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When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: FIERCE

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: FIERCE

by Anne Laurie|  May 20, 20155:50 am| 103 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics, Open Threads, Readership Capture

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Hey, @POTUS! This is how you #GimmeFive, FLOTUS-style… https://t.co/YF8nEtjUIA

— The First Lady (@FLOTUS) May 20, 2015

And her manicure stays perfect, too. Hat tip to valued commentor LAMH36, who I would not dare to deny. :)
***********
Apart from getting energized, what’s on the agenda as we cross the midpoint of the week?

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Reader Interactions

103Comments

  1. 1.

    danielx

    May 20, 2015 at 5:57 am

    Title of article in the local Gannett fishwrap: Can we afford another four years of Mike Pence?

    No, but given the current political climate we might end up with someone even worse.

  2. 2.

    ThresherK

    May 20, 2015 at 6:11 am

    Digby, on Sam Seder’s Majority Report, 5/19:

    “One billionaire could decide to fund all fourteen (Republican candidates).” It could get their pet project idea out there for what amoumts to sofa change.

    A made-for-TV competition, hermetically sealed from the real world, with single entity ownership of the entire field, where the contestants have already given away whatever bargaining power they had as a price of admission?

    Can’t tell if it more resembles the XFL or American Idol.

  3. 3.

    David Koch

    May 20, 2015 at 6:33 am

    That’s a 51 year old woman proving age is just a number.

    Perhaps the most stunning looking FLOTUS Evah!

  4. 4.

    Baud

    May 20, 2015 at 6:35 am

    I am now ashamed about the shape I’m in.

    I blame (Michelle) Obama.

  5. 5.

    OzarkHillbilly

    May 20, 2015 at 6:40 am

    @Baud: For what? Your shape or your shame?

  6. 6.

    Baud

    May 20, 2015 at 6:41 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    She’s an Obama, so yes.

  7. 7.

    Zinsky

    May 20, 2015 at 6:43 am

    Oh come on! What about “Pickles” Bush? Other than the Xanax eyes and the fact she got away with vehicular homicide, what was wrong with her as First Lady?

  8. 8.

    OzarkHillbilly

    May 20, 2015 at 6:58 am

    @Baud: Yeah, might as well blame her for everything. She’s got to be guilty of something.

  9. 9.

    MomSense

    May 20, 2015 at 7:06 am

    Wow! I didn’t think I could admire her even more until this. She’s an impressive woman.

  10. 10.

    satby

    May 20, 2015 at 7:21 am

    FLOTUS’S guns are the only kind anyone should have, IMHO.
    No wonder she rocks the sleeveless look.

  11. 11.

    ThresherK

    May 20, 2015 at 7:21 am

    @MomSense: When I was in middle school, in the pre-CNN era, I asked my dad if the President made a lot of money. “Yeah, I guess,” he said, “but I wouldn’t want the job”.

    Well, the job has only gotten tougher. And the First Lady’s role is even worse: Nothing predefined, but people will blame you for everything the State Dept does, and there’s a much lower ceiling of sticking up for yourself accepted.

    (That leaves out the conventions: Female president in my lifetime? I can see it. Single president in my lifetime? Unmarried female president? I don’t know if I’ll live that long.)

    I could only imagine having my head screwed on as right as hers must be to do this with such knowingness, effectiveness, and good cheer. If Ayn Rand ever wrote one useful thing in her life, it was something like: Show me a man’s romantic choices and I’ll show you the sum total of his values. (Paraphrasing, but the gendering is original.)

    Says something pretty cool about PBO.

  12. 12.

    gogol's wife

    May 20, 2015 at 7:25 am

    @David Koch:

    Definitely. I am going to miss them so much.

  13. 13.

    MomSense

    May 20, 2015 at 7:33 am

    @ThresherK:

    The pressure those two manage every single day is unimaginable. Even their supporters are always telling them what they should do as if any of us could deal for a day with what they face.

    i plan to enjoy every day they are in the White House.

  14. 14.

    MomSense

    May 20, 2015 at 7:39 am

    @satby:

    True! I need to step up my workout now that I’m no longer extreme shoveling. I was starting to get some good guns. Guess my too busy too tired excuse is now exposed as complete BS.

