Campaign Art

NOROMNEY (2012) ~ Etching © Richard Serra.

This is among the pieces contributed by Artists for Obama as campaign fundraising treats.

"I'm Barack Obama and I Approve of this Self-Portrait of My Opponent as a Disdainful Ass"

Here is a link to The New York Times report on Mitt Romney channeling Ayn Rand. He all but calls the hopeless 47% parasites! I think Obama ought to simply run the clip and then stroll onto the screen with his "approval." Susan suspects that the video was made by one of the serving staff at the event. Maybe a union member? Wouldn't that be sweet.

Kelly-Giffords Campaign Messages

In my post yesterday I speculated, without evidence, that the electoral campaign last fall in the 8th Arizona Congressional District was likely to have involved themes of weapons and violence and that Jared Loughner would not have had to try hard to encounter such language or imagery. Well, here are a couple of examples from the the fellow who ran against Gabrielle Giffords. He is tea party darling Jesse Kelly. The top image is an announcement that reportedly appeared on Kelly's web page - I am not sure whether the event actually ever took place. The bottom image is of the candidate himself going to war, presumably against the dastardly liberals. (Thanks to Stan Banos for the links.. And no, I do not support the buffoon Matt Drudge!)

If you visit Kelly's defunct campaign web page now you find a standard comment deploring senseless violence. No mention there about this sort of campaign tactic.

Sally Goes to Her Polling Place ...

Election campaigns too often revolve completely around the dour, dissembling or irrelevant. Consider, by contrast, this election advert run by the Young Socialists of Catalonia (Spain). Whether or not the advert helps the Socialists win the election, it has gotten them a remarkable amount of international press coverage ~ at the bottom of this report in the BBC are links to similar reports world-wide. I am sure that there will be many who find this "offensive." Is it more offensive than having politicians lie to you? Is it more offensive than haivng them run on programs that are divisive, militaristic, and exploitative?

And, of course, here is one of the funniest movie scenes ever. Coincidentally, it ran on local TV here in Western NY last night. So, before we all get our knickers in a knot ...

The British Election Campaign

Ah, British politics! There is an election campaign under way. A couple of months back I posted here on some of the early campaign graphics. But now the visuals are heating up a bit. This is a photo of an anonymously created London billboard 'taking the piss' out of the Tory candidate David Cameron. Deserved so, in my estimation. Earlier in the month The Guardian ran an April fool's spoof, claiming that Labour was mounting a campaign seeking to capitalize on the now notorious bad temper of the current Prime Minister Gordon Brown. My sweetheart Susan thinks 'Gordo' is pretty terrific, despite all the bad press. I agree that he is a big improvement on Blair who in Manchester parlance was 'all fur coat and no knickers!' So 'Gordo' is our household candidate. Here is one of the fake posters that The Guardian folk produced.

And, indeed, here is our Gordo out on the hustings, apparently scaring the tar-nation out of a young child. Perhaps Labour might've embraced the spoof? Perhaps the parents here are wondering how they will deal with junior's recurrent nightmares?

Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah in a coffee shop in Kirkcaldy.
Photograph © Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.

Now to the main point. In The Guardian today is this story reporting that the House of Commons has appointed photographer Simon Roberts as the "official election artist." The report notes an extremely interesting twist:

". . . Roberts . . . will, he says, be concentrating on the 'relationship between the politicians canvassing and the voting public with images from battle-buses and village greens to polling stations and shopping centres.' His images will be exhibited in the House of Commons this summer. Alongside them will be a gallery of photographs taken by members of the public.

. . . Roberts has therefore invited people to participate in what he calls the Election Project by sending their own mobile-phone or digital-camera images to a dedicated website. The aim, he says, is to 'create an alternative photographic vision alongside my own' – one that will 'add a collaborative and democratic dimension to the overall work.'"

I think this is a pretty remarkable, self-effacing initiative. Roberts has added a link to the Election Project to his web page. It will be worth following.

The Campaign Logo Graveyard

Where do the logos go when the campaign fades? Mr. Fish offers a couple of answers. The top image is entitled "Das Boot," the bottom speaks for itself.

