair point, but they stepped up at the most important time).
Joe Biden’s son, Beau, delivered a heart-warming and emotional introduction for his dad, who did a good job with his speech. Joe’s speech wasn’t as good as Hillary’s or Bill’s, but that’s asking a lot. Still, after praising McCain’s heroism, he got down to attacking McCain’s policies. His personal story about growing up as a kid and being taught important life lessons was also well done. Overall, it’s what you’d hope a VP would do.
At the end of Biden’s speech, Obama made a surprise appearance at the Pepsi Center, driving the crowd into a frenzy.
Tomorrow night: The Main Event.
AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Stephan Savoia/Associated Press; (AFP)
TAGS: attack, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, election, Hillary, Joe Biden, mccain, obama, Republicans, war
One Name Header Day continues as does the US Open. White people worship tennis and they live for the US Open. With every Grand Slam Event a new tennis hunk emerges that everyone in your office loves and recites random trivia about, and this year it’s Rafael Nadal. Credit Don King and Nike for coming up with the “Grapple in the Apple” :
Over three decades after promoting the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’, the ‘Thrilla in Manila’, and ‘Ali-Frazier II’ at Madison Square Garden, ‘The Don’ is at it again, this time hired by Nike to trumpet the US Open tennis showdown between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, depicting them as boxing rivals to mirror Ali-Frazier. Only in America could we have the ‘Grapple In the Apple’. And Only Don King could give it his unique treatment.
King, speaking exclusively to The Daily Telegraph, revealed his “delight” at being called up to promote one of the greatest sporting rivalries on the planet. “You had the ‘Thrilla in Manila’, you had the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ now we have the ‘Grapple in the Apple’. We gonna take it to the moon. They try to pretend to be friends. But they’re no kin and they’re gonna bend. They got to be competitive.”
Nadal is a natural pick for housewives, gay dudes and straight dudes with waxed eyebrows and fake tans who talk about their “game” over Muscle Milk and free weights. Rafa is a latin hunk, he’s young and flamboyant, the type of dude that according to Ezra Martin “Hits on your girl while you’re in the bathroom taking a piss and then offers you a drink in exchange for her when you come back”. R-Fed is older, less easy on the eyes and I think most people think he’s French, sucks to be him.
I don’t dig looking at “Rafa“, I actually think he’s a bootleg version of Med Agency Alum Aaron Stuart of Piebald. Here’s a pic to prove it (Stuart is on the far left) :
Stuey is a way cooler dude, was pictured on the cover of the New York Times before Rafa (as blogged by Ray Lemoine on Med Agency, link here ), is a biofuel master and is from the Merrimack Valley so I’m giving him a glowing endorsement. I’d rather see every magazine have a picture of Aaron, maybe we can turn Aaron into a Green Hunk, it would raise awareness for alternative fuel sources and get douchey Nadal out of our faces immediately, sounds like a win/win.
TAGS: Aaron Stuart, Don King, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, US Open
Anarchy sucks!!!
If I recall correctly, New York Mag’s Jada Yuan smoked a blunt with Snoop Dogg for a blog post earlier this year. Now she’s hitting democracy’s frontlines, documenting the squelching of free speech via Denver police tear gas. Classic:
TAGS: Denver, dog, free, immigration, Nas, New York…cops used pepper spray and 100 protesters were taken into custody. Reports have focused on the police’s use of force (they claim protesters were carrying rocks), but it’s perhaps more disturbing that no one, including those who were watching the action, could articulate what the protest was about in the first place…
…other than bandannas, though, the protest didn’t seem to have any organizing principal. James and his friends weren’t with any group; they’d just come to meet fellow anti-capitalists. Their goal: to create a new society that eliminates greed and corruption. It would’ve helped if James and his friends had actually found their comrades. But they’d gone on a side trip to counter-protest a protest by the right-wing anti-immigration group the Minutemen, and by the time they rejoined the original protest, they couldn’t find it, and the cops were blocking their path. So they stood in the intersection and did charades, “just three of us, maybe five people at most,” surrounded by twenty journalists and around 100 armed officers.
Wah, wah, Vice is suspeneding their letters section because they don’t get enought real letters:
No letters page this month. You know why? Because we aren’t receiving enough real letters. We mainly get emails now, and people don’t think when they write emails.
Then Vice goes on to decry technology, like something out of a Delillo novel from 82. But maybe the problem isn’t email or technology, it’s Vice itself. Maybe Vice gets dumb letters because of its legacy as a really, really dumb magazine.
