As I noted in an update last evening would almost certainly be the case, the media today is pushing the story that the firm owned by McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, lobbied for Freddie and Fannie Mac — all while continuing to ignore exploring, at any length, Sen Barack Obama’s actual ties to those closely related to the current economic meltdown. Not only that, but the Davis-as-tied-to-crisis story is disputed by the McCain campaign — which alleges that the NYT has reported in bad faith, and that public records back up the campaign’s claims that Mr Davis cut ties to his firm in 2006, and that he never lobbied Freddie or Fannie Mac (and in fact, hasn’t been a registered lobbyist since 2005).
All of which, I suppose, is not surprising; after all, the media seems to think that the Sen from Illinois is running against everyone but Senator McCain, from the Gov. of Alaska to a campaign manager, and so their function has been to try to dirty them and hope that as the stories accrue, the public is left with a certain impression crafted by their reporting, while the facts that undercut this impression will ultimately only be “corrected” in the back pages of the paper, if at all.
The fact is, McCain hired Davis to run his campaign, not to write policy. And it was McCain who spoke up for the reforms that could have forestalled the current crisis while Obama remained silent and collected more money from the corrupt Freddie and Fannie Mac than all but Chris Dodd.
I’ve noted before that we are now fighting an all out ideological war for the survival of the democratic republic. In fact, I’ve been making this same argument for years now: when the press, under the cover of “objectivity,” is allowed to function as an advocacy arm for a particular ideology and its titular representatives, what follows is a necessary skewing of facts — and a carefully constructed attempt to frame “stories” with “lessons” that the public will interpret “correctly” (according to those attempting to teach the lessons from the perspective of their own personal advocacy).
This is not hyperbole: a free society relies on a free press to inform. That the mainstream press leans demonstrably left is not the problem in and of itself; the problem arises when that demonstrable bias is given cover as “objective,” and when those who believe they are basing their support for a candidate or platform on objective reporting are in effect doing no such thing, but are rather being coaxed, prodded, directed, and manipulated — in everything from what comes to count as newsworthy to, in cases like these, shoddy reporting (which may or may not be intentional), the effect of which is to leave those who rely on the media literally less informed than had the media reported nothing at all.
A free society cannot run this way. If information is power, those who control the information and its mainstream dissemination are in a position to act as the most important swing vote in any election. That the press has given up, at this late stage (and despite declines in readership and public trust), any serious attempt to report objectively suggests that we are now quite immersed in a battle for the very principles of a democratic republic. Progressives have decided that the ends justify the means — that lies in the service of greater truths (as defined by their own ideology) are both pragmatic and utilitarian measures to be adopted so that “we” can finally get things “right,” and accept government from a permanent political class, a new aristocracy, that will expand the federal government in ways that will protect us from ourselves, in the process, assuring that ever new generations will be reliable upon the good graces of the federal government for their survival.
The new media held promise for fighting back. But the left recognized this immediately and built a counter balance to the MSM fact-checkers — and, in a perverse expansion of their role as foils, these progressive “netroots” are now responsible for feeding stories to the mainstream press, a further assault on the Enlightenment mandate for the free exchange of ideas, and further proof that progressives are every bit the totalitarians and would be fascists that I have long suggested they must necessarily be, given the philosophical imperatives that underwrite their political philosophy.
But enough of the abstract. Over at the Pub, Dan has put together a link-rich exploration of the specifics — including the roles of Raines, Gorelick, Pritzker, and Johnson — which help bolster my more airy musings:
The media push to drive all of the responsibility for the sub-prime mess onto the shoulders of the Republicans seems for the moment to be working. Sen. Sherrod Brown was on NPR yesterday stating that the crisis was created by greedy Wall Street bankers and Republicans who deregulated the finance industry. His depiction was too much even for Terry Gross, who stated, “Spoken like a loyal Democrat.†To which Brown answered, with a certain lack of vocal conviction, “Well, it’s true.†After claiming that the Bush administration had never tried to do anything about the situation.
[…]
Mind you, I don’t give Republicans who’ve voted against oversight for Fannie and Freddie a pass, nor do I give greedy Wall Street financiers a pass, or the home equity loan bastards who now feel they’re entitled to a bail-out. But tucked into the Congressional provisions we now find that there are bail-outs for student loans and car debt. While Dem-leaning policy wonks talk about the inherent unfairness of the Feds permitting certain firms to fail and buying others, they seem not to mind that the government has intervened to save some homeowners from foreclosure while letting those who have gone before them sink, or that some people may have paid off their student debt or automotive financing, while they contemplate making us hold the bag for this. Are any of them going to recuse themselves for having accepted discounted loans from CountryWide or any of the other mortgage lenders? […]
Read the whole thing, which goes into even greater detail.
For my part, I’d just like to again reiterate that, should the press be allowed to comport itself this way under the current mythology that it is dedicated to “objectivity,” then every election will be necessarily skewed — if not by Evan Thomas’ infamous 15 percentage points, than at least by a number significant enough that it could very well be the deciding factor in every major election.
At which point, we’re dealing with no more than simulacrums of free elections, and the idea that we live in a democratic republic is but a useful fiction we tell ourselves as we slide ever more toward western European socialism and away from the principles this country was founded upon.
What’s the solution? I don’t know. But my suggestion would be either a press that surrenders the pretense of objectivity all together, or else some brave upstart looking for market share to come in with a clean slate of dedicated reporters who are taught not to “frame” facts into narratives that deliver “lessons,” but are rather instructed to report basic facts, almost genealogically — and without even the trappings of narrative.
Even then, omission and sequencing can be used to affect interpretation; but at least such things are easily recognizable when the tropes of “storytelling” are entirely removed.
It’s not just the media pushing it, Jeff.
We are so fucked.
Anyway, I’d like to welcome our new O!verlords.
I cannot see how Obama loses this election. I suspect he pulls it out 40-10 in states. All that has been said here is true, but yesterday’s hearings were the nail in the coffin for McCain. The average voter looks at this debacle and says, “No more.”
Im not real happy with that decision, but I’m not some partisan nutsack either. Things are not good economically and are not likely to get better short-term. That’s not easy for a republican to move past.
There’s a guy making hilzoy’s argument on Limbaugh at this very moment. Of course Limbaugh is doing his best to argue back but the caller is not moved. Limbaugh is over the edge freaking out.
Don’t blame me. I voted for Kodos.
“I cannot see how Obama loses this election.”
That’s definitely a thought that has been percolating, although I’m still skeptical of any large electoral shifts from 2004. I think the MSM realizes this deep in their collective reptilian brain, and will do all they can to ‘even the odds.’ That said, the constant deluge of negativity towards Republicans and conservative ideology channled through the 91 smears and counting of Palin is like a torturee being worn down day after day. They can only resist so long. This election is playing out to be Obama-MSM v. McCain-Palin. Interesting times.
Put the bong down, son.
If the media were nationalised into a Ministry of Truth there wouldn’t be any perceivable difference. I make this point even to die-hard Lefties who think the media is rightwing and they don’t argue otherwise.
>>What’s the solution? I don’t know
Personally? I tend to read Indian news when I want something substantial-ish.
Very nice Jeff…..but unfortunately the same….err…..intellectual challenge that renders HockeyMom such an appealing candidate for the yeomanfarmers, also renders them profoundly unable to grasp the nuance of your elegant and detailed historical presentation.
Alas, all the yeomanfarmers are likely to see is their 401’s and homequity vaporizing while the dollar goes into free-fall…..while the repubs have had their hands on the tiller of our economy for the last 8 years.
;)
From my reckoning McCain still has the ammo for an October Surprise:
– Adds on Obambi-Ayers Annenberg thing, “Obama: A friend of terrorists,” and such
– Adds on O!’s ~$100,000 handout from Fan/Fred Mac contrasted with McCain’s 2005 call for reform.
It ain’t over quite yet.
“while the repubs have had their hands on the tiller of our economy for the last 8 years.”
Are you aware that Congress has been controlled by the Dems since 2006?
No, it’s not. See #9. The ar-tards are pushing it, too.
Given how much stories and spin in the mainstream press these days are driven by the meme makers in the lefty blog hivemind, I find that a distinction without a difference.
There is really no other megaphone. We don’t live in a democratic republic any longer. We have, essentially, a ministry of truth — one that believes its acting in the best interests of the nation, where “the nation” is reduced to “that which needs to be ruled by people like us.”
How to put an end to this?
Jeff,
Let me suggest, for argument’s sake, that Enlightenment principles presupose that human nature is sufficiently benevolent to sustain a society based on such ideas.
But what if that presumption is wrong? What if human nature is generally too perverse to sustain such ideals? Liberal democracy is, if anything, an anomaly in history. That human nature is generally too perverse to sustain an Enlightenment society indefinitely would mean that a society governed by those principles would at most be temporary, and then we should be resigned to accept that the appearance of such societies at the most comes in cycles.
Consequently, if true, it would mean that civilization as we know it (or would like to have maintained it) is likely near its end, and then we just have to prepare for it–or at least prepare future generations for the inevitable change of ideals.
“How to put an end to this?”
Union grease guacamole bombs. And also plastique on strategically located transmitters. Maybe.
So much, I think, is going to depend on the debates. No matter how hyperpartisan the moderators are, they can’t actually answer questions for Obama. Both candidates will be asked the same questions. And I think McCain — who has been doing this for a lot longer — will have the upper hand.
“Consequently, if true, it would mean that civilization as we know it (or would like to have maintained it) is likely near its end, and then we just have to prepare for it–or at least prepare future generations for the inevitable change of ideals.”
Well if that’s the case, we might as well bring back the old tar and feathers approach..
“How to put an end to this?”
A good first step would be acknowledging that IQ-baiting is just as real as race-baiting and gender-baiting.
That both sides are deeply engaged in tribal warfare and identity politics……and that Palin is not qualified to be president of the United States of America.
That would be a start.
Because it’s not an argument. It’s just a thing to say. The immovable non-arguer was satisfied — because his mental work was done — at the moment he was provided with it.
(By a racist.)
De-Platonizing space virus.
And torches. and pitchforks.
Can’t have a proper violent mob without torches and pitchforks.
The republicans are screwed because they have to debate the moderator and the guy controlling the mic.
This hurts democrats too, who grow soft because they’re never challenged on their views in a public way. cf “Elder Statesmen” Joe Biden.
Where it hurts america is when we actually do elect an Obama. He has faced no serious ideological challenge thus far in his campaign, and the media treats him like he’s the golden boy for simply not shitting all over himself at the dinner table. Ace is correct in saying that Obama can’t play the race card in an election, because that’s not going to work in a staring contest against the khomeinists or Putin.
“and that Palin is not qualified to be president of the United States of America”
Heh. Memebot strikes again, forgets the Dali Bama has less experience than Palin, therefore is not qualified to be president by her own reckoning. In fact he said as much in a speech in 2004.
An even better first step would be to admit that baiting the master can cause blindness.
I thought that was Viagra.
CS —
I don’t agree. I believe our Constitution enshrines those ideas and makes them difficult to circumvent. That some have found a way to do so — turning eduction into indoctrination, distorting the idea of a free press, perverting the First Amendment, and using the courts for “social justice” — just means that we need to reaffirm what the original principles were, and note their intent.
We need to beat back the “living Constitution” crowd that is responsible for much of what we are now seeing — and we need to do so by reaffirming certain basic linguistic and interpretive principles.
We let the new left insinuate itself into our institutions. But they are still a minority. There are ways to fight back, but I suppose we have to be as farsighted as were those looking to destroy the system from within.
Charter schools and an evolution revolution would be a good first step. McCain’s noting that education is the civil rights battle of the 21st century is a good all.
Another tack would be to begin well-financed “counter sheets” to the major newspapers, the AP, etc. Not just the Bozell type stuff — but print newspapers that can be sold alongside the major dailies that act as fact checks for layman the way blogs do for the politically engaged.
I don’t believe for a second we need to surrender as inevitable the failure of a system based on classical liberal principles. I think instead we have to re-present its virtues, and to beat back the totalitarians and fascists.
Dash that speech must never be spoken of or referenced again. The MSM has decided. Much like the waffling variations of Obama’s post Wright “to disown or not to disown” speeches.
Since I take you as serious as a heartattack psycho can you help me flesh out De-Platonizing space virus, cause I’m just not getting it? Or is the mere request too Platonic (what’s it look like, etc)for your tastes?
>>How to put an end to this?
I wouldn’t worry so much, Jeff. The media and the people who still believe them don’t really have a feeling for where the center actually is anymore.
Witness nishi up there – do you think she’s got the merest clue what an average anybody thinks about anything? And look, she’s even here, every day, reading all these comments – and nope, not one solitary realistic idea. Hell, she thinks this here blog is somewhat extreme…
People in general no longer trust any of them so they’re becoming less relevant to the public every day.
The sticking point for worry is that the ‘leaders’ still take the NYT/WaPo axis seriously. They still read them to know what to think about things. There will come a point where that’s no longer as true but we’ve just not reached it quite yet.
They have insinuated themselves into churches too. Reference TUCC. I wonder if some day one enterprising little progg will try to get tax exempt status by citing the readers of his DK blog as his parishioners.
“Charter schools and an evolution revolution would be a good first step”
Agreed. This would be a strong first step in removing the teachers’ union stranglehold on education. Hire better equipped teachers instead of the usual crop of community college grads (no offense, pay them higher salaries, results based incentives and eliminate the old guard; restructure the curriculum, e.g. teach ‘Western Civ’ instead of ‘Global Studies’ to freshmen (NJ public school fetish); make the AP course curriculum de rigueur for all history students. A start, methinks.
Urthshu, it depends, I think, on how you define “leaders.”
I do think the country is moving in a direction, and I do think that direction is determined by the (you’ll pardon the expression) great mass of the people. Politics has historically been the theory and practice of discerning which way the parade is going, then running to get in front of it.
The
mainstreammedia have deluded themselves to believe that because they are in front of the parade, they really are leading it, and can decide where it should go.You want to know where the parade is going, watch the trombonists.
Okay, I’ll bite. falconer, what, in your view, are the qualifications to be head of the Executive branch of the U.S. government?
I, personally, would argue that having some kind of executive experience on one’s resume would be kind of an important qualification; in which case Governor Palin, with all her faults, is the least unqualified candidate on either ticket.
(Or perhaps she’s unqualified because she has limited foreign policy experience? Bill Clinton had none whatsoever in 1992. Was he also “unqualified to be president of the United States of America”?)
In the Turing-test-failing code snippet’s opinion, Sarah! is unqualified to be president because she’s short.
Oh God, xj.
Do not nibble she is fishing.
All societies and systems eventually collapse. They sow the seeds of their own destruction. Most of the people who have ever lived have been lucky enough not to have experienced it firsthand. For those who were unlucky, well, God help them. It may just be that we are unlucky.
Hey, um dude, you don’t know what the truth is, much less own it. That you can turn on Fox News and see that they provide a conservative slant and MSNBC a liberal one is all you get, meaning you don’t get to turn off the other side entirely, most especially to turn off one side of the political spectrum solely based on personal assumptions and interpretations. Who needs to live in a world of one-sided ideologues, oh yes, Commies need that, forgot.
If you want to become a propagandist, that’s cool. Celine wrote pamphlets and just like paisley ties and bell bottoms the market for pamphleteers might come roaring back to fashion. You just never know.
Franklin Raines doesn’t run Obama’s campaign and is not related in any way other than they have each others phone numbers, as many in Washington do. Rick Davis was a lobbyist for FNMA and FHLMC, not directly but through a PAC. The semantics of denying Davis’s relationship are weak, downright idiotic, matter of fact.
Back to the media, framing matters not. Framing is and always will be what it is. Everyone is responsible for their own intellectual ability to recognize framing. Free press, free speech, the liberty to make a choice to be stupid or smart – it’s what America fights for and stands for.
Bush and his minions watched the meltdown and hid the truth, our economy is all a confidence game, remember. Today they want to change the rules, start afresh with a clean slate. Too effen bad, they already destroyed our reputation, which is what confidence, is ultimately built on.
This economy was overheated with economic activity (home construction) based on mindless borrowing. A false economy, that’s what they call that.
