OK before Tep says it, let me pre-empt the usual comments:

Preening, pandering - evidently the boy has never driven a car or he would not comment in such an inexperienced way in respect of a scientific matter.  Can't respond to Republican attack dogs, who are going to turn him into another Gore.  Next thing he will claim he invented the tire idea.  The arrogance of the man, thinking he could save the planet.  Elitist, suggesting that poor people have cars that have tires.  And how will this help bring about UHC?

Onto more interesting stuff ... pitch-perfect is it.  And I liked his bringing in Paris Hilton - McCain will rue the day he made the ad, because now this will be in every Obama speech. "Instead of talking about Paris Hilton, [insert the issue du jour."

wow, that was great.  more of that!

PERFECT!!! Thank you for finding this Jason!

Obama needs to put this in an ad and run it nationally 24/7, like yesterday!

I felt this thrill going up my leg.

People just gotta get with the Postmodern science program. I mean, its so archaic and stupid to ask silly questions like "are the observations within the domain of the prediction" and "is the theoretical mechanism physical". Such are the questions of Jurrasicaly minded men angrily clinging to their 19th century notions of empirical truth.

I agree with icarusr -- this Paris/Britney thing may come back to bite McCain in the ass big time.  The juxtaposition is a little dangerous for Obama, for a number of intuitive reasons including many Americans' deep-seated fears about sex between blacks and whites.  But it could be deadly for McCain, as he's entering an area where the generational dynamic works against him and he's going to make a big mistake if he tries to e.g. to paint that kind of comparison in the debates, and if he has to back away from it, it's worse.

The only minus is handing a great slogan to the Republicans:  "Vote for McCain -- Take Pride In Your Ignorance!"

"It's like [my opponents] take pride in being ignorant."

No, they don't take pride in being ignorant. Rather, they take if not pride then much satisfaction in the secure knowledge that it is the voters in their crosshairs who are in general both ignorant as well as malleable.

However, Obama already knows this, so for his supporters it should be heartening that, by falsely calling his opponents ignorant, he is at last taking off the gloves and resorting to the same disingenuous, dishonest, and eminently successful tactics that have been winning elections for his opposition for decades.

Downside for Obama: if it's smart, Team McCain will edit the clip and fold it into a spot, e.g. "First he said you're bitter. Now he thinks you're ignorant."

Now we're talking.

This is the perfect response. You can't just sit on your hands and try to take the high road on all of these things. Hit 'em head-on! That's him at top form there: being his charismatic self, but with something important to say and a great delivery.

"Vote for McCain -- Take Pride In Your Ignorance!"

"Vote for McCain--Because we can really live in the past if we really, really try."

"Vote for McCain -- Even though we are going to wrong way, he can get us there on deflated tires."

"Vote for McCain -- Because Wilford Brimley is too busy doing a Quaker Oats commercial."

"Vote for McCain -- America is Dorian Gray is McCain is the picture."

Screwed that up

America is Dorian Gray and McCain is the painting.

BUFFOONERY....Does John McCain really claim that he's the guy who will "battle big oil"? With a straight face? I guess you have to admire the chutzpah, if nothing else. On the other hand, Barack Obama's light-hearted take on the GOP's...

Off-topic (slightly)..... Paris Hilton has come out with an ad to defend her honor! (It's actually pretty good):

www.funnyordie.com/.../64ad536a6d

Thetray: AWESOME.  When you are mocked - and this was pretty good - by Paris Hilton, it's time to put the falsies away and take your metamucil to bed.

There are some drawbacks to acting the joker as a Presidential candidate - sometimes, the tricks go loop-to-loop.  Betweem Obama's line and now Paris' ad, surely someon's head should be rolling in McCainland?  

Next up, Britney Spears on McCain's Iraq policy.

Bill: The beauty of Obama's response is that short of extolling ignorance outright - and even the Republicans are not that stupid - they can't respond to Obama's retort.  If Obama had said anything about the Republicans thinking the American people are less than Nobellists to the last man, woman and baby, then you would be right; the splice would be there by midnight tonight with Rick Davis on the Today show denouncing Obama's elitism.  Now, the best thing Republicans can come up with is, "there he goes again, he can't take a joke.  We try to inject a bit of humour into the campaign, and Obama inflates it into a Federal case.  Inflate - geddit, geddit - snort, guffaw, fart ...".

