I’ve met a lot of local journalists and I’ve generally been impressed with them. But there’s no way around it: there’s a lot of losers — the kind of intellectual mediocrities our “top” universities produce too many of — at the Times and the Post and other elite outlets, way more than there should be given that everyone there makes at least three times what most people at free weeklies and local news stations make.
So I think that the Times ombudsman isn’t trying to dog whistle to the right here, he’s just a fucking idiot, repeating phrases he’s heard before. Monkey see, monkey do:
Readers deserve to know: Who is the real Barack Obama?
Maybe I’m giving this shithead too much credit.
TheMightyTrowel
I vote evil AND stupid.
Corner Stone
WELLLL??
4tehlulz
Mitt will be openly calling for a lynching by July 4.
I wish I was joking.
Allan
Who is the real Arthur Brisbane? Can we trust him? Has he eaten dog meat? Where’s his birth certificate?
Baud
He probably heard some GOPer ask that question at a swanky cocktail party and thought repeating it in the Times would make him seem edgy.
Narcissus
I’d really enjoy it if Anonymous and the chan kids turned their energies onto the village-media complex.
What I’m saying is imagine what it’d be like to read all their e-mails.
Silver
You know, I’m kind of coming around to Ann Coulter’s point of view that it would have been nice if a jet hit the NYT building on 9/11, because I wouldn’t have to read stupid fucking shit like this and flip back a page to marvel that the masthead says, “New York Times”.
And really, al-Qaeda flipping a Boeing through Judith Miller’s forehead is really just an application of the Bush and Cheney foreign policy doctrine, isn’t it?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
FTFY
Sly
Let’s hope he’s not as bad as a “truth vigilante.”
Spaghetti Lee
I don’t get the whole ‘vettening’ thing, to be honest. The guy has been a national figure going on 5 years now. What earth-shattering, mind-blowing thing is there that hasn’t been uncovered? I mean, the rightosphere has been doing this whole stupid ‘who is the REAAAALLLL Barack Obama!?!?!” thing in high gear for a few months now, and they’ve found that he hugged Derrick Bell in 1990, and ate cooked dog meat in 1968. Do they somehow think they’ll have better luck now?
As for this assclown, I’ll agree with what Baud said in the last thread: this is his audition tape for becoming a Serious Public Intellectual at TNR, WSJ, or WaPo. When the people who read the Times specifically to avoid this sort of crap complain, that’s his ‘angers liberals as well and conservatives’ and ‘challenges the assumptions of his readership boxes’ checked, two-for-one. I guess he’s decided that an editorial column there is better than an ombudsman slot at the NYT. Nothing wrong with wanting a new job, I just wish it didn’t require pouring several pounds of sludge into the public square.
Southern Beale
I think they’re setting up for another go-around on the “Obama hasn’t been vetted” train.
Bruce S
Yeah, he’s got a long way to go before he makes it up to “shithead.”
Reading this crap I have to ask, what is the REAL New York Times? Needs more vetting.
Brian R.
Yeah, it’s high time someone ask tough questions about just who Obama is.
And once we’ve done that, we should get busy inventing television and the internet.
General Stuck
Given the fact that Obama has been president going on 4 years now, I would say yes to the question. The wingnuts and their allies in the media had their shot at swiftboating Obama in 2008, and unless there is some stunning new information out there that was missed, and that is serious enough to overcome the power of voters seeing Obama in action as POTUS for an extended time period, it will only make them look like fools. Which is rightfully what most citizens think of the media these days.
When you look at the polling for the past 4 years, Obama’s approval has remained remarkably steady, no matter what the recent news. So this election will be about those few million swing voters, and mostly all about GOTV efforts by both sides to win the day.