    WWFLOTUSDO

  15. 15.

    Iowa Old Lady

    May 20, 2015 at 7:41 am

    Hillary Clinton was in my town yesterday. I didn’t see her, but on Chris Hayes, Robert Costa is standing in front of my favorite restaurant. That’s as close to fame as I can come.

  16. 16.

    kc

    May 20, 2015 at 7:42 am

    She looks fab. Maybe I should take up jumping rope?

  17. 17.

    BruceFromOhio

    May 20, 2015 at 7:47 am

    @MomSense: This.

  18. 18.

    NotMax

    May 20, 2015 at 7:48 am

    @Satby

    No wonder she rocks the sleeveless look.

    Classic YMMV.

    (Fashion heresy warning.)

    Have always considered that her sleeveless shmatas look grotesque.

  19. 19.

    MattF

    May 20, 2015 at 7:53 am

    Just thinking about how the RW chorus will hate this… teehee.

  20. 20.

    debbie

    May 20, 2015 at 7:56 am

    @MattF:

    Oh, they will. In their eyes, she’s the scary black person looming over them, waiting to take their guns and freedoms. Even worse, she’s a woman.

    My favorite moment is when female conservatives slam her for going sleeveless…dressed in their own sleeveless dresses.

  21. 21.

    Germy Shoemangler

    May 20, 2015 at 7:56 am

    Here’s a Wednesday morning fable from Ambrose Bierce:

    An Intrusion

    Morality put her toe into international politics and it was promptly chopped off.

    “A thousand thanks,” said Diplomacy, with an engaging bow; “we will keep it in memory of a most distinguished honor.”

    And Morality has limped a little ever since.

  22. 22.

    Aimai

    May 20, 2015 at 7:58 am

    @gogol’s wife: yup. I wish i could get to a white house tour while they are in office. It just feels more alive and more my house too with them as first family.

  23. 23.

    MattF

    May 20, 2015 at 8:00 am

    @ThresherK: One may point here to the FOXification of our politics. Truth is that we’ve got a Murdoch/Ailes ticket for the R nom– everyone else, including the would-be official officials of the Republican party, are just actors.

  24. 24.

    Josie

    May 20, 2015 at 8:03 am

    I just love this woman. Pure class.

  25. 25.

    Cervantes

    May 20, 2015 at 8:16 am

    Whom.

    That is all.

  26. 26.

    Patricia Kayden

    May 20, 2015 at 8:25 am

    @Iowa Old Lady: I assume Secretary Clinton will spend a lot of time in Iowa before the caucus next year. You’ll probably get another chance soon.

  27. 27.

    divF

    May 20, 2015 at 8:28 am

    I have my regularly scheduled workout at the gym in two hours with my trainer, a sweet, blonde, apple-cheeked young woman who dead lifts 500+ lbs (her power lifting total, bench + squat + dead lift = 1200 lbs). I do whatever she tells me to do.

    Meanwhile, I am writing a short talk (6 powerpoint slides) to present to colleagues on one of my projects at 1 PM (it is 5:25 AM here). I slept about 4 hours, and am kinda grumpy and incoherent.

  28. 28.

    WereBear

    May 20, 2015 at 8:36 am

    I think what makes FLOTUS & POTUS able to manage with such grace is that they have each other. Shared goals, willingness to make each other’s dreams come true, knowledge that they are mutually loved.

    That is sadly not common in most “power marriages.” And from my childhood prospective, wondering why Pat Nixon looked so miserable all the time (I now know) it is very rare in Republican marriages.

  29. 29.

    Iowa Old Lady

    May 20, 2015 at 8:37 am

    @Patricia Kayden: I generally try to avoid the political sideshow that breaks out here in election years. Politicians ambush you in the grocery store and try to shake your hand, and I’m talking about politicians you’d be horrified to have to eat Thanksgiving dinner with.

  30. 30.

    Germy Shoemangler

    May 20, 2015 at 8:44 am

    Another fable from Ambrose Bierce:

    The Grasshopper and the Ant

    One day in winter a hungry Grasshopper applied to an Ant for some of the food which they had stored.

    “Why,” said the Ant, “did you not store up some food for yourself, instead of singing all the time?”

    “So I did,” said the Grasshopper; “so I did; but you fellows broke in and carried it all away.”

