Massive burn
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It would be nice if somebody paid attention to Stoller's wake-up call. However, since this is the Age of the Anti-Cassandra, that's unlikely to happen.
Naturally, the OFB go ballistic in comments. They always do.
As I've said, I'm still under the bus because it seems a lot safer there, rather than out in the open; to mix metaphors, I don't have a dog in this fight after the primary, and since I'm in a safely blue state, I have the luxury of denying the corrupt private club that is the Democratic Party my vote.
But Jeebus, Stoller paints an awful picture with that mashup. It almost makes me want to shut the fuck up and send Obama more money.
But not quite. A campaign that manages to spend a couple of days on Sarah Palin's kids and then a week on Sarah Palin when the administration just socialized $5 Trillion -- that's trillion with a capital T -- worth of housing debt, and with unemployment at 6% and rising deserves to lose.
Because it's the economy, stupid!
UPDATE Slight wordsmithery.
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Some more of Obama from that rebuttal
This via AP. They cut Obama off as he switches over from the lipstick idiocy to actual substance, because who wants to hear about that. Still, the mash-up doesn't do justice to what he actually said. Obama is no John Kennedy, but he isn't Mike Dukakis either.
I think the vids got pulled
...or taken down. I'm not seeing them either here or at the link.
PB 2.0 - Supplement the wonk!
Looks like a lot are down
I'm guessing it's YouTube.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
Heh now bringiton's is back
...but the main one is down so it looks like you're correct about it being youtube. I'll keep checking.
EDIT: Now his is gone, again. lol.
PB 2.0 - Supplement the wonk!
No, he isn't Dukakis
You're right about that. Dukakis ran on clear liberal policy positions.
Obama is a player and the con is wearing thin.
Spot on about Dukakis, scoutt
He was certainly a liberal, in many ways a progressive, and he was definitely clear about his positions.
How'd that work out for the Democratic Party, exactly? Anyone remember?
Dukakis' problem: being a weak messenger, not being a liberal
Compare him to how Hillary Clinton talked about "going to the mat" for UHC. People feel they need to trust what politicians will stand and fight for.
Wow, the comments at OL
are totally hysterical, absolute fury at Stoller, all of them just screaming at each other. Amazing.
So much better to nominate an imposter, huh, bio?
That way we lose even if "we" win.
"You'd better get this straight. Wise up before it's too late." -- Sister Sledge
What imposter, Randall Kohn?
He is what he is, and he hasn't been very clever about hiding it - if he ever tried. Were you fooled into believing he is some kind of caped progressive crusader? I wasn't.
A lot of people have fooled themselves, but that is hardly Obama's fault. He spoke right up, early on, and said that a lot of people were projecting their own expectations on him and some of them were going to be disappointed. After that, caveat emptor.
The objective of the Party is to win the election. It is not their objective to meet your expectations. There is no "we" at work here that involves either you or I.
what kills me...
...is that the Obama that Stoller is criticizing is the exact same Obama he supported against Clinton.
Its like he bought a car with a stick shift, and is complaining that its not an automatic transmission. That's the car you bought, Matt, you could have bought the car with the automatic transmission, but it didn't have the chrome bumbers and hubcaps that you insisted upon....
Serota got him some spinners on that hoopdie
At which I fall down laughing, Paul; well put, exactly so.
What was he thinking? What were any of them thinking? I mean to say, we've all of us* woken up in the morning and rolled over only to be confronted with a reality that didn't even vaguely resemble our memory of the night before, but this one has got to be the shocker of a lifetime.
The man is what he is. I don't believe he's been at all misleading, or not any more than anyone is who's trying their awkward best to make a good impression, but talk about a mass attack of beer goggles; unbelievable.
Obama is no prize, and it isn't any wonder really that those who fell head over heels - yes, Sully, I'm talking to you - are now having to do some serious rationalization to explain to their friends and family and to themselves just how this hookup could ever possibly have happened. The rictus grin is the dead giveaway, that along with the high-pitched squeal of panicky attributional recitations - "He's not that bad, really he's not!"
And the sad thing is, comparatively he isn't. Vain, shallow, thoughtless, rude and repetitively embarrassing, with just enough charm to keep from getting slapped silly every time he opens his mouth, he still is better than the only available alternative. There isn't enough lipstick on the planet to make either Sarah McCain or John Palin look presentable; they are butt-ugly, the both of them, and that's all there is to say about it.
