Hillary Clinton, disgrace:
Hillary Clinton and her asshole supporters are now perfectly aligned with the Powerline, and Jeffrey Toobin is right- Hillary Clinton is an embarrassment, and I simply can not face the prospect of four or eight years of her syrupy, two-face, condescending, smarmy bullshit.
*** Update ***
The response:
Helena Montana
Obama’s rebuttal:
Which, of course, will never see the light of day on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, or Fox. Olbermann might show it, though.
rob!
EVERY DAY should be “F**k You, Hillary Day” until she slinks back to the Senate, millions of dollars in debt, and a horde of unpaid vendors chasing after her.
rob!
oh, and of course, people are upset because Obama might have said something TRUTHFUL, if uncomfortable to hear. luckily Hillary doesn’t have to worry about getting into that kind of trouble.
JackieBinAZ
and twice on Sundays.
TomMil
She really is a low life. I am beginning to wonder if she really did shoot Vince Foster. OK, I’m just kiddin.
Jake
Obama’s rebuttal is really, really good. Something tells me the Clinton and McCain camps are going to be glad this whole thing blew over on a Friday black-hole news day.
I think he wins this folks.
Zifnab
Wtf, indeed. I like how everyone is standing up to take swipes at Obama’s speaking ability.
Someone alert the Coast Guard because here come those Swiftboats.
Tim F.
Does anyone know where to get one of those Clinton Death List back tattoos? I could really go for one of those…
fuzzy
Billary will not be satisfied until they destroy Obama and get McKiller elected. She’s a hateful, revenge seeking sob. To think, I once liked Bill. But I could never stomach Hill, who always seemed like a phony. Smarmy? For sure.
BillB
Obama is kicking both of their semi-competent asses at once here. And lumping them together as Washington grifters. Let’s hope his rebuttal gets media play.
This shows that being a “fighter” means more than just sounding tough, it means taking on attacks and problems directly. The Philly race speech was just as much “tough love” as this slam on “elitism.”
Bob In Pacifica
So what was the gaffe?
daryljhusseinfontaine
Go look at Jake Tapper’s blog, or Taylor Marsh, or any of the Hillary fever swamps, and you’ll see people call Obama’s out-of-context remarks “the final nail in his campaign’s coffin.” Funny, they said that about the ginned-up Rev. Wright controversy, too. Funny #2, they’re saying the exact same things on the wingnut blogs. But Obama’s response is measured, effective, and perfectly suited to combat the attacks. It’s the political jiu-jutsu he’s honed to an art form, taking the line of attack and redirecting it’s energy into a positive for the campaign.
I fear commenters above are right, and we won’t see much (or any) of the response on the talking heads’ shows. Which makes this campaign more about Obama + the Howard Beale arm of America (“mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore”) vs. McCain + Sen. Clinton + The Media + The Coalition of the Willing to be Duped. Both Senators Clinton and McCain want Obama’s populist tide to start ebbing, but the more I see and talk to people, the more I hear a grumbling that wasn’t there before, that the traditional narratives are cracking under pressure.
D
peach flavored shampoo
It’d be funnier if your name was John Coal, being that yer from West Virginia and all.
Where’s my damn coffee?
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
I love how CNN’s
vigorous defenseanalysis of Obama’s remarks somehow leaves out the part about smalltown Midwesterners (you know, yokels) “clinging” to religion, guns, and hating foreigners — and focuses on the “bitter” thing. Like that’s what people are upset with Obama about. It’s the biggest strawman massacre in years!Funniest was Legally Batshit Insane Jack Cafferty’s statement that Pennsylvanians are really just doing what Arabs in depressed economies do. They join Al-Qaeda, and Rust Belters are just doing something similar. Ummmm, Obama just called, you dimbulb loon: Stop “helping.”
Jake
Ellison, are you really that stupid?
smiley
But it didn’t. MSNBC had people on this morning explaining what a gaffe this was. It will be on the morning shows tomorrow too.
They want us to believe that he was being a condescending elitist.
4tehlulz
No, it’s just that his religion is TEH MUZZIES ARE ALL TERRISTS (but I won’t fight them myself….).
numbskull
“Ellison, are you really that stupid?”
Yes.
Or – who cares?
Take yer pick.
The Other Steve
Not clue what she is really saying, but you gotta give credit to a song titled Fuck them all
Perhaps it is about hillary?
cleek
did Harry Reid say, weeks ago, that things were in motion to bring this mess to a close ?
The Other Steve
Holy shit.
Hillary and McCain bring it up, try to make hay out of it, and in the end it just makes Obama stronger.
