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You are here: Home / The Speech Was Longer than 140 Characters!

The Speech Was Longer than 140 Characters!

by $8 blue check mistermix|  June 15, 20127:19 am| 96 Comments

This post is in: DC Press Corpse

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Reader JK sent the latest from the cool kids in DC, who apparently hadn’t taken their Adderall before Obama’s speech yesterday and started squirming in the pews:

All of these points have already been featured in the president’s other recent speeches. Between the pre-speech hype from the campaign, the lack of new material and the overall length of the speech reporters were clearly dissatisfied with end result. Read on for a sampling of Tweets from the political press slamming the president’s speech.

Before the speech was over, MSNBC’s Mike O’Brien begged the president to stop. […]

On the air, MSNBC’s Jonathan Alter said it was “one of the worst speeches I’ve ever heard Barack Obama make.” He refused to back down. […]

ABC News reporter Devin Dwyer felt like we were all being lectured. […]

These guys are right – the economy is done to death. Nobody cares about it anymore. That’s why you can barely find a mention of Obama’s speech on the Washington Post, while this new, exciting topic is at the top of the page:

Now there’s a puzzle for our times. Was it osmosis? Photosynthesis? Did some kind of melanin fairy visit him in the middle of the night? Also, too: if my keen sense of racial identification doesn’t fail me, I believe that’s a white woman standing next to him. OMFG!

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Previous Post: « Late Night Open Thread: People, Doing What People Do
Next Post: Sending the Middle Man Packing »

Reader Interactions

96Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    June 15, 2012 at 7:23 am

    And the sad thing is, tomorrow they’ll all be echoing Romney’s lie that Obama doesn’t want to talk about the economy.

  2. 2.

    Omnes Omnibus

    June 15, 2012 at 7:27 am

    Why the fuck do you take a job doing political reporting if you have no interest in the subject? Sports reporters are interested in wins and losses, but they also tend to have an interest in the actual sports themselves. Is it too much to ask that political reporters be held to a similar standard?

  3. 3.

    dmsilev

    June 15, 2012 at 7:28 am

    You know, we could make a small but meaningful dent in the unemployment rate by firing every one of these nitwits and giving their jobs to random people off the street. There’s absolutely no way that the quality of the coverage could be worse, and it would probably be better.

  4. 4.

    Michael57

    June 15, 2012 at 7:39 am

    I don’t want to go all Somerby this early in the morning, but he’ll point out that reporters have been doing this to Dems pretty regularly, going back to Gore. They don’t like to be “lectured” with “facts”. What they want from Obama is soaring rhetoric, and then they’ll go home and type that soaring rhetoric won’t fix the economy, only boring hard work will.

  5. 5.

    Omnes Omnibus

    June 15, 2012 at 7:41 am

    @Michael57: That’s some catch, that Catch-22.

  6. 6.

    Breezeblock

    June 15, 2012 at 7:46 am

    They sure make it easy not give a fuck anymore.

  7. 7.

    arguingwithsignposts

    June 15, 2012 at 7:46 am

    And all the villagers sing:
    Priests and cannibals, prehistoric animals
    Everybody happy as the dead come home
    Big Black Nemesis, parthenogenesis
    No one move a muscle as the dead come home

    ETA: Video

  8. 8.

    Joseph Nobles

    June 15, 2012 at 7:47 am

    Halperin linked to that article. It was a post about how June isn’t November and Romney’s got problems to solve. But Halperin did link to that article first as an example of how the “left/center” slammed the speech yesterday.

    That, my fellow juicians, is how the pros spread the bullshit.

  9. 9.

    c u n d gulag

    June 15, 2012 at 7:52 am

    Looks like everyone at the WaPo missed their mother bird’s and bee’s explanation.

    What do they think, a schwartze stork brought him?

    Did he get dirty in the cabbage patch, and no one washed him?

    WTF ever happened to that once fine newspaper?
    Oh yeah – Fredd Hiatt – never miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind…

  10. 10.

    MattF

    June 15, 2012 at 7:54 am

    When you report about the economy you have to use things called ‘numbers’ and ‘facts’ that can be ‘looked up’. No fun at all.

  11. 11.

    neil

    June 15, 2012 at 7:56 am

    If you’ve lost Jonathan Alter, you’ve probably lost nobody else at all.

  12. 12.