  31. 31.

    rikyrah

    May 20, 2015 at 8:48 am

    Best First Lady ever!!!

  32. 32.

    Elizabelle

    May 20, 2015 at 9:07 am

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Politicians ambush you in the grocery store and try to shake your hand …

    Tell them you’re Canadian. They won’t be able to get away fast enough.

  33. 33.

    Elizabelle

    May 20, 2015 at 9:16 am

    @MattF: Good place to pop in this link.

    James Fallows: How Fox New is (Still) Hurting the Republicans.

    Although FNC is actually hurting all of us.

    Here’s link to Bruce Bartlett’s paper, which Fallows discusses, How Fox News Changed American Media and Political Dynamics.

    Bartlett’s abstract:

    The creation of Fox News in 1996 was an event of deep, yet unappreciated, political and historical importance. For the first time, there was a news source available [24/7] with a conservative tilt. Finally, conservatives did not have to seek out bits of news favorable to their point of view in liberal publications or in small magazines and newsletters. Like someone dying of thirst in the desert, conservatives drank heavily from the Fox waters. Soon, it became the dominant – and in many cases, virtually the only – major news source for millions of Americans. This has had profound political implications that are only starting to be appreciated. Indeed, it can almost be called self-brainwashing – many conservatives now refuse to even listen to any news or opinion not vetted through Fox, and to believe whatever appears on it as the gospel truth.

    And this is good for America exactly how?

  34. 34.

    Cervantes

    May 20, 2015 at 9:18 am

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    I generally try to avoid the political sideshow that breaks out here in election years.

    Someone once described Des Moines in primary season as “an especially ruthless debutante party.”

    Anyhow, I think it’s a good thing the candidates are out there making themselves vulnerable — did I say “vulnerable”? I meant “accessible” — in the presence of news cameras. It’s an opportunity to trail them asking questions they’d rather not address, never mind answer.

    And if that trailing and questioning is systematic and relentless, so much the better.

  35. 35.

    Elizabelle

    May 20, 2015 at 9:19 am

    @rikyrah: Of this century, for sure.

    Eleanor Roosevelt was pretty swift too.

    Michelle Obama is elegant, gracious, intelligent, accomplished and raising two beautiful strong daughters.

    Would love to be a fly on the wall and hear what PBO and FLOTUS have to say about the day’s events.

  36. 36.

    Cervantes

    May 20, 2015 at 9:19 am

    @Elizabelle, quoting Bartlett:

    For the first time, there was a news source available [24/7] with a conservative tilt.

    Utter nonsense.

  37. 37.

    Betty Cracker

    May 20, 2015 at 9:33 am

    @Cervantes: Was there a 24/7 TV news outlet that catered to conservatives prior to Fox?

  38. 38.

    bemused

    May 20, 2015 at 9:34 am

    If the Obama family was Republican and white, the rightwing would have them on a pedestal higher than the moon. They have all the qualities most Americans profess to want in a presidential family: intelligence, good work ethics, maturity, physical attractiveness, devotion to the family, have great senses of humor and no unsavory behaviors no matter how hard the rightwing tries to invent some. They are very comfortable relating to people from all walks of life. POTUS and FLOTUS did it the American way, working extremely hard pulling themselves up with their bootstraps from modest beginnings. Staunch Republican voters won’t even acknowledge that the Obamas are basically nice and normal people apart from political differences and are convinced they are the most evil people on earth. Totally unhinged from reality.

  39. 39.

    MattF

    May 20, 2015 at 9:37 am

    @Cervantes: It’s certainly missing some qualifiers. ‘Conservative tilt’ covers a great deal of territory– and over the long term, includes most news sources, current and historical, that one can think of offhand.

    That said, there’s something unique about FOX. Deliberate dishonesty plus partisanship come to mind, but there’s more to it than that.

  40. 40.

    Germy Shoemangler

    May 20, 2015 at 9:39 am

    @Betty Cracker: I know locally there was a lot of right wing talk radio, at least in New York. Bob Grant, the patron saint of all the loud mouths, was on many hours a day.

    In the ’60s, I remember some macho rightwing tv hosts like Joe Pyne. But it wasn’t wall-to-wall, 24/7 the way it is now.

