Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Tick tock motherfuckers!

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

I was promised a recession.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

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Reader Interactions

104Comments

  1. 1.

    mike in dc

    Obama is kind of awesome, in a generally-competent, non-certifiably insane non-wingnut sort of way. A little too “centrist”/Third Way for my tastes, but I sure as hell will donate/vote/volunteer, largely due to the existence of a horrifyingly bad and ultra-crazy alternative likely to be named later.

  2. 2.

    mr. whipple

    It was incredible. I’m so proud to have worked/voted for him, and glad he’s POTUS in these challenging times.

  4. 4.

    4tehlulz

    His unwillingness to be a pointless noble martyr for the liberal cause means he should be primaried.

  5. 5.

    Montysano

    The bin Laden operation is Obama in a nutshell: patient, competent, pragmatic. It’s hard to imagine Dubya having the patience to work the intelligence for 9 months before making a move.

  11. 11.

    alwhite

    @Montysano:
    Considering he went from “wanted dead or alive” to disbanding the unit that was charged with finding OBL in about 3 years we have an idea what the little mans attention span was.

  12. 12.

    Omnes Omnibus

    This post is just begging for Joe Beese et al. to come by and explain things to everyone.

  15. 15.

    Valdivia

    have not seen it yet, plan to do so later. But the little bit I caught in the news earlier looked exactly like what he is: sober, competent, to the point.

    Or as @TooManyPaulWs: said–squee. :)

  17. 17.

    WyldPirate

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    This post is just begging for Joe Beese et al. to come by and explain things to everyone.

    And upset the sickening sycophancy you so adore, OO?

    Please….

  19. 19.

    Kane

    Kudos to Steve Kroft for actually allowing the president to speak and complete his sentences.

  20. 20.

    Rosalita

    @Montysano:

    It’s hard to imagine Dubya having the patience to work the intelligence for 9 months before making a move.

    Even if he tried to be patient the constant woody he had would have given him away

  21. 21.

    jrg

    @alwhite:

    Considering he went from “wanted dead or alive” to disbanding the unit that was charged with finding OBL in about 3 years we have an idea what the little mans attention span was.

    I’m not entirely convinced that Bush wanted to find OBL. He was more useful as a bogeyman alive and at large.

    Cynical, yes… But I never in a thousand years would have thought that a president would be so dishonest as to use terror alerts for political cover, had Dubya never inhabited the White House. I won’t be making that mistake again.

  23. 23.

    Gremcat

    You just know if the Bush II were still in charge he couldn’t have stopped himself from ordering the mission before the mid term elections because it was always politics over policy. Of course, if the mission had failed I am sure we wouldn’t have heard about it at all.

  24. 24.

    piratedan

    I think that this guy is a very good politician who will be just as liberal as the weakest link in the Senate allows him to be. Right now, that weakest link is a cross between Joe Manchin, Bill Nelson, Mary Landrieu and Joe Lieberman. My progressive tears may not be as sweet as those cried by the wingnuts, yet they fall all the same.

  26. 26.

    cleek

    haven’t seen it yet, and probably won’t watch. don’t think i need to since Cokie Roberts made it clear that the whole thing was a set up to make Obama look resolute and strong on defense, and that Democrats never look strong on defense, and that Obama can appear irresolute. it’s all about appearances. apparently.

  27. 27.

    RossInDetroit

    @mikefromArlington:

    Oil prices plunge.

    That was actually due to increased margin requirements on silver forcing the speculators to dump other commodities in order to come up with cash. In other words short term good news for oil but long term bad news that speculation is still moving commodities around.

  29. 29.

    Gremcat

    I am sure you are right, makes we wonder how many failed missions there have been.

  30. 30.

    General Stuck

    @piratedan:

    I think that this guy is a very good politician who will be just as liberal as the weakest link in the Senate allows him to be.

    Kudos, very well stated, and true imo.

  31. 31.

    RossInDetroit

    Obama acts calm to the point of somnolence at times. And I use the word acts intentionally. Imagine if a black president had Bill Clinton’s expansive public personality, or (shudder) Bush’s. That would never happen. Only a good old boy (or a fake one) could pull that off.

