White House official accuses Barack Obama of "intellectual laziness."
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Irony Watch
23 Sep 2007 10:59 pm
Comments (13)
Part of catapulting the propaganda is getting other media outlets to pick up on Drudge "exclusives." Just saying.
More like Chutzpah Watch, no?
The Karl Rove play book says to always attack a position of strength and turn it on its head.
I guess the significant part is that the White House is attacking Obama. What happened? Did he cut on Hillary's lead? Or did they crunch the underlying fundamentals and they expect Obama to be there once the dust settles?
Cool. Obama is now inoculated against any further criticism on this subject by anyone.
Oh God, Halle Berry is so fucking hot.
Hell yeah bro, man, I could really go for some of her chocolate milk right now!
It sounds particularly silly coming from such a source, but this is not a new meme. Supporters of the other Democratic candidates have long been offering variations on this critique, and indeed even the "rock star" label, while nominally positive, is in fact often used to promote this notion. And part of the strategy is not just to undermine one of his strengths (his intellect), but to build up false expectations (his "easy charm") in the hope that people will be disappointed or at least confused by the reality of the candidate. So, for example, reading this sort of commentary one would expect that if you go to see Obama speak, it will be an emotional if fluffy affair, when in fact in his appearances Obama is often thought-provoking but if anything a bit subdued. And of course the best example of this strategy came from the debates, where his rivals tried to characterize his answers as somehow thoughtless (or perhaps "irresponsible and frankly naive"), while behind the scenes spinning his debate performances as disappointing because (they would argue) he did not stand out stylistically as much as people were expecting.
It's intellectually lazy to link to Nyhan who links to Drudge who links to Bill Sammon.
Hey everyone check out the lively discussion under Ganji's letter. Don't tell me you give more of a crap about Joe Biden than you do about the future of Iran!
The soft bigotry of low expectations? Or is it the low bigotry of soft expectations?
I agree with Nick. This is Rovian swiftboating.
Senator Obama's no Megan McArdle.
My first thought was they were trying to pump up "Lazy" Fred Thompson. The "opposite is reality" principle re: Nick is probably correct, but there was that bit about Rove attacking Kerry to get Democrats to rally around the candidate they wanted. So maybe they're worried about Hillary. Or maybe that's what they want us think because they're worried about Obama. Then again, maybe bin Laden's 2004 video really was an attempt to convince Americans to vote for Kerry. Or maybe they're trying to 'draw out' Obama into confessing that he reads Chomsky to vindicate Rush Limbaugh on the nexus between Democrats and al Qaeda so that Congress can vote for a resolution denouncing Media Matters for having ever doubted Rush. Or maybe...
Comments closed October 07, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Oh God, Halle Berry is so fucking hot.
Posted by hahahah | September 23, 2007 11:27 PM