  41. 41.

    lamh36

    May 20, 2015 at 9:43 am

    Great way to wake up in the morning.

    I’ve been pushing off my own weight loss efforts for years. I’ve been trying to Kickstart it for this year before my 40th birthday next year.

    Seeing this short video yesterday really got mw motivated to start up again. The last time that happened was over 15 years ago when Oprah was on her weight loss kick. I started and just like that I quit.

    FLOTUS has inspired me. Shoot if she ever released a workout video ala Jane Fonda, I’d buy it in a heartbeat!

    Have a great morning everyone, I’m off to work.

  42. 42.

    Cervantes

    May 20, 2015 at 9:45 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    That’s one question about the assertion.

    Another is whether there is anything the least bit “conservative” about Fox’s “tilt.”

  43. 43.

    chrome agnomen

    May 20, 2015 at 9:45 am

    @bemused: i said something like this just the other day; if PBO and family were theirs, the stonemason would be chipping away on mt rushmore as we speak.

  44. 44.

    Cervantes

    May 20, 2015 at 9:45 am

    @MattF:

    I agree.

  45. 45.

    Kathleen

    May 20, 2015 at 9:49 am

    Wow! She made it look so easy and didn’t even break a sweat. I thought my conditioning class this morning was tough. Need to master the jump rope.

  46. 46.

    Betty Cracker

    May 20, 2015 at 9:50 am

    @Cervantes: Ah, a semantics rabbit hole. Carry on, then!

  47. 47.

    Germy Shoemangler

    May 20, 2015 at 9:50 am

    @Cervantes: I don’t watch enough of them to be an expert, but do they actually promote themselves as conservative? Do they actually come out and say “Here we are with the conservative viewpoint” or do they pretend to be completely non-partisan? “Fair & Balanced; We Report You Decide” is rather coy.

    I’m guessing their pretense is that it’s coincidence that their views line up with the right; that it’s simply a matter of those opinions being correct.

  48. 48.

    Cervantes

    May 20, 2015 at 9:54 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    If by “semantics” you are referring to “meaning,” and if “meaning” is not your thing, then feel free to ignore it. As you said, “Carry on, then!”

    But the question of how “Fox News” markets itself is objectively an important one.

    Also, Bartlett’s assertion did not limit itself to TV, the way your question did.

  49. 49.

    gogol's wife

    May 20, 2015 at 9:55 am

    @bemused:

    Well put.

  50. 50.

    Germy Shoemangler

    May 20, 2015 at 9:56 am

    @MattF:

    Deliberate dishonesty plus partisanship come to mind, but there’s more to it than that.

    Lots and lots of sexy eye candy for their target demographic.

  51. 51.

    Cervantes

    May 20, 2015 at 9:57 am

    @bemused:

    They have all the qualities most Americans profess to want in a presidential family: intelligence, good work ethics, maturity, physical attractiveness, devotion to the family, have great senses of humor and no unsavory behaviors no matter how hard the rightwing tries to invent some.

    Excuse me, but where and when have most Americans professed to want intelligence in their presidential families, or in their elected officials generally?

  52. 52.

    Cervantes

    May 20, 2015 at 10:12 am

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    I know locally there was a lot of right wing talk radio, at least in New York.

    With the help of former ABC executives, Rush Limbaugh has been on the air nationally since the days of the Dukakis campaign. And with the help of Roger Ailes, Limbaugh was also on TV for the entirety of the first Clinton Administration.

  53. 53.

    bemused

    May 20, 2015 at 10:12 am

    I get so tired of Republicans saying we don’t need to fix or improve anything with funding from state or federal budgets. From a local MN blog this am on the issue of funding universal pre-K, a rightwing commenter says to the blogger, “your solution to any “problem” is more money. It’s always with other peoples’ money and not yours.” Of course, that doesn’t make any sense (somehow taxpayer money spent only comes out of his pocket) and this type of commenter says the same thing about any issue.

    @chrome agnomen:

    Absolutely! R’s would be saying, “Reagan who? Dunno, faintly rings a bell.”

    @Cervantes:

    They pretend to.

  54. 54.

