I was at a wedding this weekend, for a cousin of mine who is about ten years younger than me. The night before his wedding, one of his friends — who had always seemed like a nice guy — wanted to talk about politics with me. He seemed reasonable at first, though Republican. Then suddenly he busted out “Obama’s a bit over his head, just having been a community organizer.” I lost it and started yelling him at, not coming straight out and calling him a racist, but telling him it was inappropriate because it was (a) inaccurate and (b) racially-tinged.
I felt bad I’d overreacted, but when I talked to him more the guy started referring to Obama as “Barry” and comparing him to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, so then I didn’t feel so bad about the way I reacted.
What the fuck? I mean, Obama was a state Senator and then a US Congressman. He’s lectured on law at U. of Chicago and was the editor of the Harvard Law Review.
I haven’t always agreed with ABL’s critique of certain Obama opponents as racists, but now I think there really is a huge racial element to a lot of the hate.
mk3872
… was also a direct quote today from the 48 year old Eric Cantor of the House of Uselessness.
But I’m sure nothing racial was meant by that.
At least he didn’t go all Buchanon and call Obama “boy”
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Yup. Not all of it, to be sure, but far more than I would have believed had I not observed it in “discussions” just like the one you describe: the kind of demeaning tone and comments they’d never consider using about a President who looked like them.
Trainrunner
I just watched Sarah Palin AGAIN call Obama someone who “pals around with domestic terrorists.”
What a runny shitstain of a human being.
Jebediah
So dude thought Obama went straight from community organizer to President?
You can’t debate someone who has zero interest in facts. Add the racial element and whatever bile you unloaded was probably less than what was called for. Fuck being nice and civil with his ilk.
liberal
Slightly OT: Onion’s take on debt deal.
Cain
They are like that. This past weekend a friend bought some guy with him from a conference and he started reasonable and then went nuts but when we started objecting to his talk (fairly mild mind you) the fucker decided to leave with out even saying goodbye. What a jerk!
Odie Hugh Manatee
“I haven’t always agreed with ABL’s critique of certain Obama as opponents as racists, but now I think there really is a huge racial element to a lot of the hate.”
Duh.
Bo Alawine
Believe me, living in the South, I believe I can make a very good circumstantial case that a lot of the opposition to President Obama is racially motivated.
Given it’s never possible to know beyond all certainty what motivates some people to hold certain beliefs and opinions, it’s difficult to declare that someone is a racist. Having said that, however, talking with a number of family members, friends and coworkers, it’s apparent to me that many have little reasoned opposition to the man. Even among my immediate family (not including my wife or sons), I’ve had to correct the record on more than one occasion concerning Obama’s nationality, his religion and what constitutes “socialism”. I am convinced that had Obama been white, you would have never heard a peep out of the alleged “patriots” which comprise the TEA Party.
liberal
That’s funny, because Obama’s politics seem a lot like Harvard and U Chicago and (fill in elite institution here) and not so much like community organizing.
It’s like the right-wing claim that Obama is a soshialist: would that it were so.
Quiddity
“community organizer” is something Hannity says on a daily basis.
khead
Hey! Welcome to 2009!
polyorchnid octopunch
From the outside looking in from the north, it sure looks like a lot of it is racially motivated. I suspect a lot of you can’t see it because it’s so much a part of the wallpaper in your country… sort of like first nations up here for a lot of people.
SiubhanDuinne
Editor HLR. Community organizer. State senator. US Senator. Best-selling author (legitimately best-selling, I might add). Constitutional law scholar. Took on Clinton machine and prevailed AND brought HRC to his team, not an easy task.
Black.
Yeah.
pepper
i don’t think we want to cry ‘racist’ every time someone disagrees with the President, but there is absolutely no doubt that a lot of the hatred is racially motivated. sad, really.
MoeLarryAndJesus
I don’t know a single Obama hater who doesn’t show serious signs of being a deeply racist idiot. Not one.
dead existentialist
Uh, he was a US Senator. Congressman could be one of 525, not one of 100. Small point? YMMV.*
*Gerk! I used that silly acronym!
liberal
@Trainrunner:
Well, he went golfing with Boehner, right? I’ve heard he’s also taken phone calls from Jamie Dimon.
DCLaw1
People will always find reasons, and in this case, the easiest ones tend to be racially tinged. The right hated the living hell out of Bill Clinton, but of course the criticisms weren’t racial – they were founded on barely less nefarious premises like, oh, he’s a murderer and a con man (and also out of his depth, until he wasn’t).
Oddly enough, I find some of the irrational stuff from “the left” more infuriating. The right is the right – they will have moronic, hateful crap to spew about any Democratic leader – but I feel like the left has less of an excuse.
When I hear otherwise fair-minded, sane, intelligent Democrats start talking about challenging Obama in a 2012 primary – something that would surely do nothing other than throw the election to the Republican candidate – now that shit is inexcusable.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
I should have added: great husband and father by all indications. Not a breath of personal scandal.
And Hannity notwithstanding, I say “community organizer” like it’s a good thing.
Arclite
@ DougJ
You should have said, what was your first job? Paperboy? Waiter in college? Mowing lawns? And what do you do now? Oh you’re a lawyer. So, if you’re just a paperboy, aren’t you over your head as a lawyer?
Cat Lady
Obama’s made mostly everyone lose their shit. It’s kind of fun to watch, except for the blowback. He got elected in a landslide too, so that makes it especially weird, that people are noticing now that OMG he’s black! I guess we can thank Sarah Palin for putting on such a sideshow that Obama was able to sneak his dark skin past everyone when they weren’t paying attention.
TaMara (BHF)
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m cutting and pasting that where I can easily retrieve it when I am at a loss for words with these idiots. Perfect and concise. Well done.
Now I’m going back to watching No. 1Ladies’ Detective Agency for the second time. I need some intelligent beauty in my life right now.
jrg
I’ve been getting into it on FB with a friend of a friend, who’s decided that I must “like paying taxes” because I’m willing to pay a bit more to keep the US from going bankrupt.
That’s the second time I’ve heard that line in as many months. The first time it was from a wingnut friend of mine I have not spoken to since (simply because I don’t want to deal with the drama).
It’s astonishing. How fucking stupid do you have to be to believe shit like that? It’s like saying I “like getting poked by a needle” because I get a flu shot every year.
OzoneR
Is there any other reason why white people in all demographics, where unemployment is low, moved in massive numbers to the Republican Party in the last three years?
Arclite
@DCLaw1: Well, honestly, Obama isn’t really a liberal, so it’s perfectly acceptable to challenge him (via primary) from the left, if for no other reason than to force him to address liberal issues. There are other reasons than replacing him on the ballot for primary challenges.
hhex65
What makes this country great is there are about 5000 different ways to express white supremacy without having to resort to pure racial epithet.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
To turn the question around, what US President wouldn’t be in over his head under our current circumstances? An economic depression (in late 2008 our GDP contracted by 9% annualized, we now learn), a feckless party that won’t go out of it’s way to support him, a news media that is in the tank for an opposition party that has doubled-down on obstruction and sabotage to the point of something approaching sedition (and been rewarded for doing so by voters in the last election), etc., etc. Lincoln and FDR faced greater challenges, but the rest of our Presidents haven’t.
If Obama is struggling it is in part because he was given Mission Impossible from Day 1. Sure he has made some mistakes, but so did all of his predecessors under much less trying circumstances.
OzoneR
@Cat Lady:
also Lehman Brothers. I still contend that an Evan Bayh would have won 57%-58% and won 400 EV.
LosGatosCA
I don’t think Republicans need much of an excuse to hate anyone. They hate everyone who is poor, gay, brown, has a name that’s hard to pronounce, is Democrat, is liberal, has an accent, doesn’t worship the Republican gods of money and old testament wrath, is a woman having sex without their god’s permission, etc, etc, etc.
The great thing is that most of them think of themselves as ‘tolerant’ because they only hate 3 or 4 of the superset- maybe the poor who deserved their god’s wrath, the illegal Mexicans, and Muslims.
gnomedad
A lot of Real Americans have had it UP TO HERE with “political correctness”. And when we Take Our Country Back, you’ll be able to call a spade a spade again!
Linnaeus
I’m generally looking forward to my impending visit to my family and my friends, but I’m not looking forward to any political conversations with my friends and their families; most of them are suburban Republicans (or lean in that direction) and the mother of one of my friends has gone full-bore Tea Party. I simply refuse to talk politics with her at all.
OzoneR
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
None, but I’m not so sure another president would’ve ended up in these circumstances. I think a white southern Democrat might still have a Democratic Congress.
