John McCain: The Ultimate Dungeonmaster!

[Elfdart]

John McCain is such a thin-skinned crybaby. His campaign is whining because the New York Times op-ed page called out McCain for his dishonest and dirty campaign ads.

Huffington Post

WASHINGTON — It is a tradition at many kitchen tables to yell at the newspaper. At John McCain's kitchen table, it is becoming a tradition to yell at one paper in particular: The New York Times.

The latest dustup between the Republican presidential candidate and the "All the News that's fit to Print" big-name newspaper centered on the editorial board's back-to-back criticisms of McCain, one dispatch accusing him of taking the low road and another contending that he was playing politics with race.

The second editorial, which appeared on the Times Web site, said McCain's ads conjured up loaded racial images and raised the specter of O.J. Simpson.

"The presumptive Republican nominee has embarked on a bare-knuckled barrage of negative advertising aimed at belittling Mr. Obama," the editorial board wrote.

The response from the McCain campaign was equally cutting.

"If the shareholders of The New York Times ever wonder why the paper's ad revenue is plummeting and its share price tanking, they need look no further than the hysterical reaction of the paper's editors to any slight, real or imagined, against their preferred candidate," said McCain campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb.

Goldfarb compared the editors to a blogger "sitting at home in his mother's basement and ranting into the ether between games of Dungeons & Dragons."

Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis declined to comment on Friday.

You know, if my candidate had made a name for himself by telling fanciful stories that supposedly took place in dungeons (stories that have improved with each retelling), I wouldn't bring up Dungeons & Dragons at all. McCain's bullshit story about memorizing the players from the Pittsburgh Steelers of 1968 and giving their names to his jailers is about as realistic as the adventures of Mordenkainen the Wizard in Blackmoor. At least the fantasy stories created by the late Gary Gygax had some entertainment value.

[Darth Wong]

I'd just like to know why so little of the media is calling him out on this bullshit. Is it because of the "war hero" thing? Because that certainly didn't help Kerry.

[Elfdart]

Because they have a decade-long man crush on him that makes the infatuation 400-pound sissies have for 300 look chaste and demure.

A week ago, a study of network news coverage of Obama and McCain showed that the coverage of Obama was almost 3-1 negative-to-positive. McCain's negative/positve ratio was 57/43.



LINK

[Elfdart]

By the way, I hope Obama gives this country a bonus to its saving throw vs douchecocks.

[Block]

It's because they included Fox News as "Network television." Additionaly they don't actually source where the stats come from, and the Washington Times is about as Neo-Con as you can get, so who knows if it's true.

[Adrian Laguna]

I'd just like to know why so little of the media is calling him out on this bullshit. Is it because of the "war hero" thing? Because that certainly didn't help Kerry.

The Republican propaganda machine somehow managed to convince everyone that the media had strong liberal bias. Since it actually was sort of centrist, they also convinced everyone that not being the whipped bitches neo-conservatism constitutes liberal favoritism (which is sort of true, reality has a well known liberal bias). The end result of this is that conservative mouthpieces like Fox News started to make money hand over fist as people flocked to it, since they were "fair and balanced", and more objective news sources began to suffer. So to this day, the main stream media, especially television media, are utterly terrified of being accused of liberal bias, and furiously suck conservative cock to avoid it.

[Flagg]

I'd just like to know why so little of the media is calling him out on this bullshit. Is it because of the "war hero" thing? Because that certainly didn't help Kerry.

Because he has 'Straight Talk" written on the side of his bus. If you have that on the side of your bus then it must be true.

John McCain is making George W Bush look fucking honest at this point. That's like making Hitler look like a member of AIPAC.

[Feil]

There's also the fact that Obama is perceived as "winning". The media wants a close game so that they can sell more hot dogs and beer to the fans.

[Sriad]

There's also the fact that Obama is perceived as "winning". The media wants a close game so that they can sell more hot dogs and beer to the fans.

This.

Obama vs Hillary was realistically over in March. The media coverage of Obama vs McCain is going to be OvH 2.0.

[Drooling Iguana]

There's also the fact that Obama promises change, and you only need to look at Holywood's output to see that the people in charge of the media companies (who are also in charge of the news) are scared to death of anything new.

[Darth Wong]

Part of it might be the American media's love affair with the (false) mythology of wholesome rural America. The media constantly pushes the mythology that people in rural areas are morally superior to people who live in a metropolis. And McCain is more popular with those rural dwellers who the media is constantly sucking up to.

