Take er easy, dude

McCain's anger: a strategy! -- Kaus. Clearly, we Americans are reaping the whirlwind. Back in your youtube clip, when McCain was a reasonable man, willing to acknowledge facts on the ground, he also had no shot at landing the nomination. We like him more the crazier he gets! His Obama=Hamas slur got him an invite to speak to the NRA, which hates him, so...
***
McCain forgetting how the hostage release went is conventional wisdom. It's a little bit crazy to talk about it so fast, though! Old Man McCain seems to be taking shit for shinola here, suggesting that the 1979 hostages were released for weapons, then backtracking to explain that Carter and Christopher (not Carter and Brzeszinski?) got them released. The hostages relased for arms came later and were captured by Hezbollah or affiliated groups in Lebanon. Phew! Isn't the conventional wisdom so much easier! Also, dude, I edited that Iran-Contra wiki page a little bit. It's not a good resource. It goes like this: "These guys did bad things. Then they lied about it. Fawn Hall. Imperialism. Oliver North is a fag." for like 7 meg of text...no timeline, no clear causation.

Bringing me to a point of departure for a future screed: can we at this late date foreswear Wikipedia?
***
McCain at the NRA:

This is a unique style to say the least. JB starts with a patronly/patronizing soft-pedal voice, like the old folks in the Medicare part D ads, mentions Israel, and suddenly hits the chorus, like in "Say a Little Prayer for You!", screams, stumbles, blood-pressure recedes, and he's back in premature catatonia. Clearly, the strain of being an enlightened elder and a cranky elder at once is exhausting. We here at Dark Steer wish the Senator the best of health for the coming election. Which is six months away.
***
Two things this week give us hope here at Dark Steer: one is the third Democrat victory in a special election to the House this year. Two is the passage of a passel of war bills. The former augurs ill for the opposition party this November; the MS-1 district was like a R+10 PVI. There are 25 seats up in November with a R+10 PVI or lower; those are landslide numbers. The war bills' passing, however, is mindbending. Republicans in Congress have finally grown weary of stonewalling every single Congressional attempt to attach some reins to the president's wehrmacht; the plan now is clearly of the "give 'em enough rope" variety. And if a case could be made for indefinitely-funded, indefinitely-long war in Iraq, well, maybe then the Democrats' "abort the troops" policy would become an issue in November. Except one: the GOP can't even get all its members in line for something as simple as abstention; two: solid majorities have wanted the war over within a year since summer 2005.
***
Recent visits to Israel by Rice and Bush bode well for my Peace-By-June prediction, right? Even the President's bizarre ranting about "appeasers" backs me up! How, you ask? The only reason to say something that far off the irrelevance chart, something that the speaker has no intention of backing up, is to flak for the opposite position ! Short: Bush's tough talk is cover for the back-channel negotiations with Syria. Paradoxathon! The harder he talks, the closer the negotiations are to peace! It's like Kissinger-Nixon's mad-bomber strategy: in theory, when a nuclear power bout to act the fool, everyone else calms down.

One more time: by the end of the first week of June, Israel will return large portions of the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for a non-aggression pact. Only the President can screw this up now, by you know, asking for some extra goodies, like disarming Hezbollah, or paving the Anbar desert...

--
ds

Why you bringing up old shit?

...the Kaiser'd stolen our word for twenty...

Walnuts' spiral into a very public, very ugly dementia continues. Again, if the media quits treating him with the kid gloves, this man's dead in the water. His whole campaign could be one long and painful Stockdale impersonation. We could have five, six months of "Who am I? What am I doing here?" The latest screw-up?

“Yes, there have been appeasers in the past, and the president is exactly right, and one of them is Neville Chamberlain,'’ Mr. McCain told reporters on his campaign bus after a speech in Columbus, Ohio. “I believe that it’s not an accident that our hostages came home from Iran when President Reagan was president of the United States. He didn’t sit down in a negotiation with the religious extremists in Iran, he made it very clear that those hostages were coming home.'’

Now, leaving aside the idiocy of comparing a desire to talk to our enemies to appeasing them, if only for just a second, Walnuts seems to be forgetting a little thing we here at Dark Steer like to call... um... what do we call that again? Tip of my tongue. Something to do with... Contras? Maybe something about "I Ran"? Oh well, must not have been too important.

Dead in the water, dude. The Republicans have to know this, too. Once the Democratic Clusterfuck slouches toward Denver to finally die, the spotlight falls squarely on the two nominees. That's when Walnuts starts to look plain old 'Nuts. I'm seeing two main problems:

1. A shaky grasp on reality, as evidenced by Sunni-Shia confusion, Reagan "negotiations", and the innumerable other slips of mind waiting in the wings.
2. An inability to civilly deal with anyone challenging the aforementioned shakily grasped reality.