Bullshit (Second in an Irregular Series): FOX News ~ Hot Air & Obsessed

It really is quite astounding. Media Matters has posted this brief report on the propaganda campaign FOX has been waging against ACORN. If, technically, bullshit consists in efforts at communication without concern for criteria of truth or falsity, the FOX folk seem to exemplify the genre. Lot's of blather no news.

" Fox News and the ACORN charade

By the end of this month, FNC will likely have mentioned the community organizing group nearly 1,500 times, according to TVeyes.com. (The tally currently hovers around 1,480, which is about 1,300 more than CNN). The cabler's over-the-top obsession with the group's urban-based voter registration initiative has become something of a running campaign joke.

Yet asked about it in Politico, retiring Fox News anchor Brit Hume took great pride, boasting, "We had a great run on ACORN."

Hume's self-satisfying view really does capture the FNC ethos. Because in truth, Fox News never advanced the ACORN story one inch. It never broke any news. It never contributing anything journalistically to the story. Meaning, news organizations never (I don't think) had to cite Fox News for anything regarding its ACORN coverage. And its reporting certainly had no impact on the overall campaign.

Fox News couldn't stop talking about ACORN, and yet FOX News never managed to uncovering anything newsworthy about ACORN. It just rehashed and speculated, rehashed and speculated.

Still, Hume boasts FNC had a "great run" on the story. Why, because it filled up endless hours of Fox News programming? Is that how Hume determines a Fox News success?"

Graphic Solidarity

I have pretty regularly posted on topics at the intersection of politics and graphics and more specifically on campaign posters [1] [2]. Here are a set of anarchist spin-offs of the now familiar Obama campaign posters made by Patrick St. John.*

Here are a couple of thoughts, actually an observation and a question:

First, these posters are clever and good for a laugh. But this troika of radicals - Emiliano Zapata, Emma Goldman, and Peter Kropotkin - might well be rolling in their graves at the prospect of being included in this sort of derivative format. (The same would go for other American radicals - Dorothy Day, Eugene Debs, John Dewey, Walt Whitman, W.E.B. DuBois, etcetera.) I myself am afraid that we will now never see the end of such spin-offs. Given that I find the original Obama posters insipid, I'd prefer more creative, original ways of bringing the concept of actual change into the light.

Second, the real message I take from the series comes from the third of the posters. Here is my question. What does it mean, in our current circumstance, to think about mutual aid? Not only is it quite foreign to American society, but where it does exist, it typically is embedded in this or that not-for-profit, all to frequently 'faith-based' (our right-wing PC euphemism for religious), charity establishment. No politics and (God-forbid) surely no empowerment allowed. Solidarity - mutual aid - will not emerge from charity. Indeed, charity is antithetical to solidarity.
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* Thanks Michael! Two things: What's with the 'Professor' stuff! Second, I'm the wrong generation for IM, can't make it work. Sorry. But I read things you send. Say hey to Angela and hug those sweet kids!

Obama Should Repudiate Any Powell Endorsement

There seems to be significant amount of buzz surrounding the possibility that Colin Powell may endorse Barack Obama this weekend. Before getting all worked up, Democrats should recall at least two things. First, not only did Powell lie repeatedly in the course of the BushCo propaganda campaign that led up the Iraq invasion in 2003 but, his command performance at the U.N. arguably was the clincher for the invasion, which was initiated roughly a week later. Second, Powell was among the group of top level BushCo officials who met in the White House Situation Room and approved plans to torture specific detainees in particular ways.

Over at Huff Post the comment threads on stories about Powell's anticipated endorsement are full of folks declaring that Powell is "honorable" and that the anti-war crown ought to 'get over it' now that some time has passed.* This is a pretty astounding lack of self-reflection on the part of people who support Obama as a progressive purveyor of change and hope. (I actually do not subscribe to that view, although he is better than McCain.) I'd love to hear how honor squares with duplicity and inhumanity.

