At some point, even the dim bulbs in the media (and maybe even Rahm Emanuel) will figure out that all the Republicans want to do is destroy Obama. Period.
*** Update ***
We are getting closer:
There is some historical precedent for presidents speaking to students in nationally televised addresses. President George H. W. Bush did so in 1991 and President Ronald Reagan even talked politics with students in 1988.
Nonetheless charges from Republican officials that President Obama is seeking to indoctrinate students — unsupported by any real evidence — have been flying.
That is about as close to the “L” word as we will get in the “he-said, she -said” era of modern journalism.
JK
In addition to Obama’s upcoming speech to students, conservative blogs are burning up over this Van Jones story
Controversial Obama Administration Official Denies Being Part of 9/11 “Truther” Movement, Apologizes for Past Comments
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/09/controversial-obama-administration-official-denies-being-part-of-911-truther-movement-apologizes-for.html
Kryptik
There really is no end, is there?
They keep piling on bullshit after bullshit and manage to get it to stick because the media still thinks they’re being fed chocolate.
Punchy
What’s the “L” word?
Keith
@JK:
Speaking of people burning over Van Jones, Glenn Beck spent 10 minutes showing how Rockefeller was actually a progressive communist/fascist (Lenin! Marx! Mussolini!). Apparently, the whole point of it was that Rockefeller had given a grant (or something to that effect) to a very young Van Jones. Clinical…
Joey Maloney
@Punchy:
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLIAR, of course.
The exurban white-flight school district in my city is one of those protecting their childrens’ precious bodily fluids from Barack Xbama’s negro contamination.
Funny thing (or maybe not) – that county used to be one of the blackest, poorest, and most Democratic counties in the state until it was overrun by crackers fleeing the city proper. Now it’s run by an alliance of native-born toothless Klansmen and the more genteel White Citizens Council types that moved in.
JK
@Keith:
Glenn Beck is a raving, drooling, nail biting, bedwetting lunatic who belongs in a straitjacket in a mental institution.
parksideq
@Punchy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_l_word
Although I have a sneaking suspicion that John Cole was referring to “lies.” ::shrug::
chopper
how dare a black man tell my kids they should study hard and stay in school! it was bad enough when mr. t did it, but now this guy?
GReynoldsCT00
@JK: \\
very eloquent!
Comrade Jake
After reading about the indoctrination nonsense, we’re thinking of pulling our daughter out of pre-school, out of fear that she might interact with kids whose parents are this galactically stupid.
Xenos
The Birchers have been obsessing about the Rockefellers for decades. Their thinking is that the new socialist state will be run by members of the Rockefeller family. When the Birchers get together with the LaRouchies, who base their conspiracy theories on the Queen of England, they tend to use Obama to provide the link between the two fantasy universes. It is really quite loopy and mad, and if they could just find a way to fit the Templars into it they could rewrite ‘Foucault’s Pendulum’ or ‘The Crying of Lot 49’.
Zifnab
@chopper: God. We can only pray Obama doesn’t tell people to stay off drugs and drink their milk. An entire generation of children would be ruined.
Foxhunter
My wife is a teacher in WCT, Georgia (Wingnut Central Territory). This morning she received a waiver form from the county administration that must be completed by her students’ parents in order to view the Obama speech. 1st graders.
This ‘waiver’ will have to be signed by the parents of 50,000+ kids. Those that don’t wish to ‘participate’ will be provided an alternate activity.
Our country is so fucked.
Rosali
Three words: My Pet Goat
Xenos
(Dang moderation! Please delete it, comment rewritten here)
The Birchers have been obsessing about the Rockefellers for decades. Their thinking is that the new ‘soshialist’ state will be run by members of the Rockefeller family. When the Birchers get together with the LaRouchies, who base their conspiracy theories on the Queen of England, they tend to use Obama to provide the link between the two fantasy universes. It is really quite loopy and mad, and if they could just find a way to fit the Templars into it they could rewrite ‘Foucault’s Pendulum’ or ‘The Crying of Lot 49’.
Ambergris
One quick thought about Rahm Emanuel:
I think he is actually a Democrat who wants to destroy the Republicans, he wants total victory not just a stable majority. And to do that he tries to pull corporate sponsors away from republicans to starve them to death financially. But to do that, he has to make the Democratic Party more business-friendly (than it already is). He wants to keep the blue dogs as money magnets and he needs them to keep relevant within the Democratic Party, or else big business wouldn’t bother to invest in them. In the end, I’d just accuse him of ignoring that the Republican Party already is as business-friendly as possible.
Michael
Angry, stupid white people who nurture their rage like a suckling child abound these days.
This includes relatives, business acquaintances and friends of many, many years – and when they try to engage me on the stupid (they assume tht I agree with them), I’m now politely changing the subject.
After having some energetic and antagonistic conversations with my mother, my father and a friend of nearly 25 years, I’ve given up on reaching them. Until Beck, Medved, Limbaugh, Rupert Murdoch and the entire team of Fox News and CNBC TV personalities meet an ending like the Nazi bigwigs of “Inglourious Basterds” (followed by the detonation of their broadcast facilities), I’m afraid it will continue.
The constant drumbeat of the Goebbelsian “Big Lies” is pounding into too many heads. Some will, like me, wind up waking up and leaving the Conservative reservation. I really don’t think that the multiply repeated lies are giving them any genuine traction with the middle this time, as the middle tends to not like angry shouting on a routine basis and begins to recognize that somebody is blowing smoke up their asses and trying to create a bogus set of negative perceptions.
What I do know for sure is that Roosevelt would not have had a success if he had to deal with something equivalent to our 24/7 Village. Medicare would have never gotten out of the box, the Civil Rights Movement would have died aborning and the armed forces would still be segregated.
They’re that poison.
One other thing – has anybody noticed that the same people who are squealing like stuck pigs over Obamanian “indoctrination” are the same ones who squeal like stuck pigs over not being allowed to use the schools and government money to help them proselytize their filthy apocalyptic death cult? And that they’re the same ones who utterly adore showy displays of ersatz patriotism everywhere?
Stuff like this makes me embarrassed to be a white southerner.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Zifnab: The searing irony of this episode is escapable. The very people who are now threatening to pull kids out of school over this are the bedrock “personal responsibility” crowd.
J
‘—unsupported by any real evidence—’ is, to be sure, a step in the right direction. Simple honesty would require ‘which is a shameless lie’, maybe the next step could be ‘which is utterly without foundation’ or, a good old-fashioned term that still isn’t the L word but at least a little sting ‘baseless’.
jibeaux
@Foxhunter:
You sign a “waiver” in order to view the speech, not to be excused from it? An extremely novel use of the word “waiver”.
JK
Texas’ Highland Park Independent School District Message
“On Tuesday, September 8, President Obama will deliver a national address to students on the importance of education.
While we appreciate the president’s support for education, we will not change our instructional day in order to air the message.
We trust our faculty members to decide on appropriate instructional content. If a faculty member finds a compelling reason to use the material in the classroom, we support the instructor’s professional judgment.”
http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs046/1102070697430/archive/1102692548175.html
Leelee for Obama
Truly, I am so tired of this. I am glad that at least a few reporters are doing some due diligence on this but this AM it’s seeming to be another he said-she said, on CNN. Some push-back, but nothing muscular.
How dare the President try to get our future citizens to grasp the importance of studying hard and staying in school? How dare he ask them to think about ways to help the President reach his education goals?
I used to think white-flight schools and the home-school movement geared to keeping the conservative child un-polluted by liberal thought was really bad for the nation. Most times, I still do.
Today-I’m kinda hoping they keep them away from my Grandchildren as long as possible-maybe inter-marriage among them will produce a generation of truly drooling fools that no one will pay any attention to, and my Grandchildren will be unpolluted by them. In most liberal families like mine, there’s a lot of cross-pollination, so I think the Kids will be alright..
Bullsmith
Arguing that the President shouldn’t be allowed to talk to Americans is so fundamentally anti-American I can’t even find a kernel of logic to base it on.
I think the Republicans have frankly abandoned the whole concept of actual democracy. When they’re in the majority, then the mob should rule, nuclear option all the way baby. Only a traitor would refuse to listen to the President. But when they’re in the minority, then minority protections are all that matter. It’s nothing more than self-interest with a veneer of religious bullshit panted on top.
And the worst thing is the media, which gave Bush a complete moral mandate based on much less actual electoral success than Obama and the Democrats have had. 51 Republican Senators equals a party backed by the will of the people. 59 Democratic Senators = a party that needs to make compromises and watch it’s back.
But this idea of telling kids to boycott school and to refuse to even listen to their elected President is a new low. It perfectly embodies putting country last.
dmsilev
Somebody badly needs to slap Chris Matthews, preferably with a large, still wet, fish. A salmon, maybe. Last night, he had on the head of the Florida GOP, who had put out a press release accusing Obama of trying to put fluoride in children’s ice cream to sap and impurify their precious bodily fluids, and Matthews called him a “reasonable guy” or something like that.
