August 21, 2008

8/21: Turning A Corner?

While liberal bloggers remain frustrated by what they perceive to be the Barack Obama campaign's lack of aggressiveness, their mood has noticeably improved during the past 24 hours. Why? Well, first the Obama camp released a hard-hitting ad linking John McCain to Ralph Reed and Jack Abramoff. Next, the Obama camp launched a sharp attack on McCain's approach to foreign policy, calling the GOP nominee "reckless" and "trigger-happy". Liberal bloggers were delighted by these attacks, which they see as a sign that the Obama camp is beginning to go on the offensive against McCain.

The second reason for the netroots' improved mood is that McCain made two remarks which liberal bloggers consider significant gaffes. First, McCain had an exchange with a questioner in which he appeared to implicitly endorse the idea of reinstituting a military draft. Liberal bloggers are calling this "a shocking admission from John McCain" and are urging the Obama camp to use it in an ad. Next, McCain told Politico that he doesn't know how many houses he owns -- an admission that the Obama camp has already turned into an ad. Liberal bloggers believe that McCain's ignorance of the number of houses he owns raises unflattering questions about both his wealth and his memory (i.e., age).

MCCAIN: You Really Don't Want This Guy's Finger On The Trigger...

Liberal bloggers were delighted (and somewhat relieved) when the Obama camp launched a sharp attack on McCain's approach to foreign policy, calling him "reckless" and "trigger-happy":

• MyDD's Todd Beeton: "Obama launches [a] character attack against McCain...finally."
• Mark Kleiman: "John McCain is reckless, hot-headed, and trigger-happy."
• TPM's Josh Marshall: "Will the McCain as trigger-happy hothead work? I suggest a different calculus. Is it true? I would suggest that it definitely is, both in personal temperament and policy prescriptions. And I believe that is the better metric, both practically speaking and morally."

Liberal bloggers were also pleased by the Obama camp's new hard-hitting ad linking McCain to Ralph Reed and Jack Abramoff (although some wish the ad was running in more places than Atlanta, GA):

• Atrios: "POW! More like this."
• TPM's David Kurtz: "If you want harder hitting stuff from Obama, you might like this new TV ad tying John McCain to Ralph Reed and Jack Abramoff. But the ad is running in Atlanta only."

MCCAIN II: Hysteria-Based Foreign Policy?

Echoing the Obama camp's new narrative about McCain's reckless approach to foreign policy, Democracy Arsenal's Max Bergmann argues that "McCain's foreign policy approach...is rooted in hyperbolic rhetoric mixed with hysterical over reaction":

"The big concern with a McCain presidency -- a concern which I am surprised has not been vocalized more fully -- is that the U.S. will lurch from crisis to crisis, confrontation to confrontation, whether it be with Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc. The danger is that McCain's pundit-like rhetoric will entrap the U.S. in descending spiral of foreign policy brinksmanship. Just think about the very likely scenario of McCain giving Iran/Russia a rhetorical ultimatum and Iran/Russia ignoring it. Now we are stuck -- either we lose face by not following through on our threats or we follow through and go to war. We can't afford such a reckless approach after the last eight years. For the next eight we need a president not a pundit."

Liberal bloggers are praising Bergmann's post and adding their own thoughts:

• Marshall: "For anyone who had eyes to see, Georgia was a perfect illustration of this. [McCain] totally flew off the handle, ramping the situation up dramatically with his unstable rhetoric."
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "Max Bergmann had the excellent insight that perhaps the key to understanding John McCain's hysteria-based foreign policy is that it reflects the mindset of a television pundit. [...McCain] spends a ton of time going on television and talking. Max mentions that 'one of the first things McCain did after 9-11 was go on just about every TV program -- where he incidentally called for attacking about four countries' and consistently over the years gone on TV and 'sounded the alarm, ratcheted up the rhetoric and often called for military action -- with almost no regards to the practical implications of such an approach.' Thus he can, for example, go on TV and call casually for a land invasion of Serbia knowing he'll never be held accountable for any problems since the Clinton administration won't do it, and then just forget about the whole thing in later years when the more responsible approach turns out to have been okay."

MCCAIN III: Did He Just Endorse A Draft?