We are pretty much a country divided sharply, by the same geographic regions and world view situation that has largely remained since the founding.
lamh35
Seriously, WTF is the NYT trying to impress with this shit. I’m assuming here, cause I”m not a subscriber and NEVER will be with shit like this, but is the NYT readership really gonna appreciate this BS.
isn’t the newspaper industry suffering, shouldn’t NYT want to keep loyal subscribers. How many new subscribers does the NYT think they’ll get from this shit, not enough to offset the loss of loyal readers.
ETA: What’s the over/under on who’s gonna be the first one to add “even the liberal NYT says…” my money’s on Palin or R-Money
handy
@Corner Stone:
The answer in this case won’t be, “He’s a center-right politician working for the moneyed elite who has done littIe to differentiate himself from his predecessor in his regard of executive power and civil liberties.” I don’t think they NYT wants to lead its readers down that path.
Baud
So what does that say about the quality of the reporting at the NYT that its readers don’t know who the real Obama is after 5 years in the national spotlight?
tofubo
“Who is the real Barack Obama?”
the best republican president we’ve had since clinton
Suffern ACE
Heard about Jeremiah Wright 4 years ago and it didn’t matter. What they’re trying to prevent is the goreing of Romney. He hasnt done anything swift boat able, unless there is something in that successful business career that would make private equity look bad.
JGabriel
Great. Now, from here to eternity, wingnuts will cry, “Even the liberal New York Times said Obama wasn’t vetted enough!”
.
mk3872
The “REAL” Obama ??
You mean there is another Obama other than one who’s been under the microscope as the leader of the USA for the past 3+ years ??
gaz
President Barack Obama has been President for nearly 4 fucking years.
Four. fucking. years.
Brisbane has got to be the most uninformed, detached moron in the entire country.
Based on the simple and obvious facts of the situation, I think that’s pretty much indisputable.
Cacti
@Baud:
More than 5 years. His speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention, followed by his election to the US Senate put him on the map nationally.
Not sure what the public might learn that they haven’t in the previous 8 years.
But when I hear lines like “Who is the real Barack Obama” I immediately think “birther”.
Hill Dweller
@Spaghetti Lee: Considering Obama talked about having to eat dog, snake and grasshoppers as a kid in Indonesia in his book, which was published 15+ years ago, the imbeciles’ didn’t even discover that. Some idiot at Tucker Carlson’s vanity project read said book, and pretended it was a revelation.
Narcissus
remember that time we had a president that let New Orleans drown
wish somebody had vetted him
gaz
@Hill Dweller:
It was a revelation. It’s the first time said idiot had ever encountered any college level reading material.
David Koch
this type of question was never asked of prior incumbents.
hmmm, I wonder what makes Obama different than his predecessors.
hmmm, what could it be.
Hill Dweller
@handy: Why have the moneyed elite completely abandoned him?
gogol's wife
Thank you for bringing this to the front page. I’ve been seething about this all day. I suggested to Mr. Brisbane that if this is a sample of his objectivity, he should resign his position and apply to Fox News, which I’m sure will be glad to have him.
The depressing thing is that now the Times is going to be even more pro-Mitt, in order to show how fair and balanced they are.
Anya
@Spaghetti Lee:
Can anyone locate Obama’s kindergarten records, his application to Punahou School, where are his baby tooth……
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@tofubo: The most liberal president since Carter. Clinton was not very good for liberal causes.
gogol's wife
@lamh35:
To be fair, the last time I looked at the comments on this column, they were running pretty heavily against Mr. Brisbane. Those that were favorable sounded like spittle-flecked wingnuts.
Ben
@tofubo:
Ah, the asshole who insulted the Democrats of Lake County by having the balls to ask for their endorsement for Congress after working against the areas Democratic Congresswoman who many people worked their asses off to elect despite the fact that she wasn’t as liberal as many (including myself) would have preferred. The asshole who got this asshole elected.
Shove it, purity troll.
Anya
@handy: DIAF, asshole.
JGabriel
@Spaghetti Lee:
His mother is … wait for it … white.
.