    NotMax

    June 15, 2012 at 7:58 am

    Whereas trivial fluff such as this meaningless faux pas by the White House will almost for sure generate pixels and bytes galore as it is repeated, chewed up and regurgitated by TV, talk radio and online so-called pundits (for whom image trumps substance every single time) ad nauseum.

  13. 13.

    different-church-lady

    June 15, 2012 at 8:06 am

    @MattF:

    When you report about the economy you have to use things called ‘numbers’ and ‘facts’ that can must be ‘looked up’. No fun at all.

    Sometimes big things are fixed that for you, and sometimes little things are fixed that for you.

  14. 14.

    chopper

    June 15, 2012 at 8:07 am

    god forbid you’d have to sit through a speech during an election. it’s not like these douchebags get paid for it, amirite?

  15. 15.

    Linda Featheringill

    June 15, 2012 at 8:11 am

    I think Miss Genevieve had good taste.

    Don’t know what the outcome of the election will be. I lost my crystal ball the last time I was kicked out of my home because of lack of money. But the speech was good to me.

    Better yet, it was good for me. Obama reminded me of the things that need to be done, of the reasons why I chose to care in the first place, and of the hope that we might just possibly accomplish some of these tasks.

    As far as I can tell, many countries are in for economic hard times in the next 10-20 years, including the US. But if we could manage to invest in education, energy, communications, and infrastructure, we in the US might do okay.

    Step one is to return several levels of government to the hands of even moderately sane and intelligent people.

  16. 16.

    HRA

    June 15, 2012 at 8:14 am

    Do I remember the phrase “Obama dose not want to talk about…” during the ’80 campaign?

    Jonathan Alter has been making his way into finding something negative to say about Obama for weeks. I was waiting for it every time he appeared on TV.

    As much as I love it when it’s national election campaign time, I have opted to shut off the TV lately, not go looking for print or internet political news and definitely not watching Morning Joe or the Sunday shows. I’ll bet I am not the only one tired of the constant pounding and disrespect on this president.

  17. 17.

    kay

    June 15, 2012 at 8:15 am

    I honestly think it’s because he referenced the media obsession with gaffes. When Obama mentions political reporting in an unflattering way, we get “analysis” like this.
    They have indicated again and again that they will not accept any backtalk from this President on the quality of their work, that they consider that a “lecture”.
    It must be a real dilemma for a speechwriter. He wants to get around them and to the audience, but if he mentions political media to do that (how they suck, as he did here) they get all huffy and hit back.
    On balance, I think I wouldn’t reference them at
    all. Just blow by them. A line in a speech critical of their work is not worth the spiteful hissy fit that follows.

  18. 18.

    jayboat

    June 15, 2012 at 8:17 am

    @arguingwithsignposts:
    re Shriekback…

    So appropo to our times, and sadly, any times in the sorry, warmaking history of homo sapiens.

    When I hear that song all I see in my mind’s eye are those flag-draped caskets of the Iraq war casualties aboard their last flight home.

  19. 19.

    debit

    June 15, 2012 at 8:19 am

    Maybe Obama would be interesting if he gave all speeches while wearing a flight suit with a codpiece. Oh, oh! I know! He should give each of the journalists offensive yet somehow endearing nicknames. Or he could ask McCain for his dry rub recipe. Maybe he should have had waiters circulate with trays of quail wings.

    God, I hate everyone last one of these fuckers.

  20. 20.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    June 15, 2012 at 8:24 am

    Reason #45876 why the Kaplan Test Prep Daily hemorrhages money.

    My hometown newspaper can’t die soon enough.

  21. 21.

    Elizabelle

    June 15, 2012 at 8:25 am

    Here’s White House transcript of the speech:

    http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/06/14/remarks-president-economy-cleveland-oh

    Read it and decide for yourself, and cut these 140 character wankers out of the picture.

    Omnes had a good point in comparing political journalists to sports reporters.

    Readers don’t put up with such shoddy, incomplete recounting of something important, like baseball or football, do they?

  22. 22.

    Elizabelle

    June 15, 2012 at 8:27 am

    PS: Politicker, which Reader JK forwarded, has a toxic comments section. “Moochelle” and whining about how Obama needs to pay Americans back for his vacations.

    Really ugly. Am sure its readers ate up the “journalists'” assessments of the Cleveland speech.

