The Swamp: McCain paints Obama’s portrait

Defining one’s opponent is a key task of any campaign, and simply put, McCain has had a long head start. As early as Feb. 12–the day McCain and Obama each won primaries in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. — McCain suggested Obama was guilty of hollow promises and a messianic self-image.

“To encourage a country with only rhetoric, rather than sound and proven ideas that trust in the strength and courage of free people, is not a promise of hope,” McCain said, alluding to Obama’s speaking skills and campaign theme. And in another jab he added, “I do not seek the presidency on the presumption that I am blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save my country in its hour of need.”

Unlike McCain, Obama has been fighting a two-front war, trying to beat back an onslaught from Clinton while taking opening shots at McCain. Recently Obama has started focusing more squarely on the presumptive Republican nominee, attacking his positions on the war and the economy.

But because of the long, bruising Democratic campaign, McCain has gotten an early jump. Day by day, week by week, McCain has been portraying Obama as inexperienced, self-entitled and effete, a candidate coddled by a loving press corps and lacking the judgment necessary for the highest office in the land.

It’s a line of attack likely to last through the fall election.

“We’ll make the case that Barack Obama is a wonderful new voice selling old, discredited ideas, including the most massive tax increase since Walter Mondale ran for president,” said Steve Schmidt, a senior McCain adviser. “It’s a combination of weakness, not being ready to be president and not being able to deliver on the things he says he will deliver on.”

The Swamp: McCain paints Obama’s portrait

On the last day of April, I drove to Chaco. I hoped that the predictions of terrible wind would keep the crowds away. It is always windy in Chaco. On one occasion 10 years ago, the wind ripped out all the screws that held one of the canva sides of our popup camper. Years before that, I had to set a tent up as a storm approached. I didn’t have time to stake it out, so I threw everything plus myself into the tent just before the storm hit. The tent blew so much I expect to wake up in another campsite. With the experience of more than two dozen trips over 20 years, I believe I have never experienced wind as bad as this latest trip. Damn! The drive in was a vision of the Dust Bowl, as the dust quickly moved from a lovely pattern swirling  a foot above the road, like vapor over ice, to a complete brown-out with no visibility beyond my windshield. In the campground and everywhere else, the wind scoured every surface like sandpaper. It was fierce. And it got cold. Two weeks after the last frost date, it got down below freezing one night.

Of course, it’s not a pilgrimage without some adversity. Even with almost no hiking, no wildflowers (no rain this year) and long hours in the camper or driving around, Chaco is still my Mecca.

Not twenty-four hours after my return from Chaco, I came down with a cold. The timing was terrible in that I wasn’t sick enough to realize I should cancel dinner plans with friends, so they also got sick a few days later. Merri, too, was sick during this time. Rarely are we both sick at once. While this was in many respects a minor cold, it lingered more than a week and it ruined sleep for both of us.

With nothing better to do, I decided to wipe out one of my computers and install the 64-bit version of Windows Vista. Thus began a nightmare that lasted 6 days and ended just an hour ago when I rolled everything back to the way it was on Cinco de Marko.

The unexpected crisis that ensued from my worse-than-useless desktop peaked late Thursday. Merri and I were both at our limits from the combo of sickness and sick computers when we went out to the Cooperage to see the Asylum Street Spankers of Austin. In spite of the service and the shockingly mediocre but expensive food, and, in spite of the recurring sound system problem, the show was truly delightful. The Spankers are political, acerbic, and great musicians and entertainers.

That was the turning point for me. Not only were music and laughter great tonics, I was actually reassured by the problems I saw around me with the service, the kitchen, the sound system. These were not *my* problems and the show goes on, regardless.

Yesterday, I taught my last class of the semester at UNM Continuing Education. I dreaded teaching all day long on Saturday, especially after this week. But the subject was Advanced (X)HTML and the students were enthusiastic. The first hour or so of the class was the best classroom hour I can remember. It is fitting that I just completed my 20th year teaching at UNMCE (an event unmarked by them).

