WaPo's David Ignatius tells Tweety that McCain's concession speech healed the nation

[Amerigo Vespucci]

THE CHRIS MATTHEWS SHOW

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/30/tv-soundoff-sunday-talkin_n_147171.html

We're going to leaven our serious Sunday bread with a little of would-be Pennsylvania Senator Chris Matthews' brand of whimsy, why not. Today's panel includes Katty Kay, Mark Whitaker, Ceci Connolly and David Ignatius.

So, yeah, the economy. Peggy Noonan may have not noticed it, because no one's attempted to remount THE CRADLE WILL ROCK on Broadway, yet, but times are tough. Also, war, strife, and global uncertainty. Even Bill Kristol has pledged to support the nascent Obama presidency, until it starts making decisions that aren't clouded by the empirical delusions of nincompoops. Will Obama get a break from partisan politics? (Should he?)

Whitaker says that the dire straits of today have made the Obama camp the sultans of swing, and they are going to pursue their long-and-deep agenda of bold moves. There will be a "Rush Limbaugh wing" of the party that will presumably, do as Rush Limbaugh does - rattle angrily and alone inside their insulated world with their cat as their only friend.

"The honeymoon is a hurricane!" says David Ignatius, and then credits JOHN MCCAIN with healing the nation, with his glorious concession speech. YES, DAVID. That washed away months of dishonor and grave stupidity!

Connolly says that while the GOP needs to regroup, people need to remember that EVERYTHING IS BAD FOR DEMOCRATS. Isn't the structural majorities in Congress that Obama will have to work with a BAD THING? Maybe Connolly hasn't noticed the vast legislative background of Obama's inner circle, or how the Clinton roadblock will be mollified and sent to Foggy Bottom?

Who will keep the blogosphere happy, in the Obama administration? I don't know? Probably the echo chamber in their comment streams, which constantly remind the bloggers of how right they are? That's sort of how it works. Anyway, surprise, surprise! It's hard to be president - concessions pave the way for consensus. There are competing interests to be tended to. And everyone knows what a GENIUS has been tending the tiller for the past eight years. I think that if Obama governs from the standpoint that he has to mollify a thin band of the shouty-faced on either side of the aisle, he'll be pissing away the opportunity to govern well and build a consensus for policies that can gradually grow more progressive as America learns to be less cynical about their government.

Matthews says that Obama's popularity could affect al Qaeda's global brand. Already, al Qaeda is yelling at Obama, calling him "House Negro," and complaining about the way the media has captured their statements like they were Mark Salter or something.

I can't get over the way Matthews obsesses on Obama's middle name. Yes! Let's be amazed! It's the one thing Obama has done in the War On Terror that he had no control over. I mean, my middle name is Basinger, but you shouldn't be wondering if that implies that I have taken a side in Alec Baldwin's messy divorce.

Will Obama affect al Qaeda's ability to recruit? Ignatius thinks that Obama's presidency might "create a crisis in the minds" of the non-hardcore.

I guess I should be all suffused with how hope and change will affect the War On Terror. And I'm happy for any sort of psychological drift that having Obama as President occurs, as long as it proceeds in our direction. But battling al Qaeda is a matter of policy, not warm-fuzzy projection, and I'm more interested in what takles shape as a matter of policy. Certainly, there, I'm hopeful! But in the end, Obama's name and skin color will be of decidedly small impact, and I have a feeling he'd tell you that himself.

Things that Chris Matthews doesn't know (that do not include, maybe, his projected double-digit deficit in the polls in Pennsylvania) are as follows. Katty Kay says that there is terrible news coming out of Africa, and she hopes that Obama will take Africa seriously by appointing Samantha Power and John Prendergast to head up the State Department's Africa mission. (Power is back in the Obama camp, as a part of his State Department transition team. She and Hillary Clinton have reportedly buried the hatchet, and not in one another's skulls.) Whitaker says that Education hasn't gotten much attention yet, but it will. Connolly says that Obama will not reverse all of the Bush executive orders, but will rather be "forward-looking and not backward-looking" on some of them, whatever the hell that means. Ignatius says that John McCain will be Obama's "key ally" on climate change - which could be problematic, since I don't think McCain supports mostly pleasant sounding "green" rhetoric, as opposed to a sensible carbon-tax plan.

