I believe there was a memey jay peg about this, captioned like one of those “el oh well cats”
Can’t remember what it said though. Something about Obama urging calm, and there was a reference to “having it.” Maybe I’m thinking of a Frankie Goes to Hollywood/Yo La Tengo split-single cover, but I’m pretty sure it had to do with politics.
I’m sympathetic to this view. In fact, I mutter this view more or less verbatim two or three times a day.
But y’know what? It’s time to get less flinchy. To de-flinchify. To have a late-term flinchectomy at Planned Flinchiness, and no, it’s not hypocritical of me to say that, because what you’re doing right now is cringing, not flinching
We’re so used to Democrats blowing it when they don’t do things our way we’ve largely assumed that the it-blowing has always been a direct result of their not doing things our way, and while I’d bet that’s been a fair assumption more often than not, haven’t we seen these particular Democrats win enough PR fights to chill out a little and say hey, hope you look good in shorts, we’re gonna cut you some slack? We can phrase it differently, I’m not married to it.
The way Team Bam’s made a fetish of his conciliatory nature annoys me too, but have I taken a ridiculously powerful political movement and jiu-jitsu’d it into irrelevance in the amount of time it takes to complete a Thursday-level crossword puzzle? No. No I have not. Hell, I don’t even think I’ve done the thing in the analogy. So while I’ll keep shooting my mouth off in the heat of passion every time the administration diverges from my personal playbook (“impotent flailing” being my style), deep down inside I’ll be giving them the benefit of the doubt. Which doesn’t seem like the right term, really, since it implies lack of a track record.
Maybe I’m way off here. Maybe conceding your opponent’s point is always a grave mistake from which there’s no recovering. Or maybe not. And maybe I’m totally constructing a straw man all out of proportion to what Blue Texan was getting at. Or maybe not, who’s to say?
Seriously though, does anybody still think Obama should’ve hit McCain harder during the election? (okay, I just raised my hand, but I’m talking effectiveness here, not what would’ve been more satisfying) There is, after all, some evidence that we were overly concerned on that count. Granted, it’s an iffy comparison, but it speaks to the same hand-shyness from where I’m sitting (In Hoboken, you prick, and if I were within a million miles of being on your radar or anyone else’s as opposed to being some dude with a phone jack I would ask that you kindly bring it motherfucker).
Obama’s got cred, kids. I realize most of that is pure personality (and not something we can take for granted indefinitely), and it doesn’t necessarily transfer to Gibbs, but look, this ain’t Daschle putting out ads about how huggable Bush thinks he is. We’ve finally got a guy whose political instincts we needn’t second-guess at every turn like with fucking Kerry, the man Michael Scott would be if he’d been on Spin City instead. Wouldn’t this be a wonderful time to take a break from the constant worry over “framing” (God, I just wanna stab that word in the eye with a matte knife) and see what happens when we bullshit, obfuscate, and muddy the waters our way?
Maybe—-just maybe—-Gibbs really thinks her words were poorly chosen. Call me crazy—-just add to the stigmatization of the mentally ill, why don’t you—-but it’ll take a lot more than whatever blowback’s in store for me to come down on a press secretary for being too spontaneous.
Plus, look, we’re terrible at playing the game the way the game is played. The GOP’s success in this area is largely a result of the fact that it has a whaddyacallit, oh yeah a constituency that listens to its leadership, whereas in our case, I’m reminded of Will Rogers’s famous quip “I don’t belong to an organized… hey, I’m talking, would you guys shut the fuck up and focus for five seconds please?”
Here’s something eminently debatable which I choose to present as established fact because it gives it oomph: Face it, the only reason the attempt by liberals to define Tiller’s murder as “domestic terrorism” worked is because a) there’s no arguing with it, that’s what terrorism means, and b) enough visceral rage seeped through for it not to come off like something we wargamed. That’s the first time I’ve seen us flirt with ham-handedness and not end up fisting a Boar’s Head product, and I’m willing to bet we couldn’t work that same magic against a foe who’s not quite so subhuman-monstery. We just don’t have the knack for the Luntzian stuff, and I think that speaks rather well of us, frankly. Does being less cynical about the act of communication put us at a disadvantage? Sure, maybe. That’s the thing, though—-the good guys always are.
Let’s try to worry less about tactics and focus on actual stupid shit the administration does. Every minute spent worrying about whether or not they’re giving Gingrich ammo—-and lest we forget, pretty much everyone without their own cable news talk show hates the guy, so that’s what, two-thirds of the population?—-is time better spent pressuring them on oh I don’t know maybe something along the lines of NOT BETRAYING THEIR GAY SUPPORTERS TWICE A DAY AND THRICE ON SUNDAY. Or, y’know, whatever.
DISCLOSURE: I stand by whatever conclusion it was that I reached yacking away up there, but transparency dictates that I admit there’s a small chance I’m just teeing off on Instaputz because I met one of the bloggers from that site on Saturday night and was not impressed. The thrid or fourth time he put me in a headlock and screamed “what’s my hit count, bitch?” I pretty much gave up on finding common ground. Guy gets linked to by Atrios a couple times, there’s just no living with him. I mean honestly, dude, a cape?
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Categories: News • Politics • Editorials •
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