Now, eight days later than expected, I can begin to post some pictures and my Chaco journal and an account of my battle with Vista-64. Soon. peace, mjh

It’s great to see two Republicans slash and tar each other — it’s a blood sport we don’t often see and further evidence that the Republican party is *doomed* this year. Still, it’s heartening to see them cling to old and no longer effective tactics.

Meanwhile, dim Darren White says he doesn’t want to see health care being managed by the same bureaucrats who screwed up after Katrina. LOL! Those Bush appointees will be gone soon, Sheriff, back to their old jobs at Madison Avenue and the Oil Industry, pockets stuffed with whatever they can loot before then. peace, mjh

The Page - by Mark Halperin - TIME

YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS UP

Hillary Clinton enthusiastically picked a filly named Eight Belles to win the Kentucky Derby and compared herself to the horse. Eight Belles finished second. The winner was the favorite, Big Brown.

Eight Belles collapsed immediately after crossing the finish line, and was euthanized shortly thereafter.

The Page - by Mark Halperin - TIME

PS: The slaughter of Eight Belles was tragic, especially so soon after Barbaro. This is a vicious “sport” akin to boxing or ultimate cage fighting. Sickening.

Huckabee says Obama’s former pastor needs him to lose - International Herald Tribune

“His (Obama’s) campaign is not being derailed by his race, it’s being derailed by a person who doesn’t want him to prove that we have made great advances in this country,” Huckabee told reporters.

Wright has claimed AIDS was created by the U.S. government to kill “people of color” and that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were spurred by the United State’s “terrorism” against minorities at home and abroad.

“Jeremiah Wright needs for Obama to lose so he can justify his anger, his hostile bitterness against the United States of America,” Huckabee said. [mjh: Therefore, Vote for Obama!]

Huckabee on Obama, Wright: ‘Cut some slack to people who grew up on the back of the bus’ | Political Insider

“As easy as it is for those of us who are white to look back and say ‘That’s a terrible statement’ — I grew up in a very segregated South.

“And I think that you have to cut some slack — and I’m going to be probably the only conservative in America who’s going to say something like this, but I’m just telling you — we’ve got to cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told you have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie, you have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant, you can’t sit out there with everyone else. There’s a separate waiting room in the doctor’s office. Here’s where you sit on the bus.

“And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment, and you have to just say, ‘I probably would, too.’”

This is the current ranking of my flickr photos in terms of number of times viewed. Just in the last week, pasque flower shot ahead of the long-time leader, Albuquerque Wetlands. Strangely, I don’t know why people are suddenly interested in pasque flowers (other than the recent occurrence of Easter). It is not my favorite pasque flower photo. (My favorite sightings of pasque flowers have all occurred above 11,000 feet.)

It is more than likely that Albuquerque wetlands was the leader thanks to John Fleck, my virtual and physical neighbor. (Well, stretching physically, but not in the least, virtually.)

Ironically, two of my most widely viewed photos aren’t even mine, except as subject. (I’m not sure who took The Big Day; Merri took After the Kiss.) I like the others, but don’t love them as I do most of these and many others.

What do you think?

peace,
mjh

Earth Day was like every other day, I’m happy to say, in so far as I had moments being there, loving the Earth, if not the world. Our wysteria (as I prefer to spell it) is past peak but still magnificent. It may be the best display of redolent purple bunches in 20 years. The bees certainly think so — those that take time out from the rosemary bushes. The vibrant red to orange to yellow Austrian copper rose by the door is just peaking — its time is much shorter than the wysteria. Birds are everywhere. The hummingbirds are back. Hawks abound (perhaps because of all the damn doves). I nest between a great river and greater mountains beneath a stunning sky. I think Frank Zappa said it best when he said, “It’s fucking great to be alive.” (There goes my parental rating. Sorry, kids.)

It’s not that I’m always high on life. It is obvious that it is far easier — more natural — for humans to destroy than preserve. And the End of Days are going to be hideous and slow. But, optimist that I am, I believe the Earth will rebound and return without out the infection of humankind. (To our successors: Learn from our mistakes, even though we could not.)

