NYTimes stenographer Bai finds the whole “soliciting votes from the — shudder — ‘middle class'” idea distasteful:
… The opening festivities on Tuesday, at least before Michelle Obama’s emotional prime-time appearance, were about dispensing with all the speakers whom Democrats didn’t really want the rest of the county to notice. Jimmy Carter did a video. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took the stage to remind Americans of how much they love Congress. There was a moving tribute to Ted Kennedy.
Wednesday, though, begins the hard sell of President Obama to the middle class. And for this task, the campaign has juxtaposed two prime-time speakers — Elizabeth Warren and Bill Clinton, one right after the other — who in their core philosophies represent contradictory, even irreconcilable strains of American liberalism.
Mr. Obama’s strategists will tell themselves what they have said since the president first ran in 2008 — that there is no real inconsistency in these two wings of the party, that both Mr. Clinton and Ms. Warren speak to the same imperiled middle class, a category so broad and ill-defined that the vast majority of Americans would say they belong to it….
…[I]n their essential worldviews, Mr. Clinton and Ms. Warren nicely embody the enduring confusion over what it is Mr. Obama really believes about the direction of his party and the country. As a candidate in 2008, Mr. Obama took advantage of an extraordinary moment to run as all things to all people; beneath the airy notion of “hope and change” lay an implicit appeal to disaffected independents and fatigued liberals. And this noncommittal strategy worked spectacularly.
As Mr. Clinton himself once told me, however, there are consequences for not clarifying one’s own beliefs as a candidate and then trying to make it up as you go along in office. He wasn’t talking specifically about Mr. Obama, but he might as well have been. As president, Mr. Obama has often seemed to veer between “postpartisan” pragmatism and anticorporate populism, confounding his supporters and satisfying neither constituency.
In truth, though, Mr. Clinton and Ms. Warren speak to different audiences and reflect inescapably divergent perspectives on how to confront the epic challenges of globalization and inequality…
Shorter Matt Bai: Life was so much simpler when Everyone Who Mattered dutifully took dictation from the Cheney Administration, and there was no unseemly debate about ‘facts’ and ‘goals’! If only the vulgar populace would return to voting exactly as their wealthy betters demanded, and we poor abused Media Villagers didn’t have to work so hard!
Since bully-adoring cowards like Bai never risk their precious remora selves anywhere outside the gated media community (and it’s hard to find an invertebrate’s neck for punching), here’s a powerful replacement means of dissent:
Villago Delenda Est
Assholes like Bai are just jostling hard to see who gets the higher numbers in the tumbrel sweepstakes.
cathyx
Daddy, just tell me what to do.
Spatula
Posts like this always leave me wondering: Why the NECK? Why not the jaw? Or the mouth or the nose?
Is this a regional distinction?
Do ruffians actually swing with intent to strike the neck? Where? The side or the Adam’s Apple, in the case of Ann Coulter?
Jerzy Russian
Not to quibble too much, but I think a swift kick in the nuts would work better.
feebog
I guess Bai wasn’t watching the same set of speakers I was; Tammy Duckworth, Ted Strickland, Deval Patrick and Kal Penn were all pretty awesome. And they all struck different themes under the big umbrella of the Democratic Party. You see Bai, there is plenty of room for both Clinton and Warren under the tent, as opposed to the tiny parasol that is the Republican party.
JGabriel
__
__
When I see the byline “Matt Bai”, that’s when I reach for my
revolverheadphonesmouse and click on another page..
MikeJ
@cathyx: Most people thought “Don’t Make Me Think” was a book on UI. Bai thought it was politics.
kindness
Punch him in the neck?
I understand it is taboo to say as much but how ’bout giving him a swift (and forceful) kick in the balls?
Then take pics and post them when he is on the floor holding his huevos.
FlipYrWhig
Warren and Clinton are hardly antithetical variants of liberalism. They’re both about the technocratic management of the capitalist system, albeit at different points on the continuum. Bai might be surprised to know that there are even more divergent kinds of liberalism and populism afoot in America, and that they’ve been skirmishing and disagreeing noisily for approximately 80 consecutive fucking years.
jgaugust
O/T: Put this in the previous post, but thought I would put it here:
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/judge-orders-jon-husted-to-attend-ohio-early
Anyone up for a verbal benchslapping and an order against the asshat?