Powell is way too smart and had way too many contacts in the military and intelligence communities to actually believe what he peddled in the run-up to the invasion. (at a minimum he had to have understood that the "intelligence" was contested and that the BushCo line was mostly spin.) And he simply ought to have resigned and spoken out forthrightly about the policy of torture. It is that simple. All the talk about honor and integrity amounts to nothing in the face of the record. If Obama takes on a Powell endorsement, he unnecessarily takes on the burden of an unjustified war - one that he prides himself on having opposed at the outset.
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* For example:

"Powell is the only person to come out of the Bush Administration with high favorability ratings. Only some remnants of the anti war movement still stuck in 2003 care about that much about his UN speech. Iraq was a Bush Cheney Rumsfeld policy. I and most people consider him an honorable man. This is a definite plus for Obama."

"Powell is not tarnished in anyone's eyes except extreme partisans. If he was running for president, he'd win in a landslide."

The McCain-Palin Campaign: Running on Hatred & Fear

McCain and Palin both have invoked the specter of terrorism or socialism or both or something else really, really scary, trying to link Obama in the minds of their supporters to some imagined threat. Their followers seem are rising to the bait.

“A sense of grievance spilling into rage has gripped some GOP events this week as McCain supporters see his presidential campaign lag against Obama. Some in the audience are making it personal, against the Democrat. Shouts of "traitor," "terrorist," "treason," "liar," and even "off with his head" have rung from the crowd at McCain and Sarah Palin rallies, and gone unchallenged by them. [. . .]

When a visibly angry McCain supporter in Waukesha, Wis., on Thursday told the candidate "I'm really mad" because of "socialists taking over the country," McCain stoked the sentiment. "I think I got the message," he said. "The gentleman is right." He went on to talk about Democrats in control of Congress. [. . .]

The anti-Obama taunts and jeers are noticeably louder when McCain appears with Palin, a big draw for GOP social conservatives. She accused Obama this week of "palling around with terrorists" because of his past, loose association with a 1960s radical. If less directly, McCain, too, has sought to exploit Obama's Chicago neighborhood ties to William Ayers, while trying simultaneously to steer voters' attention to his plans for the financial crisis.” ~ AP

For more on all this I recommend this Op-Ed by Frank Rich the other day at The Times - even though Rich seems to be way too sanguine about the racial motivations of many American voters. Notice: this is the same variety of politics we've had from Bush and company - make people afraid and they will simply acquiesce in whatever duplicitous policy or program you promote.

Then, of course, there is this:

"I find that Governor Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52 110(a)of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. Alaska Statute 39.52 110(a) provides:

The legislature affirms that each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust."

Branchflower said the evidence he gathered in the course of a two-a-half-month inquiry led to the conclusion that "Governor Palin and Todd Palin and her family have, over an extended period of time, endeavored to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired from his job as an Alaskan State Trooper." ~ Steve Branchflower, Report to the Alaska Legislative Council (10 October 2008)

So, as Governor Sarah Palin indeed had the power to fire Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. By that I mean simply to say that it was within the powers and prerogatives granted the Governor by the State Constitution. No news there. To the extent, however, that her reasons for doing so included retribution for Monegan's refusal to fire her former brother-in-law from his post as a State Trooper, she violated the law. And, that notwithstanding, she apparently stood by while her husband ran a vigilante campaign against the former brother-in-law. Before the right spins the report's infelicitous prose this way and that, the point is simple - omission and commission are two different things and Palin surely failed by omission. She ought to have ordered the 'first dude' to cut the crap. Even a maverick like Sarah should get that point. One interesting perspective in all this is that the Republican dominated legislature not only initiated Branchflower's inquiry, but voted to release his damning report. Maybe these legislators are members of the republican establishment that Sarah so frequently brags about having challenged. Political lesson: life is a repeated game.

The politics of fear and unabashed, unapologetic abuse of power. Yet more reasons - if you needed some - to vote against McCain/Palin.

