comment #1

Edward says ...

I watched Obama speak at the Capital Conference '08 convention. The more I hear, the more I know he is the man for the job. No bullshit, says it like it is and maintains his sense of humor.

comment #2

Mgmax says ...

You should have quoted the actual meat of the speech, because it's pretty good. (We are interested in substance, aren't we, Obama voters?) I don't necessarily agree with him (I mean, part of the point of NAFTA is that living standards go up when things made overseas are cheaper, if Americans still made all our TV sets a few people would have jobs and nobody could afford those $8000 TVs we make), but it's a reasonable argument for his side.

Will it save him in PA or overall? Hard to say. George Will made the case today, and it's hard not to agree, that Obama was parroting all that "false consciousness" BS liberal academia has been full of, from Chomsky to Thomas Frank to any blog commenter who's ever used the phrase "sheeple," for the last 30 or 40 years. Given its roots in the condescension of our first egghead president, Adlai Stevenson, one is tempted to say there's something in the political culture of Illinois that especially encourages politicians to think of the voters as too bamboozled to do anything but follow orders from the Machine. But the only way out of this is not to keep apologizing for the indefensible, but to start talking substance-- and he did that.

comment #3

sardine says ...

Obama is brilliant. My job is to stay calm...the Clintons & McCain....are sleeze. He must not lose PA by more than 5 points.

comment #4

Mr. Muckle says ...

Obama is so far above the other candidates, who speak only teenage drivel and emotive, lying propaganda instead of substance, that he might as well be from another political planet. He's exactly the kind of paradigm shift we need, but basically, the old guard in media and the rest of established interests have no understanding of this. Any criticism they can cobble together has to assume he's just more of the same old, and they assess him by that standard, which appears to be less and less true the more we see of him. Go Barack!

comment #5

vansmith says ...

he might be too smart for the herd...

comment #6

christian says ...

Speaking of truth, here's Tim Robbins letting them have it at National Association of Broadcasters in Vegas. A great listen:

http://a330.g.akamai.net/7/330/2540/20080414194408/www.broadcastingcable.com/contents/media/Tim%20Robbins-NAB%20Keynote.mp3

comment #7

GonePostal says ...

McCain made similar comments in his Michigan debate with Mitt Romney. He said he wasn't going to stand up there and tell people that their old jobs were coming back, because it simply wasn't going to happen. He didn't pander like Romney did a moment later in response.

McCain is not great on the economy, but don't lump him in with Clinton, please. He has a much better record with the truth than she does. And just to stir things us, while Obama's speach was very good, it won't stop the bleeding from his ill-concieved "bitter" remarks. As much as his supporters are trying to spin it as some kind of deep underlying "truth" that Obama has discovered and dared to talk about, in context with the rest of his speech, it still comes off as elitist and out of touch. The guns and relgion were there long before economic trouble hit.

comment #8

High Chaparral says ...

Wasn't there a scene in Primary Colors just like this?

comment #9

SaveFarris says ...

I love that you point to comments Obama makes about NAFTA and label them as "telling the truth and keeping your word" when Obama's top Econ Adviser (Austin Goolsbee) has already copped to the fact he met with some top Canucks and told them that Obama was merely blowing smoke when it came to re-negotiating NAFTA.

comment #10

ketut says ...

"It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system.

For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones."

Niccolo Machiavelli in The Prince (1530)

comment #11

storymark says ...

SaveFerris: "I love that you point to comments Obama makes about NAFTA and label them as "telling the truth and keeping your word" when Obama's top Econ Adviser (Austin Goolsbee) has already copped to the fact he met with some top Canucks and told them that Obama was merely blowing smoke when it came to re-negotiating NAFTA."

Which might mean something if it had ever happened, but not only has Goolsbee NOT copped to it, he's denied saying it, and the Canadian Government has confirmed that no such meeting ever happened.

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/the_facts_about_nafta-gate.html

comment #12

Edward says ...

Christian, thanks for the Tim Robbins speech. Ketut, very relevant quote. It won't be easy, but we can hope.

comment #13

ketut says ...

>>Ketut, very relevant quote. It won't be easy, but we can hope.

