Because what everyone needs to hear is more about what Karl Rove thinks.

McCain ‘08!

Tonite on Larry King (please don’t ask why I was watching Larry King) I watched Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R - Texas) say she wouldn’t, “be in a position” to to accept an offer for the position of McCain’s Vice President. The only thing funnier than her running away from McCain as fast as he ran away from Hagee was that the day after the effective beginning of the General Election season Ari fucking Fleischer shows up in the very next segment shilling for McCain. Ya, that Ari Fleischer. Bagman and habitually compulsive lair. Bushist. Oh, but we use “McSame” too much.

Oy. They’re at it again…

Tuesday, May 27, 2008 17:22 EDT
Obama and the Holocaust

In remarks he made on Memorial Day, Sen. Barack Obama reached back to some old family history. “I had an uncle who was one of the, um — who was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps,” Obama said. “The story in our family was that when he came home he just went up into the attic and he didn’t leave the house for six months.” (Video follows at the bottom of this post.) There was just one problem with this story: American troops didn’t liberate Auschwitz — the Soviet Union’s Red Army did.

The comments, and the mainstream media’s treatment of them, sent conservative bloggers into a tizzy. The right has been focusing a lot of attention recently on alleged gaffes by Obama, and complaining that the media doesn’t treat him the same way Republicans are treated in similar situations, and this added fuel to the fire. At the National Review’s Campaign Spot blog, Jim Geraghty wrote, “Dan Quayle gets defined by one foolish moment where his (sic) misspells ‘potato,’ and George W. Bush is forever mocked as a dunce for his (admittedly classic) ‘Too many OB-GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across this country.’

“If the MSM would either A) be more forgiving of Republican officials who they don’t like or B) be a little tougher on Democratic officials they do like, the world would be a better place.”

McCain’s grasp of the differences between Sunnis and Shiites, Arabs and Persians, appeasement versus diplomacy, they should be ignored, you see. They’ve nothing to do with pressing foreign policy issues that the next President will be dealing with. Instead we should seize on Obama’s gaffe in relating a little family history. Not so fast:

…according to the Obama campaign, all this outrage may have been just a little premature. It admits that the Auschwitz part of the story wasn’t true, and that it was in fact Obama’s great uncle he was referring to, not his uncle, but according to Obama spokesman Bill Burton, there’s an innocent explanation. In a statement, Burton said, “Senator Obama’s family is proud of the service of his grandfather and uncles in World War II — especially the fact that his great uncle was a part of liberating one of the concentration camps at Buchenwald. Yesterday he mistakenly referred to Auschwitz instead of Buchenwald in telling of his personal experience of a soldier in his family who served heroically.”

Burton also provided a link to the Web site of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which has a page dedicated to the division the Obama camp claims Obama’s great uncle belonged to, the 89th Infantry Division. That division is officially recognized as a liberating unit. In 1945, it liberated Ohrdruf, a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany.

I will give the conservative bloggers one thing. They’re right that it was easy to check Obama’s original story, and that the reporters who mentioned it in their stories on the speech could have — and should have — checked Google to see who liberated Auschwitz. But then, by the same token, conservative bloggers could have — and should have — seen if there was another explanation before they launched their accusations against Obama.

Sloppy, yes. But Auschwitz could in no way be conflated with Tuzla, let alone McCain’s myriad of misrememberings. If this is the best the wingnuts got, Obama should be preparing his victory speech for November.

A little of what I heard on the way home from drill this weekend of CSPAN’s XM rebroadcast of Meet the Press:

I have never challenged other people’s patriotism. I haven’t challenged Hillary Clinton’s or John McCain’s, and I will not stand by and allow somebody else to challenge mine. The fact that I’m running for president right now is an indication of how much I love this country, because it has given everything to me. This country has been a great source of good. I’ve lived overseas and seen the difference between America and what it stands for and what other countries oftentimes stand for and where they fall short. I’ve, I’ve said before, my story’s not possible in any other country on earth. You know, when I think about this country, I think about my grandfather fighting in World War II in Patton’s army; I think about my grandmother staying home–staying back and, and working on a bomber assembly line while she was raising a kid in–as, as they’re coming out of a depression. And, and so this country is the–it defines, for me, what’s possible for not just me, but for so many people who see this as a beacon of good, including my father, who originally came here seeking an education in this country. So I love this country. It is what I have been fighting for, a–that America lives up to its values and its ideals. And that’s what I think the people of Indiana and that’s what the people of North Carolina are looking for right now. What, what–they love this country as well, but what they’ve believe is that the values that have built this country, the belief in–that hard work is rewarded, that you can raise a family and have health care, and buy a home and retire with dignity and respect, that those things feel like they’re slipping away. And what this campaign’s about, what I think this moment is about in America is whether or not we are going to fight for those ideals that make this country great, and, and if we miss that opportunity, then I think we will be doing a disservice to future generations. - Senator Barack Obama

I also caught this from CNN’s Late Edition:

BLITZER: Beginning with the controversial comments of Barack Obama’s former pastor, the explosive issue of race and religion was certainly front and center for much of this political week.

To discuss all these issues, I’m joined now by three guests. In our New York bureau, Democratic Congressman Charlie Rangel. He supports his fellow New Yorker, Hillary Clinton.

…

And, Charlie Rangel, I’ll start with you, and I’ll play this sound bite from what Barack Obama said on this sensitive issue of the Reverend Wright, earlier today on “Meet the Press.” (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: What really changed was a sense that he was going to double down on the statements that he had made before. And, to me, that indicated to me that he was not — that he did not share my fundamental belief and my fundamental values, in terms of bringing the country together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Now, the criticism of Barack Obama is that what Jeremiah Wright said at the National Press Club, Congressman Rangel, was no different than what he’s been saying for some time, and he should have known that these controversial remarks would be made.

Is this explanation that Senator Obama is making good enough for you?

RANGEL: It’s disgraceful that he has to make any explanation for anything. The intrusion of the media and Republicans into the sacred relationship that worshipers have with their spiritual leaders, I think, is going to come back to haunt us.

To think that we have to go into the lives and the beliefs of rabbis and priests and ministers and imams is absolutely ridiculous.

We’ve got a war on. We’ve got an economy that’s splintered. I think the media should be more responsible and start dealing with those issues. I don’t think many people care what Reverend Wright thinks, and I don’t see how — why any candidate should have to explain [about it].

If you call yourself a Democrat, a Liberal, Progressive–whatever–and you see what the Media has done to this Primary, and then lay down while the Dukakis/Gore/Kerry section of the ol’ playbook is read from chapter and verse…you deserve what a Clinton or McCain Presidency will do to this country.

…to follow the “Cheers” edition:

“…Archieee Biilll you were right, that Moveon is nothing but a bunch of Communist sympathizers!”

Surprise surprise: World’s Worst Debate Also Most Popular Debate

The elitist assessment of that terrible debate last night is pretty much, Oh my god, they let that be broadcast on the teevee?” So, obviously, it is the debate “Regular Americans” loved most, because ABC just announced that no primary debate has ever had so big an audience. Take that, Lincoln-Douglas Debate! Suck it, Kennedy-Nixon Debate!

More than 10 million people watched at least part of the idiotic spectacle, the New York Times reports, making it the biggest hit of this endless primary campaign. It even beat other “reality shows” such as Big Brother — but not American Idol. When that hit karaoke show came on, everybody turned off the dumb debate so they could sing along with the stars.

I posted this the other day at Agitprop, but…

…Fell in love with a girl.

Billy “the bloody” Kristol is an idiot.