  32. 32.

    Kane

    The intelligen­ce community must be so very happy and relieved that the previous administra­tion is out of office. The members of the previous administra­tion bullied members of the intelligen­ce community. They ignored their warnings of a looming attack. They ignored their expertise. They cherry-pic­ked informatio­n to fit their political agenda, then scapegoate­d the intelligen­ce community for their failed policies. They had them participate in torture. They even outed an undercover agent simply to score political points and to silence and intimidate those with opposing viewpoints­.

    All I’ve heard coming from Preident Obama is praise for the intelligen­ce community.

  33. 33.

    gogol's wife

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    As the Russians say, “Ne sglazit'”! “Don’t put the evil eye on it.”

    I am so thankful Obama is our president.

    /Obot

  34. 34.

    kindness

    While I appreciate making fun of putting a Democratic president on a pedestal, the opposite sucks worse. Just this morning on NPR, Cokie Roberts did a full segment about how President Obama was too shrill about claiming all the glory of having killed OBL. Honestly, I think Obama did a good job of sharing the credit, but it seems the knee jerk reaction of the Koch galtians is to take a crap on anything good coming from a Democrat.

    Such is life. I’ll take the 60 Minutes segment any day over a Village Idiot like Cokie Roberts.

  35. 35.

    aimai

    @Rosalita:

    We know for a fact that Bush and Cheney would have sacrificed the long term goal (getting Osama) for any short term legislative or electoral or publicity goal. Didn’t they burn a Pakistani Intelligence asset under the impression that he was a High value terrorist target? I tried googling this incident but the current flood of Osama/Bush stuff drowns it out. Maybe someone with better google-fu can find it for me?

    But, basically, given the struggle Obama had getting through his legislative agenda if Bush had been Obama he would have pulled out the terrorist card over and over and over again even if it meant missing Osama in reality. That’s what happened at Tora Bora (or Bora Bora as the right wingers always misspell it) and that is what happend with the Pakistan spy they announced “was caught” at a psychologically important moment, just before admitting that he was actually an asset who they had mistakenly ordered arrested.

    Its not that Bush/Cheney couldln’t have taken the long view, its that in keeping with their slash and burn mentality they would always have taken the short term domestic political gain over the long term goal of getting Osama. I’ve never seen other politicians with as much of an “in the long term we’re all dead” mentality.

    aimai

  36. 36.

    MikeBoyScout

    Wait a sec.
    Did you not all hear that one week after the killing of UBL our war criminal former VP, Dick Cheney, said “it’s not clear to me that this administration is up to the task” of taking out Gadaffi?

    Also too, Liz Cheney, unqualified defender of her war criminal father declared expert in all matters of security, let us know her opinion of the Kenyan/Muslim President impersonator. “If that [intelligence obtained during the UBL operation] leads us to other Al Qaida operatives, it’s not clear to me that we have any way to effectively interrogate them. We don’t have enhanced interrogation anymore.”

    Seems the MSM sought opinion of the Cheney family has informed us we are doomed. DOOMED!

  37. 37.

    BR

    @WyldPirate:

    And upset the sickening sycophancy you so adore, OO?

    True, you haven’t written about Greenwald in the last day or two…

  38. 38.

    Joe Beese

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    This post is just begging for Joe Beese et al. to come by and explain things to everyone.

    It seems pretty self-explanatory. Obama wanted someone dead. So he sent in men with automatic rifles to mow down every male in the house. [And any females who got in their way.]

    You’re cheering because you wanted this person dead too and because Obama is a Democrat.

    The next time, when the President is a Republican, and you’re not so sure we should kill the person marked for death, you may be less pleased. But it will be too late for you to say anything about it then.

  39. 39.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    I’ve been enjoying the flail of epic fail over at the GoS as the usual asshats howl about how Obama was wrong in how he handled Bin Laden. That place is so full of ratfuckers that the rafters are bulging but don’t tell the anti-Obama moonbats about it. They are convinced that the ratfuckers are fellow manic progressives because they like the shit they dump on Obama.

