FireDogLake’s Swopa, for this:

John McCain Orders Up an Acme Self-Hoisting Petard

With all the shakeups since he entered the presidential race, it’s been hard to know who’s running John McCain’s campaign… but I’m gradually becoming convinced that it’s Wile E. Coyote.

The whole thing is good, and calls attention to a new Obama campaign-related web site: Low Road Express. The conventional wisdom used to be that the fact-checking approach to fighting smears was useless because it lends credence to them, but the internet’s the perfect medium to reverse that concept; if any campaign can do it, it looks like being Obama’s.

By this standard, all German politicians with more drawing power than John McCain…er, all German politicians, natch, are, in fact, incipient Hitlers.

Here’s a tip for liberals: If your candidate is going to stage enormous rallies in front of tens of thousands of chanting Germans (with monuments to Prussian military might in the background) in the middle of his Presidential campaign, it isn’t the GOP’s fault if the footage comes out looking a little like Hitler at Nuremberg.

To be fair to Ross Douthat, I too get nervous whenever I see large groups of white people chanting things.  Like at Queen concerts, or megachurches. 

UPDATE: Blame the Jooooooos!

We’ve all had the job - the one where the manager buys into some cockeyed theory about supervising that makes their obvious failings the double-secret-reverse method of improving the workplace.  They aren’t obsessively checking your computer logs because they’re a prying dick who doesn’t trust you, they’re doing it because it encourages accountability and honesty.  They aren’t having painfully useless staff meetings because they need to play ridiculous dominance games, they’re doing it because they’re shown to increase staff coherence by 27%.  They don’t hold you responsible for your hours in a way they don’t hold their friends accountable because they’re a petty, tribalistic asshole, but because you’re just starting out and need to be shown the right way before you can veer off course.

One of the biggest disconnects for the media this entire cycle has been the fact that McCain’s supposed to be a more decent guy than his campaign is making him, and Matt touches on this in the same light I did this morning - the idea that McCain’s just somehow being buffeted by a campaign strategy that’s pushing him away from his moorings.

Something else I was thinking about as well: if we assume McCain’s not being passive, and that he’s making active managerial decisions, he’s the single worst manager imaginable.  He’s chosen people who don’t agree with his leadership philosophy, who can’t work towards his vision, who give him material he can’t keep straight, who say things he doesn’t agree with and who, at the end of the day, make him look like a worse person.

I really do think that he should be given full control of a nuclear arsenal, so that when his National Security Advisor, Murder O’Plenty, decides that we need to nuke China, we can have a wall-to-wall week of coverage on how this is actually good news for John McCain, because we’ll finally see the kind-hearted maverick we know and love in the tenderly crafted psuedo-apology to the last three residents of Guangzhou.

The Boston Globe has an excellent article on how rattled the Unitariasn are by the shooting by domestic terrorist Jim Adkisson in the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. The liberal denomination is aghast at the declared motivations of the crime.

“The first reaction is, ‘Why a Unitarian Universalist church, and why go in there when there are children there and try to kill people because of liberalism?’ ” said the Rev. Kristen Harper, minister of the Unitarian Church of Barnstable on Cape Cod.

“Even though he’s crazy, you still wonder, why a liberal church, and how does shooting up liberals make sense?” she said. “For people to use violence against us, it’s really sad.”

...“If you ask members of our congregations in the South, they will tell you that they function as sanctuaries in an environment that is dominated by the more fundamentalist Christian traditions, and they’re quite clear that one of the functions they play is to be sanctuaries for persons who have a hard time finding sanctuary elsewhere,” said the denomination’s president, the Rev. William G. Sinkford, who also traveled to Knoxville Monday.

“The shooter clearly articulated that he had a problem with what he described as the liberal movement and said that because he couldn’t get to the leaders of the liberal movement, he was going to attack those who supported them,” Sinkford said.

