The WaPo isn’t pleased with Obama today
I commented earlier, here and here, on the reasonableness of certain recent articles and editorials in the WaPo. Looks like it’s a real trend, because today the editors have published an editorial on Obama’s campaign financing reversal that contains not a word with which I would disagree, including the following excerpt (well, maybe I’d eliminate the word “little”):
[Obama’s] effort to cloak his broken promise in the smug mantle of selfless dedication to the public good is a little hard to take…Politicians do what politicians need to do. But they ought to spare us the self-congratulatory back-patting while they’re doing it.
[ADDENDUM: And, although it’s no surprise that David Brooks agrees that this was hardly Obama’s finest hour, Brooks says it so well (except, what’s up with “truck?”):
…Thursday, at the first breath of political inconvenience, Fast Eddie Obama threw public financing under the truck. In so doing, he probably dealt a death-blow to the cause of campaign-finance reform. And the only thing that changed between Thursday and when he lauded the system is that Obama’s got more money now.
And Fast Eddie Obama didn’t just sell out the primary cause of his life. He did it with style. He did it with a video so risibly insincere that somewhere down in the shadow world, Lee Atwater is gaping and applauding.]
[ADDENDUM II: And the only surprise about this is that it was the Boston Globe saying it. But that was long before Obama became The Anointed One.
And although today’s Globe’s editorial reaction is far more kind than that of Brooks or the Wapo—no surprise, again—even the Globe isn’t tremendously pleased, writing that “[Obama’s] decision deals a body blow both to the system of campaign finance and to his own reputation as a reform candidate.”
Of course, the Globe isn’t as upset as it would be if someone less wonderful were doing this—or, as the editors so objectively put it, “[Obama] has set a worrisome precedent. The techniques of Internet fund-raising that his aides have so effectively mastered could in a future election be used to assemble a mass donor base with a more self-interested agenda.”]
David Brooks is wrong on one account. Lee Atwater would never applaud a Democrat, especially one like Obama. Two words: Willie Horton.
Brooks’ Lee Atwater allusion is particularly charming, with its “somewhere *down* in the shadow world” play on words.
You’re correct. My question is whether the Post’s editors will endorse McCain. If they don’t, they’re hypocrites as they dismissed Michael Steele for his lack of experience as compared to Ben Cardin.
My guess is that they are more partisan than principle as they endorsed Kerry over Bush in 2004. (To their credit, I suppose, the Post declined to endorse either candidate in 1996.)
what’s up with “truck?”
The bus is in the shop. Needs knew tires, shocks, struts, and new undercoat.
He who desires or attempts to reform the government of a state, and wishes to have it accepted and capable of maintaining itself to the satisfaction of everybody, must at least retain the semblance of the old forms; so that it may seem to the people that there has been no change in the institutions, even though in fact they are entirely different from the old ones. For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often even more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.
Machiavelli
Let’s take a moment to sum up: the anti-torture candidate supports torture. The pro-immigration candidate opposes immigration. The candidate who opposes tax cuts for the rich supports them. The pro-campaign finance reform candidate has a campaign that is run almost exclusively by lobbyists, and exploits loopholes in the law to skirt spending limits–even the laws the candidate wrote. The candidate who opposes “agents of intolerance” in the Republican Party embraces them. The candidate with the foreign policy experience frequently confuses Sunnis and Shiites and misreads Iranian influence in the region, but is proposing permanent war. The candidate who claims to be a fiscal conservative wants to bust the budget. The candidate who claims to take global warming seriously does not want to take any serious action to address it.
I’d love to see a “Stop lying, Barry” campaign in which people with large posters greeted him at every campaign stop. He has recanted on every campain issue–bringing home the troops, Nafta, negotiations with enemies, lobbyists, and now campaign financing. Every lie should be held before his face as he tries to sell change.
I suggest a read through watler lippmanns “public opinion”…
the best place for power or its means to hide is in plain sight. (perloined letter).
La Wik has a fine summary for Public Opinion:
When properly utilized, the manufacture of consent, Lippmann argues, is useful and necessary for modern society because “the common interests”–the general concerns of all people–are not obvious in many cases and only become clear upon careful data collection and analysis, which most of the people are either uninterested in or incapable of doing. Most people, therefore, must have the world summarized for them by those who are well-informed.
