A Happy Compromise

About three weeks ago, I wrote a quick post on Weatherproof using a purchased AP photo of President Obama on the Great Wall of China wearing their product on a Times Square billboard. I have no idea what has transpired since then, but the billboard was changed today.



"Fit For A President." Pretty clever.

Be Still My Beating Heart

Via Bob Cesca:

A total of 33 Fox advertisers, including Walmart, CVS Caremark, Clorox and Sprint, directed that their commercials not air on [Glenn] Beck's show, according to the companies and ColorofChange.org, a group that promotes political action among blacks and launched a campaign to get advertisers to abandon him. That's more than a dozen more than were identified a week ago.

As has been often said, under the 1st Amendment Beck can utter any vile thing he likes. The public has the right to voice their opposition to Beck's opinions and the free market corporations can also exercise its right to refuse to advertise during his show in order not to be associated with the hate speech. Freedom of speech does not equal freedom from accountability.

Oscar Mayer Dead at 95

Oscar G. Mayer, who transformed his family business into one of the the world's largest meat processors, died Monday. He was 95.

Remember this kid?

And here's the story behind the original Oscar Mayer wiener jingle.

This Could Be The Start of Something Big - UPDATED

Since the stalking of Think Progress' Amanda Terkel by the Bill O'Reilly Goon Squad, the website has started a campaign to let advertisers who use his show to peddle their wears know of O'Reilly's stalking tactics that make paparazzi look like upstanding citizens.

Today, UPS has responded by ceasing to advertise during The O'Reilly Factor.

Thank you for sending an e-mail expressing concern about UPS advertising during the Bill O’Reilly show on FOX News. We do consider such comments as we review ad placement decisions which involve a variety of news, entertainment and sports programming. At this time, we have no plans to continue advertising during this show.

To add your name to e-mails being sent to advertisers to voice opposition of O'Reilly's stalking methods instead of just having them appear on his show for an honest discourse, as honest as O'Reilly can be anyway, head to the website and sign the petition.


UPDATE (3/29/09 11:30pm): It looks like Chrysler may be following suit.

We appreciate the diverse audience that television programming allows us to reach. Chrysler buys network cable as a package but we currently do not have the O’Reilly Factor in our media rotation at this time.

Although Chrysler may be out of business soon anyway, so they won't need to advertise anywhere.

American Stories, American Solutions

Here's Barack Obama's thirty minute infomercial that ran last night in case you were not one of the 29 million viewers who watched it.



I'll be posting reaction to this video from the punditocracy and the wingnut right as I come across it with frequent updates. I already hear Rush Limbaugh is making fun of the families in the video... because they were fat. Try and figure that one out.

UPDATE (9:20pm):

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC): "Anybody see the infomercial last night? Thank god for cable! If we had played that at a prison camp it’d have violated the Geneva Convention."
Graham joking about torture when the candidate he is backing voted against a ban on waterboarding. Classy.

O-BAM!-A

Stupid Is As Stupid Does - Part the Third

Elisabeth Hasselbeck:

"I find it completely then repulsive to then - if we want to look at spending - see how Barack Obama now is going to spend what $3 million on two thirty minute ads that are going to run this week."

So Hasselbeck considers it "repulsive" spending money on ad buys with the economy being what it is. Hmmm... Think about that for a minute. Hasselbeck considers buying ad time repulsive, but she'll defend Sarah Palin and the RNC on the $150,000 spent on her wardrobe in a month. Not to mention the $20,000 spent on a make up artist for Palin in about two weeks. Yet, Obama's 30 minute time block is "repulsive." I wonder if she would find it repulsive had it been McCain and Palin buying that ad time. I'm thinking not.

Hey Elisabeth, do you find the New Mexico GOP's voter intimidation tactics against hispanic voters "repulsive"? How about the fake flier being circulated in Virginia "informing" Democratic voters to cast their vote on November 5th, the day after the election in order to ease the load at the polls? Do you find that "repulsive"? What about attempting to suppress voting and registration for college students? Is that repulsive, Hasselbeck?

The thing I find repulsive is that Elisabeth Hasselbeck continues to open her piehole. Stick to the nipple talk and the virtues of breast pumps, Elisabeth, and leave the serious talk for serious, intelligent people.