“But there’s a vast difference between having a philosophical disagreement with someone and entering a sanctuary with a sawed-off shotgun and beginning to shoot, and my judgment is he lost the battle with his demons,” he said.

In wingnut land, they are desperately trying to disconnect Adkisson from their shared political beliefs, deeming it as simply mental illness. Well, I guess on the left have come to the conclusion that a significant portion of the right is suffering from some sort of delusion. Jesus’ General wrote a letter to Confederate Yankee:

Your post on the Knoxville church shooting was just about perfect. I particularly enjoyed how you admonished those who would use the tragedy to “go on a shrieking political bender,” after you so shrilly declared it to be an example of Christian persecution.

Please note, however, that I described the post as being “just about perfect.” As good as it was, it could have been better. I think you stumbled when you described the church as being Christian. I don’t think you really believe that, do you? We are talking about a Unitarian Universalist church here after all. No true Confederate Christian believes Unitarians are Christian. Hell, they’re worse than the Catholics and Mormons combined.

You should have just called it a Southern Baptist church. Doing so would have made your Christian persecution argument much more compelling.

Below the fold, Dave Neiwert shares nice conservative talking points calling for violence against liberals.

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Have at it, folks—the bleating Faux News talking head, in a Washington Times op-ed:

Yes, I am part of the 1 percent of Americans that paid an astounding 40 percent of all federal income tax in 2006. According to recently released Internal Revenue Service figures, about 50 percent of my fellow Americans paid no federal income tax at all that year. My fellow 1-percenters and I covered for them. But for some it is still not enough.

President Obama and a Democratic Congress will likely dole out entitlements like free health care, child care and cash payments to anyone who falls under a certain income level, no matter their circumstances. That means people who drink gin all day will get some of my hard-earned money. Folks who dropped out of school, who are too lazy to hold a job, who smoke reefers 24/7 all will get some goodies in the mail from Uncle Barack and Aunt Nancy, funded by me and other rich folks.

Hat tip to Think Progress, that noted the fact that “the average tax rate of the wealthiest 1% fell to its lowest level in at least 18 years,” according to the WSJ.

This quote from Rush Limbaugh encapsulates why wingnuts are having a hard time reconciling their love of overconsumption with their responsibilities towards their children they insist are a requirement of proper “family values”. 

Folks, I don’t know what the price of gasoline is in China and I don’t know to what extent, if any, it is subsidized — okay, it is subsidized. See, the ChiComs need their economy growing. They need people driving around, moving around. They need people to be able to afford fuel, so they’re subsidizing fuel. They’re not bailing people out of stupid home mortgage messes. They’re buying their gasoline for them, because they need an economy. Know what energy means to this, the whole subject of economic growth. So meanwhile, the ChiComs, a country certainly growing, certainly on the rise, but it ain’t the United States of America. How does it make you feel that Zhang Linsen has a big Hummer with nine speakers blaring as he pulls out into a four-lane road with so much smog he basically can’t see the car in front of him, and you are trading in all of your cars and trying to go out and find basically a lawn mower.

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CNN, this morning:  Exxon Mobil earns more money than any company ever has, ever. 

American Petroleum Institute ad on CNN, this morning: “While America’s oil and natural gas industry earns less than many other industries…”

That may be an ad that you want to pull on earnings days, guys.

It says something about misogyny and presidential politics that one of the most sexist attacks thus far has been launched against the male Democratic candidate…and that it’s considered just a “tough” ad that, through watching cable news seems to be mainly about whether or not Britney Spears should be involved in politics.  (Apparently, all those post-primary investigations of sexism against Hillary Clinton got stuck the same place all the fact checkers did.) McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds:

“This is a typically superfluous response from Barack Obama. Like most celebrities, he reacts to fair criticism with a mix of fussiness and hysteria,” says McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds, before trying to link the attack back to offshore drilling.