Are you commenting on Obama's message?

comment #14

D.Z. says ...

I think my=may.

Mgmax: "I mean, part of the point of NAFTA is that living standards go up when things made overseas are cheaper, "

And yet we've got more illegals now than before NAFTA...

Postal: "McCain is not great on the economy, but don't lump him in with Clinton, please. He has a much better record with the truth than she does."

Except for continuing to connect Al Qaeda to Iran, and saying things are getting better in Iraq while wearing a bullet-proof vest...

"And just to stir things us, while Obama's speach was very good, it won't stop the bleeding from his ill-concieved "bitter" remarks. As much as his supporters are trying to spin it as some kind of deep underlying "truth" that Obama has discovered and dared to talk about, in context with the rest of his speech, it still comes off as elitist and out of touch."

Yeah, he should just give us all tax cuts on gas prices to prove he's got his finger on the pulse of America.

"The guns and relgion were there long before economic trouble hit."

True, but they didn't start becoming as commonplace until after Republicans started selling jobs to the lowest bidders.

comment #15

Mgmax says ...

"Mgmax: "I mean, part of the point of NAFTA is that living standards go up when things made overseas are cheaper, "
"
And yet we've got more illegals now than before NAFTA..."

$50 to anyone who can explain this comment. Okay, so I guess things... aren't cheaper... and our living standards didn't fall under Bush... hence the illegals? I guess D.Z. just endorsed Bush's economic policies.

comment #16

Mgmax says ...

"True, but they didn't start becoming as commonplace until after Republicans started selling jobs to the lowest bidders."

Right, because the 300 years of white settlement in New England prior to Reagan were well known for 1) vegetarianism and 2) a complete absence of religious activity.

comment #17

roman says ...

"The guns and relgion were there long before economic trouble hit."

But people didn't start voting by them until their economic livelihoods were long gone.

I'm sorry, but every time some new bullshit threatens to take him down, the man just rises above. He speaks the truth like a breed of politician that people of my generation (milennial) have only read about in history books, and becomes stronger and more defiined after all his gaffes.

It was hard to believe at first, but Axelrod was right. They came at the right time. Old politics has been exposed. Joe Voter has gotten wise to his government taking a shit on him because he voted on "values" (smears) last time around.

You can already begin to see the shock in Karl Rove's eyes in his Fox News spots. He saw Clinton pulling the trigger with all the ammo he had set aside for himself, and Barack's beat it all.

comment #18

D.Z. says ...

Mgmax: "Okay, so I guess things... aren't cheaper... and our living standards didn't fall under Bush... hence the illegals? I guess D.Z. just endorsed Bush's economic policies."

Actually, I was referring to their lower living standards, the opposite of which I assumed you were suggesting was the reason for backing NAFTA. And it's only cheap until you have to pay for it a few days after it breaks down.

"Right, because the 300 years of white settlement in New England prior to Reagan were well known for 1) vegetarianism and 2) a complete absence of religious activity."

They weren't always good times, but people who were talented enough didn't have to resort to genocidal tendencies like the rest of the sheep. Now these groups are being encouraged to do so by being denied their true economic niche in our society, in an attempt to help the insurance industry, legal system, and armed forces become more profitable.

comment #19

christian says ...

I pray you're right, roman.

comment #20

Mgmax says ...

"They weren't always good times, but people who were talented enough didn't have to resort to genocidal tendencies like the rest of the sheep."

Ah yes, the death camps of Delaware.

What ARE you talking about?

comment #21

D.Z. says ...

Mgmax: Slavery and "race relations" with the Indians. What else?

comment #22

Mgmax says ...

Oh, now it's totally clear to me. You were making random comments about any of the last four centuries, in reference to events which transpired in one or more of the 8 or 10 states in that region, and I was supposed to see exactly how that related to very specific economic conditions today in the insurance sector which have produced very precise genocidal behaviors in a particular socioeconomic class. Gotcha. (Are the armed forces profitable? I no longer get the annual report.)

If you ask me, it's the damn steam locomotive that killed the Erie Canal and put all the barge-polers out of work, forcing them to take up evangelism and bobcat-hunting. It all started there.