So let me see if I understand this: When health care reform is discussed behind closed doors, pundits and GOP talking heads declare Obama is breaking a campaign pledge for transparency. But when he wants to meet with GOP opposition to discuss health care in a public venue, then pundits and GOP talking heads say it’s a trap.
Captain Kirk may not believe in the No-Win Scenario, but that’s because he was never President.
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Who knew that Admiral Ackbar was a GOP strategist?
Next thing you know, people will claim that snow is proof of global warming.
Snow is proof of global warming!!
See?
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Next thing you know, people will start sending me crisp $100 bills.
And they’ll send them to you care of ME, Mulligan!
How DARE you take advantage of the gullible! have you no SHAME, sir? At long last, have you no shame?
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He must have some. He’s doing the honest “take advantage of the gullible” trick. I started stealing and opening all of your non-bill looking mail. And man, that set of Asian horror films you ordered really rock.
Hopefully you saw the one that, after 7 days of watching it, you die in a truly horrible way. Horrible even by Asian film standards, which is to say, horrible indeed.
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So the thing is soooooo good that you’ll watch it for seven days while not even taking breaks for food, water or bathroom breaks? Most be good. But, yeah, I can see that leading to a death in a truly horrible way.
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Good news! It’s not that one. It’s the “ripping off Star Wars” set. Poor Jun Fûkûdá. Never really had a chance.
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But thanks for the heads up. I’ll put the one you mentioned back in the mailbox.
The Ripping Off Star Wars set? Does it have The Hidden Fortress?
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Yeah, the party of “do the opposite of what Obama wants even if it’s something we said we wanted yesterday” strikes again. Really, how big of a mouth breather do you have to be to take these clowns seriously?
I don’t think it’s a matter of always doing the opposite of what Obama wants. Though, to be fair, if the Republicans agreed with the Democrats on most issues they’d have joined the Democratic party anyway, so didn’t you kind of see that level of disagreement coming in the concept of “opposition party?” No one acted surprised when Reid and Pelosi routinely opposed Bush’s programs. And the House Democrats are insisting that the “public option,” the thing the Republicans oppose more than any other, is a sina qua non, so it’s hard to see how you bridge that gap in a brief summit.
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IN any event, with regard to this issue, I think it’s more a matter of not being born yesterday. There’s no reason to believe the Democrats have any interest in negotiation, and plenty of reason to believe this is posturing to avoid the “partisan” label. Nancy Pelosi’s health care aide made a really interesting statement that I found on The Atlantic’s web site (it’s quoting an article from a somewhat right wing newspaper, hence the “pro abortion” slant):
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“In comments reported by Congress Daily, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s top health care aide Wendell Primus admitted top Democrats have already decided on the strategy to pass the Senate’s pro-abortion, government-run health care bill.
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“Primus explained that the Senate will use the controversial reconciliation strategy that will have the House approve the Senate bill and both the House and Senate okaying changes to the bill that the Senate will sign off on by preventing Republicans from filibustering.
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“’The trick in all of this is that the president would have to sign the Senate bill first, then the reconciliation bill second, and the reconciliation bill would trump the Senate bill,’ Primus said at the National Health Policy Conference hosted by Academy Health and Health Affairs.
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“’There’s a certain skill, there’s a trick, but I think we’ll get it done,’ he said.”
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So, yeah, the opposition is being invited to a summit to discuss a deal that’s already worked out. Talk about a no-win scenario.
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“Though, to be fair, if the Republicans agreed with the Democrats on most issues they’d have joined the Democratic party anyway, so didn’t you kind of see that level of disagreement coming in the concept of “opposition party?” No one acted surprised when Reid and Pelosi routinely opposed Bush’s programs.”
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David, you really haven’t been following the news all that closely lately. No one following this stuff is surprised in the least or taken aback by the stark hypocrisy when the Republicans and the Democrats are disagreeing on, say, tax cuts and where to target them. That’s standard stuff. What’s starting to piss some people off right now with the Republicans is that they’re abandoning their own proposals just because Obama says that he likes them.
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The Republicans have been crying that the process around the healthcare debate needs to be open to the public and more transparent. Obama says that he wants to do what they have been crying about and the same Republicans who are on record demanding this are now saying that we shouldn’t do this and it’s actually a good thing to have meetings like without the public being able to see what is going on.
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There have been a few bills lately that were started by and or sponsored by Republicans that, presumably, they believed in or thought were good ideas. Obama saw them and publically stated that they were good ideas. Almost to the second that Obama said that he liked the things the support by the Republicans stopped and they party line voted against the things.
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And then there’s the naked hypocrisy of my own state’s Eric Cantor. He’s one of the big Republican voices on the national stage who is attacking the stimulus bill and talking about how it’s not working. Of course, we get to see him on the local news promoting works projects and other things that he says that “we” worked hard to get for the people of Virginia. Thing is, when you dig a little bit you discover that many of these great things that he’s claiming partial credit for are not deals or projects negotiated by the Virginia Republicans, they’re more often than not projects that are part of the stimulus bill.
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This is beyond the classic differences between the two parties being debated yet again on the public stage. This would be like me saying that strawberry ice cream is the best ice cream out there and then you say that, yeah, strawberry ice cream really is great. If I’ve been saying publically and loudly that strawberry ice cream is the best and my personal favorite, don’t you think that it would look just a little bit deranged for me to turn on a dime and, just because you agreed with me, I then declare that strawberry ice cream is the worst flavor idea to ever come about and that I would never eat strawberry ice cream.
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I have no problem with politicians on either side taking a stand on basic beliefs that are in stark contrast to one another. However, someone who turns on a dime to abandon and then defeat their own idea or an idea they championed just because the leader of the other party says that they liked it is acting like petulant child. I’m sorry, but someone like that doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously or listened to.
With regard to the transparency issue, I think there’s a legitimate difference between having a genuine public debate, on one hand, and cooperating with the opposing party’s dog and pony show on the other. You can’t work up a thousand-page proposal in secret, schedule a brief public summit with the opposition to hash things out, and claim “look, we’re being transparent!” For one thing, by doing it this way, you put all of the focus on the Republicans; it’s like they’re being called on the carpet to explain why they’re not on board with saving American lives. Now, if the Democrats were to blow the whole proposal up and start over, and the Republicans then balked, you’d have a point.
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For some of the other stuff, it’s possible for people to change their minds. I’d be curious to know how many of the ideas that the Republicans have pulled a 180 on were recent. The example that springs to mind was Joe Lieberman’s flip on expanding Medicare to 55 year olds. When he objected to its inclusion in a health care package, people pointed out that he’d endorsed it when running in 2000. Lieberman’s response, that he thought it was a good idea nine years ago but had changed his mind since, isn’t exactly an exercise in hypocrisy, but it was often depicted as one. If these are recent proposals that the Republicans are changing their minds on, then fine, it’s hypocrisy. If they’re more than a year old, “we weren’t running a $1.5 trillion a year deficit when I suggested that” is a pretty good counter-argument.
You can’t work up a thousand-page proposal in secret
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Be fair. It was a <200 page proposal that, once given 1.5" margins and 36 pt font became over a thousand pages.
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I read it. At work, and not even during my break but during down time while waiting for reports to run. Took about 45 minutes.
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Although, I guess if you were being fair, you'd also point out that the main reason that Republicans don't want public debate is because supporting something Obama likes loses them votes, and denying the under-employed health care loses them votes. Their best bet is to make the decisions behind closed doors and hope that their followers don't read the list of names who voted this way or that, and instead believe what the pundits on Fox News claim happened.
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Theno
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The other side of the transparency coin in regards to the Republicans is that I don’t believe that the Republicans would want to have an open, on the record and on video discussion with the president because he might actually point out in real time things that they don’t want pointed out. They’ve been great when making press statements about how they could consider maybe supporting a bill if only it had certain items in it and then walking away from the podium without taking any serious questions. Makes a great sound byte and it gets lots of play as every news station and news break repeats the highlights of the days news. Wouldn’t work as well in an interactive scenario where Boehner ticks off his list as per the other day and then the president points out that most of it, per negotiations with the Republicans, is in the bill.
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Kinda makes for a less than great sound byte as far as they’re concerned and it would likely make them look like tools.
“I don’t think it’s a matter of always doing the opposite of what Obama wants.”
Then you haven’t been paying much attention.
Of course they say it’s a trap. They’ve got nothin’ and they know it.
“Put up or shut up” is always a trap when you know they can’t do either.
As I’ve said before, the Republicans have no intention of discussing health care reform. Ever.
I think Jerry and Craig have hit the bullseye. It is so sad to see natural progress being exchanged for petty, playground bickering.
Or to disagree with everyone here…If Obama had opened up ALL negotiations *as promised*, there would be no need for this discussion at all, and maybe, just maybe, 55% of Americans wouldn’t be opposed to what is going on.
Do I think this is a “trap”…No. But what it is, is a convenient way for Obama to claim he is keeping his promise, in part. Now, he can continue to brand Republicans the “Party of No” if they disagree with him (for all the world to see), while his party was easily allowed to make sweetheart, backroom deals far from public view.
A savvy political move, really.
No, even if every single meeting had been open door, this still would have happened.
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Look at the track record so far. Mitch McConnell lists off four things the bill has to have for them to vote for it, things like tort reform and insurance exchange. All of them get in the bill, but then the Republicans say that none of their ideas are being considered, so they won’t vote for it. The Republicans complain about closed door meetings, then call an open door meeting a trap. The Republicans got a chance to meet with the President, but instead of asking real questions they tossed out ridiculous sound bites like “The yearly deficits of Republicans have become the monthly deficits of Democrats.”
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The Republican resistance was going to happen no matter what Obama did. This is a party that unanimously voted against and *anti-rape* bill. This is a party that has filibustered every major bill since 2006, something that has never come close to happening before.
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The simple fact is, there’s no political advantage for them to give the President any leeway. They’ve called him an evil socialist so much that the only people voting for them are the hardcore who would turn on them if they *did* vote with the President even once. The Republican politicians have simply put themselves in a position where they have no other option than to obstruct everything if they don’t want to get primaried out by even more hardcore opponents.
This is a party that has filibustered every major bill since 2006
Actually the Dems take a lot of blame there. How many filibusters have the Repubs actually done? The threat of filibuster has been enough to keep the Dems in line.
That’s not the Dems, Sean. That’s how it’s been on both sides for a long time, ever since the Senate created the procedural filibuster. It’s not that they haven’t filibustered, it’s that these days there’s a type of filibuster that is basically just a procedural way of tabling discussion. They take a cloture vote and if it doesn’t get 60 votes, then the bill is said to be successfully filibustered. This is how it has been for decades now.
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The idea was that instead of the senate grinding to a halt every time someone filibusters, they’d skip that part and just see if everyone agreed to overrule the filibuster or not. It was a great idea as long as they treated it like real filibusters and used it sparingly. But in the 2007 to 2008 term, there were 112 cloture votes. That’s more than double than had been in any term before.
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“Actually the Dems take a lot of blame there. How many filibusters have the Repubs actually done?”
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Quite a few actually. The number of filibusters used by the Republicans last year was greater than the total used in congress in the prior two or three years combined. If I find the official tally some time today I’ll post them.
But in the 2007 to 2008 term, there were 112 cloture votes. That’s more than double than had been in any term before.
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The problem with counting it that way is that not all cloture votes are in response to real or threatened filibusters. Majority leaders have started using them to structure debates– once the cloture motion passes, the thing is up for debate in 30 hours. You’d need to actually do a study to see which votes were in response to filibusters, and which were docket management.
I phrased that badly. It should have read, “the thing is up for vote in 30 hours.”
This is a party that unanimously voted against and *anti-rape* bill.
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That’s not true, actually. I don’t have the info available, but about 12 of the Republican Senators voted for the bill (including, notably, every female Republican in the Senate). I don’t know the figures for the House. On the other hand, I wouldn’t have been surprised if there had been unanimous Republican vote in support of a filibuster to prevent the measure from coming up to a vote. The Republicans have shown greater party discipline there. Once something actually gets on the floor for a vote, they’re more likely to vote like humans instead of the Borg Collective.
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True if the anti-rape bill he is talking about was the Franken bill. It passed 68-30 with 30 of the 40 republicans voting against it. Still not the greatest number in the world for their side…
My mistake. You’re right, only about a fourth of the Republicans against the anti-rape bill.
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But David, you’re wrong about number of the cloture votes not being dámņìņg. Democrats and Republicans have both been in the majority before and this giant spike in cloture votes has never happened. It *is* proportional to the filibuster threats from the Republicans. The Republicans (and I checked this time) voted against a bipartisan deficit committee that they’d been asking for, including the 7 members who *co-sponsored* it. There’s no point in arguing that they’re not being obstructionist.
David Hunt, excuse me, your post is separate from David the Bold’s and I shouldn’t have lumped them together.
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Seriously Michaeljjt? It’s a savvy political move to claim that Obama needs to do something and then turn on a dime and decry that thing as bad if Obama says that it’s a good idea or agrees to do it?
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I’m sorry, but that’s not a savvy political move. That’s a demented version of Monty Python’s Argument Clinic sketch minus the intelligence, wit and humor. That’s the attitude of a spoiled brat four year old who has decided that he’s not going to do what his parents say and just crosses his arms and stamps his feet about everything.
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And, especially in this age of wall to wall video coverage, it’s less than savvy to have video footage of yourself decrying the need for open to the public discussions on a matter followed by footage of the same person responding to the invitation to have open to the public discussions about the subject in question by saying that there are things like this subject where work is done by staffers and aids and it’s better when they can deal with the details behind closed doors and out of the public eye. Seriously Michaeljjt, you think making yourself and your side look like the most nakedly hypocritical tools in the debate is a savvy political move?
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Well, guess I got the answer to my above question.
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Screwed up rewriting in a hurry.
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“video footage of yourself decrying the need for open to the public discussions on a matter”
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… should be…
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“video footage of yourself crying for open to the public discussions on a matter”
It’s a savvy political move to claim that Obama needs to do something and then turn on a dime and decry that thing as bad if Obama says that it’s a good idea or agrees to do it?
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It is if your hardcore supporters don’t actually pay attention to what you say, but instead just believe what you are saying now.
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One of my friends did the exact same thing. He complained in Jan that “Obama wants things discussed behind closed doors so that the public won’t be able to complain about his socialist bill,” but now claims, “Obama wants the discussions televised in hopes that he can catch some Senators in a Got-cha momment and get them voted out.”
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Theno
Is anyone surprised by this? The Republicans have done *nothing* to dispel the idea that they are the Party Of No. Here’s a chance for them to say what they want in health care — and they’re calling that a trap.
That said, I’m also disappointed with how quickly Obama seems to be caving in. Just because the Democrats no longer have a fillibuster-proof majority, he immediately started scaling back plans and abandoning many of the plans he had been saying were great for Americans the week before. What happened to negotiation? Why assume that not one Republican can be worked with? Leadership often means working together with the opposition, finding common ground; it’s not all or nothing.
I think that the Democrats should milk the GOP filibuster for all it’s worth. At this point the GOP simply has to say they’re GOING to filibuster and the Democrats fold. Screw that. Make them actually filibuster. These guys aren’t Jimmy Stewart, eloquent and passionate even as their knees buckle and their throats go raw. They’re going to stand there reading phone books and grocery lists and provide nothing but obstructionism, which the Democrats should then turn into a series of commercials themed around, “The GOP at Work.” And you underscore every positive thing the Democrats were trying to do, and intercut that with footage of the GOP fighting to prevent it by reading nursery rhymes. Make them look like idiots by being themselves.
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That assumes a few things–like most Democrats really want the bill to pass. I have my doubts. If it were so popular they might not have to bribe people with massive pork spending to get their vote. The most convincing arguments I’ve heard for why they should pass the bill seem to be that NOT passing the bill would hurt their re-election chances more than passing. This is not because the bill is so great but because they are already going to get blamed by people who hate the bill for letting it get this far and by not passing it they will also be blamed by those who like it. Plus, the stench of failure never is appealing.
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All that is quite likely true but it does not indicate a bill that has much support.
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Painting Republicans as the architects of the bill’s demise will only hurt them if the bill’s demise is unpopular. Is it? Depends on who does the polling and what they ask, I’m sure, but the recent poll from Gallup said that by 55% to 39%, Americans want the president and Congress to suspend work on the healthcare bill and consider alternatives rather than trying to pass the current version. So I don’t know if that will win many votes the Democrats already don’t have.
Make them actually filibuster.
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Hear! Hear!
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If the Dems weren’t suck spineless idiots they would actually have had some progress to brag about.
Make them look like idiots by being themselves.
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Indeed. The Dems could learn a lot from The Daily Show.
