Just checked memeorandum, and it looks like we are going to be spending the next couple weeks (and with the GOP’s history of success infusing bullshit into the political discussion, the next couple of decades) discussing this:
Here’s how it works- Obama says something, Republicans completely lie about it, the media notes the lie is catching on without ever actually calling it a lie, the Democrats have to waste resources and respond to the lie, Republicans double down, this sucks the life out of everything else for a couple week, and in ten years this will be conventional wisdom that Obama called Americans lazy, just like Al Gore claimed to invent the internet and the rest of the bullshit that wingnuts have adopted as received truths (snow in November refutes climate change, the more you cut taxes the more government revenue you raise, if a bombing campaign does not make people like you it means you didn’t bomb hard enough or your targeting was off, liberals lost Viet Nam, waterboarding isn’t torture, etc).
We’re so fucked as a nation.
geg6
Actually, I saw two network news reports about this and they reported it correctly. Can’t say I wasn’t shocked. And can’t say I’ll be shocked if they change their reporting, either.
Paul W.
Well, it’s either this or talk about how our nation is going to go broke because we can’t raise taxes. The super committee is going to blow up with nary a single iota of blame laid at the Republican’s feet… because, you see, its the Democrats fault for wanting to pay for things that we like rather than just cutting those that don’t apply to us personally.
Xenos
Reproductive fitness does not necessarily line up with ‘success’ or with the recognition of truth. For social primates like us, reproductive fitness means integrating with the hierarchy to grab the most resources possible. Reality is for the beta- and gamma-males looking to sneak something in, or for a way to wreck the hierarchy by encouraging them to follow the testosterone-poisoned leaders into a sabre-tooth tiger ambush.
handy
What,
Obama said something and theRepublicans are poutraged? Say it isn’t so.Samara Morgan
AceofSpades and AL heartthrob Dave Weigel are already having a twitter war over the definition of “soft”.
AceofSpadesHQ Ace of Spades
…this statement that Americans have gotten a little soft over past decades. He’s comfortable with his false report. weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-am…
7 minutes ago
AceofSpadesHQ Ace of Spades
the hack @daveweigel claims Obama’s statement that americans have gotten lazy over the past several decades is v. different than…
8 minutes ago
daveweigel daveweigel
by AceofSpadesHQ@
@AceofSpadesHQ I just don’t get your point. Obama said something at one event, then something different at another event.
14 minutes ago
daveweigel daveweigel
by AceofSpadesHQ@
@AceofSpadesHQ Different situations, audiences, words. Otherwise identical.
10 minutes ago
AceofSpadesHQ Ace of Spades
Jesus Christ you’re a goddamned arrogant lying partisan shit, aren’t you? I’ll just rt your claims, @daveweigel.
9 minutes ago
dmsilev
From what I read about this “controversy”, most of the media coverage was reasonable in calling out the GOP as a bunch of liars, but (surprise!) Politico took a “balanced” he said/she said “Shape of the world? Opinions differ” approach.
Linda Featheringill
At OWS NYC as seen on a livestream, there was video of a female police person that was cute and reminded me of the Beatles’ Rita, the meter maid. Koo-koo-ka-choo.
Other than that, the folks seem to be hanging in there.
http://www.ustream.tv/theother99
schrodinger's cat
OT just for you and DougJ
Andrew Sullivan fluffing
ETA: Yes things are bad here but compared to the rest of the world, not so bad actually. The tragedy is that most of our problems are self inflicted (or should I say
Republican inflicted) and avoidable.
Chyron HR
I’m outraged!
P.S. I am the 53%, get a job you parasites.
Mnemosyne
@Xenos:
It apparently took primatologists decades (and, eventually, DNA tests for the holdouts) to believe that the “alpha male” in a particular troop is not actually fathering all of the baby chimpanzees/gorillas/orangutans. A lot of times, while the alphas and alpha-wannabees are fighting, the beta and gamma males are sneaking off into the bushes with the females who just wanna get laid.
Samara Morgan
@Xenos: correct. the selfish genes code for three things– reproduction, survival, and death.
“success” is measured by how many reps survive to reproduce.
Bludger
ZOMG ITZ CATCHING FIRE!!!!1!!1!!
This one is pretty weak IMO and quite a few MSM stories have already debunked it. Plus, Perry is just throwing shit out there in a desperate attempt to stay relevant. Even the teatards are realizing the hopelessness of the Perry candidacy.
schrodinger's cat
BTW does anyone have any experience with Direct TV are they any good? How is the customer service.
Hunter Gathers
@schrodinger’s cat: Well, if I ever feel the need to commit suicide, I’m fairly certain that article would push me over the edge. Sweet Jeebus, what an insufferable prick.