Your Candidates on the Arts

So, imagine someone who does not care about such mundane matters as the economy or the war. Imagine someone who is a wholly "disengaged" artist - of just the sort I think is preposterous. Imagine that such a person would shake free of her preoccupations long enough to cast a vote in the Presidential election. Who should such a person vote for? And on what basis should she decide?

What follows, courtesy of The Salt Lake Tribune are the policy statements on the arts from, respectively, the McCain & Obama campaigns. I've appropriately cast them as red and blue. It is hard to figure who drafted these statements. But is it seems clear that someone, at least, in each campaign has (or lacks) thoughts about arts policy in the U.S.; that person may not be McCain or Obama themselves, but someone has or lacks relevant thoughts.

McCain's arts statement:

"John McCain believes that arts education can play a vital role fostering creativity and expression. He is a strong believer in empowering local school districts to establish priorities based on the needs of local schools and school districts. Schools receiving federal funds for education must be held accountable for providing a quality education in basic subjects critical to ensuring students are prepared to compete and succeed in the global economy. Where these local priorities allow, he believes investing in arts education can play a role in nurturing the creativity of expression so vital to the health of our cultural life and providing a means of creative expression for young people."

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Obama platform: (see http://www.mybarackobama.com)

"Reinvest in Arts Education: To remain competitive in the global economy, America needs to reinvigorate the kind of creativity and innovation that has made this country great. To do so, we must nourish our children's creative skills. In addition to giving our children the science and math skills they need to compete in the new global context, we should also encourage the ability to think creatively that comes from a meaningful arts education. Unfortunately, many school districts are cutting instructional time for art and music education. Barack Obama believes that the arts should be a central part of effective teaching and learning.
The Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts recently said "The purpose of arts education is not to produce more artists, though that is a byproduct. The real purpose of arts education is to create complete human beings capable of leading successful and productive lives in a free society." To support greater arts education, Obama will:
---Expand Public/Private Partnerships Between Schools and Arts Organizations: Barack Obama will increase resources for the U.S. Department of Education's Arts Education Model Development and Dissemination Grants, which develop public/private partnerships between schools and arts organizations. Obama will also engage the foundation and corporate community to increase support for public/private partnerships.
----Create an Artist Corps: Barack Obama supports the creation of an "Artists Corps" of young artists trained to work in low-income schools and their communities. Studies in Chicago have demonstrated that test scores improved faster for students enrolled in low-income schools that link arts across the curriculum than scores for students in schools lacking such programs.
----Publicly Champion the Importance of Arts Education: As president, Barack Obama will use the bully pulpit and the example he will set in the White House to promote the importance of arts and arts education in America. Not only is arts education indispensable for success in a rapidly changing, high skill, information economy, but studies show that arts education raises test scores in other subject areas as well.
----Support Increased Funding for the NEA: Over the last 15 years, government funding for the National Endowment for the Arts has been slashed from $175 million annually in 1992 to $125 million today. Barack Obama supports increased funding for the NEA, the support of which enriches schools and neighborhoods all across the nation and helps to promote the economic development of countless communities.
----Promote Cultural Diplomacy: American artists, performers and thinkers - representing our values and ideals - can inspire people both at home and all over the world. Through efforts like that of the United States Information Agency, America's cultural leaders were deployed around the world during the Cold War as artistic ambassadors and helped win the war of ideas by demonstrating to the world the promise of America. Artists can be utilized again to help us win the war of ideas against Islamic extremism. Unfortunately, our resources for cultural diplomacy are at their lowest level in a decade. Barack Obama will work to reverse this trend and improve and expand public-private partnerships to expand cultural and arts exchanges throughout the world.
Attract Foreign Talent: The flipside to promoting American arts and culture abroad is welcoming members of the foreign arts community to America. Opening America's doors to students and professional artists provides the kind of two-way cultural understanding that can break down the barriers that feed hatred and fear. As America tightened visa restrictions after 9/11, the world's most talented students and artists, who used to come here, went elsewhere. Barack Obama will streamline the visa process to return America to its rightful place as the world's top destination for artists and art students.
Provide Health Care to Artists: Finding affordable health coverage has often been one of the most vexing obstacles for artists and those in the creative community. Since many artists work independently or have non-traditional employment relationships, employer-based coverage is unavailable and individual policies are financially out of reach. Barack Obama's plan will provide all Americans with quality, affordable health care. His plan includes the creation of a new public program that will allow individuals and small businesses to buy affordable health care similar to that available to federal employees. His plan also creates a National Health Insurance Exchange to reform the private insurance market and allow Americans to enroll in participating private plans, which would have to provide comprehensive benefits, issue every applicant a policy, and charge fair and stable premiums. For those who still cannot afford coverage, the government will provide a subsidy. His health plan will lower costs for the typical American family by up to $2,500 per year.
Ensure Tax Fairness for Artists: Barack Obama supports the Artist-Museum Partnership Act, introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT). The Act amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow artists to deduct the fair market value of their work, rather than just the costs of the materials, when they make charitable contributions."

