Outside the Opera House:Hey, I think I know that guy...

McCain's Rationale for Withdrawing from Iraq

McCain's "We are gonna withdraw; we will withdraw" quasi-surrender to reality has gotten some coverage, but the massive, ground-shifting -- and, as far as I can tell, entirely unnoticed, -- switcheroo comes about a sentence later:




"If I thought that al-Qaeda was completely defeated, I would say all of us should come home right away."

That's right: without so much as a press release, John McCain has announced that the sole purpose for our remaining in Iraq is the defeat of al-Qaeda.

Not stability. Not democracy. Not peace. Not a friendly government. Not a non-Iranian-proxy government. Not a non-radical-Shia-Islamic-extremist government. Just the defeat of al-Qaeda. Period.

(I do feel obliged to note that this is the same al-Qaeda in Iraq that wasn't there before we invaded. And which is already fairly thoroughly marginalized and defeated, since pretty much everyone in Iraq hates them, since they managed the extraordinary feat of so out-incompetencing and out-misstrategerizing the Bush-Cheney administration that they lost a PR battle to a crusading redneck xeno-ignoramus in a war-torn Muslim country. Turns out cutting your countrymen's and coreligionists' heads off on TV and blowing up vast numbers of innocents as a matter of policy alienates folks more than staggering incompetence, officially approved low-level torture, the occasional murder or accidental large-scale killing, and a scorn for anything that smacks of cultural sensitivity. Who'd a thunk?)

Then he confuses himself about Czechoslovakia, for what, the fifth, sixth time? (Really, he ought to have this down by now; the only time he ever mentions it is to hit the exact same talking point: Russia is a bully for cutting off their oil for cooperating with the US on missile defense, and the fact that I know stuff like this proves that you should trust my knowledge of foreign affairs.) And catches himself and struggles to explain it away:




Previous instances:

Here. (With video!)
Here.
Here.
Here.
And here.

Not that the identity of his fellow Czechoslovak nostalgist provides us any comfort....

Oh, and if he'd leaned on veterans any more they'd have been carrying him on a litter. He always gives a politically calculated and heartfelt shout-out or two to vets, which is nice to see, but after the first few episodes in Rochester it slipped from earnest boilerplate into cheap hackery. The first couple of times, yeah, he was giving them well-deserved props. After that, he was just leeching off the generated applause. And maybe stalling for time to think what to say next.

Then he invented a verb, which is okay, because conjugating "make sure" as two words is elitist anyways.



Cute, huh? Except for the part where he morphed from Grandpa Simpson into Joe McCarthy.

NH Primary: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

First, the Bad and the Ugly.

Romney himself is incapable of taking a bad photograph. But he is capable of putting himself in a bad setting. Such as in front of a seriously creased backdrop of a smushed and warped outline of New Hampshire...

...at a school where his name doesn't exactly elicit awe-struck recognition.


And his staff is capable of bad judgment, such as putting a large Romney sign on an altar to, um, you know, God.



"Three Men and a Baby" cast reunion, circa 2048.

When you officially declare your candidacy in a steady rain JUST OUTSIDE the shelter of the largest tent in the entire state, you can't complain about people wearing sweatshirts like this.

Aarrgghh, matey!!

It's like a time-lapse photograph of Mike Huckabee's next forty years.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't his best speech.

Hey, it's Fish from Barney Miller! Despite the occasional eyeball flare, Giuliani doesn't tend to take very bad pictures.

Though this is pretty unflattering.
And this is the best, and only, picture I could get of Giuliani's photo op with fallen Manchester police officer Michael Briggs' motorcycle. Because the photo op lasted all of about four seconds.


Well, Ron Paul has always been a lot more "Atlas Shrugged" than Charles Atlas....


Jowls are not your friends. Unless Jowls is the name of your hound dog.


Don't frown, Barack, she's going to endorse you. Yeah, this is about the worst picture I could find of him.

The very worst picture I've ever taken of John Edwards.
If Fred Thompson looked like this on his good days, he'd -- well, actually, he'd still be a lazy third-tier guy pulling a mighty 2% in New Hampshire, but maybe we'd understand what his wife saw in him.

Not the worst expression on earth, but not one we tend to associate with Hillary Clinton.

I believe this would be the pre-likability tour Hillary.

He's never denied being a full-throated liberal. Not that bad a picture, really.


Joe Biden: the truth exposed.


Near-profile angles are not Bill Richardson's friends.
My real Worst picture of Richardson is hilarious, but has incredibly racist overtones, so it'll have to stay secret. And not Huckabee-attack-ad secret, where I show everybody, but only once, but secret as in I don't show anybody until the primary's long over. Sorry. It hurts me more than it does you.


The Good

Rarely do we see a candidate whose bone structure has been running for President all its life.




McCain in a nutshell: flat out wrong, but a decent guy.



Sure, he looks cute, but the kid was as persistent a questioner as we wish White House reporters were.


Depending on how you feel about the Iraq war, this could also fall into the Worst category.