More borrowing on tope of past borrowing simply to save face won’t cut it. We’re going down if we keep playing liar’s poker.
Obama (liberals) won’t win this election because he/they know what’s right, but because you can’t figure out when you’re (conservatives) wrong.
“Hid the truth” by calling for more oversight over the GSEs.
You’re either lying or just don’t know any better. Hard to tell with you.
A math teacher (MSM) spends a week teaching a class on 2+2, if at the end of the week all the students (voters) answer 5 on the test there can be a few reasons for this:
1. Student are actually dumb.
2. Teacher did not teach the class properly.
3. Teacher taught the class the answer is 5.
I believe the MSM is using #3 in this election to get their guy elected. They tried it in the past but this time they are going all out. It’s like they know they are dieing and this is their last shot at being relevant.
Jeff G. –
By raising the issue of human nature, and what it is, fundamentally, I’m raising the question of whether we can expect the approach you outline to work generally, or even consistently. My raising the question about human nature does not suggest we should shrug our shoulders and call it a day. Rather, it addresses an “is” not a “should”.
Why are people attracted to certain, pernicious interpretive principles? I don’t think you can fully ascribe that to nurture. Argue with someone who thinks that such pernicious interpretive principles are the greatest thing since sliced bread long enough and, in many cases, it becomes evident that the reasons they have for accepting them are not rational. If true, then it won’t be a rational argument that, in the end, persuades them to accept a better understanding.
If true, then it means that while your line of arguing may be a necessary condition for the change you seek (and I believe you have done a fine job), it may not be a sufficient condition. That is why I raise issue of human nature as an explanatory variable (or set of variables) for the state of affairs (and thought) now and what that may likely portend for the future.
“You know it’s kind of hard
Just to get along today
Our subject isn’t cool
But he fakes it anyway
He may not have a clue
And he may not have style
But everything he lacks
Well he makes up in denial
So don’t debate, a player straight
You know he really doesn’t get it anyway
He’s gonna play the field, and keep it real
For you no way, for you no way
So if you don’t rate, just overcompensate
At least you’ll know you can always go on Ricki Lake…”
— The Offspring
Baracky
Rick Daviswas a friend oflobbyist for FNMA and FHLMCBill Ayers, not directly but through aPACCAC.And if you want to know where the parade is going, relying on clowns is a really bad idea.
Congratulations! This post made it onto Instapundit. I’m too busy at work to comment further, but here is a good analysis of the way the media and the left work symbiotically to plant false stories in the public consciousness.
“What’s the solution? I don’t know.”
Your first suggestion, “a press that surrenders the pretense of objectivity all together,” will never happen. They’ll never cop to gross omission, and call it editorial privilege instead. (Fill in excuses here…)
Your second suggestion, “some brave upstart looking for market share to come in with a clean slate of dedicated reporters,” is spot-on, but the problem is that the right is not diligent enough to boycott the existing players during the startup period.
The absolute best thing we can do is ruin their reputation as loudly, obnoxiously, and as publicly as possible, as the McCain has started to do, and to give our attention to the better media startup that emerges. It’s a culture war, and we don’t win it by continuing to support the other team’s cheerleaders.
“What’s the solution? I don’t know.”
Let’s know that solution and act on it.
Who knows more about stock and bond markets, me or you? Who listened to yesterday’s and this morning’s tesitmony, me or you?
What are all the Senator complaining about? That they weren’t fully briefed until a few days ago on the extent of the banking situation by Paulson and Bernanke, that’s what, hence “hid” is the word being used by both Dem and Repub alike.
I cannot see how Obama loses this election.
Drama queen. Two words. Bobby Jindal. This is just a financial Katrina redux, and people don’t turn to Baracky types for those. At some point people go oh. This is for serious.
Worse for the NYT has been the shrinkage of the actual paper. Articles are shorter and thus more concentrated in their leftist slant. Has anyone tried reading the editorials? I can’t believe this paper was once intellignetly written based on those editorials alone.
But I don’t lead the parade of Duuuuh, that’s your yob.
There is no solution in the sense of “Wave this magic wand and everything will work out”. Even Rome fell eventually.
Which is not to say the US is doomed to collapse tomorrow. My own opinion is that Europe will fall apart first, as they are farther along the fiscal mismanagemnt & press-as-lapdog paths than we are. Never forget that it took 70 years for the Soviet Union to implode.
The MSM is in its death throes. This could be their last chance to sway a presidential election. Could be. It also could take another 40 years before a majority of citizens realize Walter Duranty was a feature, not a bug. As usual, I am not optimistic. Given the polls I’ve seen this week, the blame for the current meltdown is being successfully foisted exclusively onto Republicans.
Do not lose hope. The Enemy is not omnipotent. Compared to the Thousand-Year Reich, the Empire of Japan, and the 1001 Dictatorships of the Proletariat, the MSM come across as ahistorical elitist layabouts – as in fact many of them are. Our troops face death every day, and persevere. Surely we can survive the greed & connivance of bankers and politicians.
“This is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never  in nothing, great or small, large or petty  never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” — Winston Churchill
“Well if that’s the case, we might as well bring back the old tar and feathers approach..”
Screw that. We need to see journalists hanging by their necks from lampposts.
“…they weren’t fully briefed until a few days ago…”
No, they were briefed Months and Years ago and chose to ignore the policy prescriptions that went with the warnings. Oh, who could expect them to grasp the seriousness of the warnings, after all, they’re just grubby politicians, right?
No you are in the parade of Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhh Uhhhhhhhh
I don’t think the nutroots are really “feeding” stories to the MSM. To the extent they feed anything, it’s simply lies and innuendo. It doesn’t make them an effective counterbalance to the fact-checkers at all, IMHO. It makes them an air horn at a basketball game. Obnoxious, but short-lived and easily ignored.
The papers are all dying. Evan Thomas’s 15 points is probably down to 7 or 8 this time. It will be 3 or 4 next election. In 20 years, there will be no sidewalk real estate monopoly. Every piece of MSM “information” will be one click from it’s antidote. Some day quite soon the Washington Times online or the New York Sun will be as powerful as the Washington Post. It’s not as bleak as you make it seem, Jeff. The asswipes may be emboldened this year, but soon enough they will out of work and trying to self-publish their memoirs or start new concepts in wrap sandwiches.
Franklin Raines ex CEO of Fannie = Not a problem for Obama
Rick Davis indirectly lobbied FNMA (lie) = problem for McCain
Bush/Cheney sold Alt-A’s and Subprimes to Banks, forced people to buy homes they couldn’t afford, obstructed their constitutional rights to read loan documents and subtract mortgage payment from monthly income.
No one saw market meltdown from last May because Administration hid it from view until Sunday.
Thor = still an anus
Good post. I don’t know how to combat it.
What if people start fighting the lefty Hate-fire with Righty Hate-fire (oh I know that lefties claim that the right is engaged in it, true at a minor level but not at the level of threatened gang rape of political opponents etc.).
That is, they start smearing the newspapers. The reporters. The owners. Digging up public dirt on private lives. Attacking the people who consume those viewpoints. The liberal bloggers.
Instead of liberal protesters groups of righty protesters start aiming to disrupt MSM production and distribution, start swarming any MSM reporter they see to shout them down….
Scary. Even if those sick tactics worked to kill off the liberal version of the Monster; wouldn’t we then become contaminated by those tools of the trade?
Still, I see the hate from the other side just steadly rising. I see failure of any on their side to stop it. And since it appears to be working, they won’t stop it and their opponents are noticing that it appears to be working.
So I worry that the lefty hate will bring forth a righty hate that is breathtaking in its scope.
The left has forgotten what will come from the tactics of totalitarianism. It will not end good.
ÂÂ
In a free society, redress is simple…
Boycott regular sponsors of NBC, CBS, NYT, and WaPo.
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You forgot ABC and the LATimes.
Thor, you don’t know shit about stocks and bonds. You calling AT&T a public utility yesterday is just a smidgeon of proof.
But Journalists are people too!
We’re going back to true populism, and O! is going to take us there! We drowned ourselves in our own excesses, besides, as nishi and I keep reminding you shriveled old white boys, the long days of Shockley are gone.
Almost Free beer! Cheap smokes! Government healthcare! Socialism, Fuck Yeah! With a half-Black dude playing point guard! Poets are anti-social again!
Hey – how would you like to live with a guy who is after your job all day long?
What we’re seeing is the final big MSM Obama Putsch to put O! over the top.
The past few weeks have been unsettling for them; O! hasn’t recieved the support that they thought they’d taught the public to respond with…
So they’ve decided to remove the mask completely. In concert with the steady drumbeat assertion that the eeeeeevil RethugliKKKans disdain for the little man and hatred of sainted regulation is the cause of the financial crisis, and that McMav-by his own loop-tape-replayed admission-knows nothing about economics; they have coupled that with the Sorelian lie that McMav, through his campaign manager Rick Davis, is directly implicated as one of the murderers of the economy.
While nothing could be further from the truth, this jab-hook-uppercut combination of lies, repeated ceaselessly, is a deadly combination with only 40 days to go before election day…
All I can say is Mav, and all of us, need to push back hard. Be it through letters to congressional types, editors, or corrupt reporters, we need to make our dissatisfaction with this charade known. And, we all need to de-bunk these fallacies within our own circles whenever they arise…Believe me, that’s tough here in NYC!
That and pray the blogosphere can drown out the town criers in the MSM and that “Astroturf” Axelrod’s underhanded tactics get exposed…
Fuck off, fucktard, AT&T is my local phone company.
newsflash: thor disagrees with everything. We’re all wingers. He and Celine are all that stands between a sane world and a theocracy. Except Obama. Who will act as a kind of faddish screen door.
That’s about the extent of thor’s commentary. Pepper it with base ad hom and vulgar attacks on Downs kids, non-trustfunders, women, and, lately, soldiers who dare speak up, and you’ve exhausted thor’s oeuvre.
So please, just ignore him from here on out. He is less than worthless. He is actually the embodiment of diminishing returns.
>>Given the polls I’ve seen this week, the blame for the current meltdown is being successfully foisted exclusively onto Republicans.
So far, but its still early right now. And there’s 3 aspects to it.
-unpopular president, but unpopular congress too. maybe they’re all to blame?
-who to blame, yes, but more important: who to fix?
-that the press lies is given, so who to believe?
Relying on clowns is always a bad idea.
FWIW, STFU nishitiot.
What the clown says does not matter, and we do not hear his words.
still doen’t make it a public utility
anus
We may have to stop hearing the words of those who speak to clowns.
The great German philosopher Josef Pieper has a similar argument in the book Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power, namely, that the latent potential for tyranny in a society stands in direct proportion to the way in which language is subverted from its natural purpose to inform. This subversion, which is in full flower in the MSM, treats language as a mere instrument for acquiring and maintaining power.
On the up side, we’re getting better at recognizing lies and much better at doing nearly instantaneous fact checking of the Dead Tree Media and the MSM networks. Yes – time for someone to start up a REAL network, with Internet distribution. Prolly cost all of $500 to get started, including the camcorders and the broadcast software. I say – “Lets Do This” !!
A free society cannot run this way. If information is power, those who control the information and its mainstream dissemination are in a position to act as the most important swing vote in any election. That the press has given up, at this late stage (and despite declines in readership and public trust), any serious attempt to report objectively suggests that we are now quite immersed in a battle for the very principles of a democratic republic.”
Translation: I am batshit crazy.
“What if people start fighting the lefty Hate-fire with Righty Hate-fire (oh I know that lefties claim that the right is engaged in it, true at a minor level but not at the level of threatened gang rape of political opponents etc.).”
Translation: I am batshit crazy.
The MEEEEEDDDDIIIIIIAAAAAA. 8 years of Bush against all odds. You guys are stewing now and all you have left is media bashing. It seems that, at this moment, the country is poised to make the right decision. Sorry you gotta be such whine-ass bitches about it.
Yes, numbnuts, it does, just look at your bill. Dick.Asshole.Pussy.
McGehee –
I’m done.
The troll: do not feed it.
Except, maybe, to the sharks.
Also there’s the aspect of having a bit of dignity about the whole thing. This is separate from the fixing it part.
Command economies are for sure the way to go. Just look at their history and successes. Power in fewer hands can only lead to the greater good for all? For the knowing knowers will leads us in our interests as we masses are too stupid to discover them. Price discovery? Ha, don’t make me laugh, our betters will tell us what the price is. And thus all will be well. Count on it.
Oh. Wait. Reductio is out, authenticity is in.
they weren’t fully briefed until a few days ago on the extent of the banking situation by Paulson and Bernanke, that’s what, hence “hid†is the word being used by both Dem and Repub alike.
Hilarious. “Hid” something happening in plain sight.
Or are you seriously suggesting Democrats are too dumb to understand what brought Fannie & Freddie down?
How did they defeat the ISN in Babylon-5? They cleaned up the mess that allowed it to happen, IIRC.
Now – I have a serious question here – I can’t find the part in the Constitituon where it says that only Harvard grads are qualified to hold the office of Vice President. Can anyone point it out to me? Or, did all those farmers and shopkeepers that originally wrote the Constitution forget that part? My bad – never mind….
There are plenty of options available here. Begin revoking press passes, make FCC complaints, challenge FCC renewal, work to cut off federal funding for PBS & NPR.
In short, stop giving them access. Marginalize and ridicule whilst mounting attacks on everything they require to stay in business.
This economy was overheated with economic activity (home construction) based on mindless borrowing”
which was based on the idea that nobody should be too poor to have a big nice house. I wonder who came up with that one.
Nishi and cynn aren’t wingers, well, at least not r-wingers.
If there wern’t those of us willing to stand up in a room full of foul-mouthed howlers then what?
World Peace? Can’t have that! Lap dance ain’t a lap dance unless there’s friction.
ArandomPerson, the ghost of Ceascescu couldn’t have said it any better. The Left in America has no idea what true right-wing violence is. Pinochet is just a name to fling at Republicans. Oh sure, they TALK about creeping fascism, but they’re utterly unprepared for the possibility of a backlash. If the economy really does collapse, there will be blood. Anarcho-syndicalists – admittedly a fringe bunch even to the Left – dream of smashing the machine and rebuilding society from the resulting chaos. They have forgotten (or never understood) two important points:
The machine bleeds fire.
The right-wingers have 80% of the guns.
Sean M.,
come on, dont Nishi me.
bong…you can do better than that.
straight edge for a decade, needless to say.
I think the people are going to “blame the CEO” and seek a shift.
You dont. Lets talk in 5 weeks.
I hope Im wrong–you catch that bit?
Jeff–
You write:
Is it not the responsibility of the individual members of the polity to inform themselves to the extent that they can recognize and correct for the media’s machinations?
That seems like basic critical thinking, to me. It’s not as though the only resources available these days are the stacks of papers at the news stand on the corner.
Forget trying to change the direction of the lumbering media behemoth…focus on the people who rely on it.
Relying on the legacy–or any other–media to provide a free-flowing teat of “objective” information is pointless and lazy. It seems to me that the true battle ought to be fought in the public school systems and in academia, where children and young adults are not being taught the logical and rational skills they need to recognize and counter propaganda from any source.
I’ve always found it interesting that many of the Dead White Males who became so unfashionable following the liberalization of America curricula were the very sources of systematic rational thought and critical analysis. Now we’ve raised several crops of students who feel good about themselves and can’t think straight.
“I cannot see how Obama loses this election. I suspect he pulls it out 40-10 in states.”
What about the other seven?
Zing!
Who is “you guys”? And what does Bush have to do with my argument.
Here’s a translation for you: “you are part of the dullard cultish set that is going to kill off classical liberalism. When you do, you’ll find that the cool kids you thought were your friends recognize you for the useful idiot you were and that, your having served your purpose, you’ll be one of the first up against the wall.”
You are too stupid to be commenting here, which is why you didn’t bother addressing the post. I don’t blame you for posting under a fake name. I’d be embarrassed attaching my name to such transparent idiocy, too.
Anyway, I think journalists are just people who successfully used their damaged educations. And the damaged educations, in turn, are merely in result of past purposeful diddling with social constructs.