No. Just, no.
-dms
Foxhunter
@Michael:
Michael, I feel your pain. Good post.
Shygetz
@Foxhunter: My wife is also in the school system in WCT Georgia. Their county is flat-out not showing that damn ni…I mean, Obama’s speech to the kids at all.
This country is sick. Seriously, seriously sick.
Violet
The Today Show talked about the issue as a “controversy” and David Gregory added fake gravitas to the whole thing by discussing it as such. A$$hat. At least Meredith Viera mentioned that former Presidents Bush and Reagan also spoke to students.
The so-called news folks are like moths to a flame. Ooooh! Controversy! Let’s go talk about that! They make me sick.
JK
Tammy Bruce is Foaming at the Mouth Over Obama’s upcoming speech
“The Obama Youth Worksheets for teachers have been sent and are widely available on the net. The call for teachers to weave the Obama narrative into their curriculum has been set. Obama’s 9/8 speech to students itself will likely be mundane; the real agenda here is not a one-day message from Dear Leader–it’s the opening of the door for the public school system to separate you from your children. Look, your kids likely have more time at school than they do with you. The effort to remove you as the moral tutors of your children has been an ongoing effort by left for decades. This is nothing new, the difference is we’ve reached the tipping point. Enough is enough. So let me see–Urkel’s mob thinks it’s better now to admit this is not a ‘political’ effort, but an exercise to introduce the idea to your child that someone other than you is the moral tutor of your child. They’ve got another thing coming.” – Tammy Bruce
http://tammybruce.com/2009/09/urkel-blinks-withdraws-call-for-students-to-help-obama.html
General Winfield Stuck
There is only one way to describe this trend by wingnuts. It is not the normal partisan orneryness, but is sedition, plain and simple. And it is heading toward open rebellion. At least with only grand gestures of dissing an elected President, at least for now.
Foxhunter
@jibeaux:
Oh hell, here is the letter in it’s entirety. I hope the comments aren’t blown up for this.
Dear Parent,
On Wednesday, September 9th at _______________ our class will watch a pre-recording of President Obama’s speech to school children. I have viewed this speech and feel that the opportunity to view the video will enhance your child’s education.
As a preview for this activity, my students will complete the following:
• 1.
• 2.
• 3.
After viewing the video, we will:
• 1.
• 2.
• 3.
Please sign below indicating if you wish for your child to watch President Obama’s speech to school children. Should you choose for your child to not participate, your child will have the opportunity to complete an alternative assignment with similar goals in another teacher’s classroom.
Please contact me should you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Teacher Name
___My child has permission to watch President Obama’s speech to school children.
___My child DOES NOT have permission to watch President Obama’s speech. I understand that he/she will be provided an alternative assignment with similar goals in another teacher’s classroom.
Student Name: _______________________
Parent Name: ________________________
Date: ___________________
Return this form to your child’s teacher by ___________________ for him/her to participate in the classroom viewing of the video.
dmsilev
Now I’ve got this vision of parents forbidding their children from watching the President, and children being children, YouTube views of the speech spike into the stratosphere.
-dms
parksideq
My brother doesn’t start school till Thursday, so he’ll be missing ObaMarx’s proto-fascist, Jedi mind trickery indoctrination. I’m glad my grandma isn’t around to see what her America has become; she’d have died of a heart attack (if the death panels didn’t get her first) if she were still here.
As for Beck, he’s a necessary evil. Any time I reminisce about my upbringing (my mom’s a Seventh Day Adventist, so I’m a recovering fundie), he reminds me of why I had to leave the crazy behind. The SDA Church as a whole sees internationalist New World Order-type conspiracies under every rock, and Beck practically mirrors that delusional zealotry. I’m so glad I got away when I had the chance.
Tzal
@Violet: See Benford’s law of controversy:
Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available.
Michael
You realize that the phrase heard about this in non-viewing houses is going to be this:
r€nato
I’m sure this has nothing at all to do with the fact that the president is a black man with a funny-sounding name and a Muslim middle name.
Leelee for Obama
@r€nato: Perish the f’in thought! This is just protecting the precious children from the dangerous President who was elected largely by people who think.
I’ve said it before, but lately, I want to go dig up my Father’s ashes and punch him where his face should be for not moving us to Canada when I was little.
BettyPageisaBlonde
Holy crap, I fully hate this version of the Republican Party. They’re just fucking crazy. Crazy, I tell you.
Crazy people + teh intertubes + naked political calculation bereft of any concern for the country = Your Modern Republican Party
r€nato
You know how those uppity negroes are. After all they have the power to seduce innocent white women into doing impure things with them, what with their ‘rap’ and other forms of rhythmic jungle music.
It’s thoroughly understandable that upstanding white folk would want to protect their children from this kind of evil influence.
Ash
Have you ever thought what it would be like for your right now John if you’re never been enlightened? Does the thought make you weep?
jibeaux
@Foxhunter:
Ah, a permission slip with the default being “not watching”. 50,000 of them.
I’m sorry, trees of the world. In addition to being pretty, shady, and homes for wildlife, you were smarter than some of us.
r€nato
…adding, the reason marijuana was prohibited way back in the 1930s or so was that it was widely believed that it was used by blacks to help seduce white women.
That’s it. That’s why marijuana was originally prohibited. If it weren’t for that kind of blatant racism, you might be legally buying your joints from Brown and Williamson or Phillip Morris today.
Sloth
This is good stuff.
First Obama gets the republicans to endorse medicare, even gets them to create a “senior’s bill of rights”.
Now we’ve got this:
“it’s the opening of the door for the public school system to separate you from your children. Look, your kids likely have more time at school than they do with you. The effort to remove you as the moral tutors of your children has been an ongoing effort by the left for decades.”
Remove “by the left”, since it’s not central to the argument. The argument is that the schools should not be moral tutors.
Yep, kids, there goes school prayer.
Leelee for Obama
@jibeaux: Not to mention that the trees suck carbon dioxide up like good Cabernet.
I wonder if Kurt Vonnegut was really prescient when he said the earth sees us as a virus, and it’s trying to kill us off!
Hard not to root for the planet, even considering the consequences.
gnomedad
@dmsilev:
Obligatory Python link.
The Saff
@Bullsmith: Looks like from here on out, it doesn’t matter what Obama does. The wingnuts are going to howl with outrage and the media will pounce on it like a kitty goes at catnip.
For chrissakes, Obama is President of the United States! He should address schoolkids with the message to stay in school, study hard, get good grades, etc. It’s not like he’s going to be pushing them to support healthcare reform or energy policy. Jeesus! They’re kids! And he’s a father with two little kids of his own. I think he knows how to address them on their level.
The whole uproar is beyond WTF. I’m so offended by these batshit crazy wingnuts that my head feels like it’s going to explode. How is it that we have so many ignorant fools that are proud of their dipshittedness?
ChrisB
@JK:
That’s what always gets me. I think it’s all an act. I have this picture in my mind of Glenn Beck coming off camera, taking his mic off, and musing about how crazy his performance was. And what sort of ratings it got.
Like some clown taking off his makeup and speaking gruffly about his kiddie audience while lighting up a cigar.
It’s the audience that’s nuts.
SFAW
Michael –
1) You forgot “uppity”
2) “usurper”? Maybe on Beck, but not in WCT.
Davis X. Machina
Arguing that the President shouldn’t be allowed to talk to Americans is so fundamentally anti-American I can’t even find a kernel of logic to base it on.
Mr. Bush and Mr. Reagan possessed the Mandate of Heaven. Mr. Obama doesn’t.
See, that was easy. Republicans are divine-right monarchists.
The weirdest transformation of political terminology hasn’t been what happened to the word ‘liberal’ since John Stuart Mill — it’s what happened to the word ‘republican’.
The GOP’s present position is analogous to the royalists and Bonapartists in the French assemblies of the 19th century.
royalist party ihas no real interest in governing. Their purpose for being was to shut the government down, or at least cripple it, so that there could be a restoration.
Why would they have no interest in the smooth functioning — any functioning — of a government whose legitimacy they fundamentally do not accept? The one true and Godly outcome is a rapid transition back to a monarchy. And the only question when faced with a fork in the national road is, which path will bring the King back into his own again, on which glorious day the good peasants can go back to kissing the whip and the nobles can go back to fighting over preferment and looting the treasury.
Party like it’s 1599, dudes.