Liberal bloggers are buzzing about an exchange that McCain had with a questioner yesterday, in which he appeared to implicitly endorse the idea of reinstituting a military draft:

"Today at a townhall meeting, an audience member praised Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for his vow to 'follow bin Laden to the gates of hell.' After a long question about veterans' care, the questioner said she believed we needed to reinstate the draft, to which McCain seemed to readily agree:

QUESTIONER: 'If we don't reenact the draft, I don't think we'll have anyone to chase Bin Laden to the gates of hell.'

[Applause]

MCCAIN: 'Ma'am, let me say that I don't disagree with anything you said.'"

Liberal bloggers were surprised by McCain's response, and they want to use video footage of this exchange in ads against McCain:

• Daily Kos' BarbinMD: "This is a shocking admission from John McCain."
• VoteVets' Brandon Friedman: "This is absolutely amazing. A woman told John McCain today that we might need a draft to accomplish all his foreign policy goals. And he said he didn't disagree. So there you have it: McCain = Draft."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "Anyone of draft age should watch this video. Anyone with kids who are draft age -- or approaching draft age -- should watch this video. As John wrote last night, McCain's instinct is to go to war. Today, McCain exposed how he'll have the forces to do it. The draft is part of his equation."
• dday: "This kind of talk was on the 'Internets' in 2004, but wasn't completely pushed by Democrats, and there wasn't actual video of the GOP candidate basically agreeing that we need a draft."
• The Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen: "[This] is bound to cause some headaches for the McCain campaign."

MCCAIN IV: Who's Out Of Touch?

Liberal bloggers are mocking McCain for telling Politico that he doesn't know how many houses he owns:

"Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in an interview Wednesday that he was uncertain how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own.

'I think -- I'll have my staff get to you,' McCain told Politico in Las Cruces, N.M. 'It's condominiums where -- I'll have them get to you.'

The correct answer is at least four, located in Arizona, California and Virginia, according to his staff. Newsweek estimated this summer that the couple owns at least seven properties."

• Atrios: "Like many Americans, John McCain has a hard time remembering just how many homes he owns."
• Marshall: "In these hard economic times, a lot of people have house problems. John McCain's is that he doesn't know how many he owns."
• MyDD's Josh Orton: "I'm not sure what McCain's definition of rich is, but in my book you instantly qualify if you can't remember how many #&^#@%* houses you own. [...] I suppose in our 'nation of whiners,' it's uncouth to give an exact number. Alternately, perhaps McCain can't remember because they're all owned by Cindy."
• Benen: "Throughout the campaign, there have been various trivialities that have taken on enormous political significance. Nearly everyone can no doubt rattle more than a few examples off the top of their heads -- haircuts, arugula, bowling scores, lapel pins, etc. But I have a hunch not one of these is as humiliating as this one. [...] It's one thing to be so extraordinarily wealthy that you own multiple homes. It's another to be so extraordinarily wealthy that you can't even remember how many homes you own."
• Daily Kos' MissLaura: "Is McCain's memory really that poor, and if so, what does it say about his ability to be president? Or is the number of houses he has such an unimportant question to him that it's not worth remembering? That he has a house everywhere he goes, so why bother singling them out to remember? Or maybe it's a politically inconvenient question and he knows most reporters will give him a pass."
• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "How rich do you have to be, and how cognitively impaired, to not remember how many homes you have? Folks, this is just weird. McCain's oddly inconsistent mental state is a serious, valid question in this election, and the media seems afraid to address it head on. Real people don't have so many homes that they can't remember, unless they're absurdly rich, or they're losing their faculties. McCain didn't make these kind of gaffes eight years ago, when he was 64. What's going on? [...] NOTE TO DEMOCRATS: This is manna from heaven. Run a freaking ad about this, non-stop."

MCCAIN VEEPSTAKES: Just Say No To Joe

Conservative bloggers continue to reject the possibility of a McCain/Joe Lieberman ticket (or a McCain/Tom Ridge ticket):