    Obama posted over there twice and that’s all he needed to learn that the place is populated by whiny assholes who bitch, moan and groan about their single pet issue that nobody is paying attention to. It’s a mosh pit of self-important manic-progressive ratfucking epic fail that Obama was smart to bail on almost immediately. I find it hilarious that they consider themselves Obama’s base.

    Speaking of ratfuckers, take it away Joey Beese!

  40. 40.

    RossInDetroit

    @Joe Beese:

    you’re not so sure we should kill the person marked for death

    Please describe this hypothetical scenario where someone is uncertain that a mass murderer and terrorist menace should die.

  41. 41.

    Muley Graves

    He is competent.

    I can think of perhaps three other presidents since WWII that have been. Two of them were Republicans.

    Watching this is saddening. Our nation has fallen so hard that the display of simple competence by an elected official has become a thing both rare and that people find worthy of worship. It shouldn’t be either.

  42. 42.

    Triassic Sands

    @jrg:

    I’m not entirely convinced that Bush wanted to find OBL. He was more useful as a bogeyman alive and at large.

    I’d respectfully disagree with that line of reasoning. I think Bush downplayed ObL because of the difficulty of getting him. That might have led to an actual deemphasis on pursuing ObL, but I doubt it meant Bush didn’t want to get bin Laden. Besides, Bush had kind of created an unmanageable mess in Iraq that couldn’t help but divert his attention from an individual hiding out somewhere in greater Nowhere-istan.

    Imagine the celebrations had bin Laden been apprehended (dead or alive) while Bush was president. The GOP would have been leaning heavily on the Vatican to fast track Bush to Saint George.

    But we’ll never really know; not least of all because we can’t believe a word the Worst President Ever utters.

  43. 43.

    boss bitch

    my goodness. I better check how many people watched this because it is at every political site I’ve visited.

  44. 44.

    Triassic Sands

    @kindness:

    Cokie has to work double time now, at least until the next David Broder steps up to lighten her load.

  45. 45.

    FlipYrWhig

    I heard Obama signed an order to throw Bradley Manning at Anwar al-Awlaki!

  46. 46.

    Chris

    @Kane:

    It’s funny, because back in 2009, the wingnut blogosphere was on fire with tales of Obama and Holder’s supposed inquisitions into the intelligence community, with tales of mass resignations going around.

    In fact, the only protest resignations I could find were during the Bush administration, most of them from around 2004. It’s not hard to guess why: turning over the foreign policy/national security apparatus over to the ultra-political cabal of Dick Cheney and the Pentagon’s top technocrats was one of the worst decisions the Bush administration ever made. That’ll have been hell on the professionals, especially those at State and CIA.

  47. 47.

    Joe Beese

    @RossInDetroit:

    Please describe this hypothetical scenario where someone is uncertain that a mass murderer and terrorist menace should die.

    Start with the scientist at the head of Iran’s nuclear program. He’s not an actual mass murderer, of course. But he will be unless we stop him! So let’s mow down everyone in his house too.

    The main problem with Obots like yourself isn’t even that they can’t imagine their man abusing the imperial powers he has expanded. It’s that they can’t imagine the post-Obama world in which those powers will be abused by someone else.

  48. 48.

    Kane

    President Obama first learned in August about evidence of Bin Laden’s compound.

    Anyone doubt that if Bush & Rove were in the White House, that they would have at least considered bombing the compound prior to the mid-term election for an October Surprise?

  50. 50.

    JAHILL10

    Not to go all Michael Moore, but I don’t think we know the whole story even now about how the Bush family’s close ties with the bin Laden’s played into this whole equation. Bush was certainly more eager to go into Iraq and get the man who daddy didn’t get, but I think a part of his reluctance to go all in for getting OBL had a lot to do with his family’s and his administration’s oil ties as well as the sheer difficulty of actually hunting the man down. Besides the sheer convenience of being able to rattle the nation’s fear cage before important political events by having OBL issue a new threat tape, was just too much free political clout for those weasels to give up. Jeez, I am so glad they are gone.