David Koch
how can they say he wasn’t vetted in 2008, when there were 26 debates during the primaries, in addition to countless town halls and interviews, including 5 grillings by his holiness Tim Russert.
Comrade Dread
Oh sweet hipster Buddha at a roller disco ironically.
He’s been in office three bleeding years. We know who he is. He’s a centrist politician who is corporate friendly (but not as much as the Republican party) who leans slightly left and is hawkish (but not in the stupid evil Bushian way) on foreign policy.
If he were president twenty years ago and was white, he’d be seen as a moderate Democrat in the vein of Bill Clinton without the sexual baggage.
gaz
@Spaghetti Lee:
I hear it has something to do with countertops.
effete, commie, america-hating GRANITE countertops
Anya
In this vetting process, maybe the NYT will finally uncover a proof that Frank Marshall Davis is Obama’s real father. It’s true. I saw it in a chain email forwarded by my brother’s father-in-law.
Alison
Yeah, I got ticked off at this crap earlier today, too. Anyone who claims they don’t know the “real” Obama is either a racist fuckwad or they’ve been living under a rock for 5 years. In either case, their opinions and thoughts matter fuck all to me and shouldn’t matter to the NYT.
The people who complain that the Times leans left are the same people who think Obama is TEH MOST LIBERAL POLITICIAN EVAR which is rather demonstrably untrue. (I say this as someone who still totally supports him; I’m just not a fucking nincompoop, and I don’t really care that he’s not TMLPE because I’m also not a whiny-ass titty baby emoprog.) They think climate change is hoax so that Al Gore can get rich (and fat) and all sorts of other bullshit. In sum: they are fucking clueless idiots who have little to no grasp of reality. The Times needn’t feel any obligation to suck up to these fools.
Alas…
Steeplejack
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
FTFY fail. Ha-ha! (Nelson Muntz)
David Koch
he’s been vetted to the point that we know what he looks like naked.
4jkb4ia
No, it isn’t a dog whistle, and DougJ has been through enough Obot-firebagger fights to know it. The examples that Brisbane gave of balanced coverage are things where the point is to try to tease out what Obama really stands for.
Crusty Dem
Back to the mediocre dipshits that rise to the top in the media, it’s no so different than many fields today. A complete lack of shame, a certain moral flexibility, and the ability to sell yourself as a brand are prerequisites for success, real brilliance and independent thought alone don’t get you very far. I see it in science all the time. Don’t get me wrong, if you’re Einstein, you’ll be fine, but otherwise, you’re much better off being a good self-promoter than very bright. Of course, I’m pretty much a total failure at either one of those, but I do have observed which one will get you further…
/bitter rant
Villago Delenda Est
Here’s the thing:
Our “meritocracy” is not based on what you know, it’s based on who you know, and/or related to. Explain again how Luke Russert, a Bush daughter, or Chelsea Clinton get prime gigs just like that.
People outside of the Village complex actually have to know their stuff. They are evaluated on their work product, not on their genetic background.
This pseudo-aristocracy must be smashed. Utterly. Its existence is a betrayal of everything the American Revolution was fought over.
Suffern ACE
@Narcissus: oh we tried, but the times wasn’t interested. Al Gores history of internets and earth tones were more interesting diversions.
ppcli
Interesting fact: During the years when, as Obama recalls, he ate dog as a ten-year old kid, Romney was in his twenties, recruiting for an organization that held blacks to be marked by God as inferior, and held interracial marriage to be a sin. And this was not just as a minor door-knocker but in a senior position as the head of the mission. But what Obama did when he was ten merits round-the clock references but not Romney’s support of white supremacy.
To be sure, raising this issue would involve raising questions about religion, which is thought to be bad form. Unless it is about the content of the sermons Obama listened to (not proselytized for, not listened to in a leadership position in the church, just listened to). In that case the whole “religion is off-limits” thing suddenly gets conveniently forgotten in the 24/7 drumbeat of all-Reverend Wright, all the time, including at least one extended front-page article on the NYT front page.
