You know what’s almost as annoying and dumb as the “Obama is a bumbling ninny who just lucked out” meme? The “Obama is a Jedi who mind-controls the planet” meme. Jesus God.
I love Obama. I was an early supporter, a veteran of many an online scrap with PUMAs and Palinites all through 2008 and beyond. I worked my ass off canvassing. I stood out in the hot sun in a Costco parking lot registering voters. I donated money. I wept with joy the night Obama was elected. I would vote for Obama again if third terms were allowed.
Obama is brilliant, a gifted politician and seems to be a genuinely decent guy. I’m glad Obama is our president and consider him the best president we’ve had in my memory (which includes fuzzy memories of Nixon). I don’t think Obama gets enough credit for his accomplishments.
But Jesus Tittyfucking Christ! Obama is a mortal human being, not a superhero. He is a politician operating within a corrupt and compromised system that privileges the wealthy and connected over everyone else. Those of us who call ourselves liberals should not lose sight of this.
This corrupt and compromised system doesn’t just include the 1%, though they are obviously the most glutted parasites. Even we middle class folks and those just barely scraping by in the US owe our relatively comfortable existence to plutocratic cartels that have traditionally leveraged our government to manipulate and kill foreigners to steal their resources and exploit their labor. This has been true since Teddy Roosevelt at least.
Part of the deal used to be that we could share the crumbs from their table. But now that the plutocrats have realized that their vast wealth can serve as its own sovereign state, they can cut the rest of us loose, buy governments in bulk and carry out enforcement actions using contract armies without relying on the US military as their muscle.
They don’t have to pretend allegiances to nation-states anymore. As a consequence, our system is disintegrating. Most of us won’t live to see it fall apart completely. That means we’re the lucky ones. Our children will live in even more interesting times.
President Obama is a smart guy who surely recognizes this, but he operates within this system and is a creature of it, just as all of us are. He rearranges the deck chairs on our sinking empire and even bails out some water sometimes, which is about the best we can expect given the geopolitical and economic realities. But trust him 100%? Only a fool would.
Yes, it is important to elect and support Democrats instead of Republicans. In fact, it’s our only hope, since putting our faith in fake President Dr. Jill Stein will only hasten the implosion by empowering the party that is 100% owned by the plutocrats instead of 80% co-opted.
Your Mumia sweatshirt STILL won’t get you into heaven. But let’s not create our own Fluffy Bunny Bund. We’re supposed to be the realists.
PS: If the above t-shirt doesn’t fit, don’t wear it. Also, since the Gators aren’t playing this weekend, I see no point in starting a college football thread. But feel free to use this as one if you’d like. And Go ‘Cocks!
Baud
I have no idea what you’re talking about.
But cool shirt.
Baud
I have no idea what you’re talking about.
But cool shirt.
Thlayli
WTF is Nebraska wearing??
raven
What the fuck, “since the Gators aren’t playing”? Jesus/
The Dangerman
@Thlayli:
I think there was a horrific washing machine accident involved.
raven
@Thlayli: When adidas and Nebraska revealed the Huskers’ black “Unrivaled” alternate uniform for the UCLA game, it took less than 20 minutes for one of our members to ask the big question in the comments.
Cassidy
I think the collective orgasm of the BJ Emoprog Brigade has slowed down traffic.
MikeJ
The shorter: please stop talking about how stupid most of the front pagers here look regarding Syria.
Mojo
Great post. I understand it just fine and agree 1000%.
different-church-lady
@Thlayli: Violates the rule of tincture.
Corner Stone
Go Cocks!
rp
What an idiotic and pointless rant. Yes, let’s not celebrate our sides accomplishments and leaders. That will surely advance the liberal cause.
raven
@Corner Stone: Lyle Lovett picked Vandy! Hell yes!
Omnes Omnibus
@rp: That’s not what she was saying.
The Thin Black Duke
@MikeJ: Bull’s-eye.
raven
@rp: You acutally READ it? Come on, it’s football Saturday whether some mediocre swamp lizards play or not.
hildebrand
@MikeJ: Bingo.
Betty, you are getting as bad as Cole when it comes to pissing on those who actually think that Obama knows what he is doing, or smart enough to change course when necessary.
Corner Stone
@raven: Please tell me that fucking Lee Fucko Corso didn’t open his mouth this week.
Cassidy
@raven: Meh. It’s all foreplay until Mayweather v. Canelo.
PaulB
But here’s the thing: who *does* the t-shirt fit? You provided no examples and no support for such a lengthy rant. And every time I’ve read such a rant about someone else’s comment or blog post, I have to scratch my head because that’s not the way I read their comment.
raven
@Corner Stone: Tide. But I don’t think he picked Vandy. Lyle was really good, he had no notes and seemed to be well versed in every game.
Corner Stone
@raven: I was a big fan of The Commodores when the sainted Jay Cutler was QB there. Even bought an ugly yellow t-shirt for the laugh factor.
Corner Stone
@raven: I don’t care for his style of music but he’s always seemed to be a top notch entertainer/performer.
raven
@Corner Stone: He was the QB when that total horseshit “celebration” penalty gave the stinking fucking Gators the win, no?
Davis X. Machina
Do not put your trust in princes,
in human beings, who cannot save.
When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing..
It’s why you need a party — or a Party — to really shift things.
Corner Stone
@raven: If Corso jinxes the Tide he may need to buy dark sunglasses and a wig w/ fake moustache combo.
raven
@Corner Stone: I love it and he was funny as shit in “The Opposite of Sex”.
raven
@Corner Stone: I don’t think this game will have much to do with hoodoo, I look for bama to just kick their asses.
S. cerevisiae
@Corner Stone: For a second I had a vision of Cutler up on stage in a gold suit singing harmony.
Ben Franklin
Nice rant. A bit defensive, though.
Mike in NC
Or maybe George Washington, when it involved manipulating and killing the indigenous population to steal their resources.
raven
God, Logan Thomas can’t tell purple from white.
Johnnybuck
@raven: I think it’s safe to say they’ve been looking forward to this day for some time now.
Fellatio Alger
You’re right that Obama is neither a superhero nor a ‘bumbling ninny.’ What you’re probably responding to (and I could be wrong) is the aggressive push back by a few commenters who are battling entrenched right wing memes about the president’s competence, intelligence, legitimacy and even his citizenship. Some of these memes are expressed sometimes explicitly, and sometimes in coded racial terms. These commenters are battling these memes (rightly), and sometimes scatter their fire on folks who are not coming from that place (wrongly, obviously). But this is an emotional thing for many people, and it’s not that easy for people who have lived with some version of this reality forever to know when not time to fight.
For what it’s worth, I’m the camp that believes that the administration had more of a handle on the Syria drama than it seems, but I am comfortable with others who may not see it that way. Everyone has to grapple with the facts they have and make sense of them their own way.
I would like, though, to see more thoughtful responses to serious questions and issues such as this, rather than the instant battle mode and pre-emptive smearing of the other side as seems to be the pattern here.
Back to lurking…
raven
@Johnnybuck: Some good comments from their players. “Neither team is the same as last year. You don’t get revenge by beating someone else up”!
Corner Stone
Louisiana (Monroe) @ Wake Forest! Feel the excitement!
Alison
Here’s the thing. I have actually seen people say basically exactly the first thing – Obama is not competent, doesn’t know what he’s doing, got super lucky, should thank Random Liberal Person, is actually super awful you’re just too dumb to see it, etc etc. These are the fuckers who said they weren’t going to vote in 2010 because Obama made them sad. GEE THANKS THAT WORKED OUT WELL FOR LIBERALS.
I have never seen an Obama supporter actually claim he’s perfect or that he is some uber-human. The Jedi jokes are just that – joks. Yes, people will point out that maybe, just maybe, there is reasoning behind his actions, plans being mapped out, and maybe he actually has a brain and is using it. Maybe he’s not just lucky. Maybe it’s, in fact, quite infantilizing and insulting to just assume that this President – for sooooooome reason, this President – is bumbling around like a slow-witted child and/or is rampaging like a maniac.
This is a “BOTH SIDES DO IT” thing that I just don’t think is equal. No one I know or have seen online who is a strong supporter of the President has ever claimed to always agree with him 100% or never think he’s wrong. But lots of people have seemed to basically never agree with him and to quite often be looking for the ways in which he’s wrong this time.
The Thin Black Duke
@raven: Yeah, but do you remember that great scene where he confesses his love for Lisa Kudrow by saying, “I want to be the first face you see in a crowded room”? Lovett delivered that line with a quiet and poignant dignity.
The Ancient Randonneur
Thanks to my parents I was born an American, but it is by the grace of the noodly one that I am a Husker. Praise be to the mighty FSM and GO HUSKERS!
raven
@Fellatio Alger: You probably like the lectures from dragitha too.
Ultraviolet Thunder
I’m re-reading Gravity’s Rainbow after 35 years. It’s scarier now because what looked to me at age 19 as Paranoia about corporate oligarchies, now looks like reality. And that was during WWII. They’ve really got a head of steam up now. Coming out of the shadows to claim what they believe is rightfully theirs: outright and open control of political systems.
Baud
@Alison:
Yep.
raven
@The Thin Black Duke: Yea, I shouldn’t have limited it with “funny”. That is such a great film and not many folks have ever heard of it.
Betty Cracker
@MikeJ: Nope, please feel free to talk about whatever you want. But I think the triumphalism is embarrassing, short-sighted and becoming creepily cult-like. Count me out.
doug r
Some great points, but I think you’re too pessimistic about our prospects. Of course, if liberals get discouraged by “progressive” libertardians such as Greenwald, Assange, Hamsher et al and stay home in off cycle elections like 2010 and 2014, then of course things are gonna suck more.
And BTW, Jedi masters made plenty of mistakes-they’re just smarter than most is all.
Here’s smartypants:
http://immasmartypants.blogspot.ca/2013/09/trust-vindicated.html
The Thin Black Duke
@raven: Yeah, the writer/director Don Roos did a great job. Unfortunately, he’s been struggling not to be a “one-hit wonder” ever since.
zoot
obamabots are such drunk idiots. You see what you want to see and chalk up all obama’s shit to “the system made him do it”, poor old obama – the most powerful person on Earth just can’t be his true wonderful self because the system makes him be a bad ole corportist stooge. Well the system didn’t make him:
escalate a drone war
codify indefinite detention
support NSA spying on Americans or the PATRIOT Act
approve government assasination of American citizens
put social security cuts on the table
prevent a government option from being enacted in the healthcare law
not provide any support for the unions in Wisconsin and Ohio
choose a military strike as the only option for a response to Syria.
not pursue prosecution of the bush criminals for their war crimes
not pursue prosecution of Wall Street banksters for collapsing the economy
And “the system” won’t make him pick larry summers over Janet Yellen for Fed Chair and it won’t make him support the Keystone Pipeline. These are all things he does on his own.
TooManyJens
@Fellatio Alger:
This is what I find the most discouraging. Not people putting forth opinions I don’t like, but people putting forth opinions (whatever they are) and then immediately poisoning the discussion with “now of course the emoprogs/Obots/Greenwald-haters/Greenwald-worshippers/etc. will react like this, because they suck so much.” How the fuck is there supposed to be a conversation when you drop that load right at the start?
Corner Stone
@doug r:
It seems more likely to me they aren’t smarter than basically anyone else around them. They rely on parlor tricks and some parasitic being to implement their will through violence or threat of. IMO they are more thugs and bullies than anything to be revered.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@S. cerevisiae: me too, dancing a little out of step and singing Night Shift with that pouty sneer (or is it a sneery pout?)
I wasn’t crazy about the way Obama handled Syria– going to the UN should have been his first step– but a lot of the reactions (Obama just wants to swing his dick! he’s just like Bush! chemical weapons are the new incubators!) have made me want to give up on “the left”. I can’t remember which Democrat– a Senator or a Congresscritter– actually made a fucking teleprompter joke. Between the emoprogs and the armchair quarterbacks of the establishment, no wonder we can’t get shit done as a party and/or movement.
Botsplainer
The finest mental image ever created by a non sexual blog, and stated by a woman, no less.
raven
@The Thin Black Duke: Huh, never heard of Web Therapy, thanks for the push.
Johnnybuck
@raven: My sincere hope is that they win, if for nothing else to slow down the hype-industrial-complex of Johnny Football, much like our beloved DAWGS did to Mr. Clowney a week ago.
gene108
My T-Shirts will get me into heaven, so fuck you!
PsiFighter37
Barack Obama plays 300-dimensional chess while the rest of you mere mortals wonder why the shape of his line is changing in 2D-land. Suckers!