The problem with “making them actually filibuster,” is that the whole point of having the cloture rule is to prevent that sort of spectacle. You’re right, the Majority Leader can require an actual floor speeches, but generally he doesn’t for two good reasons. (1) If the filibustering Senators have the floor, they have the floor. Meaning nothing can get done for as long as the filibuster is in effect. If you do that, then the opposition filibusters the entire Senate, not just that one bill. (2) If the crash and burn of Karl Rove’s delusion about a “permanent governing majority” teaches us anything, it’s that such things do not exist in America. Whatever the Democrats do with filibusters now, they will have to face the next time Republicans have 51 votes in the Senate. Bear in mind that the Democrats filibustered the Federal Marriage Amendment. Twice. And they filibustered lots of President Bush’s judicial appointments. filibusters the entire Senate, not just that one bill. (2) If the crash and burn of Karl Rove’s delusion about a “permanent governing majority” teaches us anything, it’s that such things do not exist in America. Whatever the Democrats do with filibusters now, they will have to face the next time Republicans have 51 votes in the Senate. (And there’s no shortage of Democratic Senators who can also be made to look like idiots by being themselves. For instance, Minnesota elects them fairly routinely.)
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Bear in mind that the Democrats filibustered the Federal Marriage Amendment. Twice. And they filibustered lots of President Bush’s judicial appointments. A core of moderate (or at least moderate-ish) Senators from both parties resolved the showdown over cloture in judicial nominations because they thought it was valuable to have that check on single-party rule. Think about how unhappy you were when the GOP had both Houses of Congress and the Presidency under Bush. Imagine how you’d have felt if the Republicans decided to shake up a sixth of the national economy without a single Democratic member voting in favor. That’s how we feel now. So of course if there’s a way to prevent what we think is a disaster, we’re going to take it. It’s legal and nonviolent– we’re not exactly Orval Faubus and Harry Byrd leading massive resistance here.
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I’d also quibble with the description of “every positive thing the Democrats were trying to do.” I’ve no doubt the Democrats sincerely believe they’re trying to do something positive. I also have no doubt anything they manage will be a net negative. I’m happy to see the GOP trying to minimize the damage until the next election cycle. Besides, I think your “GOP at Work” commercials will be matched by another set of GOP commercials, entitled “This is the Democratic Idea of Bipartisanship,” lamenting that this is what they’ve reduced the Senate to, with a few choice clips of John McCain addressing the chair to point out that he’d been speaking lo these n hours straight to try to forestall disaster.
Okay, Firefox did something weird to that last post. We apologise for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible have
been sacked.
The problem with “making them actually filibuster,” is that the whole point of having the cloture rule is to prevent that sort of spectacle.
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Which is an argument for getting rid of the cloture rule. They want to oppose legislation, to hold it up via filibuster, without being seen to hold it up by filibuster.
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This, along with “anonymous holds” and other rules Congress has made for itself that allow members to avoid taking responsibility for their actions should be repugnant to anyone with a sense of decency or ethics.
If the filibustering Senators have the floor, they have the floor. Meaning nothing can get done for as long as the filibuster is in effect.
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No, something certainly can be done. Perhaps not on the floor of the Senate, but outside the Dems could be pounding on the message that the Senate is stalled because of the filibuster. That “nothing can get done for as long as teh filibuster is in effect” should be trumpeted.
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Make the filibuster something nobody would WANT to try, because they know the popular conception is that the filibuster-er will be pilloried.
Make the filibuster something nobody would WANT to try, because they know the popular conception is that the filibuster-er will be pilloried.
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I don’t want the filibuster-er to be pilloried. I like a minority having a check on the majority. I like having a big speed bump in the Senate. Single-party rule didn’t work well from 2003-2007, it certainly doesn’t work well now, and it probably won’t work well in the future. I’m perfectly OK with having a de facto supermajority requirement for big “reforms.”
I like a minority having a check on the majority. I like having a big speed bump in the Senate.
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I agree with you.
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However, I also like holding people accountable for things. I dislike a senator voting against Bill A, and then going to their constituents and telling them that he supported Bill A.
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I especially dislike a senator publically supporting Action B, and then suddenly opposing it when the only visible trigger for the change is the fact that the Democrats support it.
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It makes me feel like the Republicans don’t actually have an agenda beyond “make the next two to four years meaningless by opposing everything, even our own.”
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And, that isn’t governing. That isn’t leading. That is making sure that they are seen to oppose the man that their vocal supporters compared to Hitler and called a terrorist during the election.
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Theno
Thenodrin, I’d be inclined to agree with you, if you’d strike the use of “Republicans” and “Democrats” and just use “politicians.” Hypocrisy is emphatically not a partisan issue. (Neither is demonizing the opposing President by comparing him to Hitler, if you’ll recall antiwar protests during President Bush’s administration, and the leftist blogosphere from 2003 until… well, now.) It’s an enduring problem in all of politics, and all parties. Probably not just in Washington either; all elected officials have an incentive to become weathervanes.
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In support of my position, I’d like Sen. Durbin (D-IL), the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, to discuss his opinion on filibusters:
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I speak, as a Senator on the Democratic side, and tell you that our 45 Members will not be intimidated. We will stand together… The filibuster, which requires that 60 Senators come together to resolve the most controversial issues, that rule in the Senate, forces compromise. It forces the Republicans to reach across the aisle and bring in some Democrats when they have very controversial legislation or controversial nominees. It forces bipartisanship–something that tells us, at the end of the day, we will have more moderate men and women who will serve us in the judiciary. Those who would attack and destroy the institution of the filibuster are attacking the very force within the Senate that creates compromise and bipartisanship.
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For another viewpoint, I’d like Sen. Durbin (D-IL), the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, to discuss his opinion on filibusters. Oh, I’m sorry, his spokesman, Joe Shoemaker, advises me that he’s unavailable because he’s busily “in talks with a number of other Democratic senators regarding possible changes to Senate rules.” It seems he is supporting Sen. Harkin (D-IA) in his proposal to modify the cloture rule to require decreasing supermajorities of 60, 57, 54, and then 51 votes to cut off debate as a filibuster proceeds.
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I’d therefore like Cookie Monster to give us the final word:
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One of these things is not like the other things. One of these things just doesn’t belong.
David, I didn’t say that I wanted to hold Republicans, Democrats, or even Politicians accountable to what they claim to support. I said “people.”
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I also said that I don’t like a Senator changing from support to oppose when the only visible catalyst for the change is that the Democrats support it.
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I can’t think of a single example during the Bush administration where a Democrat went from asking for a consideration, and then when he or she got it went back and continued to oppose claiming that they didn’t get what they asked for.
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Furthermore, I agree with Durbin. It would be nice if Democrats reached across the aisle. Oh, wait. They are doing that. The GOP said that the President was going against his promise to keep things open, but when he offers to publicly televise the debate they call it “a trap.” (The example that started the thread.)
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Furthermore, many changes to the health care bill have come because Republicans said that they would not support it without the change, and then they continued to oppose it.
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Again, that isn’t governing. That is opposing anything that comes over, under, around or through the aisle.
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I have to believe that the GOP does not have a plan, and does not have an agenda beyond opposing any and everything. They don’t want considerations; because when they get them they claim they didn’t. They don’t want bi-partisanship; because when they get it they claim they didn’t. They don’t want transparency because that might actually reveal that they got things that they claim they did not.
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Theno
David, I didn’t say that I wanted to hold Republicans, Democrats, or even Politicians accountable to what they claim to support. I said “people.”
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Are you sure? Because it looks to me like every example you suggest is a Bad Republican turning on the Collegial Democrats. Or, as you phrased it:
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I can’t think of a single example during the Bush administration where a Democrat went from asking for a consideration, and then when he or she got it went back and continued to oppose claiming that they didn’t get what they asked for.
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What, you mean like if a Democratic Senator supported something and then claimed it was a horrible law? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Sen. Harry Reid’s response to the Supreme Court opinion in Gonzales v. Carhart, which upheld the Federal partial birth abortion ban. “I would only say that this isn’t the only decision a lot of us wish that Alito weren’t there and O’Connor were there.” Reid had something different to say when the law in question was up for a vote: “aye.” (In fact he voted in favor of the ban on two different proposed bills, one in 1999, the other in 2003.) Apparently someone pointed this out to him, because his office issued a clarification the next day. “Senator Reid supported the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban and supports the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday. However, Senator Reid continues to disagree with Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito on many issues and that is why he opposed their confirmation.” Right, he wishes the Justice who previously voted to overturn partial birth abortion bans were still there instead of the one who upheld the constitutionality of his own vote, but he’s glad it came out the way it did. Which, of course, is why he went to the trouble of condemning the opinion and saying it was a symbol of why he wishes the Justices weren’t on the Court. “I just don’t like what Alito has done on other cases,” he said later. Of course, he waited until after Alito voted in a way he wanted him to vote, to take him to task for his legal reasoning. In, apparently, other cases, though it may be that he thought Alito was right for the wrong reasons on this occasion. All clear?
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Yeah, supporting a measure when the wind is blowing one way and decrying it when the wind changes is strictly a Republican characteristic. Sure.
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Unless, perhaps, you think that objecting to the survival of a law you voted for based on poor reasoning in the Court opinion is materially different from opposing a law that contains provisions you supported at one point? (I certainly think it’s different. I think Reid’s version is worse.)
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Furthermore, many changes to the health care bill have come because Republicans said that they would not support it without the change, and then they continued to oppose it.
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Just because something is necessary for the Republicans to support the bill doesn’t mean it’s sufficient. The bill could (and, I think, does) still contain poison pills, even if it also contains measures the Republicans previously support. The Democratic plan– either the Senate or House one– is premised on individual mandates. That’s something that’s difficult for a lot of Republicans to swallow, even if other things are changed in the bill to make it otherwise less hideous. An only slightly crappy bill still merits a “nay” vote. And there’s no way for the Democratic bill to avoid an individual mandate, because with the provision barring the use of preexisting conditions to deny coverage, if there’s no individual mandate only sick people would get insurance, and the whole thing goes blooey. And of course if the ultimate plan involves a “public option,” which Pelosi suggests is necessary for the House to sign on to anything the Senate passes, by hook, crook, or reconciliation, there’s really nothing to negotiate over because that’s an absolute bright line for the Republicans.
David, you give a good example of a Democrat changing his position. However, it doesn’t fit my question of someone changing their position when the only catalyst for the change is the opposing party giving consideration.
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Harry Reid’s switch doesn’t make sense, true. It was clearly pandering to the voters. And, he is a prime example for why I support term limits. (One, I believe pandering goes down when they aren’t up for infinite re-elections; two, I dislike when people such as John Stewart pull up sound bytes from years ago to “prove” that someone is a windsock.) But, he isn’t on the same level as:
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1) Asking for transparency, and then refusing it.
2) Asking for the public option to be taken off, getting it, and then claiming that there is no effort to move to the middle.
3) Accusing the President of not giving concessions, receiving them, and then still claiming they are not there.
4) Trying to expand government (taking tort from the state level to the federal) while claiming to make it smaller.
5) Etc.
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And, all of that is in the span of 8 months. Some of it 8 weeks. Not 8 years. And, I think that also makes it different.
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Furthermore, I think it all demonstrates a lack of ability to either communicate a plan, or (more likely) to have one.
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Theno
The Dems need to go nuclear and get rid of the filibuster no matter if it helps the GOP 4 or 8 years from now. They need to understand that 51 out of 100 is a MAJORITY. In elections one doesn’t NEED 60% to win so WTF?
Push these bášŧárdš aside if they can’t DO anything and get something done.
I see that Ezra Klein has said much the same thing, though far more articulately: You all know I’m big on procedure. You’ve also noticed I’m not writing about this. I don’t buy it. What Democrats can do is a lot less important than what they want to do. If 51 Democratic senators and 218 Democratic congresspeople are dead-serious about passing a bill, they can, and will, pass a bill. One of the two chambers will go first, and the other will go second. If that many Democrats were committed to this project, the other chamber won’t fear their colleagues leaving them hanging out to dry. It’s a fairly straightforward path to passage, and they’d begin walking down it. That they haven’t moved is evidence that will is missing, not that the rules are too complex.
That would be nice to see, but PAD, you’re essentially asking people in “The Beltway” [cue music] (duh-duh-DUHHHHHH!!!!!) to actually think beyond the sound bite on CNN. To be honest, I am a registered Republican, but I do believe in health care reform. I don’t like the idea that MILLIONS are uncovered, but we won’t get clever Dems shaming the GOP with a clever trap, we’ll still see each side sound bite mudslinging, ignoring the very constituents they are supposed to represent, because they wanna look good on TV, And THAT’s why nothing REAL gets done in Washington, because every politician is “ready for [their] close-up Mr. DeMille!”
You’re right, the sound bite mentality is a major problem. Often it’s why they want to do things behind closed doors, because real work only gets done when there aren’t any cameras around. The problem is that transparency in government is also a good thing, so it turns into a “dámņëd if you do, dámņëd if you don’t” situation.
This is somewhat off-topic, but without inflaming the great debate regarding Israeli-Palestinian relations (In other words, I’m not gonna be responsible for sidetracking/”highjacking” this blog entry’s comments. You wanna extended discussion, ask PAD for the relevant thread space.) But, if want to see cleverness in politics that I previously lamented the lack of in Washington, check this out: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9DQQLG83&show_article=1
That should say, “if YOU want to see”
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There are times that I read things like that when I don’t know whether or not to laugh at some of the aspects of the story.
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The protesters are dressing up as Na’vi to protest against the barrier near the village of Bilin. They view the barrier as “a land grab” by Israel. Yet the same story then relates that the protest started “a day after the Israeli government began rerouting the enclosure to eat up less of the Palestinian village.”
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So, by this account, they decided to start protesting a “land grab” that’s actually being worked on to give them more space/land after that work has already started.
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Ooooookay.
Well, that’s seems stupid if you assume the Palestinians are taking the Israelis at face value. If you assume massive distrust, not as silly sounding.
That is pretty smart of the Palestinians. And I can already see how more people than ever will say James Cameron is a anti-American clueless liberal.
But you know what I dislike in the Avatar metaphor? I have no great problem with America/Israel being portrayed as ruthless and greedy, but it bothers me that the Na’vi are so frigging perfect and utopic. If Cameron wanted to carry the metaphor further, the Na’vi should have had some unsavory customs, like the Na’vi females being treated as second-class citizens instead of being kick-ášš warriors fighting side-by-side with the males.
(Not to mention that it’s so gøddámņëd condescending and imperialistic that the Na’vi Messiah has to be a redeemed “white man.” Hey, the “primitives” always need a white man to lead them, even in a movie that demonizes “white men.”)
Well, you need someone for the audience to identify with. It’s an old cliche and one that is not just limited to white guys showing the natives (who, after all, have only lived there forever) how to fight to protect their native lands. The original Buck Rogers novel Armageddon 2419 A.D (which would make a GREAT movie once they ditch the “yellow peril” racist elements) had a white guy from the past who showed the white guys from the future how to fight–their modern weapons were no match for his primitive know-how.
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And it goes all the way back to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. You know, even though people back then were all a bunch of superstitious primitive screwheads, they probably were still better adapted to life than the average modern man would be. About the only thing most people would actually be better at would be in the area of personal hygiene and the resulting decreased likelihood of death from lack if same. Which is something.
Yes, the GOP is hypocritical. Yes, the GOP is obstructionist. Yes the GOP is unreasonable. But, and I say this as a lifelong liberal Democrat, and the son of lifelong liberal Democrats, I envy the GOP for its ability to ‘rally the troops’.
Just remember what the great Will Rogers said: I don’t belong to an organised political party…I’m a Democrat.”
Now I will admit that I’m biased, but I seem to remember when there were some reasonable Republicans in the Senate. People like pre 1996 Bob Dole, pre 2001 John McCain, even good ol’ ‘Senator Pot Hole’ himself, Al D’Amato. People who truly did put country before party. Even,(and I can’t believe I’m saying this) pre 2000 Ðìçk Cheney. Where has the civility in public discourse gone?
Where has the civility in public discourse gone?
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It probably died sometime during the reign of that guy some democrats referred to as “Chimpy McHitlerburton aka Shrub(keep your hands off my) Bush” aka Smirky O’Babykiller aka …
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Seriously, I don’t think things are nearly as bad as folks think–the history of US politics is not at all all rainbows and handshakes. Modern presidents get off easy compared to the stuff that was said about Jefferson or Lincoln, to name just two.
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But when it’s someone you like getting trashed it seems worse. The old bit about oxes getting gored. It’s just that with the internet it’s a whole lot easier to point out how just a few short years ago the filibuster was seen as a noble tradition by some of the same people who see it now as an archaic impediment to progress. Memories are short but digital caches are forever.