• RedState's Erick Erickson: "I like Joe Lieberman. He'd be a terrific Secretary of State. But I don't want another old guy, particularly an old pro-choicer (though he was pro-life until he ran with Algore), being Vice President. I realize McCain loves history and we had the whole Lincoln-Johnson ticket at the start of the GOP, but this would be the end of the GOP -- bookending the life of the party with a Democrat for Vice President (not to mention the legal issues)."
• NRO's Yuval Levin: "If McCain were to head into a convention having just announced a pick like Lieberman -- a man very well liked by Republicans for his views on one set of issues, but not on many others, and therefore a perfect cabinet member but a very imperfect VP choice -- he would find himself in a very uncomfortable position in Minneapolis. He would be surrounded by people he had just upset, would have brought lots of activists together at just the moment he had also opened up a huge rift over an issue that Republicans have managed reasonably well in recent years, and will have made the differences between Lieberman and much of the party -- and especially the differences over abortion -- the central issue of the convention and the main topic of conversation among the observers and reporters who will color the public's impression of the event (and thus will have made it unlikely that the party's best public face will be put forward)."
• NRO's Ramesh Ponnuru: "Doesn't [Rudy] Giuliani's experience in the primaries argue against a pro-choice pick? Here you had a candidate who had a lot going for him and whose principal defect was his pro-choice position, and he absolutely bombed. Doesn't that tell us something about where the party's sentiment is?"

Meanwhile, Power Line's John Hinderaker thinks McCain should pick MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty as his running mate: "Things are going well for McCain right now and he should be optimistic about his prospects in November. If he chooses [ex-PA Gov. Tom] Ridge, it will cause a huge uproar within the Republican base that will derail, at least temporarily, his surge. Pawlenty, conversely, is a safe choice, and in my opinion a far better one. Given the current economic climate and the unfair attacks on that issue that Obama is launching against McCain, who better than the blue-collar, 'Sam's Club' Tim Pawlenty as a running mate? Beyond that, Tim has superb political skills. When the country sees him, it will like him."

OBAMA: Wake Up, Obama Camp!

Liberal bloggers continue to express frustration over what they perceive to be the Obama camp's ineffective messaging:

• TPMCafe's Theda Skocpol: "The last month has been excruciating for Obama supporters, watching him and his campaign squander so many hopes and resources on an utterly wimpy campaign. [...] Obama is lucky he is not further behind already. And he is going to fade fast if he just runs a feel-good, bland convention about abstract 'hope' and 'change.' In addition to getting gritty and colorfully clear about his recipe for making Americans' lives better -- AND about his approach to make this nation safer and stronger in the world -- Obama needs to signal all the major speakers at next week's convention to go after McCain in a key part of each speech. We need to hear why McCain is wrong and dangerous and no longer so honest and honorable. It needs repeating with force and humor and passion. Otherwise, the Convention will be wasted, and this historic turning point for our country will be lost."
• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "Whatever the Obama campaign is doing right now in terms of messaging isn't working very well. As I discussed earlier in the week, they have a 35-1 lead in voter contacts, a 3-1 lead in field offices, a substantial lead in free media coverage, and even a lead in paid media. So, we have the campaign infrastructure, and this is a big Democratic year. Given that McCain continues to close despite all this is a clear indication that McCain and his surrogates / affiliated organizations are doing a better job of messaging than Obama and his surrogates / affiliated organizations."
• Firedoglake's Ian Welsh: "Because Obama refuses to go hard negative, and because he believes in submarine advertising rather than national advertising, he loses the spin cycle more often than he wins it. Earned media dwarfs any and all channels that any campaign controls. As a result, John McCain is defining Obama rather than Obama defining Obama. John McCain is also defining John McCain."

Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas urges his fellow Obama supporters not to worry so much: "Look, the race is tightening at the national level, but it's much less tight when you look at the state-by-state numbers that, you know, actually decide the presidency. [...] We've got the veep announcements and the conventions to get through, and then the race will start in earnest. Be zen. [...] Keep your eye on the composite -- Obama still leads that by 1.4 percent -- and maintain perspective -- McCain has never crossed the 45 percent threshold while Obama bobs between 45 and 50. I'll be officially worried when McCain shows the ability to break that barrier of support. If he suddenly starts hovering in the upper 40s, then we might have trouble. But ultimately, this is a state-by-state battle. And in the electoral college fight, Obama still has a solid lead -- without even taking into account the ground machine Obama is building (pollsters aren't)."

Benen takes the same attitude as Moulitsas: "It's not a completely analogous situation, but I can think of plenty of times I heard Obama fans' handwringing last fall, when it appeared he just wasn't going to be able to defeat Hillary Clinton. Obama was, however, taking his time, methodically executing a specific strategy. I underestimated him more than a few times before, but he managed to do pretty well, and I'm still inclined to give the campaign team at least some of the benefit of the doubt."

