firealldemagogues.com

If you've never checked out the website firejoemorgan.com, open a new tab and open the site up. The site consists of 3 guys (mainly) taking turns critically analyzing/making fun of terrible or hackneyed or internally inconsistent sports writing.

I'm going to do the same thing here, but with terrible or hackneyed or internally inconsistent political writing. Let's start here. The original article is in bold, my commentary in plain text. Tony Blankley, fire up the demagoguery:

McCain's Duty Call

Uh - uh huh huh.

The essence of this election season couldn't be simpler. The American public is so appalled at the condition of the country (which it unfairly, but not implausibly blames on the despised President Bush) that with fate casting John McCain in the role of Bush's surrogate, a majority actually is considering voting for Sen. Obama.

How generous to concede that it is plausible to blame George Bush for the condition of the country. Certainly, the economy runs in boom and bust cycles, and we can't blame the entire current financial crisis on Bush. He's also not personally responsible for the housing bubble bursting, leaving a mess of sub-primy foreclosures all over the country. And it would be totally off base to blame him for the Ritchie-Madonna separation.

But, on everything else - hey, he's the most powerful man in the world. He had the final call on whether to invade Iraq. He maintained an undermanned force there. He authorized reprehensible methods to gather information for that war. His war has led to higher gas prices. And even if he is not to blame for the current economic mess, his administration has been re-active, not pro-active, in solving it.

Did "fate" cast John McCain as the role of Bush's surrogate? Well, unless Fate (R-AZ) cast votes in favor of torture and against ending the war, supports privatizing social security and extending tax cuts for the top income brackets, McCain is not merely a passive stand-in for Bush. McCain is not Bush, but he has tilted toward him for the last 4 years to attract the Republican establishment, and nominated Bush's less intelligent younger sister as his running mate.

And when an electorate is intent on doing something, the last thing it wants to hear about are the facts. Moreover, the public's lack of interest in the facts is facilitated by the major American media's refusal to report them.

Seems to be that people like to hear about facts - gas prices, grocery prices, foreclosure rates, etc. But I am glad that Blankley wants to argue this on facts. That is a good way to go about it. And damn the media for refusing to get the facts out there! If only there was a columnist for a well known newspaper situated in the nation's capitol who would write about this. On to the facts!

For example, as Obama has portrayed his political career as one extended beau geste to the ideal of American democracy, a slightly curious media would have thought to report on how he ran his previous elections. And those prior elections, far from being models of honest elections honestly fought, are redolent of Chicago politics at their most suspect.

FACT NUMBER 1 - Obama's honest past honest elections are honestly not honestly fought, but honestly instead honestly redolent of Chicago politics at their most suspect....Wait a sec, that's not a fact - that's a conclusion. But I am sure there are ironclad facts to support it. Since it is a striking conclusion, I expect there will be compelling facts to support it.

Obama's first election was described recently by Martin Fletcher, a foreign correspondent for NBC News, in the British newspaper The Times (not on NBC): "Mr Obama won a seat in the state senate in 1996 by the unorthodox means of having surrogates successfully challenge the hundreds of nomination signatures that candidates submit. His Democratic rivals, including Alice Palmer, the incumbent, were all disqualified." Hmm.

FACT NUMBER 1 - Obama pointed out that his rivals had illegally gained access to the ballot. And he thereby won the seat! He didn't have to go out and campaign, cut ribbons, kiss babies, any of that stuff - he merely got all of the other Democratic candidates disqualified. Then, they decided not to hold the general election, so he didn't have to worry about the Republican opponent.

Snark aside, in Obama's district, the primary was the equivalent of the general. And Obama did end up running unopposed - read here for a much better summary of the Obama's time in Chicago. But whose activity was "suspect"? - Obama's, or his opponents who had broken the law? It was opportunistic, but not dishonest, for Obama to get his opponents kicked off the ballot.

Plus, I would think that the conservatives wouldn't be bad-mouthing efforts to vote-related fraud right about now. Pretty weak stuff, Blankley. What else ya got?

Obama's election to the U.S. Senate was even more curious...

What about those other elections to the Illinois State Senate in 1998 and 2002?

..."In the Democratic primary, he was a long shot. But a month before the election, his main opponent, Blair Hull, a wealthy Chicago futures trader, was forced to publish divorce papers that revealed, among other charming details, his wife's claim that he had once threatened to kill her.