(Indeed, Sarah! felt they would have won the campaign if she could have talked even more about Reverend Wright. Whatever happened to the “no religion” rule? One wonders.)
TooManyJens
@Baud:
Seriously. WTF have they been reporting for the last five years? How are they not embarrassed to pretend that this is even a question? Because if it really is a question, that reflects HORRIBLY on them.
Villago Delenda Est
@tofubo:
Clinton was the best Republican President since Eisenhower.
Steve in DC
I hate to break this to everybody here, but that’s not “anti Obama” or any sort of “dog whistle” it’s just run of the mill intellectual nonsense. All of the “elites” do this. “who is the real” is supposed to give them a chance to enlighten us with a look into the souls of these incredibly complex and superior individuals.
As for why this happens, it’s because education means jack shit. It’s not brains or even knowing what you’re talking about that gets you ahead or into elite institutions or jobs these days, it’s wankery and who you know. I work with a ton of PHDs, MDs, JDs, and various masters from the top institutions, professors even! Virtually all of them are clueless wankers. And they like nothing more than to sit with other wankers and talk that sort of mock intellectual babble. We blew through a couple hundred million of us government money, many PHDs, MPHs, MDs, only to come up with “mosquito nets stop malaria” and then dumped a huge net campaign on the world, nice party for it, while they all wankered around on stage.
I was in the military and any buck private or sarge could have told them that one for free.
The biggest sign someone is a bullshit artist and a wanker, they have a stellar education.
piratedan
journalism died a few years ago, who is this Arthur fellow, is he the guy who mows the grass growing on top of the building and tends the plants as part of the urban gardening movement?
General Stuck
Good for them, and where I did my basic training, humping Misery, Agony, and Heartbreak. The notion of deference to the CiC is solid in the Army, at least, and the other services as well. Suck on that Teddy, the draft dodging faux patriot.
kwAwk
I’ve developed a lot more respect for Obama after comments like Barney Frank’s the other day where he basically said he wanted to fold up his tent and give up on healthcare reform after the Massachusetts Senate election.
It’s a shame that we don’t see more of these debates out in the open when Dems are trying to cave.
Steve in DC
@General Stuck
No it’s not. Under Clinton (I was Navy and Marines were in our group as well) we spent all day everyday trashing Clinton, these were senior officers. He was the enemy, a liberal, not legitimate, there were parties and celebrations when Bush was elected and all of a sudden it was not allowed at all to trash the CIC. He was a good conservative, true patriot, and damn it he’s the CIC!
A good portion of the military officer corps, in fact the majority of it, are hardcore conservatives of the Tea Party style. Ditto with a majority of the country bumpkin type enlisted.
A good reason for this is that socially liberal educated whites, do not send their kids into the military. And till that changes, the military might as well be a branch of the Republican party.
General Stuck
@kwAwk:
As I understand it, same was true for green lighting the OBL raid, where several top folks, such as Joe Biden, went wobbly and recommended a nay to the mission.
Steve in DC
They wanted to bomb him instead, which isn’t that unreasonable. The mission went well, but I’m not comfortable with plastering names of elite units all over the fucking press and taking credit for them. That’s wrong and has really turned me sour on this administration, it’s just not fucking done.
Hill Dweller
@kwAwk:
Despite being backed by Gates and Petraeus, the Dems joined the Republicans to undercut Obama when he tried to close Gitmo.
It’s impossible to overstate the cowardice in the Democratic party.
General Stuck
@Steve in DC:
And yet the Army cancelled the Nugent concert. What service members of whatever pol stripe bitch about amongst themselves, doesn’t amount to much, so long as they don’t do it in public, nor not carry out the CiC orders when it’s time to do that. As well as making public decisions to drop Nugent for his bullshit wanking on Obama.