He's on Fire!!

And to quote Jon Stewart:

"Vote for McCain -- I'm nothing special and would probably make a terrible president."

Wait wait wait wait...was that Paris Hilton WITH A SENSIBLE POLICY IDEA?

I think my head just exploded.

Blackie, I'm about three beers away from registering takeprideinyourignorance.com and loading it full of McCain slogans.  Awesome.  Let's see what I have in the fridge.

It IS a great response.

And it SHOULD be immediately made into a campaign commercial or webspot.

But most importantly, the phrase "It's Like These Guys Take Pride in Being Ignorant" is the clearest distillation of modern conservative politics* I have ever heard come out of a candidate's mouth.

*(Please note: I said modern conservative _politics_, not modern conservatism. I'll done my asbestos jumpsuit, anyway...)

I come down somewhere between Mike and Jason on Obama's response to McCain's tire-gauge assault

Ratner: If you need any help with the *nontechnical* aspects (meaning, content, editing, etc.) let me know. (The same handle on gmail and yahoo.) This is a great idea!

Wait for this from Rick Davis:

"Obviously Senator Obama has no sense of humour.  It is disingenuous and shameful for Senator Obama to suggest that a humorous campaign was meant to make light of the plight of Americans, especially after his false outrage."  Blah blah blah ...

ratner: go for it!

Believe me icarus, I'll need all the help I can get.  I planned this endeavor Iraq war-style: "oooh, fun idea!" quickly followed by "now what?"

God, the best part is, it doesn't end with the tire guages! We whack creationists, Bush administration science reversals, global warming sceptics, etc, all in one great smash, which can be used again and again. This cule be a theme...

could not cule...

ratnerstar:  I'll gladly send more beer if you need it.  Do it!  Do it!

Seriously, somebody put the last bit of that Obama speech over footage of McCain at that biker rally thingy from today...run it on a continuous loop on every channel they can afford...

Man, I should have waited for someone to send me free beer first, but I'm impulsive.

www.takeprideinyourignorance.com

Your DNS server may not resolve that domain yet, so be patient.  There's really not much to see yet anyway.

It's 9:30 in the Midwest and I still don't see any content for takeprideinyourignorance.com.  Get drinking, ratnerstar!  The merchandising alone could support it - "I'm With Stupid" t-shirts with the arrow pointing up, et al.

ratner, you deserve the ragged but heartfelt cheers of intelligent, generous, impulsive, right-thinking people everywhere.  However, if I may play the hard-to-impress guy at the meeting for a moment, It should be a tad more subtle at the initial viewing of the home page, maybe something that invites people in without making it confrontational from the get-go.  I'm thinking of "Hi I'm John McCain, and I'm a maverick.  Here are some of my maverick-like ideas . . . "  That kind of deal.

But credit where credit is due, ratner is the man.

Brilliant! Dripping with sarcasm, mockery, and above all spot on with the use of the word liar and ignorant. Way to fire back!

Good lord, Irony, when have I ever given off the impression of being someone capable of subtlety?!

Nevertheless, point taken, and I fully intend to create something more funny or at least more pointed.  It's just that this Cutty Sark won't drink itself right now.

adaglas- I like your ideas!  Also, I would totally wear an "Original Maverick" shirt.  

Hahaha.  Awesome.

I really like this.  I was recently in a heated debate with a fellow Obama supporter about how he should respond to McCain's various attacks.  (I was defending the campaign against my interlocutor's insistence that Obama's not doing nearly enough to counteract them.)  In the end, we agreed on a strategy that used humor and an easy-going manner to expose the attacks as ridiculous -- exactly what he's doing here.  He's showing that you can make a forceful point with a smile.  He doesn't come off as mean or calculating or petulant or disingenuous -- typical traps when politicians go on the attack.  Nor does he come off as "fussy" or whiny or too smart for the room -- traps some have accused Obama of falling into.  In serious off-the-cuff moments, he can be halting and unclear.  Here, he uses just as many "you know"s -- a folksy tic that campaigns seem comfortable with these days -- but he comes off as generally smooth and in control.