  52. 52.

    stuckinred

    @Omnes Omnibus: I think it would have depended on how it failed. If no GI’s got hurt and we just ran the op and came up dry it would probably have gone unnoticed. If we had repeat of the Iran Hostage cluster fuck it would have been front page.

  53. 53.

    stuckinred

    Stop the presses, Palin supporters are dumber than the average bear, Boo Boo

    PRINCETON, NJ — Republican college degree holders are more likely than those without a degree to support Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, 21% vs. 13%. Similarly, Romney’s support climbs from 9% of Republicans earning less than $24,000 annually to 21% of those earning $90,000 or more. The reverse is true for Sarah Palin, who is favored by nearly twice as many Republicans without a college degree as those with one, 16% vs. 9%, and her support decreases by income from 22% among the lowest income group to 7% among the highest.

  54. 54.

    Chris

    @JAHILL10:

    If I had to guess, Bush family ties to the Bin Laden Group itself probably didn’t matter as much as their ties to the Saudis. The Saudi royals are hugely well connected to power elites throughout the West. Because of their strategic importance (e.g. oil), they can afford to blow off our demands for cooperation in anti-terrorist efforts, and few people in Washington are willing to push them hard.

    People talk about the Iraq war as a favor we did for the Israelis. I’d point out that if that kind of thinking was involved, it’s more likely to have been a favor to the Saudis – take the spotlight off of their dirty laundry and put it on the enemy right on their northern border.

  55. 55.

    WereBear

    @Joe Beese: I don’t know where you’ve been the last ten years; worrying about a Republican President tracking down notorious terrorists who attacked our country ISN’T REALLY A PROBLEM, is it?

  56. 56.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    If this mission to get Osama had failed, I doubt we would have heard much about it.

    The mission was being Tweeted in real time (although the guy didn’t know it at the time.) If Team 6 had left without OBL or OBL’s body, or if both helos had been inoperable, or if the Pakistanis had woken up sooner and made a fireworks show of the whole thing, you really think that would have been successfully swept under the rug? Unpossible.

  57. 57.

    cmorenc

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    If this mission to get Osama had failed, I doubt we would have heard much about it.

    Yes we would have, because there are people scattered about in the national security/intelligence woodwork who have unholy ties and loyalties to Dick Cheney, and though they are loyal enough to their country and military to have not attempted in any way to sabotage the mission, would have seen it in the larger interests of the country to have leaked news of mission failure to the press (the better to get the Kenyan usurper out of office and a proper manly neocon back into office).

  59. 59.

    Muley Graves

    Palin supporters are dumber than the average bear, Boo Boo

    @stuckinred: Doesn’t shock me any. The Palin supporters I’ve met have been the most stone-cold ignorant motherfuckers I have ever run across in my life.

    That they are poor also comes as no shock. I am curious as to the age demographics they came up with, I am certain that they break hard towards the elderly as well – not sure how she’s pulled this off, but young people seem to instantly know she’s pulling a con game, but a lot of the oldsters do not.

  60. 60.

    Joe Beese

    @WereBear:

    notorious terrorists who attacked our country

    First, the “attacked our country” part becomes optional.

    Then, the word “terrorist” becomes as elastic as the Emperor chooses to make it.

    Or maybe you’re right and, for the first time in recorded history, a leader won’t abuse an unfettered power to have their enemies killed.

  62. 62.

    WereBear

    @Muley Graves: young people seem to instantly know she’s pulling a con game, but a lot of the oldsters do not

    It’s my personal theory (grant pending! /joke) that the more someone is in Denial, the more easily they fall for cons. Seniors are notoriously vulnerable; religious seniors are The Grail.

  64. 64.

    Ash Can

    @kindness:

    Just this morning on NPR, Cokie Roberts did a full segment about how President Obama was too shrill about claiming all the glory of having killed OBL.

    UPPITY UPPITY UPPITY

  66. 66.

    WereBear

    And since I haven’t been Obotty this thread yet; I think he is the most awesome Prez of my lifetime.

    And this is also the first First Lady I admire the way I do Eleanor Roosevelt. (Though I have a soft spot for Lady Bird.)

