The International House of Bacon

* The news of the day is that Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, has died. This isn’t just news because I’ve started playing, but more because if it wasn’t for this guy, RPGs and fantasy gaming (both tabletop and computerized) wouldn’t exist in the way we know it. RIP, and no saving roll jokes, please.

* The Wall Street Journal has a great piece about the differences between Ohio and Texas. I’m very glad I’m not in a union.

* A list of questions for Barack Obama. Some miss the point, but others, such as how his positions aren’t really representative of “change” or his Constitutional interpretation, are questions that need to be asked but probably won’t be.

* I learned something new today: Barack Obama is against gay marriage, but somehow can justify same-sex civil unions by using the Bible. Oh, but that part in the Bible about homosexuality being a sin and an abomination is “an obscure passage in Romans.” I’m very much in favor of gay marriage, but if this isn’t an incredible example of Obama’s use of speech to somehow at least partially please everyone, I don’t know what is. This was absolutely stunning to read.

* Of course the media is being hard on Obama.

* Of course the tax cuts were for the rich.

Someday, things will calm down.

ETA: fixed the WSJ link.

I’m not going to go as far as to say that the wheels are coming off after one spectacularly bad press conference, but if this is what we can expect of Obama when he’s faced with tough (and not even hard) questions from a largely local press contingent, what’s going to happen when he faces some significant questions from a national media?

Some of the spin I’m reading goes along the line of “but he answered 8 questions about it!? What more do you want from the guy?” The problem isn’t the appearance of brevity in the conference - he may have answered a typical amount of questions, maybe even more than usual. The problem is his handling of the only two blemishes that have been thrown on his record so far - the Rezko flap and the NAFTA one. That the media isn’t trusting the Obama campaign’s statements - or the Canadian embassy’s for that matter - on the meeting between Obama’s advisor regarding the NAFTA comment is significant on a number of levels - it indicates the end of taking Obama’s words at face value, and, more importantly, the Obama bait-and-switch tactic we’ve gotten so used to didn’t work, leaving a number of questions on the table about it that Obama didn’t touch.

The Rezko questioning didn’t go much better. That Obama felt he had answered the questions locally two years ago doesn’t much matter today, as the news is back out and is a big deal. Yes, the media is latching onto it because it’s a “hot story,” as Obama says - that’s the story of your campaign!

It will ultimately be interesting to see how Obama handles this going forward. Indications are that he’s going to lose big in Ohio today (still a shock to me considering his pandering on NAFTA) and if he wins in Texas, it won’t be by a significant margin. This means a month more of campaigning, probably another debate, and more questions that he’s not going to want to answer. Will he be a little more poised next time, or have a minor tantrum whenever someone takes the eye off the ball Obama’s placed in front of us for so long?