Leelee for Obama
{{How is it that we have so many ignorant fools that are proud of their dipshittedness?}}
Sadly, these are the posterity of the white population who fell for the line “at least you’re not a n—–r. Stick with us and we’ll treat you marginally better than we treat them.” Started with Southern Dems, morphed into the Southern Strategy, fueled by low-wages and marginalization and Bob’s your uncle.
arguingwithsignposts
Okay, I just looked at the “worksheet” that was apparently sent out to the nation’s school teachers. It’s here.
If you’ve ever seen a teacher worksheet (ex was a teacher), it’s pretty standard fare. Mostly reflection stuff that they would do with any type of speaking assignment. If they were watching a video of a presidential speech from the 1920s, probably a lot of the same stuff.
The fact that the RW nuts are getting worked up over this would be hilarious if it weren’t so damned insane and tragic for our country. They think this “stand” will score them points with the nation, but it only reveals how absolutely insane they are. And this is only 8 months in. We’ve got 3 more years of this crap at least! Our only hope is that their spittle-flecked rage will somehow burn itself out after a while. There’s only so much anger you can keep going for so long. Alternately, we could maybe find a way to use it as an alternative energy source.
I don’t wade into the cesspools of comments at far-right sites, but you should check out the thread at Outside the Beltway. Obama is compared to Mao and Satan.
ricky
As a parent of a child with racial characteristics similar to that of our President I am concerned. If my son is exposed to Obama while the lad is in full flower of puberty he may feel attracted to a strong black woman who looks good in shorts.
kay
@JK:
“Obama’s 9/8 speech to students itself will likely be mundane; the real agenda here is not a one-day message from Dear Leader–it’s the opening of the door for the public school system to separate you from your children.”
It’s preemptive. They know the PSA isn’t going to be controversial. She’s doing what they did with the birth certificates, the death panels, and on and on. When the actual facts don’t fit the charge, they switch, and make it about evil, secret intent. Because evil, secret intent can’t be disproved. This is classic malicious.
I know we ask this again and again, but why are media letting them get away with this? What do reporters and others GAIN from this weekly lie-fest? This is every week, week after week, from January.
Leelee for Obama
@ricky: May the FSM grant that prayer, my friend.
AkaDad
If I tell my daughter to stay in school and work hard it’s good parenting, if Obama says it, then it’s Liberal indoctrination.
I get it now.
JK
Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison are hot and bothered over Obama’s upcoming speech
Gov. Rick Perry today released a statement on the controversy surrounding a speech that President Barack Obama will give to students next week. Some schools, including those in the Leander school district, will not allow their teachers to show the president’s message.
Said Perry: “While President Obama talking directly to school children could be a memorable moment in their young lives, I am troubled that local school boards and superintendents were not involved in the process. State law gives parents the discretion over whether they think this is appropriate for their children. I hope schools will provide a suitable alternative for students not participating in this event. I also hope that this is not an indication of the federal government further encroaching on states’ authority over education.”
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who is running against Perry in the Republican primary, also expressed concern, saying, “I share the concerns of many parents about the President addressing schools in a way that leaves little choice for parents if the speech includes a political agenda. The original worksheet put out by the Dept of Education raised this possibility and caused a legitimate public outcry.”
h/t http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/politics/entries/2009/09/03/perry_troubled_by_rollout_of_o.html
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Leelee for Obama:
George Carlin on “Saving the planet”.
Beeb
The Republicans are going to throw a hissy fit every time Obama breathes. The amazing thing is that the WH still hasn’t figured that out. Where’s the counter punch? Why wasn’t the first response to ask why the GOP opposes working hard and staying in school? Why not ask Michael Steele when the party platform will include using drugs and dropping out? It isn’t enough for the blogs to do this. Dammit, I want a WH war room punching Republicans, not progressives. It would make such a nice change.
Fleem
@ChrisB:
Beck is on the record as saying he IS a “rodeo clown.”
It’s his job to distract the media (and anyone else) from those whose perniciousness is less carnivalesque. The serious people are too busy debunking Beck’s outrageousness to address the real creeping evil — Broder, Frum, Klein, Douhat, anyone else who passes for a legitimate pundit but is really just spewing their sewage sedately, instead of with fanfare.
Olbermann matched Beck last night for carnivalesque, though. Maddow, right afterward, called his performance “spectacular.” Boy,howdy.
Leelee for Obama
@arguingwithsignposts: Thanks for the link, Signposts.
I must still have a sense of humor, because reading this, I kept hearing Hawkeye Pierce saying to Frank Burns, when he finally finds what he thinks is a bomb, turns out to be kimchee!
“Good God, man, you’ve discovered sauerkraut!”
If only some reporter would make THAT kind of fun of this insanity!
ricky
@JK:
Apparently Rick Perry was concerned that he did not have time to issue an Executive Order allowing Merck to vaccinate all Texas schoolgirls to prevent them from contracting cancer due to exposure to impure thoughts
caused by watching our President.
kay
You know what sucks? I bet the intent here was to get this message to kids who will not hear it at home. They’re at school, and Obama’s personal story makes him persuasive to the intended audience. I’m not talking about race. I’m talking about hope. He would not be where he is without the educational bona fides, whatever you think of the actual value of degrees, the wider world thinks they’re important.
He knows that, and he speaks on this with heart-felt passion.
It sucks that conservatives denied those kids this small gift. They’re ungenerous and mean-spirited. I loved these sorts of PSA’s as a kid, because corny as they are, they mean someone “important” thinks talking to you is a good way to spend 15 minutes. If he even reached 10,000, and the rest were doing their nails or staring out the window, that’s huge.
It wasn’t about them. It was about someone else.
They’re too stupid and self-centered and blind to figure that out. And the moronic blinking nodding media look like deer in the headlights, again.
Max
Even this Obama School Speech controversy is too much for President Scarborough.
http://washingtonindependent.com/57766/joe-scarborough-takes-on-the-gop
At some point don’t the rational members of the GOP have to call out the batshit crazy? Racist fucks, all of ’em.
Ash
Seriously though, it’s HARD to think like a dumbass. WHY would anyone think that telling kids to work hard would lead to this? They just get fucking crazier every day. Is the White House supposed to come up with a plan for when Republicans start bitching that the Obama’s only eat Romaine lettuce and discriminate aginst Iceberg?
it’s just so fucking exhausting trying to keep up.
Sloth
I think they have. I am increasingly of the opinion that the WH is actively trying to achieve the wingularity. I can’t say I disagree – I’ve voted republican in the past, but I wouldn’t vote for a republican for love or money right now. They are insane.
If nothing else, they can’t *stop* this from happening, so why not go with the flow?
Davis X. Machina
I know we ask this again and again, but why are media letting them get away with this? What do reporters and others GAIN from this weekly lie-fest? This is every week, week after week, from January.
The people who own the outlets get to make more money today, and keep more of what they make tomorrow. after the glorious Restoration. The talking heads are jockeying for money, to some extent, but the real battle is the inside track to preferment, and profitable places at Court come the blessed day when the King comes into his own again.
They’re just warming up. The governments-in-exile broadcast over the BBC into occupied Europe for years.
babette
Margaret and Helen, again on target:
http://margaretandhelen.wordpress.com/
Leelee for Obama
@Ash: This. Is. It.
Just like the death panel horseshit, there is no f’in way to head this crap off at the pass, because NOBODY SANE would think this way, and even psychiatrists will admit it’s impossible to predict what the mentally ill will do.
John S.
I am absolutely speechless over this.
That the schools are entertaining this fucking farce is beyond insane. That the media is entertaining this insanity is beyond farce. That so many of our fellow Anericans actually buy into this is beyond tragic.
I just can’t believe that after 8 years of the national discourse being dominated by extreme deference for the oval office, that disrespecting that same office comes so easily.
I understand we have a black Democrat as president, but still…
South of I-10
@Michael: Thanks for summing that up for me.
arguingwithsignposts
@Ash: @Beeb:
I think part of the problem is that despite all the talk about the “Chicago Way,” many of the folks in the white house (rahm excluded) are sincere about what they are trying to do, and Obama does seem (as much as I dislike it) to try to act as a good faith negotiator with the other side.
It is hard to get your head around the fact that this entire worldview is non-existent in teh nutter party. Harder still is figuring out a way to combat it. If the president or his main people were to start counteroffensives, they’d be called out for being “petty.” It’s a perfect strategy for a three-year-old to try. Now it’s writ large by a major political party.
Scott
I know we ask this again and again, but why are media letting them get away with this?
The media leans hard right, and they agree with it 100%. If some lunatic shot Obama, the media would line up to say maybe it was okay to shoot him when he’s soooo controversial, and maybe it’s time to put Sarah Palin in the White House instead of that craaaazy Joe Biden…
Davis X. Machina
That the schools are entertaining this fucking farce is beyond insane.
It’s not insane, it’s perfectly reasonable — crazy people pass the budget that contains my paycheck. School budget referenda rarely have turnouts over 30%.
