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[Brentai]

A pox on any editor who publishes a headline that makes some sort of reference to "rising Santorum".

[Mongrel]

"That's quite the itch you've got there... forced to go down to the east end after the general's daughter turned you down?"
"No, I spent the night with her after all."
"And you gave her the pox?!"
"No! The tramp gave it to me!"

[Mothra]

Dare we dream that Colbert actually pulls this off?

[Thad]

Doubt it, but that's not the point.  The point is the publicity -- calling attention to Citizens United and how generally fucked we are.

[Shinra]

Front page on CNN. What's that? Ron Paul is a dangerous bigot?

 

[Mongrel]

On the subject of the Ron Paul Is A Huge Bigot stories coming out lately.

So blah blah blah, the media is trying to repeat the Bachmann/Perry/Cain/Gingrich flavour-of-the-week pattern, right? Only instead of attacking any of Paul's very real deficiencies (and we all know there are a lot of those), they're hounding him over some fairly trumped-up racism charges based on what is arguably thin evidence.

Even if he is a giant racist, it's far from being the worst thing he believes. What it IS is an easy narrative for lazy newsmen. And that's where this all gets interesting.

If Paul actually manages to do what no prior challenger did and beat the attempt to destroy him, he will instantly soar above all prior competition in the "Anybody-but-Romney" pack. He's already demonstrated a quicker wit than say, Perry. It's not impossible that he could turn this whole thing to his own advantage - if he does, the whole dynamic of the primary may be upended.

Think back to the issue Obama had with his former pastor. Now, I don't think Paul's that eloquent, but he does have some ability. And the racism scandal is not as damaging to him as the pastor was to Obama, so similar speech-heroics are not required. All he has to do is "Beat the Rap" and he may well vault past all prior competition (except Romney).

[Brentai]

They don't want to talk about Paul's real shortcomings because a lot of people think Paul's real shortcomings are genuinely good ideas.

[TA]

I dunno, I kinda feel like a long proven track record of outspoken white supremacist ideology and connections is a "real shortcoming".

[TA]

So, it's looking like the next meme on the anti-Obama left is holding up Ron Paul as a savior.  Basically pushing the line that "He's totally a more legitimate progressive candidate than Barack Obama, if you ignore a lot of very important things, and look at the other things without context or too much analysis.  Like, Ron Paul wants to end the War on Drugs!  Sure, that's because he wants 50 state-run wars that make the current one look rational, but that's farther than we want to go."

Glenn Greenwald says he's not endorsing Ron Paul, but that statement prefaces a long list of "Here's why Ron Paul is so much better than Obama, just sayin' you guys".

[Mongrel]

I think it just goes to show how desperate many people are for a candidate who would be even semi-sane on issues like foolish belligerence abroad, the drug wars, or other things Ron is known for.

It won't be Paul, but at some point, someone on the left OR the right is going to take the best bits of his schtick, refine it, and go on an unstoppable tear for the White House.

[Shinra]

To be fair, we thought Obama was that candidate.

[Mongrel]

In retrospect, the fact that Obama came right out and said that people were only projecting their desires onto him gets more galling every day.

I do stand by the view though that he was basically a clueless neophyte, easily influenced by the old hands. But that's not an attempt to excuse the man. A man needs to have some spine, and not keep such an open mind that his brain rolls out his ear canal, you know?

That reminds me of an interesting pair of quotes I came across.

They are both from (I think?) Kevin Williamson. I am not too familiar with the Williamson, but he seems to be a hack for the National Review. So caution is warranted - I can't vouch for these quotes absolutely. The funny thing is that in the context of what's being argued here, I'm not sure if that actually makes these less credible or moreso.

For a few measly millions, Wall Street not only bought itself a president, but got the start-up firm of B. H. Obama & Co. LLC to throw a cabinet into the deal, too — on remarkably generous terms.

President Obama, for a guy prone to delivering prim and smug little homilies denouncing greed, greed, greed — the only of the seven deadly sins that truly offends Democrats (though Mrs. Obama has done some desultory work on gluttony) — is strangely comfortable among the Gordon Gekkos of this world.

Shall we have a partial roll call? Beat the drum slowly and call out the names: With unemployment still topping 9 percent, the catastatic world economy teetering on the brink of another, even larger financial catastrophe, and trillion-dollar U.S. deficits as far as the green-shaded eye can see, let’s hear it for Obama’s first National Economic Council director, Lawrence Summers (of hedge-fund giant D. E. Shaw and venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz), who has had some nice paydays courtesy of Lehman Bros., JPMorgan Chase, and Citigroup. Let’s hear it for Citigroup’s Michael Froman, deputy assistant to the president and deputy national-security adviser for international economic affairs, for Hartford Financial’s Neal Wolin, deputy Treasury secretary, for JPMorgan’s William Daley, Obama’s chief of staff, and for his predecessor, Rahm Emanuel of Wasserstein Perella. Let’s hear it for Fannie Mae’s Tom Donilon, national-security adviser. (No, seriously: One of the luminous interstellar geniuses who brought Fannie Mae to its current aphotic state of affairs, upside down to the tune of trillions of dollars, is running national security, and the former director of the White House Military Office, Louis Caldera, was on the board of IndyMac when it finally went toes up — sleep tight, America!) And, lest we forget, let’s have three big, sloppy cheers for economic-transition team leaders Robert Rubin (Goldman Sachs, Citigroup) and folksy tax enthusiast/ghoulish billionaire vulture Warren Buffett.

