I loved the bit last night where Senator Obama gave as his excuse for continuing to campaign (instead of doing his job as Senator) that a President has to be able to do several things at once.
I don’t think the Senator recognized the irony. Or was aware that he isn’t yet President.
— Though that last bit was just a bonus, really.
There you go again with your hard bigotry of normal expectations.
“call me if you need me”
O!’s like the Maytag repairman that way.
Bingo. What a fucking schmuck. Seriously. I used to just think his followers were dumbasses, but now I know why they follow him.
I just can’t wait for the inevitable ads slamming Obama for putting his campaign ahead of the country. Not only will the ads be fun, the wailing and gnashing of teeth from his cultists will be hilarious.
It is a modern executive talent to know where the buck stops and to not be there when it does.
By doing several things at once he means do only one thing – continue campaigning. He’s a giver that way, and besides don’t
kingspresidents have people to handle this sort of thing.Actually, Education Guy, I suspect Obama will be doing more fund-raising than campaigning.
Bet Bambi wishes he’d picked Hillary rather than having Bill outside the tent p*ssing in.
Campaigning is the only constant on his resume.
The important thing is getting the levers of power into your hands. All else is irrelevant.
Baracky couldn’t even belong to his church and campaign at the same time.
Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father
Yea, like:
1) do your job as a Senator…or were you unnecessary?
2) Worry about something besides your campaign…
O! has simply verified his narcissism by once again putting winning in the fall ahead of the good of the country.
While Mav has proven that, just as with the surge, he would rather do what is right than what is in his own interests…
This will resonate with the independant voters; the ones tired of partisan bickering and its associated gridlock. And, it will powerfully, yet subtly, underscore his country first campaign theme, the personal importance of reform to him, and his Mavericky-ness !
Jeff, what is really depressing me is your endorsement of mccain/palin because of TEH UNFAIRNESS, not because they would be better for the country.
another hail mary pass yawn
but guess wat?
reuters says theres enuff votes.
It’s on!
“Look at me! I’m multi-tasking! Fund-raising, campaigning, AND calling your attention to it!”
“I can chew gum and change lightbulbs to environmentally friendly swirly bulbs at the same time!”
“w00t! I’m OVERqualified, baby!”
and apparently leading isn’t one of them.
John McCain, paraphrased.
Hmm. CNN is still advertising the debates.
Portrait of a Moose Hunter
My endorsement of McCain / Palin has nothing to do with any unfairness. It has to do with the recognition that Obama is a self-interested lightweight who has been raised on anti-Americanism and learned to parrot the right sort of socialist claptrap to prove successful in the academy — and this makes him dangerous, particularly if he has a Dem Congress supporting him, and all those he owes for his sudden rise to prominence on the strength of, well, being able to get people tossed off ballots, calling in favors.
The guy is clearly not beyond Chicago-style politics and graft. And he is an acolyte of Alinsky. I mean, Franz Fannon? Jesus, is there anyone more depressingly indicative of what is wrong with the humanities?
But then, only thor’s ever really read his books, so why Sdferr presumes to quote from them is, like, probably racist.
Jeff….you are smarter than this.
The Palin bounce is gone, and there wasnt any substantatial flock of teh wimmens to Septugenarian Guy.
team mccain kept a muzzle on Palin so she couldn’t say anything stupid as long as the bounce was operative.
this is just another desparate hail mary pass.
yeah, we’re probably missing the next sentence that reads. “Then I graduated and got a job and came to my senses”
Suicide is painless, Kate.
“patriarchy”
I’m fairly certain that I can whup the ass of any male who uses this word with anything other than sarcasm in mind.
That said, I think if McCain’s campaign is smart, they’ll reframe the issue as one of accountability – McCain wants to be present to shepherd a Bill through, and to be held accountable for its relative success or failure. Barack wants to remain uncommitted so that he can take credit for the Bill/Law’s successes, and distance himself from its political liabilities, or both.
Please provide links when you cite Kate. I want to know WTF I am reading.
and Harry Reid demanded it! until he, um, didn’t. never mind.
