From Mark Kleiman at The Reality-Based Community:
The truth of the matter (acknowledged, for example, by George W. Bush) is that McCain is a conservative (in the debased modern meaning of that term) Republican — about as conservative as John Kerry is liberal — who occasionally strays from the reservation but has no reluctance to cut his conscience to fit the fashion (Bush tax cuts, televangelists, Confederate flag, immigration).
Now McCain has to decide whether to move toward the center for the general election or, instead, to appease the extremist faction within his party.
From reader Joe:
McCain is wingnutty as hell and not overly-principled. But he is still anathema to many wingnuts. This is not because the wingnuts are even more extremist than McCain, as you suggest. It is hard to be more extremist than McCain. There is another explanation.
The VRWC is a conspiracy, composed of several factions, most of whom hate each others’ guts. The economic predators sneer at the Taliban, as their lawful prey. The Taliban correctly view the predators as godless ghouls. The ultranationalists correctly view the predators as having no loyalty to the US. The neocons think that the whole pack is ni kultyurni. The ultranationalists and predators correctly view the neocons as mutant Trotskyites, useful only for propaganda. (Nobody trusts the neocons or libertarians; they are too tainted by Enlightenment ideas.)…
The VRWC fears a politician like McCain, with his own agenda. Sure, his agenda is almost as crazy as theirs. But it is McCain’s agenda, and thus unreliable. They don’t know what he’ll do; they don’t know where he’ll go, especially with a Democratic Congress with which he must deal.
While the Right rages at the NYT, zuzu at Feministe sees the beginning of something really ugly:
So far, they’ve focused mostly on their favorite target, Hillary Clinton, but as Obama gains momentum, they’re starting to hedge their bets and go after him. It’s slow right now, because that sweet, sweet Clinton-hating is a hard habit to break, but eventually they’ll have to give it up almost entirely, with only the occasional fix.
She offers as evidence comment on Obama‘s parents:
They were always the offspring of a white mother, (in my circles, she was usually Jewish, but elsewhere not necessarily) and usually a highly educated black father. And how had these two come together at a time when it was neither natural nor easy for such relationships to flourish? Always through politics. No, not the young Republicans. Usually the Communist Youth League. Or maybe a different arm of the CPUSA. But, for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics.
And Bill O’Reilly:
I don’t want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there’s evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels
The Right is in the impossible position of being unable to hate Obama because he vanquished Clinton. We’ve been preparing for a fight that will never happen.
A Black Muslim President is the price which must be paid. I find this situation further proof of a higher power and that She has a delicious sense of humor.
Recent Comments