MSNBC had a piece today in which they observed that, gee, the current campaign is playing out like the last season of West Wing.
January 30th, guys. I noted on January 30th something MSNBC just now picked up on.
That’s why I’m surprised anyone thought that Clinton would be knocked out in yesterday’s election. To fulfill the West Wing scenario, this is going to have to go all the way to the convention in August, at which point–after much struggle–Obama is made the candidate (although don’t rule out the notion that, after the first ballot is cast, someone else suddenly throws his hat into the ring just to make things REALLY interesting. It could be anyone from Al Gore to John Edwards who, to the best of my knowledge, has yet to endorse either Obama or Clinton.)
At which point Obama will then choose an unexpected political old hand to be his vice presidential candidate.
A word of advice to anyone whom Obama taps for VP–don’t take the offer. Because Obama wins, but only because you die unexpectedly.
PAD
• 
Was this an article on MSNBC, if so do you have the link?
I started re-watching the final two seasons just because of how similar this election is to the show.
Im expecting Howard Dean to come out any time and tell the two candidates to work it out and stop dividing the party.
I voted for Obama but I would be happy for Clinton to win also. I think Obama should accept her VP position allow her to win the office and spend the next 7 years gaining experience as the VP and then run as President. but you cannot be President without a big ego and so I think this will have to run its course.
At which point Obama will then choose an unexpected political old hand to be his vice presidential candidate.
Teddy K?
I’ve already seen one article asking if Pennsylvania will be the final showdown. I can’t see that happening. It has 158 delegates at stake, but there’s no way Hillary will get a high enough percentage of them to completely make up Obama’s lead, much less surpass him.
And even if Obama managed to get a victory there, it’s unlikely that he’ll get a significant one. So the delegate lead would stay pretty much the same. That would be bad for Hillary because she wouldn’t have much time to make up the difference, but she still wouldn’t be so far behind that she couldn’t possibly catch up. Remember, the last round is Puerto Rico, which is winner-take-all for 55 delegates. It alone could cut away much of the lead Obama has now or extend it considerably.
So get ready for over a month of reporters calling Pennsaylvania the next “Final Showdown” before it doesn’t actually settle anything. I think PAD called it, this is going all the way to the convention.
Teddy K?
Didn’t they interpret the end-of-the-world prediction by Nostradamus as involving the three Kennedy brothers as rulers? If so, that could divert us from the VP-elect death to the pres-elect death, then to President Teddy.
So, no VP elect Teddy K. It would divert from the script.
Only one Kennedy brother so far has survived long enough to be a ruler.
Unless you consider the husband of a Kennedy daughter/niece the same thing, and ruling one state sufficient, which I wouldn’t, on either count.
Ahh, found a translation:
Those well at ease will suddenly be cast down
By the three brothers the world
will be put in trouble,
The marine city will be seized by enemies,
Hunger, fire, blood, plague, all evils doubled.
So being a ruler is irrelevant.
Could even be George, Jeb, and Neil
Or three nations considered ‘brothers’
True enough. I’m basing my speculation on a dim memory of a special on Nostradamus and interpretations of his visions. They seemed quite insistent that it was the Kennedys because the assassinations seemed to fit part of the the prophecy.
That… and my hope for a write-in election of Malcolm Reynolds for president. 🙂
I’m surprised anyone thought that Clinton would be knocked out in yesterday’s election for the simple reason that this is Hillary Clinton we’re talking about here. She ain’t conceding anything.
Can she win? Sure, though Obama has to be considered the frontrunner. Neither is likely to wrap it up on pledged delegates. It comes down to the superdelegates, no matter what Howard Dean wants. IF–a big if–Hillary wins PA by the margin she di in Ohio and keeps up tuesday’s momentum in winning the popular vote in other states, she may end up with having won the most votes cast. That plus being able to claim victories in the big states a democrat MUST win could sway some of the needed supers.