It’s about time we had a politician who knows how to play the game, instead of letting the game play him.
Harley
I read elsewhere — Politico? Ambinder? — that crowds haven’t exactly been lapping up the Obama bashing on this subject. They seem closer to bored with it.
Which would be nice. What if someone shouted Gotcha and nobody played?
The Other Steve
We got a week and half of this shit left til Penn.
dj spellchecka
elitist? how can someone whose wife is worth $100 million or a couple who made $109 million in the last six years call somebody else an elitist? boggles the mind.
Karmakin
Obama’s response, quite frankly, is the most direct and devastating response to a right-wing attack that I’ve seen in quite a while. It’s obvious that this smear really upsets Obama, and I think that McCain should be on notice…if they try it, he’s going to stuff it back down their throat.
evie
Yay! An FU, Hillary open thread. This is an open thread that has been necessary for so very long, yet no blogger has had the guts to put one up. Thanks, Mr. Cole.
I, like probably many people here, liked and respected HRC prior to this primary and practically adored WJC. HRC was not my first choice, but I was happy to vote for her if she won. Well, never could two people’s reputations be more ruined by their behavior in an election. It was so stunning early in the year that I felt like I was watching two people who I’d never before seen. I experienced a complete paradigm shift, where I began to view everything I ever knew about them through the prism of what I now knew about them.
Some Republican family members say I’m just learning what they’ve always known. I don’t know. But what I do know of the Clintons now is so enraging, dismaying and disappointing that it’s hard for me to even remember having kind feelings about them. And I don’t even really get angry anymore. I fully expect the Clintons to reveal themselves as contemptible every single day. On most days, they more than meet expectations.
I was a person who, when I saw just the short passage on TPM of what Obama said last week, thought it would be trouble for him. As usual, instead of cowering or apologizing he explains even more fully why what he said the first time is correct. His response compared to Hillary’s says so much about their characters. (The real irony is HRC saying, “…they don’t need a president who looks down on them” with her tone dripping in condescension. No Hillary, they don’t.)
FU, Hillary. And your husband too.
myiq2xu
Obama’s “out of context” statement:
What Hillary said:
Contrary to misrepresentations by the media and a certain blogger, Hillary did not call Obama an “elitist.”
Can someone please explain what is wrong with what Hillary actually did say? Can you identify any part of it that is untrue?
leinie
That clip from Hillary is just not pretty – because people can be hardworking and rolling up their sleeves and still be bitter about the circumstances they find themselves in. Not to mention she completely ignores what Obama was really saying.
Now, his response? Thing of beauty. I was happy that yesterday’s initial release from the campaign ignored her completely and talked about McCain and tax cuts for the top 1%. Nothing like ignoring something to give it no weight, you know? But then, when he addresses her? Making her part of the problem? It was lovely.
And I guess this makes me an elitist, but one of the things that I like about Obama is that he doesn’t fucking talk down to me like I’m a moron who just doesn’t get it. She acts like her audience just can’t understand complex things, so she’s got to make them simplistic. Obama assumes that his audience is grown up, and rasonable, and can make those distinctions, and understand context and nuance.
I wish she’d stop tag teaming with McCain to take him down, though. I understand that she and Obama are opponents here, but McCain is the enemy, not Obama. Tagteaming with McCain just plain pisses me off. That and her “you only count if you live in a state I think is important or won” are why I wish she’d just fucking go away already.
tBone
It’s easy – you have your shame glands surgically removed. There are clinics all over Washington that will do it as an outpatient procedure.
dj spellchecka
sorry for treating this like an open thread rather than an anti-hillary thread but i thought john would be interested in this:
from the carpetbagger report ”
Consider the case of Sally Kern. Kern, as the Carpetbagger mentioned a few weeks ago, is a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives under fire for a rather strident speech she gave about gay people. “You know gays are infiltrating city councils. Did you know, Eureka Springs, anybody been there to the Passion Play? Have you heard that the city council of Eureka Springs is now controlled by gays? Okay. There are some others – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Tacoma [sic], Maryland, Kensington, Maryland, in Vermont, Oregon, West Palm Beach, Florida, and a lot of other places in Florida. What’s happening? The homosexuals are getting involved politically on the most local level there is — city council, city government — and they are winning elections and the first thing they’re doing is passing, uh, laws, anti-discrimination laws and hate [crime] laws and things like that and, uh, you know….”
PITTSBURGH????
When did that happen?
John Cole
You just quoted it yourself, you abject moron- “Pennsylvanians don’t need a president who looks down on them.”
