As the Democratic presidential campaign has intensified in recent weeks, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and her supporters have said that Senator Barack Obama has not crossed the “threshold” to serve as commander in chief.
So does Mr. Obama believe that Mrs. Clinton is qualified?
“Yes,” Mr. Obama said. “As I believe Senator McCain is and as I believe I am. Keep in mind though, I think it is fair to say Senator Clinton has deployed this as a political strategy.”
In a news conference with reporters here today, Mr. Obama was flanked by 10 former generals and admirals who are supporting his candidacy. It is the latest in a series of dueling flag-draped events between the Clinton and Obama campaigns as they seek to demonstrate their national security credentials.
Mr. Obama said he was surprised by Mrs. Clinton’s assertion that he is not qualified to lead the military or protect the nation. Calling it a “last-minute gambit prior to Texas and Ohio,” Mr. Obama dismissed the criticism as an act of desperation. (He lost both states, but did not say whether he attributed his defeats to this.)
Clinton, 2016, was asked the following questions:
1. Do you believe, this morning, that Bernie Sanders is qualified and ready to be president of the United States?
2. So the question, and I’m serious, if you weren’t running today and you looked at Bernie Sanders, would you say this guy is ready to be president of the United States?
3. But do you think he is qualified?
Every single time, she refused to call him unqualified.
That’s why, even though I have a lot of problems with some of her past stances and positions, I am comfortable supporting her. She learns.
And again, this just seems like such a big deal because the campaign has been so nice this year. But when you look at 2008 and 2016, there were two campaigns flailing and hatching bizarre delegate schemes. Hillary 2008, Sanders 2016.
This is not hard.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
As a woman, hearing Sanders’ comments this morning – I actually wanted to hit him in his shouty old puss with a baseball bat. That Hillary was able to respond like that – she’s the only one with presidential temperament and character, and I’m going to assume she has learned from the master.
redshirt
I was 110% an Obot in 2008, and I am turning into almost as much a Hillbot of late, because of responses like this. She has learned from 2008, and from the best politician of our age, Barack Hussein Obama.
She’s got my vote and my complete support.
Go Hillary!
Elizabelle
Thank you.
Watching HRC at Carnegie Mellon yesterday on C-Span broadcast.
How anyone could listen to this, really listen to her points, and not see that the GOP are dangerous whackjobs, in contrast ….
I think Hillary does learn, and we all learned how toxic the 2008 race was among allies. Not again.
Cacti
Bernie is not a team player, and will stop being a Democrat about a nanosecond after Clinton locks up the nomination.
Barney Frank’s been saying it for a while now. The reason so few of Bernie’s colleagues endorse him is because he’s a self-righteous toad, not because they’re all part of some nefarious “establishment” conspiracy.
starscream
Obama is such a special figure in history. Slowly realizing that I might never see his like again.
MattF
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: And, after the hard experience of the 2008 campaign, she took the job of SoS. The subtitle here is “The Education of Hillary Clinton,” and that’s a good thing, making it ‘way easier for me to support her.
Elizabelle
There is real passion in HRC’s speech about the US vying to be a leader in the clean energy revolution, and complimenting Carnegie Mellon students for being future leaders there.
HRC spent a lot of time on climate change, and on opportunity for young people and young businesses, and an infrastructure bank.
She’s just brought up the economy being fairer, and thank you, Bernie Sanders, for making that a huge part of Democratic rhetoric — it always is, but is taken seriously now.
Susan K of the tech support
She learns from her mistakes. He, bless his heart, doesn’t make any mistakes. What need would he have to learn anything from anyone ever?
Villago Delenda Est
It’s not hard, but for ideologues, it’s painful.
Double E
Thank you for this. Not enough people are pointing out that the Berners are just as loathsome, overly-sensitive and delusional as the PUMAs were. And their basic math skills are even worse.
Prescott Cactus
Bernie’s recent actions are going to make it easier for the BernieBros to pull the lever in November for Hillary. He’s had a great run, but it’s over. Failgunner Ted or Dumpster will motivate the most left zealots to GOTV.
TaMara (BHF)
I’m definitely now solidly in her corner. Enthusiastically. For this reason, she’s grown into the candidate I want.
singfoom
Reasonable supporters of either candidate will find this refreshing. Unreasonable supporters of either candidate will continue to trash the other candidate. Rinse, repeat.
I await the hundreds of comments of people sniping from either camp.
Maybe Bob will show up and call us villagers again.
April
John, whatever elixir you gave yourself truly cured your prior Clinton derangement syndrome. Can you bottle it up and send a dose to Sullivan?
starscream
I hope Obama gets her elected and someone writes a book about their history. The first minority president handing the keys over to the first woman president, his former bitter rival, would make for a great final chapter.
JustRuss
I love the fact that Bernie has pushed the Overton window leftward. I’m not a huge Hillary fan. But she’s clearly able to learn and improve, her campaign this year is so much better than 2008. 8 years of “Don’t do stupid shit” in the Whitehouse has done wonders to help the country heal, I’m pretty confident she’ll carry that torch. Bit of a low bar, but there are sooo many candidates who can’t clear it.
goblue72
@Cacti: For many, this is a plus. The Democratic establishment is sclerotic, completely prostrate before Wall Street, and run by and primarily for, the Ivy League professional class. Yellow Dogs may not be able to grok this, but its not about blindly cheering the laundry. Its about the most convenient existing tool in the toolbox to get to a particular set of ends.
But hey, Clinton is a “real”
ChicagoanArkansanNew Yorker.The Sixth Borough is nice when you have rich friends.
Or wait, is this the Sixth Borough?
Roger Moore
She didn’t say he’s unqualified, but she did dance around the question. It probably would have been better to come out with a solid “yes, he’s qualified” the way Obama did. She could have followed up by saying she’s still a better choice- obvious she must believe that or she’d drop out of the race- or turned and talked about how unqualified the Republican candidates are.
Miss Bianca
@starscream: “slowly”? (sad smile)
Yeah, a President for the ages, “that one”.
SarahT
@John Cole: Exactly. I like the idea of a Presdident who can learn – and listen.@starscream: Yup. He really is the best.
John Cole
@April:
Maybe I was just right about Clinton in 2008…
guachi
@Susan K of the tech support:
LOL. I like that. Hillary learns from her mistakes and Bernie just doesn’t make mistakes.
Although I think a large part of it is that Hillary 2008 and Bernie 2016 are losing. In a proportional delegate fight it can seem like you are so close and yet still have no chance.
Rhoda
Sanders has been so insufferable and the comments of Weaver trying to paint Hillary Clinton as Tracy Flick infuriated me – like a strong, competent, ambitious woman who works damn hard is bad. Damn – I thought we had entered the new millennium. I hope she beats him like a drum in the primary and walks into the general election and destroys the GOP. I am completely in her corner right now and I’m rooting for her.
p.a.
Bernie’s the hedgehog, but a Pres. needs to be a fox. A hedgehog’s place is the Senate.
Mike J
@April:
If you have enough money you could probably skate through a disastrous Cruz presidency with very little negative impact on your day to day life. Sullivan has that much money, Cole doesn’t.
ruemara
@JustRuss: how did he push the window leftward? I’d really like to know. I keep hearing it but not seeing it.
I’m not sure just why campaigns get toxic and stupid but this one is the first where I just cringe when I see how vapid people on my side are getting. We can be idealistic without losing our marbles.
Cacti
@goblue72:
Hello 43 year old.
A question for you. In his quarter century in the halls of power, how many like minded politicians has Congressman/Senator Sanders helped to mentor and get elected to office?
Alain the site fixer
I was a Vice Chair in 2007/8 in Fremont County, Colorado, and I was strongly in Obama’s corner. As an officer, I felt very strongly that I could show no favoritism, and was very concerned that our fractures wouldn’t heal for the election. But they did.
Having seen Hillary at 2008 Convention (I chose that night because I wanted to see her and how she handled the intra-party tensions), I have been waiting for my chance to vote for her. She’s tough, smart, funny, and as John says, she learns.
I was privy to some of the party machinations to get Hillary to endorse Obama and bring unity and I swore then that she had my loyalty for the next open presidential election. She’s a class act and will be a better President now than she would have been then.
MattF
@Rhoda: This is the other side of the ‘Hillary has learned a thing or two’ argument. Her opponents– and this is going back to the ’90’s– are repeating the same old arguments. Compare and contrast.
Hungry Joe
Doesn’t this pretty much always happen in the nominating process? People are running against each other, fer chrissake; they fire off rude, ill-considered comments, their supporters get pissed and say they’ll NEVER vote for the other guy, should he/she get the nomination. When it’s pointed out that last time we managed to come together for the general election, even though there were bad feelings, the response is, Ah, but this time we’re REALLY honked off. Then everybody comes together for the general election after all. (Naderites, of course, being the exception that proves the rule.)
Can’t we skip the demonizing and the hand-wringing? I’ll be all in — contributions, precinct walking, yard sign, bumper sticker, phone banking, whatever — for whoever comes out ahead. MUST we do this dance every time?
TaMara (BHF)
@Alain the site fixer: Wait, you were at the convention? How did I miss you, I mean there were only 80k people milling around.
different-church-lady
A cursory glance at the “wreck list” at the GOS — usually chock full of Berning fever — today is occupied mostly by, “Bernie, da fuk?”
Might be jumping to conclusions, but methinks inflection point.
bearcalypse
Her advisors and damage control this time around seem much improved over her previous run.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
As I was saying yesterday, I think Hillary did bait Bernie into his meltdown, but the fact that he took the bait and melted down made her point for her.
Also, I apologize in advance to my fellow Angelenos who may have been looking forward to rain today — I wore my waterproof boots to work, which means it will probably be sunny for the rest of the day.
dogwood
Read an interview with Clinton where she was asked if she thought she was a better candidate this time around. She was very forthright in her response. Yes, she was better, but she also acknowledged that as a candidate she had to realize that she wasn’t her husband or Barack Obama who are naturals. She felt that she had worked hard to improve in ways that were appropriate to her natural abilities.
Mnemosyne
@Alain the site fixer:
Some people seem to think the fact that Hillary learns and grows and changes her mind about tactics is a bad thing. I have no idea why. I think it’s exactly the kind of temperament you want to see in a president.
Gelfling545
Consigned my Bernie sign to the recycle bin today. He has just been running off at the mouth without thought lately. If I want that (gods forbid) I can vote Republican.
In other sad political news, Carl Palidino is running for our school board again. I’d been hoping he got that out of his system by now.
SarahT
@Alain the site fixer: Thanks, Alain (for the comment AND for being the site fixer)
Mike J
@bearcalypse:
She’s playing rope a dope this time, which you can do if you’re the stronger candidate. She hasn’t needed to lift a glove.
Cermet
@starscream: You are so right; I have seen quite a few presidents and he is really the best (Carter a close second; cheney the absolute evil last of all of them (yes, cheney; bush wack was a puppet as was Raygun but at least Raygun did control his own office enough to not be a puppet of his VP.) Hillary is no Obama but she should grow as she serves as the President certainly did.
Miss Bianca
@Alain the site fixer:
Wait a minute, you were in Fremont County?? (waving from Custer County)
ETA: in 2008 I took part in my first caucus up in Delta County. It quickly became obvious that Obama-ites were going to prevail. Things got a little tense but were civil. We had no problems pulling together. This year in Custer we were 50/50, but no shenanigans and no hard feelings. Very interested to see what it will be like at the state delegate convention next week!
Betty Cracker
@Hungry Joe: Apparently we must. IMO, this primary is kumbaya around the campfire compared to 2008. Sometimes I wonder if maybe it’s a necessary dance. I mean, look at all the formerly lukewarm HRC supporters who are now fully on board right here in this thread! A hotly contested primary does that.
Elie
@Cacti:
THIS is key:
At age 74, this is a sad testament to a man in the Congress for a long time…. Even at his age of 74, it appears he is still not ready — qualified, yes, but not ready — by temperament and by his true interests. I am watching how he handles this last part. It will dictate his future — his ability to shape and influence versus bitterness, resentment and fading away. I hope (and I don’t think) he does not contemplate a third party run. I think he is smarter than that, but you never know. As I said, I am watching to see the character of this man who thrust himself in the national spotlight. What is he made of?
Sasha
She also has the advantage being around two of the best politicians of the modern age (Bill & Barack).
dogwood
@ruemara:
He pushed the Overton window leftward because he’s a white male. The black dude in the White House who actually did some shit is “inadequate” and weak. And that’s not a knock on Bernie; it’s just the way it works in this country. Al Gore is a liberal icon, yet he was Clinton’s VP who had no problem rounding up cash. Hillary is is wife, and she’s a corporate lackey. Go figure.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@Miss Bianca: (waves to Bianca and Alain from Jeffco)
2008: I was a delegate for Obama, mr. h was a delegate for Hillz at both the Jeffco Convention and the State Convention.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
This is helpful news, too. Maybe if rioters begin shooting each other on the floor of the convention in Cleveland, we might have a shot at seats in states like Oklahoma, Alabama and Utah. And to think that they’ve done this all to themselves–even if they insist that it’s President Obama’s fault. Seriously, I don’t know how the Republicans could be in worse shape if the Democrats themselves had set out to fuck them over.
Elie
@Betty Cracker:
Betty, it aint over yet… From your lips to God’s ears, I hope that it will be better than ’08 when we look back at the end. I think Bernie’s character and aspirations hold the key to that outcome, don’t you?
