Republicans In A Tizzy Over Invesco Set
By Nicole Belle Wednesday Aug 27, 2008 3:45pmNever let it be said that Republicans and their counterparts in the conservative blogosphere (yes, Ann "I Like To Drink Wine and Blog About American Idol" Althouse, I'm looking right at you) can't attempt to manufacture a scandal out of thin air that shows just how stupid they are.
The impetus of this scandal is this article from Reuters, which breathlessly described the set for the upcoming speech by Barack Obama at Invesco Stadium as looking like an ancient Greek temple since there will be a series of columns behind from which Obama will appear and then walk onto a raised stage.
So Ann "Liberal Boobies Enrage Me" Althouse whips herself up into a righteous indignation, which is promptly echoed throughout the other sites. (I won't dignify her with a link, look it up) How dare Obama? Is he trying to suggest that he's a God or something??? The presumption! Do you see how messianic he is? His supporters are like a cult! (imagine her furious fingers typing away)
But see, here's the problem, Ann. You clearly haven't traveled. If you had actually ever gone to the seat of our federal government, Washington DC, guess what you'd see? Columns! Know why? Because most of our federal buildings were designed in an architectural style called...wait for it...Greek Revival. Which means, you know, lots of columns. Like the ones in the front and back of the White House--where Obama will reside in January, by the way. And the ones in front of the Lincoln Memorial, where exactly 45 years ago today, Martin Luther King gave a speech in which he said these words:
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
So today, Ann "I'm a law professor, but I don't know how to correctly interpret judges' rulings" Althouse, Barack Obama will take the stage, designed symbolically to be reminiscent of the city from where he will be leading this country, and the site of one of the most stirring orations in our history (is this too nuanced for your conservative brain?), and accept the nomination of the Democratic Party for the Presidency of the United States, having earned that nomination not because of the color of his skin, but because of the content of his character. It is the fulfillment of that dream Martin Luther King espoused 45 years ago. A dream that your conservative compatriots have worked endlessly to suppress.
Doesn't that make your righteous indignation over Greek temples and Greek gods seem just so pathetically ignorant? By the way, do you have any memory of the stage from which George Bush accepted his nomination? Don't look now, but there were columns! *gasp!*
UPDATE: That presumptuous John McCain! Is he trying to insinuate he's some sort of Greek God? (h/t Aimee)
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When asked for comment, John McCain said: "When I was a POW they didn't give me any freaking columns. I was in a hole"
I have one correction: Dr. King made his speech forty-five years ago today. August 28, 1963.
Never thought they would take the Fear card this far. Fear of COLUMNS !!! RUN !!! I really hope they make a big deal about this. with Bush and some of his window lickers accepting nominations in front of those scary columns.
rocco46` @ 2:
Ugh, you're right. I was typing so fast I let my math skills fail me.
Everyone knows that columns have a liberal bias.
Cat fight.
Nicole,
You have been laying down some serious smack today. Love it!
(and these people are CRAZY! [whistles])
Actually, I think this is good news. If there spending there time and money on this, then they clearly adrift.
McStain, on the other hand, will ride to the stage on a Clydesdale and make his speech in front of a giant red, white and blue Budweiser label.
Idiots.
PEACE
Jay Severin Has A Small Pen1s @ 1:
I can't wait to see the ads 6 years from now when the people held in GitMo run for public office. "I was tortured by Americans, I had no home for 5-6-7-8-9-10 years thanks to George Bush...."
Dear Lord! There are grasping for straws. These Repugs are pathetic. Maybe McCain will bring up Britney and Paris again. Anything to distract the voters from the real issues to manufactured ones. Sigh!
So if Obama makes a speech in front of Greek columns, he must think he's a god? I think Ann Althouse is projecting a little bit of a forbidden crush. What if George Bush pretends to land a plane on an aircraft carrier, is he a pilot and a war hero? I really don't want to mention the codpiece, so I won't.
just like a drive in the pennsylvania country side after the manure speader has deposited the last of it's load on the fields, you can smell the repubic despiration in the air. this is some classic throw it against the wall and see what stick approach to their deflection, distraction and smear tactics.
and since the stage is to resemble a fascade in an american city, i have to ask, why do they hate american architecture so much?
