This thing is not like that thing

Both Illinipundit and Glock21 have accused the Obama administration of astroturfing and that they are therefore no better than the right wing mobs currently shutting down town hall meetings across the country. These are excellent examples of the logical fallacy of false equivalence. Basically it goes like this: the right wing is inciting their base to be as disruptive as possible, the Obama administration is encouraging people to contact their local officials: see, they're both astroturfing!

Well, no. This is a great example of the false equivalence. The best definition I can find online is from the link above, as equating "an act by one party as being equally egregious to that of another without taking into account the underlying differences which may make the comparison patently invalid."

I don't like the idea of the Obama administration handing out talking points; I think talking points are the lazy way out and are for people who don't really have an argument. But if you look at the evil, evil document that Illinipundit posted, all it's really encouraging you to do is "have a quick conversation with the local staff, tell your personal story, or even just drop off a customized flyer and say that reform matters to you." And it offers to provide you with "the address, phone number, and open hours for the office, information about how the health care crisis affects your state for you to drop off (with the option of adding your personal story), and a step-by-step guide for your visit."

Really, that doesn't sound like much to me. I've never visited my Congressional office and I can definetly see how that might be a bit intimidating. I don't know the protocol or procedures involved. (Did you know letters to your Congressman are properly addressed to "The Honorable So-and-so?")

When you really get down to it, the Obama campaign is nothing more than asking people to politely contact their own, local representatives and make their wishes known.

The opposition is not.

• In Tampa, Florida, a town hall meeting had to be cut short because of shouting in the meeting, after the mob of 1,000 people was banging on the windows, and after a violent fistfight broke out in the entryway.
• The SEIU is getting death threats by phone and -- believe it or not -- Twitter.
• Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) has said "the time for polite town halls is 'over.'"

I'm all for people talking to their reps and voicing their opinions, even if I disagree with them. But these tactics show that the right-wing is not attempting to participate in the health care discussion, they're attempting to disrupt it.

Definitions. You haz them wrong.

Tim Fernholz has a good post over at The Prospect about how Republicans and conservatives are calling every action taken by the Obama administration "socialist." It's simply not valid:

it's not fair to say that the Obama administration is socialist per se because socialism is an -ism, a system, a guiding philosophy, and it's clear that putting the government in charge of private production is not the Obama administration's guiding philosophy...

If the Obama administration had come into office without an economic emergency, they wouldn't be involved in these firms -- don't forget that the first big government takeovers came under George W. Bush and that the management and directors of the auto companies asked for government help. The current administration has made clear they don't intend to be in the auto making (or banking) business for very long, and voluntarily laid out various guidelines to keep politics out of business decisions. Obviously, lines will be fudged and there are plenty of opportunities for conflict, but this is clearly not an administration whose every answer is "seize the means of production"

Now, would someone please this to tell the yokels that keep writing into the News-Gazette?

(h/t Ezra Klein)

Rick Warren: Bigoted Dumbass

Liberals everywhere are rather pissed off that Obama has chosen the odious Rick Warren to give his inauguration speech. David has a good post on the subject. One of the reasons Warren fought against Prop. 8 is that he claimed it would mean preachers that spoke out against gay marriage would go to jail since that would be hate speech, an out-and-out lie.

W.A. Criswell was a Southern Baptist preacher who Warren once described as "the greatest American pastor of the 20th Century." This is a quote from Criswell:

Don't force me by law, by statute, by Supreme Court decision ... to cross over in those intimate things where I don't want to go. Let me build my life. Let me have my church. Let me have my school. Let me have my friends. Let me have my home. Let me have my family

That sounds like pretty boilerplate text you could expect from any conservative Christian when it comes to the gay marriage issue, no? I really wouldn't bat an eye if I heard Warren or Pat Robertson say something like that. (One of the more ludicrous objections gay rights opponents come up with is that gay marriage would somehow hurt their marriages, though they never say exactly how.

But Criswell wasn't talking about gay marriage. He was supporting segregation.