Vice Magazine hit its zenith in 2001, right after 9/11, when everyone on earth wanted to know what it felt like to be young and vulnerable in downtown NYC. Back then Vice was a crude, honest, and pure reflection of the coked-out Billburg/LES axis of sleaze. No magazine had ever so perfectly mixed art with ignorance.
Around 2003, when Vice fever peaked, the magazine had a grand opportunity to become more than a post-puberal text. By this point, Vice had almost single-handedly redefined fashion and art photography. Its aesthetic and image were so cool, so New York, that the company’s marketing arm exploded—and seemingly every booze and shoe were re-branded by Vicers.
2003 was also the year Bush and co illegally invaded Iraq under false pretense. It was the year America began it’s decline from hyper- to merely super-power. What did Vice do? Nothing. Instead of using its new $$$ to become a real magazine, covering real events, Vice kept on pushing tits, drugs, and farts.
It wasn’t until 2006 or so that Vice woke up and realized the world was on fire. They did a cool story on Bin Laden, written by an AP correspondent. They publsihed an Iraq issue. They started a TV network, VBS, that did “gonzo” reporting on poison frogs and politics. But it was too late. No one took them seriously. And by the time Vice’s first film, Heavy Metal in Baghdad, was released this year (complete with Converse co-branding), Vice had pretty much lost it’s cultural capital. That’s a shame because Vice has done a lot of great work in the last few years. But by failing to cover that crucial moment in American life, circa 03-04, when the country really went mad (kaos in Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Bush Redux) Vice missed it’s chance to transcend farts and become authoritative journalistic documentarians. And that’s why they continually get stupid letters.
TAGS: Bush, converse, dog, Drugs, Iraq, New York, Politics, Vice, Vice Magazine
I just borrowed and read British writer Toby Young’s funny memoir, How to Make Friends and ALienate People, about working at Vanity Fair in the 90s. A movie version is due this fall. And aside from the occasional flexing of his Oxford philosophy degree when discussing celebrity journalism, the book’s an informative guide to Conde Life. But like James Frey, Young is a liar. I’ve found several impossible truths, most notably this:
After 18 months in Manhattan, and with only one notch in my bedpost…
What? How can Young expect anyone to believe that a Vanity Fair Manhattan party reporter only had sex once in 18 months? That’s impossible. Young describes the Manhattan sex scene, with it’s job interview language and unique rhythms, like it’s cognitive neuroscience. But even an uglier Encino Man (Brandon Frasier is kind of good looking) could go to any party in New York, flash a VF card, and bed at least three or four chicas.
Here’s a guy who intros a book about gossip reporting with a de Toqueville rant. Yet he cannot comprehend the mating habits in the most sexualized city in America—even with an all access pussy pass in the form of a VF staff gig? Anyone know anyone who had sex with Toby Young from 1995-96? Because this dude is either lying, gay, or asexual.
TAGS: Manhattan, Movie, New York
Earlier this week the Walkmen headlined Bowery Ballroom a few times and Fox News New York realized it was prime opportunity to conduct an awkward interview and have a “local” band perform on a blindingly bright stage. You can check it here because the vid isn’t embeddable, watching Walkmen melancholy collide with newscaster enthusiasm is a treat. It’s moments like this that you realize how amazing the brain of a newscaster really is. If you’re interviewing the Walkmen on television you might take a second to familiarize yourself with the new album they’re promoting and ask a question that would evoke more than a one word answer. That’s probably what you or I would do because we like things other than ourselves but for a blond spazzy news anchor it’s not the case. Instead they opt to ask questions that usually occur on a mismatched blind date delivered with clunky faux-energy from a vapid stare that screams “Fucking kill me, I am completely devoid of any thoughts more complex than ‘does my hair look ok?”‘. It’s kind of awesome
So yes back to the Walkmen’s new album You & I which you can purchase for $5.00 on Amie Street. You can feel good about your purchase because you didn’t steal the record like I did and you’re donating money to a good cause :
“All donations go to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in honor of Luca Vasallo, a friend to the band and a current patient who is seven months old and doing a great job fighting a very difficult disease,” said Peter Bauer of The Walkmen. “This is a very good organization that certainly deserves the attention.”
After cutting and pasting that I kind of felt like a shit bag so I decided I would legitmately buy the album. It’s a good cause and it’s nice to see a band realize that their music isn’t this precious commodity that can only retail for $17.99 so they can fund extravagant lunches for record executives and never get paid their royalties. But upon going to the site the record was $8.98 and there was no mention of any dontations so I guess I missed the boat. I’ll investigate because the Walkmen kind of made me feel like I stole quarters from a donation jar at Dunkin Donuts or something.
