http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODkzNWI4YmIwN2NmMWIxYWRlNmE3MDM1OGJlMWZkYjI=

“But the last quarter of her speech had a lot of optimism and confidence about America’s future. No hardships or obstacles can stop America. I like that a lot. Obama never does it; he’s a pessimist.”

– Larry Kudlow

wha? Obama is a pessimist now?

Yeah, but, see, here’s the thing: Republicans have basically had only 3 basic tools in the belt for the past 40 years: fear and loathing of brown people, fear of communists (which they traded in for fear of terrorists), and “remember those dirty fucking hippies in the 60′s?” Every presidential campaign since the 60s has been about the 60s in ways both small and large, both blatant and subtle. Because the Republicans have made the 60s an issue in every presidential campaign for the past 40 years. Think about the media – is there any established media figure who has ever covered a presidential campaign that wasn’t in some way about the 60s? Those guys are all dead or retired now. So that’s been their template for as long as any of them can remember, too.

As soon as McCain clinched the nomination, it was clear to me that once again, the Republicans were going to try to stir up the 60s. It was honestly one of the biggest reasons I supported Obama over Hillary. Because I just knew that if Hillary was the nominee, the campaign would be, as usual, all about the 60s. Because the Clintons had taken the bait and engaged the Republicans on the 60s stuff in pretty much every campaign either of them ever ran. I knew with Obama that wasn’t going to happen – that you’d have one side spluttering “but…but…but….THE 60S!!!11!!” and the other one saying, “uh, what about them? I was 8 when they ended – what do the 60s have to do with anything NOW?”

All I can say is, it’s about damn time. Though I’m sure that from now until I die, every campaign will be about Iraq and how the DFHs lost that war for us, too. On the bright side, at least all the Iraq shit happened when I was a sentient being, not a fucking 5 year old, so I can at least feel like it has something to do with my life.

You know what they say, “Being demonized by right-wing morons is the sincerest form of flattery.”

The only thing that I know about SOHNEHO is that he’s a terrorist who’s somehow not in prison.

He’s not in prison because the charges were dropped “due to prosecutorial misconduct.” He was a big wheel in Weatherman and part of the plot to set off a nail bomb in Fort Dix, killing a bunch of random soldiers to illustrate the immorality of the Vietnam War. Fortunately for the draftees, the terrorists blew themselves up instead.

The guy was clearly a murderous douchebag with delusions of righteousness, and he should have gone to prison. Instead, he’s the toast of Hyde Park, and an early supporter of Obama. He’s apparently done a bunch of good stuff since he failed at trying to be a terrorist, but eventheliberal Todd Gitlin thinks Ayers is a dick.

Relevance to the election: Essentially none, unless you want to point out that while Obama has ties to someone who tried to kill people to protest the Vietnam War, McCain actually *did* kill people to advance the Vietnam War. (Using bombs that only blew up bad guys, no doubt.)

Pernonally I thought Ayers jumped the shark after Yes, We Have No Mañanas, but suit yourself.