Jay B.
What the fuck is he even writing about here other than a variant on the “Democrats in disarray” narrative that is his bread and butter? Warren and Clinton have opposite beliefs? I think Clinton is on the corporate wing of the party for sure, but he’s also a pragmatist. I’m sure he agrees with the opportunity society Warren embraces too.
Clinton bet wrong on NAFTA (or expected the results), but I always thought he was pretty good trying to expand opportunities. Warren though better score big — I can’t abide by the thought of her losing to Scott fucking Brown.
Scott S.
Punch in the neck? Or a trip down a wood-chipper?
mclaren
As a nation of bully-worshiping cowards, America naturally and obviously generates stenographers like Bai the way a herpes infection generates open sores.
dmsilev
I saw the teaser for that article on the Times’ homepage and decided, without reading it, that some brave soul really needs to slap Matt Bai in the face with a large wet salmon.
Having skimmed the article now, let me revise and extend my remarks. Some brave soul really needs to slap Matt Bai in the face with a large wet hammerhead shark.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Villago Delenda Est:
__
I suggest we give him a golden fast-pass and let him cut to the front of the line.
The Moar You Know
@kindness: They are both debilitating but a kick to the balls won’t kill you.
Can’t say the same about punching someone in the neck. That probably WILL kill you.
Villago Delenda Est
@jgaugust:
I’m for contempt charges, and haul his vile fascist ass into a cell.
Until he relents, and under over the shoulders supervision, complies with the court’s order.
scav
Whole idea of listening to alternatives and combining / stealing from both is such a foreign mindset to stenographer authoritaricloneworld. Now I’m hoping for two speeches that will send him screaming under his bed sucking his blankie.
folsom ca
Why don’t they just call each other and leave the rest of out of their dysfunction. Charles K (the wheelchair warrior) did this in my paper the other day complaining about Fareed Z. I was astonished, why do I need to know your internals. Call each other, and leave us out of your skull numbing crap. Long time lurker. The op ed pages are an internal dialog I am bored with.
Ben Franklin
@The Moar You Know:
They are both debilitating but a kick to the balls won’t kill you.
..but you’ll wish it did.
Anne Laurie
@Jerzy Russian:
Too small a target, even assuming facts not in evidence.
JustRuss
I hate when I get suckered in to clicking an NYT link, but in this case it was worth it. The column isn’t quite as bad as advertised–but it is bad, and the first comment is a gem, providing the critical feature lacking in the column: context.
Seems to be a critical shortage of context amongst our media, can we buy them some before the election? Is it all made in China these days?
mamayaga
I thought punching in the neck was a John Coleism that has become part of this blog’s culture, sort of like attending a national convention without any pants.
jl
Bad pundits are making brave predictions about what Bill Clinton will say tonight. Interesting to see how the pundits will look tomorrow. Not that it will make a difference.
Bai thinks Clinton’s welfare reform philosophy is fundamentally different from Obama’s? Is Bai implicitly trying to peddle GOP BS on that?
Clinton has exactly the same views on derivatives markets now that he had in the late 1990s? Clinton has explicitly said the deregulation went too far and mistaken policies he initiated led to later problems.
Bais is just BSing.
It took me exactly two different searches and maybe two minutes to find a youtube on Clinton’s changed views on financial deregulation.
“Bill Clinton, Wall Street” (nothing useful)
“Bill clinton, derivatives markets”
First hit:
Clinton’s Derivatives, Yeah
http://youtu.be/r2ibBMWU5Ew
Not sure what the person posting the video is trying to sell, but Clinton clearly states that he got bad advice and he made a wrong decision.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Jesus Christ.
My father-in-law has a great saying that I think is appropriate here: you can be friends with a thief, you just don’t let him hold your wallet.
The Democratic party can embrace business and be pro-Wall Street without giving business and Wall Street license to loot the goddamned country.