WTF does that mean other than Obama is an elitist looking down on you? We need better trolls around here.
Shinobi
I read about this on CNN.com, so it looks like his response IS getting some coverage.
tBone
You’re brown, puckered up, and you smell bad.
What? I didn’t call you an “asshole.”
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
I’ve noticed this too. The anger is there. It is very real, but it has not yet found an outlet. If a majority of people wake up on day and say to the MSM and its camp followers: “Your’re Fired! And F*ck You very much for all the fish”, watch out.
It may not happen this election cycle, but it is going to happen sometime soon. All the Potemkin village cardboard props concealing the decline of the middle class (maxed out credit cards and HELOCs, 2-income households, being able to buy cheap made-in-China crap at WalMart, low food and gas prices) are falling over like dominoes. Some other things are going to get knocked over too, like conventional politics.
What the true elites don’t seem to understand is that Obama is their last best chance to direct this wave into something resembling conventional channels, like Teddy Roosevelt did in the last progressive era, saving ca. 1900 capitalism from itself by reigning in the worst excesses and limiting the damage. If Obama doesn’t ride this wave, next time it will be someone less mainstream than him, some Jesse Ventura like figure.
Populism is the new black, and people who don’t understand this are going to get hurt.
Shinobi
DJ,
Pittsburgh has several big universities there, and some of them even offer DUN DUN DUNNNNN Domestic Partner Benefits. CLearly proof that the gay mafia has taken over. (Shh..The Mauve Hand!)
myiq2xu
“Pennsylvanians don’t need a president who looks down on them.”
Oh, there it is!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
This only makes sense if you think that Hillary is running to advance the goals of the Democratic party, rather than the other way around.
We have always been at war with East Obamasia.
Notorious P.A.T.
Funny. When someone tells me they dodged sniper fire in Bosnia, or helped forge the Northern Ireland peace agreement, but they didn’t–in other words, lies to me–I feel like they don’t respect me enough to bother telling me the truth.
But I guess it’s Obama who “looks down” on me.
The Other Steve
Damn, look whose back with his Republican arguments.
The Other Steve
This thread needs an enema to help ya all to relax.
ThymeZone
Actually, it’s showing up regularly on CNN now, and it’s quite effective.
Obama was right, and continues to be right, and people are smart enough to figure that out. Clinton again has shot herself in the leg on this one. Obama sounds like he truly understands this issue, and Clinton sounds like just another slogan-mongering politician.
Clinton is obviously the one who is “talking down” to the voters in this situation. To paraphrase John, fu(k her, and the horse she rode in on.
leinie
Yeah, I know, I know. I keep trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, that she really does care about the party and the country, but I guess I need to wake up and smell the fucking coffee.
I just wish I didn’t have to listen to the fucking “I told you so” from my Republican husband. I had turned him around from believing the Rush propoganda of the 90s, and then she fucking has to go out and confirm all that shit with her actions. Now, I mention her name, I get to hear about her ambition and how she doesn’t give a fuck about anything but her RIGHT to be ordained as the first woman president, and all the rest of it.
ThymeZone
Sure, you relentlessly stupid and useless troll. She is lying to the voters when she says that Obama is “looking down” on them WRT to his original remarks. Instead, he is understanding their plight and their gut reactions and asking them to join him in looking for better solutions.
She is demagoguing the thing, deliberately mis-characterizing his remarks in a cheap attempt to grab attention. Luckily, she is fucking it up big time, and giving him the chance to expand his message and expose her for the complete shithead that she is. She could just as easily have taken the Obama ball here and run with it in the same direction, which is, toward the goal line (the real interests of the voters) not toward an opportunity for snark.
She looks small, and he looks big.
And you? You look like the complete horse’s ass you have always been.
Cain
I think the above means “condescending” or looking down on you. eg having an elitist attitude. You like argue specifically on what is written. But that’s not how the world works. We aren’t robots. When I call you elitist, there is a set of responses that comes with that. One of them is “he’s looking down at me”.
Also, consider what she did. She took the whole bitter comment, then put a happy face on it, ignoring the reality that yes, people can be bitter that all their jobs are gone and haven’t returned. You can roll up your sleeves, be positive or what not, but who gives a shit if nobody is going to stand up and help you. At least acknowledge that there is some frustration. Then after that, she talks about how she’ll be the president who will look out for them and what not. This is precisely what Obama was saying he was doing. That’s what was dishonest. She turned his nuanced message into some simplistic feel good message she could use for her own advantage. Politics as usual.