I’d expect that soon the Clintons will also offer a one time amnesty to those who have jumped to Obama–come back now, all is forgiven. (With the added stick that any who don’t take the offer will be persona non grata in Clinton Administration V 2.0)
If she fails to get the popular vote–which is doable but not easy–and assuming that nothing short of a total Obama collapse will allow her to win the most delegates, it’s over. Why in the hëll would Obama agree to take the VP slot if he’s won both the most votes and the most delegates? His supporters would make the 68 convention look like a Yanni concert.
So maybe her best bet is to concentrate on big states with small African-American populations and try to run up the total popular vote there.
“I’m surprised anyone thought that Clinton would be knocked out in yesterday’s election for the simple reason that this is Hillary Clinton we’re talking about here. She ain’t conceding anything.”
The thing is, Hillary really didn’t do that well yesterday. The media keeps talking about her big wins, but they’re not really that big. Despite its huge number of delegates, Texas isn’t a big deal if the final split gives one candidate 4 more votes than the other.
On Monday, Obama had a Pledged Delegate lead of about 150. After today he has a pledged delegate lead of about 140. That’s it. That’s all Hillary did. She closed the gap by 10 delegate votes.
Tuesday was worth 360 votes, yet Hillary only closed the gap by 10. The entire rest of the Democratic primaries and caucuses combined amounts to 611 Delegates. So if Hillary keeps winning the way she did last night, then Obama will go into the convention with a 120 delegate lead over her. Hillary’s lead amoung the superdelegates is only about 60, and there are already delegates saying they’re going to vote for whichever candidate gets the most pledged delegates from the democratic voters.
By just math, Hillary really *should* be out after yesterday. She needed big wins, not the little ones she got. Now she needs absolutely huge wins, much better than what she got yesterday. But the media loves the word “comeback” because they love a twist in the story. So they’re making it look like she did much better than she really did.
For another perspective you may be interested in: CBC’s Henry Champ. You may find some surprises in there, depending on your POV.
Not sure if this is what you’re referring to, but The Guardian had an article on it last month:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/21/barackobama.uselections2008
Kind of an art imitating life imitating art sort of thing.
From the Jonathan Freedland article:
For what those West Wing fans stunned by the similarity between the fictitious Matthew Santos and the real-life Barack Obama have not known is that the resemblance is no coincidence. When the West Wing scriptwriters first devised their fictitious presidential candidate in the late summer of 2004, they modelled him in part on a young Illinois politician – not yet even a US senator – by the name of Barack Obama.
“I drew inspiration from him in drawing this character,” West Wing writer and producer Eli Attie told the Guardian. “When I had to write, Obama was just appearing on the national scene. He had done a great speech at the convention [which nominated John Kerry] and people were beginning to talk about him.”
Attie, who served as chief speechwriter to Al Gore during the ill-fated 2000 campaign and who wrote many of the key Santos episodes of the West Wing, put in a call to Obama aide David Axelrod.
“I said, ‘Tell me about this guy Barack Obama.'”
The way the media is dramatizing these results is driving me nuts. I should just stop reading the news sites. But instead, I read a Newsweek blog and see someone say this about Pennsylvania:
“The stakes are huge. Clinton has to prove that she can continue her streak.”
Streak? There is no streak! The results on Tuesday were mixed. If you count Texas as two different races, then it came out 3 to 2. If you count it as one race, then 2 to 2. And Obama is expected to take 2 smaller states between now and Pennsylvania. Clinton has no streak.
I’m calling something right now. On May 6th, the media will say that Obama had a comeback. Hillary will win in Penn and the media will make a big deal out of it (despite Obama still having a significant lead) but then Obama will win big in the May 6th primary and the news people will describe it as a ‘comeback.’
The way the media is dramatizing these results is driving me nuts.
Forget about party lines, it’s all about the ratings and the attention that they can draw to themselves, rather than just doing their job and reporting the news. It’s really quite disgusting.
Hillary needs to go to Iraq and defend the country.
Jason M. Bryant: The way the media is dramatizing these results is driving me nuts. I should just stop reading the news sites. But instead, I read a Newsweek blog and see someone say this about Pennsylvania: “The stakes are huge. Clinton has to prove that she can continue her streak.” Streak? There is no streak!