TriassicSands
Up to now my opinion of the two candidates has been easy to describe. I don’t care for HRC and I’d rather she not be president. She’s certainly better “qualified” to be president than countless men who have run for the presidency. If she is elected, she won’t have any problem finding “qualified” people to fill all the cabinet positions. Unfortunately, from my perspective, most, if not all, of those people will be people I’d prefer never got near government. I’ve always expected her to get the nomination and there has never been any doubt that I would vote for her. If she is elected, I’ll be disappointed that she, Hillary Rodham Clinton is president, ecstatic that we finally have a female president, and overjoyed and relieved that the new president is not a Republican. Then, if I survive, I’ll spend four years feeling sorry for the way she is treated and wondering why anyone’s ambition is so powerful that they would voluntarily put themselves in that position.
Bernie Sanders. I’ve never expected him to get the nomination, but I very much appreciate the leftward force he exerts on Clinton — who needs that push badly…very badly. He’s clearly not as “qualified” as Clinton is to be president, but I expected he would manage, in the unlikely event he was elected. I think he’d have more trouble filling cabinet positions, but I expect he would choose better people than Clinton would (better from my political perspective).
His interview with the Daily News has made me reconsider my opinion of his candidacy. He sounded like a slightly better informed Trump. He blew or passed on questions he should have down pat. I suspect that when he called Clinton “unqualified” to be president it was largely because he was feeling much like the emperor — a bit shy on clothing — and more than a little unqualified himself.
I hate the bickering that goes on between candidates — both Clinton and Sanders have to know that what matters to the country is electing a Democrat. Sanders’ failings haven’t made me any more enthusiastic about Clinton, just less enthusiastic about him remaining in the race. If the best he has to offer is blown interviews and calling his clearly qualified opponent unqualified, he should get out of the race now.
I’m deeply disappointed that Sanders and Clinton are the only two apparently viable candidates the Democrats could come up with this year. I’ve long felt that Clinton wants this too much, that her ambition is unhealthy. Would I say that about a man? Absolutely. At this point, it looks to me like Bernie’s success up to now has stoked the fires of his own ego and now he, too, wants to win too much. Wanting the presidency too much can take different forms. It can mean one shifts positions according to polls and is constantly repositioning in order to please the electorate or it can mean saying ridiculous things about one’s opponent. Sanders’ positions seem pretty firm (if not backed by sufficient knowledge), but calling Clinton unqualified is just plain stupid. What does Clinton really believe? Her positions have been quite fluid and seldom have the changes looked like they are in response to careful reconsideration of substance (e.g., same sex marriage).
I’m going to vote for the Democratic candidate in November, but I really wish I had better choices. (I doubt I’ll live long enough to get the chance to vote for Elizabeth Warren, should she ever decide to run.) Sadly, there really aren’t a lot of prominent Democrats I would be excited about having as president. But there isn’t a single Republican that doesn’t scare the hell out of me and make me sick to my stomach.
starscream
@Cermet: It’s not just that he’s been a great president and is obviously a great man. It’s what he represents, and how he accepts that responsibility and has more than lived up to the dreams so many of us pinned on him in 2008.
Charles Pierce wrote a wonderful bit about this after the re-election
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@bearcalypse:
Robby Mook was a smart hire. No daily drama is coming out of her HQ. She has learned, indeed.
gvg
@ruemara: I had heard all about fight for 15 and income inequality etc before he ran. He did do one thing though, prove that the socialist label isn’t the sure toxic touch it used to be. That will be valuable in the future when that name had cooties. Liberal is also proving nontoxic to my relief. the younger generation who grew up after the cold war and after nuclear drills and AVC classes (Americanism vs Communism) are changing the calculations. I had heard the statistics about socialism losing it’s fear, but was afraid to believe it. I still think he would have had trouble in the general, but some more time will even improve that.
I understood from my AVC classes actually, that socialism and even voluntary communism weren’t really that horrible, it was the authoritarianism not to mention a non justice system that I needed to hate and fear. A lot of the nicest parts of Christianity and other religions, strongly lean socialism and a voluntary commune is OK for those that want it. the Shakers were communist before that was a word and the medieval monastic orders. It was the revolutionary zealots who kill and kill that are horrible. The American Revolution preceeded the French Revolution and the French one really hurt the reputation of Democracy for a time. The contrast between them, and other later revolutions is why I think so highly of our founders. Anyway, all communities that have things like laws, courts, roads, money, standards of weights and measures, banks, postal systems and on and on are to a degree socialistic. Those are good things not bad. It needs to be OK to propose things for the common good and have a discussion about if its worth increasing taxes be about substance and not ignorant tantrums. Rehabilitating certain words to usefulness IMO will help this.
Miss Bianca
@hedgehog the occasional commenter:
Are you going this year? Was thinking of send up a BJ bat signal when I hit Loveland! The convention is 16th-17th.
Linnaeus
@ruemara:
The idea is that 1) generally, Sanders’s candidacy has widened the scope of what can be discussed policy-wise on the Democratic side and 2) specifically, that his candidacy gives Clinton the space to articulate more liberal policies than she would otherwise.
Now, that’s hard to prove, and you can certainly quibble with it. I do think Sanders has tapped into something, but he may be an effect and not a cause. I’m still trying to sort that out.
Gene108
@Roger Moore:
Heard a blurb of a Hillary interview. She does say he is a better choice than the GOP and if Bernie’s the nominee she will vote for him.
Loviatar
@April:
As with any lifelong disease CDS can only treated it can’t be cured. For John the Hillary Clinton presidency will be like having Pookie working at the Carter.
FlipYrWhig
@Cacti:
A corollary: in his quarter century in the halls of power, how many politicians who have worked with Bernie Sanders like the guy? He founded the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He’s known liberals in Congress for 25 years. Why aren’t they standing with him? It can’t all be fear of Hillary Clinton’s wrath.
Elie
@TriassicSands:
A great comment…
I quibble with your statement that no one should want the Presidency that much. I do not think that the Presidency is something that you could do successfully without wanting it bad. It requires that aspiration and a pretty large, but not totally egocentric ego in my opinion (if that makes sense). It is extremely stressful and demanding. Without the ego and desire, it would completely crush someone with less ambition and drive.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@TriassicSands:
This is one of my big peeves about Clinton. I don’t trust her judgement when it comes to the people she chooses to be around her. That was one of my big complaints about Bill Clinton, too. I’ll also say as an aside that I don’t get this “Sanders is less ‘qualified’ or ‘experienced’ than Clinton is” shit. He’s been in Congress since 1991. That seems to be a lot of “experience” after all.
Mike J
@Rhoda:
As much as I hate to cite Tapper:
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@Miss Bianca: Awesome! No, not this year; mr. h will be going, though. The way our caucus numbers came out, Hillary only got one delegate, Bernie got four. So mr. h and a lady who hadn’t gotten to go before were our delegate/alternate to the conventions.
gf120581
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Mook got the likes of Terry McAuliffe elected. Definitely a capable guy. While Bernie has that yammering idiot Weaver.
geg6
@Elizabelle:
I was there. She was fantastic.
NonyNony
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
I really hope that they’re right about Ohio and Strickland has a shot of unseating Portman. I’d love to see Ohio have two Dems representing us (at least until 2018 – I’m really worried about Kasich beating Brown in the off-year election for the Senate).
Mike J
@gf120581: He also has Devine, who the purity ponies have told me ran the worst campaign in the history of forever for Gore (which is why they had to vote for Nader).
mkro
Nice little bit of hackery there by the Washington Post with their headline drawn out of thin air and pure innuendo: “Clinton questions whether Sanders is qualified to be president”. They should perhaps fix that story.
FlipYrWhig
@TriassicSands: I think it gives Bernie Sanders far too much credit to suggest that if not for ol’ Bernie Hillary Clinton would be running a conservative campaign, considering that when Bill was president Hillary was reckoned to be the liberal center of gravity in the administration, and that when she ran in 2008 it wasn’t as the conservative option, but I suppose we’ll never really know. Hillary Clinton’s biggest fault is hawkishness, though even there I think it’s a hawkishness that comes from the human rights tradition rather than an imperialist one; maybe she’s kinder to globalization than ideal, but even there I think she’s all for regulation and vigilance. As far as what running against Sanders has done to her overall campaign approach, IMHO I’ll stipulate that she’d probably have taken a different line on TPP and trade. That’s pretty much the only thing that comes to my mind as the constructive influence of Sanders qua Sanders.
kc
Not sure why a “line was crossed” by Sanders responding to Clinton in 2016 but not by Clinton’s attacks on Obama in 2008, but whatevs.
I tend to agree w/the Obama campaign’s assessment of Clinton in 2008: I.e., she will say anything to get elected.
Cacti
@gf120581:
He also hired Tad Devine, the consultant whose fingerprints are all over the defeats of Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, and John Kerry.
He even worked as a delegate tracker on Jimmy Carter’s reelection campaign.
No Dem has won the Presidency since 1970 when Tad Devine was a part of their campaign.
Corner Stone
@Loviatar:
That’s fucking gold, right there.
NR
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Luckily for the Republicans, there is a candidate running who will unify the GOP after it gets blown up at the convention: Hillary Clinton.
FlipYrWhig
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Uh, take a gander at the people Bernie Sanders has chosen to be around him.
Miss Bianca
@hedgehog the occasional commenter: How far is Jeffo from Loveland? (can you tell who doesn’t get out of the central mountains much anymore?)
Mike J
@Cacti: Devine couldn’t have worked on the Kerry campaign. Kerry voted for the AUMF!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CfbXujvUEAAAC8L.jpg
Corner Stone
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Rahm Emanuel, Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, Arne Duncan, Bob Gates, Leon Panetta.
Hmmmmmmm….
Linnaeus
I still think there was some nudge-nudge, wink-wink going on. She raised questions about his knowledge and his competence, leaving the audience to fill in the blanks.
That’s not wrong, by the way. That’s clever politicking.
Elie
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
It was a different time — those go go 90’s. I would think that Bernie’s candidacy and the awareness it has raised will put her appointees under a great deal of scrutiny. Furthermore, I notice that you assume that Hillary is just like her husband — would make the same choices and conclusions. SHE gets to be her own woman — and shape her own Presidency, doncha think? Or is she still just a wife to you?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@FlipYrWhig:
I would say that she’s really exposed his left flank in regards to the changing country’s demographics, gun violence, and women’s and children’s issues, which she’s always promoted, which he treats as distractions, because he’s an old white guy. He’s clearly had the privilege of focusing on his one wheelhouse issue to think about as the cranky gadfly from rural Vermont. Also, Pat Leahy backing Clinton is a big tell, along with no other Senator – the ones who know him best.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@Miss Bianca: If I lived in the mountains I’m not sure I’d want to come down, either. :) From where we live in South Jeffco, it’s about 45 minutes to an hour up to Loveland.
FlipYrWhig
@Mike J: Devine is appalled by Wall Street, especially Goldman Sachs! *cough*Jon Corzine*cough*
Betty Cracker
@Elie: Agreed, and I think he’ll come around to endorsing Clinton in the end. He has a history of eventually coming around after making sure his views get a thorough airing, as with the ACA.
@Linnaeus: Yep. It’s impossible to establish direct causation, but it’s pretty clear garden-variety GOP candidates have to move right to fend off challenges from ultraconservatives, and I don’t think Democrats are immune to that dynamic.
gogol's wife
@redshirt:
Co-sign.
dogwood
@gf120581:
Mook was a Clinton field organizer in Ohio in ’08. He is a close friend of Jeremy Bird; they share the same philosophy about organizing and operating political campaigns. David Plouffe has said that, while they always knew they would lose Ohio in ’08, it was Mook who kept them from making it closer. Choosing Mook this time, a guy she likely didn’t know, instead of some long time trusted insider told me that she had indeed learned some lessons.
JustRuss
@Linnaeus: Thank you. Sure, Bernie doesn’t deserve all the credit for moving the dialog leftward, but having a candidate who was articulating what millions of Americans were feeling certainly helped.
A few years ago you couldn’t mention income inequality without having every conservative talking head bleating “Class warfare!” Having millions of people vote for a man who talks about it every day helped end that nonsense.
gogol's wife
If Sanders is the nominee, I will vote for him. But I will do it with the same sinking feeling as when I voted for McGovern, Mondale, and Dukakis.
I actually thought Kerry was going to win.
Corner Stone
@Linnaeus:
Why does no one who believes this ever mention that it was on Morning Freakin Joe? His job is to professionally ratfuck Democrats. He had his little pecker primed to slip into the dead rat in his pocket, and HRC left him with blueballs.
bemused
A teacher friend recently told me a story about a 25 year old teacher she works with who is very conflicted (confused) about who he should vote for. He’s not a rightwinger but does not like Hillary at all, saying she lies. She asked him to give an example and he, who grew up in NY state, said she only just moved to NY to run for senator. She said how old were you when this happened, 10? she still a New Yorker and to get over it. Also that if he wanted to stay in teaching, he better get his head out of his ass.
gwangung
@Linnaeus:
Gotta say, though, Sanders made it reallllll easy for her to do that. Woulda almost been campaign malfeasance for her not to take advantage of it.
Linnaeus
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Howard Dean is a big Clinton supporter too, which is interesting because the organization that he founded, Democracy for America, is supporting Sanders in the primaries.
Linnaeus
@gwangung:
Yeah, that was a meatball down the middle of the plate for Clinton.
