This is just sad, from the Dickwhisperer:
Rochester, NY: Listless is right!
Where is the fire that we so often heard from the previous president? Where are the memorable lines “axis of evil”, “Mission Accomplished”, “git r done”? Can we attribute the lack of powerful rhetoric here to the fact that your brilliant colleague Michael Gerson isn’t writing the speeches anymore?
Dana Milbank:
A word I heard in the gallery last night for the speech was “Clintonian,” and I think that’s right. Clintonian in a bad way (its excessive length) and Clintonian in a good way (smart politics).
Svensker
I hate the Villagers.
inkadu
Obama should ride in on a Harley for the next SOTU. Alternately, he could ride in on a horse, but he’d have to deliver the speech from the saddle.
aimai
Oh, fuck. That is all. Still, I suppose “clintonian in a good way” is marginally better than “black jimmy carter.” Why is it I get the feeling that the farther away we get from Bush’s reign of disaster that the media mouthpieces forget that “get ‘r done” was, in fact, a punchline? Practically self parody since it reflected a total inability to get anything done? Eight years of war to “win” Iraq? And we’re still not out? That guy practically couldn’t finish putting his pants on in the morning.
aimai
DougMN
Sorry, DougJ- I should know this, but just for clarification – your Rochester, NY right? And Milbank couldn’t recognize sarcasm if it hit him in the face.
hal
Oh, that was a serious line? I thought this was someone making a joke.
DougJ
Sorry, DougJ- I should know this, but just for clarification – your Rochester, NY right?
Yes. I’m a lot of the questions in these things now. It’s weird, I used to ask serious questions in these things and they were rarely answered. Now, I spend five minutes typing up the dumbest, snarkiest, craziest stuff I can, send it all in and they take most of it.
dr. bloor
DougJ, if you’re not compiling a record of these fuckwits in action to put together into a single volume like Don Novello’s “Lazlo Letters,” you’re depriving the literate public of comedy gold and yourself of some real gold.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@aimai: I haven’t watched any MSM reaction except for a bit of KO and RM’s concern-trolling. Have they jumped on “blame Bus” yet? Truth can be so inconvenient.
DougJ, on Gerson, I’ll see you “axis of evil” (which come to think of it was NPR’s own David Frum) and raise you a “weapons of mass destruction related program activities”, which you really have to hear, in it’s extra-careful Will Forte-style precise e-nun-ci-a-shun suggesting that Karen Hughes had to walk him through every syllable over and over again, to ‘preciate.
jibeaux
The WaPo is now at the point where the snark in asking why the signature line of Larry the Cable Guy was missing from the State of the Union address is lost on them. See also “brilliant colleague Michael Gerson”.
Nathan
“Alternately, he could ride in on a horse…”
Too Blazing Saddles.
Chyron HR
Woah, hoss, we don’t cotton to fancy arugula-swilling five-dollar words like them ’round here!
General Winfield Stuck
Being presnit is hard work, hard hard hard work. I know how the world works, hard, hard work, I work hard. Angela backrubs is hard works, works hard, hard hard hard.
Allan
Wow, that entire thread was an orgy of dicktastic dickiness. Memo to Milbank: it’s time to get over the Clintons. That was two decades ago. As was the last time you were relevant.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@DougJ: Which sums up The Village perfectly.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Doug: Like you, I used to submit serious questions and rarely would one ever get answered. Now that you take the crackpot approach, you’re in constantly.
Every time Milbank draws a paycheck or has anything posted, that’s another nail in the (com)Post’s coffin.
I’ll piss on their grave.
Rock
It’s interesting that Milbank took the “Bush powerful rhetoric” talk at face value.
Idiocracy wasn’t a great movie, but I feel it is more prophetic with each passing day. Talking for over an hour is just too long to pay attention to, Dana? I guess we soon can look forward to the administration of U.S. President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, porn super-star and five-time ultimate smackdown wrestling champion
Tom Hilton
Remember that Clinton’s SOTUs were trashed for being too long and detailed…and it turned out viewers actually wanted all that detail. (To his credit, Chris Matthews pointed that out last night.)
Adam Collyer
Did Clinton ever smack around Congress, the Supreme Court and the media like that? Ever? And has a President ever been less formal (in a good way) at points during the State of the Union?