SteveinSC
Well, I for one understand one of Bai’s points (a person I don’t read and really don’t know anything about) is that Bill Clinton is partially responsible for the situation Elizabeth Warren is trying to fix. Bill Clinton and his “Globalization” (read “Out Source to China”, NAFTA, CAFTA, etc.) created a bubble that generated a budget surplus based on the raping of American workers. His allies were Phil “Goddamn Traitor” Gramm, Gingrich, “Dick” Dickhead Armey and the 1%’ers. I have no particular affection for “Big Dog” who embarrassed the Office of the President. He only looks good when viewed through the lens of his despicable successor.
Schlemizel
_ puts on cast iron undies _
OK, Mat is not really wrong about Obama bouncing between the Clinton/DLC wing and the actual Democratic wing of the party. I expected that when I voted for him. I don’t like it but really there was no choice as without that DLC bunch we will never win an election in this environment. I don’t see that as cynical or awful, its just the way it is and I think it is actually the way President Obama thinks.
What the douche too big for a single bag gets wrong is that this is somehow wrong when he is one of the asses saying they want compromise. To quote out beloved host. How do you compromise when one party wants Italian for dinner & the other demands anthrax and hub caps? That leaves any actual progress as a compromise between the two groups Obama has worked between,
_ waiting to be toasted for suggesting TDTBFASB could be right even if his conclusion is off by about 25,000 miles _
Calouste
@Villago Delenda Est:
Tell Husted he is going to end in jail, and send him a few pictures of what happened to Allen Stanford in a for-profit prison.
Turgidson
Oh boy. Even in an election where the GOP challenger has quite literally held every possible position on every identifiable issue and refuses to offer anything specific other than “Obamasucktaxcuts!”, it’s the Democratic incumbent, who via his own words and those of numerous surrogates is being pretty goddamn clear about who he is and what his values are, who needs to explain what he believes in.
Tired old variants on the “weak Democrats disarray” catch-all narrative die hard, don’t they?
Shawn in ShowMe
From reading the other thread I understand that the critical votes Warren needs are being cast by men that find her intimidating. The First Lady punctuated her speech last with an ode to motherhood. Is Warren comfortable speaking about traditional family roles? It seems these Massachusetts men have an emotional need for Warren to get inside that box.
Anoniminous
Bai reminds of a slimy corporate toad, naturally with an MBA from Harvard, who goes around muttering about “core competency strategies under Six Sigma.”
Chris
@Schlemizel:
Isn’t that what every president’s had to do? Isn’t that just called threading the needle between the different parts of your party? Didn’t FDR himself need to navigate carefully between the Wall Street/Bourbon/party-establishment-bosses and the radical populists leaning in a Huey Long direction?
It’s fucking reality. Yes, there are times when you have no choice but to completely cut off a wing of your party (segregationists 1960s), but those times are few and far between and you always pay a high price for them. If there’s a single faction in either party that’s powerful enough to win the White House all by its lonesome, they’re welcome to try, but I don’t think they exist.
ETA: not going off on you, just to be clear, actually agreeing with you.
Litlebritdifrnt
Just got this on my twitter feed via Jack Ryan at The Fogbow
http://www.scribd.com/doc/105043251/2012-09-05-OfA-et-al-v-HUSTED-et-al-Notice-of-Hearing-Re-Enforcement-of-Court-Order
A hearing has been set on the Ohio mess for September 13. The Judge ordered Husted to personally attend the hearing. Methinks he is in deep shit.
Violet
@Shawn in ShowMe: Yeah, I’m curious how she’s going to pitch her speech.
I wonder if the Big Dawg will show up in MA to stump for Warren. He might get through to those white men in a way Warren can’t.
Bill E Pilgrim
One of the funniest stories I ever heard was when Matt Taibbi was invited to sit down with David Gergen and gave Gergen the vapors by being liberal and shrill, and only later via several specific clues did Taibbi and his RS editors realize that Gergen had very probably thought he was meeting Matt Bai.
