I'm Confused

Is the Apple Dumpling Gang running this campaign?

The criticism is that he's running against McCain.

But you already knew that. ;-)

Tee hee. The answer, of course, is that whatever Obama says is a sign that he's either rigid or a flip-flopper, but at any rate unprepared to be president. And as 4lg said, you already knew that. The thing that confuses me is how so many people can be saying McCain doesn't have a message. Of course he does. His message is that whatever Barack says is wrong, (and McCain never said/did any of those things people report that he said/did in the past). Sure wish Cochran had a picture.

I think McCain has been masterful, actually, at raining down a constant assault on Obama. And he doesn't care whether it's consistent. Scatter-shot may reach more people.

BTW, on Morning Mika today she asked John Ridley and Patrick Buchanan who they'd rather have BBQ with. Ridley said "Obama, hands down," and Buchanan said "I'm with Ridley. I know John McCain."

Obama's gone from cutting and running to flip-flopping. Truly a Hobsons's choice for voters.

To KathyR: That's funny about Pat "My Sheet is at the Cleaners" Buchanan. Kudos to you for actually being able to watch Morning Joe--I had to give it up when Joe's douche-ness became overwhelming.

Somewhere: Joe's been having a baby and taking a lot of time off. Mika's pretty good on her own, and then we don't have to listen to Joe putting her down. His ego has swelled noticeably since the program started.

I think it also shows that Repubs are truly voting for the guy they hate the least, ala Rush. Not a lot of enthusiasm amongst them for Johnny McMaverick.

Agreed, although Buchanan does not call himself a Republican anymore. As a result, he's often the most insightful commentator on the show (which is a little weird). He doesn't seem to have a dog in the hunt.

Cantor is an idiot. He for a while wanted to end the UN. He also was an Abramoff guy, writing on behalf of Jack's Indian tribes who wanted casino monopolies. He is just a paragon of virtue.

Josh Marshall is wondering why network talking heads are lazily promulgating conservative talking points about Obama's positions:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/202679.php

It's like it all just exists in their heads. They had lazy, cardboard-cutout ideas about his Iraq positions before, and now they just exchange them for a different set of hack cardboard cutout ideas.

Before they were reading what he said according to their own stereotypes about a "left" candidate, now they're reading his words according to a general election, rudderless, "say-anything-Democrat" stereotype.

As far as I can tell they're just seeing reflections of their own hack thinking. If they actually studied the policy instead of lazy obsessing on the optics and the horse race... Nah, I guess that's just too much to ask.

I'm confused Karen...where's the McCain flip flop story? Oh, that's right...Maverick....straight talk....war hero...doesn't count. Nevermind.

WTF...Buchananan doesn't have a dog in the hunt? Sure he does....white....anglo-saxon....protestant....old. Every word he utters is supportive of this demo and it's world view. Tired.

If it's any comfort to you Ms. Tumulty, you are not confused. McCain is.

Glad to clear that up for you.

Barack's just gone live to the press saying he has not changed his position. Now Hardball, left with nothing to say, is trying to wring some subtle change out of his statement. very tired of this.

I'm Confused

Don't be. The pattern of insisting that Obama has to do something and then turning around and calling him weak or inconsistent for agreeing to do it is right out of the Rove playbook.

The people who thought he'd fight back harder or misinterpreted his prior, hedged stands are the one's who have to nurse their disappointment.

Cincinnatus, Buchanan is Irish Catholic.

It's a requirement at MSNBC.

Re: Update

What's wrong with this Obama fellow that makes it so impossible to box him in? It's like Jiu Jitsu. Your opponent tries to attack you and he ends up on the ground.

Confusion is the best they can hope for. See, there's no THERE there in the McCain/RoveLite campaign – only badmouthing the other guy.

If nothing else, the latest developments prove something about McCain: if there is such a thing as political integrity (and I can hear the guffaws already), he ain't got it. He's so focused on winning at any cost he's even willing to turn to the slime merchants who trashed him in 2000. Not unlike the battered spouse who keeps going back, he's completely lost the ability to set his own course.

Sad, really.