The strange thing is ... you could fairly argue that neoclassical architecture, including greek revival, is primarily the domain of conservatives in the field. The current bastion of classical architecture in education - and one of the very few places where it is taught almost to the complete exclusion of other approaches to design - is the University of Notre Dame, which is hardly a hotbed of liberalism. At schools like Berkeley, on the other hand, you'd be hounded out of the studio if you tried to present a neoclassical design scheme. Certainly there are liberals who work in a classical vein, and conservatives who don't, but these are exceptions.
Isn't Greek where much of our idea of Democracy comes from?
McCain is running his campaign on despiration not perspiration.
Yeah, yeah, and if McCain shows this set in any of his ads MSNBC will say McCain put the columns in as phallic symbols because he's racist.
You guys can spin this all you want but this is a bonehead move by Obama. It looks like an out of control ego trip on the scale of Bush's "Mission Accomplished" stunt.
Obama can read the best speech of his life and his pals at CNN and MSNBC can gush all they want but tomorrow the ridiculous set is what most people are going to be talking and laughing about.
RNC.....hypocrites.... same as ever was....
Thank you so much, what a bloody awesome rebuttal of an idiotic post. There I was thinking only the crazy fundies were worried by the pillars, but looks like crazy fundies and the remaining Republicans have more and more in common every day.
I tell you, one thing the repugs are is consistent. They still don't argue the issues. It's allllll playground taunts, snide crapping in people's hats, and variations on the Screaming "He farted!" In-a-Crowded-Room-Then-Pointing gambit.
Bunch of immature idiots. And yet, the teevee will try to convince us that a good half of the country buys into their brand of crap. Piffle.
Mc Cains camp is just trying to keep it close enough to steal. Its worked twice in a row already.
johny @ 17
"but tomorrow the ridiculous set is what most people are going to be talking and laughing about."
in a repubic wet dream maybe. but i think most people will be talking about the real important issues in their every day lives.
Althouse always comes up with a new way to be entertainingly stupid. Makes me feel sad, though. My 74 year old, terrified, jingoistic father reads her crap every day. And Malkins. And Drudge.
I was looking at some of the videos that were posted of Ann Althouse. What a waste of air.
Tag @ 3:
hey, you never know, there could be big bad terrorists hiding behind those columns. Be afraid people, be very, very afraid!!
These repug bootlickers have to be the most pathetic bunch of low-lifes on the planet.
And to think these guys pass laws and set policy. What a bunch of knuckle dragging morons. Who votes for these people? I find my confidence in my fellow Americans hit rock bottom.
Like the dumbass republicans were not going to complain. Whatever Obama does is wrong according to them.
Republicans are the ones who have been wrong the last eight years. Republicans are whining cause people really don't care what they have to say anymore.
The Republicans will likely be dusting off some old plans by Albert Speer for their backdrop.
all of washington is littered with greek columns. you can't have a column without it looking greek.
THE GREEKS INVENTED THE COLUMN!!!!!!!!!!!
Johnny @ 17:
Man, I can't wait until you post the link to wherever it was that MSNBC has been playing up the "Racist Lover of All Things Phallic" angle on McCain. Hey! Maybe they will let Pat Buchanan do it once he gets done crapping all over yet another Dem speaker at the DNC, that is.
This ought to be juicy!
I'm just wondering when the MSM went completely NBA a la Bill Walton with the hyperbole...
Nothing says desperate like a bunch of whiners complaining about columns on the stage where a speech will be given. I know, I know, for five and a half years McCain was unable to complain about columns.
It'll be interesting to see the backdrop where John McCain makes his acceptance speech.
The Republicans are waiting to pounce on Obama’s speech tonight with their clever catch phase “celebrity.”