Here’s one description of the incident, but the far funnier version was here, where he told the story this way:
“…later in the day, when my editors and I figured out what had happened, we were all laughing hysterically — somewhere that night David Gergen was telling someone what an asshole Matt Bai is.”
That chat also contained this gem from him:
Way with words, that boy.
JGabriel
Matt Bai has permanent cognitive vertigo from heedlessly chasing the center so precipitously, without any regard for his own mental derangement or for whether he comes across as a utter jackass, that we have an at least two-year record of it here on Balloon Juice.
Matt Taibbi via DougJ, 2010 December 10:
Me, 2010 August 12:
I suspect there are earlier BJ references to Bai’s irrational faux-centrist worship, but I’m not finding any at the moment (Google probably prioritizes more recent entries). Anyway, Bai must be completely addled by this point.
.
Maude
@jl:
I despise Bill Clinton. I won’t comment about him except he also said, why didn’t anyone tell him about Rwanda.
peggy
@dmsilev: Slap in the face with a large wet salmon is far too close to inviting him to have sushi for dinner. Shark correction gets approval.
Ben Franklin
@Maude:
But, he’s our asshole. *>)
trollhattan
@jgaugust:
Oh, that’s gonna leave a mark.
scav
@Litlebritdifrnt: Do they normally do all that bold in court documents? I don’t remember it but I may be letting my hopes in in the way of my memories.
Ben Franklin
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Great tidbit.
mamayaga
I always considered Bill Clinton the best Republican president of the last 50 years. I just would have preferred a Democrat.
Mnemosyne
@Schlemizel:
Honestly, though, I think Warren herself is on the DLC spectrum, especially now that Bill has swung back and admitted that his financial deregulation went too far and gave the industry more freedom than they could handle. She’s not a crazy-eyed radical calling for the abolition of capital — she’s just calling for better regulations.
IMO, the role of government in capitalism is to play referee between businesses and customers and protect consumers from being unfairly exploited by businesses. I don’t think that’s a stance that Clinton, Warren, or Obama would disagree with, though there might be some dispute about the amount of regulation necessary.
IOW, Bai is still a moron for trying to claim that Warren and Clinton are in opposite camps.
Litlebritdifrnt
@scav:
I don’t know about that circuit but normally judges capitalize things that they want noticed, i.e., IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, but I have never seen a judge capitalize and bold such an order. Methinks that the Judge is pissed beyond belief and wants to get the asshole in front of him to tell him exactly how much he is pissed. It should be a fun hearing, thankfully it looks that we have a “boots on the ground” member of The Fogbow who is going to attend and report.
burnspbesq
@Litlebritdifrnt:
You left out the best part: Husted has been ordered to attend in person. He is going to get a massive and righteous chewing out from a pissed-off U.S. District Judge. I would pay a lot to see that.
Kerry Reid
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: “Is there a VIP entrance? Because we’re VIP.”
gex
Do these folks have any sensory apparatus at all? I mean, we all take in new information via our senses. What is happening here? Are these just brains in a vat of Brawndo thinking out articles with zero relation to reality?
Maude
@Ben Franklin:
For some reason that made me feel better. Thanks.
Mnemosyne
@Shawn in ShowMe:
I’ll be curious to see if Warren brings up her kids and grandkids. I also wonder if Warren might be able to channel a different stereotype that might appeal to those blue-collar, mostly Catholic Massholes — that really great crusading nun that we all remember from Catholic school. The one who spent a lot of time talking about social justice and fairness and policed the schoolyard to make sure no one was getting bullied.
It could be tricky given that she’s twice-married and a grandmother, but she might be able to pull it off.
eric
wait a minute…the Big Dog is not a marxist? no effing way….really? Bill was (and is) an imperfect person and an imperfect politician, but so long as he makes the non-election of Mitt more likely than he is my guy. I hate having to defend myself for defending an obviously imperfect political persona when we all now that my social-democrat, marxist demigod isnt walking out of that locker room. I know all of these things. I am not a naif. But, I want to and feel that we must WIN for my daughter’s sake — hence, kick a$$ Big Dog…woof.