Why do we have to compare every presidency to every.single.one before it? The actual problems we face now are unique. The political problems with one party having zero interest in effectively governing is unique. Let it be different.
Senyordave
Milbank could use the old Steve Martin line,
“And the most amazing thing to me is … I get paid for doing this”
MattF
Obama wasn’t wearing a flight suit, which raises the “manhood” issue.
TR
I knew the Villagers would bitch about the length. Because a little over an hour is just too long to spend talking about all the issues affecting a nation of 300,000,000 people.
GReynoldsCT00
<blockquoteObama should ride in on a Harley for the next SOTU. Alternately, he could ride in on a horse, but he’d have to deliver the speech from the saddle.
if only we could guarantee the horse would let out a noisy fart directed at the Repubs
Bill E Pilgrim
With how extreme right wing the WAPO is at this point, there’s no way he could possibly know that wasn’t just one of their remaining readers.
Admiral_Komack
The Villagers are mad that President Obama called them out.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Senyordave:
Except Milbank can’t play the banjo.
Great reference!
Ash Can
@DougJ: You’re so bad.
That makes me think of the Chiefs in the movie Slapshot. When they decided to start playing a clean, technically solid game they started winning, but their fans got bored because they were too fucking stupid to appreciate the finesse, and stopped coming to the rink. The Chiefs saw that they were getting killed at the gate, so they went back to the bench-clearing brawls, and sure enough they were packing ’em in again. It’d be funny if it weren’t so sad.
GReynoldsCT00
okay, so the blockquote thing isn’t working… I was referencing Inkadu above
PAR
The villagers haven’t felt the effects of the wars, or the broken economy, they just don’t see the disaster wrought by the sloganeering Bush. They literally want a sound byte over substance, lazy hacks.
JGabriel
Dana Milbank:
Funny, a word I heard in the gallery last night for Dana Milbank was “Asshole,” and I think that’s right. Asshole in a bad way (its excessive stench) and Asshole in a good way (accurately descriptive).
.
zmulls
You bastard. I actually went and read the whole Millbank chat looking for something intelligent. Every single response took a smart-aleck college sophomore tone. Incredible.
And they fired Froomkin….
artem1s
fixt
Ash Can
@Allan: Milbank was relevant??
Mike E
All in all, that was the least douchy thing he could say and we should all be grateful–and aimai, how do you know he was even wearing slacks? I imagine a velvet monogrammed jacket w/hotpants.
Violet
DougJ, your contributions to the chats are a thing of beauty. I can’t believe they take them at face value.
Napoleon
@Ash Can:
You just can’t go wrong with a Slapshot reference.
Hanson Brothers rule!
Michael
Why do we still listen to the same opinionators year after year after year?
bemused
Dana is a snotty little twit with a swelled head. I can’t imagine who bothers to read him.
inkadu
@aimai: That guy practically couldn’t finish putting his pants on in the morning.
To be fair, it is difficult to put on pants over a padded codpiece.
@GReynoldsCT00: You were referring to a horse? I thought you were talking about whether or not Alito, as a Supreme Court Justice, should come to the SOTU; if they could seat him in front of the Republicans and make sure he farted, then an appearance would be suited to the respect he has earned for his office.
Ash
I hope they never out you, Doug. Of course that would require tptb to have a modicum of analytical and investigative ability, so don’t even worry.
Jerry 101
Versailles really hates long speeches with specific policy matters.
They love short speeches full of sound bites.
Yet, Clinton’s longest speeches, panned by Versailles, did the most to boost his popularity ratings.
Maybe the people want some real information instead of the sound bites and gossip that Versailles loves.
Danton
The SOTU speech represented an adult speaking to adults. And this seems to really upset people like Dana Millbank, Sally Quinn, etc.
inkadu
DougJ- Could you invite us to these things in advance? It sounds like a good time.
Chad N Freude
Not a single “heh, heh”, either. How can we take him seriously?
Heckuva job, Milbie.
Ash Can
@Napoleon: By thin-skinned DC standards, Obama was definitely playing old-time hockey last night.
danimal
DougJ, I’m in awe. I read your question at first and thought it was real, and really stupid (git ‘r done?). On the second reading, I realized it was a snarkarific masterpiece. Cheers to the maestro.