They’re public schools, and that makes them ipso facto political schools.
kay
@John S.:
Schools are in an impossible position. The rabid right are REALLY LOUD, and schools depend on community support and dollars.
I wouldn’t do that job for love or money. Imagine the class they’re getting. “I pay your salary”. The ultimate conservative trump card. Shudder. Thanks but no thanks.
arguingwithsignposts
@Sloth: I almost hope you’re right.
kay
@Davis X. Machina:
You said it better than I did.
Leelee for Obama
@babette: Thanks for the link. I officially love that post! And as my Mom’s full-time care-giver, I want to tell that lady, thanks for knowing.
Montysano
I’m always amazed at the apparent fragility of the right wing/Christianist worldview; any exposure, no matter how slight, to differing viewpoints is treated as if one were being exposed to plutonium, instantly deadly. Listening to local wingnut radio on the drive to work this morning, a local mom says “I WILL NOT allow my children to listen to That Man!1”
What’s anyone’s guess as to the actual size of the birther/deather/tenther demographic? 15%? 30%? More? It’s hard to gauge, because the MSM, knowing that outrage p0rn draws eyes to the teevee, makes them seem huge.
The Saff
@kay: That’s exactly what I was thinking this morning as I listened to Rich Masters on the Bill Press Show. Obama came from a working class family that didn’t have connections. His mother and grandparents instilled in him the value of working hard on getting a good education. What parent in their right mind wouldn’t want the president to impart this message on kids?
The right is so blind in its ignorance and hatred that all rational thought has ceased to exist in their tiny, closed-minded universe.
General Winfield Stuck
I expected all along the shit would get deep and crazy, but didn’t come close to contemplating, “Death Panels” and screaming heavily armed wingers at dem political events. And not the absolutely insane and offensive horseshit of the reaction to Obama talking to school children. Something that has been standard fair since I have walked the earth.
Peak Wingnut may be unreachable, but damned if they ain’t trying and every day seems to one up the previous on sheer absurdity and vitriol. So I will give the Obama WH a break on dealing with what is really undealable batshit insanity.
kay
@Scott:
I watched a little of the coverage this morning, and they will not say the accusation is untrue. Instead, they said “both sides” are lobbing accusations. THAT is factually untrue.
By staying “neutral” they’re actually reduced to lying. It’s ludicrous.
JohnR
Have you noticed how it has already blossomed? Only a few months from a few rabid haters being told what to do by Fox, and now it’s an essentially self-sustaining reaction, and is growing by leaps and bounds. When half the country now isn’t sure what’s real and what’s not, then it’s simply too late. I’m afraid that it does seem to be the case that Mr. Obama was simply not prepared for the response he would get. He has 2 kids; I would have expected him to know that you have to react quickly and thoroughly and try to stay one step ahead. Maybe it’s because he has 2 girls instead of 2 boys, I don’t know.
When people can bring guns to a Presidential appearance, let alone high-powered rifles, and the media don’t rise in furious response, the country has crossed a line. Cheney has actually won, and somewhere even Nixon is sadly shaking his head.
JK
@kay:
Tammy Bruce is seriously deranged. She called Barack and Michelle Obama trash on her radio show.
@Fleem: @ChrisB:
I’m one of those people who think that Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Michelle Malkin, and Bill O’Reilly truly believe every single word they speak. I don’t think they are just acting. Their rhetoric is outrageous, but I think they believe the things they say with every fiber of their being. They are malignant, virulent media carcinogens who pollute our airwaves and have poisoned the public square for civil discourse.
There should be a special place in Hell reserved for these hate mongers alongside Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes.
@ricky
My sympathies for the rational Texans who are stuck with that jackass Rick Perry as their governor.
Elie
As horrible as this period is, we have to go through it and we have to overcome it.
We have ripped open a deep infection in our spirit and the treatment of it is to engage it and actually push the edges of it to make the pus run out.
I have been both encouraged and dismayed when informed by others more knowledgeable about American history on this site have informed me that this sort of destructive, negative character assassination is a consistent quality of the opposition at certain periods in our history from John Adams to Tyler. We know that Lincoln was called a monkey and even worse by his opponents..
So we have to keep perspective and like the Exorcist in the movie, ignore the bile and not let the ugly creatures before us dictate our way forward or fill us with fear. That is their intent, of course, to dissuade us from taking up our cause and to be intimidated by their antics.
Its all the same — all of it is a manifestation of the Beast that is always present in the human spirit. It can only be vanquished by our positive and confident determination to not be affected by it.
kay
@General Winfield Stuck:
I have huge problems with Democrats, but I’m stumped by this. I don’t know what they do with this, other than just replace Obama with McCain.
I mean it. There’s no defense. if they did defend, they wouldn’t do anything else. This is EVERY WEEK. We listed them yesterday. There are tens of fake controversies. One or so a week.
PaulW
Remember Newton’s Third Law of Motion that states “for every action there is an equal opposite reaction”? It’s different in politics: “For every Democratic action there is a monstrously disproportionate Republican reaction”.
On my blog I’ve been wondering when my “Obama Shoelace Hypothesis” will get proven – the point where the GOP and their media suckups will attack Obama for the way he ties his shoelaces. This may not be about his shoelaces, but damned if this isn’t the tipping point that proves me right.
The Republicans are complaining about Obama doing a perfectly normal function of the Presidency: speaking to the youth of our nation as part of his duty as Chief of State. Bush the Lesser did it, Clinton did it, Bush the Elder did it, Reagan did it, Carter did it, Ford did it, Nixon tried it, LBJ did it, Kennedy did it… anyone notice a pattern? Every President is supposed to speak to this nation, to provide leadership and motivation and morale, and the Republicans are throwing a goddamn hissy fit about it.
This is almost the same reaction they threw when Obama was invited to speak at Notre Dame. Only this time it’s worse: whereas the Far Right was outraged a pro-choice President was speaking to pro-life Catholics, this time the Far Right IS ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED Obama is gonna turn all our kids into GODLESS SOCIALISTS! Based on absolutely no evidence but their own built up animosities towards him.
And the crazier they get, the more they get their damn faces plastered all over the plasma screens. Attention whores, the lot of them. Can’t wait for the moment in the movie when the wingnuts shoot us in the back, leave our collective corpse floating in the pool, and finish the evening with a grand flourish down the staircase for the cameras and lights…
kay
@JK:
Well, that’s great. People are “trash”. She’s inspirational. She’s someone I want talking to 1st graders.
I am upset. I think this might have been quite important for certain kids, and the selfish creeps have denied them a shot. Sometimes what certain people say sinks in right when you need a lift. 15 minutes? They couldn’t give them that shot, in the hopes that it arrived at a good time for maybe 10%?
No. It’s all about their kid, and them. This is self-regard and self-importance taken to absurd levels.
Ash
Demo Woman
When my son was in second grade, Reagan spoke to his class, he came home so excited because the President of the United States spoke to them. Did I say Reagan is an ass trying to indoctrinate you, no. There is no sense of common decency among ‘some’ on the right.
What exactly do they mean by family values?
The Saff
@Elie: “We have ripped open a deep infection in our spirit and the treatment of it is to engage it and actually push the edges of it to make the pus run out.”
This made me laugh out loud but you’re totally right. Unfortunately, I’m not sure how much my poor head can take.
Elie
kay:
I believe that the target is not Obama but US who support him. The demoralization has been working to some extent because we think that Obama is the target and we havent done the right thinking to repel its effect on those who support change
The antidote is to keep supporting and actively doing what we need to do to pass healthcare reform, energy reform and anything else. We have to target our message of encouragement to our own partisans and forget about responding or addressing or in any way trying to get tangled up in the crazy.
We need to meet with our people openly and have speeches and written pieces that speak of our positive beliefs and how to keep going through this.
Instead we focus on and amplify the worst of what we hear — becoming these evil people’s amplifyers of the worst. We have to stop repeating it (and I am equally guilty). We know its purposely crazy and wrong and emotionally it works on us.
We have to stop facilitating this craziness by passing it along to ourselves. Yes, we have to respond to some of it, but we must overcome with our positive energy, not mirror the darkness. We cannot overcome it that way, I believe.
Davis X. Machina
I suppose I was unprepared, too. I thought that in this country “Shall we have a king?” was a settled question.
Having to deal with crazed divine-right monarchists isn’t anything that even service in the US Senate gives you much experience with. The only on-point preparation for a Democratic president would seem to either clinical work in abnormal psych, or a term as Ambassador to Swaziland, Lesotho, or Bhutan.
kay
@Demo Woman:
“On November 14, 1988, Reagan addressed and took questions from students from four area middle schools in the Old Executive Office Building. According to press secretary Marlin Fitzwater, the speech was broadcast live and rebroadcast by C-Span, and Instructional Television Network fed the program “t o schools nationwide on three different days.” Much of Reagan’s speech that day covered the American “vision of self-government” and the need “to keep faith with the unfinished vision of the greatness and wonder of America” but in the middle of the speech, the president went off on a tangent about the importance of low taxes.”