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Me, I like seeing the guys and gals in Washington having to worry about their words being thrown back at them by a new breed of journalist that is not so easily bought off. Right now we have about as sorry a breed of political class as could be imagined. Maybe we are about to see something new. Here’s hoping.
Bill,
You’re forgetting Johnson implying that Goldwater would start World War III. Or Ted Kennedy’s “Robert Bork’s America” speech.
Wait, Bill, oxen were getting gored? Oxen are responsible for global warming and the internet?
In all seriousness though, the habit of vieing the past as the sunnier side s an old one. In my one psychology class, we talked at length about it. Prior to JFK being shot, there were just as many detractors being vocal about the administration as any other. After of course JFK was elevated to the near mythic storybook status. For all the remember the Montana or remember the Alamo or remember whatever types you hear about, people don’ WANT to remember. People don’t LIKE unpleasantness. It’s not that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, it’s that the grass was greener on the other side of the second hand.
But, and I say this as a lifelong liberal Democrat, and the son of lifelong liberal Democrats, I envy the GOP for its ability to ‘rally the troops’.
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To say nothing of their disconcerting knack for walking in complete lockstep. They stay on message and have Fox to put that message out.
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PAD
Complete goosestep is more like it.
Wow, I *never* pick Luigi in the Godwin’s Law pool.
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Oh knock off the GOP=Nazi crap, Luigi. It’s old, it’s tired and it’s stupid.
Normally I’d be inclined to agree, but when mainstream members of the GOP loudly and proudly call for torture and approve of techniques that are identical to those used by the Gestapo (even down to the using the same euphemism of “enhanced interrogation”), I believe that sometimes the Nazi analogy is apt.
Do you really think it’s so different now? The Taliban’s top military leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, was captured in Karachi the other day (and Kudos to the armed forces and its commander in chief for that! I hope that no conservatives will beclown themselves as some of our more liberal brethern and sistern did when they greeted every capture or kill during the Bush years as some kind of staged event meant to bolster sagging poll numbers) and is now being interrogated by both American and Pakistani forces. Do you doubt for a moment that our Pakistani partners are not treating him in ways that are far worse than what the guys at Guantanamo have ever suffered? Guantanamo, which is still open for business despite all promises to the contrary (I know, I know; we can’t expect the president to keep a promise when those mean old Republicans might say hurtful things about him if he were to do it.)
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But while I share the disappointment that it was Luigi who played the National Socialist card, it doesn’t bother me–who takes that seriously? Being called a nazi has lost a lot of its sting, when it can be so carelessly used to describe anyone who has views that are simply the opposite of one’s own (and if they have the temerity to have those opinions and act on them with other like minded individuals…why it’s the goose stepping hordes! Lock up the women and hide your Jewish friends in the attic!)
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You know, one of the reasons (a very minor reason but still a reason) that i supported Obama was that I thought it would be good for the liberals to have a victory, maybe stop all this negative view so many had about the country and its future. But dámņ…they are angrier than ever. Winning has just made them anxious about losing the victory, some of them (as always, never ALL of them) are acting like a kid who gets a toy and spends so much time worrying about someone else playing with it that he never gets to enjoy it. (And if the election were held tomorrow that would well be true–they’d probably lose the House and Senate) (But it ISN’T held tomorrow and I have full faith that the Republican Party has not been out of power long enough to truly learn the needed lessons. I don’t see enough depth of talent in the party to take full advantage of the moment and by November the Democrats and the president will be in better shape. I think. I was sure wrong about Scott Brown though, so what do I know?)
I thought it would be good for the liberals to have a victory, maybe stop all this negative view so many had about the country and its future.
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Well, I’m a pessimist by nature, so I’m probably not going to help any here, but oh well.
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Yeah, Obama ran on hope, and the Democrats now aren’t being very hopeful as a whole; too many expectations that aren’t being met overnight, I suppose.
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But it’s not like the Republicans have been any better. If anything, it’s just that politics in general are getting worse and worse.
Actually, Bill, I think that civil discourse started it’s erosion with McGovern and Wallace ran for office, because THEIR supporters saw the candidates as no BS, throw mud at the other party, kinda guys. As time went these McGovern/Wallacites have taken office. Then you had Tip O’Neill as speaker try to fight for the hearts and minds of every person by saying the GOP is “Evil! EVILLLLLLL” (OK, so he actually didn’t, but he would say the GOP was bad. Ijust think that Zippergate and Bush v. Gore just put the nail in the coffin
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Nah, you would have to go a lot farther back than that. Like, say, the start of American politics. It’s always been bad. Sometimes it’s even been worse than now.
Absolutely. I love hearing Dorris Kearns Goodwin talk about the awful things people used to say about each other in politics. Like creating a song about Van Buren deserving “the lowest place in hëll.” My personal favorite: Thomas Jefferson calling his opponent a “howling hermaphrodite.” On the other side, Adams supporters had claimed that if Jefferson got elected, rape and murder would be taught in schools.
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Politics has never been civil.
It’s been worse in terms of the character and things that were said. What changed matters, though, was television. Snipes, rumors and innuendos, not to mention inconvenient truths, wound up in the living rooms of the voters. It could be argued that that’s a positive thing, disseminating information that voters should know. On the other hand, voters seemed to get along just fine not knowing the particulars of Thomas Jefferson’s sex life. And in Aaron Sorkin’s “The American President,” the chief of staff (disconcertingly played by Martin Sheen, who seems like he should be the POTUS) warns his boss who’s contemplating starting a romance with a lobbyist, “You said it yourself a million times: Sixty years ago, if there had been a television in every living room, this country does not elect a man in a wheel chair.”
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PAD
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True, television has not helped matters, but the simple fact is that the majority of people out there are either too lazy, too stupid or too in love with a POV they want to hear to look at the actual source of a news story or look something up for themselves even if it’s something important to them. Hëll, some people can’t be bothered to look something up when all they have to do is turn a newspaper page.
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Someone wants to believe that Bush claimed that the Constitution was just a “gøddámņ piece of paper” than the fact that there is no credible source for it doesn’t matter. It’s true and they don’t need to bother looking it up. Someone wants to believe that Obama never used words like “terrorists” or “terrorism” in several key speeches and it’s true despite the fact that three seconds of research shows that it’s untrue.
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I’m sure that someone here will say that I’m being elitist or some such garbage, but the sad fact is that there are a lot of gullible people out there and there are a lot of people out there that want “their side” to be the right side all the time no matter what the facts say. Sad but true.
Anti-Nixon ad: “Would you buy a used car from this man?”
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Anti-Nixon/Agnew ad: “One heartbeat away from the Presidency.”
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And then there’s “Ma! Ma! Where’s my Pa? Gone to the White House! Ha Ha Ha!”
Or the slanders of Andy Jackson’s wife’s good name that led to a duel. (One of the few things Jackson did that i actually approve of, in the context of the day.)
Or Burr/Hamilton – the duel was ultimately the proximate result of “Hamilton’s journalistic defamation of Burr’s character during the 1804 New York gubernatorial race in which Burr was a candidate.
Jerry Chandler,
“Seriously Michaeljjt? It’s a savvy political move to claim that Obama needs to do something and then turn on a dime and decry that thing as bad if Obama says that it’s a good idea or agrees to do it?”
Reread his post, Jerry. He said it was a savvy political move by OBAMA
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I read it three times. It can read that way, but the opening line about his having to disagree with everyone here seemed to tip it in the other direction.
Actually, is it not possible that the reason the Democrats can’t pass health care despite Scott Brown’s election knocking down the largest governing majotity we’ve seen in a generation to merely the SECOND-largest majority we’ve seen in a generation is that not enough of them truly belive strongly enough that it is the right thing to do?
That and the fact that they are in fear of losing their jobs? I actually do belive there are enough Democrats to persuasive change minds and principled to lose their jobs if they thought history would vindicate them or if, put simply, THEY THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD BILL, WHICH MANY DON’T. Heck, they could likely have swayed moderates like Collins and Snowe if the bill was truly centrist, which it’s not.
What doesn’t help is they feel they atr being led by a President who seems tone deaf to the way Americans are reacting.
As Peggy Noonan put it in her latest column, in which she is convinced Obama is perfectly fine being a one-term president:
“Obama shows every sign of meaning it, and if he does, it explains a lot about his recent decisions and actions.”
‘A week after the Sawyer interview, the president had a stunning and revealing exchange with Sen. Blanche Lincoln, the Arkansas Democrat likely to lose her 2010 re-election campaign. He was meeting with Senate Democrats to urge them to continue with his legislative agenda. Mrs. Lincoln took the opportunity to beseech him to change it. She urged him to distance his administration from “people who want extremes,” and to find “common ground” with Republicans in producing legislation that would give those in business the “certainty” they need to create jobs.”
“While answering, Mr. Obama raised his voice slightly and quickened his cadence. “If the price of certainty is essentially for us to adopt the exact same proposals that were in place leading up to the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression . . . the result is going to be the same. I don’t know why we would expect a different outcome pursuing the exact same policy that got us in this fix in the first place.” He continued: “If our response ends up being, you know . . . we don’t want to stir things up here,” then “I don’t know why people would say, ‘Boy, we really want to make sure those Democrats are in Washington fighting for us.'”
“When I saw the videotape later, I wondered how the senator, now down by as much as 23 points in her bid for re-election, felt. Actually I wanted to ask, “Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?””
“The Washington Post’s Charles Lane, one of the few journalists to note the exchange, said he found it revealing in two ways: First, the president equates becoming more centrist with becoming more like George W. Bush, and second, he apparently sees movement to the center as a political loser.”
Noonan ened her column with this:
“Democrats in Congress, on the other hand, may choose this spring to save themselves by revolting—not only against the Republicans, but against the possible one-termer who jeopardizes their positions”
Perfectly said.
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Tell me, did you agree with Mrs. Noonan when she said that Palin did not demonstrate “the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office” or said that Palin’s candidacy marked a “vulgarization in American Politics” that is “no good… for conservatism… [or] the country” as well?
Jerome, that argument doesn’t make sense to me.
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Suppose that I’m out fishing with my friend Mark. Mark drills 10 holes in the boat, and the boat sinks. A fellow fisherman sells us his boat for $7,000 and Mark talks me into going halves on it because we have to fish together (no other fishermen in the cul-de-sac can afford a boat and have to fish off the shore.)
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So, we are out fishing and Mark starts drilling holes again. I try to stop him and he gets mad and suggests that I meet him halfway and only let him drill 5 holes instead of 10. He then claims that the boat won’t sink if we just drill five, and points out that even though he sank the last boat by drilling holes at least we are still fishing.
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If this were two people, Mark would be declared insane.
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But, it sounds like you are suggesting that because this is two political parties, I am the one being unreasonable and being called an extremist.
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Theno
No, Jerry, I did not agree with those statements by Peggy Noonan. Believe it or not, I don’t believe everything people say because of who they are, though it does give them a bit more credibility if they have been credible in the past – though if you want to bring her opinion about Palin up, she also said that when she was first announced that “they are going to have to kill her quick” and “it will be ugly” and “they will make it about her” and she was right about the Democrats and media and how they saw her as a threat and would do everything they could to destroy her. She had said that Palin represented small-town America and that “we have more Wasillas than Chicagos” and that the elites in both parties and the media would look down on her, resent her and think nothing of trying to crush her.
She was right on that score. In spades.
As far as the column I am currently commenting on, Jerry, the point is still valid and that is that the Democrats, if united, would be able to do everything they want to do.Unless it was declared uncontitutional, in which case Nancy Pelosi would simply scream, “Are you serious?”, Obama would classlessly criticize the Supreme Court when he doesn’t even have his facts right and everyone in the media except some on Fox would jump all over Alito again.
But seriously, they could do whatever they wanted if they had the will. But they don’t and that comes from the top so instead of admitting that it becomes easier to demonize the GOP as the “Party of No” rather than face up to the fact that either:
A.) The American people don’t like what they’re doing
B.) The American people do like what they’re doing, but either through incompetence or cowardice they just can’t seem to get it done.
Speaking of which, OF COURSE the meeting with Obama is a trap, but unless the GOP is massively incompetent or cowardly themselves they should milk the opportunity for all it’s worth to raise their objections and put forward positive ideas of their own.
If they can’t do that, they’re as unworthy of the offices they hold as Obama is.
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” No, Jerry, I did not agree with those statements by Peggy Noonan. Believe it or not, I don’t believe everything people say because of who they are”
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Didn’t say you did. Honestly I only brought it up for two reasons. One reason was that I was being snarky just for the hëll of it. The other was to get that out of the way before I said what I was going to say about the original piece. Had I not referenced her comments about Palin, someone would have brought them up as a rebuttal to what I was going to say (“But Peggy has said negative things about Republicans.”) despite the fact that her past statements about Republicans has barely the most superficial relation to my feelings about the piece you cited above.
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I’m not a big fan of Noonan. I’m honestly surprised you are as well. I’ll explain fully why later.
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I’ve seen and heard exchanges like the one she described and I believe that exact one as well. Peggy is using artistic license to paint a picture more extreme in tone than any of the exchanges ever were. The questioner is beseeching and urging rather than just discussing. Partial quotes are used when discussing her POV that he needs to avoid the “people who want extremes” and in presenting the need to “find “common ground” with Republicans in producing legislation that would give those in business the “certainty” they need to create jobs.””
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The op-ed of hers also distorts to a degree how Obama responded. He “raised his” when answering. He didn’t really. She also left out a good deal of what he said.
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Lincoln: “Are we willing, as Democrats, not only to reach out to Republicans, but to push back in our own party for people who want extremes, and look for the common ground that’s going to get us the success that we need not only for our constituents, but for our country, in this global community, in this global economy?”
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Not quite as desperate sounding as her descriptions and the partial quotes made it. It sounds even less so when you can find audio or video of it.
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Obama’s response wasn’t quite as dismissive as the op-ed made it either.
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Obama: “Look, there’s no doubt that this past year’s been an uncertain time for the American people, for businesses and for people employed by businesses. Some of that uncertainty just had to do with the objective reality of this economy entering into a free fall…
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” Let’s remind ourselves that if you’ve got an economy suddenly contracting by 6 percent or a loss of trillions of dollars of wealth basically in the blink of an eye, where home values are descending by 20 percent, that that’s going to create a whole lot of uncertainty out there, in the business environment and among families. …
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” And part of what we’ve done, over the course of this year, is to put a floor under people’s feet. That’s what the Recovery Act did.””
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” If the price of certainty is essentially for us to adopt the exact same proposals that were in place for eight years leading up to the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression — we don’t tinker with health care, let the insurance companies do what they want, we don’t put in place any insurance reforms, we don’t mess with the banks, let them keep on doing what they’re doing now because we don’t want to stir up Wall Street — the result is going to be the same. I don’t know why we would expect a different outcome pursuing the exact same policy that got us into this fix in the first place.”
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He also went on to discuss the middle class and say that they ” are more and more vulnerable, and they have been for the last decade, treading water. And if our response ends up being, you know, because we don’t want to — we don’t want to stir things up here, we’re just going to do the same thing that was being done before, then I don’t know what differentiates us from the other guys. And I don’t know why people would say, boy, we really want to make sure that those Democrats are in Washington fighting for us.”
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Doesn’t quite paint the same picture, does it? It also wouldn’t have painted the same picture if it was mentioned that at the time Obama was publically and repeatedly refusing to go along with attacks on Joe Lieberman while dismissing Howard Dean’s very loud and very public calls to ignore the Republicans, stop seeking nonexistent common ground with them and just go it alone on the bill. Wow. Really paints a different picture of that scenario.
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The rest was some serious speculation and spin. There’s no indication in there that Noonan or Lane attempted to reach and ask Obama or Lincoln about the exchange, they’re just interpreting, and wildly so in Kane’s case, things to fit their narrative.
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Full context kinda blows much of their narrative apart.
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” though if you want to bring her opinion about Palin up, she also said that when she was first announced that “they are going to have to kill her quick” and “it will be ugly” and “they will make it about her” and she was right about the Democrats and media and how they saw her as a threat and would do everything they could to destroy her. She had said that Palin represented small-town America and that “we have more Wasillas than Chicagos” and that the elites in both parties and the media would look down on her, resent her and think nothing of trying to crush her.
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She was right on that score. In spades.”
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I’d love to see the column or transcripts where those quotes are in full context, but the quotes don’t link back to anything By Noonan when put into Google. But here’s something to take note of. This is what Noonan said in 2008, during the campaign, while forgetting the first rule of being around mics that may or may not be live.
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Chuck Todd asked her if this was the most qualified woman the Republicans could nominate. What was her answer? ”The most qualified? No. I think they went for this, excuse me, political bûllšhìŧ about narratives. Every time the Republicans do that, because that’s not where they live and that’s not what they’re good at, they blow it.”
