Saturday, August 23

:: How To Be An Asshole, Obamastyle

Clinton's primary ad addressing Obama's inexperience with emergencies of any kind was called "3 am."

Obama's text message announcing he picked someone other than Clinton for VP was sent at:  3 am.

Obama's superficial message: "take that, bitch."

Obama's deeper message: "I lack the maturity to be president. Elect me if you want important national decisions to be made by an arrogant prick whose ego will always come first."


To be clear:  the grave problem that this stunt highlights is not a matter of one candidate insulting another.  It is the Obama campaign's insistence on insulting the millions of Democratic voters who prefer someone else even while his numbers in battleground states are deflating.  He needs these voters, but he can't get past his own bitterness.  Instead he does something that will enhance their antipathy toward him, right on the eve of the Convention.

So where does that leave us, chitlins? We can vote for:

(1) a man with a terrible temper, who will sell out the Constitution for political gain, and who may stumble us into disaster, or

(2) a man who is a shallow and arrogant prick, who will sell out the Constitution for political gain, and who may stumble us into disaster, or

(3) none of the above; we need some real change and continuing to enable the Democratic party only stands in the way.

I'm going with 3.

12 comments:

RS said...

Oh boy.
That is just a dumb take on the whole affair, sorry. I got my text message at 0135 Mountain time (not all of America operates on DC time).

As far as I can tell, the Obama campaign was happily planning to send it out Saturday morning. But when CNN and the AP breaking the news earlier - leaked by an idiotic staffer or someone who finally broke - I was pissed I didn't get to know first ahead of the traditional media. I am sure I was like many other news-watching Obama supporters.
I take the 0135 MT text message as a sign that as soon as the Obama camp found out about the leak, they decided to send it out soon as they could, rather than waiting to send it as planned, maybe 0700 MT (when reasonable people would be awake), so people like mecould feel better (even if I was woken up in the middle of the night). And that is the point of the 0135 MT text message.

Of course, you can spin it and see it any way you want to fit your desired worldview.

Maybe you know, apparently Biden stayed neutral till Clinton dropped out of the race, unlike Dodd, Richardson, Kaine, Sebelius etc.

And it seems Senator Clinton asked that she not be vetted unless she was going to be picked. Here's Newsweek's Howard Fineman, who has apparently had some good insider info this week:

"In short, Obama behaved like a grownup. Even his much-criticized failure to "vet" Sen. Hillary Clinton means less than meets the eye. I talked two months ago to one of her closest legal advisors, who told me that she didn't really WANT to be considered for the number two job--in no small measure because the process would have required Obama's lawyers to comb through her husband's foundation and its murky sources of income.

In that sense, Obama did her a favor by not really demanding to consider her. She would have had to say "no.""

http://www.newsweek.com/id/154863
Of course, that could just be the sexist media GUY making s*** up, right?

Then there's the AP's Nedra Pickler (apparently no friend to Democrats), confirming this story that Clinton didn't want to be vetted unless she was the pick:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080824/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_veep_tick_tock

Real change... yes, we really want someone who openly lies until video evidence proves otherwise, and we worship someone who raises millions for their private foundation just speaking in Kazakhstan and Colombia (right before big trade deals and compacts are negotiated, completely unrelated, of course).

RS said...

By dumb, I mean paranoid. If you really think Obama carried a chip on his shoulder about the "3 AM" ad, despicable as it was... His VP pick was Joe "Obama's the first clean and articulate Black man" Biden.

Oh wait - that just means Obama can get over resentments between the boys, but he's still a sexist prick who will try to run St Hillary of the Clintons to the ground.

Sorry I am so irritable, but I expected something better, more reasoned from you. Particularly since Biden was picked:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/23/7556/28748
[From a self-described "life-long feminist."]

Nina Miller said...

Biden is NOT a friend to women, sorry.

He voted FOR a "partial birth abortion" ban in 2003, without an exception for health or life.

He is FOR using tax regs to deny poor women access to abortion (otherwise known as putting a price on a human right).

He pulled out a sexist joke in his first speech as VP nominee. FIRST SPEECH and he couldn't keep the sexism out.

He did a piss-poor job at the Clarence Thomas hearing because he assumed Anita Hill was a liar.

He spoke AGAINST filibustering on Samuel Alito.

He is a prick.

I didn't make up the 3am thing. That's been noted all over the place.

And last, no feminist posts at DailyKos anymore. That hasn't happened in months. Kos is a feminism-free zone.

Nina Miller said...

"At about 3 a.m., Obama headquarters dispatched the message, which named Sen. Joseph Biden. It was relayed through servers at Distributive Networks' office to phone companies, and from there to cellphones across the U.S. "I'm not sure if that was the optimum time," said Mr. Bertram. "But that's when the campaign decided to send it."

["Mr. Bertram is chief executive of Distributive Networks, a Washington, D.C.-based mobile technology firm the campaign hired to send out its text messages -- including the one it had said it would use to break the news of Sen. Obama's vice-presidential selection."]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121944790472265161.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

"The Obama campaign, which declined to say how many texts it sent around 3 a.m. today, said everything went according to plan."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/23/AR2008082300455.html?hpid=sec-politics (with picture)

3 a.m. -- People begin to receive the official Obama text message alert.

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080823/NEWS/80823049

----

"Oh wait - that just means Obama can get over resentments between the boys, but he's still a sexist prick who will try to run St Hillary of the Clintons to the ground."

