I don't think TV deals preclude people from politics--it's kind of like how sports commentators often jump ship to coach teams when they're offered jobs. Also, Lou Dobbs might run for governor in New Jersey.
Wired (via Ben Smith) has a great point about Obama's launch of the site:
By putting their own website out there front-and-center, and then getting everybody to link to it (starting with all the media covering the launch of the site), the result will be to drive fightthesmears.com towards the top of a Google search on, say, "obama muslim" or "michelle obama whitey". Ideally, if enough of the pro-Obama network links to fightthesmears.com, it'll drive the sites that peddle in the rumor-mongering, which are now the first results on said searches, off the top of the results list. Ideal long term result: any curious low-information voter who eventually bothers to google these pesky rumors will immediately be led to the debunking rather than the rumor.
My take: Did the Obama campaign create fightthesmears.com to game Google? If so, they're even more net-savvy than folks give them credit for.
By launching it in the media, buying google ad linking to it and working the netroots to like to the site, Obama might be able to re-direct search results to his site. Obama's team is good. McCain's guys struggle with the nuts and bolts of even running their site.
Yeah there are tiny disclaimers that it's not part of the Obama campaign but if you hover your mouse over the image at the bottom right, it still says PAID FOR BY OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT...
I'm surprised that the Obama campaign didn't pick up the FightTheSmears.org domain name, but there you go. Now someone else has (it was registered just over two hours ago) and they're using it to spread even more ridiculous - and even more racist - smears about Obama. There's a quote from Osama bin Laden, the claim that Michelle Obama called white people "crackas", and the suggestion that Obama "won't pledge of allegience to anything but soultrain." (sic)
Even more surprising is the fact that the guy who registered fightthesmears.org didn't bother to hide his identifying information. Here's the Whois info from Network Solutions:
- Obama campaign launches fightthesmears.com, some speculate that it will "game" Google so that it will be the top site when people google things like "Obama muslim"
- www.fightthesmears.org however, goes to a "parody" site
- Video of McCain from 2005 saying he totally with Bush on all the major issues surfaces
- Lou Dobbs might run for governor of New Jersey.
"I suppose I could express my own personal preference for one of the candidates, the Republican candidate," [Italian President Silvio] Berlusconi said. "And this is for a very selfish reason, and that is that I would no longer be the oldest person at the upcoming G-8 because McCain is a month older than me."
while I obviously appreciate his words (being a nonbeliever and all), I've always found it interesting how if one really thinks religion shouldn't be a primary influence on policy, and one readily acknowledges that Christians can't even agree on what Christianity is, and one acknowledges the largely out of date "rules" in God's word, and so on and so forth...
...at what point does Christianity ever stop being "Christianity"? Is it even possible? And if Jesus and god were so real and obvious that people felt compelled to worship them, wouldn't we want jesus and God to influence public policy? It seems weird that some people think their religion and divine being can have the most profound positive effect on people's lives...and then turn around and say it shouldn't be used as a primary reason for policy. If god is so great and awesome, wouldn't we want his advice when it comes to running the country?
And if Christianity is so open that wildly different interpretations of it can still fall under one banner, does that mean that I could call myself a Christian? Sure, I don't think there's literally some guy that created the universe and died for my sins, but I can get behind the metaphorical aspects of it, and the community-based reasons for the religion, and I think Jesus said some nice things. So am I a Christian now? This will be useful for me if I ever decide to go into politics. Christian atheists ftw?
Like I said, I'm obviously glad that a presidential candidate recognizes and respects the diversity of viewpoints on the whole religious issue, but it just seems weird that he almost has to discount large parts of his own religion and its history to do so, as if there's some subconscious notion that it isn't really real.
I'm not trying to make a "secret manchurian atheist candidate" argument. Honest!
This isn't an Obama thing necessarily, but just sort of reminds me of "liberal Christianity" in general.
I guess this is why some religions simultaneously fascinates and confuses the shit out of me, lol
1) Progressives have a long history of using parody websites. If you haven't heard of the Yes Men, then quite frankly I think you might be better off reading up about culture jamming as a movement before weighing in on this particular parody site.
In Canada, we also had a situation where a prominent Conservative politician who was particularly noted for his opposition to gay marriage did not own <hisname>.com, so a prominent gay Canadian comedian registered the domain name and forwarded it to an equal rights / marriage activism website.
2) There's an obvious disclaimer on the site. I know you guys think "it's only small!" but it's really quite obvious. The disclaimer also notes that there's a McCain version in the works, implying that this is not meant to be partisan on behalf of either side.
3) The whole site is a damn obvious joke. If you follow any of the links or actually read any of the text, you'd have to be ten steps dumber than a doorknob to fall for it. The site has a fucking rickroll on it. Stop and think about that.
This parody website will blow over much faster if you allow it the fifteen seconds of joking and don't flip your collective lids about it.
The WWII internment of Japanese and Germans was to prevent sabotage by Axis sympathisers, and it was succesful. It was neccesary and I'm glad they did it.
Except that Americans of German decent were NOT interned like Americans of Japanese decent, demonstrating the racial, not security, motive of the policy. But history is for elitist libruls am i rite?
Larry Sinclair WANTED by the State of Colorado for a felony Theft/Forgery charge... he's supposedly going to speak at the National Press Club on the 18th. Kos bounty hunter army is already assembling :lol .
Dems To McCain: Won't You Join Obama In Cracking Down On Foreign Lobbying?
Call it the Embarrass Rick Davis Act of 2008.
Rick Davis, of course, is John McCain's campaign manager, and has taken a hit for doing business with companies with ties to Iran. Now Barack Obama has signed on as a co-sponsor of a bill to subject American lobbyists like Davis to tighter disclosure requirements if they work on behalf of foreign entities.
During a conference call with reporters, Sen. Chuck Schumer insisted the bill wasn't primarily influenced by Davis, but instead by some lobbying activities by the Iraqi government that were discovered in recent weeks. However, he said, Davis would be affected by the bill.
Schumer invited McCain to sign on as a co-sponsor of the bill -- a pretty aggressive throwing down of the gauntlet, since it puts McCain in the tough spot of either signing on, and making life difficult for all the lobbyists on his campaign, or refusing, and ceding the reformer high ground to Obama.
That is all that this has been. Obama's team is throwing combos from one position and why McCain is defending one combo, Obama has moved to another. This has been a lesson in presidential politics being displayed. McCain is always on the defensive. The GOP is getting overwhelmed.
Aw. So does this mean no dual conventions in the twin cities?
Also, I didn't watch the program from beginning to end, but from what I did see, man, Rachel was on today and I mean on. Calling out these tools, left and right. Damn. Too bad MSNBC doesn't air this show several times a day like Hardball or Countdown, otherwise I would've recorded it. The new (as if this wasn't the prime directive from the beginning) "ad-hoc" agenda that seems to be emerging from the administration as to why we should stay in Iraq - to get oil - was called out for what it is by her - colonization.