Arclite
@liberal: Okay, that’s freaking hilarious:
Arclite
Wow, comments coming fast and furious. Looks like it’s going to be another 200 comment thread…
Amir_Khalid
Don’t feel too bad that you took the guy for a racist on first impression. You were right, after all, even though he himself might not be aware of his own racism.Similar conversations with Democrats might turn up a few people unaware of their own racism as well.
There may be more than a touch of blowhard to Jackson and Sharpton; there usually is in any politician. But from what I know about them, they’re no worse than the general run of white American politicians and way better than some you could name.
B W Smith
I have a simple question that keeps flowing through my mind. Who the hell wouldn’t be over their head in this mess? Things have never been so bad economically in our lifetimes. Thanks to George Bush and his inept policies. A country divided and deadlocked in their respective corners. A news media that is well and truly fucked. Business leaders and bankers who don’t know their asses from a hole in the ground. Then as topping on the cake, an opposition party that has no other desire than to defeat you and retake power with no plans to help their country; while you own party demeans you at every turn. I’m actually surprised he’s still standing and wants another term.
Rey
@Arclite #19
Good one-
OzoneR
@Arclite:
Neither are Democratic voters. If a liberal was polling close to Obama, I’d say sure, but they’re not, PPP tried this in Vermont, Obama had a HUGE lead. So in order to get your liberal to be taken seriously, s/he’s going to have to bloody Obama. he doesn’t have to address liberal issues because his party doesn’t want him to.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@B W Smith:
Great Minds think alike.
And then there’s you and me.
liberal
@Arclite:
Completely agree. The reasonable thing is to challenge him from the left in a primary, with the proviso that the challenger should encourage his/her supporters to vote for the primary winner (presumably Obama) in the general.
Xanthippas
First time back to BJ in a long time, and the first thing I see is a DougJ post that annoys me. Sigh…
OzoneR
@liberal:
how is that any different than just no primarying him? He’s basically admitting he has no chance at winning.
the only way this primary challenger is going to be taken seriously is if he attacks Obama and bloodies him up. The media is not going to pay attention to “We need a jobs program,” they’re going to pay attention to “Obama is a corrupt thug”
Besides primaries are always bad for Democrats, because the part never unites. Without Sarah Palin, it probably wouldn’t have in 2008 and we’re probably seeing the effects of the primary now.
micah616
@ Doug J
Racism: America = Brawndo: Electrolytes. Why do so many white liberals have such a difficult time with this concept?
liberal
@OzoneR:
BS. Your model that voters simply pick a candidate who somehow mysteriously appears out of nowhere and also reflects their ideological leanings is crap. The first primary that candidates have to win is with the moneymen and the party elites, and that has little to do with voter ideological preferences.
liberal
@OzoneR:
No, saying “vote for [Obama]” would be after the primary. That’s the way it should work in every election.
PeakVT
@Arclite: That reminds me of how much I’ve come to hate the phrase “tough decisions.” The decisions aren’t tough for the people that are making them. What’s the worse that could happen to them? They might wring their hands too much and make them chapped?
liberal
@B W Smith:
Yeah, and it’s not like he’s made any appointments or sought any counsel from that sector, is it. /snark
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Now that DougJ has caught up with the rest of us, we’ll proceed.
Brian S
@Xanthippas: I’d say that says more about you than about the post.
jl
I have known a number of very reasonable white people who have a serious bigotry problem with any race/ethnic minority person who has any power at all.
They tend to be ‘reasonable’ people, many have minority friends. I have seen some of these white bigots with their minority race/ethnicity friends. A couple of of them seemed to have very close minority friends. Sometimes, these people are fairly reasonable on social policy, even slightly left of center.
But bring up anyone from a group who has risen to prominence or power, and they tell you a big problem with them. King was a communist. Jackson was a pimp. Sharpton, well was every bad thing you can imagine. Obama is, well, a nice man, but obviously not quite ready for the big time yet.
Chavez, did you know he was a coyote before he was a labor organizer? All the labor organization stuff was just to make money in his undocumented worker smuggling business. So, you see, he is in it for himself and is no good.
Seems like most of these white bigots are ethnics themselves. One guy who had a particularly bad case of this kind of bigotry was Polish. I thought about slandering every Pole who had any significance in the US, but I had to work with the guy every day, so never went there.
B W Smith
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: I was just about to say the same thing. Again.
Larkspur
Whee! This sounds like the discussion going on in comments at this piece in the Christian Science Monitor about Pat Buchanon and Doug Lamborn. “Nooo! ‘Tar baby’ just means a really sticky thing!” “Nooo! ‘Boy” is a common reference in sports-related chat!”
I really must remember not to get involved in media comments threads.
gocart mozart
Lets just start with what he did right after community organizing.
Accepted into one of the top three law schools in the country and made law review (top 20%in grades?), elected by peers to be president of said law review, professor at one of the top ten law schools for 11? years, state senator for seven years, and a U.S. Senator for four. I would call that above average experience for a President. Hell, it blows Lincoln and Kennedy away*.
*Too soon?
OzoneR
@liberal:
Except by then the primary challenge would have made him so toxic, and convinced his supporters he was shafted, because how else can you defend a loss, do you really think people will show up for Obama at that point?
Not that it matters, since you’re probably talking about a Bill Bradley group, but at that point his standing with independents would have dropped so much from the attacks on both sides, he’d had no chance of winning. It would be 1980 all over again and you would have accomplished nothing.
Democrats do not unite unless they have a common enemy.
liberal
@OzoneR:
If we’re going to stipulate that media attention is both necessary and sufficient to win elections, then we might as well write the country off. (Guess you’ve already done that, in your own schizophrenic way.) A good challenger wouldn’t be a single individual mouthing off trying to bloody Obama, as you’d have it, but would rather present a coherent ideological program and would be backed up by a developing grassroots organization. The king of thing the elites hate.
OzoneR
@liberal:
I didn’t say that, I said the exact opposite. They don’t do that, you have to MAKE them to do that, by attacking the other guy. Once you attack the other guy, you make it less likely your supporters will inevitably support him.
Jim H
I’ve run into the same thing so many times since 2008. There is no reasoning with any of this large percentage of the US adult population. They simply will not listen to either the truth or reason. So many people have argued it’s getting better (Sully for one) and I just don’t see it. Even so called librul-leaning MSNBC can’t seem to get rid of it’s native son-racist Buchanan! It’s not getting better…
freelancer (iPhone)
@Xanthippas:
Shorter you: Wah!! I wanna read things I wanna read! Now I’m gonna leave a pointless comment and go back to cutting myself!
Marginalized for stating documented facts
The guy was wrong on details but he was correct overall.
Obama had very little experience in national politics and shockingly little experience in Washington bureaucratic infighting when he became president. And it shows. It shows _badly_.
Let me give you three specific examples of what I mean when I say “Obama had shockingly little experience in Washington bureaucratic infighting when he became president.”
[1] People who have been in Washington DC for a while learn that the large bureaucracies have internal agendas. When a new president tries to change the large bureaucracies in Washington DC, those large bureaucracies will push back in various ways. A president with Washington turf wars experience knows how to deal with this and counteract it, while an inexperienced president will get rolled and scammed and buffaloed.
Let’s take a very specific example: Obama told the Pentagon to come up with a plan for removing American troops from Afghanistan by (some date). Obama was inexperienced and he didn’t know how Washington bureaucracies work. He got a brutal lesson. The Pentagon came up three different plans, all right, but all 3 plans _added_ troops, none of them removed troops from Afghanistan. Then a Pentagon general leaked internal reports claiming that without more troops, Afghanistan would be lost. Obama found himself hemmed in and under attack in congress and he was forced to agree to ramp up troop levels in Afghanistan when what we really wanted to do was pull troops out and shut down the Afghanistan quagmire. The giant Pentagon bureacracy scammed Obama and made him their bitch.
The way an experienced Washington insider deals with a situation like that is to place his own insiders in key positions in the Pentagon. The insiders warn Obama what the Pentagon bureaucracy is doing before it happens — so then an experienced pol would call General Petraeus on the carpet BEFORE the damaging report got leaked and BEFORE thejoin chiefs came up with three scam plans increasing troops in Afghanistan. The experienced Washington insider would inform the Joint Chiefs and Petraeus “Look, I specifically asked for a plan that would_reduce_ troops and you’re going to give me instead three plans that _increase_ troop levels. You are also planning to go behind my back and leak a report to congress that damages my proposed policy in Afghanistan. So I’m going to give you a choice, General Petraeus: you can either shitcan those 3 garbage reports and write me one I asked for AND you can feed that report you’re going to leak to congress into the shredder…OR I can have you court-martialed for violating the direct orders of your commander in chief. Which would you prefer, General Petraeus? Oh –and by the way… DO NOT EVER TRY THIS SHIT WITH ME AGAIN, or I will ask for your resignation so fast your head will spin.”
