With the economy as bad as it is, Obama should be dead as Dillinger in 2012. I’ve got a sick feeling that if Romney gets the nomination, the general election is a toss up at best. That’s why I pray for Rick Perry every day. I just can’t see how this kind of craziness plays outside the south:
The setting here said everything: More than 33,000 people packed into Reliant Stadium, a 71,000-seat arena that also hosts rock bands. Three huge TV screens showed the onstage action to the people who crowded into the stadium’s second level — after they had gathered to wait while organizers opened those stands so everyone could fit. About 6,700 people got chairs on the stadium floor — but spent most of the time standing, hands in the air, moving to the music and prayer coming from the stage. More than 1,000 crammed into an open space that organizers called “the mosh area” right down in front.
[….]Even his fellow Republican governors were wary: While Perry invited all of them to attend, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback was the only one to make a personal appearance. Florida Gov. Rick Scott taped a video message.
I realize the notion of swing voters is constantly changing, but I know this turns off upper middle class suburban voters around where I live, and I suspect it does so in much of the country. Rick Perry may be our last, best chance to hang on for another four years.
Update. I sear Anne Laurie’s post wasn’t up there when I started this one!
Corner Stone
President Obama is in more than a spot of trouble.
Anemic GDP growth, 9% + U3, plus he’s going to get the downgrade hung right the f round his neck.
BGinCHI
Steve Perry would be a much better choice as President.
Corner Stone
i blame Obama
/in before cleek
Corner Stone
You shouldn’t sear Anne, you should save that for a nice bone in ribeye.
wrb
you make blogging fun
lacp
If unemployment isn’t under 9% and falling next year, Perry will run on Texas’ job creation (yes, I know they’re shit minimum wage jobs) and will stroll into the White House. No fundy bullshit required.
JGabriel
OT Question: Is it me, or has Dowd gotten a little better lately, now that Bruni is squatting on her usual trivial bullshit beat?
.
wrb
Jesus fucking christ.
NPR is entirely placing the credit downgrade on Obama.
Corner Stone
Too fast! Too furious! I’m too fast for y’all mang!!
KG
I’ve been keeping an eye on the 2012 statewide polls page on wikipedia, just to get an idea where things are going… yes, yes, I know, too far out and all that jazz, but still…
Based on each of the latest polls available, the EV total is 325-198-15 for Obama over Romney, the 15 is NC which is tied (Florida had two out at the same time, one tied, one with Obama in the lead). Romney flips NH, PA, and IA; but he also loses TN. A whole lot of states on both sides of the ledger are within the margin of error, so coin flip at best. But with everyone else, Obama wins in a romp.
The scary thing, if you’re a Republican, is the best thing you can hope for is a coin flip/close win. I just don’t see a path to the White House for them in the near future.
Meredith
I vote for Perry Mason.
JGabriel
@wrb:
That should be: Even the liberal NPR …
.
Anne Laurie
Well, it’s instructive to see the difference between Politico‘s “reporting” (more than 33k “packed” into a 71k arena! Rock bands! Huge TV screens!) and the not-exactly-leftwing Washington Post‘s (20k, lots of no-shows even from other Christianists)…
Why I try not to give Politico clicks, since You Read Those Idiots So I Don’t Have To!
srv
Unless you expect to win the House in 2012 the only way there will ever be any economic stimulus and recovery is if a Republican wins the WH.
Objectively, if you really cared about the economy, there is a much higher probability a Bachmann can channel a “Reagan Stimulus” than Obama can channel, well, anything.
Does all this realist pragmatism only go so far, or are you with the Stuckian Confidence Fairies now?
KG
@lacp: FWIW, Perry’s been polled against Obama in Texas for president and loses.
Mark S.
Perry’s the candidate I fear the most, so I don’t agree with your assessment, Doug. I recall a recent candidate who said his favorite political philosopher was Jesus (even if he didn’t follow any of his teachings). There’s no rule that a Bible-thumping idiot can’t win the White House.
brent
That’s why I pray for Rick Perry every day. I just can’t see how this kind of craziness plays outside the south
Well the thing is that it won’t really. You mostly won’t hear about it. Unlike say, the Jeremiah Wright story, this sort of thing will be mentioned a couple times in passing and forgotten. White preachers doing crazy stuff is normative and pretty boring. Angry black preacher making intemperate comments is worthy of endless repetition and grabs the ratings. I don’t see the scenario where this is brought up as anything other than a mild curiosity in a few months.
Davis X. Machina
@wrb: It’s less work to hate one man than two hundred, and Americans, if they’re nothing else, are work-shy.
chopper
with the exception of huntsman, every gooper on stage wanted the country to default. kinda hard to bitch about one tick down in the credit score.
also, mitt ’50 dollar abortions’ romney has a few issues to get past before he’s ready for the nomination.
JonF
The only candidate who voters can tolerate over Obama is Romney, but the more Multiple Choice Mitt talks, the less voters like him(which is why he’s disappeared this summer). He’s the only one with economic chops to make any hay with the bad economic news. The rest don’t and have no chance to beat Obama unless there’s a gay muslim sex tape of the President on Jeremiah Wright’s pulpit with Farrakhan cheering him on.
KG
@srv: House may be up for grabs in 2012, depends on how a lot of redistricting plays out. GOP isn’t happy with the Commission plans here in California, because you know, the districts actually make sense now.
Southern Beale
Richard Land quote from the link:
Hmm. Really, Dick? I don’t think so:
Land knows this. I think his nose just grew.
General Stuck
Yea, I will take those over the cyanide crew already predicting defeat, and seem strangely warm and fuzzy about it. The election is nearly a year and a half away. By the time we get there, I figure the keyboard warriors on Balloon Juice will have used up every single defeat diaper.
Christ, you people are depressing, except for corner stone, who is just insane.
And by all means, keep up the heavy artillery barrages on your own fucking side. That’s a winner, yesireee!
mclaren
To the fanatical Christian dominionist evangelicals who form the base of the Republican party, Romeny’s Mormon religion is equivalent to a satanic cult.
So there’s no chance that Romney will get the Republican nomination. Period.
That explains why Obama has gone overboard pushing far-right policies. He expects a lunatic to oppose him in 2012, and he’s probably right. Unfortunately, Obama and his team may not have reckoned with the brutal reality that when the U.S. economy slides back into a double-dip recession and unemployment spikes above 12% with no prospects for improvement, the American people may be willing to elect a lunatic in preference to someone like Obama who promised hope and change and then delivered George W. Bush’s third term.
Davis X. Machina
More lying. Better lying. Depressed turnout.
The Mandate of Heaven has been withdrawn because a usurper sits upon the throne. Change that, and the ewes will lamb again, the cows will calve, the grain will be heavy in the ear, and U6 will drop to where U3 is, and U3 will drop to zero.
It can be done, because it must be done. Deus lo vult.
The Republic of Stupidity
Sweet…
Moshers For Jesus…
Admit it… ya’ll knew the day was coming…
Anya
I think the voters would be confused about which Romney to vote for. He’s been on both sides of every issue. The voters might be ill-informed and at times moronic, but it’s hard to trust Romney. Besides, he looks like a corporate shark. I hear they’re not that popular now.
General Stuck
Romney loses the key evangelical vote for the GOP, they are hard pressed to win without that. Perry is insane but loves baby jeevus with all his tiny heart. Not to be taken lightly.
Southern Beale
@mclaren:
I think it will be Romney and the bible thumpers will be told to fall in line.
Jenny
@Anne Laurie:
Jim VandeHei, the executive editor and co-founder of POLITICO, was on Tweety the other day insisting fiscal stimulus can not create jobs.
Anya
@wrb: Most NPR listeners are well informed so that won’t fly. I think?
gnomedad
@General Stuck:
I figure one Friedman Unit ~= one Voter Attention Span Unit.
Citizen_X
Hmm, something wrong with that word choice. Wonder what it could be.
Anyway, it looks like I’m going to a prayer meeting in Houston tonight, too. It’s led by a Reverend…what was his name again? Oh yeah, Horton Heat. I’ll pray for y’all!
J. Michael Neal
Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn need to make a sequel: The Revival Crashers.
General Stuck
@gnomedad:
exactly
Southern Beale
@The Republic of Stupidity:
You should go to some of these Christian music festivals I used to have to cover. Things like the Cornerstone Festival , CreationFest, SonShine, etc.
Evangelical Christianity is very cult-like. I swear, you’d go to one of these things and you’d be in the mosh pit, too.
Corner Stone
The Senate will flip to R in 2012. Sorry President Stuck, you can kiss Claire et al goodbye in 2012.
There’s no way to defend 23 seats with 9% + U3 and 1% GDP growth, if that.
mclaren
@Southern Beale:
You’re exactly right. Surveys show that the percentage of respondents reporting “none” to a query about their religious affiliation in America stands at an all-time high. Moreover, the rate of increase has spiked sharply over the last 15 years, no doubt due to the Catholic church’s pedophile priest problem.
“Most religious groups in U.S. have lost ground.”, USA Today, 2009.
The trend in America is strongly toward a more secular society, particularly among younger people.
Elie
I think that I am going to have to take a little vacation from here again…
I can’t blame people for being upset, but turning the madness on ourselves (the US sucks), to our current best hope politically (Obama) and throwing in the towel to the teahadists — shit. Bunch of flaccid wimps, you are. Disgusting WATB
Mark S.
On second thought, reading some of the links in Anne’s post, maybe these fuckers are a little too crazy for the rest of the nation. That might explain why only Brownback showed up to this thing.
If this is Perry’s usual company, that’s way too extreme for the rest of the country.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
Maybe it will, maybe it won’t, and that is good news to Mccain voters like you, ain’t it?
Corner Stone
@mclaren:
Romney will be the nominee. And Obama will have every last bit of a real fight on his hands.
The R’s will vote for Romney. Sorry, but that is the truth.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: I’m sorry registered Independent. Did you say something to me?
Elie
@Corner Stone:
And you seem positively ecstatic, Corner Stone…
You know, I used to think you were at least half spoof… now I don’t know.
That people like you, supposedly a progressive, could crow with happiness about this is very sad — for you and us.
God help us…
chopper
see, this is exactly why FDR was a one-termer.
mclaren
@JonF:
Are you serious?
“Mitt Romney says U.S. only `inches away from ceasing to be a free market economy.”
Romney is an ignorant fool who got rich by firing American workers. Every time Romney opens his mouth about economics, gibberish spews out. Economic chops?
Please.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
Doesn’t matter what the registration is, so long as you voted for Obama, and you didn’t, did you? Ratfucker
eemom
there is really no exercise so mind-numbingly stupid and useless as trying to game out 2012 at this point. NONE. You might as well believe in the ways of magic.
Also too, the spectacle of a nominee for president of the united states being at BEST a vacuous pretty-boy rich kid who changes opinions like ties, and at worst — well, there is no worst in a world where Michelle Bachmann is a serious contender — is not pleasant. It is depressing as shit. The exercise is not FUN.
I mean, I’m no one to talk, but can’t y’all come up with ANYTHING better than this for Saturday night? Sheesh.
suzanne
I still don’t think Romney, if he wins the nomination, could win the Presidency. Ever. Not as a Republican. And it’s because of the Mormon issue.
And the LDS Church is so disingenuous on this issue. Kissing the asses of the Evangelicals like the spineless suck-up kids on the playground who would rather stroke the egos of the bullies rather than stick up than their victims. They (rightfully) perceive a glass ceiling, but would rather further their persecution complex and oppress others than support the Democrats, even though it was the Dems who pushed a Mormon to the most powerful governmental position any of their members have achieved so far.
Let Romney defend that travesty of a “church”. I’d love to see how that goes over.
Jenny
@mclaren: they let you back in here after you called for Joe Biden’s assassination. I didn’t know Cole was so desperate that he needed to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
Corner Stone
@Elie: Which is better? Looking into the happy happy jar and not facing reality, or looking at a hard set that we’re going to have to fight against?
If you think I want R’s to win just because that’s an objective analysis I think that says more about you and you’re happy sunshine bullshit.
General Stuck
@Elie:
He is ecstatic, and always has been at democrats losing, whatever it is. And morons on this blog feed and pet him every day.
Sly
It’s kind of late for Perry to get in the race at this point, even as a vanity project.
For a 1964-style Democratic blowout, better pray for Bachmann instead. Iowa is probably going to be a lot more pivotal than normal, perhaps moreso than South Carolina, which has traditionally been the make-or-break contest for the Republican nomination in cycles past. Romney has a pretty solid lock on New Hampshire and Nevada, so the only way to beat him is to solidify the anti-Romneys in Iowa in order to build support in South Carolina and drag the race out into the Spring.
That’s going to be tough, because there are a lot of anti-Romney candidates, with Bachmann developing into something of a wingnut consensus candidate. But even if she wins Iowa, she has a better chance of turning out to be a one-state wonder like Pat Robertson in 1988 or Pat Buchanan in 1996, or maybe win some following contests but trail badly in delegates like Huckabee in 2008 or McCain in 2000, than win the whole thing.
The last dark horse to take the Republican nomination in the modern campaign era was Barry Goldwater almost 50 years ago, and though I think that the odds are probably more favorable now than they were then to produce a psychopath as the Republican nominee, the obstacles are still considerable; the biggest one being that Republicans as a group really, really, really hate Obama and will likely fall in line early. In ’64, the basic attitude was “look, we’re going to lose anyway because Kennedy just got killed and Johnson is going to ride his hearse right into the Whitehouse, so we might as well nominate a crazy bastard like Goldwater and feel better about the process.”
Having said that, I still think Obama beats Romney handily. Maybe not a 2008 level of victory (he likely won’t win Indiana, South Carolina, and Iowa again), but a win is a win. Anyway, as the past year has shown, down ticket races will be much more important. Yes, that means holding your nose and voting for execrable New Democrats and Blue Dogs like many of us did in 2006 and 2008.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: No, it was for Hills. It’s always been for Hills.
KG
@mclaren:
I thought he got rich the old fashioned way… being born into a rich family that had already spent a few generations in politics.
srv
@mclaren:
Secular and don’t give a fuck.
Litlebritdifrnt
@KG:
We turned NC Blue (in POTUS and Governor races) in 2008, in 2010 the state went completely red to the extent that the legislature went red for the first time in 100 years. Since that time the RWNJ Tea Party rulers have gone totally over the edge and have introduced legislation that nobody likes. Voter ID laws, anti-abortion laws, massive increases in court costs you name it. The Governor has been vetoing as best she could but they have just enough votes in the Senate to be able to override her vetos.
There is a backlash coming, and I think it is coming in 2012. People do not like having to pay $300.00 for a simple speeding ticket, people do not like them creating a cute “misdemeanor prison fund” by adding an extra fee on to simple infraction tickets cause they KNOW that your average working Joe is not going to be able to come up with $300.00 for a simple speeding ticket or a stop light violation and are going to end up in prison. They are going to increase the prison population by thousands so they create a nice little slush fund to pay for it. People are beginning to wake up and are seeing exactly what these people are about, they will not raise taxes but they will increase all of the other costs and fees that the working poor have to pay. There is a reckoning coming, you can be sure of it.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: Meh. Taking incoming from an Independent.