Mnemosyne
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Methinks the judge was away for the weekend and just found out that Husted was planning to disobey his order.
Even in-the-tank Republican judges hate having their orders defied. Husted is not going to have a fun day in court, what with that new asshole he’s going to be walking away with after the judge rips him a new one.
JPL
Maybe Cheney will take Matt Bai hunting. Good times!
JPL
@Mnemosyne: What happens if Husted is thrown in jail for contempt?
scav
@Litlebritdifrnt: ooo, you make me happy in a hopefulish kind of manner. thanks.
Litlebritdifrnt
@burnspbesq:
I edited to add that. I also added that we are probably going to have a “boots on the ground” member of the Fogbow at the hearing. We should have a report of the results as soon as they happen.
raven
If you see Krystal Ball give her a smooch!
LanceThruster
@eric:
True dat. For all our sakes.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Mnemosyne:
Just got this from Wikipedia:
This fits in perfectly with Castro and Michelle’s narratives from last night, about how their parents poured everything into their children to give them a chance. I hope she goes there.
Linda Featheringill
@jgaugust:
Ohio early voting:
Good! INAL, let alone a judge, but the State of Ohio looked to me like it was guilty of contempt of court.
LanceThruster
@raven:
Don’t be sniffin’ ’round my tree.
xD
trollhattan
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Republican prick must surely be tempted to ignore the order. Would federal marshals with a bench warrant be far behind?
mamayaga
Got some members of the House Black Caucus bringing some fire now, after a bunch of fairly pedestrian speeches. I saw at GOS that Clinton’s speech is going to go after voter suppression, and this group has been hitting that too.
jl
I found Clinton infuriating in several ways when he was president. And irritating now: he has made some goofball statements, I think just because he wants attention, and probably wants to remind people he can have impact so should be ‘consulted’ or thrown some bones or perks or something. What a narcissist cheeseball.
I think there is enough on the line for him tonight to do a good job, but I would not put pulling some kind of Christy stunt past him, that is giving an unsuitable speech for his own self serving reasons. Don’t think he will do that but he has and he still could.
But, my point was Bai is the high paid wise infromed pundit is BSing out of his ass, and clearly saying things that are not true.
Why, I dunno. Maybe too busy prowling for free buffets and open bars and looking for good schmoozing opportunities at the convo to do even two minutes of research. Jackass.
raven
@LanceThruster: You seen her “holiday” pics?
Violet
Seen on Twitter:
Gabby Giffords?
arguingwithsignposts
@Litlebritdifrnt: Is video allowed in Ohio courts? Because I’d watch that on youtube.
PsiFighter37
Emmanuel Cleaver feeding red meat to the crowd from what I can see on C-Span. I’ll be surprised if his voice doesn’t give out.
mamayaga
Rep. Cleaver has got that old time Dem religion going — half expect the whole hall to march out into the streets when this is over.
LanceThruster
@raven:
Can’t say that I have…but I shall with the help of teh Great Gazoogle.
(thx for the tip)
Villago Delenda Est
@arguingwithsignposts:
It’s a federal court, so whatever the federal rules are, they apply.
This is what is pretty precipitous about this…the potential of a confrontation between armed federal agents and armed state agents. Husted could make this waaay too interesting for anyone’s taste.
LanceThruster
@raven:
Oh my stars and garters! Fun stuff (though I still love her for her mind, thank you).
raven
@LanceThruster: It ruined her political career but it was the dildo nose that did it!
PsiFighter37
Ugh, Malloy is a terrible speaker. I’m not shocked that he’s not great (he had pretty severe dyslexia and apparently memorizes all his speeches – probably not as conducive to firing up the base), but this is just full of ‘meh’.
Keith G
Anne L., it seems that you dislike like Bai. That’s cool. Nonetheless, I am wondering what you find in the block quote that is so objectionable.
I have read and reread the central part of the quote
Earlier Obama had seemed to be in a bit of a muddle between his establishment ties and the satisfaction of populist emotions. Notice the change in the President’s vocabulary once Occupy gained a bit more support. That doesn’t make Obama a bad person. Successful politicians do this all the time. Bai is pointing that out.
