Here’s a bit of good old Bill Clinton for an open thread.
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by $8 blue check mistermix| 125 Comments
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Here’s a bit of good old Bill Clinton for an open thread.
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Steve
Bill is turning into Jennifer Granholm before our eyes.
Violet
Oh…that is awesome. Making fun of Mitt is the thing that will burst his bubble the most. He can’t take it, he can’t stand it. Turn him into a joke. Keep it up. Thank you, Big Dog!
aimai
Oh my god get that guy and Jennifer Granholm their own tv show, stat!
aimai
aimai
Fuck! Steve beat me to it! There must be something about the way that they both threw their arms out and kind of tossed their hair that makes the comparison inevitable. They both seemed giddy.
aimai
Culture of Truth
He’s like Big Bird, if Big Bird were a Rhodes Scholar
Steve
aimai owes me a coke!
Ben Franklin
Is the Big Dawg just a little tipsy?
Culture of Truth
Clinton is drunk on your love
Violet
He did call Mitt Romney “boy.” How does that fit into the “calling the President ‘boy’ is racist” discussion? I haven’t checked any wingnut blogs, but I can’t be the first person to notice that.
Mr Stagger Lee
O/t NFL great and later actor Alex Karras has passed away. Rest in Peace Mongo(Reference to his role in my favorite all time comedy,Blazing Saddles)
Waynski
@Mr Stagger Lee: “Mongo only pawn in game of life.” RIP Mongo.
BGinCHI
This is a nice contrast with the thread below and Drum’s argument that it has to be all substance or we shouldn’t talk/complain about it.
Bullshit.
The President has to demonstrate that he’ll fight for what he believes in and that when confronted by a dangerous liar who would derail his agenda he can use passion to defend it.
Clinton was always good at this and is better now that he doesn’t have to punch the presidential clock. Obama has to play the role of president, as well as policy maker and wonk. He does this in stump speeches and he better bring this shit to the debates.
No one should follow Kevin Drum when it comes to presidential leadership styles. Tote bag balls all the way.
anibundel
Bill Clinton’s still got it. Film at 11.
karen marie
I’m so excited! I’m going to see Bill Clinton tonight in Tempe, AZ!
gene108
From the Kevin Drum link below.
The biggest difference between conservatives and liberals – in terms of media relations – is conservatives are always willing to (1) declare victory and (2) blame liberals/Democrats.
Liberals are never willing to declare victory and blame conservatives/Republicans.
Examples:
HCR – Liberals should’ve declared victory that universal healthcare was on the doorstep, but instead they declared Obamacare a defeat because it didn’t have a public option.
Bush Tax Cuts: Republicans declare these did wonders for the economy and must expanded today to save us from socialism.
Point 2 examples:
Romney/Obama debate – liberals/Obama supporters in the media should’ve went off on Romney’s lies and made the focus solely on Romney’s lies and flip-flops the second the debate ended.
Hurricane Katrina – as terrible as the Bush & Co. response was, Hannity managed to shift some of the blame to Mayor Naggin because Naggin didn’t use school buses to ship out the poor and infirm, even though school buses as evacuation vehicles isn’t part of any cities hurricane evacuation protocols, as a far as I know.
The Right uses its media platform for a single minded goal of advancing its agenda.
Those on the Left with a media platform use it as platform to usually spout off about their fee-fees.
The media narrative thus gets set with the Left being all over the place, while the Right displays strength and purpose.
For example, people declare Bush, Jr. just rolled Congress, even though his two of his biggest domestic objectives were long standing Democratic goals – expanding Medicare and the Department of Education, while the second round of tax cuts passed the Senate by VP Chenney’s tie breaking vote.
That’s not exactly strong arming a right-wing agenda down the throats of the country.
He also got pushed to sign campaign finance reform into law, which he opposed and expanded regulations of publicly traded companies in Sarbanes-Oxley.
Why the myth that Bush, Jr. got what he wanted? Because the right-wing media set the narrative by declaring victory and not complaining to high heaven about how Bush, Jr. betrayed them.
Even on Iraq, the authorization to use force didn’t mean Bush, Jr. would’ve invaded. It actually worked, since by the fall of 2002 IAEA inspectors got to get back into Iraq for the first time, since 1998. If Bush, Jr. had any sense he’d have left it at that and the neo-cons would’ve had a huge international success, which they screwed up by actually going to war.
shortstop
@BGinCHI:
Laughing at the towering understatement of this gentle sentence.
lamh35
Ok, so the other day, I read a CNN story (google it) about Mitt Romney saying he actually met one of the victims of the Benghazi, Libya attack, the one who was an ex-Seal. Well I just thought that was way too convenient a story at a time when Mitt is supposed to be “getting more personal” or whatever. Plus if this is so, then why didn’t he mention it sooner? What ever the reason, I suspect he’ll be using the story in the FP debate with POTUS, so I sent the CNN story on to the OfA team as a heads, so to speak.
Well now it seems a friend of the ex-Seal spoke to a producer at a radio show I guess about his friend of 20 years and you guessed his, his tale of the meeting between Mitt and the ex-Seal was different than Mitts.
Here’s the article: “Romney’s emotional story remembered very differently by friend of fallen SEAL”
http://mynorthwest.com/108/1353861/Romneys-emotional-story-remembered-very-differently-by-friend-of-fallen-SEAL
Mitt’s version, of course, tells the tale as extremely sympathetic to Mitt, but the friends tale is not so sympathetic
mdblanche
Release the Clinton!