My only reservations:  First, I'm not sure that this clip translates well into a TV-friendly soundbite.  It's a little long and requires a big set-up.  People need to *see* him responding to McCain in this mode.  He can't be quite this way with the press, but he *can* be more easy-going.  One of the more winning moments in the primary campaign was when Obama made fun of Hillary's response to the infamous "guns and religion" moment when he (with a smile) said she was pretending she was Annie Oakley all of a sudden. *That* made the news.  Surely the campaign realizes that it has to *engineer* those moments.  A slick, pitch-perfect line can win the day, by which I mean the "news cycle."  Second, I'm a little nervous about the line, "It's like these guys are proud of being ignorant."  As much as it resonates with me -- someone who disdains what I regard as a pervasive and perverse celebration of ignorance in our popular and political cultures -- I noticed that it got tepid applause in even that enthusiastic room.  The reason, I think, is that it uses a buzzword -- "ignorant" -- that is associated with the dreaded elitism.  Yes, he's accusing his "Republican opponents" of being ignorant.  But it doesn't quite fit *them* -- that is, the McCain campaign -- which he accurately accused just prior not of being ignorant but of being dishonest.  So, whom does it fit?  The rubes who buy it.  And when you're running for president, you can't come anywhere near the same area code (say, 212, 312, 213) of calling a voter a proud dimwit, however apt the description may be.

Ratner - how about one for the bars, along the lines of "Hey baby, you into offshore drilling? Cuz I've got a boat."

Ah, there's an actual site up now - nice work my friend!  Next stop:  a Facebook group.

Bravo Ratner.

I hear you Jhildner and you are so right.  But at the same time, I'm so fed up with cowering in fear. It really hasn't gotten us much, except exhausted and beat over and over again. I'm so tired of the idea that we're supposed to pretend to be - yep, ignorant and proud of it - so we won't offend people who frankly, deeply offend me.  Aren't I a citizen?  My values matter too.  

I know the idea is to win, but moves like Ratners make me feel like a man again (even though I'm a woman, but still) and that matters.  Turn out matters too, these are the ways we chip away at that - humor blasts though hopelessness like nothing else.

Besides, you don't have to live in 212, 213, 415, 312 to know ignorant when you see it and call it just that.  It's a different environment than 2004 and maybe Obama is right, maybe it IS our time.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but Paris Hilton's ad gave me a newfound respect for her.  Perfect perfect ad -- spot on funny and sharp as hell . I actually watched it twice. By far the best ad of this campaign--and what makes it more powerful is she's not endorsing either candidate.

By the way . . . is it just me, or did Obama here--in his inflections, tone, etc.--sound remarkably like Bill Cosby doing one of his routines?

Tim: I knew he reminded me of someone.  Dead on.

Scire: Me too.  It was really professionally done.

Ratner: What can I say.  AMAZING.

I think one major item should be the $845 billion tax increase to fund the UN.  It's up on TNR.  The beauty of it is that the lying is so glaring: the CBO estimates $1 million, the GOP inflates it to $845 billion.  Kinda like the way they accounted for and managed the Iraq war expenditure ...

Ratner:  My next drink is to you!  I feel like I'm witnessing history!  Of course, I'm just barely old enough that anyone who can go ahead and just create a website impresses me.  Still, bravo sir.  Score one for the forces of truth and justice....

And of course, Olberman skewers McCain, using Schwarzeneger, Charlie Crist, NASCAR and Bush's Department of Energy.  These guys have no shame ...

www.youtube.com/watch

What a day!  Due to my ridiculous work schedule I no longer check over here very frequently and when I do I hit paydirt.

Paris Hilton proves that she has the balls that Tep has been saying he wants in a Democratic Presidential candidate since last March (of '07).  She makes the RNC looks like sissies.  Tep himself is cowering over in another thread, more afraid of Paris Hilton than the Russians or the jihadists.

In the meantime, Obama derides Rovian immaturity with just the right level of bemusement.  