[Adrian Laguna]

Part of it might be the American media's love affair with the (false) mythology of wholesome rural America. The media constantly pushes the mythology that people in rural areas are morally superior to people who live in a metropolis.

Maybe rural and suburban dwellers watch more TV? In the city you have decadent stuff like the theatre, art museums, and such, and the media is likely going to pander to whichever demographic they think will give them the most money.

[Shroom Man 777]

Umm... how many city slickers in their closet-apartments actually bother with stuff like theatre, art museums and such?

[The Guid]

I reject the idea that McCain would be a very good Dungeonmaster. To be a good Dungeonmaster you need to understand sociology, tactics, a basic functioning idea of economies, the power of narrative & a set of laws and rules and how not to break them.

Could he really be the ULTIMATE Dungeonmaster?

[Drooling Iguana]

Well, "ultimate" really means "final", so if he brings so much shame to the station of Dungeonmaster that no one ever wants to be one again until the end of time he would quality as the Ultimate Dungeonmaster.

[Rye]

Since he supports torture and is no doubt a sex freak since he is a republican, I suppose he's worthy of the title of dungeon master.

The media's got itself whipped up so much about Obama because of the "just below the surface" nature of race in America and the cultural strife brought about by the Bush administration. Consequentially, Obama's much more "interesting" from a right wing media point of view. They want him to fail, but the messianic/"groundbreaking" quality sells a lot of product. Much more to obsess over. McCain is everything we've seen before and to pick up on his bullshit and not be seen as pro-Obama is incredibly difficult since Obama's soaking up so much publicity.

[SirNitram]

Part of it might be the American media's love affair with the (false) mythology of wholesome rural America. The media constantly pushes the mythology that people in rural areas are morally superior to people who live in a metropolis.

Maybe rural and suburban dwellers watch more TV? In the city you have decadent stuff like the theatre, art museums, and such, and the media is likely going to pander to whichever demographic they think will give them the most money.

The apex of Middle America worship is editorial pages, however, the most damning being stuff like the New York Times with Broder and Dowd. You won't find that much circulation in the audience.

Not to mention looking at the ratings of those who most embody Mike's point shows there is not a profit to be made. Let's take Glen Beck. He's CNN's token tribute to these Middle American Blue Collars. He's been tanking from the start, and he's down to 100k in the 25-54 demographic, which is what companies openly salivated at.

The closest thing American media has to a left-leaning news program, Countdown(Which is basically centrist and not insane, so it's the best I can do) averaged more than triple that in that demographic. Oh, and has spiked up to a handful short of 900k total views in their Primetime slot.

No, it's not ratings. Let's just get over that whole canard. All above pulled from Nielson, which is what the advertisers use, which would be the justification most think of.

[Drooling Iguana]

Not to mention looking at the ratings of those who most embody Mike's point shows there is not a profit to be made. Let's take Glen Beck. He's CNN's token tribute to these Middle American Blue Collars. He's been tanking from the start, and he's down to 100k in the 25-54 demographic, which is what companies openly salivated at.

The closest thing American media has to a left-leaning news program, Countdown(Which is basically centrist and not insane, so it's the best I can do) averaged more than triple that in that demographic. Oh, and has spiked up to a handful short of 900k total views in their Primetime slot.

No, it's not ratings. Let's just get over that whole canard. All above pulled from Nielson, which is what the advertisers use, which would be the justification most think of.

And there lies the real problem. People seem to think that corporations will always do whatever's most profitable, when the fact of the matter is that corporations will do whatever it is that the people running them want them to do. Hard-right journalism may not be as profitable for the company as a more centrist approach, but promoting right-wing views is very much in the interests of the class of people that run the media companies and own the majority of their stock.

This is yet another example of why capitalism simply doesn't work.

[CaptainZoidberg]

This is yet another example of why capitalism simply doesn't work.

Unless the media just pops out of nowhere, there's always going to be some bias in favor of the person who writes the news.

The best way around it is to make sure that there is adequate competition between media outlets to ensure that they run economically optimal strategies.

And how can you say that the existence of leadership bias and irrationality is a flaw of capitalism? In capitalism, a company that does perform will not compete well. But in a total command economy, there is no countermeasure against leadership bias and bad decisions. There are no competing companies.

[Darth Wong]

This is yet another example of why capitalism simply doesn't work.