That arguments for segregation seem so applicable to gay marriage opponents seems telling to me, somehow.

How the RNC should have ended

This is just great. I really have no other words.

Via Pam's House Blend.

Remember, shiny side out

IlliniPundit really has descended into tinfoil hat territory. He's now complaining about what is, apparently, a media conspiracy to win Obama the election.

I doubt Palin, or the overblown and transparent media bloviation surrounding her, will seriously impact the dynamics of the race ... But I wonder, as I have for a while, if at some point the public tide will turn on this obvious and over-the-top media worship of Obama ... But I wonder, as I have for a while, if at some point the public tide will turn on this obvious and over-the-top media worship of Obama.

We've had to deal with non-stop allegations that ohmygod Barack Obama is a Muslim, he's not a US citizen, he's a Marxist, he's a socialist, he wasn't born in the United States, his wife hates whitey, his wife hates America, he doesn't say the Pledge, etc. This is apparently "media worship." For Odin's sake, major news outlets are having debates about whether Obama is actually the fucking Anti-christ.

Seriously, what did you expect would happen when McCain nominated, lets face it, a basically-unheard-of state governor for the second most powerful political position in the world, especially considering she's the first woman that Republicans have nominated to this level and that McCain passed over his own preferred candidate for her sake? That everyone would just ignore her?

I'm sorry, but the fact that her unmarried, minor daughter is pregnant is indeed news, particularly in light of her anti-sex-education and anti-teenage-mother policies. The fact that her husband hates America and wants to secede from the United Stats is news. The fact that she abused the power of her office to settle a family vendetta is news. The fact that she has been part of an anti-Semitic church for most of her adult life is news. Does Gordy really expect us to ignore all of these things?

Yeah, I'll grant that she's not a member of Alaska Independence Party and that early reports were mistaken. But her husband was.

That's the great thing about the myth of the "liberal media." It insulates Republicans from any criticism. It allows the faithful, when they are confronted by anything they find unpleasant, to simply avert their eyes and chant "media bias." And the media is so paralyzed with fear of accusations of being "liberal" from the likes of Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity that they bend over backwards to accommodate them.

By their headlines, shall ye know them

IlliniPundit over at, um, IlliniPundit has on several occasions, claimed that Democrats are being overly-sensitive when it comes to race in this election. (Example.)

That's the advantage of privilege, isn't it? Whether is white privilege, heterosexual privilege, or male privilege, one of the benefits is that you don't even have to realize it's there. A corollary to that is that you don't have to wonder about those borderline cases. Until I'd read a few feminist blogs, I'd never actually noticed that paper towel commercials always show a smiling woman mopping up some mess or another, either made by a child or while some hapless male looks on in bewilderment. I'd never even thought about how our society often makes jokes that imply that rape is a complement.

So maybe it's easy for the (I assume) white IlliniPundit to pooh-pooh the racism that may be inherent in political ads this season. But think about this: Ann Coulter's August 20th column was titled "Constitutional Scholar Obama Questions Legality Of Slavery Ban."

Really. One of the most visible and most syndicated conservative writers in our country just wrote a column suggesting that a black Presidential candidate might approve of slavery.

No, race won't be a factor in this election. Not at all.

Something to look forward to for the next six months

I'm glad Obama got the nomination. I think he stands a pretty good chance at winning. But for the next six months (and possibly longer after that) don't expect to hear him referred to by a lot of Republicans as anything other than Barack Hussein Obama. They are going to push it relentlessly. You won't hear them refer to John Sidney McCain, however. The reasons are obvious. Racism and xenophobia. It's happening locally and at the national level.

I disagree with him on a number of issues, but Glock21 has a great post about the phenomenon.

... his name is pretty irrelevant beyond "branding" that has become such an important part of American politics. People who try to exploit that are essentially kowtowing to the worst of our society in order to win an election, and that's pretty disgusting no matter how much one wants to claim two wrongs make a right. If you don't want to be associated with the racist and prejudiced nimrods that flock to such childish reasoning when they go the ballot booth... stop using their arguments.