You just shake your head, right? What the heck do you do with liars like this? It doesn’t matter what actually happened, or happens. They just throw shit out there and get it to stick for 12 hours.
SGEW
@Demo Woman:
“My family has more value than yours.”
rs
Maybe instead of a speech he could just read My Pet Goat.
Leelee for Obama
@kay: Kay, love, the sad thing is, almost half, and sometimes a bit more than half, vote for the Liars.
@Leelee for Obama: I direct you back to my post here. This is who they are. I haz a tremendous sad today.
I hope Elie is right, and this is the great purge of infection, and the little buggers are in their last throes, if you will. Hate using that, but it was irresistible.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Davis X. Machina:
This. What he said. Ditto. Rinse-lather-repeat.
You don’t even have to go digging around in French political history for parallels. Today’s GOP are the Confederates of 1860, who in turn were the political and in some cases quite literally the biological descendents of the aristocrats who supported Charles I against Parliment in the English Civil War of the 1640s. They hate democratic self-government via parliments and legislatures, prefer monarchy, and are willing to settle for an elected rather than hereditary monarch only for as long as they get to pick the King. As soon as they lose an election, their first instinct is to piss all over democracy itself and do their best to blow it up.
John S.
@kay
You’re right about the untenable situation the schools find themselves in, but I expected more…
I keep expecting more of our citizens, our media and our public officials, and it’s turning out to be a very bad year for expectations.
Maybe I’ll get my wish on my super lucky birthday of 09/09/09!
JK
@Demo Woman:
What do Republicans mean by family vaulues?
John Ensign family values, Mark Foley family values, Larry Craig family values, Mark Sanford family values, David Vitter family values, Rudy Giuliani family values, Newt Gingrich family values, and Ted Haggard family values.
kay
@Elie:
Thank you. I will try. But not today, because this is making me emotional. I am feeling sorry for myself, because it’s unfair.
I’m going fishing at 3:30. I’m not coming back until this historical period is over :)
Beeb
Is the White House supposed to come up with a plan for when Republicans start bitching that the Obama’s only eat Romaine lettuce and discriminate aginst Iceberg?
Yes. It isn’t that hard. Just start with “there they go again,” insert the truth, and then point and laugh. We already know that Republicans hate American farmers who grow arugula. Ask them why they want every lettuce variety but iceberg to be imported from other countries rather than grown right here in the USA. Why do Republicans hate American farmers?
NOBODY SANE would think this way, and even psychiatrists will admit it’s impossible to predict what the mentally ill will do.
With respect — and that’s not snark, I mean genuine respect — Republican insanity is not a random term. Systematic cognitive bias can be predicted even if the exact flash point can’t. If you understand what their predictable memes are, you can develop some all purpose counter punches. That’s what a war room is for. Maybe Obama can’t do that himself without seeming petty, but the WH could. It just isn’t.
(Perhaps I should add that I never bought all that kumbaya crap anyway. I don’t want to extend a hand to the crazies. I want to rip off their heads and piss down their necks. But that’s just me.)
ericblair
The amazing thing is that the WH still hasn’t figured that out. Where’s the counter punch?
How are you going to get the word out? The right has spent decades putting together a powerful wingnut welfare and propaganda apparatus, funded by a few billionaires who will give tickets to the gravy train for anyone committed enough to whatever the rightwing spew of the week is. The Democrats didn’t do this, and in fairness the nature of the Democratic party wouldn’t have allowed it. We’ve got a lot of the Web, but nowhere near the media penetration.
A lot of the time, when we complain that nobody has gotten the word out, or responded to rightwing crap, the fact is is that they did. Which was covered on CSPAN3 at 2:30 AM, if you’re lucky.
The only way I can see to really put the mass media’s nuts in a vice is for Obama to threaten to go on TV every second evening at 8PM to get his message out if they’re not going to cover it otherwise. It costs the networks millions every time in lost ad revenue. If they start refusing to put his addresses on public airwaves, have the FCC start holding hearings into yanking broadcast licenses, since the stations are refusing to meet “public interest, convenience, or necessity” guidelines. They’re our airwaves, not the stations, and they have been given very valuable use of them supposedly for a public purpose.
Rosali
My friend appeared on the O’Reilly show last night (Laura Ingraham was filling in) in defense on Van Jones. He was not allowed to make his points because Laura and the “GOP strategist” were busy shouting him down with nonsense. This morning he reports that he has received loads of hate mail. The hate is real, frightening and dangerous.
asiangrrlMN
@Elie: This was beautifully said, and I agree with you.
Unfortunately, I am at the end of my emotional reserves right now, so I just cannot fucking deal with the stupidity. My heart is raw and hurting, and this last bit of idiocy is just enough to push me over the edge myself.
Eight fucking years of systematic destruction and dismantling of everything we supposedly hold dear in this country and not a peep. President Obama wants to talk about staying in school, working hard, and working for the better of our country, and that’s indoctrination?
Fine. Let the fucking country burn.
Va Highlander
@Elie:
Well, in the absence of leadership in the White House, I suspect your approach is about all ‘we’ have.
MikeJ
My long standing joke has been that if Al Gore named his next book, “Jumping from Tall Buildings is Bad For You”, we could get rid of half the wingnuts with the first press run. Perhaps Obama should do something similar with his address.
General Winfield Stuck
@kay:
We all will, if Mike Viquera is correct in his reporting today from Capital Hill. A BIG if for sure. But he’s saying it is fact that there are not enough votes to pass the Public Option, ANY WAY it’s attempted, including getting 50 VOTES for Reconciliation. I don’t buy that at face value, but the guy is up there every day.
We can all take some comfort however, that Obama will give us a clear idea of where he stands next week in his speech under the Capital Dome. The air should get cleared greatly, one way or another.
Brick Oven Bill
Obama’s problem is that as a black kid at private school, he was a protected class, and was immune from criticism. In Chicago, he collected his political tribute, and was also immune from criticism. He thus entered the Presidency unprepared.
The combination of his arrogance with the introduction to criticism, and the first taste of rejection on a personal level (“Harry, where did my gift go? Harry, where did you go?”) will be something to watch. Just wait until somebody publishes a picture of Obama smoking a cigarette.
This Van Jones guy Obama picked is a real winner too, I like the dancy-head-bop thing. Van Jones seems to think that windmills can power electrical grids. Maybe he could do a show and tell.
Demo Woman
@kay: He also spoke about the Challenger event if memory serves me. My little one was a great believer in Reagan and now that he’s an adult, I tease him relentlessly.
@SGEW: Someone was spouting off in front of me about family values, and I responded that hate was not one of our family values.
Ash
Except that doesn’t do a damn thing. Have you seen how many times Gibbs has laughed off some bullshit while looking like he wants to strangle someone?
It’s become increasingly apparent, every day, that reality doesn’t matter. Saying, “Uh, that’s a lie, this is the truth, those people are crazy” doesn’t matter.
asiangrrlMN
@Brick Oven Bill: Fuck you. Seriously. Just fuck you, B.O.B.
asiangrrlMN
@Ash: Agreed. It doesn’t matter how much laughing anyone on the left does if the right is allowed to continue spewing this shit ad nauseam with no repercussions.
Demo Woman
Shorter BOB, Obama did not realize that as a black American he would be attacked because of the color of his skin.
Obama’s arrogance only means that he doesn’t know his place.
Leelee for Obama
@Elie: Again, I hope you’re right here. I plan to write my newspaper, again, and send an e-mail to the WH. Maybe sanity can become viral if we just stop letting the insanity affect us so much.
Part of the problem, as I see it, is Democrats are not a monolithic group, and when the groups start sounding like the opposition, the pillars of defense are shaken. I don’t mean we shouldn’t poke the President with a stick when we think he’s wrong, but the way my fellow-Democrats like to threaten to withdraw support so cavalierly makes the opposition stronger by default.
asiangrrlMN
@Demo Woman: Thank you for interpreting. I only read the first line, and then I had to poke my eyes out with a dull fork.
Demo Woman
@asiangrrlMN: You said it better than me.
I’ll second that and add another fuck you BOB.
Elie
Va Highlander:
I think that much of combating this is up to us since we are the targets. I agree though, of course, that the WH should be a bit more energetic and project more confidence. it will have to learn to do that as we learn. That confidence is the source of the success that the other side has had in opposing us — the confidence of true crazy.
I was watching a very uplifing piece on the show POV on public teevee last night.
It profiled five children accross the world and what each had to do to receive an education of any sort. Despite many, many set backs and all kinds of adversity from having to dodge bullets to get to class to attending at night with no books, many of these courageour children and their teachers asserted their determination in the face of even lethal repression.