That said, I could have done without the last seven words in the above block. I think it is clearly the case that Obama has confounded some of his supporters on some issues (again, what politician hasn’t). Where he loses me is the undocumented assertion that neither constituency is satisfied. That is just a lazy and stupid thing to type.
I would be particularly gratified if you would point out where in Bai’s text is the genesis for this:
Litlebritdifrnt
@arguingwithsignposts:
I don’t know, I’ll check with our reporter. Having said that The Fogbow’s method of getting information to the site is brilliant. Generally the person on the ground relays a very detailed report to our tame “suck egg court reporter” (sorry inside joke) who then prepares a transcript of the proceedings based upon the reporters narrative. Sometimes the on the ground reporters does their own immediate narrative. Either way, you can guarantee that TFB will have a first hand account of what went on in the courtroom faster than anyone else.
Anya
There are no words to describe how dissapointed I feel about the Dems caving to pressure from pundit and republican re: god and Jerusalem. Fuck this shit!
LanceThruster
@raven:
I wonder how many careers (political or otherwise) having a little (traceable) innocent fun in life killed? Why is it better that we have so many closet neurotics so terrified of their true inner selves being revealed?
I haz a sad now.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
Nah. Bill wants to be the kingmaker, graciously putting his seal of approval on Obama. Unlike Christie, Bill has no aspirations to run for office again, so there’s no reason for him to do anything but make himself look like he’s still a powerful unifying force in the Democratic Party.
LanceThruster
@Anya:
I dream of the day when we can quit pretending about such.
raven
So how does twitter work? I am following our crew but don’t know what happens when I post something to their feed?
trollhattan
O/T Orgasm Man pops up in anti-vaxer role. No word on whether Jenny McCarthy has made any promises re. his performance.
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2012/09/actor-rob-schneider-urges-gov-brown-to-veto-vaccination-bill.html
“These people” need to STFU.
Litlebritdifrnt
Does anyone have a link to a livestream of the convention?
Chris
@LanceThruster:
Could’ve been today. I seriously don’t think it would’ve been a major thorn in our side this go around.
raven
@Litlebritdifrnt:
http://www.demconvention.com/live/
jl
@Mnemosyne:
Probably true. I can’t help being a little cynical about Bill Clinton. I think the fact that the GOP and corporate national affairs media have been lying and BSing about him has pissed him off personally, and points to him doing a good job too.
Edit: so I hope Big Dawg noticed Bai’s piece of dreck today. Hey, Bai might have finally done something useful by writing that crud.
mamayaga
C-span has been more reliable for me than the demconvention feed.
Frankensteinbeck
@Keith G:
Occupy got its message from Obama. He hit the ‘the rich don’t pay their fair share’ angle hard in his debt speech, and kept hitting it. It caught on, for the first time in thirty years.
raven
@mamayaga: well give her the damn link then
Litlebritdifrnt
@raven:
Thank you!
CJ in mpls
@Litlebritdifrnt: The bolding and/or caps are perfectly normal in an order from a court.
Example from an order that came in today:
“IT IS ORDERED the motion is GRANTED and the Clerk shall file under seal the brief lodged at”
This is a simple order to seal a particular document. No capitalization is necessary, but there it is.
Todd
@dmsilev:
I tend to prefer the approach where he is brutally punched in the face until his sinuses collapse and he chokes to death on his own blood. Of course, preferred viewing entertainments vary.
LanceThruster
@Chris:
Possibly not, but it might have tugged at the stitches of the spine implant.
Keith G
@Frankensteinbeck: Well that’s a creative take on it.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
WTF does Bai mean by this? It’s only in retrospect that the Big Dog comes off as a political mastermind. 1993-1994 were clusterf**k after clusterf**k and circular firing squads. He had to dump his plans to help the middle class in favor of the demands of the bond market. It’s not until Gingrich took the house that Clinton showed his ninja political skillz. Bai has the memory of a gnat.