Everything culture war-like is in result of the end of the Cold War, when all the secret and not-so secret Red cells no longer received funding for disinformation campaigns and the Current Unpleasantness is needed to regain normalcy. Hence, its inevitable that the fringe will fail, though it will take 2 generations or so to work it out.
Believe it or not, this financial shakeout will accomplish more than any backlash the Right could provide. Do you think anybody will study sociology in a protracted recession, or allow their kids to be taught BS as opposed to stuff they really need to know? Look for a return to community and religion, a can-do/make it work attitude too. There will be lasting contempt for pie in the sky theorizing and expenditures.
while the repubs have had their hands on the tiller of our economy for the last 8 years.
As a point of fact the price of gas has gone up over a dollar, billions have been lost in real estate, and Fannie & Freddie have collapsed all since the Democrats took control of Congress.
But remember, “accountability” is something people like you shout at elected Republicans.
Ian writes:
Yes and no. But as long as schools continue to teach that the press is some sort of guardian of truth and justice, it takes time and experience to disabuse people of that notion.
Most people aren’t as politically engaged as those who follow blogs, or read the Nation or the National Review or Reason, etc.
I don’t disagree with you in the long term, which is why I speak of the need to fix the education system and to correct underlying misconceptions of language. But as a stopgap, something must be done, because full Dem control of govt. can force upon us programs that may take decades or longer to extricate ourselves from. Most worrisome are those mentioned in the post on Brit language, above.
the great thing about the real estate cum financial collapse is that its 100% bi-partisan. Precisely every interest and partisan group is 100% wrong and to blame.
Ayn Rand ass-clown alan greenspan’s easy money policies were wrong. Lib dem intransigent support of their play-thing fannie mae and fredie mac was 100% wrong. POTUS could have mentioned to AG that DoJ might be interested in looking into the comic relief underwriting standards in sub-prime mortgages.
none of this makes great politics though.
So Davis cut ties with Freddie and Fannie in 2005 and has had nothing to do with them since? You mean, except for receiving $15K per month since then, and up until one month ago? I suppose it’s OK if his firm did no work for any of that money….
Bush certainly extolled such in his State of The Union addresses. Shall I retieve the transcripts?
WConsidering the previous administration got F&F into the Subprime business, you would have no point.
Then again, you have no clue.
And about 95% of the Bibles and 5% of the brains.
We have reams and reams of mad poetry!
I wonder where JD is. Haven’t seen him in this thread lately.
You mean, except for receiving $15K per month since then
You are not that bright and easily misled.
See Thor for the level of intellect which supports Obama and you see how the MSM can so easily manipulate the masses into believing any drivel they put forth.
The current mortgage crisis has been definitely traced back to FreddieFannie Mae. These two entities have been under the leadership and influence of liberals for two decades from Raines to Gorelick, etc. A look at the list of lobbying money funnelled to policitians reads like a Democratic leadership party, Dodd, Obama, Franks, and Clinton. Not a republican to be seen.
Factual real documentation have been widely circulated in the form of bills presented by Republicans, in particular President Bush and McCain, attempting to address the problems at FreddieFannie Mae and equally available are the obstructiveness of liberals like Dodd and Frank in videos scaremongering the Republicans as racist for not wanting lend money to the “underprivileged”.
And what does an Obama-doofus like Thor make of repeated attempts by Republicans to address liberal controlled institutions driving us toward a meltdown only to be stonewalled by bribed-liberals at every turn, it’s all BUSH’s fault!!!!!
Idiots!
The New York and Washington media are too afraid to go into Chicago.
They know that the “Chaicago Machine” will do what it takes to protect Obama.
Jeff, isn’t this more about Tom DeLay and less about language?
The Repubs blew their chance. Besides, Obama seems like a fairly reasonable guy, all things considered.
JD is probably having a nice lunch somewheres. Maybe even the kind where they start by asking if you’d like sparkling water. I find that obnoxious.
@67
The ST-TOS is strong in you.
Bush certainly extolled such in his State of The Union addresses. Shall I retieve the transcripts?
thThat, is not this:
<
Don’t worry, facts are not relevant to you.
Remember, it was the Republicans “deregulating” which caused this mess.
Douchenozzle, I’m not easily swayed, if you haven’t noticed. FNMA and FHLMC wouldn’t have been able to load off the bad loans onto the market without the magic of Wall Street and an appetite for ROI from a worldwide load of greedheads who knew more about calculating year-end bonuses than risk.
The totality is a little more complicated than political finger-pointing and cursing the NYT.
The reminder of “Evan Thomas’ infamous fifteen percentage points” leads me to ask for assistance: my unreliable memory tells me that there was an ABC memo telling the news department not to try to be objective, because Bush might beat Kerry if the media did not do the right thing. The memo was leaked. But do I recall correctly? Seems not; Thomas and Newsweek are probably what prompted my false memory. I have been unable to find anything on the internet to validate my recollection. Anybody??
Urthshu:
Right you are. Fire tempers steel, eh? It may be that a return to an economy based on product is in the offing. Ric Locke would sure like to see more americans who know how to weld, I bet. I know I would. Honor is in acting honorably not in a corner office on the fourteenth floor. *honor, what a pedestrian notion.*
Or it may be that if the liquid finance dries up, it may be an excuse for the “capitalism sure hasn’t worked for you proles” line to be resurrected. With all the nonteaching about the vast failures and pogroms of communism and the repeated swan songs from the social butterflys to Chavez, Castro, and Che, it may be time to reidentify McCarthyism as a good thing since it’s a way to punish the dirty capitalists who took away Bobby’s christmas Wii with their *gasp* deregulation.
Nobody is going to unleash any violence, Left or Right, while me and mine still exist. I rather like the idea of people starting competing entities and making sure the ones that try to hide behind “objectivity” get called out and exposed.
And people like Jeff that can provide some serious intellectual heft.
Here is for you Mr. Barnes
The analysis of the rape of our information stream…is right on the money. I’ve said it repeatedly in other forums, but this analysis sums up my own thoughts quite articulately.
As for the bailout, people should work through this…I’m trying…and I’m not coming up with anything that is making me all that comfortable.
Fannie/Freddie get taken over and bailed out of a sinking ship….which, is used…in turn…to take over a trillion dollars in bad debt, mostly underperforming mortgages…with a little extra “stuff” thrown in by the Democrats just for good measure potentially.
In working through how this might play out….the FM/FM purchase will come at a number that will “bail out” the banks, or it won’t work.
The problem with that “number”…is that it is likely to be 100% over the “value” at which it can be resold back into the marketplace. (use the figures of 80 cents bought and 40 cents sold, for instance)
Who is going to carry the rest of that burden on their backs?
Mr. and Mrs Taxpayer. There is no one else…the “government” is actually…you…in the final analysis.
And…by the way, this will create a hyperinflationary cycle, in which MOST of the people who live in the homes who are struggling with these mortgages will NOT be helped, the banks will have to raise interest rates (because how else is the Treasury going to make up the difference, except by raising their rates?), and nobody is going to qualify to buy this trillion dollar inventory…so there will be no market to purchase it all.
Then WHO gets “bailed out”? The banks. Who does not? The homeowner. Who pays the bill? The taxpayer.
And…if you are in the “upper percentages”, according to Sen. Obama…you should pay more than you already are, so your percentage of “payback” to the “government” will be basically raised through the roof.
The “rich” will be blamed for the crisis, but in reality…they probably did not default on their mortgages, did not create the mortgage crisis, already pay 75% of the taxes and will be first blamed, then told to shoulder the burden.
I’m not satisfied to simply say “the hell with the press”. The problem is, we need access to information for the success of democracy, and I think that’s what Jeff is trying to say. It won’t work to simply tear down the press and go on. If we don’t have some access to the truth then it’s much to easy for a tyrant on either side to take over. I want a press that will eviscerate dems and repubs alike, not simply one that plays the tune I like. For a long time blogs played that roll, that was until the elite understood the effect that the blogs have, so they started “astroturfing” and screwing over the only truly independent media source in America. So now what? Who knows. We need a media. At least of some sort, we cannot survive without it. We just need one that does it’s job.
>.while the repubs have had their hands on the tiller of our economy for the last 8 years.
What are you an astroturf for-pay serf regurgitating the slur of the day, or do you get off on beclowning yourself?
See also the way threats of violence has turned Islam into the left’s favorite religion: you get what you reward.
There is another JD posting. The JD that is scared of clowns and midgets, that is me.
I live in a red state. I am a right-leaning independent who supports McCain/Palin.
I see the current hate tactics from my sensible lefty friends. I see in response the hate rising in sensible righty friends. I see my non-political friends starting to avoid the topic, starting to pretend that nothing is going on beyond the normal.
These are just little behavioral changes that I see in my friends. No real evidence.
Jokes about one side having more guns or more intelligence aside, this time it feels different to me. I mean, political elections are always hyperbolic but this one, well, I have never seen my friends act this way before.
That worries me.
I think that many on the left have gotten so comfortable spewing Nazi analogs and worse at Bush etc. that the real warnings from that bit of history are lost to them. AFter all, who wouldn’t do ANYTHING to oppose a Hitler?
Perhaps Lefties see racism and hate everywhere in their opponent’s tactics and positions because they are aware that they are employing those sick tactics.
That must be upsetting to them and so they deal with that discomfort by straining to find racism in every one of their opponents actions.
I dunno. Most of the MSM has sold out and the indpendent bloggers (left and right) seem so tiny in comparison.
There’s a fairly easy way to deal with the MSM: do the job they refuse to do.
Here are three questions for BHO. Go to one of his appearances, ask him one of those on video, and upload it to Youtube. If you ask him a good question and you press him on it, he’s going to look very bad.
If enough people ask BHO real questions, it will also make the MSM look very bad and might shame them into doing real reporting.
Well, if anybody has the moolah to get us off the ground, I’m happy to be an anchorwoman or something. I’ve got shapely legs and a very nice smile. I could be, like, Katie Couric except with brains and a conservative bent. Or something like that.
I don’t do mornings, though, so that has to be part of the deal.
Just offering.
IQ-baiting! Oh, let’s have that discussion quellcrist falconer, please! As a past president of an ultra-high IQ society, let me assure you that what you are referring to are entirely social cues, not actual intelligence. Barack Obama gives off many of the social cues of intelligence, but none of the four likely has an IQ as high as Bush’s, Gore’s, or Kerry’s. Also Obama’s is likely lowest, not highest. He grew up in the era of required SAT’s and LSAT’s. If they were any good, we would know them. For example, Hillary’s campaign has let it discreetly drop several times that she was a National Merit Scholar and has a verified IQ of 140. (I believe the former and am suspicious of the latter). We know Gore’s SAT’s. There is no evidence, even from obscurer measures of his vocabulary and syntax when speaking on his own, that Obama is even 1SD above average. As an affirmative-action acceptance at all schools, his possible ceiling is as high as anyone there. But his possible floor is much, much, lower than the words “Ivy League” would suggest.
And yet those who complain of the media being in the tank over Obama continue to try to argue about the fitness of Palin or compare her to Obama, undermining any credibility. xj – you argue that “executive experience” is important. Sure it is. But it’s not a check box. What kind of executive experience? How much? 20 months of being Governor of Alaska. That’s it. For the sake of argument, I assume you don’t want to argue that being Mayor of Wassila is an important credential. Reagan was governor of California for 8 years. Clinton was governor of Arkansas for 12 years. That’s more of a case for executive experience. Do we compare 8 years of being Mayor of Wassila and 20 months as governor with 7 years in the Illinois Legislature and 4 years as Senator. Perhaps that is a matter of taste. But objectively both are a bit thin. That’s why I had supported Sen. Clinton. However, Obama was able to demonstrate his ability to me through 20+ debates and through interviews in the primaries. The case that his background at Harvard Law, teaching constitutional law at U Chicago, indicated that he was smart enough to be a quick study on these issues was validated during that process at least for me. But Palin only has 20 months of being Governor of Alaska – and she hasn’t exactly been available for question and scrutiny since her nomination. So, to support her, you’d have to say – wow, she’s has 20 months of experience, but, gosh, those were such an amazing 20 months, that it’s clear to me that she could be ready to be leader of the free world! And if that’s what you are saying than you’d have a better claim to suggest that media’s calculation that Obama’s connections to the crisis – Franklin Raines, Fannie and Freddie campaign money, are less than McCain’s – Rick Davis, Phil Gramm, and a ideological preference for deregulation.
Phil Gramm was the co-chair of McCain campaign. He authored the law that prevented the government from regulating credit default swaps. It is these credit default swaps that have necessitated this bailout. The subprime loans would not have been made if the lenders did not have a market for them, and there would not have been a market for them if it were not for these credit default swaps. Furthermore issuing these “naked” credit default swaps made the situation even worse. Now, can someone really tell me that Republicans were held back by Democrats from doing something about this?
>>If we don’t have some access to the truth then it’s much to easy for a tyrant on either side to take over. I want a press that will eviscerate dems and repubs alike, not simply one that plays the tune I like. For a long time blogs played that roll, that was until the elite understood the effect that the blogs have, so they started “astroturfing†and screwing over the only truly independent media source in America. So now what?
I’m not saying its perfect, but again, I’ll mention the India media. Its in english, they’re far enough away and have an independent turn of mind, and any society that mass produces doctors, nuke scientists, mathematicians and programmers can’t be entirely bad.
My favorite part so far is where my boss person here at work spent three hours one day last week getting his money out of one bank and putting it somewhere else. It’s just a mentality people have where they feel like what they need to do is contribute in some profoundly unhelpful or wholly irrelevant way. They just want to be part of the story I think. I bet there are more and more people like that as we go along. I blame tv I think.
This back-and-forth exchange of opinions, ideas and convictions is both stimulating and fascinating. I find myself unable to stay away from these blogs, even while at work, where I am being paid quite handsomely to perform supposedly more constructive tasks. Unfortunately, it saddens me that there is such a dearth of discourse regarding the real or most important question facing mankind today, a question that transcends all others, a question that is, in every respect, directly related to today’s conversation. The question: Is there currently a war being waged here on Earth between the forces of good and the forces of evil? PLEASE please hear me out on this. If one can, at the very least, acknowledge that these forces do in fact exist, then it would not be difficult for one to ultimately recognize, especially when viewed in the context of current events, that evil is an undeniably real and destructive force here on Earth. Not only is it both real and destructive, but it is also nefarious and cunning in that it is able to manifest itself in human form. In human form, evil wears the ultimate disguise – and therein lies both its insidiousness and its potency. In human form, evil becomes virtually undetectable because it can look like just about anyone. At this point, some reading this may be questioning my sanity. Nevertheless, I ask you to ponder this: How else can we even begin to explain or rationalize the aberrant belief systems and unconscionable behavior patterns of the seemingly unhinged and hate-filled left??? How????? How can one explain it other than to conclude that evil has surely taken hold in their hearts and in their minds. I don’t suspect that anyone will offer a more plausible explanation. This clueless lot of cultural loons seems to worship at the altar of “Godlessnessâ€Â, fanatical in their devotion to dogma which weds the immoral to the amoral (the un-holiest of alliances). The lefts utopia is a guilt-free, “anything goes†culture, one devoid of accountability, responsibility, consequences and most importantly, moral scrutiny. In their bizarre “no-God†zone, life is viewed through a prism of moral relativism where universal values and absolutes have no real meaning, but are applicable only within the context of certain cultural boundaries or individual preferences. In their abstract, hazy shades of gray world, moral compasses are permanently disabled so there is no one “right” or moral way of thinking or of doing things. Hence, for them, judging what is evil, or for that matter what is good, is a non-started. Their morality is driven essentially by what will best serve to further their warped social agenda, or, in many instances, simply a question of what feels “goodâ€Â. For them, no universal standard exists by which to assess truth or righteousness. Their espousal of this type of personal, subjective (pseudo) morality is intellectually dishonest, to say the least. More importantly, however; it is extremely dangerous, for it causes them to draw flawed moral symmetries – and not precise moral distinctions – between the two sides of every conflict. This is why for every crime, no matter how heinous, you’ll often see the left show more compassion for the criminal than the victim. They loathe Bush, but show much less (if any) rancor for the former Butcher of Baghdad (R.I.P.), the Venezuelan strongman Chavez, the Holocaust-denier Ahmadinejad or Al-Qaeda chief bin Laden. In fact, many presume Bush to be the “real†terrorist and – and by “logical†extension – the bigger threat to world peace. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I mean, does true evil inspire the left to insanity of thought process and of deeds? If the answer is “yesâ€Â, what must good people do about it?
