The Politics of Esthetics
| Tue Oct. 7, 2008 8:26 AM PDT
THE POLITICS OF ESTHETICS....Ezra Klein is agog at Sarah Palin's campaign rhetoric:
I can't remember George W. Bush engaging the culture war with anything even approaching this ferocity in 2004.
McCain and Palin are running on fumes. There's just nothing left for them to talk about aside from unpatriotic liberals, sneering urbanites, and how the mainstream media hates them. The politics of esthetics is all they have left.
It has truly been a remarkable campaign. If you put a gun to my head and forced me to choose between John McCain and George Bush as president, I don't know who I'd pick — and that's something that would have been inconceivable as recently as a year ago. I wonder if McCain has any idea just how thoroughly he's going to exit this campaign with his reputation permanently soiled and his life story in tatters?
Continues Below
Continued From Above
Comments
If you put a gun to my head and forced me to choose between John McCain and George Bush as president, I don't know who I'd pick ? and that's something that would have been inconceivable as recently as a year ago.
Not a choice I'd care to make, but as long as Democrats more or less control Congress, and I never thought I could say this, I'm w/ Lev and would pick Bush43.
At least we know what to expect from him, and who knows what insane stunts McCain might try.
If you put a gun to my head and forced me to choose between John McCain and George Bush as president, I don't know who I'd pick ? and that's something that would have been inconceivable as recently as a year ago.
Not a choice I'd care to make, but as long as Democrats more or less control Congress, and I never thought I could say this, I'm w/ Lev and would pick Bush43.
At least we know what to expect from him, and who knows what insane stunts McCain might try.
Depends upon who the target audience is.
Recently I have been receiving a lot of emails from my Republican colleagues with the subject 'AWESOME' every time McCain or Palin or one of their supporters calls Obama a liar or a traitor or a terrorist.
I wonder if McCain has any idea just how thoroughly he's going to exit this campaign with his reputation permanently soiled and his life story in tatters?
If anybody had the guts to show him the LA Times story about his "career" as a pilot, he might be getting a clue.
Submitted by bob5540 (not verified) on Tue Oct. 7, 2008 8:30 AM PDT.
McCain's life story was always tattered. It's just that nobody paid attention to the tatters.
There is just one thing left for him to do: Blow his top and meltdown on national TV. Hope to see that tonight.
It was inconceivable to me a month ago, but tonight, I think that Obama could personally attack McCain and not only get away with it, but drive the poor man over the edge.
I think that if McCain provided just the right opportunity, Obama could say something like, "John, I and a lot of Americans used to look up to you, but your personal attacks, mudslinging, and outright lies are inexcusable. I do not have to take this from you, and I will not tolerate it. You are insulting me, the country, and yourself. Either you stop this sort of thing right now, or I will walk away and not look back. I will not stand here and watch you insult the honor of the democratic process. You are insulting the history of the process handed down at the founding of this great nation."
I think McCain would blow a gasket.
Only if he loses. If he wins, then however nasty the win was all gets forgotten. And he realized it a couple of months ago; all of this has been the further flailing of a man who realizes that the only thing at this point that can salvage his reputation is if he manages to win it.
Submitted by Petey (not verified) on Tue Oct. 7, 2008 8:38 AM PDT.
The 2008 campaign has really outed Kevin (and most of the blogosphere) as being more interested in aesthetics than substance, hasn't it?
"The Politics of Aesthetics" would be a good subtitle for this blog or for Ezra's.
Obama shouldn't and does not need to come on that strong. Besides, it would make him sound like a school teacher reprimanding a naughty child. Even considering where people are with McCain right now, coming from a younger man and [to some minds, not mine] a young, BLACK man, at that, it could have negative consequences. Let's not get too cocky, any of us.
It is great to see Obama doing so well, though; really affirms my feelings about him as the next president of the country.
Life in tatters? He's 72 with maybe a dozen years left on the planet, tops. He has multiple homes, cars, a fat pension and a spouse worth 10s to 100s of millions. Some tatters. Sure, a spoiled reputation may hurt a bit. I have to believe the ability to do literally anything that comes to mind in your waning years might assuage the pain.
Alas, Obama himself has to stay very very cool. However, the rest of us, Biden included, do need to call out the lying incitement by the Palin/McCain campaign.
