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Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Today's Random Wilde

[A] community is infinitely more brutalised by the habitual employment of punishment than it is by the occasional occurrence of crime.

3 comments:

Michael Anissimov said...

You can tell the Wright thing is a legitimate big deal because of what has happened in the last couple days. Wright is getting up there onstage and making a fool of himself. And Obama is rightfully responding with more force, saying his is "outraged".

So even Obama himself obviously considers this a big deal. Since he is a relatively straightforward guy, you can tell his response is genuine, and not political maneuvering.

But a couple days ago you were spinning it like the Wright controversy was entirely generated by the media and not a big deal... well, Obama himself disagrees.

My point is that Obama doesn't need his supporters to spin everything onto the positive side. If he is smart, he will respond to legitimate issues like this one, as he is now doing. If he neglected to respond to this, it would have been his personal failure. Contrary to arguments that it was never a big deal to begin with. (It always was.)

Seth Mooney said...

"...a couple days ago you were spinning it like the Wright controversy was entirely generated by the media and not a big deal..."

a couple of days ago, as a matter of fact, the Wright "controversy," as you and the mainstream media like to call it, was not a big deal. It was, then, an inflated media spectacle and not much more.

in the last couple of days, though, namely yesterday, some things happened, and now things are somewhat different. chronology matters.

the media's banality of two days ago has been bolstered by Wright's apparent and unfortunate need for attention (notice i'm saying nothing about his views), and that's the "big deal" to which Obama is now responding.

basically he watched the media ride Wright like a carnaval pony for what felt like forever, and is doing what he thinks he can now to preclude more of the same.

Dale Carrico said...

But a couple days ago you were spinning it like the Wright controversy was entirely generated by the media and not a big deal

I think the Wright "controversy" is complete idiocy. I'm not "spinning" anything -- I said exactly what I think and mean exactly what I say. The corporate media obviously means to be even more stupid this cycle than last time -- and in consequence newspaper readership is plummeting and television news is shaken. The Netroots will be more than happy to plow the dinosaurs under where they belong for this incessant stupidity and irresponsibility. McCain won't win anyway, however much they gossip and deceive.