Ah, hell. It is going to be a rough four years with Obama, and a sobering experience indeed for dear old Serota and his pals. Still, it will be much worse with Palin and McCain. That old bastard will Mickey Finn our nightcap, and his succubus will steal our life force as we sleep. You wouldn't want to fall victim to a succubus, Paul, now would you?
[* It is "we" isn't it? I can't be the only one.]
What about the next four years
You acknowledge, and we agree actually, that the next four years are going to be rough, regardless of who is elected, so what happens in 2012?
Does Obama get re-elected(if he can get elected this time)? Or is he run out of town on a rail, allowing the Republicans to get all the time they need to continue their dismantling of our nation?
That's why I just can't agree with you on voting for Obama this election. Better four years of Obama and another 12-16 of Republicans WORSE than McCain, or four years of McCain, and 12-16 of REAL Democrats(unlike Obama, who only plays on on TV).
the next four years will be horrible, Aeryl
anyone who thinks otherwise is - well - let's say "naive" to be kind.
I wish I could agree with you, but I cannot. Until this year, I have always felt that the country could survive another idiot in the White House and in four more years we could fix the mistake and recover. I no longer feel that way.
Four more years of a Republican Presidency and the VRWC takeover of the federal courts will be complete; they will control the law entirely, because they will control the mechanism by which we define what is and what is not the law of the land. They will rule by fiat, by Executive decree, and the courts will back them. The Congress, and by extension the will of the people as expressed by their elected representatives, will be rendered meaningless. The Imperial Presidency will be in force; there will be no more elections that mean anything.
Four years probably, eight years certainly, of a Republican Presidency will delay progress on addressing climate change past the time we have available to us; we have only ten years to get into place the policies we will have to employ to prevent complete ecological collapse. If they are not well begun in ten years, which is what has to happen if they are to be fully operable in twenty, then the entire ecological pattern upon which we have based civilization will cease to exist. Cease. To. Exist.
We will not survive any more Republican rule. Four years of John McCain will not lead to some glorious great gettin'-up morning of progressive advancement; it will destroy us.
Here is the video BIO
Here is the video BIO was talking about. 4 minutes long. Let's see how long it stays up.
Update: I see they are working again. Who knows which will stay up. I'll leave this one in case.
thanks, hobsen
another edited cut of the opening of the speech, still not the whole thing. I think he does quite well.
Decided not to say what I
Decided not to say what I was going to say
send your money to Tom Allen
any money left over from your dental needs should be sent to Tom Allen, that is an opportunity for a real Democratic advance.
Downticket Democrats!!!
So it's better if the candidate is a phony?
Let me follow this....
the candidate pretends to NOT be progressive so they get elected.
Then they get into office and try to enact progressive policies. And suddenly, because they are in office the folks that the candidate had to fool to get elected will now support those policies? The fooled public will change their minds and support and vote for those policies? That nutball theory makes no sense whatsoever.
Amen, Scoutt
Those of us who were unhappy with Obama before he started in with the racism crap against the Clintons were unhappy with him for precisely that reason. You have zero mandate if you run on nothing and yap on about making nice with the opposition to boot.
Dukakis's problem -- and it killed me because I knew the guy well -- was second-guessing himself and NOT saying as strongly and forthrightly what he knew and believed. He's a pretty dry character and probably wouldn't have caught on well nationally anyway, but he totally blew his chance by hedging himself and his beliefs, not by asserting them too strongly.
What you wrote makes no sense to me either, scoutt
What makes you think that Obama is going to try and enact progressive policies? Is it something he said? I haven't heard that. Please explain what you're trying to say, I just can't follow.
Finally saw it and ouch
...Obama needs to learn to fight rather than scold.
PB 2.0 - Supplement the wonk!
Where the hell was the one-liner?
I watched the video and it felt like a lecture. A boring and long-winded one at that.
Exactly
He needs to learn to land quick solid punches. By the time he gets around to a given point he's trying to make he's 'problematized' it to death. It comes across as lecturing (like you said) and passive aggressive.
PB 2.0 - Supplement the wonk!
He came up with a one
He came up with a one liner. That's why he's now scolding, because the R's became outraged yet again by his one liner. And the press is willing to make a story of it even when they think it's crap.
And, of course, when the D's get outraged, it's just whining. Meanwhile, Palin keeps going around using her one liner about the Bridge and her other one about selling the plane on Ebay despite the fact that some in the press are even beginning to use the dreaded word, lie.