THAT’s what an experienced Washington insider would have done. But Barack Obama had only a couple of years in congress before he became president, and as a result Obama was completely unprepared for the kind of gauntlet he’d have to run in battling the Washington bureaucracy.
[2] Obama fought for TARP and expected that the giant banks on Wall Street would be grateful and rein in their thefts. Instead, the banksters gave themselves giant bonuses using the taxpayers’ money. News reports depicted Obama open-mouthed and unable to believe it. This is the sign of a grossly inexperienced negotiator.
An experienced Washington insider would have demanded IN WRITING up front a whole list of concession from the giant banks BEFORE they got bailed out. Obama didn’t do that because just didn’t have the experience with cutthroat Wall Street thieves and scammers to know that they’d take his trillions and then turn around and shaft him.
[3] An experienced Washington inside would know that you do not ever *ever* EVER E*V*E*R agree to negotiate with Republicans who try to create a hostage situation by threatening default. Bill Clinton knew better than to even agree to negotiate. He utterly refused. Obama was inexperienced and he throught, naively, that the Republicans could be reasoned with. Wrong.
As soon as Obama agreed to negotiate about the debt ceiling, Obama not only lost the entire negotiation, but much worse… Obama set up negotiating as “the new normal.” From now on, the Republicans will hold America hostage every goddamn time the debt ceiling has to be raised. Obama was too naive and too inexperienced and too ignorant of how things work in Washington to realize this.
What I’m saying isn’t a black or white issue. It’s an experience issue. Obama became president because the Republicans failed so massively and the country collapsed so catastrophically that the only candidate who wasn’t implicated in all the massive failures like the Iraq War, Barack Obama, wound up winning the presidency.
If Obama had gotten a few more years experience as senator and if he’d been appointed to some cabinet positions in a Democratic presidency so that he had to deal with large Washington bureaucracies like the Pentagon, Obama would’ve made a much better president. He’d know how things work in Washington and he wouldn’t do naive foolish things like ordering the Pentagon to draw up plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, and expecting them to actually do it.
OzoneR
@liberal:
Are you serious? Is there anyone who doesn’t stipulate that media attention is necessary to win elections? What do you think candidates fundraiser for? paper cups?
and when one asks “Gee, why are you running against Obama?” what’s this guy’s answer going to be? Because he sucks. Boom! You’ve just handed the election to Republicans.
Unless you think you can win a primary or even get relevance by just having DailyKos and other blogs post diaries about this primary challenger.
Ben Cisco
You were right to call him out. I think that anyone who tries to deny the motivation for the NeoConfederates, or do the “well, we REALLY should parse the words/actions/pictures before calling it racist” bit is simply not accepting of reality at this point. It makes me wonder how far the Nathan Bedford Forrest wannabes would have to go to get everyone to get it. Would they REALLY have to show up in sheets? Would they REALLY have to drag us through the streets? Would they actually have to start the shooting war they so dearly wish for?
__
Forget who here said it or I would attribute it:
__
“The country the teabaggers want back was crushed by Union armies 146 years ago.”
James K. Polk, Esq.
Mostly because people that disagree with his POLICIES don’t really have a problem with the man.
If you don’t like the MAN (who is re-cock-ulously likable), chances are you have a problem with many people who aren’t white…
WyldPirate
How many of you folks called G. W. Bush, “Shrub”, “Chimpy” or “Dubya”?
Those monikers were all over every swing left-leaning blog for nearly eight years.
I fail to see how calling Obama “Barry’–which he went by at one point in his life—is racist. Perhaps disrespectful, but not racist.
Liberty60
I live in Orange County Ca, the epicenter of white shoe, yacht-owning racism. I have seen up close and personal how “fiscal conservatives” are really just hateful of the man in the White House, politics and values be damned.
However- politics is a down and dirty mudwrestling cage match. I am thinking of the PUMAS who complained about the sexism of criticism of Hillary, and while there was that, politics is about crafting a deeply personal and vicious attack.
Chris Christie? Fat fucking boor.
Sarah Palin? Snowbilly trash.
Rick Perry? Closeted cracker.
“I respect the man but beg to differ with his stance on the debt ceiling” is the sort of stuff you hear at a college debate.
Which is one think I admire about Obama- he shrugs off the racism, and like with his takedown of Trump, shows he knows how to throw a sharp elbow with the best of them.
Yeah his critics are racist. Yeah lets point it out, and point out that they are also neo-Confederate closet Klansmen.
Instead of begging for civility, lets make them beg for it for a change.
danimal
I think the thing that makes many conservatives crazy over Obama is that their racism is being exposed to themselves. They really thought they reached a post-racial POV, and yet they can’t avoid the simplistic racial thinking, jokes, antagonism, etc.
ETA: edited for clarity
They’re ashamed of who they are, and so they explode.
DFer
@liberal:
This is, quite honestly, the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen. “I’m running for President to be the candidate for the working people” and then once you lose “you should totally vote for the guy I ran to unseat”
karen marie
I have a neighbor who keeps complaining to me that “Obama spends too much time flying on his private plane to foreign countries.” My response is always, “You listen to too much Limbaugh and watch too much Fox,” but I was curious why he would say that, googled “Obama travel” and found a wikipedia page that details international trips by presidents. Compared to Bush Junior at this point in their first terms, Obama has traveled more than Junior, but by the end of his second term Junior had made 45 trips, for a total of 138 days out of the country.
Bush spent 879 days on his “ranch” in Crawford and 487 days at Camp David — nearly half of his eight years in office he was on vacation. So far, Obama has taken 26 vacation days.
Do facts matter? Not to people who are looking for a reason to hate.
Brian S
@Marginalized for stating documented facts: Obama negotiated TARP? In what universe?
Amir_Khalid
@WyldPirate:
Barry is the name he went by as a boy. I hope that helps.
liberal
@DFer:
No more ridiculous than the assertion that people to the left of Obama should vote for him because the Republicans are worse.
DavidNC
The one single driving force in republican politics is white resentment. Government=giving black people white people’s money. Behind all the code, that’s the only thing going on. Pundits aren’t allowed to observe or acknowledge this, so their analysis of the right is almost always useless. Actually, maybe they don’t even know it. Maybe they’ve only ever had liberal white friends. Racism is at the heart of politics, and a good chunk of white people will be forever looking for new ways to express their hatred in polite company. It wasn’t very long ago that whites were complaining about not being allowed to use the N word. “What about free speech? Rappers get to say it! Double standard!” Obama’s just the latest excuse to push the envelope and mainstream their resentment. “Kenyan” is the N word. “Socialist” is the N word.
DFer
@liberal:
That’s your response? Really? You realize since you think that’s ridiculous, you just admitted that your primary idea is ridiculous too.
liberal
@OzoneR:
Shorter Nick: I have no understanding of the phrase “necessary and sufficient”.
liberal
@DFer:
Do you realize that you’re ridiculous for assuming that I think people to the left of Obama shouldn’t vote for him?
I guess reading and logic aren’t your strong suit.
4jkb4ia
One of my few semi-useful accomplishments for the Obama campaign was to write a letter to the Supers. I put in the first time I had ever heard of him, when the American wrote a story when he got the Illinois Senate nomination. So I saw that this guy was a law professor and that his father was from Kenya. And I said, “That is really interesting, and not your run-of-the-mill black politician”. If Obama hadn’t been different from the black politicians that people knew, he couldn’t have gotten elected to that Senate seat or to the Presidency. The difference between that and racism is expanding on your curiosity and getting to know that person–or using that comparison to criticize Obama from the left. Take Paul Rosenberg who was a Jackson supporter in 1984.
jl
@61, no I disagree.
People call Obama lots of things, especially on the progressive side. Things, or example, like ‘traitor (to progressivism)’, which is not racist.
Barry is a name applied to Obama by racial bigots in order to smear him because of his background. In fact there is nothing derogatory about the name Barry except that it used by this group.
Now Bush is part Irish, and an ex alcoholic. If some anti Irish group got up the name Micky Mick Bush, cause the guy was so stupid he acted like a drunken Mick who was worse than usual because he just drunk a Mickey. That would be bigoted against the Irish, and making his Irish ancestry an issue.