Mnemosyne
@srv:
I do love how people have transformed the zero job growth years of Bush II into wonderful, halcyon days of prosperity that need to be regained by putting President Romney into office. And I’m only talking about the ones on the left who’ve convinced themselves of that (Blue Neponset, where are you to tell us all again that President Romney will totally straighten the economy out?)
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
No it wasn’t. It was impossible to write in Hills in Texas, where write in candidates have to register to be on the ballot. You either voted for Mccain, Obama, or not all.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
Bernie Sanders is an independent. dipshit
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: Do you live and vote in TX? Then shut up.
I’d hate to tweak the delicate sensibilities of Keith G by taking this line any further.
But your prima donna drama queen ass ain’t got a god damned thing to say to me about my lifetime of voting.
Jenny
@eemom:
but, but, but.. at this point in 2007, Giuliani and Clinton were mortal locks and Boy-Wonder Matt Stoller declared “Obama is done”, and didn’t that turn out to be accurate.
Spaghetti Lee
Wasn’t there a lot of talk about how the conservative base hated, just hated John McCain in 2008, and he ended with 47% of the vote anyway, i.e. all the conservative base and a big chunk of the middle? I mean, sure, the Teabag crowd has figured out how good it feels to flex their muscle, but I really can’t picture them not falling in line for whoever the nominee is. Militaristic discipline is a big part of their success since the 70’s, and they know it.
The Dangerman
Count me as one of those that can’t see Romney taking the Nomination, let alone the General; I could even see the Convention From Hell if he is leading in delegates going to the Convention.
I’m still calling Palin. Obama wins in a walk.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
No, you set yourself up on this blog as some kind of pure and real democrat, imposing all sorts of litmus tests for people purity of liberal or dem thought and deed. and passing judgment on those who don’t measure up
You are a liar, and I am just exposing that. You didn’t write in Hillary Clinton, because you can’t do that in Texas for presidential elections, write ins have to be pre registered as that, and Clinton wasn’t.
MikeJ
@Jenny: Stoller said Obama was done because he was so bad at using the internet to sign up 20 million people to his mailing list and getting over a million individual contributors on the web site.
jl
Them damn Corner and Stuck kids a fiten agin. Gonna talk with their ma’s and pa’s and them them damn brats a whoppin, is what they need I tell you.
At a post about a prayer meetin too.
Lands sakes.
Elie
Corner Stone:
I do not need just “happy talk”. There is a difference between vacuous belief in fairy tales and being a pessimist who takes out all the positive scenarios and calls that “reality”. You know we are all going to die someday, but somehow having someone tell me that every day aint gonna help me figure out the many challenges I face while living.
Hills is a good woman. But life is what it is and crapping on Obama, who beat her fair and square, is just ugly and bitter… obviously she has put it aside. Why can’t you — unless you have other biases. Is that it? Does that account for the ongoing and relentless bitterness and inability to let go? (Not that I expect you to answer honestly)
You are clearly a smart man. I many times like reading your comments and observations. I can accept that you are not an Obama fan – and clearly there are many here like you. I just don’t get the relentless negativity. Would you actually prefer one of the Republicans to get elected over Obama, even as much as you despise that Hillary did not win?
Corner Stone
@Elie: God you are a sad example.
Give me a break. My assessment of the Senate flipping R has nothing to do with anything except the fact that the Senate will flip R.
And if you don’t like facing reality then I suggest you go find Blackwater Dog’s blog, or the other blog ABL runs.
Jenny
@MikeJ: Of course the eminent Chris Bowers displayed his scary political acumen by also writing Obama’s campaign obituary.
KG
@The Dangerman: a brokered convention is the wet dream of the blogosphere, I think.
Ol' Dirty DougJ
@eemom:
The Republicans always elect a front-runner. And if people had paid more attention to what Bush was about, he might not have gotten elected. I don’t agree with your analysis at all.
BGinCHI
Biden going to run with BO?
If not, who gets him over the hump?
Sherrod Brown?
/cue the “we can’t have two browns in the WH” emails from your right wing uncle
JGabriel
srv:
Right. Because that worked so well circa 2001-2008.
.
batgirl
@Southern Beale:
My guess is that the only thing motivating the bible thumpers to come out and vote for Romney will be that black guy. Better a Mormon…
General Stuck
@Ol’ Dirty DougJ:
No they don’t at least till the first few primaries, in elections where none of the candidates is the POTUS running for reelection.
Mccaim won in NH, and was considered a front runner till the Texas Mafia knee capped him in SC. It is too early to pick winners, period. Unless you just can’t help yourself.
Corner Stone
People don’t like it, that’s fine.
But there are 3 things I believe will happen.
1. The Senate will flip to R’s in 2012
2. The Bush Tax Cuts will be extended
3. The “trigger” will never, ever be engaged
Argue with me on those, let’s hear it.
BGinCHI
Also, the prognosticating about GOP candidates leaves out what has to be a gigantic bloodletting when they really start going at it in primaries and debates.
There is going to be a lot of dirty laundry out there.
Mark S.
@Spaghetti Lee:
You’re right, they did hate John McCain. I remember Rush telling his idiot listeners to not vote for Huckabee because he was supposedly siphoning off votes Romney needed to beat McCain. But once Walnuts got the nom, they all fell in line.
I’m actually quite perplexed at what a horrible politician Romney is. He’s got the money, name recognition, fat cat backing etc., and he’s in a dead heat with psychotic Michele Bachmann. He should be killing the rest of the clowns in the field. I’m not saying he has no chance against Obama, but I’m much less worried about him than Goodhair.
JPL
The President could call Congress back into session to talk about the downgrade. He won’t but he could. Boehner walked out of the meeting but does not appear to be taking any of the blame.
parsimon
@Mark S.:
I keep having that thought as well, but have an ongoing discussion with some who insist that I’m in denial.
As someone said upthread, it may well be correct that ultimately the general public won’t register this, and/or won’t care, and the mainstream media won’t cover it. I’m honestly not sure.
KG
@Corner Stone: what do you see as the pick ups and holds for the GOP in 2012? Honest question. Because I’ve got Scott Brown in a tough fight, Snowe may not survive a primary in Maine, which could make that a Dem pick up as well. Arizona is another possible pick up for the Dems, especially if Hayworth gets the nomination.
jl
Wawl hell, I guess I’ll join in the fight, dogdangit.
I do not see how there would be much difference between Clinton and Obama. In my opinion, the very poor economic recovery is the one dire threat in the next election to the Democrats.
And what is the reason for that? Well, one big reason is that Obama went to Clinton bench for economic advice (namely Rubin and Summers) who went along with the high dollar policy and financial deregulation in the 90s. Maybe Clinton would have been more progressive, or Kthuggish, or Stiglitzian or whatever, on macroeconomic policy, but what is the evidence for that other than an opinion?
Less time whining about this or that personality the better. For one thing, it might focus minds on the problem that all influential wings of both major parties have been captured by the consistently wrong Very Serious People on economic matters.
The solution to that problem cannot be solved by cheerleading for our current, very flawed, leaders, such as Obama and Clinton.
I have to go do chores, so can’t fight no more right now. So I can’t whup these dang kids fer a fitin all the damn time.
JWL
The republican nominee will not be Romney. The eventual nominee is not even a dark horse at the moment, and is off everyone’s radar. He/she will be a bolt from the blue, and all the more formidable because of it. If you think that sounds crazy, consider the GOP marches with goose-stepped discipline.
suzanne
Plus, I also think that all that Romney money came from the LDS Church, who don’t want to raise their profile in politics after the Prop. 8 debacle, and don’t want to appear to be playing favorites by favoring Romney over Huntsman.
I saw “8: The Mormon Proposition” recently, and it exposed how the LDS Church set up shadow organizations to funnel money in order to keep their names out of the press. It’s EXACTLY the same thing.
Mike
I wouldn’t get too excited about Perry. He’s never, ever lost a race, and he will be brutal. Obama should be able to raise a billion dollars (we hope), but they can raise much more in unlimited donations. The good thing about having a Rick Perry in the race is that it will force Romney to stop behaving like he’s already won the nomination. Perry will go after Romney hard, just like everyone else. How Perry’s messaging will resonate outside the red areas of the country is a mystery, but I suspect he will adapt. He loves campaigning, and he is very very good at it.
Personally, I’m kind of hoping if the numbers don’t improve soon, that Obama decides to hang it up like LBJ and let Hillary take a shot. She has approval numbers like no one else right now and is isolated enough from Obama, that she can put an awful lot of new energy into this race and make it a winner.
The time for that decision is coming very soon, unfortunately. Obama was willing to step aside in 2008 with Jeremiah Wright (he said that if it was too damaging, he’d concede). He’d do it again if only to preserve the legacy of his achievements. We’ll see what happens. We should all be grateful that this shitstorm is happening now instead of next year.
Mark S.
@Corner Stone:
I’ll play.
Probably. They should’ve taken it in 2010, but they nominated too many idiots like O’Donnell and Angle. The Dems have a lot more seats up this time.
You betcha.
Um, you mean the trigger if Super Congress doesn’t cut enough? I’d give that 50-50. I’m not sure 6 dems and 6 repubs can agree on anything, and the teabaggers will vote against anything that raises taxes by one cent.
suzanne
@KG:
For what race? David Schweikert holds Hayworth’s old seat, and the Teabaggers love that asshole. Jeff Flake wants Kyl’s job and has pretty much been ordained the frontrunner on the Republican side (and no Dems are throwing their hats in the ring until Gabby Giffords officially declines the run). Brewer’s not up for re-election in 2012.
Anya
@General Stuck: It’s useless to argue with some “Progressives” because they’re nihilists, as much as their teabagger cousins. Others have deluded themselves into believing that, a GOP win of all three branches, means that when the GOP nutters do their usual wingnuty stuff and put the country on the brink of destruction, a true super-hero progressive will swoop in and save America, in 4-years? He will then lead true Democrats to a sweeping victory and they’ ll implement all the wonderful policies the kenyan pretender was too wimp, or didn’t care to fight for.
boss bitch
@JPL:
talk about the downgrade? and then what?
General Stuck
There are going to be all sorts of crazy shit going down in this country and in congress the next year and a half. We are nothing less that on a pol war footing, where about anything goes that’s at least marginally legal, and a GOP trying to desperately to sabotage any kind of econ recovery, and in fact creating as much pain for Americans as they can n the process. And the question will be, can Obama and team turn that back around on the wingers, and convince the nation of what they are doing, and can they be trusted to govern. And even if Obama does that successfully, will it even matter for the majority white vote in this country.
boss bitch
Romney is a cornball. He won’t win against Obama.
Sly
@Spaghetti Lee:
I think Jackie and Dunlap of RedStateUpdate summarized it best:
Dunlap: “Look the Republicans had a bunch of crappy candidates, too, and we all hated each other and the headlines said ‘Republicans Tearing Their Party Apart!’ But finally we all came together and we said, ‘Fuck it. McCain.'”
…
Dunlap: “See, the Republicans all came together; all the Mexican haters and the Muslim haters and the oil executives and the gun nuts and the gay bashers and the homeschoolers and the clinic bombers and we put aside our differences.”
Jackie: “Well, all except for the Ron Paul whackos.”
Dunlap: “And we said ‘I can’t stand to look at these sons of bitches for another day, let’s just go with the oldest.'”
KG
@suzanne: Senate, polls I’m looking at show Hayworth losing to any potential nominee and Flake is in very close races with large undecideds. So, couple that with Obama polling well in Arizona (only Romney beats him and within the margin of error), and I’m going to say the Arizona races are in play this year.
Jenny
It’s really odd how every blog wrote Obama’s political obituary in 2007. Some did multiple times.
Here’s Jane Hamsher declaring Obama dead after Super Tuesday, of all days.
How hilarious is that. She got every single point wrong. And yet, they all claim to be experts.
ant
@KG:
TN is sposed to go to Obama over Mitt?
lol
Sly
@boss bitch:
MAGIC HAPPENS!
WereBear
@Anya: Those NPR listeners won’t stay informed, at this rate.
Reality Check
Don’t underestimate Rick Perry.
I’m not a Jesus freak but anybody with even a hint of religion seems to drive progressives up the wall in a frothing rage, so I don’t mind.
lamh34
@Mike:
Are you serious about this? Hilary Clinton’s numbers are what they are because she is not considered “near the presidency” right now, and she is heard from, but just barely and for the most part she seen as staying with State Department matters. If for some reason, Hillary decided that yeah she still wanted the Presidency, the same people who hated her before will STILL hate her.
And last time I looked she’s still married to Bill Clinton and last time I looked Repubs still don’t trust the Clintons.
I’m sorry, but I contend that Hilary would be just as easy to beat if not easier to beat than Obama!
Mike in NC
Rick Perry is the 21st century’s answer to Elmer Gantry.
boss bitch
@Sly:
oooh I like magic. its sparkly.
Reality Check
You guys should have nominated Hillary to begin with. Ready to admit Obambi is an amateur in over his head, but too arrogant to realize it?
boss bitch
enough with this. seriously. its ridiculous.
hal
@Spaghetti Lee:
John McCain, Maverick, POW, War Hero. He of the largely conservative, multi-year record in the senate. A few more moderate blips here and there. That’s not Mitt Romney.
All Romney has to overcome is his amazingly moderate to liberal record as Gov of MA; pro gay rights/civil unions, abortion, and of course; health care with a mandate!
He’s a Mormon.
He’s got great hair and he’s very wealthy. Oh yeah, the wealth. Inherited, and then built on by breaking up American Companies into little pieces, and shipping jobs overseas.
But you’re right Doug. He’s a fucking shoe in.
Just like John Kerry was.
Cacti
I’d be more worried if the GOP had a more formidable candidate in the field.
Romney has a glass jaw. The guy comes off like a used car salesman, and his career as a job slashing, vulture capitalist has barely even been touched.
I’m not even sold on him winning the GOP nom.
parsimon
@Corner Stone:
How do you make this out? It’s pretty doubtful that the Super Committee will come to a 7-5 consensus, and the debt ceiling agreement as writ declares that the triggers will be pulled. So to speak.
Are you thinking that Dems in the Super Committee will cave?
Reality Check
@Cacti:
With the economy the way it is, with our credit downgraded, with a double-dip on the way, anybody besides Ron Paul will win. Some bigger than others, but they all win. We can’t lose.
Sly
@Mike:
LBJ “hung it up” because perennial child Eugene McCarthy whipped up the left in New Hampshire and convinced perennial opportunist Bobby Kennedy to come in after him.
And it ended up working out so well for the left in 1968, didn’t it? If you ever meet someone who was part of the New Left in the late 60s, don’t forget to thank them for Nixon.
Anya
@WereBear: I am thinking they’re like my parents, they get their news from multiple sources and they pay attention to what’s happening in the world.
Cacti
@Mark S.:
It’s the phony factor.
He just comes off as straight out of central casting “sleazy politician”.
Corner Stone
@parsimon:
You’d prefer to bet on the MIC or the dems?
MikeJ
@parsimon:
CS is of the “they really sooper secretly wanted to defund Social Security all along anyway, even if it is specifically protected” school.
Elie
@Corner Stone:
Naw, thanks. I’ll stick around. I’m not sad at all.
Hey — out for the night all —
Have a good time !!!