/jk
I think most of us are realistic enough to know that it takes a mix of talent and luck to pull things like this off. It also helps that, because it’s his second term, BHO doesn’t give a fuck what anyone, especially the press, thinks.
Baud
@Botsplainer:
I always thought Jesus’s middle initial was H.
raven
@Johnnybuck: I’m witcha.
Davis X. Machina
@zoot: As succinct a list of reasons as you’ll ever see why he’s definitely not getting my vote in 2016.
doug r
@zoot: Zoot, do a little research. Your points are stale and most are inaccurate.
srv
But wait, you were the person who said she thought that maybe Obama didn’t want the rebels to win and he didn’t want them to lose.
Isn’t that some really fucked up Emperor Palpatine shit right there?
gene108
@doug r:
The disappointing thing about the Jedi is from the original trilogy I always thought they’d be more Lawful Good, but from the prequels (and what EU books I’ve read), they seem more Lawful Neutral; they just want to maintain order and if some groups are getting screwed by the current state of things, well tough luck for them.
Mr Stagger Lee
Oh God the college football choices sucks, when I am watching Chelsea-Everton. On Texas A&M-Alabama I’m going for the Gig’Em Aggies and the ORIGINAL 12th MAN(That’s right Seahawk Fans) Speaking of Seahawk fans I a insulted by the Seattle PD’s plan to dress up as 49er fans to bait Seahawk fans into assaulting them.
Fellatio Alger
@raven: I’m not hip enough to know what that means.
Dolly Llama
@Fellatio Alger: Good post, great ‘nym. You ought to stop lurking and post more.
Betty Cracker
@Botsplainer: I actually stole that from a commenter here because I thought it was so funny. Can’t remember who.
gene108
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
On social issues the liberal view is kicking the conservative’s view in the ass. Gay marriage is a non-issue in many places, gays serve openly in the military, and weed has been legalized in two states.
It’s the economic issues where we are behind.
Chyron HR
@zoot:
It really, really kills you guys that the evil Syria-bombing Social Security cutter hasn’t actually done either of those things, doesn’t it?
Baud
@Davis X. Machina:
I am. Thanks, Acorn!
raven
@Fellatio Alger: Not really a matter of being hip. It’s just a poster who provides long winded academically couched lectures on how BJ should be this or that.
burnspbesq
Football? OK.
The Best Hair in European Football looked good in his Man Utd debut.
Ozil is all that, and Arse probably deserved to win, but WTF was that call that wiped out Jozy Altidore’s goal?
Everton stole one just before halftime, but Chelski looks dangerous. I don’t expect this one to end 1-0 for Everton.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Look, the reason I’m swanning around the place saying, “Meep meep” isn’t only because I was proved right (though that is a nice bonus). I’m swanning around the place because WE ARE NOT DROPPING BOMBS ON SYRIA.
Am I not allowed to be happy and relieved about that even though I was mean enough to be right about it?
The Thin Black Duke
@doug r: Hey, Zoot doesn’t really believe the nonsense he’s spewing anyway. He just thinks it’ll help him get laid.
mai naem(mobile)
Nobody’s going to know the whole story of what happened during the Obama admin for another 30~50years. We can look up the bj archives then and see who was right. Obamas bright and has a lot to smart people around him. He has curiosity unlike Dubbya and he preps and,yes, just like every other president he’s had out of his control some good and bad luck. You will figure out the real Obama a little post presidency with what he does. Does he get involved in real progressive stuff in this country or does he just become a hedgefunder type of person surrounding himself with Wall Streeter types.
doug r
Dronez!
http://web.law.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/microsites/human-rights-institute/files/COLUMBIACountingDronesFinal.pdf
Belafon
I know the “it’s probably the middle between the extremes is actually true” argument is mostly false, but consider this, the difference between:
“Obama is a bumbling ninny who just lucked out”
and
“Obama is a Jedi who mind-controls the planet”
is
“‘Chill the fuck out. I got this.’ – Obama”
Which is where I tend to be.
Personally, I don’t think Obama is omniscient or omnipotent. What I do think is that he tries, and tries harder than the last few presidents.
I also don’t entirely buy the “the Democrats are 80% owned by the plutocrats.” I think that most of them are a bunch of rather wealthy people who feel empathy for others (that’s what separates them from Republicans) but, when you have everything coming at them that is Washington (and teabaggers calling at 5-1 or more ratio to liberals) their views get skewed toward small changes in the status quo.
Also, consider this: The system itself is rigged toward the rich right now. Unless you are willing to put up with a 1920-1930’s style crash of the system, changes won’t come quickly. But if you look around, you will notices the changes. Who would have predicted the fast food strikes a few years ago.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Chyron HR: also, too, while I am hoping and praying to the FSM that Obama kills the Kesytone pipeline, it will/would be a huge gift to the GOP, and “the system”, heading in to the mid-terms. I’m hoping they figure out some way to kick that can to December 2014. I know a while back Ed Schultz was saying we need Keystone to create good union jobs, but Ed Schultz is somewhere near McCain on the Mercurialmeter.
Betty Cracker
@srv: My point there was that the Syria thing is about a lot more than Syria, which is certainly something everyone knows. It’s about proxies and maintaining status quo in the Middle East so we can continue to swill the crude.
I don’t think Obama wants to go all-in with the opposition because of the Islamist nutballs that make up a significant part of it, and he doesn’t want to countenance a despot who gasses civilians either. Judging by actions rather than words, my guess is the admin is angling for a negotiated settlement. It’s a rational course. Junior Bush would have armed the al Qaeda elements, thus stepping on his own dick.
Johnnybuck
@raven: Feeling pretty sorry for Vandy today..
burnspbesq
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I assume you understand that going to the Security Council would have been a pointless waste of time.
Baud
@Belafon:
Yep.
PsiFighter37
@mai naem(mobile): Hopefully he doesn’t sell his soul out and start speechifying for monies. I can’t fathom what on earth he (or anyone) says that is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a shot.
That said, he ain’t part of the super-rich, and he’s got 2 girls to put through Harvard (or whatever school they go to – can’t imagine any college turning down the president’s daughters). But I hope he’s more like Jimmy Carter post-presidency than Bill Clinton.
Keith G
@Alison:
Every candidate for president has members of his own party say those types of things. Were you around in 1980 when a lot of people said that in regards to Jimmy Carter? Barack Obama is not exceptional in this regard.
Considering the 2010 midterm election, the historical record indicates that the type of non voters you describe were not a significant contribution to the poor performance of Democratic candidates.
Ted & Hellen
Barack Obama laughs at your tiny concerns.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He DID go to the UN first (sorry, no links, I can’t post them from the iPhone). Russia and China both vetoed it from going up for a vote, and they both have absolute vetoes. Now what?
burnspbesq
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I wasn’t aware that the people who will be doing environmental cleanup work for 40 years after the inevitable pipeline disaster are unionized.
Botsplainer
Is it just me, or is anybody else bugged by this ESPN habit of catching coaches going in at halftime?
Let them scream at their players without distraction.
Emma
I hope spewing all that bile made you feel better. Feels like you were holding it in for a while. Unfortunately, you’re directing it at the wrong folks. A lot of people in these comments have been defending Obama against Teabagger and Firebagger talking points. None of us have ever implied that he’s perfect.
And by the way? You don’t know what would get anyone into Heaven. But I’ll leave you with a thought. The only human who got a guaranteed entry was a convicted thief.
Dolly Llama
@Johnnybuck: Feeling sorry for Vandy? With a starting quarterback that actively helped cover up a gang rape? Fuck ’em. I despise the Ol’ Ball Sack as much as anybody, but damn. If that QB plays today, then James Franklin is a piece of shit. Hell, he’s already a piece of shit for playing that kid after he projectile vomited against Ole Miss without having him completely evaluated for a concussion on the sideline. So he’ll be an even bigger piece of shit.
ETA: And I’m a Dawg born and bred. Raven can vouch for me there.
Crusty Dem
Jesus Betty, we’ll never be able to make bricks after you’ve burned all our straw.
Botsplainer
@Keith G:
Ted Fucking Kennedy’s vanity proto-firebagger campaign from ten comes to mind.
Davis X. Machina
@burnspbesq: The present sequence of events WRT the UNSC is actually pretty normative, post Cold War. On the “Outside Option”, from Monkey Cage.
Morbo
Someone contact this guy, he could make you famous.
Corner Stone
@raven:
I thought that whole thread was pretty hilarious. Those specific posts were endlessly amusing all by themselves. And I do mean “endless”.
Ted & Hellen
This kind of silly, immature conflation of political figure and teen idol worship is a big part of what’s fucked about the U.S.
Judge a politician by performance and leave your personal fantasies out of it.
I don’t think this neurosis nearly as prominent in other western oligarchies.
burnspbesq
@PsiFighter37:
If the Secret Service has a say in the matter, the Obama kids will go someplace like Middlebury. Much easier to provide effective security on a small campus in a shall town in the middle of nowhere.
I suspect that Mom and Uncle Craig will push Princeton pretty hard.
Doug Milhous J
Well said, I agree.
burnspbesq
@Ted & Hellen:
Don’t quit your day job.
agrippa
@Ted & Hellen:
Your approval of the feelings of others is irrelevant and immaterial
Davis X. Machina
@PsiFighter37: An old sportswriter’s cliché was ‘Good teams make their own luck.
Dolly Llama
Betty, you sure you won’t reconsider that football open thread? Georgia’s not playing, either, but I want one.
raven
@Dolly Llama: Franklin is a douche and Grantham would mop the floor with his narrow ass.
nineone
I was gonna get all mad about how us Obots don’t even get 15 minutes to celebrate anymore, and how we’re “almost” as annoying and dumb as the motherfuckers who are always wrong. But then I stopped and asked myself “What would Master Obama do?” And then I …..uh, what was I mad about, again?
agrippa
Obama is doing well under the present conditions.
He has enemies on the ‘left’ ( not that there actually is a ‘left’. Basically they are merely cranky); and, enemies on the right. Both would gladly drown themselves if Obama drowned with them.
When he came into office, he had difficult problems to address, fickle ‘friends’ and real enemies. He has done well.
Ted & Hellen
Good god.
Do you weep at Bieber concerts too?
ohferchrissake
Yeah, you know, most of that attitude, from my experience, comes from the same people on the left who constantly attack him. If you so much as approve of what the President does or defend him, you get the old “just clap harder” bullshit BECAUSE HE’S PERFECT!!! DON’T DARE CRITICIZE. And yet he’s held to this impossible ideological standard that no human being could attain. And your comment about cult-like triumphalism? That’s it in a fking nutshell. Seriously, this blog and some its FPers were so unbelievably off the mark on this. Why? Because you didn’t apply a whole lot of critical thought. You took a cookie cutter analysis of Bush/Iraq and tried to fit the Obama administration into it. How about you just get your mea culpa out of the way. Because the problem isn’t us–it’s people who have to invent new ways to attack President Obama on the heels of good news, like your post, which interjects the same tired “Obama is the Messiah” crap out of nowhere. You had to reach down and find some angle to attack. You, Cole, others misjudged. Deal with it and move on.
RandomMonster
“Jesus Tittyfucking Christ”
Just one of the reasons you’re my favorite writer here, Betty!
danielx
One of TBogg’s greatest hits…and still timely.
Tommy
@agrippa: I tend to agree with you. I will note one thing. I am a far, far left guy. I am also from IL and was following him before his DNC speech got them a ton of national attention. He has and I am sure will do a number of things I don’t so much like. But the dude has been and always will be a moderate.
As best I can tell from his campaign speeches and those now in office he has pretty much done what he said he’d do and what I expected him to do. So although I wish he was more “liberal” I can’t get mad at him cause I don’t think he has lied about who he is. I got mad respect for that.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Ted & Hellen:
Oh, Timmy. You just can’t resist lecturing people about your own faults, can you? It’s like a tic.
Ex Regis
I’m too old and cynical to fall for all that Obot crap. (I was conceived as a just-in-case baby a month and a half after Pearl Harbor.) My presidential memories extend to Truman and the Korean War.
I think Obama has been the finest president we’ve had in my memory, despite warm spots reserved for Kennedy and the early Johnson. No matter how evil some think him, the others were worse in many respects. That’s too negative. The others were not as good, not as capable, in the face of the Invasion of the Crazies. Keep that in mind: Obama has to face the worst House since long before any of us were born.
Obama also has huge faults. Early on, he didn’t listen to Stiglitz and Krugman, compounding that by compromising before he had to. Imagine if he pushed a trillion dollar stimulus and then (reluctantly) allowed Republicans to add the alternative minimum tax cut.
He also tried to reason too long with domestic terrorists in Congress and foreign assholes in Syria. Those folks are crazy and can’t be negotiated with. That led to the sequester mess and the current Syrian mess.