He's going to look like an old man. A very old man. I've got the feeling the party put its weight behind him and gave him the nod because they know what's coming in the fall. They've lost three special elections in a row in solid Bush counties. The camel's falling to its knees and more knives are drawn. So you give it to the old curmudgeon, see what he can do. If he wins it, he owes you big for not giving his campaign the Schiavo plugpull. If he loses, ah hell, you were gonna buckle down anyway.

Which makes his veep choice very interesting. Romney's biding his time and waiting for '12, when he can emerge as true conservative come forth to battle after Walnuts' valiant but failed showing. (nb, this would've been Hillary's strategy if she really thought BarryHussein would lose. Instead, she's on the Huckabee "hope for a miracle" plan. natch.)

Continuance later, now for some playoff highlights...

-K

"Now my story begins in Nineteen-dickety-two. We had to say "dickety" because the Kaiser had stolen the wold "twenty". I chased that rascal to get it back, but gave up after dickety-six miles."
-Grandpa Simpson

If I had some nuts on a wall, would those be...

Agreed. The prospect of this John McCain winning the presidency is laughable. The one who tours a Baghdad market, proclaims it safe, whereupon it is swiftly carbombed; the McCain who can't tell the difference between the Sunni Islamic State of Iraq and the Shiite Mehdi Army; the McCain whose strictly pro-business position on immigration will doom his party, this McCain will lose.

But I can't help but think that only people who pay too much attention to the game see this kind of thing happening. I find it far more likely that most voters -- call them what you will, the people who purportedly cling to Guns and Religion: "downscale whites," the Axl Roses -- haven't tuned in yet. They woke up when the nightly news claimed they were being dissed by some Ivy-league half-foreigner candidate at a gay-folks kaffeeklatsch. But they've been asleep since.

(I'd like to think that's why HRC has a double-digit lead in West Virginia: folks paid attention to the Ohio primary and haven't had a reason to follow anything since. Are the stories of Hillary's imminent demise actually not on the air in the Wild, Wonderful? Why was Monday the second total time BHO has visited the state? This makes me crazy. West Virginia is Indiana on stilts. Use the template of small-format speeches and massive student turnout at the state universities. If Barry contested even Morgantown, he'd pull within six, right?)

So McCain's chances depend on which McCain shows up in the media at the last possible instant. Joe Lieberman's 1988 Senate run offers some relevant instruction. Joe ran as a Reagan Democrat against the liberal Republican Lowell P. Weicker; he wasted Weicker for not supporting Reagan's invasion of Grenada and bombing of Libya; he picked up support from William F. Buckley; he dissed LPW for missing votes, ran goofy cartoon attack ads of Lowell as a sleeping bear. A screwy confusing campaign. But the fundamental point was this: Lieberman said Weicker was not a maverick, but a misfit. In effect, the Democrat did ideological housecleaning for his opponents. No Republican in 1988 wanted to seat on their side of the aisle the only GOP Senator to call for a boycott of the South African Apartheid regime. The net effect was that the Connecticut GOP (like everywhere else) swung to the right, and the Democrats only gained seats by seating conservatives.

Which McCain shows up in the media? Maverick or Misfit? More importantly for our futures bidness, which would be the preferred outcome for Obama Democrats? (Let's ignore the fact that no one knows what an Obama Democrat is. I think we ODs are post-grad educated Northeasterners-Rustbelters who are willing to "diss partisan politics to get a gig," thanks Martin Sheen. But discuss amongst yourselves.) After McGovern purged the party (part by accident; he sure didn't intend to lose urban whites in the Northeast), McGovernism became the default Democratic position for a generation: mercy for the underclass, negotiate for peace. McCain's ability to draw support from the moderates of 2006 is a boon to the ODs.

Check it: the Democrats elected to the House in 2006 got in because two camps of opinion about the Iraq War shook hands: "I don't think we should be there," and "I think we should win." As an OD, I want the "I think we should win," camp to bolt, because their ideology is transparently bogus. They do not belong in my tent. Frank Rizzo and Dick Daley can come back into my tent, so long as they denounce the Iraq War, Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition, "coercive interrogation" and warrantless eavesdropping. Five points of light. My tent might be 20 percent of the electorate, but at least I know who's in it. The numbers come later. The whole point is to align party and ideology in your own camp, and disorient party and ideology in the opposition.