Mnemosyne
@Danton:
Few things annoy a table full of junior high kids more than adults telling them they should act like adults.
Cat Lady
Between the Dickwhisperer’s idiotic irrelevance as a trope for the vacuity of the entire Village, and MoDo’s embarrassingly cringeworthy unself-aware cry for help finding a good fuck, what are the chances that there will be attention paid to torture and Wall Street? I’d say between zero and less than zero. Matt Taibbi and Sully aren’t enough to “git ‘er done”.
gex
Apparently some CGI explosions are needed, blockbuster style. Or the children get bored.
Brick Oven Bill
The reading started in the background on the TV. Around this time, I had to leave to go to bowling practice. There are three males and one female on my bowling team. The couple ordered a pizza. Me and Mike just drank beer.
Tractarian
@dr. bloor:
Brilliant idea. I can see it now:
“The Art of the Spoof”
by DougJ, the original Spoofmaster
Liberty60
@Rock:
When I watched Idiocracy, it was hard even to laugh, the satire was so close to our reality.
Michael
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i_D6oQO6b8
Ash
@gex:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqz5dbs5zmo
SiubhanDuinne
Couldn’t believe that two WaPo reporters were writing about the same speech.
Tom Shales: Obama “rough, tough and undaunted,” “came on strong, breathing fire,” “stirring final moments of the speech.”
Dana Milbank: speech “long, detailed and mostly conciliatory,” reaction “bipartisan and tepid.” According to Milbank, Ensign, Kerry, Vitter and Romer yawned, and Justice Ginsberg fell asleep.
kth
DougJ, the chat prank questions really need a tag of their own.
Also, there’s possibly potential to make an entire career, a la Phil Hendrie, out of this.
Elie
@Rock:
It scares me that you may be closer to correct than you think — that IS where we seem to be heading
Randy P
@SiubhanDuinne:
Tom Shales isn’t a “reporter”, he’s their TV reviewer. It used to bug the heck out of me back when I was a dead-tree WaPo subscriber, that they had Shales review political speeches on TV just because they were on TV. But it’s just part of the morass that is the current WaPo, and I don’t read them regularly anyway. I did see that column online this morning though.
I’m still mad at Shales for a completely ignorant panning of a great sci-fi show, “Earth 2”, that at this point must have been 10-15 years ago. But anyway he seemed to like last night’s “show”.
slag
Maybe by “Clintonian” Milbank really meant “syntactically correct”.
Corner Stone
@dr. bloor:
I’ve been saying this for quite a while now. If he doesn’t do some kind of compilation / memoir one day it will be a true loss for 21st century literary history.
inkadu
@Liberty60: Wag the Dog is a movie that doesn’t get enough mention as too-close-to-the-truth satire. So I’m mentioning it.
Corner Stone
@MattF: Res ipsa loquitur
Chad N Freude
Honoring the Internet Traditions, I started following links beginning from Milbank’s response to a question about Alito’s Joe Wilson moment, and found this smackdown of Obama’s totally outrageous misrepresentation of the SCOTUS opinion.
Short version: It’s not ABSOLUTELY true, it’s only BARELY true, because we don’t know yet that it’s REALLY true, because no one has tried it yet (in both senses of “try”).
PanAmerican
@inkadu:
On a mud spattered four wheeler wearing full off road body armor. They could set up some ramps and he could jump the SC and Joint Chiefs. With a giant XTREME MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner behind Pelosi and Biden.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Looking around some MSM sites, I see a lot concern trolling, a lot “Obama seeks to reclaim momentum/magic/(and of course) Teh Center”. Michael Scherer is continuing the ex-Salon reporters’ Villager Rehab program as laid out by Jake Tapper.
I have a feeling this is gonna be a speech that catapults the filter, if the Dems on the Hill pull their thumbs out.
El Cid
Where were the pitchforks? Where were the torches? Where were the screams to burn, burn, BURN THE WITCH??? Why does Obama always play to the wrong crowd?
Chad N Freude
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Nor does he have an arrow through his head.
danimal
@Brick Oven Bill: Am I the only one that thinks there are several BoBs? They seem to have different writing styles and levels of intelligence (spanning from sub-moron to arrogant idiot). It seems like tracking down the different BoBs can be its own academic exercise at times.