OBAMA II: Free Advice From The Netroots

After McCain alleged that Obama's opposition to the Iraq troop surge is grounded in his "ambition to be president," Obama offered the following response:

"One of the things that we have to change in this country is the idea that people can't disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism. I have never suggested that Senator McCain picks his positions on national security based on politics or personal ambition. I have not suggested it because I believe that he genuinely wants to serve America's national interest. Now, it's time for him to acknowledge that I want to do the same."

Like Matt Stoller, Marshall thought that Obama's response was weak, and he offers Obama some "free advice":

"Don't ever demand someone stop attacking you. Doesn't work. Don't do it. Sounds weak. Sounds pathetic. And a lot else.

Look at John McCain attacking my patriotism. It's sad what he's become. He'll do anything to get elected. Attack my patriotism. Change all his positions. Get in bed with the same people he used to say were the worst thing in politics. He'll do anything to get elected ...

Or

Look at John McCain. He knows people are fed up with the politics he and George Bush support. So instead of saying what he's for all he can think of to do is silly stuff like attacking my patriotism."

Bowers agrees with Marshall and offers his own free advice to Obama:

"[Marshall's advice] makes sense. Growing up a nerd, I never found that complaining about being picked on made me more popular. Doubt that it works among adults, either. Let me offer Obama some more free advice of my own, also worth every penny:

• Don't defund the 527's. [...] No one is going to vote for you because you stopped the evil 527 money from entering politics. However, people might very well vote for you because the 527s unleashed a $125 million spending barrage against your opponent.
• Target white Democrats. [...] Bring them into the fold by attacking McCain as a Republican, maybe even with a 30-second spot that just keeps repeating 'John McCain is a Republican,' over and over and over. Lob something partisan their way to rally around the flag with. [...]
• Attack McCain's age. This might seem more dangerous, and I have cautioned against it before. However, it would seem foolish to avoid it at this point, because all of the clever attacks are being directed at Obama. We need to turn the tables, and this would help out quite a bit."

Finally, BooMan offers his own free advice to Obama: "Go after McCain's strengths. Do it now and do it at the convention. Let your surrogates off the leash. [...] When it comes to the national meta-narrative, it should be all about how McCain is the darling of the Beltway elite punditocracy, how he's a far-right winger that is indistinguishable from Bush/Cheney (shows no independence), and that he has no power of prediction (he makes horrible judgments). He's hot-tempered and distrusted by his colleagues, and he's showing age-related mental diminishment. This is tough stuff, but it's all true. And this election is too important to leave things to chance. McCain needs a fist in his mouth every day so that he has no room to maneuver."

Ezra Klein agrees that Obama needs to attack McCain's character: "From realist to neocon, environmentalist to driller, maverick to party man, there's more than enough raw material in McCain's shimmying to define the guy however you want. 'Maverick' could have been redefined as an epithet, this year's version of 'flip-flopper.' But his supposed political opponents have been uninterested in actually using any of it. Barack Obama appends his every mention of McCain with a disclaimer about his enormous esteem for McCain's service and patriotism. He says, in other words, that McCain does indeed exhibit an unquestionable commitment to high-minded public service. Then he sometimes says McCain is wrong on some policies. That's charming and all, but as Mike Tomasky says, it's not enough. The liberal allergy to attacking character rather than conclusions may be admirable, but it doesn't exactly help them win elections."

OBAMA III: He Supports Killing Babies?

Conservative bloggers are accusing Obama of supporting infanticide when he voted against a 2003 bill in the IL Senate called the "Born Alive Infant Protection Act":

