I know we’re all sick of the Death to America Ground Zero Mosque, but for the love of Allah, why can’t all Democrats do as well as Al Franken did when talking about it?
The pattern is simple: First, know the facts. Unlike Dean and Reed, Franken points out that it’s a community center that can’t be seen from ground zero. Second, call it what it is and link it to a pattern:
On a more serious note, he also added: “They (Republicans) do this every two years. They try to find a wedge issue, and they try to work it.”
Contrast Franken’s words to the typical piss-pants Democratic response. First, they treat the nontoversy as a very serious issue, worthy of a few Oprahs and a 20/20. Because it’s so serious, they’re afraid to face it head-on, so they run away or give evasive statements. Then, after the noise machine has been working long enough for the first polls to appear, the ignorant, fleeting opinions reflected in those polls cause the weaker links in the Democratic chain to issue statements that essentially agree with Republicans. Once that happens, the issue is far more legitimate in the eyes of the media, so what was once a nothingburger is now a topic for experts to discuss for hundreds of hours of cable TV.
I guess the Democratic leadership thinks this is a desired outcome, because they do it all the fucking time.
Dennis G.
Al’s response was spot on and it would seem an easy formulation to follow, but then again he is shrill…
BR
Or they could have taken Obama’s stance, which is the developers have a right, and nobody can say otherwise.
For good measure, they could throw in a little “the federal government has no business involving itself in a local property matter, one where the local board has approved the development. to do so would be like to weigh in on and do remote diagnoses for an individual family in a medical case…oh wait.”
Incertus (Brian)
Agreed. And for anyone who argues that Reid has a tough election to get through, well, Franken didn’t exactly sweep into his seat on a wave of overwhelming support either.
Breezeblock
With this “Mosque Memorial”, and “Obama is a Mooooslim!”, and Dr. Laura, I feel like I’m living in a fucking madhouse.
No offense meant to those suffering from mental illness!
Can’t wait to get my booze on tonight and the rest of the weekend.
cleek
fuck that spineless quivering wimp, Reid.
Franken for Majority Leader!
Woodrow L. Goode, IV
Well, the big thing is to care more about your self-respect than your poll numbers. Most politicians are so terrified about losing their jobs that they would do or say anything to keep it.
It also helps to think about constitutional issues, which most of them don’t do. My experience in talking with a lot of them is that they’d fail a Freshman-level Political Science class on American Govermnent.
I managed to completely flummox George Voinovich, who was talking about ACORN, by reminding him that a Bill of Attainder is illegal. He had no idea what one was. Sorta terrifying.
Sly
A lot of people, Franken being one of them, simply don’t recognize the fact that you can’t out-wingnut a wingnut. Ever.
Harry Truman was right about at least two things. One of those things was Richard Nixon. The other was that if you give people a choice between a Republican and a Democrat who tries to act like a Republican, the former will usually win.
El Cid
AP story quotes right wing wondering if MSNBC covered Iraq combat troop departure too much, you know, because they’re awfully liberally biased, while ignoring Fox’s mere 10 minutes of coverage, maybe because they just luuuv the troops too much.
Washington Moonie Money-losing Times‘ columnist notes that Obama is a “cultural Muslim” who turns his back on America.
Christian Science Monitor shares with other media that they too hate America and want Israel to be cast into the sea and want Iran to take over the Middle East with the nuclear weapons they’ll surely have next Tuesday.
Frank
They must. They did it when about half of them voted to authorize the disastrous war on Iraq. Hell, the Democratic House leader even joined bush at the Rose Garden when he declared war.
They did when about half of them voted to condemn a private ad made by a private organization, Moveon.org.
They did it when half of the Dems present voted to pass the idiotic Terry Schiavo bill.
Seriously, we need a third party in this country. I am so disappointed in how Democrats have acted during this “controversy”. I always thought the Democratic party was supposed to stand up for the little guy, yet here it is joining with the bigoted lynch mob from FoxNews. Shameful!
wilfred
Come on, it’s good politics, isn’t it? It’s not like Muslims matter as a voting bloc – they’re not Jews, Gays, Blacks or Women, after all, groups we’d really go through the wall for.
Principle?! Internal polling showed Democrats getting hit hard on this. Except for a few whiny hippies, who really gives a shit about this, anyway? Best go with the flow and keep your eyes on the prize. Health care, people, health care.
ChrisWWW
Bingo.
Also, I think we should remember these same Democrats enable and cheer on the f*cking of Muslims in Gitmo, the Gaza strip, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
Sly
@Breezeblock:
I’ve been up to my eyeballs in this and other forms of infuriating bullshit for the past week, so much so that I’m pushing dangerously close to a project deadline because of all the mental fatigue. And now it seems the gods will be tormenting me with the possibility of there being a nice day outside.
As evidence, I point to mistakenly typing “Franken being one of them” instead of “Franken not being one of them” in post six. FML.
New Yorker
This whole epsiode has really made me appreciate Mike Bloomberg more. He’s one of the few well-known politicians to say the right thing without any qualifiers.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
On a similar note, a lot of Democrats will attempt to run from Obama while campaigning this fall. This will cause two problems for them:
1. It will alienating those who support Obama.
2. They will have no answer when their opponent attacks them for being a Democrat just like Obama.
Paris
I’d like to see them not only defend the community center, but push back against the neo-nazi lovers that ginned this up in the first place. Call the haters out by name (Pam Geller and Robert Spencer) and investigate their associates from the European right wing.
Bnad
Most opponents of the mosque don’t know what it is, don’t know where it’s being built, and have never set foot in the neighborhood it’s being built in. Dean seems to fit the first two.
K. Grant
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): In Texas, the Democratic nominee for Governor, Bill White, has been doing an excellently foolish job of smashing Obama from the right, avoiding him like the plague, and mouthing off about Obama as a ‘community organizer’. I write to White’s campaign on a regular basis (actual snail mail letters) telling them that this tactic is suicidal – it depresses the Democrats in the state (and yes, we have some very strong blue areas in the sea of red), and the right-wing types will never vote for White, ever.