Yeah, Jeff- you’re smarter than this!
Putting principle ahead of polls – WTF are you smoking?
Lead. Whether you like the results or not, he’s got a long record of that.
Looks like this time, he doesn’t even want to vote “present.”
and Septugenarian Guy is an egomaniac that will do absolutely anything to be president.
he just sacrificed Palin, tossed her away like a used tissue.
good thing Jindal is on record as a demonic exorcist or it would have been him.
Obama will be a really horrible president. I really hope he doesn’t win, but I suspect he will.
Yes the Presidency is the goal, not what you will do when you become President.
Yo O!
linky
Stunt Man
check Garrison Keeler
Obama may now be doing everything he would do if he were already President. If he’s doing the job why shouldn’t he have the title?
Why can’t I just eat my waffle?
and here i thot Lake Woebegone was ur hometurf.
lol
“kept a muzzle on Palin so she couldn’t say anything stupid”
How’z that Biden muzzle working out for you?
Odd. When I see people doing that, I figure they’re just a bunch stupid fucks.
Yeah, that’s someone I look to for sane political opinions.
Dear Sarah Palin
Ok, now I AM realy sorry for mocking you.
Im sure you are good person, and a mostly excellent mother.
But now I understand.
You have been used.
You might just be a crackerjack reformer, or corruption warrior, but you werent allowed to say that.
Team McCain kept you muzzled so that you couldn’t say anything stupid enough to ruin his identity politics gambit.
Now that every last drop of IQ-bait has been milked out of the culture wars, and after Team Mccain put you out like a staked goat on national tv with nothing but pageant answers to defend yourself, I’m sorry.
I didn’t see how you were being used.
At least you got a new hairdo out of the experience.
;)
lollollolll!!!!!
oh give up Jeff.
im right, and you know i am.
know what?
Keeler wrote that BEFORE McCain threw the last Hail Mary.
before McCain tried to get out of the debate.
prescient
Well, yes, we are missing the next sentence which does not read:
“Then I graduated and got a job and came to my senses”
But does read:
And Jeff is quite right, at least with regard to me, I haven’t read Obama’s books in their entirety, but only in various extended quotes that have been of enough interest to other people to have appeared here and there on the internets. Whether he is right that my motivation in thus quoting Obama is racist, I’ll leave to you to judge.
“Whether he is right that my motivation in thus quoting Obama is racist”
You’re somewhat behind the curve. Simply opposing the election of Obama makes you a racist now, no need to divine your intent. Carry on.
Garrison Keeler
Is he still alive?
He was funny once, I think maybe 1981 or so….
Baracky doesn’t seem to understand that this financial deal is actually important. It’s not a math problem. It’s about buttressing confidence. There’s either getting on board an emergent consensus on a solution or there is undermining an emergent consensus on a solution. He failed. He wants to use a debate so he and his media can sow doubt. Baracky doesn’t seem to understand that this financial deal is actually important.
Garrison Keeler is a nasty molesty guy. Can you imagine. Bless her heart.
“To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society’s stifling constraints. We weren’t indifferent or careless or insecure. We were alienated.”
We had a word in college for people like this: Douchebags.
Next time I’m arguing with somebody, I’m going to try that tactic: “Just give up! You know I’m right!”
More ammo
Barraky made some comment yesterday that in 45 days, whoever is elected president must be ready to face this mess. I hope Barraky realizes the new president is not sworn in until January. He know’s that right ? They’re holding his inaguration in one of the 7 extra states we have.
Also, my guess is Barrak didnt want to go for a vote, so his name won’t be attached to this legislation.
oh. I copied that misspelling from someone else. Not my fault.
McCain was a huge advocate of the surge when it was political suicide. Barak Obama introduced legislation to prevent it happening. McCain was right, Obama was wrong. McCain took a risk, Obama demagogued.
You are a nitwit, as is Garrison Keiller. Learn how to spell before you attempt geopolitics, Kate.
lol
Yesterday’s Post-ABC News Poll showed Barack Obama opening a nine-point lead over McCain, chiefly because of the economic anxiety flooding the nation and the belief of most Americans that Obama is more in touch with economic realities than McCain is and has a better sense of how to navigate both the current crisis and America’s long-term economic challenges. But the McCain plan for victory this November never counted on Americans picking McCain on the basis of the issues.
