Dowd's continuing descent into self-parody

she did not just call him uppity? On the op-ed page of the NYT? She did.

more fine analysis

from 'google power reader' Ruth Marcus

google power reader

Is that really the best they could do for a lineup? Two right wing nut jobs, a collection of right leaning purveyors of conventional wisdom from the mainstream media, and Arianna Huffington? What about Josh Marshall, Markos Moulitsas, Digby, Matthew Yglesias, Duncan Black, or Kevin Drum?

Official Google Reader Blog: Read what they read

Official Google Reader Blog: Read what they read: "discussion groups" Sigh. Is this really the best they can do? Warmed over conventional wisdom from the likes of Mark Halperin and Ruth Marcus, 'balanced' by the right wing ravings of Chuck DeFeo and Patrick Ruffini.

dazed and confused

more like this:

Obama Strategery

There's a lot of back & forth about the day to day poll numbers and various tempests in microscopic teapots that make for plenty of blog-fodder among people following the presidential campaign closely. Most of this is just inside-baseball for whatever the political equivalent of 'technorati' is, and I don't have strong opinions about the details. Ok, i do, but not strong enough to blog everyday about. I mean McCain's dogwhistle politics probably deserve some sort of push-back. I mean, how many different ways will they find to spell 'uppity'? This week its 'presumptuous'. Whatever. In general its hard to criticize Obama's campaign on tactical grounds - he's raising a ton of money and building a huge ground organization, and he's doing it in more than just the 'swing states' that democrats are always focusing on. The problem I have is that they haven't developed a narrative for their criticism of McCain. While there's plenty of substantive grounds to criticize McCain, the key to a good message machine is to have a theme and keep pushing it so that everything you're doing becomes reinforcing. The republicans seem to understand this instinctively now. They pick a theme and they keep hammering it regardless of how accurate or relevant it is to the target, or the topic at hand. Flip-flopper, elitist, uppity, whatever it is they're pushing it and it doesn't matter what the topic is. I haven't seen such a theme emerge yet from the Obama side, but I have an idea: McCain is 'confused'. I think this is a theme that will carry a lot of resonance with voters - its a way of making McCain look old and doddering without making it explicit, and it allows Obama-ites to point out inaccuracies without calling McCain a liar. Is Obama a 'political celebrity' ? No, John McCain is just confused - who's hosted SNL? Who's made for guest appearances on tv shows? Who's been a political headliner since the '80s?

Serenity vs. Oklahoma!

Making Light strikes again.