The Gulag Archipelago contains absolutely no reference to the cross in the dirt story.  I have to agree with the thinking that the story on McCain's cross story would have been better off left untouched.  The Saddleback church event may have shown us how easy it is to question McCain's honesty, but the cross story is a bust.  Who cares anyway?

Yeah, I wrote more below.

Letters to the editor that will never ever run in the New York Times:

To the Editor:

Michael Falcone's depiction of John McCain on Georgia [McCain Displays Credentials as Obama Relaxes, 8/14/2008] -- "tough," "forceful," his "fluency," his "aura of commander in chief," read like McCain campaign literature. The parroting of Cokie Roberts on Obama's "exotic" Hawaii vacation did nothing to dispel the impression.

But is McCain to be taken seriously? Wikipedia says his Georgia expertise was cribbed from the online encyclopedia. McCain's chief foreign policy advisor was until recently a lobbyist for the Georgian government. And where Falcone found toughness and forcefulness, the President of Georgia himself scorned McCain's saber rattling, advising him to swap empty words for deeds.

On the other hand a Hawaiian beach might be good for the bellicose McCain's blood pressure. It would also give him time to read up on Georgia beyond its Wikipedia entry. As for any excess exoticism, that's a matter of perspective. Take a Hawaiian to New York's Brighton Beach and the first whiff of borscht would tell him he wasn't on Waikiki any more.

Collectivism is the central meme of his column today.  It has two meanings, but he is really using the second one  2: emphasis on collective rather than individual action or identity, rather than the more common meaning.   1: a political or economic theory advocating collective control especially over production and distribution; also : a system marked by such control

I say this since his discussion uses China as an exemplar of "Collectivism" which is certainly not the first definition of this very capitalistic state.  But, in his use, based on his essay, the Democratic party fits his definition.   A collectivist society is one that demands universal health care, while the whole of society ensures the health of the individual.  As progressives we feel so strongly about this that we are willing to subordinate the desire of the individual who says he would rather have a faster car than guaranteed health care.   In this important area we say the collective will trumps the individual.

Brooks applauds the economic rise of China. But that nation has constructed a capitalist initiative through enslavement of its poor and its working class through utter repression, censorship and massive manipulation. From reading Brooks, one would think China is now a free society when the facts reveal a total opposition to his notions.

The rise of China isn’t only an economic event. It’s a cultural one. The ideal of a harmonious collective may turn out to be as attractive as the ideal of the American Dream.

 

Problem is that there is no "harmonious collective" in China whatsoever. There is merely repression, surveillance and more repression. So that's just a plain old LIE from Brooksie, but what else did you expect?

Why would he be shilling for China? And what is it about China that is so applicable to plans for governance in the U.S.?  

The nasty truth below.

I nearly spewed my iced, grande, triple latte as I read David Brooks' latest New York Times column at Starbucks this morning. It was hard not to recognize myself in Brooks' withering takedown of today's smug, elitist, psuedo-intellectual, poseur, wannabe, (liberal) tastesmakers. Per Brooks:

...prestige has shifted from the producer of art to the aggregator and the appraiser. Inventors, artists and writers come and go, but buzz is forever. Maximum status goes to the Gladwellian heroes who occupy the convergence points of the Internet infosystem — Web sites like Pitchfork for music, Gizmodo for gadgets, Bookforum for ideas, etc.

These tastemakers surf the obscure niches of the culture market bringing back fashion-forward nuggets of coolness for their throngs of grateful disciples.

By now it is clear to regular DailyKos readers that, as far as the media are concerned, Obama can’t win.  Well, at least not with them, even if he is consistently ahead in the polls.  A quick rehearsal of news anchors, editorialists and other talking heads’ positions on Obama in just the last week go something like this:  

We don’t know enough about Obama.
We’ve seen too much of Obama.
We don’t know the specifics of Obama’s energy policy.
Americans don’t want the nitty gritty details—give us the big picture!
Obama isn’t hitting McCain back on attack ads.
Obama is going negative.
Obama is gaining support in the Red states.
Obama can’t close the deal.

That last one is my favorite:  if he’s such a winner, why is he ahead in national polls by only 5%?  Why can’t he close the deal?  We heard this talking point first during the primaries against Clinton, now again with McCain.  Some diarists here have taken the question seriously and have attempted to justify Obama’s modest lead.

The Republicans specialize in offering the phantasmagoric assessments of why Barack Obama deserves to lose, from citing his absence of flag pin, to the infamous "terrorist fist bump" controversy. David Brooks has adopted this tactic yet again with his column this week in the New York Times.

Operating under the patently false premise that Barack Obama, as a black man in a racist country, could win in a landslide in this election, Brooks then proceeds to level another petulant, subjective critique of Obama as "apart from the whole."

Why would Brooks willfully gloss over both American political history, and the substantive issues in this race?

You guessed it: Doing so would not help his preferred candidate, a one John McCain.

David Brooks asks yesterday in The New York Times, "Why isn't Barack Obama doing better?"

A good friend of mine, Marc Caplan, had this to say about it...

Well, there’s a leading question if every there was one; who said he was doing all that badly to begin with?  It’s like when Monty Burns said on returning from the Harvard-Yale game, "Oh honestly, Smithers, I don’t know why Harvard even bothered showing up this year: they hardly even won!"