Reality Check
The Super-Duper All-Star Extra-Special Duper Congress will fail. No taxes means no taxes, and the Republican Party means no taxes.
Corner Stone
@MikeJ: Meh. Catch a clue dopey.
You probably thought the president was going to get a “clean bill” too.
chopper
@Reality Check:
i’d be a lot more afraid of you guys if you weren’t actively trying to nominate a guy who cut his political teeth giving out $50 abortions. seriously, this election should be a walk for you choads, and it’s like you’re trying to fuck it up.
chopper
@Cacti:
people look at him and think if they touch him he’ll be sticky.
Reality Check
@chopper:
Fiscal, not social issues will dominate the primary. The Jesus freaks had their day, it’s time for fiscal conservatives to take over. They can have some crumbs but they won’t get to write the agenda like they did in the Bush years of big-government Christian “compassionate” conservatism.
srv
@JGabriel:
The tax cuts and 9/11 spending boom were the stimulus that ended the dot-com recession. W didn’t have any other recessions until they discovered one as he walked out the door.
jeff
It’s going to be really difficult for us. The only plus is that Republicans are also demoralized. We won’t have the help from the left this time, but that probably doesn’t matter as much as the losses from the middle (matters to me, but the middle is much, much bigger and this is a democracy).
Jewish Steel
@Ol’ Dirty DougJ: Yeah, I read Steve Benen’s first look at how the primary process will dictate the flow this time around with a great deal of interest. I look forward to hearing more.
Not a lot of good news lately, but at least we have some entertainment coming our way.
aisce
geez, i knew corner stone was a choad, but i never knew he was a hillbot.
hillary fans are fucking sick in the head. you were wrong. it’s over.
yeah, most of obama’s administrative appointments are old clinton people. no shit. that was the previous democratic administration. where else would they come from?
but how anybody could look at the work of one barack obama as president and not come to the realization that hillary would have been an absolute disaster as president in these times is nuts. hillary would 35% approval ratings. minorities would have fled from her, given the economy. and everybody would be calling for a primary from obama. everybody would be sure that the voters made a mistake in 2008. not to mention, bill would have been involved in at least three major scandals already as he trailblazed his way as first husband.
no, 2008 was decided correctly. hillbots need to grow the fuck up and show some humility.
Mnemosyne
@JWL:
The Republicans haven’t run a dark horse candidate in at least 50 years. Reagan, Nixon, Bush I, Dole, McCain — all of them ran for the nomination at least once before they ended up getting it. Eisenhower is probably the last one you could claim was a dark horse, and he was the fucking Allied commander in the war that had ended 5 years previously, not exactly an unknown quantity. Bush II was the son of the former president so, again, not anything close to a dark horse.
Sorry, there’s no dark horse coming to save the Republicans from themselves.
Boudica
Please tell me why we had to air condition a 71k seat stadium for 20k people when there is the possibility of rolling power outages here in TX due to heat?
BGinCHI
@aisce:
This will be super easy when David Brooks’ handbook on humility comes out.
My guess is the cover will be a mirror so you can see yourself displaying your humility whenever you want.
MazeDancer
People in Massachusetts love RomneyCare.
RomneyCare is incredibly easy. You just go online, the plans are all there offered and explained, you choose the one you want and click, click, click, presto, you’ve got RomneyCare. Truly, it’s like buying a book or a toaster.
And since everyone is mandated to have RomneyCare it’s great that RomneyCare is so easy and effective.
All of the above is true. And if Perry or Bachmann start running commercials with actual Massachusetts residents using their Yankee-est accents saying that, Republicans will go insane and Mitt won’t be able to even give speeches in South Carolina over the boo’s. (Of course, Democrats will be saying: Gee, I want RomneyCare.)
So, RomneyCare is reason #2 Mitt can’t buy the GOP nomination.
Reason One: He’s a Mormon. McCain was a war hero. They could hold their noses, come together, and think of war medals. Mormons go to hell. War hero’s don’t have to necessarily.
The Republicans will not nominate a Mormon. No way, no how. The same party that thinks Perry’s Prayer and Not Fasting Arena Rock is a gift from Heaven will not nominate a Mormon.
Southern Beale
@batgirl:
Yup, better a handsome white Mormon than a Muslim black S0c1al1st.
:-)
Southern Beale
@batgirl:
Yup, better a handsome white Mormon than a Muslim black S0shal!st
:-)
JGabriel
srv:
Bush, at his peak, added about half as many jobs per month as Clinton averaged — basically, Bush job growth barely kept pace with population growth, if that. Until it all crashed down in Bush’s last year. The tax cuts had a negligible effect on jobs.
The most stimulative actions undertaken during the Bush administration were probably the wars, and Rumsfeld’s “lean” army fetish guaranteed they weren’t particularly stimulative either.
.
eemom
This is where a very clear line can be drawn between simple Obama-haters like Cornered Stone and Greenwald, and people like me who are just upset with Obama for some of the choices he’s made.
It is absolutely ridiculous, imo, to assert that Obama has been a STEALTH republican all along, hell-bent on pursuing a secret agenda of fucking over the working man/woman and the grandma/grandpa, because…….because……well, WHY, exactly……?
parsimon
@Corner Stone:
Sorry, I’m not clear on what the MIC is.
Eh, you may be right. I have all kinds of wild ideas about why Republicans might actually relent on revenue increases — the person to watch is Grover Norquist — and the S&P downgrade might actually help (with its explanation that Republican recalcitrance on revenue increases plays into their reasoning), but ultimately, no, you’re probably right.
I haven’t hated a group of fellow countrymen this much for a long time, if ever.
jwb
@Reality Check: You won’t be rid of the godbotherers and tea partiers until money is willing to shoot the beast, and so far money has not shown that it is willing to take the step. Until it does, fiscal conservatives remain on the sidelines.
Corner Stone
@eemom: You’re asserting that MikeJ is correct?
Just like to be clear.
Corner Stone
@parsimon: Military Industrial Complex.
My argument is that the MIC lobbyists will have their say before the “trigger” comes due.
Who’s going to argue against them? Politicians who really want to be re-elected?
Mike
@lamh34:
Which is exactly why she would be potent. I know the GOP will still hate her, but Hillary can be populist much better than Obama and she will not shy from taking it to the GOP. I realize that Obama is somewhat handicapped in the partisan department since any attempt to do so turns him into an “Angry Black Man”, but Hillary has no such impediment. She also will have legions of senior women in her corner, a crucial voting block in these “slash medicare” times.
Still, I know it’s a pipe dream… I just hope that the president manages to turn it around somehow. ‘Cos right now, it ain’t lookin’ too good. I’m more than nervous. I’m terrified.
Reality Check
@jwb:
The TEA Party is all about fiscal issues.
Corner Stone
@eemom: Firebagger!!
Emma
And this, boys and girls, is why Democrats lose. A number of you have given up on fighting ONE AND A HALF YEARS before the election. Some of you dream of the Holy Hillary coming to save you — the same woman who fucked up the health care debate the last time, with the husband who gave us DADT and NAFTA.
I think I would have to find one of those German compound words to describe you.
Southern Beale
Just playing the what if game here … what if Obama decided to one-term himself? I know, it won’t happen, just saying, if he decided he didn’t want another four years and opened up the race to someone else, who would run?
Hillary? Joe Biden? Al Gore?
Just trying to think here … obviously, I don’t advocate primarying Obama by any means but if that stigma were gone it would open up the field to other people. Trying to think who the Democrats would put up …
Don’t jump my bones! Just a little thought experiment here.
Reality Check
@Southern Beale:
Isn’t
Tommy CarcettiMartin O’Malley popular with progressives?Mike
@Sly:
There’s a difference between a primary challenge and choosing to not run again on one’s own accord. As for the New Left in the 60’s, had LBJ not escalated the war, they wouldn’t have even existed.
eemom
the irony of it all is that HRC herself got the fuck over it when the primaries were done, was a wholehearted and gracious supporter of Obama in the months before the election, and has been an exemplary Secretary of State.
Idiots.
Corner Stone
@Emma: Nobody is waiting on Hillary Clinton.
This is stupid.
Southern Beale
@Emma:
Oh, nonsense. We’re just talking here. Or isn’t that allowed?
And maybe if the Democratic establishment wanted more foot soldiers for the coming election battle, they could throw us a bone to nibble on every now and then.
Emma
@Mike: Hillary? Populist? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I’m going to call my friend the guy with the blue telephone box because I fell through the Rift into an alternate Universe.
jwb
@Reality Check: If you mean that the Tea Party is all about driving the country into bankruptcy and default, then I guess you can say they are all about fiscal issues. Also in my neck of the woods pretty much every tea partier is also a godbotherer.
Cain
So in honor of Stuck, I give you this link.
Obama as chessmaster
You’re welcome :)
Southern Beale
@Reality Check:
I do not know who Martin O’Malley is.
Corner Stone
@eemom: Nobody is waiting on Hillary Clinton.
This is stupid.
Reality Check
@Emma:
They’re just facing cold, hard reality. The GOP has it in the bag. Just imagine all the commercials Cross Roads GPS can air about the credit downgrade, throw in some stuff about China for effect and that’s five points off Hopey’s approval rating right there.
Emma
@Corner Stone: Ah. Read the thread. About the populist Hilary who would come to save us if Obama stepped aside.
Southern Beale
@jwb:
Yup, here too. Also, “godbotherer” … love it. Where did this start?
Emma
@Southern Beale: Sure. Talking is always allowed.
Reality Check
@Southern Beale:
Governor of Maryland and before that Mayor of Baltimore, and he loves taxes. Absolute fucking loves ’em. Never saw a tax he didn’t want to raise.
Reality Check
The TEA Party is a movement of fiscal conservatives first and foremost.
Cain
@MazeDancer:
They will nominate anybody they feel who will beat Obama as long as they believe they can control him.
jwb
@Cain: I like this one as well.
Southern Beale
@Reality Check:
So that’s supposed to make him a favorite of progressives? Because he never saw a tax he didn’t want to raise?
Jackass.
Emma
@Reality Check: you know,the one pleasure I will get from a Republican win is the screaming all the little peasants like you will end up doing as your masters squeeze the last little drops of blood out of your children. You think you’re one of them. You poor schlemiel, you’re dinner.
eemom
@Corner Stone:
there’s an idiot over at Salon who posted a Run Hillary Run POS mere days ago.
Go look if you don’t believe it.
Reality Check
@Southern Beale:
That and he’s for abortion. That’s what being a progressive is all about these days, right? Abortions yes! Taxes yes!
The only two things everyone in the Democrat Party agrees on.
Reality Check
@Emma:
Would you like some cheese with that whine? Come on, next tell me how you’ll move to Canada! That’s my favorite part.
aisce
@ cain
that email is batshit. it’s like if somebody were to praise the rolling stones by talking about how impressive it was that they stayed together through hard times to make dirty work.
fucking nasa?
jwb
@Reality Check: Define fiscal conservative, because last time I checked fiscal conservatives did not threaten not to pay their bills. And I stand by what I said, you get the godbothering with the Tea Party whether you want it or not.
boss bitch
@eemom:
this would be true 11 D chess
Southern Beale
@Reality Check:
Fuck off. I didn’t realize you were a troll. Sorry, thread. I’ll be ignoring him from now on.
Reality Check
@jwb:
A fiscal conservative is someone who will 1) not raise taxes under any circumstances 2) cut the size of government, or at the VERY LEAST not permit non-defense government spending to grow faster than population growth plus inflation.
Reality Check
@Southern Beale:
It hurts because its true, huh?
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Corner Stone:
I had some fingers left over at the end of your prognostications, so I can contribute two more happenings –
4. SUPER COKE! (s/b #1)
5. The Republican ratfucker known as Generally Stuck suffers a ciumseizure due to excessive Omasturbation and learns the “hard” way that the glorious signature health care insurance act won’t be able to help him until 2014, and then only partially. I cannot foresee whether he lives, or dies like the other uninsured 50,000 per year who will unnecessarily pass due to President Obama’s deliberately delayed implementation.
.
I have another hand, but it is sheathed in a magic glove.
.
.
Jenny
Hillary. Hillary. Hillary.
Some people will be forever fighting and re-fighting 2007.
Emma
@Reality Check: Why should I? I like it here just fine.
signifyingmnky
Wow. It’s really amateur hour in here tonight. The country’s debt is downgraded for the first time ever because of the Tea Party’s shenanigans and every one paying attention knows it (hell, it’s in the report), and we’ve got people already throwing their hands up over 2012.
Yet people have the nerve to say it’s President Obama who’s weak. Hilarious.
The fight for 2012 hasn’t even started yet, and when it does, the constant brinksmanship of the Republicans in Congress, from holding up unemployment insurance, threatening to shutdown the government, to shutting down the FAA, threatening a default, and finally causing a credit rating downgrade for the first time ever because they refused to pass a clean debt ceiling bill or raise taxes…
All of this is going to be in stump speeches, town halls, debates, ads and more.
Anyone ceding the election to the Republicans already is either Republican themselves, or needs a break from 24/7 politics.
Furthermore, there was every reason for Barack Obama to lose the general election in 2008, much less the primary. He was a first term Senator, relatively unknown to many Americans, he was ran against the Clinton machine which caused a fracture in the party, Bush wasn’t on the ballot, and he was running against John McCain who was presented as moderate enough in the past for some liberals and independents to be okay with him in the Oval Office. And on top of all that he was black, with a funny sounding name, an African father, a white mother, and a firebreating black pastor.
There were more than enough reasons for him to lose, and he walked away with it.
Now, I’m not saying 2012 will be a cakewalk. The economy is still unstable, we have a media so afraid of the right that they won’t tell America they’re intentionally working to destroy their jobs, interest rates, 401ks and benefits, and the Roberts courts has unleashed the corporations on the electorate. It’s going to be a fight.
That said, my money is still on the skinny black guy with the funny name.
parsimon
@Corner Stone: Ah.
So you’re thinking that Dems in the Super Committee will cave to whatever draconian deficit-cutting measures emerge, because not only Republicans but also Dems can’t stand to cut the military. ?
I can’t say you’re clearly wrong.
WaterGirl
@Southern Beale:
If you can even make that statement in good faith, then you haven’t been paying attention. Seriously, go take a look at whitehouse.gov and see if you can still make a statement like that with a straight face.
Southern Beale
Well I guess Sarah Palin imploded. I thought she might at least be angling for a VP slot but she’s kinda been staying out of the limelight, hasn’t she? Or is everyone just ignoring her?
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
@eemom:
Stockholm syndrome. Next?
.
.
jwb
@Southern Beale: Reality Check is definitely a troll, and along with Bender about as good as we get around here these days for wingnut trolls. Which isn’t saying much. My theory is that Grover Norquist has put his troll budget to funding left wing “Obama has sold us out” trolling.
boss bitch
@signifyingmnky:
Right On!
Reality Check
@Southern Beale:
Sarah Palin has more power by staying OUT of the race and she knows it.
signifyingmnky
@Jenny:
Ain’t it the truth. Hillary herself is serving in the Obama Administration, and the PUMAs are still going after him. You’d think the loyal thing to do would be to say if he’s good enough for Hillary to work under, he’s good enough for me.
