The Holiday Spirit Obama Style.

I got this today from Obama.

This is just tacky.

The subject line on the email this came in read, “Your Obama holiday mug”.  I don’t always open Obama e-mails, but this one intrigued me.  I wanted to see how they juxtaposed Obama and “the Holidays”.  Obama by the fire?  Obama in a Santa hat?   Then I opened the email and saw how they did it.  They didn’t.

There is nothing Holidays about this mug at all.  It looks like a mug you get as a giveaway at a corporate conference, one with the name of some company trying to sell you something on it.  I thought right away that the Obama campaign must have had these already, before they decided to sell them as Holiday mugs.  The image of the mug itself doesn’t mention the Holidays at all.  It is only in the actual text of the email that the mug is described that way.

But then I started to think how this could very well be the Obama vision of a holiday mug, one stripped of anything that could possibly be controversial, packaged to not offend anyone.  It’s what corporations do now.  Realizing that all their customers aren’t Christian, business has made the smart move and left out any symbols that could potentially disturb a group.  Usually, though, there’s something left, a little red and green, maybe a candle, a tree.  However, this has none of that.  It is absolutely austere.  If this is indeed Obama’s holiday mug, I think it’s just sad.  It feels very cold.

The two donation buttons don’t help the situation either.  The Holidays have usually been times when we give gifts to others, or help people less fortunate than ourselves.  When people ask you to donate for the Holidays, it’s always for some charitable organization.  Somehow I don’t believe the Obama campaign is in need of our charity this season. 

That leaves us with only one possiblity that they are actually trying to sell this as a Holiday gift.  They stress that it will arrive before the 25th, which happens to be Christmas, so this must be a Christmas gift.  I can’t imagine giving this to anyone for Christmas unless it were a gag. I can think of a few people, however, that would find it really funny if I did.  We could toast the new year with hot kool-aide cider served in our historical, once in a lifetime, Obama holiday mugs.

Campbell Brown: No Conscience, No Integrity

Mmm Mmm....Huh?

Campbell Brown is the epitome of what is wrong with our media today.  She never missed a chance to bash both Clinton and Palin during this campaign, and is more gossip hack than journalist.   And what was her reward for shilling non-stop for the Obama campaign?  Her own show on CNN, ironically called “No bias, no bull”. 

Well now that the campaign is over, Campbell can go back to bashing real Democrats while still worshipping at the bipartisan (aka republican light) altar of Barack Obama.  After ignoring the blatant sexism coming from the Obama campaign during the election towards both Clinton and Palin, Brown is now up in arms over a comment by Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.

And yet, on Tuesday, the lectern mic at the National Governors Conference picked up this little nugget from Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell.

He’s having a conversation near the lectern about President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for to lead the Homeland Security Department, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano. Here is what Rendell said about Napolitano:

Rendell: Janet’s perfect for that job. Because for that job, you have to have no life. Janet has no family. Perfect. She can devote, literally, 19-20 hours a day to it

Wow. Now, I’m sure Gov. Napolitano has many qualifications for the job beyond having no family, and therefore the ability to devote 20 hours a day to the job.

I’m starting to think that these overcompensated gasbags don’t even know what sexism is.  After turning a blind eye to so called liberal attacks on Palin’s ability to serve because of her children, Brown is going to get worked up about this?  Frankly what Rendell said is not even sexist.  His statement is not in the context of her as a woman, but in my opinion, in the context that somebody with such a demanding job (the security of the homeland, no less) would be best equipped to handle it with as few distractions as possible.  In fact, if the candidate were a man, I could see Rendell, or anyone for that matter, making the same observation.

And the assertion that Rendell is implying that her lack of family is the only qualification Napolitano has is ridiculous.  I’m sure Rendell could enumerate many more given the opportunity, rather than being quoted out of context from a tidbit caught by a hot mic.  But back to her horribly stupid and contrived point, that a man would not be subjected to the same kind of, um observation….

But it is fascinating to me that that is the quality being highlighted here as so perfect. C’mon. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is married with two grown children. His predecessor, Tom Ridge, had a family. Anybody remember a debate about whether they would have trouble balancing the demands of work and family?

Is she for real?  Yeah, Chertoff has a family.  And he did such a good job in the aftermath of Katrina, right?  And we all felt safer with our duct tape and color coded threat level under Ridge, didn’t we?  The fallacy here is that it is assumed that both Chertoff and Ridge did a great job at their posts.  I think a lot of people would beg to differ.  And finally, Rendell’s quote makes no implication that if Napolitano had a family that she would not be able to handle the job.  He’s just saying that the more time she has to commit to protecting the country from attack the better.  For something to be sexist it has to be something that would not “work” if you said it about a man.  In this instance I can easily see the same being said about a man being nominated to the position.  Besides, he is not saying that if she had a family she would be less qualified than a man with a family.  He is saying that having no family would make anyone more suited for the job.  That’s some funny sexism, Campbell.  You know, having such a low opinion of the ability of women that you want them to be in positions of great power. 

“No Bull” my ass….