Five Before Chaos

You’ve undoubtedly read me rant on before about how there seems to be a rather prominent anti-intellectual streak in the U.S. How else would one explain the existence of creationist museums, the teabaggers, and Sarah Palin? There are examples abounds, and this morning, I read one that got my blood boiling, yet again, on CNN:

President Obama’s speech on the gulf oil disaster may have gone over the heads of many in his audience, according to an analysis of the 18-minute talk released Wednesday.

Tuesday night’s speech from the Oval Office of the White House was written to a 9.8 grade level, said Paul J.J. Payack, president of Global Language Monitor. The Austin, Texas-based company analyzes and catalogues trends in word usage and word choice and their impact on culture.

Though the president used slightly less than four sentences per paragraph, his 19.8 words per sentence “added some difficulty for his target audience,” Payack said.

(Cue sound of jaw dropping)

The article itself is pretty pathetic, as the guy they interview praises Obama for using the word “spewing”. Perhaps if he said ” the oil is farting out into the ocean, you betcha,” he would have gotten higher marks. Personally, I thought the speech was rather ho-hum in terms of content, but I didn’t find myself reaching for a dictionary every few seconds. This idea that something written at a “9.8 grade level” was over the heads of many Americans speaks volumes about our country, and it explains a lot about why we’re at where we are today. I don’t remember any articles about Bush’s speeches being at an elementary school level being “under the heads” of many Americans.

Even the CNN site itself plays into this, as whenever you look at an article on there now, on the left there’s a little “story highlights” column with a few points from the story, for those who apparently don’t have the attention span or reading comprehension skills to read a one page story. Apparently, there’s quite a few people out there like that.

Sorry ’bout the scarcity lately, folks. Woodcuttin’ and thesis writin’ have me pretty busy lately. But I do have time to wonder how long it is before this guy becomes the next right-wing hero/martyr:

An armed man spotted at a North Carolina airport parking lot just after President Obama’s airliner departed told an officer he wanted to see the president and had a car equipped with police gear, including a siren and flashing lights, authorities said….
At about 2 p.m. local time, airport police saw McVey get out of a maroon car with Ohio plates and that he had a sidearm, Smith said. Both airport police and the Secret Service questioned him and he was taken into custody. The suspect was not near the president’s plane, which had just departed, and was in a rental car return lot that is open to the public, Smith said.

His car was equipped with clear LED law enforcement-style strobe lights in the front and rear dash, Smith said. The car also had a mounted digital camera in the front window, four large antennas on the trunk lid, and under the steering wheel was a working siren box. Smith said McVey was not in law enforcement.

I can remember vividly during those hellacious Dubya years how event like this would happen all of the time; some hippie sitting in a VW bus with an AK47 and such, whenever the prez would fly into somewhere.

No, not that it’s fun watching the Prez shoot down the usual GOP bullshit – I knew that. It’s that, even in the face of contradiction of the above said b.s. (not talking points, actual demonstrable facts), Republicans simply cannot stop lying, as evidenced by a typical GOP congressdouche Twitter feed:

RepTomPrice: Takeaway from summit so far–Dems push govt takeover of HC! Bureaucrats deciding coverage, everyone forced to buy it, cant keep what you have

See, the prez, to his credit, explained quite clearly why this is anything but true. But facts don’t matter when you’re catering to idiots who walk around with teabags tied to their hats. Good thing the GOP put on those jumbo clown shoes before they showed up.

UPDATE: Rep. Mike Spence is the king of stupid. Twitter is the perfect medium for him:

Boehner brings the Dems’ massive gov’t takeover of #hc to the summit for all Americans to see

I said yesterday that this #summit looked like a
taxpayer funded media event, looks like I was right

Pence doesn’t like the fact that all the typical GOP talking points that work with the teabaggers don’t look so hot when they’re easily smacked down. The GOP doesn’t do too well in a reality-based format.