A Ghost To Most
@hedgehog the occasional commenter:
Another Jeffco-an (?) here; how about some hell-raising at the convention about ditching the caucuses and having a real primary?
Linnaeus
@Corner Stone:
I’m not saying that she didn’t handle it well.
Betty Cracker
@Corner Stone: LOL at your vivid metaphor!
FlipYrWhig
@Linnaeus: It’s almost as though people for whom Sanders is a symbol like him a lot, and people for whom Sanders is a human being don’t like him much at all.
Elie
To add to my remark upstring about Hillary being her own woman — I think after all this that she will actually take pains to demonstrate how different she is from her husband…and also differentiate herself from the previous Obama presidency. Watch.
? Martin
I’m just not feeling the tribalism this election. I have my issues with Sanders (as I’ve documented) but I don’t think he’s unqualified nor do I think he’d do a bad job. I just happen to think that Clinton has a roadmap that may be less ambitious but is likely to take us farther, faster because it’s a lot closer to being in legislative form.
I don’t think Sanders should drop out because I think Clinton and the party benefits from that aspirational pull to the left. I don’t have issues with Sanders supporters in aggregate. Purity ponies and single issue voters on each side aside, the enthusiasm for Sanders should be celebrated. I don’t think there will be any lasting damage here. There wasn’t in 2008 and this is a tamer battle (probably because the world is not on fire around us this time, the stakes are lower, not anything about the candidates).
So yeah, voting for Clinton, will vote for Sanders without reservation in the general should he win. Everyone should take Obama’s advice and chill the fuck out, we got this.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@FlipYrWhig:
Which is the exact opposite of Clinton.
Roger Moore
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Part of which is an Obama-like focus on the long-term rather than on winning the daily news cycle. It’s certainly a pleasant change.
Old Dan and Little Anne
The wife and I are going to see Hillary tomorrow. First time I’ve ever been to such an event.
Mnemosyne
@kc:
Because it’s 8 years later and a different primary that Obama is not in?
I don’t think anyone here is saying that they hate Bernie Sanders for all time and will never support him for anything ever again. They’re just saying they don’t think he should be the Democratic candidate for president in 2016. You can decide that someone is not the right person to be president without hating them for all time, you know.
FlipYrWhig
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Indeed.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Roger Moore:
Thinking back to 2008, the thing that turned me into Barackzilla was the focused no drama, compared to Clinton’s inability to mediate between her own hired staff. Apparently she’s paid close attention to the things that work and didn’t work, and ditched the ambitious DC backstabbing wannabes in favor of the subject matter expert to whom she’s delegated the play calling and refereeing, which frees her to just worry about herself.
dogwood
@Linnaeus:
I suspect Vermont democrats have a pretty good insight into what kind of a leader Bernie would actually be.
Chyron HR
@kc:
Are you the guy who came up with that “But Democrats used to be the party of slavery” line the GOP keeps inexplicably failing to win black voters with?
Elizabelle
Watching the Trump rally from last night (?) in Bethpage. He just treated his audience to a dramatic reading of the “woman and snake” fable — the kind-hearted woman who took a frozen snake into her home.
Point of that story is: “you knew what I was when you took me to your breast.” Audience cheers.
Could just about hear the Establishment Republicans facepalming over that. Although recognizing irony may not be a Republican strength.
What is it with Republicans and fairy tales?
Linnaeus
@FlipYrWhig:
Although political relationships do complicate things a bit. I don’t know how Dean feels about Sanders as a person rather than as a politician.
Gin & Tonic
@bemused:
Funny. Let’s look at the history of that seat: Moynihan, Jim Buckley, Bobby Kennedy – all career NYS politicos, right? Oh, wait.
Miss Bianca
@A Ghost To Most: @hedgehog the occasional commenter: Well, I dunno bout all that, but…if I thought some of the Juicetariat might be prevailed on to come to Loveland for a hoedown post-convention I’d stay over Saturday night! (Friday night is going to be taken up with Committee Meetings, I’m afraid…I’m hoping our county chairman gives me the nod for Rural Initiatives).
ETA: And just so you know…I’m pretty sure there is going to be a plank in the State platform about supporting legislation to switch back to primaries. By all means, come and agitate for that! And I’m going to be pitching for my “no more Malheurs – support federal lands!” plank.
dogwood
Just received a text from my socialist sister who vowed to never give a dime to Hillary, but wasn’t too keen on Bernie either. She just signed up with Clnton campaign for $100.00/ month.
Alex.S
Senator Sanders, explaining that he only reads the headlines?
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/sanders-blames-media-unqualified-tiff-clinton
But it’s ok, because…. *shrug*. Really, it’s strange that Sanders is running on a whole riff and saying stuff like “quote/unquote qualified” when that didn’t happen.
FlipYrWhig
@Linnaeus: True. But I’d be happy to hear of someone who’s served with Bernie Sanders talking about their relationship. I think there were positive comments about the VA reform process. I’m kind of stuck on how someone like Barney Frank, who is not ideologically suspect, clearly finds Sanders obnoxious. Like I said in one of the other threads, I work around people who’d rather piss on other people’s plans for various failings than attempt to craft an un-piss-able plan, and that’s how my personal radar pings when it comes to Sanders.
Miss Bianca
@dogwood: One sister-comrade at a time!
@Elizabelle: Wasn’t there a song about that legend? I remember hearing it on the radio when I was a kid…scarred me at a tender young age!
Mnemosyne
@Gin & Tonic:
Barack Obama is not an Illinois native. Neither was Abraham Lincoln, for that matter. And yet they are now both iconic Illinois politicians.
What I heard about Hillary Clinton and New York is that when she decided to run for Senate from there, she took several months to do one of her “listening tours” to really understand what the issues are in the state so she could do a good job of representing them. And that’s supposed to be a bad thing?
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@Miss Bianca: Like! I am not a delegate, but I may be persuaded to come up for the day for a possible hangout. Be fun to have a Colorado meetup…
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@dogwood:
This was a Sanders’ dog whistling moment. Every woman in America heard it, and can’t unhear it.
Tracy Ratcliff
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): On experience in the executive branch, Secretary Clinton has more than Sen. Sanders. She was an activist First Lady in Arkansas and the White House (and if we are stipulating that Sec. Clinton learns from mistakes, Bill’s administration was a massive learning experience). She was SoS for four years, and whatever I think of her policies there, she was by all accounts much better than Condaleeza Rice at making sure the embassy in Burkina Faso got enough printer cartridges.
aimai
@Roger Moore: I really hate the impossible standards that HRC is held up to. She didn’t “dance around it” she refused to say he was unqualified and instead turned to the real issue for her which was “do democratic voters think he’ll be able to do a good job if he doesn’t do his homework.” Frankly I don’t think the question makes any sense or should have been asked of her since its insulting. Of course he is qualified–he’s a white male, for one thing, which has always been the primary qualification and he’s been a Senator which has always been seen as a perfectly acceptable substitute for other kinds of qualifications. Scarborough might as well have asked her “is he a biped?”
Elie
@FlipYrWhig:
I hear that completely… definitely a world I can identify with and because of that, what I sense also.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
I think it’s part and parcel of the whole “purity” thing. Not only must your beliefs be ideologically impeccable, but you must be unwaveringly consistent in those beliefs.
bemused
@Gin & Tonic:
Yes! My teacher friend had totally lost her patience with this young guy after spending too much time calmly ‘splainin’ a few facts to him and told him (after telling him to get his head out of ass) to get busy reading some good news sources instead of spending 98% of his time on internet entertainment and then whining he doesn’t know what to do.
bystander
Watch for the MSM to focus on the several swipes Clinton has to make to get her Metro Card to work in the subway today. The thing that happens to me every three days will be evidence of how phony and dishonest she is. Andrea Mitchell, crack reporter, will make it the center of her Friday broadcast.
Alex.S
The other thing I’m noticing is that Sanders appears to have accidentally stepped into a dog whistle.
I can guess he was trying to riff off of how, since Clinton said he was “unqualified” (although she didn’t) based on his answers, he’ll fire back and say she’s unqualified for reasons!
Except that minorities have a long history of being told they were unqualified for a job for vague reasons. Especially since the qualification to run for Presidency is a very low bar (age and natural born citizen). Which is why people talk about competence or experience when saying someone shouldn’t be elected and not talking about being qualified.
I don’t think he meant it as a dog whistle. It’s just very easy for people to see it as one.
Tim C.
@Linnaeus: Yeah, Dean only looked revolutionary in 2004 when his whole message was, “Hey…. shouldn’t we stop F#$%ing apologizing for being Democrats?” DFA, understandably is now far more activist and left leaning than Dean is, nature of the beast is all.
SiubhanDuinne
@Sasha:
If she’s smart, she’ll occasionally consult them for advice.
If they’re smart, they’ll wait til they’re asked.
aimai
@Alain the site fixer: This is my sense, too. I was watching her recent interviews and I thought “damn, that woman is comfortable in her own skin.” I, like other people on the blog, am really excited for this Hillary to win and to run. I started out being grudgingly for her and now I’m over the moon excited for her. I admit that one of the things that floored me was watching this stupid youtube “Hillary’s Fight Song” Its cheesy but how many older women, like myself, are enthralled at seeing someone with “a lot of fight left” in her after taking the kind of knocks she’s taken?
Roger Moore
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Jeff Weaver is not giving me great confidence in Sanders’s judgment in subordinates, either.
Linnaeus
@aimai:
I agree that it was a shitty question. Clinton dealt with it smartly.
FlipYrWhig
@Roger Moore: Not to mention Tad Devine, Cornel West, etc. I still can’t help liking Nina Turner, though.
Linnaeus
@Tim C.:
That was one of the things I liked about Dean in 2004.
Elie
@SiubhanDuinne:
I wouldn’t count on Bill waiting. I suspect he might turn into her worst pain in the ass. She’ll have to give him some project in Europe where he can stay out of her hair. Shutting him up from speaking extemporaneously about he policies or his ideas about her policies will also be a challenge and I can see the MSM asking him shit all the time. Worry about that then…
John Cole
@Loviatar: Bastard.
I got nothing.
lollipopguild
@Elizabelle:
feebog
I have been steadily leaning towards Hillary since December. The last few days have sealed the deal for me. I have a lot of lefty friends who are in the Bernie camp, and many of them can’t understand why I gravitated towards Hillary. I got heat from a lot of facebook friends when I posted that it was all over after the March 15 sweep.. Most of my Bernie backing friends simply do not understand the math and just how inevitable a 200 plus pledged delegate lead is at this point. If the polls are right, and I think they are, it’s going to be a 300 plus delegate lead again after April 25. Moreover, it pisses me off when my Bernie backing friends complain about super delegates and how the system is “rigged” for Hillary. She has been working to elect democrats at all levels of government for several decades while Bernie has sat on the sidelines and done nothing. Now she is calling in those markers. That is called politics, and why most Bernie backers can’t realize that is beyond my comprehension.
different-church-lady
@bystander: Now ya see, THAT’S why Bernie is smart enough to use a token!
[nods]
hitchhiker
@different-church-lady:
Agree. It’s the intersection of that NY Daily News transcript and the post-WI delegate count. We can be done now.
p.a.
@Elizabelle:
No shit! Laffer Curve, Mo’ Guns = Mo’ Safety, Saddam= aQ, yadda yadda…
Miss Bianca
@hedgehog the occasional commenter: Agreed, it would be very cool! I’ll float it past Anne Laurie and see if she’ll post it for us – I get the feeling there are more Coloradan BJers than I anticipated! (I know there’s at least one front-pager!)
Chris
@gvg:
C. S. Lewis, not precisely a flaming radical, said something like this in “Mere Christianity” – that by modern standards a Christian society would look extremely right wing in social terms, but extremely left wing in economic terms.
gwangung
@Roger Moore:
Say, what was that about stealing computer records again?
(And, no, that’s not entirely snark. These things ought to be red flags).
Miss Bianca
@Chris: Which is pretty much the opposite direction from way the culture/economic wars have been trending in These United States.
Roger Moore
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
I wonder how much of Hillary’s change comes from her time at State. It’s a less directly political position where she was explicitly supposed to be focusing on long-term, out-of-the-limelight stuff. Even in the Senate, there’s always the temptation to preen for the cameras and try to win the daily news cycle in a way there isn’t when you’re the country’s top diplomat.
Gin & Tonic
@Mnemosyne:
IIRC, she visited every county in NY as part of that, and there are 62 counties.
PNW_WarriorWoman
Will not vote for her. Period.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Not a dime’s worth of difference between Rebecca Bradley and JoAnne kloppenburg. You might even say Kloppenburg’s loss will bring the Revolution faster.
Lurker99
@different-church-lady: If the GOS is the blog I’m thinking of, why is it called GOS?
dogwood
@FlipYrWhig:
I think what your colleagues do and don’t say about you can be instructive. It was telling to me that in ’08 the GOP couldn’t find any Illinois republicans from the state senate to cut adds or go on the campaign trail to trash Obama. Also remember an article in the Weakly Standard by the late right winger Dean Barnett. He interviewed a couple of dozen mostly republican lawyers who were Obama’s classmates at Harvard Law. The results of those interviews surprised Barnett:
“Regardless of his classmates’s politics, they all said much the same thing. They adored him. The only thing that varied was the intensity with which they adored him. Some spoke like they were eager to bear his children. And those were the guys. Others merely professed a profound fondness and respect for their former classmate. … Not a single person said anything negative about him.”