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But, of course, her columns promoted Sarah very nicely, didn’t they.
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See, one of the things I dislike about Noonan is that she tends to publically and transparently toe the partisan line a bit too often for my tastes, but once someone self destructs or becomes unpopular she turns both barrels on them and trashes them. She also likes to paint slanted pictures with very short quotes and biased based descriptions of what happened. She also likes to cover her own ášš after the fact and will throw people she supported under the bus when she thinks they’ve just become too unsupportable even for her.
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It was actually funny to see her commentaries on Bush in the last year and a half of his time in office since not only did some columns display buyer’s remorse, but they showed her being dismayed at the support he had gotten by conservatives for so long. Support that she herself gave by the way.
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She did the same with Palin. She slagged on her in a “private” moment that went public, she promoted her publically and attacked her critic and then, only after Palin left office and seemed to be becoming a joke, she started publically criticizing Palin for being a know nothing lightweight and the campaign for picking her.
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Yeah, I’m not taking much of anything Noonan says too seriously these days. If she thought that the political winds had shifted radically next week and that Obama was about to be sailing high to long and popular success we could look forward to her columns praising his leadership and questioning the people who made baseless and partisan attacks against him when he first took office.
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” As far as the column I am currently commenting on, Jerry, the point is still valid and that is that the Democrats, if united, would be able to do everything they want to do.”
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Yeah, right. The Democrats have never been united. They wouldn’t even stand up to Bush (well, other than by running their mouths) when he was still in office. You’re also confusing “united” with all being of the same mind.
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You can get six different Democrats together who all agree that “A” is great, “A” would work really well and that they should all do “A” as soon as possible. The devil in the details becomes when you try to get them to all approach hammering out the details of how to do it. That was on display with healthcare where you hade Democrats both for and against things like the public option or disagreeing on where and when certain safety triggers should be placed. When you have as many total people as the House and Senate Democrats have… You aren’t getting anything that large done quickly or easily when it comes time to get the details hammered out.
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While it can be frustrating for those who support the idea of healthcare reform and especially so for those who support Obama’s desired version; I wouldn’t trade having a group that actually seems to have differing POVs on how to do something for another group like the rubber stamp Republicans that spent six years helping Bush and crew put the country in the toilet.
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” Unless it was declared uncontitutional, in which case Nancy Pelosi would simply scream, “Are you serious?”, Obama would classlessly criticize the Supreme Court when he doesn’t even have his facts right and everyone in the media except some on Fox would jump all over Alito again.”
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Yeah, because saying that he believes that a ruling that really was questionable might open the door to foreign money in some of our campaigns, a POV also held by legal and business scholars since current laws don’t quite fully cover the concept of some of the companies that have been merged into other, multinational companies, means he’s classless. And, of course, unlike the Republicans attacking every SCOTUS decision for the past 40 years that they didn’t like as unconstitutional legislating from the bench by liberal activist judges who are undermining what the real America stands for, it would only be the left acting like that.
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” But seriously, they could do whatever they wanted if they had the will. But they don’t and that comes from the top so instead of admitting that it becomes easier to demonize the GOP as the “Party of No””
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Oh, I agree that it comes from the top. Obama has been pathetic at focusing his party or their priorities. As Mulligan partially noted the other day, he’s fast becoming the disappointment that many critics said he would be. He could pull some of his failings back from the brink, but it’s going to be an interesting next year either way.
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As for calling the Republicans the Party of No… That’s what they’ve become. Sorry, but that’s not demonizing them, that’s calling it like it is.
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” rather than face up to the fact that either:
A.) The American people don’t like what they’re doing
B.) The American people do like what they’re doing, but either through incompetence or cowardice they just can’t seem to get it done.”
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The answer to “A” seems to be based on what poll you read. The answer to “B” seems to be the “incompetence or cowardice” option. It’s certainly a little of both to be sure, but that hardly means that “The Party of No” label is any less true. If anything it underscores how poorly the Democrats have handled aspects of this where Republicans keep saying no unless they get what they want in a bill, they get the item put into a bill and then still vote no. The Republicans have become Lucy holding the football and the Democrats have become Charlie brown. Neither side looks particularly great right now. However, the Republicans are starting to look more and more like the more disingenuous side in the debate with each and every word they say.
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” Speaking of which, OF COURSE the meeting with Obama is a trap, but unless the GOP is massively incompetent or cowardly themselves they should milk the opportunity for all it’s worth to raise their objections and put forward positive ideas of their own.
If they can’t do that, they’re as unworthy of the offices they hold as Obama is.”
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Well, then they’re unworthy because they’ve already proven that they can’t. They’ve proven it in spades over and over again this last year.
But, of course, her columns promoted Sarah very nicely, didn’t they.
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She did the same with Palin. She slagged on her in a “private” moment that went public, she promoted her publically and attacked her critic and then, only after Palin left office and seemed to be becoming a joke, she started publically criticizing Palin for being a know nothing lightweight and the campaign for picking her.
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Are you sure you’re thinking of Peggy Noonan? Because this is what she had to say about Palin on October 17 2008:
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But we have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office. She is a person of great ambition, but the question remains: What is the purpose of the ambition? She wants to rise, but what for? For seven weeks I’ve listened to her, trying to understand if she is Bushian or Reaganite—a spender, to speak briefly, whose political decisions seem untethered to a political philosophy, and whose foreign policy is shaped by a certain emotionalism, or a conservative whose principles are rooted in philosophy, and whose foreign policy leans more toward what might be called romantic realism, and that is speak truth, know America, be America, move diplomatically, respect public opinion, and move within an awareness and appreciation of reality.
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But it’s unclear whether she is Bushian or Reaganite. She doesn’t think aloud. She just . . . says things.
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The whole thing (titled Palin’s Failin’) is at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122419210832542317.html
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Maybe you were thinking of Tom Noonan? 🙂
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Yeah, I’m aware of that. You may have noticed that I used some of that in an above post. But she also defended Palin as well and sometimes went after those that criticized her in the same manner she did.
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Again, that’s one of the reasons that Noonan isn’t high on my must read or watch list. She’s all over the map sometimes on the same subject.
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Her take on Palin (along with the quotes Jerome worded wrong. That’s why I didn’t find them when I Googled them with “” marks.)
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”Because she jumbles up so many cultural categories, because she is a feminist not in the Yale Gender Studies sense but the How Do I Reload This Thang way, because she is a woman who in style, history, moxie and femininity is exactly like a normal American feminist and not an Abstract Theory feminist; because she wears makeup and heels and eats mooseburgers and is Alaska Tough, as Time magazine put it; because she is conservative, and pro-2nd Amendment and pro-life; and because conservatives can smell this sort of thing — who is really one of them and who is not — and will fight to the death for one of their beleaguered own; because of all of this she is a real and present danger to the American left, and to the Obama candidacy.
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”She could become a transformative political presence.
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”So they are going to have to kill her, and kill her quick.”
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I’ve seen her speak well about her on Sunday chat shows and I’ve seen her speak disparagingly of her as well.
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I’ve seen her praise W. Bush and then throw him under the bus a few years later on the same matter. I can, as I said, understand buyer’s remorse, but some of her after the fact Bush criticisms included queries of what went through some peoples’ minds when they were supporting him on certain policies just like she herself did.
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At one time I liked Noonan. She read like someone who is more a true conservative and a Reagan Republican than a lot of the airheads that claim those titles. But in the last ten years, especially the last five, she’s been kinda all over the place on some subjects, a little bit CYA in her after the fact criticisms and less than kind to the facts on a number of Sunday chat show appearances.
“We have more Wasillas than Chicagos?”
Okay. And what does that means exactly? I’ve consulted the last US census, and it seems to me that less than 10% of the population of the US lives in really small-town places (50.000 or less inhabitants).
Why is it that Sarah Palin is the representative of “real America” when so few Americans live in Wasillas and so many of them live in Chicagos? Conservatives are fond of portraying minorities as ambitious special privilege groups. But it seems to me that small-town Americans ARE the minority with ambitious designs and an undeserving sense of entitlement.
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That line breaks down to meaning that people that agree with you matter and are real Americans while all those libs out there aren’t representative of real American values. The problem with that airheaded rhetoric is that it lives or dies on a false premise.
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Small town America is not some conservative stronghold anymore than big cities are liberal havens. The idiots that like to throw that crap around always point to the voting maps that show red VS blue and declare that small town America, the real America, is voting Republican and voting for values in every major election. Problem is that the voter breakdown doesn’t quite look like that. Several political studies departments have created purple maps, maps that take into account the percentage of votes for each side in each district in every town, city and state, which show that most of America is fairly evenly broken down. There are a few areas where the red and blue colors are stronger and easier to see, but the majority of the map is purple.
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Hëll, look at the voter percentages by state from the 2008 presidential election. A lot of the states were not big margin leads either way. When you look at those breakdowns in a lot of “small town America” you see that the majority may be conservative voters but that majority is many times far from overwhelming.
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It also ignores the fact that people vote locally and vote for who they think does the best job for them. Virginia has been a “conservative” leaning state for years now. The funny thing about that is that for years while we had that tag we had a Republican and a Democratic senator, a Democratic general assembly and a host of Democratic governors. We’ve flipped those stats each way a few times now in the last decade, but we are hardly a party line vote state. That doesn’t stop the manipulative from taking advantage of the clueless by declaring that a win by a Republican governor, despite the fact that the state went Obama in the last election and we have two popular senators who are both Democrats, from declaring Virginia as a brick in the Republican revolution.
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Slogans like “we have more Wasillas than Chicagos” are basically just the transparently partisan hoping that hollow sloganeering will work on the lowest common denominator in the voting public. The shameless leading the clueless as it were.
Somehow in the this thread the original topic of the MEETING ITSELF is getting lost in whether or not Dems support a bill.
I have a lot to say for me so let me break it down into digestible if not unrelated separate points: 1) Republicans would be foolish not to attend. It feeds the (now gaining) Obama point of “Hey you Republicans in Congress are the crazy ones, I’m the reasonable guy.” They would be better served t attend the meeting, go toe to toe and even if they lose they secure their base for the Fall. 2) I think this public multi-hour meeting is a specific kind of trap. Health Care reconciliation I think is inevitable. The White House will use this meeting and the President’s goodwill with the public to point out the great things in the bill, like pre-existing conditions being covered and the bill as away to slow the increase of health care spending as 17% of our economy. 3.) WHEN reconciliation happens it will happen in the next few weeks, no later than say end of April, to allow Dems to campaign on it. You read that right. Campaign on it. 4.) There is no way on God’s Green Earth the Democrats will lose the Senate. Worst case scenario, there simply aren’t enough Democratic Seats up for grabs this time around to lose the Senate. The House probably, but not the Senate. 5.) There IS something that should concern everyone here on this blog as we are generally intelligent all around–Republicans included, and that is the idea of government being about filibustering everything, blaming the other party and winning in November. As much as I don’t like this strategy now, it worked for the Dems in 2007-2008. And the next the Republicans win the Senate it will happen again. Where does it end? Or does this play into the Republican hand of making government so dysfunctional, people look to the private sector to solve EVERYTHING. P.S. the private sector’s #1 motivation: make money. See also 17% for Health Care Spending in the private sector. The government can’t solve everything but neither can the private sector. Why not each go with their strengths? Where are the pragmatists when you need them? We are being eaten alive by ideologues on each side.
Ok thats a lot to say. I await the vivisection of my major points…
Thanks
Captain Naraht
Hi Naraht. Just a quick tip, blank lines don’t work on this site for some reason. You might want to try putting a period between paragraphs. The rest of us do that to make the post more readable.
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Like that.
Thanks for the tip, Jason
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I hope that worked.
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Capt Naraht
There is no way on God’s Green Earth the Democrats will lose the Senate. Worst case scenario, there simply aren’t enough Democratic Seats up for grabs this time around to lose the Senate. The House probably, but not the Senate.
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I would have agreed just a few weeks ago…but with totally unexpected retirements like Evan Bayh, Brown’s election and polls that suddenly show once easy wins like Barbara Boxer suddenly unable to break the 50% mark…I’d still bet money on the Democrats retaining the Senate but I wouldn’t bet the mortgage. It isn’t a great sign when the odds say that the senate majority leader will be unable to keep his seat.
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The Democrats are fast becoming the dumbest creatures in Washington. They’ll lose and they deserve to lose.
Not dumb. Gutless. They’ve been in a crouch for so long that they’ve forgotten how to stand up.
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PAD
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Can’t it be both?
Yes, but I don’t think that’s the case here.
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PAD
Its a loooooog time until November. The Stimulus just got some good ink today. No one really talks about the election until the Summer at the earliest. The actual candidates until late August. You may end up being right about the Senate, Bill, but 9 months is an eternity in an election cycle.
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Reminder: Scott Brown pulled it out of the bag in six weeks. Six weeks.
Capt Naraht
PAD,
“Yes, but I don’t think that’s the case here.”
Actually, what was dumb was for Obama to make health care such a huge priority AFTER spending an astronomical amount of money on TARP (yes, that was Bush and Paulson’s baby, but it came right before $787 billion in stimulus spending). Together, we’re talking $1.5 trillion in approved government spending in just a few months. By the time he launched his health care reform people – especially conservatives and independents – were extremely sensitive to new spending. The White House’s attempt to manipulate the CBO numbers did not hide that fact.
A more moderate stimulus bill and preventing TARP funds from being ised for basically whatever the government wanted instead of their original intention did not help matters.
neither did our supposedly brilliant president making the case for it by using absurd examples of unnecessary tonsillectomys and foot amputations, or allowing a press conference on it – and his health care message itself – to be obscured for days by his foolishly injecting race into the discussion with his “acted stupidly” comment.
But three things:
1.) If you’re going to pass something this big, make sure there a few things you simply will not budge on. If health care is a right there are certain things that should be granted with that and certain ways you feel that can be justifiably executed. This idea that “nothing matters, so long as we pass something” was rejected soundly by citizens, as it should have been.
2.) If you are going to lead on something this big, make it clear which goals you want to achieve. Everybody insured/ Overall costs going down? Again, the idea that none of this mattered as long as the Democrats could claim victory as long as SOMETHING was passed was rejected as the risky bûllšhìŧ that it was.
3.) If you say you are going to be transparent you better keep that promise
4.) f you are going to expend this much political capital on something, you’d better pass it. This is something Bush learned with Social Security. If the Republicans had suck to their guns then and actually led, and passed the dámņ thing instead of being cowards and grandma’s check wasn’t afected and younger people fely more secure it would be there for them, well that would likely have been a big victory. It instead became an embarrassment, with Republucans never even presenting a bill to the floor to be voted on. This kind of gutlessness is a huge reason a lot of conservatives stayed home in 2006 and 2008.
personally, I feel The Democrats have really screwed the pooch on this one. if they don’t pass a bill, after al this effort and political capital has been expended, it will be a huge blow and pìšš øff liberals and some of mainstream America. But with their bungling of the issue the past year, passing it looks likely to make them even more radioactive politically. And they really have to look at themselves in the mirror and figure out how they got here.
Actually, what was dumb was for Obama to make health care such a huge priority AFTER spending an astronomical amount of money on TARP (yes, that was Bush and Paulson’s baby, but it came right before $787 billion in stimulus spending).
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It didn’t matter.
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If he concentrated on health care, the GOP would have worked to stop it. If he’d focused on jobs, the GOP would have tried to block it. If he’d tried to do away with Don’t Ask/Don’t tell in the first six months, the GOP would have been shouting that gay marriage was next. If he’d targeted the economy, the GOP would have decried it as government overreaching (oh wait, he did, and they did.)
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Obama’s mistake was not realizing that his business is governing and the GOP’s business is in winning back Congress and the White House. Any successes that Obama can notch will delay that, and so the mission at hand is to run out the clock on the Obama presidency and then sling as much mud as possible because he was unable to clean up Bush’s mess. As opposed to when Bush spent year after year destroying the country and they kept blaming Clinton.
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He needed to realize going in that the GOP is not going to act like colleagues to be worked with. They’re going to act like the enemy, and as such need to be faced, out-thought, and out-flanked. Any attempts to work with them were going to be seen only as weakness. It’s not about bipartisanship or helping the citizenry or even upholding the Constitution. It’s about power plays, pure and simple. The Democrats had the power. But they also wanted to be liked. The GOP doesn’t care if people like them, which is why they’re so good at seizing power.
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PAD
The democratic talking points seem to be that A- The system is unworkable. Even though they have control of the House, Senate and presidency, Democrats cannot be expected to make things work if there are any republicans left at all. B- there is nothing Obama can do to change this so he should not be blamed. C- Democratic representatives and Senators, by their very nature, cannot be as (evil, ruthless, nazi-like, take your pick) as their republican counterparts, so you can’t blame them either. D- the only thing that MIGHT make this work is if the Democrats start acting like Republicans. THAT will fix their little red wagons, fix it but good!