Instead, what Hillary should have done was say, “Barack Obama is right, people are bitter and jobs have gone out. I’ve been trying to solve the problem, as senator I passed xxx bill, yyy bil etc etc to help” That would have helped undecided go for Hillary without having to go negative and made her case. She doesn’t have anything, no bills, nothing. Barack nailed her with her pro-credit card bankruptcy bill. Which shows how much she understands blue collar worker problem and the cash flow issues they are having. We know which side she chose.
Bad judgement. If her platform was about experience, she should have had the experience to realize people were getting screwed for the past 25 years. She should have done something. These little tricks is all she got. Politics as usual. Fuck politics as usual.
cain
ThymeZone
Reminder, tomorrow night, Clinton-Obama debate on CNN.
ThymeZone
What I really love about this “controversy” is that we have the spectacle of John McCain saying that Obama is “out of touch with the middle class.”
Please, please, bring on November, and the tremendous ass-whipping we are going to deliver on John McCain.
McCain, who has never held a real job outside of the Navy and congress, who married the richest woman in Arizona and used her beer distributorship money to lubricate his political career, and who wants to make the Bush tax cuts for the rich permanent while the economy slides into the toilet …. thins Obama is “out of touch” with the folks.
We are given a great gift this years, Dems. Enjoy it.
Cain
The media loves a good smack down. They also get to play pundit and speculate, spin and laugh with their own media friends.
bernarda
Yes, you prefer 8 years of empty Obama rhetoric. Obama wants to stay in Iraq until at least 2010. Any difficulty, he will cave to the right wing, just to show that he is “serious”.
But that’s OK, he has raised the most money. But what the heck, that is why we love Oblablabama.
ThymeZone
He will be running against a guy who thinks Sunnis are characters on Sesame Street, and wants to stay in Iraq until 2110.
Your troll isn’t working to well, you might want to try some new material.
dnA
Personally, I can’t believe how much this reminds me of the whole “acting white” thing.
So you go to college, you get good grades, you work hard, but all that happens white people tell you you’re “not really black,” you’re an “elitist” out of touch with the common people, because you went to Harvard, you don’t have a .45 in your shorts and you actually made something of yourself.
Tell me how this kind of crap, which we’ve been seeing shades of the entire election, is any different from “the slander that a black kid with a book is acting white” which supposedly is a phenomenon that only exists in the black community.
AkaDad
Looks like they’re saving money by coordinating their dishonest attacks.
Rick Taylor
[——>spoof-alert!!!
dnA
You mean like when Hillary voted for the war, the bankruptcy bill, and the resolution condemning Iran?
Rick Taylor
Alright, let’s try that again.
[ *spoof-alert!!!*]
Well it’s not like she said Obama would be a president who looks down on people! Why she could have been talking about anyone here. ‘Pennsylvanian’s don’t need a president who looks down on them,” is something I think we can all agree on. If Obama supporters are leaping on this automatically assuming she’s talking about him, well that says more about than them than her. And anyway, there’s a world of difference between “looks down on” and “elitist.” True, they’re both three syllables, but “looks down on” is a phrase, while “elitist” is a noun; really it’s a leap from one to the other. I’m surprised after all these years of blogging you haven’t learned the Clinton rules.
I learned these rules discussing whether Hillary ever “agreed” that the unsanctioned primaries in Michigan and Hillary wouldn’t count. It turns out that just because she didn’t raise a peep of protest when the DLC made it’s ruling, just because she went on to sign an agreement which noted that any delegates from the contested primaries would be disqualified and pledged not to participate in the contests as a result, and just because she made a public statement that of course the contest in Michigan would not count, there’s no reason to conclude she had ever agreed the delegates from those primaries wouldn’t count, and nothing to prevent her from fighting tooth and nail to gain control of the delegate committee and seat them. The candidate herself said so. Why, anyone arguing otherwise must be gripped by a bad case of CDS, or in the tank for Obama; there’s no other reasonable explanation.
ThymeZone
Wow, this is full of the good. First of all, MSNBC has been pimping this thing for all it’s worth. The “furor” over the remarks. Can you feel it? Can you?
Oh, did I mention that Clinton referred to the remarks as “elitist?” I think so.
Debate, tomorrow night. Watch, and learn.
I look forward to the Lieberman-Clinton independent ticket.
Those two definitely deserve each other.
TR
Hell of a counterpunch.
I’m reminded of the Alec Guinness line from “Star Wars” where he says, if you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Obama Wan Kenobi is kicking ass.
bernarda
I find it funny that Oblablabama’s supporters don’t have anything to say about him except that he is not Clinton. Those that criticize my comments usually are just confirming their correctness, about the big “O” and his delusional supporters.