<FNMA and FHLMC wouldn’t have been able to load off the bad loans onto the market without the magic of Wall Street
Your ignorance is appalling. Which of course is why you’re an Obama voter.
Let me help you.
AnAnd how did Fannie make that “guarantee”? It was implicitly backed by the feds.
Don’t worry, you don’t understand all of this.
oh. Well still I hope you had a nice lunch, JD. Me for right now I have pistachios in a styrofoam cup what Other Guy brought in here.
Lawrence Barnes, I don’t believe lack of objectivity is really the problem. Take a look sometime at newspapers from the 19th Century: they are invariably slanted & hyperpartisan. Hearst’s infamous “yellow journalism” is more than a century old. Objectivity is a shibboleth. It never existed.
The problem lies instead with the Left’s domination of education. The Ministry of Truth had the appearance of objectivity for decades precisely because what they print matches well with what students are taught in school.
Take FDR as an example. Faced with economic crisis, he made an explicit appeal to Social Policy as Social Experiment. By any objective measure, he failed utterly: the Depression lasted longer & sank deeper than any crisis before or since. He is nonetheless praised as one of our greatest Presidents. Why? Because he vastly expanded the role of the FedGov. This is not at all surprising.
Parochial schools teach the worship of Jesus.
Madrassas teach the worship of Allah.
Law schools teach the worship of the law.
Government schools teach the worship of…
Paragraph breaks are in right now. They’re the new black.
Indeed. I’m going to start using that, if I may. It speaks precisely to where we’ve finally come.
One wonders if duped Obamites know this. Or if they do, if they care. Bread and circuses, baby, bread and circuses.
er, thor, nice batch of red herrings and strawmen you got there.
I’d say you really don’t own the truth, either – and if you’re standing behind the claims you’re making, it’s kind of hilarious to see you claim someone else doesn’t recognize it.
Quick question – doing this on the clock? Ans is the clock running cause your doing it?
Say hi to Dave for us.
Oo, lunch sounds like a Good Idea. Wondering what to get, now. /kthxbye
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A nice lunch and also paragraph breaks together would be a Good Day, or it would pass for one easy.
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“I assume you don’t want to argue that being Mayor of Wassila is an important credential.
Reagan was governor of California for 8 years. Clinton was governor of Arkansas for 12 years. That’s more of a case for executive experience.Do we compare 8 years of being Mayor of Wassila and 20 months as governor with 7 years in the Illinois Legislature and 4 years as Senator.”Why are comparing your Presidential candidate’s record to the other parties Vice President candidate. Seems apples/orange.
Baracky is not particularly accomplished, dre, so he benefits a lot from comparing himself to people who aren’t running for President. It helps him look more presidential is the idea I think.
Hi Dave.
FNMA and FHLMC wouldn’t have been able to load off the bad loans onto the market without the magic of Wall Street
No, if it were not for this:
But again, you don’t understand all of this. Which is why your comments are saying such silly things.
No,
Charter schools and an evolution revolution would be a good first step.
Pardon, but aren’t you on record as saying that “Inelligent Design is Crapology”?
I believe i made you say that.
The pitbull with lipstick is being handled by the McCain camp like a trembling French poodle.
She can’t even handle a free and open press conference.
But she’s very, VERY ambitious, I’ll give her that.
McCain needs to hire a food taster.
Intelligent Design aka Creationism.
Are you sayin that you have changed your mind, Jeff?
Phil Gramm was the co-chair of McCain campaign. He authored the law that prevented the government from regulating credit default swaps. It is these credit default swaps that have necessitated this bailout.
1. The last Democratic president signed said law.
2. More importantly:
Now go ahead and tell us why you know more than Clinton’s treasury secretary about this.
Please.
hf
“President” Baracky has his own collector coins!
hmmm…i think that McCain and Obama should both go back to DC and do their jobs actually.
they can push the debates back.
Oh, God, will someone please make the idiots stop?
Dre, I was responding to Dash Rendar #22.
And to suggest that the qualifications for VP should be any different that the qualifications for President is pure intellectual dishonesty. An orange is not a heartbeat away from becoming an apple.
C’mon Jeff.
Do I have find the comment where you said “Intelligent Design is Crapology?”
I can find it……..Dooontcha kno.
lol
Yes, I sort’a do understand all that. I’ve gone over the difference between GNMA pass-thrus and FNMA CMO’s in my earlier posts as well as credit default swaps.
I’ll pose to you, smart guy, what I’ve asked earlier: what about single-family housing munis? You do know they’re issued by states and not the Feds, right?
Have at it.
That should read “education revolution.” Too much Lancelot Link on the brain.
Unsurprisingly, when I post about something else, I don’t feel compelled to bring “creationism” arguments into the mix.
The subprime loans would not have been made if the lenders did not have a market for them, and there would not have been a market for them if it were not for these credit default swaps.
No, there would have been no market for them if Fannie Mae, egged on by Democrats to make more loans to those with poor credit, was not implicitly backed by the Federal Government.
You have not a single shred of proof for what you are saying.
what about single-family housing munis? You do know they’re issued by states and not the Feds, right?
youYou are just not that bright.
By the way, nothing you have typed yet mitigates your previous silly & false statements.
“What are all the Senator complaining about? That they weren’t fully briefed until a few days ago on the extent of the banking situation by Paulson and Bernanke, that’s what, hence “hid†is the word being used by both Dem and Repub alike.”
I got this far and skipped the rest. So basically, if a Senator doesn’t do homework it’s the teacher’s fault? Senators on the fucking committee that oversees the banks can’t be bothered to actually check to see what’s going on? Total bullshit excuse.
What they are saying is that they don’t understand the problem. And they don’t.
Comment by umbrelladoc on 9/24 @ 1:01 pm #
“Do we compare 8 years of being Mayor of Wassila and 20 months as governor with 7 years in the Illinois Legislature and 4 years as Senator.—
Comparing executive experience to legislative experience is apples/orange. Executives can’t vote present.
You do know they’re issued by states and not the Feds, right?
I look forward to all the facts & evidence you have demonstrating how SF municipal bonds led to the subprime meltdown. Have at it, dupe.
WTF is McCain up to suspending his campaign?
Shhhh, McCain is trying to welch out of the debate on Fox News!
What a weeenie boy, preaching doom and gloom! Hook, line and sinker with the Bushian mortgage-backed doomsday cultists.
Loser! Loser! Loser! Loser! Dude owns 8 homes and can’t figure out the only crisis is among his wife’s chardonnay sipping, Prius peddling Budweiser-distributorship-inheriting debutantes and not among the working man.
Obama should request that Palin show up to debate if McCain is afraid to. Hahaha.
Two words. Bobby Jindal.
Oh feets, please not cogiteve dissonance from you too.
Jindal can never be elected in a national election.
He is on record as participating in a demonic exorcism.
That cant be scrubbed.
And the MSM has a long memory.
um, doing his real job? not sure why he cares about it now, but that’s the thinking behind it.
“#Comment by Sdferr on 9/24 @ 1:11 pm #
WTF is McCain up to suspending his campaign?”
The Maverick™ rides again!
oh. I just mean that after Katrina what the people of Louisiana did not do was say hey what we need is a Democrat to lead us forward.
Weird. But let’s see how it plays out.
I always thought mavericks were really ugly even for the ’70’s.
Jeff, if you just accept that we’re doomed, it gets a lot funnier.
Funniest End of Civilization Ever.
“America this week faces an historic crisis in our financial system. We must pass legislation to address this crisis. If we do not, credit will dry up, with devastating consequences for our economy. People will no longer be able to buy homes and their life savings will be at stake. Businesses will not have enough money to pay their employees. If we do not act, ever corner of our country will be impacted. We cannot allow this to happen,†McCain said.
ummm….don’t we at this point find the Incredibly Moronic “No Child Left Behind” Act has actually INCREASED the high school dropout rate in this country?
I think the MSM learned a lesson from Dan Rather.
If they _all_ make up stuff at the same time, it is harder to resist.
“It has become clear that no consensus has developed to support the administration’s proposal. I do not believe that the plan on the table will pass as it currently stands, and we are running out of time,†he said.
“It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem,†he said.
“I am confident that before the markets open on Monday we can achieve consensus on legislation that will stabilize our financial markets, protect taxpayers and homeowners, and earn the confidence of the American people. All we must do to achieve this is temporarily set politics aside, and I am committed to doing so.â€Â
Oh, for the love of Christ, thor, buying fisherman beer with your daddy’s money while you sup on Hemingway existentialism and LeRoi Jones-esque activist street poetry does not give you grounds to speak for the “working man.”
You’re a fraud. Just accept yourself. It’s the first step.
hmmm….would Septugenarian Guy be so eager to cancle the debate if he was ahead in the polls, and the press wasnt on the verge of exposing Palin as incompetant to serve?
You are the fraud Jeff.
You are supposed to be bright.
In the old Stalinist Sovietunion, the state controlled the press. In the current USA, the Stalinist press wants to control the state–most definitely, should it be a “republican state.”
Ace,
Rubin was referring to Gramm-Leach-Bliley or The Financial Modernization Act of 1999 which repealed Glass-Steagall
I was referring to the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 which prevented the regulation of credit default swaps.
Fannie and Freddie have been bailed out. But it is the CDS market that affected Lehman and AIG and what this bailout is about.
I am pretty disappointed Jeff.
You seem to be unable to put cognition above partisianship.
blockquote>Comment by Veeshir on 9/24 @ 1:16 pm #
Jeff, if you just accept that we’re doomed, it gets a lot funnier.
Funniest End of Civilization Ever.
And I ordered a new set of ear buds last night, whew! Right before the day the music died!
“would Septugenarian Guy be so eager to cancle the debate if he was ahead in the polls”
The Ministry of Truth™ has no choice but report on what grandpa is doing.
The irony: IT BLEEEEEEDS!!!!!
Here’s a quick quiz. Would you lend $6,625 to an 18 year old kid if it wasn’t guaranteed by the federal government? Would you buy that debt from the bank that issued it? What if the default rate was somewhere around, oh 5.2% in a good year?
No?
Now you understand the sub-prime mess.
Why hasn’t O! rushed back to the Senate to work his BIPARTISAN MAGIC?! WHAT IS HE AFRAID OF?
okay, I’m starting to like McCain’s decision.
Here’s what I’ve been considering:
* Buying guns in October, figure it may be our one chance.
* Reviving the habits of my anti-Vietnam War activist days, and become a revolutionary for the Republic. Weird how things turn around, Republican types becoming the monkey-wrenchers.
But I’m keeping it quiet for now, of course, to stay safe, don’t want to have to start wearing a yellow star or anything, especially since we live in a rabidly blueblueblue town, and so we’ve been careful for a while about exposing the lives we keep safe and hidden up in the attic. (Although I do worry that my comments on blogs may get traced after November, and then they will come for me, after of course they come for you, brave bloggers)
Perhaps you think I kid. Not at all. I worked for years in journalism and had to leave early this century as I saw this infestation begin to attack what was a Golden Age of rigorous, ethical reporting. Paranoid? Yes. The fascist group-thinkers have swarmed upon us. We let our children learn from them. If this election goes the way it looks to be going, the Republic is indeed done, and it will be a monstrous number of dark years before it might ever return. I truly expect I might have to give my life in order to bring it back.
was referring to the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 which prevented the regulation of credit default swaps.
So yoyu are blaming McCain for something a Democratic president did, right? Makes sense.
Your claims are silly and come from the Huffington post & Paul Krugman. That doesn’t make them fact.
Tack it onto my being a partisan nativist Jesus-loving racist homophobe in favor of creationism and theocracy who survives on the intoxicating poison of xenophobia, Kate.
And really, if you weren’t disappointed in me at this point, I’d have to start checking my armbands for swastikas.
Spake thor:
Surely you aren’t so obtuse as to recognize when you’re being lied to. The congress basically breaks down to three camps:
Those that are lying because they were on the take (Cox and Obama at the top)
Those that are lying because they didn’t have the stones to say rat out their colleagues that were on the take (the other Democrats)
The Republicans that were warning of the coming disaster and were ignored by 1 & 2. See the Bush Administration in 2003 and McCain in 2005.
Thanks for playing. As a parting gift, here’s a lovely home edition of “It Takes A Moron” to play with your family.
Does Kate have a neural implant that will improve your cognition, Jeff? Maybe with some killer partisan blocking software.
EMBRACE THE EVOLUTION OF (some) HUMANS!!!!
I just cracked a Budweiser long neck and ordered a pizza. Rain has ruined my afternoon fishing plans.
Working part-time man blues! Laptop in my lap and sitting on my balcony blues! Didn’t know Hemingway was an existentialist blues! Wonder which ballcap I should wear blues!
Gonna go check my mailbox, now, blues! Ain’t got them two Obama shirts yet blues! And some Pynchon!
Also, Jeff, you forgot “sexist” and “chickenhawk” and “hatemonger.”
Just sayin’…
Wish I had a lightbulb hangin’ from a wire.
And a walkin’ stick to stoke this fire.
McCain from 2005:
Funny, that, how nobody was warned and it was “hid”, yet John McCain (who can’t even use a computer – have you heard?) managed to find out that they were heading towards the crapper and sponsored legislation to tighten oversight. Which was promptly blocked by Cox, et al.
I can punch the hellfire chickens out your bad smellin’ end.
I love war more than anyone.
Who is this “Cox” you keep referring to Patrick?
Isn’t that the SEC guy? Cox? Thankless job, being SEC guy.
Yeah, hf, but the SEC guy doesn’t fit the context he’s referring to.
(In other words, I suspect a brain-fart of sorts.)
oh. A lot of people don’t have the story very well down yet I don’t think. I blame tv. Tv really is bad for you.
I worry that, as the media and education system combine to indoctrinate our youth and crush our freedoms of speech and thought, that it will get to the point where blue state America will have to be written off as lost, and red State America will have to secede.
This time, the secessionists would have the advantage of having most of the military on their side.
I wonder if Baracky gold coins will be available on the tv
[…] Media tries to will the US into the age of Obamalot I’ve noted before that we are now fighting an all out ideological war for the survival of the democratic republic. In fact, I’ve been making this same argument for years now: when the press, under the cover of “objectivity,†is allowed to function as an advocacy arm for a particular ideology and its titular representatives, what follows is a necessary skewing of facts  and a carefully constructed attempt to frame “stories†with “lessons†that the public will interpret “correctly†(according to those attempting to teach the lessons from the perspective of their own personal advocacy). […]
That’s depressing, dre.
hmmm…i think that McCain and Obama should both go back to DC and do their jobs actually.
they can push the debates back.
McCain is now following the nishtards advice. We are well and truly fucked.
the great thing about the real estate cum financial collapse is that its 100% bi-partisan. Precisely every interest and partisan group is 100% wrong and to blame.
That was true with the Abramoff scandal as well, but the press pinned it entirely on the Republicans, just like they’ve so far managed to pin this one entirely on the Republicans. The truth doesn’t matter if everyone believes a lie.
Oh, I don’t know. Having one of those Baracky coins might be funny after he loses. Like a stamp that was misprinted, you know. I wonder if the proceeds go to him or not
Creek drying up?
http://seekingalpha.com/article/96992-caterpillar-s-troubling-bond-issue
I was kinda hoping maybe one of them Little Rascals moving picture thingers would come out Friday. Reckon that would be way more fun than a debate anyhow. Haven’t been to the picture show in a coon’s age.
Rep. Alcee Hastings told an audience of Jewish Democrats Wednesday that they should be wary of Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin because “anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks.”
This is a man who will be reelected to serve in the US House of Representatives. How?
[…] Jeff Goldstein writes today about the problem: For my part, I’d just like to again reiterate that, should the press be allowed to comport itself this way under the current mythology that it is dedicated to “objectivity,†then every election will be necessarily skewed  if not by Evan Thomas’ infamous 15 percentage points, than at least by a number significant enough that it could very well be the deciding factor in every major election. […]
gerrymander
I don’t understand the moose-jew nexus.