Nonetheless still the best in my memory and opinion. If you have an alternative, put him out there. Meanwhile we have to realize as grown ups in an almost theocracy, in an anti-science culture, that we can’t always get everything we want.
eemom
@Botsplainer:
sez who?
As Thought Leader Fuckhead rightly pointed out yesterday evening, the place is seething with passions and intrigues both overt and unspoken.
Or did you think that stuff above was really about football?
nineone
@danielx: Yes, quite.
Jerzy Russian
@Baud:
Yes, that is H for Hussein.
SiubhanDuinne
@Fellatio Alger:
No, you should post more frequently. That’s one of the best nyms I’ve seen.
(Oh yeah, excellent comment, too.)
Botsplainer
I never pray, but am praying for Bridgewater, because if that ankle takes any more abuse today, the Cards are fucked the rest of the season.
Barentw
This is the Balloon Juice equivalent of a “Both sides do it!” MSM article. Blah.
Citizen Scientist
Well said, betty. Well said.
Tommy
Wow. I just read the entire SI story on OSU. Wow, wow, wow. Even more so cause I am an LSU guy, and of course Les Miles was the coach for many years at OSU that the story focuses on. Look I don’t for a second think this doesn’t happen at many DI programs, but to have dozens and dozens of former players, going on record, with their names attached to what they said, is stunning.
Davis X. Machina
President Dean — and that’s just for starters.
nineone
@Betty Cracker: Well someone needs to either take credit for it, or find out who did it, because that’s awesome. Needs to be in the lexicon.
Mary G
Love the post, Betty. Especially this paragraph:
raven
@Tommy: It happens in all of them.
Robin G.
Yes, no one could have foreseen that a president who has consistently demonstrated that he knows what he’s doing turned out to know what he was doing. Those who claim they did foresee it — and said so at the time — just got lucky. And are also annoying and dumb.
Betty Cracker
@Ex Regis:
Agreed, which is why I’ll always support a moderate who can win like Obama instead of chasing the rainbow-farting unicorn through Naderville to Bushtown. I get that. What I don’t get is so-called liberals pissing down their own legs and telling themselves its raining.
Dolly Llama
@Dolly Llama: @SiubhanDuinne:
Great minds think alike, and all that.
Tommy
@raven: I don’t doubt that for a second. I was in grad school in the early 90s at LSU. I saw nothing remotely illegal, but two points.
(1) I wrote a story for the paper about steroid use, well I tried to write it (guess I was ahead of the times). I got a call from the head of media (Herb Vincient) for the sports department politely telling me not to research said story. Polite, but not happy.
(2) I worked tutoring students in the sports department (they had their own building for this) to make some extra money. The place was like the nicest building on campus. Again I didn’t take tests or write papers for anybody. I don’t think anybody did. Was never asked to. But I always felt if other students on campus knew how well these folks had it, just walk in for free and get any help they wanted, well they would not be so happy about that.
Again I know it happens everywhere, and I am not really even that unhappy about it, but I bet the NCAA is.
debbie
Having read your epithet, I am now terrified it will burst forth from my mouth at work.
Cassidy
So close, Betty.
Betty Cracker
@Robin G.: I’m not keeping individual player scorecards, but many of the premature end-zone dancers who are crowing about their prescience today were just a week ago telling those of us who opposed the case for bombing that we were objectively pro-genocide. If you’re going to affix your lips remora-like to Obama and claim that every time he’s right, you’re right, that’s obviously a more sound strategy than outsourcing your opinions to someone like GWB. But it’s still kinda creepy.
raven
@Tommy: It’s a matter of degrees. The NCAA cares about the NCAA.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
Actually, I think the problem is that the left has become as addicted to reducing everything to black and white as conservatives have long been.
Tommy
@raven: Correct. A license to print money.
PsiFighter37
@Tommy: The article made it sound like every recruit got laid when they came for a visit…and yet none of the ladies associated said they participated. I feel like that section was more about the writer fantasizing than hard facts.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ex Regis:
We are pretty much the same age (I was conceived a couple of weeks before PH, and there was no just-in-case about it). I have vague memories of the adults in the family being upset when FDR died, but my first clear political memory is the 1948 Truman-Dewey election.
As for Obama, I guess I might be a little quicker to self-identify as an Obot, but I’ve never taken that to mean that I support everything he does unreservedly. But even though I am pretty far to his left on most issues, I have never felt that he was “the lesser of two evils” or “the least-bad choice” or any of that. I supported, and support, him for positive reasons, not just because all the alternatives are worse (although they are).
srv
@Betty Cracker: And they will never credit the emo response as being critical to convincing Assad that Obama was serious.
Mission Accomplished.
Tommy
@PsiFighter37: That is the part of the story I found hard to believe. That these 19-21 year old women were like prostitutes for the athletic department I can’t believe. I mean I was in college and had a lot more sex then, well then afterwards. Easier to think maybe two attractive and fit people had a few drinks and well ….. things happen.
SiubhanDuinne
@Dolly Llama: Yeah, another example of why I should read through the entire thread before commenting on anything.
That’s not gonna happen, though. I’ll continue to write incredibly clever, unbelievably pithy, stupendously witty remarks, hit the Submit button, and then find out 30 seconds later that others said the same thing earlier and better.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
Some of us who read threads in reverse appreciate your contributions.
burnspbesq
So you Dawg fans are all rooting for Duke today, yes?
Dolly Llama
@burnspbesq: This Dawg fan could give a shit. I’d like the bugs to be undefeated when we face them.
Dolly Llama
@SiubhanDuinne: Lord, I wasn’t trying to call/dog you out. I agree with you and meant my comment as a “second.” Fellatio Alger needs to get in the game.
Tommy
@Dolly Llama: Duke has a football team :)?
Botsplainer
@Tommy:
The words “lack of institutional control” come to mind when reading that article on OSU.
Anya
@Baud: I am glad I am not the only one. And for the record, I love Betty C.
bemused
“chasing the rainbow-farting unicorn”…awesome.
raven
@Dolly Llama: Ditto, I’ll be at the beach for that one but I always take a break from fishin to watch!
raven
UCLA takes the lead!
Tommy
@Botsplainer: Although what happened at Penn State was on another level by like a factor of ten, it is kind of the same thing IMHO. No control. Look the other way. My gut is on most of these campuses football rules above anything and everything else. So stuff like this happens.
I am an LSU guy. Boosters and fans start coming in on Thursday in their $200,000 RVs to tailgate. 98,000 folks show up on game day. LSU (and other teams do) have their own TV network. Don’t tell me this is amateur sports and don’t tell me money doesn’t “rule.”
Anya
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Russia has vetoed or threatened to veto every attempt by the U.N. Security Council to sanction Syria. It was not possible for the US to overcome that thread.
geg6
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yes, this.
And if I’m one of the people that annoyed Betty, I plead guilty and just don’t care. I’m so sick and tired of the automatic and completely predictable criticisms of everything the president says or does, the constant wish for his failure and the ad nauseum accusations that he’s no better and probably worse than Bush from people who claim to be on the same side of the political spectrum as I am. I realize I have to listen to this shit from the GOP, but I’ve had enough of it from the “left.” I’ve lived long enough to know that incremental changes in the right direction are all you can ask for and you should be grateful when you have a political leader who is smart and quick enough on his/her feet to take advantage of the opportunities to bring about those incremental changes when the opportunities arise. Obama has done that better than any president in my memory (which goes back to JFK). I feel I deserve to take a victory lap or two when my faith in the guy is vindicated, as has happened in this and many other instances.
SiubhanDuinne
@Dolly Llama: Never took it that way, at all! Just, I do that All.The.Fucking.Time.
Anyhow, if it serves to encourage more commentary from Fellatio Alger, it’s all good.
raven
@Tommy: Damn, somewhere I have an SI article written by a guy that played for McClendon. He stayed away from the program for years but then realized how much it meant to him. Great article. I don’t like MIles but I do love the passion of the fans. I was in Blacksburg when they came in and literally took over the campus parking for the entire labor day weekend. I told my relatives that lived there that they didn’t know what was coming, they didn’t but the Hokies did win.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
:-)
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker:
The duality was impressive, to say the least. On one hand they proclaimed Obama was not interested in bombing Syria. But anyone who also was not interested in bombing Syria wanted children to die.
Then it wasn’t so much that we *had* to bomb Syria to protect the children, it was just to enforce to Russia and Syria that we really did mean business and would if in the end we *had* to.
In between we had President Obama openly speaking about how a limited military action was called for. And SecState Kerry was basically frothing at the mouth over the possibility of bombing Our Next Hitler ™.
Somehow, in some way, we totally gamed out not only the will of the US citizens, the US Congress, our putative allies/coalition (UK Parliament) Putin/Russia, Syria’s Assad, AND Syria’s disparate rebel OpFor.
From starting about a year ago, apparently.
The ability of some here to shift gears so effortlessly and maintain what they were forcefully claiming a couple weeks ago was mere prelude to where we are now, much less how this goes over the next Friedman Unit…
That shit is solid gold and should be included in the archives for future generations.
raven
The zips beating Michigan !!!
chopper
@Betty Cracker:
many? i can think of cacti who was being a real dick about that shit, maybe one other. who else makes up this crowd of end-zone dancers?
listen, the number of people who really put forth this whole ‘obama controls the planet with his brain’ shit is pretty small. tiny compared to the number of people who put forth the idea that he’s a buffoon, especially on the issue of syria.
Dolly Llama
@Tommy: I hear they have one helluva lacrosse team.
Tommy
@raven: I think you mentioned you have season tickets to the University of Georgia. I am not remotely putting down that program or saying your fans don’t “travel” well. Been to a lot of college games, never in Athens. But I don’t think there is any sporting event (and I’ve been to tons) that is like being in Baton Rouge and seeing LSU play “Under The Lights.”
I think we are 44-0 against non-conference teams on a Saturday night. 27-2 against SEC teams under Miles. Staggering.
Now I’d really like to see a game “Between the Hedges.” Maybe someday I will get there. I visited Georgia looking at grad schools and Athens is my kind of college town. Now I like Baton Rouge cause I lived there during college (and was born there), but it isn’t Athens and kind of a “strange” college town to be honest. Partly cause it is the state capital.
Tommy
@Dolly Llama: I just like to make fun of Duke. Before grad school my parents took me on a tour of around 15 schools over a two week period I had applied to. Duke was one of them. The most stunning campus I’ve ever seen. They never accepted me, and honestly I never could have afford even the 1991 tuition. I hate to think what it just be today :).
rikyrah
huh?
huh?
what is the point of this post?
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
The Akron Zips? Who da fuh are the Akron Zips?? And how do they happen to be playing a team like Michigan?
I will never understand football.
raven
@Tommy: I’ve been here almost 30 years and have been to many places but not redstick. One of my buddies played at Baton Rouge High School in the early 60’s and we talk about doing it sometime. The onset of sobriety makes me less interested in going on the road but maybe.
Madison is the capitol of WI and we had a hell of a time when we went up there for games from Champaign.
Redshift
@Keith G:
This. At some level, the Democrats’ biggest problem is the big chunk of our base that only votes in presidential years, and while it may be fun to bitch about how annoying emoprogs are in off-years, they’re not the problem. The problem is voters who support our policies, but are “low intensity,” unlike the single-issue voters on the right. As I understand it, it’s partly that they’re less committed, and a lot because they’re much more likely to be economically vulnerable or working two jobs, and thus not paying attention to an election if it’s not on TV 24/7.
The reason why I consider this our biggest problem is that it gives us not just a Congress that’s much more Republican than the country as a whole, it gives us state governors and legislatures that are gerrymandering and passing voter-suppression laws (not to mention intentionally screwing over Democratic voters in lots of more direct ways.)
I wish I knew what the solution was. One of my few disappointments with Obama from a political perspective is that when he had everyone’s attention in late 2008, he didn’t ask everyone who voted for him to commit to voting in every election, and that OFA turned into an issue-advocacy organization for the administration, instead of working on getting Democrats elected across the country.
MomSense
@burnspbesq:
I think we did go to the Security Council at least twice but both times China and Russia blocked action.
rikyrah
— —–☺@NerdyWonka
Pres. Obama’s list:
2008 and 2012 election ✔
ObamaCare ✔
DADT Repeal ✔
Deficit Reduction ✔
Bin Laden ✔
Saved GM ✔
Syria ✔
rikyrah
U.S., Russia reach deal on Syrian weapons
GENEVA — U.S. and Russia announce agreement to secure, destroy Syrian chemical weapons as soon as safely possible; Syria must submit accounting of arsenal within a week.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-russia-reach-agreement-on-seizure-of-syrian-chemical-weapons-arsenal/2013/09/14/69e39b5c-1d36-11e3-8685-5021e0c41964_story.html
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Betty Cracker:
Oh, please. Saying that we hope there’s an international solution to the problem and being happy when one is found is “affixing [our] lips remora-like to Obama”?