And so it begins

Remember how I said the whole Barak-Obama-is-a-Muslim thing was going to start spreading? Well, it has.

• Bill Cunningham, who broadcasts a syndicated radio program on over 300 stations and is a regular guest on FOX's Hannity and Colmes, referred to Obama as "Barack Mohammed Hussein Obama."
• Ross Mackenzie said in a nationally syndicated column on Townhall.com that Obama was educated in a "madrassa school."
• Nationally syndicated radio show host and professional douchebag Michael Savage referred to Obama as "Senator Barack Madrassas Obama."

Those are just examples from the past couple of days. These aren't just fringe kooks ranting in a mimeographed newsletter handed out on streetcorners. These are all syndicated commentators with nationwide audiences. They are all putting out the idea that Obama is a Muslim and/or that he was indoctrinated into the violent aspect of Islam. It's not just that they're just making stuff up, they're trying to create in people's minds a reflex association between Barak Obama and radical, violent Muslims.

This is the right-wing media machine doing what it does best. I expect we can look forward to seeing more of this as the race heats up. Lots more.

UPDATE: Illinois Reason deconstructs an even more extreme scare-mongering "Obama is a Muslim!" email.

Why don't they just call him the Manchurian Muslim?

It was about a year ago that I wrote this post saying why I didn't think Obama could win the Presidency. This, of course, was before his win in Iowa, which probably makes him the one to beat for the Democratic candidacy.

A few days ago, my mother forwarded to me the following email she had from her cousin, who she described as "as far right as you are left." I don't know if the email coming so soon after the Iowa caucus is coincidence or if it reflects a new urgency in the Republican smear machine.

Obama mentioned his church during his appearance with Oprah. It's the Trinity Church of Christ. I found this interesting. Obama's church: Please read and go to this church's website and read what is written there. It is very alarming... If you look at the first page of their website, you will learn that this congregation has a non-negotiable commitment to Africa. No where is AMERICA even mentioned. Notice too, what color you will need to be if you should want to join Obama's church... B-L-A-C-K!!!

Doesn't look like his choice of religion has improved much over his (former?) Muslim upbringing.

Are you aware that Obama's middle name is Mohammed? Strip away his nice looks, the big smile and smooth talk and what do you get? Certainly a racist, as plainly defined by the stated position of his church! And possibly a covert worshiper of the Muslim faith, even today. This guy desires to rule over America while his loyalty is totally vested in a Black Africa!

I've bolded the lies and distortions in the email. Obama is a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ, which describes itself as being committed to a 10-point vision. The point that this email makes reference to is #4, that it is a "congregation with a non-negotiable commitment to Africa." Nowhere does the church require you to be black to be a member. It seems clear from the rest of the website and the church pastor's Wikipedia entry that this is a church committed to valuing the African heritage of its congregants, rather than claiming racial superiority. Americans celebrating their background is hardly racist, as anyone that's marched in the New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade can tell you.

It's very clear that this email is pandering to the predjudices of its readers, in that it makes the insiduation that Obama is a Muslim no fewer than three times. It brings up a "Muslim upbringing", claims his middle name is "Mohammed," and claims he might just be a covert Muslim. All three of these things is a lie. Hell, his middle name is Hussein, not Mohammed, so the idiot writing this couldn't be bothered to even get his smears right.

Obama lived in Indonesia for a few years when he was very young. Yes, that's a predominantly Muslim nation, but that hardly counts as a Muslim upbringing. Whenever it's referenced by the right-wing, his education is always implied as being somehow "Muslim-focused," and his school is often referred to as a "madrassa." Oddly, they never refer to it as an "Asian education."

This piece is circulating all over the internet. A quick search shows it posted in the comments sections of many blogs. The mouthbreathers over at Free Republic posted it, as well as over at White Nationalist News.