In fact, let’s spin this the other way and pose the same question in reverse.  Why isn’t John McCain doing better?

Prominent neo-con writer David Brooks of the New York Times reiterated what has become an often-heard myth about Barack Obama and where he stands on issues.

Brooks argues that Obama has not made a leap forward in the polls because voters do not know where he stands, as if there is some ambiguous aura that surrounds Obama.

The media's narrative about Obama in this election just doesn't fit with the facts: They continue to try to pin Obama who doesn't take a stand on the issues while John McCain gets a free pass despite the fact that his principles have become incredibly ambiguous since he became the presumptive GOP nominee

A fascinating perspective on Obama and family values.  Grand New Party, a book written by two young Republican conservatives Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam is getting a lot of attention.

David Brooks in the New York Times:

There have been other outstanding books on how the G.O.P. can rediscover its soul (like "Comeback" by David Frum), but if I could put one book on the desk of every Republican officeholder, "Grand New Party" would be it. You can discount my praise because of my friendship with the authors, but this is the best single roadmap of where the party should and is likely to head.

Follow me.

WELCOME TO "THE 'CULT' OF IN YOUR FACE!"
I was just watching Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer and David Brooks. And, it was an interesting study of Brooks "talking down" to Obama supporters in a kind of lame-but-paternal manner. In short, if I could take a little license and paraphrase him, he was calling us (Obama supporters) a little cultish, a little too intense; in short he was saying: Lighten up a bit. Stop acting 'cultish.' Stop being the 'ones you've been waiting for,' since that literally/really means: 'You've been waiting for yourself.' (For a moment, I even chuckled at Brooks' comment.)

I understand that. (When you're a vociferous supporter of a cause, whatever it is, it can turn other folks off. Hell, the opposition is now exploiting this depth of support of Obama's supporters versus McCain's supporters, attempting to spin it--more like grossly contort it--into a negative via a satirical t.v. commercial, where they compare Obama with visuals of Charlton Heston in his role as Moses.)

Some responses to the criticism of Barack Obama that has followed his speech in Berlin last week. Summary: I think the criticisms all show a poor understanding of history, and the nature of politics, rhetoric, and fame.

1. Charles Krauthammer has been widely quoted as saying Obama didn't "earn" the right to speak in Berlin, as did JFK and Reagan.

My response: Speakers - whether Presidents or Presidential candidates, or anyone - don't "earn" the right to speak by their credentials beforehand. Rather, they are invited, if the host sees fit. And they may or may not attract a large audience. Obama attracted a huge audience of 200,000. By that measure, not to mention the audience's reaction, Obama eminently earned his right to speak in Berlin.

The last week was the perfect storm for exposing the duplicity of the media and the Republicans. In media news, the "liberal" bias ruse was again debunked by a another study. In the midst of that, the media was busy piling on Barack Obama for some sort of faux "arrogance" when the guy was just making a simple speech.

The GOP did its part by disingenuously promoting oil drilling legislation while at the same styming any sort of progress on energy bills in the house.

Pretty much a normal week for both of these entities, actually.

Who would have thought?

In this morning's New York Times David Brooks writes:

If you look at Barack Obama’s education proposals — especially his emphasis on early childhood — you see that they flow naturally and persuasively from this research. (It probably helps that Obama and Heckman are nearly neighbors in Chicago). McCain’s policies seem largely oblivious to these findings.

in The Biggest Issue.

I know this won't be a popular diary, given the apparent popularity of this Democratic candidate for president, but I ask myself this question every time I see Obama speak. Is he the one that can really turn things around for us, or is he another "player" from Chicago?  How did we end up with him as the the Dem candidate, over Joe Biden, John Edwards, or Dennis Kucinich, whom I believed were each more popular than Obama or Clinton? (that other player from New York, wife of the player from Hope, Arkansas). I ask myself that question about John McCain, too.  How did we end up with him as the Republican candidate over the obviously more popular Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee?

That the Republican water carrier and New York Times columnist David Brooks would blast Barack Obama's Berlin speech was utterly predictable.  (Kevin Drum even predicted the title of the piece, "Playing Innocent Abroad.")  To be sure, by slandering Obama's call to "remake the world" with epithets including "saccharine," "treacle," and "Disney," Brooks did not disappoint.  Of course, even less surprising is that back in 2005, David Brooks had only glowing praise for President Bush's democratization agenda and its audacious vision to "imagine new worlds."

Writer in process of dialing down rhetoric... and it's now set to mildly acidic instead of roaring flamethrower.  I keep the flamethrower private.  It's the right thing to do in polite society.

Morning music:  Steve Kimock Band in Boulder, another show with no date (turn of the millennium-ish).

A quick nod to Miriam at Feministing for discussing reggaeton.  It's hard not to like the music, even when the lyrics are offensive.  This diarist is now in the process of acquiring Ivy Queen.  Liking the music does not have to include liking the words, but it's better when you can like both.  The world would be a better place if everyone were treated equally, and working to create that environment is important.  That's what this Cuban diarist thinks, anyway.

This is the picture:  John McCain refers to the Iraq-Pakistan border.  He's not making our work any harder, is he?  Sure he's qualified.

It's time to dance.
Buenos dias.