You don’t have to be as beloved as Barack Obama to convince me you are essentially a good guy, but it is troubling that the people who have worked with him for a couple of decades are keeping quiet.
redshirt
@PNW_WarriorWoman: Purity first!
patroclus
This is a tempest in a teapot (a Scarborough question which she answered well but resulted in an inaccurate headline, to which Bernie responded). But if it works to fire Hillary supporters up, then it’ll back-fire on him big-time, so it’s probably a good thing. Personally, I’m not all that upset about it, although I do recall being upset about it in 2008 when she said it about Obama and he responded with the multiple military guy press conference. For women, though, I can easily see why this would be interpreted as a dog whistle, and I think she’ll win New York now whereas I was getting worried.
Elie
@p.a.:
It comes from the same place — a place of deep need — the place of white entitlement and superiority — particularly strong in the south where those flames are constantly fanned and are a serious part of subconscious white identity. It leaves fantasy only for those who have moved from that psychological need and unfortunately, many have not. Its not always the poor and uneducated either… it has to do with the psychology of self and family culture passed on from one generation to another and frequently never challenged…To sustain it, fantasy is essential. I also believe that religious belief systems also deepen the need for fantasy outcomes and stories.
p.a.
@Chris: Fred Clark at Slacktivist, Rachel Held Evans, and others make an argument that in its Hellenic/Roman/Jewish context early Xtian society was not conservative until after it was coopted by, unified with, the Roman Empire.
Faith
@TaMara (BHF): It’s great to read these comments & find so many like-minded HRC supporters. I was (and will always be) a huge supporter of PBO and I expected BS to win me over. But to my great surprise, it’s been HRC who has WON not just my vote, but my enthusiastic and proud support. She has grown so much, embraced her greatness and become comfortable in her own skin. If only the msm would notice and report. I’m sick and tired of coverage that reflects 8-year bias and not the candidate, or even the person, that she is now. She will be a great POTUS.
The more I see of BS, his campaign and his rabid supporters, the harder it would be to support him, although I would vote for the Democratic nominee no matter what. I remember how PBO called us to our better angels over and over again, while BS does nothing but inflame rage and vengeance. It’s time we all did our work to get rid of the “honest and trustworthy” myth he has built around himself. It’s a total sham.
Ballon-Juice’s juxtaposition from 2008 is particularly telling. PBO constructively proved that he was capable of being Commander-in-Chief by garnering support from the military, etc. Just as he did with superdelegates – he won them by proving he was a great choice for POTUS. Bernie’s answer is to browbeat and threaten. He may garner a few crackpot “economists” on his side, but not real heavyweights. Write them off as “establishment?” if they don’t agree with you? How idiotic is that?
Get your brain around who Bernie would put in his Cabinet. Are you afraid yet?
Bernie is not presidential material. He’s a vengeful zealot who has done nothing but criticize. His dimness on governance, and the potential consequences of his actions far outweigh his “principles”. “Principles” get us Ted Cruz & Sarah Palin.
Enough.
p.a.
@Elie: need, and dread. deeply scared.
aimai
@Roger Moore: Oh for. She was well known as a “work horse and not a show horse” in the Senate. Of all the people in this race at this fucking moment she is the least known for having to have her name/face all over her work. And that is another reason why so many women identify with her. Because as she said herself in a recent interview she has to learn how to say “I” and not “we” after having spent a lifetime advocating for other people’s policies and working on other people’s campaigns.
redshirt
I have to say there has been a noticeable shift towards Hillary here in the last few days. I wonder if that’s reflected in the wider world too.
aimai
@Lurker99: Great Orange Satan. GOS.
Faith
@redshirt: Oh, yes!
Bernie and all the other emoprogs would have denied health care to me and millions of others, sacrificing the good for the perfect. How many people who subsist on food stamps would be happy for some increase, even if it isn’t perfect? It’s outrageous for the likes of Susan Sarandon to ask those who suffer or hang on by their fingernails, to suffer more for emoprog nonsense of Utopia automatically rising out of misery?
Let’s be clear: the Nader vote did enough damage in 2000. But in 2016, there will be no avenues left for progress if we allow the GOP to dominate. The Constitution as we know it will not longer exist; voting rights will disappear; women’s rights will plummet. This is not an election to play around. I deeply resent BS & his comfortable supporters playing with the lives of millions.
Tim C.
@Lurker99: Stands for “Great Orange Satan” DailyKos was really one of the leaders of the mid aughts liberal/progressive blogosphere. So they also got a ton of negative firebreathing nastiness from the right, thus the affectionate name. I also think it dovetails with Kos being one of the people who started calling certain political groups the “Christian Taliban”
Turgidson
@starscream:
There should literally be a picture of that. I know the formalities of inauguration day mean a literal “here are the keys, please take good care of this House, it’s special to me” scene don’t happen, but they should stage one.
Just a picture of the two of them shaking hands outside the White House doors, captioned something like: “Michelle wanted me to tell you, you’ll be very sorry if you don’t take care of her vegetable garden. By the way, enjoy working with Paul Ryan! He’s a real prize.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Elie:
Agreed. That’s why I put in the “if they’re smart” proviso. Yes, designating him some kind of AWP to handle various special projects far from DC would be ideal. Take real advantage of his undeniable brains and talents without having him underfoot in the West Wing all the time.
Librarian
@Elie: I’m a Clinton supporter, but this is my biggest concern about her. Let’s face it, her husband is going to be at her ear constantly, telling her to move to the right, to triangulate, to make grand bargains. To sell the liberals down the river. I believe that’s how it’ll be. Constant vigilance will be necessary to counteract his advice.
aimai
@redshirt: I stayed out of these discussions over at Kos because the anti hillary sentiment was so strong that outing yourself as a hillary supporter just left you open to serious personal attacks and outright hate. I feel like in the last few days more and more people (online) are just saying “fuck it, I’ve had it with you loons.” Its partially because the Bernie shtick has gotten so out of control there’s no point trying to reason with it or tamp it down. They went from Bernie will push her to the left to “she’s another pol pot/hitler” to “her voters are ignorant” to “her voters are decrepit, corrupt, one percenters who should move over, die, and make room for da yout'” But I’ve certainly also moved from a person who could see the argument for Bernie and could have voted for him in my primary to someone who really dislikes him.
different-church-lady
@Lurker99:
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@redshirt:
I heard a creaking sound this morning, and it was the sound of women’s jaws everywhere being lifted off the floor. I will confirm this if my FB feed today stops being all about the wonderfulness of Bernie that my older women friends post daily.
aimai
@Librarian: This observation suffers from Presentism. Bill only ever moved right because he thought he had to. Ditto for triangulation. And sometimes he did have to. But he tried never to give anything without getting anything. The same is true for Obama, by the way. He has triangulated the shit out of the Republican party. He offered some grand bargains, and he rejected others. So why do I say the observation suffers from Presentism? Because what Bill thought he had to do in the 1990’s against a certain kind of Republican (and blue dog democratic) intransigence is not what HRC will have to do in future circumstances. So why would he advise her to “move right” or “triangulate” or “make grand bargains” if she doesn’t have to? Neither Clinton is a closet Republican and neither has shown any interest in grand bargains for their own sake. This kind of talk is just nuts.
Gin & Tonic
Woah, we got fat. But now the down-arrow thing at the bottom can encroach into the comment-entry box.
Shygetz
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: C’mon. A cracker is not a cookie, but it’s also not a rusty tire rim. It is quite possible to say Bernie > Democratic establishment AND say Democratic establishment > Republicans, and polls suggest most Bernie supporters feel this way as referenced by Richard in an earlier FP post.
And for all the people bitching about Bernie being a bad Democrat, ask yourself: would you rather he ran as an Independent in November, or run as a Democrat now?
I think both candidates botched the qualifications question. Hillary should have done what Obama did in ’08–when asked “Is Bernie qualified?” she should have said “Yes!” Instead, she refrained from saying no…progress for her, I suppose, but I expect better. Bernie really bombed the question by saying “No”, and the fact that there was a misleading WaPo headline doesn’t excuse that, especially given a lack of an apology after the fact.
Chris
@Faith:
Indeed.
At this point, I think the whole question of “will the primary damage Clinton in the general?” is entirely in Sanders’ hands. If he decides to support her, or even just sits down and shuts up, we’re good. If he decides to run as a third party candidate or even just trash her from the sidelines, that can make the difference. That’s not even a shot at Sanders supporters – I doubt if more than a tiny handful of people would follow Independent Sanders, but in elections as close as they are nowadays, it only takes a few. (Look at Nader).
Ball’s in Sanders’ court.
patroclus
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Yeah, after reading the comments, I’m beginning to get that feeling as well. Like I said above, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. It’s New York, and I remember that scene in the Clinton movie from the 90’s written by Joke Line – rhetoric just gets more heated there than anywhere else. But the reaction of women here (and elsewhere) seems to be that Bernie crossed a line, and I now suspect a YOOGE blowback. Which is good because I’m a Hillary supporter. But we shouldn’t cross lines either – we’re gonna need the Bernie supporters in November. Hillary seems to be handling it well; I hope the Hillary supporters follow her lead (like we did with Obama in ’08).
Amir Khalid
@Elie:
Then who will take charge of the White House vegetable garden?
redshirt
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: For me it’s been these things:
1. I was once fairly neutral on Bernie. Wasn’t a fan of his hardcore supporters, but had no strong opinions about Bernie except I didn’t think he’d be the strongest candidate in November. But with his disastrous interview with the NYDN and the “unqualified” comments, that’s changed. I don’t respect him now, and want him to just go back to VT and be curmudgeonly.
2. Hillary’s responses to these Sander’s missteps have been smooth and graceful. She’s a pro and I’m really starting to genuinely like her, which is something I could not say back in December of last year.
Turgidson
@dogwood:
Hillary is one of the best candidates for the job of President of the United States we’ve had in recent memory, in the traditional “Please accept my application for the open position of President” way.
Hillary is only so-so as a Candidate for President of the United States in the sense of a politician running for office. She’s much much better at it than her haters would ever acknowledge, but as she says herself, she’s not her husband or her former boss in that regard. And that’s OK. Not everyone can be the Steph Curry or Mike Trout or [insert once-in-a-generation talent here] of campaigning.
I’ve felt for a while that she’ll be a better president than presidential candidate. And she’s a good enough candidate to win in November and prove me right or wrong – especially if she’s up against the Short-Fingered Vulgarian or Tailgunner Ted.
different-church-lady
@Turgidson:
Shouldn’t Michelle be telling that to Bill directly?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Shygetz: Were you responding to someone else?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
From my old friend Lesley Seymour who was the editor of More Magazine until it folded last month. She and some women executives (1%ers OH NOES) have committed themselves to electing the first woman president “Executive Women for Hillary” and to provide support and advice to her to address gender discrimination in hiring and wages. Anyone in Westchester County can join in.
dogwood
@Amir Khalid:
The same people who are in charge of the White House vegetable garden now – the staff.
? Martin
@different-church-lady: Yep, that’s exactly it.
Citizen Alan
@gogol’s wife:
Based on the exit polls from Ohio, a lot of people thought Kerry was going to win.
patroclus
@aimai: Well, I don’t think the Clintons are closet Republicans but I don’t recall “getting anything” out of DOMA and DADT. Sure, Bill was under enormous pressure to throw the gays under the bus, so I understand it, but I certainly didn’t like it. FWIW, I don’t think Hillary would cave as easily as Bill – she’s got a backbone that he just didn’t have.
Alain the site fixer
@Miss Bianca: Indeed I was! I miss it every day, even though I’m from the DC area, that part of Colorado spoke to my soul. I am trying to figure out a way back! Drop me a line and we’ll keep in touch. I hope to head back for a visit this summer as I have a rental house in Canon City and might need to find new renters/fix up house. Having someone new to see in Custer would be fun!
different-church-lady
Sander’s excuse: I made the mistake of taking a newspaper headline literally
redshirt
@Citizen Alan: Kerry losing was the biggest punch in the gut I’ve ever got from politics. Especially because he had his victory rally all set up in Copley Square and there I was, anxiously waiting, and then…. GAH?!?!
Second would be Paul LePage winning a second term. WTF?!?!?!
Alain the site fixer
@Gin & Tonic: Undoing the “fat”. It’s a balance between overall width, how it’s divvied up, and trying to ensure the ad in sidebar doesn’t get cut off.
dogwood
@Turgidson:
She’s as good if not a better candidate as Al Gore, or John Kerry, or a a host of other presidential nominees on both sides of the aisle. I think women resent it when she is held to some standard that isn’t applied to men.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@redshirt:
It took me until January to queer on Sanders – his supporters did it for me. It was like watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the way all these bros who weren’t paying any attention in 2008 and 2009, all had bropinions, especially about Obama, and every big issue was dismissed. It was all of the accumulated dismissiveness that finally did me in, to the point now where I can’t fucking stand the sight of him. If that fucking finger of his ever gets within 10 feet of me, it’s coming off.
WarMunchkin
I don’t really necessarily agree with Cole here as Clinton being someone who “learned from mistakes”. As Atrios pointed out a few weeks ago, Kerry and Clinton both seemed to have learned nothing from Iraq (or, as Biden poignantly pointed out to Kerry, of all people, Vietnam), and that’s far more important than this nonsense. Mistakes that quibble over qualifications or not qualifications aren’t anything close to mistakes that get people killed or materially damage national interests.