I don’t think all BoBs are spoofs, but some undoubtedly are.
PurpleGirl
@MattF: If Obama ever wears a flight suit or other military uniform they’ll subject us to comparisons of him to Dukakis wearing that helmet standing in the tank. Bush in the flight suit was ridiculous but they loved it. The president should not be in uniform because he is the civilian leader of the armed forces. I don’t believe Eisenhower appeared in his uniform as president, and he might have been able to make a claim to doing so.
Chad N Freude
@danimal: You are correct. Well, that means I agree. I have long contended that at least one of the BOBs is DougJ himself.
rootless_e
I must confess, my friends, the road ahead will not always be smooth. There will be still rocky places of frustration and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be inevitable setbacks here and there. There will be those moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue of despair. Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted. We may again with tear-drenched eyes have to stand before the bier of some courageous civil rights worker whose life will be snuffed out by the dastardly acts of bloodthirsty mobs. Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future. … When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.
Mike E
@Corner Stone:
Glad to know somebody else out there is as old as I am. Lazlo’s McDonalds correspondence is Louvre quality. If DougJ can get autographed pictures sent back to him, he’s made it.
Chad N Freude
@PurpleGirl: Bush had as much right to wear a uniform as Eisenhower because he was sort of in the National Guard more or less.
Fester Addams
@Brick Oven Bill:
What, now you don’t like pie?
jurassicpork
My boy Mikey weighs in on the SOTU and, unlike Obama, he’s not pulling any punches.
jenniebee
I’m still waiting for Roger Cohen to show up to let us know whether Obama’s jokes last night were funny or not.
Because Roger’s a guy who knows funny. When he was in school, his teachers used to say “Go ahead, Roger. Try and do something funny” and that’s how he knows. Also, they all encouraged him to “get smart with [them]” which should be a lesson to all of us about how brilliant he truly, truly is.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@PurpleGirl:
Just compare Bush in the flight suit (biking outfit, cowboy/weed-pulling outfit, Prezdinential crocs) to Kerry in the windsurfing unitard.
Eisenhower was, from what I understand, a firm believer in the principle that the military was subordinate to the civilian gov’t. That nonsense about the ‘presidential salute’ was started by (surprise, surprise) Ronald Reagan, who served under Bette Davis at Fort Hollywood Canteen.
Chad N Freude
@rootless_e: Dude, I think you need a platitude adjustment.
Brick Oven Bill
It has been probably ten-plus years since I have bowled. Somebody on the company team sucked, bowling a 108 last week, and got canned. Thus my invitation. Walking around in circles proficiently gets you noticed.
You become anxious as you step up to the line in front of relative strangers doing something you haven’t done in a long time. First ball in the gutter. Gasp. But then later a spare. The next game a spare-spare-strike, all in a row. The score of my first game was 100, and of the second game 113, which is greater than 108, and my scores are trending upward. So the team seems happy with me for now.
But the girl member bowled something like a 150. The savior of my ego last night, the one who was there to rescue me in my moment of need, was my Commander in Chief, who bowled a 37 on national television.
Thank you Mr. President.
Cat Lady
@jenniebee:
Richard Cohen. But yeah, that’s who the world is waiting to hear from. And Megan McCain.
gil mann
Setting aside the obvious Freudian angle, you gotta love how these lazy, ADD pricks continue to insist that Clinton’s long-ass detail-filled speeches turned off the electorate or whatever, when it’s inarguable that people loved that shit. People who give a damn about politics beyond the bloodsport of it, anyway.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah, Rachel Maddow’s a concern troll. Jesus, if there’s one thing Living Color taught us (besides the fact that wetsuits aren’t just for surfing), it’s that a brainless cult of personality can form around both Stalin and Gandhi and, presumably, anyone in between.
JGabriel
@Chad N Freude: It’s a quote from a Martin Luther King speech — his last, if I’m not mistaken.
.
Pangloss
Translation: Obama isn’t homoerotic enough.
JGabriel
@Brick Oven Bill:
And you have the psyche evals to prove it.
.
kay
@Chad N Freude:
Personally, I think Alito was defending on the “overturn 100 years of precedent” line. He’s vulnerable there.
As an aside, does anyone else think conservatives consistently show a really alarming lack of self-control?
Justice Alito, like Wilson, can’t self-censor.