Morbo
@Samara Morgan: Is that exchange available in a format that people can actually read?
fasteddie9318
Wow, Ace of Spades and Dave Weigel in a twitting fight?
That sounds about right, actually.
OzoneR
This wouldn’t happen if Obama would just use the bully pulpit.
fasteddie9318
@Morbo: You can follow their twits on Twitter itself, but it won’t make them seem any more profound.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Bludger:
And therein lies the potential for laughs… ’cause Perry doesn’t get it yet… and until he does, he’s gonna be a comedy gold mine…
redshirt
I heard they found them WMD’s in Iraq and they moved them to Syria and Al Qaeda was behind it and Saddam was paying for Iranians to blow up Jews and as a ZIONIST I’m against all of it!
inkadu
You forgot to mention that Bill Clinton passed up an opportunity to kill Osama bin Laden because of his political cowardice.
redshirt
@inkadu: Yeah, OBL was handed to Clinton on a “silver platter”. The use of the phrase “silver platter” has always accompanied this meme since its creation.
Which is so hilarious since when Clinton was actually trying to kill OBL the Rethugs were screaming “WAG THE DOG!”.
Dog, I hate them so.
Villago Delenda Est
@redshirt:
OK, back slowly away from the bong…
Svensker
@schrodinger’s cat:
Hard to get through to customer service in my experience. We mostly had no problems with the dish except when we did — then you lose everything, TV internet and phone. Didn’t happen very often but often enough that when Verizon came around offering FIOS we jumped on it.
Ask around you neighbors to see how reliable they are in your area.
Bludger
@fasteddie9318:
Ace’s Twitter page is hilarious…
The Dangerman
@schrodinger’s cat:
No memorable experiences with their customer service.
Liked Direct TV except for when it rained really hard, which attenuated the signal to full service loss.
taylormattd
John, you forgot two key ingredient to the circle-jerk clusterfuck:
– “democratic” or “left-wing” concern troll talking heads go on Fox News, CNN, NBC, and NPR to talk about how it is deeply troubling that the Administration didn’t get in front of the narrative;
– “left” blogs go batshit about how incompetent Obama, the Democrats in general, and the White House press staff is for not simply bullypulpitrefuting the story.
Samara Morgan
@Bludger: it is.
i think Ace is going to stroke out.
have you ever seen a picture?
hes kind of heavy.
my favorite conservative twitter feeds are ace, protein wisdom and allahpundit.
sometimes i get the hiccups from laffing so hard.
redshirt
@Villago Delenda Est: I wish!
Libby's person
@schrodinger’s cat:
We liked DirectTV well enough. We just switched to TimeWarner Cable, but not because of Direct TV. (Our internet service got sold to Frontier, a totally incompetent company – we endured 2 months of frequent outages and the worst customer service experiences we’ve ever had before chucking the whole thing and switching internet, phone, and TV.) We do get a few more channels in the Basic package on TimeWarner than we did with DirectTV, and we aren’t experiencing weather-related glitches, so we’re happy we switched. But we weren’t unhappy with DirectTV.
Calouste
Cain goes the full Palin: “We need a leader, not a reader.”
harlana
Um, can I have a link to all those stories in the screenshot, cuz y’know, i’m lazy and stuff
Brachiator
@Xenos:
No such thing as “testosterone poisoned.” Talking “Truth” and biological processes is mixing apples and rhinoceros horns.
@Mnemosyne:
The entire idea of alpha males is faulty, especially when describing higher primates. While gorillas mostly gather females into a harem, male chimps rarely can successfully comandeer females for any length of time. This is why, sadly, male chimps expediently kill the offspring of a female that is not theirs.
Orangs don’t care. Adults are solitary. Males will mate with the females who enter their territory.
But it is a verifiable true fact that Republicans lie all the time. They especially love to vocalize when Obama is on a foreign trip where the foreign media clearly show that Obama is admired and respected.
Like here, for example. Obama with the Australian prime minister.
RobertB
I’ll second/third/whatever the general DirecTV consensus. It’s sometimes hard to get through to a real live human being in DirecTV Customer Service, but they’ve been effective for me once they got on the case.
A bad rainstorm/snowstorm will knock out the dish, and if there’s an ice storm you’ll be out there scraping the ice off if you want it to work.
It seems a little pricey for what you get, but not insanely so. And if you’re out in the sticks where the cable doesn’t go, your choices are DirecTV and Dish.
Tractarian
There’s your first mistake.
You’ll be surprised how much happier and optimistic you become if you follow these three simple rules: Don’t read Memeorandum, don’t read Politico, and don’t read Drudge.
Your blood pressure will thank you. And you’ll get a more accurate picture of the world, to boot.
Steve M.