Then (I learned this on another site) after the news cycle ended, McCain goofed up and said that the Automobile Club agrees with Obama and thinks inflating your tires is a good idea.

By the way, any thread with wandrey is a good one.

TrayTiger: I have a new found respect for that girl! I am *seriously* impressed.

ratnerstar: you rock, even if you get down "Iraq Invasion" style

Wandrey:  I hear you.  Well said, as always.  Your forthright let's-be-honest-and-kick-some-ass sensibility is an inspiration!  Still, in watching politics, I've come to the frustrating realization that what appeals to me doesn't necessarily appeal to a lot of other people.

I don't know if you've seen the movie Dogville -- the strange and hypnotic Lars von Trier movie with Nicole Kidman as a mysterious woman in flight from something who happens upon a depression-era small town in Colorado called Dogville and is subjected, after initially being welcomed, to increasing dehumanizing abuses by the mostly simple and pious folk of the humble town involving forced labor, brutal imprisonment, and rape, all portrayed in the style of Our Town with a minimal set and a baroque narration.  I won't say how it ends, but it involves seriously intense, disturbing, thought-provoking, and, for me anyway, satisfying drama.

During the credits for this twisted fable, we see depression-era photographs of genuine poor, rural Americans -- the sort of pictures that would in normal circumstances elicit in any good liberal, such as myself, sympathy -- that would tickle my New Deal bone -- but that, after having seen the movie, inspired a much different reaction:  These people just might be, at least in some cases, total fucking assholes!

Ever since, I've started thinking of simple and pious Americans, whose celebrated simplicity and piousness can mask a dark ignorance, narrowness, and hatefulness which I regard as serious threats to the moral character, practical health, and enlightened ideals of our country -- in short, those Americans we have come, infuriatingly, to refer to in the past ten or so years as just us "folks" -- as Dogvillians.

Yes, it's the derisive joke of a proud middle-brow snob, but just being cognizant of that fact, I like to think, lets me off the hook, at least a little.  Show me Dogvillians in significant number questioning their assumptions about the world or about other people whom they know little about, striving to be open-minded, aspiring to achieve understanding beyond their comfort zone, embracing rationality regarding controversial questions of fact and, as to questions of justice, taking seriously the rights of people as people -- even if the people in question are foreign in various respects -- and I'll eat my hat.

Back to politics:  Recently, I dropped "Dogvillians" and started using a different epithet in its place -- "Voters."  Everyone who bothers me now is a Voter.  The fellow who utters the phrase "Barack Hussein Obama" is a Voter.  The person holding up the line at the supermarket due to a price and/or payment issue is a Voter.  The parents of the adorable little girl who, on a hot summer day that someone has designated "Jesus Day," comes up to me on the street to offer me bottled water and inform me, in so doing, that "God provides," are Voters.  Consumers of bottled water for Jesus-neutral reasons are Voters too for that matter.  They are also Holders of Driver's Licenses and Airplane Passengers.  I used to love going to the ball game.  Well, I still love going to the ball game.  But now I see a sea of Voters, particularly on the down-ramp out of the ballpark -- the Voter Ramp.  It's often not super charming.  Next time you're on a crowded elevator or subway car -- where personal space is, of necessity, routinely violated, and odors neither your own nor those of an intimate companion are apprehended -- remember, that's what a Voter smells like.

I'm kidding of course.  We all stink in our own way.  All part of life's rich tapestry.  My point, if I can remember it, is that *I have no fucking clue* what combination of Decision 2008-related stimuli will move Voters and determine this election, and I *am* cowering in fear of what they'll do.  I have little faith that they are impressed with the sort of things that impress me -- rationality, wit, intelligence, compassion, and bracing honesty for example.  As far as I can tell, the Voters' list of turn-offs include "elitism," smarty-pants-ism, serious-about-stuff-ism, nuance-ism, reluctant-to-make-war-ism, and fancy-lettuce-ism, not to mention rationality, wit, intelligence, compassion, and bracing honesty.

Then again, maybe I should remember Obama's prayer that he placed in the Wailing Wall (and which, it was promptly and falsely reported, he had leaked to the media in advance), and "guard against pride and despair."  Especially despair....