On and on and on it goes: Sen. John Kerry invested aggressively in health-care companies while shaping health-care legislation. Rep. Spencer Bachus (R. Ala.) was a remarkably apt options trader during the days when he had a front-row seat to Congress’s deliberations on the unfolding financial crisis.

The Obama administration poured billions of dollars into solar companies, of which the failed Solyndra is the most infamous. But a lot of that money went to other firms, including First Solar, which is owned by billionaire Obama supporter Ted Turner and by Goldman Sachs.

Goldman Sachs is omnipresent. And during the financial crisis, a big piece of Goldman Sachs was bought by Warren Buffett, who stacked up a lot of cash when the government poured money into that struggling investment bank with the support of Barack Obama. When the federal government bought into Goldman Sachs, it negotiated for itself a 5 percent dividend. Warren Buffett got 10 percent — on top of the benefit of having Washington inundate his investment with great rippling streams of taxpayers’ money. Republicans are no saints, either, but Democrats were running the congressional show during such crucial episodes as the implementation of the bailouts and the health-care debate — which were big investment opportunities for political insiders with access to market-moving information.

Congress has effectively exempted itself from insider-trading rules, not that the SEC would have the guts to go after a Senator Schumer or a Speaker Pelosi for these exploits. And that — not campaign contributions, not lobbying — is the really stinky petri dish of festering corruption at the nexus of Washington and Wall Street. You want a case for limited government? That’s it. And Wall Street is on the wrong side of the argument, which is one reason free-market conservatives should not romanticize the lords of finance.

[Disposable Ninja]

I don't know about Obama. I feel like he did exactly what I wanted him to do: play disinterested mediator. I didn't want another president like Bush to just violently fuck over whoever he wanted to to get whatever he wanted. I wanted a president who would, you know, preside.

But... uh, well, I didn't expect the opposition to be so incomprehensibly, insanely, dangerously self-destructive. And, honestly, I think to Obama's credit, in situations where he did not need to court the Republicans (such as foreign affairs), he's done pretty well.

[Mongrel]

Found the source for the quotes above. NR Article

[Thad]

I dunno, I kinda feel like a long proven track record of outspoken white supremacist ideology and connections is a "real shortcoming".

Certainly, but when all the best evidence is from the 1980's it starts to get a whiff of the inevitable obnoxious "Look!  A Byrd!" distraction that came up, inevitably, in every political comments section every time anyone pointed out systemic racism in the Republican Party.

From the Evanier post I linked a page ago:

Is this stuff relevant today? If you're looking for reasons to not vote for Ron Paul, sure. People looking for reasons to not vote for Barack Obama sure made a lot out of his past associations with Bill Ayers and Reverend Wright, inflating those relationships way past any bounds of reality. But I'm always a little suspicious when you have to dig into a candidate's past to argue he's not fit for public office. I'd rather see the case made with facts from, say, the current century.

I don't know about Obama. I feel like he did exactly what I wanted him to do: play disinterested mediator.

Well, he's got the "disinterested" part, anyway.

I didn't want another president like Bush to just violently fuck over whoever he wanted to to get whatever he wanted. I wanted a president who would, you know, preside.

It's been a very long time since the President's job description has been "stand back and let Congress do its thing".  Obama's got a bully pulpit and he's chosen not to use it effectively.  While he was bitching about how his supporters are unreasonable for expecting him not to immediately cave on the Bush tax cuts, Jon Stewart was pointing out that hey maybe the 9/11 first responders should have healthcare.

I humbly submit that the President of the United States should have been at least as involved in getting healthcare for 9/11 first responders as a TV comedian.

[Thad]

Adding: If Romney wins tonight, can the media finally stop pretending someone other than him has any shot at being the nominee?

Heard a soundbite from Mitt on NPR this morning; found the quote at ABC:

I’ve watched a president who’s become the great divider, the great complainer, the great excuse-giver, the great blamer.

Obviously I am not a fan of Mitt, but...it's pretty hard to argue with any of that.

(Maybe "great divider".  Because that implies a sort of active role that Obama just hasn't taken.  If I were to grant the title of "great divider" to any one American over the past 3 years it'd be Glenn Beck.  But complainer, excuse-giver, blamer?  Yeah, Obama sure does a lot of those things.)

[Pacobird]

I want to vote for John Edwards again.


Well, sort of.

[Thad]

Well, the Republicans DO have a guy who cheated on his wife when she had cancer...

[Thad]

Adding: If Romney wins tonight, can the media finally stop pretending someone other than him has any shot at being the nominee?

Oooor they can spend the next week pretending fucking Santorum is a viable candidate.

Well hell, guess they'd used up everybody else except Huntsman and that guy who switched to Libertarian.

Plus three people who were never actually running.

[Mongrel]

Adding: If Romney wins tonight, can the media finally stop pretending someone other than him has any shot at being the nominee?

Oooor they can spend the next week pretending fucking Santorum is a viable candidate.

Well hell, guess they'd used up everybody else except Huntsman and that guy who switched to Libertarian.

Plus three people who were never actually running.

That last article is calling Perry a front-runner, so I'd take it with a grain of salt.