[A]t least I know enough not to believe desperate people who are talking trash. Anybody who got whacked [economically] and still thinks McCain-Palin is going to lead us out of the swamp and not into a war with Iran is beyond persuasion in the English language. They’ll need to lose their homes and be out on the street in a cold hard rain before they connect the dots.
Yes, he’s inscrutable that way.
I think he should run for office – he might be the next Reagan!
I don’t disagree with Keillor, but to conclude that because McCain is clueless on the economy and an interventionist is not the same as concluding that Obama has a grasp of the economy and is non-interventionist. Obama’s vote on the bailout was the same as McCain’s, and while Obama is talking about wrapping up Iraq in some way, and not into Iran he’s also spoken about committing in various other places, at various other times.
If Keillor can’t see that, he too is beyond persuasion in the English language.
(Based on the title, I was expecting a reaction to something that blowhard Greg Garrison might have said.)
Maybe we should just vote for the smart guy this time, rather than the obnoxious, underachieving asshole.
Sounds like a plan to me.
But how are the fine folks of Lake Woebegon voting?
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has opened up a commanding lead in Minnesota over Republican John McCain, according to a new Star Tribune Minnesota Poll.
The poll, conducted last week among 1,084 likely voters, found that 55 percent support Obama, while 37 percent back McCain.*
*Star Tribune
He is ahead of McCain among all of those subsets of the population.
The exception is among Minnesotans who call themselves white evangelicals, a group that supports McCain 52 percent to 41 percent.
The poll’s margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
(That might be some in Lake Woebegon, but I think most are Lutherans!)
I love Garrison. His book “Pontoon” was a terrific read.
Ok, T… So help me out here, because I see one guy as obnoxious, the other as an underachiever, and neither of them as particularly smart. I’d love to know what has led you to the distinctions.
I can’t speak for T, but president of the harvard law review suggests “smart” to me, while graduating at the bottom of your class, even at the naval academy, suggests “not as smart.”
McCain was just another guy legacied into his Dad’s old school. We’ve seen this movie before. It doesn’t end well.
McCain underachieved at the academy. Drinking and carousing seem to be what his interests were up until the 1980’s, except for a few years where he was a prisoner. The experience seems to have had little effect on him.
He’s an asshole. Even his friends will tell you that.
He’s also a, hmmm, hard to find the right word. I guess back in my school days, before mellowing a bit and becoming less coarse, I would have called him a pussy. He runs his mouth plenty among friendly crowds and gets all worked up about something, and then doesn’t say shit when he’s in Obama’s presence. Obama owned him in that debate because he knew McCain didn’t have it in him to look at Obama and make those accusations. There was even that moment when Obama looked him straight in the face about that “bomb Iran” thing. McCain turned away from him and walked away as he told the lie about it being a joke with a veteran. That camera shot of Obama watching McCain from the background as McCain walked away while speaking was the way arguments are staged on soap operas. McCain’s stage presence there made him look like a soap opera actress. Go back and watch that and you’ll see what I mean.
He’s a little man with a big name. He has spent a lot of his life bellowing, “Do you know WHO I AM?” in arguments, screaming obscenities at friend and foe alike, and just being an obnoxious asshole.
He’s also petty. He had to make a crack about Obama finally showing up to one of McCain’s beloved “town hall meetings”. It’s bizarre that he still harbors hard feelings that Obama didn’t jump at the chance to participate in McCain’s stupid campaign idea. It makes McCain look fragile and childish.
Right- See, I look at a guy with the chops to be a part of the Harvard Law Review and then going straight to politics as underachieving. I respect somebody who has produced something, above all. I know that discounts all of the choices right now, including Bob Barr. Again- not discounting the things said about McCain here. Just not seeing the Pepsi alternative to Coke as that much different or better. Less awful, perhaps. We’re talking about the low hurdle of mediocrity, in any case.
Barack Obama graduated from Columbia U., attended Harvard Law School where he was first an editor then president of the Law Review. He graduated magna cum laude (i.e. near the top of his class). He’s been a community organizer, Illinois state legislator and a US Senator from Illinois. Then he wrested the Democratic presidential nomination away from the all-but-anointed Hillary Clinton.
Underachieving? — A brilliant career by any measure. Proof not only of high intelligence, but also diligence and nerve too. That doesn’t mean he’ll find solutions to the myriad problems we face, but it’ll help.
I dont like the message of “underachieving” and needing to have “produced something” as not including making a personal decision to get involved in jobs/actions that facilitate your skills toward improving ones community and country.
The frustration with politics and politicians is real – but I think we do ourselves a disservice of belittling public service as a career or passion of good.
Then we wonder why we get self-serving a-holes as Reps. We drive all the good ones to “produce something.” To be those of us that say “politicians are all liars and cheats!”
Its the self-serving circle of actively Failed American Democratic Experiment.
Andrew Jackson would have a few words. Im reading Old Hickorys Bio by HW Brands in preparation for my trip to Nashville in November.
dc-In Minnesota you have the Twin Cities and the rest ot the state is called “outstate.” Obama will carry the Cities by a landslide. He will probably also do well in the Iron Range area surrounding Duluth. He will be trounced in the rest of the state. However, by sheer numbers-the Cities and the Iron Range will make Minnesota blue.