You were wrong. Sorry, but you were. I know it’s hard to admit it in public, but at least mistermix did a halfway decent job of sounding sheepish about it.
Tommy
@SiubhanDuinne: Oh Raven will get “mad” at you are asking this :). I asked it last weekend. My team, LSU is playing Kent State. Nothing against Kent State. Heck Kent State maybe a better school if you know, you want to get an education, but not sure their football team should be on the same field as us.
Cacti
And you’re a front pager on a minor political blog.
Aren’t you just the mayor of turd town.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Anya: Sure, but a public display of appealing to the “international community”, making the (IMHO perfectly valid) case that this wasn’t his red line, but one agreed to (off and on) by international norms, a slower approach would have done more to build some kind of consensus, especially domestically, that the CWs in Syria had to be addressed somehow (not regime change), with missile strikes as a last resort, rather than the first resort they appeared to be in the days after the attack. I think all that could have led us to the same place we are now. This whole thing strikes me as an uncharacteristically emotional response on the part of No-drama Obama.
rikyrah
Jeff Fecke @jkfecke6m
Boy, Obama sure got lucky with Syria. And health care reform. And DADT repeal. And Iraq. And beating Romney. And beating McCain. And…
Tommy
@raven: Just the fact you know Baton Rouge means “‘red stick” make me like you. I mean that should be clear I’d think, but bet most students there don’t even know that :).
rikyrah
@JBNARIZONA
Obama’s Magnificent Stealth Negotiation with Putin http://onforb.es/17qCSOG via @forbes
Cacti
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yea, so maybe the chemical weapons issue was resolved without further bloodshed, but Obama didn’t do it the way I would have preferred so hmmph!
Shoot me.
Ben Franklin
@Corner Stone:
“That shit is solid gold and should be included in the archives for future generations.”
Not sure of the benefit, except maybe it’s harder to hit a moving target.
raven
@Tommy: Shit, I took a jambalaya and gumbo course in the Easy 35 years ago. Carried a big cardboard box of mudbugs to Illinois!
Robin G.
@Betty Cracker: I’m trying to figure out how this is a different point of view than the MSM saying those who were right about Iraq are still “unserious” individuals who shouldn’t be allowed to participate in the national conversation. Not having much luck with it.
Redshift
@chopper:
Yeah, there’s some good stuff in this post, but front-page feeding the trolls is still feeding the trolls.
rikyrah
Trust vindicated
I don’t mind being called an Obamabot that much. Just like the President decided to embrace the label “Obamacare” that was initially meant as a slam, I suspect history will vindicate that supporting this administration was the right call.
What I’ve typically reacted to negatively is the idea that I blindly trust President Obama because the fact is – I have my eyes wide open and am watching a fascinating presidency unfold. Over time what has happened is that when I don’t see the whole picture yet, I’ve learned to slow down my reactions and wait until I get more information. I also remind myself of who this man is that we’ve elected twice and how he’s handled things in the past.
All of this came into play when it became clear that President Obama was considering a military strike against Syria because the Assad regime had used chemical weapons against his own people. I knew from watching him closely that he had rather boldly stood up to his own national security team when they united last fall to propose that the US intervene in the Syrian civil war. And so I was pretty confident that he had come to this position both reluctantly and thoughtfully. As I’ve said previously, my concerns were more about the efficacy of strikes rather than the ridiculous notion that this man was some kind of warmonger. And so I reminded myself of the process President Obama used when he made the decision to intervene in Libya and assumed he’d done the same thing this time.
I can’t say that I ever really embraced the idea of military strikes against Syria. But what I can say is that I figured that President Obama was telling the truth about his intentions and that he’d made the best decision he could with the information he had. Doing so doesn’t always mean success or landing on the perfect solution. No human is capable of always doing that. But its the best we can hope for from a president in an imperfect world.
There is still a lot of work to be done on Syria, but this morning I can see demonstrated proof that my trust in President Obama is vindicated. SoS Kerry has brokered a deal with his Russian counterpart to identify and destroy Assad’s chemical weapons. What is specifically vindicated is not just that this administration had always been working behind the scenes on the “carrot” of diplomacy as an alternative to the “stick” of military intervention. If this deal goes through, it also proves that dealing with Assad’s chemical weapons was ALWAYS the President’s motivation in all this. That is a critical point because it shows that he is ushering in a new approach to US foreign policy.
http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2013/09/trust-vindicated.html?spref=tw
Cacti
If only the President could be as smart as every left wing blogger.
He really is a naif who needs people (always white ones) to lead him by the hand.
Tommy
@raven: Nothing wrong with a good boil!!!!!!!!!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jesus, there’s some hair-splitting circular firing squad shit going on here. But I least we’re getting the sweet spectacle of the PUMAs and the Firebaggers holding hands @Ben Franklin: . I’m sure that will be a long and happy romance.
BruceFromOhio
@Tommy: This. Still can’t understand why it’s so hard for some to understand. Contrasted with the rabid two-bit ratfuck soulless criminals that make up the House majority, I count my lucky stars.
raven
Goddamn it, fucking michigan holds on
Cacti
President Obama and SoS Kerry are smarter, more savvy, and more politically astute than Betty Cracker, John Cole, mistermix, and Anne Laurie could ever hope to be.
Any questions?
SiubhanDuinne
@Tommy: Raven’s been “mad” at me before. I can take it.
I must have missed last week’s thread, because I swear I have never in my entire life heard of the Akron Zips. (I have, however, spent the night in Akron, once. The car broke down and no parts until the next day.) I really don’t know a thing about football, but I believe I’ve heard of most of the important teams, and The Zips ain’t on that list.
FonzieScheme
So basically, this place is becoming Kos, but with shittier taste in music and analogies. Good to know.
But the strawmen are certainly second to none!
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Actually, I was wrong about a couple of things, but so were the rest of you. When Kerry was running around talking about Munich Moments, I didn’t foresee Obama submitting a resolution to congress about the bombing, and I didn’t see a diplomatic solution emerging. My mistake was in believing that the strikes were as imminent as the administration made it sound.
But as to the central question, which was whether or not bombing Syria was the right thing to do, I still say it would be a mistake. I’m glad it looks like we won’t get a real-world test to find out for sure who’s right or wrong.
If the president engineered the emergence of a diplomatic solution with political jujitsu instead of adroitly taking advantage of an opening, well, good on him. But the people who were shrieking “bombs away” last week are suddenly right now? Not so much.
Redshift
@rikyrah:
I’m more than a little uncomfortable with that. Syrian chemical weapons, yes. Syria is far from being checked off on the list. I’m not saying we should be on the ground there, but I don’t think we should consider it “solved” either.
Ash Can
I’d rather see people going overboard with praise than with racism. Just sayin’.
Cacti
@Betty Cracker:
Of course Betty. Syria would surely have turned over its chemical weapons without the threat of force.
Kumbayaaaa my lord, kumbaya!
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Actually, I believed that he would, at least during the last 2-4 days before he did when the possibility was being discussed. I gloat only because someone accused me of being a troll for believing that he might do that.
I didn’t foresee the diplomacy, but Obama and Kerry obviously knew more about what was going on behind the scenes than I did.
TooManyJens
@Betty Cracker:
Honestly, if he adroitly took advantage of an opening, good on him too. You don’t have to think he orchestrated every move that everyone made, Xanatos Gambit-style, to recognize that Obama did better than a lot of other people would have in this situation.
cleek
@Betty Cracker:
but that’s only because you didn’t have the 40/40 hind/foresight of those who now knew that pushing hard for bombing ASAP is/was the only way to get Syria to do something nobody had publicly suggested before.
if only you were as smart as those who are smart enough to know to retroactively seize hold of the Big Stick. it was always now all about the threat and was never about the punishment, despite the content of ten brazillion comments which never even acknowledged the existence of the contrary. the blood was only on your hands in teh 11-th dimension. rook takes hyper-knight, check-mate^10.
it’s all about molding your past statements to fit the currently-winning narrative. and that’s what you’ve failed to do. and you should feel bad about that.
SIA
@Fellatio Alger: I liked your comment and agree completely.
Cacti
@cleek:
And in pops another sore ass who can’t admit they were wrong.
Yes, the disarmament had nothing to do with the President’s handling of it. Syria not signing the Chemical Weapons Convention for the past 20 years was just a bureaucratic oversight.
cleek
@Cacti:
blithering, you’re doing it again.
Cacti
So, has Cole acknowledged that there was a chemical attack yet. Or is he still a troofer?
Ben Franklin
@Cacti:
President Obama and SoS Kerry are smarter, more savvy, and more politically astute than Betty Cracker, John Cole, mistermix, and Anne Laurie could ever hope to be.
I’ll give you politically astute, but those other two….
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah:
As a supporter of this administration, I agree. And from reading your comments, I know you’ve been nuanced and thoughtful about your support. You are hardly a blind follower. But there is an element here — not as small as some are suggesting, in my opinion — who will lash out at dissent on any issue. That’s what I’m talking about.
Ahh says fywp
Betty, what you say is true. For a superhero, try Newark mayor Cory Booker.
Ben Franklin
@Betty Cracker:
an element here
Your generosity shall be rewarded.
Ahh says fywp
@Baud: I remember that. It was so brilliant I spent a day in angst that the WH was not doing that.
If somebody called you a troll for for that, they were just jelly they hadn’t rihht of it first.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Cacti:
Yep, what are you using to get the blood off yer hands?
Cacti
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
Gojo green. Gets anything off.
TAPX486
@Cacti: Well I don’t know if it was 11 dimensional chess or just the luck of the Irish (Kenyan?) but lets hope the deal holds
Cacti
@TAPX486:
Probably a bit of both.
But chance favors the prepared, no?
gogol's wife
@ohferchrissake:
I approve of this message.
Ash Can
One thing I think the overwhelming majority of us can agree on is that John Kerry deserves more credit than he’s getting too. As far as I can tell, he played his role to a T in this whole drama.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Ash Can: Agreed, John Kerry was for war before he was against it.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Ash Can: Agreed, John Kerry was for war before he was against it.
gogol's wife
@rikyrah:
When I start screaming (every time I open my New York Times in the morning), my husband says, “They weren’t very nice to Lincoln either.” History will judge.
doug r
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): There you go pointing out meddlesome facts again. If they don’t fit with your narrative, you’re supposed to throw them out!
? Martin
@Tommy:
Working at an NCAA institution, I can believe it. The schools that have strong finances and academic reputations still succumb to all kinds of shenanigans USC. Schools that are much more strongly rooted in their sports franchises like Oklahoma are likely to be even more strongly tempted.
I hope nobody is still under the delusion that Penn State administrators and JoPa didn’t know that Sandusky was fucking kids on the premises, because there’s no goddamn way that wasn’t widely known at the top. They were willing to cover that up for the sake of their football reputation. Whoring out willing coeds is easy to rationalize compared to that.
Ash Can
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: That was his job, in all seriousness, and he did it quite well.
Ben Franklin
Something outside the bubble is brewing. They don’t give up so easily.
More robust……
http://www.economist.com/blogs/pomegranate/2013/09/israel-and-syria?fsrc=nlw
Bandar? Bibi?
doug r
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Sounds like it would have taken longer, probably more dead Syrians that way.
different-church-lady
@Redshift: Indeed: too many people don’t seem to understand the distinction between a chess game and a chess match.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
You are really making a mess out of the whole Syria thing, Betty. Fact is, the folks who are reliably anti-war or anti-interventionist continued to be. The folks who think you can make the world a better place by simply killing enough people continue to think that. That has nothing to do with firebaggers or teabaggers or any of the other nonsense the usual retards spout each and every time they have the opportunity. It has as much merit as me making the case that the “blood on yer hands” crowd and the neocons that developed PNAC are working together now.
In fact, the real split in the Syria debacle was solely in the ranks of the born-again Obama worshippers. Some got too far ahead of Obama and tried to enthusiastically make the case for war without knowing the steely-eyed-boots-onna-ground reality. Then there were those of you who doubted Obama three times before the cock crowed. I’m sure most of you woulda gotten yer heads back in the game had war been forthcoming. But I’m not sure we can trust you folks the next three years to have Obama’s back reliably.