Sigh – times like this when we really miss Molly Ivins and Ann Richards.
mcd410x
Maybe if we act like Republicans, people will like us … really like us.
cleek
i’m sorely disappointed in the lack of faith i see here.
don’t you all know that your constant anti-Democratic bitching is going to lead directly to lower turnouts in November ? if you let your enthusiasm flag even for a second, you will diminish the enthusiasm of the people around you then the GOP will rush in to claim those votes. you must really hate Obama. it’s like you want the GOP to win!
no, the only proper thing to do is to loudly applaud your party’s every action, and sing to the sky praises for the actions of each Party member.
so, buck up, good liberals. turn those frowns upside down and get back to defending the Democrats, no matter what they do. remember, it’s Your Party, Right Or Wrong.
roshan
About American labor practices: How much of this is true?
1) Nope, your employer is NOT required to give you any notice, or any severance pay. Some do provide severance, but that is purely at their discretion and often accompanied with “sign or you don’t get your money” waivers of corporate liability for your termination. So if you suspect you’ve been fired for an illegal reason, too bad, if you want to make your rent and car payments you’d better sign on the dotted line.
2) Employers in the U.S. are not required to provide ANY paid time off. No paid sick days, no paid vacation time, no paid maternity leave, no paid federal holidays. Many employers, even most, provide one or more of these things as a courtesy, but the number of employers offering none of them is rising as the unemployment rate rises and people become willing to take any job at all, even one that views its employees as chattel who don’t deserve a paid day off once in a while.
3) Do you work for a company with fewer than 15 employees? Your company is allowed (in most states) to discriminate against employees on the basis of race, sex, national origin, pregnancy, et cetera. Title VII of the civil rights act, which prohibits such discrimination, exempts private businesses with fewer than 15 employees. In other words, if you employ only 14 total people, you can simply say “only white people allowed.” By the way, that 15 number doesn’t include independent contractors or partners, so you can have a fairly large employer that is still allowed to discriminate as long as most of the people working there are independent contractors. What’s more, no one’s agitating to change this.
4) If you receive tips as part of your normal employment, your direct wage is generally $2.13 per hour. Yes, $2.13 an hour. Hope your tips are real nice.
5) Many, MANY jobs are not required to pay any overtime wage regardless of how many hours you work. This doesn’t just apply to executives and managers and creative types. Projectionists, carnies, cab drivers, and a host of other occupations are also exempted and require no overtime wage whatsoever.
6) Youth under age 20 in their first 90 days of employment are allowed to make $4.25 an hour.
7) Only 21 of 50 states require ANY meal or rest break time for adult employees (including both paid and unpaid breaks). Four more require breaks for minors but not adults. There is also no federal restriction on how long employers may keep employees at work or how many hours an employer can require of an employee per week. In other words, while most employers do not do this, it is 100% legal in many states to employ someone for a 16 hour shift with no breaks allowed.
via Reddit
FlipYrWhig
They do it all the fucking time not because of “Democratic leadership” but because Democrats scatter. Half of them aren’t even liberals to begin with, and a huge number of _those_ feel like they’re always on the brink of losing and are sure they’re going to lose if they make one crucial gaffe on a trumped-up issue that somehow turns into the Big Thing that election year. So they scurry, pretty much by default, _unless_ the leadership does all its power to corral them, and even then you get only as much solidarity as you’ve seen _this_ session.
So IMHO it’s not top-down or on the orders of “Democratic leadership” that they behave this way. It’s that they’re skittish and gun-shy and terrified of bad media attention and attack ads.+ It’s like they’re an underdog nation at the World Cup and they got a fluke goal and so they just pass the ball backwards again and again hoping that they don’t somehow slip and fall and blow it. They don’t push their advantage because it’s too risky, they might lose it, and it was so surprising to begin with.
(+ To Republicans’ credit–although “credit” is hardly the right word–that’s something they’re just not afraid of. Especially this group, doing things like jacking up aid to 9/11 first responders and teachers and small businesses, mostly because they’re at rock bottom and have no standing to lose.)
middlewest
It probably won’t surprise you that our scary Muslin congressman is great on this issue as well.
General Stuck
@Breezeblock:
Oh Yea. commenting on politics has become an exercise in repetitive threads about nothing. I start to rag on the front pagers about it, but then realize they are just relaying what the current non issues du jour are for the national dialogue.
It is taking everything I have to not starting commenting in Pidgeon English just to fuck with peoples heads. Some might say that is already the case. But no matta.
Obama must have thought taking on the anti – Mosque/Muslim fever would rally the better angels of the nations nature, but turns out he can’t even rally the pride of progressives, Howard the duck Dean.
And I can’t wait for the first Obama witchdoctor terror baby campaign ad from hell.
Kryptik
Battered Party Syndrome. Seriously.
Even Howard Dean jumped in on the action. The whole ‘It’s not worth doing good if you pay a political price for it’ bullshit, and buying into the idea of compromise in the Fox News ‘fair and balanced’ sense.
And the infuriating thing is that holding their feet to the fire seems to cause them to retch in our general direction, but when the right wing roars out in sheer stupidity, they shrink away and beg ‘please sir, c’n we have summore?’
It’s just so much goddamn fucking retarded bullshit that I just want to give up on this whole fucking country.
NonyNony
@Frank:
What the hell would give you THAT idea? That’s almost certainly untrue.
Some Democratic politicians stand up for the little guy. That’s certainly true. At times the Democratic party finds it in its best interest to do things to stand up for the little guy – that’s also true.
However, the one truism of American politics is that Republican politicians will never stand up for the little guy, except by accident or if the little guy happens to be standing next to a large corporation. So you’re statistically more likely to help the little guy if Democrats are in power than if Republicans are in power. But that’s about it – it’s playing the odds that Democratic politicians will do more for the non-moneyed classes, not a hard and fast characteristic of the party.