Thirty-eight years ago, Earth Day began as an extension of the hippie movement. Yes — thank the hippies! Thank the liberals. Thank Tricky Dick Nixon — whose daughter, Julie Nixon Eisenhower, supports Obama — for bowing to democracy momentarily to support the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Endangered Species Act. Every one of those things *infuriates* the Radically Wrong, who would condemn Nixon for his liberalism. (Such insanity may be a consequence of environmental degradation, ironically.)

Peace, love and happiness,
mjh

Yesterday, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich visited Drew University in New Jersey, where he took questions from 20 political science majors there. When one asked him how the government could justify stripping rights from Americans in such pieces of legislation as the Patriot Act, Gingrich said that the government has a “right to defend society,” and when under threat, “people will give up all their liberties“:

“If there’s a threat, you have a right to defend society,” Gingrich said. “People will give up all their liberties to avoid that level of threat.“

Gingrich is directly contradicted by Benjamin Franklin, who rejected the notion that one should give up one’s liberties out of fear:

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Is this early attack a first? Where did the Democratic Party pay for attack ads before McCain (aka Duhbya Too) became the presumptive nominee? Must be a proud moment for Minister of Truth, Scott Darnell, who is the picture of “wet behind the ears.” It was Darnell who explained some months ago that the NM GOP waits until June for its primary because they have better things to spend their money on: i.e., let the public fund the GOP’s contest while the Dems pay their own way. Sound hypocritical? In effect, the taxpayers are paying for these attack ads.

Darnell has been tapped by Gene Grant of *public* TV’s In Focus (ironic) to fill the shoes of Whitney Cheshire (Gene’s bud from the Wilson camp), who had stepped into the the huge void left by John Dimdahl, the great dragon of the NM GOP. Darnell’s no Dimdahl (I’m not sure who that insults), but maybe he can grow up to be a mini-Rove, former Minister of Disinformation. peace, mjh

ABQJOURNALNEWS/STATE: NM GOP Airs Ads Criticizing Obama’s ‘Working Class’ Comments By Deborah Baker/Associated Press
SANTA FE — The state Republican Party is airing radio ads in eight New Mexico communities criticizing Barack Obama for his recent comments about bitter working-class voters who “cling to guns or religion.”
The first of the ads began Thursday, and they’ll continue through April 25, said Scott Darnell, the party’s director of communications.
Darnell said the GOP wants to make sure rural voters know what the Democratic presidential candidate said, characterizing his comments as “out of touch with them and possibly not respectful of their values.”
He declined to say what the party is spending on the ads.

PS: On this week’s In Focus, Scotty D sported a very cool trace mustache and proto-chin hairs. I’m sure the graybeards of his party share his values on facial hair. More importantly, Scotty made the same case made in those radio ads, but nobody called him on it or mentioned the ads.

For nearly eight years, America has suffered mightily under the clumsy thumb of Duhbya, born on third base with a silver spoon in his mouth, a spoiled rich kid who caught every break every step of the way. Duhbya is an elitist masquerading as Joe Sixpack, a guy rich enough to have a ranch in the desert on which all he does is clear brush and entertain Saudi royalty.

Every time a brouhaha arises in the next 6 months, ask yourself, what are you being distracted from? Recently, Barack Obama said a lot of Americans are pissed off. OK, he said, “bitter.” They’re pissed off at being lied to and used as canon fodder by elitists who run everything in AmeriCo. And rather than rise up in revolution, as Thomas Jefferson hoped we would, the pissed-off self-medicate with all the opiates of the people. If there is anyone who should be grateful for that fact, it is the Republican Party, the prime purveyor of said opiates.

But, it appears that if you actually do disdain “ordinary people,” you may have good reason for that. If The People let the two richest, most privileged (oldest and whitest) candidates convince them that the poorest, least privileged candidate is “out of touch,” then, once again, The People get what they deserve.

Anyone who votes for John McCain is voting for George Duhbya Bush. It’s that simple. And Hilary Clinton has proved herself to be McCain’s doppleganger in terms of shape-shifting to mesh with the next group of voters. McCain and Clinton are rich. They are elite. They are more of the same.

Is this election another bout of smoke and mirrors? Smash the status quo. Make *real* change.