Luigi Novi: Who on this blog said this? A visitor to it, or the originator of the blog entry? And is that person a columnist? If so, then that is not part of the actual reporting of news, but would fall under editorial, in which you’d expect to find a greater degree of subjective analysis or interpretation.
Luigi, here’s the link:
http://www.blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2008/03/05/expertinent-is-obama-doomed-in-pennsylvania.aspx
The part I quoted is near the top, at the start of the second paragraph.
I originally found it via a direct link from the front page of msnbc.com, though it’s not on the front page anymore.
So it’s a columnist. Figures.
You could argue that Hillary has a pretty good streak…or at least a trend…of winning the big states. Ok, that’s weak.
She’s definitely grabbed the momentum though. One national poll has seen a 12 point shift in her favor. It’s still in Obama’s court but he has to have a better week than the last one. While the press hasn’t been quite as fawning as the SNL skits would suggest, he has had it pretty good up to now. His curt responses at that last press conference had better have been just him having an off day.
I’m still predicting Hillary pulls it off, though I would not bet any money on it and such a win will be a very ugly one, making McCain’s job that much easier.
“She’s definitely grabbed the momentum though. One national poll has seen a 12 point shift in her favor.”
She’s grabbed the superficial momentum. The people who swung in that poll are the ones buying into the media hype. The media is saying today that she just won a bunch of states, so some people are saying, “Well gee, I guess Hillary is gonna win.”
Within the next couple of days the news agencies will announce that Obama actually won Texas (though it’s such a slim margin that I wouldn’t call it a win) and some of those people will slide back to Obama. Then he’ll win the next couple of primaries and a few more will slide back. She’ll win Penn. and that poll will show another surge for her, then Obama will slaughter her in North Carolina and he’ll get those polling points back.
That’s not real momentum. That’s just people who don’t have a strong opinion either way guessing about who will win.
I’m also not sure how much this continued race hurts the democrats. Sure, any negative attacks hurt them. But in general, there are three people running in the race for President and one of them isn’t going to be in the news nearly as much as the other two. The rule of “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” indicates that McCain is gonna seem pretty boring as long as Hillary and Obama are sparing.
If he wins PA she will have won every major state except Illinois and a lot of the states that a Democrat has to win. There’s also the whole Florida and Michigan fiasco–there’s no way those delegates won’t be a factor.
Obama should win and the smart money says he will win but I think she will pull this out. It will be bowling shoe ugly but…
Hillary is the candidate who loses support the more voters get to know her. That may be why she did better in the huge population centers, but Penn is still 7 weeks away.
The Democrats can’t keep the Florida or Michigan results and keep the support of the huge national primary turnout in the general election (or ever, for that matter). Those states moved their primaries up in the first place to increase their influence in picking a candidate — which is what they’ll have now if they agree to redo their primaries. And because of her “the more you get to know her” factor, it seems obvious Obama would do better in FL and MI now than when their primaries should have taken place.
Hillary doesn’t have what it takes to reverse the current trend. She’s toast.
Why in the hëll would Obama agree to take the VP slot if he’s won both the most votes and the most delegates?
Seriously.
As noted on NPR last night, by any reasonable tallys Obama is winning.
By states: Obama’s won 27 states, Clinton 15
By votes: Obama’s won over 500,000 more than Clinton
By pledged delegates: Obama has 140 more than Clinton
By pledged delegates + declared superdelegates: Obama still leads (I can’t remember the exact number)
Why in the world would he be willing to sit in the back of the buss on a combined ticket?
Then again, would he want to put Hillary a heartbeat away from the presidency??? Never pick a VP who wants the job even more than you do.
But with the election this close they may be forced to join up, like it or not. And they won’t like it, not at all.
The twist is that if Hillary wrangles the nomination, she will need to have Obama on the ticket in order to have any attempt to have his supporters come to the poll. On the other hand, if Obama obtains the nomination, he probably needs a white male like Jim Webb in order to booster support in the South.