And Walnuts makes that real easy: right now he's got free-traders and protectionists, comprehenisvists and Minutemen, dudes hung out to dry on the end of the "surge" and dudes who want war with Iran yesterday, fiscal conservatives who hate giving atropine to the economy over and over again and reps whose constituents are losing their homes. It's not a Big Tent. It's a total clusterfuck.

That is the outcome of "McCain is a Maverick." But his biggest problem this week is convincing people that Toby Ziegler and Josh Lyman heard him wrong, he definitely voted for the guy who gave him le shaft royale in SC. Problems occur for McCain when "McCain is a Misfit." On the reel f'reel. If McCain doesn't belong in his own party, how can he be trusted? If the Misfit is the standard-bearer, well, what does the party believe? If it's just an aggregate of fractious interests, what did the McCain Democrats sign up for?
--
ds

"You are still an outlaw in their eyes..."

Maverick Walnuts McCain. Just a bit on Walnuts.

So the media's blowing up Maverick Walnuts McCain as some political bogeyman what should frighten Democratic kiddies in their beds as they dream of putting a black man or a white woman in office. Fear this way, fear that. Maverick Walnuts McCain's got appeal to independents in spades. They're so enamored of him they won't notice his affinity for wars and rumors of wars, his insistence upon continuance of the Bush policies in as many areas as necessary to appeal to the republican base.

Right, right. I still say Walnuts is dead in the water. But here's the real question:

A lot of attention's been paid to whether or not BarryHussein's got the gut for a protracted fight. They say he strongarmed his democratic opponents out of the race and then only had to run against laughingstock Alan Keyes after Jack Ryan was forced to drop out after it came out that he spent time trying to make his (smoking hot, Star Trek fanboy's wetdream of a) wife have sex in public. He's had no real competition, they say.

Fine. But neither has Hillary. She came into her senate campaign with the same mindset that she came into this campaign: assurance that the Clinton name would suck up all the air in the room. She ain't run a hard campaign. At least, she hasn't been at the head of a hard campaign.

Maverick Walnuts McCain's been in the Senate since Michael Jackson still had a career. Senate races are absurdly biased in favor of the incumbent. When he came in, he was taking over the seat vacated by Goldwater. Christalmighty. What're the chances Walnuts has had to run a difficult campaign?

The Republican nomination? Nope. That was Three Stooges in suits with flags. I remember writing you a year ago saying the Repubs couldn't field a serious candidate for 08. I stand by that. If you notice, there wasn't a "hard fought" campaign. It was McCain's "turn" and it showed early on. After winning in New Hampsire (a state where he was favored to win, if I recall correctly), there were, all of a sudden, well-coifed young Republican douchebags at his victory celebration chanting "Mac Is Back! Mac Is Back!" like some kind of demented McDonalds commercial. And it was set from there. Moderators at the debates didn't ask him any real probing questions. They didn't call him on his bullshit answers. They didn't skewer him on his twisting of Romney's words and positions. He was just the comeback maverick. Whole thing smacked of standard Republican "wait your turn" ism. Hug up on Dubya at the convention and we'll make sure you get the nod in 08.

So Walnuts ain't run a hard campaign, I'm guessing, in twenty-some years. Add that to his propensity for gaffes, ill-placed jokes, confusions of basic foreign policy terms, and other general screw-uppery, and this doddering old man will be retiring to bullheaded bitterness in the senate, come November.

All this is, of course, assuming the media gets tired of their "McCain=Maverick" narrative, which they've got to. They got tired of Obama=Messiah. If they turn on McCain after, say, August, then he'll be dead in the water.

Ugh. More later.

"Careful what you carry,
'cause the Man is wise
you are still an outlaw in their eyes."
-Steely Dan, "Kid Charlemagne"

-k

Seal the deal, BHO

K:

You should read Ross Douthat's review of Nixonland at the Atlantic.

Also, we should email Christopher Beam at Slate some scenarios for their "Obamapocalypse" contest. Sounds like Politico has their entry in already:

Not long after the polls close in the May 20 Kentucky and Oregon primaries, Barack Obama plans to declare victory in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

And, until at least May 31 and perhaps longer, Hillary Clinton’s campaign plans to dispute it.

It’s a train wreck waiting to happen, with one candidate claiming to be the nominee while the other vigorously denies it, all predicated on an argument over what exactly constitutes the finish line of the primary race.

What's interesting here is that today an Obama campaign meltdown is fantasy, whereas yesterday the meltdown was fact. Or at least news...Whither Bittergate? Why was it significant that Barry called Matt Lauer "Tim"? (NBC thought it was about the incipient meltdown, but clearly Barry just lost his Kenneth: "If you leave the entourage, who's gonna help me tell white people apart?") Also, wasn't I just reading an appeal to BHO to quit? Yes, I was! Who's writing that type shit today?

