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The word of the day is “obtuse”
By Ned | March 26, 2008
Alright, let’s play a little game. It’s called “let’s see who can most obtusely misinterpret Barack Obama’s message.”
ROUND 1: The Washington Post
One … two … three … GO!
Sen. Barack Obama offers himself as a post-partisan uniter who will solve the country’s problems by reaching across the aisle and beyond the framework of liberal and conservative labels he rejects as useless and outdated.
This StoryBut as Obama heads into the final presidential primaries, Sen. John McCain and other Republicans have already started to brand him a standard-order left-winger, “a down-the-line liberal,” as McCain strategist Charles R. Black Jr. put it, in a long line of Democratic White House hopefuls.
Translation: “Obama claims to be able to work together with people with whom he disagrees, but how can he do that when he has opinions for people to disagree with?”
SCORE: That was a strong showing. I give it an 8.3 out of 10. I would have given it a perfect 10, but the article lacks the aggressive stupidity of, say, Obama and various advisers accepting the “liberal=bad” framing and fleeing from the tag with all due-
“He’s really not an old-fashioned liberal at all,” Sunstein said. “He’s a market-oriented Democrat from the University of Chicago with strong religious convictions.”
He mocked the emerging GOP criticism in a speech last month in Austin. “Oh, he’s liberal. He’s liberal,” he said. “Let me tell you something. There’s nothing liberal about wanting to reduce money in politics. It’s common sense. . . . There’s nothing liberal about wanting to make sure that everybody has health care. We are spending more on health care in this country than any other advanced country. We got more uninsured. There’s nothing liberal about saying that doesn’t make sense, and we should do something smarter with our health-care system. Don’t let them run that okey-doke on you!”
Right, see? It’s not a liberal position if it’s correct. Good to know. That 8.3 just shot up to a 9.6. But for a perfect 10 this article would need an obtuse misreading of Obama’s platform, an idiotic response from the Obama campaign, and a quote from famous obtuse idiot Mark Penn. So until I see that-
“The evidence is that the more [voters] have been learning about him, the more his coalition has been shrinking,” Clinton strategist Mark Penn said.
Ding ding ding! Top score! This article is truly a gem of flawless, almost surreal stupidity from all sides.
Topics: The Media |