“It’s always between a giant douche and a crap sandwich…”

Hooray for you! I can’t wait for the next insult. Here’s a thought. Don’t bother.

wise_man on April 26, 2008 at 7:23 PM

Actually, you left out a word or two.

I’m not voting for Obama on election day, and neither are most who think like I do. We’ll write in Fred Thompson, or Tom Tancredo, or Mitt or Rudy, or we’ll vote Ron Paul or Ralph Nader or we won’t vote at all. Get this through your thick head: NONE of the big three candidates should be president, and we won’t cast a single vote towards any of them. Now sit down, shut up, and quit making an argument that sounds ludicrously like “If you don’t (fillintheblank), the terrorists/Obama WINS!!!!!”

Don’t fret, though. That kind of selective quoting is very MSM. I’m sure you make Dan Rather proud. It’s not lying, it’s editing.

VolMagic on April 25, 2008 at 11:13 PM

I’m really liking your name!

Big Orange on April 26, 2008 at 12:37 AM

Crap. It’s a regular infestation. War Damn Eagle, hoss.

Spoken like a true McCain supporter.
Big Orange on April 26, 2008 at 12:34 AM

Actually, that was spoken like a MadisonConservative (April 25, 2008 at 9:07 PM) But don’t let that get in the way, huh?

upinak on April 25, 2008 at 4:31 PM

I was gonna write “same here,” but after I signed in (which refreshed the page), the video started. I’d hit play before signing in and nothing much happened.

This was Mr. Thompson’s first public interview since dropping out of the Presidential race. Pop on over to HA for the video, and complete transcript of Hannity’s talk with Fred!

Posted by Locomotive Breath…

Excuse the vernacular implications; my apologies in advance.

McCain ’08 slogan WEEKEND REVIEW and UPDATE…

On McCain vs. GOP
(NC Officials, American Republican Voters, etc.):
“STFU McCain”
On McCain’s rebuttal:
“McCain ’08, FU GOP”

On McCain the Maverick:
“Only as Liberal as Possible”
“Not on Your side”
“Against you since he knows best”
“Not there when you need him”
“Give it away”
“Got GOP? You don’t count.”

McCain freely admits his own liberal squishiness, and wears his record against the rule of law as his badge of honor. Even on securing “non-living document interpreters” Constitutional conservative judges, McCain fudges. Except on wanting low taxes, exactly what is McCain’s platform? We know what his supporters would project as McCain’s platform, but not what McCain himself would substantiate to contrast his own record of progressive legislative agenda.

Now is not the time to project virtues onto McCain that are not his. Now is the time to demand virtues from McCain. He either has conservative interests, or progressive interests. His record is blatantly obvious; McCain is a progressive liberal leading the GOP into further demise. McCain needs to be cuffed with the conservative platform rather than empowered to dissolve that conservative platform he purports to represent SUBSEQUENT TO FOLLOWING THE INTERESTS OF THE PROGRESSIVE AGENDA.

If McCain wants my vote, he has his own conversion to process, having claimed to “get” his ephiphany that actually he never will embrace. To McCain, the rule of law is anathema to the power he seeks.

Except you adhere to a defensive posture while the Left has the attacking initiative. This is a very weak position to take in politics.

There’s nothing defensive about proceeding forward with well-secured flanks and within a coherent battle plan rather than rushing forward and wasting yourself on the enemy’s strong point.

McCain’s strategy might be wrong. I don’t think it is. I think he wants to win on the issues – including character and, to speak in shorthand, political honor – and, when he does selectively go negative, he wants it to count, not get lost in a political race war. I think the alternative – a helter-skelter de-natured Atwaterism that promises to reinforce perceptions of the Republicans as the divisive irrational backwards racist party for another generation, presuming it even survives intact for that long, would be a lot riskier, even if it happens to result in a few wins in local elections.

The whirlpooling sewer of Democratic Party identity politics gives the Republicans a chance to re-brand themselves and provide a refuge for disgusted voters, to become something closer to the “party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Reagan” that McCain talks about. Efforts like the North Carolina GOP’s ad seem designed to throw away the historic opportunity.

And therein lies the rub. You’re basically saying because Obama is black, and Reverend Wright is black, we have no business showing them and their well-known connection in a political, lest we make some black people feel like it’s an anti-black ad.