Bernie Sanders needs to fire Jeff Weaver, immediately. I think Bernie is probably a nice guy who got thrown way further than anybody expected, and his organization and mental preparedness for a serious run are found woefully lacking. I’m angry at him, but also partially embarrassed for him, because he doesn’t really deserve to be in over his head. He’s doing more harm than good for Democratic ideas right now, even though I have no doubt that the man himself has the best of intentions for the country.
I’ll always want an actual lefty candidate in the race. But Bernie’s time has ended for me, and it’s time for him to go – he does nothing but turn people off from actual lefty policies now. And actual lefty policies – good public policy, in other words – is the reason, presumably, that people are interested in politics.
Gin & Tonic
@Alain the site fixer: That seems much better.
Chris
@p.a.:
I’d believe that.
There’s probably an analogy to be made to socialism there, too, in terms of how it became a lot nastier once it became an “establishment” ideology (in the Soviet Union in that case) and the assumption that “socialism” = “authoritarian socialism” sank in.
gwangung
For me, Sanders has the right ideas….but he’s the wrong man to do the job. And I’m not sure he could minimize any damage he’d do (the unavoidable damage) in trying to get his ideas into practice.
Miss Bianca
@Alain the site fixer: Most excellent! : ) Please do let me know if you are coming to the area this summer – I get to Canon City at least once a week for groceries, etc. I am hoping to snag a gig there some day…might pay a little better than what I’ve got now (ah, the *big* drawback to living here as opposed to DC!) But the commute, my word! Have you driven up or down Oak Creek Grade to Westcliffe? Guaranteed to leave the flat-landers speechless! I would definitely be looking for a pied a terre in Canon!
Chris
@WarMunchkin:
I wouldn’t want to say nothing, but I can’t say her AIPAC speech made me especially more eager to vote for her.
redshirt
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: LOL. Bernie’s Finger would make a good trophy.
I try to separate the candidate from the supporters, and I could for a long while, but no longer. And I swear if Bernie Naders Hillary and gives us Sarandon’s Glorious Cruz Dystopia, I’m moving to PEI.
Roger Moore
@patroclus:
Then your memory is faulty, at least on DADT. Before DADT, the official policy was that the military could dig into its members’ private lives if they were suspected of homosexuality, and they were legally required to answer questions about their sex lives. DADT ended that. Gay service members still had to remain in the closet, but their superiors were no longer allowed to go rooting around in the closet to see if they were in there. It wasn’t a perfect solution by any means, but it was definitely an improvement. My impression is that it was also valuable as a stepping stone toward full non-discrimination because the closeted service members who served under DADT proved that gays and lesbians were capable of serving with distinction.
Monala
@Elizabelle: Did you see the Trevor Noah bit about Trump, in a 1994 Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous interview, speculating on how his infant daughter might someday have boobs as big as mom Marla Maples?
Chris
@Roger Moore:
Well, in theory… My understanding is that in practice, a lot of officers and investigators went right on doing it. (Not a diss on DADT which was, indeed, the best thing that could be arrived at at the time).
tam1MI
After reading BS’s “unqualified” rant, I have, for the first time in my life, given money to a political campaign. Hillary’s.
aimai
@redshirt: I’m moving to Vermont so I can give Bernie the finger every morning for the rest of his life.
Mike J
@Miss Bianca: I once had to take a copy of a film to Cañon City.
Betty Cracker
@WarMunchkin:
It seems like that from what I see here and at other Clinton-supporting sites, but sometimes I wonder how true that is in the wider world. My husband is a Bernie fan and is paying more attention to politics than he normally would (I’m the political junkie in the family, not him!), and as a result, he’s getting an earful of just how fucking evil the Republicans are — not that he would ever vote for one in a million years, but he’s more engaged. I see a similar dynamic with my teenage daughter (Clinton supporter) and her friends (most but not all Bernie supporters). These kids, many of whom will be eligible to vote for the first time this year, are really paying attention, and hopefully that will pique a lifelong interest in politics.
Mike J
@Roger Moore:
Also remember that a veto proof majority of the congress (both sides of the aisle) was ready to codify the old system after Clinton made noises about letting gay people serve openly. DADT was a HUGE step forward. Anyone who doesn’t know that either wasn’t alive yet or just not paying any attention to what was going on.
Chris
@tam1MI:
It’s funny, the best donation motivator for me, too, is a desire to spite the enemies of the politician I’m donating to.
My last political donation was to Obama. Right after Romney’s Benghazi press conference.
Miss Bianca
@redshirt: I’d be tempted to join you…altho’ Cape Breton would actually be my destination of choice, being a fiddler an all.
@Mike J: Now, that sounds like a story…were you delivering film to the movie theater? And seconded, thirded, on DADT. We can deride it now – hell, I knew people who derided it then – but it was a huge, Biden BFD. And deserves to be remembered as such.
Loviatar
@Roger Moore:
I was a part of an incident in the late 80s where I was the overnight Duty Officer (DO) and we had a room check done by battalion based upon “suspicions” and we literally found a male civilian in the closet of one of our crew. It was the most degrading and humiliating thing I’ve ever been involved with in my life. It helped form my decision to leave the military when my term was up. The Spec 4 was one of the nicest and best crew we had and then his life was ruined. DADT wasn’t perfect but it was better than what went before. It was the pragmatic decision at the time.
Percysowner
@patroclus:
DOMA was a way to stop the right wing from passing a Constitutional Amendment that would declare marriage to be between one man and one woman. It was a big thing at the time. It probably wouldn’t have gone through enough states to get actually put into the Constitution, but you never know and DOMA gave less reason to make a move that couldn’t be easily overturned.
ruemara
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: nope, he’s still “a fighter”, being “smeared” by the “establishment” for ruining the “coronation”. Plus, Bernie’s their ” spirit animal”, who’s so “cute”. Immuring many people until after the primary. Did you know NYC’s gun problem has nothing to do with Bernie’s votes, because Hillary is a liar? A lot of older white males I love are being muted. And reevaluated.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@aimai:
Count me in too, sister.
Uncle Ebeneezer
@gwangung: Hell, I thought her saying that (to paraphrase) “the things he says don’t seem to be rooted in a good understanding of how things work” was just stating the obvious sentiment of all of us who aren’t feeling the Bern or have been skeptical about him. If anything, she went rather easy on him.
aimai
@different-church-lady: WOW. That guy is out to lunch. He just has no idea how to behave in a campaign. That’s like “my dog ate my homework” level childishness.
scav
@goblue72:
From this I can see that at best you only pay lip-service to many liberal positions. I’ve no doubt you preen yourself on supporting transgendered people, but heaven forfend! anyone you dislike being choosing from more than one place! You’re a native of what’s on your birth certificate! Are you going to be carding people before they enter the white house bathrooms?
Uncle Ebeneezer
@aimai: I’m gonna have to get a Hillary tee shirt just so I can walk around with it in October when I’ll be visiting VT.
Mike J
@Miss Bianca:
Man in the High Castle joke.
aimai
@Betty Cracker: I don’t think Bernie is going to stay in long enough to really ruin leftist politics for people, because unlike Nader I don’t think he is going to set up an organizations (like the PIRGs) to fuck over their own workers, or last much longer in the primary. I think, just reading his recent gibberish on why he lashed out at Clinton and how he “wants to run a different kind of ” campaign that he is just realizing that he is in over his head and playing the role of spoiler. I think he’s going to get out pretty soon and he isn’t going to leave much trace of himself on the campaign, let alone the political scene. He energized a few people, and thats great, but he will leave not having accomplished much.
Roger Moore
@Mike J:
Or has an ax to grind with Clinton and isn’t going to let pesky facts get in the way. Sort of the way that Sanders supporters make a big deal about the Clinton crime bill while ignoring that it was supported by the Congressional Black Caucus and Rep. B. Sanders (I-VT).
Miss Bianca
@Mike J: oops…that flew completely over my head! Guess I’m going to have to put that one on the list…
Did you know that if you look in the dictionary under “gullible” my picture is there? ‘Struth!
aimai
I also wanted to point something out that people have not mentioned. Everybody up there, in the stratosphere of politics, has a long history with Bernie–Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Obama have all been dogged by Bernie, been tripped up by him and the other difficult Senators, found it hard to work with him. Running against Bernie must have a ridiculous feeling to it. You have to pretend to take him seriously because you can’t afford to alienate any voters who like him. But you know in your heart, from your experience with him, that although his heart may be in the right place he’s an incompetent back bencher who can’t be relied on to work with anyone, and he’s probably stabbed the Democratic President in the back almost as many times as he has taken on a Republican one.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@different-church-lady:
He’s on the “has anyone seen Mr. Puddles” track to irrelevancy. Can’t happen soon enough.
Matt McIrvin
@Mike J: The Broderick character was the protagonist and the villain of that movie. It was all about how a grown man sabotaged his own life through dumbass decisions and blamed it on some kid.
redshirt
@Uncle Ebeneezer: We shouldn’t bad mouth VT. It really is a wonderful state.
WarMunchkin
@Betty Cracker: I see your point, and I agree that most people I know around my age (20s here) are fired up and ready to go to burn down Ted Cruz and Donald Trump’s campaigns, wherever their influence reaches. But if your goal is to see universal basic income championed by the Democratic Party in our lifetimes, I don’t think Sanders is doing anyone any favors.
redshirt
@Mike J:
How wonderfully obscure! I watched the show/read the book and missed it.
Cat48
The Post still has that headline even though their fact checker, Kessler, gave Sanders three Pinnochios for saying Hillary said he “was not qualified.” Guess that makes everything ok?? Not
Elie
@Amir Khalid:
Chelsea. In fact, I would not be surprised if Chelsea kind of becomes the “hostess” for the White House and moves in with her family or close by. I don’t see Bill operating that way. Besides the lack of inclination, he doesn’t strike me as being in robust health. Maybe he continues the work with his Foundation or gets appointed to something honorary and off site. I think it would be a dreadful mistake to make him formally part of her administration. I am not unrealistic. He is her husband but I am hoping, and think she will, fend him off for the most part. This is her administration, HER way. I am happy he is mostly staying out of her campaign except for a slip up or two.
FlipYrWhig
@aimai: I was trying to say something along those lines earlier. There are so few stories of Bernie Sanders coming through, being unexpectedly helpful, etc. Instead we get stories about how he exacts a price when other people need his vote. That’s good insofar as it shows he knows about being a transactional politician rather than a gadfly/visionary, but I still haven’t seen what it looks like when Bernie Sanders tries to lead something rather than be a carping pest who thinks the whole place sucks, except for the VA reform bill, which was… the product of a lot of compromising and watering down to satisfy Republicans, i.e., the thing that so many Bernistas express contemptuously of all other political actors.
Technocrat
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah, my 19-year old Bernfeeler went to the Philly rally yesterday and she was super-excited. I think she may do some phonebanking for him.
In the long term, it can’t hurt to have the youngs politically motivated. Lets just hope that a loss doesn’t crush any nascent public spirit.
elftx
Sanders supporters showed their colors in WI when they did not vote down ticket so that Kloppenberg will sit on the SC there.
That’s gonna help the revolution.
redshirt
@Elie: Bill is a huge question mark for me and for history. Never has such a situation existed – maybe ever in history? So it will be very interesting to see how it plays out.
Keith G
@Cacti:
First of all, he is not a Democrat now, so how can he stop?
As to your initial part of that, possibly over-wrought, point, I bet that the issues that are important to Sanders now will still be important to him after the convention. It seems to me that since those issues have been a long term focus of his energies, he will continue to push for a government that will address them. There will only be one team working toward solutions to those issues. I imagine that Sen. Sanders will at the least help that team to the degree that the team is focusing on those issues.
Uncle Ebeneezer
@redshirt: Not bad mouthing VT at all. I love Vermont and can’t wait to visit there again (I grew up in Mass.)
patroclus
Well, I understand that DADT was sold as a step forward, but what it actually did was codify into law what had merely been a discriminatory policy, and until after 9/11, the actual incidence of throwing gays out increased markedly. Under the old discriminatory policy, it was more or less up to the individual commanders (which may or may not have been enforced); under the DADT law, commanders felt like that had no choice but to obey the law. Had DADT worked as sold, there wasn’t supposed to be any investigation absent solid evidence; under DADT as implemented, it happened more frequently than it had previously. I lived it. What we got out of it was ultimate change; because the new statute raised the profile of the issue markedly, but in the short run, things got worse, not better. Sort of a one step forward, two steps backward and then a giant leap forward kind of thing. Clinton promised a giant leap forward in the campaign and settled for what he got. Ultimately, in different times, Obama got it done.
DOMA, a wildly discriminatory statute, forestalled an even wilder discriminatory constitutional amendment. But that doesn’t obviate the fact that it was a wildly discriminatory statute.
In different times, I think Hillary would have the backbone of Obama on this issue; stronger than Bill. Sanders, I don’t know – he’s never really been all that involved, but I suspect that he’d be fine.
J R in WV
@Alain the site fixer:
So… Not JUST a software guy, then~!!!
Thanks!
Technocrat
@WarMunchkin:
That should be our goal, but it’s not something anyone seems to talk about.
Elizabelle
@Monala: No. And oh gawd. Probably another case of Trump bragging “I built that.”
Elie
@FlipYrWhig:
It also seems that he doesn’t take responsibility for what he says and does. It was the media, the headline, and even his wife (she prepares his tax returns — BTW, where ARE those returns?)