Me, evidently. Nightmare scenarios for Obama? We're living through them: Barack spends a month dealing with bogus guilt-by-association smears. He fails to seal the deal in either Indiana or Pennsylvania (or Ohio or New Hampshire) despite having a 3-to-1 TV presence and a 4-to-1 bank account advantage. Clinton is allowed to hang on and bleed him to death all spring. Barry doesn't see it, is focused on the math, doubts that Clinton would suicide-bomb the party, realizes too late that he's running against Clinton and McCain. Spends May and June in regal seclusion, sits on his war chest. Both Barry's opponents lambaste him on all manner of strange bullshit; watch for the return of the turban-and-polo-shirt photo. Clinton shows up at the convention the underdog champion of the working-class, trying to do right by the great people of Michigan and Florida, blocks Obama's nomination, waits for fatigue to set in. Obama gets tired of fighting, accepts Clinton's promise of the VP. Obama's delegates from states Clinton won are released. Clinton gets the nomination and picks Evan Bayh for VP. Obama retires to the Senate in shame and disbelief. Clinton loses to McCain by 5%, her hate-factor killing off any hope of Democratic gains in the midwest and rust belt...

Barry needs to start a scorched-earth counterinsurgency now, or yesterday. Al Sayyid Hillary al-Amriki has already riled up the dispossessed majority, staked her claim to the heartland, and issued fatwas against the occupier. The Jaish-el-Clinton cannot be allowed to have safe harbor in Kentucky. Nor can it be permitted to import weapons from the McCainians...

Offense outruns defense

I love this shit:
On Tuesday, Media Matters ran this history of the Lieberman Hack , essentially asking ABC, CBS and CNN to apologize for uncritically passing on false allegations. Betty Nguyen of CNN is the worst offender, first reading verbatim two paragraphs of campaign text:

"[...]Let me just read you a statement from the Lieberman campaign, this from the campaign manager, saying, 'For the past 24 hours, the Friends of Joe Lieberman's website and email have been totally disrupted and disabled. We believe that this is the result of a coordinated attack by our political opponents. The campaign has notified the U.S. attorney and will be filing formal complaints reflecting our concerns.'

Also goes on to say, 'This type of dirty politics has been the staple of the Lamont campaign,' referring to Ned Lamont, the challenger, 'from the beginning, from the nonstop personal attacks to the intimidation tactics'

Now, was Sean Smith chanelling Abe Ribicoff there? That started life as "gestapo tactics," right?

'and offensive displays to these coordinated efforts to disable our website.'

...then Nguyen gives it the full Hindenburg:

"Basically, the situation is: Joseph Lieberman is saying that his website was hacked and that there are major problems with it. People can't even access it, especially on voting day. Today is the primary.[...]"

and delivering the coup-de-grace, emphasis mine:

"And Ned Lamont, as you well would assume, says he has nothing to do with it. There's no tampering of the website. So, we'll see."

CNN clearly did Lieberman a solid by passing along the attack, but what I love is the "all thieves also lie" tone of Nguyen's last comments.

As you well would assume, CNN has nothing to say about throwing the race to Lieberman. Here's CTBob's archive of Liebermania.

Attacks run faster than our ability to verify them. This brings us back to the present and to Barry. The killer in the debate -- man, nearly two weeks ago now -- was his excessively delicate, elevate-the-discourse jive on Wright. This emboldened HRC and Wright to, ironically, go on the road saying the same thing: "This is who I am; I dunno about Barry, but this is me." Barry's pimpslap to Wright should have been much harder, and should have come sooner. He knows he has to be twice as good in order to get half as far.

Willie Horton forever! I mean, if only Dukakis in 1988 had said something like, "If George Herbert Walker Bush is so scared of Massachusetts he can windsurf somewhere else," or, "Willie Horton never made it onto any country club, so I don't know what George Bush is worried about," idunno, something. Nip these things in the bud, people! The time to kill the attack, like a newborn wildebeest, is before it gets its legs under it...

I fear, K, we've drunk the kool-aid on the Wright issue. I don't understand why the Rev is a problem for Obama when dudes like Rev. Hagee and Chuck Keating aren't a problem for McCain. Obviously, we're just missing what Pennsylvania and Ohio and Indiana are getting. And seriously, I have no idea what that is. How the Ivy-educated scioness of Scranton gentry managed to be the candidate of blue-collar whites is beyond me. Do they vote for the boss? In making this election about identity -- rather than, idunno, war, recession, water, food, shelter -- we've handed it to McCain.

McCain by 5 over Clinton.