[Also, Iif Bill had kept in his pants, Gore would have won by enough of a margin to prevent the SCOTUS from appointing Bush. Imagine how much better the last decade would have been if he’d handled his indiscretions in a better way.]
joes527
@Anya:
I could give them a pass on
doggod. It’s just a word. Who cares if it is in or out?But the Jerusalem thing will (continue to) get people killed.
Fuck their spinelessness.
Litlebritdifrnt
@CJ in mpls: I agree that the all caps are normal, however the bolding to me was a little bit telling. It may be a thing for a particular district with which I am not familiar, as I said in my response. It was certainly unusual to order an elected official to personally appear before the Judge in court when in normal circumstances they would be allowed to appear through counsel, it is very telling to me that the Judge wants Husted in his courtroom, my guess is so that he can chew him a new asshole.
hep kitty
Erick Erickson’s Vagina Monologues tweet and subsequent non-apology
? Martin
Here’s something to piss John off: MICHAEL LEWIS REVEALS: How President Obama Made The Most Controversial Military Decision Of His Presidency
Part of his upcoming Vanity Fair profile (link to a preview in article).
Really looking forward to reading this one.
Mike in NC
Possible spoiler in Virginia:
? Martin
And Kudos to our blue delegates from Utah for helping boo down the amendment. What kind of chickenshit idea was it to bring forward the amendment in the first place?
Anya
@raven: if you post: @Johngcole only John will see it. So you have to write something before someone’s twitter address. Example: Hey @Johngcole or .@Johngcole
SiubhanDuinne
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Pissed-off Judge Economus is pissed off.
Mandalay
@Anya:
Agreed. On MSNBC Al Sharpton is stating that the platform changes came from the president, and they reflect his views. I have no idea on the ‘god’ part, but making Jerusalem the capital of Israel is definitely not supported by Obama. Nor by the US Government. Nor (apparently) by Democrats in general.
The original omissions were hardly accidental, so why the humiliating climbdown? Were rich donors threatening to redirect their $$$ to the Republicans, proving that we have the finest democracy that money can buy?
Keith G
@Mandalay:
And yet the president personally intervened to get both these things added PDQ. How’s that for clarifying one’s own beliefs?
Campaigns are oh so interesting.
scav
@SiubhanDuinne: Judge Economus. Isn’t that a great name?
SiubhanDuinne
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Somehow I don’t think Husted’s going to be sleeping very well for the next eight nights.
SiubhanDuinne
@scav:
I love it!
Suffern ACE
@Anya: Remember when BB speaks, they will applaud each breath and stand for each paragraph break lest they be caught on camera sitting. That’s every rep, thank you. When they need to come clean about Guantanamo and shut it down, we get six senators who think that’s a good idea. We only have one ally in the region, so as the junior member of the arrangement we had better give tribute.
Anya
@Mandalay: disheartening. We are controlled by religious crazed zealots and Israel firsters. In most cases they’re the same assholes.
jake the snake
@Anoniminous:
He reminds me of Carter Burke
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Alien_characters
Anya
@Suffern ACE: UGH! Don’t remind me of the way OUR elected officials sided with Netanyahu against their own President.
I want this fucking election to be over so that I can hear as little as possible about God, and Israel.
SiubhanDuinne
@Anya:
Yeah, disappoints and pisses me off too, but I am definitely not going to die on this hill this year. Maybe in 2016 or 2020. First things first.
Anya
@SiubhanDuinne: Give me till tomorrow.
Keith G
@SiubhanDuinne:
Meh. Buck up. I am rather certain that once this came up, the Prez was thinking, “We don’t need this shit hogging up the news cycle. Make it go away now!”
And he would be right. It’s a platform addendum. Some fights are not worth fighting during a campaign year.
Mnemosyne
@Mandalay:
Argh. I’m hoping that the thinking is “Maybe if we throw them the Jerusalem bone, they’ll STFU about attacking Iran until after November.”
It’s probably a forlorn hope, because Bibi has never kept his word about anything, but that may be the calculation.
Mnemosyne
@Keith G:
Dude, are you bipolar? Because you went from this:
to this:
So is this the worstest ever betrayal by Obama ever, or no big deal?
