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Obama's Debate Tactics Against McCain Recall a Basketball Team Running Out the Clock
Tweet Share on Facebook October 16, 2008 Comment (14)As an ACC basketball fan who's spent years rooting against the evil Tar Heels of North Carolina, I recognize the four-corner offense when I see it.
Too often, when his guys got a modest lead, North Carolina Coach Dean Smith would spread his team to the four corners of the offensive zone and have his point guard freeze the ball, while hostile crowds, who had come to see athletes play basketball, chanted "Bor-ing! Bor-ing!"
And that was Barack Obama last night, dribbling in circles like Phil Ford, sitting on a lead with one eye on the clock.
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Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Would Have Celebrated His 91st Birthday Today—and Loved the Year in Politics
Tweet Share on Facebook October 15, 2008 Comment (4)My late father, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., would have celebrated his 91st birthday today. Given the year in politics, I think he would be enjoying himself.
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An Obama Vote Is No Sin for Catholics, Even With His Abortion Views
Tweet Share on Facebook October 15, 2008 Comment (67)Four years ago, as an obscure columnist for a great western newspaper, I got into an argument with the Roman Catholic clergy over abortion.
Some Catholic bishops had suggested that John Kerry be denied the sacraments because, as a politician who believed in keeping faith and politics separate, he did not act to outlaw abortion. Others implied that merely voting for Kerry for president was an occasion of sin for Catholics.
So, I wrote a column comparing my church's leadership with the Taliban. Which, truth be told, was a little over the top.
I acknowledged as much to an irate local bishop, and he graciously promised to pray for my soul, and I thanked him and we left it there. But now that the dispute over Catholics and politics has been revived in this election cycle, the rest of my argument bears repeating.
First off: It is not a sin for a Catholic to vote for Barack Obama or other Democratic candidates who support abortion rights. Indeed, it may be morally preferable.
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McCain's Debate Performance Against Obama Won't Matter
Tweet Share on Facebook October 15, 2008 Comment (12)My Thomas Jefferson Street colleague Robert says:
McCain needs to so dominate Obama that the electorate wonders how it could ever have considered the junior senator from Illinois presidential. Preferably Obama would either be left a blubbering mass or simply withdraw from the election in his closing statement.
Quite frankly that's too generous. I do not think there's a thing McCain could do in the third debate to reverse his descending fortunes. No matter which way he turns, he gets whacked. When he's nice, he gets whacked by supporters for being too nice. When he goes negative, his numbers go down.
Regaining McCain's lead is beyond his or his handlers' control at the point. It's in fate's hands. If there's an overwhelming bounce in the economy and the deregulation crowd lays claim to the moral high ground, he could bounce back. If there's a huge terrorist incident somewhere (which we all hope will not take place) and Americans' focus shifts to the international front, he could regain ground. But a stellar performance in the third debate? I doubt it!
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Christopher Buckley's Obama Embrace—Hope Over Reason
Tweet Share on Facebook October 15, 2008 Comment (34)My Thomas Jefferson Street colleague Bonnie Erbe is reveling in the right's reaction to Christopher Buckley's decision to vote for Barack Obama. Buckley, of course, is the son of the late conservative godfather William F. Buckley Jr. but also a bright mind in his own right, so his defection deserves to be noticed.
Bonnie takes a few jabs at conservative reaction, which is justifiably indignant but, admittedly, in many instances downright nasty. Well, yes, the right has its share of impolite radicals too.
Far more important, however, is the substance of Buckley's dissent.
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Christopher Buckley's Forced Resignation and the Right's Intolerance Problem
Tweet Share on Facebook October 15, 2008 Comment (42)If you savor intolerance, try reading the National Review. Founder William F. Buckley's son, Christopher Buckley, offered to resign his column (although one gets the impression if he hadn't offered, he would have been unceremoniously tossed out the window) because he wrote a column for thedailybeast.com endorsing (OMG!) Barack Obama for president.
Buckley writes further on that site about why he resigned and what kind of E-mail response his action drew:
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John McCain's Final Debate Hope Against Barack Obama
Tweet Share on Facebook October 15, 2008 Comment (22)What does John McCain need to do in tonight's debate? Oh, it's quite simple.
He needs the A Few Good Men moment, where through the mere power of his words he induces Barack Obama to damn America, embrace terrorists (domestic or otherwise), raise taxes on everyone or make some other statement so jaw-dropping that some significant portion of the 50.1 percent of Americans prepared to cast their ballots for the Democrat wonder what they were thinking. (Never mind that it was the older, angrier, more militarily experienced, I-can't-believe-I-have-to-sit-here-and-listen-to-this-young-snot character who cracked in that movie.)
McCain needs to so dominate Obama that the electorate wonders how it could ever have considered the junior senator from Illinois presidential. Preferably Obama would either be left a blubbering mass or simply withdraw from the election in his closing statement.
Oh, and McCain has to do so while not appearing negative or angry.
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California Animal Cruelty Could be Cured by Proposition 2
Tweet Share on Facebook October 14, 2008 Comment (46)Leave it to California to once again lead the way on one of the most important social issues of our time. This time, it's animal cruelty in factory farming. Next month, Californians will have the opportunity to ameliorate conditions for the millions of factory-farmed animals in that state. At factory (mass production) farms, animals from chickens to pigs and veal calves are crated in tiny spaces where some of them spend their entire suffering lives (more on that later.)
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Liberals Wrong About Cindy McCain's POW Experience and PTSD
Tweet Share on Facebook October 14, 2008 Comment (16)The latest issue of Marie Claire magazine carries an interview I had with Cindy McCain, and left-wing commentators are having a field day over comments she made about her husband's POW experience. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann was particularly exercised, calling McCain's comments "a mendacious attack on the troops" and "callous."
So what was her offensive comment? Here's the interview transcript:
MC: You met your husband after his POW days. To what extent is that still with you—or is it a part of history?
CM: My husband will be the first one to tell you that that's in the past. Certainly it's a part of who he is, but he doesn't dwell on it. It's not part of a daily experience that we experience or anything like that. But it has shaped him. It has made him the leader that he is.MC: But no cold sweats in the middle of the night?
CM: Oh, no, no, no, no, no. My husband, he'd be the first one to tell you that he was trained to do what he was doing. The guys who had the trouble were the 18-year-olds who were drafted. He was trained, he went to the Naval Academy, he was a trained United States naval officer, and so he knew what he was doing.Sorry, but I fail to see how this disparages soldiers or makes light of post-traumatic stress syndrome.
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Barack Obama's Ad Campaign Goes From Puerto Rico to a Video Game
Tweet Share on Facebook October 14, 2008 Comment (4)Is it really possible that Barack Obama's presidential campaign has so much money that it just doesn't know where to spend it all?
I was in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, over the weekend and was bombarded with Obama ads (apparently John McCain wants to tax my health benefits while Barack Obama wants to give everyone tax cuts). They came, to the best of my recollection, either on cable news networks or during football games, so I can only assume that they were national ads (rather than air time bought in a territory without a vote in the election), but nevertheless, it was notable.
But then again, Puerto Rico is at least a real location. The picture below comes from the video game Burnout Paradise (hat-tip to TPM), and yes, the Obama campaign paid for that billboard space. Talk about money to burn.