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My question–if people begin to believe that, why would they just not, you know, vote for Republicans? At the very least, if I were advising a democrat running for office, I would urge them to not talk about how “ungovernable” the system is–who wants a boss who admits they can’t do the job?
That’s because its not a No-Win scenario, it’s a We’re-Not-Going-To-Let-Obama-Win-Under-Any-Circumstances scenario.
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The GOP have no interest in giving the Democrats even the least political victory and have never been interested in health care reform in general. The best the Republicans can hope to offer in such a meeting is for Obama to suddenly be struck with aphasia. Otherwise, the paucity of their ideas will be manifest for all to see.
What about the idea of government being about filibustering everything, blaming the other party and winning in November. As much as I don’t like this strategy now, it worked for the Dems in 2007-2008. And the next the Republicans win the Senate it will happen again. Where does it end? … Where are the pragmatists when you need them? We are being eaten alive by ideologues on each side.
I think that the problem is no one gives crap one about long nights spent compromising and crafting legislation. Crafting legislation and getting things done is for RINOs and DINOs.
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Home town constituents understand “He wrote a bill with KENNEDY! That makes him too liberal!” or “Democrat Smith voted for the New Surge in Afghanistan. When is enough casualties enough??” They thought history was boring so nuanced compromised is interpreted as being a loser.
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It doesn’t help that we live at ground zero of a news-cycle, short-term, lizard brain, lowest common denominator, visceral response machine that is the media and Congress in this day and age. AND it just got a boost in funds from that @#$%#$ SCOTUS decision. Every lawmaker is afraid of the next hip negative ad. The good news is: Incumbents are in trouble. The bad news is: incumbents are in trouble. Good luck getting anything done unless something changes.
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Again, I await the vivisection of my major points.
David the Bold,
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You say that Thenodrin is giving examples of “bad Republican” stories and you also say that the hypocrisy being displayed by the Republican minority isn’t greater than what we’ve seen before. Let me throw a “bad Republican” example at you that is actually something that I touched upon in other posts, but that I had argued to me today by a friend of mine who is more than a wee bit to the left of me in a manner that does tend to make the Republican minority’s hypocrisy seem a bit more than just typical and maybe just a little bit dangerous.
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I’m still digesting this myself and I’ll freely admit that I’m not sure I agree with his final point, but it is an interesting argument nonetheless.
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I’ve mentioned before that the Republican Whip is from my state and that I get to see his local actions and words as well as his statements whenever a national news camera is put in his face. Eric Cantor is a raging hypocrite. He is one of the three big voices in the party that are attacking the stimulus bill and claiming that it is a failure, that it creates or saves no new jobs and that it’s simply wasting taxpayer money. Yet, when it’s just the local cameras on him he can be found taking credit for getting stimulus funds into the commonwealth, claiming that these funds are going to create jobs here in the commonwealth and talking about how these funds are going to help the local economy.
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Yet he’s one of the voices on the national stage stating that the stimulus bill neither saves nor creates jobs and does not help the economy. And it turns out that he’s not alone.
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It turns out that the number of Republicans playing this game of diametrically opposing viewpoints being spoken alternately from the same mouth is well over 100 of them. A massive chunk of the Republicans are somewhat quietly praising the job creating abilities of the funds they’re bringing to their states when they’re back home while standing up on the national stage and screaming about how the stimulus bill is doing nothing.
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In Virgina, North Caroline, Ohio and many other states you can find newspaper reports online where they cover these guys and gals either speaking about the jobs they’re creating or by covering the official statements that they send out from their offices praising the local job creation these funds are providing. He pulled a wee bit more than a few from other states up to illustrate the point.
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So what we have is an enormous chunk of the Republicans in Congress taking stimulus money to their home states, using it for jobs creation in their home states and praising how well it works. They’re claiming that it works and works well, but then they go before the national media and they declare that it doesn’t create so much as a single job or help the economy in the least.
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Now, I had been putting that bit of hypocrisy in the same vein as the members on both sides who decry earmarks and pork while larding up their own states pockets. You’ll always have members of congress doing that because they’ll just claim, sometimes even honestly, that their earmarks and pork fall within reasonable uses of federal funds in the states. While I’ve found Cantor’s hypocrisy to be great, there was always the possibility that he and others see this like they see their “good” earmarks and pork.
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My friend turned the idea around a bit and put it in a even less flattering light than I do. The Republicans are grabbing the stimulus money as fast as they can get it because they know it works. They’re using as intended right now because they know it works. But when they’re up on the hill they talk about how it doesn’t work and they actively vote against much of it and talk about the need to kill it and replace it with something else.
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So my friend’s position on this? The Republicans are so desirous of reclaiming power in Congress and in the White House that they are willing to, at least temporarily, intentionally harm the country’s economy in order to derail Obama and retake power. They’re using the stimulus bill that works to prop up their home turf (just as the Democrats are) while talking down the bill and trying to weaken the bill. Maybe they’ll even go as far as to kill this version of the bill. But still, they seem to be more than ready to actually tank the economy to a degree under Obama to claim that the voters need to restore them to power to save the country.
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He actual laid out a better argument than I did since he believes it whole heartedly while I’m still iffy on it and he pulled up quite a few more state’s local press articles than I named above or can remember right now. Hey, it’s late and I had some heavy Ian duty most of the day. But it was, at least by just the facts he could lay out, a very persuasive argument as far as being a “Bad Republican” argument.
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You can easily blow off his argument and chalk these actions up to just the typical Washington hypocrisy. It is however an interesting take and one based on the facts and their own conflicting words.
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Like I said, I’m not 100% with him on it. His take is that the Republicans know that they will harm the country by these actions. He thinks that they’ll actually be quite happy to do so because they think it’s their path to reclaiming power. Me? I find the facts hard to argue with, but I don’t think that the Republicans are intentionally and knowingly setting out to hurt the country.
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But, if their actions are the same no matter the intentions, does it matter in the end?
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So, yeah, I think the hypocrisy and dishonesty being put on display here by the Republicans is a bit greater than just the average Washington BS and maybe a little more dangerous in some ways. And, yeah, while the Democrats are some idiotic and scummy players themselves at times the Republicans are definitely looking worse than the Democrats right now.
I don’t understand. Are you saying that the Republicans know that the stimulus bill is good for the economy, but want it to fail anyway so they can win? Or are you saying that they know it is bad for the economy, but they use the money anyway because it will help them win?
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Sorry if it wasn’t clear, Micha. I was extremely tired by the time I sat down to type that last night and I was still sorting through my friend’s position on it VS my own.
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The Republicans are and have been taking stimulus money given in the stimulus bill since day one. They go to their states and promote the jobs that they are creating, both short term and long, and the beneficial work projects that the funds are creating. Of course, even when the funds are 100% from the stimulus bill, they they talk around the fact that they’re from the bill or try to not bring it up at all. They also like to leave out the marker signs indicating that some projects are a result of the stimulus bill. These are real signs that have already been printed up that, as an example, they would be placing along a roadside where stimulus bill money is being used to hire local construction companies and construction workers to work on infrastructure repair like bridge and road work.
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But these same hypocrites then go back to Washington, stand in front of the national news cameras or get on a national news show and declare that the stimulus bill is a failure, that it is not creating jobs, that it has failed to create any jobs at all and that it needs to be stopped and replaced with something that is actual working. Oh, and they vote against it or promise to vote against it at every turn.
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So what you have is a group of people who know for a fact that the stimulus bill creates jobs and helps the states address needed work like infrastructure repair, but when they have a national news camera in front of them or a vote before them they decry the bill’s failure to create any jobs and try to kill the “Obama” stimulus bill.
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To a large degree this is beyond the Rush Limbaugh “I hope he fails” concept while defending that as saying that Obama’s policies would be bad for the country. This is a group of Republicans trying to make a policy that is working and that they know is working fail so that they can declare that Obama and the Democrats are pushing unworkable, failed and unwanted policies on America and retake power.
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Except, unlike polices that you can debate while arguing the the validity of the charge that arguing against it might harm America or Americans, there’s not much room for argument here. The Republicans who are using the stimulus bill funds to create local jobs in their states know that it is creating jobs, putting people to work for at least a limited period of time and helping to get needed work projects done in a time where, as here in Virginia, the state budgets are getting cut on every level and the population is being told that the state funds aren’t there for things like road work. But they want to claim that it’s not working, not creating jobs, not doing any good and they want to kill it to score political points and retake power.
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My friend’s take on it is that the Republicans flat out consciously know that they’re actions against the stimulus bill will hurt Americans and the economy but don’t care so long as they get what they want. I think they’re just looking at hurting Obama and the Democrats and are just too focused on that goal to look at the overall negative impact of their actions. But, as he pointed out to me and I posted above, does that matter if the results are the same?
Thanks Jerry.
The question is: are the Republican’s attacking the stimulus bill because they know they can’t stop it, so they can score PR points off Obama without paying the price of the bill not passing? Or are they actually willing to stop the stimulus bill they know is benefiting their state, and is also benefiting them on the local level?
I suspect that a number of them justify their actions by convincing themselves (if only unconsciously) that any short-term damage inflicted by GOP obstructionism is better for the nation than any long-term effects produced by Democratic policies. It’s bûllšhìŧ, but you take what crutch is offered.
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The rest of them are craven cynics who cannot run on their past track record, so try to game the contest by screwing up the present situation. Utterly shameless.
I suspect that a number of them justify their actions by convincing themselves (if only unconsciously) that any short-term damage inflicted by GOP obstructionism is better for the nation than any long-term effects produced by Democratic policies. It’s bûllšhìŧ, but you take what crutch is offered.
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Actually, I consciously believe that “bûllšhìŧ,” especially as applied to healthcare “reform.” Your mileage may vary.
“The GOP have no interest in giving the Democrats even the least political victory and have never been interested in health care reform in general. The best the Republicans can hope to offer in such a meeting is for Obama to suddenly be struck with aphasia. Otherwise, the paucity of their ideas will be manifest for all to see.”
Sorry. The Republicans have a lot more to offer than that. And Obama’s oratorical gifts are greatly exaggerated. If this were not true, the support for his health care bill would go up, not down, every time he talks about it. The candidates he stumps for would actually gain from his appearances (notice I didn’t say win – that is obviously up to the candidates themselves), he wouldn’t be so afraid to actually attempt to tie O’Reilly in knots or at least wow someone like Chris Wallace – like Bush or Republican candidates appearing on shows or in front of audiences likely hostile to them (like the NAACP)? Also, if he was such a good speaker he wouldn’t be so dependent on a teleprompter, even when giving a talk to SIXTH-GRADERS. Heavens. One thing you have to give Bill Clinton is that he can speak in an off-the-cuff manner and still come across as inspirational and that he has a command of the facts, at least as he perceives them.
I don’t get that from Obama. At all. Someone who hates having his supposed genius questioned maybe, but definitely not an inspirational genius.
Now Jerome, it isn’t true that he used the teleprompter when talking to sixth graders. the picture of him at the school with the teleprompter was of him talking to reporters afterwards.
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I would agree that he is not quite the gifted speaker some have claimed. he had the benefit of being compared to uninspiring speakers like George Bush and John McCain and he had the added benefit of being new. His speeches seem less electrifying now because we have gotten used to some of his typical oratorical ticks.
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Yeah, some of his more overzealous supporters got their legs all a-tingle and and overstated the case but he is definitely a better than average speaker. We are not exactly living in a time of political giants, so that is faint praise but it’s still true.
uninspiring speakers like George Bush and John McCain
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Bill, it is unfair to compare McCain’s speaking skills to Bush’s. Even with a teleprompter, Bush was a constant train wreck in action, regardless.
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McCain is better with the ‘off the cuff’. Obama is better with prepared speeches.
Bush is… Bush. 😛
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“McCain is better with the ‘off the cuff’. Obama is better with prepared speeches.”
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Huh, see, while I agree with you on McCain, I get the opposite thing with Obama. I find his reading speeches off the teleprompter or pages on the podium to be flat and prone to feeling hollow. When he’s in front of a small audience and actually playing of the audience in an ‘off the cuff’ manner is when he seems to do his best talking.
Also, if he was such a good speaker he wouldn’t be so dependent on a teleprompter, even when giving a talk to SIXTH-GRADERS.
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And is that what you’re down to now, Jerome? Parroting Fox talking points that were debunked weeks ago?
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PAD
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But Fox News said it was so. It must be the other side of the story that the MSM is telling. It must be the full story. It must be true.
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“Also, if he was such a good speaker he wouldn’t be so dependent on a teleprompter, even when giving a talk to SIXTH-GRADERS.”
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No, sorry, not true in the least. There was some poking of fun by Jon Stewart and the late-night comedians, but there are only two places where that has been flogged to death and those are Fox News and garbage chain emails.
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http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/photos/6thgrade.asp
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http://www.factcheck.org/2010/01/school-photo/
Sigh. That might be significant if Dear Reader’s absolute dependence on and inability to go off of his teleprompter weren’t so evident. So he didn’t need it in front of the six graders? Ok. But he couldn’t face the press afterwards without it. And with good reason. Youtube is chock full of examples of The One going off the teleprompter and off the rails. I love the ones where the teleprompter breaks. It’s like someone hit the off switch in his brain. The one where he read ahead to someone else’s line and thanked himself is a favorite too. He probably sleeps with a teleprompter at night. (I could be wrong about that. Maybe Michelle can’t sleep at night for all the um’s and ah’s that are coming from the President’s side of the bed when he talks in his sleep without a teleprompter.)
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Well Tim, he was citing specific facts and figures in the address he made to the press at the school. I can understand his using something as an aid to get those facts and figures right. Maybe next time he can just have stuff like “Energy,” “Budget” and “Tax” scribbled on the palm of his hand instead.
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“Sigh. That might be significant”
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Really? It only “might be significant” that there’s indisputable proof that an accusation made about Obama is an out and out falsehood, Tim? My, how your standards have changed since Obama became president.
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We actually agree on one thing however. I don’t think he does well with the teleprompter. He works much better without it and actually interacting with a crowd.
I’ll let the Palin thing pass, Jerry. I can’t think of a better example of idiocy than the Left making such a stink about Palin’s palm when the best thing that can be said about Obama’s public speaking skills is that he reads well. Obama would write on his palm too except that there’s not enough room to put everything he needs to say there.
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The 6th grade class thing doesn’t matter because no one was saying that Obama is overly-dependent on his teleprompter because of it. It was just the latest incident in an already well-established pattern. So that one wasn’t true. 50 lashes with a wet noodle. But Jerome’s point was that Obama isn’t that great a speaker because he’s overly dependent on his teleprompter. He happened to cite a bad example of that. If it will make you happy, he should apologize and then select another example to back up his point. There are tons of them so he shouldn’t have a problem.
Maybe it’s just me, but after 8 years of ‘Bushisms’, I’ll support the use (and overuse) of the teleprompter.
Craig, I can certainly agree with your assessment of our previous president’s speaking ability. He could sure twist a phrase!
Tim Butler: “The 6th grade class thing doesn’t matter because no one was saying that Obama is overly-dependent on his teleprompter because of it.”
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Jerome Maida: “Also, if he was such a good speaker he wouldn’t be so dependent on a teleprompter, even when giving a talk to SIXTH-GRADERS.”
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Plus there’s the chain emails and the Fox News zoo’s comments…
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No Tim, of course no one is saying that and you weren’t jumping in to a conversation where someone was making that point.
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“I’ll let the Palin thing pass, Jerry. I can’t think of a better example of idiocy than the Left making such a stink about Palin’s palm when the best thing that can be said about Obama’s public speaking skills is that he reads well.”
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Yeah, because the favorite choice of most conservatives and Republicans to run in 2012 is so swift on the uptake that she has to write the word “Tax” on her palm in order to remember that she needed to talk about a standard base issue. But, hey, at least she winked.
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And that’s the best thing that can be said of Obama’s speaking skills? Really? Since most of his mess ups are done while reading and many of his stump speeches and crowd interactions from the campaign where he really made his rep with the masses as a great speaker were sans promoters and scripts… You’re observations are related to reality how?
Yeah, Jerry. He’s a total genius who can speak to crowds in amazing detail off the top of his head with no assistance whatsoever. He’s just trying REAL hard to hide it. And doing such a good job, too.
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“Yeah, Jerry. He’s a total genius who can speak to crowds in amazing detail off the top of his head with no assistance whatsoever. He’s just trying REAL hard to hide it. And doing such a good job, too.”