Will tonights elderly white male friend of McCain "moderator" be in the tank for McCain?
Palin and McCain's rhetoric is starting to frighten me.
I'm sorry, but when people are screaming "kill him" and "terrorist" at your rallies AND YOU ARE NOT SLAPPING THAT DOWN, you are ginning up a very dangerous kind of political extremism.
They need to think this through. We're moving way past a smear campaign here, to an extremely dangerous and historically lethal kind of politics.
Paul Miller is right. Let McCain self-destruct. If Obama goes after him, he's an uppity n****r going after a war hero* and while that won't lose Obama any votes he already has it won't gain him any undecideds, either.
* yeah, I know. But listen to talk radio. It's easy to sneer, but the "war hero" narrative still has a lot of subscribers, as does the notion that McCain is being too honorable to "go after" Obama.
Didn't Kevin have a post a few weeks ago expressing concern for the governability of the country post-election? Well, it is only getting worse. If Obama wins, there are going to be some riled up folks who are buying the BS the McCain campaign is throwing out there. And if, heaven help us, McCain wins, Obama supporters are going to be full of anger and bile as well. Obama at least has the rhetorical skills to bring much of the country together (and has started working that angle from the vantage point of the front runner), but what about McCain? I don't think he has the rhetorical skills to pull it off, and Palin only seem coherent when she is being divisive. The last thing an economic crisis needs is a huge swathe of the country boiling over with resentment. Tough times are coming.
It looks like the McCain camp will look to Palin to try to put them over the edge and win the election.
They clearly can't use her in mainstream media, so instead they will have her make incendiary speeches in order to get free airtime from the news. CNN had her on from Florida this morning. She gets to broadcast her hate-filled garbage for free without any kind of filter or questioning.
This strategy might just work, but this country would be ungovernable if McCain/Palin win this way.
Submitted by Lev (not verified) on Tue Oct. 7, 2008 9:05 AM PDT.
"If you put a gun to my head and forced me to choose between John McCain and George Bush as president, I don't know who I'd pick..."
I do. I'd pick Bush. Really, when you think about it, second term Bush hasn't been nearly as bad as the first term. Bush has gone back to his realist roots on foreign policy, which is welcome. McCain is still an unrepentant neocon, which is scary.
Now, I (like virtually everyone in this country) loathe George W. Bush. I think he's an ignorant man, an incompetent leader, out of touch with the mainstream of this country and possibly a war criminal. But, with the exception of the last item, McCain shares all those traits. Add in the neocon element and we will be at war with Iran and/or North Korea within the first term of a McCain administration.
Just a reminder that things could get much worse. As if we don't know that right now.
The 2008 campaign has really outed Kevin (and most of the blogosphere) as being more interested in aesthetics than substance, hasn't it?
Goodness, Petey, I knew you didn't like Obama, but I hadn't thought you'd moved all the way to PUMA McCain supporting.
You haven't thought a lot about epistemology if you think aesthetics is an inappropriate consideration here. For example, if you don't beleive in god, why not commit murder? Aesthetics!
Steve Benet has it right. McCain lost the election beyond hope when his campaign admitted that it was going to strip funds from Medicare and Medicaid.
That piece of conservative idiocy will more than offset the Bradley Effect. Elders vote.
In addition, Karl Rove questioned why the McCain camp is leaking the reasons for its various media efforts. (See Sam Stein at the Huffington Post, 10/5/2008.) That really is stupid, but it looks to me like the McCain camp has already recognized that they have lost and their morale is low. Combined with the absence of competent management, a number of individuals are more concerned with their personal reputations than with the effectiveness of the campaign in the last month, so they are leaking key information about strategic plans in order to effectively say "Hey! I'm not to blame! It's McCain and Schmidt (and Holtz-Eakin?) who are running this show into the ground!"
Submitted by cedichou (not verified) on Tue Oct. 7, 2008 9:47 AM PDT.
I wonder if McCain has any idea just how thoroughly he's going to exit this campaign with his reputation permanently soiled and his life story in tatters?
Actually, his reputation will be totally fined. He played to win. Either he wins, and hardball politics are great. Or he loses, makes a gracious exit speech, vowing to work to end partisanship, and all is forgiven and all is forgotten. It was all just a hard knuckled fight, things got said in the heat of the moment, nothing personal, it's over, move along.