The only service I worry about the command structure possibly some day doing there own thing, rather than follow POTUS orders, might be the Air Force and the religious wingnuttery of their the culture in that service, but even that is very unlikely.
Anya
@Steve in DC: Oh look, it’s the young disaffected Obama supporter excusing another Obama attack. Also, too, the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
Steve in DC
Cowardice? Hardly. When it comes to issues the Democrats actually care about, social issues, they have balls of steel and fight like tigers. When it comes things that don’t help socially liberal, well educated, well off elites, they don’t give a fuck (economics, the wars, civil liberties) and just shrug off and let it fly.
Make no mistake, it’s not cowardice, it’s what they believe. And until the old nationalistic, populist, social values be damned, Democratic party is back, that won’t change.
General Stuck
@Steve in DC:
I don’t think bombing that compound in the middle of a residential neighborhood full of Pakistani military and intelligence brass was ever a serious option.
Steve in DC
I’m not excusing anything, I’m just calling a duck a duck. The “elite” press sucks, has since the 80s, what’s new? But all of a sudden that was supposed to change when Obama got elected? You can’t be that dumb.
mclaren
Dunno. I interpret this entirely differently.
The NYTimes, like almost all other liberals, listened to Obama make lots of promises in his 2008 campaign and then watched Obama betray essentially every promise he ever made, morphing into the third term of the Bush administration.
Obama the candidate openly ridiculed the idea of a health insurance mandate — then when he got into office, he shut down any other option for health care reform, leading to a giant giveaway to the greediest and most inefficient parts of America’s broken medical-industrial complex with the result that Obama’s ACA is a non-reform which does nothing to control cost.
Obama the candidate harshly criticized Bush’s rigged kangaroo court military commission trials, trials so obscenely unfair and so rigged that the army’s lead prosecutor at Guantanamo resigned in protest. Then when Obama got into office, he continued the military commission trials.
Obama the candidate promised “the most transparent administration in history” — when he got into office, he delivered the most secretive administration in history, prosecuting more whistleblowers(who in most cases are guilty of nothing more than revealing Pentagon corruption or war crimes by the military) than the last four presidents put together, and refusing to “confirm or deny” the existence of countless programs like Obama’s use of drones to murder innocent women and children in foreign countries we’re not even at war with.
I think it’s a very serious question to ask: “Who is Barack Obama — the guy who made lots of promises to implement progressive policy reforms in the 2008 campaign…or the Bush understudy who has continued almost all of Bush’s regressive extremist far-right policies since his election in 2009?”
DougJ should care about this. Because it turns out Obama has even continued the Bush maladministration’s loathsome practice of rejecting or rewriting the reports of scientific commissions for political reasons.
Source: “We’re Waiting, Mister President,” New Scientist, 3 December 2010.
General Stuck
@mclaren:
But can you suck the olive out of the pit, whilst polishing your Cone Head with axle grease.
Yutsano
Sigh. I knew from the get-go this thread wasn’t going to go well.
Jewish Steel
Obama’s been our best Whig president since Zachary Taylor.
I don’t count Millard Fillmore because he wasn’t a real Whig. The piker.
David Koch
@Jewish Steel: Fillmore was a WINO.
danielx
@gaz:
Not true, I’d say he’s actually intelligent and foresighted, if lacking in subtlety. Clearly he knows which side of his rice bowl faces up. By virtue of simply asking that question, preposterous though it is, he’s set himself up for a nice wingnut welfare gig when he gets tired of being an official eunuch for the NYT.
Press release from 2013:
National Review Online/The Heritage Foundation/the American Enterprise Institute welcomes Arthur Brisbane, former ombudsman for the New York Times, as a contributing editor/columnist/salaried slug. Mr. Brisbane left the Times following a disagreement following which he announced publicly that he “could no longer stomach Times management’s stubborn adherence to the theory of gravity.” NRO/HF/AEI salutes Mr. Brisbane’s principled stand, and we look forward with anticipation to his contributions to the conservative cause.