Unless it isn’t just about Hillary…
Southern Beale
BTW did y’all see this? Fox News has a drone, and I don’t mean any of their newsbots …
Reality Check
Seriously why are you morons so obsessed with “godbotherers”? Did I step in a time machine to 2005?
jwb
@Reality Check: Nice definition you just pulled out of your ass there.
Southern Beale
@jwb:
Atrios still has the dumbest trolls ever but the ones over here aren’t even trying.
Anne Laurie
@Mark S.:
Never met the man, not a professional (although I did suffer thru the Romneyregnum here in the Commonwealth), but, hand to goddess, I’m convinced Willard Romney is a textbook sociopath. Even among his political supporters & paid campaign aides, the closer they get to the guy, the longer they work with him, the less they like him. He’s not Fox-News-Level stupid (although President Obama could probably spot him 50+ IQ points and still win at Scrabble), he’s well-educated by American standards, he’s got money to burn, the whole ‘political dynasty’ thing in his favor, looks hella ‘presidential’, and most important of all he’s got the Luck Gene — his opponents have tended to end up dead or otherwise neutered by their own mistakes. And yet, people just do not like Mitt Romney.
I’m pretty sure he’ll be the Republican nominee, and he’ll give Obama a tough race. Romney turned his inherited millions into billions by shrewdly becoming a figurehead for a bunch of his smarter, meaner, less Heartland-American(tm) type HBS classmates in the vulture capital business. His job was to photograph well for the quarterly reports, and also to convince his fellow Mormon “stakeholders” that their mandatory tithes should go to Bain Capital instead of some other mysterious Wall Street entity — two tasks at which he was eminently successful, and skills upon which he has based his political career, such as it is.
His 2012 process, as I game it, is convincing the Permanent Money Party (the robber baron / financial leg of the Repub Golden Triangle) that he’s the least risky candidate for them; ginning up the fReichtards (the authoritarians) with a lot of sercon FP/PNAC fear of a brown planet; and placating the Talibangelicals (religious Repubs) with a full-immersion jeebus-luvvin nutball like Bachmann or Huckabee. Shoving Vice Candidate Bachmann in front of the cameras also mitigates his ‘spooking the normals with his sociopath pheromones’ problem, which he seems to be fully cognizant of, as most sociopaths are. The Red Staters will fall in line & hump the Mittmentum/Michele-of-Arc ticket, because (a) falling in line is what they do, and (b) President Obama will still be obdurately not-white and trailing the Dem label, however many Dem concepts he may or may not have jettisoned. Whether this is enough to take him from the reliable ( R ) 35% to 51% — with or without the assistance of Chief Justice Roberts — is not a settled question, IMO.
jwb
@Reality Check: You are amusing in your own idiotic way.
Anya
@signifyingmnky:
or is someone who realy, really hates President Obama because of, I don’t know, his big ears?
srv
@JGabriel:
Clinton and job creation don’t matter, W had an unemployment rate under 6% until the very end of his two terms. He didn’t need more stimulus than the tax cuts/investments that moved to the housing bubble and GWoT. All he had to worry about was containing a spin after 9/11. Regardless of how much anyone thinks Bush sucked on jobs, the numbers in Nov. 2012 will make him look like a rocket scientist compared to Obama.
Southern Beale
@jwb:
It’s fun to ignore the trolls and watch them get increasingly desperate as their inability to disrupt a thread becomes apparent.
jwb
@Southern Beale: I do believe we attract paid trolling from the left here. I believe the wingnuts are all amateurs or sockpuppets.
ETA: When I say trolling from the left, I mean wingers like Norquist paying folks to troll from the left in order to sow dissension.
Reality Check
The leftist base (except for blacks and other minorities) has completely abandoned Obama. Look at the front page of DailyKostic sometime for confirmation.
Southern Beale
@jwb:
Paid trolling from the LEFT? Why would they troll here? Not at NRO?
Anyway, I didn’t think we have that kind of money.
aisce
@ srv
you’re either pig-ignorant and uninformed or a mendacious troll.
so…which is it?
priscianusjr
@General Stuck:
The Dangerman
Can someone kindly remind me how to add names to the “pie filter”? I already had nuked one name and how to add a second is confusing me this evening.
Buh-bye, Reality Check.
Nutella
@Mike:
The whole Hillary-can-save-us line is nuts but this in particular:
You think that an angry woman will be seen positively where an angry black man won’t? That’s so unrealistic I can’t even ….
eemom
let’s not forget that nobody outside of Alaska ever HEARD of Sarah fucking Palin until McCreep sprung her on us less than three months before the election.
That is a perfect example of why it’s stoopid as shit for anybody to think they can predict in August 2011 what’s gonna happen in November 2012. Among many, many others.
jwb
@Southern Beale: I ETA’d above. Ratfucking. Wingers hiring trolls to sow dissension among the left.
priscianusjr
@Elie:
Corner Stone
@priscianusjr: Which part amigo?
Southern Beale
@The Dangerman:
What is the “pie filter”?
Southern Beale
@jwb:
LOL LOL LOL
What a waste of money that would be! We do that all on our own just fine!
:-)
Corner Stone
People here are bringing Hillary out of the fucking woodwork because they love to shift the narrative.
No one is asking Hillary to run in 2012. If eemom wants to point to some schmoe at Salon, that’s fine. But it has nothing to do with anyone here.
It’s just a ridiculous distraction, and something they can get all righteous about.
Give me a fucking break you loser bitches.
Jenny
For Hillary dead-enders who claim to be progressive, did Hillary ever do anything progressive as First Lady or as a Senator?
Corner Stone
@priscianusjr: Who’s “we” you little bitch? Sounds like you need to go fuck yourself.
Corner Stone
@Jenny: God damn. Stop this stupid nonsense.
Fuck you.
Southern Beale
@Jenny:
I’m not a Hillary dead-ender, not even sure what that is, but I do remember Hillary trying to overhaul our healthcare system.
Just as one example.
The Dangerman
@Southern Beale:
Calling Cleek; Cleek to the Balloon Juice Courtesy Phone, please (it’s a filter for trolls that become one note obnoxious).
So, in the pie filter script, is the field of names in the format of (“Name”, “Name) or (“Name, Name”) or some other variant? I’m guessing neither of those (as neither worked), but perhaps there shouldn’t be a space.
Jenny
@Corner Stone: So your answer is no, she never did anything progressive. That’s what I thought, but thanks for confirming it.
priscianusjr
When the smoke lifts, it will become clear that Obama is in a stronger, not a weaker position after this debt-limit bullshit that the insane REPUBLICAN PARTY tried to pull.
Although perhaps not to the simpering wimps that overpopulate the comments section of this blog.
One of the main effects of the S & P decision will be to further increase GOP infighting, since a significant number of Republicans understand that having your credit rating lowered by S&P and having it attributed to your party is not actually a good thing.
srv
@aisce: I’m sorry you’re the uninformed one.
But don’t let facts ever get in your way.
hildebrand
@Reality Check:
For which all of Creation is thankful. Really. We applaud her willingness to not do anything remotely related to actual government work so that she can pretend to have power. Good for her. Hope she keeps it up. Because God knows we really don’t need that kind of ‘expertise’ too close to the big red button.
Sly
@Mike:
If LBJ had not created the Community Action Program, the New Left wouldn’t have existed. He gave them a platform to prominence within the party, unwittingly as it may have been, and they used it to completely unravel American liberalism. They thought they could shout us to a utopia, but all they did was create a lot of noise that irritated the fuck out of the rest of the country.
The only President to not pursue renomination out of his own choice was Calvin Coolidge, and he only did so because his son’s death drove him into depression and he found the job too stressful. The same is generally true of all Presidents who served two terms before the 22nd amendment was ratified; the reason they didn’t pursue a third was not out of some reverence for Washington – they did it because the its always been one of the most emotionally and mentally taxing jobs you can possibly have (incidentally, this is also the reason why Washington started the trend).
Barack Obama is not going to drop out of the race. You want someone else, you have to deal with the risks that choice entails.
Reality Check
@The Dangerman:
I see somebody can’t take a does of cold hard Reality.
nellcote
I don’t think it matters who runs if the goopers succeed in their voter supression highjinx. That combined with unlimited money and a blinkered media.
And considering all the ugliness out there, I’m beginning to worry about an assasination attempt. Someone called what we are going through a “cold civil war”. That sounds about right so far.
Jenny
@Southern Beale: I guess I should rephrase the question, did she ever accomplish anything that was progressive as First Lady or in the Senate?
gnomedad
@Southern Beale:
Look up “Pie” in the BJ Lexicon or go here.
Anya
@Anne Laurie:
How can they trust him when he’s spouting the same insane ideas as the teabaggers? He supported the Cut, Cap and Balance plan — an incredibly irresponsible plan and during the debt ceiling debate, he argued (after the fact) against raising the debt ceiling. Why would anyone trust someone like him?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Doug, I’m afraid you are now too tied to the liberal village, the echo chamber that is left wing blogs. You need to listen outside a bit more. Remember Reagan and Clinton’s numbers at this time in their first term. Also remember the last president, who just so happened to be a Democrat, who had to deal with an economy this bad: FDR won so many times he had to die to stop.
Yutsano
@Reality Check: Wow. It’s like you never read the post you’re commenting on. Plus go to a Tea Party gathering and mention any religion outside Christianity in a positive light. Go ahead. We’ll wait.
parsimon
@Anne Laurie:
This is interesting.
I’ll add my ongoing thought that Republican powers-that-be are considering whether 2012 is winnable from Obama at all. If it’s not, everything is about the downticket races: winning back the Senate. I don’t find it entirely inconceivable that the thinking may be that Obama is going to take the Presidency, but a strongish-seeming enough Republican nominee is needed to get out the vote for Congressional elections. Whether that’s Romney (I tend to think so) or Perry is up for grabs.
What increasingly puzzles me is how the Permanent Money Party doesn’t see that the recalcitrance of the GOP on revenue increases is actually a really bad idea: the S&P downgrade surely is not a joke among them.
Sly
@srv:
And up until 2008, no non-Southern Democrat had become President since Kennedy. What’s your point?
I can tell you what mine is: Re-election changes do not exist in a vacuum. It not only depends on the state of the country, but also who is running against you and how you campaign against them.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Jenny: Jenny, there is absolutely no point in this any more. That should have ended at least by November 2008. If there are still any people pulling the “Hillary would have done better stuff” their not our concern anyway, and I really doubt anyone here is doing it.
If you’re doing this to be spiteful, quit.
Corner Stone
@Jenny: My answer is you’re a smoking fucking idiot for ever mentioning her name for a run at the presidency.
I mean, you can thrash and toil all you like against the wurst booooogeyman ever created by losers like you. If you like.
Good luck.
Southern Beale
@gnomedad:
Ah that’s above my paygrade.
:-)
Thanks, good to know such a thing exists.
aisce
@ srv
bush’s job creation record was worse than obama’s, you fucking schmuck! he had the worst economic record in seventy five years!
if you hate obama enough to speak wistfully for fucking dubya, i don’t even want to talk to you. go fellate a shotgun barrel.
Corner Stone
It’s somehow like idiots here are desperate to hang onto the eeeeeeebil boogeyman that is HRC. Maybe the next fight may be more important?
Anne Laurie
@Southern Beale:
It’s a British-ism, I’ve seen it used quite often in the Guardian and the Independent online, also IIRC the Financial Times 5-10 years ago. Terry Pratchett uses the variant ‘godsbotherer’ in his Discworld novels.
The Dangerman
Virtual tip of the cap to Cleek (insert a Wayne’s World style “we’re not worthy” here); the new Pie script rocks!
priscianusjr
@mclaren:
Chyron HR
@Corner Stone:
Does it bother you that Reality Check’s posts are more coherent than yours?
gocart mozart
No way a bible thumpin’ idiot with that stupid Texan drawl ever wins the White House. No way!
Wait, WHAT?
Southern Beale
@Jenny:
What she did for New York after 9/11 was pretty admirable, especially related to the long-term health problems first-responders at Ground Zero dealt with.
If being First Lady is some kind of powerful position, please enlighten me. What few things she did try to do, like healthcare, was undermined the hatemongers in the GOP.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Corner Stone sez:
Fix’t that for ya. I’m always glad to help the elderly!
Sly
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Like I said, re-election also depends on who you’re running against and, in fairness, it’s rather difficult to lose when you’re running against Hitler and Hirohito.
@Yutsano:
Tea Baggers like Jews, I guess. Though they like them in the same way that Wyle E. Coyote likes the Road Runner.
Ol' Dirty DougJ
In August 2007, it was clear that the Democrats would have an advantage in the general because Bush was so unpopular.
Barring unforeseen circumstances, you can say a lot about a presidential election a year out. You can say more about Congressional elections because a lot of what happens is baked in by candidate recruitment, retirements, etc.
People like to say “you can’t predict”, but you can. If unemployment were 5% we could confidently say that, barring a disaster, Obama would be re-elected. Since it’s 9.2%, we can predict it’s tough sledding.
Also too, I can safely predict that Michele Bachmann will be a weak general election candidate.
Southern Beale
We’re watching the movie “Another Year” which is a very talky British film that only got interesting 3/4 of the way through.
Also.
Too.
srv
@Sly:
The point is what I said it was. If you can’t follow a thread: there is no economic upside/stimulus that’s going to happen under Obama regardless of how many terms you give him.
There’s an old phrase: It’s the economy, stupid.
He’s got jack shit to campaign on and nothing to promise (What? I fucked up the first stimulus so give me another?) . Blaming DFH’s, CS, Republicans, Teahadi’s and the Koch Brothers may seem all pragmatic to you pragmatic realists. Good luck with that.
Corner Stone
@Chyron HR: Shouldn’t you have done a quote re-write on me and dropped the Obongo card?
Linda Featheringill
@jwb: #191
Provocateurs?
Hmmm. Do you think we’re important enough for that?
Jenny
@Corner Stone: So your answer is no, she never did anything progressive.
Like I said, it’s a contradiction to claim to be a True Progressive and yet be a fervent Hillary supporter.
Thanks for confirming this.
Corner Stone
@Odie Hugh Manatee: So sad Odious. Maybe one day you’ll be the sharp end of the spear you think you are.
aisce
@ corner stone
you spelled “winners” wrong. it’s w-i-n-n-e-r-s, not l-o-s-e-r-s. easy mistake.
it was hillary supporters who were losers. and don’t you ever forget it. actually, now that i think about it, i guess they were winners in the end, despite their best efforts. all americans were. and will continue to be.
(what a fun thread.)
Sly
@Ol’ Dirty DougJ:
She’s got Chootspa, though. That’s gotta at least be as attractive to voters as Joementum.
Corner Stone
@Jenny: The only persons here still fixated on HRC are you and Karen.
PUMA Rawr!!
You’re just pathetic.
Southern Beale
@Sly:
Not really. They just like the anti-Muslim nutball Jews like Pamela Gellar. They hate all the Hollywood liberal Jews and they certainly weren’t very kind to Elena Kagan.
Yutsano
@Sly:
Accurated that fer ya. Trust me, has nothing to do with respect for the religion.
Lesley
Obama’s strategy of “unite the GOP and the Democrats” on practically every crucial issue is obviously not working, and yet some liberals continue to support it. The Democrats have become the proverbial patient slamming a hammer into their forehead joke. The doctor tells them the pain won’t end until they put the hammer down and they continue.
