A commenter at Swampland

Said this about a pogniant Joe Klein post re: Obama's Grandmother

What a way to distract from the real issues at hand.

This is my response:

Interestingly enough, while there are many specific issues that need to be debated and that people can find themselves on several sides of, this campaign has unfortunately become a referendum on whether hatred and fear will continue to sell.
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It actually touches on all the other important issues, because when we deal with terrorism and threats abroad, it will be important that we deal rationally and with the knowlege that we are dealing with fellow human beings and not demons, and as we tackle a sinking economy, it will be important that we realize that we are all in it together and that by sharing the burden and working together we can lift ourselves out of the difficulty, but if we insist that it's every man for himself, we're doomed to do more harm to everyone.

I have faith that most Americans realize this and that this will become evident as the day wears on.

Swampland Troll

Cross posted because of the moderation control at swampland, re a commenter trying to equate media coverage of pregnant Palin teen to intruding on Obama's Halloween evening.

This is such an amusingly rich incident of wingnuttery that it deserves comment.
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First, we've got the classic "Clinton did it too" argument. This is the twisted hypocrisy argument. Here, it seems to take the form of "Vile people in internet comment threads and open diaries spread baseless rumors about Trig's parentage and therefore it's okay for the traditional media to harass Obama and his kid on Halloween."
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Second, of course, it's inaccurate. The only reporting in the traditional media I saw about the Trig pregnancy came from the McCain campaign, blaming those rumors on the need to tell the public about the teenaged pregnant drop-out.
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Third, it's kinda stunning they should say that the coverage of this has been unduly negative. The fact that the Palins represent a living, breathing example of the effects of abstinence only pregnancy prevention, with two high school drop outs as the result, has not been spoken about much, speaks to quite a bit of self-restraint. When one tries to imagine the firestorm that would have erupted if even a sibling of one of the Obama's had a pregnant teenaged daughter, it's literally laughable that they could complain about the restraint the traditional media has shown.
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Finally, and seriously, this is a reminder of what digby said earlier this week. These people do not blink at hypocrisy, at all. They will, turning on a dime, violate the principle they are accusing you of violating five minutes ago. We are going to suddenly be told about the importance of divided government, of voting against party, and, most important, of the perils of a jack-booted all powerful executive. In the most lurid and dishonest terms, at the same time they try that the pursuing exactly the same issues in the past administration is entirely political in nature.

[crossing fingers. No preview. Long post. Did I say @ss by accident somewhere?]

Florida Elections

Placeholder for immoderate commentary on Democrats campaigning in Florida, for  swamplanders.

Joe Klein's latest column

Wrong guess about the Beltway reaction to Obama. Acquiescence, mostly. Ornstein's comment illustrates a way that McCain could make his apology, though. A joint, antipork appearance in favor of an infrastructure bank could do it for him.

Joe-- is there some chance that we can reexamine the risk of "Islamic extremism?" I think there's a pretty story to be told that it is overblown--more like Basque separatists and the Tamil nationalists than like the Nazis or the Soviets.

Also, you need to consider the possibility that Obama's prioritizing energy conservation and reduced dependence on oil supplied by some states that, either officially or unofficailly, are engaged in, for what danger it represents, Islamic extremism.

The US is way overdue in shifting away from the use of imperialist application (or threatened application) of military force to addressing the root causes involved with separatist movements in allied countries.

And in the same use of force dealing with countries that express opposition to the US, but have no mechanism for acting on that opposition, and, perhaps, no actual interest in doing so, other than for domestic political consumption.

Posted on an Amy Sullivan thread:

Everyone seems to be missing the point. While Amy utterly fails to make it clear, the movement she is referring to IS new IF you confine your attention to Evangelicals and Catholics!

Of course a quick review of the landscape makes clear that a large percentage of the people who oppose abortion aren't doing so out of concern for the children but out of their contempt for the mothers. If this weren't the case, then the pro-life movement would be among the most ardent supporters of Planned Parenthood and of Sex-Ed in the schools.

As long as we recognize that none of the controversy is about unborn children but ALL about sex unimpaired by guilt or worry and the people who hate that, then everything comes into sharper focus and begins to make sense.

At the risk of being self-indulgent

This is another one of my insightful and deserving comments that has been moderated into oblivion:

You would think that in addition to watching the tracking polls to simply see how they're doing that the McCain camp would also use them to determine what's working. The evidence suggests to me that they are absolutley tone-deaf as to what voters are interested in and want to hear. Part of the problem is that the folks who attend their rallies and can get all worked up with the cheerleading and name-calling are not representative voters. They're allowing their base to skew their strategy and hurting themselves in the process.

If you read the text of Obama's speech yesterday he talks at length about bringing people together and encouraging citizen involvment. Michelle Obama graciously declined the opportunity to make fun of Palin's wardrobe situation on Jay Leno.

The message that comes through is clear. One side consists of decent people, the other side, of jerks.

This was moderated - Read it here.

It's unfortunate to note just how much our Presidential politics interferes with our ability to strategize coherently. If McCain were to win, you can be sure that the drawdown you describe will be delayed simply to prevent an "I told you so" and if Obama is elected, it will be accelerated just to assert I'M in charge now!

I am told that U.S. intelligence community now considers Pakistan the central front in the war on terror

This of course also means that the CIA is the central force fighting the war on terror. I have to think that that's a more effective use of our resources than throwing 150,000 soldiers at the wrong country was.

All I know is that the overriding issue in this election is keeping John McCain, Randy Scheunemann, and James Woolsey the H377 away from our Middle East policy. As far as I'm concerned it even overrides the economy, because our boneheadedness in the ME is a big part of WHY our economy is in such dire straits.