Political Irony

I think I see a pattern of hypocrisy emerging. First a conservative radio show accuses Obama of giving a speech in front of an “Obama Flag”, which looks like an American flag but has a big “O” on it for Obama. Then he goes off, ranting about what that means:

These things are symptomatic of a person who would like to be a potentate, a dictator. And I really see this in this man. … And I tell you this. I tell you this quite seriously. I am alarmed at the prospect of his election.

Of course, that happens to be the state flag of Ohio. But I guess you have to forgive him for the mistake, since these things are symptomatic of delusional paranoia.

Second, the New York Post does a story about how Michelle Obama had lobster and caviar delivered to her room at the Waldorf-Astoria. Only problem? She didn’t even stay at the Waldorf. I guess it was too much trouble for them to call the hotel to verify the story before running with a lie.

If you haven’t had enough, here’s the third one. The McCain campaign has discovered a big problem in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, namely that it treats copyright violators as “guilty, until you can prove yourself innocent”. The McCain campaign is upset that some of its political ads — which utilize brief snippets from news broadcasts and other copyrighted material — have been pulled from YouTube because of copyright complaints. The DMCA requires sites like YouTube to pull materials immediately if there are any copyright complaints, and the poster of the material must appeal the complaint and prove that there are no copyright violations before the material is put back up.

But what is hypocritical about this last one is the McCain campaign’s solution to the problem. Rather than trying to fix the law in question, they want YouTube to make an exception for them. Their solution is to have videos uploaded by a political campaign to be reviewed manually by a human YouTube employee before they are removed. Anyone else would still have their videos immediately removed, by a computer program.

Thankfully, YouTube (which is owned by Google) refused. But they did say that they would be happy to work with McCain (whether as president or senator) to fix the DMCA. After all, the only way we will get bad laws changed is if lawmakers have to suffer under the same laws the rest of us do.

UPDATE: In an unintentionally hilarious post on the National Review website, proof is offered of actual voter fraud based on someone named “Duran Duran” voting in the New Mexico primary. They have to backpedal furiously when it is discovered that there really is someone named Duran Duran, and they are even listed in the Albuquereque phone book. When will they admit that the only fraud being committed here is against the voters who are being purged from the registration rolls just because someone doesn’t like their name.