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As his strategists saw it, they had to confine the discussion to a comparison of the character of the two candidates. Alas for McCain, reality intruded over the past week, distracting the public from McCain’s stellar attributes as a decisive leader with news of an impending economic collapse. So the task for his managers has been to diminish this new story to just one chapter in the ongoing saga of John McCain, the man who rides to the rescue.
Can McCain pull this off — persuading the public to forget how he and his fellow Reagan Republicans changed the nation’s economic rules in ways that allowed Wall Street to run amok, and refocusing its attention on his decisiveness at this moment of crisis? I doubt it.
For one thing, America may be a republic of amnesiacs, but deep in some seldom-used brain lobe, it does recall that its two political parties have differed on questions of regulation and stimulating the economy, a comparison that does not now work in Republicans’ favor. For another, presidential debates aren’t distractions from the business of the nation. However confining their formats may at times be, they are central to the business of democracy, and suspending that business so that a lowest-common denominator consensus can be reached in Washington — or so that McCain can complain that Obama is an obstructionist if he doesn’t go along with McCain’s proposals — is an affront to American voters.
McCain’s ploy was transparent. To counter the public’s preference for Obama’s economics over his own, he would get both of them in a room and emerge proclaiming that they had reached agreement, that they had no differences. In fact, they have very real differences. McCain wants to retain tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans; Obama wants to create tax cuts for all but the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans. Obama favors policies — through investments in infrastructure and education and through legislation enabling Americans to join unions without fear of being fired — to build the base of the economy, while McCain’s record is one of opposition to such policies. Obama favors trade agreements only when they raise labor and environmental standards with our trading partners and protect them here at home; McCain has supported every trade pact that has weakened such standards and has never said one word about protecting our standards or raising them abroad.
Comparisons such as these are odious, however, to McCain’s prospects.
He cannot win on the strength of his positions. He can only win on the strength of his character. Problem is, McCain’s character, as we have seen in his selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate, is heavy on decisiveness and weak on judgment. In this, despite his campaign’s protestations, a McCain presidency would be very much an extension of George W. Bush’s. The president helped McCain out last night by inviting both candidates to Washington today to put their imprimatur on a deal that seemed near completion. At the risk of making McCain’s gesture look less heroic, he also made it look less self-absorbed.
But self is McCain’s selling point. He is either the man on horseback riding to the rescue, or he is nothing — or, more precisely, the loser come November. Obama, Lord knows, has his flaws, but he does not seem to believe that the nation’s crises are primarily about him.
see?
egomaniac
Well, sure, Alec, but…there might be more to the story that gets lost beneath the blanket, if not in my case, then in some possible other. I mean, I know the drill, but the drill can be awfully obscurantist, no?
Comment by quellcrist falconer on 9/25 @ 11:40 am
The Washington Post told me not to believe the stuff written in The Washington Post.
Keillor isn’t prescient, Kate, he’s a loon.
Since all Sen. Obama has done is campaign for another political job, I think that answers the question why he hasn’t offered anything more concrete than Hope and Change. He hasn’t the foggiest idea what he wants to do with the office.
That would be bad enough, but his friends and allies – Rezko, Ayers, Johnson, Raines – they know what they want and they will get it. Just a paper moon candidate.
And then he pussed out. Why won’t Barack Obama talk to Americans? I don’t think he likes them very much.
Do not feed the troll.
McCain and Obama both agreed to the presidential debate.
that is a contract with the electorate, and not a comparison to townhall meetings, which non-contractual and purely elective.
On the contrary, that was Obama’s joint statement ploy. You see, McCain knows that O! doesn’t do shit in the Senate.
Keeler certainly looks prescient in this case.
He said McCain would do anything.
Slipping in the polls?
oops
We know you are, but it’s good to see you’ve realized that. Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery.
So, dre, who to believe?