If Americans had wanted Republican policies they would have voted for a Republican president.
Obama promised to make the tough choices and he hasn’t. He has caved to the GOP since he first got elected.
If the teabaggers can rally fatsos in scooters, why can’t democratic voters send Obama a strong message.
Do what you promised before 2009. Otherwise resign and let someone who has the balls to stand on Democratic principles do the job.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Sly: Except FDR didn’t run against Germany in ’36 and probably not ’40.
parsimon
@Anya:
Right. I can’t understand this at all. All I can see is that it’s a stance taken for the primaries which would be jettisoned in the general election should he become the nominee. That kind of thing would be pretty standard practice, and Romney’s not exactly a true believer (which is why I think the Money people would prefer him over Perry).
Meanwhile, it sucks when you guys all fall apart in these threads.
Southern Beale
I can’t believe it’s gotten so late. I’m turning in folks. G’night …
General Stuck
Forget all this gloom and doom. Think ice cream and puppies
for subdiane if she is on the grid
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Lesley:
It really does suck when the majority of the population, not just “liberals”, want Obama to work with the Republicans (and name me a person who calls themselves a liberal and actually supports this). I haven’t figured them out either.
srv
@aisce:
Go run down to your unemployment office Monday or in Nov. 2012 and yell that as much as you want to. That 2010 meme is sure to get you shit tons of traction.
whoosh.
SensesFail
@Sly:
hahaha! Thanks for the link!
priscianusjr
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Anne Laurie
@Anya:
Because they know the man, better than any of us know him; they’ve been on boards-of-directors together, watched the polo nationals at Manchester-by-the-Sea, contributed to the same scholarship funds at Cranston and Phillips Andover so that their kids can rub elbows with the “right kind” of underprivileged urchins. They know, therefore, that Willard Romney has no actual principles beyond his fervent conviction that Willard Romney deserves to be America’s President. They know that his “business career”, like his political career, consisted of grinning for the cameras on cue, looking appropriately stern when necessary, and convincing a whole lot of rubes in flyover country to turn out their pockets and vote against their own best interests. Why shouldn’t the Permanent Money Party trust Mitt? He’s their biggest fan — and arguably their most successful product!
Ol' Dirty DougJ
@srv:
I find that perfectly logical and in any other realm it would be considered obvious. There’s a way of dealing with recessions — fiscal stimuli — and if you try one and you’re still in a recession, you try another. I am depressed that people think that’s a bad idea.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@parsimon: I think you’re pretty much on the money. Mike Huckabee was the canary, and he flew off before even entering the coal mine. The GOP wants those downticket races, not to mention avoid having the GOP brand shit on completely by returning back to 1964’s results.
Again, entirely my own somewhat educated opinion, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re also the ones handing the media the Rick Perry pom-poms in a desperate attempt to stave off Bachmannpocalypse.
Emma
@Lesley: Oh look, another troll. I’m going to bed. There’s way too many of them to pie.
priscianusjr
@Corner Stone:
Yutsano
@Emma: Nah. Just a worshiper of Saint Jane. Note all the talking points. She hits every single FDL lunacy in one fell swoop.
srv
@Ol’ Dirty DougJ:
Stuck will have to school you on all this KThug-Worship.
Sorry, but asking Americans to give you a do-over is probably a bridge too far. And you’ll have to convince Obama’s economic team first…
Jewish Steel
I’ll take my fans where I can get ’em!
What’s this about an endzone dance now?
TenguPhule
Guillotines cost money.
priscianusjr
@Corner Stone:
TenguPhule
Because 50% of our population are complete and utter morons. And a frightening percentage of them vote.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
Romney’s chances in the primary and general can be summed up by Fox News asking if Mormons really are Christians. I’ve always felt that a large part of why Poppy Bush and Bob Dole flopped was due to not paying enough fealty to the ‘godbotherers’. Bush the Younger, likely thanks to Rove’s direction, deftly bridged the divide between the fundies and the secularists. If today’s events were any indication, I don’t see Perry having that same political ear.
I’ll repeat ’cause its still true: Obama doesn’t have to be faster than the bear economy, he just has to be faster than the other guy.
eemom
do let’s keep talking about Hillary, if for no other reason than it clearly drives Stoned Corner crazy. I think she’s the only woman he ever loved. : (
jwb
@Lesley: What are you going to do about it? Not vote? Give up? The biggest problem the left has is expecting that politicians will do what we want them to without our being willing to work hard to make sure that politicians know what we want them to do. According to one poll I read, 66% of Tea Party Republicans contacted their elected officials during the debt ceiling debate. The rest of us, not so much, even after the President asked us to call. How many times have you contacted your representative and senators since Obama was elected? What work have you done for candidates and the Democratic party?
TenguPhule
No, the problem is he made tough choices to try and minimize shit sandwhich instead of taking easy choices that would involve seizing power and making the women of his enemies weep as he crushed their husband’s skulls under his sandal.
Corner Stone
@priscianusjr: Insert laughing sounds.
Let’s do this.
Corner Stone
@priscianusjr: Not really. It just sounds like you need to go fuck yourself.
Corner Stone
@eemom: Just because you and Fuckhead are boning now doesn’t mean a damn thing to me.
I mean, it’s fucking disgusting but if that’s the kind of rotted carp he likes to poke that’s on him.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
One last note: I don’t think its fully set in just how badly Walker, Kasich, Scott, and company shit on the Republican brand. Norquist wasn’t lying when he said people want Republicans who govern like Democrats.
TenguPhule
These same math geniuses cost us 1.2 BILLION in tax revenue in a fight over 16 million in airline subsidies. And an anti-union option.
So may they die horribly and not a moment too soon.
parsimon
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
Huh. Interesting. Yeah, I could see that.
It’s going to be kind of fascinating (in a sick, political junkie way) to see how Perry conducts himself once he announces. I have to think that he’s supposed to be pliable, take direction well, and so on, but I don’t know how well he actually does.
signifyingmnky
@Lesley:
It’s blatantly obvious from your post that you have not the slightest clue what Barack Obama promised in his campaign before 2009.
But nice try.
Sly
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): He sort of half-handidly did in 1940, though there was still a big isolationist contingent and he hedged several times in order to prevent the argument that he was secretly planning to take the country to war. The Arsenal of Democracy speech, however, was a substantial hit with the public who were simultaneously wary of both war and fascism. The man’s greatest talent was finding the right tone that resonated with people, and Arsenal of Democracy accurately reflected the waning of isolationism and the reluctance to fight another war in Europe.
He was quite a bit more assertive about it in 1944, though. That was primarily my reference.
@Lesley:
Its not about uniting the GOP and the Democrats. It’s about creating a contrast. For better or worse, a significant portion of the electorate wants the parties to work together. Those of us who pay attention to politics, generally speaking, know that won’t happen. The goal is to demonstrate why.
jwb
@eemom: The thing is, even if HRC had been elected, we’d be staring at more or less the same problems. We’d be talking about gender instead of race, but the GOP would still be intransigent assholes intent on bringing down the country in order to make HRC a one-term president, and something like the Tea Party would still be running the Gooper show.
Omnes Omnibus
My god, this has become an unpleasant thread.
Old Dan and Little Ann
Since 2012 is already on the table, would it make everyone happy that Obama is reelected and Hillary runs in 2016?
parsimon
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
Norquist said that? Reference? Not that I don’t believe you, but I just hadn’t heard that. Or maybe I should just google ….
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@srv:
Then a lot of us also need to remind the rest of America what they’ll get otherwise, and what the last few years of having them with even a little power has meant to this country.
jwb
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: Last I looked, which was about a week ago, I think, Walker’s approval in Wisconsin was at 45%, just two percent lower than Obama’s. The unions have been stirred from their complacency, which is a good thing, but the backlash isn’t nearly as large as you might think and his support hasn’t collapsed.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@jwb: It would still be the Teabaggers. Race is just a weapon to them, and gender would be as well. They wouldn’t have let her do anything, and the media would have still argued that both sides do it. People would be sexist for pointing out sexism.
And remember, not only would Clinton be fighting the “her advisors are running the government, Hillary can’t make her own decisions” from the left, she would be fighting the right claiming that it’s really Bill making the decisions in his third term, and they would be trying to find a way to impeach her on it.
boss bitch
@Mike:
How could you write this? Obama beat both Hillary and the Republicans. How is she better when she LOST?
signifyingmnky
@Ol’ Dirty DougJ:
FWIW, I don’t think “people” generally think that’s a bad idea, it’s just not being talked about because the Republicans won’t allow it the time of day, and our media won’t dare challenge them. Democrats and the President, can and have talked about stimulative measures (like the infrastructure bank) when given the chance, but that about 5 seconds of a 24 hour news cycle, while there’s hour by hour updates of what the Tea Party thinks.
Thus, any support for further stimulus is cut off at the knees.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Old Dan and Little Ann: I don’t think Hillary will run in 2016. I could possibly see Gillibrand run, and if she wins, her moderate positions are going to frustrate the liberals in the Democratic party.
jwb
@parsimon: Perry is a good instinctual politician. He’s also got a vindictive streak a mile wide. Obama is very good at playing politicians of that sort. As far as I can tell, Perry’s not real bright, and his staff, while competent, doesn’t seem very imaginative. Like Obama, he’s been blessed with relatively weak opponents in most of his races, and when he’s faced good ones, like Hutchison, it really seemed like she wasn’t interested in inheriting the financial mess he’d put the state into. He’s also not well liked but a good portion of the state’s GOP elite, who I sense are supporting him for the run for the President because either he’ll win and be gone to Washington or it will damage him enough politically that the elite can take back the party.
Omnes Omnibus
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): I agree that Hillary won’t run on 2016. 2008 was her chance. She is just going to have to be satisfied with having been a senator, Secretary of State, and the first serious and competitive female presidential contender ever. No small potatoes.
srv
@Old Dan and Little Ann:
Hitlery doesn’t get you electoral votes. Find someone from a list like Beverly Purdue or Bill Nelson.
jwb
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Yup, I agree. The GOP is concerned only with making it impossible for Democrats to govern and they will use every tool they have at their disposal to make it so.
dww44
@General Stuck:
Yes, am a bit late to this thread but have to say that I’m inclined to agree with Stuck on this and say it’s early days yet. Worse could happen, but better could happen also. And, there’s no one on offer on the Republican side who can in any way measure up to this President. The thing is that we need to elect Dems and help the GOP purge its crazy. 4 more years of Obama will probably go a long ways towards purging their crazy. Conversely, they just might implode. I’d almost like to see that.
JWL
You fools dare ignore me?!
I’ll re-post. Mark my words well.
“The republican nominee will not be Romney. The eventual nominee is not even a dark horse at the moment, and is off everyone’s radar. He/she will be a bolt from the blue, and all the more formidable because of it. If you think that sounds crazy, consider the GOP marches with goose-stepped discipline”.
Old Dan and Little Ann
@srv: Time for another drink.
dww44
@Elie: I agree. But won’t swear off the reading yet. Perhaps John will return and knock some heads together and we will stop the WATBn’g.
SiubhanDuinne
@General Stuck:
I’m guessing you mean me! Even if you didn’t I’m going to pretend you did: Charlie pix ALWAYS make me feel good about the world. Thanks, General!
Linnaeus
The 2012 elections aren’t going to be easy for the president, but if I were a betting man, I’d still bet on him. Definitely some things need to improve, but the Republican candidates still look really weak to me. Of course it’s early yet and that could change.
I’m as upset as anyone else here about the Republican Party’s Project Neofeudalism that it wants to impose on our country. But I don’t see any other choice than to harden our resolve a bit, get out there, organize, and hammer the Republicans. The narrative about the debt ceiling fiasco hasn’t yet fully formed, and there’s an opportunity to lay the responsibility for that squarely at the feet of the Republicans.
I don’t care for the rightward tack that the Democratic Party has been doing since the late 1970s, but even taking that into account, Democrats simply govern better than Republicans. That’s one of the messages that needs to get out there, although that won’t be easy.
scav
@JWL: A possibility, but you might consider not channeling your inner MageOfPower so publicly.
parsimon
@jwb:
That’s helpful, thanks.
With respect to Hillary Clinton, my sense is that she’s just tired. Her work as Secretary of State has just been tiring. She’s not going to be running for President, so anyone who harbors thoughts in that direction should probably knock it off and turn their thoughts elsewhere.
I could, of course, be wrong.
You know who’s awesome, by the way: Jennifer Granholm. Speaking of Democratic up and comers, at least in my dreams.
SiubhanDuinne
Blaargh, can’t edit, obligatory FYWP.
Wanted to add, re Charlie: Nice that he has the sense to come in out of the rain. Unlike some on this thread I could name.
Omnes Omnibus
@parsimon:
Really not a natural born citizen.
eemom
@Corner Stone:
My case. I rest it.
Tell us, little Stone — is it a Mommy thing between you and Hills? Cuz that’s like totally cool. Yer among friends here.
Anya
@parsimon:
I think it’s a bit of a PTSD from the debt ceiling.
FlipYrWhig
This thread is like the scene from Ghostbusters where they have to shut down the power grid and all the little beasties run amok all over again.
jwb
@JWL: If I saw anyone on the periphery who seems particularly effective at channeling the anger I might agree. Beck might have been that person, but he chose to grift. Bachmann might still be that person. I still consider her the most dangerous candidate in the race—though she faces the highest odds at getting through. Perry seems the most likely candidate to emerge as not-Romney, but I don’t think he’ll prove particularly effective in the general election: he always underperforms what he should be doing in Texas. That leaves some media personality or military brass.
scav
@Anya:
And the heat, added to what seems quite a long stream of headline stressors. With luck everyone will suffer less of a hangover tomorrow than John should have struggled through this am.
parsimon
@Omnes Omnibus:
Really not a natural born citizen.
Checks …. Oh, fuck! Well, that sucks, man.
FlipYrWhig
@Linnaeus:
When they started moving rightward, they found Bill Clinton, and they’re going to keep copying that formula until it doesn’t work, then they’re going to try copying it again even more exactly because for some reason it didn’t work.
parsimon
I suppose it’s too soon to rethink this natural born citizen business.
mclaren
@Jenny:
Thanks for telling that sociopathic lie. As you know, I did not call for Biden’s assassination, and the more times you tell that lie, the more you’ll make yourself look like the sociopathic compulsive liar you are.
As you well know, I stated the documented fact that Joe Biden is guilty of treason against the United States of America for authoring legislation (the USA Patriot Act) which destroys most of the Bill of Rights of the constitution. Treason in wartime is a capital crime, and if found guilty as he should be, Joe Biden needs to be given the appropriate punishment for the capital crime of treason during wartime. The usual form of capital punishment for treason is either hanging or a firing squad: take your pick.
You need to crank up your lies. you need to accuse me of really serious crimes — you need to start accusing me of being a serial murderer and a child molester and a torturer and dangerous criminal, because your current lies just aren’t getting any traction. The Secret hasn’t contacted me and won’t contact me, because they know just as everyone else knows that saying the vice president of the united states should be tried for treason isn’t any kind of threat. You and the other Obots just lied and lied and lied outright about what Obama has done. Like the supporters of George W. Bush who claimed that “Bush never tortured anyone!” and “The Bush administration never said Saddam had WMDs!” the Obots have now decided to lie and lie and lie about what Obama has clearly and provably done.
