In a story titled "People Who Might Complicate Obama's Campaign," Christopher Wills struck the first blow the Main$stream Corporate Media will doubtless turn into a pantheon against the presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee.
Wills' story begins this way:
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Who's Tony Rezko? William Ayers? Few Americans know, but they probably will by Election Day.Rezko is a Chicago businessman, convicted of more than a dozen charges this week. Ayers is a professor — and former member of the radical Weather Underground. Both have ties to Barack Obama and may well show up in anti-Obama ads you'll be seeing before long.
These days, presidential candidates can expect to have every personal relationship, new or ancient, inspected like a crime scene on "CSI." Then, if there's political hay to be made, a version of the details is quickly out.
In the time-honored "Fair and Balanced" fashion, Wills adds that John McCain has "problematic people" in his past and his organization. But that's not the focus of this story, so it's elided. Wills generously gives it a summary graf:
Republican John McCain has his own potential problem people whom Democrats may try to exploit. In some cases, they have been for years.
For example, there's Charles Keating Jr., a wealthy savings and loan executive from Arizona who was the focus of a congressional ethics investigation in which McCain was ensnared in the 1980s. Rick Davis and Charlie Black, two men in the inner circle of McCain's campaign, are former lobbyists — hardly a crime but still fodder for critics who want to undermine McCain's self-portrayal as a senator fighting to lessen big money's influence on politics.
So both parties will be researching — and putting the worst face on what they find.
The next 26 grafs focus on potential problematic associates of Obama, ranging from the pastor who performed his wedding to the bride he married there.
So it begins. Edwards' and Clinton's suspended campaigns notwithstanding, the lack of vetting the DNC has done this year will bring us the media's best efforts at creating another debacle a la Kerry and Gore to prop up the faltering "superiority" of the GOP.
And damn it all to hell, why did John McCain not do a Lieberman after the Bush ambush in South Carolina in 2000?
He was then younger, a bit wilder, a lot less heavily identified with the failures of the GOP. Had he chosen to become an "independent Republican" instead of merely hanging onto the tattered remnants of his 'maverick' rep, he might well be the sort of alternative the country, too long at the mercy of the moneyed minions of the corporate nonpersons, needs.
Alas, he chose to cast his lot with the utterly corrupt -- albeit, out of fairness, one must admit he may still have thought Bush would implode on stage as well as in reality (how many thousand times in the last seven and a half years have we, the people, thought, "GOTCHA at last, you worthless back-stabbing son of a ..." in re the latest of W's spectacular effing-ups?) and so, aided and abetted by the likes of Phil Gramm, he walks in the image of the Cheney/Bush presidency.
Sorry, John. I wish I could do better by you.
But I've had my heart handed to me too damn many times in politics, and after what happened with the Democratic Party this month, it's all I can do not to throw up at the idea of voting.
- Sarah's blog
- Login or register to post comments
Front page
Comments
now that it's all set, &
He's actually the nominee, all the vetting and investigations will finally occur--and the McCain stuff is all old while Obama's is all new (and he's a Republican so their crimes don't matter anyway)
By the time this campaign is over, Obama will be to the right of McCain, and will have thrown the entire country under the bus to please the press.
take comfort, sarah
maybe it's not true.
after all,
our resident, highly-trained-in-journalism, super muckraker,
dr. josh marshall
has not yet mentioned the rezko verdict at his weblog
josh's propaganda page
maybe it's all a bad dream.
thanks for putting up the ap report.
*former* lobbyist?
Since when did Charles Black give up his company, his friends, his livelihood, hell, his stock portfolio?
I find it highly unlikely that the media will ever
give McCain proper scrutiny. They might not get invited to the next BBQ at his "rustic cabin" (with pool and poolhouse)
Obama OTOH . . .
------------------------------------------------
“Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.”
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
Is this a Chicago rule?
Just read the AP story and noticed that the wife of Emil Jones got a 60 percent pay jump in her govt. job after he became pres. of the state senate. If I remember correctly, didn't obama's wife also get a large raise after he became a US senator? Guess it pays to have an upwardly mobile spouse.
the day of the conviction
the Chicago Tribune ran this story online and a few hours later the GOP had it up on their website.
Go Hillary or Go Green!
Joementum
And damn it all to hell, why did John McCain not do a Lieberman after the Bush ambush in South Carolina in 2000?
because he wanted to be President, and an "independent Republican" could never get past the GOP primaries.