PanAmerican
@Brick Oven Bill:
BOB you should get checked. Bowling Alley balls have had more fingers in them than Jeff Gannon.
Stefan
If Obama ever wears a flight suit or other military uniform they’ll subject us to comparisons of him to Dukakis wearing that helmet standing in the tank. Bush in the flight suit was ridiculous but they loved it. The president should not be in uniform because he is the civilian leader of the armed forces. I don’t believe Eisenhower appeared in his uniform as president, and he might have been able to make a claim to doing so.
Personally, I thought that Obama should have worn the Bush codpiece flight suit as his Halloween costume last year…..can you imagine the apoplectic screams of rage from the angry right if he’d done so? It makes me go all tingly just thinking about it.
PurpleGirl
@Chad N Freude: As I see it, he lost that right when he gave up his flight credentials because he didn’t want to be tested for drugs. He had a doctor’s appointment for a physical, he didn’t go and he never made another appointment and never had the physical he needed to be able to fly. I consider that AWOL. That the Texas Air National Guard did not is their shameful playing to the politics of his coming from an “important” family. Add to that, that he was made a guard member before other more qualified men on the waiting list… he gets no respect from me.
It’s been noted in some places, including BJ, that we form many of our opinions and beliefs based on who is in power when we come to political awareness. Well, I remember when Eisenhower was president, and I remember the election campaign period of Kennedy and Nixon. Eisenhower was great man.
Yes, Bush liked playing roles… too bad he never became a legitimate stage or screen actor.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@gil mann: I didn’t say she was a concern troll, I said she was concern trolling. There’s a difference. As I’ve pointed out here before, she offered a compelling defense of teh Obama presidency on Letterman just a couple of weeks ago–one that would have earned her accusations of O-Botism in certain bloggy circles. I think she’s conscious of who her audience is an adjusts her message accordingly. In her coverage of teh SOTU last night, she was, IMHO, splitting and splicing hairs to find reasons to be critical. But if you find counting paragraphs a useful way to determine the importance or effectiveness of the speech, that’s certainly a point of view. We’ll just have to agree to disagree.
slag
@kay:
Perpetually. That’s why they need to replace the Ten Amendments with the Ten Commandments. Amendments aren’t domineering enough to keep them in line.
Stefan
That nonsense about the ‘presidential salute’ was started by (surprise, surprise) Ronald Reagan, who served under Bette Davis at Fort Hollywood Canteen.
Dear god, I hate the presidential salute with a hot holy passion. The president should not salute! It is a completely un-American practice.
Cat Lady
@kay:
Two wetsuits and a dildo. Exhibit AAA.
inkadu
@rootless_e: I don’t know about the low-covering clouds of despair where you are, but it’s snowing over here.
MagicPanda
Does it really matter what Dana Millbank says? The MSM doesn’t create conventional wisdom, it follows it. Also, Dana Millbank is a complete tool.
The right wing (via Fox, Rush, Freedomworks, etc) pushes conventional wisdom in the direction it wants by distorting facts, yelling loudly, etc. The left hasn’t really figured out how to counter this effectively.
While one speech isn’t going to move the needle much one way or the other, I was happy that the GOPs were called out on their obstructionist tactics in the SOTU. Now, let’s see if Obama and the rest of the dems can keep their messaging straight on this for the next couple months, because that is what it takes to move conventional wisdom.
mr. whipple
@rootless_e:
Thanks, that was beautiful.
dr. bloor
@slag:
Yes indeedy. We all know how well they obey the Ten Commandments.
Phoebe
@General Winfield Stuck: thank you.
kay
@slag:
It’s funny, because Wilson is just a rude hot-head, but Alito lives and dies by rules, both written and unwritten.
One would hope. Considering what he was appointed to do, and has done, for years. I guess the rules don’t apply to him.
I’m sure glad that wildwoman Justice Sotomayor didn’t embarrass us all with injudicious behavior, as widely predicted. You never can tell, huh?
Elie
@kay:
Yes, I do and I am afraid that the lack of control standard is being increased over time. Its also serving as a model to lesser level politicos and cheapening/threatening political discourse at all levels. I am seeing more on the local level politics that I observe from the most banal topics to the most serious. No respect for process, no respect for participants and no respect for the right to express opinions without rude reactions…
Chad N Freude
@PurpleGirl: I think you missed the sarcasm underlying my comment.