The album is a nice nod back to what the Walkmen do best which is play a unique brand of guitar based music that pulls from a huge canon of influences shaping a sound which is somber, aggressive, atmospheric, new and old all at once. It’s incredibly uncool to praise the Walkmen as they were part of that post 9/11 New York boom where even the Liars (yeah the Liars) inked major label deals and the sound of affordable Williamsburg Lofts was going to be the soundtrack to the new America. I’m fairly sure all this yielded was that super annoying Yeah Yeah Yeah’s song where Karen O’Shit cries in the video and sounds like Gwen Stefani with herpes…oh and the cut out bins were robust with the next-big thing so Marvelous 3 and Dishwalla got some company from their cousins in Brooklyn.
The Walkmen are much different, they got a little too Dylan and a little too ambitious with the horns on their last album A Hundred Miles Off but they’ve always managed to have their own shimmery sound that hits on something real. Live they successfully fuse the control and command of the all-American rock band with the urgency of classic American hardcore. Hamilton isn’t doing flips like HR but the first time I heard The Rat live I knew this wasn’t a bunch of douches up there trying to fellate themselves, they really meant what they were doing and had an energy that said more than “Hey we’re cute guys in cute clothes and we’ll hit on your girlfriend while you’re taking a piss because we’re amazing!”.
Maybe the reason the Walkmen aren’t cool is because they are a very personal band, many of the songs sound like scotch-soaked tales of disappointment swapped between old friends. The vintage equipment and gentle tape hiss that marks all the Walkmen’s recordings conjures up that tragic tone of a depressing Christmas Album with that unnerving skip during the Little Drummer Boy or a trapped housewife drinking alone out of a thick glass on stained couch in 1950-something. The Walkmen revived private school cool, not Vampire WEAK-end, by showing up on stage looking hungover from a wedding, in wrinkled suits with a faint scent of booze on their breath. Unfortunately the Walkmen’s story has already been told and all they now do is make solid records while Vampire Weekend are newer, cuter, and so damn quirky plus they TOTALLY dig world music and Ivy League schools, the perfect soundtrack to a new boring wine and cheese party christening a Brooklyn Condo.
*My apologies for the Roman Catholic analogies my Jewish Brothers and Sisters, Parochial School wormed Christ into my brain and I can’t shake it.
TAGS: Fox News, indie rock, Vampire Weekend, WalkmenWhoah! Oh the suspense. Joe Biden says he’s not VP. The Page:
As the Delaware Senator leaves his home in Wilmington Tuesday, he tells reporters camped out outside hoping for a veep announcement:
“You guys have got better things to do, I’m not the guy.”
Much of the national press thought Biden was a lock. Still, I can’t see Obama naming Bayh, a pro-Iraq former Clintonista, or Kaine, who is too ugly.
The announcement will come Friday, most likely followed by a joint appearance in Springfield, IL, where Obama announced his candidacy in 2007.
CBS News has confirmed that Barack Obama’s campaign now plans to announce Obama’s vice presidential choice to supporters via email and text message on Friday afternoon. (This plan could change, of course.)
In other news…What exactly is an official pre-premier party? Could this be the best worst party of the summer? It’s at least the best bad flyer…And you know I’ll be there.
Some readers of this site may remember Ryan Corsaro, an old Red Barn/MVHC stalwart. Ryan works for CBS News, and last time I saw him hh was following Rudy through NH. The Times quoted him yesterday:
August 14, 2008, 5:38 pm
On the Trail, With Gonzo’s Wife
By Katharine Q. Seelye
ASPEN - Among the media covering Senator John McCain Thursday at the Aspen Institute was Anita Thompson, the widow of Hunter S. Thompson, the legendary journalist who brought his gonzo style of personal reporting to politics in the 1970s for Rolling Stone.“These are Hunter’s people, and I’m happy to be back with them,” said Mrs. Thompson, who is writing for the Huffington Post and was sitting in the press section at the McCain event. “Hunter would be back here drinking and having fun, but I don’t know if he could have tolerated the repression,” she said, noting the regimentation of reporters and their lack of access to Mr. McCain.
One of those who met Ms. Thompson, 35, was Ryan Corsaro, 27, a campaign reporter for CBS News, who said he had been inspired by Mr. Thompson’s classic “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail: ’72,” in which the writer enjoyed extensive access to George McGovern, the Democratic nominee.