But as a practical matter the Democratic Party unambiguously stands for doing whatever needs to be done to get Democratic politicians elected and re-elected. Beyond that the Democratic Party – as a political party – stands for very little at all. We’re talking about a group that has both Al Franken and Blance Lincoln as members in good standing. What do these two have in common? Practically nothing, except that they both agree that they won’t win elections running as Republicans.
General Stuck
Then there is this little gem from American Taliban Central Command.
Obama is a demon seed now. I have a routine appointment with my primary care doc this afternoon. Maybe I can score some good dope.
via Josh Marshall
cleek
@NonyNony:
i completely agree.
but, at the same time, the GOP’s day-to-day M.O. is to simply oppose whatever the Dems do. so we have one party that’s generally too timid to do anything which might the anger the other party, which is committed to spitefully push for the opposite of whatever first party manages to mobilize itself to do.
the timid vs. the perpetually-opposed.
heckofa system
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@K. Grant: White was one of the examples I had in mind. I live in the Dallas area and the first time I heard him going after Obama, I did the huge sigh.
Mike Kay
@NonyNony:
you’ve never heard of Roe V Wade? To most women, self determination of their bodies isn’t considered a “very little” stand.
I guess when DADT is overturned in a couple of months, you’ll consider it a “very little” stand.
Ralph Nader taught you well. There’s no difference btwn Bush and Gore.
Sly
@Paris:
Investigation really isn’t necessary. The paper trail spans decades.
The Christian right has long had a love affair with the restoration of a Jewish state in Palestine, based on their belief that it is a precondition for Armageddon, and their enthusiasm for the end of the world was kicked into high gear after 1948. For about twenty years after that, they operated mostly in isolation, until the Israeli right wing began actively courting them for political and financial support following the Six-Day War.
Even when Pat Robertson wrote “The New World Order” in 1991, a book that rehashed all the old anti-semitic conspiracy theories of Europe that directly fed into the Holocaust, the Israeli right-wing and their American hand-maidens refused to confront him and others of the evangelical right who peddled this nonsense. The few who did confront it, like Michael Lind, were summarily expelled from the neoconservative movement.
Geller and Spencer (and you can add their more “respectable” variants like Krauthammer) aren’t new at all to the gang of “Pro-Israel” fanatics who will ally with people that seek their destruction as a matter of convenience, and few people ever notice the writing on the wall even when its staring them in the face. When it does happen, however, it is refreshing.
Garrigus Carraig
I don’t know where it comes from, but I love “not rocket surgery”. Love it.
Mike Kay
@cleek: withdrawing from Iraq and passing a $1,000,000,000,000 HCR bill is timid?
But Howard Dean is the liberal lion.
cleek
@Mike Kay:
there are plenty of anti-abortion Dems.
remember Stupack’s little tantrum over abortion-related things in the HCR bill ? he was leading a group of a dozen other congressmen.
and, one issue does not a party make.
@Mike Kay:
yes. the bill might have been the best we can get, but a big part of why that was the best we could get is that the Dems themselves couldn’t agree on, and didn’t dare try, anything better. (no, i’m not going to refight the HCR debates, so don’t bother)
Alwhite
Damn I love my Jr Senator! I wish the rest of the Dems would pay attention to how he responds on every issue.
Sadly, the Sr. Senator from MN is the empty-suit-play-it-safe-try-not-to-be-too-unRepublican sort of douchebag that makes people say that there is no real difference between the Ds and the Rs.
mclaren
Franken is a former comedian, so he has to worry about dying in front of an audience. The rest of the pols don’t care, they only have to worry about being re-elected.
Sly
@General Stuck:
Believing that religious virtues are hereditary is impressively old school, if I might say. Baby Grahams is now taking a page from Tomas de Torquemada and the Inquisitor Generals of Spain.
Pureza de Sangre!
Alice Blue
Just when you think things can’t get any more shit-faced stupid, they do exactly that.
I have so much to be thankful for–my husband and I are healthy, our home is paid for, we both have jobs (knock on wood) and we’re surrounded by loving pets–but the whole atmosphere in this country makes me despondent. I always knew that Obama’s election would drive some people off the deep end, but I never dreamed I would feel like this just two years later.
Mike Kay
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
But all across the blogosphere, high profile elite bloggers write that the base no longer supports Obama.
Hmmm, I wonder who’s right??
Mike Kay
@Alwhite: how’s Amy’s voting record? What percentage of votes does Amy cast with with the republicans?
In a reality based community, you should have to corroborate charges like “she’s no different than a republican,” shouldn’t you?
fraught
@Bnad: Dean grew up in NY and should know better.
Mike Kay
@cleek: Ironically, by declining to answer my question, “is a $1,000,000,000,000 HCR timid”, you acted timidly. Surely bloggers hiding behind a keyboard need not act timid.
Jim in Chicago
Here’s a crazy idea: how about the Democrats play up what SHOULD be a REAL controversy: The Republican Party accepting a $1 million donation from the man Mike Royko aptly dubbed “the Alien” when he took over and destroyed the Chicago Sun-Times?
A major political party being openly bankrolled by a furriner is something people could and should be rightly upset about — especially the chest-thumping, flag-waving crowd.
I am VERY disappointed in Howard Dean on this one, btw.
Mike Kay
@fraught: He’s a liberal lion who is timid and who isn’t afraid to take a stand.
Sly
@Jim in Chicago:
Mike Royko was one-upped by Dennis Potter, who named the tumor that killed him “Rupert”. His full takedown here.
Mike Kay
@cleek:
Yes it does. being the party of civil rights (one issue) does make a party.
Being the party of choice (one issue) does make a party.
Being in favor of elminating DADT (one issue) does make a party.