ThymeZone
Give it up dude. We eat second rate troll for breakfast around here.
You arent’t even trying at this point.
TR
And I’d like to thank MyIQis2 for prompting me to donate another $100 to Obama.
Thanks for the inspiration!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
I find it funny that you expect people to engage you in a calm and rational debate when you call them “delusional” and then waste time which could have been spent making a substantive point on word play involving Obama’s name.
That never seems to work for me, but then maybe I’m just not saying “delusional” the right way. YMMV.
John Cole
It has become increasingly clear that in November, a choice between Clinton and McCain is no choice at all.
t jasper parnell
A quick test: Which rival campaign said what about Obama’s claim that those who get screwed by the system are bitter about getting screwed? And does it really matter?
t jasper parnell
Sorry posted without reading. Apologies all around
Phoenix Woman
Actually, the NYT’s referenced it as have other news orgs. It, and not the original lame-ass attacks, is the story. And as a takedown of lame-assery, it ranks with Ali’s dismantling of Sonny Liston.
Phoenix Woman
It’s like he’s Bugs Bunny to McCain’s Elmer Fudd and Hillary’s Daffy Duck: They make some lame-ass bogus attack, and he causes the popguns to blow up in their faces. The debate they started is now going to be held on his terms. That’s not what they wanted to see.
ThymeZone
Yes, I am really looking forward to tomorrow night’s debate.
I wonder if Clinton will pursue that revolting “values” theme in this context?
She now sounds indistinguishable from Republicans. In fact she sounds exactly like Pat Buchanan at this point.
I wonder if there is any fight in which she could see her way to try to take the high ground? To rise above the cheap shot and really take ownership of an issue?
Jake
I’d just like to point out again just how good Obama’s kung fu is? I mean, how many times have we seen him do this?
Glen Greenwald had a long post on this topic awhile back when Obama was taking flak for not wearing stupid flag pins. He hits back, HARD.
freddy
Exactly. How’s this for starters? “Americans don’t need someone who claims to feel their pain, then kicks them in the ribs by making pay for play pitches to Colombian trade representatives. Or someone who claims to be a straight talker who has lobbyists doing business on his campaign bus.”
Yeah. I want that argument, big time.
myiq2xu
I find it amusing that everytime Obama has to talk his way out of a shituation he got himself into, his supporters immediately announce how masterful and effective he was.
It really is quite predictable.
Haka = kaka
Desmond
Maybe because he responds WELL to all of these bullshit shituations? John Kerry would mumble and rapidly backtrack from his gaffes. Obama actually fights, and turns the entire thing around on his terms.
myiq2xu
More ‘splaining from His Eloquence:
That’s WORM Version II
AkaDad
I don’t appreciate it when a politician talks to me like an adult, which is why I support Hillary.
AkaDad
I don’t appreciate it when a politician admits a flaw or mistake, which is why I support Hillary.
Desmond
Oh, and myiq2xu, here is Hillary calling Obama “elitist and out of touch”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeV2KzGGC38
Explicit enough for you?
myiq2xu
You are correct. Obama is elitist and out of touch.
John Cole
The only conceivable upside to you scum sliming your way to a Hillary nomination with your incessant lies and half-truths and distortions will be the sheer joy I experience rat-fucking you for the next six months like you have Obama the past few.
Then, I can cap it all off with a digital pic of me voting for McCain in the general. I will enjoy slipping the knife in.
vwcat
While Hillary pretends to be the candidate who cares about the middle class and paints Obama as an elitist, lets see what the LA Times has to say about the real record of Hillary and free trade:
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-trade12apr12,1,2301897.story
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Don’t look now, but guess who else just got caught saying something in private that they might wish to rephrase?
wait for it, wait, wait…
I’m guessing she was thinking of the low, low prices…
h/t Yves Smith at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com
vwcat
I have a feeling with Billary, the 109 million dollar couple, trying to make use of this all weekend, it will blow up in their tired old faces.
I live in the midwest where the best jobs have gone to Mexico and China, thanks to Billary’s opening the floodgates on free trade in the 90s. The jobs that are available are minimum wage retail. And those won’t be around much longer because no one can afford to shop.
They cannot afford much of anything thanks to Billary.
And believe me, people have been saying what Obama has for a long time. Obama is not saying anything we have not.
And we all see how the Clintons have gotten rich off the backs of the middle class that they helped to destroy.
AkaDad
Hillary attended Wellesley and Yale, was a lawyer for Wal-Mart, was first lady, and is currently a senator.
It would be silly to think of her as an elitist.