Chad N Freude
@kay: Alito’s the guy who carries a grudge against senators who voted against his confirmation. Like ex-Senator Obama.
Chad N Freude
@dr. bloor: Their version does not contain the word “not”.
gil mann
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Or maybe she likes some of the things Obama’s doing and doesn’t like other things Obama’s doing. But yeah, you’re probably right to just assume bad faith on her part; it’s not like the administration’s given us any reason to be ambivalent.
slag
@kay:
It’s funny you should say this. A friend and I were just discussing this very aspect of Alito’s personality. He appeared in the movie Resolved (along with several other Republicans, incl Karl Rove) defending the idiotic rules of high school debate. He definitely clings to his rules (along with his religion and his guns probably) as a means of justifying his status in life. That the rules are decidedly arbitrary in some circumstances is totally irrelevant to him.
And yes, the fact that he couldn’t obey them at the SOTU says quite a lot. Dissertations could probably be written on the subject. Seriously.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
That nonsense about the ‘presidential salute’ was started by (surprise, surprise) Ronald Reagan, who served under Bette Davis at Fort Hollywood Canteen.
Ewww!! Thank God I didn’t read that this morning, or else I’d have OJ all over my computer screen.
kay
@Elie:
I don’t know if I’m looking for it, so now see it, or what, but it comes up again and again.
The Cambridge cop case. The conservative reaction was to put the duty on the citizen. That’s not even accurate. The duty to behave properly is on the police officer. The police officer has an elaborate set of rules, and rightly so. The citizen is an absolute wild card.
Again, here. The conservative reaction is to say Obama provoked the justice. But Obama doesn’t operate under the same set of rules that Alito does. Obama is in a political branch (and he slid right by that anyway, by setting up that attack on the decision as a call to action by Congress, which is well within the purview of the Prez).
I think it’s scary. They have a really skewed sense of who owes what to whom. There seems to be this sense that power or “respect” comes without the requisite responsibility. Because they perceive Alito’s standing (wrongly) as somehow superior to Obama, Alito is exempt from his own rules.
Shinobi
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Are you aware of all internet traditions? Concern trolling is not the same as being critical. Concern trolls by definition do not support the cause they are “concerned” about.
I do think RM is often quite critical of the Obama Administration, but she is often very focused on getting facts straight and understanding what is going on. If all journalists were as focused on getting things right and not listening to overblown rhetoric as she is we’d be in a much better place as a country IMHO.
Tsulagi
@DougJ: That’s funny.
Best memory I have of a Bush SOTU was provided by my daughter. Son had sensibly bailed and was playing a video game in the family room. Daughter stayed, but she was way more interested in putting together a puzzle on a coffee table.
At one point she stopped and watched Bush for maybe a minute. Then returned to her puzzle while calmly and matter of factly saying “he’s lying.” I asked why she said that and without looking up from her puzzle answered “kids at school look and sound like that when they’re lying.” Cracked me up.
slag
@dr. bloor:
Hey-I defy you to find me an example of David Vitter obeying some other God besides the Christian god. That’s #1. He’s still working on the others.
In other words, touche.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@gil mann: Wow, did you learn petulant, passive aggressive sarcasm from the PUMAs? You’re good at it. I didn’t say bad faith, I think her awareness of her audience is evidence of intelligence and perspective. I just thought her analysis of the SOTU was poor, lacking in that same perspective, as has been her over-reaction to the “spending freeze”. But it is interesting to see you jump to accusations of a “personality cult” because I criticized someone you’re a fan of, and that you accuse me of implying bad faith because you misunderstood what I said. I think the shrinks have a word for that, as Molly Ivins used to say.
Tom W.
Nate Silver found the speech Clintonian as well (and in a very positive way):
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/01/obamas-sotu-clintonian-in-good-way.html
If the President’s lucky, it’ll be Clintonian in another way – a bump in the polls and general feeling about the Administration. Clinton was the only recent President to do that regularly.
And it was long! (And good)
PurpleGirl
@Chad N Freude: If I did, I’m sorry. Bush just pushes so many buttons for me.
kay
@slag:
I’m actually a “rule person” as someone who likes me once described me, so maybe that’s why I found his little outburst so interesting. I think they make things easier, fairer, and more predictable.