  67. 67.

    Hewer of Wood, Drawer of Water

    @benjoya: As I read the articles, the basis for both the initial decision and the Court of Appeal decision was that the statements made by Khadr were unreliable because they were obtained under torture in 2006. How does this relate to Obama?

    And yes, I am Canadian

  68. 68.

    Benjamin Cisco

    @Kane:

    Kudos to Steve Kroft for actually allowing the president to speak and complete his sentences.

    Kudos? That is what he is SUPPOSED to do. Granted, he rarely does it, his last sit down with the Pres was nauseating, and he did do better this time, but damn giving that sorry MF a cookie for NOT acting like an asshole.
    __
    Sorry if that was abrupt, but Kroft’s been on my shit list for a while.

  69. 69.

    gwangung

    Kudos? That is what he is SUPPOSED to do. Granted, he rarely does it, his last sit down with the Pres was nauseating, and he did do better this time, but damn giving that sorry MF a cookie for NOT acting like an asshole.
    __
    Sorry if that was abrupt, but Kroft’s been on my shit list for a while.

    My take is this is like training a puppy. Reinforce the good behavior, punish the bad.

  70. 70.

    grandpajohn

    @Joe Beese: Just wondering Joe if you have ever heard the old addage ” Its better to remain silent and thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt”

  71. 71.

    jonas

    The GOP talking point that Obama essentially owes this victory to Bush is so galling, I almost can’t believe they have the chutzpah to push it. Almost. Fact: Bush stated a number of times that he didn’t believe capturing bin Laden should be a priority; that bin Laden was in deep hiding and no longer a threat. Fact: In 2006, Bush shut down the CIA team in charge of searching for bin Laden in order to divert resources to fighting the Iraqi insurgency. Fact: when Obama came into office, he secretly ordered the CIA to restart its efforts to find bin Laden and this finally paid off. Fact: GOP talking heads are full of shit.

    I have to admit, over the past several years, even as I believed that this country owed it to the victims of 9/11 to bring bin Laden to justice, I assumed that the stories about him as a figurehead, essentially living out of a remote cave somewhere on the Af-Pak border and not having any meaningful operational command of Al Qaeda, were probably accurate. The return on investment for risking a huge number of lives and a lot of money and intelligence resources to find him was too small to justify focusing on this one — now (supposedly) irrelevant — individual. We owe Obama and his national security team a lot for having the foresight and courage to have carried out this mission, because it turns out (despite what we were told during the Bush administration) that bin Laden was alive and well and still working on coordinating major terror plots around the world from a comfortable base inside Pakistan. In other words, everything Bush told us about the hunt for bin Laden was wrong. And Obama got it right. And so it goes with most things in this administration.

  72. 72.

    invisible_hand

    it is 100% true that obama has accomplished amazing things during his first term. was it perfect? no. was it as progressive as i would hope? no.
    but: i will be supporting him as much as i can in appreciation of the good he has done. if progressives come out in droves to vote him in, i want to believe that he will recognize he can be bolder in his second term, because we will be there to back him up.

  73. 73.

    ChrisB

    @WereBear: If we held a poll for worst or least likeable first lady since WWII, who do you think would finish second? I can’t decide between Pat Nixon and Nancy Reagan.

    (Because the obvious winner would be Barbara Bush.)

  74. 74.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Muley Graves:

    not sure how she’s pulled this off, but young people seem to instantly know she’s pulling a con game, but a lot of the oldsters do not.

    The current crop of oldsters falls for all kinds of blatantly ridiculous nonsense. Have you ever tried to use irony or sarcasm in a conversation with an older person? Mad fail, every time. They believe things WAY too easily. I don’t think it’s _all_ older people, or a factor of age; I think it’s a factor of this particular group, the group that never learned to distrust what they hear, especially on “The News.”

  75. 75.

    Jesse

    @Joe Beese: Joe, the President doesn’t have an unfettered power to kill his enemies, any more than the previous Presidents did. The sad fact is, for about sixty years the President has been allowed to do anything he wants to foreign nationals- because even when Presidents break the letter of the law, *they are not punished for anything related to foreign policy.*

    So Obama’s successors will be exactly as restrained as Obama is, and exactly as restrained as Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and both Bushes were. You may think that’s a sad state of affairs, and I agree.