I am neither a minority, nor a woman, nor gay, and therefore don’t stand to benefit directly from any of these issues, but it the made reason why I join the Party.
But I can understand how a white male who doesn’t receive any direct benefit from these polices can fell left out and feeling there’s no difference bwtn Bush and Gore.
Chad N Freude
@Jim in Chicago:
Not a furriner since 1985
Citizen Murdoch (apologies to Orson Welles): Good, honest, hard-working American.
zoe kentucky
When talking about Obama, Billy Graham’s son Franklin recently said “The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother.” It’s time to start calling all of this bigoted anti-Muslim hate speech what it is– the Islamic version of anti-semitism. Islamophobia sort of works, but it goes much deeper than that I think. They seem to believe that all Muslims are somehow tainted, less than human, untrustworthy, etc. The parallels with anti-semitism are obvious. It’s truly abhorrent.
As a Jew, the whole thing just makes me ill and fearful of where this country is headed.
NonyNony
@Mike Kay:
Yes and quick – what’s Ben Nelson’s official position on abortion? What’s Bob Casey’s? And yet they’re both members in good standing of the Democratic Party, despite their opposition to legal abortion.
Yes and quick remind me again of when the Democratic Party suddenly became united against DADT? It was May of this year when Ben Nelson finally became convinced to back the repeal. Only after the rest of the country had decided that this was a stupid issue and he realized there was no political traction there any more.
Ralph Nader’s a dick. He didn’t teach me shit ya daft punk. There were significant differences between Bush and Gore that an untrained Chimpanzee could understand, and the only fools who repeated Nader’s mantra were political naifs who didn’t understand how American politics work. And many of them appear, 10 years later, to still be political naifs who don’t have any understanding of how the machine grinds.
Read what I said. The Democratic Party doesn’t stand for anything. That doesn’t mean that individual Democrats aren’t worthwhile politicians. It means that the party, as a collective, is a group of people whose only ideological commonality is that they think that Democratic governance is better than Republican governance. You can’t even look at the Democratic platform because individual Democrats are allowed to deviate from that platform any way they want to in order to win elections. The party doesn’t push for anything because the party is a political election machine not an ideological allegiance.
That’s actually a fundamental difference between the modern Republican party and the Democratic party – one that liberals and conservatives both seem to fail to understand. The Republican party is an ideological allegiance – a group of people united in a set of common beliefs. That’s why they’re going through a purity struggle right now. The Democratic party is an allegiance of convenience – a disparate people with different beliefs who are united in only one thing – the very, very strong belief that Republicans will fuck over the country if they take power.
And, frankly, given the last century of American history that appears to be a correct assessment. Is it any wonder that we’d have a party dedicated to opposing Republican governance when the touchpoint examples of Republican governance of the last century were Hoover, Nixon, Reagan and George W Bush?
Kryptik
The most goddamn infuriating thing about the Dem cowardice on his issue and so many others is that wayward, pie-in-the-sky naive thinking that, if they cater to the right on said issues, if they become good little dittoheads, they become insulated from attacks on such issues.
Fuck no, you’re guilty by proof of the D by your name, no matter what your stance. Why don’t you assholes realize this, no matter how much you fucking buckle to the crazies on the right and in the GOP, they will not invite you to the Kool Kids Table. They will not welcome you with open arms and suddenly make reaches for bipartisanship on other issues. They will not have an epiphany and think ‘hey, maybe we should go easy on these guys and not be such assholes.’ What they will do is attack you, and attack you, and lie about you, and smear you, by sheer dint of you being a Democrat, no matter how much you bent over backwards to do some blatant hippie punching of the rest of your party.
Why the fuck do you assholes not get this. To the Tea Party, to the Republicans, etc., you are guilty as charged by proof of being a Democrat/Liberal. Nothing you say will ever change the fact that to them, you are akin to the anti-Christ and need to be destroyed. So why the fuck do you idiots continue to try and make nice?
@NonyNony:
We don’t even fucking have that, considering how many Dems have the ridiculous predilection of trying to meet Republicans half way, punching every single hippy they find in their way, and then dutifully creep along further as the Right Wing drags that mythical center further and further rightward. We have way too many ‘serious’ Democrats who’s winning strategy seems to be ‘All my colleagues are fucking commies, Republicans are technically right but I’ll be able to pull off their plans better’.
cleek
@Mike Kay:
i said the bill itself was timid. what the fuck difference does the cost make ?
Mike Kay
@NonyNony:
So they don’t stand for choice because 2 of 59 senators are pro life. Does that mean that republicans don’t oppose Choice because 3 republicans out of 41 are pro choice?
So they don’t stand for civil rights? voting Rights?
ridiculous. you’re a waste of time. Keep crying, and whinning, with you full emo costume on.
FlipYrWhig
@cleek:
There’s more like three parties: (1) the well-intentioned Democratic party that believes in minority rights and social welfare; (2) the malevolent Republican party that believes in flinging shit, starting hot and cold wars, and giving rich people a smaller tax bill; and (3) the pro-business Democratic party that is not evil enough to be Republican but believes more in dispassionate technocracy than in equality and common cause.
Some of group 1 are timid in the face of group 2, to be sure, but just about _all_ of group 3 are. Group 3 is always worried about not looking like wild-eyed longhairs, so they’re “tough on crime” and “strong on defense” and “fiscally responsible” insofar as that means decimating the social safety net. 3 is where all the problems come from: the “moderate Democrats” who took the place of the now-extinct “liberal Republicans,” after emulsifying with the free-trade dogma and triangulation tactics of the DLC.
Chad N Freude
@NonyNony: While I agree with your rantalysis, I believe that Ben Nelson doesn’t care whether
as long as he can continue being reelected. The exception that proves the rule, I suppose.
matoko_chan
mistermix:
this is more than that.
It is not the location of Park51.
Protestors encouraged to bring dogs to Temecula mosque protest.