As a “rule person” though, I’m acutely aware that I have to follow them, though. That’s where he and I part ways, I guess.
And here I was, thinking he and I had something in common. Nope.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Shinobi:
Okay, fair point. But I do think she hugely over-reacted to the “spending freeze”–which I think is bad politics and (probably) bad policy, but is not “neo-Hooverism”– and it colored her reaction to the SOTU. I’m a fan of hers, hell I still like Olbmermann, but I thought she lacked perspective last night.
Elie
@kay:
We are headed for some really scary times. “Scary” is not an overreaction to my mind. As I said, just two nights ago I experienced a county council meeting where citizens expressing views were catcalled from the audience and the council chairman only minimally attempted to enforce the rule that no one does that in chambers. He then allowed the audience to clap uproariously when another citizen testified what the creeps agreed with.
Right now, most of us who believe in decorum are noting these exceptions and not reacting particularly to them. This may be a mistake. As time goes on, there is a tendency to accomodate deviance as normal, lowering the bar of behavior even further to “make their point” of disrespect. Lord knows what that could lead to. Also, sooner or later it will incite a negative reaction, leading to the sort of thing we all fear — outright battles in settings that never ever had that sort of thing.
The traditional “white culture” is under enormous strain right now — demographics, economics and political power I believe interweave to challenge the very heart of what they have believed as core. Like the period prior to the Civil War — they are testing what they need to do to “make it right again”… and they have no principled leadership to diffuse it — Alito is an example — only inflammers, no conciliators..
eemom
From what I could see as long as I can endure reading a Greenwald post, which isn’t long, he does have a good explication today of why Alito’s bullshit pantomiming was so deplorable coming from a member of the judiciary.
And now that I have said something nice about the ‘Zilla, I hasten to add that his characterization of the “condemnations” of Joe Wilson as “histrionic and excessive” was pretty durn funny coming from him.
slag
@kay:
Weirdly enough, this attitude you’re describing is what I generally think of as the “Bush Doctrine” (sorry, Charlie Gibson) since, in my opinion, it underlies the totality of the neocon mindset. Preemption, torture, even their economic worldview. All of it. It’s about power exempting you from responsibility rather than power endowing you with responsibility.
I’m more of an “Obama Doctrine” person who believes that “right makes might”. Which is why I get so frustrated when I see us not following that doctrine even today. But no matter how frustrated I get, I still couldn’t bring myself to behave as badly as some Republicans do. Different values and such.
dkxkee
“Git r done” now counts as “rhetoric?” Do any other countries glorify ignorance like we do? Are their redneck Samoans or hillbilly Italians or anything comparable to the idiots we have making up about half our population?
kay
@Elie:
Weirdly, whatever other failings Obama has, I think Obama is up for that. He almost encourages really lively opposition. He seems completely comfortable with a lot of noise.
I agree with you that we’re in for a lot of craziness, but I’m coming around to accepting it.
I don’t know, Elie, maybe it’s necessary and we just should roll with it? We just finished eight years where a lot of opposition was characterized as unpatriotic, and where people in power went to great lengths to hide a lot of things. Plus, not incidentally, many of us were completely deluding ourselves about the economy, and our own financial security.
Can we avoid some kind of noisy and chaotic reckoning after all that? Should we avoid it? I don’t think so.
slag
@kay: I’m a “rule person” insomuch as I would prefer to change the rules rather than disobey them. But if the rules (written or unwritten) try to prevent me from acting in a manner that I consider morally correct, I will break them (as a rule :). I never would make it in the military. Or in a lot of places, for that matter.
Sad_Dem
Tweety strikes!
“I forgot he was black tonight for an hour.”
Previously:
“Can you smell the English leather on this guy, the Aqua Velva, the sort of mature man’s shaving cream, or whatever, you know, after he shaved? Do you smell that sort of -a little bit of cigar smoke? You know, whatever.”
And here:
“And I think we have got to get serious about catching terrorists, not just catching weapons. I‘m waiting for the terrorist who knows kung fu or something that gets on an airplane without a weapon. God knows what that is going to be like.”
I’m getting a tingle up my leg.
James F. Elliott
Now that “brief” and “Axis of Evil” are the hallmarks of rhetoric, we are well and truly fucked as a culture.