Here's your explanation:

The McCain campaign is going to criticize every single statement the Obama campaign makes. McCain can only win by bringing his opponent down. Obama could say its a sunny day and the McCain campaign would accuse him of flipflopping from his previous, partly cloudy position. Issues are no longer relevant. Trading press releases like heavyweight boxers throwing punches is what modern political campaigns have been reduced to - with the media playing the role of drunken referee. Playing it badly, too.

I couldn't care less what McCain thinks about Obama or what Obama thinks about McCain. My guess would be that they're opponents and have little nice to say about the other once you get past the polite boilerplate speak.

I care about what the candidates have to say about their own positions. I care that McCain didn't even bother to vote for the GI Bill and Obama is going to vote for FISA. Hallway gossip from campaign sycophants being the lead story is why you're getting so much heat from the readers, your advertising revenues are declining, and your subscriptions are dwindling.

Report the news. Ignore the BS. Its that easy.

"Here endeth the lesson"

Yeah you're right trifecta...but Irish Catholics like Buchanan work waaaay to hard to be accepted by the majority, this is in large part responsible for their wanton mythologizing of the 'regular guy' I think. It's like a social Stockholm syndrome...the fear of being called papist that's been bred into them after all these decades.

The hacks are hacking:

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/07/news_orgs_already_getting_it_w.php

O.K, I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital.

Why are you confused, KT? I saw his Presser on CNN. He is planning to draw down 2 brigades a month with the caveat that facts on the ground may need him to amend this so that our troops are withdrawn safely. Also the training program for Iraqis needs to be maintained. He is flexible enough that he is prepared to adjust the drawdowns as circumstances warrant on the advice of his generals.

But as C-in-C he sets the tone and the parameters, not the generals. This is distinctly different from Bush who is quite happy to be manipulated so that he can pass off the responsibility on the generals.

When all is said and done he is drawing down our troops. Why are MSM types getting themselves into a twist? Is this because it interferes with the Saints long term committment to stay in Iraq.

The questions should really be directed and Long Stay McCain. Why is he willing to put American lives at risk for "X" years in order to sustain the Iraq "colony"?

One further point: on such a serious subject can we really expect candidates to have a critic-free proposal. The great thing is that the MSM gets to ask the questions. They never have to pick up a gun and actually fight. That falls to military families.

I'm sure now the RNC will come out with some nonsense about Obama changing his position twice in one day. Obama is right. Conservatives have been writing editorials for two weeks about how Obama will change his position thereby priming the pump for a flip flop story if he deviates in the slightest.

Now McCain flip flopping on drilling is just "responding to circumstances."

She's not really confused, Bitterpill8. She's gently mocking the McCain campaign.

What's all the chatter and surprise about? Haven't we all seen, repeatedly, that the Repugs are hypocrites that operate on double standards?

It's now become a cliche that, "Whatever bad thing you're talking about - flip-flopping / torture / fascism / fear mongering / whatever - it isn't as such if we do it."

Just more o' the same from the Repugnant crowd. Of course, they get by with a little help from their friends in the MSM.

KT here--

Bitterpill: I get what Obama is saying. I'm trying to figure out what the Republicans are trying to say...

KT/Swampland: but that is my problem: we seem to let the Republicans define the issue. Why bother with their nonsense. Just analyse what Obama says. The Republicans can be relied upon to throw smoke. My reaction, KT/Swampland, would be discount the McCain/Repub response, not to question Obama.

To both and you and yours: enjoy July 4th.

KT, let me save you some "figuring" time. The Republicans are saying "McCain good; Obama bad." That's all it boils down to. Now if there were only such a similar hue & cry from the MSM about any of McMavericks issue changes....

KT here--

I've now posted a link to the Obama news conference, and am heading out. A most Happy Fourth to all our commenters.

KathyR, just watched Joe hosting Race to the White House (or whatever that show is called). He's the only guy who makes me like David Gregory. He's being a condescending ass-hat to Rachel Maddow. I see I haven't been missing anything since I tuned out Morning Joe.

Happy 4th to you too KT!