O-BAM!-A

O-BAM!-A

Democratic Women For McCain?!

This "proud Hillary Clinton Democrat" apparently didn't know that McCain is Pro-Life and vowed to overturn Roe v. Wade. Are all Hillary supporters this misinformed? And the question is, now that Debra Bartoshevich (hopefully) knows this little tidbit of information, is she still going to vote for McCain? If the answer is yes, then not only is Debra misinformed, but she's a fucking moron as well and this country is in worse shape than we even thought.

For someone who claims to be a Clinton supporter, don't you think heeding her advice to support Barack Obama would have some credence?

Out Of Touch

Obama's Latest Ads

Seven




Never

Maverick Or True Conservative?

You can't have it both ways, Johnny. Either you're a "Maverick" (it is to laugh) or you're a "true conservative." Which is it?

Here's McCain's new attack ad on Obama, cleverly using comments made by Democrats praising the Maverick. Unfortunately for McCain, all but one of the comments were made at least two or more years ago.



Of course, we all knew the Hillary comment made during the primaries would be used as an attack against Obama the second it came out of her mouth.

Here's the DNC's response just hours after the McCain ad surfaced.



Well I suppose McMaverick is going to go with all that is mavericky because it looks like the McCain campaign is pulling all his "true conservative" spots from his website.

Crooks & Liars: Just one day after the McCain campaign proclaimed its man the “Original Maverick,” Barack Obama blasted that assertion both on the stump and in a new ad of his own. “You can’t be a maverick when politically it’s working for you,” Obama said, “and not a maverick when it doesn’t work for you.” Which may explain why the McCain campaign has apparently tried to purge any traces of its “True Conservative” ad, a February 2008 spot designed to win over hard right GOP primary voters.

As it turns out, McCain’s latest ads (”Broken” and “Praising McCain”) tout the Arizona Senator as the populist “Original Maverick.” But that resurrection of McCain’s tattered maverick image is contradicted by the “True Conservative” TV spot he used during the Republican primaries. In February, McCain to be sure wasn’t the maverick battling special interests in his own party...

...McCain’s claim to be a “true conservative” didn’t just disappear once he sewed up the Republican nomination. For the most part, so did the ad itself.

Here is the "True Conservative" ad -



So which is it? John McCain: Original Maverick? Or John McCain: True Conservative?

How about - John McCain: Just Another Republican Liar.

Colbert's Word: We The People

Awesome!

Barack Bites Back

(H/T Sam Stein, HuffPo)

Two Faced McCain and The GOP

For weeks now, John McCain and the GOP have been jumping on Barack Obama for his supposed lack of knowledge of what's happening in Iraq simply due to the fact that he hasn't traveled to Iraq (as of this writing) in the last 923 days, and even rigged a clock to their website in an attempt to make it an embarrassing issue.

John McCain had even suggested that he and Obama should make the trip together. My guess on that bright idea is so the Maverick could show Obama all the hot spots and perhaps go bar hopping. Maybe even take Obama to the local strip club where the burkas only go down to just above the ankle. Ultimately, McCain was trying to pull an Izzy Mandelbaum and show the young kid the ropes, a position that the Illinois Senator wouldn't be caught dead in.

Now that Senator Obama has left on a world tour to visit war zones as well as foreign dignitaries, the McCain campaign and surrogates dare to call the trip a stunt, while McThuselah is trying to get his story straight after initially saying that Obama's trip was good thing. The audacity of Obama to go on a foreign trip, visit war zones and introduce himself around the world! It's not as if he would visit a country and by the strangest of coincidences, US hostages would be released from said country. That wouldn't be considered a stunt, would it?

And now we have this ad from the man who pledged a "respectful campaign."



Shall we take these claims one at a time?


"Barack Obama never held a single Senate hearing on Afghanistan."

It turns out that presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain has attended even fewer Afghanistan-related Senate hearings over the past two years than Obama's one. Which is a nice way of saying, McCain, R-Ariz., the top Republican on the Senate Armed Service Committee, has attended zero of his committee's six hearings on Afghanistan over the last two years.

...A review of the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings as listed on the committee Web site for the past two years reveals that McCain's committee has held six hearings that included the word "Afghanistan" in the title or Central Command -- which overseas U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

McCain missed them all.