All the socialists are slavering. It’s really creeping me out. I don’t think they understand at all what a victory driven by a manipulative media would mean. It’s not a mandate what you win like that. It’s despair.
That’s a bold prediction: “He’ll do anything!!!” Of course, anything is a rather nebulous term. I suspect the JRF Prize is safe from Garrison.
I believe the WaPo was telling the truth when they said not to believe anything they report.
well….i gtg.
poor sarah palin.
she’s been discarded, her bounce value is over.
team mccain let her off lead today to talk to reporters and no one even cares.
Coming from someone who can’t separate SciFi from reality, such a perspective is no surprise.
You know what else is a contract with the American people? Oath of Office. But I suppose if you have a campaign to run…..
oh feets.
you dont unnerstand.
we are all socialists now.
“He said McCain would do anything.”
So his thesis is unfalsifiable, because whatever McCain does is “anything.” The achillies heel of liberals is on display, i.e. that cannot separate pure politics from what needs to be done for the good of the country.
“McCain and Obama both agreed to the presidential debate”
Obama: “I’ll debate anytime anywhere…so long as it’s this friday
Hmmm….http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2008/09/palin_speaks.html
Think the nishidiot’s head will explode? Or does she automatically send herself back in for re-programming?
Funny, I said the same thing to my wife at the time.
Forgot to mention it here. I guess I was just overwhelmed with his stupid.
Attention is what children demand. When not getting it, they post…er, talk longer and say more outrageous things. The often laugh to themslves (lulz!) in order to draw adults into argument.
Do not be fooled. Eventually they go away.
Fuck Garrison Keillor?
hmmmmmm. whoda thunk.
Except you, since you’ve been shrieking about it for three days, since you read that meme at Dkos. Surely you care, right Kate? I mean, you’ve been demanding just that.
…That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security…
I read it somewhere.
“like a staked goat on national tv with nothing but pageant answers to defend yourself”
More like a Bull Moose:
You have to feel bad for people like quellcrist falconer. Expending all this emotional energy into Obama when he/she/it will still be the same loser regardless of who wins. The rest of us will be disappointed, even angry if Obama wins but we’ll have real jobs, lots of friends, entertaining lives and generally love America even if we know it is off-course and weakened in a dangerous world. I’d take that over being jubilant for a few days over Obama being elected then being hit with the cold hard reality that I’m am still a little twatwaffle who will find new and different ways to feel emotionally tornmented.
pablow i think this bears repeating.
Team McCain kept you muzzled so that you couldn’t say anything stupid enough to ruin his identity politics gambit.
Now that every last drop of IQ-bait has been milked out of the culture wars, and after Team Mccain put you out like a staked goat on national tv with nothing but pageant answers to defend yourself, I’m sorry.
now byeeeee
ttyl
;)
Thank you, nishi.
He was there. He turned out the lights. He sent the regulators home. Mr. McCain seems willing to say anything, do anything, to get to the White House so he can go to war with Iran.
Theres the “tell”.
I’m all in.
Loon, pure and simple.
What politician won’t do or say anything to get elected? O! threw his granny under the bus, for crying out loud.
I think a new Rev Wright outburst would very entertaining.
Gallup’s got O! and Mack tied at 46 today, Nish. Any thoughts?
And stop that snickering!
[…] a fine scotch) Posted by Jeff G. @ 12:05 pm | Trackback SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Palin dodges the press yet […]
I ain’t no Stepin Fetchit.
Crackers.
Nishit – Listen to your doctors. They have your best interests at heart, and those pills, they are not anal beads. They go in your mouth.
Would O! be able to get buzzed through Jerry Wright’s gate?
oh. I didn’t mean thank you to sound snippy. My boss person can be very intrusive some days. What I was gonna say after is it’s good to get it on the table. The socialism. Mr. Froman is wrong I think. Baracky and his socialisms and a compliant servile passionate post-Katrina narrativized media is a combination that is new I think. We’ve never had an America where dissent was wholly illegitimized before. We don’t want to go there I don’t think. People will balk.