Someone as brilliant as Barak Obama knew years ago not to get in this war. He knew that this was a mistake and if he would have been in the Senate he wouldn't have voted for war.

Now that we are in a war, he will draw down the troop "in the first 90 days of my administration". No wait, now its "end the war in 2009". No wait, its now "I will listen to the military commanders on the ground".

The flip-flopper of all flip floppers has spoken.

I hope Obama now understands that trying to appease the Right only results in being spit in the face. What have Pelosi and Reid received for doing everything Bush wanted? They are still accused of being cut and runners and weak on national security. The real troubling part is that the members of the centrist cult continue to try and win favour with radical right-wing extremists like McCain while abandoning those who brought them to the show.

Look, it's simple, Obama's stayed steady with 16 months.

McCain makes up crap about Obama's saying.

You in the press run with McCain's lies.

Now grow up and tell the truth.

"The flip-flopper of all flip floppers has spoken. "

Yeah, Rustydog, I get it...you're for McCain.

Though, just once, I'd like to hear you give us a good argument for McCain that doesn't use the word "Obama".

This is just stupid. Obama's position has always been to iteratively:

1. withdraw a small number of troops.
2. stop to evaluate the effect of the reduction.
3. if conditions are satisfactory then repeat step #1 and withdraw some more.

It has always been a cautious approach that requires constant monitoring. Any other approach would be irresponsible. He has never been for 'immediate' or 'precipitous' withdrawal, despite republican accusations to the contrary.

bitterpill8 described the plan very well. I take issue with him on one aspect of the description, however. While it's true that Bush has always been ready to "pass off the responsibility on the generals", in the sense that he passes on the blame for failure, he has also been quick to replace generals that don't do and say exactly what he wants (especially when Rumsfeld was in the Pentagon).

Apparently, the McCain campaign is accusing Obama of not acting enough like Bush. As Steven Colbert put it:
...he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday.

To McE: or the words "war hero" or "maverick".

Oh, KT, you're just being nice to McCain and the crew -- you know they're doing this intentionally to frame Obama as someone he's not.

No worries, though, all of us can see through it. Except for Rustydog.

The Republicans are saying "McCain good; Obama bad."

You're partly right. Thing is, I don't hear a whole lot of "McCain good" coming from, well, anybody. So much for that respectable positive campaign on the issues, eh? But I'm sure he really wishes he could be running a positive campaign on the issues, right? Because his personal standards are far, far higher than any of us could ever hope to understand. It's just that, well, even with the best of intentions it's darn tough to run a positive campaign when you don't have a single solitary positive idea on which to run it.

Thing is, outside of Matt Taibbi we'll never hear word one about how the great Mavericky champion of the positive, issues-oriented campaign is running a presidential campaign that has absolutely nothing to offer but smears, invective, and fear-mongering. I'm sure somebody would write that story, but all those Dunkin' Donuts runs really take a lot out of you, you know?

Sixteenth month withdrawl? What happened to that from the "change candidate"? First, it's sixteen months, then it's a hundred years. Honesty is such a lonely word, no?

KT. why do you only respond to your fellow liberals???

KT. why do you only respond to your fellow liberals???

KT. why do you only respond to your fellow liberals???

Indeed, why?

> KT. why do you only respond to your fellow liberals???

I don't think it's exclusively "liberals" - unless you define everyone who isn't a slobbering, rabid Repugnant a "liberal."

But, bigger picture, why respond to the clueless, deluded asshats out there? You guys - supporters of terrorism; deniers of global warming; destroyers of the Constitution of these United States; chicken-hawks supporting the deaths of our troops in a fruitless war in Iraq - are nothing but fanatics on a mission - whatever it is - and it just encourages your irrational responses.

Who wants that?

Oops: typo. Substitute "torture" for "terrorism."

MNG: OK, but they're pretty much supporting terrorism too.

Iraq has been one of the best terrorist recruiting tools ever. Moreover, these are the same people who don't want to do anything to end our oil addiction, thus ensuring that we'll keep sending big bucks to the oil cartel, many of whose members like to write checks to terrorists.

bobcn: I stand corrected on Bush. Thanks for your input.