My suggestion for pushing back?
http://rejectmccain.com/?p=662
28% of our country are mentally challenged, and the big problem is they are the breeders. Idiocracy here we come.
pissed off patricia @ 32:
Please, oh please, let it be a green screen again.
pissed off patricia @ 32:
...bamboo lattice?
spencers mom @ 9:
Hey, I'm from St. Louis and love Budweiser and Clydesdales. If McSame does as you suggest, I'll vote for him!
i guess most of these righteous indignant
assholes have forgotten most of their places of
worship have columns either outside the building or
on the podium from which they spew their hate.
short empty memories - long spiked tongues.
the reichwingneocons don't like their own candidate.
I heard that arrogant SOB Obama was even going to wear shoes tonight! I mean who does he think he is Moses or somethin'
(snark)
Geeze the rethug crap is getting tiresome... I guess that Obama must be pulling ahead in the polls again or something...
Oh Look! He is!
August 28, 2008
Gallup Daily: Obama Moves Ahead, 48% to 42%
Democratic candidate gains in Monday through Wednesday interviewing
http://www.gallup.com/poll/109897/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Moves-Ahead-48-42.aspx
Imagine, the audacity of actually having columns on your stage set. What gall, what elitism.
What a fucking joke.
The GOP wishes McC*nt could fill a stadium. Hell, they'd settle for filling the basement at the local VFW hall.
Tonight will be a special moment...and it deserves a special setting. I'd say a 75,000 seat stadium is perfect.
The GOP needs to worry more about that decaying, worthless fossil they have as a nominee. Enjoy your party next week. I'm sure Chimpy and Cheney will get things off to a rousing start.
pissed off patricia @ 32:
Charging a rampart outside T'bilisi, Georgia with a musket and wearing a tri-corner hat singing Yankee Doodle and praising freedom. But no columns.
OMFG. How frgn' pathetic. I didn't know about this Ann Outhouse character. What a pathetic idiot.
Jesus, this really makes my skin crawl. I need to take a dump.
Run for your lives!!!
Matt "I am a tool" Lauer had Obama's campaign manager on this morning, and one of the first things he did was ask David Plouffe (I think) "What's with this set, is this the Temple to Obama or something?" to which Plouffe immediately but weakly replied "George Bush had a set just like it in 2004."
The right answer is to say "What a conservative tool you are Lauer" with a smile.
The more I try to engage repugnacans in conversation the more I see that they are incapable of critical thinking. They are incapable of seeing anything but the reflection on the surface of the pool, anything deeper truly baffles them.
Oh my. McCain has a cigar store indian in his house. i saw that seinfeld show and that is offensive. lets make it a scandal. lol
http://www.architecturaldigest.com/homes/features/archive/mccain_slidesh...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_w6E07kGEs
Dazzling the press with bullshit, as usual.
The GOP is absolutely brilliant at distractions and irrelevancies, and making people focus on the backdrop and the wallpaper rather than the truth right up front of them. In this case, it is quite literal. They are getting the media to mock Obama for the pretentiousness of his PODIUM. Forget about his message ... what about the stagecraft? Those columns? Doesn't Obama know that columns are EARNED?
I say we fight fire with fire, and point out how the stark, fascist-looking podium planned for the GOP convention in Minneapolis -- with its enormous flag backdrop -- looks just like the set from the opening scene from the movie "Patton."
Haw! Haw! John McCain thinks he is PATTON! Haw! Haw! What a loser! What an egomaniac!
O.t. but I just had another bright idea. There have been a lot of complaints about the MSM talking and interupting many of the best speeches. I don't have the knowledge or tools to do it but, is there anyone out there that could record the speeches and put them up so we could download them, record them on CD and distribute them to others that weren't able to hear them all. If I could do it I would.
what they're really saying is
a black man cant use columns.