Remind you of anything?
This is a civil rights issue. 70% of americans opposed civil rights for blacks. The conservative christians are really angry that they can’t build churches in Mecca and Medina and Qom and Karbala…..yet because America has freedom of religion muslims can build mosques here.
The GOP/Teabag right are demogoguing the issue for political gain in the midterms.
Our troops are coming from Iraq right now IN DEFEAT. Islam kicked americas ass, because we were there proselytizing western-style democracy, and al-Islam is immune to that in situ. (Maynard-Smith, Evolution and the Theory of Games)
I believe more troops will come home from Afghanistan on Obama’s timeline next summer, also in DEFEAT.
There are a lot of reasons for that, but the bottom line is that this is going to get ugly. But the upside is a lot of soldiers will be reintegrated into the population…..soldiers that knew muslims and worked with them, and that do really understand what al-Islam is.
If we muslims have done a poor job on anything it is educating the american people about al-Islam. I myself don’t like to talk about it…..because that is a form of proselytization and thus disrespectful.
I CAN’T talk about the closed-except-to-sufis stuff, the sirr, because that is forbidden.
wa yuzhira bihi sirrahu ilayhi (it reveals to it its secret though it)
i don’t know how to even begin to solve this problem, myself. how can i explain something like that to even the commentariat here? intelligent liberals that can read?
But i have faith in the wisdom of the founders and in the american people.
The System is WAI. A black man is the elected president of a former slave nation…someday a muslim man or woman will be.
cleek
@Mike Kay:
we’ve expanded from abortion to all of civil rights?
given their record on the Park51 stuff, govt surveillance, foot-dragging on DADT, etc., calling the Dems “the party of civil rights” is a stretch. they’re somewhat better than the GOP, but being somewhat better than the awful alternative isn’t much of a claim.
the statement was “doesn’t make much of a party”.
last i checked, DADT is still around. despite having had two years with the best numbers the Dems are likely to see for many years to come…
i invite you to link to where i’ve ever said Bush = Gore. if you need aliases, screen names, and the names of forums i’ve frequented over the last 11 years to search on, i’d be happy to provide them for you.
otherwise, keep your bullshit strawmen to yourself.
Sentient Puddle
@Mike Kay:
Fuck, Harry Reid is pro-life. So (a) you can up the tally to three, but (b) it also strikes me as proving your point. Reid’s got the power to fight for a pro-life agenda, and he doesn’t.
Abortion is a total red herring because as long as Roe v. Wade is on the books, the best congress can do is tinker at the edges. But with few exceptions, it’s all about the parties when it comes to congress.
NonyNony
@Mike Kay:
Whose whining? Not me. You appear to be the one whose whining in this thread, Mike. Whining that not everyone sees the Democratic Party as the champions of left-wing liberalism that you do.
The Democratic Party is what it is. It’s a party full of people who believe in different things and have different views. It’s a coalition party, and overall one that has been good for advancing progressive policy, if a bit slower than some would like. But it isn’t an ideological party, it’s a machine. Recognizing it for what it is saves a lot of heartbreak and anger and whining down the road. So when some Democratic pols do things that deviate from ideological liberalism it not only isn’t surprising, it should be expected. And liberals should be prepared to push back against them, by working the machine the way the machine needs to be worked. Mostly by fundraising for and running better candidates in districts where better candidates can win. Denying their vote in an Ed Shultz/Ralph Nader fit of pique is not just juvenile, it’s counterproductive to the one bit of ideology that every Democrat from left to center-right shares: The knowledge that Republican governance is bad for the country.
Mike Kay
@cleek: the biggest domestic spending bill in US history by definition can not be timid. Let’s remember, Biden told obama not to do any bill. Rahm told him to only do an expansion of Medicaid.
And let’s take history into acct. HCR had been attempted by FDR (and he shit marble), Truman (who nuked two cities to the ground), JFK, LBJ (the master of the senate), Tricky Dick, Teddy Kennedy, Carter, and the Clintons and non of them achieved anything. Nada. Zlich.
So how can achieving the largest domestic spending bill, something all your predecessors failed at be considered timid. IF this accomplishment is timid, then how do you characterize the repeated failures by his predecessors?
Mike Kay
@NonyNony:
ridiculous. you’re a waste of time. Keep crying, and whining, with your full emo costume on. Keep an extra keyboard handy, you’re bound to short it out with your hysterical tears. I’m done with you. You can’t talk with someone who sees the party of civil rights and reproductive rights as “not standing for anything”. it’s beyond bizarre.
NonyNony
@Mike Kay:
I think someone needs a hug.
**HUGS**
You’re getting pretty worked up about this, Mike. I wouldn’t want you to have a heart attack or something.
cleek
@Mike Kay:
spending a lot of money doesn’t really strike me as bold. YMMV.
but what it does with that money is, in fact, timid. it nibbles at the HC system (in good and necessary ways, certainly). but nobody can say that there weren’t plenty of more-dramatic (and arguably more-effective) options out there.
i characterize them as failures.
Anya
I usually don’t watch KO but I wanted to see Dean explain his rational. He gave an incoherent argument and I think KO went easy on him. I still don’t get his motivation. Did he just want to contradict Obama or does he really believe that you can compromise with bigots?
300baud
Franken has an advantage here. A lot of great comedy is rooted in truth, often uncomfortable truth. He’s spent a lifetime learning to get to the essence of things.
Most politicians, on the other hand, focus on playing safe, telling people what they want to hear. Knowing that can be useful in comedy, but too much is always fatal.
Mike Kay
@cleek:
See, we’re at an impasse. Overturning DADT in congress, after a year long study on it’s implementation doesn’t strike me as foot draggin. As for gov surveillance, that goes to civil liberties, not civil rights/women’s rights. And what information do you have that the government is conducting illegal surveillance, because you know if they were doing so, the wingers and moles cheney left behind would be leaking it, to say Obama is just like Bush.