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When he’s giving a long speech where he has to cover specific facts and figures then, as did Bush 1&2, Reagan and sometimes Clinton, he uses a teleprompter. When he speaks of the cuff in interactive environments he actually does fairly well. But then you think that Palin’s unscripted speeches sound good and make sense so I can see where your judgment on matters like this are somewhat questionable.
“But then you think that Palin’s unscripted speeches sound good and make sense so I can see where your judgment on matters like this are somewhat questionable.”
I do? Really?
Indeed. Otherwise the House GOP wouldn’t have been so surprised to have been rhetorically curb-stomped by Obama at their retreat.
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Have you watched that video of Obama debating with a room full of hostile Republicans and not only holding his own, but winning? I’m sure some people would like to believe that Obama had a hidden teleprompter in that room, but it’s easier to ignore or deny the facts if it runs counter to the beliefs you want to hold.
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The sooner the Right lets go of their ridiculous, if not outright disproven, narratives, the sooner the nation can begin to move forward rather than remain stuck in campaign mode.
Then I wish they’d put it out there. Their healthcare plan is risible and the only real voice of reform I’ve heard is from Rep. Ryan, whose budget plan works but is far too drastic to accept as is. As is stands now, all the GOP has offered me are assurances that they can do better without even telling me that they have secret plans ready to roll out as soon as they’re in office.
Exaggerated? Probably. Formidable? Definitely. You might remember that HCR was sinking in the polls (in no small part to town hall protesters and “protesters”) before his televised speech on the subject (more famously recalled for Rep. Wilson breaking decorum and shouting “You lie!”). Healthcare support went up again.
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The healthcare bill didn’t sink in the polls because Obama talked about it, it sank because (1) the Right has grossly misrepresented a rather moderate proposal as a Bolshevik takeover, and (2) a lot of people think the current bill is too little and doesn’t go far enough.
Rhetorical ability isn’t going to save a truly suck candidate, especially if the guy with the talent isn’t the candidate in question. (For instance, Bush’s GOP stumpings didn’t help much in 2006 or 2008.) And considering he accepted the offer for a Q&A at the House GOP summit, requesting it be televised, it conclusively demonstrates that he isn’t afraid of tackling a hostile audience.
He was giving a prepared speech to the press, not a talk to sixth-graders and you should know better than to have to be told that.
Then I recommend that you watch the C-Span video of the Obama/House GOP Q&A. Obama talks naturally off-the-cuff in plain language, clearly is well informed, and came off as sufficiently inspiring that, afterwards, virtually all the assembled Republican congressmen — including the ones hitting him hardest with blunt questions – rushed the stage to get his autograph.
“And is that what you’re down to now, Jerome? Parroting Fox talking points that were debunked weeks ago?”
I’m not “down to” anything. Especially when you consider we have a press secretary in Robert Gibbs who takes the time out of a press briefing to bash someone who criticized his boss’s seeming dependence on the teleprompter with a skit that likely would have been rejected by “Saturday Night Live” for being unoriginal lame, not especially witty and not especially funny.
I have yet to see anybody in the MSM excorciate Gibbs for such a lame stunt and taking up their time with a personal attack (Jerry, if you know of such an instance, please let me know. It would truly do my heart some good to know).
But wait, it was a dig at Palin.Palin! And Gibbs was attacking Palin, who most of the media detests and defending his boss, who most of the media loves. Naw, I’m sure that had nothing to do with coverage of the stupid stunt at all.
And I have given detailed reasons why I feel Obama is in the spot he is in when, just a year ago, it seemed the Democrats were riding high and the Republicans were on their backs.
You took half a sentence of it before responding “it didn’t matter” and then launching into a tirade on how the Republicans would have opposed him regardless.
Which is, of course, partially true. But what i was trying to emphasize is that Obama’s choices priorities, strategies, etc. from early o until now have played a large role in shocking the Republicans back to life but, more importantly, a lot of the American people who not ong before were tired of Bush but went, “Whooooah! We didn’t vote for this!”
And this obsession with Fox is a bit unhealthy. Would the republic really be better served if we still only has the three networks and the majority of the country still believed everything Uncle Walter said, even if it was a very false impression of what was going on in Vietnam? If that were the case, Rather likely would have gotten away with his fraudulent Bush/National Guard story and tipped the election and the results would have been long in before anyone proved the story was false. Was the country better served having only three men or women with the star power to inform people to the point of persuading hem not only by what they chose to air, but what they didn’t?
And for the record, I didn’t first hear about Obama’s sixth-grade adventure on Fox. I have spent most of the time since Thanksgiving getting ready to move down to Florida with to live with fiance or down there with her. She is not a big Fox fan, so I have watched very little of it since Thanksgiving.
I read abiut the incident. I am not 100% sure where I first read it. It was either “USA Today” or “The New York Post”.
And before everyone here goes off the rails about the Post, let’s take a look at how “biased” yesterday’s edition was.
Let’s see, on page 6, there are two stories featuring the fallout from Evan Bayh’s anouncement :
1.) The lead story is headlined: “Congress Poll Is Capitol Hëll” with the Sub-Headline “Voters’ Support For Incumbents Hits Historic Low” Hmm. let’s see. Must be a bunch od biased stuff against Dems somewhere. Amongst a LOT of numbers. Wait here we go: “The numbers show no major party getting a strong advantage. But Holland said that fact “may hurt the Democrats more because there are more Democratic incumbents.” it also said both sides have problems, stating: “the Republicans are pressing to find challengers” and “President Obama isn’t doing much to boost his party, either”. Hmmmmmm…..
2.) There is also a column by Charles Hurt titled “Evan’s Bye-Bye A Rebuke To Dems”
“And today, Evan Bayh is part of a Congresscontrolled by Democrats. We’re talking historic control of not just Congress, but all of Washington, by his party.”
“Democrats enjoy overwhelming control of the House and, until very recently, unstoppable control of the Senate.”
“And, of course, down Pennsylvania Avenue, his party controls the White House.”
“For Democrats, this is a royal flush.”
“Most of them have been dancing in the streets, eating at the finest restaurants, drawing fanciful legislation, entertaining the richest lobbyists, and jet-setting around the globe to flaunt all their great new power..”
“For Evan Bayh?”
“Like most Americans, it made him ill. And so, he told his supporters, he would rather just walk away.”
A third story, titled “Bayh: DC is ‘Brain-Dead'” and statrted with:
“retiring Sen. Evan Bayh yesterday denounced ‘brain-dead partisanship” in Congress, saying the pettiness and focus on personal gain are keeping the institution in a state of dysfunction.”
In the middle of that, there was this:
“When he made his announcement Monday, Bayh mentioned two specific examples of extreme partisanship – a group of seven Republicans who backed away from a bill on a debt commission they had originally supported, and the collapse of a jobs bill.”
“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, facing a tough re-election at home, backed away from an emerging bipartisan compromise in the Senate Finance Committee.”
“There are countless other recent examples:
Ruling Democrats use their big House majority to jam through legislation with scant minority imput.
A single Republican senator, Richard Shelby of Alabama, used his power to hold up over 80 executive nominees.
The Senate agenda has ground to a halt amid Republican opposition. The leadership cut unseemly deals to secure votes for a health bill.”
“It’s been one event after another which has produced the state of intense partisanship that we’re in”, said Chris Sautter, a former top aide to Indiana Rep. Frank McCloskey, whose seating by Democrats in the ’80s after a contested election infuriated Republicans, helping spawn the 1994 GOP revolution.”
“One problem: The Senate, conceived by the founders to be a ‘saucer’ where the hot liquid of politics might get cooled, has become a place of gridlock. Filibusters, once rare, have become commonplace, as the leadership must wrangle a supermajority of members to do anything of consequence.”
Don’t know about any of you, but that seemed pretty balanced to me. But wait, surely there’s something virulently anti-Obama in the pages of the Post! Maybe regarding energy! Let’s see. Okay. here we are, page 16 and there’s a headline that reads:
“Obama Up & Atom” and a subheadline; “$8B for 1st US Nuke Plant In 30 Yrs.” Hmm. That seems pretty positive. What about the story? Well, the first paragraph goes:
“Promising ‘this is only the beginning’, President Obama announced more than $8 billion in federal loan guarantees yesterday to build a Georgia reactor complex that will become the first nuclear-power plant in the United States in nearly three decades.”
The rest of the story, predominantly consists of Obama being quoted on how this plant will create jobs and be a benefit to American security and produce jobs. Not until the 7th and final paragraph is there anything emotely negative, Obama saying that “nuclear energy has ‘serious drawbacks’, but that was quickly balanced by him saying that a bipartisan group will be tasked with improving the safe storage of nuclear waste.”
Okay, but then the Post MUST be hammering Obama on his conduct in Afghanistan, the way the Times constantly pounded Bush over Irq, right?
let’s see. On page 23, there is a headline: “Taliban Busters Joining Forces” with a subheadline, “new marine Unit Storms Into Marjah”. Hm. And the rest of the story is equally positive. Right below that, is a headline, “mad Mullah’s Capture A Big Blow To Thugs” , which began with this:
“The capture of the Afghan Taliban’s no. 2 commander by a joint CIA and Pakistani team dealt a fresh blow to insurgents under heavy U.S. attack, and raised hopes that Pakistani security forces are ready to deny Afghan terorist leaders a haven. Mulah Abdul Ghani Baradar’s arrest in the pakistani port city of Karachi may also push other insurgent leaders thought to be sheltering Taliban operatives on the pakistan side of the border toward talks with the Afghan government – a development increasingly seen as key to ending the eight-year war.”
Wow! That’s pretty positive. But then Ralph Peters, a Post columnist who is on Fox news a lot would certainly downplay the development, since it happened under Obama, right? Let’s see, the headline reads:
“Big Capture, Bigger Questions” with a subheadline, “Number’s Up For Taliban No. 2”.
Then it begins, “The capture of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar – the Taliban’s equivalent of Gen. Stan McChrystal – by Pakistani agents and CIA operatives is a BIG win.”
“If he sings – as we’re told he’s doing – it could be the biggest anti-Taliban bonanza since 2001.”
Then peters goes on to say it might not be, but that’ because we’ve known his whereabouts for years, which would seem to implicate Bush and possibly Clinton far more than Obama.
I guess I must have picked up a different version of the Post than the far-right screed so many on the left claims to exist.
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“I have yet to see anybody in the MSM excorciate Gibbs for such a lame stunt and taking up their time with a personal attack (Jerry, if you know of such an instance, please let me know. It would truly do my heart some good to know).”
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Not sure if it counts as really taking him to task for it because I channel surfed in and then out of it, but I passed through Countdown as Keith Olbermann remarked that that was a long way to go for such a poor joke. But I didn’t see the full context of it and can’t find a web vid of it so who knows?
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“And this obsession with Fox is a bit unhealthy. Would the republic really be better served if we still only has the three networks and the majority of the country still believed everything Uncle Walter said, even if it was a very false impression of what was going on in Vietnam? If that were the case, Rather likely would have gotten away with his fraudulent Bush/National Guard story and tipped the election and the results would have been long in before anyone proved the story was false. Was the country better served having only three men or women with the star power to inform people to the point of persuading hem not only by what they chose to air, but what they didn’t?”
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On the flipside of that argument, how is the country served by having a channel that is stocked top to bottom with people who make up things daily and when their lies are caught by others simply shout the lie even louder in hopes that no one pays attention to the truth? How does it serve the country to have, as you keep trumpeting, more people than ever tuning in to hear what they want to hear rather than someone telling the truth? Or for that matter more people tuning in than ever and simply being too dumb to know the difference?
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There’s a rather disingenuousness about the question in the manner that Fox News defenders ask it. Would it be better if we had less news outlets where you had some dishonesty like the old days of the three network evening news broadcasts? Well, uhm… No. But what’s better about having a giant news channel that is almost top to bottom a propaganda machine for a POV and a distortion/lie factory filled with hosts who can’t seem to go more than a day in between lies?
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Seriously, some of them can’t even keep their own shtick straight anymore and trip over their own lies regularly and the “Fox Nation” turns on a dime with them to parrot the new reality of the day’s broadcast until the next day when they have to redefine reality again. That’s a preferable option to Walter Cronkite? Hey, here’s a novel idea. How about a news channel where career fabricators like Hannity, ignorant nutbags like Beck and general propagandizing have no place in the line up and is certainly not held up as honest reporting.
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“And for the record, I didn’t first hear about Obama’s sixth-grade adventure on Fox. I have spent most of the time since Thanksgiving getting ready to move down to Florida with to live with fiance or down there with her. She is not a big Fox fan, so I have watched very little of it since Thanksgiving.”
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Not going to dispute your what you’re saying here. Trust me, I know how much having someone in the house who isn’t a big news/politics junkie and how that hits your TV news time. Oh, and it gets worse when she’s no longer just your fiancé. Much, much worse. But it is an odd statement given your recent defending of Fox News and your statements about the validity of their reporting or the nature of what hosts regularly do or do not say in their broadcasts. It is a statement that makes some of your recent statements make sense though.
And this obsession with Fox is a bit unhealthy.
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So is the right-wing obsession with the “liberal media”.
It’d be nice if we did have a liberal media to balance out Fox. But we don’t. There is no channel, no network, no TV news source that is as consistently on-message as Fox, and that message is: Support the President and congress unless Democrats are in control.
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It’d be nice if we did have a liberal media to balance out Fox.
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Well, there’s always Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. And Air America was supposed to provide a liberal media, but there wasn’t a market for it, apparently.
And Air America was supposed to provide a liberal media, but there wasn’t a market for it, apparently.
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Oh, there’s a market for it, but there’s apparently a fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives: conservatives don’t seem to mind following one voice (as in, Fox News, Limbaugh and the rest all saying the very same thing).
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Air America trying to be a Fox News or whatever was destined to failure; liberals prefer many voices saying different things. The right may enjoy their view of a ‘fractured’ left, but it never leaves liberals looking like goose steppers.
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“Oh, there’s a market for it, but there’s apparently a fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives: conservatives don’t seem to mind following one voice (as in, Fox News, Limbaugh and the rest all saying the very same thing).”
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Well, some don’t but others certainly do. But the biggest problem was that the radio market isn’t like television or the news stand. The playing field is a bit uneven when the market place has transmission power disparities like the AM radio market does. It also doesn’t help when the same parent company that holds the contracts of the biggest conservative talkers in the biz also own the four or five most powerful stations in every market.
Peter David says:
February 19, 2010 at 10:00 am
It’d be nice if we did have a liberal media to balance out Fox. But we don’t. There is no channel, no network, no TV news source that is as consistently on-message as Fox, and that message is: Support the President and congress unless Democrats are in control.
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You have got to be kidding me……Take the blinders off Peter. CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, Dan Rather.. These folks are as much the liberal media as Fox is not.
Fail.
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In the minds of Conservatives, perhaps. But in the real world, where we watch all of those channels dog pile on liberals and Obama at the drop of a hat, whereas Fox will turn on a dime depending upon who’s in office–Bush was nonstop support, Obama is nonstop criticism–all we can do is laugh at people perpetuating the myth of the liberal media.
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Evidence, Pat.
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Any content analysis? How about an analysis of people interviewed? (And not just anecdotes, either….)
These folks are as much the liberal media as Fox is not.
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It’s almost as if it were on cue…
“It’d be nice if we did have a liberal media to balance out Fox. But we don’t. There is no channel, no network, no TV news source that is as consistently on-message as Fox, and that message is: Support the President and congress unless Democrats are in control.”
Oh, horsepuckey. Without even citing innumerable examples from the (former) Big Three and CNN amd The New York Times, MSNBC is most assuredly at LEAST as left-wing as Fox is supposedly right-wing. The only difference is the audience for MSNBC is miniscule compared to that of Fox. If Olbermann’s inane, hateful ramblings got the ratings Fox does, and Greta Van Susteren got as few viewers as rachel Maddow does, I don’t think you would be quite as upset.
The fact that Fox is increasingly attracting Democrats and independents seems to be a fact you want to conveniently ignore, since it does not fit your narrative.
To paraphrase your Talbot in “What Savage Beast”, “You’re not upset that conservatives have a place where some of them can be heard, you’re upset that they’re successful in attracting a huge audience and that people listen to them.”
And really, do you recall Reagan or either of the Bushes singling out a news organization, constantly, in interview after interview, the way Obama and his surrogates single out Fox? It really is petty weak.
Your points aren’t worth responding to. In fact, your response is not worth reading.
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Why is that? Because you can’t take the time to learn a new task. Which task might that be? The same task most of the rest of us have learned in order to make ouR posts at least marginally readable by
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PUTTING A PERIOD BETWEEN EACH PARAGRAPH!.
Personally, I’d take charges that the press is liberal more seriously if there’s more data behind it. You know…content analysis?