Palin's Performance: Incoherence, Bullshit, Amnesia & Causality in the Vice Presidential Debate

Some good bits from the transcript ....

(1) Incoherence.

IFILL: Has this administration's policy been an abject failure, as the senator says, Governor?

PALIN: No, I do not believe that it has been. But I'm so encouraged to know that we both love Israel, and I think that is a good thing to get to agree on, Sen. Biden. I respect your position on that.

No, in fact, when we talk about the Bush administration, there's a time, too, when Americans are going to say, "Enough is enough with your ticket," on constantly looking backwards, and pointing fingers, and doing the blame game.

There have been huge blunders in the war. There have been huge blunders throughout this administration, as there are with every administration.

But for a ticket that wants to talk about change and looking into the future, there's just too much finger-pointing backwards to ever make us believe that that's where you're going.

Positive change is coming, though. Reform of government is coming. We'll learn from the past mistakes in this administration and other administrations. [. . .]

Some questions here: First, just what "huge blunders" are we talking about? I can imagine what Palin might be referring to, but I sincerely am interested in knowing what she has in mind. Second, How does Palin propose to "learn from the past mistakes of this administration" if she is so averse to "looking backwards?" In order to learn from experience or from the past, one needs to examine it. And, third, as a further follow up, is saying that someone committed a huge blunder in the performance of public duties blaming them?

(2) Bullshit. Let's set aside the astounding assertion that McCain and Palin and Obama regularly endorse - namely, that "the surge" in Iraq is working or has worked or will work. I've noted the idiocy of that claim here before on numerous occasions. Why do the press not challenge the claim? Ever?

All along I have found the parsing of terms about our Iraq fiasco to be bullshit. We have military types and politicians trying to differentiate between tactics and strategy in ways that seem usually to be wholly self serving. But now Palin inserts a new distinction.

The surge principles, not the exact strategy, but the surge principles that have worked in Iraq need to be implemented in Afghanistan, also. And that, perhaps, would be a difference with the Bush administration.

What are those principles? How do they differ from the "exact strategy" and, assuming one could differentiate the two, from the military "tactics" we've pursued in Iraq. This is piling bullshit upon bullshit.

(3) Amnesia.

PALIN: I beg to disagree with you, again, here on whether you supported Barack Obama or John McCain's strategies. Here again, you can say what you want to say a month out before people are asked to vote on this, but we listened to the debates.

I think tomorrow morning, the pundits are going to start do the who said what at what time and we'll have proof of some of this, but, again, John McCain who knows how to win a war. Who's been there and he's faced challenges and he knows what evil is and knows what it takes to overcome the challenges here with our military.

He knows to learn from the mistakes and blunders we have seen in the war in Iraq, especially. He will know how to implement the strategies, working with our commanders and listening to what they have to say, taking the politics out of these war issues. He'll know how to win a war.

If I am correct, John McCain has been in precisely one war - Viet Nam. Most of the time he spent as a P.O.W.; I do not make light of that experience in any way, even if I do question how it qualifies him to be president. But let's be clear, if he (or we) learned anything about Viet Nam it is not "how to win a war."

(4) Causality.