  23. 23.

    piratedan

    June 15, 2012 at 8:29 am

    How dare the President accuse them of not performing their phony baloney jobs! Why they’ll show him by forcusing on the narrative that all Americans are passionate about, like who will the Bachlorette choose and when will the next group of stars for Dancing be announced, until he comes clean on those positions how dare he lecture us on what the American people want!

    Don’t these hacks sound an awful lot like those GM executives who decided that they KNEW what the American public wanted and would continue to build those cars accordingly? I guess I can be hopeful that these asshats will eventually be brought to heel by folks changing bit by bit where they get their news from thereby helping to make them irrelevant.

  24. 24.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    June 15, 2012 at 8:36 am

    If I gave a shit what the village Heathers thought, I would believe what they say. But since they have been shooting down Democrats while giving blowjobs to Republicans like forever, this is the SOS from them. Sports reporters report on the game, political reporters try to shape the game and report that it’s a win for Repubs and a loss for Dems.

    Every fucking time. It’s what they are paid to do now, they no longer report news.

  25. 25.

    arguingwithsignposts

    June 15, 2012 at 8:39 am

    @Elizabelle: This has been a long-standing complaint with me, and comes up every time someone says “Obama hasn’t been talking about the economy” or “Obama didn’t go out and defend health care reform” or “he never talks about GOP intransigence” or whatever. He’s out there every week, and every saturday he addresses the nation, and he talks about this shit far more than anyone understands. Every transcript is right there on the WH web site. And yet, because the media ignores it until there’s a campaign going on, it’s like it never happened.

  26. 26.

    ornery_curmudgeon

    June 15, 2012 at 8:42 am

    Jonathan Alter was one of the first and foremost to name Ralph Nader as the scapegoat for the Democratic Party’s loss of candidates Gore and Liebermann to Bush’s brother’s connections in Florida and the Supreme Court.

    And so the Progressive movement caved in on itself. Who would ever want to fight for Progressives after that betrayal … well Spitzer did try, but he was the example that proved the rule. Since then, not so much.

    Don’t bother flaming, I don’t care. In fact I welcome your hatred, if you have it.

  27. 27.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    June 15, 2012 at 8:50 am

    @ornery_curmudgeon:

    Nader was one factor in the loss, not THE factor in the loss. Oh, and Nader is not a progressive.

    Progressives aren’t funded by Republicans.

  28. 28.

    rikyrah

    June 15, 2012 at 8:53 am

    Lawrence O’Donnell did a great segment on Willard’s draft dodging last night.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45755883/vp/47824296#47824571

  29. 29.

    Comrade Javamanphil

    June 15, 2012 at 8:54 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: This. A billion times this.

    For example, political reporters may want to take up covering the Dog Show circuit. (Warning: Politico link.) (Warning two: It’s really stupid.)

  30. 30.

    Kane

    June 15, 2012 at 8:55 am

    Following President Obama’s news conference earlier this month where Obama spoke again about the need for Congress to pass the American Jobs Act, Michael Tomasky wrote that the general feeling amongst the media is that Obama’s problem is that he isn’t giving beat reporters something new to report, so he’s essentially forcing the press to focus on gaffes and misstatements.

    It’s quite a statement. I don’t know who made the rule that if the president repeats himself it isn’t news, but apparently they have never heard of the Bully pulpit where a president uses his position to bring issues to the forefront and to repeatedly advocate for his agenda.

    While the press does recognize that Obama is repeating himself when he is emphasizing the need for Congress to act, they appear to have accepted the Republican obstruction so much so that it has become the new normal and it is no longer a story worth reporting.

  31. 31.

    kay

    June 15, 2012 at 8:56 am

    @Elizabelle:

    Obama people have been doing it forever so they must think the trade-off is worth it, but I’m not sure it is.

    Jay Carney called them “slothful” (good word!) a month ago for their parroting GOP campaign rhetoric on the debt, and the minute I read it I knew Obama was going to pay for that.

    The Dem base love it, and it’s 100% true, but boy does he pay a price when he goes after them.

    They will NOT be criticized by this President.

  32. 32.

    Maude

    June 15, 2012 at 8:59 am

    @arguingwithsignposts:
    He sold us out.

  33. 33.

    myiq2xu

    June 15, 2012 at 9:03 am

    It smells like epic fail in here.