Yes, that is exactly what I think, based on the behavior presented by Obama.

RS said...

And St Hillary of the Clintons should be beatified.
If you want to go by what's written, I recall that First Lady Clinton vilified Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers, Monica Lewinsky et al., as part of a vast-right-wing-conspiracy because of course her saintly husband wouldn't commit sexual harassment, the great champion of women's rights.

Yeesh. Paranoia to the extreme.

RS said...

And where did you get the 3 AM thing? Hillaryis44? I haven't seen any links in your post for you to say "all over the place", and any sane person would be ashamed of that site, and wouldn't link to it.

Oh wait, that's because the entire world is anti-feminist/anti-Clinton... Hillary Clinton against the world!

Nina Miller said...

Hon, look at the comment I posted at 11am this morning, particularly in response to you query. Those are three sources with links, though there are many more out there. I found them through this new technology called Google.

You are completely wrong about Hillary vilifying Gennifer Flowers and so on. Lying about a public official's actions in order to discredit her is, I would think, beneath your dignity. The politics of character assassination has been the scummy underbelly of Obama's campaign since NH. Don't be part of it.

Disagree? Prove your statement. Don't hurl smears.

I sentence you to a weekend of Daily Howler and Media Matters.

RS said...

Ahh, I just saw the links. Sorry. [I could delete my crack about Hillaryis44, but then there wouldn't be a record of my mistake, would there?] Anyway, what do you expect the Obama campaign to say, that their hand was forced by the CNN leak?

Besides, looks like you essentially agree Clinton's "3 AM" ad was acceptable - it's OK to scare voters into voting for Clinton over Obama. Just what the Republicans have been doing to Democrats - also partly character assassination. I disagree.

As for Senator Clinton - dismissing the Lewinsky and related allegations as a "vast right wing conspiracy" qualifies as slander, later disproved by President Clinton's own confession.

Besides, you haven't shown where the Clintons are better than Biden/Obama after President Clinton's continued sexual escapades and Senator Clinton's defenses of President Clinton (though as far as I can tell, neither Biden nor Obama has cheated on his wife). I just saw this post by Ann Althouse:

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2005/04/andrea-dworkin-has-died.html
"Feminism was only a means to an end for a lot of people who positioned themselves as the voices of feminism. Their abjectly partisan goals came to light when they supported Clinton and (especially) smeared Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky."

Looks like Althouse leans right, so I suppose all that is just claptrap, and I will continue to look for other such reports. Althouse also makes the "3 AM needles PUMAs" connection:
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2008/08/sending-his-text-message-at-3-am-time.html

Well. Just keep smoking that pipe, and soon you will see a President who calls his wife a c*nt in public. Good luck.

Nina Miller said...

rs, read the althouse quote more carefully. She is not saying Clinton smeared PJ and ML; she is saying feminists did (that's who the "they" in the sentence refers to).

Mind you, I don't recall a single feminist group who stuck their necks out for Clinton. Althouse doesn't either, I guarantee you, because there weren't any.

The whole "Hillary attacked/ intimidated GF/ PJ / ML" is a smear with no basis in truth.

I wouldn't be so quick to deny the vast right-wing conspiracy. Its worked with you.

Look, its like this: what you read in the MSM and in 80% of the new media about the Clintons is a lie. Pure and simple. If you want to know something about the Clintons, you need to do your own research and trust only that information which is thoroughly sourced.

You can either be an honest broker whose opinions are based on facts, or you can be a tool of other peoples' political agendas. Its that simple.

Seriously, how hard is it for you to fact check? Its not like the old days with the microfiche and the archives.

RS said...

The vast right wing conspiracy may have played up Lewinsky/Jones et al., but those affairs are facts, so by dismissing those allegations out of hand, then-First Lady Clinton basically said Lewinsky/Jones et al. were liars. Now we know who really lied (and continues to).

I still haven't seen a credible defense of President Clinton's sexual escapades and sexual harassment of a 22-year-old intern (and potentially other employees), or then-First Lady Clinton's enabling such behavior. If t-FL Clinton says she was unaware of her husband's behavior, she's being disingenuous (wouldn't be a first), or is just dumb.

What I don't get is you repeatedly criticize every other politician other than the Clintons as unworthy of feminist support unless they back the Clintons, and yet, there you have what the Clintons themselves have done (see above paragraph). Supporting the Clintons as a litmus test for feminist values... Very Novel.

Nina Miller said...

Facts, deal with facts and sources/links.....

RS said...

You are a reasonable person, yet you say President Clinton's dalliances with Monica Lewinsky and Paula Jones need sources and links. Surely nobody younger than 30 needs a link for that.

You are a reasonable person, and apparently are a feminist, but you apparently call what happened between President Clinton and Ms Lewinsky not-sexual-harassment. Even though he was the leader of the free world, and she was but a lowly intern less than half his age in his place of work.

You are a reasonable person, but you apparently believe that then-First Lady Clinton didn't know her husband, and was ignorant of his sexual peccadilloes despite his pattern of behavior extending over a decade or more.

You are a reasonable person, and have stoutly, admirably defended Senator Clinton as a defender of women's rights, compared to the apparently-despicable records of Senators Obama and Biden. Even though, if Senator Clinton knew her husband as a wife surely must, she was enabling behavior that exploited younger and lower-positioned women.

I shall not try to convince you further, for you are a reasonable person. All I can do is present known facts and reasonable propositions, and let nature take its course.

Good night, and good luck.