J. Alexander: “The twist is that if Hillary wrangles the nomination, she will need to have Obama on the ticket in order to have any attempt to have his supporters come to the poll.“
Can’t recall what they were citing, but NPR reported last night that
– 25% of Clinton supporters would not vote for him and a significantly large number of them would actually switch to McCain.
– only 10% of Obama supporters would not support Clinton with very few actually switching over to McCain.
(Realize that it’s one thing to not support the other Democrat. That loses the Democratic nominee one vote. But to go actually switch to vote for McCain makes it a double whammy, a 2 vote swing.
IMHO, it is another example of far too many in the Clinton crowd being sore losers with a vast sense of entitlement. If she doesn’t get the nomination, well, then, let’s bring the party down in flames. But I digress)
So it doesn’t seem that Clinton would need to have Obama on the ticket to get the votes of the vast majority of his supporters.
In Texas, the turnout for Hillary exceeded the entire republican turnout. In Texas. McCain won’t win.
The annoying thing with this for me is that I could see a Clinton/Obama ticket working on several key levels, especially if they worked in office as a strong team. I think that it would also be good for Obama in two ways. It would help build him up a bit more and it would help him with the voters who are somewhat luck warm to his act. And I’m one of those.
I’m not all that big on Clinton, but Obama has had me feeling like I’m looking at an empty suit for some time now. I’ve had more than a few misgivings about his ability to handle the job for some time now. His performance in the last debate and his interviews the day after Texas and Ohio only reinforced that feeling. There were several moments in the debate were he just gave me a strong vibe of someone not wanting to be there and letting it be known. The first few interviews that I saw with him Wednesday he was showing signs of more frustration than he should have been showing. If you consider this process the audition for the job, then Obama is just adding to my doubts about his ability to deal with the stress of the Presidency when things are really not going his way for prolonged periods of time.
Yeah, my opinion, but it’s my opinion of the man. You may see it differently.
He and Clinton are not that far apart insofar as their platforms and stands. Obama as a strong VP could have been a good platform for him to shine and grow on. I just can’t see that ticket happening now. Clinton is calculating enough to either be the VP or tap Obama as here VP. Right now, I don’t see Obama extending that offer to her or accepting that offer from her.
Obama is still better than McCain by far, but if he gets in, he’s going to be a one term President.
Oh, and the latest word on the latest fake scandal being promoted by the talking heads?
From FactCheck.org
Did Clinton Darken Obama’s Skin?
March 5, 2008
Some Obama backers cry “racism.” We find the accusation to be unsubstantiated.
Summary
Obama supporters on the Internet are agitated over the apparent darkening of Obama’s image in a Clinton attack ad.
Our video team took a look. Our conclusions:
The Obama frames from the ad do appear darker than other video of Obama from the same event.
However, the YouTube copy of the ad, on which the bloggers base their conclusions, is darker overall than other copies of the ad. We obtained a digital recording of the ad as it actually appeared on a Texas TV station, and it is lighter.
Furthermore, our analysis of the Obama frames, using Photoshop, shows a fairly uniform darkening of the entire image including the backdrop. It is not just Obama’s skin color that’s affected.
Also, nearly all the images in the ad are dark, including those of Hillary Clinton. And dark images are a common technique used in attack ads.
Others will speculate about the Clinton campaign’s intentions and motives, as they already have. But without further evidence to the contrary, we see no reason to conclude that this is anything more than a standard attempt to make an attack ad appear sinister, rather than a special effort to exploit racial bias as some Obama supporters are saying.
Much more detail and comparison photos at:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/did_clinton_darken_obamas_skin.html” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/did_clinton_darken_obamas_skin.html
But Obama’s supporters are largely young, a group that often underwhelms at the polls when it counts. The may say they will vote for Hillary but without Obama to inspire them to actually get to the polls I’ll bet many will find something better to do that day.
The thing is, if the convention is deadlocked there will be no options but to make some kind of compromise. One problem is that if either one refuses to take the VP spot it could lead to an eventual defeat for the nominee, making the other the likely frontrunner for 2012.