No – I never said anything of the sort. I have repeatedly stated that I do not consider Wright or the Wright-Obama connection out of bounds, to the contrary. What I have maintained is that the North Carolina ad is inflammatory, negative, simplistic, and insulting in its approach, and that it also happens to fail on its own terms as a political argument, making its ugliness and divisiveness even harder to justify.

It is impossible to deny, however, that you are advocating pandering to a group of voters, based on knee-jerk reactions that could only come from people so sensitive about their race, that they are planning on voting only for the candidate that matches their race anyway.

No – that’s a complete mis-characterization of my position. See above. It’s not “pandering” to voters to treat them, their leaders, and their history with respect, to treat their embarrassments with sensitivity, and to treat one’s own position with humility.

You’re vying for the votes of people who take offense at two black people being in a commercial.

Again, that’s a ludicrous oversimplification and mis-characterization of what I’ve argued.

You make good sense with most of your argument. Except you adhere to a defensive posture while the Left has the attacking initiative. This is a very weak position to take in politics.

Despite McCain running for president, keep in mind and MORE IMPORTANTLY understand that this election is also about House and Senate seats for real conservatives. In fact I would say this is more Imperative than the executive branch at this point. If Maverick turns out to actually continue his Liberal doctrine as the Chief Executive, we will need a Republican conservative to retain this runaway RINO.

Get this through your thick head: NONE of the big three candidates should be president, and we won’t cast a single vote towards any of them. Now sit down, shut up, and quit making an argument that sounds ludicrously like “If you don’t (fillintheblank), the terrorists/Obama WINS!!!!!”
MadisonConservative on April 25, 2008 at 9:07 PM

I certainly don’t like the choices on offer, BUT one of the three is going to win the office of the presidency. A protest vote on principle outside of those choices is apt to place the worst candidate in a position of far-reaching power and consequence.

Pressure has to be exerted on McCain to choose a conservative running mate in order to balance the ticket. And I don’t mean Huckabee, who was the real spoiler during the primaries.

Radio and ad spots by Fred Thompson would keep conservative principles before the voters as they go to the polls and might influence McCain’s choice. I think that most Americans embrace the common sense that FT articulates.

In short, the same political argument, such as it is, could have been made in a way that respected and reached out to the largest possible audience, and showed some semblance of sensitivity. Instead, the ad goes right for the gut. It’s 30 seconds of humiliation aimed at a set of political enemies who are inevitably identified by racial characteristics…

CK MacLeod on April 26, 2008 at 3:02 AM

And therein lies the rub. You’re basically saying because Obama is black, and Reverend Wright is black, we have no business showing them and their well-known connection in a political, lest we make some black people feel like it’s an anti-black ad.

It’s a stretch to suggest that outlook isn’t soft bigotry, but it’s doable. It is impossible to deny, however, that you are advocating pandering to a group of voters, based on knee-jerk reactions that could only come from people so sensitive about their race, that they are planning on voting only for the candidate that matches their race anyway.

You’re vying for the votes of people who take offense at two black people being in a commercial.

That’s desperation. It’s not politics. It’s not reality. It’s not America. It’s flat-out desperation to defeat the dems, at the expense of the truth about an insane preacher and one of his acolytes.

Seriously, CK MacLeod, do you not see the soft bigotry of your arguments?

“We have to be extra careful around those black people, they’re easily fooled into seeing racism.”

misterpeasea on April 25, 2008 at 10:45 PM

I spent a good amount of time attempting to explain why I thought the ad was ill-conceived, both on its own terms and as a piece of political “speech” offered up in the middle of a larger political context.

Anything we say can be received in two ways by whoever’s listening: They can hear what we intend to say, and to a great or lesser extent they will also hear how we say it.

In the case of the NC Republicans, they chose to make what is in my opinion a dubious argument based on guilt by association once removed, guilt by secondary association: That each of two Democratic gubernatorial candidates should be summarily rejected because they have endorsed a presidential candidate who, in the words of the ad, showed poor judgment.

Leaving aside the Obama’s own defenses and equivocations of his participation in Wright’s church, but noting that they have been accepted by a very large number of our fellow citizens, you can still look at the way the NC GOP chose to illustrate their argument: With a ca. 30-second ad that consists of 20 seconds of Wright giving one of his most incendiary sermons, followed by around 10 seconds showing the two candidates, one of them literally in an embrace with Obama.