    I’ve watched you comment here for about a year. In that time, as far as I can tell, you’ve never considered yourself bound by the actual facts that exist in the actual world. That’s not a compliment.

  76. 76.

    FlipYrWhig

    @ChrisB: IMHO Hillary would end up at the top of that poll, not because there’s anything wrong with Hillary, but because of unresolved anti-Clinton animus.

  78. 78.

    grandpajohn

    @Ash Can: @Ash Can:

    Just this morning on NPR, Cokie Roberts did a full segment about how President Obama was too shrill about claiming all the glory of having killed OBL.

    So anyone remember her opinion on shrubs modest carrier landing? Of course shrub did take his vacations in Texas which is a far cry from exotic Hawaii even though it is Obama’s state of birth.

  79. 79.

    Linda Featheringill

    @WereBear:

    It’s my personal theory (grant pending! /joke) that the more someone is in Denial, the more easily they fall for cons. Seniors are notoriously vulnerable; religious seniors are The Grail.

    I used to wonder why so many older people were such easy marks for politicians and other nefarious types. I didn’t understand it.

    Now, of course, I am older and am old enough that I should be able to understand this phenomenon. But I still don’t understand it.

  80. 80.

    grandpajohn

    @FlipYrWhig: AS some one who is old myself (73) I have found out that this old canard about age bringing wisdom is very much overrated. I have discovered that for most, people who are stupid at age 20 are still stupid at age 65 or over.

  81. 81.

    slag

    Best news I’ve read all day:

    (Reuters) – Nearly two-thirds of Americans agree with President Barack Obama’s decision not to release graphic photos of the dead al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to an NBC poll to be released on Monday.

    Decency. It might still prevail.

  82. 82.

    Bob Loblaw

    @Muley Graves:

    He is competent.
    __
    I can think of perhaps three other presidents since WWII that have been. Two of them were Republicans.

    This is the craziest goddamn statement I’ve ever seen. I just wanted to point that out.

  83. 83.

    WereBear

    @ChrisB: Right! Barbara Bush is downright frightening.

    And the runner up for me would be Laura, because poor Pat has moved me to great sympathy. Dunno what she was thinking, back in the day, but she’s far more a victim than Laura; who might not have known exactly what she was getting into, but certainly knew what she would get out of it.

  84. 84.

    Ija

    @ChrisB:

    Did people really dislike Mrs Nixon? I felt sorry for her, married to that crook, and he didn’t seem to like his wife or treated her very well in public either (let’s leave the private sphere private, we will never know). She seemed pretty blameless to me.

  85. 85.

    gogol's wife

    @Ija:

    I disliked her at the time but now feel great sympathy for her. That hasn’t happened with Barbara Bush.

  86. 86.

    master c

    Okay Joe Beese, Im a hypocrite. I fucking love that Obama did this.
    Can someone explain why Bush had to invade a country? Why couldnt we have done this in 2002. Oh yeah, torture.

  87. 87.

    gogol's wife

    @Ija:

    p.s. And I also have more sympathy for Nancy Reagan than I did at the time, partly because of Ron Jr.

  88. 88.

    kdaug

    @Linda Featheringill:

    I think it’s primarily because that, prior to Watergate, critical thinking about the government was neither taught nor encouraged. People who grew up in the 50’s and 60’s “Duck and Cover” era trusted the government because it was literally keeping them alive (the alternative being a bright flash on the horizon). There’s an ingrained authoritarianism in that generation. And it’s also why the counter-culture of the late 60s / early 70s was so disruptive – it challenged fundamental premises on which their worldview was based.

  90. 90.

    Fred

    The neocons would not allow themselves to be happy with a Democrat doing this but I am guessing they are all splooging against the shower wall this morning with wonderful thoughts of “murder, death, kill” floating through their twisted heads.

  91. 91.

