Growing Concerns About the Yglesias Family

Aspen's finest political reporter notes on the McCain campaign shakeup: "In the year and a half since McCain and Schmidt first got to know each other, the two have grown close, almost like father and son; each very deferential to the other." Is that how fathers and sons normally interact? I feel like it doesn't describe my relationship with my dad very well.

In a larger sense, having one of the main architects of Bush's re-election campaign become McCain's campaign manager seems like a good way to demonstrate that a vote for McCain is like a vote for a third Bush term.

Comments

McCain: Its almost gotten to the point where we finish each other's sentences!!

Schmidt: Uh, sir, we don't ever really fi--

McCain: finish each other's sentences!!

McCain: Told ya!!

(Laughs)

Posted by Chrissy | July 2, 2008 5:35 PM

You and Ambinder are getting pretty tight. I didn't realize that Aspen's Day Camp for Boy Reporters used the buddy system.

Posted by Duvall | July 2, 2008 5:37 PM

My dad and I talk a lot in person, but our phone conversations usually are something like this (excerpted from the Prairie Home Companion):

SS (MIDWESTERN, ON PHONE): Oh, good, you're back, Carson. I was talking to your dad. You want to talk to him?

GK: Sure.

SS (MIDWESTERN, ON PHONE): Well here he is-

TR (MIDWESTERN, ON PHONE): Hello son.

GK: Hi dad.

TR (MIDWESTERN, ON PHONE): Everything going ok out there?

GK: Yep, pretty good dad. Can't complain.

TR (MIDWESTERN): You getting snow out there?

GK: Dad, I'm in St. Paul. I'm about ten miles from you.

TR (MIDWESTERN, ON PHONE): Well, that's good to hear. Talk to you later, then.

GK: Bye dad.

(PAUSE)

SS (MIDWESTERN, ON PHONE): That was your father, Carson.

GK: I know, mom.

SS (ON PHONE): It meant a lot to him to talk to you, I hope you know that. He talks about you all the time. He's been looking forward to this all day.

Is that mutually deferential or not?

Posted by DAS | July 2, 2008 5:42 PM

Aspen's finest political reporter

A post about Ambinder only slightly less biased than Ambinder.

Give him a nudge in the morning and ask him to post about this:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25495610/#storyContinued

He'll do it if you wear a white naval outfit.

Posted by James | July 2, 2008 5:52 PM

Matt, the stealth GOP operative in the liberal garb that he is, seems to have lost the memo from Jonah Lucianne and WSJ that it will be Obama's that will be the third Bush term.

Posted by gregor | July 2, 2008 5:52 PM

Ambinder, Aspen's finest political reporter? Surely there's at least one other political reporter in town?

Matt, be a friend, not an enabler. It's your duty to inform him of how embarrassing his reporting has become. It doesn't have to be as dramatic as an intervention, just a nudge.

Posted by xx | July 2, 2008 6:09 PM

When my father and I talk, we're very deferential to each other, because we're both armed to the teeth, and one misspoken word could lead to blood.

I assume that the same holds true for Schmidt and McCain.

Posted by lampwick | July 2, 2008 6:42 PM

Tongue-in-cheek (adj.): insincere.

Posted by washerdreyer | July 2, 2008 6:53 PM

Depends on whose tongue and what cheek.

Posted by Ambinder | July 2, 2008 6:59 PM

"In a larger sense, having one of the main architects of Bush's re-election campaign become McCain's campaign manager seems like a good way to demonstrate that a vote for McCain is like a vote for a third Bush term."

Talk like that and you'll give Ambinder the vapors.

Posted by chris | July 2, 2008 7:03 PM

Tell Aspen's finest political reporter that Pol Pot is commonly thought to be responsible for 1.4 million deaths in Cambodia (pop. 12M) in a 4 year period. Common estimates put Saddam Hussein's wrath at 350,000 dead in 35 years or 1M if you include the Iran-Iraq War in a country averging a population of 22 million people over his 35 year reign. Apples meet oranges. You don't have to be liberal to find shoddy analogies worthy of hissing but you do have to have some basic awareness of the facts to see the Iraq-Cambodia analogy offered by Michael Gerson is a steaming pile of crapola.

Posted by joejoejoe | July 2, 2008 7:09 PM

"Talk like that and you'll give Ambinder the vapors."

I think they're onto the poppers now.

Posted by James | July 2, 2008 7:11 PM

Republicans: rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic

joejoejoe = Baghdad Bob

Posted by Peter K. | July 2, 2008 7:45 PM

Peter K. - Learn to use Google and/or go fuck yourself. I wasn't excusing anything in my comparison. I was simply quoting the John Burns estimate of Saddam's wrath in the NYT published in the run up to the Iraq War.

1/26/03: '...figures of a million dead Iraqis, in war and through terror, may not be far from the mark, in a country of 22 million people.'

If killing 3% of your population each year is somehow equivalent to killing 0.2% of your population each year* then I guess I'm a propagandist. If not, you are an asshole.

* - your outrage mileage may vary, especially in years when the US was an ally of Saddam

Posted by joejoejoe | July 2, 2008 8:29 PM

To analogize the analogy, it's a reasonable approximation of the sort of relationship of which you say "blank is like a father/son to me" more than of father/son relationships--what a father-son relationship could be without all the inevitable decades of other baggage, I think. Mentor-mentee, with an acknowledgement that the mentee can teach the mentor a few tricks. I don't have any brothers, but it sounds like the relationship my husband, and his brother, have with their uncle but not with their father.

Posted by Deborah | July 2, 2008 8:43 PM

I didn't realize that Aspen's Day Camp for Boy Reporters used the buddy system.

Posted by Duvall

Sure. Plus, sometimes you get to hang out with people who were famous once, like Cher and the guy who did the voice for Inspector Gadget.

Posted by Chris Cunningham | July 3, 2008 4:14 AM

Sure. Plus, sometimes you get to hang out with people who were famous once, like Cher and the guy who did the voice for Inspector Gadget.

Damn, I was hoping to see Jonny Quest. I hear he's clean now.

Posted by Persia | July 3, 2008 9:07 AM

My dad's become a hardcore Christian/social conservative, so whenever he starts a discussion that's about anything other than work, I just kind of nod my head and wait for a chance to change the subject to sports or vacations or something.

I don't know if that qualifies as deferential or not.

Posted by Jeff | July 3, 2008 9:13 AM

joejoejoe/Baghdad Bob

"* - your outrage mileage may vary, especially in years when the US was an ally of Saddam"

Mine doesn't but no doubt yours does, depending on whether or not the US considers them an enemy.

But enough about your pal Saddam, the Burmese junta and Mugabe need help spinning their image so they dont' seem as bad as they are.

Posted by Peter K. | July 3, 2008 10:24 AM

Peter K. - You either have reading comprehension problems or you are some omniscient being who finds it troublesome when mere mortals insert facts into their remarks as context for an argument. It would be nice if you'd say WHY I'm being a propagandist, share your dispute with my figures, and show your evidence. You may think being a Magic-8 ball filled with righteous snark and vagueness is charming and brilliant but I find you ridiculous. If you want to be the Oracle of the Comments who pulls his criticisms out of vapor saying "Shazaam! It is so!" then I'll leave you to argue with yourself.

Posted by joejoejoe | July 3, 2008 2:50 PM