There is no longer any discrimination against the Irish, so the Micky Mick example would be seen more as a joke than as a slur, but that is a side issue.
So your argument is wrong on two counts. Wrong analysis of the epithet ‘Barry’, and incorrect analogy to names applied to GW Bush.
Marginalized for stating documented facts
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Here’s a list:
Dwight D. Eisenhower. Ike knew exactly how giant Washington bureaucracies worked, and he was a brilliant bureucratic infighter. Ike would’ve known better than to make the foolish mistakes Obama has made, because Ike went through the living hell of dealing with giant bureaucracies like the Allied Armed Forces in WW II that wanted to do what they wanted to do, not what he had ordered them to do.
Harry Truman. Truman was much smarter and far more experienced than anyone gave him credit for. He would’ve seen through the Republican scam tactics — in fact, the 98th congress tried the same scam on Truman that today’s Republican-dominated congress tried on Obama. Truman taught those clowns a lesson by campaigning against the “do-nothing 98th congress” and he nailed the Republicans to the wall for their instransigence. Obama lacked the experience to do that. Instead, Obama tacitly accepted the Republicans’ sham narrative that the economy’s problems are HIS fault…Truman knew better and correctly placed the blame on the Republicans and put them on the defensive, hammering them relentless with the American public until public opinion turned toward him and against the Republicans.
Bill Clinton. Bubba knew better than even think of negotiating with the Republicans when they tried to hold the debt ceilng hostage, because Clinton knew that once the Repubs got rewarded for taking America’s economy hostage, their demands would just get more and more egregious. Obama was too naive and too inexperienced to realize what negotiating meant. It meant the game was already over.
JFK. Jack Kennedy knew better than to let the Pentagon generals push him around. They all but demanded that America invade Cuba, and JFK refused outright. Jack Kennedy didn’t let the generals push him around, while Obama has allowed Petraeus and the Joint Chiefs to make him their bitch.
Bush 41. Bush had years of experiece as head of the CIA, so he knew how Washington bureaucracies worked. To his credit, he also resisted heavy pressure to push on to Baghdad. Bush 41 knew how the game was played in DC, and he did it right. He ended Desert Storm without invading Baghdad. He didn’t get scammed and rolled and snowed by the Joint Chiefs, unlike the inexperienced Obama.
FoxinSocks
I remember, way back in the summer of 2008, how my mother said she couldn’t support Obama because he’d let black people take over the country and give them preferential treatment.
I looked her in the eye and told her she was right. Except that Obama was half-black, so I knew for a fact that he was only going to give half of the black people in this country preferential treatment. Also, that he’d give half of the white people preferential treatment, and as someone who was volunteering for his campaign, I had managed to get myself, Mom and the whole family on the Preferential Treatment list. I then asked her what job she wanted in the new Obama administration.
She wasn’t amused, but I kept insisting there was a Sooper Secret List that we were on, that Obama had actually promised me one of the smaller Hawaiian islands, and she finally admitted she was being ridiculous and voted for the guy. You can’t always use mockery/humor, but sometimes it works.
hhex65
@WyldPirate: you should primary Obama
jl
@67: I explained the problem to Mr. WyldP in excruciating detail, let’s see if he gets it.
OzoneR
Oh that’s cute how you decided to call me someone else’s name as soon as you lost any means to defend your stupid argument simply because I forgot to type two words.
Yes, media attention is necessary and sufficient to not only winning elections, but even getting noticed by voters. Otherwise, there would be no such thing as fundraising. That money goes to…getting media attention.
Davis X. Machina
@Marginalized for stating documented facts:
No way is one term in Congress good enough.
Brian S
Am I alone in thinking that the media, led by Fox News, wouldn’t eat up a primary challenge to Obama? Jesus they’d have whoever it was on television all the damn time. Said candidate wouldn’t even have to bash Obama (though they’d be pressured to do so). They just have to have a pulse.
Omnes Omnibus
@Marginalized for stating documented facts: Wow. You are really out there, aren’t you?
Mr Stagger Lee
If President Obama is in over his head, what was George W. Bush’s excuse?
WyldPirate
@Amir_Khalid:
Seems I remember reading somewhere where he went by that in college. Could be mistaken.
Calling him “Barry”, even if it was the name he went by as a child, is a far cry from using “boy” pejoratively.
clayton
It doesn’t matter that we have mainstreamed anything. There are still people who cannot get over a black man being better than them.
Face it: Obama is better than them and they cannot stand it.
Our civil war accomplished little.
DFer
@liberal:
Do you realize you’re ridiculous for assuming people think you think they SHOULD vote for him?
Then what is the point of a campaign AGAINST an incumbent if not because you think you shouldn’t vote for him? Why don’t you try to get progressives elected into Democratic party positions like district leaders or committee persons?
When one runs against an incumbent, it’s because s/he thinks the incumbent is not worthy of another vote.
BombIranForChrist
I went on a fishing trip with my Dad recently, and he used the term “community activist” also. It’s most certainly used in a racist way. I love my Dad, but he’s a racist. For him, a “community activist” = Black Panthers, organized black people. He also uses the term “urban” to carry similar connotations.
Being from Georgia, one of his favorite jokes is: “What does MARTA stand for? Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta”. He doesn’t mean it in a particular nice way.
WyldPirate
@hhex65:
No one is going to primary him. He’s going to lose all on his own.
But thanks for adding your stupid comment.
liberal
@DFer:
To clarify: when I say “as ridiculous as saying people to the left of him should vote for him,” I mean in the sense “people to the left of him should vote for him in the general and not first vote for a primary challenger and then for him in the general.”
The entire point is that by having a primary, you give people in the party an opportunity to express ideological differences within the party, without splitting the vote by voting for a spoiler in the general election.
Not the greatest thing, but the first-past-the-post voting system is an evil, and sometimes dealing with such things is kludgey.
Omnes Omnibus
@WyldPirate:
To whom?
clayton
@WyldPirate:
Ya think?
I’m sure it makes you feel “better”.
liberal
@DFer:
Really? That’s the first time I’ve heard that, at least expressed as a claimed rational position and not an emotional one.
DFer
@liberal:
This is unbelievably stupid. When a person runs for president, it’s because he wants to be president…if he doesn’t, people don’t pay attention to him. People don’t vote on issues, we’ve long established that. How is that primary challenger supposed to get the votes of the 80 percent of Democrats who support Obama and think he’s doing ok, and if he doesn’t, why is he even running and why should anyone take him seriously? Are you assuming some of that 80 percent is going to vote for a primary challenger?
policomic
This.
Raising the debt ceiling didn’t suddenly become an issue, as it never has for any president before, solely because of the President’s race, but I’m convinced that was the factor that made it feasible. I had to switch off Jon Stewart when I heard him pooh-poohing this notion. The proud and pretty overt racism one hears from people like the guy in DougJ’s story is bad enough; the smug denial of its pervasiveness by white liberals makes it even worse.
Racism is not just a character flaw some, most, or even all of us share. It pervades our history and our society. It shaped our Constitution, our culture, our cities and neighborhoods. And our families: when Barack Obama was born, his parents’ marriage would have been considered illegal in, if memory serves, 13 states. And it’s shaped our politics, too. The wingnuts may have hated Bill Clinton, but remember that the conventional wisdom “back then” was that the only way a Democrat could win the White House was if he was from Dixie. If Clinton hadn’t had a drawl, he would not have won–in other words, THAT was also about race.
Granted, 1992 was eons ago, and we’re all better now, because history starts over with a blank slate every day, the real racists are the people who make fun of Boehner’s tan, black people live in the poorest neighborhoods because they like it there, etc., etc.
liberal
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, if you believe the empirical political science literature, if unemployment hasn’t come down quite a bit, the answer would be “to the Republican.” Though I think he might have a shot if it’s someone like Bachmann
DFer
@liberal:
Is this sarcasm, cause I can’t believe you’re serious.
Suffern ACE
@Marginalized for stating documented facts: None of those people were running. All of them had high points of their terms and low points. Truman lost Congress. He barely won reelection. JFK might actually have been wrong about Cuba, you know. Bush senior is not considered a great president. Bill Clinton did negotiate with Congress all the fucking time, including over the debt ceiling. And Ike warned about the military industrial complex as he was walking out the door. Not that he did much to fight its creation, but he let us know it was there.
DFer
@Brian S:
unless he runs from the right of Obama or bashing Obama personally, yes, they’ll never let anyone go on their network and espouse left wing viewpoints.
liberal
@policomic:
Oh BS. The debt ceiling became an issue because the Republican Party is a bunch of crazed thugs doing the bidding (wittingly or not) of rich scum who don’t want to pay taxes, and the party is even more extreme and nutty than it was in the mid-1990s.