Kate Mengele still doesn’t know what the role of a VP candidate is. Ignorant slut.
Kate must have had to vent smoke from the Qualtrax Meme Generator the way she stressed it in this thread.
Kate wrote:
Then quoted a thoroughly lathered up John Dickerson at the always lathered up Slate:
So both Dickerson and Kate reach the “logical” conclusion that it’s all about the BIG MOVE to appear presidential in desperation against sinking polls or some such.
Apparently, both of the serial Obama meme generators missed this little tidbit:
LEADERSHIP!! Well, that’s a very different thing! NEVER MIND!
Also, I am continuously amazed that Kate seems to think the election will happen, like, tomorrow with her “they’ve isolated Palin and now it’s too laaaaaaaate lol” idiocy. This must reflect her ADHD level attention span and narcissistic navel gazing.
Here’s a clue, child, there’s still over forty days for Palin to have an impact. Maybe she will and maybe she won’t but to suggest that it’s over is infantile and unserious.
Also, please, try to come up with a less partisan, boot licking group of commentators than John Dickerson, Garrison Keillor (serial adulterer, heh!) and Harold Meyerson.
And no, Kate, Bob Scheiffer is most definitely not part of the VRWC.
Real people what watch the tv are mostly looking at this through the Letterman vs. Couric lens is my sense. You can’t get more ephemeral than that.
Please do not feed the trolls, no matter how entrertaining it may be.
Nishi, I have a serious question for you: If we’re all cudlips around here, what the fuck are you doing here? Why are you casting your pearls before swine?
I admit to having a somewhat high opinion of my intelligence. I predicate this opinion on my ongoing efforts to improve it. I’m also wise enough to realize that in spite of my IQ and effort, there are those whom are more intelligent and knowledgeable than I.
That said, I have the courage of my convictions: I’ll engage in substantive, good-faith argument with you should you demonstrate the interest, ability and integrity to do so. I know in my heart that Jeff would do the same; as would many others who frequent this space.
Given your putative genius, what are the perspicacious of us to infer from the fact that the overwhelming majority of your contribution to the discussion is best characterized as facile, or indeed infantile? Should we infer that you are little more than a posturing sophist? Honestly, I don’t want to. I want to believe that the brain in your head is capable of being put to work in the pursuit of building something (as opposed to its apparent current employ as scaffolding for your massive ego.)
Gautama is reputed to have remarked that, “Everyone is but one step away from enlightenment.” I buy this. It is my experience that even the most humble of them contains vast wisdom. I believe that it is such a principle that underlies the progression from empire to monarchy to republic. Do you disagree? If not, why do you seem to wish to return to aristocracy? Is it, maybe, that massive ego? When the jackboots kick in your door, will that ego protect you? Or perhaps you’re counting on being one of those commanding the stormtroopers?
Incidentally, Mikey (and others who wish to enjoin us from “feeding the trolls”), I wonder whether what you’re asking is possible. I’ve been participating in discussions on the internet since 1990 and I have seen the unending stream of admonitions to supposed troll-feeders that they should, y’know, stop. I’ve yet to see a single instance where those doing the admonishing have prevailed.
This isn’t a house with a few occupants for whom single-minded commitment to ignoring the dude shitting on the rug is easily realized. There are 100+ comments on most of these threads; I can only guess at the number of Jeff’s unique visitors daily, but I’d guess it’s not an insubstantial number. All those folks can’t be policed IMHO–unless Jeff wants to get all draconian.
I’m probably tilting at windmills myself here. I don’t misunderstand your motives, Mikey (and others), I just don’t know that at any volume, such rebukes will ever succeed. Well, that and sometimes it feels a little condescending (though I’m sure it probably ain’t intended as such.)
I’ll stop asking for that, then. I guess those who want to engage will. I don’t see the point, however, in doing so.
We’ve noticed.
m the t–she’s not a thinker, really. Which makes it hard to tell if she’s actually as smart as she proclaims herself to be.
The IRONY, it BUUURRRNNNSS!!!
She may have a quite high level of capability, but her performance is what I’d expect out of a developmentally disabled 12-year-old.