  34. 34.

    rikyrah

    June 15, 2012 at 9:04 am

    The Root of Romney’s Comfort with Lying

    Psychiatrist DR. Justin Frank – The same man who Analyzed Presidents Bush and Obama – has analyzed Mitt Romney – and says Romney is comfortable lying, in part, because of the way he was raised in his Mormon faith. But could the reason why Romney can’t tell the truth be something much more simple – and does it make him unfit to be President.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CH23gm3xL0&feature=player_embedded

  35. 35.

    rikyrah

    June 15, 2012 at 9:07 am

    @Kane:

    While the press does recognize that Obama is repeating himself when he is emphasizing the need for Congress to act, they appear to have accepted the Republican obstruction so much so that it has become the new normal and it is no longer a story worth reporting.

    THEY NEVER REPORTED ON IT IN THE FIRST PLACE

  36. 36.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    June 15, 2012 at 9:09 am

    @myiq2xu: Hey, myiqislessthanzero-go back to your bukkake movies and keep your PUMA bullshit to yourself.

  37. 37.

    rikyrah

    June 15, 2012 at 9:11 am

    @kay:

    I honestly think it’s because he referenced the media obsession with gaffes. When Obama mentions political reporting in an unflattering way, we get “analysis” like this.
    They have indicated again and again that they will not accept any backtalk from this President on the quality of their work, that they consider that a “lecture”.

    I love it when he does it, Kay. Because, you can only take so much bullshyt from people not interested in doing their actual JOB. The President has expressed the patience of JOB with these assclowns.

    George W Bush could barely put 2 coherent sentences together, but they didn’t open their fucking mouths to challenge him.

    Fuck ’em.

  38. 38.

    different-church-lady

    June 15, 2012 at 9:14 am

    @ornery_curmudgeon:

    In fact I welcome your hatred, if you have it.

    Damn, man — fresh out. Wish I could help you. Try #34 down the street, they usually have some.

  39. 39.

    Hill Dweller

    June 15, 2012 at 9:17 am

    @rikyrah:

    THEY NEVER REPORTED ON IT IN THE FIRST PLACE

    This. Republicans announced this week they have decided not to confirm anymore of Obama’s circuit court nominees because it is too close to the election. Now would be a good time to point out Republicans have engaged in a unprecedented level of obstructionism with Obama’s judicial nominees. In both % of nominees and number of nominees confirmed, they set a record for futility.

    This stuff actually matters. Republican appointed judges have written letters to congress pleading with the Republicans to stop the obstructionism. That scumbag Chief Justice Roberts complained about it.

    Little to nothing about the press.

  40. 40.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    June 15, 2012 at 9:18 am

    @myiq2xu GoatBoy!:

    No, you still have your head up your ass. As usual. Grab any of that primo wrinkled-assed PUMA tail yet, or are you still into goats?

    Hang around you worthless racist piece of shit, there are a few others like you here and you should feel welcome now!

  41. 41.

    Kane

    June 15, 2012 at 9:19 am

    All that the Beltway media wanted yesterday from President Obama was for him to say the word “Bush” so that they could run with their “OBAMA BLAMES BUSH” stories. Instead, Obama effectively portrayed Romney and his policies as an extension of the failed policies of the past decade without ever mentioning the name of Bush.

  42. 42.

    arguingwithsignposts

    June 15, 2012 at 9:26 am

    @rikyrah: funny how the media are perfectly content to criticize the president on the quality of his work, and yet he must remain mum on the quality of theirs.

    Obama has served in a position as editor of a law review and, IIRC, wrote at least one article for a college newspaper. As to how many of the pool reporters have served in elected office, even at the dog catcher level?

  43. 43.

    handsmile

    June 15, 2012 at 9:29 am

    If only the dusky-hued resident of the White House had anointed these “journalists” with nicknames like his clever predecessor. “Stretch” and “The Cobra” and “Panchito” and their covetous pals were just so darned tickled that they were happy to roll over and beg.

    BHusseinO just doesn’t know how to cultivate allies: just like his failure to “make a sincere effort to reach out” to war hero and Village Deity John McCain. And he’s nothing other than rude, uppity even, to all those job creators. (JP Morgan’s employees on the Senate Banking Committee could give him some lessons on proper etiquette.)

    You’d think with the size of the White House lawn, he could’ve at least put up a tire swing.

  44. 44.

    NCSteve

    June 15, 2012 at 9:31 am

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: When there are multiple actors that contribute to the occurrence of an event, each of whom is necessary to the event’s occurrence, and without any one of which, the event would not have occurred, each of the actors is equally responsible.