Ron @ 48:
PBS airs the speeches live. That's where I watched Kerry's speech.
spencers mom @ 9:
Hhaahahahhahahahha was just picturing McSame with his little bitty legs straddling a Clydesdale. Maybe he could ride it side-saddle.
My idea again... The RNC should lower MC Cain to the stage locked in a bamboo tiger cage while rented Asian kids poke him with sharp sticks and have MC Cain yelling " Stop stop.. my Dads an Admiral.. Ill tell you whatever you want to know". All this to the background music of the Doors singing The End.
Here's some real good news. C-span is talking to a reporter inside the stadium and he says the security for the public to get in is very very high. Good! It's sad, but these days it has to be. I hope Obama wears a bullet proof vest under his coat or something. I wish I wasn't so afraid for him, but I just can't help it.
The stupid.....IT BURNS!!!
General Jack D. Ripper @ 37:
How 'bout you vote for Obama and I'll meet you down at BB's - I'll be glad to buy you a nice cold Bud product in honor of the Clydesdales.
masha @ 50:
I know, I watched it on C-span, but there are many that don't get to see any of them at all.
Heh, Interesting. During last nights The Daily Show, Jon Stewart mentioned the set to Howard Dean. Saying Barack's obvious arrogance and presumptuousness might be reinforced in the mind of Americans by such an audacious set. (I'm paraphrasing, but that was the tone if not the exact verbiage of the question.) WTF is up with that?
Nicole, you so funny!
David Gibbs, of Obama's campaign, was on Morning Joe today and when Joe began pissing about the columns, Gibbs whipped out his cell phone and showed joe et al, the pic of bush with the same sort of columns at his 2004 acceptance speech. Gibbs was laughing and having a good time and it sure as hell shut joe and his crew up.
Wow, can someone get that last link to Olbermann so he can get it on the air? Remember the Obama seal "controversy"? Bush, in his nomination, used the ACTUAL SEAL OF THE PRESIDENT. In Red State world, that's treason.
Albatross @ 44:
MOre subtle would be: Did you cover the republican convention in 2004 or have you ever been in washington? that would really be a slow knife cutting into him and would guarantee that matt would be thinking about it as he tries to go sleep tonight.
somebody said that the msm and the republicans seem to want the obama campaign to use a log cabin instead.
jimmiraybob @ 41:
That's funny!
pissed off patricia @ 32:
Don't tell anyone but, I heard he was going to do his acceptance speech from a hole.
You'd think that as a SENATOR (you know, as in Senatus Populusque Romanis), John McCain would be comfortable with classical motifs. Does John McCain think that he is entering a pagan temple each time he walks into the US Capitol? Why, oh why, does John McCain hate America?
Jay @ 57:
jon stewart is a friend of mccain's. his objectivity is compromised.
What would the repubs have chosen as their idea of a proper background for Obama's speech tonight?
Learn a trick from the Republicans:
Never name the person you are smearing if they are not well known from the start.
Silly nicknames linking to other silliness just gives her more credibility and shows you are looking at what she has to offer (very little).
Instead, refer to her as, "One particular Republican blogger out of many" when referring to anything she says.
The less we know, the less everyone knows.
jay @ 57
stewart was making fun of the republicans for this lame attempt.
Look, we don't need to get into a tizzy over their tizzies. The correct response is mockery and snark. "This is the substance-free junk you folks are talking about? Wow. You're ridiculous. It just goes to show what a weak candidate you folks are running."
I thought it was Bill Maher's old set from "politically incorrect".
Isn't she a 'column'-ist???
IMAGINE!!!! What does she thing she is?? Some kind of Dog?? er ... God ... heh ...
McCain will probably go to Independence Hall in Philly and declare the US's Independence from England somewhere during his acceptance speech.
Lilybelle @ 70:
Lilybelle, that was pretty much a snarkfest post. I don't get much more mocking than that.
ominous @ 29:
They also invented homos......sorry but I love that joke and had to post it. Peace to my gay brothers and sisters.