Now we see the true value of the TNR blogs: virtual group therapy for tired-of-being-kicked Obama supporters. CanWest should charge by the hour.

NTTAWWT, but me, I'd like a skeptical, anti-BS hangout that heaps scorn on someone who claims to be promoting "change" and "reform" while outdoing W and Cheney in the dept of groveling before gazillionaires-seeking-bailouts-and-sweet-tax-treatment. www.nytimes.com/.../06bundlers.html

He's been doing this for _four years_. While telling us he's going to clean up our politics.

That is, he's been shilling-- actually, that's way too mild; our Mr Smith has been continuously sending his Rangers and Pioneers, er, "bundlers" birthday notes, gifts for the kids etc during this whole time-- before the same incompetent greedy a**holes who have nearly destroyed this nation's financial system and who, unbelievably, are now demanding that the public  pick up the tab for their spree.

I'm sorry, I just can't believe. All snark aside, there's a mile-wide gap between the "Change you can believe in" rhetoric and the reality of a guy whose cynicism tops even W's.

Certain aspects of this little klatch makes me want to file a brief on behalf of good natured, well intentioned, appropriately disposed and proper thinking retards. Perhaps  I'll be the beneficiary of my own grand largess.

Don't be afraid. Be afrayed and get it together.

Tep. I'm with you on the incestuousness. It's getting to the point where Appalachian appellations proceed apace with all vigorous rigor mortis.

Wow. The guy hasn't even been elected president, and already tep is telling us that Obama is the worst president in American history.

Next week, tep will be inform us that Obama is a more embarrassing ex-president than Nixon or Carter. In September, tep will be outraged at the possible scale and expense of Obama's state funeral in 2051.

Fortunately, John McCain is the kind of man who would watch a paid liar attack his minor daughter's reputation in public and then hire that man to work for him. That's character America can count on! And while tep excoriates Obama for promising to clean up politics while doing the fundraising it takes to win elections, let's remember that McCain does exactly the same thing, the only difference being that McCain doesn't promise to clean up politics, he claims he _already_ cleaned up politics. So if Obama's behavior is more cynical than Dubya's, then McCain's is more cynical than Obama's. But hey, let's not let facts or reason get in the way of attacking Obama or promoting the election of the guy who promises to make healthcare even less universal than it is now.

Tep, just leave.  Take a break until after the election.  

I mean, did it ever occur to you that most of us here are, you know, members of the Democratic Party?  Is it so outlandish that we might actually want to root for our party's candidate instead of tearing him down?  Especially when one looks at him with less maniacally jaundiced eyes than yours he seems a decent, intelligent sort of fellow?  

Tep, you've always had a weakness--and it is a weakness--for slogans and catch phrases.  "Puppies-not-Yuppies," "Senator J. Crew," etc.   Now, as far as I can see, your critique of Obama amounts to nothing but a string of epithets: BS artist, cynic, The One...  Now you're saying he's more cynical than Bush.  Why?  Because he has played the same fund-raising game as every other candidate and potential candidate from either party?  I'd tell you to grow the fuck up if I didn't believe that had Obama declined any contribution larger than $250 you'd cite that demurral as just another bullshit gimmick.  

Seriously, instead of writing 5-10 of your misanthropic posts per day, why don't you go to a Giants game or something?  Take the kids for a bike ride.  Anything but another of these boilerplate posts.

LDuncan - wow, you made my day - the feeling is mutual!

Box - we have enough defenders of those people, its the non retards turn to run the show.

JHildner -- you're always so clear a writer, its like talking to you - shades of brilliance in every post.  If I am ever in trouble or want to run for office, I'm calling you and Icarus.  Ya'll are fierce and Obama is lucky to have you guys fighting the rhetorical duels for him.

I saw that movie, Lars is so dark isn't he?  Dogville, Dogma, same idea different camera lenses.  We deserve that movie in this country.  The potential evil of religious small town America has been fertile ground for artists since George Washington (did you know that he hung over 1000 "deserters" during his tenure as General, but I digress - don't you wonder if every one of those soldiers was really a deserter?).  