Racism is certainly an important issue, but in a more nuanced way. Clinton, for example, was treated badly, and he wasn’t black. OTOH, he did serve as the head of a political party which is voted for in large numbers and (presumably at least, and to some degree) serves the interests of “those people”.
liberal
@DFer:
Huh. I could have sworn that the political science data show that the wealthier you are, the likelier you are to vote Republican.
Guess you showed me!
OzoneR
@liberal: When a person announces they’re running for President against an incumbent, inevitable the first question asked if “Why you and not the guy in power?”
How does your primary challenger answer that question?
Corner Stone
@liberal: You do realize you’re getting tag teamed by the Nicks, right?
DFer
@liberal:
um no, not in 2008
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#USP00p1
vhh
I guess it takes a community organizer to order the hunting down and killing of the world’s leading terrorist, Osama bin Laden, with a hit team of 3 helicopters and 50 elite soldiers after a bunch of country club Republicans, a self styled all star team of national security, pervert the use of intelligence, send hundreds of thousands of US troops to wander around in the Mideast for 10 years (losing 4000 dead and 10,000 or more wounded) squander more than $1T of the taxpayers’ money, cause indirectly the “excess deaths” of going on to a million people, wantonly round up, imprison and mistreat thousands of innocent people, thus profoundly undermining the faith, credit and reputation of the United States.
liberal
@DFer:
I guess you’re right—we can’t do both, because it’s unconscionable or forbidden or something.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: Is DFer a Nick? I have always figured OzoneR was.
liberal
@Corner Stone:
No. Who are “the Nicks”?
OzoneR
@Corner Stone: Oh, don’t worry, liberal already cowered out of the argument by playing the Nick card way upthread.
Corner Stone
@liberal: Both DFer and OzoneR.
liberal
..
OzoneR
@Omnes Omnibus: OzoneR is not a Nick, I haven’t the bloodiest idea what a Nick is. In my first post a few months ago, Corner Stone called me a Nick and I have no idea why and no one has ever fucking told me.
Mike in NC
@policomic:
I’ve lived in the south for over 20 years now (VA & NC) and I see little evidence that the racism has changed much in the last 50 or even 100 years.
liberal
@OzoneR:
Yeah…like I’m going to worry about what someone who thinks Japan suffered from massive inflation in the Lost Decade thinks.
liberal
@Corner Stone:
OzoneR certainly is. Not sure about DFer.
Suffern ACE
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, i did too, although I’m never really concerned with identity. OzoneR writes like Nick and lives in the same place that Nick does (although it is a big world). Also, you never see Nick and OzoneR in the same thread. Like the way Bruce always stands up Batman on lunch dates.
billy rae valentine
in general, some of the comments and some of the people who dislike him are racist but not all, which many of you have said. i just take it on a case-by-case basis.
“barry” and “community organizer” to me, are TYPICAL things every day people use to degrade the members of the other tribe: just words and phrases like “teabagger” (they want to be called tea party patriots or something, right?), “teahadist”, or “firebagger”.
i watch Laurence O’Donnell and he without fail calls Palin “former HALF-TERM governor” Palin. the half-term bit is the point; a way to trivialize her and make fun of her. i know you hate “both sides do it” talk but they do. i personally think one side is worse, more powerful, etc. but i have to point out that my little tribe does do the same types of things sometimes.
so the “tar-baby” thing, to me, was some stupid guy, not necessarily a racist. same with “your boy” by pat buchanan to al sharpton. tar baby was worse, and i think if you are an adult over 25, you should KNOW that it’s a bad idea to use tar baby on an ACTUAL black guy. haha i mean christ why not just say the “revenue increase” burrs on his head got stuck to your “fiscal responsibility” clothes?
i know improvising on camera is tough but if i was talking to an italian guy and said something about “doing the wop” (a dance move) i’d be mortified into embarassment. i’d fall over myself to assure him it was a coincidence and i meant no offense. but it took days for that dummy to do that because anti-PCism is a core value of right wing people. they hate that they have to THINK about what they say or how it affects others. sorry but it’s true. they think boorish behavior is like a virtue us sissy leftists are destroying by asking folks to care about others. but i digress.
case by case i take it. idiots say community organizer as part of the same old spouting whatever guy-who-looks-like-them-shares-their-values on TV told them. someone pointed out Obama’s creds. most important to me is that he fucking taught constitutional law for a decade, 11 years as Senator. btw, he also worked for the CIA! haha i read that in a REAL socialist newspaper. but if you are an idiot who just wants a fake reason to hate him, he’s JUST a community organizer. but only if you are willfully ignorant.
also most of the hardcore obama haters out of my BEST friends? most racist white friends i’ve ever had. long before i heard of Obama. and i mean these are kids i knew since kindergarten. or high school. and out of all my friends, they are ones who would say some of the most cold, foul shit about blacks or mexicans. if they were super low income like my best friends from grade school, now they worship palin. if they were supposed college-educated sophisticates, who do you think they now run with when they’re not ranting about mexicans in my presence? Ron Paul. duh.
OzoneR
@liberal:
wow pathetic, bringing up something I said two months ago and completely lying about it.
So you got nothing then?
AhabTRuler
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh, definitely. Once you know what to look for, it’s right there in front of ya.
liberal
@OzoneR:
Because I’m better?
I guess to someone like you, the logic is X says he’s better than Obama. So someone is better than Obama. Therefore anyone must be better than Obama. Therefore the Republican candidate is better than Obama.
liberal
@OzoneR:
Nothing? Given that you claim to know a lot about financial issues, it shows you must not know jack about anything.
Not to mention that if one were to take your comments to their logical conclusion, the country is hopelessly fucked no matter what we do.
OzoneR
So “Obama is good, but I’m better?”
Steeplejack
@Ol’ Dirty DougJ:
Hell to the yes. (I haven’t read the comments, so I’m sorry if I’m being redundant.) The race issue is far from dead in America, even though we like to tell ourselves, “Oh, we settled that in the ’60s,” and brush it off. And Obama hits that last racist nerve even in people who don’t think they are racist and (mostly) try not to be racist in their day-to-day lives. They can accept blacks as equals (more or less), but they just can’t wrap their head around the idea of a black man as president.
I think that’s a lot of the reason the Tea Party crowd
seemsis so crazy. They can’t come out and talk about their real concern–the president is black!–so they tie themselves up in knots about fake Hawaiian birth certificate, born in Kenya, secret Muslim, etc., etc.–all dog-whistle issues that point to the president being black but without actually saying it.liberal
@AhabTRuler:
You mean sockpuppets of the same person, or two different people with same attitudes/rhetorical style?
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
The point with the name “Barry” tends to be one of two things:
1) The crackpot theory that he is and ever was Barry Soetero and that this name, stepfather, and renunciation of his US citizenship makes him ineligible for the presidency and traitor beside.
2) His ‘real’ name before he decided to take a ‘black’ name like Barack to stick it to whities (forget the fact that Barack was his original legal name and Barry was a childhood nickname).
signifyingmnky
@Marginalized for stating documented facts:
Wrong on pretty much every point, whether it’s motivated by race or not.
For one, President Obama campaigned on ramping up Afghanistan, not drawing down. He made it pretty well known that his opinion was that we dropped the ball in Afghanistan when we went into Iraq, and that we needed to refocus and finish the job we started. That’s a fairly clearly established fact, and easy to find if you’re interested in knowing the facts.
Second, the Bush Administration fought for TARP, Bush Treasury Secretary Paulson dropped to his knees and begged Nancy Pelosi for the program. Again, a fairly clearly established fact, and easy to find if you’re interested in knowing the facts. President Obama’s role with TARP has been in managing it, and the record shows that he 1)hasn’t done a bad job as many recipients have paid back or are close to having paid back their loans, and 2)President Obama had plenty of choice words for the reckless on Wall Street, which some on Wall Street didn’t appreciate and made it publicly known.
Lastly, Bill Clinton, a President who I still have some admiration for, was not elected at the beginning of the largest economic crisis since the Great Depression. He also demanded Congress pass his health care reform plan, and they ignored him. Then once the Republicans took power in Congress, he was forced to implement some ugly policies, DADT, welfare reform and after they impeached him in the House, the repeal of Glass Stegall. Conversely, President Obama passed his health care reform bill, repealed DADT, passed a financial regulatory reform package including the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and more in just his first two years.