Well, a million occurrences of this haven’t made the mainstream press see a pattern — but hey, maybe by the billionth occurrence they’ll notice!
Mayur
@Calouste: What? Cain’s quoting President Rainier Wolfcastle now?
Steve M.
@Tractarian: For that to work, you’d need a fourth rule: Don’t live in America.
cathyx
My fed up with the world meter is in the red zone. I can’t stand anyone or anything right now. Not good going into the Christmas season.
gnomedad
@schrodinger’s cat:
Jeebus, Sully has a staff of five??
kay
If the Republican candidates have a bad couple of weeks (and they had a very bad couple of weeks) and Obama has a good couple of weeks, we have to make it even-steven, or it isn’t fair.
I think they have to invent three or four more things after this thing (there are a lot of horrible Republican Presidential candidates) and then the playing field will be level, and we can start all over again.
geg6
@kay:
Exhibit A: http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/11/cain-we-need-a-leader-not-a-reader.php?ref=fpa
Exhibit B: http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/11/rick-perry-obama-never-had-to-work-for-anything.php?ref=fpblg
These people truly are as dumb as rocks.
Chris
@Calouste:
Is that supposed to be a teleprompter reference?
Funny coming from the guy who has to ask his own interviewer what position Obama took on Libya before he could say whether he agreed with it or not.
gnomedad
The complete critical thinking toolkit of these guys consists of:
*If it’s about Obama or liberals and it’s bad, then it’s true.
driftglass
Once we perfect our “Shooting Mainstream Media Screwheads into the Sun in Large Numbers” technology, the problem will pretty much fix itself.
schrodinger's cat
@gnomedad: I only read one page. I got bored.
artem1s
@Brachiator:
man, talk about a GOP made for TV nightmare. A black man in the White House cavorting with white wimenz PMs (notice how there was no Merkel shudder there!) Wonder if that qualifies as torture in their book?
Chris
@Brachiator:
You would think the opinions of foreigners wouldn’t matter to people who hold them in such contempt, what with the whole “American exceptionalism” and all that… but it turns out that it matters a whole hell of a lot.
See also the pathological need for them to see “gratitude” from the Iraqis, even as they lambasted them as stupid, savage, uncivilized animals.
dmsilev
@Chris: And the truly hilarious thing about that episode is the lesson that Cain apparently learned. Not “do your homework before being interviewed, or indeed before running for President.” No, the lesson learned is don’t let newspapers video your meeting with them, and if that doesn’t work, blow off the interview entirely.
Though you truly have to admire the response from the paper when Cain didn’t show up:
How long until we learn that the entire GOP Presidential campaign is an elaborate joke by a team of professional comedians?
jafg
Let me add a couple for you Cole
jafg
Let me add a couple for you Cole.
*Idiot voters like you believe the GOPers lies and vote for Bush
*After 4 years of continuous lies you go and vote for Bush again.
So can you blame GOPers for continuously doing this? Seems to be working quite well.
Blame the idiot voters such as yourself. If it wasn’t for people like you most of the current crop of GOPers would be selling cars or delivering pizzas.
Chris
@dmsilev:
FTFY!
The Moar You Know
@Calouste: It was inevitable, wasn’t it? He really is the same shit on a different plate, despite the protests of some.
Another Bob
Why do Democrats always seem to be playing defense? Why can’t they go after the Republicans and give them hell too? For example, they had them by the balls when Paul Ryan came out with his stupid Medicare voucher plan, so why haven’t they been beating the Republicans with that stick every week for the past 6 months? Hell, they wouldn’t even have to make up lies like the Republicans do; they’ve got more than enough ammunition just telling the truth.
lou
This morning, on the local Channel 8 news, which always features a Politico reporter being smarmy, they talked about it and pointed out the context. Then the Politico reporter said something along the lines of: “he should have known better than use such terminology because of course the Republicans are going to seize on it.”
I really detest Politico. The only thing that can be said about it is it leached some pretty bad political reporters away from the Washington Post. Of course,their replacements haven’t been any better.
Carolinus
The most idiotic part of this is that, unlike Obama, the GOP does call Americans lazy (and much worse) all the time, and no-one bats an eye: “welfare queens” in Cadillacs, “union thugs” mooching off the system, “climate-gate scientists” manufacturing data to get undeserved grants, minority farmers & the Pigford settlement, etc. Their grievance politics depends on constantly disparaging huge swaths of the nation.
R. Porrofatto
Jesus. It’s like this is the movie review:
And this is the pull-quote.
When you think they couldn’t be more dishonest, they prove you wrong every time.
Chris
@Carolinus:
Sure, but as long as it’s “someone else” that’s perceived as getting insulted, it’s all good.