    Citizens United, the unregulated financial markets that led to the Great Recession, the trillion dollar structural deficit, the squandering of our last chance to cap greenhouse gases before they turn us into the Earth depicted in Soylent Green, and the hundred thousand plus dead of the Iraq War are all equally the fault of:

    a) Cici Connolly and Kit Seelye and the other mean girls on the Gore campaign bus who fashioned the “lying phony” out of pure boredom and spite;

    b) a well-intentioned Democratic county clerk in Florida who didn’t make sufficient allowance to how easily confused old people are by things they haven’t seen before when she designed her county’s ballot;

    c) Justices Kennedy, O’Connor, Scalia, Thomas, and Rehnquist, and,

    d) yes, Ralph Nader,

    are, all equally responsible, in the causation sense, for the serial catastrophes of the Bush Administration. The moral responsibility of the county clerk is mitigated by the fact that she alone out of all of them acted without malice. The rest of them make me hope there’s really a hell.

  45. 45.

    RP

    June 15, 2012 at 9:32 am

    Why the fuck do you take a job doing political reporting if you have no interest in the subject? Sports reporters are interested in wins and losses, but they also tend to have an interest in the actual sports themselves. Is it too much to ask that political reporters be held to a similar standard?

    Actually, many sports reporters seem to hate the sports they cover. They complain endlessly about the length of the games, the overpaid, arrogant athletes, the stupid fans, the dishonest owners, etc. And why can’t baseball/football/curling be more like it was when I was a boy?

  46. 46.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    June 15, 2012 at 9:32 am

    @Kane:

    Yup, and their ‘concerns’ prior to the speech was that he would talk about the mess Bush left him, which would ‘be a huge mistake’. When Obama blew that story out of the water for them then they complained that his speech wasn’t what they expected and that they were disappointed.

    I wasn’t aware that Obama was supposed to be speaking exclusively to them.

  47. 47.

    chopper

    June 15, 2012 at 9:33 am

    @myiq2xu:

    strange, it didn’t before you walked in.

  48. 48.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    June 15, 2012 at 9:34 am

    @NCSteve:

    Agreed. That ballot was about the stupidest thing anyone could have come up with.

    Leave it to a Democrat… ;)

  49. 49.

    kay

    June 15, 2012 at 9:35 am

    @rikyrah:

    Right, I agree, but is it worth it?

    When they went after FOX in 2009, we saw what happens. The entire political media rallied around FOX and went after the President for pointing out the fucking obvious: that FOX is a political operation.

    FOX is now creating and running 4 minute attack ads as “news”.

    So what did we accomplish there?

    I’m just wondering if it’s better to leave them out of it completely.

  50. 50.

    brantl

    June 15, 2012 at 9:36 am

    If that’s not photoshopped, can someone tell me: when did Obama grow an extra foot after this (to grow into proportionality with that head), OR when did his head shrink? Because his current head isn’t that big, compared to his body.

  51. 51.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)

    June 15, 2012 at 9:39 am

    Romney gave the same damn speech he always gives yesterday too, or at least close to the same speech. Where are the articles about how he lied repeatedly, was boring and wooden, and repeated stuff he’s said a thousand times already? I really don’t understand why Presidential elections always devolve to a game of pick on the Democrat.

  52. 52.

    gene108

    June 15, 2012 at 9:44 am

    Race-traiter-in-chief…that’s what he is…turned his back on the white people in his family that loved and raised him, by becoming black…(/snark)

    Also, too did you notice every time he was about to get elected to political office, someone in his family, who could verify his birth died?

    When he was running for IL state senate, his mother died. Before the 2008 election, his grandmother died.

    Coincidence? I think not. Some things just have to be covered up at all cost.

    P.S. I’m not “saying” Obama “murdered” his family, but it’s too coincidental that it’d be irresponsible not to speculate.

  53. 53.

    Steve M.

    June 15, 2012 at 9:45 am

    The 6th game of the 1975 World Series sucked. It went into extra innings!

  54. 54.

    Bulworth

    June 15, 2012 at 9:49 am

    the lack of new material

    It’s true that Team Obama hasn’t come out with any new music in quite a while. Just all these tours playing the old stuff, classics though they might be.

  55. 55.

    Omnes Omnibus

    June 15, 2012 at 9:50 am

    @RP: And yet if you read the sports page, you will learn what actually happened during the game.

