A comment on Afro-mercial

I left this comment on http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2008/10/lil-obama.html?cid=137189631#comments in response to Riehl asking if anyone saw the "Afro-merical" on TV.

And after calling it an "afro-mercial" you expect:

1) To be taken seriously

2) To recruit non-white people into the conservative movement someday

3) Someone to believe your self-delusion that it wasn't a racist remark

Well, I know it's completely fruitless to tell you this, because your blindness is impenetrable, but it is, indeed, a racist remark. The fact that you can't see it is no evidence that it isn't actually racist, merely evidence that you don't understand.

Given that the country is inexorably becoming more diverse by the minute, consvervatives are going to have to come to terms with the question of race and ethnicity if conservative philosophy is to survive in American politics.

There's nothing inherently racist in a conservative politics, although its particular history in America on that score is not a happy one. There are left-wing racists and many individuals from minority groups have conservative personal philosophy and conduct. If conservatives became self-aware enough about racism to purge it from their polotics they may find it possible to connect political conservatism with the personal conservatism of many minority people.

Instead we have a black Republican women in tears because her Party mailed out "Obamabucks" with images of watermeleon and fried chicken and the party official professing ignorance of its racial implications.

If she was, indeed, ignorant (giving her far more than the benefit of the coubt) than she needs to educate herself. Ignorance is a poor defense on this topic.

America's longest war

A Sullivan reader writes an insightful analysis of what is really at stake.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/10/the-end-of-amer.html#more

The Mills of God

From this post: http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=34961

But in full: Though the mills of God grind slowly,

Yet they grind exceeding small;

Though with patience He stands waiting,

With exactness grinds He all.

--Longfellow

After 60 yrs, justice is now. In '48 when Truman, though facing sweeping defeat, decreed a robust civil rights plank for the Dem platform and Humphrey intoned that we must, in Lincoln's words, "do the right, as God has given us to know the right," the racists decamped. A body formerly known as the Party of Lincoln gave them succor, crafted a cynical "southern strategy," and perennially prevailed.

This unholy union has now corroded into a mash-up of Old Dixie, prairie gunslingers, anti-tax fetishists, end times Rapturists, militiamen and Millenarians, jingoists and misanthropes, survivalists and cranks, and the odd secessionist witch doctor. Soon there will be a reckoning between the cerebral cons (who've been long content to pal up with vermin) and the wingnut residuum that has found its avatar in Bible Spice.

Meanwhile, the Dems have a nation to rebuild. Pretty that this came to pass through the strivings of an unassuming black American, a legacy of what Truman, Humphrey, and numberless others went to their political graves for. Thanks, God, you’re ok after all.

Top 10 C reasons for Obama

Sullivan lists 10 reasons why conservatives should vote for Obama: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/10/the-top-ten-rea.html#more

Last Week

I'm cautiously optimistic at this point that things will come out alright on election day.

A lot can happen in a week, of course, but every day provides less chance for something dramatic to occur that will change things. Indeed, at this point, with so many people having already voted, it's possible that a late event will not change things enough to make a difference.

That said, there are powerful forces at work that will not go quietly.

Obama, despite being a fairly conventional politician, represents a real danger to some of the people who have been a disaster over the last eight years.

One suspects that there is a lot of crony capitalism that would be in danger of exposure and prosecution by a professional and depoliticized Justice Department. One knows that there are many individuals who have a real exposure for war crimes prosecutions in the wake of the torture regime. And there's no telling what vile secrets may lurk in the secret surveillance programs, but I think it would be a truly shocking development if an administration that has shown so little respect for law and limits in everything else had turned out to be restrained and scrupulous in this one area.

B stands for bull

There's not too much to say about the McCain campaign worker's hoax attack. Even Malkin smelled a rat. It didn't make it into my newspaper yesterday because it had HOAX written all over it in my opinion and I didn't think it rated any ink.

Of course it was a hoax, after all, but now it appears some official state-level McCain people were pushing the story: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/mccain_aide_gave_reporters_inc.php

And they wonder why people believe the McCain effort is sleazy.

My open letter to the RNC

I got a mail solicitation from the RNC today. While I didn't send them any money, they kindly provided a postpaid envelope and I decided to take advantage of this to share with them why I won't be sending them any money.

Here's what I wrote:
Dear RNC

Thank you for your invitation to contribute to RNC Victory 2008. I will decline.
The Republican Party has lost its way.
The party I supported for most of my adult life is gone, replaced by one that supports unrestrained spending, unwise warring and ill-disguised hostility to science, education and a substantial number of its fellow citizens because of their race, ethnicity and family relationships.
I won’t spend space here with a detailed critique. You can catch the gist of it from conservative folks as diverse as Andrew Sullivan, Daniel Larison, George Will, Colin Powell and even Pat Buchanan.
I do want to highlight one issue however, and that is American torture and the Republican party’s explicit and implicit support and complicity in the policies that made it a practice.
For more than four decades whenever I have held a ballot and I did not have a good reason to vote for someone else my default vote as been for the person with an “R” next to their name. That is over.
Until such time as the Republican Party vigorously repudiates American torture and remembers its ancient support for the rule of law my default vote will go to the “D” adorned candidates.
This year, after being a registered Republican for 45 years, I changed my party affiliation to unenrolled.
The Democratic Party has little to recommend it except that it is not the Republican Party. That will have to do.
How long it will have to do depends on you people.

The photo that moved Powell

http://www.newyorker.com/online/2008/09/29/slideshow_080929_platon?slide=16#showHeader

GOP sleaze ads

So now there's an ad claiming Obama wants to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens and shows a picture of Obama with a photo of 9/11 Hijacker Mohamed Atta.