Good to see the President’s ambassador to white people out and about. Maybe he should make a diplomatic visit to MSNBC studios.
@karen marie: Arizona? Looks like somebody’s campaign didn’t get the message that they’re supposed to be in a panicky fetal crouch with the rest of us. That Obama is so aloof and arrogant. Also too, uppity.
Culture of Truth
true – Chris Matthews could have screamed at the tv, “why was Mitt Romney lying?!! Why?!?” Instead it was “where was Obama?!?!”
lamh35
@Violet: Obama’s been making fun of Mitt alot since after the debate, but I guess anything he does now will be colored by the debate.
Clinton I guess does it better than Obama?
@mdblanche: the fact that this President needs an “ambassador to white people” just to get their support is just sad to me. Not to get too deep, but it really naws on my nerve that Black people still need to get a white person to vouch for then even in the face of all that Obama has done to advance the lives of those people
But oh well.
BGinCHI
@shortstop: I just find it stunning that people on the left still think that if you just win all arguments on substance “the rest will take care of itself.”
There are too many people who treat a presidential election as though it’s a big-time sport: whoever “plays” better wins. Which is how Romney got so many people to think he won the debate without paying any attention to the substance of what was said. He “played a better game” for those who don’t care for details but who do want effort and (gasp) engagement, no matter how creepy to the rest of us.
This is the country we actually live in.
shortstop
@karen marie: That is going to be so much better than my evening! Have fun!
shortstop
@BGinCHI: Zackly. Recognizing the reality doesn’t mean we’re endorsing it. It means we’re interested in winning elections so the policy wonkery we actually care about has a chance in hell of happening.
Just Some Fuckhead
Both sides!
BGinCHI
@shortstop: Couldn’t agree more.
We’re not asking Obama to lie; we’re asking him to tell the truth with more zeal into the lying face of the lying liar who is trying to ruin the fucking country his daughters are going to grow up in.
More community organizer and less professor, plz.
shortstop
@Just Some Fuckhead: Who here remembers MatthewRMarler from Benen’s old place? I once wasted a half-hour of my life trying to make him understand that someone pointing out Dubya’s upper lip’s actual, objective resemblance to a chimpanzee’s did not give the right free rein to call Obama an ape from the jungle. Sometimes I make poor use-of-time decisions.
Another Halocene Human
@Violet: Clinton can get away with it. Obama can’t. And the Romney camp calling Obama that is just vile.
The Moar You Know
In another life, a few years back, I was a professional musician.
Musicians know when other musicians are good and when they are not. Audiences never do. All they know is not what they hear, but what they see. I’ve seen some of the most god-awful players bring down the the house because they could “sell” it.
Romney sold the debate. Obama, for whatever reasons (I’m betting altitude combined with a pre-debate cigarette was the cause, personally – that combo has fucked me over more than once) did not.
These aren’t debates on the merits, people. Romney wouldn’t be allowed through the door if they were. They are closer to a Miss America contest than anything else. Look poised, speak well, sell it.
Obama has done this and can do it.
Another Halocene Human
@lamh35:
It is sad although I think Obama does quite well in his home region of the Midwest and Clinton would really be a liability there.
Also, Clinton is on the outside and can clown it up and be relaxed. He’s loving the attention as mentioned up thread. Obama is–and has always been–serious as a heart attack and it’s probably tougher for him to get under Mitt’s skin since Mitt’s lying visibly upsets him.
I think he’ll be just fine in Town Hall. Mitt will gaffe out if “the liberal MSM” doesn’t pre sanitize the public. We already know he has issues with gay people and also has no problem telling people their program is going to be cut.
SiubhanDuinne
Here’s a good Senate ad. It’s for Bob Kerrey in Nebraska, and yeah, I know, but it is a Really. Good. Ad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p34r8gsQjJs&feature=youtube_gdata_player
mistermix
@BGinCHI: Drum is saying focus on the lies. Romney looked good telling bad lies. Focusing on how good he looked is what caused the media hysteria last week.
So, that’s what Clinton is doing here, calling out Romney for lying, forcefully. Not Obama’s style, and Obama has a positive message to get across, which makes me think that the real work of unpacking Romney’s lies is going to be done outside the debate.
BGinCHI
@The Moar You Know: Co-sign.
Ding dong
@lamh35: sorry but I think you are being overly sensitive here. I have a lot of problems with Bill the Triangulator but Bill is just very very good at simplifying complex stuff into mcnuggets but he doesn’t make you feel like a kid eating a happy meal. Just thank our lucky stars that Bills on our side because he would be devastating on the other side. Its got nothing to do with race.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Halocene Human:
I think Tweety is actually a good barometer of how Clinton is viewed by the wider public (no, really, in this instance, I do). Fourteen years ago, Clinton was Mr Blowjob, sending Tweety in to fits of spittle-flecked rage that are, along with the ever changing moods of his hair color, the origin of the Tweety nickname. Now after Bush, Iraq and the passage of time, Tweety can’t get enough of Bubba-Elvis. And the broader public never hated him like Tweety did. ANd that “ambassador to white people” thing? Absolutely true. And yes, it is sad. Embarrassing, in fact.
BGinCHI
@mistermix: I get that, I really do. But goddamn, is that a principle worth having right here right now?
No.
Obama can be forceful without giving up anything of substance. He’s a politician, not an ethical standard-bearer. He needs to play the game that is being played because not winning it right now has huge consequences.
