(I’d forgotten that I’d met Sabotabby before.)
And also, if we’re all going to die someday anyway, does it really matter if we each die one at a time or together all at once?
Oh, that’s right, I haven’t introduced myself yet. Guess I better do that before getting all of you to join me in a group suicide pact. My name’s Quin. I’m the dude on the right in the pictures just above.
(more…)
But someone fired a shot across the bow of his likely competitor in 2008:
A missile was fired at a helicopter escorting Sen. John McCain during a visit to the Republic of Georgia last week.
A statement from that nation’s interior ministry says the surface-to-air missile was aimed at a chopper involved in a visit of a U.S. Senate delegation to the former Soviet republic. McCain was mentioned as the leader of the group.
Gore also claims he lacks the firepower to mount this kind of offensive, but until we get UN inspectors to take a look inside that lockbox of his, we can’t be certain.
Lieberman needs to be destroyed, taken down, have his ears nailed shut if needs be and driven from the dems, from any possible chance of having some influence over progresive politics.
And do you know why?
Because he’s an evil assbag of the first order, that’s why.
We know this from a simple examination of his actions, and from that examination we can ascertain one of two pictures of this man who’s called “joe Lieberman”.
The first picture is of a man with no moral conscience at all, but a huge propensity towards greed, he’ll take any policy that gives him more power, no matter how many people will die becasue of this.
The second picture is of an evil person, a person who has a moral conscience, but hates POC, women and the poor so much that he actively enjoys screwing them over and supporting things that will bascially lead to them dying by the thousands.
Either way we’re talking about an evil evil person. (more…)
You take your home state. When you run for President, that’s a necessity. Even Mondale won Minnesota.
Of course, Al Gore didn’t win Tennessee back in 2000, did he? But at least he had the excuse of being out of Senatorial office for 8 years before then.
If she were the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton should be able to win New York. It already leans blue and she’s one of their own (in the loosest of terms, but still).
Arguably, though, Giuliani would be a problem. It appears he is:
The poll, by Siena College’s Research Institute, found the Republican Giuliani leading the former first lady 48 percent to 42 percent among registered voters asked about a hypothetical 2008 presidential matchup.
Giuliani’s much more “New York” than Hillary, so that data isn’t necessarily the end of the world as far as her national campaign prospects.
This may be, though:
In another possible 2008 matchup, Republican Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) of Arizona was favored by 46 percent of New York voters, compared to 42 percent for Democrat Clinton.
How any blue state could favor any Republican in 2008 boggles my mind. That Hillary’s blue state home would favor McCain over her leaves me speechless. If she’s the underdog in NY, how can we expect her to have a chance to win anywhere else? And how can a Democrat expect to win without New York’s electoral votes?
Fears over McCain’s invincibility seem justified. That’s why we need Al.
As the Republicans have been telling us, there are great positives to global warming (which does not exist, unless needed) that us pansy liberals are too negative to see.
The 49-year-old reindeer rancher says a warming trend in Greenland over the past decade has caused the glacier on his farm to retreat 300 feet, revealing land that hasn’t seen the light of day for hundreds of years, if not more. Where ice once gripped the earth, he says, his reindeer now graze on wild thyme amid the purple blooms of Niviarsiaq flowers.
The melting glacier near Mr. Magnusson’s home is pouring more water into the river, which he hopes soon to harness for hydroelectricity.
“We are seeing genesis by the edge of the glacier,” he says.
I want Al Gore to run for president, I want him to win, and I know I’m not alone. Unfortunately, Lindsay Beyerstein offers a concise, truthful evaluation of the major obstacle to his success:
Gore fans love the idea of payback. It is satisfying to imagine a good guy like Al Gore finally getting his due, after all those years in the wilderness. However, if you can understand the appeal of this narrative, you can also see why the press will fight Gore every step of the way.
They decided a long time ago that they didn’t like him, and that we shouldn’t either. They didn’t like riding his bus. They didn’t like paying attention to his “wonky” speeches. They didn’t feel like reading his policy papers or analyzing his arguments. It was more fun to spin fables about the Eastern Stiff facing off against the Texas Everyman. So, they undermined him.
If Gore run in 2008, he’ll be seeking payback from the press as much as from the Republicans. He’ll be setting out to prove the media wrong, and the media won’t like it one bit.
Lindsay may be right: the mainstream media could try to sink his ship again. But I can give you 5 good reasons why Gore may be poised to shock those who assume he’ll be painted as an ugly duckling once more.
1) The media loves a redemption story, especially one it makes up
Face it, if Al accepts blame, even undeserved blame, for effing up his 2000 image and campaign, the media will eat it up. It’ll sound like vindication for all those mean (and untrue) things they said about him, as though they were right all along. By letting the media off the hook, Gore will allow them to consciously or subconsciously manufacture the image of his transformation into the affable wise man who’s learned much while away from the game.
I’m not making this up, either. Lindsay linked to another part of the Daily Howler series I took issue with on the media’s dislike for Gore, but in their piece on Huffington I carped about, we saw someone in the media make the very 180 I’m predicting on Gore.
They linked to a post in which Huffington offered the following commentary on Gore:
Last night, I attended the premiere of An Inconvenient Truth, the powerful new global warming documentary featuring an impassioned and surprisingly humorous Al Gore.
After the screening, as I watched him interact with well-wishers, accepting congratulations and answering questions, he radiated commitment and confidence. Here was a man truly comfortable in his own skin.
