All-Purpose NuILX thread for American Politics

marty peretz is the ed-in-chief of TNR, right? the one who kinda went unhinged due to summertime joementum?

R:
Romney
Giuliani
Brownback(?)

D:
Edwards
Vilsack
Kucinich

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jan/02/edwards_coins_new_phrase_for_escalation_the_mccain_doctrine

lol

bad news: Iraq is worth it, and never mind how much blood & treasure we waste on it.

good news: America is ready for a black president

Ed Kilgore argues that there will be no "True Conservative" horse to show this time around, and I still think that this faction ultimately grudgingly comes around to Romney. But maybe there will be a Perot-sized Buchanan in '08?

http://www.spatcave.com/lineandespn/mDSC05442.jpg

When's the election down there, anyway?

http://time-blog.com/swampland/2007/02/nicorette.html
Obama responded that Australia currently has 1400 troops in Iraq and if Howard feels so strongly about "fighting the good fight" he should "send 20,000 more Australians to fight in Iraq."

I know Atrios (for one) has been on a neverending shit-fit since the Swampland blog started with Joe Klein as one of its contributors, but it's actually been pretty good.

Not soon enough! Labor are surging out in front now they have a decent leader. What Howard said about Obama is so fucking embarrasing.

Conservatives having second thoughts about Romney

Moveon.org making plans for 07 elections in LA

Giuliani appeals to midwest. O RLY?

Dodd & Biden plan to be more than wallflowers.

I sure can make a bunch of fake links when I want to.

http://www.barackobama.com/page_elements/08_logo2.jpg

And here's the main campaign placard:

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/afp/20070212/capt.sge.rnm42.120207153227.photo03.photo.default-512x349.jpg?x=380&y=259&sig=_Egu1w4yzYIpPiGOefKlWg--

I like it.

I don't like it much, there is something peculiar.. it looks like a credit card company trying to update their image..

Bob Cochran, who created the show with Surnow, admitted, “"Most terrorism experts will tell you that the ‘ticking time bomb’ situation never occurs in real life, or very rarely. But on our show it happens every week."µ According to Darius Rejali, a professor of political science at Reed College and the author of the forthcoming book “Torture and Democracy,µ the conceit of the ticking time bomb first appeared in Jean Lartéguy's 1960 novel “"Les Centurions," written during the brutal French occupation of Algeria. The book's hero, after beating a female Arab dissident into submission, uncovers an imminent plot to explode bombs all over Algeria and must race against the clock to stop it. Rejali, who has examined the available records of the conflict, told me that the story has no basis in fact. In his view, the story line of “Les Centurionsµ provided French liberals a more palatable rationale for torture than the racist explanations supplied by others (such as the notion that the Algerians, inherently simpleminded, understood only brute force). Lartéguy’s scenario exploited an insecurity shared by many liberal societies—that their enlightened legal systems had made them vulnerable to security threats.

Another neat bit that I didn't know is that the Parents Television Council, which is Brent Bozell's conservative anti-media group, is actually logging the torture scenes on the show. Also, the Brigadier General in charge of West Point flew out to meet w/ the creators of the show:

In fact, Finnegan and the others had come to voice their concern that the show's central political premise--that the letter of American law must be sacrificed for the country's security--was having a toxic effect. In their view, the show promoted unethical and illegal behavior and had adversely affected the training and performance of real American soldiers. “"I'd like them to stop,"µ Finnegan said of the show's producers. “"They should do a show where torture backfires.µ"

Oh yeah, except that the main guy in charge of the show(and big Limbaugh friend) Joel Surnow didn't show up for the meeting. This guy's also working on the Fox News response to the Daily Show.

The other scary thing is the guys working on the show who have actual law degrees, but are straight outta the Alberto Gonzalez school, holding that torture is legal & fine & good in certain circumstances.

any news on this one?

omg plz make and post youtube version now.

In recent years, Surnow and Nowrasteh have participated in the Liberty Film Festival, a group dedicated to promoting conservatism through mass entertainment. Surnow told me that he would like to counter the prevailing image of Senator Joseph McCarthy as a demagogue and a liar. Surnow and his friend Ann Coulter—the conservative pundit, and author of the pro-McCarthy book “Treasonµ—talked about creating a conservative response to George Clooney’s recent film “Good Night, and Good Luck.µ Surnow said, “I thought it would really provoke people to do a movie that depicted Joe McCarthy as an American hero or, maybe, someone with a good cause who maybe went too far.µ He likened the Communist sympathizers of the nineteen-fifties to terrorists: “The State Department in the fifties was infiltrated by people who were like Al Qaeda.µ But, he said, he shelved the project. “The blacklist is Hollywood’s orthodoxy,µ he said. “It’s not a movie I could get done now.

A year and a half ago, Surnow and Manny Coto, a “24µ writer with similar political views, talked about starting a conservative television network. “There’s a gay network, a black network—there should be a conservative network,µ Surnow told me. But as he and Coto explored the idea they realized that “we weren’t distribution guys—we were content guys.µ Instead, the men developed “The Half Hour News Hour,µ the conservative satire show. “ ‘The Daily Show’ tips left,µ Surnow said. “So we thought, Let’s do one that tips right.µ Jon Stewart’s program appears on Comedy Central, an entertainment channel. But, after Surnow got Rush Limbaugh to introduce him to Roger Ailes, Fox News agreed to air two episodes. The program, which will follow the fake-news format popularized by “Saturday Night Live,µ will be written by conservative humorists, including Sandy Frank and Ned Rice. Surnow said of the show, “There are so many targets, from global warming to banning tag on the playground. There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit.µµ

Which reminds me a lot of something Molly Ivans once wrote:

Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel -- it's vulgar.

Laura Ingraham, the talk-radio host, has cited the show’s popularity as proof that Americans favor brutality. “They love Jack Bauer,µ she noted on Fox News. “In my mind, that’s as close to a national referendum that it’s O.K. to use tough tactics against high-level Al Qaeda operatives as we’re going to get.µ Surnow once appeared as a guest on Ingraham’s show; she told him that, while she was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, “it was soothing to see Jack Bauer torture these terrorists, and I felt better.µ Surnow joked, “We love to torture terrorists—it’s good for you!µ

KRISTOL: We’re electing a war president in 2008. If I can go back to Obama and Lincoln for just one second, Lincoln’s “house dividedµ speech in 1858 was a speech saying we cannot live as a house divided on slavery. And he implicitly says we’ll have to fight a civil war if necessary on this.

Obama’s speech is a “can’t we get alongµ speech — sort of the opposite of Lincoln. He would have been with Stephen Douglas in 1858. Let’s paper over these differences, rise above politics and all get along. That’s not Giuliani’s mode. And I think in a war context, social conservatives want to win the war against Islamic jihadism.

Of course, there's that little thing about Douglas' attitude about slavery, but...