It’s a risky bet but…does Hillary want to wait 8 years for another shot? Does Obama think that in 2016 he’ll still be the fresh young face?
The VP position sucks for both of them. Less so for Obama but as I said, unless Hillary gets the popular vote and big margins in PA there is absolutely no reason to expect Obama to defer to Massa Clinton and Miz Hillary. I think his followers would reject that, as they should.
But who knows, this has had more twists than a rollercoaster. What a ride!
I haven’t thought too much about an Obama/Clinton ticket, but one thing did occur to me. It’s the only way he can rip off her health care plan.
A lot of people consider Clinton’s health care plan to be superior to Obama’s. I’m not gonna get into the details of that argument, I’m just going to assume that it is true for the sake of this hypothetical.
Now, if Obama selects anyone else as his running mate, he can’t swipe the best parts of his plan. He’s been touting his own plan and poo-pooing hers so much that it would look very week to steal bits of her plan now. It would look like a backstab move.
However, with her as his running mate he could adopt her plan whole hog and it would mainly look like a compromise. In fact, it might solidify that it’s not just Obama against McCain with Hillary as the traditional useless VP, but it is really a combined Obama/Clinton team taking McCain on. That might work pretty well to fire up supporters of both candidates.
But that’s just a thought, I’ve got nothing to support it.
Jerry, I saw that stuff–I would put nothing past the Clintons (Her statement that Obama was not a Muslim “As far as I know” shows that) but this is a raw deal. You can find tons of photos of Obama from regular news sources that run a wide array of tones. Nature of photography. Hit the auto levels button on photoshop and there’s no telling where he would end up.
A they say, the ad in question was just using the time tried technique of darkening the video to indicate menace. (slowing down the video also makes them look creepy). It IS fun watching the kos kids go nuts looking for subliminal messages though. Even worse, Ann Althouse thought that her 3 Am ad used subliminal racism when the kid’s pajamas had NIG on them. Yeah, I guess if you got upset over the the DemocRATS ad from way back when that might make sense. But sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
”IMHO, it is another example of far too many in the Clinton crowd being sore losers with a vast sense of entitlement. If she doesn’t get the nomination, well, then, let’s bring the party down in flames. But I digress.”
I’m not so sure it’s that. There are a lot of people that see Obama as lacking. Some holding that view far more deeply than I do. I know Democrats who view an Obama Presidency in the same way that the conservative talking heads were describing a McCain Presidency two or three months back. They think that he’ll be such a disaster in the actual job itself that he’ll not only be a one term President, but they feel that he’ll actually do harm to the party overall.
They’re also looking at in a similar but reversed manner to how those conservatives who said that they would rather vote Clinton over McCain were two or three months back. They figure that hard times are coming and that, if the President is a pretty capable one, whichever party is in the big chair is going to take the hit for it in 2012. They don’t see Obama or McCain as particularly capable and would rather McCain and the Republicans take the hit.
It would be interesting to see how this would play out if the USA had “compulsory attendence of a place of polling” laws.
It took forever to find a link with the transcript and video.
Bill Mulligan: “I would put nothing past the Clintons (Her statement that Obama was not a Muslim “As far as I know” shows that)…”
You know what? I saw that interview and it’s being wrenched completely out of context in two ways. First, it’s being played up as though she said that he wasn’t, paused for a second or so and then added “As far as I know.” Even you quoted it by putting the ‘a’ in ‘as’ in caps as though it was a stand alone sentence. It wasn’t.
It’s also being played up as though she didn’t say that a) Obama wasn’t a Muslim and b) kinda played coy with the answer. She a) did and b) didn’t.
Start video at 01:06 if you want to skip straight to Hillary speaking.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200803030004?f=h_latest
From the March 2 edition of CBS’ 60 Minutes:
KROFT: You don’t believe that Senator Obama is a Muslim?
CLINTON: Of course not. I mean, that’s — you know, there is no basis for that. You know, I take him on the basis of what he says. And, you know, there isn’t any reason to doubt that.