Time to do some soul-searching in Camp Obot.
doug r
@? Martin: One of the many reasons I can’t watch college ball.
doug r
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: There were those of us who didn’t project old baggage and trusted the man.
nastybrutishntall
Just don’t call us Obots. We prefer Oborgs, because deep inside, underneath the anodyzed O on our gleaming, perfect chassis, are beating hearts of flesh and blood and minds marred by imperfection. Unlike our leader, who is without flaw, and a god, in Jeans of Mom.
Ted & Hellen
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
You are a genius.
dogwood
Political bloggers, Internet commenters, and MSM opinion gurus are essentially all the same. They like to make predictions and establish narratives when they have limited information. They are always right. When things don’t conform to their predictions, they move on to the next real or faux controversy. I opposed the bombing of Syria because I didn’t’ think it would do much good. Am I 100 percent sure of that? Of course not. I didn’t comment here because I’m not interested in fighting about Barack Obama. The fact that around the Web today those who were most exercised about the looming disaster ahead have nothing to say about the potential aversion of that disaster speaks volumes.
PaulW
Like I told Sully, it’s not that Obama is a Jedi or a Fool, it’s that he’s an Active-Positive President as defined by James David Barber. Money quote: “While the Active-Positive may look like a flip-flopper (especially to the more extremist wing of the president’s party) he’s actually shrewdly calculating the ‘long game’ of getting his enemies to trip over themselves and his allies standing there gawking like they’ve never seen the Hand of God before.”
As a side note: blog-flogging my latest Presidential Character review, this time on FDR.
Also wik: When the Gators aren’t playing, I find more time to root for my OTHER university U of South Florida! GO BULLS! Go.. uh, oh God, I hope they beat Florida Atlantic tonight. Oh God… :(
Fellatio Alger
@Cacti: I think you can stop shooting now. Maybe you can acknowledge that all of those people you named share the same goals as you do and may just take a different path to those goals than you. Don’t assume bad faith on their part.
We have bigger problems to deal with than whether they express anxiety over a potential war in a way that meets with our approval. In fact, we should all be anxious about potential wars, and we should encourage skepticism when we may be getting into one. In fact, Obama himself looks for people who will challenge his own views – he knows the danger in being surrounded by people who think exactly like he does. So, I think it’s wise to see Betty’s (and the others’) points of view for what they are – honest differences of opinion.
And lookit, there’s a long list of really bad people who really want world wars, and really want to destroy everything you hold dear. None of them is named Betty Cracker, mistermix, John Cole or Anne Laurie.
Anya
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I never liked the red line comment either. I bet the president regrets using that stupid phrase. What offended me though, was the stupid comments about “dick measuring,” and the claim that president Obama was salivating for war. What for? Why would he ruin his legacy with an unwinable Mideast war?
As for the international community, I would have prefered that when getting anywhere at the SC became impossible, we focused on getting support from the general assembly. That way it becomes apparent that if it was not for Russia and China, Syria would be accountable.
While we’re talking about the UN, I was not impressed with Samantha Power and her tweets. She should’ve been building alliances inside the UN instead of sending alarming tweets.
Ted & Hellen
John Kerry’s recent and horrendously bad choices in plastic surgery decision making call into question his judgment and thus his fitness to serve in any governmental capacity whatsoever, especially SOS.
He’s liable to push for war simply to draw attention from that face.
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker:
Say WHAT now?
rikyrah is the absolute definition of blind follower.
? Martin
@MomSense:
Actually, UNSC has been trying for a resolution on Syria for almost 2 years.
2012:
The US co-sponsored (and organized, IIRC) the first resolution in Feb 2012.
I don’t mind Republicans blasting the President over stuff like this, because I expect them to be lazy. But before liberals go off and blast the head of their own party, maybe they should do a little research. Those two links took me about 15 seconds to find.
eemom
@cleek:
Le This. I also fail to recall any of the nouveau told you so-ers having made that connection before events unfolded as they did…..as I recall it was all about making the case for why striking was the right thing to do.
Anyway, Obot or remora or whatever — I like this post, and Betty’s posts in general, because they are well written, well reasoned, fun to read, and…..what’s that other thing……oh, yeah. Original.
dogwood
@PaulW:
I taught AP US Government for years, and Barber was part of my curriculum. Some of the best discussions I remember from those years were the ones on Barber’s thesis on presidential character.
Anya- Do you really think Samantha Powers is personally sending out all those tweets?
different-church-lady
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: Uh huh.
hildebrand
What this whole business reveals, once again, is that most folks are simply too fast on the trigger – no matter their opinion. Those predisposed to see Obama as perfect (which I really don’t think there are many as you claim, Betty – loud, persistent, that I will give you, but I don’t think there are that many) saw Obama as playing this correctly from the start. Those predisposed to see Obama tripping over himself, again, were quick to point out his fecklessness. Those who seem to always see Obama as worse than Bush were very quick to jump down his throat. Very quick.
Which is the whole problem – a great many folks absolutely declared their judgement upon the President’s actions long before the story was even close to being over. Theorizing isn’t bad, offering suggestions or criticism is healthy, but folks went straight to the battlements and rendered their final verdict. That is not good – and it is done far too often.
rikyrah
@Corner Stone:
really?
because I support the President?
seriously….that makes me blind?
for real?
Ladybug
@PaulW:
So that was you! Great reply by the way, I’m trying to find a copy of that book now too.
different-church-lady
@hildebrand: What we need is a 24 hour rule for the entire internet.
Hell, screw that — we need a 24 day rule.
Jeremy
@hildebrand: Great comment. I was not supportive of a a unilateral air strike but I felt that I had to dispel the notion that Syria = Iraq because the debate was off track.
It seems like every issue turns into a crazy shouting fest in this country.
MomSense
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He made the “red line” comment in August of 2012 so I hardly think waiting a year while pushing back on his entire national security team including Clinton and resisting after the first incidences of chemical weapons is rushing into anything. I also think the red line comment was completely hyped and taken out of context. Saying using chemical weapons will change the calculation is hardly saying bombs will drop immediately.
I honestly don’t remember people being pro bombing or pro war on the “obot” side. I remember most of us saying we felt conflicted because we believed the international community has a responsibility to act when chemical weapons are used and that chemical weapons are not like other weapons. I finally came to the place where I had accepted that we might have to take limited military strikes but I wasn’t happy about it or pushing for it. Incidentally, it was a conversation with a humanitarian worker and friend that swayed me. My preference all along was for the UN to take action. And I think it was at Booman’s place when this first happened that I said that Kerry and Lavrov were in discussions and that Putin had a lot of reasons to negotiate but whatever that probably makes me a the warriest war mongering war monger who ever mongered a war.
I don’t trust anyone 100%. I do have a lot of confidence in our president and I think it is well earned which is why I wait and listen to what the president actually says when something like this happens instead of rushing to judgment.
MomSense
Guess I’m in moderation. Oh well.
Corner Stone
@rikyrah: Heh. Don’t act like you’re not in the tank.
What could he do to have you not blockquoting posts from balls-out Obama sites? What could happen that would have you posting a serious question?
Nothing. That’s the truthful answer. There is absolutely nothing Obama could do to have you do more than equivocate.
mclaren
Shorter Betty Cracker:
“Obama is great because he’s the hospice nurse who makes the dying middle class’ final moments more comfy.”
Holy fuck.
Emigrate to Russia and sign up as Putin’s campaign manager, you bully-worshiping thug.
MomSense
@? Martin:
I remembered that we went to the UNSC but I was on my “smart phone” and couldn’t look up specifics.
Anya
@dogwood: doesn’t matter. Someone is sending it in her name. Wrong approach for a diplomat.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
BLOOD ONNA HANDS!
nineone
@rikyrah:It’s not about making a point anymore. It’s all about pissing off “Obots”. Fah.
? Martin
@rikyrah:
I think it’s for another reason.
AxelFoley
@Alison:
This. So very much, this.
Belafon
@rikyrah: Corner Stone’s in the Urban Dictionary for asshole. I hear the OED is considering adding him as a synonym. He doesn’t even troll. He’s just rude.
nineone
@Corner Stone:
What is wrong with this?
different-church-lady
Suddenly the anti-bots have gone from making serious arguments in dickish ways to just random gibberish attempting to get a rise.
Can’t say I’m all that surprised.
nineone
@different-church-lady: “Suddenly”?
different-church-lady
@nineone: “I don’t want Obama to blow up the world” isn’t a bad POV, even when expressed through the primitive language of Trollian.
But now that he’s not actually doing that, it’s all ARRGLE BARGLE BARGLILY BARGLE-DERP DERP-BARGLE!
Guys, get over the chew toy already.
PaulW
@rikyrah:
The current deal with Syria is about stopping further use of chem weapons. This hasn’t ended the civil war nor has it resolved the refugee crisis. I wouldn’t put a checkmark there yet.
ruemara
@nineone: All must agree with Corner Stone. Otherwise, you’re just an intolerant O-bot.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader?
@different-church-lady: If you continue to troll this site I will be forced to confront you. You should be warned that Firebagger Betty is on my side along with Firbaggers Mistermix and John Cole, if that’s who he really is.
AxelFoley
@geg6:
Amen.
Ben Franklin
@different-church-lady:
If you don’t like the weather, soon it will change. He’s flexible like that.
Ben Franklin
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader?:
I am hoping that’s a typo.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader?
I gotta say its funny as hell watching you Obots try to sort out which of you had the best intentions in this clusterfuck while striking out blindly at everyone else.
Bob's Had Enough
What I haven’t seen discussed on this site (might have happened and I missed it) was a discussion on what our tolerance for the use of chemical weapons should be.
If we’re strongly against the use of chemical weapons wouldn’t that mean we’d need to do something to stop their use?
If we’re not willing to do something to stop their use wouldn’t that mean that their use doesn’t overly concern us?
I keep coming back to the ACLU defending the speech rights of some pretty nasty critters. Sometimes you gotta get your hands dirty if you really care about the larger issue.
rikyrah
How “Obama Derangement Syndrome” is unlike that of Bush
By Liberal Librarian
http://theobamadiary.com/2013/09/14/how-obama-derangement-syndrome-is-unlike-that-of-bush/#comment-828225
different-church-lady
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader?: Very few times have the words “WHAAA WHAAA WHAAA” been more appropriate.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader?
@Ben Franklin: One of the front pagers must have done that. My E key has been giving me problems since I confronted John’s little drawing monkey. If my E key stops working completely, it wasn’t my doing.
different-church-lady
@rikyrah: That’s a lot of words to say “Spoiled, intellectually lazy, privileged brats.”
nineone
@different-church-lady:
Yeah, but that’s not what they’re really saying, now is it?
@ruemara:
Well I already was, anyhoo, so I got that goin’ for me.
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker:
How many people were “shrieking ‘bombs away’ last week”? Come on. You’re inventing people to be straw-wrong-thinkers way off the mark, and then multiplying them so that their wrongness can balance out the prevailing opinion on both the front page and in the comments that Obama was a bloodthirsty incompetent hellbent on marching us all into a fiery quagmire. There was an element of grudging support for _some_ military action — bombing runways or some such thing — but “shrieking ‘bombs away'”? Maybe that’s what people were intent on hearing, but I don’t think that’s what practically anyone, even the ‘bottiest of ‘bots, was actually doing.
AxelFoley
@PaulW:
Um, that WAS the goal. Otherwise, we’re hands off re: the Syrian civil war, just as we’ve been with Libya, Egypt and the rest of the Arab Spring nations.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader?
@FlipYrWhig: lol
Corner Stone
@nineone: Nothing at all. But don’t then try and act incredulous when someone says you’re in the game on the Obot side.
Corner Stone
@? Martin: What would that be, Martin?
Don’t play coy. We here all know you know all about all.
PopeRatzo
Can you accept that there are those of us who did all those things to help get Obama elected, who wept with joy the night he was elected but who absolutely under no circumstances would vote for him again? Can you at least allow for those of us who believe he has turned out to be worse than a disappointment – a weak and dishonest president who has fallen in love with the worst aspects of presidential power with nothing good to show for it?
Today, we learn that the new consumer protection board, the CFPB, is monitoring as many as 80% of all credit card transactions, and is the thirteenth federal entity to engage in collection of massive amounts of personal data that most people think is private, in the name of “consumer financial protection”. We’re not talking about the kind of stuff that gets reported to credit agencies, we’re talking about all the details of every personal, private transaction. All these agencies have greatly expanded their data collection, in many cases with very questionable authority, under the Obama Administration. And the CFPB, being funded by the Federal Reserve, does not have to answer to congress, or courts. This is not an “incremental change in the right direction” as some of you have been claiming for Obama. Every day brings new chilling stories about the intelligence/corporate machine invading our privacy, and the administration hasn’t challenged one of them, truthfully at least.