  56. 56.

    arguingwithsignposts

    June 15, 2012 at 9:51 am

    @Bulworth: The second album is always a letdown. Ask any music critic.

  57. 57.

    kay

    June 15, 2012 at 9:59 am

    @rikyrah:

    On the birth certificate, for example, they covered the birth certificate as a legit issue, that went on for two years, Obama eventually embarrassed them on it, and they went into knee- jerk offense on the quality of their work.

    This happens again and again and again.

    This is a dynamic, a dance, and they’re personally invested and dug in. I’m just wondering how to bust it up a little. They are NOT going to change, because that’s an admission that they’re not “following” the actors and events but instead are out in front and making news.
    That leaves one party (Obama) who can move.
    I’m not saying it’s right. I’m saying that’s how it is. So where does he move?

  58. 58.

    Nemesis

    June 15, 2012 at 10:02 am

    The Beltway Douchenozzles are pissed because the Pres made ’em sit through a long speech, where he gave them no lede. Punditry dont need politics. They need red meat. When they arent fed the stuff, which they get regularly from the gop, then they are forced – forced I tell ya – to make up shit.

    These clowns arent in the business of informing the public or telling truths. Not their job anymore in an uber-commerce world. Their job is to entertain viewers, which brings ad dollars to their networks/newspapers.

    Cant even watch MSNBC in the evenings any more. Total outrage du jour bullshit each night.

  59. 59.

    gbear

    June 15, 2012 at 10:05 am

    @kay: It’s so weird when the freakin’ President of the United States has to be the guy speaking truth to power – the power being superpac billionaires and a bought-and-sold media.

  60. 60.

    arguingwithsignposts

    June 15, 2012 at 10:06 am

    @kay:

    I’m just wondering how to bust it up a little.

    I have one suggestion. Crowd-fund a trustworthy blogger or writer to follow the campaign and report accurately, and pimp the shit out of his/her work. This person may not get invited to all the kool kid parties at Megan McArdle’s house, but that’s really a feature, not a bug.

    Obama, or the campaign can’t do it, because that would be seen as being “non-objective.” It would have to be an outside force dedicated to cutting through the horse-race stuff. You, Kay, are an example of the type of blogger who would be perfect for that sort of thing. (not suggesting you would do it, but your style of blogging.)

  61. 61.

    Hoodie

    June 15, 2012 at 10:07 am

    @kay: Don’t go after Fox, go after WaPo and all the other Villager media. Whether true or not, if you go after Fox, it looks like you’re trying to stifle people who don’t share your philosophy. The Fox people largely neutralize themselves, anyway, because it’s obvious to the non-27 percenters that Fox is an organ of the Republican Party.

    Instead, go after the Heathers, because, in their hearts, everyone hates Heathers. Yesterday was a good start at taking this tack, hope he keeps it up. He said Romney and Republicans are pretty straightforward on what they want, a return to Bush policies, there’s really nothing much more to talk about there because it is what it is. He coupled that with criticizing the Villager media with their obsession with gaffes and horserace bullshit, which obscures the clear choice. The fact that the Heathers reacted is a good sign, but you need to follow through by doing it again and again to basically tell them go fuck themselves. It’s risky, but I don’t see any better alternatives. Remeber, Republicans have succeeded picking fights with the Villager media.

  62. 62.

    gbear

    June 15, 2012 at 10:08 am

    @debit: Obama should dress like an nun and wander through the press pit with a steel-edged ruler while he’s giving his speech.

  63. 63.

    FlipYrWhig

    June 15, 2012 at 10:09 am

    @gbear: Lest you forget, the order has gone out far and wide that nuns are radical feminists now.

  64. 64.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    June 15, 2012 at 10:14 am

    @gbear:

    Only if both edges of the steel ruler are thoroughly sharpened and at least two cameras capture the beauty of it.

    One of the cameras has to be a high-speed unit, I want slo-mo replay!

    ETA: The Obama pic above has to be a ‘shop.

  65. 65.

    chopper

    June 15, 2012 at 10:14 am

    @Nemesis:

    The Beltway Douchenozzles are pissed because the Pres made ‘em sit through a long speech, where he gave them no lede.

    one of obama’s staff forgot the essential step of spiking the water with ritalin. fuck!

  66. 66.

    kd bart

    June 15, 2012 at 10:15 am

    So, Sunday’s panel on MTP will consist of Republican Senators and Rappers discussing Obama’s Blackness?

  67. 67.

