First Looks category archive

Last week, Michael Smerconish (aka “Waste of Newsprint”) endorsed Senator Obama in his Sunday column in the local rag.

This week, he discussed the fallout (emphasis added):

I gave my talk-radio audience a two-day advance warning of my decision while asking that they read what I had written.

More than 500 people weighed in immediately, unwilling to consider my argument before criticizing its conclusion.

“You made up your mind a long time ago, you rat,” one wrote to me. “Either you have no core beliefs, or you are just like all the other elitist Main Line snobs. My guess is both,” wrote another. “Smerconish, you’re one awful, greedy, shameless ratings hog. . . . You traded your soul for socialism,” said a detractor.

By the time the column actually reached the newsstand, my critics numbered more than 1,000. . . . An additional 1,000 angry e-mails came in the 24 hours that followed publication.

And, the tone of the objectors actually escalated. Missing from most, however, was any reference to the argument I had advanced: Barack Obama properly recognizes that the central front in the war on terror is the Afghan-Pakistan border, not Iraq; he has more intellectual capacity to deal with the economy than the guy who said its fundamentals were “strong”; Sarah Palin is not ready to be president; Obama represents a role model for black youth, too many of whom are growing up and killing one another; and he presents the best opportunity to unite us after the election and restore our prestige around the globe.

All that fell mostly on deaf ears. Instead, people wondered how I could ever consider voting for a “Marxist” or “socialist” candidate like Sen. Barack “Hussein” Obama.

(snip)

. . . I won’t be bullied by the nasty, doctrinaire types who’ve had a stranglehold on the GOP for far too long. My work is just beginning.

Addendum, a Little Bit Later:

Steve has a take on it.

Jeez Oh Man. Can’t these people, like, you know, read?

>/center>

Via HuffPost.

October 25, 2008 | Posted by: Frank | Posted in: First Looks | Bookmark this post

Via Swampland.

Via Glomarization.

Glomarization spoke eloquently. I’m going to quote a portion of the post that accompanied this video, and recommend you follow the link and read the whole thing:

Governor Palin speaks of small-town, rural America as the “real America.” That would not include me, even though I live six blocks from Independence Hall, in one of the oldest neighborhoods of the United States of America, among houses that were built before the United States of America existed. That said, don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that the fact that I walk past Independence Hall on my daily commute makes my neighborhood “more” American than any other place in the country. It simply makes Palin’s statements completely absurd and un-American.

(snip)

I joked on a chatroom the other day that I was amused to hear Governor Palin insinuating that people like me are not “real Americans.” But in fact, I’m deeply offended. And I reject her lame statement to the press, where she apologized for people misunderstanding her, but where she did not apologize for her hateful words.

(snip)

Palin’s plain language insulted me and my family.

(snip)

McCain and Palin are seeking to further divide the country along class, race, and income lines while we’re at war on multiple fronts and while the economy is tanking to depths we haven’t seen since my grandmother was a teenager.

As I said here, “Beyond disgusting.”

World Series Phillies 1 game to Tampa 0 games.

Sounds good to me.

And here’s your chance.

Over at Brendan’s place.

It’s a Republican thing:

Via Atrios.

You can read the full story of how I shot this trouble here. I kept it all in one place in case some poor jerk like me comes along looking for an answer to the same problem.

I’ve written a script to back up the database and set it up to run at five tomorrow morning. I’ve already run the script from the command line and it works perfectly. All I’m doing now is testing the cron job.

Addendum, 10/24/2008:

The script ran this morning, right on schedule.

End Addendum

If you’re interested in the script, it’s below the fold.

Read more »

Frankly, I resent the Republican Party’s implication that, unless you vote wingnut, you are not from the “Real America.”

My father’s people came here in the early 1600’s. My mother’s people received their family farm (which, unfortunately, her Grandfather drank away) in a landgrant from one of the Kings Georges.

My ancestors on both sides fought in the Revolutionary War.

They also fought (on the wrong side, sadly–something that caused Second Son great embarrassment when he saw a statue of my Great-Great-mumble not sure how many Greats-Uncle signing John Brown’s death certificate at the Harper’s Ferry Wax Museum) in the Civil War.

And my family has fought in American Wars before and since.

My older son wears the uniform of the United States of America and has twice served overseas in combat.

The little Baptist Church in which I grew up stands on land donated by one of my ancestors before the ratification of the Constitution of the United States.

And for some venal, insipid, pandering, ignorant pol to imply that I and my family members and anyone else who loves this country and what it stands for, no matter whether they have been here three months or three hundred years, who believes in the ideals of the Founders, who reveres the blood they shed and the risks they took, are somehow not “real America” because of our choices at the ballot box, is beyond disgusting.

All this reveals is that the wingnuts really have no understanding of what this nation, its history and heritage, its ideals, its sacrifices, its failures and triumphs, are about.

I have no words for my contempt for them and their arrogance and ignorance.

My shipment of Gevalia came yesterday. It’s worth the extra pennies.

No more Eight O’Clock (that’s my fall-back).

I’m drinking Kenyan this morning.

Tuesday, Tangier, 18th and Lombard, Philadelphia, 6 p. m.

Come celebrate the triumph of Republican economic theory cry into your beer.

So, in the wingnut world, it’s okay to take from the poor and give to the rich, but not vicey versey?

As Mithras points out, this guy, unlike “Joe the Plumber,” actually pays his taxes:

Via Mithras.

Call Republican hate speech what it is.

Hate speech.

Here.

Via Huffington Post.

He covered it here. I can’t top him and won’t try.

The nasty underbelly of Republicanism comes to the fore. The Booman asks the question (follow the link to see the video to which he is referring, as well as the rest of the post–it’s a long one).

Let’s say that you’re a regular Republican that doesn’t hold any racial animus, doesn’t think Barack Obama is a terrorist or even a Muslim. Would you stand in that line with all those other people? Wouldn’t you pretty much be forced to conclude that there’s something fundamentally wrong with the McCain-Palin movement and the people it attracts? There are cameras there. Do you want you and your family to be caught on film in the middle of that crowd? What would your employer think? What about your friends? Your mom?

This is the heritage of the Southern Strategy, the odious choice by the Republican Party’s decision to become the Party of Racism.

As someone once said about the Hoover presidency, the Republican Party has gone from being the party that freed the slaves to being the party that frayed the sleeves.