You can’t call a man who accomplishes that inexperienced, ignorant, and naive. You especially can’t do it in comparison to Bill Clinton. Not if you have any desire to be taken seriously. You should actually be laughed out of the room.
You should be marginalized because you’re leading a misguided criticism that’s thoroughly wrong on the facts.
This is why people begin to suspect racism as a motivation for some of the relentless, coarse, and often times personal criticisms out there. President Obama is demonstrably one of the most qualified Presidents to hold the office. His resume speaks for itself, and his accomplishments since taking office bear that out,
He’s anything but inexperienced, ignorant or naive. So upon seeing someone push such a demonstrably inaccurate narrative, as you have here, it really begs the question:
If the record clearly shows President Obama is more than qualified for the job, why do you insist on saying he isn’t?
It reminds me of Harriet Christian during 08′ primaries lashing out at Barack Obama as being an “inadequate black man” that wasn’t qualified to be the nominee despite the fact that he defeated the Clintons.
Her problem clearly wasn’t his “inadequacy”.
OzoneR
You know what, fuck you all and your childishness. I’m out of here.
None of you can tell me Corner Stone and Fuckhead aren’t the same person, because that’s obvious, but it’s me your pick on because I sound like some other guy I’ve never even heard of.
Newsflash, a lot of people write like me. But I guess if I had five handles bashing Obama, none of you would say a word.
Fucks.
liberal
@OzoneR:
Good? No. Mediocre, as in a mediocre, moderately conservative Republican (on the issues). And as compared to the Republicans themselves, who are batshit crazy.
Martin
Eric Cantor is a dick:
So, where are Medicare dollars spent and why are costs rising so quickly? It’s not inflation, and it’s not entirely waste. Some is. Some is overcharging, high physician salaries, etc. But some is a broader trend that can be fixed if we pull our heads out of our asses.
1/3 of all Medicare spending is diabetes or diabetes-related – either testers and insulin to amputations, mobility devices, loss of vision issues, etc. Another 40% is related to chronic heart disease issues.
All told, about 75% of all Medicare spending is primarily related to obesity and/or smoking related issues, and that 75% of spending is incurred by 10% of Medicare participants. Are we dealing with smoking issues? In some states. Are we dealing with obesity issues? A little, but the problem is getting worse, not better.
Bottom line is that Medicare is going to get worse even if we solve all of the cost issues that can be solved unless we deal with smoking and obesity in a serious way. Want to know why southern states are welfare states for federal spending? They soak up way more Medicare dollars per person because they’re fatter and much more likely to smoke.
The nations ‘death panel’ is the continuation of tolerant smoking policies and dietary attitudes. Whether Medicare or a private system to replace it, either we need to cut smokers and obese folks loose from healthcare, charge them a LOT more to participate in the system, or provide adequate incentives for people to stop that behavior. Fix that problem, not even entirely, but cut the obesity rate and smoking rate in half, and the Medicare problem is solved. Not easy. Controversial as hell and painful, but it’s got to happen.
LA Times has a nice story related to the problem.
We need to consider something radical. Rather than means-testing for income, put a financial burden on those who smoke or are obese, and do it while people are paying into the systems, not when it’s too late to repair the damage. Insurance companies have had premium surcharges for smokers for decades. One way or another, it’s got to happen.
scarshapedstar
“HE WAS BORN IN AFRICA” kinda pinged my race-dar. But maybe that’s just me.
Omnes Omnibus
@OzoneR: No, Corner Stone and JSF are demented in their own particular and quite individual ways.
AhabTRuler
@liberal: Former.
Corner Stone
@OzoneR:
Nick, are you sure you want to openly claim it was something “you” said months ago?
OzoneR
@liberal:
And then after doing that, you’re going to go ahead and endorse him and ask your voters to vote for him? Yeah that makes sense.
liberal
@signifyingmnky:
Obama racheting up the campaign in Afghanistan hardly reflects well upon him, campaign promise or no.
boss bitch
@signifyingmnky:
BRAVO!!
OzoneR
@Corner Stone: Yes, because I was saying “massive inflation LED to the lost decade” I clarified that multiple times after that, but apparently to no avail.
drop dead. I think it’s very pathetic that you found that so fucking quickly? What do you keep them on your Favorites list? stalker.
liberal
@Corner Stone:
Heh.
signifyingmnky
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik:
It’s also a way to infantilize him without “overtly” disrespecting him. They can’t openly call him “boy”, so instead they’ll call him what they’d call a child named Barack…”Barry”.
The fact that this kind of nonsense isn’t called on the floor and shamed in front of the entire country by the media is equally disgusting. There’s no problem with dissent, and politics are always ugly. But with a political atmosphere as racially tinged as our has been, with political attack both covertly and overtly racist aimed at this president and his family, someone should be speaking up about this.
And it shouldn’t have to be the President himself, his family, or some black representative that does it.
Martin
@OzoneR:
CS and JSF really should go on your pie list. I nearly took off as well, and finally gave in and started hiding people. It helps.
liberal
@OzoneR:
Except that that’s false. A credit bubble led to Japan’s lost decade. Just like one will have lead to ours.
No one of Importance
Dude, you can’t go saying things like that around here. Last time I said something like that, I was assured by the good folks of BJ that this made me the real racist. [/sarcasm]
In other words, try taking black people’s word for it *first* when they point out racial issues. It’ll save you time and embarrassment.
signifyingmnky
@liberal:
The fact that he promised to do so in his campaign is an important one, whether you find the position favorable or not.
Especially so when someone is suggesting that his (President Obama’s) decision to ramp up operations in Afghanistan is a result of him being rolled by the Pentagon because of inexperience or naivete.
The point stands.
nancydarling
@danimal: Exactly! No matter our racial/ethnic background, we all have some bigotry stowed away in our lizard brains. I can honestly say I harbor very little racial/ethnic bigotry, but I have had bigoted thoughts here and there in the past. My biggest prejudice now is against obese people—I struggle with it. There are lots of people out there who are generally fair-minded and would deny racism has anything to do with it, but it is always there, in varying degrees, in all of us.
My children have almost zero bigotry. The have always dated across racial lines, had friendships across racial lines, and have gay friends and family they love and adore and yet there are probably rare times when the beast breaks out of their lizard brains and takes momentary control of their consciousness. We are making progress, but still have miles to go. My children give me hope.
Omnes Omnibus
@No one of Importance:
I’ve found this to be true. I am not attuned to seeing certain things. If people who are see them and mention them, I am not going to argue it. I will note the fact and bear it mind in the future. Privilege (white, male, education, etc.) can create real blinders.
OzoneR
@liberal:
Accompanied by high inflation in 1989 and 1990.
Mnemosyne
@Marginalized for stating documented facts:
Yeah, Clinton didn’t negotiate with the Republicans over the debt limit, except for the concessions he gave them that included changes to Social Security and deregulation of businesses.
Putz.
(Edited to fix wrong linky.)
signifyingmnky
@boss bitch:
Thanks! It had to be said.
OzoneR
@Martin: don’t know what a pie list is.
Montysano
A few months after Obama was sworn in, the wingnuts and the rightwing media went into full-metal freakout mode over the President’s intention to give a “Hey kids, study hard and stay in school” speech to the nation’s students. From that moment on, it was clear where we really were.
I’ve never seen a politician treated as Obama has been. Never seen one inspire such raw hatred. All this for a guy who, though he’s easy to disagree with (I certainly do), is hard to dislike.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@signifyingmnky:
And bingo was his name-o.
liberal
@OzoneR:
Really? Care to post a link to stats?
Marginalized for stating documented facts
@Davis X. Machina:
Comes back with the worthless anecdote that Lincoln had only one term in congress before he became president. True enough. And Lincoln was an excellent president.
LBJ, on the other hand, spent his entire public life in congress before becoming president, and Johnson was a terrible president.
It depends on the person. Obama needed a lot more experience. The facts show it clearly: all the anecdotes in the world won’t change the fact that Obama got snowed by the Pentagon, rolled and scammed by the medical devicemakers and doctor-hospital-insurance company cartels, turned into a whining little bitch by the giant banks, and made into an impotent helpless cowering pissant by John Boehner and the tea partiers.
Steeplejack
@jrg:
Actually, you should use that analogy with your friend. It’s a very good one. “I don’t like getting poked by a needle, but I do it because I don’t want to get the flu. And, no, I don’t like paying taxes, but I do it because I don’t want to live in an armed compound in a Third World hellhole–or, worse, and more likely, be roasting a sparrow on a coat hanger outside the armed compound.”
nancydarling
@Marginalized for stating documented facts: Somebody rolled Ike when his justice department stopped the anti-trust actions against big oil that the Truman DoJ had begun. Somebody rolled him when he agreed to the debacle in Iran in 1953.