Am I good or what?
Steve in DC
Crap, I just realised I put my bluetooth in the washing machine :/
mawado
Apparently, he refused the intra-vaginal ultrasound…
Ash Can
And to think that the NYT used to be a decent newspaper…
Mnemosyne
@mclaren:
Gosh, mclaren, that sure was a condemnation with clear and convincing evidence:
As usual with you, a whole lot of smoke and fury without any actual, you know, facts or evidence.
And are you going to start sobbing about the prosecution of torture apologist John Kiriakou again? Because I’ll be happy to argue with you whether or not a guy who spread disinformation on behalf of the CIA’s torture program should be prosecuted for that or not.
Bago
There are over 2 million results for “domain:nytimes Obama”. Fucking god damned shit punting waste of skullfuckable flesh idiot.
Nick
Isn’t this the same guy who didn’t know whether it was the Times’ job to point out when somebody is lying? Between that bit of shameless stupidity and this one, I’m beginning to think Brisbane is no ordinary wanker.
mclaren
@Mnemosyne:
Shorter Mnemosyne: “It was all just a mistake.”
Suuuuuuuuure.
Obama prosecuting more whistleblowers than all previous presidents…just a mistake. Obama authorizing unprecedented drone killings of innocent women and children in countries we’re not even at war with…just a mistake. Obama ordering the assassination of a U.S. citizen who has never even been charged with committing a crime…just a mistake. Obama signing off on military commissions trials at Gitmo…just a mistake. Obama signing an extension of the Bush tax increases…just a mistake. Obama flip-flopping on individual health insurance mandates…just a mistake. Obama expanding the war in Afghanistan when all his top generals privately admit the war is a total failure and it’s become counterproductive…just a mistake. Obama authorizing the biggest expansion in NSA eavesdropping in history, building gigantic new data centers to archive the email and phone calls of every man, woman and child in America…just a mistake.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
It’s all just a misunderstanding. We’ve got it wrong. There’s no systematic pattern of behavior here following right in the footsteps of the most lawless and anti-constitutional administration in American history, the reign of error of a drunk-driving Texan C student who proudly proclaimed “the constitution is just a goddamn piece of paper.” It’s all just a misunderstanding.
Allan
@Steve in DC: Clearly Obama’s fault.
mclaren
@Mnemosyne:
From Section 4, “Survey Results” of the 2010 report “Driving the fox from the henhouse: improving food safety oversight at the FDA and the USDA”:
Riiiiiiiiiiiight. “No evidence.” Just the testimony of workers at the FDA in an agency-wide survey.
From the Wikipedia article on John Kiriakou:
Mnemosyne’s description of the FDA/USDA report and John Kiriakou seems as accurate as her description of my presidential voting recording (she claims I voted for Dubya twice. I fact, I never voted for him, while I did vote once for Obama).
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
fuck newspapers.
mclaren
@Mnemosyne:
And as usual, Mnemosyne is simply lying.
From Section 4, “Survey Results” of the 2010 report `Driving the fox from the henhouse: improving food safety oversight at the FDA and the USDA’:
Riiiiiiiiiiiight. “No evidence.” Just the testimony of workers at the FDA in an agency-wide survey.
From the Wikipedia article on John Kiriakou:
However, even when Kiriakou was under the mistaken belief from the CIA that Zubayda was waterboarded only once, he acknowledge that even the relatively mild single instance of waterboarding he described constituted a form of torture and expressed reservations about whether the value of the information was worth the damage done to the United States’ reputation.
Mnemosyne’s description of the FDA/USDA report and John Kiriakou is as accurate as her description of my presidential voting recording (she claims I voted for G. W. Bush twice. In fact, I never voted for him, while I did vote once for Obama).
Thymezone
Who is the real Zombie Santa Claus?
