New Politics Of Hope And Change, Ongoing

Newsweek headline: "Obama: Can’t ‘Swift Boat’ Me".

Say it with me - Yes we can!

Jon Henke thinks Obama's clever plan is to hurl even more mud than is hurled at him.  Well, he who slings mud loses ground.

In related Hope and Change news, the Baseball Crank loves the new Obama "Don't trust anyone over thirty, but do mock them" ad.  Jim Geraghty piles on with some "How old is John McCain" material:

When John McCain was born, Hamas hadn't yet been founded, nor praised Barack Obama.

When John McCain was born, it was legal to own a gun in the District of Columbia.

John McCain was born in those long ago days when if you went into church, you could count on the pastor saying "God bless America!"

This will be a great campaign.

Comments

[PeterUK]

Those who live by the smear die by the smear.

[Odumba Hussien]

"Obama says McCain would be better than Bush"

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5isOFwdbq0tsqatW6vJpkDRTI1gMgD905QA2O0

[pagar]

Does that mean Obama is endorsing McCain?

[Danube of Thought]

This lightweight is in over his head. Way over.

[JM Hanes]

You know you've jumped the shark, when you leap onto the What Would Karl Do bandwagon.

When John McCain was born, even dirt was young.

[MarkO]

DOT, what does it mean to be President of the HLR? Is it based on grades? Based on politics? Writing? Does it mean the Pres is a good lawyer or something else?

[km]

Is this an admission on Obama's part that the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth were, like, right?

[BumperStickerist]

I will not let my opponents youth and inexperience become a factor in this campaign.

- or -

John McCain: He's Lived in a Foreign Country Longer than Obama Has.

-

[SteveMG]

McCain: He's Not Only Lived in Foreign Countries, He's Bombed Them

Only use if the South is polling badly.

[Porchlight]

Henke quotes Newsweek:

The Obama campaign is planning to expand its research and rapid-response team in order to repel attacks it anticipates over his ties to 1960s radical Bill Ayers, indicted developer Antoin Rezko and other figures from his past.

But he disagrees:

You don't expand your research and rapid response staff in order to find out what your own candidate knows and has done. You expand your research and rapid response staff so you can do oppo research on your opponents and critics.

Maybe a normal campaign already knows what the candidate has said and done, but this is Obama we're talking about. I find it quite plausible that his staff, like the electorate, needs all the help it can get to discover 1) what his actual positions are, and 2) all the carp he's hid under the rug for so long.

[Barry]

Only use if the South is polling badly.I'm Southern. Works for me.

[narciso]

Just when you think you can't more clueless; George Packer, the 'thoughtful liberal' who relied on Juan Cole, and fantasist like Karen Kwiatkowski for his
Iraq account; puts in his recommendation for Bill Ayers:Href<http://www.newyorker
.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/?xrail>
Later on, he brings up that ol'e chestnut that Bush was lying about the situation in 2006. Nothing original from that bunch, that
why when they went to carve up Michelle Malkin, and had their face, slammed in the door, I cheered,and I laughed at their failure to understand wht they had been slighted.

[Ann]

Narciso,

Is this the link you are referring to: My Bill Ayers

[Danube of Thought]

To MarkO, re president of the Harvard Law Review:

First, you have to be on the Law Review. Once you're there, I belive it is simply an election in which any member of the Review can contend.

In my day, getting on the Review meant you had to be in the top X percent of the GPA at the end of 1st year, or be in a small additional group that was invited on the basis of their performance in a "writing competition." Another, much smaller, group was invited at the end of the second year, and I'm pretty sure those invitations were based on grades alone. Unless it was deliberately concealed from me (not an impossibility), there was absolutely no consideration given to "diversity," and there was no affirmative action of any kind.

It is my understanding that the criteria now have been changed very dramatically, and that there is a huge "diversity outreach" kind of thing, plus a number of other options available, such that being on the Law Review today doesn't necessarily tell you very much at all about how good the person's grades were.

That's my understanding of the difference between my time and the present. Obama was somewhere in between, and I don't know how many of these changes had been incorporated by the time he was there.

But having said all of that, it is my further understanding that Obama's grades were such that he would surely have been eligible to be on the Review "on merit," i.e. on the basis of his grades. The one thing I don't know is how much one's grades might, in his day or at present, be subject to manipulation by friendly faculty wanting to be all-inclusive and all of that crap. But in my day the faculty couldn't bump a student up for such reasons even if they had wanted to.

[bgates]

When John McCain was young, it was scandalous for someone who had not served in the active duty military to run for President.

By 'young', I mean 68.

[Paul Zrimsek]

John McCain's so old, he's been proud of his country several times in his adult life.

[Danube of Thought]

One further item in response to MarkO:

I'm pretty sure that, however he may have got himself onto the Law Review, he graduated magna cum laude, which I think places him in about the top fifteen percent of the class in GPA. Again, back in the day there was no way to make that happen except on sheer merit, but I have no idea whether the same could be said today or in Obama's time.

I should point out that there were people in my class who had magna cum laude grades who couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel. Bear in mind the expression, "smart in school, dumb on the bus."

[MarkO]

DOT, thanks. I was trying again to understand why he does and says such stupid things. I guess in the group to which he belongs (whatever that is) these things don't seem stupid.

Back to WFB, Jr.'s notion that we would be better off taking names at random than the faculty at Harvard. Or Duke. Especially now at Duke.

[Elliott]

bgates,

Your usually excellent commentary has reached the awesomely awesome level today.

[liontooth]

Two spiritual leaders. Is John Kerry disappointed the Pope said, "God bless America"?

[PeterUK]

"Is John Kerry disappointed the Pope said, "God bless America"?"

Of course,he never gave permission for his name to be used.