Rudy's bad pictures may not be that bad, but he doesn't exactly take Romney-quality pictures either.

Ron Paul's Birthday Party at Martha's Exchange


Change the angle a bit, and he doesn't look half as bad. Brains and good looks can take you a long way on the road to the White House. But while Mrs. Thompson's supplying those, Fred, maybe you could come up with just a little bit of give-a-darn.



At Mack's Apples in Londonderry.

At Lebanon High School. If you couldn't guess.


Hillary's post-filing rally.

She'd love this shot, if not for the sign in the background....


Dodd with daughter at Labor Day Parade. His wife was up a couple of times, but I never got to see her.
You've gotta love a guy who, while on his way -- literally, not figuratively -- to file for the NH primary, holds an impromptu twenty-minute town hall meeting with a group of schoolkids who won't be eligible to vote for President until Britney Spears is old enough to run.

Richardson actually looks pretty decent here, but if Richardson and Romney switched bodies, you'd have a top-tier Democrat and a second-tier Republican complaining that his resume oughta be getting more respect.


The Kuciniches. 'Nuff said.

Giuliani: No John F. Kerry

During the 2003-2004 election season, John Kerry became renowned for his speaking style. And not in a good way.

Countless articles and blog posts pointed out that he sounded like he was attempting to impress his prep school Latin teacher with recitations of Cicero, and that this was not the optimal method to reach the hearts and minds of the American people.

The total effect of these criticisms on Kerry's behavior: nil.

On Friday, a few papers carried an AP story on Giuliani's style of campaigning in diners. The telling section:

Wandering through crowded diners and moving quickly from one table to the next, Giuliani scribbles autographs onto campaign literature and baseballs. He pauses for a moment - seldom needing to introduce himself - and then scurries to the next table.

It also lets him avoid tough questions in favor of bagels. And salsa. And omelets. And fried clams. And diet soda.

On a recent trip to Council Bluffs, Iowa, he arrived at the Village Inn restaurant as TV cameras rolled and cameras clicked. He swiftly moved from one table to the next, rarely looking people in the eye. He didn't introduce himself. He didn't ask for votes. He didn't talk policies.

The most he uttered were impersonal phrases like "Nice to see you" and "How you doing?" and "Nice to be here" and "Take care." He also remarked on the food: "That looks really good," he said to a woman with a plate of eggs. "I already ate breakfast."

On Sunday, Giuliani did another diner visit. He didn't sit down and have protracted policy discussions on the Peruvian free trade deal for New Hampshire with every customer. But he did sit down at booth after booth, making quick and impersonal yet comfortable small talk, frequently about the Patriots or the Red Sox or the Twelve Commitments campaign pieces he scribbled signatures on at each booth.

There was certainly no Bill Clintonesque attempt to absorb the life experiences of everyone he met, but neither was there there the ponderous labour of John Kerry attempting to find commonalities with the common people. Indeed, there was no genuine attempt to make any real human connection. (Rudy doesn't need to look for commonalities; his own exuberance and self-confidence is enough for the encounter to be complete. His diner seatmates' role is not to emote or tell their stories; it is to be impressed with and grateful for the beaming and dynamic presence of Rudy.) There was, however, a clear will and willingness to improve the candidate's optics by going through enhanced motions of shooting the breeze with voters over breakfast.

So on Friday an article appears exposing a weakness in Giuliani's public image. And by Sunday he has made a decision to fix it and begun to act upon it. Would-be POTUSes, and non-POTUS Kerry, take note.

[Warning: armchair psychoanalysis ahead.]
[Rudy's ego is large enough that he doesn't worry about changing his behavior in a way that'll benefit his campaign; it's like a pitcher making an adjustment to his pitching motion. Kerry's ego was so fragile that altering himself in any way to allow people to recognize him as human felt to him like a betrayal of that self; it'd be unnatural and dishonorable, like professing a false religion, or rooting for the Yankees.]

NH-1: Behind the Music

At Romney's 11/24 town hall in Bow.



A campaign doesn't have to have actual plants asking questions. It's enough to have campaign staffers screening and choosing the people permitted to ask them. It's a form of sleight of hand, with the candidate saying, "You, over there," as if he's picking a random voter with a question, at which point -- and not before -- the audience swivels to see who it is. It's not a flawless tactic, and it doesn't guarantee the perfectly scripted questions the candidate would like, but it's pretty darn effective at avoiding unfriendly questions. It also allows the campaign to truthfully say, "We do not screen questions," when in fact they're screening questioners.

Nobody ever appreciates Stalin paraphrases, but...

The people who have questions decide nothing. The people who choose the questions decide everything.

Also, uh, Mitt? When you're trying to convince evangelicals that you're really one of them, kinda, you should probably be reeeally careful talking about the Bible. Specifically, you shouldn't describe it as a great cure for insomnia. This is known as a gaffe.

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Reporting, commentary and bloviation on politics, New Hampshire, and the intersection thereof, in words, images and video.