“He was able to tell a completely different story,” Mr. Corsaro said. “He said he had hoped to have the same kind of access when he started covering the presidential campaign almost a year ago.
But, he said, “the campaigns know there are journalists out there who want to tell that kind of story and they’re doing their best to not let it happen.”
I’ve know Ryan since he was, like, 8, when we played little league or something—maybe he dated my sister too, I forget. He’s a smart, funny person and has a bright future in journalism.
TAGS: John McCain, mccain, NATO, Politics, Ryan Corsaro, war
Is Lindsay Lohan about to go Jew? Or is this is just a well-timed bid to get a Woody Allen picture like Penelope and Scarlett? They star in a new Allen film, Viki Christina Barcelona, which opens today. Whatever, score two for the Jews today…
TAGS: epLindsay Lohan is reportedly set to convert to Judaism for her girlfriend Samantha Ronson. The 22-year-old singer - who is said to have been raised in a Catholic household - is considering altering her religious beliefs to bring her closer to DJ Sam, who she has been dating since late last year.
A source said: “Sam’s family is Jewish. Lindsay has learned a lot about Judaism from Sam and admires its beliefs.”
Fucking idiots. That’s the only way to describe the photo below. The Spanish basketball team that’s competing in the Olympics in China decided to pose for a racist photo for a domestic ad campaign. Somehow, the players and everyone associated with Spanish basketball thought that this picture was harmless. Riiiiight. Is David Stern going to punish the NBA players (ahem, Pau Gasol) involved with this racist ad campaign?
Anyone else seen these ads in the NYC subways? I saw one this morning and had no idea what the hell was going on. The ad promises to change your boring life. All you have to do is take “two fast-acting Be KANYE tablets” that ”can unleash the SUPERSTAR within.” It turns out that the posters are a part of Absolut Vodka’s new ad campaign. To take a look at the poster, which I thought was pretty clever and effective, and to read a great post on the topic by Emily Liebert, see here.
The President sat down with Bob Costas on NBC during the Olympics for what might have been the toughest questioning he has faced in some time. Here are a few of those questions, and the President’s replies.
(1) Bob Costas: This past week, you re-stated America’s fundamental differences with China. But, given China’s growing strength and America’s own problems, realistically, how much leverage and influence does the US have here?
Bush: First of all, I don’t see America having problems. I see America as a nation that is a world leader that has got great values. And umm…leverage is a…I don’t think you should look at the relationship as one of leverage, I think you ought to look at the relationship as one of constructive engagement where you can find common areas like North Korea and Iran but also be in a position where they respect you enough to listen to your views on religious freedom and political liberty.
(2) Bob Costas: If these Olympics are as successful as they’re shaping up to be, most people believe this only further legitimizes the ruling party in the mind of most Chinese citizens. And even absent true liberty as we understand it, the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese people are much better than they once were. Therefore, what’s the party’s incentive to reform?
Bush: Well, first of all if you’re a religious person, you understand that once religion takes hold in a society, it can’t be stopped. Secondly, I think the Olympics are going to serve as a chance for people to come and see China the way it is. And let the Chinese see the world and interface and uh…have the opportunity to converse with people from around the world. This is a very positive development, in my view, for…for peace. And you know, who knows how China is going to progress. They’ve been some through some very difficult political times, the Cultural Revolution for one, where the leadership actually created, you know, violent anarchy. The society turned on itself. All I can tell you is that it’s important for the United States to be active in this part of the world with all countries, and to stay engaged with China.
(3) Costas: Your father has long standing connections to China. He was an envoy here even before we established an official ambassador’s position during the 1970s. And he’s here with you on this trip, so there’s a connection, a family connection.
Bush: Absolutely. Yeah, it’s a great connection. You know, I can remember riding my bike around Beijing in 1975. And it is…
Costas: only bikes then [inaudible]
Bush: …unbelievable how, how far this has changed, it’s…it’s…and he feels the same way. And we were honored yesterday when the President Hu Jinato invited my dad, and me, and Laura, and my sister, and my daughter, and my brother for dinner. It was a lunch. Just a great gesture of kindness. Bob, it’s very important for the American people to know that coming here gave me a chance to obviously to root for our team, and you’ve captured that. But it’s also coming here, is a sign of respect for the Chinese people. And this is a big, important nation. We’ll have our differences. We’ll have our agreements. But in order to find common ground, and to move the world toward peace it is important for this country to show respect for the people of the country.
(4) Costas: You gonna go to a few more events before you leave?