The Hysterical Bitch spot:

Let me start by rolling back to this Richard Cohen article from a couple of days ago, and the surrounding coverage it got.  There are Very Simple Rules when it comes to covering presidential candidates.  Republicans are always good people who happen to wander away from their mores because of the icky demands of campaigning, Democrats are always probably weirdos who are just trying to hide it long enough to get to the White House.  It’s an instinct that comes from the internalization of being the Librul Media and the externalization of Oh Shit, We Can’t Be The Liberal Media.  The easiest way to do it is to show that you have a Republican friend, that you can look past your alleged ideology and partisan ties and find something good and honorable in the other side.  In the same vein, you find them all practicing the exact same brand of “Even The” Liberalism, where their main method of addressing Democrats is looking for flaws and failures so as not to seem biased.  Of course, it produces the exact opposite result - a media that constantly focuses on the failures and flaws of Democrats and continually excuses Republican failures and lies because, hey, that’s not really who they are.

John McCain gave a speech this morning attacking Obama - when there’s video up I’ll link to it, but the most telling part of it is that McCain was reading straight off of a sheet of paper.  He wasn’t speaking extemporaneously, he was literally reading off of a report like a seventh grader asked to evaluate The Outsiders who knocked off the report last night based off of Cliffs Notes.  There are two ways of evaluating this:

1.) The Sane Person’s Way:  McCain is so hungry to attack and tear down Obama that he’s willing to read a stream of nonsensical bullshit that he can’t even remember or deliver competently, and embarrassing himself in the process.

2.) The Richard Cohen Way:  John Mccain’s irrepressible maverickness lets him understand that this isn’t really who he is, but it’s something he’s doing to try to win, so we can’t really judge him on it.  When will we see the real, honorable John McCain again?  And when do I get on the new Straight Talk Express?

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Why does American Apparel have to fuck up everything good with a thick coat of demoralizing sleaze?  Even setting aside the complexity of their labor issues (they say they pay fair wages, their employees say they’ve been union-busted), there’s a lot that you would initially like about the company.  I like cotton.  I like bright colors.  I like silly ad campaigns.  I really like that nice, thin cotton that’s flattering while still being, you know, cotton.  I don’t like leggings, but that’s a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things that AA sells. But everything is coated in this sexist sleaze that dares you to complain about it, lest you get accused of being anti-sex. 

And now they’ve gone and fucked up Dr. Bronner’s.   I’m taking this personally—-Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap is a summer tradition of mine, because it feels really cool and clean when outside feels hot and heavy.  I’m not oblivious to some of the double entendres that can be spun out from feeling tingly all over or anything, but that’s the sort of thing that can be sexual without demeaning women.  It’s certainly not in the four toxic categories of demoralizing ways to look at female sexuality that not only turn off your thinking individuals, but are repulsive.

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It’s weird how PZ’s prank with the communion wafer is really creating a moment of reckoning out there, but I’m going to chalk that up to the summer news cycle.  There was part of this heartfelt and moving post by Stephen at Cogitamus that made me realize that there’s more to be said on my metaphor of the relationship between church/religion/“god” and the believers as that between a man drunk on male privilege and a woman who puts up with it.  It was this:

The only way to portray him so is to take seriously the claims American Christian Fundamentalists make about the Bible:  that it was written merely as an account of the history of the world from the first day.  I simply see no reason why I should trust their interpretation, when the better one is that the Bible is, from Genesis to Revelation, a theological treatise about the nature of God and humanity.  Every story, whether we can connect it to a historical event or not, should be read in this light.  And when read with this insight into the priorities of ancient Hebrews and Christians, we read of a far different God than the one which delights in slaughter of innocent men and women, the one which is always looking for a reason to get pissed off and punish us.

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I’ve been busy and haven’t briefed folks on the Taser-happy crowd for some time; it looks like the Charlotte-Mecklenburg PD is having a whale of a time with its shock-inducing, deadly device.

A Statesville man died after being shocked multiple times by Tasers at the Iredell County jail over the weekend, sources say.