Does he want to change that game? Yes. Can he? Yes. By winning the election. If he doesn’t then crying about how “people believed all the lies” or “didn’t challenge them” will amount to nothing.
Surrogates aren’t going to win this election for a black dude while such a high % of the country has its head up its ass.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@shortstop:
@BGinCHI:
I’ve been very hypercritical of Drum before, but I’m not getting the bashing here. My takeaway from what he said was that we would have been much better served by our advocates trying to turn focus onto substantive stuff rather than joining and echoing the right wing in declaring the debate an outright massacre and lamenting how he could’ve betrayed his side so badly with that performance.
Less ‘ignore that style counts over substance’ and more ‘don’t feed and accept your opponent’s own damned memes’
SiubhanDuinne
@karen marie:
You will come away SOOPER ENERGIZED! Big Dog will do that to a person. Have fun, and give us a full report later.
Culture of Truth
My takeaway on Drum and my personal take is yes, privately in our quiet rooms heh heh we can agee that Obama’s approach was all wrong, but our instant public reaction should have been, “hey Romney lied throughout the debate!”
Steve
I’m trying to picture the alternate universe in which the Fox News personalities all rend their garments and declare that Romney has lost the election because of a bad performance in a debate. I’m not sure why I’m having trouble imagining this scenario from the network that told us “pepper spray is a food product, basically,” but it is indeed difficult.
wrb
@mistermix:
Exactly. Sure it would help if Obama could bring more sizzle than substance because some people do judge with their gut but the job of anyone who care about the country is to focus on the content.
After the debate I thought Romney would get a small bounce, but after the lies were exposed in subsequent days he’d have turned out to have lost badly.
Instead we have people not only focusing on the sizzle, but arguing that is what upon which thy should be focused.
Infantilism has become not only accepted but the only response considered right and proper.
aimai
Obama and Clinton have two different roles in this election campaign, and they have different strengths, and even these two different roles and strengths need to be deployed differently in different settings. There’s no shame in that for either of them. Clinton himself says he would also have stood by and let Mitt do his worst during the debate and I think that is probably pretty accurate if the debate had occured between Clinton and his first term opponent. And Obama has, as lamh points out, been eating Mitt alive with a pretty damned witty comedy routine about the two mitts out on the campaign trail where it works well.
The situation itself keeps changing and we have to hope Obama can be the performer he needs to be in the next debate since we’ve now seen that the issues don’t matter to the viewers/pundits one tenth as much as the dick measuring.
aimai
Culture of Truth
The 9th Circuit has reinstated Montana’s campaign donation limits.
lamh35
For those who care, President Obama was on the Tom Joyner Morning Show this morning (for those white people who have no idea who that is, I’ve mentioned him before, so just google him for more more info if you care). Here’s the audio: http://www.blackamericaweb.com/content/president-barack-obama-tjms
A bit of what he said:
I suspect that “too polite” line will stick in people’s craw a bit, but who expects him to describe it as he “fucked up”, plus from what I read here and elsewhere the major problem is that he was “too polite” in not calling out Romney’s lies.
Anyway, he also said
”
Marc
@Violet:
As payback.
lamh35
@Ding dong: what’s overly sensitive got to do with it. People also called Biden Obama’s entry into the hearts of potential Dem white voters. Its why Biden is used so heavily in those midwest areas.
Aint’ nothing to do with just Clinton. It was a general statement about “white amabassadors” for OBama in general. Interesting that you took it as some sort of shot at Clinton though.
Maybe u are overly sensitive.
shortstop
@mistermix: @The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik: Possibly my snarky reaction has been colored by years of Drum referring to expressions of mild emotion from the left as “fever swamps.” He has repeatedly implored Democrats not to join the right in the dreaded crime of incivility, insisting that a calm recitation of our case will win the day. I think he has a real blind spot there.
I don’t have any problem with the concept that we should have spent more time hitting the substance of Romney’s lies. But it’s not an either-or thing. We also need to recognize the sad reality that style counts above all for too many voters — and Obama knows this; it’s a big piece of how he got elected — and perform accordingly.
I think mistermix nailed it with this in the previous post: “Obama needs to slip in his refutations quickly and deftly (which was his main substantive failing in the last debate—he didn’t have a crisp rebuttal to the most obvious lies) and move on to making his positive case.” My only criticism of the president last week was that he fell deeply into his tendency to verbally meander down these professorial lanes when he needs to be brief and compelling. And I believe he’ll do better next week and the week after.
lamh35
@Culture of Truth: case in point, so far wingers reaction to Romney’s 9 different abortions stances (seriously, I posted alink look it up at Buzzfeed)…”Ok, so let’s beat Obama”.
BGinCHI
@Steve: Really? They shit all over him in the primaries and they’ll do it again if he gets his ass handed to him or doesn’t come out and perform well. They’ll do it for different reasons, but there are sharks in those waters too.
Sharks of bad faith.
Waynski
@lamh35: Actually, “too polite” was exactly how I described his performance to my wife, who couldn’t bear to watch.
Meg
@BGinCHI: I think you need to distinguish the role of Obama and the role of the press. Sure, Obama should be more energetic. But he didn’t perform half as bad as the press said he did.
It is like a self-fulfilled prophecy. Some voters might now know what to think after watching the debate. Heck, some of them didn’t even watch the debate. But they all have seen Tweety’s meltdown.