Since Lippmann includes much of the political elite within the set of those incapable of properly understanding by themselves the complex “unseen environment” in which the affairs of the modern state take place, he proposes having professionals (a “specialized class”) collect and analyze data and present the conclusions to the decision makers. The decision makers then take decisions and use the “art of persuasion” to inform the public about the decisions and the circumstances surrounding them.
Lippman, as all intelligentsia, was plugging for his own class… the journalists…
except that he called his persuasion agency an “intelligence bureau”.
WAPO is part of a large group that was consolidated… and so waht it rights and chooses to say is not something that it is free to do!
they are the 5th column for “manufacturing consent”…
ever pay attention to who owns it?
owned by the washington post company, in which the washington post is a part of a larger thing.
that thing is not only a paper, but kaplan… an international educational company…
they own newsweek interactive,… so they run the washington post website, the newsweek website, slate, budget travel, srpig.com, express, el tiempo latino, the gazzettte, maryland newspapers, the herald, newsweek magazine, cable one… oh and they also own post newsweek stations.. which appears in amany stations in many markets
isnt that an interesting selection of things?
so now that you know the collection its a part of…
what will it vote for and say?
note that these large corporations are in cahoots with planned economy stuff… its how they got to own the stuff in the first place.. (previously such ownerships was considered to allow for sedition too easily).
the interesting thing is that the company is public, but the ceo is related to the founder who purchased the company in 1933…
the purchase was by eugene isaac meyer.. an american financier, chairman of the federal reserve… (father to katherine graham).
when you dig into these larger things, you will find that the old power people are the ones that run them… either for their dynastic families, or for another countries political aims.
eugene meyer was president of the world bank..
by 1915, he was 40 years old, and worth 40 million.
his grandson now runs the paper and all those other media outlets…
his father persuaded his friend, john f kennedy (another dynastic family), to take lyndon johnson on as teh vice presidential candidate.
talk about influential.. no?
he wrote speeches for them… so they basically fronted his words… he gave advice on apointments (so they put who he wanted in office).
its his son that runs that huge organisation that tells us what to think!!!
care to check out who else is the top corparate staff?
warren buffet…
lee bollinger
barry diller
oh… yeah… the personal assitant to bill gates that married him… milinda french gates.
which is interesting to note… do you think she got the job because her husband wants his opinion to be reflected along with the others as to the direction we should go?
of course most people just read the paper and never ask who is writing to them.
by the way… lots of things are like this…
given now who i just listed…
what will the papers political position be?
one of merit, or one that reflects the designs of the corporate staff who are there to represent who?
and by the way… they all attend the bilderberg group…
i make no guesses as to waht that is about given that the tin hatters like to assert things, and given that no one actually knows, there is no way to know if they are right, making things up, or wahtever.
but you might want to check the membership roles of the CFR, and the bilderberg gourp.
The Bilderberg Group, Bilderberg conference, or Bilderberg Club is an unofficial annual invitation-only conference of around 130 guests, most of whom are persons of influence in the fields of business, media and politics.
The elite group meets annually at luxury hotels or resorts throughout the world, normally in Europe, once every four years in the United States or Canada. It has an office in Leiden, South Holland, Netherlands.[1] They met at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey for the June 2007 meeting.[2] The 56th Bilderberg meeting took place June 6-8, 2008 at the Westfields Marriott in Chantilly, Va.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bilderberg_attendees
read the political list…
bill clinton, hillary clinton, ford, quayle, mondale, rockerfeller, acheson, kissinger, rumsfeld, condoleeza, powerl, bentson…
basically bilderbergs, cfr, etc… they run the world.
whether thats a good thing, a bad thing, or what, i dont know.
basically, who they want to be president will be president.
all the candidates are members of their lesser organization, the CFR.
so mccain, obama, hillary, etc.. all are members of the same organization that has goals and was founded by one of the large dynastic familes.
is that good, bad, etc? i dont know.
the tin hatters will tell you that its always bad… but who knows.
however, you can be sure that while the rest of the world might get hurt with economic collapse and so forth, these people are actually above it all..
they plan the moves that define the outcomes and so they can position themselves to be in a decent place, unless they are all at odds.
the third organization is the trilateral commision… the symbolism of the groups is interesting too.
here is the link to obamas cfr page: http://www.cfr.org/bios/11603/
this from wnd in 2007
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58425
It started in 1952.