Let’s review the latest pathological lies told by the Obots about Obama’s proven documented actions:
The Obots are now telling the lie that Barack Obama did not in fact order General Petraeus and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to draw up plans for withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan because “Obama campaigned on increasing troops in Afghanistan.”
Everyone notice the lies the Obots are telling here?
The Obots are claiming that Obama did not do what he has been documented doing and what all major news sources have proven he has done, and the basis for the lie that Obama never did the things he clearly and provably did is…what Obama campaigned on.
Got it?
The Obots are trying to convince you that the New York Times and the Washington Post and the Chicagon Sun Time and the Boston Globe and USA Today are all making sh*t up and none of that stuff Obama did ever really happened.
Don’t believe your lying eyes! Forget about the newspaper headlines! Ignore the transcripts of Obama’s speeches! Disregard the interviews with state department and pentagon officials and white house aides! They’re all lying!
Obama never ordered Petraeus and the Joint Chiefs to draw up a plan for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan!
And how do we know?
Because! That’s how.
The Obots have reached the stage of just making sh*t up now, exactly like the supporters of George W. Bush. Katrina wasn’t a disaster! There’s no torture at Abu Ghraib! The economy grew by leaps and bounds under the Bush administration!
Just lie, lie, lie, lie, and lie again. Ignore reality. Erase the facts. That’s the Obots’ strategy now.
Let’s start with the documented reported facts:
U.S. military planned to subvert agreement on withdrawal: How Obama lost control of Iraq policy
Source: U.S. miltiary planned to subvert withdrawal, Znet, Gareth Porter, 1 january 2009.
Next, let’s move on to Professor Bernard Finel, who teaches at the National War College:
Source: “Military Coup of 2012,” Outside the Beltway website, James Joyner, 23 September, 2010.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: Woohoo! mclaren is back and crazy as ever. That is exactly what this thread needs.
dww44
@Reality Check: Please give me a break. Tea Partiers are first and foremost fiscal conservatives? I don’t think so. That little cheery group came into being far too soon to be anything other than what they really are: constitutionally unable to handle a black man as President. Fiscal conservatism is just the vehicle they chose to fight the President and their fiscal conservatism is not grounded in anything that makes sense. Just more of that starve the beast nonsense. You really need to check your reality.
O/T While I haven’t made it thru this thread yet, I plan on fighting for this President’s reelection and I certainly hope a whole bunch of you are.
By the way, are you a tea partier?
Tom Q
Okay, I’ve said this in two previous threads, and no one ever seems to give me a response, but I’ll try once more because it’s very much on topic.
In Novewmber 1980, when Jimmy Carter was over his head and drowning and the economy was in a hopeless tailspin, the unemployment rate was 7.5%. He lost in a landslide.
Four years later, Ronald Reagan had proven a president could run the country successfully. It was Morning in Frickin’ America. Why, the unemployment rate was…7.5%. Reagan had an 18% margin of victory.
The point being, the raw unemployment number obviously isn’t definitive. In ’80, the number had climbed in the preceding year as the nation hit recession. In ’84, it was coming back from a number over 10% (thanks to a recession PROVOKED by Reagan and his deficit spending + Paul Volcker’s reaction to it). The direction matters far more than the position.
I know as of this morning all the cool kids are screaming “double-dip recession”, but, now that oil prices have started to tumble, and we’re past the massive state budget cuts and fallout from the Japanese crises, I don’t see why we can’t start having moderate job growth — at least of the kind that Bush II had in Spring ’04, which rescued him.
And, without direct recession as a camapign issue, the GOP has virtually no chance against Obama, who in other respects is far more like Reagan than he is like Carter — a charismatic incumbent who’s passed major legislation and had a major foreign policy success (catching bin Laden) and no corresponding failures. I think Democrats who don’t understand what a strong candidate for re-election Obama is are exposing themselves as not deeply knowledgable about how presidential elections really work.
By the way, at this point in 1983, GOP righties were equally frantic about Reagan’s chances at re-election. You could look it up.
mclaren
@Jenny:
Keep up the lies, obots. Now you’re accusing me trying to assassinate the vice president. Why not accuse me of building a nuclear bomb? Why not accuse me of running onto the rooftop with a automatic weapon and killing people willy-nilly? Why not tell everyone there’s a massive police manhunt out for me, and I have to be killed on sight — if necessary, with bare hands, because I’m just so dangerous?
Of course I don’t own a gun or any kind of weapon, and of course I’ve never threatened anyone…but why let the facts stop you, obots?
Your standard technique is to lie and lie and lie some more. Faced with any criticism of Obama, you go berserk and smear the critic. Tell any lie, invent any imaginary crime, that’s your response to criticism. You’re now behaving just like the Republicans under Bush. Anyone who criticized Bush was “evil” and “dangerous” and a “threat to America” who “had to be stopped,” if necessary by extraordinary rendition, or simply by being shot down in the street like a dog.
The real reason I’m being smeared is that I called out Obama as a weak ineffectual naive inexperienced politician who has gotten systematically scammed and rolled and manipulated by the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs.
And I’ve said this based on the documented facts, from congressional testimony to interviews with the principals involved, to public speeches on the subject.
That’s the real reason I’m being smeared. Because my criticism of Obama as an inexperienced naif strikes a nerve with the obots — ’cause they know it’s true. So they must lash out with lie after lie after lie in response.
Piling up still more evidence for my claims, let’s hear from a retired Special Forces colonel:
Source:
“Obama battles with advisors of Afghan exit plan,” Pat Lang, 2011.
And now let’s move on to congressional testimony by a Marine Corps Lt. General:
Source: Al Jazeera, June 2011.
Got it, Obots?
Obama specifically asked for a troop withdrawal plan from Afghanistan. He told the Joint Chiefs and Petraeus to give him that plan.
And they insubordinately disobeyed Obama.
The Joint Chiefs did not present Obama with a withdrawal plan as he specifically asked them to.
Now it’s time for more of your lies, Obots. Why don’t you sneer once again that “the facts are easy to find out.” All you have to do is ignore congressional testimony.
Why don’t you tell me I “should be marginalized” for stating these documented facts. Like good little obots, you lie and and lie and lie whenever you encounter a fact about Obama that you don’t like.
Obama got rolled by the Joint Chiefs and Petraeus on his effort to withdraw troops from Afghanistan?
Just deny that Obama ever even tried to remove troops from Afghanistan! That’s the ticket. Just lie. Tell us again that “Obama campaigned on expanding the war in Afghanistan,” so that means that Marine Corps Lt. General John Allen was lying when he testified before congress that “a withdrawal plan was not among the plans submitted to Obama” despite Obama’s specific request for a withdrawal plan.
C’mon, obots. Lie some more.
Try to convince us that Obama isn’t trying to draw down troops from Afghanistan.
Try to make us believe that the Washington Post and Marine Corps generals and professors at the National War College are all lying. They’re all wrong! Obama has done a great job! Afghanistan is going wonderfully! Everything’s peachy!
Keep it up, obots. Lie and lie and lie some more. It won’t help you.
Because everyone realizes that you’re just making sh*t up.
Nickws
@Reality Check:
You’re adorable, metrosexual Republican troll, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1903/tea-party-movement-religion-social-issues-conservative-christian
Anya
@boss bitch:
You’re simply misinformed, Hillary did not lose – the DNC establishment stole the election from her and gave it to Obama. Don’t you remember Florida and Michigan?
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: The meds are wearing off. However the entertainment value of this thread increased immensely.
MikeJ
@Yutsano:
I would have said lobotomy, but I didn’t know they could wear off.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: This place was so cheerful yesterday. And now….
jwb
@Omnes Omnibus: Cole was drunk twittering, so that helped cheer things up.
Omnes Omnibus
@jwb: Has anyone checked in on him? Is he alive?
Yutsano
@jwb: @Omnes Omnibus: The lesson here, of course, is to turn JC into a raging Althouse-style alcoholic and get him on benders every night. The entertainment would last for decades.
jwb
@Omnes Omnibus: I have the twitter feed open, but he hasn’t tweeted since the quip about Clinton.
How are the recall elections looking? I’ve got my fingers crossed.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: I don’t see any way in which that could go wrong.
Anya
@Tom Q: On that sane note, I think I should go to bed.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Omnes Omnibus:
The manic progressive surrender monkeys are out swinging from one imaginary branch to another, trying to impress us lowly Obots. Of course, to us it just looks like they are flopping around on the ground amongst the Ratfuckers, Firebaggers and Bitter Ones who are scurrying around. They may all hate each other and everyone else out there who doesn’t pass their purity tests, but at least they are united in their hatred of everything Obama.
What a coalition. Add to that the teahadists and it’s easy to see how fucked up this country is.
parsimon
@Tom Q:
Well, leaving aside the arguably sui generis nature of the Tea Party Republicans — which is a rather significant leaving-aside — fine. See my comment 222 upthread.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@parsimon: Would Rove answer the phone if Perry calls? Granted that Perry actually dials. Another thing that strikes me is that we’re now up to August 7th and he’s still puttering around Texas instead of Iowa.
@parsimon: Grf, I wish I had a reference but I read it in a post here a couple weeks back.
@JWL: The only dark horse I really think has a chance is if Pawlenty makes up moderate ground in Iowa, but the guy has all the charisma and inspiration of a dead woodchuck. And after Boehner couldn’t keep the Tea Party from invoking the ire of S&P, I’m not sure the whole ‘falling in line’ bit is going to work as well as most everyone would believe.
Anya
@mclaren:Making up for your absence, are you?
Omnes Omnibus
@jwb: I need to stay out of all recall conversations on blogs these days. I have been doing some work on contract for the Government Accountability Board (the people who supervise elections here) with respect to these particular elections, so I need to steer clear.
mclaren
@Jenny:
Despite the obots’ hysterical rage of my statement that Obama got “rolled” by the Joint Chiefs and Petraeus on Afghanistan, I’m far from the only person who has made that claim. In fact, the person who first described Presidnet Obama getting “rolled” and scammed and manipulated by the Pentagon when Obama tried to get them to submit a plan from drawing down troops levels in Afghanistan was a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor:
Source: “Obama, an Afghanistan war plan and getting `rolled'” Christian Science Monitor, 22 September 2010.
Petraeus has been reported as saying that President Obama “is fucking with the wrong guy” by trying to force the Pentagon to draw down troop levels in Afghanistan.
You tell me: is that insubordination?
And what has Obama done about it?
Nothing. He’s retreated and whimpered and cringed like a whipped dog. Obama has been made into the Pentagon’s bitch, because Obama just doesn’t know how to play the Washington bureaucatic infighting game.
General: Obama Afghan withdrawal plan not among plans presented by Petraeus
Source: the Daily Caller, June 2011.
Remember, obots — lie and lie and lie some more.
Whenever someone states facts about Obama you don’t like, just deny everything. The Christian Science Monitor? They’re just inventing stuff. Marine Corps Generals testify before congress? All fantasy, never happened.
Keep lying, obots. That’s your only chance. Double down on those lies. Lie and lie and lie again.
You’re now so far outside of reality, obots, that your own chance at this point is to trying to convince everyone that Obama is a genius playing 11-dimensional chess and everything is going great. The economy’s wonderful, there’s no budget deficit, the U.S. military isn’t out of control and running our foreign policy, Joe Biden is a wise insightful leader who did great work to help America, instead of a craven opportunistic fool who authored legislattion that trashed the constitution and wasted trillions of America’s dollars on a useless worthless War On Terror that can’t even catch a common cold, much less catch terrorists.
C’mon, obots. Tell us some more lies. Black is white. Up is down. Freedom is slavery. Obama is doing a great job on the economy and he’s got this War on Terror thing completely under control and the Pentagon isn’t telling him what to do…no, noooooooo, none of it is happening. It’s morning in America!
You obots are as hopelessly deluded as the Reaganoid fringe lunatics who claim the senile sociopath Ronnie “saved America” instead of starting all the trends (giant budget deficits, out-of-control military spending, crazy militarization of America, endless unwinnable War on Drugs, erasure of the boundary between church and state) that are now turning America into a third world banana republic.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: Duly noted. We’ll just pick on the other cheeseheads.
jwb
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: Last I heard Rove was backing Romney.
Anya
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: He can easily handle an election where the competition is about “who’s the wingnutiest of them all,” but I don’t think he can survive a national election. Besides, Perry strikes me as someone who might have few skeletons in his closet. I don’t think he will risk the bright lights the national election brings.
Yutsano
@jwb: Which makes sense. Rove and Perry are old old political enemies. No way in the world that gets buried if Goodhair jumps in. However that also means his Crossroads money and ads will be more unfocused or concentrated on the Senate. Which could be worse.
@Anya:
I saw what you did there.
jwb
@Omnes Omnibus: Fair enough.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anya: Do you think mclaren realizes that no one is arguing with her at the moment? I suppose the guy on the subway shouting about the ants using Nelson Rockefeller’s cryogenically frozen head and an iPad to create a fiat currency and corner the platinum market doesn’t really play close attention to his audience either.
bonkers
Uhh….this is snark, right (and might I suggest a very unwise analogy)? President Barack Hussein Obama is going to win in a landslide in 2012, probably bigger than the historical landslide in 2008 when he became America’s first melanin-enhanced President. I know most melanin-challenged people either don’t ever think about that, or feel that’s it’s that big of deal, but those who know….know.
Um, just curious. Did you see the fundraising #s he put up ALREADY? They were so far beyond any previous record for this point in a campaign that it was almost comical. And to think 98% of that money was from $200 or less donors. Go ahead though all you “true progressives” and all the fake ones who are Repub instigators…you are actually helping President Obama with your incessant caterwauling, so please by all means, keep it up!
jwb
@Anya: Looks like mclaren has come back twice as insane. Lucky us.
Tom Q
@parsimon: I think it’s entirely possible some of the GOP powers are not as fooled as the hysterics here about Republican prospects for next year, and will focus on doing what they can to hold or gain Congressional power. That’s where their focus ended up in ’96, and Dole did a fair job for them. The question is whether they can control the process as well as they did back then. My instinct is that the GOP id has escaped, and they might run wild in the presidential primaries next year the way they did in the Senatorial heats last year.
The question for me about Perry is, can he pull off what Reagan did in ’80 — get the powers that be to pretend he doesn’t represent a jump off the ideological cliff? Reagan’s chances were solid based on Carter’s many problems, but he needed the party establishment — who’d been fighting off his kind ever since Taft & Goldwater — to give him the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to ease the way. It’s possible party poobahs will do the same for Perry (in a way I don’t think they would for Bachman)…but there’s always the chance they keep their distance, which could set us up for a re-run of 1964.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: Excellent. Everything is going according to plan. Oops, maybe I shouldn’t have said that aloud.
parsimon
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
Word is that he’ll probably announce his candidacy just after the Ames straw poll, which is in a few days, I think. The idea is supposed to be that the splash would trample on the Ames frontrunner’s headlines. (Oh, that’s so clever!)
bonkers
@Tom Q:
Completely agree, my man. Great points!
srv
@Tom Q: Reagan had Volcker stoking the engines, falling unemployment, media spin and Walter Mondale as a threat.
