Hey, That’s My Name

Well, you know, facts do seem to be having quite the liberal bias these days.

A group of 61 Nobel Laureates have gotten together to endorse Barack Obama for President. Their letter and the signatories are below. This is the largest number of Nobel Laureates to ever endorse a candidate for office, more than endorsed either Gore or Kerry. (Kerry had 48 total.)

[From A Vote For Science : 61 Nobel Laureates in Science Endorse Obama]

She had seemed like one of the most poised McCain surrogates out there, but the past couple of days have not been kind to former HP CEO Carly Fiorina. Yesterday she repeated the campaign line when anyone dares to even imply anything disparaging of Sarah Palin (even if it’s in jest) by saying that the Saturday Night Live sketch that featured Tina Fey as Sarah Palin and Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton was “sexist.” That alone would have been ridiculous, but it was made even moreso by the fact that the support she offered for this view seems to actually debunk her own claim:

Well, I think that she looked a bit like her. I think that, of course, the portrait was very dismissive of the substance of Sarah Palin, and so in that sense, they were defining Hillary Clinton as very substantive, and Sarah Palin as totally superficial. I think that continues the line of argument that is disrespectful in the extreme, and yes, I would say, sexist in the sense that just because Sarah Palin has different views than Hillary Clinton does not mean that she lacks substance. She has a lot of substance.

[From Carly Fiorina Criticizes Tina Fey As "Disrespectful...Sexist" | The Huffington Post]

Perhaps I’m confused, but last I checked Hillary Clinton is a woman. So forgive me, but I don’t quite understand how drawing a contrast between one woman and another is sexist. Take out the “sexist” claim and Fiorina had set up a great defense for slamming Saturday Night Live as a bunch of Hollywood liberals, but the implication of sexism doesn’t pass the smell test.

But sexism and SNL seem like small potatoes when compared to what Fiorina got herself into today.

It began when she appeared on the McGraw Milhaven Show on St. Louis KTRS Radio this morning. The host asked Fiorina if she thought that Sarah Palin had the experience to run a major company like Hewlett Packard. Her response:

No, I don’t. But you know what? That’s not what she’s running for. Running a corporation is a different set of things.

She goes on to repeat the party line about how Sarah Palin is more experienced than Obama because she has executive experience. But still, how can you make the case that Palin doesn’t have the experience to run a corporation but does have the experience to run a country with a population of more than 300 million people and a GDP of more than $13 trillion?

But Fiorina didn’t stop there. She appeared on MSNBC later in the day to give her comments about the governor’s experience some context…by saying that John McCain (as well as Barack Obama and Joe Biden) couldn’t run a corporation either.

Well I don’t think John McCain could run a major corporation. I don’t think Barack Obama could run a major corporation. I don’t think Joe Biden could run a major corporation. But on the other hand, a major corporation is not the same as being the president or vice president of the United States. It is a fallacy to suggest that the country is like a company. So of course, to run a business, you have to have a lifetime of experience in business. But that’s not what Sarah Palin, John McCain, Joe Biden or Barack Obama are doing.

Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor responded:

If John McCain’s top economic advisor doesn’t think he can run a corporation, how on Earth can he run the largest economy in the world in the midst of a financial crisis? Apparently even the people who run his campaign agree that the economy is an issue John McCain doesn’t understand as well as he should.

[From Fiorina clarifies: ‘I don’t think John McCain could run a major corporation.’ | Think Progress]

Painting the Democratic candidate (in any election) as the latte-drinking, arugula-eating, out of touch elitist is old hat for the GOP, so it’s no surprise that the McCain has been making those claims against Obama for a long time now. However, as with many issues in this campaign, the candidate has been bringing the hypocrisy of those claims to light quite a bit, especially in the last five days.

First there was his appearance at the Saddleback church this past weekend where he responded to a question about how he defined being rich in this country and his response was that rich begins at $5 million. I remember the good old days when being a millionaire meant you were rich, but apparently John McCain doesn’t think so.

However the real kicker was yesterday when Politico asked him how many houses he owned.

“I think — I’ll have my staff get to you,” McCain told Politico in Las Cruces, N.M. “It’s condominiums where — I’ll have them get to you.”

[From Politico: McCain unsure how many houses he owns]

Seriously? I mean, I know McCain’s been doing a wonderful job of playing the old guy who doesn’t remember anything and has a hard time keeping things straight and thus can use that to avoid any responsibility for changing my positions or not knowing the facts about integral policy issues, but he doesn’t even know how many houses he owns! You’re trying to say that Obama is out of touch and elitist and you can’t even remember that you own 7 houses (that was the figure his campaign staff eventually submitted to the press).

The Obama campaign has been quick to jump on this little gem. The candidate himself mentioned it mere hours after McCain’s response to the question reported and they’ve already generated an ad that highlights the comment.