Mayur
@Chris: I assumed it was a reference to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9f1TYyvEx8
David Koch
Meh.
How is this nonsense any different that the usual suspects on the left who are peddling the conspiracy theory that Obama ordered Bloomberg to clean out OWS?
Chris
@Mayur:
Ahhhh.
That’s what I get for not watching the Simpsons…
gelfling545
@schrodinger’s cat: I’ve had them for 4 years with no particular problems so I don;t have to use customer service much. The few times I have it’s been ok. I guess not NEEDING customer service is a pretty good situation.
maya
Next time Obama should say that America is “a little bit crazy” and leave it at that.
Who knew Reagan emptying out the mental wards of the nation 30 years ago would be paying such big dividends for the GOP today.
Cluttered Mind
But it’s totally okay to call America a nation of whiners, so long as it’s a Republican who says it.
Bill in Section 147
Republicans call us lazy all the time.
I am so not ever going to pick lettuce for $50 bucks an hour…
Cuppa Cabana
Not for nothing but the graphic Cole used for this post is kinda stoopid. Every organism alive today is the “result of 4 billion years of evolutionary “success,” including slugs, pond scum, and dumbasses.
Bill in Section 147
@David Koch: Wait until you read about 50+ righty posts and comments about how the lazy quote is ridiculous then you might have something.
There are a few hundred people on the left who make comments like yours, and a lot of bloggers who called it bullshit but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for redstate to have a frontpage “Obama did not call Americans lazy” headline.
Bill in Section 147
@Cuppa Cabana: Yeah but 25% of the slugs aren’t yelling, “MORE SALT!”
t jasper parnell
@Bill in Section 147: This.
Cluttered Mind
@Bill in Section 147: That’s 27%
Sir Nose'D
Here is how it works. You all know the quote:
This is a butchered version of the “OODA Loop” (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act Loop) theory of conflict advanced by Col. John Boyd (a brilliant strategist and fighter pilot). The details are simple, you can even read a cliff notes version of it in fast company The trick, though, the thing that make it work, is to recognize your opponent is using the same process. You defeat your opponent by anticipating their OODA loop and moving faster than they do. I’m simplifying here–the Col. would insist you receive the full 8-hour briefing for you to understand the nuances. But this is exactly how the GOP Outrage Du Jour operates. It is *never* about the issue raised. It is always designed to keep the Democrats reacting and not getting anything productive done. The masses get their red meat for the two minutes hate, and the donations work in. It may not be a strategy honed by 4 billion years of evolution (actually, probably only 3.9 billion, but who’s counting?). But as far as strategy goes, it is brilliant and effective. It won’t change until Democrats begin to use military strategy to fight electoral campaigns–just as the GOP has been doing at least since the Nixon years.
Caz
Then move, you negative jerk. I’m sure China would accept you. You’ll love it there – the govt runs everything and you don’t have to worry about rich people or making decisions for yourself. The govt does all the good stuff it’s supposed to do. We won’t miss you, trust me.
RalfW
The obvious solution ~ I’m not kidding here ~ is to build our own lie/noise machine. We’ve tried to be the good guys too f*king long.
Actually, we don’t need to lie. They say and do the most insane things. Any time the GOP issues a lie, we say “Newt Gingrich = $1.6 from Freddie Mac” or whatever.
We have plenty of ammo. Don’t answer their questions. Attack. Again.
And again.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@schrodinger’s cat:
I’ve never had any trouble getting through to customer service. They do run you through a voice-response troubleshooting tree before you get to a live person. Our local (Raleigh NC) tech contractor gave me a direct number after the time our roofer dropped something on the dish.
schrodinger's cat
@Svensker,The Dangerman, Libby’s person, gelfling545, Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Thanks guys! That was really helpful.
schrodinger's cat
@Svensker,The Dangerman, Libby’s person, gelfling545, Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Thanks guys! That was really helpful.
JGabriel
Are we really calling the first 3 billion plus years as single-celled organisms “success”? ‘Cause it seems like it took a long fuckin’ time to get past that single cell stage.
.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
“Are we really calling the first 3 billion plus years as single-celled organisms “success”? ‘Cause it seems like it took a long fuckin’ time to get past that single cell stage.”
Given the biomass of bacteria, archaea, and single cell eurkayotes dwarfs that of multi-cell eurkaryotes, and that in fact there’s ten times more bacterial DNA in the bacteria right now in your body than your human DNA, I’d say the single-celled organisms are very successful, more so than those weirdo multi-cellular creatures.
And bacteria (and archaea) share DNA like you wouldn’t believe.
TenguPhule
Caz, get the hell off my lawn. Bosnia is eagerly waiting your wit, and delicious roastable flesh. Do some good, feed the poor.