You get me the answer to that, everything else falls into place, Doug.
LosGatosCA
Fucking ombudsmen, how do they work?
Mickey
That is some smelly bullshit right there. I vote little bit dog whistle little bit just trying to get a rise out of the left.
Either way, he deserves to be ignored and irrelevant.
Mickey
The tell in that piece was right off the top. Can’t believe you clowns all missed it. The ole “some people say”. That should have sent alarm bells off that a concern troll was coming.
Instead you morons go on repeating what he’s asking which is precisely the point of the article. Not to prove or disprove, to get the whole “some people say” echo going. Does not matter if you can prove or disprove the question. The question is all that matters.
Fuck, do I have to tell you people how to wipe your ass. Fucking amateurs around here or what!
the fugitive uterus
Can anybody point to significant questions about President Obama’s history or identity that remain to be probed?
Baud
Media Favored Romney Over Obama
Kay
Judging by the comments here and at the NYTimes no one knows what the question means.
They don’t know what he’s asking.
Is it about policy, personality, character, media bias, is it about distant past or recent past, no one knows.
The “question” is entirely subjective, so the “answer” will be too.
My own hunch is that the discussion will center around media (I don’t know what the question is either) and I don’t think media figures talking to other media figures about how media covers politics or politicians is of interest to most voters outside of politically-engaged partisans.
rikyrah
bwa ha ha h ah ha ha ha ha ha
Valdivia
So glad you frontpaged this. I am still agog at it.
pattonbt
I hope they finally look into that Rev Wright and Shady Rezco character. There’s something there I am super sure about it.
And, I understand there is a “whitey tape”, too? Maybe the NYT can finally get to the bottom of these absolutely pressing “vetting” issues and not focus on the last four years of his extremely public governance actions.
Barry
@Suffern ACE: “He hasnt done anything swift boat able, unless there is something in that successful business career that would make private equity look bad.”
Like looting pension funds?
And almost certainly tax evasion and various frauds.
Lex
Shorter NYT ombudsman: I am oblivious to the fact that no later than 1994, the GOP went batshit insane.
Just die already, Times. Just die.
tofubo
@Ben:
love the personal insult ben, and had she won, she most likely would have voted with the republican majority time and time again, like she did since she got there, and insulted the democrats of mchenry and cook and lake in the process
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)
Wouldn’t it be more pertinent to ask this question about Mitt Romney, given that he’s taken every conceivable side on every conceivable issue over the course of his political career?
gaz
@danielx: heh
Bokonon
Because clearly … what the American people really need in this upcoming election cycle is a painstaking vetting of the background and character of the person they elected President four years ago. To see whether he is “qualified” to be President or not. And see whether the grades he got in college and the type of car he drives raise grave, weighty concerns that we need to consider long and hard as a nation.
Expect another onslaught about birth certificates, parentage, religion, past job history, associations, and all that.
The GOP would dearly like to mire this election in questions of identity and character and personality – and drive out discussion of actual policies. Just like they tried to do in 2008, and just like they have done in their assaults on Obama ever since. And their helpers in the mainstream media want to help take us there. Again and again and again.
Mnemosyne
@Bokonon:
If the Republicans think they can make a case that Romney should be elected based on his character and personality, I want some of whatever it is they’re smoking.
As other people have said, running a “character and personality” type of campaign usually only works when the person is running for the office for the first time because, after four years, most people have a pretty clear picture of who that politician is.
If Richard Nixon got re-elected despite everything that was already known about him after his first 4 years as president, I’m not terribly worried about a “character and personality” campaign against Obama. I’m more worried about the economy, frankly.
Ben
@tofubo:
Melissa Beans lifetime Progressive Punch score is 75.60, which puts her in the middle of the Blue Dog caucus. Not entirely impressive, but compared to Joe Walsh (6.27) or Randy Hultgren (4.29) she votes like Nancy Pelosi. In what universe does 75.60=6.27?