You can't say whether something does or doesn't work without defining its purpose. But I think we can safely say that the purpose of capitalism is not intellectual integrity, so the idea that capitalism will lead to objective media reporting is completely absurd.

[Satori]

Since he supports torture and is no doubt a sex freak since he is a republican, I suppose he's worthy of the title of dungeon master.

DMing is a hard and largely thankless task done as a labor of love solely to help other people have fun. Could y'all stop making fun of DM's? They don't deserve this kind of crap.

[Drooling Iguana]

This is yet another example of why capitalism simply doesn't work.

You can't say whether something does or doesn't work without defining its purpose. But I think we can safely say that the purpose of capitalism is not intellectual integrity, so the idea that capitalism will lead to objective media reporting is completely absurd.

That's more or less what I was getting at, I just sacrificed a bit of accuracy because going into detail wouldn't have sounded as good. When I say that capitalism doesn't work I'm not saying that it never works, but that the American ideal of a system based entirely around capitalism is doomed to failure.

I'm also not against the existence of corporate news, I just don't think it should be the only form of news available as it is in the US. A publicly-funded news agency would have its own biases, yes, but they would be different biases than what the corporate media holds. If the public news starts misreporting or distorting the truth the corporate news can call them on it and vice-versa.

[CaptainZoidberg]

I'm also not against the existence of corporate news, I just don't think it should be the only form of news available as it is in the US. A publicly-funded news agency would have its own biases, yes, but they would be different biases than what the corporate media holds. If the public news starts misreporting or distorting the truth the corporate news can call them on it and vice-versa.

Very true, and that's why we have PBS.

[Pulp Hero]

Since he supports torture and is no doubt a sex freak since he is a republican, I suppose he's worthy of the title of dungeon master.

DMing is a hard and largely thankless task done as a labor of love solely to help other people have fun. Could y'all stop making fun of DM's? They don't deserve this kind of crap.

Lol. Oh wow, that joke just zoomed over your head at a couple times the speed of sound.

[Shroom Man 777]

DMing is a hard and largely thankless task done as a labor of love solely to help other people have fun. Could y'all stop making fun of DM's? They don't deserve this kind of crap.

Lol. Oh wow, that joke just zoomed over your head at a couple times the speed of sound.

No, mang. The joke went over your head

And, goddamn it! McCain is really rolling those dices

WASHINGTON - Intensified attacks by Republican John McCain on the character of his Democratic opponent have coincided with Barack Obama losing a nine percentage point advantage in a national poll, which showed the candidates running dead even over the weekend.

McCain, who had vowed to avoid the kind of negative tactics that were used against him in the 2000 Republican primary contest with George W. Bush, began attacking Obama during the Illinois senator's trip to Iraq and Afghanistan late last month.

In the course of the McCain offensive, Obama's lead in a Gallup Poll tracking survey slid from nine percentage points on July 26, when he returned from overseas, to nothing by Saturday, when the poll showed the candidates tied at 44 percent.

The four-term Arizona senator, who backed the war and claims experience with security and foreign policy issues, charged that Obama's promise to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq within 16 months of taking office amounted to his having chosen to lose a war to promote his run for the presidency.

McCain has not relented even though he took criticism for the remark. It appeared at the time to be a defensive response to the massive attention paid to the Obama visit to the two U.S. war fronts as well as to the Middle East and Europe.

He subsequently ran a television ad that accused Obama of deciding not to visit wounded U.S. troops because he could not take television cameras — a claim that appeared to be false. Next he issued a commercial that interpose images of Obama with pop culture figures Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, trying to paint Obama as a celebrity without the experience to lead the country.

That was followed by accusations that Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, had resorted to racial politics by asserting McCain and other Republicans would try to frighten Americans because Obama did not look like past U.S. presidents whose images are on the country's paper money.

And most recently, in an Internet advertisement, the voiceover calls Obama "The One" and features Obama appearing to describe himself and his presidential quest in grandiose terms. It ends with Charlton Heston as Moses parting the Red Sea in the movie, "The Ten Commandments."

Obama may have given McCain more fodder in recent days by announcing a readiness to compromise with Republicans on offshore oil drilling — which he had opposed — and apparently rejecting McCain's challenge to join him in a series of town hall meetings.

On Saturday, Obama said McCain's campaign was cynical and trying to distract voters from real issues but that he did not believe his opponent and his campaign had engaged in racism.

"In no way do I think John McCain's campaign was racist. I think they are cynical," Obama said. "Their team is good at creating distractions and engaging in negative attacks."