"Extremism in the cause of cheap rhetoric is no virtue"

Some of the descriptions I hear from movement conservatives - that Obama is a “leftist” or “extremist” or “socialist” - remind me why I left the Republican Party behind a decade and a half ago, and have never looked back.

I get the tactic, of course - try to define the political “middle ground” ever more to the right - so that Obama raising rich peoples’ tax rates to a rate that is still almost two thirds lower than they were under Eisenhower is “socialism” and “radical wealth redistribution,” rather than being a modest adjustment of the tax code in a more progressive direction.

The thing is, most of the country is extremely tired of, and see right through, Republicans’ cheap attempts at manipulation, and is behind Obama, and they trust him and want him to succeed.

Morning's Minion's response...

To Dr. Stockpole's reaction to my abortion post, can be found here, and is worth reading. An excerpt:

The fundamental problem with Stackpole's analysis is the following statement: "[to support Obama] you would have to show that McCain supports equivalent intrinsic evils, at least the moral equivalent of Obama's support for abortion."

This would only be the case if voting for a person who supported intrinsically evil acts. To vote for a person who supports an intrinsically evil act while supporting that position oneself is always formal cooperation in evil. But if you do not intend that evil, then you can apply the principle of double effect and vote for that person for proportionate reasons. This is spelled out quiote clearly in the Faithful Citizenship document.

Villagers Manifesting Idiocy Yet Again

Jamison Foser over at Media Matters, on why discussing "likability" in our presidential candidates is moronic:

Yet again, the political media is obsessed with the question of whether the Democratic presidential nominee is "likable" and whether he can "connect" with "regular people." We go through this every four years. It's a remarkably bad way for journalists to spend their -- and our -- time, but old habits die hard, especially when the alternative is doing some actual reporting.

Voting for president based on who seems the most likable -- or, in the media's favorite shorthand, based on who you would rather have a beer with -- is a spectacularly bad idea, what with the almost total lack of similarity between talking about the Knicks over a bottle of Bud and running the world's most powerful nation. It requires very little judgment or analytical skills to determine that the Knicks stink. Deciding whether to send Americans off to die in a foreign land is (or should be) a little different.

[H/T Digby]

Dodd to Dems: It's Time to Come Together Behind Obama

Chris Dodd endorses Barack Obama, and calls for unity:

Sen. Christopher Dodd endorsed one-time presidential rival Barack Obama on Tuesday and said it is time for Democrats to join forces to defeat the Republicans in the fall campaign.

''I don't want a campaign that is divisive here, and there's a danger in that,'' Dodd said, although he denied he was nudging Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to end her candidacy.
Dodd said Obama was ''ready to be president and I am ready to support him in this campaign.''

The two men appeared together at a news conference. Dodd is the first of the Democratic campaign dropouts to endorse another candidate.

He said Obama ''has been poked and prodded, analyzed and criticized, called too green, too trusting and for all of that has already won'' more than half the states and millions of votes.

''It's now the hour to come together. ... This is the moment for Democrats and independents and others to come together, to get behind this candidacy,'' he said.

Hillary is Finished

Bill Clinton said within the last week that Texas was do-or-die. CNN's poll is indicating Obama ahead: with a week to go, this will only get worse for Hillary. Here's hoping she bows out gracefully, and returns to the Senate with dignity intact. (Something tells me that "hope" may be a little too "audacious", so to speak. Hope I'm wrong.)

[UPDATE] A new SUSA poll has Obama up by 4. More confirmation that events have passed Hillary by.

Robert Reich "Gets it"

Robert Reich, on the resemblance of Barack Obama's movement to the idealism of another time:

It is easy for cynics to write off Obamania as a passing fad, as lofty rhetoric that can't and won't hold up on close inspection -- another bout of the kind of naive and romantic enthrallment that occasionally claims American voters until common sense sets in. This is surely what Hillary Clinton and my friend from forty years ago [Bill Clinton, classmate at Oxford] are counting on. But if the Clintons stop to think back to what they felt and understood in those years leading up to 1968, they may come to a different conclusion, as have I.

It occurs to me that the Republicans have been using the rhetoric and imagery straight out of the Sixties, to try and revive, and this time win, the fights from that turbulent decade.

Be careful what you wish for, Republicans. A tsunami is making its presence felt: the waters of conservatism are receding rapidly, and a gathering roar can be heard approaching.