Remember "The Lottery?"  Weren't you up nights for months after being forced to read that in grade school?  I remember somber lectures on the evils of not standing up for what's right accompanying that lesson plan.  I hope Obama isn't our latest citizen we pull in to the town square to stone to death  - I know he wonders too.

We have to decide whether we're going to be ourselves or not - it is a risk.  Some days I'm sure its not worth the risk and I want to grovel to the latest hostile demographic about my inner desire to be just what they want me to be - just so they don't hate me for being educated, urban - whatever -  and punish Obama for it.  Some days I'll don a frigging chador if that's what it will take.

But then there are my Ratnerstar days and it not only feels more joyous and real- it feels more effective.  I say, lets make our case - make it positively whenever we can and leave the fear behind.

But I'll keep my chador handy just in case.

Funny Tep.  You get upset because I suggest, in a fit of armchair psychologising, that you might be projecting in your animus, and yet you have absolutely no compunctions about referring to the discussion here as "virtual group therapy for tired-of-being-kicked Obama supporters."  How is that different from my light-hearted comment to you?  Let me make the same comment you made to me: You do not know me, Sir, so, please, let us refrain from hurling "childish insults".

Alternatively, you can grow a thicker skin and not feign outrage or whine when YOU are reminded of your own public intellectual nakedness ... all in good fun, though, for though I find your posts increasingly tiresome, I do have a soft spot for your intellect.

Rhubs: Tep's arguments remind me of Marxist analysis, or Feminist methodology, or Derida for that matter.  We, Obama supporters, are "always-already" subsumed in his aura; we are "alienated" from our fellow human beings by his Charisma.  Ergo, our appreciation of even so much as a joke amounts to group therapy.  That a group of relatively well-educated and, I should venture to guess, highly diverse individuals should find common cause against a criminal administration and a nasty candidate, is somehow proof of our limited mindset.  In this, Tep's, context, he stands arms akimbo, like Marx or McKinnon or Derida, outside the framework, bringing to our attention the fact that he, Tep, sees things we cannot see, understands things we do not understand, is immune to the charm and rhetoric that has misled us, hold the seventh chalice of truth and the third key of wisdom, etc. etc.  

Even as he derides Obama for being weak - in another thread - he criticises him for being cynical; even as he worries that Obama might not be as strong a candidate as McCain, he questions Obama for being more cynical than Darth- I mean, W (the man who mulched McCain and then made him grovel and campaign for him).  But Tep, you can't have it both ways.  W made McCain his bitch for seven years after a brutal rape; Obama is more cynical than that?  I don't agree, but if he is, FUCKING AWESOME FOR THE DEMOCRATS - at least, he would beat the crap out of the Republicans.

Wandrey - thank's for the awesome compliment - wow.  Maybe Teppie is right and this is one giant mutual admiration society ;-) ...

JHildner and Wand: re the Voter.  Tep referred to Mencken in another thread, noting that Mencken would have shredded Obama to pieces.  And of course Mencken had no respect - none, zero, zilch, nada - respect for the Voter.  Read his American Husbandman (he evidently never met LiterateHobo :-)), or his screed against the American voter, or his obituary of Bryan ... we live in a more enlightened age, however.  And just as we demand of our journalists and our politicians to be less respectful of the Dogvillians among us, we ourselves need to cut some slack for the politicians and the journalists who have to appeal to and appease these same Dogvillians/Voters for votes and for favours.

A friend of mine represented for ten years the most diverse riding (district) in Canada.  He is about the most sophisticated individual one could imagine, but he somehow managed to have the support of not only the rishes neighbourhood in Canada, but also the poorest and most ethnically diverse (divided, because this is Canada, by one single solitary street).  He spoke two languages; he talked of different things; his philosophy was the same, but his approach was different.  Yes, he did have the support of industrialists and tycoons and he did fundraise among them (you can't do much fundraising among the welfare mothers, crack addicts, refugees and social rejects of the other part of his riding); did that impugn his integrity, his politics, his policies?  He left politics the most popular politician of the city in a couple of generations.  Mencken would probably have shredded him to pieces too, but he managed to connect with the Voters, as I think Obama will.