I also was wondering why the McCain folks were leaking their strategy to the press. I have to think that at least a few of them have the decency that alludes McCain-Palin and are embarrassed by the depths of disgustingness the campaign has reached. I also think these folks might know something about McCain's health, and likelihood to survive very far into his term, that the rest of us do not, and that they're very afraid of McCain presidency.
McCain and Palin (who might as well put on jackboots) have moved into ugly and dangeroous territory with their latest meme and if, heaven forbid, something awful happens because of their posturing, they will be held accountable for the blood on their hands.
Most former presidential candidates become irrelevant after losing, and McCain will be no exception. Republicans who've never liked him will like him even less after he loses while the independents and Democrats who've respected him over the years will now view him as a poor man's George Bush.
The real question is what happens to Sarah Palin after the election. The Republicans are gaga about her now, but let's face it, what do they have to be excited about in this race? I'm wondering if she's going to wind up forgotten like Ferraro and Quayle.
Submitted by Scu (not verified) on Tue Oct. 7, 2008 9:55 AM PDT.
Politics of Aesthetics is already a book by a french political philosopher, Jacques Ranciere. I highly suggest it, too.
If you put a gun to my head and forced me to choose between John McCain and George Bush as president, I don't know who I'd pick and that's something that would have been inconceivable as recently as a year ago.
Not a choice I'd care to make, but as long as Democrats more or less control Congress, and I never thought I could say this, I'm w/ Lev and would pick Bush43.
At least we know what to expect from him, and who knows what insane stunts McCain might try.
The difference is that Bush used surrogates, such as 527s, to do the culture war thing in the gutter, while he pretended to be on a higher plane. McCain and Palin have stepped into the gutter themselves. I don't think it's a smart move.
Submitted by Annie (not verified) on Tue Oct. 7, 2008 10:55 AM PDT.
Running on fumes?
I don't agree. They're running on an ammunition dump.
Can you imagine this rhetoric, say in 1965? The country would be at civil war again - or campuses would be Kent States all over.
This is McCartheyism. This is criminal. This is where the belly of the beast turns skyward and exposes its bloated putrification.
They have op'ed Pandora's box of racism, hatred and bigotry.
No matter who assumes office (I have no reason to think that any election will be fair and that votes will be counted accurately as they are actually cast) now, there will be unrest across the land for years to come.
McCain/Palin/Republican Party have declared war. We just haven't acknowledged that declaration.
I wonder if McCain has any idea just how thoroughly he's going to exit this campaign with his reputation permanently soiled and his life story in tatters?
This is a fantasy. McCain has run a pretty standard campaign against long odds. He'll be remembered as a war hero with a long and (in my view) fairly undistinguished record in Congress.
I've been saying something similar to friends and relatives recently. I would definitely prefer four more years of Bush to a McCain presidency. The primary reasons: (1) Bush has been chastened by his failures, hence the decision to engage with North Korea, Iran, etc.; and (2) McCain doesn't think Bush's decisions have been wrong, just poorly executed; McCain thinks that if he were president, instead of the incompetent Bush, then it would all have worked out fine.
That terrifies me.
Submitted by apostropher (not verified) on Tue Oct. 7, 2008 12:03 PM PDT.
But listen to talk radio. It's easy to sneer, but the "war hero" narrative still has a lot of subscribers
And yet, these are largely the same people who called John Kerry a traitor who injured himself on purpose. They don't give a shit about the war hero thing. It's all just post facto rationalization to root for the team they've rooted for their whole lives. If the GOP ran Ward Churchill for president, these same people would all talk about what a great American he is.
Maybe McCain knows he's going to win. Maybe that's why he picked a right-wing extremist as his VP. Maybe that's why he's stirring up the base with violent, racist attacks. Maybe they've finally managed to program enough voting machines to steal even a Democratic blowout and he wants the base to stay mad enough to strangle any post-election challenge in its cradle. Yeah, it could be blind ambition and an extremely inept campaign. But it could also be our worst nightmare.
I’ve really admired Khoi
Submitted by jewelry stores (not verified) on Sat Aug. 15, 2009 1:33 AM PDT.
I’ve really admired Khoi Vinh’s work for a long time now, but he has given me an unhealthy obsession with grids.