"[Obama] hasn't been to Iraq in years."

Not that it matters whether he's been there or not, but this trip will change that fact. It's also worthy to note that a person which such vast foreign policy experience as McCain should probably know not to leak the possible itinerary of a fellow Senator when travelling in hostile territory.


"[Obama] voted against funding our troops."

From Media Matters: "...on March 29, 2007, McCain himself voted against H.R. 1591, an emergency spending bill that would have funded the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and would have provided more than $1 billion in additional funds to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Senate passed H.R. 1591 by a margin of 51-47. Once the bill's conference report was agreed to by the House, the Senate again passed the measure on April 26, 2007, by a vote of 51-46. McCain did not vote on that version of the bill. By contrast, Obama voted for it on both occasions. President Bush vetoed the bill, citing its provision for a timetable for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

Moreover, McCain has voted against other legislation funding care for veterans. On April 26, 2006, McCain voted against an amendment by Sen. Daniel Akaka(D-HI) that would have "provide[d] an additional $430,000,000 for the Department of Veteran Affairs for Medical Services for outpatient care and treatment for veterans." In addition, on March 14, 2006, McCain voted against "increas[ing] Veterans medical services funding by $1.5 billion in FY 2007 to be paid for by closing corporate tax loopholes." On March 10, 2004, McCain also voted against "creat[ing] a reserve fund to allow for an increase in Veterans' medical care by $1.8 billion by eliminating tax loopholes." Obama voted for the first two measures; he had not yet entered the Senate when the third vote was cast."

This doesn't even include McCain's opposition to and non-vote of the Webb GI Bill, which passed in the Senate 75-22.


"John McCain has always supported our troops and the surge that's working."

Well, that's the rhetoric. But when it comes to putting your vote where your mouth is, McCain has been conspicuously absent. And as far as the "surge working," isn't it pretty obvious that when you negotiate with terrorists and pay insurgents to stop shooting at you, that violence is bound to go down?


"I'm John McCain and I approve this message."

I'm sure you do, Maverick.

I'm Voting Republican

I'mVotingRepublican.com

MoveOn.Org New Ad: Identical Cousins

MoveOn.Org Ad Contest Winner

OBAMACAN

Fuck You, RNC

Please forgive the light blogging these past few days (I'm feeling a bit under the weather) but I had to get something off my chest before I hit the sack.

Has the Republican National Committee gone fucking nuts?

"As a legal matter,'' RNC chairman Mike Duncan said today, this is a "maliciously false'' campaign ad. "The advertisement in question falsely and maliciously'' quotes Sen. McCain as saying that extending the war in Iraq for 100 years would be fine with him, and places it in a context of images of combat. "Clearly this ad is just another attempt by the DNC to mischaracterize Sen. McCain's statements.''

As Mark Ambinder writes:

The RNC provided no evidence to support their charge that the communication was illegally coordinated, aside for a few newspaper articles pointing out that some Democrats work for both a candidate and the committee, like pollster Cornell Belcher. DNC chairman Howard Dean said this morning that neither campaign saw or heard the ad before the put it out.

The RNC is ginning up the threat of legal action to give weight to their criticism of the ad's content. Cairncross would not say whether the party will sue CNN or MSNBC, the two cable networks airing the ad, if they refuse to kill it.

The RNC's content charge is not black and white. The DNC wrote the ad carefully. Nowhere does the narrator or any chyron state that McCain is fine with the Iraqi war persisting for 100 years. The visuals -- explosions, bloodied troops -- take care of that association.

So what are they saying, that as long as the negative ads are geared towards Democrats, it's fine? Fuck you, RNC, McCain said it and the DNC has a right to use it. Whatever caveat McThuselah added after ("as long as Americans are not being injured... harmed or killed.... It's fine with me'') is all well and good, but how long before we get to that point? How many more deaths, American and Iraqi, will it take? I wonder what they'll say if a "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" ad comes out. Are they going to deny that McCain sang it?

Sure, take it out of context, it was just a joke, he was just pandering to the audience du jour, what's the big deal? I don't know about you, but I don't want ANYONE running for the Oval Office who "jokes" like that, or says something stupid about "obliterating" another country.