Quest
It’s funny how all you MUPheads don’t see the condescension and hypocrisy in his words.
this guy thinks it be a much better idea to raise taxes on people when they are going through hard economic times. Then I am sure you want to follow through with scrapping NAFTA and killing the Columbian free trade too, that all part of the Obama agenda. Lets just repeat all the mistakes of Hoover and chant “YES WE CAN” over and over and expect it all to turn out right.
Talk about out of touch. LOL
Now go ahead and call me a troll. I don’t expect much from you.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
If you guys think that “Religion (and 2nd Amendment rights and immigration enforcement) is the opiate of the out-of-work yokels,” is going to push the swing states to Obama, you’re all high on crack.
That’s the part of this riff that will be held over Obama’s head (by McCain, if not by Hillary, who can’t really touch these issues in a primary), and it is a bold-print loser in the general for Obama.
mightygodking
Oh, come now. This just isn’t true.
Yes, Clinton will be a shitty candidate, but as President, despite the fact that she will bring back her entire circle of Democratic party machine ratfuckers into power, America will still get, at a minimum, a minimum of two reasonably non-crazy Supreme Court justices (possibly three) and a decent energy plan.
These are not small things. John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, both old and in very poor health, represent the centre-left of the Court right now; two more justices in the Roberts/Alito mold (which is what McCain will certainly deliver) will cement the oligarchic, limiting trend in American jurisprudence for another twenty years.
Antonin Scalia is both healthy and brilliant (and gets short shrift from the left for his political leanings, but believe me, read most of his decisions and you quickly learn the guy is a fucking genius when it comes to advancing his preferred legal philosophy in genuinely grounded ways). We need brilliant liberal justices on the other side to counter him, and we haven’t had one since Thurgood Marshall retired.
That alone should be reason to vote for Clinton over McCain, even if you have to hold your nose.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
…
That works for me. Just don’t be surprised when Dems get destroyed in the 2010 midterms.
bernarda
Golly Gee, Thatleftturn, “I find it funny that you expect people to engage you in a calm and rational debate when you call them “delusional” and then waste time which could have been spent making a substantive point on word play involving Obama’s name.”
It seems to me that a certain JC used the term “delusional” for Clinton supporters. But I guess he, contrary to me, engages in rational debate.
I am amused to see that so many Oblablabama supporters treat me, a Clinton supporter, as a troll simply because I don’t agree with them.
I am not becoming more cynical, just gathering more evidence for my cynicism(apologies to Frank Zappa who I got it from).
PaulB
Moron, the people affected by this policy are not, in fact, “going through hard economic times.” The people making a quarter a million a year or more have been making out like bandits under the Bush administration’s policies.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
bernarda,
Many of us have already posted in weeks or months gone by descriptions of how our preferences have evolved during the primary campgaign and if you’ve missed those comments, you may be misunderstanding where people are coming from. Opinion is not monolithic on this blog, even amongst Obama supporters, nor does JC speak for everyone. Try posting an argument that is pro-Hillary without calling Obama or his supporters names, and you might be surprised by the response (in a good way, not a bad way).
I for one would like to engage in dialog with someone who is honestly sticking with/sticking up for Hillary and not just trolling. The trolls have been amusing but that schtick is getting a bit stale.
PaulB
No, dear, we call you a troll because your first post on this thread was, in fact, a classic troll post, devoid of content. Your later posts on this thread, including this one, were equally empty and inflammatory. Hence, the “troll” label has been well earned. Wear it with pride.
PaulB
Dear heart, since the evidence to date quite clearly shows that his responses have, in fact, been “masterful and effective,” I’m not sure what point you think you’re making.
As is the really lame trolling from you, but still you persist.
You said it, dear; we didn’t.
PaulB
By the way, dear, any time you care to actually engage in “rational debate,” we’ll be right here. Until then, we’ll just be laughing at you.
tBone
Oh dear. Concern trolls are . . . concerned. I guess it’s all over for Obama, then.
Anyone who thinks this tempest in a teapot is going to sink Obama after he weathered the Wright thing needs to adjust their tinfoil.
Ted
Whoa, wait. You’ve said repeatedly you’d even vote for Hillary because the GOP must be sent into the wilderness for a while, and that was more important. Have you changed your mind?
Also, please tell me it’s not true that you invited Myiq2xu back.
bernarda
Thatleft, I appreciate your offer, “Try posting an argument that is pro-Hillary without calling Obama or his supporters names, and you might be surprised by the response (in a good way, not a bad way).”
I would like to see a reason to support Obama. You will notice that just after your post, I was again called a troll.
