Have you ever heard of The Decemberists?

24 comments May 21st, 2008

No, I hadn’t heard of them either — until today, when the right-wing blogosphere fairly exploded with its latest anti-Obama fantasy.

Here’s the way story goes, according to the mouth-breathers:

All the fuss the other day about Barack Obama having drawn a crowd of 75,000 at a rally in Portland, Ore., was a bunch of liberal hooey.  What the mainstream media didn’t tell you is that the crowd was attracted not by Obama, but by a free concert by the local rock band The Decemberists.

This fiction was hatched in a PIECE written by some conspiratorialist on the right-wing site called NewsBusters. Within  hours, Obama bashers all across the fruited plain were peddling the theory that most of the big crowd was there to hear the band.

One especially rabid fellow I heard on the radio seemed to think that Obama just piggybacked onto this concert like some kind of interloper. Never mind that the event was advertised as an Obama rally, with The Decemberists billed as the warmup act.

The problems with this whole theory that the media deceived us in this matter are as follows:

1) The Decemberists, while popular in Portland, are NOT EXACTLY big stars who can draw huge crowds; ordinarily they play gigs in venues that will hold maybe a few thousand people.

On a recent tour that included 18 shows, the band drew an average audience of less than 1,800. But we’re supposed to believe they drew 42 times as many for the Portland performance, which lasted less than an hour. Please.

On the other hand, it’s not uncommon for Obama to draw tens of thousands of people at his rallies. He routinely fills football stadiums, big indoor arenas and large open spaces.

2) Local news coverage of the Portland rally made MENTION of the band only in passing and concentrated on the excitement over Obama’s appearance.

3) Virtually nobody in the crowd at the rally site or in the adjacent overflow of 15,000 people left when the band concluded its performance (as the photo above will attest). They stayed for what they came to see and hear, Barack Obama making a speech.

If these were mostly just apolitical music fans, you’d think there would have been a rush to avoid traffic jams when the band stopped playing. Didn’t happen.

4) The suggestion that Obama’s popularity in Oregon was overstated by dishonest media coverage of the rally was not borne out by the results of Tuesday’s election, which Obama won by a wide margin.

So, back to the drawing board, Obama haters.  Certainly you can do better than this latest feeble effort. Although this one is pretty funny, I’ll admit, as a curious combination of ignorance of politics and ignorance of popular music.

POSTSCRIPT: Here’s an ITEM about how the Portland rally grew from an event planned for indoors to a big outdoor gathering. The Decemberists are mentioned in passing, but the right-wing conspiratorialism is not.

POSTSCRIPT II: This video more than puts the lie to the wacky theory that the Portland throng was a concert crowd and not a political crowd:

Lobbyists adrift in McCain-Obama race?

Add comment May 21st, 2008

What do lobbyists do when both presidential candidates are self-styled political reformers?

Well, some of them COMPLAIN.

UPDATE: And then there’s THIS.

UPDATE II: Coincidentally, Obama BLASTED McCain today on the subject of lobbyists.

She probably also thinks Obama is a Muslim

10 comments May 21st, 2008

(Hat/tip to Welcome to Pottersville.)

What now, Hillary Clinton?

1 comment May 21st, 2008

So Hillary Clinton won a big victory in Kentucky, where some of the semi-literate bigots are convinced that Barack Obama actually is the antichrist. So what?

Politically speaking, Clinton is still in what pundit Roger Simon CALLS “a very bad place.”

Her campaign debt has SOARED to nearly $31 million, and the money continues to go out a lot faster than it’s coming in.

And Obama’s lead among pledged delegates is now insurmountable, while the superdelegates continue to gravitate toward him, not Hillary.

But Clinton seems to think the longer she stays in the race, against all odds, the more she becomes some latter-day Joan of Arc. In reality, a growing number of erstwhile admirers see her as simply a sore loser, a once-inevitable nominee who can’t graciously accept the political reality that her glorious presidency is never to be.

What’s especially tragic here for Hillary is that she’s on the verge of soiling her legacy forever, a subject Anna Quindlen ADDRESSES in the latest edition of Newsweek.

And speaking of legacy, Clinton should take notice of the glowing tributes paid this week to Ted Kennedy on the occasion of his diagnosis with brain cancer.  Here’s a guy who once ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination, and then dedicated the rest of his days to exemplary leadership in the U.S. Senate.

Hillary could do that, too.  But it won’t happen if she tears her party apart in a graceless, never-say-die bid to deny Obama the nomination he has fairly earned.

Give it up, Sen. Clinton.  Don’t sully your place in history.

UPDATE: The Jed Report OFFERS an interesting statistic: In the past month, Hillary Clinton has received 362,000 votes from people who say they’ll vote for John McCain in November, even if Hillary is the Democratic nominee. Clearly, these are Republicans who see Clinton as more beatable than Obama.  And they’re right.