Goldman has plenty of money to still make on Oil speculation, but if it were actually to drop for a good consistent run, I’ll give you some rope.
Otherwise, you need to find some technical analysis justifying why a double dip isn’t going to happen because the non-Austarians aren’t seeing it.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: I find the tapping of your fingers together…disturbing. Maybe it’s the canary-eating cat smirk along with it.
jwb
@Yutsano: It’s been very odd how long Gov. Goodhair has taken to decide. Personally, I think he’s been looking for an out-stories in the paper have been that it’s his wife who is really keen on his running. The wife-Anita I think is her name-seems very sharp, though with a vindictive streak even wider than the Governor’s (almost single-handedly managed to gut a state department that refused to allow her to remodel the Governor’s mansion the way she wanted).
Anya
@Omnes Omnibus: I think mako_ chan or whatever she calls herself these days, is the only one that can engage her.
parsimon
@Tom Q:
I’m not sure I agree with you about the degree to which Reagan was ideologically freakish, to be honest. But that’s a conversation for another day, and it sounds as though you’re better versed in it than I am.
In any case, yes, it comes to whether people think Perry can be controlled.
mclaren
More evidence that the obots are lying. Obama desperately tried to get the Pentagon to give him a plan for drawing down troop levels in Afghanistan, but they Pentagon just…wouldn’t…do it.
They simply disobeyed a direct order from the President of the United States.
Unbelieveable, yet there it is. Woodword documented it with interviews in his book. A Marine Corps general backed up Woodword’s statements in congressional testimony. Petraeus was caught on the record in gross insubordination.
The evidence is overwhelming. Obama was rolled and scammed by the Pentagon. He gave them a direct order and they simply ran an end run around him by playing the Washington bureaucracy.
“Civilian control of the military? Surely you jest!”,Andrew J. Bacevich, 18 August, 2010.
Remember: Andrew J. Bacevich can’t be taken seriously, he’s merely a career military officer with 30 years of service. Ignore him.
Source: review of Bob Woodward’s “Obama’s War,” Christian Science Monitor, June 2010.
Source: James Joyner, 23 September 2010, op. cit.
So exactly what I said happened, happened.
C’mon, obots. Lie some more. Jeer and ridicule my statement of documented facts. Just deny what I say. Call it ‘entertaining’ and ‘crazy.’ Deny everything. Tell us “the facts are easy to find out.” Deny Obama got rolled on Afghanistan, deny the generals twisted him around their little finger. Deny, deny, deny.
C’mon, obots, keep up the lies. Keep laughing. Giggle and snicker, because anyone who offers substantive criticism of Obama must be “goofy” and “kooky” and “a tea partier.” There are only two possibilities: either you worship Obama and think he’s done a great job, or you’re a Tea Party kook.
Keep it up, obots, you’re telling everyone exactly who you are — you’re the flip side of Karl Rove and Grover Norquist, people so fanatically committed to your cult of personality that you’ll tell any lie and hurl any smear when faced with even the slightest criticism of the fantasy world you’ve created.
Out here in the real world, unemployment is heading for 12% by election day, the endless unwinnable War on Drugs keeps getting larger and more savage, America’s exploding prison population keeps getting bigger and bigger, Wall Street and the banks are amassing even more of the country’s total share of wealth and nothing has been done to prevent another financial meltdown.
You think people will vote for Obama with a record like that?
Maybe they will. If the Republicans nominate someone crazy enough, who knows?
That doesn’t change the fact that because of Obama’s inexperience and naivete, public policy is now circling the porcelain bowl and the suction is drawing it down. And when the next financial meltdown hits (after the military-industrial-police-terror bubble pops…and it will, eventually), there won’t be enough money left on the planet to bail out all the failed prisons and bankrupt Pentagon weapons contractors and overpaid police and CIA torturers and fat overstuffed Pentagon cowards double-dipping on military retirement pay while they collect fat checks from ABC News for telling lies on the news as “consultants.”
Dee Loralei
@Reality Check: The Republican Party stands for Treason, they’d be much more inclined to honor their pledge to Grover Norquist, than they are to honor their VOW to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. And that includes mentions of the common weal, or common good, and holding no other vows ahead of their vow to the US. They are forgetting the bit about protecting from those “enemies within”. They are the enemies within. They are traitors.
John Boehner asked months ago, how far he could drag this thing out, the bankers told him not to. And he still dragged it out to the last day!
This downgrade rests 100% at the feet of the Republican Party. Because they are too terrified of a black man living in the White House. Fuck you and Fuck all of them!
And, when the revolution comes, I certainly hope that you will be against the wall.
And Mitch McConnell has stated in several different ways that his goal is to make Obama a one term President. And the normally sane Republican Senators started voting exactly the same as the more insane of them. Jim DeMint became the same as Lamar Alexander and Susan Snowe. Tom Coburn and James Mountain Inhoffe vote the same as Olympia Dukakis and Bob Corker And the two ladies of Maine are considered sane. Because they vote exactly the same as the most crazy of their group, they are as insane, end of discussion. And that holds true for my “somewhat sane” TN. Republicans. If they vote with the crazies, they are also crazy. The end.
When the history of this time is written, there will be shame. There should be great shame. But then you should have been shamed in 2001 when the US Supreme Court declared GWBush was President, by a 5/4 ruling.And you did nothing, because he was on your team. You should have again been shamed when Al Quaida made a successful attack on the US, after the President had been warned it would happen.You should have again felt much shame when we left Tora Bora. And again felt shame when we entered Iraq.
And you should feel shame every time a warrior comes home. And he has experienced more than you ever can.
You should feel shame every time this President speaks. He is more lucid, more verbose. He’s smarter than you, better looking than you, and more literate. He is everything you ever demanded a black man to be. He’s a good family man. He’s smart and well educated. He’s preternaturally calm. He is the you, you always dreamed of becoming.
He is it.
His wife is gorgeous. His girls are lovely. He is more in love with his wife than pretty much any man on the planet.
The end. You are tainted. You are tainted because you need to be the big man and you need to be superior. And you are blessedly missing in the comparative between you and Barack Obama. He is better than you.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anya: That would make for a very disturbing thread.
bonkers
@mclaren:
I have no idea who you are, but you’re reminding me A LOT of the great p.lukasiak. That dude used to argue with incredibly long posts, incessantly, at FDL with countless links and “research” about how there was no way…NO WAY…America was ready to elect and melanin-enhanced President. So vote for Hillary was the conclusion.
Then I think he and his friends there pivoted to all things Tony Rezko, who was sure to doom the Obama campaign….and then they went to….oh nevermind, you know the rest.
Anya
@Yutsano: I do not mean to push an asshole like that on your team, but it’s irresponsible not to speculate.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
worst reponse to the message since bobby jindal.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anya: Well, I don’t want the dude on my team. We have enough assholes already. Let Yutsano’s team have him.
signifyingmnky
@mclaren:
I imagine there are tons of newspapers tacked to your walls and red lines all over the placed to decipher the code between the articles.
It would take all of that to come up with what you’ve presented here, which has no basis whatsoever in reality.
Barack Obama campaigned, it’s on tape, on ramping up the effort in Afghanistan as he felt that Iraq diverted our attention from the more important mission in Afghanistan. This wasn’t one stump speech, or one line in a barely watched debate. He said this repeatedly, and many of the news sources you speak of, revisited this campaign commitment when he announced the decision to send in more troops and when people in his own party have spoke out for him to withdraw.
But you want us to believe that President Obama either never said a word about stepping up the effort in Afghanistan in his campaign, or he said it as some code speak for “I’ll withdraw”, only to get in office and have the joint chiefs put him in his place. I’ll bet you also bought the one about the military making the call on Bin Laden despite Obama saying all throughout his campaign that if we had actionable intel that he was in Pakistan we’d go in and get him.
Please tell us you’re just pulling our leg and saying anything at all to make him look weak, because otherwise I’m afraid you’re certifiable.
jwb
@parsimon: Perry can be controlled, and he’ll prove a very competent campaigner. He can stay on message and answer questions from the press. The real question is who will be running him.
mclaren
@Omnes Omnibus:
Typical obot bullshit.
You can’t deny any of the facts I cited, so instead you resort to the usual smears. Anyone who criticizes Obama is a crazy “guy on the subway shouting about the ants using nelson Rockefeller’s cryogenically frozen head.”
That all you got, obots?
Just the usual Joe McCarthy smears?
No facts, no evidence to support your insupportable claims that Obama has done a great job as president?
Typical.
Krugman has repeatedly criticized Obama for his grossly inadequate stimulus funds. Brad de Long has repeatedly pointed out that Obama is either grossly ignorant of basic macroeconomics, or he’s actively trying to sabotage the economy (which certainly sounds unlikely).
And yet the obots continue to swoon with delight at Obama’s miserable performance, his total failure to rein in the Pentagon, his complete acquiescence and total surrender to the lunatic right-wing fringe in congress.
Utterly disgustingly typical.
eemom
um, not to alarm anyone, but there is an actual insane person on this thread. Please move slowly towards the exits…..do not make eye contact……if attacked, roll over and play dead.
Shit. The LEAST Cole could do was lock the doors before he vanished on his drunken twitterating binge.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@eemom:
what is your list of demands?
bonkers
@Dee Loralei:
———–
Oh wow. Remind to never get on your bad side.
And that is it in a nutshell, isn’t it? Repubs and “true progressives” alike. No wonder they’re looking for ways to “join forces.”
Anya
@jwb: were her previous ramblings this lengthy or is she extra nutty tonight?
Omnes Omnibus
@signifyingmnky: Certifiable.
@eemom: Well, if there is one thing that can unify the obots and firebaggers, it might be a real live crazy person.
signifyingmnky
@Anya:
And then there’s that whole “secession” thing. That should play out real nice on the national stage.
Tom Q
@parsimon: You’re right, it’s a complicated enough conversation that it can be saved for another day. But The Readers’ Digest version of it would be: what the Tea Party is to today’s GOP, Reagan was to the GOP of the 70s — representative of a far more radical fringe than the party generally catered to.
Today, of course, there’s no one in the GOP who isn’t at least as conservative as Reagan…which is one of the reasons why Democrats have become considerably stronger at the presidential level, as many of those people either driven out or simply repelled by the right wing have allied themselves regularly with the Dems instead.
parsimon
@jwb: Agreed. I haven’t seen him in action.
And goodnight.
eemom
@bonkers:
omg. I remember lucraziak. One of that blue-ribbon panel of nobody assholes that Hamsher recruited to prove to the world how totally NEUTRAL she was about who won the primary. Like most of her former
castratiflunkies, he probably doesn’t have too many fond memories of his 15 minutes of pseudo-fame.Omnes Omnibus
@Anya: If memory serves, this is pretty typical. We should get accusations of masturbating to Holocaust pr0n soon. That one is my favorite.
mclaren
@signifyingmnky:
You’re not only a liar, you’re an ignorant liar.
Let’s look at what Barack Obama actually campaigned on.
Obama’s own words:
Source: Barack Obama, campaign speech 2008 as reported by the Boston Globe, 2008.
Got that, ignorant liar?
Obama claimed the goal of his policy was to fight Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Now let’s look at the documented facts about Al Qaeda in Afghanistan:
President Obama’s secret: Only 100 Al Qaeda Now in Afghanistan.
Source: ABC News report by Richard Esposito, Matthew Cole and Brian Ross, December 2, 2009.
C’mon, obots, explain to us why ABC News is lying. They’re making it all up! They’re saying stuff that isn’t true! Ignore ABC News! Ignore the Washington Post! Keep yelling about “what Obama campaigned on,” ignore all the facts, disregard all the evidence.
Keep it up, obots. Haven’t you realized yet that Barack Obama ordered the Pentagon to submit a plan for drawing down troops in Afghanistan precisely BECAUSE there are only 100 Al Qaeda left and Obama’s stated goals had already been accomplished by 2009?
Obama isn’t stupid. He can read the papers just as the rest of us can. Obama knows full well that the goals he campaigned on are already accomplished in Afghanistan. That’s why Obama ordered the U.S. military to submit a plan to leave.
But the national security state is now such a vast jobs programs, supplying such an enormous river of gold, that the U.S. military can’t withdraw from its heroin-like addiction to endless war.
C’mon, obots, explain to us that this makes me “crazy” and “cuckoo” and “nutso” and “insane.” When I cite these documented facts, I’m an insane person on a subway talking to the ants. ABC News? They must be insane too. Professor Bernard Finel of the National War College? He must be out of his mind as well. And that Marine Corps general who testified before congress, he’s also crazy.
See how it works?
Once you deny reality, obots, you go right over the edge. Pretty soon everyone else is “crazy”…except you.
Keep it up, obots. Within a couple of years, you’ll be as far out of reality as the Tea Party is now.
Anya
@Omnes Omnibus: In exchange for Marcus Backmann?
@signifyingmnky: If I recall, he only said that once, so he can easily get out of that insanity and the Village will not push hard. But the village will love the Jesus freak angle. Not to mention the innocent man he put to death.
mclaren
@eemom:
True enough. But signifyingmnky probably isn’t dangerous, and thus not worth worrying about.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anya:
Ha!
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: How’s about I just disavow both of them? I don’t have much of a stomach for closet cases. I “dated” enough of them in college.
(Yes I Cavuto marked dated. I’m aiming for discretion for once in my life.)
@mclaren: Vote for a Republican or your third party purity pony then. Otherwise stop with the fucking tl;drs that no one here is reading.
LoudounLib
Recent lurker, first time commenter…
eemom, bonkers – I think I know you from FDL. I came over here recently to escape the craziness, but I see there’s already some craziness here anyway (hello mclaren!) And bonkers, yes – p.lukasiak definitely reminds me of mclaren.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano:
Fine, but you still keep Roy Cohn.
ETA: I originally read your comment as disemvowelling both of them. It might be time to go to bed.
LoudounLib
Oh damn, stuck in moderation, prob’ly because I’m new around these parts.
jwb
@Anya: She wasn’t always so long- winded. Actually she reminds me a lot of m_c, who can become similarly long-winded when she gets riled up. They also both get similarly obsessed-although about quite different topics. Both are capable smart, quick cutting remarks as well.
mclaren
@Yutsano:
So it’s impossible to criticize a member of your own party, right?
Good thinking there, buckaroo. That’s why the Republicans wouldn’t criticize Dubya’s crazy invasion of Iraq and economy-destroying tax cuts. Anyone in the Republican party who pointed out that Dubya’s were destroying America got told “Vote for a Democrat or a third party purity pony then.”
Hey. Fool. This is a democracy. In a democracy, policy gets hammered out by people discussing alternatives and offereing criticism and suggestions.
If you don’t like that, emigrate to North Korea, where the only option is to salute the Great Leader or leave the country.
Yutsano
@mclaren: You’re not criticizing. You’re proselytizing. You’re trying to convince us that we should abandon Obama because he is WORSTEST PRESIDENT EVAR!! which has been your schtick for as long as I’ve been here. He won. Hillary lost. He will most likely win again. You’re not voting for him. I no longer care.
PS to the rest of the blog: I’m done with this fool now. I promise. Yubikiri.