RACIST!!!
Would it be beyond the pale to ask that Excitable Andy be surgically examined to see if he has a heart ?
We’ll only need the surgeon to do the chest opening. Once the heart, if it exists at all, is exposed, it should remain in full view in the future to see if his heart “shrinks three sizes” when he writes for his blog.
Which is not to be interpreted as suggesting that you do understand the moose-black nexus, I hope?
Bullwinkle.
My bad. Was referring to Christopher Dodd. As in:
oh. Good point, Sdferr. I’m fuzzy on that one too. Liberals are depressing how they try and incite racial hatred all the time. That’s what Baracky’s church was a lot about. Baracky should speak up I think and tell Alcee he shouldn’t talk out loud if all he has to say is stupid.
(In other words, I suspect a brain-fart of sorts.)
Cranial flatus, indeed.
As far as the press goes, it went off the rails when they turned reporting the news into a “profession”. Like a doctor or dentist or hooker.
Two years of masturbating on the upper west side doesn’t make you some kind of Vulcan. So don’t try and kid me. No fucking reason you should have to go to grad school to learn to type.
A sign?
This was truly a great article… It aptly reflects the frustration and challenge which Media-driven elections place against our vote… It is sometimes the hollow feeling I have, in knowing that the vote is one of the last, & most important remaining elements of a free society… But now, today; we’ve so much at stake… And perhaps more than others, because it is our integrity under fire; and our integrity is the last remaining threads of America.
NOW we must put to the task of defending those, who stood under political, economical, and military threat… (Mr. McCain) and the leader who recorded 17 public warnings to Congress (in 2008 alone)…
While exposing those who continue to insist (around every corner) that they have inherited every problem…
And then we must vote like this will be our last…
To not succeed in bringing legality and ethical principals back into America; is the gross injustice, against the whole of our Nation…
(Thanks for letting me say this.)
Bullwinkle J. Moose. What do you think the “J” stands for? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh?
Drudge says Obama will not give up the debate scheduled for Friday. Seems a strange stance to take when his opponent has already stated he won’t be there.
Clearly, with a name like “Herd,” Bill is another member of the Judaic moose cabal.
nope, the presidential election committee is not going to allow the debate to be cancelled.
the election committee is representing the American people.
their position is that both parties agreed, and the contract is with the electorate.
Obama says they can do both, go to DC and work, have the debate, and finish the work over the weekend.
I was thinking that too, Sdferr. It seems like we need to get this thing settled before we have some stupid debate. For real, what is there always plenty of surrounding these debate thingers? Journalists, and especially those becunted tv ones a lot. I don’t think we need to give those people extra airtime while there’s a for real crisis and people are trying to make good decisions.
The Media War is On and It Could Cost Us All Greatly…
Well, you can certainly throw that whole John McCain, Media Darling thing right out the window. After his campaign accused the MSM of being little more than tools of the Obama campaign, the New York Times promptly threw a temper tantrum in the form of…
Obama just stepped into fast hardening cement I think.
wow…obama says he called mccain first to make a bi-partisan statement.
and Mav just went charging off to cancel the debate.
impulsive
Oh, just got an email from my little brother in the Army – back in the States, safe and sound. YAY!!1!
“President” Baracky today:
“call me if you need me”
sry, the the head of the presidential election committee is not going to allow a cancellation.
tant pis Septugenarian Guy.
“the the head of the presidential election committee is not going to allow a cancellation”
What exactly is he going to do? Take away McCain’s iPod?
At this point, they’re pretty much talking to themselves. Shhhhh. Please don’t disturb them.
BTW, already picked out a new rifle I cannot afford. I guess I’ll send for it tomorrow if I don’t come to my senses.
Love how McCain casually pisses off the Media, BTW.
“But but but we already ADVERTISED the debates! You GOTTA do ’em! plz plz plz”
No, for real it would be unwise to preference these two’s opinions in the middle of a crisis the resolution of which will depend on a much broader consensus. Baracky especially probably wants to strike a staunch marxist chord, and with the media amplifying the way it does, it could have for real consequences I think. Bad ones.
Fortunately, McCain has Obama and his fellow travelers in the jet pilot’s OODA — observe, orient, decide, act — loop. The Arizona Senator’s latest move, to temporarily suspend his campaign and head back to DC for a proposed “leadership meeting” — that would include both candidates — with the President to develop a consensus plan has Obama in the crosshairs.
Newsbusters headline: CNN Correspondent Aneesh Raman Quits to Join Obama Campaign
Really, how pointless is that when he could have just stayed in place and done the same thing?
Hey, here’s a funny thing! Barney Frank (D-MA) in September of 2003:
“These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”
Said in response to a Bush administration proposal which the “the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.” [NYT, 9/11/03, “New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae]
Barney Frank was and is the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee.
So, you know, at least we’ve got that going for us.
Goddamit.
Said in response to a Bush administration proposal which the New York Times called “the most significant…” etc.
Counter-indications from Robert Higgs, “Credit is Flowing, Sky Is Not Falling, Don’t Panic”. Snagged at CafeHayek.
More goat entrails:
http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSTRE48N6JG20080924
The thing about goat entrails is, if you don’t read them before you make the sausage, they don’t tell you much.
Not sure where I was going with that. Maybe the line about not watching either laws or sausages being made?
Or was it toward campylobacter jejuni?
Obama says they can do both, go to DC and work, have the debate, and finish the work over the weekend.
Obama falls right into McCain’s trap, having no idea of the “work” McCain is having “finished”.
http://tinyurl.com/3tc89c
Baracky definitely would be wise to pay deference to McCain’s judgment on this. If McCain says it’s serious and they need to be in Washington, Baracky doesn’t need to be second-guessing him I don’t think.
Comment by thor on 9/24 @ 11:22 am: Obama (liberals) won’t win this election because he/they know what’s right…
because they don’t know what’s right, except for their own power. Thor, you’ll be among the first under the bus if this crowd ever takes over.
Newt’s take on Baracky:
I think he’s right, this Newt Gingrich. Senators are only called upon to do a few important things in their careers, and this is definitely one of them.
This Senatoring stuff is hard. Can’t I just be Pezzydent already?
Johnny, lemme copy your homework and then we can turn it in together.
Oh but you are already Pezzident Baracky. Did you forget your pezzidential seal, your wonderful pezzidential speech to the Germs, your brand-new-minted pezzidential coin, your splendid pezzidential backdrop at the needless convention, your “past tense” service in the US Senate lo those many months ago?
Then again, with Barack’s advisors, and all the money he’s taken from Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, it probably is a good idea if he didn’t have a hand in any negotiations in Washington.
#241 bob:
(1) Don’t feed the trolls.
(2) There can only be one Stalin, but innumerable Trotskys.
(3) [In light of #2] Serving something greater than your own self can be a good thing – but only if you know what you are bowing down to first.
(4) Objective reality exists, our perception of reality may or may not closely correlate to that objective reality. The closer the correlation, the better for us. Failure to closely correlate perception to reality is ultimately painful, humiliating, or fatal – or a combination of all three.
(5) Trolls don’t correlate perception to reality very well, which leads back to (1) Don’t feed the trolls.
I wonder if Sen. Biden is going to Washigton now? He’s contrary enough that he might just do that and say “John McCain’s right, we got to be here.”
Major John: Nobody is going to unleash any violence, Left or Right, while me and mine still exist.
The firm belief that you and your brothers and sisters in arms will carry out your oath, no matter what, is one of the few things standing between me and despair.
[…] September 24, 2008 Posted by taoist in Bias, Democracy, Politics, The Media. trackback A theory, over at Protein Wisdom: a free society relies on a free press. When the press is so biased it is completely willing to lie […]
“#Comment by happyfeet on 9/24 @ 2:21 pm #
I don’t understand the moose-jew nexus.”
They’re both horny?
Just guessin’ here.
“#
Comment by quellcrist falconer on 9/24 @ 2:59 pm #
wow…obama says he called mccain first to make a bi-partisan statement.
and Mav just went charging off to cancel the debate.
impulsive”
No, impressive.
McCain is showing leadership.
Obama is standing around with his thumb up his ass, asking his handlers for a talking point. Any talking point, you ingnorant asshole.
Baracky is so cool. It’s almost like he finds all this shit boring.
McCain goes back to work in Washington, Obama votes “Present”
“This is a man who will be reelected to serve in the US House of Representatives. How?”
Being an impeached judge is a resume enhancement in his Party.
“Comment by quellcrist falconer on 9/24 @ 3:00 pm #
sry, the the head of the presidential election committee is not going to allow a cancellation.”
You are too stupid for words to describe.
wha? the head of the presidential election committee said they will continue to prepare for the debate.
sry, Septugenarian guy aint gonna be able to duck on this.
As for Presidential qualifications, at a minimum, the candidate should be able to hold a press conference, don’tcha think?
Palin seems incapable of doing that.
troll says:
“the head of the presidential election committee said they will continue to prepare for the debate”
Your Messiah will be debating a Moose Hunter I think she hunts raccoons too.
I can imagine the debate. Sen. Obama steps forward and some unknown guy or gal does, and the unknown says “Sen. McCain sends his regrets, but senatorial business in Washington with regard to the financial issues he noted in 2005 has his full attention right now, and Sen. McCain believes that country comes first.” Then the unknown leaves the stage.
I only heard Obama’s little press conference. Did he look as much like a dick as he sounded?
President Baracky:
“The time has come to act, and act fast. I’m leaving. “
well…dooontcha kno
heres the real reason Septugenarian Guy wants to push off the debate…..to push back the VP debate!
not quite ready for primetime
Well, the FBI does have an office in D.C.
Ahhhl…try ta find ya some an ahl bring ’em to ya!
lollolllololool!!!!!
I wonder if the Moose Hunter was doing foreign policy this week so she could debate the O!?
vha? zee heed ooff zee preseedentiel ilecshun cummeettee-a seeed zeey veell cunteenooe-a tu prepere-a fur zee debete-a. sry, Septoogenereeun gooy eeent gunna be-a eble-a tu doock oon thees. Um gesh dee bork, bork! Es fur Preseedentiel qooeleefficeshuns, et a meenimoom, zee cundeedete-a shuoold be-a eble-a tu huld a press cunfference-a, dun’tcha theenk? Peleen seems incepeble-a ooff dueeng thet. Um de hur de hur de hur.
Kate,
You seem to attach a great deal of importance to the metric of press conferences as an indicator of merit regarding one’s ability to lead the nation. Why is this? Would this suggest that a press secretary, product pitch-person, or celebrity would therefore be best suited, given their ability to hold forth at great length with cameras?
The other thing that I am curious about is how it is that you think that framing your views on Palin’s experience in the context of Obama’s experience should tell you something about Obama’s ability to lead the country. I fully agree that it is important that the Vice President be qualified. However, I would argue that the qualification of the actual Presidential candidate is probably even more important than the experience of the Vice Presidential portion of the ticket. Do you agree?
BRD
For those who may be coming in from Instapundit, nishi/quellcrist falconer is the resident Nazi troll
Comment by BRD on 9/24 @ 5:59 pm #
You just asked nihidiot a rational question.
[blinks]
[blinks again]
BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!
Mr. O’Brain,
I hope you don’t think that I’m IQ-baiting Nishi with a rational question.
BRD
“IQ-baiting”
I flashed on nishi’s brain on a fishhook.
It would fit, you know.
No, BRD, I think that Palin certainly should have expected THAT particular question and been prepared with AT LEAST ONE counterexample for teh Mav’s 20+ year love affair with deregualtion.
Have you noticed how much her answers are “pageant answers”?
All buzzword and no substance.
For those who may be coming in from Instapundit, nishi/quellcrist falconer is the resident Nazi troll
no, actually Dr. Yes would know me better as Matoko.
/wave
hi there Reynolds, you old theocon panderer!
lets repro my letter to Palin for the newbies.
lol
What #269 SBP said.
Really Dr. Mengele-your-abattoir-is-on-the-phone eugenist type. Do not engage, not unless you are prepared to do a full brain decontamination.
Some things are so filthy that putting up warning signs is the best that can be done.
Anyone know the number of a good Blade Runner?
If no, then get Orrin Judd to #273. For the entertainment value.
Friday September 26th 9:10 p.m.
The first Presidential debate of 2008
Opening remarks.
Senator McCain:
Ladies and gentlemen. There is now a grave financial crisis in our nation. At this very moment members of both Parties in Congress are meeting to work out a solution to the crisis.
I would be there too but my opponent, Senator Obama, has demanded that we have this debate at this scheduled time.
Over the past several weeks it has become apparent that the Senator’s campaign has been focusing on comparing his qualifications to those of my running mate, Governor Palin. Since it is my belief that I may best serve America by being in the negotiations to save the American financial system at this time, rather than being here debating Senator Obama, I am turning my mike over to my Vice Presidential candidate , Governor Sarah Palin who will debate for me as I return to the Senate to do the business of the American people I so proudly serve.
I thank you, goodnight.
Like we say out here in the West, cowboy up and quit teh whinage.
Show ‘em or fold ‘em.
Be careful what you ask for, it might be what you get. That is what we say down here in the South.
Mikey, your #4 at 248 has proved (over time) at least profoundly problematic if not outright impossible. See Quine, W.V.O (Word and Object) and Sellars, W. (Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind) if you still have your doubts.
#276 me:
Or at least to weigh in on a big level of wrong. I may not agree with him on everything, but he does have a way of cutting through to the nub and holding it up.
Shit, its fkn cold out there.
/what we say in the north
” (CNN) – Rep. Alcee Hastings told an audience of Jewish Democrats Wednesday that they should be wary of Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin because “anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks.â€Â
“If Sarah Palin isn’t enough of a reason for you to get over whatever your problem is with Barack Obama, then you damn well had better pay attention,†Rep. Alcee Hastings of Florida said at a panel about the shared agenda of Jewish and African-American Democrats Wednesday. Hastings, who is African-American, was explaining what he intended to tell his Jewish constituents about the presidential race. “Anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks. So, you just think this through,†Hastings added as the room erupted in laughter and applause.”
So who’s stoooopider, Hastings or nishi?
lol geoffb, there are rules.
Dr. something, the head of the presidential election committee, said on FOX that he represents the American People, who have contracted for this debate.
#279 Sdferr:
It may be impossible, but I can differentiate between a cute fuzzy bunny and a cross-town bus.
If there is no objective reality but all is perception, then what the heck am I doing here? Why aren’t I on the back deck of a yacht? And if it is perception, then why can’t I will it so? Either it is all a vast ‘matrix’ thing, or I am really an attorney sitting at a computer and typing out a reply. Occams’ razor argues in favor of the latter. And if there is no objective reality then why am I replying to your comment? If perception is the only key then why am I perceiving a critic and not a minion?
(I haven’t read those texts, this is all my own opinion. Or is it?)
If we cannot accept a foundation anywhere, then what? Why bother with anything?
lul geuffffb, zeere-a ere-a rooles. Um gesh dee bork, bork! Dr. Hurty flurty schnipp schnipp! sumetheeng, zee heed ooff zee preseedentiel ilecshun cummeettee-a, seeed oon FOX thet he-a represents zee Emereecun Peuple-a, vhu hefe-a cuntrected fur thees debete-a.
Come on guys, who are we to argue with Dr. something?
O! caves meets BusHitler & McCain
still gonna have the debate tho.
lol
;)
You’re quite a bit dumber than both combined, most obviously.
sometimes she likes to whistle through her nose
while picking off a peanut with his toes
I feel ya man. All I can say to help is read. Read and read and read some more. There are many other questions you will be certain to encounter and I have no doubt you will find them as fascinating as do the two men I’ve suggested. There are many other such men hard at work on these (and other questions still), all of which deserve an impartial hearing from you and all the brain power you can devise to place in the service of their consideration. Bald answers are easy. Good questions hard.
