Waiting for Obama Tuesday night I muted John McCain’s speech,
You should listen to it with the sound on.
First, as expected, he reverted to "I'm-sorry-I-caved-on-the-confederated-flag-in-South-Carolina" form and gave an incredibly gracious speech, obviously written for him as it used words and phrases completely foreign to his normal speech patterns. It was a great speech. If we didn't know McCain, you'd think highly of him.
But, the most interesting part was how shocked his audience was at his speech. After hearing him and Palin level the worst charges at Obama during the last 6 weeks, it was completely jarring to hear him talking about Obama's character and campaign in such intensely positive tones. His audience started by booing, then a few catcalls, finally descending to shocked silence with scatter clapping, not even applause, at a few places. They did react when he took all the blame for the campaign's failure ("NO!") and cheered loudly at the mention of Palin. But otherwise they just totally were not buying the nice stuff he said about Obama.
Posted by Anonny at November 6, 2008 06:21 AMHis audience booed more than a couple of times, each time he introduced one more factoid that completely contradicted their point of view. Since they couldn't really make their heads explode, it was obvious that that's what was happening. "Senator Obama is an honorable man . ." BOOM! "The mistakes of this campaign were entirely mine . . " BOOM!
It was like his campaign was made up of the shocktroops from Free Republik. Not only was the campaign rank-and-file dedicated right-wing worshipers of Caribou Barbie, but textbook examples of the slime perpetuating rumors that Obama was a secret muslim. Kool-aid doesn't even come close.
Posted by idiosynchronic at November 6, 2008 06:33 AM".... he introduced one more factoid that completely contradicted their point of view...."
Just one contradiction:
1) Obama was a secret muslim....
2) Obama sat under a hateful Christian preacher for 20 years and did nothing....
Ugh? If he was really a muslim, why did he sit under a Christian Preacher (hateful or otherwise) for 20 years?
Posted by KJS at November 6, 2008 07:42 AMI couldn't stand Bush's little speech either, but Palin talking about 'unity' was too much for me. What f*cking phonies.
Posted by Judith at November 6, 2008 07:44 AMCorrect me if I'm wrong, but didn't President-Elect Obama vote for the FISA capitulation and the bank bailout?
Posted by Mrs. Blanche Maison at November 6, 2008 07:44 AMEmanuel for Chief of Staff....?
Well, the Middle East won’t get peace anytime soon it seems. I'll be an adult and go with the flow on this one...but I hope my cynicism doesn’t get the best of me.
Some things are more important than the "Obama Brand", though probably not in the liberal blogosphere. Like stimulating the economy NOW. People are losing their jobs as we scribble.
You're right about Pelosi and Reid. They bring a rare combination of incompetence and cowardice to the halls of Congrsss. But they're all we've got. And they put their thumbs on the scale to make sure Obama got the nomination. (Peas in a pod?) I can't go all Taylor Marsh about Obama just because he won. I thought he was weak before the election, and I still think so. He's shown he can get votes. That's it.
Blind loyalty may be the order of the day, but we need to be skeptical before we get boiled alive like the frog in the kettle.
Posted by cygnus at November 6, 2008 08:47 AMBlind loyalty may be the order of the day, but we need to be skeptical before we get boiled alive like the frog in the kettle.
Posted by cygnus at November 6, 2008 08:47 AM
You may want to buy a rear view mirror constellation boy, we're in the fucking boiling oil right now....what we needed was a guy that could turn down the heat and now we have him.
Posted by Goyo at November 6, 2008 09:01 AM
Wow. Less than 2 days and the PUMAs are back.
Posted by Anonny at November 6, 2008 09:15 AMcygnus says...
"Like stimulating the economy NOW. People are losing their jobs as we scribble."
Well, your very smart drinking buddy still has over two months before he leaves office... why don't you get Him working on the issue of jobs?
Wow. Less than 2 days and the PUMAs are back.
Posted by Anonny at November 6, 2008 09:15 AM
Annony I have a stash of snowballs with embedded rocks just for this lot.....waiting for jmac, jj, muck, bagboy and pants pisser to show up...but I'm not holding my breath
Usually peter will congratulate us. He must be taking this loss especially hard. Or his Mom took his blogging rights away.
Posted by Seven of Six at November 6, 2008 09:23 AMWell said, there may be a reason that even though our Chimp in chief has achieved two remarkable firsts in his last year in office (highest disapproval and lowest approval polls ever recorded for a President) Congress has bested him even there by dipping into single digit approval levels. Their obliviousness (is that a word?) to the complaints of the people is startling.
I know almost all of them are coming back, but you're right, they should retreat to comtemplate their errors, before they make any more mistakes.
"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it."
Mark Twain
Posted by charlie at November 6, 2008 09:27 AMWaiting for Obama Tuesday night I muted John McCain’s speech, there wasn’t anything the creep could say after an appalling campaign that would somehow make up for it in one night, and I was completely unsurprised to read later how gracious and adult McCain was—after he’d lost, of course.
Thank you, so much, paradox! I could not agree more! John McCain simply CANNOT redeem himself with a mere speech. Not after the campaign he ran. The vile, racist, lying campaign that told the worst elements among us, "Yes, you're right to fear him, and it's okay to form a mob." Those boos he received for the pathetically predictable grace he tried to show? That was his contribution to this political climate. McCain has no one to blame but himself.
McCain created a mob, and then tried to calm it when it was in his own interest to do so. But you can't calm a mob with a speech that tells them simply not to be a mob. That's why they call it a mob.
I watched John McCain's concession speech. I did not see grace. I saw disgrace.
Posted by Liveliest Crib at November 6, 2008 09:49 AMThere is only one reason I would actually like to see Congress reconvene: It is not too late to impeach this administration.
(I know I'm dreaming.)
Posted by Liveliest Crib at November 6, 2008 09:53 AMI found McCain's concession speech as insincere as his campaign speeches. Gracious? Hardly. Honorable? If you call that honor.
Posted by Judith at November 6, 2008 03:30 PM
Well, that didn't take long. Lieberman has been taken to the wood shed already. I suspect he has been given his walking papers.
Posted by Judith at November 6, 2008 03:34 PMJudith, I hope you're right about Holy Joe; the impression I got was he was given two weeks to decide who he wanted to caucus with, but he's prolly gonna lose his chair at homeland security.
Posted by iamcoyote at November 6, 2008 05:00 PM