Anya
@Yutsano: disavow all you want, but one or both is part of the team. I have a theory about Jesus (or god) freaks: 1) onset of mental illness; 2) running away from something (hidden desires that make you feel ashamed); 3) you’re grifting. Parry could be 2 and 3.
@jwb: Is it wrong of me to want them arguing with each other? Not tonight though.
Villago Delenda Est
@LoudounLib:
More likely you inadvertently triggered the WordPress moderation routine, by using a word with a forbidden string that is a trademark for male enhancement drugs, that is, boner pills.
Yutsano
@Anya: It’s most likely both. I’m never lucky enough for it not to be, especially with the rather strong rumor mill that has surrounded Goodhair for this long. Smoke and fire and all that.
From what I’ve noticed they’ve tended to ignore each other, which is kind of a shame. Of course maybe we should mention mclaren is also a glibertarian. That would do it.
Anya
Good night/morning
eemom
@LoudounLib:
oh, LL, how great to see you again! Yes, I am oddmommy of yore, waving to you once again across the county line. How the hell are ya?
LoudounLib
@Villago, that’s a possibility too but I’m not sure which word may have done it. Thanks though! I’m so new that I don’t know how to do that fancy reply thingee yet.
LoudounLib
@eemom: Yay, I thought that was you! I’m good, thanks, I just retired in May, very happy. How are you good neighbor?
eemom
@LoudounLib:
doing all right, except for the rest of the world being fucked up.
Was driving through your neck of the woods recently, on the way back from Dulles. My daughter, now 16, came back from a month in Spain!
hey, I think we are both FB friends of the erstwhile TRex. Lemme see if I can find you over there…..
Have you gotten some new kitties yet?
Villago Delenda Est
@Unreality Check:
If this were actually true, the teabagger movement would have been formed sometime during the first term of the deserting coward, who turned a surplus into a deficit and exploded the national debt line no other President since, um, Ronald Reagan.
But, amazingly, it seems to have been born a few moments after 8PM PST on 4 November 2008, when John McCain conceded that Presidential election to Barack Obama.
Funny, that.
LoudounLib
@eemom: You found me :-)
Wow, your daughter must have had a great time – a month in Spain, that is excellent! It’s nice for kids to have that experience and see some of the outside world.
Yes I have a kitty again – adopted a very sweet adult kitty back in the spring of ’09, and there are pics at my FB. She is a hoot. Driving me crazy at the moment because she has decreed it’s time for bed!
boss bitch
@Anya:
oh man, how did I forget that dreadful period?
bonkers
@LoudounLib:
Yes, I remember well! Hope you’re good. I slowly started drifting from that aforementioned place and eventually stopped going altogether a year or two ago. Held on for a bit with the “funny guy” section, but The Sickness has seemed to take over there too, so probably gone for good.
Turning it into a positive…I learned a lot from that transformation. I had been a really early “regular” there, and it was so weird to me how so many people I respected turned out to be so, shall we say, insane? I used to have friendly debates with Al Giordano of NarcoNews.com, where I’d say it was important to challenge politicians from the Left and that’s what happens with a lot of these “progressive” blogs. He’d argue that in theory that’s true, but you have to be careful who you align yourself with and that people over “there” “are not Leftists at all…”They will undermine any real progress that’s made. They are the last people I want in a foxhole with me, and you’re wasting your time with them.” (paraphrasing).
I used to disagree with Al. Now I don’t. I’m pretty infrequent here too, and I’m beginning to think it’s not much better (the above post as Exhibit #2,322).
Online stuff has its place and benefits, but really, the real meat-and-potatahs of making real Change in the world is getting active locally as much as possible, so I’ve spent less and less time online. Plus, I only found “blogs” during a period of having little babies at home, and blogs were nice when having to stay up all night sleep-deprived. The kids sleep now (and so do I…ha!)
So good to see you again. Not sure of your own opinions on things, but I find some of the “pro-Obama blogs” to be good places to visit, even though I don’t always agree with everything. There at least seems to be a good sense of honest discussion, and as President Barack Hussein Obama always says, “There’s a lot more that binds us than divides us.” So true.
bonkers
Cool! oddmommy too! Rock on.
bonkers
@boss bitch:
Huh? It was over after South Carolina. It was quite clear then that Hillary should’ve dropped out. That’s just a simple fact, or do you want to blame that one on Howard Dean too, since he was head of the DNC at the time?
To suggest that Barack Hussein Obama was part of the DNC Machine and Hillary Clinton wasn’t, is simply….laughable.
LoudounLib
@bonkers: I am so with you, and I am definitely pro-Obama. Obviously that’s what’s turned me off from the “other place”. I really don’t comment a whole lot on the blogs, but I do still like to read peoples’ opinions; this place seems to be more friendly to Obama supporters from what I can see so far.
Now that I’m retired I have more time to devote to causes I believe in, and I’ll be looking into some local involvement for sure. My union is very active and they have lots of opportunities around the primaries and such.
Good to see you again!
Mnemosyne
@bonkers:
I think boss bitch is referring to the nasty Obots vs. Hillbots fight where Hillbots insisted that not allowing the votes from Michigan and Florida was somehow discriminatory even though those two states had held their primaries knowing perfectly well that they had broken the rules and their votes would not be counted. It got very, very ugly.
bonkers
@LoudounLib:
Excellent. Congrats on the retirement and can’t wait to see what you do with your new-found “free-time!”
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: The naional party didn’t help themselves here. They initially said they wouldn’t count them, then they hedged, then they said yes, then no again, then some weird counting formula came about that in the end didn’t matter.
Also: didn’t Obama end up winning one of the two anyway?
Mnemosyne
I love that mclaren is back to her old form and not hiding behind a sockpuppet anymore. Nothing cracks me up more than her straight-faced insistence that two completely contradictory beliefs are both true, so therefore the Christian Science Monitor proves that Obama wanted to ramp up and draw down in Afghanistan at the same time.
Another mclaren classic.
LoudounLib
@Mnemosyne: Oh ghod, I’d almost forgotten about all that mess. Please, please let 2012 be as controversy-free as possible.
Yutsano
@LoudounLib: Well so far there’s nothing approaching a serious challenge anywhere on the horizon for Obama, so we’re lucking out on that point. The Republican clown show just gets more entertaining by the day though. Popcorn futures have never looked brighter.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne:
That was pretty ugly, and it has a lot to do with asshats in Iowa and New Hampshire insisting that their piddly ass little states get first shot at Presidential politics.
But Hillary’s major problem was having a bunch of advisers who apparently learned how to use calculators with McMegan, and couldn’t figure out how many delegates they needed to win.
LoudounLib
@Yutsano: ‘Zackly.
bonkers
@Mnemosyne:
Ah yes. I remember that. An apparent Night Ranger fan was getting a lot of attention then. Sing it, Sister Christian:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5unWHvq9ysI
Funny thing about Harriet Christian. Jane Hamsher was the one who shot the video, and I used to use the link from the FDL YouTube page, but it eventually disappeared from the FDL YouTube page (why is that? It was their most viewed video by far). But, it’s worked out better, because now we can see, using a different link, Sister Christian saying to Neal Cavuto that she’ll vote for McCain over even an Obama/Clinton ticket as she talkes about “the Black.” Not kidding…watch for yourself.
I beg any actual Democrat with a conscience to watch the link I posted above. It explains everything about what we’re facing right now and into 2012. Choose your side.
LoudounLib
Well good night, old and new friends. Glad to be here amongst a different crowd. I’m not as eloquent as most people around here, but I will sure try to contribute when and how I can.
Mnemosyne
@Villago Delenda Est:
I think her advisors thought that she would win by such a convincing margin in the other contests that they wouldn’t need the Michigan and Florida votes, and then had to desperately backtrack and try to argue that they were valid when they realized that their campaign sucked.
I think Hillary Clinton has been a very good Secretary of State. Based on her staffing decisions in 2008, I think she would have been a lousy president. Obama’s biggest mistake was staffing the White House with old-time Clintonistas like Lawrence Summers.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@eemom:
Ahh yes, that crazy-assed p.huckstain. mclaren and p.huckstain do have the same kind of long-winded rants that sound much the same so it wouldn’t be surprising…
Hillbot to the bitter end, that was p.huckstain.
bob h
I tend to see these candidates as sinkholes for Citizens United/Crossroads GPA/Koch Brothers/Chamber of Commerce filthy money, and the more of them there are, the merrier.
Keith G
Just got up so have not read 400 comments as I get ready for work.
I will note that a few of us have been saying for a few months now that Romney is older, wiser, and much more able to put together the type of campaign that can over come his weaknesses. An he will be running against the man most hated by the Right in..well..forever. They will eventually swallow hard and get behind Mittens.
Romney is the one Republican who can beat Obama and the is a large chance that he will.
Lesley
@jwb: I’m a Canadian. Watching your country in disbelief. I feel sorry for you, I really do. Obama had the power in 2009 to raise taxes on the rich and corporations and he didn’t. He has been weak on nearly every single issue. I’m not an FDL follower (just TBogg) so you can think what you like, but Obama is not the guy who campaigned. I supported that guy. Very much. He is not that guy.
chopper
@Reality Check:
i’m loling. yeah, the GOP is going to completely forget about social issues and nominate an abortionist.
Lesley
@signifyingmnky: Yes I do have a clue and so do many other liberals who are disillusioned with the Democrats. There are plenty of us who are pissed off.
I live in Canada and even though our wingnuts are not as crazy as yours, the Liberal Party here behaved much like Obama (caving, compromising, being a wuss) and they not only lost the last election but dozens of seats. For the first time in their history they didn’t just fail to become the leading party, they failed to become the official opposition. The left of centre party (NDP) – the party that has stood by their principles – is now the official opposition. For the first time in their history. So even though wingnut assholes are in charge, the opposition is not what they expected. I’m happy about it. So are a lot of other liberals. Because our Liberal Party has let us down too many times and for too many years, pushing us further and further right. We don’t want to end up like the United States with two rightwing parties, one more right than the other. That’s the situation you’re in.
Lesley
@Keith G: That’s frightening. Horrifying. Ugh.
Lesley
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Read down, several of them want to pie me in the face. :)
Liberals who are very obviously BLIND.
Samara Morgan
Look DougJ.
Romney is a MORMON. The Amarican electorate will votefor scientologist for president before electing a mormon.
Religion is causing the Fall of the American Empire.
Both the RELIGOUS Republican party and the uninvable cultural strategy of Islam.
The GOP is near wholly white conservative christian nativists that believed with all their hard christofascists little hearts that ever one in the world is a crytpo christian if they could just bring them the Jeebus Word.
But, Islam is IMMUNE to the Jeebus Word.
So that is why America spent 4.4 trillion dollars FOR FUCKING NOTHING.
to make MOAR people hate us.
religion is one of the most powerful things in the world.
i know it interfers with your kumbayah we are just the same libertarian chat roul3tte circle jerk, but tant pis.
General Stuck
@Lesley:
Self described liberal democrats in this country give Obama very high approval numbers. So you are full of shit with the “wussy” “no balls” charge on Obama. Sounds like you have the same problem a lot of our progressives have, a case of Obama Derangement Syndrome. And almost everything you state as true about Obama is false, except that he “talks” a lot about biparisanship and invites the winger over to the WH often for tea and crumpets, but they leave with nothing much of substance from Obama.
The Bush tax cuts couldn’t be separated, so Obama choose to extend them all so as to keep the ones for the middle class like he promised in his campaign. You can be disappointed in that, but not claiming he didn’t keep a campaign promise, the one that benefited the non rich. And also like some of our libs, you care more about sticking it to the rich than helping the non rich. When the only chance is to keep the tax cuts for all.
As far as your emasculating rhetoric of “no balls” or “wussie” toward Obama, please go straight to hell for that.
Bad ass Canuck. LOL
wrb
But will those voters vote for a black man over a Mormon?
I think Mormon thing might cost Romney the primary, but if he survives that, he has a good chance in the general.
JonF
@mclaren: As compared to Bachmann, Palin et al: he’s the only one with any sort of economic background that could play to voters(but I doubt it would be a good message for him).
suzanne
@mclaren:
No, it’s because you’re an irritating blowhard.
The Worst Person In the World
mclaren rocks.
And, as a bonus, is highly accurate and source-based.
So naturally, Obots loathe him/her.
Peter Longrod
Nice hypocripalooza. Where were the Catholics? Where were the rest of the religions which collectively comprise the majority of the Americans?
Anya
@Lesley: Your understanding of your own country’s political system seems limited. So, instead of obsessing over President Obama’s balls, do more reading about your own political system, so that you come up with an improved analysis and a better comparison.
shortstop
@Keith G: I’m a Keith G. fan from way back on more than one blog, but he and I do not always agree on our assessment of Obama’s performance and the options open to him. Having said that, I think Keith has a much clearer grasp of Romney’s chances and the tribal realities than do most people on this and other Dem blogs. If Romney can get through the primaries, the Mormon thing is just not going to outweigh the right’s diehard hatred of Obama and of anything perceived as librul (combined with the low-info “independent” brigade’s patented “This isn’t working; let’s try something else” routine) in the general. The evangelical/fundie corps will absolutely get in line in the end, and it’s not going to be that hard for Romney to snag the low-info middle.
I think the nomination goes to Romney and it’s a two-point election that follows an absolutely blood-soaked campaign. Who wins by two points in the PV and what will the EV breakdown be? I’m not sure yet.
Corner Stone
@shortstop: So, you’re agreeing with me then?
Corner Stone
@KG: Sorry, KG. I glossed over this last night as I was scarfing fried foods from Chili’s.
I’ll put together a couple points, but my baseline is the roughly 23 to 10 advantage the R’s have in defending fewer seats. And the 2012 Obama coattails just aren’t going to be as long this time round. IMO, Claire in MO, and Tester in MT are done, and Manchin will flip to R.
Hatch will be replaced by a wingnut R, AZ and TX are both reliable R seats, and Snowe will retain her seat.
VA, NM and ND are all tossups, IMO. And who knows about crazy ass Wiscy any more?
Who’s going to run against Scott Brown?
Keith G
@shortstop: The thing is, I admire Obama greatly and want him to be one of “those” presidents who are revered years later. When a mix up in communications left me high and dry, I had to jog one mile down Westheimer Rd near downtown Houston to get to my precinct meeting (March4, 08) on time so my vote could be cast on choosing an Obama delegate to the convention.
Keith G
@Corner Stone: What coat tails?
But you want to think about scary shit: I was just gaming out with a coworker what our national governance would look like with a Romney win (which I feel would mean all of Congress would be GOP).
Who would wear the pants in that dysfunctional family? How could Romney exercise any control over the radicals calling the shots on the other end of PA Avenue?
Corner Stone
@Corner Stone:
Ha! Learn it, love it, live it.
“”We’re already taking our share of the discretionary cuts as part of this debt-ceiling agreement, and those are going to be tough enough,” Panetta told reporters at the Pentagon Thursday. “I think anything beyond that would damage our national defense.”
He said savings need to come from entitlement programs and from higher taxes — not further defense cuts. In effect, that puts the six Democrats who will soon be appointed to the committee on notice: don’t screw around with this.”
Panetta
Lesley
@Anya: Who is trolling now.
shortstop
@Keith G: I remember. I wish we had video. ;)