    The Truffle

    June 15, 2012 at 10:16 am

    @Elizabelle: The comments are by and large mouthbreathers who wouldn’t vote for Obama anyway. This whole article screams “preaching to the choir.”

  68. 68.

    chopper

    June 15, 2012 at 10:16 am

    @kd bart:

    lol. “Ah’m gonna hafeta disagree with snoopy-snoopy poop dogg over here…”

  69. 69.

    arguingwithsignposts

    June 15, 2012 at 10:19 am

    @chopper: “I got 99 problems, and the Prez ain’t one.”

  70. 70.

    RaflW

    June 15, 2012 at 10:21 am

    I’ve tended to think pitchforks for the rich. But I see now that it needs to be pitchforks for the entitled, glib, lazy, moronic political press.

    What a bunch of whiny fuck-wads.

  71. 71.

    kay

    June 15, 2012 at 10:23 am

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    I saw that they’re sending “truth squads” to Romney events, and that’s smart, because Romney lies constantly.

    I think they have to do it. No one else is.

    For myself, I looked at Romney’s site for his health care plans, and there are none there, so not much info to work with. I can do it anyway, “something versus nothing” so I assume any substantive comparison would be along those lines; here’s the PPACA and here’s nothing, the Romney plan.
    The other option, because Romney has endorsed the Ryan plan, would be to compare the PPACA w/ the Ryan plan.
    SEIU is running ads in Ohio where they use the Ryan plan AS the Romney plan, and that’s smart.
    If Romney doesn’t want to offer anything substantive, he’s getting the Ryan plan, because he endorsed it. Tough shit, Mittens. You said it, you own it :)

  72. 72.

    redoubt

    June 15, 2012 at 10:24 am

    @Hill Dweller:

    This stuff actually matters. Republican appointed judges have written letters to congress pleading with the Republicans to stop the obstructionism. That scumbag Chief Justice Roberts complained about it.

    This should be shouted from every media outlet in America, but it won’t. Because this is the political equivalent of blow-up-a-747-to-kill-one-man terrorism.

  73. 73.

    gbear

    June 15, 2012 at 10:24 am

    @FlipYrWhig: Yep. I’m aware of that and think it would make it even more perfect.

  74. 74.

    brantl

    June 15, 2012 at 10:26 am

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: Nader was bad enough, in and of his own right, to cause the loss of the election. Cost 2 states, easily, as I remember it.

  75. 75.

    arguingwithsignposts

    June 15, 2012 at 10:26 am

    @kay:

    I saw that they’re sending “truth squads” to Romney events, and that’s smart, because Romney lies constantly.

    I’m not sure a squad can do it. Maybe they need truth battalions.

  76. 76.

    Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God

    June 15, 2012 at 10:26 am

    @MattF:

    When you report about the economy you have to use things called ‘numbers’ and ‘facts’ that can be ‘looked up’. No fun at all.

    Journalists, by definition (and educational/professional sorting), are going to be the “wordy” types rather than the “mathy” types.

    I do consider this to be a serious problem.

  77. 77.

    brantl

    June 15, 2012 at 10:28 am

    @myiq2xu: Blow me, your’s isn’t.

  78. 78.

    gbear

    June 15, 2012 at 10:33 am

    @kay:

    I saw that they’re sending “truth squads” to Romney events, and that’s smart, because Romney lies constantly. I think they have to do it. No one else is.

    Well, Steve Benen is doing a bang-up job over at the Maddow Blog. Every friday he comes up with a list of 12-20 lies that Mitt told that week. He’s been posting the weekly lists for about five months now. Today’s list hasn’t been posted yet.

  79. 79.

    Howlin Wolfe

    June 15, 2012 at 10:34 am

    @neil: Well said!

  80. 80.

    FlipYrWhig

    June 15, 2012 at 10:35 am

    @gbear: That’s a great feature.

  81. 81.

    Villago Delenda Est

    June 15, 2012 at 10:40 am

    @kay:

    When Obama mentions political reporting in an unflattering way, we get “analysis” like this.

    Oh, the feefees of the Village vermin have been hurt! Oh me, oh my, that’s just terrible!

  82. 82.

    kay

    June 15, 2012 at 10:41 am

    @gbear:

    I know. I think he’s the father of “Romney lies constantly” which is great because it’s true.

    Hopefully people will figure out that Romney’s problem with authenticity is not just tone or tenor, but springs from the fact that he lies constantly.