McGehee is right about the, “repeating, repeating, repeating…” I’m adopting Jonah Goldberg’s approach and committing to happy hour for the rest of the campaign.
One For My Bambi
It’s quarter to three,
There’s no one in the place except you and me
So set ’em’ up Joe
I got a little story I thought you should know
We’re drinking my friend, to the end
Of a brief episode
Make it one for my bambi
And one more for the road
I know the routine
so drop another nickel in the machine
I’m feeling so bad
Wish you’d make the music pretty and sad
could tell you a lot,
but you’ve got to be true to your code
So make it one for my bambi
And one more for the road
You’d never know it
but buddy I’m a kind of poet
And I’ve got a lot of things to say
And when I’m gloomy, you simply gotta listen to me
Till it’s all talked away
Well, that’s how it goes
And Joe I know you’re gettin’ pretty anxious to close
So Thanks for the cheer
I hope you didn’t mind
My bending your ear
this torch that I’ve found
must be drowned
Or it’s soon might explode
So make it one for my bambi
And one more for the road
That long.. long road
Looks like “O’s good friend and governor of Illinois is looking at an indictment for fraud. Oh. My. Fitzgerald is going to give Antonin Rezko some time off for testifying against his friends.
Illinois politicians make the mafia look good.
#101 malaclypse:
Engagement does not help either, but placing a big pile of ignorage – such as no response or even reading the comment – is respectful towards the site’s host. He took time and did something he did not have to do – post a comment. As a guest in someone else’s home I think it would be proper to address the post, or identify an OT comment, than indulge those who would rather wreck the house than enjoy the company.
I am not without sin on this, but in my own defense I do try to wait until a thread has already been jacked to throw in the off-the-wall comments.
Nishi considers this a lab, and she is stimulating the mice to note the reaction.
I consider nishi a complete waste of time, I only comment about her, not to her. I skim her comments, and some, like #56, I skip completely.
Comments aimed at her, I skim, and sometimes skip, like #100.
It’s all been said before, and nishi only hears a mouse chatter and claps her hands in delight laughing out loud like crazy.
McGehee’s got it.
Happyfeet has always enjoyed the dunce for some reason, God knows why. I would never deny NF his pleasure, when it is of so little consequence to me.
Spend those two cents wisely…
Sister Palin might swallow for those extra pennies. Better keep ’em.
Oh, and I am personally fascinated, having been subject to nishi(by one name or another) for years, watching the degeneration of her character.
She is like the tire gauge on the proggs over-inflated air bags.
Sister Palin might swallow for those extra pennies. Better keep ‘em.
I’m not sure what this means.
Are you reduced to literally accounting for Palins spare change now?
She’s surprising and provocative and she can make me mad or laugh or just marvel sometimes. And I’ll just say it. She is exactly and precisely a manifestation of what our dullard Republican leadership begged begged begged for, except more charming and thoughtful and nuanced than they deserve. And modulated. She’s never ever been even a hair more obnoxious than a Trent Lott I don’t think, or a Chuck Hagel or a Bill Frist. What were they thinking was gonna happen down that road? And that’s all I gots to say about that.
Happyfeet,
I find that she argues by assertion and is mind numbingly repetitious, but hey, whatever floats your boat there big guy.
lee (#114): thor isn’t hard to figure out. You want to imagine a beefy, round red face with blue eyes and invisible eyebrows over a gut that pops shirt buttons: “Ah bin up thar, an’ I gotta tell ya, them snow-nigger chicks git real inventive when th’ sun goes down [nudge, hyuk hyuk hyuk] and hit’s down a lot, ah tell ya.”
I heard a lot of it, thirty and forty years ago. It hasn’t improved, despite the slightly improved vocabulary. Of course it came from guys called “Dub” and “Pud”. If you’d come up to one and said “I’m thor,” he’d say, “Why, thure! Ain’t nobody ‘splained to yew ’bout lubrication?” It’d bring down the house.
Regards,
Ric
Ric. Really?
