Coming to streets near you,
as Republican bumpersticker-of-the-year.
as Republican bumpersticker-of-the-year.
Open Thread November 25 2024
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Yesterday, I got my internet back, but only on one computer, not the one I
usually use for this. It had ben down since Friday, and so were my
phones. SO...
7 hours ago
Let's see now: Hillary or Mitt? Hmmmmmmm....That is a no-brainer. I am voting for Hillary! Too bad Bill can't run again. This presumes that my first choice, Obama, somehow gets derailed.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I do NOT like Bubba messing with Obama. He needs to stay positive and try not to be such an asshole. Hillary can do that all on her own:-)
ReplyDeleteThey are electable.
ReplyDeleteWhy go to the Republican Neocons when a Hillary short cut is smooth water sailing ~!~
Oh and Hillary endorsed the 'wall'
Those uppity Palestinians might cause a ruckus.
She is in the palm of the Israel lobby.
But then Obama is also.
Is Hillary running as a Democrat?
Yes indeed.
Sadly she is the best America can come up with?
Yes. Presently
What will she do when the economy falters and the elaborate debt structure does collapse?
Stay tuned.
It may happen before the election.
The economy, the narrowing field of candidates, the sniping... it gets more depressing by the day...
ReplyDeleteSleezy post, Vigilante. You know how to hit slick willie in his open zipper.
ReplyDeleteE. J. Dionne Jr reminds us today that Bill Clinton might be jealous of Barack Obama, because the Illinois Senator is running in 2008 kind of like the Arkansas Governor ran in 1991-2.
ReplyDeleteIn October 1991 Clinton addressed reporters and editors at The Washington Post. He said Ronald Reagan deserved credit for winning the Cold War. He praised Reagan's
"rhetoric in defense of freedom [and] advancing the idea that communism could be rolled back. . . . The idea that we were going to stand firm and reaffirm our containment strategy, and the fact that we forced them to spend even more when they were already producing a Cadillac defense system and a dinosaur economy, I think it hastened their undoing."
The Memphis Commercial Appeal praised Clinton a few days later for daring to
"set himself apart from the pack of contenders for the Democratic nomination by saying something nice about Ronald Reagan. . . . readiness to defy his party's prevailing Reaganphobia . . . is one reason he's a candidate to watch."
Dionne comments:
I have been thinking about that episode ever since Hillary Clinton's campaign started unloading on Barack Obama for making statements about Reagan that were, if anything, more measured than Bill Clinton's 1991 comments. Obama simply acknowledged Reagan's long-term impact on politics and the fact that conservatives once constituted the camp producing new ideas, flawed though they were .....
That's why the Clintons' assault on Obama is so depressing. In many ways, Obama is running the 2008 version of the 1992 Clinton campaign. You have the feeling that if Bill Clinton did not have another candidate in this contest, he'd be advising Obama and cheering him on.
.... with both Clintons on record saying kind things about Reagan, why go after Obama on the point? Honestly: If Obama is a Reaganite, then I am a salamander.
What I like about Obama is that his ideas aren't personal. So, when he speaks of Reagan he's speaking in particular about lots of people, not the one man, but how lots of people reacted to the attitude and rhetoric of Reagan--and the "ideas" that the right managed to put forward to make people vote against their own interests. That's where the Obamas and the Clintons really differ. For the Clintons, everything is personal...about her, about him, poor Bill's "hit job" from Obama!! As this sticker indicates, even their weaknesses are PERSONAL.
ReplyDeleteIf it's one of the GOP knuckleheads other than McCain, then yes, she can probably beat them. McCain, I think she loses.
ReplyDeletePeekay:
ReplyDeleteE.J. Dionne could have entitled his piece about the natural affinity/acrimony between Clinton and Obama by using Freud's clinical term, The Narcissism of Small Differences.
Well put, Pinks & Schmog! I agree that Grandpa McCain is the best candidate among the Knuckleheads.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, McCain is the best all right.
ReplyDeleteHe is famous for being shot down in a plane while bombing innocent people.
He is a big Bush supporter also.
The surge and all. He's a hero.
He turned on the American people long ago.
Hello suckers.
I'm with Mike-the-Mad, Here. Dems, don't burn our boats and bridges. The Clintons can be bullies but they are our bullies. And, in beginning in 2009, America is going to need something extra: a few good kicks in the pants, shoulder checks or even a good spanking. I bet they're expecting it. For the last 8 years they've been very very bad. And they know it.