Still, don’t you think that JC rather calls Clinton supporters names? Just look at the last few threads. Go over to Clinton supporter TalkLeft and see if you are treated the same way I am here.
But it basically comes down to that I haven’t seen any arguments to support Obama. Maybe calling, more or less, poor and middle-class whites in Pennsylvania redneck gunfreaks is a reason. But I doubt it.
PeterJ
On TalkLeft you get your comments removed and you might even get banned.
Here, trolls get ridiculed, but their posts won’t get removed and they won’t get banned.
Is that a good enough answer for you?
PeterJ
And to add, over at TalkLeft not only trolls get their posts removed, you get your posts removed for having contrary views, for “chattering”, and so on.
An echo chamber like TalkLeft is really nice if you only like to hear your own voice…
John Cole
Some crucial distinctions here:
1.) As PeterJ noted, your comment still exists here. Go start an account at Talk Left with the moniker OBAMA2008, post a few defenses, and get back to me.
2.) We are not trying to crucify Clinton and ruin her chances at being elected in the fall should she win. We are reacting angrily to the shitheads who are doing that to Obama, and the meathead Clinton supporters who see no problem with that.
Whoops. Called you a meathead. Well, if the shoe fits.
John Cole
On this note, you are just flat out making shit up. Not that I am at all surprised.
tBone
Gee, I can’t imagine why anyone would call you a troll.
You should post at TalkLeft or Taylor Marsh and whine about how mean the Obamacans were to you. You might get more sympathy there.
bernarda
Have I called anyone here who opposes me a name? I wonder why Obama supporters seem to vent their anger so personally.
Ted
That’s because David Axelrod didn’t study at the Rove College of Texas Politics. If he had, you’d understand.
PeterJ
Bernarda has asked about reasons to vote for Obama before. S/he got answers.
And? Like I wrote, you get comments removed over at TalkLeft just for being polite and posting if the owners don’t like what you write.
You don’t even have to call them names.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
bernarda,
OK, I’ll go first:
My politics are social liberal, fiscal conservative, and on foreign policy liberal hawk (c.f. Niall Ferguson, Phillip Bobbitt) but with a strong emphasis on using soft power rather than the military and avoiding imperial overreach (pace Paul Kennedy).
On the economy I’m in agreement with the author Kevin Phillips that the US has gone too far in deindustrialization and the financialization of our economy. I think this trend needs to be reversed by retuning our trade policy to support our manufacturing sector, and I also think we need to re-regulate the credit markets to restore the post Great Depression firewalls which were dismantled from 1979 to the present day and whose absence allowed the housing market asset bubble to inflate faster and more dangerously than would otherwise have been the case.
At a macro level Obama fits better from a policy standpoint into what I’d like to see than the other candidates. I prefer his stances on:
– the Iraq war, including AUMF, K-L, and withdrawl schedule issues.
– on negotiating with enemies (which I see as an assertion of confidence in our soft power, not a sign of weakness).
– on treading lightly with regard to housing foreclosure prevention and emphasizing a renewed regulatory regime to avoid similar problems in the future.
– on non-mandated health-care coverage, because I think the more strongly mandated programs other Democratic candidates are pushing will be more difficult to get thru Congress and may be subject to constitutional challenges.
Obama has been endorsed by a range of figures who carry weight with me, from former FRB chairman Paul Volker (who dealt with the stagflationary period which I see as most likely to resemble our next decade) to a much less well known but significant group of lawyers working on habeus corpus issues.
I value Obama’s emphasis on transparency in govt, the rhetorical effort he has made to build bridges to moderate Republicans and to speak to voters in a complex and nuanced manner on difficult subjects, and his strong electoral showing with younger voters and in the interior western US, which I see as the areas with the greatest growth potential for the Democratic party.
OK, its your turn.
PaulB
No, you wouldn’t, dear, or you’d have noticed the literally dozens of reasons that people have provided in thread after thread.
There’s a reason for that, dear heart, and that is that you are behaving like a troll, in post after nonsensical, inflammatory post.
Dear heart, if you disagree over on TalkLeft, you’re banned. Now what was your point again?
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
Still wonder why you’re being called a troll, dear?
Soylent Green
In January I thought Hillary’s nomination was inevitable, we would all happily vote for her in the GE, and she would be a fine president.
But I will not be voting for her in November because she won’t be on the ballot, a fact that has been patently obvious for a couple of months.