I'm not trying to come to McCain's defense here, but the simple fact is that had he remained a 'maverick' in the Senate, he would not now be the nominee -- and the efforts to paint McCain as "McSame" are, IMHO, pure demagoguery -- its the same mindset that painted Clinton as "not a change candidate", when every Democrat was a change candidate.
But I've Been Told By Many Bloggers
that the GOP can't use Rezko, that Ayers is no big deal, and that Obama has put Wright behind him.
So I don't see what the problem is. Obama supporters have declared these non-issues. They must be, right? Obama makes his own reality,
kc
you've made a very interesting set of connections.
i believe ms obama did, in fact, receive a very large "raise", to something like $350k, but i am not sure of the timing.
Sarah, Excellent Post
Your analysis is exactly right - watch for more of this kind of "even-handedness."
BTW, don't hold your breath until you see the AP or any of the village elders of the SCLM
note that one of McCain's embarrassments is ex-Senator Phil Gramm and his wife Wendy, or she should be, anyway - he, definitely, being a lobbyist on behalf of the financial institutions who have brought us this credit crises, while he was working in McCain's campaign. I'm sure your are familiar with "Phil," who also played a pivotal role in lying about the original Clinton health care plan for universal coverage. And BTW, while I'm mentioning this, could we all remember, when you see disparaging remarks on liberal blogs about the Clintons and health care that their plan, way back in 1993, was for universal coverage.
Paul, I agree with most of your post, but I'm not sure why the notion that a McCain administration will, in fundamental ways, be an extension of the last eight years is demagogic? He hasn't been a maverick for any portion of the last eight years. Actions count, as Lambert is rightly fond of pointing out, and what I'm remembering are occasions like the 2004 Republican convention at which McCain's speech was as toxic and as resplendent with stab in the back imagery as most of the others, or the way he stated only once that he had no questions about John Kerry's service in Vietnam and then never again questioned either the never-ending swift-boating of Kerry, or the clear connections of same to the White House, he just let it happen, or the role he played, along with Lindsey Graham, after making all sorts of statements about being against torture and then, when trusted by the Democrats to negotiate a genuine compromise with the White House, came back with a bill that gave the White House everything they asked for, which, BTW, was a betrayal as well of the JAG lawyers who had testified before the Judiciary Committee, whom Graham, being an ex-JAG lawyer, questioned during the hearing as if he was completely on their side. I've been trying to find the transcript of that hearing forever, and if I do I'll post on it.
Let me suggest that if someone like KC wants to bring up a possibility, it might be well to investigate before throwing around unsupported veiled suppositions.
Sarah, in answer to a comment you made on another thread, I will be rejoining the conversation to which you alluded, and I will have more to say on the Ayers connection, and on processing what the Republicans will undoubtedly try to make of Rev. Wright and the Trinity Church.
Drumbeat Two - Dead People Voting
Just saw, without sound, the FOX story on how a college class found dead people on voter roles. So we're going to be back to that again, vote suppression by calling it voter fraud.
I can hardly wait to see how a party fights this after it's counted votes for candidate X as if they were cast for candidate Y, not to mention the extensive voter suppression efforts starting in February using the WWTSBQ
? meme.
Principles matter for a reason. Without them, you're reduced to fighting over which voter suppression techniques are permissible or why you can suppress votes in one kind of an election (primaries) but not another (general). Once again, Democrats will be taking nuance to a knife fight.
leah
i like
"unsupported veiled suppositions".
they're fun; they're part of political gossip; they lead to thinking and checking.
why don't YOU check it out and tell us how we are wrong. that would be an advancement of knowledge for all.
on another tact -
leah sez:
"Let me suggest that if someone like KC wants to bring up a possibility, it might be well to investigate before throwing around."
let ME suggest, leah, that this "requirement" you have just imposed is nothing more than an attempt at suppressing commentary with which you are at odds.
corrente is not the new york times - thank god.
oops, poor analogy.
oh, and leah
where SHOULD one go for the pay info?
to noquarter?
no, mustn't go there. they are a naughty website, never to be visited by weblog journos wearing white pants.
rezkowatch?
no, not there. they publish stuff about commies and leftists and the like. plus they happened to be based in chicago which is definitely a minus.
maybe we should file and foi request to the daley admin for ms obama's pay stubbs?
yeah, good idea, wait a bit. i'll be back.
Everybody's right again...
....
OTOH, Leah rightly demands evidence and reasoning and linky goodness.