I think the greatest crime committed by intellectuals is to deny that there is an objective reality and that it can be known, no matter how imperfect are our senses. 2+2=4, no matter where or when and all of the pressure or punishment cannot change that. You may not wish to perceive that, you may deny that with your dying breath, but it is, and it will be as it always was. 2+2=4.
I say they prop up a cardboard life-sized 5-foot-6 cut-out of McCain and go on with it.
I always wanted to be represented by an unelected Dr. Something. This is the EU right?
“I paid for this microphone!”
Channeling RR
ah say they prop up a cardboard life-sized 5-foot-6 cut-outta McCain an’ hoof it on wif it.
Or, if you choose, you can go on as you are.
O! caves
Sayrah Paylen iz mah kenyan wich hore! Maakk’n fun’o Sayrah not rite! Yu here mah thor! Sayd not rite!
O! caves
but not on the debate,
;)
it’s goin down.
What’s the solution?
William F. Buckley.
Stand athwart this bias with a stout heart and a peaceful mind.
#292 Sdferr:
I’ve never quoted Frank J. as a philosopher, but I recall his definition of an Alpha Liberal as one who can encounter a fallen tree across his path, argue away the existence of the tree, and then trip over it.
That was the basis of my #4: Objective reality exists, our perception of reality may or may not closely correlate to that objective reality. The closer the correlation, the better for us. Failure to closely correlate perception to reality is ultimately painful, humiliating, or fatal – or a combination of all three.
If it is all about me, then why am I typing this? By accepting an objective reality and understanding that my perceptions may be skewed I come closer to understanding. If there is a place to put my fulcrum and thus my lever, I can move the world. Otherwise, it is an exercise in nothing – and I am not nihlist.
Yet again, thor proves that he can’t even imitate a bot.
Why don’t you trot out that “polychromatic assnuggets” bit again, or whatever it was?
That was definitely Booker Prize material, thor. Definitely.
Better hope daddy’s money doesn’t disappear in the crash, thor, ’cause you just ain’t got the chops to do a man’s job and earn your own.
it’s goin down.
Not enough tequila in the world, honey. Not enough tequila in the world.
but not on the debate,
;)
suck cock nishi You’ll feel better
I haven’t waded through all the comments yet, but one thing to consider is that people do not trust the press anymore. Which leads me to wonder just what effect the endless parade of half truths delivered actually has on the population.
Do the people make the effort to find their own truth? If so, in what way does this happen? I tend to think that people split their decision making between a gut feeling they have on any issue and the advice they get from those who have proven to be trustworthy.
I think that if an objective reality is accepted as existing whether or not I do, then I accept that other humans exist, and have the same claims I do. That means these other humans are not cattle or props, and that I should not treat them that way, for if I do I have agreed that I may be treated that way. It is all for my own safety, as Hadlowe(?) quoted, and I have:
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!
I agree to an objective reality, for my own safety’s sake.
And to get on topic – these media persons don’t see that if they create a Stalin, they may be treated as a Trotsky. No Stalin needs a Trotsky, but as an example.
Fuck this:
“House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said his staff was working with the staff of Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-Conn.) Banking Committee to reach agreement on a single bill, rather than separate House and Senate versions.
Frank added that he believes Pelosi has a minimum threshold of Republican votes necessary to bring the bill forward, but he said he did not know what that number was.”
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/mccains-bailout-gambit-2008-09-24.html
Dodd Frank?
The election is over. So is the crisis. This has all to do with bond trader’s P/L’s (that’s profit-loss). If the trader pulls the trigger on those trades he gets no bonus. The desk manager gets no bonus. The head of trading gets no bonus. The director of operations gets no bonus. The CEO gets no bonus.
We traders of troubled paper don’t work for no-bonus! Waaaaaaah!!1 seventy!!1!elvanty!!11!!! Waaaaaah!
Fuck those assholes. Make ’em eat their goddamn losses.
If objective reality doesn’t exist, or it can’t be perceived, then gimme that yacht. Shoot, I may as well enjoy this delusion.
If this is a delusion, why can’t I have a bevy of buxom blondes serving me tequila umbrella-drinks? Darnit, it’s my world!
Th’ eleckshun is on over. So is th’ crisis. This hyar has all t’do wif bond trader’s P/L’s (thet’s profit-lost). Eff’n th’ trader pulls th’ trigger on them trades he gits no bonus. Th’ desk manager gits no bonus. Th’ haid of tradin’ gits no bonus. Th’ direcko’ of operashuns gits no bonus. Th’ CEO gits no bonus. We traders of troubled paper don’t wawk fo’ no-bonus! Waaaaaaah! Fry mah hide!! Fry mah hide!1 seventy! Fry mah hide!! Fry mah hide!1! Fry mah hide!elvanty! Fry mah hide!! Fry mah hide!11! Fry mah hide!! Fry mah hide!! Fry mah hide! Waaaaaah! Fry mah hide! Fuck them assholes. Make ‘em ett their goddadburn lostes.
If there is no objective reality; or
There is an objective reality, but we cannot perceive it;
Then why bother with philosophy unless it can get you into the pants of a cute female grad student?
“…his definition of an Alpha Liberal…”
Not everything is political, Mikey. There are many questions we don’t have good answers for that nevertheless are worth pursuing.
Have you ever read any of Oliver Sachs books (Man who mistook his Wife for a hat, Anthropologist on Mars, etc.)? How about Vilayanur Ramachadran (Phantoms in the Brain : Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind)?
They (and we) there encounter phenomena of the mind that call into question the basis of simple assertions about the mind and the world that we tend to make as a matter of course, where it turns out, we haven’t known what we were talking about at all.
Questions arise, learning begins. There is no need to panic about the “meaning” of reality and in our panic, box ourselves in to fantastical constructs disconnected from the world in which we live (the phenomena we may encounter and wish to understand).
Al Gore is a disturbing man. Really genuinely disturbing. I bet when he’s dead his fucked up kids are gonna have some unbelievable stories about him.
It seems a terrible injustice that Frank Z. could be already dead and Algore yet alive. I feels the deprivation bad sometimes. Algore is perhaps the least musical man alive today, his every tune an awful froggy croak.
I’m constantly amazed by how hard the Obamanauts work to convince everyone that McCain’s constantly making mistakes. Haven’t they ever heard the adage about your opponent making mistakes and not correcting him?
Or maybe they’re just desperate to convince themselves McCain’s making mistakes…
Comment by thor on 9/24 @ 7:39 pm #
Isn’t that just the cutest thing.
The one who’s not good enough to lick my sons combat boots pretending to be intelligent.
COOTCHY-COOO!
“Or maybe they’re just desperate to convince themselves McCain’s making mistakes…”
They’ve been doing that for years about President Bush.
But you have to be delusional to be a reactionary leftist. It’s like an identity.
#
Comment by Sdferr on 9/24 @ 8:10 pm #
It seems a terrible injustice that Frank Z. could be already dead and Algore yet alive. I feels the deprivation bad sometimes. Algore is perhaps the least musical man alive today, his every tune an awful froggy croak.
You ain’t lying. One of the first times I realized exactly how in the tank the media was for the dem side. Rolling Stone did a profile on Gore during the 2000 campaign and NOT ONE FUCKING WORD about his role in the PMRC. You’d think Rolling Stone would have a keen interest in record labeling…………….
An identity. Why yes, it is. Delusional, whatever.
Did anybody see the Couric-Palin interview? I see at Politico a little jig being danced over Couric catching Palin unable to come up with (remember, merely) a sufficient number of instances of McCain seeking “regulations” while in the Senate the last 26 yrs (as though the seeking of regulations is a good in itself of course), outside the one instance Palin had already cited, vis. the 2005 call for tightening the rules for Fanny and Freddie.
Gotcha bitch. Gotcha reeeal goooood (I hear John Cleese to Kevin Klein in Wanda.)
“Delusional, whatever.”
120,000,000 dead, whatever.
And who whould those multiple dead be?
Kate,
I’m honestly a bit confused bvy your comment and any way in which it might relate to the questions I posed. Forgive my presumption, but I would like to post the content again. For ease of reading, I’ve highlighted the specific questions in my comment:
Given the certainty with which you have announced your views, I would be most grateful if you could take the time to reply.
Best,
BRD
BRD
Sorry, never mind. Sorry for the typo.
It doesn’t matter, Sdferr, what was written. Unless there is a foundation then it is all nothing, unless there is an objective reality that can be perceived, then all of the books do not exist. If there is no objective reality or if there is one that I cannot perceive, then those books do not exist, nor do the so-called arguments in them exist.
Beyond this (assuming you exist, which I do not know, it may only be a phantasm – but what is a phantasm if there is no objective reality?) I think you missed an important part with #3 Serving something greater than your own self can be a good thing – but only if you know what you are bowing down to first.
Oooohhh. I can run with. Newtonian Oranges Part Deux!
If I may borrow a thrust from Ronanld Reagan; Good Sir, I paid for those fuckin’ boots.
Or, to raise Jeff’s ire:
If there is no objective reality and I cannot perceive it if it was there, then there is no authorial intent and I couldn’t perceive it if it was there. Which means The Old Man and the Sea means whatever I want it to mean, then why am I paying this tweedy old barf-mat $500 a credit hour to listen to him blather on?
It’s about a girl and her turtle. I’m going to the bar now.
I’m looking forward to seeing Obama debating an empty lectern.
“It doesn’t matter…what was written.”
I’d be more inclined to say that it does matter what was written. Crucially so, even. And I’m sure you can find plenty of examples.
As to “Serving something greater than your own self can be a good thing – but only if you know what you are bowing down to first.” whatever became of the humility before God so seriously taught in Job?
Or, what sort of knowing is this? A pretty puny sort as far as knowing goes, if you ask me.
a girl and her turtle
But what does it mean??? Sometimes turtles are amazing metaphors. Sometimes also they’re just sort of dimbulbs with shells though. And not just super affectionate either. I would know more of this girl and her turtle.
Are you saying McCain’s going to show, then?
I shouldn’t admit this, but I snorted coffee through my nose at this one….
Couric catching Palin unable to come up with (remember, merely) a sufficient number of instances of McCain seeking “regulations†while in the Senate the last 26 yrs…
And that is exactly why Palin is being sheltered and schooled right now, she is not going to get the free pass Curly Joe gets. Palin can’t recite McCain’s every position in history, proof she is a dumbass, Biden doesn’t know Obama’s energy policy right now, who cares.
If there’s a debate on Friday I will listen attentively. Just me personally it would be nice to have Friday night off from all that. Not to procrastinate but can’t we do this later?
Sadly, I haven’t been able to pay justice to this topic, but I have to provisionally agree with Jeff. The media, both conventional and electronic, are competing and it’s obvious who wins. Conventional media is clinging by a hair; maybe only that 60 Minutes Lara chick can redeem you.
We lefties are not succeeding because of the media. That is a dodge. We are successful because it is your party that is on the firing line. I’ll grant you that the media trends left, but we’re in business and you guys are easy money.
There might not be a debate on Friday.
…proof she
is a dumbasshad a busy life tending to matters having to do with governing her state. —- I like a little betterObama doesn’t rate the varsity, send in the JV.
I hope not, RTO. Not much feeling like it. People get so dramatic when those happen, and it’s been enough drama already this week.
Oh, drama. Crazy Greeks invented that along with their stupid democracy thinger. Maybe that’s why they’re all tied up together, d’ya think hf?
oh. That’s a nice way to look at it, really.
Philosophy too.
Summary of Kate and thor: Us decent folks have got to put that uppity snow-nigger in her place, and teach the wooly-headed niggerlover a lesson. The words change, but the melody lingers on.
Regards,
Ric
I thought for psycho’s sake we could leave off mentioning those guys, geoffb.
Although, thinking on it a little, maybe that’s the nub of his objection right there. Namely, that Plato is not a philosopher at all, but a dramatist disguised as a philosopher. And as such, a ruinous fraud.
So that’s why you and Mikey danced around that whole thing and never used the “P” or the “A” words.
The fear of the return of the De-Platonizing space virus!
Not to mention the fount of all “S”.
Time jumping Plato killer is what it wants to be. World savior. Or something.
“Namely, that Plato is not a philosopher at all, but a dramatist disguised as a philosopher.”
When you get to write both sides of a debate, yours and your opponent, that is more like drama. Also like what the left does, straw men for everyone.
Maybe so. It is still no easy thing to catch him out being false to Soc.’s opponents.
In fact though, I’ve long thought that the only time Plato presents Soc to us as a “philosopher” is when he shows him standing alone, not talking to anyone, thinking about a problem for hours on end, a probelm not even revealed to us, and whether Soc comes away satisfied for himself, we never know.
Otherwise, really, he’s (Soc) only presented as a dialectician, arguing away with all and sundry. Which, for most Athenians, was exactly what they thought he was. The initiates into his circle excepted, I suppose.
True. It’s a hell of a thing to be remembered and studied thousands of years after you have passed on. Not just Plato but all the Greeks from then.
I have a theory. It’s not very popular. But the only evidence we have for so much as the existance of Socrates is Plato’s writings. I say there never was a Socrates. Plato made him up.
That’s what they get for being part of the little snowball that started the avalanche. (or is that, what we get? whichever.)
Evening.
I agree with Iwood.
______
I had a conservative moment the other day. I think Ace was going on a tear…quite put out by the nutroots and the actionsquads and the astroturfing and the unfairness, asked me to adopt some get-up-and-get-the-message-out and email something or other to ten friends. Push. I think he meant get in their faces. And I thought about it and revolted.
I am not my brother’s organizer. A citizen worth his salt pays attention and goes looking. Uses discernment. Questions. I do not do this for him by peppering him with unsolicited information. I may tell the truth, but he’ll have to come asking for it, come looking for it.
Who are all these fools we worry about being globbed up by distortions. Aren’t they curious? Can’t they find, if they look? They are adults now, perhaps they have their own agendas.
We don’t raise children, you know. We raise adults. That’s where it begins and ends. If you can’t teach your children the priniciples of self government, to think and to seek and to understand why things are the way they are and how they got there in the first place, you fail.
And this last generation failed in noticeable numbers, producing ignorant, shallow, selfish, hedonistic, lost persons seeking a parent in government.
And every possible institution that would aid in this development of self-governing adults was infiltrated, coopted, subverted or torn apart, using guilt for the wrongs of the past to justify it. Nothing good can come unless we tear it all down.
I did my part, I do my part, and if I have anything to do with children learning about the miraculous history of the United States, I will continue to do it in the future.
But I will not suffer myself to send ten friends to bully them to my way of thinking. They should bully themselves.
You have Xenophon to deal with though RTO.
Xenophon and 1 or 2 others were in on it too. A greek conspiracy.
Thucidides doesn’t mention him (Soc) though, does he, EduGuy?
Thank you Sdferr and Mikey NTH for your philosophy comments tonight.
Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it’s off to bed I go.
Oof, shouldn’t leave out Aristophanes, Kripes, mama!
“…And this last generation failed in noticeable numbers, producing ignorant, shallow, selfish, hedonistic, lost persons seeking a parent in government.
…And every possible institution that would aid in this development of self-governing adults was infiltrated, coopted, subverted or torn apart, using guilt for the wrongs of the past to justify it. Nothing good can come unless we tear it all down….”
Which takes us back to the schools, a nearly wholly owned subsidiary of the politics of the left. (Though there are still a notable few which are not so captured. And precisely where any re-building of an American educational enterprise should begin.)
The minute we’re born we begin to die. GOOGLE IT!
“The man went to the river. And the river was there.”
Hmm, I see.
Once you start reading Hemingway in the right light, he’s not about big game hunting at all.
Belated but sincere thanks to happyfeet for the information!
Ace,
When I point out that Gramm authored the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 which prevented the regulation of credit default swap, you say I’m blaming McCain for something a Democratic president did. But the Republicans controlled Congress then. We could get into the maneuvering that Gramm did to get that passed. But then you argue “As a point of fact the price of gas has gone up over a dollar, billions have been lost in real estate, and Fannie & Freddie have collapsed all since the Democrats took control of Congress.” Complete intellectual dishonesty, Ace.
I’ll take a step at honesty. Democrats were *also* complicit with regards to Fannie/Freddie. See Andrew Cuomo. But you tell me whether keeping the derivative markets deregulated is a Republican or Democratic idea. The CDS market is over 50 trillion. This is what brought this crisis to apocalyptic proportions.