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Otherwise, it’s just unsupported assertion.
MSNBC is most assuredly at LEAST as left-wing as Fox is supposedly right-wing.
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Well, your first mistake was considering MSNBC (the channel, not NBC news itself or MSNBC.com) a news organization. They are what they label themselves: ‘the place for politics’. MSNBC does not call themselves a ‘fair and balanced’ NEWS station.
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Your second mistake was never responding in the previous thread about that video link that was posted, the one from The Daily Show that showed the NEWS BIAS of Fox News. Where they advertise their NEWS by showing all their talking head OPINION people. Where they have more OPINION programming than NEWS programming.
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The media is only biased in favor of ratings. And too many right-wingers seem to revel in a “the media is out to get us!” mentality.
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Craig, that’s not a completely honest argument. Yes, MSNBC bills itself as “The Place For Politics” while Fox News bills itself as “Fair and Balanced” while being neither. But the simple fact is that MSNBC is a news channel and is billed as a news channel.
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Yes, they have replaced almost as much of their programming week with opinion programming as Fox News has, but they have never relinquished the title of being MSNBC News. It also wasn’t that long ago that MSNBC had as it’s official slogan “America’s Fastest Growing News Channel“ while it’s lineup was not greatly different than it is now insofar as the percentage of news programs VS opinion programs.
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Not really a strong point there.
“In the minds of Conservatives, perhaps. But in the real world, where we watch all of those channels dog pile on liberals and Obama at the drop of a hat”
Can you cite any recent, blatant examples? Seriously.
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” whereas Fox will turn on a dime depending upon who’s in office–Bush was nonstop support, Obama is nonstop criticism–”
Right which is why O’Reilly’s “Talking Points” last night had him criticizing what he saw as Obama-bashing and telling Laura Ingraham that the Republicans should continue to debate Obama because “most Americans want health care” and that it would hurt them if they didn’t show up. Because all Foxdoes is criticize Obama. And it really wouldn’t take much research on YouTube to see O’Reilly and Beck criticizing Bush for his handling of Iraq and for spending too much, for two huge examples on pretty important issues.
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But you constantly say the same sort of things about the new York Post, which was easily rebutted by one of my posts yesterday. Sorry but whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, that paper is published in the “real world”.
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Could it be you that’s living in a warped, parallel universe?
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“all we can do is laugh at people perpetuating the myth of the liberal media.”
Right. Because the fact that the flames have hardly been put out has not stopped writers for such major MSM publications as “The Washington Post” and “New York Magazine” from linking the guy who crashed into the IRS building with the “extreme” parts of the Tea Party movement. Doesn’t matter that there is absolutely no proof that he was associated in any way with the Tea Party movement. Doesn’t matter to the MSM. The link has already been made. Tea Party people equal “murderers” or at least “violent” or definitely fanatic.
This should come as no surprise. Back in 1995, we had Dan Rather, Bo Schieffer and others basically blaming Oklahoma City on talk radio. Heck, Clinton pretty much blamed Rush.
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this stuff is pretty outrageous and unforgivable. And it does NOT happen the other way around.
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For example, the Ivy-educated professor who killed three people because she didn’t get tenure was a huge Obama supporter. Huge. Were there any pieces on Fox or in the New York Post that linked violence to extreme Obama suporters? No. Because to do so would not only be unfair, it would be insane.
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If only the other side and other news organizations applied the same reasoning to covering and talking about conservatives.
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Jerome Maida: “And really, do you recall Reagan or either of the Bushes singling out a news organization, constantly, in interview after interview, the way Obama and his surrogates single out Fox? It really is petty weak.”
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W. called out MSNBC in the last couple of years of his time in office. They even went as far as to send an official rebuke of the channel on White House stationary. Cheney also made swipes at MSNBC. Oh, and what about all those Fox News hosts and contributers that called Obama’s actions Stalinist, called actions like this a threat to freedom of speech and praised the other news channels White House correspondents for sticking up for Fox News? They praised the Bush administration for finally taking on that liberal media outlet and wondered why it took him so long. The uproar just wasn’t as load because MSNBC basically blew it off and they don’t work as hard as many of the Fox News crew at playing the role of professional victim.
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Pat Nolan: “You have got to be kidding me……Take the blinders off Peter. CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, Dan Rather.. These folks are as much the liberal media as Fox is not.”
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It’s your delusion, Pat, and you’re welcome to it.
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Jerome Maida: “Oh, horsepuckey. Without even citing innumerable examples from the (former) Big Three and CNN amd The New York Times, MSNBC is most assuredly at LEAST as left-wing as Fox is supposedly right-wing. The only difference is the audience for MSNBC is miniscule compared to that of Fox. If Olbermann’s inane, hateful ramblings got the ratings Fox does, and Greta Van Susteren got as few viewers as rachel Maddow does, I don’t think you would be quite as upset.”
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The “former” Big Three? Seeing as how the lowest rated evening news broadcast on ABC, CBS or NBC regularly stomps the highest rated Fox News show in the ratings and all three combined dwarf Fox News’s ratings… How are they the “former” Big Three?
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As to the rest… You continue to look past the major complaint with Fox News not being simply that it has an opinion or an agenda but that it will employ a small Army of people who will flat out make šhìŧ up and lie about things to push that agenda. I could give a dámņ less about someone being a conservative editorialist. There are some I actually like because they try to stick to the facts and then based on those facts they discuss why they think their POV is the correct one or the more likely to work well. But two of Fox News’s top three ratings winners are serial liars and the third will not hesitate to make stuff up when his back is against the wall and his point is about to fall. Well, or when he wants to claim that a mistake wasn’t a mistake. A large chunk of their remaining hosts and contributers aren’t much better.
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CNN has it’s share of ideologues. It has rarely had hosts and contributors who make things up as a matter of course. MSNBC has a lot of ideologues on the payroll these days. Several of them may market in half truths fro time to time to slant a story, but very few of them flat out lie and none of them do it every single day. You can’t say that about Fox News. That’s the problem.
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Jerome Maida: “The fact that Fox is increasingly attracting Democrats and independents seems to be a fact you want to conveniently ignore, since it does not fit your narrative.
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You keep saying this and you’ve yet to source it. the only place I hear this claim is on Fox News while they’re trying to spin their network as “Fair and Balanced” and claim that they’re not primarily a conservative propaganda organ that attracts mostly conservatives. Look at these numbers.
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Right now the average total figures for Fox News primetime is 2.9 million viewers. This time last year that number was 2.8 million viewers. Wow… An average of 0.1 million more viewers in primetime than this time last year. So were every single one of those viewers asked whether they were conservative, liberal or independent and all answered liberal or independent? Or has Fox News just hemorrhaged a a small army of conservative viewers that were all replaced with self described liberals and independents? Or is Fox News just, as per usual, completely making stuff up?
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Hey, here’s a slightly more likely answer to why they’re saying that they have more “independents” watching than ever before. Fox News isn’t quite making it up, they’re just neglecting to tell the complete story. In the last couple of years we’ve seen polling data showing that people who were self identifying as “Republican” or “Conservative” were disavowing those labels and self identifying as “Independent” instead. The same data shows that their voting habits really aren’t changing with their new self identification though.
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So, gee, what are the odds that (1) Fox News has had a massive increase in viewers (as they really haven’t) and that they are all independents and liberals or (2) that they have had a massive influx of liberals and independents as viewers while losing a large chunk of conservatives and Republicans rather than (3) having a big chunk of their long time audience change the way they self identify even if their viewing and voting preferences haven’t changed in the least? Given their ratings figures for the last few years and the other polling data out there showing the change in how people are self identifying… I’ll go with #3 as the most realistic option.
Craig J. Ries says:
February 19, 2010 at 2:53 pm
These folks are as much the liberal media as Fox is not.
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It’s almost as if it were on cue…
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Exactly, Craig, Almost as if it were on cue….right back at ya….
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roger tang says:
February 19, 2010 at 2:37 pm
Personally, I’d take charges that the press is liberal more seriously if there’s more data behind it. You know…content analysis?
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Otherwise, it’s just unsupported assertion.
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Yes, of course, content analysis…Why didnt I think of that. Nope sorry Roger, no analysis. How about you?
I’m sure jerry will have something to say about content analysis. Lets listen in…
Jerry Chandler says:
Pat Nolan: “You have got to be kidding me……Take the blinders off Peter. CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, Dan Rather.. These folks are as much the liberal media as Fox is not.”
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It’s your delusion, Pat, and you’re welcome to it.
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No Jerry, its your obsession. You go on and on and on and on about the evils of Fox news. Seriously Jerry 15 paragraph essays, going over talking point by talking point on how Fox news is Bad and bias. Here’s an idea…..Dont watch Fox news. Its one channel so it shouldnt be hard to avoid. When you see the little Fox News logo on your screen, simply change the channel.
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The statement Peter made was that there is no liberal media to balance out Fox. I disagreed. I dont recall disagreeing that Fox is a Conservative outlet. Maybe thats one of the differences between you and me Jerry, I can admit Fox is bias, where as you and others cannot admit to the liberal media that, lets face it, Fox news was probably created to counter.
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So, lets go over this again.
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Fox News is bias…We all agree.
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CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, are bias…we dont all agree.
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And Im delusional?
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Hey Craig thats your cue….say something insightful…
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Pat Nolan: “Maybe thats one of the differences between you and me Jerry, I can admit Fox is bias, where as you and others cannot admit to the liberal media that, lets face it, Fox news was probably created to counter.”
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Me: “I could give a dámņ less about someone being a conservative editorialist. There are some I actually like because they try to stick to the facts and then based on those facts they discuss why they think their POV is the correct one or the more likely to work well.”
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Me Again: “CNN has it’s share of ideologues. It has rarely had hosts and contributors who make things up as a matter of course. MSNBC has a lot of ideologues on the payroll these days. Several of them may market in half truths fro time to time to slant a story, but very few of them flat out lie and none of them do it every single day. You can’t say that about Fox News. That’s the problem.”
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No Pat, “one of the differences between you and me” is that I can actually read what’s been written and understand it.
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Pat Nolan: “No Jerry, its your obsession. You go on and on and on and on about the evils of Fox news. Seriously Jerry 15 paragraph essays, going over talking point by talking point on how Fox news is Bad and bias. Here’s an idea…..Dont watch Fox news. Its one channel so it shouldnt be hard to avoid. When you see the little Fox News logo on your screen, simply change the channel.”
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No Pat, they’re not talking points, they’re facts. And not watching the channel isn’t the point. Although I’m sure you know that since you basically ducked the point that Fox News has more hosts and contributors who traffic in lies and distortions than any other channel out there and likely even every other news channel and program combined.
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But not watching only gets you so far. See, even if you don’t watch Fox News you run into the Fox News results. That would be the people who show up in conversations on the web and in the real world who regurgitate the Fox News garbage because they either don’t care to look up facts, do care but don’t want to deal with facts or are just too brick stupid to know what a fact is even when it’s held up in front of them in giant neon letters.
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You can avoid Fox News all you want, but you still run into the Fox News promoted talking points everywhere.
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Obama won’t say the words ‘terrorists’ or ‘terrorism’ when talking about the underwear bomber… Despite the fact that he did in his first, second and third statements on it.
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Obama is so afraid of offending terrorists that he never said we are at war or said the word “war” in the SOTU… Despite the fact that he did.
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Hannity wants to promote the idea that Obama is out of touch with America because he plays golf and Bush, much more in touch with the pulse of America, “did not play golf while this country was at war.” Except, well, he did quite a bit and even when he stopped he just took up mountain biking as a recreational pastime. So not only was Hannity’s point meaningless, but he, as per usual, lied.
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Or you run into the mindless parrots who repeat the Fox News line that the underwear bomber wasn’t interrogated. Except that outside of Planet Fox and here in the real world he was interrogated and interrogated by the FBI no less.
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And lord, the stupidity that Beck creates is amazing. I actual feel sorry for Beck watchers. More than a few minutes of that garbage and you know that brain cells are committing suicide to escape the agony of his stupidity.
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And there’s plenty more. Fox News pedals so many falsehoods in any given news day that you could fill a book discussing any given month of their broadcasts. See, having an opinion and having a bias isn’t a bad thing. It’s certainly not a bad thing when you’re honest about it. But being what Fox News is, being a disinformation machine that regularly pedals falsehoods and hysteria to the masses too in love with their own bias or too stupid to notice? That I don’t like.
Jerry, There is absolutley nothing in what you have written above that I disagree with. I used to be one of those folks. Sometimes I still have my moments but one thing I learned from “Trolling” this board is there are 6 sides to every story and what I mean by that is you have to figure out for yourself which side or sides are right.
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Nobody should be taking one news channels word for anything and your right there are a lot of people who do that and I guess there always will be.
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My argument is, that to think there isn’t a liberal version out there also spinning things the other way is ludicrous. It is one of the 6 or so sides along with the mandatory right-wing version.
“Oh, there’s a market for it,”
I’m sure all the Air America employees who are now out of work are very comforted by your distorted view of reality.
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Could there POSSIBLY be a market for what Air America was selling? Possibly. But the fact is the numbers weren’t there or it would still be on the air. All the excuses you care to come up with can’t change that fact.
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No, there is a market for it, but the two problems they had were the majority of their hosts weren’t particularly engaging (and the ones who were moved on) and they were often placed on low power stations.
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Hëll, Hannity was in our market for a long time before coming to WRVA (50,000 watts) and many of his fans didn’t know he was here. Why? He was on WLEE (at that time 5000 watts) and most of the people in the area couldn’t even pick up the signal.
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The fact is that Randi Rhodes and Al Franken tied or beat Bill O’Reilly in markets where they were on stations with comparable broadcasting power and Rhodes, screwed up loony that she is, actually beat Rush in the Florida market they shared before she went national.
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That’s one of the two really annoying things with radio. You don’t have an even playing field for all the stations in a market and, since the deregulation, you can have all of the most powerful broadcast stations owned by one company and that means that you can lock out anything you don’t want to be out there. In our market Clear Channel owns all the big AM stations. Clear Channel owns Premiere Radio Networks. Premiere Radio Networks has the contracts for Rush, Hannity, Beck, Bill Cunningham, Bill Handel, etc, etc, etc… Guess what their local AM talker’s lineup looks like.
But Clear Channel presumably still wants to make money. If there were such a demand for Al Franken (outside of Minnesota) you’d think that they’d pick up his show for at least one of the big AM stations you’re referring to. Are you sure that you don’t have the causation wrong– the reason Rhodes and Franken beat O’Reilly in markets where they had comparable broadcasts was that the bigger stations picked them up in markets where they had the demand? Radio listening isn’t a zero sum game– you can have essentially an unlimited number of listeners, and if one company has multiple stations, why wouldn’t it pick up both contracts and play for all of the political audience?
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David, think about this a minute. Air America and its talent wasn’t syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks. They actually promoted themselves as a counter to many of the Premiere Radio Networks’ talkers.
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Now… Why is Clear Channel going to counter program this against themselves? besides, as with our area, Clear Channel a lot of the areas don’t have more than one or two 50,000 (or more) watt AM stations. Clear Channel owns the only one we have here. They set that one up a long time ago as a conservative talker. They actually removed popular shows that weren’t conservative or conservative enough because they “didn’t fit the overall tone” of the stations broadcasting day.
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Clear Channel then turned the other talker into a sports channel. There was a third at one time but they either sold it and it closed down or they closed it down. After that the next best AM stations you had were low power stations that you barely get and that you often lose for large chunks of the broadcast day.
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That scenario isn’t unique to here.
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Rhodes actually got picked up by Premiere Radio Networks not long after her blow up with Air America during the ’08 election cycle. Interestingly, even in markets where she was doing well during her AA run against Clear Channel stations, she has been placed on lower power Am stations.
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Besides that, you seemed to have missed where I said, “the majority of their hosts weren’t particularly engaging (and the ones who were moved on)…”
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Air America only had a few good radio talents. A number of them had no idea how to do radio and it showed in spades.
All the excuses you care to come up with can’t change that fact.
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And it’s statements like this that make me wonder why I bother to try and have a rational conversation with you.
Jerry,
I see what you’re saying, to a point. In researching my project on Franken, he stated that he had multiple mixed emotions about speaking at a pro-war rally – true fear of WMDs being one – but it was sponsored by Clear Channel and he said, “The fact that I had been thinking about doing a radio show and knew that Clear Channel owned over 1200 radio stations, including 247 of them in the nation’s 250 largest radio markets didn’t hurt either.”
That said, at the end of the day Clear Channel wants to make money. If they really thought Franken or Rhodes or some other liberal was compelling enough to garner big ratings, they would simply sign them and bmp one of the conservatives you mentioned. Clear Channel is more interested in the bottom line than the ideological purity of it’s lineup.
