Please sell Obama to me

[Alcon]

Sorry.  I don't make stuff up.

Nor did I accuse you of doing that.

I'm not really looking for a fight here, but the point of sourcing is to provide background to guarantee your integrity, outside of outright bias.  When you provide links to sources that have outright bias themselves, you are exponentializing the difficulty of assuring you aren't cherry-picking.

It's not exactly hard to indict a Republican politician if I cite only DailyKos, New Republic, etc., but would you take that up-front?  If no, why do you expect me to, or do you just demand I cross-check every reference just to assure objectivity?

That I have to do that with your posts, is my complaint.

[© tweed]

"Please sell Obama to me"


pretty poor word choice considering this country's racial history.

[cinyc]

What a wordly list there of credible sources ! Right wing smear merchants

If you bothered to look through my links, I linked mainly to Illinois public records, National Review, the Chicago Sun-Times and the New York Times.  When the MSM hordes descend on Hyde Park and Springfield to find every little piece of dirt about Barack Obama's Illinois political record (which is about as long as Governor Palin's, I might add), then we can worry about having MSM sources for information about Obama.  But they don't seem to care.

There's nothing wrong with National Review.  It is a respected, mainstream conservative publication.  There's nothing wrong with citing official Illinois campaign finance records, either - but pre-1999 or 2000 itemized reports are generally not available online, as far as I can tell.

[cinyc]

Sorry.  I don't make stuff up.

Nor did I accuse you of doing that.

I'm not really looking for a fight here, but the point of sourcing is to provide background to guarantee your integrity, outside of outright bias.  When you provide links to sources that have outright bias themselves, you are exponentializing the difficulty of assuring you aren't cherry-picking.

It's not exactly hard to indict a Republican politician if I cite only DailyKos, New Republic, etc., but would you take that up-front?  If no, why do you expect me to, or do you just demand I cross-check every reference just to assure objectivity?

That I have to do that with your posts, is my complaint.

EVERY source has outright bias.  Some sources are more honest about their bias than others.  The MSM is usually the most intellectually dishonest source, because they PRETEND not to be biased when they often are, and they often cite anonymous sources with agendas without revealing what those agendas may be.

I'd have no problems with you citing New Republic.  It is a mainstream magazine with a liberal bias.

[King]

How does $0 down and $200 a month sound?  I'll even throw in a Honda Civic for free.

[Alcon]

Nor did I accuse you of doing that.

EVERY source has outright bias.  Some sources are more honest about their bias than others.  The MSM is usually the most intellectually dishonest source, because they PRETEND not to be biased when they often are, and they often cite anonymous sources with agendas without revealing what those agendas may be.

I'd have no problems with you citing New Republic.  It is a mainstream magazine with a liberal bias.

So, you would take New Republic at face value, or cross-check every citation (or non-citation) it makes, or what?  You didn't really answer my central issue.

[angus]

On economic issues I am moderately conservative.  I believe in the free market economy.  I believe in capitalism.  The surest way to prosperity, for the rich, middle class, and poor, is free enterprise.  The highest standard of living in the world is found in free market economies.

Then you probably ought to vote for the Libertarian candidate, because both McCain and Obama have been talking for months about ways to spend your hard-earned tax dollars on, respectively, imperialistic projections of power and domestic social works projects.  And the recent, futile commitment of a whopping 700 billion dollars to bail out Bernanke's golfing buddies hasn't made either of them re-evaluate.  And one of them is even a co-author of campaign finance reform, which, as an affront to the first amendment to the United States Constitution, is about as anti-free market as anything I can imagine.

That said, I can tell you that it isn't quite so satisfying to vote for third-party candidates.  I have done it when I just couldn't stomach either of the main party candidates, but I'd rather not.  And you seem like a sensitive sort of guy, so I can tell that you'd rather get on board with one of the two major parties if you can.

I'll be voting for Obama.  Mostly because he looks so damn good in tight pants.  And he has a beautiful smile.  But there are probably better reasons to vote for him.  I'll let others try to convince you of that.  All I can say is, please don't vote for McCain.  He's a senile, old man.  He's stuck in another time.  He's way too patriotic for our country's good, and is likely to break the bank--what little is left after Bush and Pelosi get finished with it, that is.  He's an honorable, and generally honest, man, but he's not the peacemaker we need just now.  And we do need peace.  Can you honestly remember what it was like to be a burgeoning empire, at peace?  I can't.

Neither McCain nor Obama is ideal, and Obama may well waste your money too, but at the end of it you'll at least have some bridges and roads to show for it.  Okay, I mean you'll have bridges and roads in America, not in some recently conquered outpost in southwestern Asia. 

[cinyc]

Nor did I accuse you of doing that.

EVERY source has outright bias.  Some sources are more honest about their bias than others.  The MSM is usually the most intellectually dishonest source, because they PRETEND not to be biased when they often are, and they often cite anonymous sources with agendas without revealing what those agendas may be.

I'd have no problems with you citing New Republic.  It is a mainstream magazine with a liberal bias.

So, you would take New Republic at face value, or cross-check every citation (or non-citation) it makes, or what?  You didn't really answer my central issue.

I take EVERYTHING I read with a grain of salt.  I click on any provided links and decide for myself.  I don't discount articles just because they are from magazines I don't like.

National Review's Stanley Kurtz's sources are solid.  He cites Barack Obama's own words on his participation in Project Vote, and a scholarly article written by the head of Chicago ACORN regarding Obama's ACORN ties.

Obama is trying to distance himself from his radical past.  The McCain campaign is getting ready to call him on it.  That's what today's McCain ad was about.