Everywhere they turn, it is this talk of “rolling calamity”. Then of course the poll number oes bad for Obma. Because it is the media who reenforce this all optics no substance view. They are not doing their jobs helping low informed voters see the lies.
Tractarian
Exactly. Drum is not saying style doesn’t matter. Of course it does. What he is saying is that substance matters too, and the substance of what was said in the debate has been virtually ignored (by both left and right) in comparison to the style.
And, frankly, it was remarkable to see the liberal media and blogosphere erupt in rage and panic in the days after the debate. Not a single blogger (other than Drum) had the President’s back. And by “having the President’s back,” I don’t mean claiming that Obama had a great performance or that he won the debate. I mean focusing on substance in addition to style. Accentuating the (electorally) positive. A sentence excoriating Obama for his performance should always be accompanied by a paragraph explaining two or three of Mitt’s most egregious debate lies.
I guess this is nothing new. The “hack gap” is real. Liberal bloggers do not see themselves as “liberal bloggers”; they see themselves as neutral observers that, after coldly analyzing the facts, happen to prefer Democrats. That’s the right way to conduct journalism. It’s not the right way to conduct politics, however. And bloggers are more in the politics game than they are in the journalism game.
lamh35
@shortstop: It’s realy too late to know now I guess, but what I’d like to have pollster ask was first did you watch the debate? Then asked respondents who won the debate.
If they say the didn’t watch the debate and yet they pegged Romney as winner, I’d really begin to expect that the punditry and reporting of Romney superficial “win” really did move the meter, so to speak.
but I guess that too much to ask for
scott
Ridicule is devastating, especially when delivered with high spirits and good humor. Fun to watch!
Just Some Fuckhead
@lamh35:
I listen to Joyner sometimes, but then I’m not “white” in the fullest sense, having long ago transcended race.
I look forward to the next debate with Obama wherein he is portrayed as overly negative, too aggressive and over-prepared.
BGinCHI
@Meg: I agree, but it’s too late in the election cycle to try to make the media better.
Let me be clear.
I think substance over style matters. I think Obama should stick to his better policy ideas. I think Romney is a fucking liar.
But, and it’s a big one, you have debates and you have to leverage your ideas by being a leader who stands up for the things you believe in. Why? Because the media suck. Are we in the “change the media business” or the “win the presidency business”? Time to decide. We can get back to all the fundamentals the day after we crush Romney and hear his family mourn.
My argument is about now, not some abstract time.
scott
@mistermix: I agree on the lying thing. It’s work that needs to be done, but by surrogates like Clinton and not Obama, who needs to focus on sharpening the differences between himself and Romney, something he did really well since December of last year but wandered away from last week. If people hear more about the differences from both Biden and Obama, I’m actually pretty hopeful that they can turn things around.
Tractarian
@lamh35:
Something like this?
Steve
@BGinCHI: Uh, yeah, I thought it was kind of implicit in my comment that I was comparing Fox’s treatment of the Republican nominee to MSNBC’s treatment of the Democratic nominee. I wasn’t suggesting that Fox would shill for Romney even if he weren’t the nominee.
mdblanche
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Funny, I don’t recall much spittle flecked rage in my community far from the place that wasn’t Bill Clinton’s to wreck up. Well, besides from the people who started raging on election day in 1992 and kept it up until inauguration day in 2001. But maybe that’s just me.
@lamh35: This white boy agrees with you completely.
BGinCHI
@Steve: OK, got it. If we see Tweety’s freak out as about Obama’s approach to his presentation of his better ideas rather than a condemnation of him tout court, then it makes some sense.
The Fox idiots are only trying to get a straw man to be a brave lion, so their job is easier and their faith is badder.
Meg
@BGinCHI: I agree with most of what you say.
I also do not think we can change how the media behave all at once. But I do think that every time the media do something like this, we need to call them out and remind them we are watching.
Look, we can do two things at once. Obama camp can do everything we suggest them to improve-basically get a backbone. But we could also call out the media now and try to drive a different tone. Remember, tHere are still three debates to come.
Sparrowgal
WTF is it with the Romneys and the infantilization of Obama and the Democrats? More than a trend or meme, as some have suggested…now an all-out attempt to paint the campaign as composed of inadequate, screaming children:
link at HuffPo (sawry!!)
Aargh!! “Lied about what?” !!!! The hair on the back of my neck is in a permanent state of standing-on-endedness.
ETA: Blockquote malfunction won’t re-function.
Maude
@lamh35:
Another aspect to having Clinton out there is to keep him from making trouble for Obama.
I’m unsure about Clinton being the white amb. Having a white amb. wouldn’t matter. It’s gotten racist ugly on the Repub side and I get too angry to go on about it.
Lurking Canadian
@lamh35:
That is awesome. I wish he would quote the whole thing. Maybe in his acceptance speech, after the vapours won’t matter anymore.
BGinCHI
@Meg: I’m usually arguing for substance and subtlety, but right now I want the Dems to win this fucking election and wipe the floor with these lying bastards.
Time to add angry to being smart.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mdblanche: I meant spittle flecked rage as specific to Tweety, not the broader public.
@Maude: Bubba at some point has figured out that HRC’s best shot, if she wants it, is to run against a non-incumbent
shortstop
@Just Some Fuckhead:
In fact, you selected yourself to be your own “black friend.”