Surely, we can do this which is nothing by comparison.
Buck up now everyone! We are not wusses and we are going to get this done and let them say what they want to say…What they stand for and what they are doing is stupid and at the same time, hilarious – they can’t stop us. Only WE can stop us.
Leelee for Obama
Truthfully, I don’t even look at BOB now that he’s back. The shunning will continue until the posts improve.
SGEW
[insert standard formal request for banning Brick Oven Bill here]
. . .
It’ll work one of these days!
arguingwithsignposts
@asiangrrlMN:
Thank you for expressing my thoughts exactly. I was almost missing BoB’s random thoughts. now i remember why he was banished and wish for the peace and quiet again.
MikeJ
While I don’t agree with everything BOB says, I don’t understand your hatred for pie. It really *is* delicious, even if that’s all BOB ever talks about.
RobertB
One of the downsides to all this is the following: I had a discussion with a coworker this morning, who wasn’t what I’d consider a particularly low-information voter. Her take was, “I heard he was going to say something controversial.” Without knowing exactly what was going to be said, nor caring enough to look it up, she could assume the worst. “Oooga booga booga!” “Kill your parents!” “Support the Public Option!” Whatever.
Obviously the GOP is turning the pig-fucker politics up to 11 and ripping the knob off. And why not? At the very least it causes Dems to waste effort putting out fires that could be spent advancing their agenda, and if you cream off a middle-of-the-road voter here and there it’s a net plus.
Leelee for Obama
@MikeJ: {{I don’t understand your hatred for pie. It really is delicious}}
I’m on a diet, Mike. I’m thin enough, really, but I don’t want to be a fat-head!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Elie:
Well said.
As bad as it is getting, remember that folks during the Civil Rights movement faced down guns, dogs, firehoses and lynchings that had the tacit and sometimes explicit backing of the state and local govt, with a federal govt that was often indifferent and at times openly hostile to them. And they won – not right away, but eventually they won.
ronin122
So how about that peak wingnut theory of yours? I bet every day you wake up you regret ever coming up with that more and more. Seriously though, I knew today’s conservative weren’t playing with a full deck for a while but this is ridiculous. And we’re supposed to have a half-way functional democratic republic when this is considered half the debate? This craziness almost makes me absolve the Democratic party for its failures, as how can any government function when the only other major party is dysfunctional to the point of self-destruction? I just cannot see it, either we get dysfunction with two parties switching between a weak confederation of liberals + corporatists and a bunch of mental patients, or the GOP goes into irrelevance and we’re stuck with a mediocre Democratic party without a serious opponent. Kinda sad but I really do think we cannot get a better D party so long as we got the current GOP, won’t explain further how but if you think about it, it makes sense.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@ericblair:
My fantasy is that Obama, fucking fed up with the whole thing, would throw down the gauntlet and insist that Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, who-the-fuck-ever, join him for a nationally televised “chat”. Sadly, this would probably blow up in our faces, with Limbaugh et al refusing to comply, all the while screaming about “censorship” and “intimidation”.
Va Highlander
@Elie:
Sorry, but I have to call “shennanigans” on that one.
Obama, the man WHO WE HELPED PUT IN THE WHITE HOUSE, is the target. To pretend otherwise is just ignorant.
This situation really is Obama’s problem. It’s Axelrod’s problem. It’s Howard Dean’s problem. It’s Emanuel’s problem. But y’know what? They’re more concerned about distancing themselves from the Dirty Fucking Hippies that helped deliver the White House and both Houses of Congress.
Strawmanmunny
I think it’s time we call all these stupid,racist pricks bluff. You don’t want government, OK, let’s give you no government.
Let the banks fail, don’t let FDIC reimburse you for anything you had in the banks,get rid of SS,Medicare and Medicaid. Don’t put any stimulus into the economy and let’s see that unemployment rate really rise. Let the roads rot. Let the bridges rot. We can turn America into the Thunderdome pretty quickly, and let’s see them bitch and moan then.
I’m thinking of getting the hell out of dodge and if it wasn’t for my mother being 77 and needing me, I probably would. I just can’t take this amount of stupid and hate anymore.
Da Bomb
@Brick Oven Bill: WTF?
As a black kid he came from a protected class. Are you really this batshit insane?
Barack Obama grew up as interracial child in the 60’s and 70’s, an era that it wasn’t really cool to be bi-racial. What in all of holy hell are you pontificating about?
This is one of the most inane, idiotic, comment that I have ever read. I have read some stupid shit, but this just tops it.
You come on here blathering your rascist bullshit constantly. I mean what happened that you don’t like blacks, were bullied by a black child growing up? Did some non-deserving black person take a job that you so “whitefully” deserve? Did some black woman reject you sexually? I just wanna know why you are such a fucking idiot! That’s all.
General Winfield Stuck
@MikeJ:
I like BoB alright, for a troll. If he would just become colorblind and drop the obsession with race, his pie is edible.
Otherwise, it’s another stretch in the Brick Oven.
Elie
ThatLeftTurn:
Yep — this is nothing. We are not facing one nth of what many others have faced.
Remember, the target for this is US, not Obama. It is meant to demoralize and de-energize us..
Its easy. Don’t let it in, don’t repeat it, don’t send it to others. Kill their message among our side…
WE.ARE.NOT.STOPPING.
The Saff
@Da Bomb: Thank you! Excellent smack down of BOB’s stupid.
J. A. Baker
Fixed.
Va Highlander
@Elie:
I mean this in all sincerety: I am just a heartbeat away from stopping.
I’m tired. I’ve had it with the stupid, but worse I’ve had it with trying to defend an administration that does not, to all appearances, share my values.
Torture? Well, we’re supposed to let that pass and hold no one accountable.
War in Iraq and Afghanistan? We’re supposed to be all war, all the time, with no end in sight.
Puplic option health insurance? Not so fast. Ms Snowe might not approve of that one so out it goes.
Accountability on Wall St? No, might upset our corporate sponsors, so that won’t wash, either.
Am I missing anything?
Elie
VA Higlander:
You and I have different perceptions of our national civics.
It doesnt matter.
If it helps you to think that they are the targets and we are just bystanders, well, ok.
Its a completely disempowered view of our civic reality, in my opinion. It is our energy and our committment to support the various leaders (including Obama), to get what we want done. WE are the PEOPLE. Obama was elected to do what we bid. It is OUR call, and our WILL that will get it done.
LBJ could not have passed civil rights without the people supporting it.
Big tasks require broad support and a lot of energy from the people to enact.
You seem very negative to me. By constantly railing at and resenting the administration, you take power from yourself and send nothing but negative vibes to others who you might recruit to push for what we want. That just kills success.
Just blaming Obama over and over is not without some accuracy, but avoids YOUR responsibility for doing anything. Did you think that ended when you pulled the lever so to speak on voting day?
Wise up and get positive. Go look in the mirror. Its up to you.
arguingwithsignposts
@RobertB:
This.
Mario Piperni
What gets me is that the crazies are winning this fight. When the President is forced to pre-release a speech he’s giving to students so that the loons can verify it’s propaganda-free…well, there’s something seriously wrong out there.
Out of Control
kay
“Obama can’t just say hey to the kiddies and encourage them to do their homework. He has to make this a — what does the Left call it? — a teachable moment. A speech-in, if you will.”
PRESIDENT REAGAN: Well, thank you very much. Please, be seated. You know, this is a real treat for me, having you here, and to have in a little while the chance to answer some of your questions. Let me also offer a special hello to those of you who are watching on C-Span, or the Instructional Television Network. Thank you for inviting us into your home or your school today …
Because you see, the taxes can be such a penalty on people that there’s no incentive for them to prosper and to earn more and so forth because they have to give so much to the government …”
There’s just no accountability. They can say and do anything, no matter how easily refuted.
SFAW
So? Just like Maria “Latinas, si! Yanquis, NO!” Sotomayor, he had everything handed to him on a silver platter because he’s colored. What about the poor guy who was passed over for President of Harvard Law Review, just ’cause he was white?!?!?!
Because, to hear some of you Lieberals tell it, The One is playing 12th-dimensional Vulcan chess or something.
It’s only hard if you think they’re not completely bugfuck insane OR completely consumed with hatred of a darkie in Teh Black House OR actively trying to destroy this Adminstration. In some cases, it’s all three. So why would you EVEN CONSIDER that there is any limit to their nihilism? And, if one operates from that basic assumption (i.e. no limit), then you DON’T need to anticipate their next move, but you DO need to respond immediately, overwhelmingly, and ruthlessly.