Elizabelle
PBO up now, C-Span anyway. Speaking informally about Merrick Garland at UChicago. “He is as good as a judge as we have in this country. … Consensus builder, shows judicial restraint …. no one has plausibly made an argument that this is not the kind of person we want on the SC.
This speaks … of what’s become to the process of appointing federal judges.”
Elizabelle
Obama looks wiry and young and closely shorn and relaxed and happy to be back among his colleagues.
FlipYrWhig
@Keith G:
The issue that Bernie Sanders is the last unimpeachably righteous politician in America has been consistently important to him and will continue to be so after the convention. The rest of the suite of important issues kinda seems to come and go.
Elizabelle
FYWP ate my comment.
Obama looks wiry and young and closely shorn and relaxed and glad to be back among colleagues and — especially — among the young lawyers/students in attendance.
redshirt
@Uncle Ebeneezer: The highways in VT are too narrow. I thought there were highway guidelines that all highways had to follow. VT is one of the few places I’ve driven where I feel like going under the speed limit due to the way the highway is laid out – steep and curvy. Also, the forest abuts the highways too closely, causing major icing conditions.
Elizabelle
test
OK. Blog eated two comments. Not sure why.
patroclus
@Chris: Your memory is correct; Roger Moore apparently believes that DADT as sold was actually implemented when the reverse was actually the case.
Elizabelle
Warns that [with all the delays and obstruction in confirming judges, or even holding hearings] the courts will be an extension of our legislatures, and our politics, and that will erode the confidence in the courts.
jackhole Grassley was in a C-Span clip before, elucidating that we have four reliable liberal votes on the Court, and that’s a problem for him, constitutionally.
Loviatar
@patroclus:
Hey asswipe you should really STFU when you don’t have a clue. I lived during the time when you could under the penalty of jail
askdemand an answer to whether you were gay or not. I was directly involved in doing that to a 20 year old young man who was one of the better soldiers in my unit. I was also there when it was done to harass two young ladies out of the militaryDADT was a law and as with any law it can be abused however it was much better than the innuendo and gossip that was used previously to persecute gay and lesbian soldiers. I see it as one step forward, pause and step forward again.
Jared
I’ve been a regular reader of this blog for about a decade. I have to stop now.
Why has the left-leaning blogosphere lost its mind?
HRC is embodiment of everything that’s wrong with the Democratic party. From the Iraq War vote, to Fracking, to deregulation, breaking up the banks, ect.
But “she learns” so we’re going to throw away a once in a lifetime chance to have real change? Sorry, count me out.
patroclus
@Loviatar: I was in the military during the relevant timeframe and am fully aware of what happened. Which was as I summarized. Despite how the law was sold, investigations actually increased and dismissals increased as well. Thanks for the insult.
different-church-lady
@redshirt: You do understand that Vermont has mountains, yes?
Betty Cracker
The world! It’s so cruel!
Elizabelle
@Jared:
Consider yourself counted out.
Now PBO speaks of “the great sorting”, aka polarization.
redshirt
@patroclus: But you blame Bill Clinton (and thus Hillary?) for this law as a step back? Regardless of how intentions translated into practice?
different-church-lady
@Jared: It’s funny how this “once in a lifetime” opportunity keeps getting embodied by a different human being every four to eight years.
redshirt
@different-church-lady: You don’t say!
Still, I thought highways had uniform standards. VT’s highways are more white knuckle than CO’s in spots.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Jared:
Once in a lifetime chance for change? After Obama?? Get the fuck out. Sanders can’t shine PBOs shoes.
Bob In Portland
Well, I guess it’s unanimous for the villagers here at BJ Land.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Go cry, emo kid.
patroclus
@redshirt: It’s not really a question of blame and Hillary was certainly not involved, so she’s blameless regardless. Bill had solidly good intentions, but as it turned out, he over-promised on what he was able to deliver, and he had to backtrack and settle for a statute (rather than a policy) which, despite how it was sold, increased investigations and dismissals. Blame, if that’s the word, should belong to those who established the original policy (back in the post-WWII era) and implemented it while it was still a policy, and then to the politicians (like Sam Nunn, who has since recanted) who pushed the discriminatory statute and then to those who stepped up the investigations and dismissals despite the intent. Like I said, in today’s climate, I am quite confident that Hillary would have a stiffer backbone than Bill did then. He did what he could, but it was one step forward, two steps backward (and then a giant leap forward under Obama (and Hillary)).
Keith G
@FlipYrWhig: No.
Calouste
@aimai:
To be appropriate to Sanders, it is “my wife mislaid our tax returns” level childishness.
redshirt
@patroclus: Good answer. Thanks.
scav
If Jared thought that the entire left-leaning blogosphere has suddenly “lost its mind” because it now visibly longer agrees with him, then perhaps that’s evidence that he makes rather large assumptions about how much people in general agree with him, which in turn might prompt him to reconsider how much of a landslide this particular instance of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity is likely to win with.
One does rather have to count the votes of the lost-its-mind left-leaning blogosphere along with everyone else’s — and that doesn’t change even if one no longer sullies its digital doorstep. When did politics become flouncing out in a huff with all your toys if disagreed with? If there wasn’t disagreement, real, fundamental differences of opinion, there’d be a hell of less lot of it and governance would be simpler. Yelling, arm-waving, compromise and not getting everything you want immediately always, long-term planning and really strange occasional bedfellows are just how the sausages get made.
Calouste
@redshirt:
In Argentina in 2007 Néstor Kirchner was succeeded as President by his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who was re-elected in 2011 and served until 2015. Néstor died in 2010.
Chyron HR
@Keith G:
What, saving America from Hillary? That’s what we’re afraid of.
redshirt
@Calouste: Thanks for the knowledge!
Roger Moore
@different-church-lady:
If you want to call those things mountains, that is.
Keith G
@Chyron HR: Silly wabbit.
WarMunchkin
@Jared:
At some level, I agree with this. She – and many other Democrats – are wrong on these issues, in my eyes. But there’s a difference between saying that and saying that that wrongness is a cancer that’s destroying the Democratic Party. The federal government is a huge organization that’s responsible for the well-being and smooth administration of many departments, organizations, systems and people. Democrats are the *only* political organization capable of its smooth administration. That is reality. And overwhelmingly, we have done the heavy lifting required to move the ball forward.
15 dollar minimum wage? Democrats
A majority of members opposed to torture? Democrats
Family leave? Democrats
Social Security? Democrats
Helping people get health care? Democrats
Use of diplomacy rather than dominionist militarism? Democrats
Alternative energy? Democrats
Denuclearization? Democrats
Women’s rights? Democrats
Have we gone far enough? No. But there is no other organization that has materially benefitted American people more than Democrats have. If President Hillary Rodham Clinton decides to invade some random country, I will be right there with you organizing for action.
Elie
@Calouste:
I don’t see Bill being First Gentleman in any formal way, having a bunch of “do good” little projects. Sure he may accompany Madame President Hillary at State functions, dinners, but I don’t see him inclined or likely good at, the hostess stuff or the feel good community and human interest projects. He is an ex-President and rightfully shoud not relinquish that status IMHO. He’ll want to “be his own man” while honoring his wife, but not trying to do any kind of mirror image of the First Lady’s role. As I speculated upstring, Chelsea might be the best one to perform the hostess role…
Walter DCosta
From “Feel the Bern” I “Feel Berned” after Bernie emphatically lies that Mrs. Clinton called him “Unqualified” to be President.
FlipYrWhig
@WarMunchkin: I’m mostly furious about Hillary’s responsibility for “ect.” DAMN YOU HILLARY CLINTON! NOW YOU CANT SPELL DEMOCRAT WITHOUT ECT!
glory b
@aimai: Hey, 60 is the new 40. :)
FlipYrWhig
@Jared: I WANT A PARTY THAT CATERS TO AFFLUENT WHITE LIBERALS BECAUSE THATS THE FUTURE
Elie
@WarMunchkin:
I am always continually surprised that Hillary keeps getting tagged with Iraq or saber rattles in different comments. As the first woman President, she has to communicate that she has got all the goods and will use the full range of the powers of the president — including, if necessary, military might. She would be strategically mistaken to communicate a permanent pacifist stance in advance! Would Bernie just absolutely rule out using military force in every situation? Hell no! Why? Because he as she would, have to protect the US from a number of threats. Some of these might be truly military but most would probably not be. But every president has ALL the powers and must be ready to use ALL of them. Sheesh!
Elie
@glory b:
Yeah and no. I think pushing into the 70’s for a first election to the office is too old. Job is just too stressful
Aimai
@redshirt: Prince Albert and queen Victoria?
Mike J
Josh Marhsall on Weaver:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/not-good-not-good-at-all–2
different-church-lady
@Elie: Sounds like the Big Dog stepped in something this afternoon. Is it possible the missus is now the smoother politician in the family?
Cacti
@Keith G:
“Of course I am a Democrat and running for the Democratic nomination.”
-Bernie Sanders
February 2016
If you’re going for ennui and condescension, it helps if you’re not dead ass wrong right out of the gate. ;-)
different-church-lady
@Mike J: From TPM
Maybe Weaver and Sanders need to take a couple of those courses.
Elie
@different-church-lady:
I wouldn’t be surprised. I think he may have burned out one of his central processing nodes in the last cardiac surgery… I don’t think the administrator between his mouth and his thoughts is as high speed and functional as it once was. He is gonna have to be “watched” both during the campaign and after…
Elie
@different-church-lady:
LOL — so true!
different-church-lady
@Cacti: You know who else doesn’t seem to be aware he’s now self-defined as a democrat? A whole lot of his supporters.
Andy
Maybe Philly might be the place to pick a candidate that everyone can get behind. Who knows, it could be good.
singfoom
@Bob In Portland:
That word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
Technocrat
@Elie:
Yep. Quite honestly, Big Dog is my biggest worry going into the election. For the record, I agree with him about the crime bill, but sometimes a cup of STFU is in order.
glory b
@PNW_WarriorWoman: Bye Felicia.
Elie
@Technocrat:
THIS
WarMunchkin
@Elie: I can agree with this to a point. 100%, I see eye-to-eye with you that a female politician has institutional resistance to her ability to use military force and unfair vulnerability to the perception that she could be weak. But *actual* advocacy of military force has consequences outside of appearances, in the form of real human lives. So her actual, material advocacy for policies that cost real human lives (see the Atlantic article about PBO’s foreign policy) is the issue here, rather than the appearance of it.
None other than PBO himself managed to dispose of the “emboldening” argument, invoking W’s unrestrained use of military power as an ineffective deterrent against Putin. Nobody cares how willing you are to use force, outside of the American foreign policy community.
FlipYrWhig
@Mike J: My biggest concern is the quality of person Bernie Sanders keeps surrounding himself with. :P
singfoom
@WarMunchkin: @Jared: What WarMunckin said. If you really want to take your ball and go home, so be it.
Politics is not an academic exercise, it’s not clean and it’s not pretty. You can get X% of what you want to get done done by building coalitions and consensus and making compromise.
Or you can get 0% of what you want to get done and be pure.
I’m not one of the HRC supporters here. I think she’s too close to Wall Street and is an economic neo-liberal so she shares the viewpoints of any of Wall Street. (Hint here for those who will yell at me again, corruption doesn’t only come in the form of quid pro quo.)
That said, she is 1000% better than any of the Republicans and at this point you either move forward or don’t. As always, YMMV
Betty Cracker
@different-church-lady: Do you mean his confrontation with protesters? I saw a video of it. IMO, he handled it okay.
Elie
@Technocrat:
I would add, that STFU should be in order 99 9/10% of the time for him during the campaign and definitely during HER administration. HE DON KNOW NOTHIN ABOUT NOTHIN — no off the cuff interpretations, summaries, NOtHIN
How realistic? I pray he can do it. He can really really hurt her….
les
@Jared:
Bummer. I’m sure someone will take up your list of whines, tho.
Elie
@WarMunchkin:
Well, its a complex topic but wouldn’t you acknowledge that at times, the threat of force allows you to negotiate or use non force methods? Yes, some of a president’s decisions will cost lives. That has been true for a long time. She will also make non military decisions that might also cost lives. I just think painting her as any more war mongering and hanging that by the way, on an Atlantic article that she was behind the Libya decision or some such, is just pretty thin gruel. I say, as President of the US and the first woman, she has to send a message that she is ready to kick ass if necessary. We are the remaining super power. She aint gonna cede that reputation to any other country while SHE has anything to do with it and as I said and emphasize, she must use all the powers at her command. Period. If you want to have Denmark, like Bernie, as your model fine. She is gonna be Madame President of the United States of America. Very different. If you can’t see or appreciate that — well… we can just agree to disagree
Alex.S
@Betty Cracker: He handled it very poorly. There are multiple layers of awful. It has nothing to do with his response to the protesters, but the actual words he said.
I expect Bill Clinton will be off the campaign trail until the general election. I’m still waiting for the Hillary campaign response, especially since she has said that there were problems with the crime bill.
Betty Cracker
@Alex.S: Example? I admit I wasn’t parsing every syllable, but it sounded like standard push-back to me. If we’re talking about the same incident.
les
@singfoom:
WTF? I had earlier pegged you as 12 years old, locked on to your peeve and unable to look around. Now I’m wondering, English as second language? If not quid pro quo, what? Your accusation is that Clinton has some level of shared belief or goals with somebody chillingly labeled as a street? And acting on such beliefs or goals is corruption? Give it up; just stomp your feet, wave your fists and scream “she doesn’t agreee with MEEEE!”
