On the way there Miss Julie had an idea.

“Wouldn’t it be cool if you got Howard Dean to make a personal appeal to Michael to vote for Barack Obama?” I laughed at the thought. But she had something there. Below is the video of what happened next:

I emailed Michael the video.

“How did you get Howard Dean to do this?” he shouted, laughing, on the phone 3 minutes later. “At first I thought it was some sort of promotion,” — imagine Dean making a series of videos naming every single name in the book like those “personalized” coffee cups and key chains you see in souvenir shops — “but then I heard your voice.”

“So,” I say, “is that enough or what? You gonna vote for Obama now?”

“I’m still thinking about it, but I’m getting closer. This helps.”

There’s still hope.

P.S. First Rove, now Dean. Who’s got the mojo, baby?

But for the 30% of Americans who tell pollsters that they believe that Obama is an angry, unpatriotic, secret black Panther Muslim terrorist sympathizer, it’s quite a bit more straightforward: it simply confirms their belief that he’s just no good.

After all, if even his friends are talking about it, there must be some truth to it.

Lastly, of course, it also confirms the view of the traditional media that Obama has a fundamental problem with white working class Americans. Or, as Stephen Colbert is wont to say after he shows (yet again) the video of Rev. Wright: “Why won’t this story die?”

Speaking of Stephen Colbert, he is also a work of art that satirizes the misperceptions of the moonbat-class. As is Dave Chapelle (but not, when you get right down to it, Don Imus). Should we be unhappy with them as well? I can tell you that I heard Chapelle once say that he quit television because he realized much of his audience didn’t get the nuance and was simply laughing at his caricatures of black people. He felt that he was somehow contributing to their ignorance. Colbert, too, has had some awkward moments with his audience but he hung in there and now it’s pretty clear what the joke is all about when he goes on the air every night — and that doesn’t make his satire any less biting or on-point.

But the bottom line is this: there’s a lot more at stake in the case of Obama. We’ve been through this in the last two election cycles and we’d like to avoid this kind of nonsense.

UPDATE: Then again, maybe I’m taking this personally and it’s just business. Gary Kamiya has a point.

We are being robbed of our liberties. And Obama and McCain are equals in that theft. Both deserve to lose for their failure to defend the very essence of our country.

Well, yes, but … tomorrow is another day.

In other words liberty, and the fight for it, is an ongoing process. Soon, the ACLU will sue to overturn the legislation and it will wind it’s way through the courts. Maybe we’ll luck out and the SCOTUS will strike it down. Stranger things have happened — even with this version of the court.

Better yet: Obama will (hopefully) win and the next Congress may have an opportunity to reverse the legislation as well.

Then there’s the prospect of Atty Gen. Edwards prosecuting every single one of the telcos on criminal charges.

So it’s never “over.”

One thing for sure: FIRST, you need to win the freaking election, or most of what I just said is flushed down the toilet.

U.S. Sens. David Vitter, R-La., and Larry Craig, R-Idaho, have signed on as co-sponsors of a proposed Marriage Protection Act.

I kid you not.

]]> http://www.epluribusunumblog.com/2008/07/satire-cant-keep-up-with-reality/feed/ 0 http://www.epluribusunumblog.com/2008/07/satire-cant-keep-up-with-reality-2/ http://www.epluribusunumblog.com/2008/07/satire-cant-keep-up-with-reality-2/#comments Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:27:54 +0000 Ara http://www.epluribusunumblog.com/2008/07/satire-cant-keep-up-with-reality-2/ Continue reading →]]> …and this is true:

U.S. Sens. David Vitter, R-La., and Larry Craig, R-Idaho, have signed on as co-sponsors of a proposed Marriage Protection Act.

I kid you not.

That might be, but I think that’s bad news for the Republicans. Here’s why:

First of all, Jim: please provide the link to the article in The Nation that you mention. I’d like to read what qualifies as “accolades” for Jindal in that venerable magazine.

Next, Jindal helps McCain in Ohio vs. Obama-Strickland? Yawn. Refresh my memory — did the poll occur before or after Strickland removed himself from consideration? Does it matter? How about Obama-Edwards? or any number of other non-Ohio politicians? How does the match-up look then?

Third, Jindal is largely unknown and undefined throughout the country. Once he steps on to the national stage, will he be able to survive the withering gaze of the traditional media? [cough -- exorcist -- cough]

Fourth, any VP candidate of McCain’s is going to be viewed in a unique way because — in the back of everyone’s mind — the specter of McCain’s age (translation: death in office) is pretty stark. In other words, people will evaluate McCain’s VP as the next president of the United States. Can Jindal survive the scrutiny?

Fifth, politics is 70% how you look, 20% how you sound, 10% what you say. That said…ever watch Jindal on TV with the sound off? Try it some time. We’re used to him here. Around the country? Not so much.

Sixth, did I mention we’d be electing a future president who participated in at least one exorcism? Right. And you thought Rev. Wright was a scourge.

Seventh, Jindal makes McCain look even older, if such a thing is possible. If, as Jim says, “older people love youth in others,” doesn’t that hurt McCain?

Eighth, conservatives love him? That’s reason enough to destroy his chances right there. Reaganism: been there, done that. Why are we listening to anything Newt Gingrich has to say on the matter. Next thing you know, Phil Gramm will be pulling the strings in the McCain campaign. Oh, wait…

I could go on and on.

Bottom line: I welcome a Jindal candidacy. His tenure in the governor’s mansion is so short that he is vulnerable to having the highlights skipped over rather quickly. Then it’s on to all sorts of gut-wrenching stuff.

Listen up: issues do NOT move voters. Emotions move voters. And when it comes to Bobby Jindal there’s plenty there to scare the bejeesus out of people. Sorry to have to put it that way, but it is what it is.

I was struck by Mark’s mention of the founding fathers and of Voltaire; Franklin in particular held him in high regard — no surprise there. I also note Mark’s mention of John Adams who, as President, signed the Alien and Sedition Acts into law, a heinous blot on constitutional history (part of which was still legal in 2008). Despite that, we remember Adams as a giant of the American Revolution, easily Jefferson’s equal. That Adams could be both things — a genius and yet a seriously flawed politician — should give us some insight into the quandaries (and temptations) of leadership in the American system of governance.

So here’s the thing: those of you who want to quit the game at this point are ceding the field to others who take comfort in our disunity. We’ll survive yesterday’s vote — one of many to come — in the Senate. But only if we don’t break apart. Tomorrow the sun will come up again and for many days to come. We’ll get another chance to get it right.

Attention should be paid to Russ Feingold, a champion of civil liberties but also a politician:

Maddow: With this vote, voters have to be asking if there is any meaningful difference between the parties on executive power, between the Democratic vision of executive power and the GOP. Certainly your vision of executive power is different than the president’s. But can you say the same for your party?

Feingold: I’m very concerned about it. People have a great right to be disappointed and to look at the 2006 election both rigard to Iraq and say, “What are they doing?” But having a Democratic president, in particular Barack Obama, should allow us to greatly change this mistake.

Barack Obama believes in the Constitution, he’s a Constitutional scholar. I believe he will have a better chance to look at these powers that have been given to the Executive branch. And even though he’ll be running the Executive branch, I think he will understand and help take the lead in fixing some of the worst provisions.

So this is a huge setback. It would have been better for Democrats to stand together and not let it happen in the first place because it is much harder to change it after the fact. But I do believe that Barack Obama is well-positioned in terms of his knowledge and his background and his beliefs to correct this. So I do think the people have a right be disappointed, but they also have a right to hope for change on this issue particularly, starting in January.

As Franklin said, we must all hang together or we will surely hang separately.