I can bring Joe Budden?

Jim Henley:

…telecom immunity is a genuine test of Barack Obama’s bona fides on civil liberties. It’s also a genuine test of the liberal side of any liberal-libertarian fusionism.

I think it’s very possibly a test that Obama has already failed. I have a sneaking suspicion that, as the de facto leader of the Democratic Party, Obama could have kept the bill from getting even this far with a quiet word or two. Nothing stopped him from dragging Steny Hoyer and Harry Reid into the same corner where he buttonholed Joe Lieberman. If the House and Senate leadership really did sneak the bill past him last week, which I’m not inclined to believe, still nothing stopped him from shutting them down this week. Except if he either doesn’t consider it important enough to be worth his time and credibility, or if he’s just as happy that the measure might pass.

Someday, all you fanboys will get what I’ve been saying here for the last two years. Too bad it’s already too late.

(Yes, this really happened.)

And if the first one wasn’t in poor enough taste…

Who are all of Ron Paul‘s supporters supporting now?

Previously: And Saddam Hussein Cleaned His Shoes

I am confident in the long-term strength of our nation’s economy. I believe that the fundamentals are sound.

(Right across the street from this Shell station in San Mateo, CA)

Clearly this isn’t a systemwide Burger King communications effort, otherwise there probably would have been spelling guidelines and contraction best practices. But it’s also a stretch to believe that this isn’t somehow a response to market research, be that formal, anecdotal, or both.

I’m going to start keeping track of this kind of thing, so if you see anything similar, take a picture or jot down the message, and email me if you don’t mind. mc @ 1115 dot org

The Low Culturalists have moved on, but yesterday they sent over a rather Unintentionally Hilarious Photo of the Moment:

And though it was plenty hilarious on its own merits, I just couldn’t leave it alone.

But first a flashback to the very pre-9/11 Republican primary of 2000 in which George W. Bush came frighteningly close to not winning a damn thing. That is until the ratfuckers who ran his campaign came up with a charming South Carolina strategy that went something like this:

Anonymous opponents used “push polling” to suggest that McCain’s Bangladeshi born daughter was his own, illegitimate black child. In push polling, a voter gets a call, ostensibly from a polling company, asking which candidate the voter supports. In this case, if the “pollster” determined that the person was a McCain supporter, he made statements designed to create doubt about the senator.

Thus, the “pollsters” asked McCain supporters if they would be more or less likely to vote for McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate child who was black. In the conservative, race-conscious South, that’s not a minor charge. We had no idea who made the phone calls, who paid for them, or how many calls were made. Effective and anonymous: the perfect smear campaign.

Luckily they didn’t have LOLCats eight years ago, otherwise Karl Rove might have cooked this up:

On his first warm-up ball, [Senator Robert] Casey rolled a gutter ball. Obama’s first ball flew well off his hand but also ended up in the gutter. On his second try, he knocked down four pins.
[...]
Obama did improve, nearly getting a strike in one frame, and in the seventh, picking up a spare, giving him a score of 37. Casey had a score of 71 after getting a strike, and Hart, with one less frame, racked up a score of 82.

37? I could stand at the scoring table and kick bowling balls down the lane and get a better score than that. And if anyone feels lucky, I’ll entertain bets on this with proceeds going to a Congressional candidate of my choosing if I win and Obama if I lose. How’s that for stakes?

If you don’t get this one, you probably shouldn’t be reading this site, but you can figure it out here.