IFILL: Governor, I'm happy to talk to you in this next section about energy issues. Let's talk about climate change. What is true and what is false about what we have heard, read, discussed, debated about the causes of climate change?

PALIN: Yes. Well, as the nation's only Arctic state and being the governor of that state, Alaska feels and sees impacts of climate change more so than any other state. And we know that it's real.

I'm not one to attribute every man -- activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man's activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet.

But there are real changes going on in our climate. And I don't want to argue about the causes. What I want to argue about is, how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts?

We have got to clean up this planet. We have got to encourage other nations also to come along with us with the impacts of climate change, what we can do about that.

Well, first, while I do know that many people attribute climate change to human activity. Here Palin asserts the reverse, attributing "every activity of man" to climate change. So. maybe she misspoke. OK. But then we are left with an echo of our earlier question. If we do not identify the causes of climate change we will likely waste a lot of resources and time. If we hope to remedy a problem it is typically useful to identify the underlying causes that generate the problematic phenomenon. The know-nothing attitude she displays is troublesome not simply because it brings to mind our current fearless and thoughtless leader, but because it is surely going to prove counterproductive in terms of remedying problems we face.

A colleague passed along this essay from The New Yorker. It would be funny if it didn't capture so accurately the general tenor of her performance last night. Actually, it is still funny! Thanks Kevin!

Art for Obama Update

A week ago I posted on the Art for Obama auction. The auction is still happening albeit with a couple last minute changes in plan. These were necessitated in order to comply with FEC regulations. I'm linking here to my original post (which I've now revised to reflect these changes) and to the AfO web page, which also has been updated. The auction starts Friday, October 3rd. Please, if you can, make a bid! After watching Sarah Palin tonight, it seems more urgent than ever.

ART FOR OBAMA ~ (Updated 2 October 11:30 pm)*

Fr0m the Series Inscape. Photograph © Ahndraya Parlato

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MISSION ~ Art For Obama is an online auction of photographs to benefit the Obama Campaign. Fifty of the country's most prominent artists and photographers have donated their work for this cause. The auction will launch on October 1st and will run for one week. All proceeds from the auction will go to MoveOn.org, which is currently devoting their energy to helping the Obama campaign. Proceeds will be distributed in strict accordance with Federal Election Commission regulations.
The auction will run from October 3rd at 5pm EST through October 10th, 5pm EST.

WHO WE ARE ~ Art For Obama is a group of five artists who have come together to help the Obama campaign. Because we cannot afford to make large donations ourselves, we want to bring together the leaders of our community to help create change. We are all unpaid volunteers.

This very important and very imaginative project is brought to you by a group of talented young photographers: Ahndraya Parlato, Elizabeth Moy, Gregory Halpern, Whitney Hubbs & Dru Donovan.

The participating photographers are: Nubar Alexanian, Marc Asnin, Uta Barth, Nina Berman, Walead Beshty, Elinor Carucci, Lois Conner, Eileen Cowin, Tim Davis, Doug Dubois, Jason Evans, Wendy Ewald, Larry Fink, Harrell Fletcher, Stephen Frailey, Andrea Fraser, Jason Fulford, Tierney Gearon, Jim Goldberg, Frank Gohlke, Emmet Gowin, Katy Grannan, Sharon Harper, Todd Hido, Jeff Jacobson, Eirik Johnson, Ron Jude, Lisa Kereszi, Justine Kurland, Michael Light, Catherine Lord, David Maisel, Susan Meiselas, Richard Misrach, Laura Mcphee, Abelardo Morell, Carter Mull, Laurel Nakadate, Robert & Shana Parke Harrison, Hirsch Perlman, John Pilson, Laurie Simmons, Mike Slack, Alec Soth, Larry Sultan, Peter Sutherland, Hank Willis Thomas, Catherine Wagner, James Welling, Mark Wyse.
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* Please note: This evening I received an email from the Art For Obama folks noting changes in (1) the timing of the auction and (2) the recipients of proceeds. They made these changes in order to comply with FEC guidelines. I have altered this post to reflect the changes. As of 11:30 pm on 2 October 08, this post is accurate. Thanks Ahndraya!