It strikes me that you are neither a woman nor a minority, only a white guy could cavalierly laugh off the importance of civil rights and women’s rights.
Mike Kay
@cleek: what dramatic (and arguably more-effective) options?
this should be good, because up to now you’ve been embarrassed to mention them.
NonyNony
@Mike Kay:
Ya added a few things there…
Whose crying? Certainly not me.
Well, I’m still not going to cry.
Yup. Those Democrats sure are the party of civil rights. All civil rights all of the time for everyone. That’s why they’ve all come out to a man to defend the right of Muslims in New York to build a community center in a disused Burlington Coat Factory. That’s why they all voted resoundingly against the Patriot Act. That’s why they’ve closed down Guantanamo Bay and have moved the prisoners there into either the normal military tribunal system or the civil courts. That’s why they’ve made sure that access to abortion and birth control were both fully funded in the recently passed health care reform package. That’s why all the Democrats are fully behind gay marriage as a right. And why Clinton didn’t run into any problems with his own party when he tried to let gays serve openly in the military.
I agree that Democrats do much better with civil rights than Republicans, but if I let myself cry every time a Democrat did something with civil rights that upset me, I’d drown in my own tears.
matoko_chan
@cleek: yes reproductive rights for women are civil rights.
is that hard?
FlipYrWhig
@Anya: Is Dean using the word “compromise” himself? Because my sense has been that he wants to get everyone around the table because he believes the people behind the community-center-with-mosque would be able to win over the bigots if they were face to face. So, not really “compromise” per se, but talking it out and proceeding in good faith and giving each other the benefit of the doubt, after which point the truth will be clear and all sides will be happy. If he’s using the word “compromise,” I think he really means “dialogue.” I hope.
Mike Kay
@NonyNony: I’m not that old enough to have a heart attack. I’m still young.
But really, there’s no use talking to someone who says the Democrats don’t stand for reproductive rights. I might as well go back in a time machine to 2000 and listen to Naderites talk about the secret space crafts at Area 51
cleek
@matoko_chan:
i give up. where did i say it wasn’t?
Mike Kay
@NonyNony: Park51 concerns religious rights, not civil rights. And it’s not my fault lefty-liberal icon Howard Dean went nuts and betrayed you on the issue. He doesn’t speak for the Party, rather he’s the leading representative of the blogger-agitator left.
And don’t be so defensive. There’s no shame in crying. A A lot of men cry. Hell, even John Wayne cried, so there, feel better about your masculinity.
General Stuck
The stimulus was bold because it included record amounts for all sorts of long term progressive causes. If you want to bitch about it for short term stimulus, that is fine, but don’t tell me it was a complete failure and a waste. It wasn’t.
it is true that the dem party is a disparate bunch with many competing factions. But to my astonishment, the dem congress pulled together and got some important incremental progress passed into law. I had predicted the whining princess routine would be centered there. I was wrong as that motherfucker has been and is centered in the liberal blogosphere.
Failure is very easy when you have 41 goopers who have mailed in their permanent no vote and filibustered about every dem/Obama bill. But still, they haven’t failed, other than to satisfy a few crank idealists on the left wing fringe.
Good job Obama and dem congressmen/women, except for less that a handful of you that side with the wingers. And fuck all the whining brats on blogs and cable teevee. You know who you are.
I am done here for awhile. Waste of time. send out a smoke signal, I might read it and get back to you.
Mike Kay
@cleek:
what dramatic (and arguably more-effective) options?
this should be good, because up to now you’ve been embarrassed to mention them.
cleek
@Mike Kay:
you know what? fuck this. your constant strawmen are tedious. go find someone else to lie about.
Anya
@FlipYrWhig: Yes, he used compromise and he argued that the center should be moved to another site. But even if he’s calling for a dialogue, is that possible with people who think the community center is a victory site or that all Muslims are responsible for 9/11? Do you dialogue with the 9/11 families who are being used by Liz Cheney. Let’s face it, being a victim of tragedy does not absolve you from bigotry. Another reason I find Dean’s argument extremely problematic is that he is basically affirming that all Muslims are responsible for 9/11 when he says the center is “a real affront to people who lost their lives.” How?
matoko_chan
@cleek:
religious rights are civil rights. reproductive rights are civil rights. one might say they are HUMAN rights.
you don’t get it…islamophobia is going to get very very bad here for the next three years.
Our troops are coming home IN DEFEAT from Iraq. Next summer they will be coming home IN DEFEAT from Afghanistan.
al-Islam kicked white jesus’s ass.
and the christofascists still cant build a megachurch in Mecca.
cleek
@matoko_chan:
i have no idea what any of that has to do with me.
matoko_chan
@Anya: it is not about the site. that is just cloaking. they are against any mosque any where. .it is more about the fact that al-Islam just kicked America’s ass, and we have spent 6000 american soldier lives and one trillion taxpayer dollers and the christofascists still cant build a megachurch in Mecca.
Mike Kay
@cleek: just say it, come on, just say it. You’ve got nothing to fear (i think).
As to straw man, talk about projection, I’m not the one saying Democrats don’t stand for reproductive rights.
Mike Kay
@cleek: ya know what…. wait for it… you’re timid.
hahahahhahahahahhahahahahhahaahha
oh, that’s so appropriate.
Thank god, bloggers don’t represent the base. Thank god.
mnpundit
Maybe Dean just dislikes Muslims and it’s making him crazy. As I’ve said before, it’s the first time on ANY issue where I’ve seen him to act like a “typical” Dem. But even if you dislike Muslims, what is so hard about standing up for the Constitution? Dean used to do it all the time.
Hell from 2004-2006 he was pretty much going it alone.
matoko_chan
Here is a sweet thought experiment…..imagine if Japan had won.
Our soldiers coming home in defeat…..what would have happened to japanese americans here?