I doubt very much that even if it had been as great a success as we hoped, the ACA doesn’t make up for this creation of a Fourth Amendment-free zone within the borders of the United States. And I’m pretty sure there’s not one among us who will say that the ACA is anywhere near as great a success as we’d hoped. Every other week we find a new part of the ACA law that is deferred, or delayed or ignored. Employer mandate? Let’s wait a while. Exchanges? In most places, they’re nowhere in sight. The other day, we heard one after another as leaders of major US labor unions have dropped their support for the ACA. We’ve got 20% of Democrats who believe the ACA will ever save them money on health care. The support for the law gets lower every month. And that is Obama’s greatest achievement.
I signed up to help the president get elected. Twice. Because I thought he’d be a great president. But I didn’t sign up to pretend in the face of evidence to the contrary. I can’t, like some of you, do the Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf routine and say “We are winning a glorious victory, and our president is just a fantastic, well-loved leader” while enemy tanks are rolling down the street and effigies are being burned.
Corner Stone
@ruemara: Glad you finally caught your snap.
Corner Stone
@rikyrah: Ahhh, the “Magic Negro” gambit. 11-D Checkmate in 6 moves!
magurakurin
@chopper:
This.Betty gets in a fight with cacti and then smears the rest with straw. Most of us opposed the idea of bombing but also objected the president being called a war monger and dick wagger. The comparisons to Iraq were also wrong but they would be denied when questioned. I saw a lot of nuance in the comments but far too much snark and disdain on the front page. This post misses the mark as well.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig:
Raise up off your fainting couch and smell it. That is *exactly* what happened here. Betty didn’t imagine it.
Ben Franklin
PopeRatzo says:
It’s kind of like Nero keeping the unwashed from contemplating their troubles by offering free wine and veggies to throw at the losers in Circus Maximus. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader?
@Corner Stone: Careful there, chief. Martin is only saying what everyone thinks.
Cassidy
@PopeRatzo: No. Because this:
is stupid, inaccurate, and dishonest. Nothing you say after that has any meaning. Your overdramatic, emo hyperbole is shallow, silly, and as detached from reality as Glenn Beck. That in and of itself would be enough, but the accompanying embrace of RW talking points and memes just to support your false conclusion is disgusting.
In other words…
Corner Stone
@Belafon: Maybe your gbcw pledge would help assuage you?
You’re clearly a much too gentle soul to face the harsh limelight that is Balloon Juice.
moonbat
@hildebrand: This, so very much, this. And given the general incompetence of most of the MSM and the downright dishonest intentions of the rest of the MSM, I NEVER make a decision about anything based on the first reports. This administration isn’t exactly cozy with the press, so those commentators and reporters are not getting the inside dope until the administration is in a sharing mood. It’s not 11ty dimensional chess; it’s just playing your cards close to your chest, something Obama is well known for.
The problem that a lot of the front pagers here seem to suffer from is swallowing the MSM line whole and then jumping to the worst possible conclusions based on that. Same for Libya, same for Syria in this latest round. Sorry, but those MSMers will let you down every time. For a blog that is supposed to take a skeptical view of the MSM, this one gets suckered a lot.
Bob's Had Enough
@PopeRatzo:
What does “allow” mean in this context?
Can I recognize that there are a few who are willing to accept nothing less of perfect while using their own priority list to define perfect? Sure, I see that.
Do I give those people any more respect than I give the “My way or the highway” Tea Party folks?
Bet you know the answer….
PopeRatzo
@Cassidy:
Oh, thanks, that reminds me that I forgot to mention that President Obama has shown support for Larry Fucking Summers as Fed chair.
If Obama actually turns our economy over to Summers by making him Fed chair, it will be interesting to see what you and other Loyalists say in his defense. That will give us the real definition of “Obama Derangement Syndrome”.
Cassidy
@PopeRatzo: Call me crazy, but I like to see what happens instead of being a drama queen reactionary. I mean seriously, you think the possibility that some junior analyst at the NSA knowing that you have a predilection for goat porn overshadows that there are people in this country who are going to finally be able to afford healthcare? Despite the megalomania involved, that’s just sick. You’re no liberal. You’re a sponge for talking points.
different-church-lady
Annnnnd… the laundry list liberals arrive in a big flock.
Here’s a clue fellas: the fact that you still have unrealized desires of this president (realistic or otherwise) does not mean your predictions about Syria are now magically correct.
different-church-lady
@Cassidy:
Ben Franklin
@Cassidy:
Call me crazy, but I like to see what happens instead of being a drama queen reactionary
I wasn’t here for the fireworks so I assume you were cautious about the Israeli intercept..
Corner Stone
@different-church-lady:
Troll away, my dear. Troll, troll away.
nineone
@Corner Stone: I don’t believe that it was incredulity she displayed. Perhaps it was in some Obot code, which is why you missed it. The vibe I’m getting from a “certain element” here of late is an unwillingness to be the target of poo-slingers of a “different element” when we are trying to celebrate. I get the feeling it will be a source of contention from now on. You (and not just you personally) have been warned.
Corner Stone
@PopeRatzo:
We’ve already seen the pre-inoculation attempt by Davis X Machina, et al.
The summary is, “The Fed Chair is an irrelevant mouthpiece and figure head with zero power. It makes no difference who is in there because they all serve the same master. Larry Summers is fine with us.”
rikyrah
How Putin “Outsmarted” Obama: By Completely Surrendering to All of His Demands
Saturday, September 14, 2013 | Posted by Spandan C at 12:57 PM
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2013/09/how-putin-outsmarted-obama-by.html
Cassidy
@Ben Franklin: Regarding the use of CW’s?
Ben Franklin
@nineone:
I thought you were new here. There does seem to be some evolution happening, but trilobites gotta be trilobites.
different-church-lady
@nineone: To paraphrase Bogie, “My, my, my, so many warnings in this town and so few brains.”
Ben Franklin
@Cassidy:
Not the use of, but by whom.
Corner Stone
@nineone:
Ooooo. A source of contention, you say? A celebration, there is? A warning, you give?
Go fuck yourself.
different-church-lady
@Corner Stone: After you, my dear Alphonse.
Corner Stone
@different-church-lady: I suggest you stop trolling me. I will confront you if I have to. I’ve been on the internet a few times, here and there, and will fight back if I have to.
You’ve been warned, poo-slinger.
nineone
Score@Corner Stone: (In nasaly nerd voice) Score. A direct hit.
Ben Franklin
@Corner Stone:
You do understand that effective take-downs only energize her?
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader?
@nineone: That was fucking epic.
different-church-lady
@Ben Franklin: You two let me know when you’re done.
Cassidy
@Ben Franklin: Yes. I’ve been skeptical from the start. I don’t doubt CW was used; I do believe both sides of this civil war are equally capable of using them. FYI, you can go back, and while I haven’t been commenting much lately, I’ve never supported the immediate use of military action against Syria as I was never convinced that targeted air strikes would accomplish anything. Honestly, if you’re going to bomb, you either have to bomb the delivery methods, and they have a lot of those, or you destroy the warheads which would involve lots of fire if you’re bombing. Either way, not very efficient.
My point of contention has been a) Obama was just itching to blow up some Muslims and have a war and b) the emoprog, chicken little act of Obama being worse than Bush and if he did anything it would be just like Iraq. Both points, heavily front paged and parroted by the BJ Emoprog Brigade, is simple, silly, and devoid of fact.
nineone
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader?: Fuckhead please.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@different-church-lady: A week after Hillary declares her campaign, if not sooner.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader?
@nineone: Don’t be modest. You have a gift for this shit.
Bob's Had Enough
@Cassidy:
Or you bomb non-CW capability which tilts things a bit in favor of the other side.
The message is “If you use CW we will degrade your ability to fight which will increase the other side’s ability to wipe you out.”
Cassidy
@Bob’s Had Enough: That was never a/the stated goal. I don’t disagree with that conclusion, but I don’t think it was a consideration. If we were interested in shaping the conflict, I don’t think we’d have lit it drag on this long.
Ben Franklin
@Cassidy:
My point of contention has been a) Obama was just itching to blow up some Muslims and have a war and b) the emoprog, chicken little act of Obama being worse than Bush
Glad to hear you weren’t on the Midnight Express, and I know you have some military background and should have had issues with intel from the usual suspects. But I think you oversimplify with the above statement, because I don’t know anyone who is suggesting Obama is worse than Bush. It’s a question of what our expectations of POTUS should be, no matter his/her political affiliations. I expect more of Obama, and I am certain his buttons are being pushed. I’m also certain he’s smart enough to know this, and that should make him even more reticent to make public statements (red-line) that come back to haunt. Diplomacy should have been the primary instinct for the community organizer. He was kind of bullied into it by the bully Putin. Not understanding what you are up against should make one more cautious, and he wasn’t cautious. Even if you are inclined to think it was caution that led him to hand off to Congress, Assad knew he had blinked and so did we.
nineone
And with that, I’m off to consort with some fuckin’ Obots. The hardcore, balls-out types that go after heretics with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch. Peace, y’all.
Ben Franklin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m not much in favor of Clinton.
fuckwit
Does Jesus Christ tittyfuck? Who exactly does he tittyfuck? Pamela Anderson? Does he prefer natural or silicone?
I’ve always wanted to know that. Also, what a visual that is…. ugh, wait, no, I don’t want that visual. BRAIN BLEACH PLEASE.
Or is his full name Jesus H. Tittyfucking Christ on a Bicycle Crutch?
Cassidy
@Ben Franklin: See, I think that’s oversimplifying. Just because he raised the possibility of military strikes doesn’t mean he abandoned diplomacy, obviously. I do believe he passed the ball to congress knowing that the teatards would drink anti-freeze if he told them not to. Now, I don’t know if he wanted to bomb shit or performed a Super Megazord Ninja feint, but I do believe he was very troubled by the use of CW to the point where he felt that he, and us, had a responsibility to do something about it. Personally, I’m not convinced an arbitrary line of atrocity is the way to go, but other people think differently; I don’t consider the use of CW’s any different than shelling and massacring an entire neighborhood/village/city.
In the end, I don’t think diplomacy was ever ruled out and was the preferred method of resolution, but a credible threat of military force was necessary to make that happen. This whole “deal” has given everyone an out without having to bomb. My personal prediction is that Syria drags it’s ass in handing over the weapons, everyone pisses and moans, and the rebels capture a storage facility and then themselves use the CW’s.
Cassidy
@fuckwit: Is Jesus a man? Then yes.
dogwood
@PopeRatzo:
Oh come on. The fact that you claim to have worked twice to elect a man you judge to be weak and dishonest defies reason. Value judgments aside, there’s nothing about Obama 2013 that is different from Obama 2012. Why in the hell would you ever have voted for him in 2012, let alone worked for his reelection is a mystery given your post. One of the most fascinating things about this president is how visceral and personal the reactions to him are among many of his supporters and detractors. I mean I get those kinds of reactions to poiticians like Newt Gingrich or Alan Grayson. They invite and encourage it. Obama? Not so much.
fuckwit
@mclaren: Russia is a good analogy, or, more accurately, the Soviet Union in its last days. I’ve said for years that Obama is America’s Mikail Gorbachev: the reformer who tries to save a dying, sclerotic, corrupt system from its inevitable collapse.
The reason why I support Obama and his attempt to reform our broken system is that whatever comes after America as we know it now will assuredly be worse.
What happens when the system collapses? Have you read what happened after the SOviet Union collapsed? And look at Russia today: run by the fucking mafia, churches, and the military. In our case, if the government collapses, the 1% will be nakedly and totally in control, it’ll be banana republic without even the fig leaf we have now.
I think it’s impossible to be a nihilist if you have children. I’m not eager to see the system collapse, as much a I hate it. Anarchy is not good for children and other living things. It’s law of the jungle. It’s bullying times 10. If you think the bullies are in charge now, just wait until after a collapse.
I believe in democracy. I believe it is a good idea. We should try it. I think Obama is all in on that, despite how futile it might seem. He seems unwilling to give up, and I’m not interested in giving up either.
Ben Franklin
@Cassidy:
Fair enough. I personally see CW as an escalation that will lead to nukes, and it is necessary to proscribe by any means; but against whom? That’s the gap in WH war room chats. There were too many that had a certainty it was Assad.
Now if the USG could eliminate 100% of our stores by the same date we require Syria (US @ 90% Russia @ 58%) the hypocrisy of our stated opposition to the use of CW might have some creds with World support. But the failed target date of April 2012 looms large in the Global perception of USG.
Bob's Had Enough
@Cassidy: I don’t recall PBO’s discussion of whether to bomb CW sites or non-CW sites simply because the administration and military did not publicly discuss their targets.