KROFT: And you said you’d take Senator Obama at his word that he’s not a Muslim.
CLINTON: Right. Right.
KROFT: You don’t believe that he’s a Muslim —
CLINTON: No. No. Why would I? There’s no —
KROFT: — or implying, right?
CLINTON: No, there is nothing to base that on, as far as I know.
KROFT: It’s just scurrilous —
CLINTON: Look, I have been the target of so many ridiculous rumors. I have a great deal of sympathy for anybody who gets, you know, smeared with the kind of rumors that go on all the time.
She said no. She clearly said no. The interviewer kept asking and she said no again and added the “as far as I know” in a manner that struck me then and now as at best a) the way pretty much everyone else casually uses it when speaking or at worst b) a reflexive CYA type of remark that most politicians throw around from time to time.
It was not quite what it has been played up as by the talking heads and it certainly wasn’t phrased in the manner that your quote leads me to believe that you think it was said.
It took forever to find a link with the transcript and video.
Bill Mulligan: “I would put nothing past the Clintons (Her statement that Obama was not a Muslim “As far as I know” shows that)…”
You know what? I saw that interview and it’s being wrenched completely out of context in two ways. First, it’s being played up as though she said that he wasn’t, paused for a second or so and then added “As far as I know.” Even you quoted it by putting the ‘a’ in ‘as’ in caps as though it was a stand alone sentence. It wasn’t.
It’s also being played up as though she didn’t say that a) Obama wasn’t a Muslim and b) kinda played coy with the answer. She a) did and b) didn’t.
Start video at 01:06 if you want to skip straight to Hillary speaking.
mediamatters.org/items/200803030004?f=h_latest” rel=”nofollow”>http://mediamatters.org/items/200803030004?f=h_latest
From the March 2 edition of CBS’ 60 Minutes:
KROFT: You don’t believe that Senator Obama is a Muslim?
CLINTON: Of course not. I mean, that’s — you know, there is no basis for that. You know, I take him on the basis of what he says. And, you know, there isn’t any reason to doubt that.
KROFT: And you said you’d take Senator Obama at his word that he’s not a Muslim.
CLINTON: Right. Right.
KROFT: You don’t believe that he’s a Muslim —
CLINTON: No. No. Why would I? There’s no —
KROFT: — or implying, right?
CLINTON: No, there is nothing to base that on, as far as I know.
KROFT: It’s just scurrilous —
CLINTON: Look, I have been the target of so many ridiculous rumors. I have a great deal of sympathy for anybody who gets, you know, smeared with the kind of rumors that go on all the time.
She said no. She clearly said no. The interviewer kept asking and she said no again and added the “as far as I know” in a manner that struck me then and now as at best a) the way pretty much everyone else casually uses it when speaking or at worst b) a reflexive CYA type of remark that most politicians throw around from time to time.
It was not quite what it has been played up as by the talking heads and it certainly wasn’t phrased in the manner that your quote leads me to believe that you think it was said.
Jerry, thanks for taking the time to find the video. After watching it, I agree with your analysis.
Is there a reason those here downplaying the video-darkening aren’t mentioning the video-stretching?
Obama is handsome in the uncorrected images, and the video-stretched version — which the Clinton site is hosting — portrays him as more de-evolved.
Jerry, you’re probably right. It’s just that coming on the heels of some of the other “slips of the tongue” from the Clinton team it begins to look like a pattern. But at least they’ve decided to skip the personal attacks and focus on the issues; today they compared him to Ken Starr!
Ouch.
And this clip doesn’t help the perception that Obama isn’t ready. This is from one of his staff.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/obama-aide-neither-candidate-ready-for-3-am-call/
Don’t just play the video though, read the stuff under it. I’ve seen it in three or four places, but this source actually added the surrounding bits of the interview for context below the video player. Again, it’s not quite as bad as I’ve been hearing today, but it was a definite foot-in-mouth moment by this particular spokeswoman.
Ouch.
And this clip doesn’t help the perception that Obama isn’t ready. This is from one of his staff.
//thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/obama-aide-neither-candidate-ready-for-3-am-call/” rel=”nofollow”>http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/obama-aide-neither-candidate-ready-for-3-am-call/
Don’t just play the video though, read the stuff under it. I’ve seen it in three or four places, but this source actually added the surrounding bits of the interview for context below the video player. Again, it’s not quite as bad as I’ve been hearing today, but it was a definite foot-in-mouth moment by this particular spokeswoman.
Ouch.
And this clip doesn’t help the perception that Obama isn’t ready. This is from one of his staff.
(Catching in the spam filter. Add– http:// –to the front of the below address.)
thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/obama-aide-neither-candidate-ready-for-3-am-call/” rel=”nofollow”>http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/obama-aide-neither-candidate-ready-for-3-am-call/
Don’t just play the video though, read the stuff under it. I’ve seen it in three or four places, but this source actually added the surrounding bits of the interview for context below the video player. Again, it’s not quite as bad as I’ve been hearing today, but it was a definite foot-in-mouth moment by this particular spokeswoman.
Given a candidate who admits they haven’t been in a particular situation but here’s why they think they’d be able to handle it, and one who acts as if they have been in a particular situation many times before (but clearly hasn’t) so obviously we shouldn’t worry our pretty little heads about it…
I’d go with the former. Seems to me they have a far more realistic view of the challenges they’d face and that alone makes them far more likely to deal with them well.
Yeah Bill, but the thing is that you wouldn’t have known, nor would I have for that matter, if you hadn’t seen it for yourself. I’ve only felt that the comment was out of context when watching the news because I saw the actual interview. Had I not seen it, I would have taken the news reports as fact.
That’s not reporting. That’s making a story up and telling the story you want to tell. In this case, the story was Hillary playing the race card.
Even the Obama thing that I just posted falls under the news making crap up. I’ve been hearing it teased today as Obama’s foreign policy adviser admitting that, “They’re both not ready to have that 3:00 a.m. phone call.” Did she say that? Yeah, she did. But the context created by the rest of the quote puts it in a different light and puts a different spin on it.
They had a left of center radio guy (Ed something) on one of the MSNBC talking head shows earlier this week who made the comment that Hillary was damaging the party and snubbing Obama at every turn. One of his observations was that Hillary was being buddy-buddy with McCain by congratulating him on his wins this week whereas she has never congratulated Obama so much as once since the primaries started. And nobody on the program challenged that statement. It was allowed to go out as a fact on a channel that has had live primary coverage of Clinton congratulating Obama on his wins.
And that’s not just the talking heads doing it. That’s not just Fox News doing it. Nooooooo. That’s the entire news media. The talking heads, the radio chat shows and the pundits create a story anymore and the news media just runs with it.
We’ve all talked about how there’s really no news media any more, but it still grates the nerves from time to time. We’re supposed to be picking someone to hold the “most powerful office on Earth” for the next four to eight years. It would be nice if there were more facts being disseminated by the news outlets and less predetermined storylines, “fixed” and mangled quotes, rumors and innuendo. It’d be nice to have a few more facts and a few less stories about “secret” Muslim upbringings, “coy” attacks on race and the “real” stories behind adopted children’s parentage.
Hëll, it’d be nice to be able to watch a “news” program anymore without wondering how much of it I need to fact check, either due to the media’s stupidity, laziness or biases, before believing.
Senator Martin – ~8?P – “I’d go with the former. Seems to me they have a far more realistic view of the challenges they’d face and that alone makes them far more likely to deal with them well.”
I agree on the face of it and I know that’s what she was trying to say. But even in context, that wasn’t the best way to phrase it.
Now go do something about my taxes.
I actually was a senator once. In an issue of Fantastic Four by Walt Simonson way back when, when he used names of four fellow posters to ye olde Compuserve comic forum.
But this time, alas, I was just me managing to mistype my own name.
I kinda guessed, but I’ve gotta have my sarky moments.
~8?P
“sarky”
LOL!
“sarky“
LOL!