FlipYrWhig
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Along those lines, I saw at The Daily Howler a discussion of a rather dispiriting news segment with undecided voters on CNN. They thought Obama’s “lowest moment” was… when he made the crack about how Romney’s tax plan amounted to “never mind,” because the math just doesn’t add up. And they thought Romney’s was when he kept harping on $716 billion from Medicare.
Some people, even people watching political debates, don’t like it at all when the politicians start fighting about numbers. They glaze over and detach about the numbers part, and then they resent the snippy arguing part. That’s hard to combat. Especially by being more pointed while arguing, which is what all our blogospheric friends want.
BGinCHI
@Sparrowgal: Black people are like children who have to be taught how to do things.
See History, White Supremacy.
aimai
Wow. I’m shaking. I have a guy here–he is a wonderful nice working class guy who fixes appliances for a living. This is in Blue Blue MA. All his clients are upper class/liberals. He himself is a six foot jewish guy who is resolutely blue collar. We talk all the time. He’s fixing my dishwasher and he is voting for Romney and for Brown because he personally thinks that Obama is “stupid” and “weak.” He can’t stand the way Obama talks. He thinks Obama doesn’t run the country and he absolutely believes that Romney won’t do any of the things he says he will do on abortion and contraception. He is a registered Independent and he just “doesn’t get the democrats.” Like a lot of these guys he’s a very badly educated history buff. He just told me that “liberalism leads to wars” because look at the US, we didn’t get into WWII until after pearl harbor because–LIBERALISM! I said “wtf, who fought Franco but liberals? Who conceived of Lend/Lease in order to get around isolationist Republicans?” There is no arguing with these people because when you drive them back on facts they fall into their “gut.”
aimai
FlipYrWhig
@Sparrowgal: Aha. I called it months ago. And it took a while to emerge. But what you’re seeing is the big meta-meme: Mitt Romney, Fifties Dad.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Haven’t heard a peep from the Reason people about TransCanada using eminent domain to increase the profits of a Canadian company.
I guess libertarians get to pick and choose their outrage du jour.
shortstop
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: And that realization has made the Big Dog a pleasure to be around again.
Culture of Truth
@FlipYrWhig: Sometimes I think such panels tell the experts what they think they want to hear – ie, I hate it when politicians bicker – but assuming they are sincere, voters don’t want to hear Obama hammer Romney on his lies, they want to hear Obama, like Romney did, clearly and forcefully defend his records and say pleasing things, even if it means lying himself.
BGinCHI
@FlipYrWhig: Obama should not come out and yell about numbers or offer snippy rejoinders. He should make it clear that he is engaged and not ready to suffer fools or their foolishness at a time of great seriousness.
I think this is how he acts when he’s really giving an important speech (on race, on HC, etc.) and he needs to bring this to the debate. Don’t do what Mitt did. Do what he did to Hilary. And if Mitt bullies and talks over him it will show the bully for what he is.
BGinCHI
@aimai: See my posts above.
THIS is why we have to win elections, then educate people. You can’t always do it the other way around.
Chris
@Sparrowgal:
“Man-child” has been a popular way to refer to Obama on wingnut blogs for years. I just figured it was the new “boy,” as BJ noted yesterday.
Maude
@BGinCHI:
In Cherokee Nation V Georgia, the word tutelage in ref to the Cherokees was the word that damned them and all other Native Ameroicans to secondary status.
Just Some Fuckhead
@shortstop:
It wasn’t a conscious decision. I just grew close over time.
Meg
@Sparrowgal: That”s today’s journalism for you, not just FoxNews. Yeah, I am gonna ask someone about their lying behavior. Then when she said “what lies?”, I don’ t have any follow up question, like, how about that half of the green jobs Obama supported have failed, when in reality it is like a few percent of them?
Well, but it will be really work and it is hard. Better just tell people she called Obama a child again and kick a giant fuss and report on people’s reaction about it.
BGinCHI
@Maude: The history of colonialism is rotten with statements about the “childishness” of native peoples, people of color, women. It’s the raison d’etre for doing terrible things to people in the service of getting them to submit to the will of the colonizer.
Old habits die hard.
Shawn in ShowMe
@FlipYrWhig:
I don’t blame casual readers in the blogosphere for ignorance of how political theater works. But for gawd’s sake we have longtime political junkes who insist that a Democratic president, and a black one at that, should bitch slap a rich conservative white man on national television. I thought this was the reality-based community.
Chris
@aimai:
No, but it can be funny to watch them flail. One of the more pompous Republicans on my facebook posted something after Benghazi about how this would never have happened if Reagan were president because he was strong and those people knew not to fuck with him. Got a bit of pushback, particularly from one liberal who pointed out that Reagan had suffered an embassy bombing in Beirut and just cut and run. Then was reduced to whining about how the liberal shouldn’t sweat, it’s not nice.
“Facts” won’t convince them, but they can sure as hell entertain you.
Just Some Fuckhead
@aimai: Sounds like you have a low-information voter on your hands. Thank him for at least taking the time to keep up with appliance technology.
Sly
@Violet:
I eagerly away the retelling of the long and rancid history of rich white guys being called “boy” as a categorical pejorative, and the compelling connection made between the word “liberals” and the phrase “the real racists” that will inevitably result.
FlipYrWhig
@Culture of Truth: @BGinCHI:
I think this is largely true — although, I hasten to add, I’d rather not see Obama lie himself. But, as you say, he doesn’t get to that point by calling out lies, distortions, misrepresentations, etc. And most of the angriest critics have been saying that that’s what he should do more of. I don’t think that’s going to work. What is more likely to work is “Here’s what I believe, here’s what I have done, here’s what I plan to do.” Being more combative would make the blogosphere very happy, but I think it’s a strategy with a high backfire potential.