Technocrat
@Elie:
I agree. I hope he can respect her Presidency. But who knows what dynamics couples have? Barack convinced a trained lawyer to tend gardens for him.
Roger Moore
@Elie:
I tend to agree with whomever it was who said that Bill has a problem when Hillary is involved. He’s still pretty smooth in general, but he loses his governor when he’s trying to advance (or defend) Hillary. He had the same problem in 2008, so it’s nothing new.
Elie
@Technocrat:
So true…
singfoom
@les: Well thank you very much for your feedback and your estimation of my age. I think she is firmly entrenched in neoliberal economic policies and I disagree with those policies. The reason I put “quid pro quo” in there is when I mention HRC and Wall Street, people constantly ask me where the quid pro quo was referring to the speeches.
But thanks, I won’t give anything up or wave my fists or scream. I’ll remain here calmly and do my thing. I’ll pull the lever for her in November and wait to see if she supports the TPP after being elected or not.
Cheers.
Alex.S
@Betty Cracker: One of the things he said is “I’ll tell you another story about a place where black lives matter: Africa.”
Betty Cracker
@Alex.S: I don’t remember that part, but yeah, that does sound stupid.
Detroit Adam
@Loviatar:
For some of us who are gay Clinton’s DADT betrayal was a pivotal political moment. I was in high school at the time and just starting to come out. As I became ever more aware of gay politics during my undergrad days at university Clinton’s capitulation on the issue was always simmering the background, often cited as an example of why we gay folk can’t really trust Democrats to promote our interests & rights. Don’t ask me what the alternative was supposed to be. I don’t know. Now, with hindsight, sure I can agree it looks like a step forward but at the time it didn’t feel that way and in my experience of gay political culture DADT was often viewed as a betrayal. And frankly it still feels that way a bit. That is probably what motivated me to write this, reading people lauding something that at the time felt anything but laudatory.
I lurk here a fair bit but usually refrain from commenting because holy fuck-stick do the balloon juice bullies (BJBs) run wild. A bit too wild for my taste and I don’t need the tsuris. However, I figured it might help hear from someone who was a gay youth at the time — oral history and all that jazz.
You may now return to savaging each other while I go off and try to finish writing my history master’s thesis. (I reserve the right to return for procrastination purposes.)
les
@singfoom:
If that’s true–my memory is your huge issue is speeches for Goldman Sachs, and you’ve notably refrained form actually describing said policies–then I apologize. I assume you’re against her neoliberal policies like support for Dodd-Frank, support for increased minimum wage, tax on securities transactions, eliminate carried interest, reducing corporate powers, increased regulation of shadow banking, increased infrastructure spending?
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker: Yeah — saw a typical hair-on-fire screech at the GOS. The quoted material didn’t look good, but we know how that game goes. Didn’t want to do more research because I knew it would just make me feel all stabby.
It’s been an interesting 24 hours for campaign freakouts.
Elie
@Alex.S:
I read a complex interaction that perhaps is not as big a deal as you say… Still he just needs to stay cool and under react– which may be too much to ask. In this case, I think he was defending himself, more than Hillary…
Technocrat
@les:
Who the fuck keeps adding “neo” as a prefix to everything? Why can’t we just say “conservative economics”? It’s getting to the point that we’re obfuscating concepts as much as clarifying them.
ETA: I’m a neobernista.
Betty Cracker
@different-church-lady: TPM has vid. I admit I wasn’t giving it my undivided attention, but from what I heard, most of it was standard push-back — crime rate was sky-high, CBC was behind it, black poverty rates dropped to historic lows under Clinton admin, blah blah blah.
singfoom
@les: My issue is not speeches for Goldman Sachs, that’s a sideshow but is illustrative of her worldview. She was already rich when she gave those speeches, I find it distasteful but not disqualifying.
As for
I find Dodd-Frank to be flimsy and watered down and it has not made us that much safer from financial collapse. As for the rest of the policy positions you mentioned, those aren’t neo-liberal which I gather is your point. Yes, I acknowledge her platform right now has many good economic positions that I agree with.
However, I am convinced that she will pivot and support more “free trade” deals like the TPP despite what she has said. I don’t believe she’ll reduce corporate power. Nevertheless, I will pull the lever for her in November because I know the stakes, that the point I was making to Jared.
Honestly I hope I’m wrong and she turns out to not support the TPP and she’ll actually challenge corporate power. I can’t believe it until I see it.
Cheers
les
@Technocrat:
Does seem to be the thing, doesn’t it? Maybe we have a “label guy” deficit these days–nobody can come up with catchy new names. Although I have to admit I think “neoconfederate” fits all too many folks. Even then, straight up confederate may be closer.
singfoom
@Technocrat: I’m just using the words that others have used before. Neoliberalism wiki page
Technocrat
@singfoom:
Sorry my friend, I wasn’t ranting at you. The word just set me off.
redshirt
@Technocrat: He’s the One.
trnc
@Roger Moore:
Yes. I think Sander’s response to something Clinton DIDN’T say has been a total shitshow, especially on top of an interview where he couldn’t answer basic questions about his rationale for a revolution, but I don’t understand why she didn’t just say “Yes, he’s qualified.”
Elie
@singfoom:
Its not challenging corporate power, in my opinion — its harnessing it, channeling it. Do you actually think we should get rid of corporate power altogether? Isn’t it more manage its excesses rather than making corporations the permanent bad guys. We live in a very complex world with a lot of components related to how things function. We definitely want to manage the worst part of corporate influence, but economies — the very jobs Bernie talks about in TPP — require something to provide them, right? Its balance and honest communication rather than emotional sloganeering. Unless you want the state to provide all jobs, ala the old Soviet Union or Cuba (and even there that no longer exists like before), corporations are gonna be a part of our solution — somehow. Making them the gothic enemy as Bernie has, does very little but make it harder to deal with the issues realistically with the people who can actually make things change. Do you completely disagree?
les
@singfoom:
The money went to their charitable foundation. And not that long ago you found it disqualifying. And what world view does it illustrate–she’ll deliver uplifting platitudes to people you find distasteful? How about the insights to her worldview you glean from her speeches to the Green Building Council? National Multi Housing Council? Society for Human Resource Management?
And yet her vast array of neoliberal positions you discern from her speechifying means she’s unfit for the presidency. And of course she should have strengthened Dodd-Frank to your standards as Secretary of State.
Because she’s the lyingest liar that ever lied, because reasons. The Republicans wouldn’t have said so for 25 years if it wasn’t true.
Elie
@trnc:
She set a trap and he fell in it. That’s called “politics”. Its like over pursuit in football where aggressive defenses are exploited because the offense knows how they will over react to certain situations and set up the play to get that reaction. Temperamentally, Bernie is at risk for that. He has been triggered before and its a weakness she probably exploited from knowing him from before. He could have been better prepared and avoided the trap but he fell in.
dollared
@les: No, because she has a track record. But she has always catered to corporate power. She even brags about her service to Boeing and other companies as Secretary of State. She has consistently made horrible decisions in the military sphere.
You believe that she will morph into somebody completely different from who she has been. Good luck with that.
singfoom
@les:
I didn’t say she’s unfit to be president. I would prefer someone less corporate friendly.
I don’t think she’s a liar, she’s a politician. There’s not one out there that hasn’t dissembled or lied, especially during a campaign to get votes. Based on previous experience, I find that one should not take for granted that a candidate’s platform will be executed exactly as they say.
Listen, I’m sorry that my voting for her despite my dislike of her bothers you. I’m waiting to see what she’ll do. Like I said above, I hope that I’m wrong.
Technocrat
@trnc:
I wondered about that. I see two possibilities:
One, coming off that widely-panned NYT interview, if she flat out says he’s qualified, she has to justify his “I haven’t thought it about it”s. She leaves enough wiggle room to condemn his answers without going whole hog “unqualified”. Or,
Two, she wanted to insinuate he was unqualified as a bog-standard political attack.
Either is possible.
Elie
@dollared:
So you don’t see the upper management of an administration or the President as providing leadership and influence in developing US markets abroad? Really? You ARE naïve. Of course, those are J O B S, my friend. Local economies in this country run off of Boeing and other corporations. You don’t think that the Chinese or Koreans, or any other economic powers don’t have their CEOs work the ropes for their businesses? Of course she promoted Boeing and a bunch of others as well. What do you think that the largest part of our power is about?
singfoom
@Elie: We need corporations, but we need balance. Right now they have waaaay too much power and have gotten away with almost destroying the economy not that long ago and not much about the structure of our economy has changed for the better since then.
I don’t disagree completely, but I really think we need to tilt the field a lot more in favor of labor instead of capital. I don’t have a lot of faith that whoever is President will be able to affect that much change because Congress is where this needs to be fixed.
Elie
@Technocrat:
I think she knew her lack of saying outright he is qualified would lead to exactly what it did — he was fuming from what she seemed to kinda imply with the rest of what she said, without saying outright and it didn’t take much to trigger his over reaction. If he had not reacted, her little blurb would have been forgotten. His reaction has now cemented the situation in HER favor. A little “art of war” jiu jitsu — or finesse play — take your pick…That is why keeping your cool and that discipline is soooooo important…
Elie
@singfoom:
Exactly. They DO have too much power. But saying we are “anti” corporations isn’t a good place to wedge ourselves in a very important but very sophisticated campaign to change that. Ultimately, they are part of the solution — but we have to harness and channel their power to our benefit and more oversight. It will never be perfect. But we can definitely make it much better. I guess I just find slogans about being anti this and that too naïve to really be useful in truly coming up with some actionable solutions.
les
@dollared:
Citation needed.
Uh, fucking job descriptions, how do they work?
Uh, aside from AUMF, which she acknowledges was a mistake, citation needed. When has she been in the “military sphere” decision tree? If you’re trying to say you think she may be more interventionist than the current Prez, yeah, I share that. That she’ll be more interventionist than any prez except the O-man? Show me.
No, actually, I don’t. I think she will be who she’s been and will, to the extent possible, do what she says. She’s been a liberal since before all the new Bern voters were born. She’ll continue to be strongly liberal on family, children, women’s issues. She’ll work for reforms and controls and taxes in the economic sphere, because that’s how politics works and I don’t buy the ignorant shit that she’ll get into office and be some stealth Republican. She’ll be good on immigration to the extent Congress isn’t totally dysfunctional. She’ll put good people on the Supreme Court. I don’t know where she goes in foreign affairs, but she got good marks from trustworthy people as Sec O State, and there won’t be another fucking Iraq war on her watch, I’m pretty confident. She’ll continue Obama advances. In short, she’s the best alternative out there to continue progressive goals.
But hey, no magic ponies, so wail on.
les
@singfoom:
This is absolutely true. The question remains, how you get from here to “Hilary will be an awful president.”
redshirt
Republicans will be skirting if not wearing the lines of insurrection if the next White House is Democratic. We all know this to be true, right? As such, we too need to play hardball to counter this strong anti-Constitutional effort to nullify the Federal Government.
I trust Clinton to fight this game way better then Sanders.
different-church-lady
@les: Citation.
tones
@Mnemosyne: but I forgot my umbrella, so it is raining right now in OC
Michael Brown
@les: ….and if you honestly believe that her whoring for Wall Street, …is STILL throwing her support behind “Running Black Sites for the purpose of kidnapping and torturing black/brown people into confessions” Rahm Emmanuel, voting for the Iraq war because she found it at the time politically expedient ass was EVER liberal…you are just about as dumb as you sound.
Goddamned Clinton supporters….quick to through your support behind a person that has told you time and time again she does not intend to change shit worth mentioning over the guy whom has walked the talk for the past 40 years.
les
@different-church-lady:
Ah, of course. Nicely done, ma’am.
les
@Michael Brown:
Ah, the true liberals finally show up.
You’re joking, right? The guy who’s spent his entire life in the most corrupt organization in the US, by his own definition?
Kay (not the front-pager)
@? Martin: I’m interested in your metaphor:
It reminds me of the hoary old joke about men refusing to ask for (or take) directions so they get lost and never get to the destination. You are right; Bernie’s problem as reflected in the NYDN interview is that he didn’t bother to get directions to his destination.
My problem with Clinton in ’08 was that she seemed too wedded to the directions, to torture the metaphor some more. I didn’t see the willingness to take risks, detours, when she confronted a roadblock. I think she’s the right candidate this year for 2 reasons. First, her years as Secretary of State gave her the experience and confidence to take a more flexible route. And second, she doesn’t need to find a completely new route; Obama has drawn a pretty good map forward, she just needs to tweak it to fit changing circumstances.
Hillary Clinton is a smart, incredibly hard-working, capable, conventional thinker. She understands her strengths, and she understands her weaknesses. She will not be Barack Obama, but she will be an excellent President.
And she damn sure will be better than any of the jokers the Republicans have on offer.
Technocrat
@Michael Brown:
Phrasing? You wouldn’t accuse Obama of “Shucking and jiving for Wall Street”, I hope.
singfoom
@les:
I said:
How many times can I tell you that I didn’t say she’d be an awful president?
I didn’t say HRC will be an awful president
I didn’t say HRC will be an awful president
I agree with this statement:
She’s got the nomination locked up at this point and she’ll do fine. She will do fine on social issues but I will continue to watch her economic policies with interest. Sheesh.
trnc
FFS, Sanders is on CBS News right now (taped earlier, of course) and he just quoted the WP headline again to justify his statement that she wasn’t qualified. Hard to believe he didn’t know at the time of the taping that she hadn’t said what the headline implied. Charlie Rose, to his credit, pointed out that “If that’s what she’s saying, that’s what I’m saying” is not a particularly adult response.