Nearly every person elected as president of the United States since then — and nearly every opponent — has belonged to a secretive, globalism-oriented organization known as the Council on Foreign Relations.
Some presidents and their challengers have belonged to additional clubs of internationalists — the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission. Running mates, too, more often than not have had ties to the groups.
That the groups exert enormous influence on public policy is indisputable. What is disputed is whether such groups are, as adherents and members argue, just discussion forums for movers and shakers, or, as critics have long alleged, secret societies shaping a new world order from behind the scenes. On that last point at least, no one could challenge the critics: All these groups operate in considerable secrecy, away from the scrutiny of the American public.
so there is no way to know….
Ever since Democrat Adlai Stevenson challenged Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956, the odds have significantly favored those with membership in the elite groups.
In 1960, both John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon were members.
In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson was not a member. Neither was his opponent, Barry Goldwater. But Johnson had already staffed his administration with plenty of insiders.
In 1968, it was Nixon versus club member Hubert H. Humphrey.
In 1972, it was Nixon again against Democratic Party CFR member George McGovern.
In 1976, it was CFR Republican Gerald Ford losing to CFR Democrat Jimmy Carter.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan was not a member, but his running mate, George H.W. Bush, was. So were both of his opponents — Carter and independent John Anderson. Assuming office, however, Reagan quickly named 313 CFR members to his team.
In 1984, another CFR member, Walter Mondale, was nominated by the Democratic Party to challenge Reagan.
In 1988, CFR member Bush took on CFR member Michael Dukakis.
In 1992, Bush was challenged by an obscure governor from Arkansas, Bill Clinton, who won the “trifecta” by being a member of the CFR, Trlateral Commission and Bilderberg Group. He was also a Rhodes scholar — another favored credential of the worldwide elite.
In 1996, Clinton was challenged by CFR member Bob Dole.
In 2000, CFR member Al Gore ran against non-member George W. Bush, but his running mate, Dick Cheney, was.
In 2004, Bush was challenged by CFR member John Kerry.
“David Rockefeller, whose family financed the CFR, is a common denominator among these parallel groups,” writes Estulin. “Not only is he the CFR chairman emeritus, but he also continues to provide financial and personal support to the TC, CFR and Bilderberg Group.”
so can you guess how things are going to turn out since they are and have been the movers and shakers setting policy towards one world government?
“Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure — one world, if you will,” he wrote. “If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.” David Rockefeller’s own words as recorded in his “Memoirs.”
i have no idea what it means… sorry..
this is fun… wait to you see who is related…
Barack Obama CFR info
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qy97pFDLig
bush, cheney, and obama are related… hows that for funny…
but take the documentary as you will… i dont know..
but its accurate..
they point out that these fouinding families figured it only took the ownership of 25 newspapers to control the opinion of the people of the united states.
they then pitched in and purcahsed them.
you can see their kids and grandkids running them today.
manufacturing consensuse while we think the press is a bit more free than it is.. or rather was.
they controlled the publishers… and these same men put together the council on foreign relations…
these were the big time robber barons that wanted to own nothing and control everything, and many of them wanted a communist state as that would give them totalitarian control of everything.
now that they have so much, technology is so far… the idea is to freeze it, then enjoy it perpetually…
the rest of us are not needed anymore…
but thats just a guess based on reading their books, memoirs, papers, and quotes as to that goal.
but again… whether that is any part of it now, i have no idea… nor does any one else not affiliated, and if they are affiliated, they sure will not mention it to us.
they are behind the scenes, quiet, out of the public eye. they fund movies, school,s think tanks, newspapers, cable, etc.
what they say… the world jumps to.
the insiders occaisionally slip up and say things that are contrary to their stated goals and fall in line with the altenatives that they deny.
kind of like when the founder of the aclu was quoted as commenting on not letting people know that the organization was working for communism. (thats a paraphrase).
read the work of carol quigly who was allowed to look into their records.
he said that these men aim to create a world system of financial control in private hands, a means to dominate the political systems of all countries.
quigly basically read that they want to run the whole planet… and so they coordinate things aroud the globe… the leaders, the finances, the shirts, public opnion, etc.
if you make a huge amount of money, you get to enter the club…
its interesting histories that no one talks about.