Oh God - Icarus, I gave up reading Tep's nonsense months ago. The only reason I have any idea what his latest ramblings are is through others.  Just to read these self congratulatory vomitings of his through your post makes me want to get out the straight jacket - that's after I've smacked him upside the head several times.  

His posts veered into bigotry long ago - racial?  I have no idea, I have my suspicsions based on his calling Obama the Naomi Cambell of candidates and making jokes about jeri curl when Obama first announced - he showed his cards pretty clearly to me then.  There simply is no taking that stuff back.  Every syllable of his since then just looks like a dressed up attempt to make those original posts respectable.  They weren't.  They were definitive.

But frankly, I don't care, I"m no mind reader on anyone's real thoughts.  The bigotry is pure in any sense named - racial or not - the automaton quality of the demonization, the blindness, the asigning of only the lowest intent of everything the man says or does.  The airless quality to his thinking. This is bigotry and its dangerous - plain and simple.

I find any sort of bigotry disgusting and I'm done with him.  

HL Menchen - perfect.  Another bigot who often tried to dress it up to look respectable.  No wonder Tep quoted him.

Wandrey:

Great article from The Root: www.theroot.com/.../47536

"Arrogant is the new Uppity"

I read that article Icarus, I can't help but agree with it. I have a couple of black male friends who I've known for 15 to 20 years who work on Wall Street. We have spoken and laughed about this  issue for years.  When Michelle Obama was caught in the spider web of her gaffe, one of these friens left me a voice mail saying "Oh No! Six foot angry black women RUN RUN RUN!!!""

Yes - at the drop of a hat they are suddenty: arrogant, cocky, pushy, angry yadda yadda.  Both of them are serious nerds who wouldn't act arrogantly at work if you paid them to.  

Anyway, I thought about this last night - people do not know what to make of Obama. He fits in to no known slot in our little brains.  He's impossible to accurately describe in five words or less like most of our Presidential candidates (back slapping southern poll, southern technocrat, born again, grumpy war hero, etc).  

He has a confident streak a mile wide, no question and I think its OK if people find that off putting.  Its not always nefarious.  I saw him on the View say "That WAS a good speech, wasn't it?"  He reminds me of my Leo son (pardon my astrology, I am a Californian).  Let's see, who else are our confident Leo spotlight lovers: Bill Clinton, Mick Jagger, P Diddy, T Boone Pickens, Ted Turner - and on and on and on.  Obama is just one more, but most folks don't like to see too much of that strutting in a black man, no point in denying it.

What makes me suspicious os the refusal to see the whole man after acknowledging this confidence - andyes, it is confidence, not arrogance - George Bush is arrogant, and it comes from isecruity.  Obama is the opposite.

If you refuse to see  and acknowledge that Obama is enormously thoughtful and has single handedly introduced that quality into this country as a political value and asset, that he's an especially terrific listener (pleae tell me how someone can be arrogant who is a good listener?), that everyone from his Federalist Society brethern on the Harvard Law review to his U CHicago co-workers to his Senate collegues all comment on his respectful, sincere desire to hear everyone's side, he constantly makes jokes about himself  - well?  It's hard to trust your objectivity and judgement.

If all you see is arrogance, then is says nothing about Obama and everything about you.

At this point I'm beginning to think teplukhin is Joe Lieberman.

Good start, ratnerstar.  I'll work on a six-pack at some point...and give it time, the Republicans will supply you with plenty more material soon enough.

Nice work, rat!

icarusr at 3:23: brilliant.

Wandrey:  Funny you mention The Lottery.  When that story was first published in The New Yorker, it sparked public outrage because people didn't get it.  Remind you of any recent controversy involving that same magazine?

I had not heard that about George Washington.  Another inconvenient, underreported fact about him:  He was an early proponent of a national university -- a controversial concept at the time that was rejected.  Of course the founders, elite students of the Enlightenment, revered learning and systematic inquiry -- a disposition that, throughout our history, has been subjected to wave upon wave of anti-rational, often religion-based attack.

I hope *you* will never wear the chador -- metaphorical or otherwise.  I won't either.  My friends and family will know that I've been kidnapped and replaced with an imposter when I submit to the lunatic customs of any cult.  Like the chador.  Like stoning a girl to death.