    Betty Cracker

    May 20, 2015 at 10:16 am

    @Cervantes: Supercilious much? I haven’t read the paper, but from the abstract above, it sounds interesting. Fox News Syndrome is a real thing that many of us have seen in our own families, and it has clearly had an impact on politics. I just wondered if you had a good reason for dismissing the paper as “utter nonsense,” and now that I know that you don’t, I’ve got nothing more to say about it.

  55. 55.

    MomSense

    May 20, 2015 at 10:17 am

    @lamh36:

    You can do it!

  56. 56.

    debbie

    May 20, 2015 at 10:21 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    Before Fox, I can’t think of a news source that was considered to be slanted. Opinions were restricted to opinion shows (like MTP, Firing Line), and newspapers (even NYT) made it very clear through their layouts which pieces were facts and which were opinions.

  57. 57.

    MomSense

    May 20, 2015 at 10:22 am

    @Cervantes:

    I think the point is that Republicans have been selling family values and personal responsibility as the cure for everything that ails America (since obviously the government can’t do anything well and shouldn’t anyway). If we ever needed proof that Republicans were just lying and spinning, the treatment of the Obama family is it. The Obamas are the epitome of family values and personal responsibility and the Republicans disrespect and bad mouth them ceaselessly.

  58. 58.

    Elizabelle

    May 20, 2015 at 10:26 am

    @debbie: You did have the issue of the “liberal” morning paper and the conservative other (sometimes afternoon) one. Bartlett addresses that a bit in his article (which I will finish today).

    But Fox toxified the whole environment.

    I would say that Fox News Channel is radical rightwing, not merely conservative, as are the GOP politicians who have grown up in the “Reagan was a god” political and media petri dish Fox enables.

  59. 59.

    Cervantes

    May 20, 2015 at 10:26 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    Supercilious much?

    Eye of the beholder and all that, right?

    I haven’t read the paper, but from the abstract above, it sounds interesting. Fox News Syndrome is a real thing that many of us have seen in our own families, and it has clearly had an impact on politics.

    Yes.

    I just wondered if you had a good reason for dismissing the paper as “utter nonsense,” and now that I know that you don’t, I’ve got nothing more to say about it.

    It’s not the paper I was dismissing. It was one specific assertion, quoted.

    But I thought you understood that — why, after all, would you pretend otherwise?

  60. 60.

    Elizabelle

    May 20, 2015 at 10:28 am

    @MomSense: I think that’s why they had to make the patriarch Kenyan, and thereby ineligible and illegitimate for his office.

    The better to keep their addled audience from looking closer at Barack and saying (as Andrew Sullivan did): “hey. Obama actually looks a LOT like his white grandfather Dunham from Kansas.”

    ETA: Here’s a photo of Stanley and Toot, from Sullivan’s The Dish.

    link: http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2008/10/his-last-parent/209916/

    From when Obama flew to Hawaii on the eve of his election in 2008 to be with his grandmother, who helped raise him, as she lay dying.

    Reading about [Madelyn Dunham, aka Toot] again tonight, you can see where Obama’s personal social conservatism comes from. There’s a lot more Kansas in Obama than most people on the right seem to think.

  61. 61.

    Cervantes

    May 20, 2015 at 10:30 am

    @debbie:

    “Considered to be” is one thing, whereas think about this:

    ‘Conservative tilt’ covers a great deal of territory– and over the long term, includes most news sources, current and historical, that one can think of offhand.

    That’s from MattF above.

  62. 62.

    PurpleGirl

    May 20, 2015 at 10:32 am

    @David Koch: There hasn’t been such a stunner since Jacqueline Kennedy. Michelle Obama as a natural grace and innate style that whatever she wears looks great. I love her.

  63. 63.

    Elizabelle

    May 20, 2015 at 10:34 am

    @MomSense:

    PS: there’s an even better picture of Barack’s grandfather Stanley Dunham, but this link came up quickest. It’s in the Dish archives somewhere ….

    [As might be, I think, a photo of hound that looks strikingly like Mitch McConnell. Have always been looking for that image again. It was perfect.]

  64. 64.

    debbie

    May 20, 2015 at 10:36 am

    @MattF:

    That said, there’s something unique about FOX. Deliberate dishonesty plus partisanship come to mind, but there’s more to it than that.

    Parading opinion as fact?