    It’s no mystery that he appears inauthentic at
    these events. He appears inauthentic because he’s not telling the truth.

  83. 83.

    LAC

    June 15, 2012 at 10:54 am

    @ornery_curmudgeon: Sorry, I am all out of hatred. How about studied indifference? No? Bored nonchalance? No? Okay…sad face head tilt with a touch of furrowed brow and and a pinch of “really? Nader pity party again?”

    If they lined up the useless fucks that make up the inside the beltway opinion apparatus, one bullet would do.

  84. 84.

    different-church-lady

    June 15, 2012 at 11:06 am

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: Hey! No spoilers on the new Batman flick!

  85. 85.

    different-church-lady

    June 15, 2012 at 11:07 am

    @NCSteve: I’m pretty sure Gore himself had at least something to do with it as well.

  86. 86.

    different-church-lady

    June 15, 2012 at 11:09 am

    @brantl: WHO’S PANTS ARE THESE?!?

  87. 87.

    different-church-lady

    June 15, 2012 at 11:11 am

    @Bulworth: Frankly, they’ve sucked ever since David Lee left.

  88. 88.

    Omnes Omnibus

    June 15, 2012 at 11:23 am

    @ornery_curmudgeon: Why do you expect hatred? People get flamed flamed here, but hatred takes some doing.

  89. 89.

    Original Lee

    June 15, 2012 at 11:24 am

    @Hill Dweller: Not just judicial nominees, but also confirmation of general officer promotions, too. We know of several people whose promotions have been hung up for many months. How is it useful to refuse to act to confirm someone’s promotion to brigadier, for example? The older guys just want to retire and go home, the new guys want to move from acting CO to actual CO, and it’s all gummed up because the Repugs are sitting on their hands.

  90. 90.

    shortstop

    June 15, 2012 at 11:51 am

    @ornery_curmudgeon: This is about us not loving horses enough, isn’t it?

  91. 91.

    LanceThruster

    June 15, 2012 at 12:00 pm

    I cringe at the thought of the Rethuglican march to the past where they could have dealt with Barack Obama in a totally different manner for soiling the integrity of their white wimmin’.

  92. 92.

    rikyrah

    June 15, 2012 at 12:11 pm

    @kay:

    Right, I agree, but is it worth it?
    When they went after FOX in 2009, we saw what happens. The entire political media rallied around FOX and went after the President for pointing out the fucking obvious: that FOX is a political operation.

    I dunno, Kay, but I haven’t changed my mind. I’d call out those assclowns every fucking day if it was me.

    They won’t do their damn jobs.

    Which is but another reason why I’m glad the President and First Lady don’t socialize with these clowns.

  93. 93.

    cckids

    June 15, 2012 at 12:14 pm

    This is somewhat OT, but on the subject of the wretchedness of the press corps, I was reduced to throwing things at the TV yesterday by Joe Kline on Hardball; he kept talking about “Obama’s failure to communicate what he’s done” . . . “no one knows whats in Dodd-Frank, no one knows whats in Obamacare”, etc etc.

    How sad that someone who, you know, writes about politics for a major news magazine couldn’t attempt to alleviate some of that ignorance. Asshat.

  94. 94.

    rikyrah

    June 15, 2012 at 12:14 pm

    @kay:

    On the birth certificate, for example, they covered the birth certificate as a legit issue, that went on for two years, Obama eventually embarrassed them on it, and they went into knee- jerk offense on the quality of their work

    don’t get me started on the Birth Certificate thing….their constant LEGITIMIZATION of those muthafuckas drove my Black behind into a constant state of rage.

    HELL NO, they would have NEVER allowed that shyt for ANY WHITE PRESIDENT.

    they would have called those muthafuckas what they should have been called from the beginning:


    STUPID and/or CRAZY

    period.

    that they didn’t, gets us back to the difference in viewpoint between you and me, and that’s ok. I woulda done a whole lot worse than the President did.

    fuck ’em.

  95. 95.

    Herman Newticks

    June 15, 2012 at 12:38 pm

    I thought Genevieve Cook was a composite…

  96. 96.

    gelfling545

    June 15, 2012 at 1:47 pm

    @Michael57: They would also, please, like the President to do their job for them. Take this difficult and complex situation & reduce it to 140 characters. Then they can just send it onto their readership with a couple of mouse clicks. I mean, the Republicans do this for them all the time so why is the President so mean?

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