Competing "Blowout" Narratives

Last Friday, Politico ran a story suggesting that McCain might win in a blowout (50+ electoral vote margin) in November. The piece, based largely on interviews with political consultants and the like, started with the near-certain argument that any Republican but McCain would have been a dead man walking. They then assume that McCain will carry nearly every state that Bush carried in 2004, save for perhaps Iowa and Colorado, which he'll compensate for by winning New Hampshire and Michigan and/or Pennsylvania.

It took Democrats nearly a week to counter this narrative, but yesterday Bob Beckel penned a column for RCP arguing that while it'll be a blowout, it will be an Obama blowout. A side note to whoever asked Beckel to write this piece: pick someone with a little more credibility than Walter Mondale's campaign manager; I'll grant that the man knows something about blowouts, but only from the receiving end. Beckel's argument is that McCain will lose far more states Bush won than just Iowa and Colorado, and won't find the votes to make up for those losses.

I'm not sure who's right. Obviously, I'm hoping that the consultants quoted in the Politico's story are. But I have a sense that one of these two is correct - this won't be a squeaker like '04 was but will rather be a pretty clearcut affair. Call it a 60% chance of a 50+ vote margin either way/40% less than 50 votes. If I get time soon, I'll try and analyze where I think those votes are going.

This is Getting Pathetic?

We all know Obama's gaffe-prone; the media tries to cover up the smaller ones, and Obama turns the bigger ones (e.g. no preconditions for negotiations with Iran) into policy papers.

But being a naive idiot is one thing - rewriting history is an entirely different animal. And that's what he's done this time, claiming that his uncle (or maybe it's his grandfather - the article says both, but it's highly unlikely that both were actually involved in the war) was traumatized by the experience of liberating Auschwitz. Hey Barry, your Gramps served with Uncle Joe Stalin's 322nd Rifle Division? Or you're a misspeaking idiot? Which is it?

CBS doesn't even bother to fact-check the story, rather just spits out the contradictions about grandfather and uncle without referring to Wikipedia and its notation that the Soviets overran the camp. But then again (and this one's stuck in my craw all weekend), when the Tribune refers to a veteran of the 2nd Airborne Unit in a story - Unit?! What the hell is a unit? - why should I expect anything from the media anymore? All of this media idiocy and Obama BS is heightened against the Memorial Day backdrop.

UPDATE: The plot thickens! A closer reading of CBS's story causes this speed-reader to realize that Obama claims his uncle liberated Auschwitz. One problem. According to this Tribune article from last March, Obama's (white, Kansas-born) mother was an only child. No uncle. But of course Barry's daddy could have had an uncle fighting in World War II, and perhaps liberating another concentration camp with an American brigade as he says. Another problem. Barry's father is, as we all know, Kenyan. Had he had a brother, he would have had to have fought with British forces, as a member of one of the Empire's African Divisions. These forces were either commited to Africa for the entirety of the war or sent to Burma. No Kenyan uncle in Europe. So it's not just that he misspoke - he didn't mean Dachau, for example (which US forces did liberate) rather than Auschwitz - he flat-out invented an uncle. The Obama family is certainly a casualty of this campaign; first grandma's tossed under the bus in his race speech, now he's inventing uncles out of thin air. Especially against the backdrop of Memorial Day, on which we memorialize the sacrifice of real Americans, this story is so jarring that the media may be forced to take notice.

UPDATE 2: A lot of good stuff on this is getting compiled over at Hot Air - including the fact that he peddled some version of this BS back in 2002. Check it out.

(h/t LGF)