Whoever wrote this is obviously trying to pander to blatant racists but also the unconcious racist feelings of many Americans. The thing that I find most frustrating is that the whole "Muslim upbringing" nonsense was debunked over a year ago. And yet here it is again.

If Obama does win the Democratic candidacy, I think things are going to get very ugly.

Why the right-wing smear machine works

Sometimes, something happens or I hear something that just jolts me out of my blogponymous narcissism. For example, when I find out that some people don't at least glance at a couple of Internet news sources most days. Or when I realize that there are some people that don't even read blogs (or know what they are), let alone have one of their own. It's moments like that that make me realize just how the right-wing noise machine works.

The hard part is getting a story/smear started. Once it's planted somewhere, other, more "respectable" media outlets can report on the fact that someone else is reporting the smear. Then commentators pick it up and start using it as a talking point. Then it becomes a code word to the base. For example, Al Gore says he "invented the Internet," or that John Kerry is a coward and threw his medals away.

Greg Sargent over at The Horses Mouth shows this with the "Hillary's drawl" story. No CNN anchor reported on Hillary's drawl until the day after Drudge commented on it. Then, they were all condemning it and quoting Clinton out of context. Elsewhere, Sargent even blogs about a Washington Post article about how Drudge is the "launching post" for stories.

So I was listening to C-SPAN the other day, and this caller calls into Washington Journal:

CALLER: Good morning and thank you for taking my call. I have a question about a news article that was on two or three TV stations approximately a month ago. Senator Clinton made a comment that Mr. Obama attended a madrassa as a child and I was just wondering if he ... I haven't heard anybody say if he is a practicing Muslim, or if he isn't affiliated with any particular religion.

The caller is of course referring to the story that was reported by InsightMag.com, without any named sources, that associates of Clinton had discovered that Senator Obama had attended an extremist Muslim madrassa. The story was thoroughly debunked, but persists in the right-wing media, in soundbite and code word form, if nothing else. This poor guy heard probably about it initially, and didn't catch any of the followup stories (probably on other networks, if he heard about it on FOX), so he still thinks it's true. How many other people do?

So we have a completely unsourced story on a right-wing website (not only were there no sources in the article, no reporter or author is listed). The story is immediately picked up by FOX News, where anchors and commentators talk about it for several days. Little followup is done to show the story is a complete falsehood. The story has now entered the zeitgeist, and people accept it as true, even though it's not.

If you go to the FOX News site now, and search for "Obama madrassa," three pages come up in the results. Two are transcripts of John Gibson reporting the InsightMag.com smear. The other is an AP story refuting it, but there's no indication that this made it to air.

Clearly, the story has accomplished its purpose, namely to smear Obama. Whether or not it's true is unimportant; the only thing that matters is to get it out onto the airwaves.

Why Obama will not win

Obama has recently started to explore a run for the Presidency in 2008. I've always said that he seems like a smart guy and it's good to have him the Senate, but there is not a chance in hell he could ever win the Presidency. Here's an excellent example of why:

This morning, Fox News featured a segment highlighting a right-wing report that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) attended an Islamic "madrassa" school as a 6-year-old child.

Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy pointed out that madrassas are "financed by Saudis" and "teach this Wahhabism which pretty much hates us," then declared, "The big question is: was that on the curriculum back then?" Later, a caller to the show questioned whether Obama’s schooling means that "maybe he doesn’t consider terrorists the enemy." Fox anchor Brian Kilmeade responded, "Well, we’ll see about that."

The Fox hosts failed to correct the false claim that Obama is Muslim. One caller, referring to Obama, said, "I think a Muslim would be fine in the presidency, better than Hillary. At least you know what the Muslims are up to." Anchor Gretchen Carlson responded, "We want to be clear, too, that this isn’t all Muslims, of course, we would only be concerned about the kind that want to blow us up."

Well, that's nice of Carlson. I'm sure she's not "concerned" about all black men, either, just the ones that want to break into her house.

Raise your hand if you're surprised this aired on FOX News.