You might have noticed perpetual-angry-white-guy Chanman in the comments sparring about the “teleprompter president”. We still hear the constant Republidouche “jokes” (in quotes, because con humor isn’t funny once it leaves the confines of CPAC and the like) about Obama and his Precious Magical Teleprompter, all the while ignoring that just about every other president since its invention has relied on them.

So, as Chanman pointed us to a Politico (aka “Dick Cheney’s Stenographer Weekly”) article about, how, get this, Obama has relied on teleprompters more than any other president. Ok. So. Fucking. What. The point?

See, somehow (and this is rooted in conservative anti-intellectualism, of course), the implication is the only reason Obama has the talent of being a great orator (which many concur, regardless of whether or not they support him) is because of his teleprompter. That and it probably pisses off the teabaggers that he uses words they don’t understand and doesn’t leave the consonants off of the end of his words. These are the same people that bitch about Obama not always wearing a tie or putting his feet up on his desk, even though his predecessors did the same. Yeh, pissy little bitches, the lot of ‘em.

Over at the PMI, another idea presented, which makes perfect sense:

The fake teleprompter bit is rooted in racial insecurities/straight up racism. As in: “How can we explain away the fact that a black man has ascended to the office of President when we all know black men are inferior (especially intellectually)?” Or at least, “How can we soothe our stung white man’s pride at the fact?”

One way is to knock the uppity negro down a peg and/or to point out that he really isn’t all that smart after all – that he only sounds articulate because he’s reading off a teleprompter (unlike all those white presidentz).

That explains it!

Protests aside, a lot of these idiots still can’t fathom that a) we have a black president and b) he’s not saying “Yowsa” or wearing his pants down to his ankles. And of course, they’ll deny it till they’re blue in their pasty white faces, but once you leave the realm of Peak Wingnut, it’s pretty fucking obvious. Yes, I’m playing the race card(cue ominous music). What other card is there, other than the crazy card?

Didn’t watch it, but I did read it. Did enjoy Alito mouthing “That’s not true’.” What a pissy, little bitch.

Of course, I’m still mildly amused at the reaction from the Koskids, some of them are feeling rather inspired again. Not me, I’ve seen this one too many times… O’s polls go down, he makes a nice speech that sounds promising, gets a bump, and then continues to do almost nothing but sit on his hands. And then another speech, rinse, spit, repeat.

Obama: “We don’t quit. I don’t quit.’”

Yeah, well, he doesn’t fight, either.

We’re now stuck between choosing a party that is thoroughly unqualified to govern and a party that is criminally insane and sociopathic. Great choices.

Like many of you, I’ve been less than thrilled with Obama, especially recently, in particular, his reluctance or outright refusal to fight for anything. That said, I have always liked the fact that he’s a smart guy (no, not just because he can speak in multisyllabic sentences, unlike the last guy).

And so, after that Christmas Day foiled terrorist attempt, as expected, the browntrouser brigade is out in full force, selling fear! fear! fear!, with Darth Cheney recently opening up the Gates of Hell to come out and say the usual warmongering, lie-inflicted bullshit.

Now although, more often than not, even though he doesn’t do the things that need to be done, Obama does at least, on occasion say things that need to be said. So naturally, I was pleased with his statement today in response to Cheney’s latest bout of verbal diarrhea:

To put it simply: this President is not interested in bellicose rhetoric, he is focused on action. Seven years of bellicose rhetoric failed to reduce the threat from al Qaeda and succeeded in dividing this country. And it seems strangely off-key now, at a time when our country is under attack, for the architect of those policies to be attacking the President…

The difference is this: President Obama doesn’t need to beat his chest to prove it, and – unlike the last Administration – we are not at war with a tactic (“terrorism”), we at war with something that is tangible: al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies.

Only way it could’ve been better was if he threw in a “And let me remind you that the worst attack on American soil occurred on Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney’s administration.” Because Republicans, in all their little-dicked tough talk, need to be reminded of that on a regular basis. And, mind you, I’m not defending any of this war nonsense, moreso making a point of the ridiculous expectation of cowboy/Rambo talk that the wingers have.