Mnemosyne
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik:
I’ve spouted my personal crackpot theory before, but I really think that one of the things that drives racists (on both sides) most insane about Obama is that he consciously chose to be black.
He didn’t have to. He was raised by the white side of his family, and he absolutely could have gone the Harold Ford route of marrying a white woman and working his way up through the white political establishment.
Instead, he specifically chose to move to Chicago during Harold Washington’s days when African-Americans were gaining a lot of political power in the city, moved to the South Side, and married a black woman.
He decided to embrace his identity as a black man, and that “rejection” drives some people absolutely batshit.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: “I like paying taxes, with them I buy civilization.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Marginalized for stating documented facts:
[ Factual citations needed ]
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
Whew! When I criticize President Obama’s moral depravity, poor leadership and unconstitutional behavior, I always refer to him as “President Obama,” so I am above reproach to @significantmonkey. The lesson is, kids, emulate Uncle Clarence Thomas and mind your manners.
.
.
Mnemosyne
@liberal:
Way to dodge the point, which was Marginalized’s claim that Obama was somehow tricked into increasing troops in Afghanistan by the wily Petraeus.
If someone states their intention to do something before they’re elected, and then they do it after they’re elected, how rational is it to claim that they only did the thing they said they would do because they were tricked into doing it after the election by someone else?
liberal
@Liberty60:
LOL. I like the alliteration.
Though I had heard awhile back he was closeted, I didn’t a google search and wasn’t very convinced.
Of course, if he was…”not that there’s anything wrong with that” (aside from the hypocrisy, of course).
signifyingmnky
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
LMAO. Feel free to troll, but if your going to call me out, at least get the name right. I mean it’s actually spelled out for you…
signifyingmnky
Hilarious that you’d do it while pointing out how you at least call him “President Obama” when you lie about him.
Steeplejack
@jl:
Agree. I see this a lot.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@jl: Yep, they have black friends but have a problem with uppity negroes that don’t know their place. Not that they’ll say it in those terms, of course. They have appearances to keep.
Suffern ACE
Kind of like entitlement reform or preserving the bush tax cuts for the middle class, or keeping Perry on in Defense figuring that Perry agreed that defense procurments needed to be brought under control and that those changes would be more acceptable coming from a Republican insider? All the shocking naiivenes. Oh the humanity.
signifyingmnky
@Mnemosyne:
And what’s sad is this is actually a trend. Like the meme that was attempted to claim that President Obama’s hand was forced in the decision to capture/kill Osama Bin Laden. Or that his hand was forced in pushing for legislative repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
And he campaigned on these things (which actually makes the claims even more idiotic because often times the same people making them will also claim that he’s broken virtually all of his campaign promises).
These claim make as much sense as saying he was born in Kenya, or claiming he’s a Radical Christian and Muslim at the same time, or a Socialist Marxist Communist. People that push these memes should be laughed out of conservation.
And that’s the polite way to deal with it.
OzoneR
@liberal: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/japan/inflation-cpi
Mutaman
I’ve pretty much decided that President Obama is, at heart, a moderate Republican. Does that make me a racist?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mutaman: No, it just makes you kind of confused.
General Stuck
@Mnemosyne:
hadn’t thought of it that. Great point
Mutaman
@Omnes Omnibus:
I sure have plenty of evidence upon which to support my “confusion”. I mean no one can be that incompetent a negotiator.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mutaman: Opinions differ.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
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@signifyingmnky:
Not trolling, old chap, just demonstrating the foolishness of your trolling. Do you mind?
The name is correct, for you are a significant monkey. You may refer to yourself in any way you deem appropriate.
Thank you. You may think that was unconscious on my part, but I’m known as a witty and clever fellow so you’ll have to bring your “A” game next time to see how I was mocking your comment.
And finally, I did not lie about President Obama. Torturers and war crimes defenders are morally depraved, in my opinion; inappropriate, promiscuous and repeated use of the State Secrets Doctrine to shield government lawbreaking is unconstitutional, in my opinion; and repeatedly capitulating to Republicans and corporate interests over the best interests of the people is poor leadership, in my opinion. Your opinions obviously differ, though you’ll find that I have as much right to my opinions as you do to yours – more, in my opinion, since I base mine on reality and not wishful thinking.
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Comrade Kevin
I keep seeing people claim that Obama is a terrible negotiator. I’d love to hear someone tell me how he, or anyone else, for that matter, could have gotten anything better out of Boehner and his teatard caucus in the House.
Omnes Omnibus
@Comrade Kevin: BULLY PULPIT!!!! ELEVEN 1!
Suffern ACE
@Comrade Kevin: Some line in the sand. Chris Christie alpha-male, lock-em in a room and get them to knock off the funny business like McCain, W in a jump suit, moment of truthiness carrying a big trillion dollar coin to drop off at the bank event showing that he meant business.
Sly
I hear the community organizer thing at some of my family meet-ups as well, but only when there are non-family present and decorum necessitates coding it a bit to not scare off someone’s friend or more intimate relation. When that necessity is absent, the most commonly cited argument for Obama Failure from those same people is that “he’s half a nigger.”
Race resentment is the backbone of one of the major political cultures of the United States and, at least until mid-century, its likely going to remain one of the largest. It’s a very old brand of populism that has sunk its vampire fangs into virtually every corner of the country, convincing people of modest means that the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen is that somewhere, somehow, someone black isn’t being kept in their place by the power of the state.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
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@Comrade Kevin:
I think he should have demanded a clean bill from the very beginning – no deals at all. Followed up by every Democrat, including him, shouting from the bully pulpit day and night, rightfully and patiently explaining the situation and the potential consequences to everyday people and pre-assigning the blame for default to Republicans if they didn’t help the Democrats pass it.
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Mutaman
@Comrade Kevin:
Read a couple of books about how LBJ and Bill Clinton negotiated. Don’t say your lawyers have advised you that the 14th Amendmnt gives you no power at the beginning of the negotiation. Do what Marvin Miller reports LBJ did during the steel strike in the 60s. Invite them to the white house at 6Am, shut off the AC, and keep them there until 10PM. Make sure they see you there working when they show up and when they leave. And every once in awhile- show some balls.
boss bitch
@Comrade Kevin:
1. Threaten to veto anything that is not a clean bill
2. Threaten to use the 14th
3. Default
4. issue trillion dollar coins
All without givin’ the TP nuffin’.
Stillwater
@boss bitch: If you really believe that you’re part of the problem, not the solution.
Comrade Kevin
@Mutaman: Ah, a parallel universe where where the House GOP have some semblance of reason to them, and can be convinced.
@boss bitch: More science fiction. All that’s missing from your list are the
5. ???
6. Profit!
Mnemosyne
@Mutaman:
Like when Clinton gave in and gave Gingrich two things that he wanted, as noted above, rather than signing that mythical “clean bill” everyone keeps claiming he signed?
The only people who can claim that Clinton was a great negotiator who didn’t give an inch to the Republicans are people who were in a coma during the Clinton years (or, to be fair, are too young to remember them). We’re talking about the man who signed DOMA, DADT, NAFTA, welfare “reform,” Gramm-Leach-Bliley, etc. etc. etc., not the make-believe Superman Clinton in your head.
boss bitch
@Stillwater:
uhm, I wasn’t serious. I was mocking.
boss bitch
@Comrade Kevin:
#6 would be President________________(insert name of liberal hero who would never get elected president)
you know I’m kidding right?
CaliCat
You’re seriously just now figuring this out? Better late than never, I guess. But man, you’re late.
I have an even bigger secret to share with you. Some of that latent racism exists on the left too.
A Humble Lurker
@CaliCat:
NO!…../sarcasm.
AxelFoley
@khead:
FTFY ;)
AxelFoley
@Arclite:
So much stupid in one post.
Hbin
I don’t understand the utter naivety of mounting a primary challenge, but not to win, just to highlight issues! Make sure ya’ll support Obama after the primary!
The only rational reason to mount a primary challenge is if you truly want Obama gone and want to replace him with Russ Feingold or Elizabeth Warren whoever is the progressive-savior-of-the-moment, and are willing to accept the risk of a Republican winning instead. That’s it. All these highlighting issues thing are crap. Please live in the real world. Some people sounds so smart with all their facts and arguments, but are spectacularly naive about the real world.
Shissh, I respect the progressives who really, really hate Obama and actually do want him to lose more. At least they are aware of the stakes. This is just like living in a fairy castle in the sky or something.
niknik
@vhh: This. A thousand million zillion times this.