  65. 65.

    Elizabelle

    May 20, 2015 at 10:37 am

    The last great Republican first lady was Betty Ford.

    She was the last of the wise Republican spouses (Laura Bush seemed plenty smart, but also kind of detached), and met the challenges of her day as well as she could. Betty Ford did a lot of good.

  66. 66.

    Elizabelle

    May 20, 2015 at 10:39 am

    @debbie: I think you could even say “parading an alternate universe, which does not exist”, more than mere opinion. Opinion, at some level, is sometimes attached to observed facts.

    Fox Viewers are sitting at home watching the news version of Game of Thrones, passing itself off as “news”, and they apparently prefer the imagined world to the real one.

  67. 67.

    bemused

    May 20, 2015 at 10:40 am

    @MomSense:

    Damn right!

  68. 68.

    Cervantes

    May 20, 2015 at 10:42 am

    @Elizabelle:

    I think you could even say “parading an alternate universe, which does not exist”

    You could, indeed, and there’s nothing “conservative” about that.

  69. 69.

    Cervantes

    May 20, 2015 at 10:45 am

    @MomSense:

    Nothing controversial in what you say there, I agree.

    I was just wondering why we should think that “most Americans” consider anyone’s intelligence (to be a plus, I mean) when they vote.

  70. 70.

    bemused

    May 20, 2015 at 10:46 am

    @Elizabelle:

    Betty Ford is the only Republican first lady I would like to have met. When I read that before they left the White House, she said she always wanted to dance on this Cabinet table and did, I knew this was someone who was probably fun to know.

  71. 71.

    debbie

    May 20, 2015 at 10:46 am

    @Elizabelle:

    Wasn’t Willie Horton Fox’s first big break (in the 1988 election, two years after they started)? That story hit the most primal fear of conservative-leaning people, and Fox has run with it ever since.

  72. 72.

    Elizabelle

    May 20, 2015 at 10:47 am

    @Cervantes: Agreed.

    And it’s ridiculous for other news outlets — which should (and maybe do) — know better to pretend Fox News is a news organization. It is no more real than “The West Wing”, which everyone agrees was a political fiction. And more intelligently written and presented, at that.

    But not fact. And not news.

  73. 73.

    Cervantes

    May 20, 2015 at 10:48 am

    @debbie:

    Wasn’t Willie Horton Fox’s first big break (in the 1988 election, two years after they started)? That story hit the most primal fear of conservative-leaning people, and Fox has run with it ever since.

    “Fox News” did not exist until late 1996.

  74. 74.

    Elizabelle

    May 20, 2015 at 10:51 am

    I wish I could send you all some of Northern Virginia’s spectacular weather today. It’s cool enough for a sweater, breezy, sunny and clear.

    Terrific day to be out on the deck with coffee and y’all.

  75. 75.

    NotMax

    May 20, 2015 at 10:51 am

    @debbie

    The FOX news channel premiered in the mid-90s.

  76. 76.

    Elizabelle

    May 20, 2015 at 10:53 am

    Well well. NYTimes news alert:

    Adding another entry to Wall Street’s growing rap sheet, five big banks have agreed to pay more than $5 billion and plead guilty to multiple crimes related to manipulating foreign currencies and interest rates, federal and state authorities announced on Wednesday.

    The Justice Department forced four of the banks — Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, and the Royal Bank of Scotland — to plead guilty to antitrust violations in the foreign exchange market as part of a scheme that padded the banks’ profits and enriched the traders who carried out the plot. The traders were supposed to be competitors, but much like companies that rigged the price of vitamins and automotive parts, they colluded to manipulate the largest and yet least regulated market in the financial world, where some $5 trillion changes hands every day.

  77. 77.

    debbie

    May 20, 2015 at 10:56 am

    @NotMax:

    Guess it just seems like forever.

  78. 78.

    NotMax

    May 20, 2015 at 11:00 am

    @Elizabelle

    Yet again.

    Second verse, same as the first.

  79. 79.

    bemused

    May 20, 2015 at 11:01 am

    @Cervantes:

    You assume intelligence means the same thing to rightwingers than non-rightwingers. Foxbots truly believe they are much smarter than everyone else. I and probably many other liberals have been told by Foxbots to watch Fox to “get a clue”. Powerline’s Hinderaker enthused about George W Bush back in the day, “A man of extraordinary brilliance approaching genus”.