Some Loser
@Keith G:
Franken was refering to his speech here.@
Keith G:
It could mean Barack Obama heard criticism of it and changed it to appease his constituents. But you really don’t want to hear that do you? I can understand being upset by it, but why are you trying to change it into something it is not.
@Keith G:
And as far as Barack Obama goes, he has been pretty upfront about his beliefs. Other than changing things to appease his constituents (which is something all representatives should do), he has been pretty solid. He hasn’t been making up it up as he gone on. That, if nothing else is, is plainly obvious.
I ain’t trying to be confrontational here, man. I’m just sayin’.
Some Loser
@Keith G:
Here‘s what Franken was referring to. Just two before Occupy officially formed and way before they became relevant. Obama, however, was talking about the tax code since at least 2008.
@Keith G:
It could mean Barack Obama heard criticism of it and changed it to appease his constituents. But you really don’t want to hear that do you? I can understand being upset by it, but why are you trying to change it into something it is not.
chris9059
Bai is a lazy jackass but I’m not sure what your problem w him is here. warren and Clinton DO have fundamentally different policy objectives and conceptions of American society. Despite all his protestations of empathy Clinton has accepted the neo-liberal philosophy of unregulated markets as an end in themselves while Warren represents the classic New Deal liberal conception of markets as only a means to the end of a prosperous and just society.
Some Loser
@Keith G:
And as far as Barack Obama goes, he has been pretty upfront about his beliefs. Other than changing things to appease his constituents (which is something all representatives should do), he has been pretty solid. He hasn’t been making up it up as he gone on. That, if nothing else is, is plainly obvious.
I ain’t trying to be confrontational here, man. I’m just sayin’.
((Had to cut this into two comments.))
Some Loser
@chris9059:
What? When did that start becoming true?
Are you aware Clinton apologized for the derelegations that happened under him?
This article is stupid and bullshit and based on fantasy rather than reality.
Keith G
@Mnemosyne:
1st: Whose talking about betrayal? I sure was not.
2nd: Those differing quotes reflect efforts to get different people to think about what they had typed. Remember the origin of the thread: Bai thinking that Obama had acted in a way that confused his supporters. As some folks here rushed in to bash Bai, it seems that Obama did something to confuse some supporters. I was noting the irony but not criticizing the Prez.
In your second block, I was noting why I thought the “flexibility” just shown by Obama was a very reasonable choice, this time.
@Some Loser: I am not upset. See above.
SiubhanDuinne
@Keith G: Did you read the rest of my sentence?
Mnemosyne
@Anya:
Soonergrunt in the thread above is saying that the Jerusalem thing has been in the Democratic Party platform for years, was removed this year, and re-inserted. So it may be even less of a big deal than it first looked like.
Keith G
@Some Loser: The origins of what became known as the OWS movement was being fleshed out 3 months before the speech you reference. So that speech did not supply vocab to the movement. And please recall that one of the basis of the movent was the annoyance the the current administration was too passive in investigating those who brought about the global crisis of 08-09. And yes BHO has talked about the tax code:
Good stuff, yes, but not emotions that would instruct the emerging passions of OWS. So when Frankensteinbeck types…
Not only is the timeline off, but the depth of passion and commitment is not related.
Some Loser
@Keith G:
Franken jumped the gun a bit. Most people (myself included) don’t really know all that much about Occupy Wallstreet.
But, nonetheless, I concede the point.
pseudonymous in nc
Saw the headline, thought “that looks like shit.” Now knowing it was Bai, I pride myself on my good judgement.
Keith G
@SiubhanDuinne: Indeed I did and I was thinking, that one does not even need to be disappointed. The god/Jerusalem things in the platform are the equivalent of lapel flag pins.
Keith G
@Some Loser: Well, the only reason I cared at all is that sometimes there seems to well up in this place a reflexive defensiveness about Obama to the point were reasonable criticisms are seen to be vendettas by assholes and/or the Prez in given near mystical powers.
And although I know it’s a colossal time suck, I like to challenge those misconceptions. I think it’s a whole lot healthier to view our leaders as the mere humans that they are.