I reserve my final judgment on Clinton until after she throws in the towel. If she has a lick of sanity left, that should happen by June, time enough for the real campaign to start. She can save face, go out strong, and salvage some respect. If she takes this to the wire and poisons the convention, the Dems are probably screwed. Then “fuck you Hillary” is the only option left.
When she drops out, if she expresses regret for her tactics and enthusiastically throws her backing and followers to Obama, I would welcome her back to the family. If she goes out a sore loser who from the sidelines keeps trying to hand the election to McCain, may she be set on fire so we can refuse to piss on her.
Tax Analyst
Uh…actually you’re the person calling “more or less, poor and middle-class whites in Pennsylvania redneck gunfreaks”.
Actually, more than specific issues what has separated Obama from all the other Democratic Part candidates, at least for me, is that he appears to recognize and is WILLING to speak to the realities of life in America for most people. By not relying on the usual pat and safe “sound bite” Senator Obama is trusting us to be able to do more than nod our heads to the poll-tested euphemisms most candidates employ. Really, I’m just paraphrasing what others have said here and elsewhere; he’s speaking to us as though we were adults. He does so in a way that has convinced me that he knows enough about the problems and issues facing us to deal with them honestly and intelligently. Does this mean he has “all the answers”? Of course not, and that’s the point. Anybody that tells you they do is just feeding you bullshit. We’ve got a lot of very serious problems and they haven’t just popped up instantly out of nowhere. Many of these problems have existed a long, long time and virtually all of them have been exacerbated by the malignant incompetence of the past 7+ years. They didn’t get here from “sound bites” but they remain and have grown because that’s the only way they have been addressed for a long, long time.
They won’t be solved easily or quickly, but we hunger for a candidate that honestly acknowledges them and speaks of positively addressing them. Whoever is President will not be able to pull us out of our various quagmires without marshalling significant public support. Without that I do not believe any significant change can occur; the entrenched interests have the resources to negate any type of new initiative that does not have wide public support. A President who is not willing to engage the public to enlists it’s support can do no more than flail and rant when this inevitably occurs.
One of the prerequisites for pulling us out of the toilet is an honest assessment and acknowledgement of our issues and problems.
One of Senator Clinton’s big problems is that in running as “Clinton:v2” she cannot candidly address any short-comings that “Clinton:v1” displayed.
Beyond more candor we have had many months to assess each candidate’s Executive abilities. For instance, what type of campaign and campaign team have they put together? Have they been able to help the candidate put forth a positive and believable vision of where they would like to take us or are they only able to hunt for or create negatives for their opponent. Is there something they believe in beyond their own personal destiny? Have they shared this vision with us in anything more than a peripheral manner? One candidate has.
OK – your turn. Tell us something positive about your candidate. Convince me that your candidate has a positive and feasible agenda and can effectively sell it to the American people. Saying, “Trust me, I’m experienced” doesn’t count and neither does “My opponent is not trustworthy and you can take my word on that”. Take your time, don’t be afraid to spell it out.
I have to go, but I’m sure everyone else here is gonna be all eyes & ears in expectation.
So here’s your chance to set the record straight and convince those of us who initially would have supported Senator Clinton that those instincts were correct and that the last several months have all just been a big misunderstanding or maybe a bad dream.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
And, of course, within hours, I am proved right again. Damage Control, report!!
Wow. Has Barry been taking public speaking lessons from Pres Bush? Very, very weak. If you have more than six brain cells to rub together an buy any of that feeble backpedal, you are a dupe.
So he again asserts that people vote on guns and religion and illegal immigration (note the backtrack on “antipathy to people who aren’t like them”) because he asserts that the Rust Belt economy makes people bitter (although these issues are traditional and important?), and people turn to guns for comfort in troubling times, because “you can count on” guns. Really. A human adult said that. Hey, I don’t think he’s an elitist anymore. I think he’s a moron.
Gee, I don’t know Barack, maybe these banjo-playing flyover hayseeds and their cousins/wives have actual philosophical reasons for voting why they do, just like people all over America who have the same positions on these issues. Naaaaaah, that couldn’t be it.
Also, I would like to subscribe to Obama’s “What Bitter People Vote For” newsletter. For instance, I have never heard a group as bitter as the lefty blogosphere. Is this why they cling to the twin religions of The Cult of Obamamania and Our Lady of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming?
Soylent Green
Good one, EEEL. Throw in a little global warming denial. That’ll make your case for you.
Beej
Frankly, I’m flabbergasted that there are 3 people being interviewed on CNN who have the good sense to do what needs to be done with this non-controversy: laugh at it. Now if only Wolflet and the other newsreaders of the MSM would do a little laughing, we might actually have an actual race on the issues.