This is going to be very difficult for americans to assimilate.
WE LOST IN IRAQ.
we spent 6000 soldier lives (more than 2x the 911 cost) and a trillion dollars to create another islamic state where a lot of muslims hate us.
americans are far less safe in the world.
al-Islam kicked America’s ass, and the christians see that as al-Islam kicking Jesus’ ass.
bi la kayfah
Mike Kay
@mnpundit: Dean really let us down, this time.
Tom Q
This morning’s NY Times has an article saying how Dems are shunning Obama, and rallying around Bill Clinton as their favorite campaign surrogate.
You’d think at least one or two would remember that, during the Clinton era, Dems ran away from BILL — even when his poll numbers were astronomical — because the Beltway press told them he was unpopular. How many times do Dems want to star in the same movie?
Sly
@Tom Q:
Or perhaps that the current President of the United States has, you know, shit to do, while the former President of the United States has a bit more room on his dance card.
And of course there’s the matter of Bill Clinton publicly extolling the virtues of Obama everywhere he goes. Having a guy saying “You know, President Obama sure is great!” is not the best way to actually, you know, shun the President.
FlipYrWhig
@Anya: I don’t particularly believe that it’s possible to have a constructive dialogue, no, and I think they shouldn’t move the site, and I don’t think it’s an “affront.” But I can sort of see a Dean-like person, or even an Obama-like person, instinctively calling for people on opposite sides of Issue X to come together, deal in good faith, and find common ground. The way I picture it, Pamela Geller goes into the meeting as a screeching harpy and comes out much the same, but some of the people who went in siding with Geller would realize, hey, these Muslims aren’t scary and terroristic, they’re normal people who subscribe to different religious views than I do, and nothing scary like stonings or human sacrifice or child-snatching-and-baking-into-matzoh or whatever bigoted rumors are out there.
That’s basically the “beer summit” notion: things got heated, people may have said things they regret, so let’s do something open-minded and friendly together. Now, I agree, the people who want to build the center _have already done a lot of this_, but that’s where I picture Dean coming from: in some kind of friendly forum, they could reiterate that they’re not doing anything provocative or plotting against America, and maybe win over some of the skeptics. It’s true that that puts a lopsided burden on the side of the good guys, but, sad to say, it happens that way a lot.
[Edited to add: I am well aware that the center-builders have done nothing that should make them susceptible to being tarred with “both sides got out of hand” brush; all the smears and aggression have been on the other side.]
So I see Dean coming from a standpoint like that and getting all jacked up with imprecise language, rather than pre-compromising and caving to conservative bullies and all the other things people have been gnashing teeth and rending garments about since January 2009. He may be doing the wrong thing and saying the wrong thing but not doing it the same way Blanche Lincoln handles tax cuts for the rich. To me, it’s a different phenomenon.
Nick
@Sly:
and yet I can point to more examples of the opposite happening than a Democrat trying to act like a Democrat beating a Republican.
Arclite
Well, Franken did have a career in media for a few decades…
I am amazed by his wisdom, intelligence, and humility. It’s a rare combination in a politician, and I continue to be impressed by him. He’s a great human being.
batgirl
@Sentient Puddle: Roe v. Wade is one Supreme Court justice away from being completely overturned, a Supreme Court justice that is nominated by the President. That is the frakking difference between the two parties.
CalD
Ah. Another day, another steaming platter piled high with lip-smacking slabs of delicious mosque. It truly is the gift that keeps on giving to anyone* with and axe to grind.
(*The only people not benefiting of course would be the hapless developers of the project. They, one imagines, would very likely prefer being left alone to get on with their business, to being used by every sanctimonious busybody from every corner of the political spectrum as a club to beat on anyone they don’t like, over grudges having nothing to do with any downtown Islamic center.)
Gen. Jrod and his Howling Army
Anyone: I don’t think the Democratic Party is perfect in every way.
Mike Kay: WHAT?! WHAT KIND OF IDIOT ARE YOU YOU IDIOT sniffle HOW DARE YOU SAY BAD THINGS ABOUT THE MOST PERFECT ORGANIZATION EVER TO EXIST?!?!?! eyes well up with tears
Anyone: Um… what?
Mike Kay: I’M NOT CRYING YOU’RE THE ONE WHO’S CRYING FUCK YOU!!!!! bawls
Me: Mike Kay, go fuck yourself with a rusty dick. You’re worse than Makewi.
Mike Kay: AAAARRGBLGBLGBLGBLBGL FIREBAGGERS FIREBAGGERS EVERYWHERE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA sob
P.S. Howard Dean is a Democrat, whether you like it or not. Getting so uselessly pissy about people who dare to criticize Democrats is fucking hypocritical to an extreme when you spend the rest of your posts criticizing a prominent Democrat. You are worthless.
Suffern ACE
@matoko_chan: Well, I imagine that it would have taken a lot longer than 40 years for the Japanese we had in internment camps at the time to have any recognition of their grievances. But of course, if those Japanese Americans who were in those camps were celebrating how their countrymen had kicked our ass, I’m guessing we would have said, “You know. It was a good idea to keep them locked up as they really were more loyal to Japan.” My guess is, had they done that, based on the immigration practices of the time, there would be no Japanese Americans around today.
I would imagine that support for this particular project would completely evaporate amongst many progressives quite quickly if it Rauf himself came out and called it a Victory Mosque for Reminding Americans How they Lost In Iraq.
matoko_chan
@Suffern ACE:
but don’t we have freedom of speech here? don’t we have americans who call for sedition and overthrowing our elected president? what is the difference?
oh, yeah…those americans are real americans. they are white.
but that is what is what it says to the protestors…just by being there…..the very fact that muslims can build mosques in America is an assault on the protestors. because they can’t build a megachurch in Mecca.
in the clash of civilizations, our civilization just lost.
