America’s Downfall
Readers, as all of you should be aware, a terrible thing has happened on this historic night. An event that will most certainly change the United States, if not the world, as we know it forever. It is very unfortunate that this chain of events should occur, but it has, and now we all must prepare for what is most certainly a bleak, dark, future. I am talking of course, about holograms.
The first ever hologram was transmitted tonight into the CNN Situation room, and it created quite a situation…in the room. The great Wolf Blitzer was obviously taken by surprise, but was able to pacify this phantom menace for the time being. It is obvious that The Empire has returned, and with it, the terrible technolgy that they have developed. I’m sure it is only a matter of time before the Death Star is operational and the Earth itself is faced with complete annihilation. My prayers go out to the brave X-wing pilots that will be faced with defeating this overpowering force in the months to come. God speed my friends, god speed.
Political Ads
Sorry It’s been a while since I’ve posted, I’m sure you’ve all missed me. The site has been very light hearted up to this point, it’s mostly been a blog version of conversations you might see on Seinfeld, but I’m going to go ahead and dive into something with substance. I think somewhere along the line Dan and I mentioned that we were getting into (or at least hoping to get into) journalism and politics respectively. As long as I still have your attention; you are about to bear witness to my first foray into publicly writing about politics, take a deep breath and hold your nose.
With the Presidential election starting to heat up, it’s probably safe to assume that many of you have become inundated with political ads. As usual, both sides are using any trick they have to paint their own candidate in as positive a light as possible while simultaneously attempting to make the other guy look bad.
That’s fine, it’s kind of the point of advertising in general.
I’m gonna go ahead and get this out of the way so that there is no confusion, although I’m sure I’ll have about half of my audience click the back button once they are done reading the next sentence. I consider myself to be a moderate conservative and a strong supporter of John McCain. If you don’t agree with me, please, for once, read what I have to say anyway; I’m sick of people only reading what they already agree with.
Anyway, back to the purpose of this post. Today I saw a new Obama ad which implies that because McCain has registered lobbyists on his payroll, lobbyists will run his administration. This infuriates me. Obama has created a ’strawman’ of lobbyists which he uses to depict himself as the vanquisher of the lobbying plague which has supposedly descended upon the country. Lobbyists are not evil people. If you believe they are you are weak minded; plain and simple. You may not agree with the specific interests that certain lobbyists lobby for, but that doesn’t mean that 1) they are wrong or 2) that they are bad people.
Simply put, a lobbyist is someone who is paid to convince legislators that their side of an issue is the right one. Disney employs several firms, does that mean that those lobbyists are bad people? How about the environmental lobby? The Teacher’s Union lobby? Ohhhh, so only the lobbying groups that you don’t agree with are evil. I see. Every industry you could possibly imagine has lobbyists attached to it, they would be stupid not to. It would be like a toy company without an ad department. The only difference here is that the target audience is not the American public, but rather the American government.
If you can’t see things my way and still feel that lobbyists are inherently evil, that’s fine. If that is the case though, I don’t want to hear anyone make any excuses for the bomb shell I’m about to drop on you here.
Barack Obama currently employs and takes money from registered lobbyists and their clients.
According to opensecrets.org Lawyers and Lobbyists make up a total of $24 million in campaign contributions to Sen. Obama. Compare that to the $9 million Sen. McCain raised from the same sector. Who is supposedly in the pocket of lobbyists now? What’s more, although Sen. Obama’s attack ad against Sen. McCain chastises him for employing lobbyists as advisers, Obama goes ahead and employs several of his own. According to an article at thehill.com the lobbyists on Obama’s payroll lobbied for Wal-Mart, British Petroleum (BP), and Lockheed Martin (a military contractor), just to name a few.
Senator Obama has done what he does best, spin the truth and convince people too lazy to do their homework that he is a messiah. I promise you this; Barack Obama is just as sly as any other politician, what makes him the most dangerous one however, is that people actually believe him.
Don’t buy the hype.