The McCain campaign has responded thus far by saying that because Obama owns one million dollar “mansion” (complete with a nice reference to Tony Rezko), made $4 million last year (a drop in the bucket compared to Cindy McCain’s fortune) and spent his vacation in Hawaii (because it’s not like that’s where he was raised or where his grandmother lives), that he has no place to talk about houses and elitism. But since the Obama campaign released the above ad after the McCain camp’s comments, their response on this issue seems to be, “Game on.”

From John McCain’s appearance last night on Larry King Live, when asked about Barack Obama’s cancelled visit to Landstuhl:

KING: Why do you think he didn’t go?

MCCAIN: I have no idea except that I know that according to reports that he wanted to bring media people and cameras and his campaign staffers…

That’s not spin, that’s a blatant, outright lie, and John McCain knows it’s a lie. Here is what Andrea Mitchell had to say about the claim that Obama planned to bring cameras and the press:

That literally is not true…Now the point is, Obama had no intention of bringing any cameras with him. I was there, I can vouch for that…he wasn’t planning to bring an entourage…

[From Daily Kos: Who's Lying? John McCain or Andrea Mitchell?]

These points are in no particular order, this is kind of a stream of conciousness thing in response to a fellow Twitterer because I didn’t feel I would be able to address it properly in 140 character spurts. This is by no means a complete list, they’re most just off the top of my head things based on the stuff I know about current events.

1a. First off, let’s be clear about what “surge” was supposed to mean in reference to Iraq. It was supposed to mean that troops would be added to trouble spots in Iraq for a period of six months. The addition of these troops was supposed to bring down violence so that political reconciliation could take place (as the violence levels were being blamed for the lack of political reconciliation). After the six month period, the troops were to be withdrawn, this was why the administration was calling it a “surge” and not what it really was, an escalation. (Keen observers might note that the “surge” has, in fact, lasted an entire year and that the ultimate goal – political reconciliation – is still very far from being achieved.)

1b. Obama has not called his plan for Afghanistan a “surge” he has merely said that he wants to add two brigades to Afghanistan. McCain is talking about having a surge in Afghanistan and several media outlets are calling what Obama’s strategy is a surge, but they’re wrong. Adding troops != surge.

2. The surge took place shortly after the 2004 mid-term elections, when the country resounding voted in Democrats over Republicans in what was largely perceived to be a referendum against the administration’s policies in Iraq and the (sadly unfounded) belief that the new Democratic majority would bring about an end to the war (you can argue about whether that’s actually why people voted for Democrats, but that’s certainly what the narrative was at the time). So, basically, everyone thought it was going to be the beginning of the end of the war, but the Bush administration gave us all a nice big “fuck you” by saying “I’m not bringing troops home, I’m sending more!”

3. Iraq and Afghanistan are not equivalent wars (or countries, for that matter). Many citizens and politicians (including Obama) supported the war in Afghanistan, but did not support the war in Iraq. So, even if he were supporting the same strategy in Afghanistan (which he’s not), the fact that he didn’t support it in Iraq doesn’t really matter. Other than being Arab nations that the U.S. is currently at war with, there’s little that’s similar about them. Believing that something isn’t going to work for one country, doesn’t mean that you must believe it won’t work for another.

4. Afghanistan has needed reinforcements for a long time as the forces there have, for many months, been losing the ground that was initially gained. Resources were directed away from Afghanistan when we went to war in Iraq and we’ve been paying the price for it dearly. This month will likely be the third month that U.S. casualties in Afghanistan are outpacing those in Iraq and considering we a much smaller force in Afghanistan, that’s really not good. Paul Reickhoff, Executive Director of the veteran organization Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America says that many soldiers that served there call it “Forgotistan.”

5. Obama’s plan for Afghanistan is not a “surge.” The purpose of adding more troops is because they’re needed, because the troops that are there right now have been losing their footing for months while the President and the rest of the world was watching Iraq. The Taliban has been resurgent in Afghanistan for over a year now. Current military officials have said that they need more troops in Afghanistan, they just aren’t available because they’re all in Iraq. Obama isn’t tying these two brigades he says he’ll send to political goals or saying that they’ll get to go home after a certain amount of time. That’s what a “surge” is, that’s what it was presented as a year and a half ago by the people that dreamed it up.

6. Obama believes that Afghanistan is the central front in the war on terror and given that it’s been a Taliban home base for several years and given their proximity to Pakistan (the country that most experts widely agree is where Osama Bin Laden is hiding), it’s not hard to see why. There was a period where our soldiers had a decent handle on the country, but that was awhile ago and they aren’t going to get it back with the numbers we have there now.

I feel like I had more in my head, but I’m feeling kinda tapped and I should really go to bed soon. This was kind of a brain dump, so apologies for the sloppiness or lack of clarity. I just wanted to try to get all the points out.

Yeah, that so wouldn’t have worked over Twitter.