I tend to agree that an Obama media backlash is probably looming, but it hasn't built up enough steam yet to prevent him from snagging the endorsement of The Houston Chronicle despite Hillary Clinton's efforts to woo them with her love of manned space flight and domestic oil production.
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Not Lashing Yet
19 Feb 2008 10:11 am
Comments (17)
Wow two links to the hometown paper. Check out also that Obama is in town tonight and will be speaking at the Toyota Center before an apparently capacity crowd. They are not issuing any more tickets.
I posted a slightly different version of this comment at the very bottom of your spaceflight thread, Matt. Since no one will likely go there now, I repeat it here:
Stick with the Stick - Vote HRC (or McCain)
If we stick with the current plans for replacing the Space Shuttle with Ares 1 & Ares V NASA will need MORE money than Bush has currently proposed for NASA. If we desire to return to the Moon, NASA will need more money than Bush is currently proposing for NASA.
Are Clinton and/or McCain proposing to increase NASA's budget from ~$17.5 billion to say $20 billion per year? If not then to reduce NASA budget, cancel Ares 1 & Ares V, and purchase less expensive alternatives for reaching ISS is what makes sense. Such as a smaller cheaper Atlas V crew taxi or a Falcon 9 crew taxi via Elon Musk and SpaceX.
Me? I favor NASA getting a full ONE PERCENT of the federal budget compared with about six-tenths of a percent as proposed by Bush. But, to set the budget a few billion too short to actually return to the Moon is the worst option of all.
Set NASA's budget at $24 billion or so and get back to the Moon and on to Mars.
But, if that is not feasible and President Obama cancels ESAS (Ares 1 & Ares V) that would open the door for Congress to purchase much cheaper alternatives for ISS access.
Ares 1 is also known as "The Stick" or "The Shaft" as Jon Goff calls it. Using Ares 1 to ferry crew/cargo to ISS would be like buying a Cadillac Escalade to commute between Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Only buy that Escalade if we are willing to pay the extra money needed to go to the Moon.
Thus, here is a campaign slogan:
Stick with the Stick -- vote Clinton! (or McCain)
= = =
Links:
I caught a podcast of Shields and Brooks where NotShields let lose a few swipes at Obama ("well, go ahead Mr. Uniter, tell us HOW you're going to do that!!" there, there I got you!!!! try to get out of that one!!!!) with actual hurt and anger in his usually calm voice.
David is in a world of hurt right now. I really think he was hoping that we silly liberals would toss his Niebuhrian hero overboard in favor of Hilary's rancorous partisan fervor, so he could continue to deride all things liberal while justifying his vote for McCain.
His man crush is over.
I read the David Brooks column this morning and seriously, if this is the stuff they're going to throw at the guy - that he's given money to superdelegates (most of it before the presidential campaign), the conservative think tank's debunked poll showing him to be the most liberal senator (right, I'm sure he's more liberal than Sanders!), the fact that he's confident (unlike any other presidential candidate), and the public financing waffling. It's almost laughable. After McCain singing Bomb Iran, after he said that he hated gooks, after his innumerable changes of mind, and after the countless Clinton donor scandals, this is what they're going to try on Obama? Is the line, "Sure he may seem perfect, but what if turns out that he's...NOT?!" really going to work? I don't doubt that Obama may have some skeletons in his closet, but now that Rezko has been debunked, this is all starting to get into serious straw-grasping territory.
Brooks thought Obama was a secret Republican and he's not. Oh, the horror!
And of course the "plagiarism" of two words ("just words?") in between grabs of...other famous speeches, comprising a single minute of one eight minute speech. What a shyster!
It's fine that the media may try to find ways to turn against Obama, but let us remember that "objective" reporting, even objective reporting on the media by blogs, is a speech act and plays a role in creating self-fulfilling prophecies.
In other words, instead of an Obama backlash, if there was talk of a "looming McCain backlash" for the BS he spins, that might become more likely.
But then, that puts us all in the business of peddling self-serving BS. Which doesn't sound good. Nevertheless I do get frustrated sometimes when I see people talking about "of course McCain's going to get a free pass on this" or "of course the Republicans are still the party of strong national security" or whatever. When people roll their eyes and sigh and expect the media to do something stupid, it's like they're giving up trying to change the narrative.
Today's world moves fast. I think we are already seeing the backlash to the backlash.
This "backlash" is weak tea. What are they going to use to take down Obama that they haven't used before?
Seriously, the Obama bubble burst after NH. What we have now is no bubble--more like a seachange, the political ground all gravitating in Obama's direction. He owns politics now. He's an insatiable character who wears well. The media isn't about to kill that kind of gravy train when they can ride it for 8 straight years.
Obama is actually Rezko's brother. That juicy tidbit has been buried by the MSM but I've dedicated myself to ensuring it sees the light of day.
Has it come out yet that Obama reveres Hitler by way of his Farrakhan-adoring minister and Zbig meeting with Assad? Wasn't the N. Illinois U. psycho a trusted member of his inner circle?
Paul Krugman and Kevin Drum and Hillary Incorporated are trying to conjure up a backlash but it's not happening.
The firewall is Ohio and Texas and it doesn't look like it will hold. The wildfire will spread.
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My choice quote of the day from the New York Times:
Mrs. Clinton has consistently focused on issues like income inequality in her presidential campaign, has proposed steps to help homeowners hurt by the turmoil in the mortgage markets and has called for a timeout in negotiating new trade deals.
But she has also sought, often successfully, to win support and campaign contributions from an array of business leaders, including John J. Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley and one of the Republican Party’s biggest fund-raisers. And she infuriated many liberals last year when she told an audience at the Yearly Kos convention of bloggers that she would continue to take contributions from lobbyists because they “represent real Americans.”
Yeah Edwards dead-enders go with Hillary! She'll pass UHC! (right...)
WHERE DUTY CALLS
Nader Gravel & Paul Kucinich
Awake from your slumber
4 Wise Men march with the people
Washington DC
Whistleblowers
Honesty compassion intelligence guts
Not carrots sticks coercive diplomacy
Divided we fall
Mike Gravel
Dennis Kucinich
Ron Paul
Ralph Nader
No bribery blackmail extortion
Rage against the machine
Democracy rising democracy now
Suffer not
CUiNDC
In other words, instead of an Obama backlash, if there was talk of a "looming McCain backlash" for the BS he spins, that might become more likely.
Let's do it. There is a looming backlash among independents against McCain. He is way to conservative on judicial nominations and too much anti-abortion.
I heard Tony Blankley on "Left, Right and Center" say that the new media meme suggesting that Obamamania is a cult was the handiwork of the Clintons. They are so powerful!
In re: the Houston Chronicle endorsement, you should know that pretty much every paper in Texas hated Bill Clinton while he was in office. To my mind, there was never a chance any of them would endorse Hillary. And indeed, the Chron, the Dallas Morning News, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Austin American-Statesman, the San Antonio Express-News, the El Paso Times, and the Corpus Christi Caller all endorsed Obama. Really, none of this was a surprise.
Comments closed March 04, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
The BoBo column is a MoDo-esque piece of shit. But since BoBo is a water-carrier for the conservative message machine, we can take it as the first salvo.
Posted by pseudonymous in nc | February 19, 2008 10:25 AM