  80. 80.

    Cervantes

    May 20, 2015 at 11:01 am

    @bemused:

    David Kennerly took a photo. The Smithsonian has it.

  81. 81.

    bemused

    May 20, 2015 at 11:06 am

    @Cervantes:

    Yes and it would have been wonderful to have video, sigh. One can only imagine the horror if Michele Obama did something like this. I don’t remember if there was any negative press on Betty Ford for dancing on that table.

  82. 82.

    Cervantes

    May 20, 2015 at 11:06 am

    @bemused:

    You assume intelligence means the same thing to rightwingers than non-rightwingers.

    No, I wasn’t assuming that. Your statement referred to “most Americans,” and that’s what I asked about.

    Foxbots truly believe they are much smarter than everyone else. I and probably many other liberals have been told by Foxbots to watch Fox to “get a clue”. Powerline’s Hinderaker enthused about George W Bush back in the day, “A man of extraordinary brilliance approaching genus”.

    All completely ridiculous, I agree.

    Pity Obama. Talking to such people with a straight face is not easy.

  83. 83.

    Elizabelle

    May 20, 2015 at 11:07 am

    @Cervantes:
    @bemused: Love it. Had not known about that.

    Happened to be in California when Betty Ford died, and was so tempted to head down to Palm Springs area and pay my respects.

    Now I wish that I had. Oh well.

  84. 84.

    bemused

    May 20, 2015 at 11:14 am

    @Elizabelle:

    I just read that the picture didn’t surface until 16 years so that may be why not many people remember it. When Betty Ford died, it was written about which is when I learned about it. I do wonder if she would have received criticism if that photo had been in the public at the time it was taken.

    In an interview with the Fords long after, Jerry Ford learned she did this for the first time and said to Betty, You didn’t tell me! Betty replies, Jerry there are a lot things I didn’t tell you. Gotta love her.

  85. 85.

    bemused

    May 20, 2015 at 11:20 am

    @Cervantes:

    Yes, I often am impressed with Obama’s patience dealing with idiots. Almost anyone would have a hard time not rolling one’s eyes. Patience, another great quality I like to see in a President.

    It’s likely that about 27% of Americans thought G W Bush was brilliant and most other Americans groaned in embarrassment at some of the dopey stuff Bush would say, imo.

  86. 86.

    rikyrah

    May 20, 2015 at 11:26 am

    @bemused:

    You are absolutely on the money.

    They killed me, in 2012, trying to say that Mitt Romney was a self-made man.

    The only self-made man running for President in 2008 or 2012 was Barack Hussein Obama II.

  87. 87.

    Valdivia

    May 20, 2015 at 11:33 am

    @Elizabelle:

    such a relief after the last couple of days. nothing like an open window when having to work in front of the computer all day…

  88. 88.

    Elizabelle

    May 20, 2015 at 11:34 am

    C-Span will cover this; says “Awaiting.” Sigh. Might get me inside, off the deck.’

    NY Times:

    WASHINGTON — President Obama will use a commencement address at the Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut on Wednesday to cast his push for urgent action to combat climate change as a national security imperative, arguing that the warming of the planet poses an “immediate risk” to the United States.

    The speech is part of an effort by Mr. Obama to make a multipronged case for his ambitious climate-change agenda, which he identifies as a top priority for the remainder of his time in office and regards as a central element of his legacy. Instead of promoting his plan strictly in environmental terms, he has pitched it as beneficial for the economy and vital to the nation’s security.

  89. 89.

    bemused

    May 20, 2015 at 11:37 am

    @rikyrah:

    Rightwingers always rewrite history and make over people to fit their own images and beliefs. They make heroes out of those regurgitate their views and demagogue those who don’t. There’s nothing in between for them.

  90. 90.

    Elizabelle

    May 20, 2015 at 11:39 am

    @bemused: Amuses me that Ronald Reagan’s spawn left them so little to work with, politically.

    Nancy’s kids are both practically socialists. Why would that be?

  91. 91.

    Cervantes

    May 20, 2015 at 11:45 am

    @rikyrah:

    The only self-made man running for President in 2008 or 2012 was Barack Hussein Obama II.