Sparrowgal
@BGinCHI: Yeah, that doesn’t lower the hackles one bit! But it’s definitely in line with Ryan’s interview the other day, in which he vomited: “the thing to help people in the inner cities to get out of poverty is to teach good discipline, good character”. Scary when they don’t even try to disguise it any more.
Chris
@lamh35:
Thanks for this. I completely believe it. It jives with every video I’ve ever seen of Romney going out among the plebes – superficially friendly in a used-car-salesman kind of way, yet completely indifferent and oblivious.
FlipYrWhig
@Sparrowgal: You know, it just occurred to me. Ann Romney’s comment there is like a slightly more refined version of the staple statement of your standard Jerry Springer/Maury Povich guest: “Y’all just jealous.”
aimai
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Yeah, I know, but he actually thinks of himself as a high information voter. The only reason I’m shaking is that I usually have a very good way of talking to people about politics and I can’t find the thread here to pull him far enough over to get him to at least vote for Warren. Romney isn’t going to win MA but Brown might.
aimai
WaterGirl
@Culture of Truth: Wow, that’s huge! So nice to see some good news.
shortstop
@Shawn in ShowMe: Who is doing that here?
MTiffany
@BGinCHI:
This. x1000.
But the demonstrating that he’ll fight for what he believes would require him to, you know, fight.
aimai
I forgot to say that one of the little bits of folk wisdom he recounted to me is the entire Benghazi story that the Ambassador was raped and that the President “Fundraised” the day after. He also told me that he doesn’t watch Fox news or listen to Rush Limbaugh, which I doubt because those stories aren’t anywhere else. But the convergence of sexism, racism, and anti muslim prejudice all backed up by “I know a guy just back from Afghanistan…” is just jaw dropping. I used to laugh at all that “soccer mom” shit–you know, the categorization of people by just a few attributes but, damn:
White guys who are ill informed, racist in a vague way, anti muslim, afraid of rape, and consider themselves strictly a “pox on both your houses” and “I vote for the person” are basically rotten ripe for the plucking by right wing demagogues.
aimai
BGinCHI
@MTiffany: He doesn’t have to fight in a stupid, bullying way that convinces us that he’s right. We don’t want him to be someone he’s not.
But he can be forceful when he is arguing his ideas instead of just presenting them.
Look, it’s like going to a boring lecture that has solid facts compared to a charismatic presentation where the argument is made with wit and enthusiasm. The substance isn’t different, but the delivery is everything.
Win/win.
Matt McIrvin
@Violet: White people can’t use the n-word either, and they complain that it’s terribly terribly unfair. I doubt that kind of riposte is going to get a lot of traction; it’s too meta and inside.
shortstop
@aimai: Aren’t these guys the ones who made Scott Brown possible? Male, white, blue collar, often ethnic, often full of white resentment, convinced they’re immune to political bullshit but couldn’t correctly identify a policy position to save their lives? And they generally vote Democratic, but not always.
It seems like Massachusetts is too often characterized as a lefty state rather than a merely Democratic one. There’s a difference, as we in Chicago with our rather socially conservative Democratic electorate, well know. Chicago Dems rarely defect from the party line, however, thank dog. Yet.
Yutsano
@BGinCHI: Obama should just go full RSA on their asses.
WaterGirl
@Chris: What struck me immediately in the article about the SEAL is that Mitt crashed the party. In the first line or two they say Mitt mistook the (private) gathering across the street as a neighborhood party.
He fucking crashed the party so he could promote himself in his political role. And then he subjected this SEAL to his little performance 4 times in the same party, obviously never even seeing the SEAL he was talking to.
That is Mitt in a nutshell. God, I hate Mitt.
aimai
@shortstop:
Well, MA has a lot of people who are “unenrolled” or “Independent.” The local Dems aren’t all that liberal and are (not quite) as corrupt as any other one party state. But yeah, this guy is one of those guys, apparently. I’ve been talking to him for years and like a lot of these guys (my contractor was one of them) they are pretty good people but they pride themselves on being contrarian–if they were in a red state they’d be reliable democrats, actually, because they hate to do what they see other people doing. Also they are usually moralists. They see poor people as immoral and taxes as redistribution and unlawful charity. In their private lives they can be very generous but they have to feel that the person who they are helping is a “true” victim, is “grateful” and owns their own fault. You can basically get these guys to agree to a massive social policy program and social investments as long as you let them imagine that someone is going to get a huge lecture before getting their hand out or if you phrase a benefit as a penalty–“people will be forced to receive job training instead of just receiving food stamps” is more palatable to them than “In addition to food stamps everyone will also have the chance to sign up for job training and placement.”
aimai
Matt McIrvin
@shortstop: Massachusetts is complicated. It has lots of well-off totebag liberals and lots of college students and a fair number of minorities and lots of temperamentally conservative white blue-collar Democrats.
The last poll of the Senate race showed Brown three points ahead, but it’s the only poll that I’ve seen from after the debates. Before that Warren was ahead but there seemed to be a lot of spread in the numbers.