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“Clear Channel is more interested in the bottom line than the ideological purity of it’s lineup.”
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Not really. As I said, quite some time ago they bumped popular hosts from our big talker to replace them with more conservative talkers and actually lost ratings during some of their broadcast day. Was this an isolated thing? No. The guy they brought in to be the program director (he hasn’t been here for some time now) came in from another market where he did the same thing… and saw the station drop in ratings. The newspaper writeup also included the fact that his job prior to that one was the same. In all cases the station stayed the #1 talker in their area though. If the other two areas were like ours it was in large part due to not having any other talkers with a decent signal.
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And getting a better signal isn’t as easy as it would seem. We actually had a group buy a station and try to start a local owned AM talker. They were stuck with a 5,000 watt broadcaster though. They spent years trying to get permission from the FCC to just upgrade to a 10,000 or 15,000 watt broadcast so that you could at least hear them in all areas of the city. No dice.
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Radio is by its very nature an uneven playing field. Like I said, Hannity was here for two or three years and almost no one knew it. His ratings were lower than Air America’s were in some of their markets. He was the #3 ranked talker in the nation at the time.
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I knew this was somehwere out there. I just couldn’t remember where it was or how the headline was worded.
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If you believe the Right, you then believe that NPR is almost as lib left as Air America. That is after all how the Right has been painting NPR for as long as I can remember. So what have their programs been getting in the ratings on FM in the last few years while AA has been hurting on low power AMs?
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“Broadcasts of NPR’s flagship newsmagazines — Morning Edition, All Things Considered and their weekend siblings — reached 20.9 million listeners, a 9 percent gain.”
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“NPR programming on public radio stations topped its previous audience record by reaching 27.5 million listeners a week during Arbitron’s fall 2008 survey period.”
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“Measuring audiences for non-NPR as well as NPR programs on those member stations, the weekly cume hit another all-time high, 32.7 million, 6 percent larger than fall 2007.”
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http://www.current.org/audience/aud0906npr.shtml
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So either NPR isn’t Left leaning in its opinions or the simple fact is that there is a market place for Left of Center POVs and they do well in markets when they’re on a station that can be heard by as many listeners as the big AM talkers. Well, or, contrasting NPR to AA and guys on the other side like Beck, Hannity, Rush and Savage, most people who listen to Left of Center news and talk like sane, honest voices rather than shrill idiots who have problems telling the truth half the time.
Jerry,
Interesting analysis. However, I don’t think most on the Right feel NPR is as liberal as Air America. What really irks them – me anyway – is that NPR gets subsidized by the government, while no one on the Right gets subsidized. Whatever you think of their content, Rush, Hannity, Savage, O’Reilly, Levin have to attract audiences, stations and advertising dollars on their own.
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No, even some who are left of center don’t. I actually don’t find NPR to be “Liberal” 90% of the time when it comes to their news programing. They tend to just report most of the time without editorializing.
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It’s also noteworthy that they don’t scream, name call, go into hysterics or push convoluted conspiracy ideas like many in the old AA stable did and the currant top Conservative talkers regularly do. The same can be said (most of the time) of the three network evening news broadcasts and they all have higher ratings than anything on the cable news/opinion channels.
Jerry,
Well, like I said, what irks many is that NPR is subsidized by tax dollars. It’s one thing if you feel someone is pushing an agenda, it’s quite another if you are paying them for the privilege of doing so.
And that the “Dwindling Three” networks have higher viewership than the cable news channels should not be considered that great an accomplishment. Many tune into them out of habit. More importantly, there are huge parts of the country that will likely NEVER be hooked up for cable. The “Dwindling Three” can be seen by those who are still using rabbit ears to get a signal. So really, to compare in terms of raw numbers in not accurate. The fact that FoxNewsChannel is even close to the viewership of NBC, CBS and ABC shows they are either doing something really right or they are doing something really wrong – because considering all the advantages the “Dwindling Three” have,it shouldn’t be that close.
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“More importantly, there are huge parts of the country that will likely NEVER be hooked up for cable. The “Dwindling Three” can be seen by those who are still using rabbit ears to get a signal.”
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Not really. We ditched Dish as a cost cutting measure and we decided to not get a new service provider. I went out and got a really good, high end antenna that can pick up the new digital broadcasts. How well does it work? It sucks.
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At any given time we can only get two of the three networks and almost no UHF channels. The new antennas are not as multi directional as the old signal antennas (well, not unless you drop $300 or more on one) and they have to be “line of sight” for UHF channels. I’m out in the country surrounded by trees. When they’re not hurting my VHF signals they’re completely killing my UHF signals.
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The new digital system is not cable-free friendly.
The new digital system is not cable-free friendly.
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IIRC, the biggest problem with digital signals, beyond line-of-sight issues is that they’re just don’t have the range that analog does.
The dwindling three are actually the dwindling four, unless you are counting Fox network programming as part of Fox News Channel.
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wow. Off topic/on topic here. It seems that the love affair with Scott Brown died fast and painfully.
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http://gawker.com/5478186/which-enraged-scott-brown-facebook-fan-comment-is-your-favorite
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And, yeah, that’s from his real Facebook page. And it’s actually gotten uglier since they wrote the article.
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Interesting comments. My favorite was the guy who was pictured in his Marine uniform, claiming that “government cant [sic] create jobs.”
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And apparently calling them “teabaggers” is only insulting when the rest of us do it – they get to call themselves “teabaggers” with impunity…
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Hëll Jonathan, you don’t know the half of it where the Tea Bag critters’ cries of victimization is concerned. You know how they run to any TV camera they can and claim that the “mainstream media” is cherry picking things to show about them like all those horrible signs with Obama as Hitler, Obama as a witch doctor, Obama as Stalin, questionable statements about firearms, etc, etc, etc?
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Well, go find yourself a copy of The Art of the Tea Party: Grandma’s Not Shovel Ready. You can’t find it in bookstores or online that I’ve seen. It’s a small press book (or, as the other recent thread would call it, a vanity press) that was made by Tea Baggers for Tea Baggers and sold at Tea Bag events and things like the 2010 CPAC. It’s quite the hot seller every time out from what I’ve read on the Tea Bag websites.
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So what is it? Pictures taken by Tea Baggers at the events of other Tea Baggers and 9/12ers holding signs. What do the signs look like that they’re so proud of? Obama as Hitler, Obama as Stalin, Obama in African garb, slogans like “Grandma’s Not Shovel Ready” and “We’re not armed. This Time” in the mix. Oh, and did I mention that the photos, including that “We’re Not Armed” one were taken at the Washington, DC event?
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But, of course, these types of signs don’t reflect the movement and are just distortions by the mean old MSM… Well, unless the Tea Baggers want a nice memento of their movement and their event. Then the signs are a great representation of their movement and their “creative” signs and slogans.
It seems that the love affair with Scott Brown died fast and painfully.
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At least Brown is honest and upfront about it. He wants his state to get some money.
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Compared to so many others of a certain party, who have condemned the Democrats spending gov’t money in the hopes of creating jobs… while quietly lobbying for said money for their states in the hopes that nobody notices.
Jerry,
Yes, the new digitization – yet another thing mandated by the government.
however, I still think my original thesis – that the “Dwindling Three” still have access to more eyeballs than cable.
Alan,
I am referring to the traditional network newscasts.
“It seems that the love affair with Scott Brown died fast and painfully.”
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i wouldn’t say it has died – and I have looked at some of the comments – but I will say it just means people are really paying attention and making their voices heard.
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There’s nothing wrong with letting ALL our political leaders know that their feet are being held to the fire, that (R) and (D) after their names is not as relevant as what they do or don’t do.
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As Zarek famously said, “If you hear the people, you’ll never have to fear the people.”
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No, the love affair and the Scott-Brown-As-Republican-Propaganda tool period is over.
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Scott Brown’s victory has been portrayed by the Right as a vote against the Dems and their programs and a shot across Obama’s bow. It was pumped up to be a national statement rather than, as most votes really are, a local vote where one candidate was better than the other.
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So now he’s in Washington and his first major vote of interest derailed the “a shot across the bow” propaganda train and kicked in the nads the idea he’s going to be the big new darling of the Right that he’s been getting portrayed as.
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The love affair is over. He’s just another politician now.
So I guess the people on the left who portrayed him as a reckless extremist teabagger racist yadda yadda must feel pretty foolish about now. And it doesn’t look like a lot of those on the right are exactly freaking out over it: http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/02/24/scott.brown.jobs.vote/
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“So I guess the people on the left who portrayed him as a reckless extremist teabagger racist yadda yadda must feel pretty foolish about now.”
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True as well. But I did see more of the Republicans and talkers on the Right describing his win as a direct refutation of Obama, Health Care, the Stimulus bill, the Dems in general, etc, etc, etc. than I saw that stuff from the cable networks and news mags. A lot of the commentators on the Right were touting him as the next big star in the party who was going to be a big part of the victories in the next few years.
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Neil Cavuto had a segment a while back that carried the on screen banner of “Is Scott Brown the next Ronald Reagan?” and others have been throwing around like comparisons. Romney tried to use some of his time at the CPAC to hook his wagon publicly to Brown and to play up Brown’s win as more than it was by declaring, “Lets say something I never thought you would say at CPAC, Thank you Massachusets for killing Obamacare! Thank you attacking the Pelosi-Reid-Obama axis.”
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I can kind of give Romney a pass for that though. He still thinks he has a shot at the 2012 nomination and there had already been buzz from Romney supporters about how great a Romney-Brown ticket would be. I think that would create issues with the electoral college vote though. Have to look that up later.
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They should have seen this coming from a mile away though. The first thing he did after winning was distance himself from the Tea Party’s involvement with his campaign at press conferences and state that he was not the “41st vote” for the Republicans. He may still show much more Conservative leanings than Moderate or Liberal leanings, but the fact is that his first major vote just punctured the talking point balloon that has been getting floated by the Republicans and conservative talkers since his election.
I think that [a Romney-Brown ticket] would create issues with the electoral college vote though.
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Yes, it would. If the GOP were to carry Massachusetts, the Massachusetts electors would be obligated to vote for either a VP or Presidential candidate not from their state. Electors are only allowed to vote for one candidate from their own state. On the other hand, if the election swing has gotten to the point that the GOP is carrying Massachusetts, odds are they don’t really have to worry about getting to 270. Now if the GOP had two candidates from Texas, that would be a problem. Hypothetically one of them might have to move back to Wyoming or something.
There’s nothing wrong with letting ALL our political leaders know that their feet are being held to the fire, that (R) and (D) after their names is not as relevant as what they do or don’t do.
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But when their feet are held to the fire 24/7, it’s hard for them to walk (much less run.)
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“No, the love affair and the Scott-Brown-As-Republican-Propaganda tool period is over.”
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Until he votes for a health care bill, no it’s not.
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“Scott Brown’s victory has been portrayed by the Right as a vote against the Dems and their programs and a shot across Obama’s bow. It was pumped up to be a national statement rather than, as most votes really are, a local vote where one candidate was better than the other.”
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Well, seeing as how it was a singular race that got national attention – it was inevitable that it would be seen as symbolic, one way or the other.
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“So now he’s in Washington and his first major vote of interest derailed the “a shot across the bow” propaganda train and kicked in the nads the idea he’s going to be the big new darling of the Right that he’s been getting portrayed as.”
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It didn’t derail anything. He actually voted for something he thought had benefit. Sure some people are upset. That happens. But by voting yes, all this does is make it that much more of a statement when he votes in solidarity with the GOP, since he and the other GOPers have now proven they are willing to be partisan.
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“The love affair is over. He’s just another politician now.”
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Well, he always was. Did some people overstate his appeal? Probably. I always thought it a bit absurd someone almost immediately asked him if he was thinking about running for President before the confetti had hit the floor. But seeing as how our current President had served less than one Senate term while doing nothing of distinction and was obviously considered a credible candidate; Hillary had barely served one Senate term while accomplishing little of distinction; John Edwatds was picked as Vice-President before finishing his first senate term and was considered a “serious” candidate – unlike principled people like Kucinich – despite only having served that one term and achieving nothing of distinction – AND that Palin was nominated before serving a full term as Governor – and it is clear experience doesn’t quite matter as much as it used to. That can be either a good or bad thing, depending on your point-of-view.
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“Well, he always was.”
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No, he was used as a symbol by the GOP, the Tea Baggers, the Conservative talkers and various Fox News personalities to be their big symbolic blow against the Democrats and Obama.
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He was a blow against the healthcare bill. He was a blow against the big spending bills of the Obama administration. He was the tide turning vote in the new “41 vote majority” they now held.
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Well, he just voted for a jobs bill that the GOP has declared a massive spending bill that wastes taxpayer money, doesn’t create jobs and busts the budget. He just voted yes in a vote that the Tea Baggers were all happy dancing in the streets about not long ago because the “knew” he would be their guy voting no on it.
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And the reactions and the statements to his Facebook page and official website have pretty much ranged from slightly venomous to calling him a traitor.
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The interesting thing about the complaints is that I doubt that 75% of them are coming from people in his home state. A lot seem to be from people who really knew very little about him and bought the spin and talking points being thrown around about him.
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To a large degree we’re seeing a x10 speed version of what we’ve seen with Obama and his missteps and backtracked pledges. Probably the only reason Obama’s followers’ disenchantment looks less extreme is that the nation had a lot longer to see him before the election and some people who voted for him did so with reservations. He also had the cover with some issues of being in a position of coming in and being able to claim the need to give things time because, quite honestly, you can’t change the direction of government with a snap of your fingers.
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Brown doesn’t have that fall back of support because of the nature of “what he was put there to do” by some of the people who put him there and most of the people who thought they knew who he was (based on no real research) and what he was supposed to do. He was supposed to say “no” to everything that Obama said yes to.
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He’s not doing that and he might not be the warrior against healthcare reform that outsiders think he will be either. He voted for the universal healthcare in Massachusetts and he’s already staid less than definitively negative things about a national healthcare bill.
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Scott Brown says 5:30 into the video:
http://c-span.org/Watch/Media/2010/01/20/HP/R/28644/Republican+Scott+Brown+wins+MA+Senate+Seat.aspx
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“[W]e’re past campaign mode and it’s important for everyone to get some form of healthcare. So to offer a basic plan for everyone I think is important..
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… there are some very good things in the national health care plan that is being proposed”
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Start it at about 4:30 and let it run for a bit though. He prefaces his remarks in a way that sounds like he will oppose it, changes midstream, sounds like he supports it with a few tweaks to give the states more control of their participation and then loops out not really being on either side. Should be a fun 2010.
Of course it was a trick. Neither side really wants what’s best for America, just what’s best for them. The President knew he had to do something to try and look good after all the backroom deals and the opposition had to show up otherwise they would have looked as obstructive as they many times are.
If both sides had wanted this to work they wouldn’t have reminded me of the Paris talks on Vietnam that stalled for months because of the shape of a table…by having to discuss the shape of the table.
And any normal person would have walked into that meeting with each bill broken down into components. First pulling out all the components that could be agreed to and then send them to Congress to be passed. That should have taken care of pre-existing conditions; dumping sick people from their insurance; and lifetime maximums and a few other things.
Would need to work on Medicare, too. Medicare has a higher refusal rate on procedures than private insurance and that’s scary.
Then you go to the stuff that might need a little tweaking…six hours later you’d have had Part 2 that could have been combined with Part 1 but probably would need to be translated into Congress-speak first before being sent for passage.
I’ll put tort reform in there because from personal experience I can say that doctors order too many tests to cover them in case they get sued. Been there, seen it. There is a place in medicine for lawyers but it needs to be more an exception than the rule.
Then what was left could be debated, argued, and played with to their hearts content because, to be honest, we need to get the first parts (hopefully with tort reform)into play and see what needs to be tweaked on them; fix what needs to be fixed and then move forward.
In the meantime, for people that use the ER – how about a program that creates clinics attached to the ER. You go through triage by the same ER staff and then you get sent either to the clinic or to the ER; being charged appropriately based on the level of care.
If we could get a real two-tier program in every ER we could cut the costs and see more people (and if we really treated them rather than stabilize and release or admit…probably cut down on repeat visits).
How about free clinics like were in San Fransisco during the 1960’s?
How about mobile clinics to go to the homeless shelters and to where homeless are on the streets?
How about someone thinking outside the box? Oh, that’s right…they have to realize they are in a box first…
I don’t hold out a lot of hope for anything to come of health care reform other than some pre-election passage that looks good but probably wouldn’t pass the smell test if we looked too close at it.
Nancy Pelosi has had to become one of this the majority of liberal people in politics within the actual region. It’s hard for myself to believe how people may reelect her within their own suitable thoughts.