AxelFoley
@billy rae valentine:
Yo, I’m the guy who uses the Eddie Murphy character names around here, pal!
AxelFoley
@signifyingmnky: @ post #127
This is about the best post I’ve ever read here.
Oh, and Marginalized, liberal and Wyld Pirate are idiots.
Johannes
@Marginalized for stating documented facts: Ike, for all of his admirable qualities, didn’t stand up to the South re segregation. Truman allowed McCarthyism to happen on his watch, despite warnings from (among others) William O. Douglas. Bill Clinton got rolled on allowing gays to serve in the military by the bureaucratic infighting of Colin Powell (that’s how we got DADT, remember–and DOMA was an effort to head off a federal constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage forever–thanks GOP!).
Try again.
Jinxtigr
@jrg:
“like paying taxes”? Really? That’s what they say?
Gosh. You must like paying for groceries, huh? Don’t you think that’s just morally wrong? You should stick them down your trouser legs, that way you can walk out of there without paying for groceries.
You must like paying for cars! What a sap. What you need is a good, loaded gun. You shouldn’t go around being the kind of moral degenerate that not only pays for cars but likes it. Whip out that gun and just take whatever car you want, don’t be a liberal.
You must like paying taxes. And that’s the worst, right? It’s like you’re part of a huge fuckin’ society that does things like builds roads and bridges and tries to settle disputes among its members and be the best fucking country in the world. And there you go, being PROUD OF IT and wanting to pay for it- liking it! You filthy degenerate.
“Like paying taxes”. Feh.
OzoneR
@Mutaman:
You mean how LBJ let Republicans weaken the Civil Rights Act to get enough conservative votes to pass, or how Clinton cut Social Security to end the government shutdown?
Barry
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
To turn the question around, what US President wouldn’t be in over his head under our current circumstances?
OzoneR: “None, but I’m not so sure another president would’ve ended up in these circumstances. I think a white southern Democrat might still have a Democratic Congress.”
IIRC, the standard models for Congressional elections predicted that the GOP would take the House by a fair margin: mid-term effect + a miserable economy.
Monkey Business
This closet racism stuff is bullshit.
Personally, I’d rather the large portion of White America that don’t like the President because he’s black just get together and burn a cross on the lawn of the White House. At least that way, we can say “Okay, these are some racist ass crackers, and should not be listened to.” and move on as a country.
OzoneR
@Barry:
I’m speculating that the economy would’ve been better because white people wouldn’t have stood for the GOP’s dead-set opposition of a white president as much as they did for a black guy. I don’t think the tea party would’ve been nearly as relevant because they used race as a tool to excite people.
And I don’t think the economy had as much to do with the midterms as people think. Democrats won in some states where unemployment was high and the economy was bad, and got killed in some where the unemployment was low and the economy was not so bad.
kay
Just for the sale of accuracy it is a right wing media lie that obama does poorly with middle class feel your pain emphathy issue.
He polls quite well on cares about people-type questions, despite his not actually crying publicly.
tominwv
It took you this long to fugure it out? Cheesh. The first time I heard a teabagger say ‘We want our country back” I heard that old familiar dog whistle from my youth. They got their marching orders from Rush in Jan 09 and haven’t deviated since.
signifyingmnky
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
You still don’t get the name, and that in itself is a microcosm of the thought process that leads you to the conclusion that President Obama is a morally depraved, unconstitutional torturer with poor leadership skills.
You’ve convinced yourself that a President who passes a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell because he believes those willing to serve our country should be able to do without being judged for who they love, is morally depraved.
You’ve convinced yourself that a President who rescinded Bush’s torture justifications and called for the closure of Guantanamo as two of his first acts of office (Congress ignored him on Guantanamo of course), because he believes torture is unconstitutional and hurts our standing, is an unconstitutional torturer.
And you’ve convinced yourself that a President who saved the American auto industry from collapse, passed health care reform making access to health care available for millions who don’t have it or are discriminated against, and passed financial regulatory reform including the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has poor leadership skills.
Up is down, left is right, right is wrong, and strength is weakness…
You’ve either come to these conclusions by not knowing the facts, or you know them but ignore them, just as you’ve ignored my handle as I laid it out for you.
signifyingmnky, as in The Signifying Monkey…not “significant monkey”
If you’d like to learn what the name refers to instead of looking foolish in trying to mock it, trying looking up The Signifying Monkey sometime…you might actually learn something.
signifyingmnky
@AxelFoley:
Thanks! I know they’re here to spread fud, but ignoring these people hasn’t stopped them. They need to be called out, each and every time they roll out their narrative.
Cacti
I wish the “he’s in over his head” was confined to the right, DougJ, but it’s practically gospel to the angry left as well.
And the solution is always for him to be primaried by a white liberal.
bartendercabbie
What does being giving lectures on law at U of C have to do with the real world?
Original Lee
I don’t just like paying taxes. I LOVE paying taxes. You know why? Because I am given the CHOICE of deducting various expenses, and the CHOICE of how much I withhold from my paycheck, and the CHOICE of how to pay what I owe, and the CHOICE of doing it myself. Instead of the MANDATORY automatic withholding, make-me-give-you-a-refund, and BTW-only-a-government-licensed-professional-can-fill-out-the-refund-forms-correctly and I’m-not-physically-assaulting-you-THIS-time type of taxpaying you get in other countries. Plus, I have a reasonable opportunity to figure out exactly where all my money is going, instead of knowing that it’s sitting in some secret bank account in Switzerland or the Caymans, waiting to fund my Dear Leader’s lavish lifestyle in exile.
Original Lee
BTW, is it just me, or is the Reply button broken again? I’m using Firefox.
chopper
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
i’ve had conversations with those sort of crypto-racists before. they’ll say something off, i’ll give them that look and they get all defensive, like ‘hey, i have black friends and neighbors, i treat everyone equal’. i ask if they’d mind if a black kid dated their daughter and they clam up and leave.
they don’t mind if their neighbors are ‘ethnic’, but someone appoints a black dude as their boss and it’s resentment city.
chopper
@boss bitch:
5. send in the SuperFriends
chopper
@Mnemosyne:
yeah, DADT, DOMA, massive deregulation, medicare and medicaid cuts, ruining any chance of health care reform for 2 decades, welfare reform, nafta, wto. the only ‘democratic’ thing he pulled off was raising taxes. otherwise he gave the GOP everything they wanted, with a token fight over the debt ceiling in 95 where he signed a compromise bill.
what did he get in return? impeachment.
and the GOP back then wasn’t half as nuts and pissed-off as the GOP obama’s dealing with.
but yeah, clinton was a master negotiator all right. he was excellent at giving the GOP whatever they wanted.
Paul in KY
I’m surprised, Doug, that it took that conversation for you to see the light. I think about half of it is just because our President is black. Certainly, in KY it seems that way.
Admiral_Komack
@liberal:
Stupid idea.
Who’s going to primary President Obama?
WHO?
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PRESIDENT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA!
May you have many more!
Admiral_Komack
@chopper:
…on a bully pulpit.
Admiral_Komack
@tominwv:
You want to have some fun?
Ask them “Back from where?”
Samara Morgan
its not specifically racist ……i think its nativist.
white (non-hispanic cauc) conservative christian nativist.
like Daniel Larison and the League of the South.
henqiguai
@Samara Morgan (#216):
Um, no. That is pure racist. Not even a little bit uncertain. Racist, pure uncured cow-droppings racist.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Martin:
Really? For pointing out the guy is sockpuppeting, just driving an agenda with multiple handles, operating in bad faith, lying?
You Obots have a low standard of ethics.
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Meh. Martin may or may not be an Obot. But what can not be argued against is that he isn’t big on ethics.
But, honestly, I mean anyone who’d rather fire a young lady trying her best in these really tough economic times than spend some time mentoring her doesn’t garner much leeway in my book.
Martin just isn’t quality people.
Corner Stone
@Martin: This is a pretty good exemplar of what happens when the oh so delicate souls here employ the backdoor transit to happy land known as the weak sauce “pie filter”.
Martin probably doesn’t even know that Nick completely gave it up here. That Nick/OzoneR admitted to sockpuppeting for a cause, and when called on it he lashed out. Nick’s been lying to everyone here again and again, and doesn’t appreciate being brought to the forefront on it.
But even if Martin knew what had actually happened, and hadn’t slipped his blogmuffs on as cover, he probably wouldn’t give much of a shit about it.
He and Nick are on the same side, after all.