I haven’t seen anyone score Warren’s debate performance as a failure like the general perception of Obama’s; what you thought of it seems to have depended on previous partisan affiliation. I wouldn’t count Warren out yet.
shortstop
@WaterGirl: Look, non-Mormons and non-uberwealthy people all look alike. That’s just a fact, and no use blaming Mitt for it.
shortstop
@aimai: Interesting and astute comments about the perceived morality angle. Lordy, imagine what this country could be if the average voter demanded as much integrity from wealthy people as he/she does from poor folks.
@Matt McIrvin: I haven’t counted her out at all. I’ve just been astounded at how hard she’s had to work for it given her record. Wingers love to depict MA as a hotbed of raging soshulism, but as you say, it’s more complicated — and there are a lot of guys like aimai’s contractor wandering around it.
KXB
Whether it was design or by accident, “Where you been, boy?” may get the Romney clan to drop their cutesy comparisons of Obama to a child. If anyone in the Romney camp complains about it, the natural follow-up will be, “Well, didn’t you call Obama a child?”
aimai
How hard is it to admit that a term like “boy” is a term among equals when it is used among equals, and an insult when it is used by white people to black people or in a context in which it means inferior? Definitionally Clinton’s comment treats Mitt like an equal and not like an inferior. Context, context, context.
As for me, I re-engaged my appliance guy and reminded him that his vote for ROmney won’t matter since the rest of us, who remember his term as governor, are all going to vote against him but that it is important that he vote for Warren on behalf of his three daughters. I really got into the weeds with him on the Blunt Amendment.
aimai
evodevo
@shortstop: Jon Stewart nailed it in his summary Thurs nite ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/05/jon-stewart-obama-debate_n_1942109.html) with the clips showing Obama giving a looonnng meandering answer without specifically pinpointing any of Romney’s MANY MANY egregious lies. Poor debate technique.
Have I said lately how much I love Jon?
bemused
@lamh35:
@Sparrowgal:
A whole family of blatant liars. Just imagining that bunch in the WH makes me want to vomit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@KXB:
The Romney clan’s obnoxious entitlement has been ratcheted up since the debate. I don’t know if people will notice. And was today the day The Lady Ann started on GMA? That is so many fucking kinds of wrong, I can’t believe it, no matter which spouse got the invite first, ABC should be embarrassed to have made it.
scott
@shortstop: If Warren wins, I think she’s doing very well. Yes, Massachusetts is more liberal, but Brown ideologically is probably the most socially moderate national Republican you could run for that office, in addition to being an attractive and politically skilled incumbent. Those are a lot of hurdles to surmount, but Warren really seems to be connecting within the last month or so if the polls are any judge. PPP on its twitter feed said from last night’s polling that she didn’t seem to be suffering any blowback from the events of the past week. Go Elizabeth!
FlipYrWhig
@aimai: Is it contrarian, exactly? My exposure to such people leads me to think it’s all about how they work hard, play by the rules, don’t ask for anything, etc. And since he’s no one special, that means anyone could do what he’s doing, so anyone who isn’t had better have a really good reason for it, like something badly and visibly wrong with them.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@aimai:
Actually, said in that tone and inflection, in that phrase, it’s Southern White Male for “good buddy”.
Big Dog just said “Now that you’ve shaken your Etch-a-Sketch, you’re one of us again. Welcome back.”
xian
In his next debate, imho, Obama needs to channel his disdain for Romney into a patient thorough rhetorical curb-stomping next time, instead of his “I can’t believe this guy is saying this shit and I have to deal with it.”
aimai
@FlipYrWhig:
Yeah, its contrarian. I just said that to him “IF you were in a red state you’d be the deepest, dyed in the wool democrat I’d ever see” and he admitted it was true. He also confessed that he wouldn’t be voting at all (and I think that might be true). My take on it is that he is more comfortable with the white guys, accent on white and on guys, but thinks his vote doesn’t count (he thinks Obama and Warren will win) and he likes the feeling of being cynical and above the fray. I gave him along lecture–hey, for what this is costing me in washing machine repairs I get to give any lecture I want–about the nitty gritty of the senate and he kind of stumbled out of here in shock. The thing is that people like this (and I said this to him) think that basically white guy politicians are “just like mr appliance repair man” so he simply assumes Romney and Brown will do what he would do (he’s actually pretty socially liberal but wants to bomb brown people overseas). But I gave him the details on just how not like him Romney and Brown are.
Note to Warren advocates–he DID NOT KNOW SHE WAS FROM OKLAHOMA so the entire “part indian” thing makes no sense to him although he was indifferent to it and thought Brown was stupid for bringing it up. There is something odd about Warren’s campaign that they failed ot make her life story, which is *&^ inspiring, clear to the low information voters.
aimai
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Matt McIrvin:
The latest Facebook Debate Point of Genius is a Photoshopped pic of Warren’s face, on a black background, with a little one-feathered headdress on it.
That’s it. I’ve yet to see it posted with any text, the picture is apparently all the argument we need.
“Liberal Massachusetts”, indeed.
scott
I agree with that last point from aimai about the part Indian issue. If you’re from a broad swath of America running from West Virginia to Kentucky through the western parts of GA, SC, NC, and into OK, it’s pretty much a staple of conversation that people will say (with varying degrees of seriousness) that they’re 1/8, 1/16 Indian or whatever. It’s just part of the footprint left by Native Americans in that area. My dad was from Kentucky, and I remember him talking about it fairly regularly when I was growing up. He said he was part American Indian – do I know if that’s true? No, but like Elizabeth Warren said, you tend to believe your own parents.