Felonious Wench
@matoko_chan:
Actually, this Christian sees it as proof that she has been correct since Day 1. We should never have gone into Iraq, Saddam did not have chemical weapons, Iraq did not attack us on 9/11, and invading a country as fragmented with tribal loyalties and Islamic factions as Iraq was a really, really, really stupid and immoral thing to do.
And if you think that conservative right-wing Christians (I am not one) are going to look at this and see it as an ass-kicking by Mooslims, you’ve got no understanding of their belief system. You really, really, really don’t get how the right-wing Christians view the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and if they could have it, Iran and Pakistan as well. These are noble wars in the name of Christianity, and there is no way to lose. Even if America temporarily withdraws from a country, it’s merely to regroup, you see. And hey, the Second Coming will cast all non-believers into hell eventually anyway. No way to lose.
Personally, I don’t consider this war some kind of Jesus/Mohammad throw down. I consider it a country invading another with no justification, and paying the price for stupidity.
But that’s just me. Carry on.
asiangrrlMN
@Mike Kay: I actually like Senator Klobuchar as a senator. Yes, she is more moderate than Franken, but she is no Republican. I am fine with her; I love Al Franken; Keith Ellison is awesome, too (thanks for the link, midwest); my own representative, Betty McCollum is really good, too. However, Ratface Pawlenty is a big, fat idiot and Tom Emmers is twice as bad.
Al Franken rocks hard. That is all.
matoko_chan
@Felonious Wench: like i pointed out before, its evolutionary games theory operating on the clash of civilizations.
its science.
nah..we were proselytizing….preaching…you see, we thought we had the moral high ground. and maybe we even did.
but al-Islam is immunized to proselytization in situ.
those stupid muslims rejected our wunnerful judeoxian western style-democracy even tho it would be soooooo much better for them…. and now we are slinking off home.
like i said, we spent 6000 lives in blood and a trillion in treasure to make another islamic state where a lot of muslims hate us (and probably think day and night about more attacks).
and the WECs still cant build a megachurch in Mecca or ship bibles to Lahore.
matoko_chan
@Felonious Wench:
nah. it was proselytizing.
there can’t be a jesus/muhammed throwdown because muhammed came after jesus, and that is why al-Islam evolved defenses against christian proselytization.
christians are wired to proselytize, muslims are wired to be immune to christian proselytization.
besides, we co-opted jesus too. Issa is one of my favorite prophets.
matoko_chan
@Felonious Wench: and i totally get WECs and rightwing christians. they aren’t just mad about the Park51 location…..they are hella pissed about any mosques being built anywhere in america.
the realization that we LOST in Iraq is slowly dawning on them.
Felonious Wench
@matoko_chan:
I was being facetious, matoko_chan. I doubt Jesus/Issa would have had much interest in the fight, being a pacifist and all. And from my readings on Muhammed, I doubt he would have been either. We’re all people of the book.
And that’s a false comparison anyway. Isn’t the Koran closer to the Christian concept of Jesus? That is, the Koran is the word of God, through the Prophet, correct? And Christians call Jesus The Word, and consider his words the words of God, spoken through a person.
This is also why I have such a problem, theologically, with churches burning the Koran. The holiness of the Koran is equivalent to the holiness of Christ in my faith. It’s shameful.
matoko_chan
@Felonious Wench: the problem between christians and muslims is not the concept of Jesus.
the problem is proselytization.
The great part of muslims don’t give a shit if christians want to believe in the Jesus godhead.
We care a lot however, that christians want to make us believe it too.
The dichotomy is that christians believe they have a right to proselytize and we muslims believe we have a right not to be proselytized.
that is why COIN and the Bush Doctrine failed in Iraq and are failing in Afghanistan.
Both doctrines were just proselytizing western-style democracy.
Steve R.
@BR:
Or they could have taken Obama’s stance, which is the developers have a right, and nobody can say otherwise.
Actually, that’s the stance of a lot of people, including Sharron Angle. If you tally in Obama’s walkback and his walkback of his walkback, he’s not all that far from Reid or Dean. Probably Obama should have said nothing (regardless of my admiration for the sentiments expressed in his first remarks) and his fellow Dems should have followed the example then set. Might have saved everyone a good deal of trouble.
Nick
@Steve R.: Is this snark?
Epicurus
@Nick: Not too sure about that, but then, don’t feed the trolls. Someone up thread made a very good point; many here are essentially complaining that the Democrats don’t behave like the Republicans (monolithic voting, “always on message”) but I see that as a false equivalency. The Democratic Party is not a homogenous collection of robots, but has a wide spectrum of views. As always, the Constitution leads us towards compromise and the middle ground. The system is functioning as designed. So don’t worry about why the Dems don’t have the functional equivalent of Faux Snooze, and George Soros is not Rupert Murdoch. That’s a good thing, and all in all, I would have to say that Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama have done a buttload of legislatin’ since they took office. Do we really want to emulate our enemies? As Will Rogers famously remarked “I am a member of no organized political party. I’m a Democrat!” Not a lot has changed in 80-odd years.
Cain
@matoko_chan:
Don’t muslims also proselytize? (I have never seen one do it) For sure if you marry a muslim you must convert to Islam to do it. I believe that is the same for Judaism.
Hindus have been sour at muslims for conversion. Harijans have tried converting to Islam in order to escape the caste system. I was reading recently that it doesn’t change anything. Once a dirty bastard, always a dirty bastard. What a crazy world.
cain
Suffern ACE
@Epicurus: Truthfully, we would be better off, based on governing styles, if the Republican party completely folded and the agonzing debate took place between “blue dogs” and “progressives” only. A one party state of only Democrats would still function like a multi-party state based on some kind of consensus building process. The opposite is not as true. It might not be “progressive” to have one party, but it would be closer to what I think the founders had in mind when they said “no factions, no parties”
Unfortunately, it appears that the current party alignment isn’t conducive to actually solving pressing problems when there isn’t much consensus on what those are.