"In the general election, lightning struck again. His opponent, the engaging Jack Ryan, had run a campaign as a different sort of Republican. But a few months before the election, his divorce papers revealed that, while he might have been a different sort of Republican, he was from precisely the same stable of Obama political opponents. He had, it turned out, once tried to force his former wife to go with him to sex clubs in Paris."

FACT NUMBER 2! Obama's opponents were sleazebags! Does that make Obama dishonest?

Was Obama really the innocent beneficiary of these rare events? Anything is possible. But when a fellow deals himself two royal flushes in a row, the other players are entitled to be suspicious. Moreover, when a politician is suspected of hypocrisy, the Washington press corps usually is supercharged in its efforts to prove their suspicions. But despite the fact that these bare outlines of Obama's elections are pregnant with the implications that he has gained every office he has sought so far by underhanded and sordid means -- while posing as a Gary Cooper-like idealist in a corrupt political world -- the American media have let these extraordinary events simply pass without significant comment.

FACT NUMBER 3! Anything is possible...you can be suspicious...pregnant with implications...extraordinary events. No facts here. Did Obama publish the divorce papers? Did he threaten somebody to make them publish them? Did he sleep with Ms. Hull and Ms. Ryan? (He is pretty handsome).

Obama has sought 4 offices - Illinois state senator, U.S Rep., Senator, and President - for a total of 6 races. Blankley mentions 3 of them, but accuses Obama of gaining every office through underhanded and sordid means. He has one fact that doesn't support his conclusion, one fact that has nothing to do with Obama, and one innuendo that he blames others for not researching. If voters are not interested in "facts" it is because they are the kind of "facts" that Blankley is putting out here.

During the past few weeks, as I have been traveling extensively across the country, I have yet to find anyone (including a few reporters and producers at local news stations in Florida, California and New York) who has heard of these facts. The response when I recite the facts is always about the same. More or less: "Really? Wow!"

More - Really? Wow! That doesn't prove anything!
Less - (polite nodding, getting away from Blankley as fast as possible)

That was fun - let's do this again.

The Maverick vs. a maverick

I think we can all agree that the current downturn in the economy is due to government oversight. Those who blame the plummeting Dow on Uncle Sam blame the government's oversight, that is, it's excessive regulation of the economy. Those who believe that there has not been enough regulation consider this failure an oversight of the government, that is, something the government failed to do. Oversight is an antagonym - a word that, through the passage of time, has come to mean it's exact opposite.

John McCain has self-identified as another such antagonym (and eponym): a "maverick." Samuel Maverick was a Texas rancher who refused to brand his cattle. (His descendants, by the way, don't like McCain). As a result, unclaimed cattle wandering the Texas praire came to be known as "mavericks." The ambiguous nature of such beasts led to the rule that anybody who disovered a maverick and branded it could call it his own. Thus, at least in 19th century animal husbandry parlance, a maverick was not a loner or an independent - it was something that was yours for the taking. Today, maverick commonly refers to a dissenter or an independent. In actuality, maverick means both something claimable and unclaimable.

Which type of maverick is John McCain? Upon his election to Congress, in 1982, McCain was a self-described foot soldier in the Reagan revolution. He did not really buck his party until he emerged only slightly scathed from the Keating 5 scandal. The incident seemed to liberate him from the orthodoxies of his party. He left the Republican ranch.

The newly minted maverick took on big tobacco, and sought to limit campaign contributions. Much like his partner in that effort, Senator Feingold, he voted to confirm Ginsburg and Breyer as supreme court nominees, on the theory that such selections were the president's prerogative. (Feingold voted to confirm Alito and Roberts). McCain worked with both Massachusetts Senators - Kerry on normalization with Vietnam, and Ted Kennedy on immigration reform. I recall an issue of The New Republic from 2000, in which the editors endorsed both John McCain and Al Gore for president, saying of McCain that he was a conservative who, after thinking about things for a while, decided that the liberal side was the right side. (paraphrase). After the 2000 election, in which he was unfairly savaged by Bush during the primaries, McCain's movement across the aisle became more pronounced, culminating with his open flirtation with the 2004 nomination for Democratic vice president.

The maverick dodged that brand, and stayed loose for four more years. But in the quest for the Republican nomination, and the presidency, he let himself be seared. John McCain didn't bring his individuality - his lone wolf streak - to the Republican party, he let the Republicans leave a permanent mark on him. He came to change the Republican party and the Republican party changed him. He denounced his own former stands on immigration and health care. He retroactively opposes the nominations of Ginsburg and Breyer. He proposed to expand the Bush tax cuts that he initially opposed. The Texas ranch-owner branded his party's maverick. McCain has been claimed.