It’s a Conspiracy!!
I wonder if WaPo is beginning to get a little scared at the idea of Obama actually winning.
“The techniques of Internet fund-raising that his aides have so effectively mastered could in a future election be used to assemble a mass donor base with a more self-interested agenda.”
Gee……ya think? In a FUTURE election? (Well…November IS in the future…)
I was thinking — does anyone think this might cause some backlash accruing benefit to the right? Obama’s really piling on those straws on my camel’s back and it’s sure tempting me to write a check as big as I can afford to either McCain or Republican Party!
How do they know where this credit card money is coming from? how can international funds be detected?
Hot embrace of cash
Change you can believe in – tossed:
Under the short bus.
Obonga’s nose keeps getting longer. Most certainly a “change.”
The more things change the longer it gets.
O’dumbo says ‘this is not the O’dumbo I’ve known for 40 years’. Yes it is, a liar who evidently doesn’t know when he lies.
O’dumbo set up collection sites all over the middle east with instructions on how much and hot to send money so he didn’t have to identify the donor. At one time the link was on his site, it disappeared, the Middle East sites are in operation. He even has two ‘fund raisers’ scheduled in Communist China. Clinton/Gore gave them the guidance system for the missiles they are using today. Wonder what O’dumbo promised them out of the U.S. military warehouse? He is set to be the most ‘bought’ by foreign money POTUS in history.
I just watched the most unique anti-Obama video ever
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R6gcbC9Hz4
This one seems to be making analogies between the movement that formed the Weather Underground, and the crowd that is forming around Obama today.
And if i’m not mistaken, the message, from former underground members, is … dont repeat our misakes.
“I was thinking – does anyone think this might cause some backlash accruing benefit to the right? ”
Depends on what you mean by the “Right”. If you mean the 90’s Contract with America Right then very much – in fact there has *never* been a period where that philosophy has failed to win elections. As of right now with the Republicans in the Toilet and the Dems in the plumbing a small govt strong defense candidate who promotes lower taxes and increasing oil drilling/refinery would sweep the elections in a heart beat (otherwise known as “The Right”).
If by the “Right” you mean Republicans (and this seems to be what you mean) then most likely not. They aren’t really liked and the fact that the Democrats are liked even less will not cause some type of backlash.
Further any individual election tends to be more based on personalities than party. For many a year a Democrat Vs Republican Democrat wins. In the last election cycle Bush vs a Democrat the Democrat won by a large margin. However Bush Vs Kerry and, well, who was president with the popular vote by a fairly large percentage?
As is we have either a strong global warming, anti-defense, huge govt, environmentalist candidate vs a weak global warming, large govt, environmentalist that is at least strong on defense. McCain wins there but not because he is good, but because he isn’t as bad. However since neither is really liked they both can easily sink to the bottom quickly.
Were the Republicans to go back and actually do the Contract With America idea they would do well with both their base *and* the general public. I will never ever understand why after sweeping elections with that message they abandoned it to embrace what the ones they soundly defeated believed in. Yea, I get that the news media harped on it – but hey you freaking killed the competition when they predicted mass failure so why remotely believe them? At some point a conservative party is going to have to come about that realizes that the media is totally against them and just do what wins them elections, not what makes the MsM happy. We have a truly liberal party but do not have a truly conservative – the only time we came close we soundly thumped the liberals and then caved to them complaining about it.
Bonnie Erbe, columnist, wrote today in connection with Obama’s flip-flopping: “There are many, many other examples, some of which I’ve noted in prior posts. Change we can believe in? No, change we can count on, because as soon as he takes a position, we can count on the fact he’s going to change it in front of the next audience.”
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/erbe/2008/6/23/barack-obama-serial-flip-flopper.html
~’Change we can count on’ sounds like as good a bumper sticker as I’ve come across in a while.