I don’t know him personally, but I hear that Rahm is ruthless AND smart. So what’s his fucking problem? Does he want his boss to fail? Whatever other failings Carville has, he figured it out pretty well in 1992, and that’s a large part of the reason Clinton got elected. This Administration is starting to remind me of Chamberlain (and I don’t mean Wilt) – looking for that piece of paper to wave in front of the crowd, while the Rethugs are laughing at him/them, and getting ready to invade a metaphorical Poland.
Strawmanmunny
What we need is our own crazies at Republican town halls. Interrupt their ass and ask them why they don’t want people to have coverage. Tell them they are facists and corporate lapdogs. Tell them they are against the “everyman” American and trying to strip him of his health.
THAT’s what should happen. It doesn’t take Obama, it doesn’t take “Democrats”, it takes a bunch of these whiny ass “progressives” I see bitching and moaning on Kos to get out and fight fire with fire.
The wingnuts aren’t waiting on Republican leadership to tell them what to do, they do it.
SFAW
Of course, BoB beat me to it.
ppcli
The abc thing was encouraging, but the NYT piece was journalistic malpractice. They didn’t mention the Reagan speech at all, and only mentioned Bush I’s speech on one line, followed immediately by “and congressional Democrats complained”. Otherwise it was just graf after graf of flat-earther calibre ravings, presented uncut and without a hint that we are dealing with sheer, utter, lunacy.
Va Highlander
@Elie:
“Constantly railing” implies…well…my constantly railing and you have no evidence for that.
The Republicans are screaming about death panels and indoctrination of our precious youth and you’re saying I’m sending out “nothing but negative vibes”? From what planet are you phoning this in, sunshine?
And what makes you think that condescension is a winning strategy in this case?
Elie
Arguing with Signposts:
Yeah, it does occupy the White House to put out fires. But we don’t have to put out our own fires…they may have to manage the news but we don’t have to spend all our time regurgitating and amplifying the negative messages ourselves, do we?
For cripes sake people, does it ocurr to you that some of the problem might be US to some extent?
Jeez —
I hate to think what would happen if we actually had to fight for our freedoms! (Ooops — thought someone else would do it and we could sit on our asses in front of the tv and watch it being won for us. What a bitch, we actually might have to do something besides post on blogs)
b-psycho
I suspect the curiosity around barring the kids from listening will end up nudging many of them towards Obama, not away from him.
Hey, it worked that way with gangsta rap…
Elie
VA Highlander:
You posses the keys to your own attitude and your own empowerment.
Its not up to me.
You want to quit?
Quit then.
kay
@ppcli:
There is a good question, though. Where are the Democrats? They have access to the Obama speech. They could be out ridiculing this all day. They could be playing the Reagan clip, over and over and over. They could actually (and easily) win this one.
They aren’t. If they’re waiting on the press to act, they’re going to be waiting a long time.
Molly
Had someone tell me today “Well, with you people (i.e., we liberals) getting so riled up over this, we obviously struck a nerve.” And I responded with “Of course you did. I can’t stand stupid people.”
Onward.
The Saff
@SFAW: Yeah, the reason he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law was because of the color of his skin.
You’re an idiot.
J. A. Baker
@PaulW:
I think it’s already been proven: they attacked him for his “price of arugula at Whole Foods” comment during the campaign, and more recently, they slagged him for ordering dijon mustard on his hamburger back in May.
SGEW
@The Saff: I’m pretty sure that SFAW was being sarcastic/snarky to rip on our resident racist and sexist troll, B.O.B.
[N.B.: SFAW’s initials are perilously close to my own, but I hope confusion will be avoided. I am not SFAW.]
Sloth
Really, BOB, it’s time for your masters to upgrade your algorithms. Something better than random spew would be more entertaining.
IAC, I actually *was* at Punahou a few years after Obama, and I can assure you that he would have seen some racial abuse, either there or outside of school. Immune from criticism? Snort, I wish.
And there was this Presidential campaign thing? It got a little heated there. Just a teensy bit.
You are mistaking ability to tolerate a ton of crap for inability to tolerate crap; as for the why, it may be useful to look at a map. Hawaii, you will no doubt be surprised to note, is comprised of a chain of islands. Yeah, waaay out there. Honolulu is (surprise!) not even on the largest of them or even (Whoa!) on the one named “Hawaii”. Those bastards.
It’s a pretty small place, all things considered, and it is remarkable how fast anything that goes around will come around. This is more than likely causing Obama some problems now; he’s OK with not firing back full bore. He’s learned (perhaps wrongly) that bullshit will be soon known as bullshit. Maybe not so true these days. Maybe very untrue, in fact.
henqiguai
@Strawmanmunny (#139):
Wouldn’t work. Adherents to the current Republican Party dogma would happily go to instant physical violence in “support” of “their” people. Democrats, not so much.
The Saff
@SGEW: I was going back to the comment @ 138. And I would never confuse you with any troll. I like your comments. I’m just sensitive to all this bullshit coming from the right wing because it is so stupid.
Elie
kay:
I agree with you about the Democrats and am puzzled by their lack of response — to anything!
Have they been given some sort of message to do that or are they like us, slightly demoralized from the amplification and continued repetition of the negative, negative, negative crazy, rinse repeat.
I am trying to control my own mood and sense of empowerment.
Next Sat am hosting a fundraiser at my home for local county council persons who have supported progressive environmental and county supported health care clinics. I have a lot of folks invited and they know to bring their check books. Times are tight I know and if folks cant provide dough, we are asking for their time to doorbell and attend town hall meetings. We have plenty of signs.
I have to get up off my seat to stay positive. I am a former nurse, and I have to keep active and try to manage my own message and state of being. I NEVER watch the news on tv — EVER.
ppcli
@kay:
Yes, agreed. They can’t just hope that all Americans will start watching the Daily Show.
.
The longer this goes on without an effective and energetic response, the more the Obama administration, and Obama himself, look weak and hapless. Come down hard on people who spread lies. Tell Grassley (deniably, of course) that if he utters one more “death-panel” type lie, every single pet project of his will be cut, vetoed, and/or neglected by the relevant federal agency. Start dropping (back-channel, deniable) hints that superfluous military bases will start getting closed in wingnut districts. Always ask: what would LBJ and Sam Rayburn do to people who stepped out of line like this? Bring the hammer down hard.
kay
@Elie:
I’m worried that there’s no response, because it’s so bad it has to be intentional.
I mean, there are clips of Reagan promoting guns and a low tax rate over a three day broadcast to schoolchildren.
Not using those is political malpractice.
asiangrrlMN
@Elie: It’s a bit offensive for you to assume that people have done nothing but rail and bitch. On blogs, that’s mostly what people do. It doesn’t preclude people going out and doing things to push through healthcare reform.
I think that you give too much power to the people and Van Highlander gives too much power to the administration. It’s not that concrete.
And, it doesn’t help to tell people not to vent about this stuff. The crazy is not going to go away if we don’t address it. I don’t think we need to obsess about it, but the crazy is doing real damage to the debates over healthcare reform and every other important progressive issue. It also doesn’t help to say this is nothing compared to what civil rights supporters had to face because the obstacles are completely different as are the situations.
Taking a step back and saying, I can’t–not right now, is not the same as quitting. I or no one else this close to burnout is any good to the movement, anyway. If I were to press on (as I did yesterday), I would just explode and make matters worse (as I did). Sometimes, a hiatus or a respite is needed so one doesn’t completely break.
It’s not all or nothing.
Va Highlander
@ppcli:
I agree, though I must admit having profound misgivings.
This is not the kind of politics I want for this country, but then again, looking at the national discourse right now, this is not the country I want this country to be, either.
I should love to think that a couple of rounds of Kumbaya might help. I somehow don’t think it will, though.
Wile E. Quixote
Can we start shooting Republicans yet? Seriously, can we just do to the Republican party in this country what we did to the Nazi camp guards after World War II where a bunch of troops just said “Trial, fuck that!”, and lined them up against the wall and gunned them down?” Can we start sending massive fleets planes out to firebomb Republican strongholds? These people are a bunch of Nazi loving racist dipshits who hate freedom and the Constitution. Indeed if you were to ask me what the biggest threat to the Constitution is today I’d say that it’s the Republican party.
Also where is the White House on this? I think that asking the question, posed above, about “so does the Republican party now feel that dropping out and doing smack is the way to go” would be an excellent thing to do. Or asking when the Republican party started worshipping Hitler and Neville Chamberlain and the idea of appeasing dictators. Why is the Democratic party so goddamned fucking weak? Do the Democrats want Ralph Nader running again in 2012? If they don’t pull their fucking heads out and show some leadership and courage they’re going to get just that.
Elie
asiangrrl:
Your point is well taken though it was not my intent to say that all people are doing is railing and bitching and that many if not most arent doing other things to help.
Still, its important to hear the challenge that I laid down to us once in a while. It IS easy to get passive and let the power of the negative overwhelm us…I have to say I did as well until I made myself do something else.