See, I envision thor as a slight, bespectacled, pony-tailed guy. Clothes hang on him, and he has a wispy mustache and the scent of Gardenias. He loves to make pretentious, literary jokes, with the emphases on pretentious, at the expense of humour.
That one of his pretensions is the self image of a revolutionary(think fake native American, Churchill douche) explains his boorishness.
No, lee, you misunderestimate (!) Dub.
You are visualizing bib overhauls and a red-checkered shirt, aren’t you? Unfinished board floors and Budweiser sign with a bad transformer? A ten-year-old pickup with deer-blood stains across the crumpled fender and a bed full of beer cans? Nah. Wrong genre. We’re talking mahogany paneling, white tablecloths, and diplomas complete with minors in philosophy. The shirt he’ll throw away because the button popped (not to mention the wine stain) is $400 worth of “Armani is a plebian”, and that really is two carats on the chick’s finger. Only the personality is straight out of the cotton fields.
Regards,
Ric
–Oh, and make sure your credit card has limit left. He’ll stick you with the check, and stiff the waitress.
Regards,
Ric
Ok Ric, I’ll embrace your take. I hadn’t thought of the southern version.
Never having been there…
Help what? Look, ideology and social protocol notwithstanding, Nishi clearly has a brain that is capable of much. What’s more, Jeff has certainly offered some implication as to his opinion on these matters by merit of the fact that he hasn’t banned her or Thor, yes? I personally find much of what both of them have to offer here to be rather ephebic, but I submit their presence combined with a patient, dispassionate response would be most instructive as to the gravitas and constitution of our aggregate knowledge and disposition.
What’s more, I understand Asperger’s intimately. I have it. My six year old son has it. While he has an exceptionally high IQ and my wife and I are very clear about our expectations with him and we make certain his actions have consequences, he still has profound difficulty controlling himself. You see, Asperger’s is neurologically related to Tourette’s. There are sensorimotor gating issues associated with both. Imagine a physical gate: while it doesn’t prevent entry, it does require a certain threshold of pressure be met before it opens. Sensorimotor gates work similarly, allowing entry for behavior. The sensorimotor gates in the prefrontal cortex of Aspies require far less pressure to trigger behavior as compared to the neurotypical. The result is what is characterized as deficient impulse control.
The sad beauty of AS is that in many cases, Aspies have significant cognitive assets which are both masked and in part encouraged by their social heterodoxy. Think Mozart. He’s been posthumously diagnosed (perhaps dubiously, but characterizations of his personality and “islet of ability” WRT music composition are certainly consistent with AS). Or Newton, another posthumously diagnosed Aspie who was known for his eccentricity. Or Thomas Jefferson, also posthumously diagnosed and also famously eccentric.
Is Nishi another Newton? I don’t suspect she’ll prove to be, but I wouldn’t want to stand in her way should she decide she aspires to it. But I do have a great deal of tolerance for eccentrics. I have stickers I give out to slack-jawed onlookers when my son has a spectacular meltdown in public. They say, “My child isn’t spoiled, he has autism.” I don’t wish to make excuses for Nishi’s predisposition to some really rather nasty dogmas but I don’t think she’s without value. I rather see her, I think, the way Pirsig saw Lila. She has quality. She is human.
That said, I wish to proclaim my sincere respect for the commentariat here. Most especially, I wish to extend my respect to those who consistently comment here in good humor and good faith. I feel no compunction saying that I love this place and don’t want to see shit all over the floor. Perhaps paradoxically, I can’t help but also admit that Jeff’s live-and-let-live attitude toward the likes of Nishi and Thor compose a part of the vitality of this place IMHO. YMMV.
Malaclypse,
Bravo. –I will add the bromide: correlation is not causation. We conventionally think of Asperger’s as going with unusually high intelligence, but it isn’t always, and it isn’t necessary. It’s said that a person who could think of one thing for a full minute could own the world. That’s an exaggeration with a strong bit of truth. A knife works because a modest amount of force is concentrated on a small target. In the same way, a relatively modest amount of “intelligence” can accomplish a great deal when focused — and both the sufferer and the onlookers may overestimate just how much force was really necessary to sink the point that deeply.