Elie
@kay:
You definitely have some points.
What choice do we have but to roll with it anyway. Makes testifiying in some venues an interesting experience but as long as no one follows you home, I guess I am ok with it. Its the tacit green light to “misbehaving” — not the open expression of your beliefs/feelings per se. Mouthing opposition is an action. If its just mouths and not fists moving, I guess its ok.
dr. bloor
@James F. Elliott:
OTOH, next year’s SOTU address should be a snap for Obama:
BLUUUUUUE MEANIES!
fraught
Dana Milbank is revealing his own shortcomings by using the words “excessive length” about Obama and Clinton. What a wiener.
Shinobi
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I can’t argue there, she’s been pretty reactionary about the spending freeze, it seems like they are trying to do it in a responsible way.
gil mann
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Dude, that second sentence totally doesn’t follow from the first. PUMAs bang it out to the cheap seats with exclamation marks and “sarc” tags and crap like that; they are to sarcasm what American Idol is to the Motown catalog.
So thanks for the compliment, but man, talk about backhanded.
CalD
It must suck to be Dana Milbank. Poor miserable bastard.
Val
Re Rachel on the freeze:
I think some are missing the point she was making. She wasn’t complaining about the freeze per se but the fact that Obama was framing the idea in Hooverian terms, the old “American people have to balance their checkbooks and live within their means, so the government should, too” line. I think she believes it’s more of a gimmick than a danger to the republic, especially with all the exceptions. But she doesn’t like the fact that Obama is ensuring that this conservative Reaganesque talking point gets ever more deeply embedded in the public consciousness and gives the Keynesian macroeconomic argument for deficit spending in a near-depression an unnecessary hurdle to clear with the public on the occasions when that approach is prudent and necessary. The government is not the same as our kitchen table, our family budget and our checkbook. Just like it’s not a “business” and health care isn’t a commodity we comparison-shop for.
kevina
On a not totally unrelated note, classic Sully:
Shorter Sully: Hey America, nice democracy you had there.
Sadly, I’m not sure he’s wrong.
geg6
@kay:
Which is possibly the most astonishing thing I saw last night. If a judge, let alone a fucking justice of the SCOTUS, cannot control his/her political emotions and impulses at a moment when that is de rigueur and when one is on national tv, what the hell is this person doing on the bench?
AkaDad
Anything longer than American Idol is excessive.
geg6
@AkaDad:
Nah, I think it’s all the big words. Last time I caught American Idol (granted, only once and several years ago), it was on for two hours. I think it was one of those awful audition shows? ‘Cuz if it wasn’t, that was some seriously terrible shit going on. Of course, any tv show producers that foist shit like Clay Aiken and Carrie Underwood upon the world should be waterboarded just for shits and giggles, IMHO.
SiubhanDuinne
@Randy P: Oh, I know and I have often wondered at the kinds of things they gave Shales to review. I shouldn’t have used the word “reporter” (for either Shales or Milbank, I guess). “Writers” then. Either way, I stand by my original astonishment that they could watch the same televised event and come away with such diametrically opposed opinions. Such lovely bipartisanship on the WaPo staff should keep Broder happy, anyhow.
/snark
Nellcote
I think of Dana Millbank as one of Sally Quinn’s flying monkeys.
Nellcote
@Val:
Her pov is certainly worthy of debate but her attack on Jared Bernstein the other night was uncharacteristic and rather hysterical. She extended more courtesy to the asshole from C Street.
Paul Siegel
According to a CBS poll 83% approved Obama’s speech. Enough said.
bcinaz
Pretty funny
“Axis of Evil” = Pretext to invade Mesopotamian oil rich nation
“Axis of Evil” = N. Korean and Iranian pretext to ramp up nuclear arms research/refine uranium/build missiles.
“Mission Acocmplished” = photo op on aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln with Alfred E Newman look-alike.
Really memorable moments
DPirate
They would be all glowing praise if he had included commercial breaks in the structure.
Veritas78
Happily, there are now 1-1/2 generations of Americans unaware of trophy-wife Sally Quinn or sycophant Dana Milbank. Soon, it will be two generations.
“It was the newspapers that got small,” uttered by Quinn when Milbank was found floating in her pool.