OTOH, with the press in the shape that it is, we really are flying blind. Where is the good information to be found?
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"Fair and Balanced" right here at Corrente!
On one side we have:
and on the other we get
and the net-net is
Seriously? That can't be right. That isn't right.
If well reasoned, carefully thought through, soundly referenced, logical, rational, well-informed writting is considered equivalent to "Hey, look at this steamer I just pulled out of my ass! Smells interesting, dontcha think?" then I and several others here have been wasting our time.
Not everyone has a gift for seeing connections in new ways and putting them in context. Takes some effort to lay out the pattern, some amount of self-censorship to avoid the foolhardy, and just a dash of common sense. On the other hand, any fool can make shit up, roll it into balls and pass it around because "they're fun." Equal access, equal space, fine enough, a bold experiment; equal respect, OTOH, not happening.
Let your standards slip too far here and you'll end up like every other trashfest on the net. That would be a shame.
you're right, bringtiton
somebody's got to be wrong,
and you're it.
demanding stories be checked carefully for facts is about as old a ploy as there is in the news business for suppressing a story.
it is also a fundamental of the journalistic trade.
how do we now which is being employed in a particular circumstance?
as a guess, when matters are very grave
or very trivial,
it's probably the former at work.
what kc wrote above "is this a chicago rule" was a very funny and possibly a thought-provoking comment.
now it is being treated as if this were a story about who got the hits in last night's ball game - "get your facts right" or don't post.
why, one might ask, is this the case.
well, i'll leave it at this;
the conflict here is not about facts;
it's about covert suppression of comment content.
oh, and bringiton
you seem to have a lot of trouble with the notion that there are paths to heaven different from the one you are treading. (no obama golf allowed)
openness to new info and new ideas and new ways of looking at things
is as much, i would argue is more of, a virtue as carefully checking your facts and carefully crafting your posts, something you do quite well.
the weblog world came into being so individuality could reign,
not so it would be reined in.
I would have read that through
but the "style" gives me a headache.
That about sums it up, for certain.
More dungballs, anyone? They're fresh!
bringiton
when a person as articulate as yourself has only scatological commentary to deliver,
you know they're working out of a deep hole.
From USA Today: Officials
From USA Today:
Officials at the University of Chicago Hospitals say a promotion and large pay increase given to Sen. Barack Obama's wife shortly after the Democrat was elected to Congress were well-deserved boosts for an executive who is "worth her weight in gold." The Chicago Tribune has the story.
"She's terrific," added Michael Riordan, who was president of the hospital in March 2005, when Michelle Obama was promoted to vice president for external affairs and had her annual salary increased from $121,910 to $316,962.
Hospitals spokesman John Easton told the Tribune that Michelle Obama's salary is in line with those of the 16 other vice presidents at the not-for-profit medical center.
Yeah, but they always say that
Not saying there's fire, or even smoke, but they do always say that.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
Not sure if this is a
Not sure if this is a double post but it seemed to diappear after I tried posting it.
From USA Today:
Officials at the University of Chicago Hospitals say a promotion and large pay increase given to Sen. Barack Obama's wife shortly after the Democrat was elected to Congress were well-deserved boosts for an executive who is "worth her weight in gold." The Chicago Tribune has the story.
"She's terrific," added Michael Riordan, who was president of the hospital in March 2005, when Michelle Obama was promoted to vice president for external affairs and had her annual salary increased from $121,910 to $316,962.
Hospitals spokesman John Easton told the Tribune that Michelle Obama's salary is in line with those of the 16 other vice presidents at the not-for-profit medical center.
hobson
thanks for doing that research.
oh, as i have just learned,
sometimes posts get tangled up in security features - e.g., spam filters.
if your post doesn't show up after a bit,
go to the top of the page, click on "contact", and send admin lambert an e-mail.
he's very conscientious.
OrionATL -- you may need to step back a bit.
Correntewire is not DKOS, but we have a tradition here.
Back up what you claim.
Show the links.
They should be to evidence.
And you want to remember to be civil to Bringiton.
We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
very related--on Jim Johnson,
Obama's VP vetter -- http://www.slate.com/id/2192801/#embarra...
"... Why would Obama, in his first big personnel decision, choose a paleoliberal greedhead with a track record of failure? You tell me! He's described Johnson as "a friend." It looks as if he was at best highly susceptible to amicable overtures from someone he about whom he should have retained some critical perspective. ..."