What I got from the public statements was not that we would attempt to swing the decision in favor of the rebels, but that the intention was to punish Assad for using chems.
What I did hear a lot was non-admin/military people stating what the targets and goals were. Speculation presented as the absolute truth that PBO wanted to take us to war, etc.
Ben Franklin
@fuckwit:
Wow. Even i wouldn’t go that far. Who’s our Yeltsin? Please don’t say Kerry.
Ben Franklin
@fuckwit:
Wow. Even i wouldn’t go that far. Who’s our Yeltsin? Please don’t say Kerry.
hildebrand
@dogwood: The answer is obviously the NSA scandal. That is the only thing that has happened since the election that could possibly do the trick. It certainly has tipped the scales for Cole and a few other FPers around here. They can now view everything through the lens of that scandal.
PopeRatzo
@Cassidy:
Tell you what: Go read Bart Gellman’s recent story regarding the NSA, spying and the material obtained from the Snowden leaks. It’s easy to find, Gellman’s got a Pulitzer and has always been a very insightful, careful and progressive journalist. He’s also one of the three people who have obtained the raw data from Snowden. Then we can talk about the NSA and goat porn more intelligently.
Seriously, just do that much. Can you withhold your judgement until you’ve read that story?
Cassidy
@Bob’s Had Enough: I understood “targeted strikes” as targets to specifically impede the use of CWs. I could be wrong.
Keith G
@rikyrah: ,
I think you are absolutely right. An event made all the more easy since the administration has had several positions on this issue – occasionally at the same time. It’s a lil bit of policy roulette which will be okay as long as the wheel’s final stop is on one of our numbers.
Keith G
@rikyrah:
I think you are absolutely right. An event made all the more easy since the administration has had several positions on this issue – occasionally at the same time. It’s a lil bit of policy r0ulette which will be okay as long as the wheel’s final stop is on one of our numbers.
PopeRatzo
I have a question for Betty and other Loyalists:
Did you ever imagine that in order to maintain your support of President Obama you’d have to add the ACLU, the EFF, Larry Lessig, Labor Unions, Noam Chomsky, the Progressive Caucus, Bobby Kennedy Jr, Mike Papantonio, Cornel West, Michael Moore, Glenn Greenwald, Duncan Black, The Daily Kos, Firedoglake, Democracy Now, the anti-war movement and John Cole to your enemies list?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@PopeRatzo: “loyalists” and “enemies lists” reflects how you see the world, Tiger. Stop projecting your histrionic manichaeism on the rest of us. Though as far as some of your self-selected co-relgionists go– Mike Papantonio, Cornel West, Michael Moore, Glenn Greenwald, Duncan Black, The Daily Kos, Firedoglake,– I’m more than okay with it.
I wonder how many members of the Progressive Caucus know they are Barack Obama’s enemies?
dogwood
@hildebrand:
It appears you are correct.
Bob's Had Enough
@Cassidy: I recall “targeted strikes”. I recall no public discussion of the targets.
Bombing chemical depositories wouldn’t exactly be a good idea. I suspect the military understands that. ;o)
What I think I saw here (as I lurked) was the creation of a great myth about PBO’s motives and intentions. I think some normally more level headed people kind of got a bit more emotional and less rational.
Davis X. Machina
@Corner Stone:
….Summers wishes he had that much power.
Yellen, on the other hand, would call for the expropriation of the expropriators, and begin seizing the commanding heights of the economy in the name of the workers.
From the point of view of the 99%, the choice is the driver of the bus that’s going to run you over, not whether you get hit by the bus in the first place.
chopper
@PopeRatzo:
thanks alot for tanking obama’s third term, asshole.
@Ben Franklin:
it’s not ‘kind of’. it’s exactly like that crazy bullshit you just said.
Bob's Had Enough
@Keith G:
My memory of the admin’s position is that PBO stated that the use of chemical weapons was wrong and that the world should not sit aside and let it happen.
Additionally, the President held back until data could be gathered to show who had used the weapons.
I recall that there were attempts to get other countries to join in with the efforts to do something to stop further use of chemical weapons. And if no other solution could be found the US would deliver some hurt to the guilty party.
Now I can’t recall any other positions held by PBO. Perhaps you could tell me the other positions he held?
dogwood
@PopeRatzo:
“Loyalists” and “enemies lists”? I hate this kind of nonsense.
Yatsuno
I see it on the horizon…the magic number approacheth…
ruemara
@Corner Stone: One day, you’ll be clever. Not today.
Ben Franklin
@chopper:
Just to be clear; you endorse my metaphor..
joel hanes
@different-church-lady:
What we need is a 24 hour rule
Or simply to learn and apply Alexander’s First Law:
Choose one goal. If you must tell someone off, so be it, but don’t be deceived that you’ll change their mind in the process.
Joel
This chess goes to eleven.
Corner Stone
@ruemara: Sorry, I’d like to give a shit about what you think but we’re busy taking orders for dinner.
Corner Stone
@Davis X. Machina: Ah, c’mon.
We all know Yellen would be arranging the counter batteries to target artillery fire on the expropriators.
Battery 1, fire for effect! Battery 1, fire at will!
Corner Stone
@Joel: Don’t they all? I mean, don’t they all?
PaulW
@Joel:
Queen to Queen’s Level 3.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
There’s something different about the blog lately, sort of an underlying sexual tension. I can’t be the only one who sits here naked feeling it, celebrating it.
rp
Even putting aside the silly strawmen in this post about Obots and superheroes, I find the chicken little attitude ridiculous and tiresome. Our system is not “disintegrating.” We have some big problems, no question. But claiming that society is falling apart and that everything sucks makes you sound just like a teabagger pining for the good old days. You claim that you’re the “realist” and that we’re the fanboys with our head in the clouds, but I think you’ve got it backwards.
chopper
@Ben Franklin:
i endorsed your mom’s metaphor just the other night.
rikyrah
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Reflections
I was thrilled beyond words this morning, when I went online to Huffington Post and saw this:
And we are completely immersed in the consciousness of scarcity, resource conflict, and fear of the other. Clearly, Gandhi, Mandela and King operated from a different level of consciousness, where abundance, peacemaking, and trust were the qualities seen first, and were part of each leader’s basic operating system. Developmental psychologists call this level of consciousness integral, and tell us that less than 5% of the world has attained this consciousness level. Obama, I believe, is part of this small percentage of people who see things whole; who trust the complexity of events to reveal deep structures and patterns, not single point answers or finite solutions; who know with absolute conviction that truth is found not in resolving paradox, but living in its tensions; that flow and generative action requires letting go of ego; and that all people, at every developmental level have something important to say, even your adversaries and enemies, because the brain is not capable of 100% error. In the precise sense that I believe Jesus meant it in the Beatitudes – “Blessed are the peacemakers…”, Obama is a peacemaker, while also remembering that Jesus told us to be “Gentle as a dove, and shrewd as a serpent.”
We see with the consciousness we have. That is perhaps why most commentators simply cannot see what Obama’s up to. They are looking for the binary juxtapositions: winner or loser; strong or weak; enemy or friend. The idea of engaging your enemy as the one and only way to find a solution for the conflict you both share an interest in – simply doesn’t compute; you can’t see it. Running parallel and entirely oppositional strategies simultaneously can also be hard to detect, especially if it hasn’t been openly declared. Letting your opponent/adversary/enemy get all the credit for whatever breakthrough is achieved – even going so far as to “plan a gaffe” that your Secretary of State will offer as a seemingly offhanded proposal, which can be accepted by your opponent in such a way that he gets all the credit – none of this makes sense to our pundits – that operational mode doesn’t compute – power is everything; the powerful are always the winners; never let your guard down; he who has the gold rules, etc, – so folks just cannot see it when something like what has just happened, occurs. And central to this: Obama truly does not care. He is not attached to being the “last man standing”; he is attached only to the result, to the outcome, to the vision – the North Star he has been following. You may not believe me, or really understand what the hell I am talking about. But this is what has just gone down, and the actions, the patterns, the apparent sudden reversals, the willingness to look the fool – all these are products of an integral consciousness. Obama is an integral leader.
http://jimstuartnewblog.blogspot.com/2013/09/reflections.html?spref=tw
hildebrand
@PopeRatzo: In order to call Betty a loyalist you would have to call yourself a loyalist, as the construction and content of her post, and your comments up-thread, are essentially the same – ‘I worked to get Obama elected twice, and now he has disappointed me because of his ideas or plan about ‘X’.
Keith G
@Bob’s Had Enough: An obvious one: Immediate Presidential action vs Whoa…lets go to Congress.
Similarly: Gassed babies call for military strikes vs lets negotiate with folks who haven’t been really good at honoring negotiations.
Related: Asad must go vs Asad becomes a defacto negotiating partner.
These changes, among others, may workout. Some issues are better faced with rubbery flexibility while others are not. We well know which type of issue this one is soon enough.
mai naem
Jeebus. I come back to this thread and it’s just more of the same shit. Does anybody fucking realize it took 50 years for the GOP to go from Eisenhower to GW Bush and people are expecting Obama to make the Clinton to FDR pendulum shift in 8 years. It ain’t gonna happen.
And, jeebus, do we have to relitigate the ACA again? Have people forgotten Max BucksRUs, Ben Nelson’s Husker Kickback, Joe Lieberprick’s Insurance Co. BJ and Mary Landrieu’s Lousiana Purchase?
PopeRatzo
@dogwood:
Me too. And I hate even more that it started because somebody criticized Barack Obama.
In a very few years, my guess is that practically nobody here will admit to still having supported him in 2013. It’ll be like Bobby Thompson’s home run in reverse. I’m sorry, I guess you have to be a certain age to understand that reference.
Corner Stone
@rikyrah: Thanks so much for posting this here!
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: “Exactly what happened here” was virtually every regularly-posting front pager, and the lion’s share of the regular commenters, emoting and abusing him- or herself about the inevitable blood-soaked quagmire Obama was bent on causing. Then that didn’t happen at all. And somehow the worrywarts still want to be… right? Because of some argument in their heads they totally did too win against imaginary people even though nothing they were totally sure would happen actually did? Y’all motherfuckers are strange.
Keith G
@rikyrah:
Sorry, not only is there no original reporting that supports this, what sourced reporting there is shows just the opposite.
This reminds me of the first debate when the fantasy was spun that Obama purposely “threw it” as part of his psy-ops against Romney. Again, reporting shows that this was not the case. Obama just had a bad night. The good news was that Romney was so dickish, it didn’t matter.
I like Obama. He may well end up being the best President during my lifetime. Considering that, I find it odd that some of his supporters are so brittle in their neediness. Being President is not about being perfect. Its about leaning from a mistake and then getting better and then better again. Obama makes mistakes. I bet he also farts and shits.
His policy and actions vis a vis Syria could have been better. Lets see how he handles this situation that he has put himself (and us) into.
eemom
@PopeRatzo:
This is one of those instances where, as clueless as I am about sports, I am completely confident that you are a total fucking moron.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@FlipYrWhig: I hope you Obots can figure out which of you has most egregiously failed Obama and nip. it. in. the. bud. Nip it! The future of our great country rests on your ability to remain 100% committed at all times.
FlipYrWhig
@mai naem:
See, the problem there was that Obama compromised too soon instead of fighting hard. He should have declared the maximal extent of what he wanted and then compromised so that the final result would be somewhere in the middle.
But the problem here was that Obama declared the maximal extent of what he wanted and then compromised with a final result that was somewhere in the middle. He should have sought compromise sooner.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: You’re an amusing troll. I’ll give you that.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@eemom: his comment becomes even more stupid if you know that it’s Bobby Thomson, not Thompson, who hit that home run.
Bob's Had Enough
@Keith G:
I don’t recall Obama saying that we will, without fail, strike Assad.
What I recall is that the final decision evolved as facts became available.
Here’s the sort of thing I recall –
You might want to read more of Obama’s comments on that site.
Assad is not a negotiating partner. He’s been told that he must give up his chemical weapons. He’ll try to get the best deal he can get, but he’s no partner.
I agree that the move to include Congress was something of a change. But it seems to me a wise move. It’s not like Obama had set a date for attack and then dialed it back.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: You, all right? I learned it by watching you!
magurakurin
here’s your fucking warmongers, right here. And broadcast on their favorite warmonger channel. Seriously, this is the guy who would be president now if Obama hadn’t one in 2008. Why don’t the front pagers come out bashing Granpa as he tries to derail peace talks?
McCain, Graham call US-Russia agreement on Syria ‘meaningless’
eemom
@Corner Stone:
You know, I hate to be the one to say this, but you’re losing your mojo. Your recent comments are increasingly obvious mclaren and/or Fuckhead knockoffs.