Ace, are you really saying you think that credit default swaps didn’t have an impact on this crisis and/or that leaving them unregulated is more of Democratic than Republican idea?
“If I may borrow a thrust from Ronanld Reagan; Good Sir, I paid for those fuckin’ boots.”
How does a welfare recipient pay taxes?
I agree with SarahW. I do my part as I can but cookie-cutter activism is too politics-as-sports I think and not being part of the problem, simply not being part of the problem I mean, is something that shouldn’t get denigrated I don’t think.
More than that I really enjoyed her comment.
“And that is exactly why Palin is being sheltered and schooled right now, she is not going to get the free pass Curly Joe gets. Palin can’t recite McCain’s every position in history, proof she is a dumbass”
No, the fact that she couldn’t even produce ONE position, on a question they KNEW she’d be asked, is proof that BOTH Palin and her handlers are dumbasses.
look BRD…..if Palin was a man, we’d be hearing coward and coverup right now.
She needs to drop the pageant answer bullshit and get in their face.
She says shes ready, mccain says says shes ready…….prove it.
Crackerjack corruption warrior pitbull reformers dont hide from the press.
She needs sheltering schooling?
Fine.
She’s not ready.
How did they KNOW she would be asked questions about McCain’s past totally irrelevant to her? You have been railing about not knowing anything about Palin, why not ask questions about her policies and philosophies?
What does it prove that Biden doesn’t know Obama’s energy policy? How about defending the idiot of that babbling idiot being one nicotine laced heartbeat away from the Presidency?
look BRD, nishfong isn’t going to answer you question, or any question, she is going to spew back exactly what she has been told just like she did in school and think that a good memory is the same as intelligence.
Is Ace becoming a right leaning community organizer now?
Crackerjack corruption warrior pitbull reformers dont hide from the press.
How many questions did Couric ask about her career as a corruption warrior in Alaska? How many questions did Couric ask about her oil field reforms? How many questions has Biden been asked about Obama’s history?
” …economists were screaming from the rooftops that the Democrats were forcing mortgage lenders to issue loans that would fail the moment the housing market slowed and deadbeat borrowers couldn’t get out of their loans by selling their houses.
A decade later, the housing bubble burst and, as predicted, food-stamp-backed mortgages collapsed. Democrats set an affirmative action time-bomb and now it’s gone off.”
-Ann Coulter
“#Comment by B Moe on 9/25 @ 5:57 am #
look BRD, nishfong isn’t going to answer you question, or any question, she is going to spew back exactly what she has been told just like she did in school and think that a good memory is the same as intelligence.”
A fucking parrot could do the same thing.
With more intelligence.
no Moes, i was taught PROBLEM solving was a good skill.
are you sayin Palin is having senior moments just like McCain?
i think she should be too young for that.
haha, dooontcha kno, McCain thinks HockeyMom should suspend her campaign too lol.
Can we just stop refferring to the press and the Democrat party as two seperate entities?
Can we just stop refferring to the press and the Democrat party as two seperate entities?
I suggest “The Democratic Party Ministry of Truth”. DemoMiniTrue for short.
How did they KNOW she would be asked questions about McCain’s past totally irrelevant to her?
Palin and McCain have come out guns gunsablazing against Evil Wall Street and cried for more regulation.
McCain is on record as telling Wall Street in March of this year that he is against regulation.
McCain totally flipped his position since March.
Palin’s “sheltering schooling” handlers at least should have seen that question a mile away, even if Palin is too dim to understand the significance of McCain being a historical deregulator suddenly shrieking for regulations.
“But I will not suffer myself to send ten friends to bully them to my way of thinking.”
Oh, of course not SarahW…..but you would try to gaslight me with non-existant linkage.
right?
I am not really into that false comparison stuff.
Obama and Biden can stand or fall on their own merits.
My position is that Palin is not qualified to be one seventy-two-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.
The first disqualification is that she is not ready.
I think that is obvious.
Look, I’ve answered like 8 questions already.
no Moes, i was taught PROBLEM solving was a good skill.
Then you would ask her about the problems she has solved, and the problems she foresees having to solve in the future. But you aren’t advocating that, because you are lying. All you are interested in is making Palin look bad, so you condone asking her bullshit gotcha questions that have jack shit to do with problem solving.
Your dishonesty is far to clumsy and transparent to fly here, nishfong, go find some children to impress.
Kate not only have you lied on another thread you are lying now. You hated her before she even spoke on TV for the first time. Hell Jeff had a thread on here when it was announced she was the VP pick and you were here hatin on her. She hadn’t even said a word yet. Your reason then was the was she was a “cudlips” and was not of your “tribe”, whatever the hell that means in zoloft land where you reside.
Look…..here is the IQ-bait your handlers are pushing.
Including Jeff I sadly guess.
Palin IS ready to be president!
But teh Evil Elitist Media is so biased against her that she can’t show it!
LOL
I said i disliked Palin because of her do.
And i said why.
She reminded me of the obscene FLDS sub-sapient breeder bots that cannabalized their own children.
I still get queasy when I think of those women.
I’ve said I’m willin to be persuaded.
But Palin can’t persuaded me when she’s sequestered from both me and the electorate.
And there she goes like a good little leftard, she has no response to what I am actually saying so she starts arguing with my “handlers”. It must be getting really crowded in that noggin of yours, good thing there is plenty of room.
I just want Palin to show ’em or fold ’em.
I’m beginning to suspect she’s got nuthin though.
And, right or wrong, being able to stand alone against bullies is a quall i’d respect if she ever showed it.
she’s sequestered from both me and the electorate.
lol.
Townhalls? With John McCain? Why certainly!
Uh, which is to say hell no! Are you fucking kidding me? Take questions from normal people who might not be in the tank for me? Sorry, I’ve got fundraisers to attend.
Nishi: “I just want Palin to show ‘em or fold ‘em. I’m beginning to suspect she’s got nuthin though.”
Coming from an illiterate poltroon such as yourself, I’m sure she’s crushed.
Unfair comparison, Pablo. Don’t ask me why, it just is.
I see the nishitiot is still babbling on about Meme #4. Kind of stuck in that feedback loop.
Why would anyone ask questions here when the person to whom the questions are addressed isn’t here?
Isn’t that what Palin is supposed to have done?
Stood up to Evil Big Oil and the Old Boi repub establishment?
Isn’t that what reformers do?
See, i think Team McCain has chosen the wrong meme to push.
They should have gone with “I, Sarah Palin, am out to reform teh Evil Elitist Media like I reformed Big Oil and the Republican Wide Boyz! Sure, they will try to make me look bad, but I, Sarah Palin, Crackerjack Reformer and Corruption Warrior Pitbull will take them on!”
Instead, Team McCain went for identity politics and IQ-baiting.
“Palin is just like you, ‘Merica. Ordinary. Mediocre even.
And the Elites are trying to keep her down because they hate her, and they hate you. We can have Joe-Sixpack with boobs for president! Yes we can!
Expertise, education and intelligence are not important!
Anyways, we yeomanfarmers are just as smart as you elites.
We are just smart in a better way!
We are Godsmart.”
Isn’t that what Palin is supposed to have done?
I don’t know, someone should ask her.
Can you assholes please stop arguing with the thorbot and the nishilulzbot sometime soon? Please?
Hi nishi. I am not feeding you I just wanted to say I think it would take a strong strong man to ever let you go I think. You have a certain persistence is why, mostly. If you were to use your powers for good I think it would matter a lot.
I will change the subject now. I think our new K-cup machine is decidedly not a green sort of thing. That’s weird cause it’s German, but I guess so are porsches.
Hey, hf, BRD has questions about Los Angeles in the pub.
oh. I will look after I smoke. I mostly just know my zone though. Hyperlocal. It’s the future.
Either participate or STFU. I’m sick of reading your and the rest of your airheaded R-wing squadron of dumbassed posters’ posts who bellow for teaming-up upon all those you think too much for you yourself to handle.
Show ’em or fold ’em, as nishi would say. I applaud her constant snarking your noggin and whoopin you in the balls. As if everyone is supposed to get in line and agree with your simple thoughts, ha! No chance.
Spies with boobies? Gross.
Right back at you, motherfucker. What you’re doing is not participation, it’s baiting. Masterful baiting, possibly, but baiting nonetheless. You’re about scoring points, not making them. Say something, and defend it, or STFU yourself.
“Democrats set an affirmative action time-bomb and now it’s gone off.”
And as they have for the last 75 years, someone else has been set up as the sacrificial scapegoat. The Democrats solution is to give themselves more power so they can set up the next problem/crisis. Rake in more graft from it. And set up the next scapegoat for the next round.
I want the country off this merry-go-round to hell.
Kate would be a fine catch if she could get hooked up with the correct medication.
sure, Moes, BRD.
here is wat I would have …..ermm…IF i were Sarah Palin–
“Pardon, Katie, but if Sen McCain’s record is the relevent topic here, then i suggest you ask him.”
instead Palin gave a gushy pageant answer about “teh Mav”.
dumb.
Palin should never use that word again, that’s fersure.
If i were Palin….id run an insurgency against the media. id be opportunistic and exploitive.
id be subversive.
but…im not sure Palin has the substrate to do that.
Pageant answers just dont cut it.
The media is gonna shred pageant answers everytime.
She’d have to be able to dodge, redirect, and slip a blade in.
She could…turn the elite media opposition to her into an advantage, but she’d have to able to think quick and parry gotchas with slick subtle counterattacks.
I relly dont think she can do it.
Kate do you have a boyfriend?
Here’s the storyboard I’d use…..the brave young heroine, the populist reformer, taking on Establishment Elite Media.
Welcome press interviews, but seize the narrative and hold it to topic, topic being Palin.
lol, use quellchrist as a model.
“Make it personal.”
I’d suggest Palin read Woken Furies and model herself on quellcrist falconer.
But, like i said, i dont think she has the substrate.
Sarah Palin is running for VP. What qualifies Obama (who happens to be running for a higher office)? Let’s see some media analysis of that. I will conceed that he is an expierienced campainer. So is everybody else who wins a few elections. He can read off a teleprompter. OK. good. He votes present a lot….so I guess he is got that going for him. Oh yea! And he is black, which seems to be his best accomplishment so far. At least to the sheep like thor and nishi.
I think Sarah isn’t really the issue right now. We’ve had a fantastically undermined VP for the last 8 years or so and he seems to be still sort of smiling and hanging in there. These things just sort of work themselves out I think. Also, it’s super-historic for a woman to hold the job. That’s nice. Women are the future.
And like i said, im terrifically disappointed in both Aldo and Jeff for buying into IQ-baiting and identity politics.
For Baracky it’s historic just to be nominated. Yay! Ok now we have to be serious though.
btw, feets is always exempt from crits.
i haven’t figgered feets out yet.
She’d promise to find some substrate and bring it to ya.
Katie Courec, that cheery bulldog of media bulldogs, made panting Palin drop her tail. That was, as they, a moment.
I mean really, Palin should turn persecution into armor to blunt their blades, not turn it into an excuse to duck and run from confrontation.
Is she a reformer?
LO, then go reform.
Why does any of this matter? O! will make the oceans stop rising and end all use of oil in ten years. He surely has my vote.
I am not exempt. That’s not fair. Sdferr just last night… I think it’s up there – yes – at #343 – he told me I was looking at stuff wrong and he was right. I was projecting my own sort of weariness onto the politics I think. It’s just I’ve been swamped at worked for about a month now and there’s no end in sight and I really wish I had more time to sort of follow the bouncing ball on this financial thing cause I think I could learn a lot, and this whole election thing takes a lot of work cause you have to sift through news so much more carefully these days. And a lot of it you have to completely filter out cause it’s so dumb this year. Also I want to have a nice Christmas and that takes a lot of preparation but the Christmas spirit so far is a lot elusive.
And Mr. Goldstein has told me how the cow ate the cabbage several times now already.
Take on the media.
Take them down.
Lecture them, scold them IN PERSON! expose their bias, but for cripes dont hide from them and then give crappy pageant answers when you’re on the national stage.
Idiots.
Also, I thought SarahW at #358 was a lot provocative and plainly spoken at the same time. It would be nice to see a conversation follow from that.
I think it’s ok to patronize the media. I really do. This is because they aren’t a variable anymore they are a constant.
Show some fucking courage Palin.
then i might believe you got stuff.
well, im kinda done with SarahW until she admits she never gave me a link on Palins height.
shez a liar and gaslighter as far as im concerned.
perhaps it takes more courage to not appease people that are obviously out to get you. no matter how loud they howl.
Height is relative. It’s a variable and a constant like that. Mostly Governor Palin is shorter than. She seems to bear that cross with grace I think.
Funny you calling anyone a liar.
ok…..I just had an epiphany.
this is my base qualification for president.
Courage.
so far, i havent seen a scrap of realtime courage from Palin.
not a particle.
or she could, you know, eat more waffles. That would be my gimmick. and then a mumu.
and what courage have you seen from O!?
apparently, Palin has historical courage.
well, grrl, get the fuck out there and talk about it.
actions speak louder than words.
the media will give u a bully pulpit if u got the nads.
Are u prepared?
He had the courage to stick by his spiritual mentor Rev. Wright and no more disown him than disown the black community or his white grandmother.
I had no idea Palin reads PW. Good job, Jeff!
we arent talking about O.
we are talking about how Palin could possibly redeem herself.
so not answering the question as usual. okay.
you know who has demonstrated courage? McCain.
Ppppp. The media is supposed to be out to nail our politicians to their words, thoughts and deeds. Press conferences are not sharing tea time with the Queen.
Palin’s and the Repubs’ paranoid narrative is so stale.
riiiiight. in fantasy land. Cause I love how they nailed Biden about getting the ticket’s position on coal wrong.
comparisons with O or Biden are just chaff, in the radarcountermeasures sense.
each candidate is unique.
Palin has almost zero public history.
the media will, quite simply, define her as they see fit, unless she is brave enuff to take to them on.
sure, McCain has demonstrated courage.
but it doesnt tranfer to Palin.
Yes it is paranoia. I agree. Especially when press members vote 90 percent for Dems and contribute 10 to 1 in favor of Dem candidates. That is in no way a sign of the way they slant coverage.
no. it’s an election and the two are in competition so it’s fair to compare them to make a choice. The same qualifications should apply to all. sure, there are mitigating circumstances, but you have yet to elucidate any.
perhaps it takes more courage to not appease people that are obviously out to get you. no matter how loud they howl.
that is identity politics.
the meme that Palin doesnt have to answer biased or hostile questions.
grow up.
the widewideworld is full of biased and hostile questioners.
Quitting is courage and black is now white. McCain’s was a political stunt.
The Bushian mortgage crisis has all the political drama of a nation’s tax base being raped, by the way.
I’ll bet my 2008 income tax that McCain will be at that debate. Ha!
no. I think it’s the same thing that Bush does and it drives them crazy.
ok maggie.
both O and Biden are capable of holding a press conference.
Palin never has, and seems to be incapable.
Shall we have a shadow president that cant hold a press conference to speak to the american people?
btw McCain can hold a press conference.
you know who has demonstrated courage? McCain.
Try to visualize B.O. in a night-landing on a pitching aircraft carrier. Yes you… Maybe not.
We already have one.
and that’s all you require? okay, we’ll just have to disagree.
Present.
Imagine McCain walking the street after dark on the Southside. Maybe not.
thor’s right. we’ve already got an actual President that can’t. whoop-de-doo.
Imagine McCain walking the street after dark on the Southside. Maybe not.
Or even Jesse Jackson.
No thor.
the media is biased.
SNL is biased.
Hollywood is biased.
academe is biased.
but…a true reformer could turn that bias into tactics and strategy.
/shrug
i dont think Palin has either the substrate or the courage.
so she hides.
And we have a President who lowered taxes and sent out $300 dollar checks so everyone could buy back-to-school frisbees while we were at war which added $5-trillion dollars to our national debt.
Brilliant!
is that all your require?
no maggie, that is not sufficient.
but it is neccessary.