Nice, slimy stuff, that. Of course, it just so happens that Atta was not a fracking illegal alien so it's also meaningless.

Atta's license was revoked a couple of weeks before the attack because of some traffic infractions, but the attacks happened before the bureaucracy could catch up enough to cause him any complications.

One can only hope that the end result of the race isn't particularly close. The country will be much better off with a clear result this time.

It's interesting that the last Democrat to win the presidency with more than half the popular vote was Carter! It illustrates how divided the country has been ever since Nixon's "southern strategy and LBJ's civil rights legislation stripped the whites out of the Democratic party in the South.

Geesh, He's not even a plumber!

And now the AP reports that Joe the Plumber doesn't even have a plumbing license.

You know, if you're going to try smoke and mirrors you ought to have a mirror.

Joe the Plumber or Joe the Plant

So Daily Kos is all a-twitter over the holes in "Joe the Plumber's" story.

Details here: http://www.dailykos.com/

Evidently he's had tax issues.

Evidently he's actually a Republican.

It's even alleged he's got at least a Bill Ayers'-style connection to the Keating folks.

It's also noted that the McCain campaign had his phone number, although they swear they didn't give him "media training."

For the record, it sounds suspiciously like another inept GOP dirty trick.

Someday they will rediscover the value of actual values (you know, the kind you live by, not just talk about). Once (and if) they do, they will start to recover. The Democrats will always be vulnerable on that score.

Meanwhile Drudge has still failed to make note of the Palin abuse-of-power-probe,

Meanwhile PBS is balking at airing a documentary that shows how the Bush torture regime came about.

Oh, and meanwhile the economy is going to absolutely to hell.

Drudge STILL ignores Palin Troopergate report

Palin and (McCain campaign chair) Davis lie about what the report said in a way that would do credit to a Lewis Carroll poem, but Drudge simply IGNORES it entirely.

This is pretty blatant, even for Drudge.

And, frankly. may even be dangerous for his agenda-setting power. If opinion makers and newsrooms and pundits can't even ink to all important stories (Drudge's spin isn't as much of a problem, as most opinion makers, newsrooms and pundits can see through the crap) then they will eventually go elsewhere.

Up until now Drudge has been a useful tool, even though his partisanship is on open display because he was fairly good about providing links to stuff that you know he didn't like. But to completely ignore the TrooperGate report threatens to remove his usefulness.

Drudge simply IGNORES Palin report

The Drudge Report is a useful resource, but hardly an unbiased one. While finding room for a Washington Times story alleging some Obama thing or other with the Iraqis he completely ignores the report that found that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin abused her power by trying to get her former brother-in-law fired from being a state trooper.

The report is here: http://community.adn.com/adn/node/132565

Evidently you won't get linked to it off of Drudge.

What would happen if we elected a Black Muslim Terrorist President

Absolutely priceless at Guns, Lawyers and Money: http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2008/10/time-has-come-to-ask-what-might-happen.html

Chris buckley on the Conservative Case for Obama

Read in full: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-10-10/the-conservative-case-for-obama

Baffle them with Warfare link

An amusing, yet accurate read on the problem of winning a war against terrorists:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/9/9813/16416/597/624860

Rich Lowry on Obama's "genius"

Rich Lowry (Of Palin "Starbursts" fame) on Obama tonight:

Just got off deadline for a New York Post piece on the debate. I thought McCain was good. It's as passionate and well-informed as he's ever been on domestic policy. His debate briefers did their job well. I think he repeatedly scored points in the first hour, but they were jabs rather then crosses—blows that Obama could absorb. If McCain were running in a year when his party wasn't getting crushed by a series of calamites, he might be winning this race. But tonight obviously wasn't enough. Obama, meanwhile, just has to appear plausible and he did. In fact, he's a kind of genius at appearing plausible. If the Nobel committee had a prize for appearing plausible, he'd win it every time. He carries himself with confidence, he never appears flustered, and he has mastered his material. If he's losing these debates on points (as I think he is), it doesn't matter. Every day the race drifts in the same direction it is now is a day he's closer to becoming president.

My emphasis

So the market tanked for most of the day

Only to recover much of the lost ground this afternoon.

I'd find little solace in that recovery, however, because there's no indication that things are improving. Indeed. there's every indication that things are about to get substantially worse.

We didn't get into the mess overnight and I see no reason to think that anything useful will happen until sometime next spring or summer after the new administration takes office.

IF this is just a regular downturn, albeit a little worse than most, we'll know it by then. There will be many indicators that things are starting to get better. Typical recession last 9 months to a year and next summer will be outside that time frame.

If. on the other hand, things are getting worse they'll most likely be really bad by then and the country will be ready for some drastic action.

A tiny voice of reason

From the American Conservative site blog Eunomia:

I rehash all of this not to dwell on Palin’s problems, which are increasingly irrelevant as McCain heads towards defeat, but to implore conservatives to stop ignoring reality just because they happen to like a candidate’s personality and biography. Besides being bad for the quality of conservative thought, it embraces the caricature that conservatives are indifferent to knowledge and have no use for expertise, which has become an all too legitimate critique of how conservatives have responded to the misrule of the Bush administration. That was not always the case, but if conservatives insist on making elaborate arguments that understanding and knowledge are not significant criteria when choosing our top elected officials they will lose whatever credibility they may still have. More than that, they will be crippled by their embrace of cheerful ignorance when it comes time to oppose the policies of the Democratic administration that is surely about to be elected.