Columns? How Ionic. Are they made of Corinthian leather? Is this allowed? Is this a violation of "Doh!ric" order? Will Obama be on a pedestal?
Lone Rogue @ 68:
Ann Althouse is well known in the conservative blogosphere and more importantly, her post was picked up and echoed through out the blogosphere, incl. Drudge and Red State.
45 years. Lincoln memorial. The dream continues.
cheesesauce @ 76:
And they pronounced iony dead.
God spelled backwards is Dog. So if Dog is mans best friend does that make God mans worst enemy?
willie @ 69:
It seemed sincere to me. If Colbert had asked the question it would be one thing.
I know Jon likes Sen. McPOWInsanesamebush. But you gotta figure Jon is gonna vote for Obama. Right?
Gozer @ 80:
I saw a bumpersticker the other day that said "Dog is Love". I want one of those on my car.
jimmiraybob @ 79:
Thanks jimmyraybob, I'm gonna write that down in my entablature. : )
Johnny @ 17:
Columns like the ones Bush had as a backdrop at the 2004 RNC when he accepted the nomination... columns like these?
http://s305.photobucket.com/albums/nn231/chrisblask/?action=view¤t...
Here's the video of Bush with his "arrogant columns" from his "ridiculous" set with multiple views:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTHdhft42Ic
I guess you clowns have to carp about something... after all...
August 28, 2008
Gallup Daily: Obama Moves Ahead, 48% to 42%
Democratic candidate gains in Monday through Wednesday interviewing
http://www.gallup.com/poll/109897/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Moves-Ahead-48-42.aspx
Etymology: Middle French democratie, from Late Latin democratia, from Greek dēmokratia, from dēmos + -kratia -cracy
You'd think a law professor would be familiar with the greek origins of the word "democracy" (which i think translates to "rule of the people").
A cult, you say.
The only radical, outrageous and all together unwarranted political cult I know of is the one that has elevated Ronald Reagan to a Godlike status.
Remember when they were fighting to put his face on our currency?
Ugh.
Me thinks this is a case of the neo-con pot calling the liberal kettle black. Hypocrits.
cheesesauce @ 76:
You mean like the pedestal Bush was on in front of his "columned" set at the 2004 RNC convention when he accepted his parties nomination?
Like these:
Bush 2004 RNC Convention set video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTHdhft42Ic
So I suppose you jackasses will criticize Obama for copying Bush's set tomorrow when this gets out?
cheesesauce @ 82:
There was an entertaining article in the LA Times Magazine several years ago about bumper stickers. I remember that he was astonished by a Jesus Mobile that did not have one square inch of unused bumper sticker space on it. Got Jesus? At one point in the piece, the author said he was going to put a bumper sticker on his car that said "Keep Your Opinions to Yourself" or maybe it was "Keep Your Goddamn Opinions to Yourself". Anyway, I always thought that was a good one.
Jay Severin Has A Small Pen1s @ 1:
Truth to tell... we are all prisoners of war. Prisoners of a captive and self-aggrandizing press, prisoners of a faith regime which few but the dimmest witted of us subscribe to, prisoners of fear, hatred, and ignorance.
empty rafters are not a pretty background so i guess the obama campaign wanted the most "safe" set and they went with columns. unfortunately, the ignorance and pettiness of the republicans decided to manifest themselves.
Nicole Belle @ 77:
Blogosphere celebrities are no celebrities.
I wish stupidity caused physical pain.
Rasputin @ 87:
If your comments in bold are meant towards me, then it is obvious you either can't read, can't realize when someone is using snark, and lack education about Greek architecture.
If you answer yes to any of these, then you will see who the jackass is when you look in the mirror. If it wasn't meant towards me, and was directed towards the morons making this an issue, then please accept my apologies.
CMINCA @ 88:
My car has a lot of rust. Bumper stickers are cheaper than paint, and I appreciate your opinion.
the pubelicans are idiots, plain and simple.
after these last 8 years only an idiot (or one on the take or in on the fix) could support these failed bastards.