Matt McIrvin
@shortstop: And, I forgot to mention, Massachusetts also has more garden-variety raging suburban Republican wingnuts than people realize, many of them working for defense contractors around 128. I would overhear these guys loudly barking to each other at the cafeteria in the office park where I used to work, reciting talking points about Obama’s secret Muslim masters and how global warming peaked in 1938.
They usually get outvoted in national-level elections, but they were part of Scott Brown’s base.
Matt McIrvin
@aimai:
That’s the carpetbagger thing, I think. She’s not originally from Massachusetts, and you can tell by her accent, which completely cancels out any biographical appeal (I’d have the same problem).
…that said, Deval Patrick managed to deal with it somehow.
jacksmith
“Give me Liberty, or Give me Death!” – Patrick Henry
What a brilliant ruling by the United States Supreme Court on the affordable health care act (Obamacare). Stunningly brilliant in my humble opinion. I could not have ask for a better ruling on a potentially catastrophic healthcare act than We The People Of The United States received from our Supreme Court.
If the court had upheld the constitutionality of the individual mandate under the commerce clause it would have meant the catastrophic loss of the most precious thing we own. Our individual liberty. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Supreme Court.
There is no mandate to buy private for-profit health insurance. There is only a nominal tax on income eligible individuals who don’t have health insurance. This is a HUGE! difference. And I suspect that tax may be subject to constitutional challenge as it ripens.
This is a critically important distinction. Because under the commerce clause individuals would have been compelled to support the most costly, dangerous, unethical, morally repugnant, and defective type of health insurance you can have. For-profit health insurance, and the for-profit proxies called private non-profits and co-ops.
Equally impressive in the courts ruling was the majorities willingness to throw out the whole law if the court could not find a way to sever the individual mandate under the commerce clause from the rest of the act. Bravo! Supreme Court.
Thanks to the Supreme Court we now have an opportunity to fix our healthcare crisis the right way. Without the obscene delusion that Washington can get away with forcing Americans to buy a costly, dangerous and highly defective private product (for-profit health insurance).
During the passage of ACA/Obamacare some politicians said that the ACA was better than nothing. But the truth was that until the Supreme Court fixed it the ACA/Obamacare was worse than nothing at all. It would have meant the catastrophic loss of your precious liberty for the false promise and illusion of healthcare security under the deadly and costly for-profit healthcare system that dominates American healthcare.
As everyone knows now. The fix for our healthcare crisis is a single payer system (Medicare for all) like the rest of the developed world has. Or a robust Public Option choice available to everyone on day one that can quickly lead to a single payer system.
Talk of privatizing/profiteering from Medicare or social security is highly corrupt and Crazy! talk. And you should cut the political throats of any politicians giving lip service to such an asinine idea. Medicare should be expanded, not privatized or eliminated.
We still have a healthcare crisis in America. With hundreds of thousands dieing needlessly every year in America. And a for-profit medical industrial complex that threatens the security and health of the entire world. The ACA/Obamacare will not fix that.
The for-profit medical industrial complex has already attacked the world with H1N1 killing thousands, and injuring millions. And more attacks are planned for profit, and to feed their greed.
To all of you who have fought so hard to do the kind and right thing for your fellow human beings at a time of our greatest needs I applaud you. Be proud of your-self.
God Bless You my fellow human beings. I’m proud to be one of you. You did good.
See you on the battle field.
Sincerely
jacksmith – WorkingClass :-)
aimai
Any good ad man could have made the journey backwards from Oklahoma to MA an inspiring one since it tracks from Waitress to Harvard Professor and confidant of a god damned president.
They fucked up royally–she cut an Ad and spent money explaining the Indian thing and they didn’t run a god damned picture of her family including the actual Indian who looks totally not white. I had to see that in the Globe story. Her opponent’s voters don’t read the globe. And her god damned ad team couldn’t figure out how to put up a series of dissolving shots of her family while she talked about heritage? Fuck them for a bunch of incompetents.
aiai
trollhattan
@Culture of Truth:
Enhanced for moar better impact.
That’s great if it holds up. I’m certain the SCOTUS can’t wait to handle another campaign finance case.
Canadian Shield
@The Moar You Know:
Ugh that is true. I’m a weekend warrior musician and I’m often flabbergasted by how bad some people are and how clueless the audience is. Similar to the debate, if you had them listen to it without visuals I’m sure the interpretation would be different.
ruemara
@BGinCHI: God. Fuck that. You did not elect your fantasy black man. Can he fucking be himself and be listened to? Goddamn. Who the fucking fuck do you wish for him to be. Jesus. It’s like you don’t get what a caricature you’re desiring.
Hugely
@lamh35: @lamh35:
“ambassador to white people” – i dont need one for me bro, lol
but whatever it takes to get these numbskulls (eg ppl that might listen to Clinton over PBO) to pay attention I dont care…
patrick
makes me want to go and repeal the 22nd amendment…..
BGinCHI
@ruemara: I hope you check back, because your comment is about as fucking stupid as I can imagine today.
He’s a politician, isn’t he? Is he something else? He runs to represent, not to be someone who can be left alone to do exactly how he wishes. And what I have argued here has nothing to do with his race. As if I were talking down to him. On the contrary; I’m on his side 100%, and you only think you are if you tell him how great and precious he is when he makes a major miscalculation.
He’s not a fucking child who needs his hand held. He’s a grown-up with a crucial job and he needs to get this right next time.
Pull your head out of your ass.