Bush: I’m going to swimming, here. If you’d ever let me off this set…[inaudible].
Costas: (laughing) Alright, you are dismissed. Thank you Mr. President.
Reuters
Read about the story behind this picture at the LA Times blog.
TAGS: converse, free, Iran, NATO, Olympics, political, warOr at least that’s what I was lead to believe when I looked at the Huffington Post today. Shocker…Gold digging former neocon Ariana Huffington is patting herself on the back for exposing John “Everyman” Edwards for getting a little ‘tang on the side. Am I the only person who doesn’t give a shit? Fair enough, blow up the guy’s spot, make him look like a dick and get on with it. By looking at the site you’d think a nuclear holocaust went down. But hey, at least Moby chimes in on the same page about what Mr. Obama needs to do to win the election. Puke.
KSFO’s Brian Sussman is sure that gays are actively recruiting children in public schools and he’s suggested that Obama was “running for anti-Christ”. In his mind, the gays are going to take over our schools and force sodomy on all the Christian children while Muslim fascists rule 300 million Americans under Sharia law. Think of this next time you wonder how anyone could be stupid enough to believe that Obama is an angry black separatist Christian and a Muslim double agent at the same time. Fear doesn’t make sense, but it works. The people who listen to right-wing idiots on AM radio are easily mobilized by hate speech originating from the days of slavery.
Here are two common arguments that are meant to scare the listener onto the alleged safety of the bigot bandwagon:
1. Black men will rape your white women.
2. Gay people are perverts who can’t help but fuck your children, giving the whole world AIDS and pissing off god.
What kind of person believes this shit? KSFO’s BRIAN SUSSMAN and apparently many of his listeners. A Meds reader tipped us off to one of the most vile things ever said by anybody on radio.
BRIAN SUSSMAN: (speaking of Barack Obama’s father)
“Your father came here for the opportunity to get; one, a free education and two, to take advantage of some little white girl…”
I missed that while surfing stations on my evening commute yesterday, but KSFO’s 7-day archive had the evidence.
DOWNLOAD THE MP3:
Before that, Sussman was indeed on an anti-gay rant for most of the hour blabbing about California legislation that recognizes the openly gay San Francisco Supervisor, Harvey Milk, who was assassinated 30 years ago. But it was the callers that brought the real anti-gay hate that Sussman loves. When it comes to homophobia, it’s interesting that most people opposed to the label are usually personifying its exact definition.
Caller “Danny” has some definitions of his own, “I am your ally, I love your voice, I love the way you put things…” (Hmm.. seems a little gay to me) “and until this point I have not had to call in but I’ve got your back and if anybody has anything negative to say to you they are going to have to speak to me because I have mandated this issue since I moved from the southeast…” “…and by definition I was calling liberals, by definition, it’s the same thing as homosexuality but that was too brash for everybody out here, so I had to tone it down”. The self-indulgent Danny Nobody then uses Al Gore’s explanation of the boiling frog to describe the “situation were in right now” but claims The Governator won’t sign the Harvey Milk legislation, because Danny’s living near Sacramento will prevent it. Then he goes on; “As an American it is my right to discriminate against anything that this country was not founded on. This country was founded on Christianity, it was founded on stomping people’s guts out when they get out of line.”
Oh really? I’m in Fremont, Danny, and I’m out of line.
The next caller, Frank from San Mateo claims: “They want to promote a lifestyle that causes death which is AIDS. And also you know what the word GAY stands for? It means, “Got AIDS yet?” Sussman cuts off the call and has nothing to say about it. Typical Sussman move.
DO SOMETHING.
E-mail the bigot at: briansussman2 {at} yahoo(.)com
Send KSFO a message here.
While you’re at it, give their advertising department a call:
Deidra Lieberman- Director of Sales
Deidra.lieberman {at} citcomm(.)com
415-954-8118
How about calling Citadel Broadcasting (KSFO’s parent)?
(212) 887-1670
(702) 804-5200
And tell MediaMatters to pick up this story: mm-tips {at} mediamatters(.)org
TAGS: Barack Obama, free education, gay san francisco, hate speech, KSFO, Racism, supervisor harvey milk, Sussman, Talk Radio, white girl, world aidsThose Crazy Dems
1. John Edwards as Patrick Batemen
“Beautiful, world-weary, and not yet 21, Alison Poole is what her new boyfriend calls a postmodern girl,” first sentence of the jacket copy from Jay McInerney’s Story of My Life (Atlantic/Grove 1988).