As for Mencken, perhaps he turns out not to be the hero I once imagined him to be -- chiefly from the portrayal of the Mencken character in Inherit the Wind and the periodic perfectly constructed bit of acid prose from him I have casually encountered.  I have not read him much, but I gather that he was among the many enemies of Bryan-style anti-rationalism who unfortunately conflated Darwin's scientific theory of evolution by means of natural selection with Herbert Spencer's pseudoscientific notion of the social justice of "survival of the fittest" -- a phrase Spencer, and not Darwin, coined -- a notion later called social Darwinism.

History is filled with annoying alliances.  Bryan was wrong about the whole monkey thing -- as well as science generally -- but he was right about social Darwinism, while Mencken was right to view Bryan as a chief purveyor and exalter of American stupidity, and about fundamentalism, and about religion generally, but wrong about social Darwinism and, to the extent he was a racist or disdainful of the *rights* of man (as opposed to man himself, which is more understandable) -- I gather that he did say some nasty things in his diary -- certainly wrong about those things too.

His creed, however, has much to recommend it:

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking. I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious. I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty. I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect. I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech. I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run. I believe in the reality of progress. But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.

Though Mencken may have been wrong on occasion in the particular, it is hard for me to fault this general spirit, with the exception of his view of government as necessarily "evil," a construction which assumes, incoherently, that any legal restriction is presumptively or in some fundamental sense wrong in that it offends a non-existent perfect liberty, or, to the extent that liberty exists as a useful concept, a government-created and government-ensured liberty.  Despite his elitism, Mencken was not, I believe, an educated man nor a very precise thinker, and he is glib on this score.  Mencken surely approved of the concept of civilization, a phenomenon impossible without an accepted coercive state apparatus to ensure conditions for social cooperation and flourishing.  Contra Reagan, government isn't evil; evil government is evil.  Just government, meanwhile, is freedom's guardian and not its antagonist.  Without the protection of law, all we are left with is a state of affairs where one's freedom may be privately assaulted without redress or consequence except insofar as the victim and his friends can fight back.  Perhaps this is Mencken the social Darwinist talking.  Or perhaps he is merely overstating a belief in the sort of liberty our coercive Bill of Rights is meant to protect , in which case I agree totally.

As for what is to be said in a presidential campaign, I fear that my take on the current situation is insufficiently "positive" for general consumption.  At least Obama is far more positive than I, and I'm perfectly willing to concede that he's a better man than I for it.

icarus:  When I go on about Dogvillian Voters, I hope it's clear that my disgust with certain prominent aspects of our culture -- our religion, our anti-intellectualism, our anti-rationalism, our declining reverence for serious thought and great art, our declining reverence even for merely good art, our declining reverence for or even knowledge of our founding ideals and much else, our popular culture which increasingly seems to be by and for 12-year-olds, our moronic identity wars, our declining educational standards, our self-imposed balkanization, intellectual and otherwise, our diminishing attention spans, our utter lack of a sense of humor, our total failure to see anything seriously wrong with any of that, in short, our proud folksy idiocy -- in no way reflects a diminished commitment on my part to rights, including the right to a democratic form of government.  A strong belief in human rights is the ceiling, or is it the floor?, when it comes to my disdain for the Voters as a group.  I'm not sure where Mencken's floor/ceiling was.  But respecting the rights of people doesn't really require respecting people -- and certainly not all people or any particular people or any particular culture or any particular bit of ignorance.  Of course politicians can't be quite so down on the Voters.  I understand that very well.  To me, one of Obama's great talents is his ability to talk intelligently without talking down or talking cynically.  He has the potential, though religious, to be a popularizer of "clear and honest thinking."

Meanwhile, I'm far less sympathetic with the suggestion that *journalists* have to defer to popular idiocy.  Their job -- their duty -- is the truth.  Period.  They need to get that through their thick skulls.  I am not at all convinced that fidelity to what ought to be journalists' Rule 1 -- No Bullshit -- is incompatible with running a successful business in a competitive environment.  I just think that too many of them suck at their jobs and/or don't really understand what it is.