Will Bush retreat from public life after Inauguration Day? Katty Kay says that "she's struggling to see that big, thoughtful op-ed in the Wall Street Journal" from Bush, but I don't know! Is the Wall Street journal soliciting an op-ed about how delicious the White House brownies are, or how cool it is to shoot off fireworks with the President of Mexico in the middle of the night? Or how far up one's ass one's cranium needs to be fitted in order to tune out the way one's decisions cost people their lives? Actually, I'd have to imagine that only the first two ideas are in play.

Whitaker agrees that Bush is likely to write or read books in his retirement. "This is why they hate us, Mark!" Matthews quips nonsenically. Connolly agrees that Bush will do mindless gardening for the rest of his life. Ignatius says a whole lot of asskissing nonsense about how "there's a little bit of Jimmy Carter in Bush" and how he's the "dissident President." "I'll bet he'll travel and meet with dissidents," he says, adding that Bush will set up a "Freedom Foundation." I agree with the latter. Bush is totally the type who would start a foundation that would raise awareness for awareness or something vapid like that. The notion that he's going to travel around and talk to the poor and disaffected around the world? I'm going to strain my diaphragm, laughing at that nonsense.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/30/tv-soundoff-sunday-talkin_n_147171.html

[rocktivity]

1. Illustrated with a pic of (l to r): Gorgeous George, Stimpy, and Brokejaw

x(
rocknation

[peekaloo]

3. Stimpy!

:rofl:

purrfect

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

2. McCain's bullshit speech? If he was really "graceful" as he was immediatey labeled,

McCain should have said that he and Palin were liars and no, Obama doesn't pal around with terrorists and no, Obama isn't a commie.

I am sure that a majority of those who voted for McShame, still BELIEVE that our country is now in the hands of a terrorist Marxist.

[liberal N proud]

4. Sure it did

:rofl:


We need a bullshit smiley because this one speech by a loser does not heal a nation.

[Captain Hilts]

5. It was a good speech but contradicted the way he'd run his campaign and his life for the past 8yrs.

The Republican party is completely irrelevant right now. GWB - and the Republicans in Congress complicity with him - ruined it for them all.

They'd better learn to suck on it and like it from here on out.

[Orsino]

10. Yeah. Much better speech than I'd hoped for...

...but no single speech could do more than begin to heal the wounds McFail's campaign opened.

[Jade Fox]

6. McCain habitually screws up, then "graciously" apologizes....

It's his own personal cliche'.

[NRaleighLiberal]

7. McCain's speech was impressive only in contrast to how low the bar was.

What utter bullshit. Obama could mumble in his sleep and it would be more eloquent and interesting than the best McCain can come up with. I think that the media in general is so intellectually mediocre that they yearn for McCain and Bush's approach. Obama intimidates them all and makes them look as average as they really are.

[rocktivity]

9. His speech scared me, frankly

because it was as though he'd undergone a complete personality change. If anything, it made me feel BETTER that he didn't win.

:headbang:
rocknation

[pacalo]

8. A few thoughts...

(1) Why do the pundits like Matthews give these reality-challenged creeps airtime?

(2) Matthews likes Obama. I've seen & heard it with my own eyes & ears.

If Matthews is "obsessed" with Obama's middle name, I wonder if he is thinking about it in the same terms as I am: after the Sadaam Hussein this & Sadaam Hussein that media blitz for years, isn't it amazing that an overwhelming majority of American voters chose as our next president a man whose first name rhymes with "Osama" & whose middle name is the same as the man's whom Bush/Co & their media obsessed about?

Obama's win is a testiment for how fed-up the American voters are about the new McCarthyism tactics & how little they pay attention to our over-priced "news" pundits. We elected not a man of color with a name that rhymes with "Osama", & happens to have as his middle name the same as Bush's nemesis' last name, but a man we saw to be the best & most refreshing candidate.

(3) The "House Negro" term didn't come from Al Queda. Does this remind anyone else of McCarthyism? And from where did McCarthyism -- which is alive & well today with a different obsession called "terrorism" -- originate?