Political Jeopardy: What is the definition of Doublethink?

Alex Trebek: Answer. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies.

John McCain: <buzz> What is Doublethink?

Trebek: Correct. And we also would have taken your Iraq War policy.

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Since the beginning of the campaign John McCain has been saying that the troop surge in Iraq is working, just give it time. Things might be bad, but be patient. Then there was a drop in levels of violence and everybody (the media) praised General Petraeus for a job well done. Yesterday, however, Petraeus claimed that while violence was down from previous levels (not an indicator of stability), political progress was virtually nonexistent. The reason for the surge was to clamp down on violence to provide elbow room for political reconciliation. Thus the surge has not accomplished its objective.

So, today John McCain plants a new seed.

Old line: If you see less violence in Iraq it’s because the surge is working, i.e. vote for me, because I knew the surge would work and I won’t surrender. We gotta kill ‘em over there and I got the guns.

New line: If you see more violence in Iraq it’s because terrorists might try to harm my campaign to show that the surge is not working, i.e. vote for me, because the terrorists will be dancing in the streets if a Democrat is elected. We gotta kill ‘em over there and I got the guns.

So there you have it. John McCain is correct no matter what happens in Iraq. Politics is the beautiful art of deception.

War is Peace, Superdelegates are “Automatic”

Orwell smiles again. Congratulations to Team HRC. They have now created a website that will provide future history students hours of analytical fun. Print this out and save it before it gets taken down.

Class, can we find examples of the web being used as a platform for propaganda?

How about this.

I might have to post another Pointer Sisters video if this goes any further!

“Autocratic, er . . . I mean Automatic Delegates”

Harold Ickes, a top advisor to Hillary Clinton, unfurled the latest campaign banner for team HRC yesterday: “Convention Floor or Death!” In doing so, he let slip an interesting rationale for what can only be seen as an Orwellian move on the campaign’s part–challenging the moniker “superdelegates” for the party’s unpledged delegates, and changing it to “automatic delegates.”

Jokingly, Ickes asserted that these folks are not going to “descend from Mars.” That would, of course, require calling them Extra-Terrestrial Delegates, or Kucinich-Delegates if you prefer. Look, they aren’t “super” like superman or superwoman, silly!

The strategy behind the joking is to make these 800 or so (one-fifth of the overall Democratic delegates available) folks seem less-than-super, sort of ordinary, that is, they are people who are just like you and me, the voters who have been and are still voting to decide the other four-fifths of the available delegates–the pledged delegates. If you need an accessible primer on the whole pledged v. superdelegate structure, check this out. A shorter definition for superdelegates is here.

Interestingly, the Democratic National Committee refers to superdelegates as “Party Leaders and Elected Official Delegates.” The PLEOD’s, if you like–sounds kind of like an ancient civilization or an avant-garde sculpture collective.

So where DID the “super” in superdelegate come from? Why does Ickes blame the media, the Fourth Estate as he said in his conference call? Team HRC has been mad at the media for a while now, so maybe this is just another shot across the bow–”you guys made them seem super, and now that’s hurting us!”

But “automatic”? Are they robots (yes, robot fascination is becoming a campaign subtheme this year)–what’s so automatic about them? Seems to me they are total free agents–free to vote as they wish, either with the majority of their constituents (if elected officials) or against the majority.

Honestly, I wouldn’t call them super or automatic or PLEOD, to me they are “autocratic” delegates–incredibly powerful, with one of their votes worth thousands of “regular people” votes–free to do as they wish, whatever whim may strike them.

Of course, if Ickes and Team HRC succeeds in this current battle-of-the memes, think of the popular culture repurcussions–think of the campaign slogans and commercials just waiting to be crafted. REM might get in on the act, or even the Pointer Sisters!