    Fred

    @jrg: It’s not the fact Bush politicized it that bothers me. It’s that he got away with it.

    I respect Obamas decision to not litigate the past but it will always be a sore point with me. Those aholes coming out of their cracks in the floor to now try take credit for the OBL operation just rubs salt in the wound.

  93. 93.

    FlipYrWhig

    @grandpajohn: I have some very sharp colleagues who are pushing 70. But there’s a wide swath of older people who seem to be unbelievably credulous. Even young stupid people are IMHO more just plain stupid than gullible.

  94. 94.

    ChrisB

    @FlipYrWhig: Right! Hillary would get a solid 27% from the Republican right wing plus others who didn’t like her fr one reason or another.

    @gogol’s wife: As Gogol’s Wife was saying, I think people have more sympathy for Nancy Reagan now than they did when her husband was in office, in part because of her position on stem cell research and because of how loving her relationship with her husband has been protrayed.

    But you’re right as I have looked into it a little bit more. Pat Nixon seems pretty blameless and was generally well liked.

  95. 95.

    Elie

    @aimai:

    I agree.

    Also, the Republicans must surely be unhappy that this golden trump card is no more and that they are going to have to come up with another psychological hook to make Americans a) be fearful and b) consider them the antidote to that fear.

    Fear of “terra” was the lynchpin to their whole foreign policy and not a little of the domestic republican approach. It was the only coherence in a selection of knee jerk social schemes and crazee talk.

    They are lost right now. I will never underestimate their ability to find another angle, and Lord knows the MSM is trying to help, but you have to look at some of their sad whining as nothing but knowing that they are lost.

  96. 96.

    benjoya

    @Hewer of Wood, Drawer of Water:

    well, if obama had made moves to insure our adherence to modern traditions of law, frinstance closing gitmo, or apologizing to/compensating the kidnapped/tortured/innocent maher arar (as the canadian govt did), then the canadian judges might have given him up. instead he’s a free man in the great white north.

  97. 97.

    WereBear

    @Elie: I’m still afraid of our food supply; thanks to Republicans, who are even now blocking the President’s appointee to fix that.

    Let them run on it. I dare ’em!

  98. 98.

    Hewer of Wood, Drawer of Water

    @benjoya: As I understand it, since the statements were deemed to be unreliable, there was no basis for turning him over to the US – I can’t see how that relates to Obama.

  99. 99.

    Elie

    @WereBear:

    I agree with your concern but I am hoping that their lack of organized focus undermines their ability to operate with their old confident destructiveness. I think that Obama threw it down to them and “dared” them and we should too. Yeah, we will lose a few battles, but they are in disarray. Again, I never underestimate them, but they have work to do.

    I will also add that I believe that thanks to the Tea Party and years of recruiting the most primitive authoritarian leadership available, they are not in the best configuration for creative approaches to their dilemma. You can’t bleed out all the intelligent leadership from your party or organization and end up with a strong team to handle change. Lets see what they do but Newt Gingrich and Palin aren’t gonna have meaningful solutions for them and old guard MSM approaches with Cokie aint gonna cut it IMHO.

  100. 100.

    A Humble Lurker

    @Fred:

    I respect Obamas decision to not litigate the past but it will always be a sore point with me. Those aholes coming out of their cracks in the floor to now try take credit for the OBL operation just rubs salt in the wound.

    I’m gonna wait and see on that one. This mission to get Osama has, as has been pointing out, been going down since last August and no one had a clue. For all we know, there’s some crap going down around Bush and Cheney that won’t reveal itself until it’s good and ready to.

    I’m not saying that definitely what’s going down, but it could be.

  102. 102.

    master c

    I just dont like her….wish I was smoking. Thanks for the link.
    As I already said: Im a hypocrite. That’s all.

  103. 103.

    Uncle Clarence Thomas

    @General Stuck:
    .
    .
    > I think that this guy is a very good politician who will be just as liberal
    > as the weakest link in the Senate allows him to be.

    Kudos, very well stated, and true imo.

    I don’t understand why you dare to agree that President Obama is afraid to cross his fellow blue dog Democrats.
    .
    .

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