Let's suspend the campaign . . . HA! HA!HA!

Here is the response from The Guardian campaign blogger Oliver Burkeman:

"John McCain is so maverick that he wants to suspend the election campaign and postpone Friday's debate so that he can return to Washington and help broker a deal on the bailout. According to experts, this is actually the most absurd, impetuous and nakedly disingenuous suggestion that has ever been made in the history of politics, including Ancient Greece and the rudimentary organisational systems archeologists have identified in the lives of early man. It looks like Obama will refuse to comply, and Mississippi State University (sic) says the debate is going ahead, and every single person with an internet connection thinks it's an absurd idea, raising the prospect that John McCain will be the only person to put unity and bipartisanship first, while everybody else will be united in their — no, hang on a minute, that doesn't work. Still, some swing voters may admire the move; we'll have to wait and see."

Obama has apparently declined McCain's suggestion that they postpone the scheduled debate and rush to D.C. to devote their joint, undivided attention to resolving the financial meltdown. Obama has slyly taken the air out of his opponent's sails, insisting that the debate remains crucially important and saying: "Presidents are going to have to deal with more than one thing at a time." True enough.

The real problem here - if we are meant to take McCain's ploy seriously - is that there are people whose job it is to beat the bailout legislation into shape. There are Congressional representatives and Senators who occupy relevant institutional positions in various legislative committees who are meant to be convening meetings, holding hearings, forging compromises, drafting legislation, and so forth.* You know, "how a bill becomes a law" and all that; stuff we learn in 8th grade civics class. Except maybe McCain has forgotten. Or never knew. Do you want this guy to be president? Is he going to ignore Constitutional separation of powers at any crisis, real or concocted? We've seen enough of that from BushCo. Haven't we?
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* None of the committees to which McCain is assigned - Armed Services, Indian Affairs, and Commerce, Science & Transportation - have jurisdiction over the financial system.

Race & The Election

Not long ago I posted on the Democratic Convention and, in passing, mentioned this column from Slate in which the author, Jacob Weisberg, suggests that should McCain beat Obama - given an unpopular war and a economy in the hopper, among other things - the only plausible explanation would be racism. I agree. There are simply lots of white people who cannot bring themselves to consider voting for a black man. And they are apparently don't mind admitting as much. Here from the hardly left leaning New York Daily News:

Poll: Barack Obama could lose six percentage points on election day for being black

By CORKY SIEMASZKO, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Updated~ Monday, September 22nd 2008, 10:13 AM

Six percentage points is the price Barack Obama could pay on election day for being black.

That disturbing calculation was found in a groundbreaking new Associated Press-Yahoo News poll conducted with Stanford University which probes the effect of the Democratic presidential candidate's race on his historic campaign for the White House. "There's a penalty for prejudice, and it's not trivial," Stanford University political scientist Paul Sniderman told the AP. In a close contest, racism "might be enough to tip the election," Sniderman said.

Still, the Illinois senator seems to be making some headway even with white Americans who don't have much good to say about African-Americans. Among the white Democrats who think blacks are lazy, or violent, or boastful, two-thirds said they will vote for Obama over Sen. John McCain, a white Republican.

The poll of 2,227 adults was conducted Aug. 27-Sept. 5, and was designed to probe people's racial attitudes and how those attitudes affect voting.

It shows that when it comes to race, there has been some progress in America: Most white people have positive things to say about black people.

Still, pollsters found that a substantial portion of white Americans have very little contact with African-Americans - and many still harbor negative feelings toward them.

Whites also have a rosier view of race relations than blacks. When asked "how much discrimination against blacks" exists, 10% of whites said "a lot" while 57% of blacks said "a lot."

Asked how much of the nation's racial tension is created by blacks, more than a third of whites said "most" or "all."

Meanwhile, nearly three-fourths of the blacks polled said while people have too much influence in U.S. politics.

Also, the perception that voters in their 20s and 30s might go for Obama because they're less racially biased than their parents might be wrong.