The other side has no magic information or spell over us besides that we give them by being sucked into it.
Yeah, venting is fine as long as we don’t always let it affect our mood and committment.
Unfortunately, that is what IS happening reading the posts.
I also was not trying to make a sweeping condemnation of blogging — (obviously that is what I am doing, eh?).
Sometimes however, people forget how to actually DO things as citizens — and that DOING makes you feel better.
Apologies if offense was given otherwise. Not something that I ever want to do to most folks on this site.. EVER
SFAW
The Saff –
SGEW was talking about 138.
I’m guessing you’re relatively new here.
SGEW –
I know, sometimes when I’m ripping down a comment string, I have to take a second to make sure it’s you, not I, who wrote a witty and subtle comment.
Of course, if people confuse for one another too much, we’ll need to plan a Steel Cage Match
Va Highlander
@asiangrrlMN:
Want to know what’s killing me? My eighty-year-old father, the Bill O’Reilly fanboy, said the other day that Obama was being driven by the far-left.
I laughed in his face. I mean, Jeebus, how far in denial can you be?
And I’ve felt like crying ever since.
If only it were true…
The Saff
@SFAW: I apologize for not recognizing the snark.
The Saff
@SFAW: And I apologize for calling you an idiot.
ppcli
@Va Highlander:
I agree that I’d like to see reasoned discourse prevail. But I should also observe that in my home country the most effective left-wing leader of the century (Trudeau) accomplished what he did not just by reasoned discourse – at which he was a master – but also by being ruthless when he had to be.
pcbedamned
@ppcli:
And we have been suffering from it ever since…
SFAW
The Saff –
Now you’re making me blush.
Thanks for being classy. (#163 alone was more than sufficient, by the way.)
I’m not as frequent a commenter as General Stuck, or asiangrrlMN, but I’m here often enough that I figured you’re new.
Stay with it, John’s a lot of fun. So to speak. Also
Sloth
I imagine, happy as they could possibly be about all this.
Consider: all these representatives and senators have been doing townhalls. These are people used to respect. They do not react well to being pissed on. Go watch Claire Mccaskill’s town hall, for example – the exasperation is visible. At one point she even says “You don’t trust me? Maybe I should just go home.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDPpGJDelHI)
And it’s only worse now. The claims have become even more wild, the disrespect even worse.
So all these people who will be asked to vote on a healthcare bill have been abused by a bunch of people who -manifestly – don’t have the slightest clue. And, on the whole, the people on the other side have a clue and have been respectful.
So, listen to the loud, assaholic idiots? Or the other side. Easy choice, especially if you are a dem. The assaholic idiots won’t *ever* vote for you, not *ever*.
So I rather suspect this has worked out very well for Obama. His poll numbers may have slipped but I would not be surprised if his actual vote position in congress has not improved.
The Saff
@SFAW: This blog is one of the few things that helps me maintain some sanity in this nutty time. It’s a smart bunch here, except for the random troll. And the pets! Those are teh awesome.
SGEW
@Elie, asiangrrlMN, et. al.: I’m torn between several directions at the moment. On the one hand, the current political “discourse” is so dispiriting to me that I’ve found myself paying ever less and less attention recently (Hooray for retreating back into the Ivory Tower! Reading ethics disquisitions has been so much better for my mental health than reading about what Glenn Beck said). On the other hand, I certainly recognize that individual citizen involvement is absolutely essential for a functioning political community, and just because I busted my ass to get Obama elected doesn’t mean that I’m somehow off the hook now. And I agree with Elie that political involvement can, indeed, make one feel much better.[1]
But on the gripping hand, I think that it’s important that we don’t become overly judgmental of each others’ public choices on how to be an engaged citizen, or on each others’ private choices on what is best for our own emotional and mental health. There is a balancing act, and every person has to gauge their center of gravity for themselves.
However, to contradict myself and be momentarily judgmental:
@Wile E. Quixote: Calm down there, cowboy. Try to remember that we’re the “good guys.” Abysses, staring, monsters, all that. (Yeah, I know it’s hyperbole etc. etc., but that kind of violent rhetoric is inherently illegitimate in a free society).
So saying, I suppose that I must similarly disavow SFAW‘s proposed Steel Cage Match. Sorry.
[1] Yes, sometimes it can make you feel worse (some of the environmental protests I’ve been involved with in the past have wound up being tremendously depressing as we watched yet another stretch of old growth forest get clear cut despite our best efforts). But it’s still worth the effort.
SFAW
SGEW –
Hey, the Steel Cage would just be mano a mano between us, and it has nothing to do with Rethugs.
You’ll disavow it over my dead body! Oh, wait …
ppcli
@pcbedamned:
I think you must have confused him with Mulroney. But never mind….
Ketzel
I’d like some advice please – I got an email forwarded to me and want to know how to respond (yes, I know how I would LIKE to respond but I live in a small town and have to live with these people). So any good wordsmiths out there who can tell me how to politely tell these people they are being lied to, made to feel fearful, etc. Below is an excerpt from the email.
“I had five way heart by-pass surgery a year later at age 73 (in 2008)
If the rules of England’s health care cited below not allowing surgery as described above after age 59, I would not be above the sod today if I was not in a position to pay for it personally. All of the above was covered under the existing Medicare and Blue Cross Supplementary insurance that I pay for.
George Coffey
WHEN YOU READ THIS, REMEMBER ….. THE ONLY ONES WHO WILL BE EXEMPT ARE THE OBAMA FAMILY AND THE FAMILIES OF MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE AND SENATE, THE SUPREME COURT, AND A FEW OTHER SELECT GROUPS…..SUCH AS THEIR CRONIES AND THOSE WHO SO EAGERLY AND LOVINGLY TOOK THE BAIT AND VOTED FOR “CHANGE” ARE GOING TO GET YOUR “CHANGE,” ALL RIGHT …. BUT IT’S GOING TO BE THE SAME AS THE REST OF US GET. AND YOU AIN’T GONNA LIKE IT, EITHER!! ”
(sic)
Seanly
hmmm, I think Obama should prepare a little speech for the kiddies every week. While all the wingnuts & loons in the House & Senate are blathering on & on about it, the Democrats can go ahead & pass the measures that will fix this country.
Maybe it is part of Obama’s plan to drive the wingnuts so completely insane that they all become catatonic.
If Obama came out against abortion, put us back on the gold standard and stopped collecting taxes, the wingnuts would still go nuts.
Va Highlander
@ppcli: Trudeau is a good example of what I’d like to see in a political leader. I don’t expect to see someone like that in this country though, at least not in my lifetime.
Sloth
Dear Sender,
You should be worried. The actual plan is to restrict medical care to those with a measurable IQ.
A Ghost To Most
@henqiguai:
Well, we could keep biting their fingers off
Leelee for Obama
@Sloth: Obviously, some of us here are playing right into their hands!
Leelee for Obama
@Leelee for Obama: Meant generally, of course, not anyone specific, i. e. not you!
Leelee for Obama
John Harwood told Dr. Nancy today the the people behind this are stupid! Perhaps too stupid to be raising children.!
I think I’m in love.
Elie
@173 —
How would you handel a delusional communication with anyone?
If we assume this person is not mentally ill (which we really cant assume), you deal factually and blandly with the content.
Example:
“Oh I am sorry that you have such misinformation about the British health care system! How afraid you must be believing such a horrible thing! I’m so sorry that someone was so cruel to have you believe something that is a provable lie.
The Obamas and other leaders would receive the same care that you do if we adopt the changes to the system being considered. Isnt that the wonderful!? No two tiered system for the haves and have nots like we have now.”
If a person is mentally ill, you cannot engage their delusion since it does no good. Mostly, they should be medicated and placed under observation for potential danger to themselves or others…
gocart mozart
G. W. Bush liked to fuck goats. It must be true because it is in the comment section of balloon juice.
RobertB
In a bit of good news wrt Obama’s school address, my local school district (Hilliard, OH) changed their mind, and will now show it after all. I’m sure that my conversation with the superintendent’s secretary enabled him to see the light*.
*may not actually be true. I think someone pointed out that it had been done before by previous administrations.
Midnight Marauder
@Ash:
Seriously though, it’s HARD to think like a dumbass.
But it’s not that hard these days to think like a Republican. If the Balloon Juice commentariat can anticipate Republican faux-rage time and time again, I would think the group that beat the Clinton machine and got the first black guy elected should be able to pull that off as well.
Midnight Marauder
@Va Highlander:
It’s Howard Dean’s problem.
I agree with everything else you wrote there, but I have to call shenanigans on grouping Dean with those guys. He’s definitely been out there fighting the crazy far more than those other guys. If there’s anyone who could serve as a model for combating the insanity, Dean is on the super short list.