There’s no “soft bigotry” in suggesting that a self-respecting African American, or for that matter a self-respecting person of any ethnic background, would find that approach insulting. It’s obviously, intentionally polarizing – simplistically so, to the point of brutality. There isn’t even the slightest suggestion of sympathy with or respect for, for example, Obama supporters who might themselves feel embarrassed by the Wright revelations. There are, however, glaringly obvious echoes of traditional racist messages going back hundreds of years. Even the appearance of the Republican chairperson who appears at the end of the tape plays into an ugly iconic tradition.

In short, the same political argument, such as it is, could have been made in a way that respected and reached out to the largest possible audience, and showed some semblance of sensitivity. Instead, the ad goes right for the gut. It’s 30 seconds of humiliation aimed at a set of political enemies who are inevitably identified by racial characteristics, and in a way that virtually demands an emotional response: In exhibiting Wright’s hatred and emotionalism, without a civilized frame, it encourages hatred and emotionalism, both on the part of those who despise Wright and also on the part of Obama supporters. It’s political pornography that reduces both its authors and its objects to stereotypes. It’s also 100% negative: It merely seeks to ostracize a political grouping as “too extreme.” It has zero positive content. Even the infamous “hands” ad at least implicitly supported a particular policy option (end to racial quotas).

Finally, the ad also happens to be a slap in the face of the party’s presidential candidate, who has made it absolutely clear how he would prefer to run this campaign. In addition to painting Republicans as the same old race-baiters, seizing on a political event and stoking the flames of hatred, it also has served to expose them as dis-unified. So now, here and across the internet, TV, and radio, conservatives feel obligated either to support the ad and defy McCain, or to attack the ad and support McCain.

The very way that the discussion here and elsewhere quickly deteriorates into insults and accusations illustrates McCain’s wisdom in rejecting what’s typified by the NC Republicans’ approach. Bring up Wright, show the tapes, analyze him to death, and take Obama to task for his poor judgment and his repugnant equivocations – but do it in a way that, wherever possible, builds up rather than destroys, informs rather than attacks, and demonstrates by example as well as by content what you’d prefer to see in their place.

If McCain is such the horrible liberal that you all claim he is, then put your money where your mouth is and vote for Obama.

wise_man

I trust that the underline just stands in for a missing three letter euphemism for a person’s posterior or a member of the odd-toed ungulate family.

Otherwise it is completely inappropriate.

There isn’t the slightest bit of logic in that statement, and a truly- Wise Man- should endeavor to be at least somewhat logical when trying to convince others of his wisdom.

Seeing the F-U dance every morning would be infinatly better then this train wreak we’ve got coming.

We do.

MadisonConservative on April 25, 2008 at 10:19 PM

[standing ovation]

Well stated!

The clear conservative choice.

Seriously folks, we all know Fred was on a vanity run. He’s a backseat conservative who will always follow the lead of others and never take on challenges for himself.

Quite frankly we’re better off not having him. He looks even older than McCain.

VolMagic on April 25, 2008 at 11:13 PM

I’m really liking your name!

Sit down and shut up.

wise_man on April 25, 2008 at 10:29 PM

Spoken like a true McCain supporter. That’s basically what he told North Carolina today. Maverick thinks the south is in his back pocket because were afraid of the dems. He’s gonna find out that is just not true.

I’ve been telling myself that I’m somehow gonna vote for McCain no matter how much it hurts me but today has changed my mind. I’ll go vote for my representative but I’ll just skip that presidential space. If you vote for the lesser of two evils, your still voting for evil and the more he talks, the more he sounds like the other two idiots.

I’m an optimistic person. I always believe goods gonna prevail but right now, I’m as down as politics can bring me. Honest to God, if I could, I’d choose Huckabee over John “Chuck Hagel” McCain. What a mess.

MadisonConservative on April 25, 2008 at 10:19 PM

Yep.

Sit down and shut up.

wise_man on April 25, 2008 at 10:29 PM

Your argument skills are, like, awesome, Dude.

But I agree with you, in a way. Fred sux. All politicians suck, Fred is a politician, therefore, Fred sux. He sux marginally less than McCain, but he still sux. On the other hand, McCain sux less at the margin than Clinton or Obama.

Since politics is a compromise, the trick is to get as much out of it as you can. In other words, the least suckyest candidate on the ballot in November. Unfortunately, that’s McCain.

But for you to say that McCain doesn’t suck…well, that sounds a bit naive. It seems naive to imagine that any politician doesn’t suck.

CK MacLeod on April 25, 2008 at 10:18 PM

I hate to badger, but speaking of racism.

——————

MCCAIN ’08: HE’S ONLY LIBERAL ON A FEW ISSUES!