Anthony Davidson, 29, was unresponsive when he was taken to Iredell Memorial Hospital Saturday afternoon. He was put on life support and died late Sunday night, police said.

His death is the second Taser-related death this year in the Charlotte area. In March, 17-year-old Darryl Wayne Turner, died after Charlotte-Mecklenburg police used a Taser on him at a Food Lion store in Charlotte.

If you read the whole article, it’s clear that Davidson was having difficulties—he was unable to pay for groceries at a local store, rolled the cart out—but drove away without them. He was followed and then

When officers caught up with Davidson a short time later, he was carrying an Applebee’s gift card from the store that hadn’t been paid for, Anderson said.

Officers took Davidson to the Iredell County Jail where he appeared before a magistrate on a larceny charge. Davidson was behaving abnormally from the time officers first encountered him, Anderson said.

While being booked, Davidson became “physically aggressive and was communicating loudly,” Anderson said. That’s when officers used one or more Tasers to get him “back under control,” police said.

He was hit three times and according to a nurse was “under the influence of some type of impairing substance.” Davidson was unresponsive when he was taken to the hospital, where he went into intensive care. He was taken off of life support that evening.

More below the fold, including another Taser death caused by cops shocking a man covered in gasoline, setting him on fire.

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The McCain campaign cringe factor spirals ever higher:

[New Hampshire businessman Steve] Duprey trotted out a dizzying array of caps in both bright and muted colors, all sporting unique logos such as “McCain Pirate,” “Keeping America Safe” and “Team Kaleefornia” (in homage to the Arizona senator’s close ally, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger). Most of the time the colors reflect the hats’ message—“Veterans for McCain” is in camouflage, “Another day at the beach” is in lime—but sometimes they don’t, such as the hot pink “McCain Pirate.”

“The sign of an overactive and underutilized mind,” Duprey muttered as he moved on from caps to shirts.

His shirts are just as varied, with matching “Johnny Mac is my Home Boy” and “The McCain Blogettes are my Home Girls” in black, and the simpler “1191” in maroon, which refers to the number of delegates McCain needed in order to secure the GOP nomination…

While searching for a hilarious picture of personalizable flip flops to suggest further swag Duprey may want to produce, I found…well, this:

News reporters on the plane also received yellow-and-blue flip-flops printed with the message “McCain ... Another Day at the Beach…”

Isn’t that a rather dangerous form of footwear for a senator who has been accused by some in his own party of changing his positions on issues such as immigration reform and tax cuts?

It would be, if any of the media applied the same standards to McCain as they do to other candidates. But apparently their love of swag extends even to the worst swag in the history of the world.

for me (if indeed you’re still waiting) to come back and finish the latest Jamie story, here’s a real surprise from the campaign trail.  No, not there.  Here!

And yes, I’m still working on that bold new theory, too.  These things take time, folks.

From Jesus’ General

Thought for the

evening

morning: Do you suppose Ted Stevens declared his Marvel freebies correctly?

* For the moment, anyway.

Good to see Oregon’s Jeff Merkley among the first to call for his opponent to return his $39,000 in Stevens money. (via D-Day.)

I met Merkley (well, shook his hand, anyway) at Netroots Nation, and it’s another Netroots Nation event that comes to mind when I read this story: Lawrence Lessig’s keynote address.

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In discussing the presentation, Darcy made the prediction that the actual initiative would suffer by comparison to the announcement. Trying to simply navigate the site, let alone figure out which candidates agreed to what, lends support to his theory.

Let’s hope it picks up. I’ve been reading political theory lately, not that you’d know it from my blog posts, and it strikes me that James Madison’s Federalist #10 implies a fine argument against money in politics. I doubt he meant it so - he was too busy arguing against paper money’s existence to worry about its direct effect on politics - but his argument that a republic has an advantage, and a large republic a larger one, in the restraint of special interests is short-circuited by the ability of money to tip the scales.

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