I mean your own particular brand of ultra-dickishness may have been reprehensible to, well, pretty much all concepts of human decency — but at least it was yours.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Corner Stone: Cracker Barrel? Or Paula Deen’s?
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yuck. Cracker Barrel is disgusting.
Thanks for asking, troll.
Corner Stone
@eemom: eemom, just because Fuckhead has been fucking you in roadside Motel 6’s across VA, don’t think you’ve got anything to say to me.
Because, you fucking racist bigot, you do not.
If Cole had any sack he would have put you in the waste bin long ago.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: Shit. You ain’t larnt a god damned thing from me, towlie.
“Don’t forget to bring a towel!”
dogwood
@PopeRatzo:
I was born in 1954, so Bobby Thompson is a bit before my time, but I’m not culturally ignorant if that’s what you were implying. I taught political science for many years, so I’m not naive about the various reasons for people’s support of political candidates and the complex set of intellectual and emotional factors that inform voters’ opinions. I don’ care who you vote for or why. Disagreeing with you does not make me your “enemy”. There are people on your enemy list I respect and people I don’t. They are not my enemies either.
rp
@eemom: I’ve noticed this too. He’s become a boring, predictable troll.
Corner Stone
@rp: Which one are you again?
Ah, never mind. I’ll sort you out amongst my other ankle biters.
rp
@FlipYrWhig: Yes — someone above said that this is like the MSM saying that the left wasn’t really right about Iraq because they were right for the wrong reasons. So the people saying that maybe we shouldn’t leap to conclusions about Obama and that we shouldn’t take military action off the table weren’t really right. We — and Obama — just got lucky. Sure, ok.
Was anyone on this site actually eager to see military action? I read most of the threads and it was mostly “Obama is making a terrible decision because getting involved in Syria is a horrible idea” vs. “I don’t think there are any good options here, so I’m not willing to say that military strikes are inherently a bad idea and should be off the table.”
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader?
@Corner Stone: You are a troll magnet. John Cole should make you a front pager. We can wrangle all the trolls in one thread and then do a mass ip block. Then we could get this place back to normal.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@MikeJ:
LOL. Yeah. The front pagers got this wrong like crazy.
CHAINED CPI!
Meep Meep.
Keith G
@Bob’s Had Enough:
The “without fail” part is an interesting addition, but be that is it may, The AP reports it in a different way quoting a member of the administration calling it an “about face”.
Now what happened just before? I quote from MSNBC, “The British Parliament Thursday rejected a proposal for military action in Syria — while the Obama administration said it would make its own decision on a possible strike.” That fact would certainly give one a change of heart.
Again, this diplomatic slalom run maybe what is needed. Just recognize it for what it is.
Marduk
The potshots at the folk who defended Obama’s judgement comes off as doing a touchdown dance after scoring a safety.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@zoot:
Socoolsofresh, Brick oven bob, Ted and Hellen, or Ben Franklin get banned?
Omnes Omnibus
@Keith G: Anything involving multiparty diplomacy is not going to take a straight path. For this reason, anyone who suggests that the current process was exactly what the administration had in mind from the outset is probably way off base. OTOH those who are suggesting that administration was on a bombing only track until the UK backed away is probably on the wrong track as well. I am pretty sure different approaches topped the list at various times throughout the process; it would have been criminally incompetent for thinking not to change as facts changed. Right now, it looks like this might end up as a win for everyone – of course, the tedious process of verification and enforcement remains, but still….
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Ted & Hellen:
Still trying to convince yourself that you have talent?
The rest of the world doesn’t care, and doesn’t agree.
You work sucks.
Belafon
@Omnes Omnibus: I totally, 100% agree (long form of “This”). And I can think of plenty of presidents who served from 2001-2009 who did not have the flexibility to change as often as I’m sure was required to get to where we are now with regards to Syria and Russia.
Bob's Had Enough
@Keith G: Sorry, I didn’t mean to change the argument by including “without fail”. I was trying to say that I didn’t see an absolute decision to bomb Assad but rather an evolving process.
The absolutes I saw came from people well outside the administration – media and people commenting on this site. Basically people who were telling us what Obama was thinking and what he intended to do.
I see Obama holding one fixed position throughout. Assad should not be allowed to get away with chemical weapons.
Did the idea of threatening him with military action and then allowing him to give up his chems not come up during administration discussions? I doubt that.
Look at how much effort was put into closing all the rat holes in the ACA, how Republicans haven’t been able to find a way to defeat it. I would expect the same sort of contingency planning occurred with Assad and with every other decision which has been made. Presidents know this needs to be done, only lazy ones don’t bother.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader?
@Omnes Omnibus: There you are. Don’t toy with me like that again.
Omnes Omnibus
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader?: Sorry, I didn’t realize that my being off somewhere have a life was that troublesome for you.
ETA: I am going to go do some more of it for a while, so you will just have to deal with it.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Davis X. Machina:
Ted and Hellen might just go ballastic.
I am all for that.
weaselone
@Keith G:
I always wonder which “members of the administration” the media is talking to because the accuracy of the predictions they receive could probably be duplicated or even surpassed by consulting a magic 8 ball or fortune cookies.
Yatsuno
@Omnes Omnibus: Sooo…no TBogg unit?
doug r
@FlipYrWhig: Yup,
dogwood
@weaselone:
I’ve always assumed each administration has staffers draw straws at the end of the day to designate who goes and says this kinda shit to the press.
doug r
@PopeRatzo: 80 percent of transactions, you say. Links? I see a story about collecting data on 10 million Americans- how exactly were they supposed to get data on what they regulate?
doug r
@PopeRatzo: Still hasn’t picked Summers. Nice to see y’all bunching early.
Ted & Hellen
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo):
I know! Isn’t that great?!
Work that sucks sells for big bucks these days and I’m rolling in cash.
Thanks!
Redshirt
It’s like blogging with Picasso here, cesspools.
zoot
@Chyron HR:another one living in obama fantasy world. In the real world obama did in fact do both of those things: put social security cuts on the table and only considered a military strike on Syria until others came up with an alternative. He also did all the other outrageously indecent and criminal things I listed. You obama-idiots really, really need to b e more careful who you fall for and invest everything in.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
You mean you’re rolling in (pasta) dough! !
Cassidy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Going from crayons to macaroni!
fuckwit
You know what would be cool? Threaded comments, like (shudder) dKos and many other sites.
Where the comments, have little arrows, and you click the arrows to see the replies, and the sub-replies are under sub-replies.
This would make it easy to IGNORE PISSING CONTESTS in the comments and focus on good stuff.
Also, comment ratings would be nice. Then you can upvote helpful comments and downvote bullshit, trolls, and personal pissing contests.
My guess is WP supports none of those essential features.
It seems like there are a very few commenters having pissing battles back and forth. If the comments were shown as a tree, that’d be obvious (comment, then comment from somene under, it, then comment from the original commenter under it, then comment from that other person under it, clearly this is an annoying argument, a war of attrition). If those comments had arrows, you could hide that bullshit and focus on the other comments.
Just a suggestion for the web masters.
Yatsuno
@fuckwit:
How bout no. Threaded comments are space eaters on the page plus they’re fucking havoc on mobile sites. We had this conversation during the last site rebuild and it was soundly rejected. You can just scroll on past shit you know.
Omnes Omnibus
@fuckwit: No. One loses more than one gains.
Yatsuno
@Omnes Omnibus: That was the closest to unanimity this blog has ever gotten.
doug r
@zoot: First of all, chained CPI isn’t as evil as you might have heard and secondly, he offered it to the GOP when he knew they wouldn’t take it. The Medicare donut hole is going to be covered, there’s a benefit bump at age 85, there’s additional money for low income seniors AND a raise in the minimum wage means EVERYBODY’S benefits go up.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yatsuno: No, it wasn’t.
dogwood
@doug r:
Turning political opponents into monsters is as old as time. The last 12 years have been sadly comical here in the US. Bush is Hitler, Obama is Hitler, FEMA camps, death panels, blah, blah, blah. People believe this shit because they want to. When the opposing party controls the White House there is a segment of the population that wants to believe we live under a malevolent dictatorship. There’s something comic about this, but also self-centered and arrogant. Like all countries, this one is flawed, but no American president has ever been like Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin or the various Kim Jongs. Trying to equate ones political suffering with the suffering of millions upon millions of people who have been and are still the victims of horrendous oppression borders on narcissism.
doug r
@doug r: http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2012/12/dear-liberals-chained-cpi-is-not-cut-to.html
Yatsuno
@Omnes Omnibus: I suppose that honour goes to mourning His Lord and Tunchness. But that still kinda stings, and I was trying to stay topical.
dogwood
@doug r:
This is my point. When you try to convince someone that chained CPI is not “evil” you are wasting your time. There truly are evil actors and deeds in this world. Barack Obama and chained CPI don’t make the list.
patroclus
While I agree with the gist of this post, it seems a bit oddly timed on the eve of a diplomatic breakthrough on the Syria issue. Merely lucky or extraordinarily prescient, I think Obama and Kerry probably deserve a little praise for (apparently) getting Russia and Syria to agree to place Syria’s chemical weapons stock under international control (supposedly soon). Now does not seem the time to take Obama to task (yet again); rather, now would seem to be the time to throw a little policy praise Obama’s way, It was a very difficult and complicated issue; requiring multiple policy tracks and options, and, notwithstanding my doubts, Obama seems to be handling the matter fairly well. Especially from those of us (including me) who earlier criticized Obama for appearing to be recklessly veering towards war. I was wrong – just like the frontpagers here – and those of us who were wrong should admit as much.
If Obama were Bush in May 2003 and engaged in premature triumphalism and flying to an aircraft carrier in a flightsuit with a manly codpiece , things would be different. But he’s not – there have been no victory laps as yet. So why this post? It seems kinda weird.
different-church-lady
@fuckwit:
If our government collapses, the 1% won’t have a goddamned cent, because our unit of currency — and our entire economy — will be worthless.
People who actually know how to grow food — they’ll be the ones who rule the new world.
different-church-lady
@PopeRatzo: I was intrigued until I hit Cornel West, and then I started laughing too hard to read the rest of it.
Omnes Omnibus
@different-church-lady:
Nope. If the shit goes bad, the people who grow food will be necessary, but the peope who rule will be those who can protect their food growers. Welcome back feudalism. BTW the gun nuts are unlikely to the the new feudal overlords.
different-church-lady
@PopeRatzo:
a) Bobby Thompson happened years before I was born.
b) I understand the reference, nonetheless.
c) The reference is nonsensical, nonetheless.
different-church-lady
[This comment redacted due to reading comprehension fail]
me
GOP sux….
Obama… ehhh….
Average Dems Oy….
Gators sux big time….
Steve Spurrier… HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Throw down your dam visor, superior boy!
Yatsuno
@Omnes Omnibus:
Gun nuts are good at things. Making their own ammo and mixing their own gunpowder is not one of them. Plus if shit hits the fan Washington has enough economic bases to go it alone, but we’d probably bring Oregon along for the ride.
dogwood
@patroclus:
I think some people invested pretty heavily in their anger and outrage over Syria. Then it sort of fizzled out today and they were left flat-footed. It’s bound to occur when people are furious about things that haven’t even happened yet. What was weird about this thread and the silence about the news on the diplomatic settlement was that it suggested that many of the people so exercised about military action in Syria didn’t really care much about the issue after all. Syria was just a proxy for the ongoing Obama wars around here.
Laur
I’ve stopped coming to BJ regularly because of Betty Cracker. How can one person be so angry and condescending ALL THE DAMN TIME?
zoot
@doug r: you are delusional.
zoot
@dogwood: “When you try to convince someone that chained CPI is not “evil” you are” ignorant as hell.
Betty Cracker
@PopeRatzo:
Jesus, what a stupid fucking question. I generally support Obama but don’t agree with him on everything. I generally support more than half the people on the so-called “enemies list” but don’t agree with them on everything. A few others I’ve never paid much attention to because they rarely have anything useful to add to any debate. Much like yourself.
Betty Cracker
@hildebrand:
Wrong.
Betty Cracker
@Laur: Mission Accomplished!
Fellatio Alger
@Betty Cracker: LOL.
Rex Everything
@Cacti: You know, with comments like this and “If only the President could be as smart as every left wing blogger,” you’re being about as antidemocratic as a liberal can get. Obama, Kerry, et al are a medieval priesthood in your analysis, and engaged & thinking citizens are mere non-Latin speaking laypersons.
Rex Everything
@eemom: I like eemom now. Stranger things haven’t happened.
Tabbitha
As long as I can use the “Obama is a Jedi who mind-controls the planet” to bug the hell out of my Obama hating cousin, I will do so. Don’t try to take my fun away.