Fortunately, Sanders did say straight up that he would support her if she is the nominee.
Sir Nose D'Voidofucks
@Alain the site fixer: 2004-6 Montezuma County chair and Obama 08 county leader down here. Square State represent!
les
@singfoom:
Another place we differ, I guess. I actually do find corrupt people to be unfit for the presidency.
les
@Technocrat:
Oh, I’d guess Mike would, if called upon.
singfoom
@les: Yes, because saying that she’s too beholden to corporate interests is equal to saying she’s equivalent Frank Underwood, corrupt to the very core in every way.
I didn’t say she was a completely corrupt person, it’s called nuance. I agree with her on a lot of things and don’t trust her on economic issues. Time will tell. How her administration (assuming she wins the White House) either tries to stop or support the TPP will tell me all I need to know.
les
@singfoom: Corrupt is your word, not mine. And you’ve been pretty free with it. If you actually meant “disagree,” well, you coulda said so.
Michael Brown
@les: Actually, I fucking would….he is just as guilty of that shit as she is….oh…and I am black…so whatever “trap”you had in store while waiting for my answer….well….
amk
@bemused: didn’t bernie move from ny to vt to make his political career?
les
@Michael Brown:
Amazing how much you think you know about me. I didn’t actually ask you anything, didn’t really care about your answer and still don’t know what trap you fear. I already knew that assholes, fools and idiots come in all colors, so didn’t need your evidence.
Technocrat
@Michael Brown:
Yeah, because being black gives us free license to perpetuate stereotypes. That’s not fucked up or anything. Super progressive, probably.
redshirt
@Michael Brown: Do you want to see Donald Trump as President? If not, vote the opposite!
different-church-lady
On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. But everyone knows you’re an asshole.
John S.
@Mnemosyne:
Really? You must be reading a different blog.
Loviatar
@Detroit Adam:
Wow, the stupidity in this is so strong it burns my eyes. Do you not realize when someone has a gun pointed at your head a punch in the face is a better option. I was an officer in the military prior to DADT and I participated in ruining a life based upon innuendo, gossip and rumor. I saw up close and personal two young ladies lives made living hell until they gave up and left based upon rumors. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell while not a panacea for all the difficulties faced by our gay service members was Infinitely better than what went before.
Those two young ladies I keep referring to, I couldn’t be sure but I always felt one of them was harassed solely because she wouldn’t go out with a certain male service member. So all of a sudden she became a “lesbian”, thats all it took. No facts, nothing other than a vague rumor started by an unknown fellow soldier was all it took for our XO to decide to investigate her. Back then once you had the label of “gay” or “lesbian” you were in for it no matter what.
DADT is what it is, a law designed to give our gay service members some protection until something better could be put in place.
tones
@Jared:
Same here, I want to have an actual left candidate for the very first time in my long lifetime…she will not be it.
I hated her pandering to authoritarianism and the military industrial complex.
“we came we saw, he DIED! hahahahahaha!”
I found that crass at best., but Hillary is always gung-ho for the next war for profit of the MIC.
She was all for Syria, all for Libya, and let’s face it , the only country left on the Neo Con 5 in five years or 7 in 7 whatever it was – Iran is the only one left.
Guess where we will be going to war for Halliburton next?
Young college Repub.
Goldwater girl
War Hawk.
Republican she is not from the left in any way, she is the modern Ronnie Raygun.
I want to vote for someone who says we could have nice things if we just stop having all these wars for corporate profits.
But, he is the least popular of the cool kids in the club and insists on sticking with his peace and love and less profits for billionaires and corporations, so no one else in the club can do anything but look down at their shoes.
I do not want the status quo continuation, but in all reality it is evident that HRC does, and always has.
It benefits her to do so.
Sanders has decided long ago that he does not want those benefits, and won’t cave to get them.
Sorry.
Miss Bianca
@different-church-lady:
Oh, VERY nice. : )
Detroit Adam
@Loviatar:
Hey asshole this faggot doesn’t need to assuage your guilt over how you acted while in the military. Perhaps if you had been less cowardly back then you’d be less likely to lash out at my teenage recollections. Maybe go volunteer at an AIDS hospice to make up for being such a fuck stick to those women years ago. But definitely stop lashing out at me with your verbal santorum. Seriously. Turn the fucking volume down right now.
DATA was viewed by many in the gay community, at the time, as a betrayal. That is just a fact.
FFS, is the community here always so toxic and homophobic?
Loviatar
@Detroit Adam:
Kid, child, adolescent, go back to your blanky and whine to someone who gives a fuck. I’ve got no guilt to assuage. You’re the kind of unappreciative dickhead that makes supporters question their support. But like I tell myself I don’t support for you and the Sullivans of the world I do it because its the right thing to do.
Oh yeah, go fuck yourself.
Detroit Adam
@Loviatar:
Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you? I relate a story about how I felt about DADT (and perceived my community’s response) when I was a gay youth and you call me stupid. Think about how fucked up that is.
You are not a supporter. You are obviously still just as much a homophobic fuck stick now as you were back then. I am so sick of dealing with you straight privileged bullies.
I don’t even know what the fuck this means. I googled Sullivans and only came up with some restaurants named Sullivans.
P.S.: I don’t need to fuck myself my husband can do that quite nicely for me when I’m in the mood. But it does sound like you could use a good rogering.
P.P.S.: For those keeping score this is my first time commenting in this toxic hate-circle-jerk community. I tried to earnestly relate how DADT felt at the time and I get called stupid by a raging homophobe. wtf.
Gin & Tonic
@Detroit Adam: “Sullivans”, at least around here, refers to the columnist and blogger named Andrew Sullivan, with whom many of the commenters have a love/hate relationship.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: Never liked Sullivan. Just saying.
Detroit Adam
@Gin & Tonic:
Thanks for the info G&T (my go-to cocktail). After skimming the wikipedia entry on him I’m not sure I understand why I was lumped together with him so I presume I don’t have enough context to understand this love/hate relationship to which you refer.
Gin & Tonic
@Detroit Adam: A lot of it is really inside baseball, but some of it is just the strangeness of a Thatcherite, Tory gay man.
Detroit Adam
@Gin & Tonic: But I am neither a Thatcherite (I’m way to young for that) nor a Tory. I’m not even British. Is Sullivan viewed as being insufficiently thankful for incremental gay rights gains or something?
Gin & Tonic
@Detroit Adam: I have no idea, frankly. Like I said, inside baseball. Lots of people here dislike him, but will read every word he writes anyway. I think life is too short.
Omnes Omnibus
@Detroit Adam: This is one of your first days here? Perhaps you might not understand all the shorthand and in-jokes of long time commenters. Andrew Sullivan is a conservative except on issues that that affect him. He is also a misogynist (except for his love of Margaret Thatcher). Beyond this, use Google.
Detroit Adam
@Omnes Omnibus: This is my first time commenting. I sometimes read the front page via an rss reader and have done so for a while but I’ve usually avoided the comments section because I find it too often gets too toxic and meanspirted. As I just experienced first hand. I’m procrastinating from writing my thesis so I figured I’d chime in on a comment where I had some relevant first-person experience. Didn’t quite expect to get attacked so hard and fast.
Gin & Tonic
@Detroit Adam: I think there are more good people than assholes. But sometimes the assholes are pretty loud.
Omnes Omnibus
@Detroit Adam: if you didn’t live through the ’90s as an adult, you may miss some of the context. One of Bill Clinton’s very first actions as president was to try to fully integrate gays into the military. Congress and the military balked. What he wanted was impossible to enact. So he pushed through DADT. Prior to it, I, as an army officer, could have asked a soldier if he was gay and tossed him out if he said yes. Or tossed him out if I caught him with another guy. After DADT, I couldn’t legally ask. But if I caught him with another guy, I still could. Incremental progress. And not what Bill tried for at the start.
Detroit Adam
@Omnes Omnibus: Right. That’s what I was trying to give some perspective on. I was in high school when DADT was passed and not very political so was I wasn’t really aware of it at the time.
However, by the time I was at university (I finished undergrad in 2000) and becoming more politically aware and active DADT was in full effect yet its passage was still relatively recent history. It was often cited and discussed as an example of Democratic betrayal. That’s how many gay people I knew at the time talked about it. There were many discussions about how to push Democratic pols to be more forceful on gay rights.
Anyway, I tried to make it clear in my initial post that it obviously was incremental progress but also tried to explain how oppressed people often don’t find satisfaction in incremental progress. (“Mississippi Goddamn” by Nina Simone is one of my favorite expressions of this sort of frustration with going slow.)
For all that I was called out as stupid. Which I find inexcusably homophobic and really just plain mean.
Omnes Omnibus
@Detroit Adam: I am not responsible for your feelings. I made an effort because you are new here. You can make your own decisions.. OTOH, shitloads of gay people comment here. But, fuck it, we suck. Understood.
Fuck you.
Loviatar
@Omnes Omnibus:
You said it a lot better than I did. I just don’t have a lot of patience for a willfully uninformed asshole who then tries to play the victim role.
Detroit Adam
@Omnes Omnibus:
Um, I was writing in agreement with you Omnes Omnibus and then extrapolating on the point. And then commenting on how I found the one person’s reaction earlier to be out of line. And to that I get a “fuck you”? Seriously, what is wrong with people here? Did I step into some sort of bizzro universe? I honestly don’t understand what the hell is going on?
Omnes Omnibus
@Detroit Adam: Think a bit.
ETA: Scroll up and see if you made ililicit accusations.
Loviatar
@Detroit Adam:
Please go away.
Loviatar
@Detroit Adam:
Go away, please
Loviatar
@Detroit Adam:
Away, please go.
Detroit Adam
@Loviatar:
I’m a history graduate student and a lawyer. I’m not uniformed as to the history of DADT but you seem to be uninformed as to how the gay community reacted to it at the time. I’m just telling you a small bit of the history from the late 1990s regarding the reaction of the gay community to DADT.
Detroit Adam
@Loviatar:
Nope now you’ve got my dander up so I’m never leaving.
Detroit Adam
@Omnes Omnibus:
I don’t know what illicit accusations means.
Omnes Omnibus
@Detroit Adam:
Some of us were alive then.
Loviatar
@Detroit Adam:
And you seem uniformed to how the military works. Prior to DADT on orders from a superior officer I could against my wishes persecute people for being gay. Once DADT was in place I could legally tell my superior officer, sir I can’t ask and he didn’t tell, so there is nothing I can do. It gave me a tool to protect my service members.
Detroit Adam
@Omnes Omnibus:
I was a student at the University of Michigan during the late 1990s, graduating in 2000. In gay bars, campus political groups, and local and national gay press we talked about it in those terms, betrayal.
The Advocate Oct 15, 1996
“Gay Democrats don’t seem willing to give Clinton credit, but at least they no longer speak of betrayal over the broken military promise.”
https://books.google.com/books?id=OWMEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA30&ots=wcuODguKDo&dq=DADT%20clinton%20betrayal%20advocate&pg=PA30#v=onepage&q=DADT%20clinton%20betrayal%20advocate&f=false
“Gays Won’t Take Clinton’s Betrayal Lightly”
L.A. Times, June 11, 1995
http://articles.latimes.com/1995-06-11/opinion/op-11888_1_gay-rights
Rachel Maddow: I Felt Bill Clinton Didn’t Have My Back
http://www.advocate.com/election/2016/2/11/rachel-maddow-i-felt-bill-clinton-didnt-have-my-back
Detroit Adam
@Loviatar:
I’m aware of the the general terms related to homosexuality and its history in the UCMJ. But, no, I’ve never been in the military so all I know is from either law books, history books, or talking with a few friends from high school who were in the Marine Corp or the Navy. My first choice university was Annapolis. I thought long and hard as a high school senior about how DADT and my growing realization at the time of my own gayness. About how that would play out. I concluded that I wouldn’t fare well and elected not to peruse that path.
Detroit Adam
“Five years ago gay and lesbian activists were at war with the White House. Stung by President Clinton’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” compromise, which they considered a betrayal, activists including David Mixner lashed out on the national television and were arrested outside the White House for participating in civil disobedience actions.”
The Advocate, July 21, 1998
https://books.google.com/books?id=imMEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA38&ots=2-dt_WBaWA&dq=DADT%20clinton%20betrayal%20advocate&pg=PA38#v=onepage&q=DADT%20clinton%20betrayal%20advocate&f=false
Detroit Adam
@Omnes Omnibus:
So I was a young gay man, coming out and becoming political, reading the gay press and seeing DADT called a betrayal and talking politics with people on campus and hearing the same thing. Naturally, that’s what I remember from those years. That’s the only point I was trying to make this whole time. My point was only a descriptive historical one.
xian
@PNW_WarriorWoman:
congrats. please pick up your purity pony pin at the GOP convention.
Cleos
@JustRuss:
.
No; Occupy Wall Street ended that nonsense.
I clearly recall that up until fall of 2011, all the discussion about the economy centered on deficits, leading to debates on how many budget cuts should be made, how much, and what would be cut. Income inequality was pretty much ignored, despite years of wages not keeping up with inflation. OWS was a classic case of an event whose significance wasn’t evident until the players had passed from the scene.
Cleos
@Jared: Bye.
Cleos
@Technocrat:
Nevertheless, it’s a temporary gig.