    Herman Cain’s father was a janitor and his mother was a cleaning woman.

    Of course, one might say he wasn’t a man, but that’s rather an ideosyncratic objection.

  92. 92.

    bemused

    May 20, 2015 at 11:49 am

    @Elizabelle:

    It would be interesting to hear how Ron Jr and Patti would answer that question but doubt they would be very revealing in respect to their parents. I wonder if they would say more when Nancy is no longer living.

  93. 93.

    Elizabelle

    May 20, 2015 at 11:49 am

    MSNBC has PBO commencement at the Coast Guard on now, but it’s still the opening pleasantries …

  94. 94.

    Elizabelle

    May 20, 2015 at 11:52 am

    @bemused: I hope they will say “why no, we have no issue whatsoever with reverting DCA’s name back to Washington National Airport.”

    There is no goddamn reason — other than Congressional Republicans’ in your face — that that the capitol city’s airport was named after Ronald Reagan. Let the name change back after Nancy passes.

  95. 95.

    Cervantes

    May 20, 2015 at 11:55 am

    @bemused:

    I don’t remember if there was any negative press on Betty Ford for dancing on that table.

    There wasn’t. She did it the day they left the White House in ’77, so the negatives were hurriedly stuffed away somewhere amidst all the rest of the packing — and only saw publication some two decades later.

  96. 96.

    Elizabelle

    May 20, 2015 at 12:01 pm

    Here’s C-Span link to PBO speech on climate change, happening now. MSNBC cut away. They’ve got commercials.

    http://www.c-span.org/video/?326155-2/president-obama-commencement-address-us-coast-guard-academy&live

  97. 97.

    bemused

    May 20, 2015 at 12:09 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    Agree. If those name everything in sight after Reagan groups had their way, every denomination of coin and currency would have his face on them and I really hate that stadiums, etc are named after corporations. It’s way out of control.

  98. 98.

    Elizabelle

    May 20, 2015 at 12:37 pm

    @bemused: Interesting. Totally unscientific poll by the Washington Post today, but as of now, 75% of those polled don’t call the airport “Reagan”. (24% do, and that doesn’t even match crazification factor.)

    64% call it “National” (as I do, pointedly) and 11% call it “DCA.”

    I don’t see it being that hard to change the name back, once Mrs. Reagan has passed.

    Washington is both descriptive (it serves the city and region) and honors the nation’s first president, whose home Mount Vernon is about 10 miles from the airport.

    ETA: the linky: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/05/20/reagan-or-national-what-do-you-call-these-things-in-the-d-c-area/?hpid=z4

  99. 99.

    Cervantes

    May 20, 2015 at 1:12 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    I don’t see it being that hard to change the name back [eventually]

    Surely, you jest.

  100. 100.

    MomSense

    May 20, 2015 at 1:16 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    I am late getting back but just wanted to add that Stanley Dunham is buried at Punchbowl. After Pearl Harbor he enlisted and then fought in Patton’s army in WWII. A white Republican grandson of such a veteran would be celebrated. Madelyn Dunham worked in a bomber assembly line during WWII and then worked her way up to VP of a small bank in Hawaii–but someone who went to the Dunham’s church was a communist so Stanley and Madelyn must have been communists, too. How many bank VPs do you know who are communists?

  101. 101.

    Elizabelle

    May 20, 2015 at 3:35 pm

    @Cervantes: Yeah. I was doing the Green Lantern thing when I typed that. (Before I even knew the concept, as DougJ’s later thread illuminated for us….)

    It will be a struggle. But one worth having.

    The WaPost’s Express (throwaway version distributed free near Metro, etc.) touched on National Airport/DCA’s name a few months ago. It had this slippery sentence that young people won’t remember that it had a different name before and won’t care. I do not think that is true.

    I think that was to stop a publisher or bigwig advertiser from complaining.

  102. 102.

    Elizabelle

    May 20, 2015 at 3:36 pm

    @MomSense: Yup. But, as we said, alternate universe.

    And a shabby one.

  103. 103.

    Bobby Thomson

    May 21, 2015 at 9:39 am

    Every time I try to load a Ballloon Juice page now this video starts playing on You Tube.

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