Obama called John McCain - a sitting US Senator - a liar
and a phony. Hard to see how he could have been more direct or confrontational than that. Those are fighting words, and they will get under McCain's skin. You watch; Obama will keep poking and prodding and at some point McCain will lose his temper and explode.
No, bio, I was never fooled by him, not for a microsecond.
I never had any damn use for him.
And you're dead on about his not fooling anyone who actually cared to look at and listen to him. He's an imposter nonetheless, as well as an enforcer.
His mission (i.e., his job) was, is, and will be to gull the gullible and to tame and demoralize the rest of us.
"You'd better get this straight. Wise up before it's too late." -- Sister Sledge
Wrong assumption I guess, Bringiton
I thought progressives wanted progressive policies passed. I guess I was wrong to assume that Obama supporters were progressives. So if they aren't, then yeah, my comment would make no sense to you. And if Obama isn't for progressive policies, how is he different then McCain?
Hillary Clinton, The Man of My Dreams
Still a bit puzzled, scoutt
But let's pull it all down into one place:
------
scoutt: So it's better if the candidate is a phony?
Let me follow this….
the candidate pretends to NOT be progressive so they get elected.
Then they get into office and try to enact progressive policies. And suddenly, because they are in office the folks that the candidate had to fool to get elected will now support those policies? The fooled public will change their minds and support and vote for those policies? That nutball theory makes no sense whatsoever.
and
Wrong assumption I guess, Bringiton
I thought progressives wanted progressive policies passed. I guess I was wrong to assume that Obama supporters were progressives. So if they aren’t, then yeah, my comment would make no sense to you. And if Obama isn’t for progressive policies, how is he different then McCain?
------
OK. So you're asking about the political positions of Obama's supporters, and you're asking what's the difference between the political stances of Obama and McCain. With, if I understand you correctly, an assertion that if Obama is not a progressive then his political stance is indistinguishable from McCain's. Hope I got that right.
You do understand that in ten year's time there will be a bookshelf at least of analysis of Obama supporters. Not something that lends itself to 25 words or less, but briefly:
Gallup shows 90%+ of Liberals support Obama, and I'll take that to include Progressives since the other choices were Moderate and Conservative, neither of which a Progressive would choose. So it is fair to say that Progressives are all but unanimous in support of Obama, but not all Obama supporters are Progressives. Most of those who call themselves Moderates support Obama, and they are probably more numerous than Progressives.
Additionally there are a large number - I couldn't exactly quantify them - who I would call Trendies; they don't have firm political positions, they support Obama because he is the happening thing and they support whatever is happening - they are his celebrity-worshiping constituency.
More complex yet is the black community. Obama again has more than 90% overall support but 50% of black Americans believe that the Bible should overrule secular law including the Constitution; hardly a progressive position. Obama's support is complicated, and it can't be reduced to a simple construct; this may be part of your difficulty understanding why he has the constituency he does; I agree that it is confusing to the point of bewilderment.
The progressives I know personally who support Obama do so for the same reason I do; he is the only available alternative to the horror that is the criminal conspiracy representing itself as the Republican Party. I have no greater expectation than that, I understand he is on balance center-right and it is unlikely that he will pursue any true progressive policies. I am not happy about it, but this is the current reality of American citizens' political perspective; on average, they are to the right of Obama - and to the right of Clinton.
The difference between Obama and McCain is bigger than I'll do here, but if you want a more thorough discussion I'll be happy to take it up. Short version:
McCain is associated with and beholden to a vast right-wing criminal conspiracy using a front group calling itself the Republican Party that will if he is elected destroy democracy and condemn the entire Earth to ecological collapse and the end of civilization. McCain's personal political leanings are deeply authoritarian and militaristic; he is, in my estimation, a person teetering on the edge of rationality with serious untreated PTSD issues that manifest in frequent outbursts of uncontrollable rage and obsessive domination of those he sees as his inferiors - including women and especially his wives.
Obama is associated with the Democratic Party, a largely disorganized semi-criminal enterprise that also includes a fragment of people with higher ideals and a strong commitment to doing morally right, decent and progressive things. Obama's personal political leanings are very centrist, he is cerebral to a fault and deliberative and cautious in his demeanor; I see no evidence of mental instability.
With the Democrats, we may have a chance of survival; with the Republicans, we are doomed. The stakes in this election are no less than that.