This John Edwards love child scandal is mind blowing. Dude supposedly screwed Rielle Hunter, a videographper who was the basis for Alison Poole, a fictional character in Jay McInerney’s second novel, Story of My Life. Poole was stolen from McInerney by his friend and fellow novelist Brett Easton Ellis, who killed her in American Psycho, then brought her back to life for Glamorama. The Edwards-Hunter scandal broke c/o (who else) The National Enquirer.Of course, Page Six is destroying this story like it’s 9/11. Meanwhile, Romenesko, a blog about the death of newspapers, is covering the story’s noncoverage by national newspapers. All this makes for the most postmodern political scandal ever.
Edwards always claimed to be a populist crusader. But his 6000-sq ft, $6 million house is the most expensive in his North Carolina county. His wife has terminal cancer and he’s still fucking a former NY party girl. I thus suspect John Edwards has a small penis. How else can you explain it?
2. Hillary and Obama Need to Cut the Shit, Announce Joint Ticket, Win White House
The Veepstakes are moving along with all the excitement of mold growth. None of the prospective picks (Kaine, Warner, Webb, Bahy etc) have the national following that could help Obama win voters’ trust (polls call him 24% “riskier” than McCain). In about two weeks, it’s all gonna come down to polling—what do women want; who polls best with the working class—but right now the Clintons are again stealing headlines. The NY Observer, like NY Mag before them, says Obama’s best way to win in November is with a Clinton VP:
TAGS: attack, Hillary, Jay, joint ticket, mccain, obama, political, Politics, polls, Video, warBut there’s another way that may seem more tempting now than it once did: teaming up with Clinton. Yes, her presence would turn off some independent voters, but it would also fully unify the party and – far more importantly – it would offer powerful emotional reassurance to the wavering voters who want to support Obama but who are liable to succumb to attacks on his experience. For millions of casual voters, Clinton has come to represent the very toughness and seasoning that Obama is said to lack. They want to vote Democratic this fall, but if they believe Obama is too risky, they will default to McCain, the “safe” choice. By picking Clinton, Obama would be telling these voters, in effect, that he’ll be operating with adult supervision.”
Take a look at McCain’s IMDB page (hat-tip to TPM). He’s appeared in “24,” “Wedding Crashers,” and “SNL” (twice). Can he seriously claim that Obama’s nothing more than a celebrity when he’s done his fair share of tv and movies? I know that the whole point is to mock Obama as being vacuous, but this is a weak charge.
True, McCain’s celebrity attack ads seem to have helped him make up some ground on Obama. Gallup’s daily tracking poll had Obama up by 2 on August 6th (compared to 9 on July 26th, which was his largest lead). Still, Time has Obama up 46% to 41% (though they said he’s fading a bit on the issues), and AP has him up 47% to 41%, and the latest CBS poll has him up 45% to 39%, so it seems like nothing much has changed. It’s still Obama’s election to lose, but he’s still got a lot of work to do.
More importantly, is this how McCain plans to win? By tearing Obama down instead of telling people why he should be president? Hey, it might work, but it’s a very risky strategy, and it speaks to how desperate McCain has become. After relentlessly mocking Obama about his idea to inflate tire gauges to save some gasoline, McCain just admitted that he supports it as well! His childish approach to this election is getting very old, very fast, and the press is beginning to call him on it. Look, McCain is engaged in a debate with Paris Hilton. Who’s vacuous now?
Republicans usually love these Rovian tactics, but some Republicans seem pretty fed up. Tim Pawlenty, often mentioned as a possible running mate for McCain, thinks that the GOP (and presumably McCain) should adopt Obama’s positive message (he must have found out he’s no longer in the running for VP). Some prominent Republican consultants and McCain’s former campaign adviser have derided his childish tactics. McCain’s mom said that the Paris Hilton ad was “stupid.”
John McCain: Low Road Express
Noel Gallagher is a quote machine. A few months ago he got so pissed when Jay Z headlined Glasto—a black guy on the top of the bill of a “guitar-based” proper English festival! Bollocks, Noel cried. The Guardian made a big deal of it, and now Noel responds:
“If people in the fucking Observer and the Guardian wanna get on their high horse about it, there’s not a great deal I can do. It really pisses me off,” he continues, “all these spotty herberts whose mams and dads voted for Margaret Thatcher all those years are now sitting on some moral fucking high chair.”
I may not know exactly what it means, but a “spotty herbert Thatcherite” sounds like the worst thing on Earth.
TAGS: Jay, Jay Z, Music, Noel Gallagher, Oasis
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