I happen to know a rather spectacular example. M– is 42 years old and has a literal room-temperature IQ, but if you show her a jigsaw puzzle she will stare at it for a bit, then assemble it without fumbling; when she picks up a piece she doesn’t even turn it this way and that, simply puts it down where it goes and selects the next one. Her social interactions would remind you strongly of <ahem> some here. When a train of thought occurs she will repeat it whenever a gap occurs, and sometimes will force the gaps, until she is physically restrained and removed from that environment.
Tolerance for that sort of thing is evidence of saintliness, in my opinion. I possess none of the qualities of sainthood, alas.
Regards,
Ric
Ric, for whatever it’s worth, you’re one of those of whom I was thinking when I was extending my respect.
I have no pretentions about sainthood whatsoever. I’m just an eccentric myself and while I’ve been able to largely sublimate my eccentricity into entrepreneurialism, I figure it’s in my karmic interest to cultivate some tolerance for my fellow oddballs.
Actually, he attempted to give thor a “time-out” after a particularly egregious attack on Palin’s youngest child. Thor, always the class act, responded by using a proxy to get around the block. So Jeff threw up his hands and said he won’t even try anymore.
Egregious indeed!
Apropos of nothing at all, I would happily login to PW if that were to become a condition of commenting here.
Just a random thought, totally unprovoked.
Malaclypse
Whether one has AS or ADD or ADHD (my stepson) or any number of cognitive/learning challenges (all sorts of differing ones within my own family), as you’ve pointed out, expectations of behavior still hold. And not one of those conditions affects the values one believes or the basic morality one exibits.
Kate is morally stunted. She looks at basic morality and is confused by it.
Thor is immoral. He has rejected it in toto. He’s a sociopath.
Oh, Darleen, I think that’s giving thor too much credit. He’s just a blow-hard; he wouldn’t dare be as big an ass in person.
Much as I like you Darleen, I’m afraid I must disagree. The sensorimotor gating issue is not the only neurological component of AS; equally important to understanding the nature of AS is the lack of connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system. In the neurotypical neuroanatomy, there is what has been described as a “superhighway of connectivity” between these two brain centers. The result is that in neurotypical people, meaning is created through a combination of the social cues presented and the high-level conceptualization that takes place in the prefrontal cortex. In other words, neurotypical people learn much of what is expected of them socially through osmosis. Indeed, neurotypical people learn most things through osmosis.
An example is perhaps useful. In a somewhat well-known experiment, 12-month olds are placed at one end of a carefully prepared table and their mothers are seated at the other end. The table has a black and white checkerboard pattern on the surface that extends to the half-way point of the table. The other half of the table is clear acrylic. The checkerboard pattern extends downward at the midpoint of the table and extends on the floor beneath the clear acrylic to the end of the table. Neurotypical 12-month-olds, when they reach the midpoint of the table and notice the apparently insubstantial nature of the clear acrylic will invariably look at mom. If mom is demonstrating an inviting countenance, the child will continue and vice-versa. The child with AS, when they reach the midpoint, never looks at mom. They may decide to go forward or back, but whatever predicates that decision, it isn’t a social reference. The behavior of the NT child is known as “referencing.” Those of us with AS don’t do this.
Morality is transmitted, in large part, through referencing. It has been suggested elsewhere (saw it discussed at Gene Expression for example) that AS is an evolutionary vector for novelty precisely because the AS brain is unconstrained by social expectations. It follows that if morality is evolutionary (which is consistent with the Hayekian notion of morality that I have suggested I find compelling), people with AS might one means by which it evolves. The first shaman to suggest burying our dead just might have been an Aspie.
Again, YMMV. And I’m no neurologist so, y’know, full disclosure and all that. I’ve collected this knowledge over the last 4 years through a number of sources and I have no special ability to evaluate those sources. Plus, I’m an Aspie and so is my son, so I’m probably biased.
@ #127: That should say, I’d gladly login if I could. The site is rejecting my saved password and keeps sending me an invalid reset key.
I can login to the Pub but not to PW proper.