Governor Palin can play the game by her own rules I think. If we keep shoving people into the same old paradigm … that’s just not very changey I don’t think. Besides, Baracky says people are watching the wrong shows anyway.
I think nishi has a very fair point here with regards to hammering back (judiciously, natch) at the media interrogators and their silly season meta-narratives and micro-narratives.
Sure the media front person — Katie, Charlie — has an ostensible “control” over the direction of the interview through query sequence and question parameter/assumption, and more obliquely through omission (or think favorable territory avoidance) but none of that precludes the candidate from counter-assertion or outright question dismissal. They can fight back, and, truth be told, Katie and Charlie may be equipped with plenty of interview prep but I believe only a little pushback is required (as demonstrated with Charlie’s Bush doctrine gaffe) to expose their shallowness and fundamental ignorance on most any range of issues.
Or try to imagine B.O. resisting North Vietnamese torture.
Or try to imagine B.O. standing up during a Rev. Wright sermon and saying, “This isn’t right, people.”
Or try to imagine B.O. telling Ayers, “Our programs aren’t helping the kids at all, Bill.”
I thought that was so people could buy gasoline, thor? I didn’tknow about the frisbees.
Or try to imagine B.O. turning in Tony Rezko.
yeah, I’ve been a little dissapointed in that regard.
I spent my monies from Bush on a new computer what will already make $500 from a video project this weekend. I think that’s kind of neat. It’s not for me it’s the guy who’s putting it together what’s going to use it, but that’s still kind of neat I think. But when I get it I’ll be back to where I can do stuff on the side again too. It just goes to show how much you could accomplish if taxes were lower all the time I think.
Or really doing anything that goes against his own self-interest.
the Bush Doctrine was Palin’s gaffe, not Charlies.
she had no clue and that was a fair question.
but…when Charlis said “exact words” Palin should have have come back with “No those were not!”
and explained that they were part of a prayer, and left out the dumb attempt to spin that she was channelling Lincoln.
then she should have said, “Charlie, are you against people in church praying for our troops?”
and followed with a foray into how her religious affiliation has never impacted her political descisions and governer.
whatevs, you’d just blow it on eggrolls and cupcakes.
hammering back (judiciously, natch)
Well yeah, there’s that. But it would still be kind of fun to see someone just flat out bust Katie or Charlie upside the head with a piece of rebar too.
sadly….Palin doesnt have the experience or I suspect the substrate to think that quick on her feet.
oh. I would a lot, but cause the eggrolls were on sale I don’t have any more freezer room right now. Life is good.
Palin isn’t a lawyer. That’s a feature, nishi.
btw i noticed Katie gritting her perfect teeth as she went in for the kill.
Palin has to stop lookin like prey, like a deer in the headlights.
She needs to welcome battle joyously.
feets, im not a lawyer.
u dont need to be a lawyer to be quick on your feet mentally.
nor does Obama, so what makes him okay? press conferences where he ums and ahs through the whole thing?
Did you miss last week when he said that just because he didn’t oppose the federal bailout didn’t mean he supported it? how about when he changed his stance on the Georgian situation?
Charlie’s Gaffe, sorry. He didn’t know what he was talking about no matter what Palin’s understanding of the matter was or is. She properly pushed back at a too vague question, revealing Charlie’s lack of grasp (and at a distance, yours as well).
this all supports my hypothesis, that Palin is just not ready.
prove me wrong.
Only the voters will prove you wrong. We only have to wait a few weeks for that judgment. Then we will know.
this all supports my hypothesis, that Obama is just not ready.
prove me wrong.
It is like an evil energizer bunny …
lol
i unnerstand the Bush doctrine perfectly.
Palin was clueless, and her cluelessness became a joke featured on SNL.
the Bush Doctrine, as often articulated by the esteemed Dr. K of Thinktank AEI.
first we remove the substrate that nourishes terrorism.
then we plant a seedling of democracy, which will grow like mad and spread to all the neighboring gardens.
well, yeah, but it’s not just reflexively calling everyone stupid today. so there’s that. and i don’t have much work to do.. yet.
well, Gibson said it was preemptively attacking people. so which is it?
Charlie’s Gaffe, sorry to disappoint you. Don’t address the issue. That’s fine with me.
My hypothesis is that nishi is a dimwit troll.
Prove me wrong!
Sd, neither charle or palin unnerstood the bush doctrine.
it was her responsibilty to have an answer, however.
she could have made gibson look a right fool.
instead she gets parodied on SNL as “i dont know what that is”.
Seriously, no one from as far on the right side of the IQ distribution as nishi would have us believe she is would seriously make that kind of statement: here’s my hypothesis; prove me wrong. Utter, complete fail.
see…that is what is frustrating about Palin for me.
she could be a fantastic candidate.
the elite media bias is an opportunity, not a handicap, for a true reform-warrior.
an insurgents dream scenario.
but since Palin can’t seem to exploit it…..i am beginning to suspect she is not really a reform-warrior, but a paperdoll, with no substance, no stuff.
if she is really what she claims she should be chomping at the bit to get out there and tear the unfair establishment apart.
instead she’s duckin and hidin and then gives dumb pageant answers when she is on terebi.
Lawyers I think have had a lot of influence on developing the antagonistic model the media uses for Governor Palin but not for Baracky. For Baracky they use the pageant model. It’s very confusing, but only if you watch tv. You seem to watch a lot more tv than I would have thunk. I just don’t think it’s the future, this tv thing.
READ. THE. GODDAMNED. ORIGINAL. POST.
Kate Mengele still around?
And she doesn’t know what a VP candidate’s role is. :::yawn::::
lawls, don’t you guyz see it?
the elite media disdain for Palin is the perfect armor for her.
she can turn any blade they throw at her with that.
but she doesnt seem to have the nads to stand up to bullies.
therefore her reformist history is suspect.
for me at least.
a VP’s job description is to be ready for the office from day one.
darleen is teh ignorant here.
like usual
why? because she actually did stuff instead of just talking about it?
Prince Feckless talks a good talk “I’m the one to get people together, that’s what’ll make me a good President!” but can’t cite one “walk” or even do it now. He fell flat on his face while McCain decided to do his day job and go back to DC.
whereas, Obama talks a good game, but has nothing to show for it.
hmmmmmm.
Kate can’t even read
I said “VP candidate role”
and it is the PRESIDENT’s job to be ready on day one. Prince Feckless isn’t.
Bullies should be Palin’s meat.
since they arent…..i have to think Sarah is without.
Kate should compare Biden’s on the trail performance and get a clue or two.
I know, asking for the impossible, she is so jealous of a real woman like Sarah that is what she obsesses about.
I wonder what it’s like to go through life believing you’re some sort of super-genius, all the while acting like a complete moron? I mean, just how the hell can you come close to convincing people that you have even the least shred of intelligence when you’re asking them to prove a negative, write like all you’ve ever read are text messages and cartoons (oh, sorry, “graphic novels”), and either don’t understand the inconsistencies in your own arguments or are blithely unaware that they could even exist?
And then, to have the blindness in the face of your own sub-standard performance, insist that anyone who merely disagrees with you is mentally deficient.
The self-awareness, it is absent.
because she actually did stuff instead of just talking about it?
no maggie, because Palin is so scared of the media that she cant even talk about it.
right, so talking is better than doing. I understand now why you love Obama. well, that and he’s GORGEOUS!
She hates that Palin had the guts to carry her children to term. She hates that Palin’s life is a rebuke to the lies she’s told herself all these years — that Palin demonstrates a woman can have a family and success. She hates that Palin doesn’t worship degrees, that Palin has different opinions, that Palin dares challenge The One.
She especially hates that Palin stood up to the political machine, because that makes The One’s craven cowardice all the more apparent.
And I still wonder how she squares her love of The One with his hatred of math and science.
That’s odd, for as I remember the exchange (and while I can readily acknowledge Palin was somewhat vague herself), Palin’s answers were precisely along the line you have described:
Nishi:
Palin:
Nishi:
Palin:
the media is defining Palin right now.
because she wont fight back.
u guyz say she doesnt need to fight back, cuz the media is biased.
i say if Palin is runnin as a reform-warrior, take them down.
reform-warriors are courageous.
but Palin demonstrates no courage.
so…..is she a reform-warrior?
Isn’t the burden of proof on the accuser? Shouldn’t someone who argues by assertion be forced to prove it instead requesting others prove the accuser wrong?
How can someone so “smart” miss something so fundamental?
The One’s campaign is astroturfing, Biden thinks FDR was a 1929 television star, the NYTimes publishes known falsehoods about the McCain campaign but Kate Mengele is obsessing about Palin not performing to Kate’s whims.
it’s a wonder that Kate can lift her head off a pillow in the morning, seeing how big it is..
Kate still hasn’t figured out what a VP candidate’s role is. She just parrots the same delusions.
RESET!
lol Sd
appearance is all.
that is a pageant answer.
Palin gave a pageant answer, and it was easy for the media to portray her as not knowing what she was talking about.
she may unnerstand the bush doctrine, but she didnt show it.
not a wit.
she got that deer-in-the-headlights look and gave a pageant answer.
perhaps that is all she is capable of.
Kate should take a clue
de gustibus non disputandum est
Kate still parrots the “Bush Doctrine” line. There is no such thing.
and….i think she doesnt actually unnerstand it.
the spread of the democracy-weed to the local ‘hoods is a kinda critical portion of the doctrine.
;)
sry, fail.
New definition, folks: “pageant answer” == “same thing, but not in the words I’d have used”.
Which means, clearly, that a “pageant answer” is thoughtful and literate.
Palin was capable of routing AK GOP corruption and getting people jailed. She was capable of being elected AK Governor and having approval ratings over 75%. She was capable of hard, direct negotiating with Oil Companies and the Canadian government over the natural gas line. She was capable of incensing her own GOP AK congresscritters when she deep-sixed the ‘bridge to nowhere’
The chosen One is capable of only voting “present” and sticking a wet finger in the wind.
I bet Sarah Palin can spell “understand”, because she’s smart enough to understand the value of clarity in communication.
Looks like nishi and thor went manic last night.
And I sure hope thor wasn’t presuming to correct me on Hemingway and existentialism. Because that would just be embarrassing for the poor deluded lad.
There is no “Bush Doctrine”.
and Obama doesn’t believe that shit works at all. so vote for him!
look..i tole you, pageant answers don’t work.
the press will shred them everytime.
is that all she’s got?
im curious.
They need to be provided the hope that all Americans have instilled in us, because we’re a democratic, we are a free, and we are a free-thinking society. …â€Â
no…she doesnt unnerstand it.
the local ‘hoods aren’t gonna catch democracy fever from America.
they’ve been immunized.
it’s all Obama’s got. and why do you like him, again?
Baracky isn’t gonna be no president what spreads democracy anywheres. Least of all here. Card check, people. It’s the future.
Sarah can spell “told” and properly use capitalization and punctuation, too.
N @ 518, 526, etc. I believe you have made yourself abundantly clear as to your opinions on that subject. To assume either that we have not understood you or in the alternative, cannot remember what you have already said too many times to count is really……..well, odd, if not an outright insult. Why not give it a rest. It would serve the general conversation well, I think.
part of the doctrine is local democracy, that is why Iraq.
that is a pageant answer, with a bunch of amorphous buzzwords that cloak any real deep understanding of the question.
im correctin u Sd.
you are wrong.
;)
I think they’re scared. McCain gave O! a chance to act like a statesman, and instead O! looks like someone who’s never done anything except pursue his next job.
Which, of course, is exactly what he is.
pageant answers cloak a LACK of any real deep understanding of the problem.
lol
I can’t wait to pay dues so’s I can keep my job. It will be nice not to have to make choices about what to do with the monies. My union will take good care of me, and it won’t be the greasey kind. We will do fun things together, and never ever disagree. We is all autoworkers now, by golly.
It’s insufficient that you know her opinion — you must express it as your own, too. Differing opinions are not allowed in Obama’s Brave New World.
[…] they hammered us with babies-raped and cannibalism and Bush-hates-black-folks Katrina stories. But that’ll never happen. Filed Under: […]
and it’s all Obama gives. so vote for him!
cross my palm with silver
betchu the debate is on.
Hey, everyone! I just found out that “lol” is not really a form of punctuation. Apparently it’s just “too-lazy-to-type-things-out” slacker code for “laugh out loud”. It’s the kind of thing you use when you’re texting your BFF Jill about her spilling her drink on the hot guy, not the kind of thing you use when you’re trying to have an intelligent discussion.
RESET! to meme #10!
Don’t worry about card check, ‘feets. Pretty soon it’ll be extended to the general elections, as well, and then there’ll just be one union we all have to join. But it’ll provide discount vacations and sharp uniforms, so we’ll have that going for us.
I never lol cause it would be dishonest cause I am usually sort of a quiet guy. I sigh audibly sometimes, but sol is already taken. *sigh*
zomg
rob didnt know what lol stood for?
welcome to 21st century big guy.
“#Comment by thor on 9/25 @ 8:58 am #
Imagine McCain walking the street after dark on the Southside. Maybe not.”
Is that a slam at McCain’s Courage?
You are a fucking idiot, aren’t you, fucknozzle.
the rest of us have been here for 8 years.
It’s called sarcasm, twit.
Kirsten Powers privileges her homestate over her party (DON’T MEET THE PRESS). [Tee-hee]
“Shouldn’t someone who argues by assertion be forced to prove it instead requesting others prove the accuser wrong?”
It’s the seriousness of the charge that counts, not the nature or actual lack of evidence to support it. Same thinking (or lack of) that went on in the French Revolution as opposed to the American one.
much like Obama, she doesn’t get that. “John McCain thinks you have to make 5 million dollars to be rich.” uh, yeah, Barry, you’re a pretty literal kind of guy, eh?
The press is sub-human I think. It’s not that I disdain them, more that they are useless vermin. Parasitic vermin. They don’t add value.
So, another post diverted like Saddam diverted the Tigris away from the marshes in Maysaan and Al Basrah…
532 comments, and the best summary I can see right now is:
“Comment by Rob Crawford on 9/25 @ 9:44 am #
we arent talking about O.
READ. THE. GODDAMNED. ORIGINAL. POST.”
you know what Jeff?
you are a meme-warrior.
i think u should volunteer to help Palin.
since you seem to believe in her.
myself, im skeptical.
i think pageant answers is all shez got.
“Just a conspiracy of cartographers, then?”
“Comment by happyfeet on 9/25 @ 10:14 am #
I can’t wait to pay dues so’s I can keep my job. It will be nice not to have to make choices about what to do with the monies. My union will take good care of me, and it won’t be the greasey kind. We will do fun things together, and never ever disagree. We is all autoworkers now, by golly.”
But hf, I want to be unionized like the Dutch Army, not the UAW! I could replace all this 15-16 hour day crap with punching the clock 9-5. And if I didn’t want to shave or do any PT, who’d tell me otherwise.
really? I had no idea. what kind of answers has Obama got?
Yeah just like the NATO units that would not do missions or provide support after dark in some cases. I think that is because terrorists stop working after 7 pm. due to union bilaw #34354656.
Um, er, um, well, uh, you see…
“…like the Dutch Army…”
Plus they get boo-koops of porn don’t they? Or was that the Danes? Or both?
The Dutch Army doesn’t really sound like the toughest job you’ll ever love. I want one of those kind.
I heard the South Korean army actually brings prostitutes with them.
Hey Kate Mengele
What is the role of a VP candidate?
Can’t answer a simple question, can ya? No wonder you want to divert from Prince Feckless to your Palin obsession.
“The Dutch Army doesn’t really sound like the toughest job you’ll ever love. I want one of those kind.”
I heard community organizing in Chicago is really tough. It is also a qualification for President.
The Swiss Navy — there’s a not-challenging job.
when the media and the trolls go berserk like this they are losing. If they were winning they would be otherwise.
“when the media and the trolls go berserk like this they are losing. If they were winning they would be otherwise.”
Amen!
RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)
Saul Alinsky
By my count, this thread has less than 200 comments. So why are they numbered in the 560s?
It’s too bad nobody ever showed Saul that, so does a crowbar upside the head “for going after me/my wife/my kids.”
Rob @ 504:
Wile E. Coyote’s posting here?