A Political Glimpse from Ireland

The Nazi’s Did It

Watch for a good laugh:

The Fox Switch

I was watching some CountDown clips this morning and was at a loss for which clips to talk about since there are so many. The one clip that struck me as incredibly funny was the Worse, Worser and Worst count down that Olbermann does on every episode (part because of the funny voice). In this clip, he talks about Bill O’Reilly as always and Fox News (Fixed News). He does make two important points:

1. The top 1% of Americans earned 22% of all income in 2006, the largest gap of this kind in 18 years
2. Fox News continues to confuse Obama/Osama

I remember the furor over the Liz Trotta mixup and I will admit I was one of those people who got a little bit angry despite the apology by Mrs. Trotta. I am still angry today because I realize that Fox News is still continuing to make those “alleged” mistakes. It is now a fact that the White House has been sending talking points to Fox News as stated by former press secretary Scott McClellan. It would not be too far of a stretch for those talking points to include mixing up the Obama/Osama name as many times as possible to confuse some people in America. This confusion would only benefit Senator McCain but then again, does he really need to be more confused? What I propose, if no one else has already done this; count the number of times Fox News has mixed up the Obama name with that other guy so that we can determine if this mixup is an active decision on the part of Fox News.

The Speech I Missed

Yes, I missed Senator Obama’s speech yesterday and actually totally forgot about it as I was sitting in work and my phone buzzed. Trying to make sure my manager did not see me since there is a very strict no cellphone use policy during working hours. I opened up the text message to see that it was from Twitter indicating Senator Obama was giving a speech in Berlin, I had to stop the involuntary action to get up because I still had another 3 hours of work left. Anyway when I arrived home, a little dissapointed, I was happy to see that the Huffington Post had posted the clip of the MSNBC’s coverage of Senator Obama’s speech.

The speech was not as flamboyant as I expected however I was impressed as always, mainly when Senator Obama indicated he was a citizen of the world. Many liberals like myself will admit to that, especially those who have spent some time traveling and living overseas however, unsurprisingly, Rush Limbaugh was the first person to jump on the comment:

I’m growing weary of Democrats and their presidential candidates finding something wrong with being an American citizen

I think this is a systemic problem with some conservatives, they really think that liberals/progressives/democrats are not proud to be American. I will grant you that some of us are not proud to be American but that lack of pride only exists because of the actions of the current administration. If every person loved his or her country completely then we might be veering into “borg” territory. If you don’t know who the borg are, I urge you to watch some Star Trek, it is a great show.

The simple fact that some Democrats disagree with America or express their shame for the direction the country has taken is what makes America so great. My friends (Ireland and Mass.) and I realize that we have a greater duty beyond country, it is a duty to have a positive impact on the world. If everyone endeavored to improve the world within their own country as well as outside, we would truly have a world approaching the proverbial utopia.

Senator’s Obama speech hit on two points that are critical and reflect why I continue to support him:

1. He admits that under President Bush, America has lost the respect of the world and needs to regain it.
2. We are all citizens of the world and need to work together to improve this world and tackle the issues that affect everyone in every country.

Some of the Senator’s points are echoed in a report released this month by the Phoenix Initiative, a group of prominent scholars and policy analysts:

The next president of the United States must forge a new national security strategy in a world marked by enormous tumult and change at a time when America’s international standing and strategic position are at an historic nadir. Many of our allies question our motives and methods; our enemies doubt American rhetoric and resolve. Now, more than at any time since the late 1940s, it is vital to chart a new direction for America’s global role.

Please do read the whole report if  you have time, they touch on some important issues for the next President. I know some of you do not agree with the Senator but perhaps you might agree with some of the points he made in his speech?

Why The Press Likes Obama

Senator McCain recently launched a new advertisement on his website entitled: “Obama Love” in which Senator McCain asserts that the media is totally in love with Senator Obama.  This statement may be true given the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s weekly monitoring citing that between June 9th and July 20th, Senator Obama received 78.3% of campaign coverage stories compared to Senator McCain’s 51.2%:

These statistics do not specify whether the selected story was negative or positive hence that needs to be taken into consideration but I believe at the end of the day it comes down to a combination of ratings and star-power.If anyone watches the Colbert Report, he recently posted green screen footage of Senator McCain and challenged his viewers to make Senator McCain more exciting. Let me state at this juncture that I have watched some of Senator McCain’s speeches and he reminds me of an old microeconomics professor I used to have in sophomore year who spoke in a monotonic tone for 3 hours on subject that many students finding boring.

I am a liberal so to be fair let’s compare Senator McCain to another very popular Republican; President Bush is not the most eloquent speaker but he is quite able to convey his emotions, enthusiasm and upbeat nature when he speaks. Senator McCain on the other hand can do none of these things, can you imagine him giving a speech at the UN? At least President Bush could crack a few jokes that were slightly funny, I can’t imagine Senator McCain coming close to that level of humor.

The majority of the media may be in love with Senator Obama but they “feel” that way because he is exciting, an excellent speaker, and a historical figure in global and local politics. Senator McCain on the other hand is none of these things hence he does not make for good ratings and has none of the proverbial “star-power.” The Obama excitement is not just contained within America but also outside the USA; Senator Obama is supported by the majority of the world’s public’s who want to see a change in America. If you are a network like CNN who is freely available as long as you have a Dish (no subscription needed) then the logical choice to get your adverts to the greatest number of people is to feature news articles talking about the Senator from Illinois.

Lastly Media Matters has two excellent articles describing how the media is not quite in the Obama court and has frequently helped out the “maverick” on a few occasions. If you watched the Daily Show on Monday night, they have an excellent clip of why I believe the media doesn’t like Senator McCain because he makes silly mistakes like you will find between 4:00 minutes and 5:30:

Who Dares Wins

Back to the American election for me today, with a short post since I am not quite sure where my evening disappeared to as it’s already 12am.  I want to grab a quick snack before I go to bed so I will try not to ramble on as I usually do. I am a recent convert to MSNBC’s countdown because the way Keith Olbermann talks is quite funny for lack of a better word not to mention it kind of feels good to have someone batting for liberals every night beyond Jon Stewart. The big news this past few days has been that the Obama campaign is not running short on donations as they reported a haul of $52 million in June which puts them on par with the McCain campaign on a monetary level.  The Obama campaign has sparked some criticism with their use of this money through spending money in the typical Republican states of Alaska, Missouri, Virginia etc… Some democratic strategists would have the Obama campaign shore up Democratic support in key states however this new strategy might bear fruit if the following election prediction holds true.

I have often reiterated on this blog that Senator Obama has the potential to truly revolutionize the way the Democratic Party wins elections. This revolution would happen by Senator Obama capturing some typically Republican states as well as the ones Democrats usually win in the general election. At the moment according to political prediction site fivethirtyeight.com, Senator Obama is likely to win the general election with 292.4 electoral votes:

This is good news for Democrats given that there have been some doubts about the Obama campaign’s strategy within the party and its base. Senator Obama needs to keep playing the political game boldly because it is only through this boldness that the McCain camp will continue to squander their resources in a broad fashion as opposed to more focused attacks which would lead to a harder fought battle. I will call it a night and leave it to Keith Olbermann and Countdown to close out the night with more on the Obama campaign’s strategy: