Category Archives: Politics: US

DSCC Pokes at GOP Senate Obstructionism

Posted on October 24, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

Via SFDB, The GOP Plan, an unusually tough video from the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee.

I thought this one was unusually good, although (or perhaps because?) it seems a lot like an ad for some new second-rate sitcom.

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Autotune #9 and Alan Grayson

Posted on October 17, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

Auto-Tune the News #9: Nobel. health care. United Nations.

Funny-ish. Is the concept getting tired?

Incidentally, Rep. Alan Grayson has a cameo in that video, but he’s actually funnier on his own (or part of a double act):

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Most Terrifying Obama Pix Ever

Posted on September 29, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

Via Open Left, some truly terrifying photos of President Obama:

Barack Obama's amazingly consistent smile

Posted in Politics: US | 3 Comments

Turnabout is Fair Play

Posted on September 24, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

President Obama did Letterman; now Limbaugh is going on Leno.

Seems fair: Letterman gets the head of the Democratic Party, Leno gets the head of the Republican party.

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Taylor Branch Has the Clinton Tapes

Posted on September 18, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

Who would have guessed that Taylor Branch —Taylor Branch — had umpteen hours of secret tapes of Bill Clinton during his Presidency chewing over his plans and setbacks. History narrated as it happens by a master (but exhausted) talker. And now it's going to be a big book: The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President.

It seems that Branch — an amazing historian and writing — had been friends with Clinton in their salad days, but they had drifted apart. Then Clinton pulled him back into the orbit, in the hopes he would become the court historian. And from the sounds of it, the President got both more and less than he wanted.

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Unarmed, This Time

Posted on September 14, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

The ultra-rightist mob had a demonstration in DC this weekend. Although organizers predicted a huge turnout, and some partisans claimed over a million, reports are that there was in fact something in the mid-five figures. So it wasn't a big crowd by DC standards — maybe 30-50% the size of the anti-war rally in 2005 that got almost no media coverage.

This rally, though, got front-page treatment. In addition to having a cable network as a sponsor, this group of protesters had two other advantages: they're overwhelmingly white, and they're scary. Anti-war protesters of this decade have worked within the system, and mostly it has ignored them. (Contrast to the anti-globalism protesters, who have had a violent fringe, and have enjoyed violent police preemption and reaction.) The teabaggers act in a way that makes you think shouting at meetings is only the start.

unarmed.jpg

(Source: Josh Nelson)

Imagine if anti-Iraq-war protesters had carried signs with such a whiff of violence? The media would have crucified them as the second coming of the SLA, Baader-Meinhof, and the Weathermen. But these guys? Salt of the earth, of course.

Posted in Politics: US, The Media | 28 Comments