The Daily Howler proceeded to take Huffington to task for biting on all the myths in 2000 and then claiming the reversal was Al’s and not hers. Even if you are POed about that, though, here’s a media voice (albeit a friendly liberal one) who’s demonstrating the fourth estate’s willingness to buy into and sell this image of the new Al. Lots of folks in the media may not even realize that they have changed, not Al, but who cares? Gore doesn’t seem to.
And you know what? He does seem a little more relaxed and confident. I don’t care what anyone says.
2) Entertainment media is already on board with promoting Al the Savior
The jokesters are no longer painting Gore as the wonk with a stick up his butt — they are assisting him in promoting the “I told you so” theme. Take the SNL version of President Gore’s State of the Union featuring Al himself explaining the difficulty of coping with our excess oil, international popularity, budget surplus, and universal health care. They even had him send up “the lockbox,” one of those phrases the media killed him for in 2000 — more evidence of Gore’s willingness to play to the idea that those stereotypes were his and not the media’s fault.
This positive spin can build momentum, especially as Paramount Classics prepares to go wide in June with his starring role in “An Inconvenient Truth,” a movie that earned an unbelievable $19,748/theater when it debuted on Wednesday. This made it the #11 movie in the country that day despite being shown on only 4 screens. This isn’t a $100 million-dollar blockbuster, but if it delivers a compelling message with Gore as an accessible pitchman, it could launch him into the popularity stratosphere.
3) “The public” has changed a lot since 2000
Back in the salad days of 2000, moderates and liberals trusted the mainstream media moreso than they do now, especially since the betrayals leading up to the Iraq war. Maybe the wingnuts still believe everything they hear, but we don’t. The mainstream outlets just don’t have the same brainwashing powers they once did, at least not with Gore’s prospective audience. So even if Gore battles bouts of negative slander, I don’t think the public will buy into it anymore. Hell, the media sold it to them last time, and it got the public the wrong guy. If the press tries to sell it again, I expect you’ll see it outrage more than influence the masses.
As I mentioned in my arguments against the Howler, the public isn’t taking as much for granted as they did in 2000. We didn’t know how good we had it back then, and now there’s a real hunger for a legitimately good-hearted, capable, intelligent president. Yeah, he still needs some mass media appeal — a big smile and a simple message, one that plays well in all of the Springfields of this country — but Gore’s natural package jives much more with the appetites of 2008 than those of 2000, when we wanted some impossible hero to come and trump Clinton lest we be unimpressed.
4) We don’t rely on the mainstream media nearly as much anymore
Again, I think they’ll be on board, but even if the national press is still squeamish, it’s hardly the end of the world. In 2000, where else could your average moderate turn for an alternative viewpoint? The blogosphere was in its infancy, and so was public acceptance of web-based news sources. Now, other sources of information abound and everyday people are starting to rely on them.
This is especially true for the Gore demographic. We’re loud and proud out here in cyberspace, much more than we were in 2000. When he was getting hammered by the press, many liberals felt demoralized and had nowhere else to turn. We felt fractured when we really weren’t. Now, our communities are much stronger, and we can fight the myths much more effectively. Even your average joe is much more likely to hear it at least second-hand.
CNN and friends still rule the day, but our day has arrived, too, and we will matter. Maybe we didn’t save Kerry, but Gore’s got way more momentum now than Kerry ever had. This brings me to the final point:
5) The media loves a bandwagon
If there’s a swelling general feeling that a person, any person, has the answers — if somebody just feels like the right person at the right time — suddenly a fawning feeding frenzy takes place in the press. Everyone wants to be first in line to say they were on the bandwagon before the rest, and this shallow quality of the punditry will play into our hands. There are still some old-timers stuck in 2000 mode, and the Howler has a bead on them, but we all can sense in the air the general feeling about Gore is that his time is now (and that the country might’ve goofed back in the day). This will snowball.
I’ve been scared of McCain, and I still am. It’s easy for him to pretend to soothe people as the morally sturdy grandpa war vet. There will be considerable pimpage of him by the mainstream media, I’m sure. But he’s already taking flak from the press for his reversals on Falwell and Bush, more than I thought he would, and if he tries to curry the favor of the current administration, he’ll suffer greatly by association.
If Gore doesn’t run, or he takes too long to get rolling, then McCain may steal the national momentum. But as McCain starts to sound like more of the same, and Gore keeps on keepin’ on as himself, the media and the public will see the situation for what it really is: the perfect time for President Gore.
I spent all day preparing and planting the garden, turning and spreading compost, and fretting over heirloom tomato plants. I came inside, sloughed the dirt off my hands into the keyboard, and watched this:
1) This is shit we ought to be taking seriously, and not just because of your heart pangs of liberal guilt. And folks, it’s easy. Drive less, walk more, it’s good for you. Make a compost pile, it’s fun for the kids. When you make your will, pass on burial and get cremated. Plant a garden. Use public transportation. Ride a bike. Turn off the AC and open your windows. I do all these things and wouldn’t even dare to call myself an environmentalist — I call it responsible. And because I’m one of those assholes with an SUV with a long commute that I can’t avoid, I consider it a moral imperative to do what is within my power.
2) Politicians need to leave “expert” opinion alone — especially that which turns one into a fucking zombie, although sometimes zombies are cool — and go with their passions. Nonetheless, don’t consider this an endorsement of Gore and/or Democrats. I’m just as disgusted with them — in part for ignoring environmental issues, among others — as anyone else.
For more on the movie and the science behind it, visit the website. Don’t bother making the pledge to see the movie in order to “make a difference” by sitting on your ass in the movie theater — ads ruin everything, I swear.
How did you celebrate Earth Day?
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