I knew the wingers would be pouncing on the fact that Obama didn’t fly back from his vacation right away, and issue some macho-ass statement about kicking ass and maybe bombing Yemen, as though the terrorists would quake and shake and change course due to a sternly worded press conference. But they’re not working with too much brain matter to begin with, so it’s why they feel that way.

They’re all still on that perpetual pants-poop since 9-11, and all they’ve got left is to tap into those who are also still diaper-dumping (see also, “teabaggers”). Problem is, I don’t think there’s as many of ‘em as there used to be.

President Obama doesn’t need to beat his chest to prove it, and – unlike the last Administration – we are not at war with a tactic (“terrorism”), we at war with something that is tangible: al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies.

I’m not holding my breath that anything substantial is going to come out of the Copenhagen talks; until we deal with megacapitalism itself, we’re not going to make any headway on climate change. But I do like Greenpeace’s latest billboard campaign over there showing the leaders apologizing twenty years from now for not doing anything. BAGNews Notes has more, as well as a link to the whole series.

Well, not really, as I wasn’t having high expectations to begin with. It truly is neo-con world all over again. Sirota asks some decent questions about Obama’s pending Afghanidisaster:

- Would the Obamaphiles now telling us to “give President Obama a chance” with this decision and/or defending Obama’s escalation – would these same people be saying we should “give President McCain a chance” and/or defending President McCain’s escalation if he was the one in office making this decision?

We. Are. So. Fucked.  Any ideas? “Marching in the streets” and “voting for Nader” don’t count, as we’ve already been there and done that. Doesn’t do shit.

As the Rude One aptly points out, Obama is doing exactly what he said he would:

But this isn’t about Obama or even the Afghanistan war. It’s about us. As we see Obama capitulate, hedge, or hesitate on all the liberal things he promised, it’s just goddamned depressing to see him so readily follow through on the hawkish promises. And it also forces us to realize that all that protesting of the Iraq war was far, far too narrow in scope.

But that doesn’t make it right. And the apologists march on. And on.

Well, I have to admit, quite honestly, how surprised I am, considering how spineless Democrats are, that there’s any public option at all coming out of the Senate. Sure, it’s not single payer, but who on earth thought there was a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening anyways? Maybe if they started from single-payer, public option woulda been the conservative option. Few thoughts…

As much as I’ll give Harry Reid a tiny back pat (perhaps two fingers, not a full hand), he played this too close to his vest, waffling back and forth, somewhat noncommittal – kinda like that Obama dude. If Obama had said, flat out, “I won’t sign a bill without a public option. Period.”, sure, a few more empty teabagger heads might’ve exploded, but it sure woulda put the ConservaDems on the hotseat. And more importantly, shown leadership. What’s that, you say? What’s that? Yeah, I don’t remember what that means either. Last I checked, some people thought it meant putting your arm around a fireman on a pile of rubble and yelling into a bullhorn, but I’m pretty sure that’s not it.

I’m not surprised by any of this, as I was bitching about it during the campaign, but Obama’s weak-ass consensus building nonsense is getting quite old. We need a bully pulpit, fer chrissake. It’s one thing to be timid when you’re pushing highly unpopular positions. It’s unfathomable to be timid when they’re actually somewhat popular and necessary. I never thought I’d be giving kind words to a weasel like Chuck Schumer, but he did a good job on this one, surprisingly.

Some people have whined about the “states opt-out” thing, but I think it’s a good idea. First, the states with the governments most likely to try to opt out tend to be the shittiest, dumbest, poorest ones, those that need a public option more than anyplace else. So that’s gonna put those pols in a difficult position, eh? Unfortunately, Texas isn’t seceding any time soon, so it’ll be interesting to see how that all plays out. What’ll be even more interesting is how states, ever trying to attract new business, will fare. You gonna open up your factory in some shithole deep-south state where you might get to pay ‘em cheap but that’s about it? Gonna be tough when the next state over has a much higher standard of living, and a healthier one. So in a sense we can look at this as a referendum on conservative policies. Let’s see what happens. My health insurance runs out in 3 more months, so this couldn’t have happened at a better time.