Wednesday Links
* Mark Steyn on The Obama Rules. The best part:
He can’t be called a “liberal” (”the same names and labels they pin on everyone,” as Obama puts it); his toughness on the war on terror can’t be questioned (”attempts to play on our fears”); his extreme positions on social issues can’t be exposed (”the same efforts to distract us from the issues that affect our lives” and “turn us against each other”); and his Chicago background too is off-limits (”pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake controversy”). Besides that, it should be a freewheeling and spirited campaign.
…
This is, of course, an impossible standard. Obama doesn’t expect anyone to live up to it except John McCain.
Partisan? Sure, duly noted. But it’s also not wrong - Obama’s attempts to set the tone of the campaign should fall flat to any aware observers, as he can’t even hold himself to the same basic standard. I’m all for a no-holds-barred campaign, personally, but Obama isn’t the one who gets to decide the rules.
* The inconsistency of polling: On general issues, the population appears to trust Democrats more than Republicans on the general issues, but Rasmussen also notes that the polling shows a belief in the Republican positions, at least on the economy. Republicans never seem to do well on these generic polls, which further suggest the branding issue more than anything else.
* Speaking of candidates and brands, the Republicans lost another seat in a special election. I know little about Davis, unlike the Louisiana seat which the former Democrat who is now a Republican lost a seat to a Democrat, but a lot of people seem to be pointing to an alleged failure of an Obama linking. I wonder if this ridiculous ad campaign the DCCC put out there may have tilted a few thousand votes. For the record, it’s ridiculous because it’s completely factually incorrect. But hey, too late now, right?
* I find this W movie intriguing. Not necessarily because I have any interest in it, or expect it to do well, or even expect it to be historically accurate (which early signs say probably not), but I just wonder about what possesses people to get involved with something like this, I suppose. It’s one thing for Michael Moore to peddle his own distorted view of the universe on his own, but it’d be another to be an actor who reads the script, and either a) fails to recognize how bizarre the take is, or b) simply doesn’t care how bizarre the take is. I dunno.
* We can all agree that this is all kinds of screwed up, right? Guys, don’t get upset when I mention the qualities of the Obama campaign when people are putting out stuff like this.
* A follow-up on the Obama and the Court mention - I’ve presented two different quotes over the months about Obama’s personal litmus test for nominees, but his statements on the actual legal situation throw a wrench in that: On Wolf Blitzer’s show earlier (I haven’t found the transcript yet), he apparently said that the number of cases where the law isn’t clear would be “5 percent of cases or 1 percent,” which would ultimately boil down to maybe one case per term. The problem is that those with the moral compass to see the little guy, or the underrepresented, or whatever, don’t tend to really understand the law - we see that on the Court with the Souters and Ginsburgs all the time. If it were a situation where the Court only heard the cases that fit into that small percentage, Obama might have a point, but do we really think that an Obama nominee would be on the correct side of the coming DC gun case?
* I have a feeling we won’t be hearing any griping about this ad in the near future.
* Power Line demonstrates, again, the media’s treatment of Obama.
* Gotta love that war on drugs.
* Finally, two bizarre stories: the woman who remembers everything, and The Boston Weekly Dig’s poncho ad.