• Erickson: "Obama supported infanticide."
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "Obama protected infanticide in order to protect abortion on demand. There simply is no other explanation except abject stupidity."
• Townhall's Hugh Hewitt: "Obama: Abortion Radical [...] This should end the issue for even nominal Catholics and long-ago Evangelicals."
• Ponnuru: "Nurse Jill Stanek said that at her hospital 'abortions' were repeatedly performed by inducing the live birth of a pre-viable fetus and then leaving it to die. When she made her report, the attorney general said that no law had been broken. That's why legislators proposed a bill to fill the gap. Obama did not want the gap filled. He did not want pre-viable fetuses/infants to have any legal protection. In the Illinois legislature, he argued that providing them with legal protection would both be unconstitutional in itself -- a violation of the Supreme Court's abortion jurisprudence -- and undermine the right to abortion."
• NRO's Peter Kirsanow: "Ramesh asks, 'How big a vulnerability is [Obama's Born-Alive vote] for Obama?' I submit that it's a tremendous vulnerability. [...] Last month I mentioned that some Ohio politicos told me that focus group data showed the Born-Alive issue to be highly radioactive. Almost no one had heard about it but when told the specifics the reactions were nearly universal: brief incredulity followed by revulsion. [...] I'm unaware of any recent focus group or polling data on the matter but this is such a gut issue that such data may be superfluous. Do you know anyone who would vote the same way as Obama? Not one member of the senate did. That kind of uniformity on a substantive issue is stunning -- and an ominous barometer for Obama."

OBAMA IV: Daley Doesn't Get What The Fuss Is About

Yesterday we noted that conservative bloggers are buzzing over Stanley Kurtz' complaint that a library at the University of Illinois at Chicago is denying him access to a collection of documents discussing Obama's ties to William Ayers and "various radical organizations." Today righty bloggers are criticizing Mayor Richard Daley's comments about the controversy:

"People keep trying to align [Ayers] with Barack Obama. It's really unfortunate. They're friends. So what? People do make mistakes in the past. You move on. This is a new century, a new time. He reflects back and he's been making a strong contribution to our community."

• Hewitt: "This won't fly because as recently as last fall Ayers was filmed ranting about the fascist America of today. Ayers is an unrepentant terrorist, and Obama's friendship with him calls the nominee's judgment into question, no matter what 'contribution' the terrorist has made to his community."
• Morrissey: "They're friends. So what? Well, most Americans don't have friends who plotted to bomb the Pentagon, or assisted radicals in robberies that resulted in murder."
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "Note that Daley says that 'people do make mistakes in the past,' although William Ayers has never expressed regret for setting bombs in places like the U.S. Capitol and women's bathrooms in the Pentagon."

OBAMA VEEPSTAKES: The Clinton Scenario

Several liberal bloggers -- including some who were strong Obama supporters during the primary -- appear increasingly open to the possibility of Obama selecting Hillary Clinton as his running mate:

• Skocpol: "Pick a FIGHTER for VP, please. Do it yesterday. Obama, you need someone who will push hard at your side and make you better, too. And you never should have gone on vacation (shades of [John] Kerry) without a VP to carry on. [Joe] Biden will work, I think, but -- and I never expected to believe this -- it might be time to turn to Hillary. She is at least a fighter, and this election really matters to a lot more than you and her."
• TAPPED's Mori Dinauer: "I've come around to the idea that Obama might deem Clinton's presence on the ticket a necessity at this point, and given that Biden is apparently 'not the guy'. Unlike Sam [Boyd], I'm having trouble thinking of who else it could be that isn't as bland as [IN Sen. Evan] Bayh or [VA Gov. Tim] Kaine."
• The Nation's John Nichols: "Barack Obama might just need Hillary Clinton. Clinton, whether appropriately or not, seen by a great many Americans as someone who knows her way around the international stage. [...] She also has some pretty good connections in the swing states of Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Then there is the whole 'dream ticket' thing. [...] If Obama takes the stage [in Springfield] with Clinton at his side, it will be the dominant news story of the weekend, the convention and perhaps of the fall campaign. Indeed, it could create that wave of excitement that Obama needs to have not just a triumphal convention but a triumphal campaign. [...] One does not have to like Clinton, or even believe that Clinton will ultimately join a 'dream ticket,' to suspect that as the Obama camp reviews the latest polls, they might be spinning the scenario one last time."
• FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver: "The case for picking Clinton doesn't have all that much to do with Obama's deteriorating poll numbers -- although you can certainly make a separate argument based on the electoral math. Rather, it's that the Republicans have shown their hand -- and made it clear that they aren't going to be running any sort of nice, safe campaign where Obama coasts to victory while the base stays asleep. [...] I think that if Obama picks Clinton, the Republicans are likely to overplay their hand. One thing that Obama has not really been able to do is to generate some organic level of backlash when he is attacked. This is separate and distinct from the notion of 'fighting back'; it is voters stepping in and refereeing the match themselves. Voters recognize that McCain has gone negative but they aren't really punishing him for it -- his favorables haven't moved at all. Why not? I think it has to do with the nature of Obama: he is new, he is confident to the point of being arrogant, and up until recently, he has been leading. [...] With Clinton, on the other hand, voters naturally want to come to her defense -- and overzealous attempts to whip the Republican base into a frenzy will be counteracted with outrage from significant numbers of older and working-class women."

TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat has been pushing for an Obama/Clinton ticket for months: "The NBC/WSJ poll has Obama leading 45-42, but Obama still having trouble with Clinton supporters. [...] Picking Clinton for VP would solve Obama's problems to a great extent."

MyDD's Jerome Armstrong, who supported Clinton during the primary, doesn't think Obama will choose her, and predicts that Obama will choose John Kerry instead: "Two people you wouldn't expect, David Gergen and Nate Silver, [are] making the late case for Clinton as the game-changer Obama needs (Gergen also mentions [Al] Gore). They are both right but, what Obama has been personally told by [ex-SD Sen.] Tom Daschle is to pick someone whom is an ally, someone whom he already trusts, on his side from the get-go -- and not have to build it with the VP choice going forward. No offense to David & Nate, but I think Obama's listening to Tom on his VP choice. Other than Clinton or Gore, there is one other game-changer out there: John Kerry. I know that will raise the ire of many among us, but not myself. [...] Kerry's a better choice than Tom Daschle, and a better choice than Biden, Kaine, or Bayh. OK, I've convinced myself, and now officially abandon Daschle with my VP prediction moving to Kerry. Look, if Obama's not going to choose Clinton (all signs point toward that being the case), and Gore is unavailable, then given the late date, it seems likely to be someone that's very well known and ready to go, which is a description of very few Democrats, one of which is Kerry."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Where Is Obama's Blog Outreach?

Jerome Armstrong wants to know:

"[Obama's New Media Director Joe] Rospars has no peers when it comes to knowing how to write an effective fundraising email. He's done a terrific job at the things set out in the profile and more, but for the life of me, I cannot figure out why he hasn't pursued a blog outreach strategy to date. I'm not talking about a constituency relationship or blogads, but a strategic message one. One that recognizes the blogs as being more powerful in concert with what the campaign is trying to do in opposition to McCain, and coordinating the execution of that strategic message. [...] Joe ought to do some outreach himself to Peter Daou, who was in a similar situation in '04 with [John] Kerry's campaign. Kerry had won the primary without any help at all from the blogs, and it wasn't until after the swiftboating explosion in August that the Kerry campaign realized they had a problem with controlling the message via the blogosphere. It was probably too late for Peter to do much, but he certainly dived in and worked well with the blogosphere in those last few months to develop an opposition message strategy against [George W.] Bush.

Now, of course, a number of things have changed, including two big things, which the Obama campaign has recognized. First, blogs have went mainstream, all the traditional media outlets have bloggers and they are 24/7 bloggers with access. They've effectively become the online outreach vehicles for the Obama campaign message push -- the Marc Ambinder, Ben Smith, and Jake Tapper world. Second, there's a world of social networking sites that have huge numbers of available for finding voters and for organizing supporters, and the Obama campaign has leveraged those like none other. But neither have replaced the partisan blogosphere, which has grown about 10X since 2004 in terms of bloggers and readership.

And without the outreach, partisan Democratic bloggers are left on their own to pursue a decentralized strategy which has largely wandered in the desert looking for an attack angle on McCain. Bloggers complain about there not being a consistent message from Obama against McCain because nothing is being coordinated from within the campaign for outreach purposes."

LEST WE FORGET: Family Comes First, Reports Man Trying To Get Out Of Work

From The Onion:

"EDINA, MN -- Frank Noller, married father of two and advertising copywriter for Harton & North, extolled the virtues of family and parental responsibility in an attempt to leave the office 45 minutes early Monday. 'My [14-year-old] son's got a bad cough,' Noller told his boss before leaving, sighing unhappily as if he would have preferred to remain at work and do his job. 'Gotta keep your priorities straight.' Upon arriving home, Noller informed his wife that he would not be able to attend his daughter's gymnastics recital because he was 'swamped with work.'"

Posted by Ian Faerstein at August 21, 2008 01:10 PM