The survey found no meaningful differences in the way younger and older whites viewed black people. But older whites were more likely to say when they really think of blacks than the younger generations.

Not surprisingly, racial prejudice tends to be lowest among college-educated whites living outside the South, the pollsters found.

I've posted the Daily News headline & story here just to suggest that this is not left-wing hyperbole. I urge yo to follow the link I've supplied above and check out the poll results directly. The picture is not pretty. Nor is it much of a surprise. I will also add that Paul Sniderman is a first rate political scientist, so I have confidence in his analysis of the results.

Repeat After Me - "The Surge is Working!"

Two reports in the news today brought to mind the new consensus - shared by both presidential nominees - that "the surge" in Iraq has "worked." The first relates direct evidence from Iraq and appears here in The Guardian. It turns out that the terrorists whom Bush and his minions invited into Iraq are alive and well, prospering one might say. The second, from The New York Times, relates evidence on the opportunity costs of having deployed troops to Iraq in an effort to shore up the disaster BushCo created. Afghanistan, the place the terrorists we allegedly are after actually inhabit, has descended into near total disaster. A job well done for the current Republican administration.

Emmett Till ~ Dangerous Tropes in Current American Politics

Republicans are a funny lot. They have their panties in a knot about Barack Obama's supposed slight of Sarah Palin. You can read the details here. The facts are clear. On this, the Republicans are trying to divert attention from a deteriorating economy, a failed war, and a weak ticket with no new ideas who are making a plethora of questionable claims. Obama is right to call them on this.

From my perspective, a couple of things are important about this. First, let's suppose that in his comment about lipstick and pigs Obama did mean to improvise on Palin's acceptance speech remark about pit bulls and and 'hockey moms.' That is not believable, but let's entertain the possibility just for argument sake. Once we make that assumption it is useful to remember, it was, after all, Sarah herself who first drew the analogy between she and an animal. At the risk of being un-PC, pigs are way smarter and more hygienic than dogs.

Second, and more seriously, if we want to play on unsavory cultural tropes, what are we to make of a bunch of white folks getting apoplectic about a black man insulting a white woman. Have none off these Republicans ever heard of Emmett Till? (Come to think of it, probably not. But before all my right-wing hecklers write in to complain, please remember that you were very likely in full support of Clarence Thomas when he invoked a very similar analogy during the Anita Hill fracas.) Here is our first black Presidential candidate having to defend himself against charges of besmirching the honor of a white woman. Who says we've transcended race? It is so deeply ingrained in American culture and politics that we don't even see it.

Republican Campaign Strategy ... More Bush/Rove Reliance on Bullshit & Lies ...

The Diane Rehm show this morning has a session on how "unfair" the press is being to poor Sarah Palin. As is her wont, Rehm has bent over backwards to accommodate the right wingers. As always, her guests are a handful of journalists and one right wing ideologue, in this instance Heather Higgins, chair of the board, the Independent Women's Forum. This is a persistent pattern on Rehm's part (although often she'll have a couple of right-wing ideologues 'offset' by a journalist). Pathetic.

In any case, there is a story from today's Washington Post on press coverage of the campaigns. Amidst the back and forth about the truth or falsity of this or that charge I noticed this comment:

"John Feehery, a Republican strategist, said the campaign is entering a stage in which skirmishes over the facts are less important than the dominant themes that are forming voters' opinions of the candidates.

"The more the target New York Times and The Washington Post go after Sarah Palin, the better off she is, because there's a bigger truth out there and the bigger truths are she's new, she's popular in Alaska and she is an insurgent," Feehery said. "As long as those are out there, these little facts don't really matter."

Thank You!

"I mean, come on, they must
think you're stupid!"
~ Barack Oama, Terra Haute, Indiana (6 September 2008)

Now that, especially when said with chuckling, disarming disbelief, is the way to respond to claims by the McCain/Palin ticket - which is basically a reincarnation of the lame Bush/Cheney administration - to be peddlers of "change." What they actually are peddling is unadulterated bullshit (in the technical sense).