ReplyDeleteYes with her support of the 'wall' in Israel she is the perfect choice.
ReplyDeleteShe cow-tows to the Israeli lobby like they all do so no doubt she will put those uppity Palestinians that live in the largest concentration camp in the world, and are being starved to death slowly, in there place ~!~
Democrats make me want to barf. Especially yellow dog Democrats.
Interesting how dogs eat their own vomit.
First, I don't support bullies in either party. Second, I don't think the Clintons are our bullies (just as I'm realizing that way too many of the D's in Congress are a shade of Republican blue). I'm going to look into the actual impact Obama's had on reform and transparency in Washington; we have a Washington neo-con friend who likes Hillary and hates Obama (so that seems, hopefully, like a bit of difference to me).
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking one thing I want more for Democrats is toughness. Is that bullying? I don't know.
ReplyDeleteBut what I really want to do is register here is some skepticism about how good things were under Clinton. Economically, the country and the middle class flourished, of course.
But what about foreign policy? Thursday, Rosa Brooks wrote in the L.A. Times,
On the other hand ... once you stop comparing the Clinton presidency with the Bush presidency, it no longer looks so great. On the whole, the Clinton era was a time of culture war and scandal, "triangulation" and botched reforms (healthcare anyone?), vacillation and paralysis.
On foreign policy in particular, Clinton's presidency was an era of missed opportunities. In Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, Rwanda and Kosovo, U.S. policy was marred by hesitation and lack of commitment. Despite impressive rhetoric on the emerging challenges posed by globalization, nuclear proliferation, WMD and the rise of transnational terrorism and nonstate actors, Clinton developed few innovative ways to address these challenges; his approach to conflict and crisis was piecemeal. His early defeat on gays in the military left him so scarred that he steered clear of the military for most of his presidency, passively letting uniformed personnel dictate the terms of too many foreign policy decisions and ignoring hard questions about how to reshape the military to face post-Cold War threats.
Today, if Obama's mere existence at times seems to make Bill Clinton apoplectic, it's not just because Obama (whose foreign policy judgment has so far been significantly better than Hillary's on Iraq, Iran and Pakistan) is the main Democratic barrier to a third Clinton term. It's also that Obama's promise of a politics that's not just bipartisan but beyond partisan is an implicit rejection of the Clintons' all-politics-all-the-time ethos, of their willingness to let crucial national decisions be driven by petty political considerations, of their lack of interest in dealing with big questions when they could coast along with a compromise here, a favor there and some tinkering over here.
Before 9/11, tinkering kept us afloat. But it's no longer enough ...
After Bush, it certainly will not be enough.
Speaking from ground zero of the day, so to speak, the Billary assault on Obama went over like a lead balloon right at the first by all the African-Americans I work around. They felt betrayed and were very angry that the Clinton's would use such tactics. Given the words I'm hearing from some people that almost worshiped the Clinton's I'll even go out and say that the whatever bridge that existed between the African-American community and them has been damaged if not destroyed. Grudges are held long and protected in this state, if this pattern is the same in other states Billary might have finally hung itself on its own rope. Me, I'm getting very drunk tonight to celebrate and to piss Dragonwife off who fell for the Hillary semi-sobs from New Hampshire.
ReplyDeleteTonight Caroline Kennedy very eloquently endosed Barack Obama for the Democrat Party nomination for President.
ReplyDeletevigilante and the other early Obama supporters here were absolutely right. I've listened carefully to your comments.
And tonight the Wizard has done a 180 and has also formally endosed Barack Obama for the Democrat nomination for President.
First, Wizard -- welcome to the flock. I did my first phone banking for Barack today. Three hours of a tiring but rewarding experience. I finished up just before 4 pm Pacific, jumped in the car, turned on NPR to hear "The polls are closed and we are calling it for Obama." It was a good day.
ReplyDeleteEmily, I want toughness in my candidate as well. Barack has that in spades (remember, he is facing -- and, at least twice, beating -- two very formible and talented politicians). In his eloquent victory speech, he hit the Clintons hard as practitioners of the politics of the past, the politics of division, the politics of our lesser selves. And he did it with a velvet glove, hiding the steel beneath it. Watch his speech from tonight's victory and then tell me if he isn't tough.
"So this will not be easy. Make no mistake about what we’re up against.
* * *
We are up against the conventional thinking that says your ability to lead as President comes from longevity in Washington or proximity to the White House. But we know that real leadership is about candor, and judgment, and the ability to rally Americans from all walks of life around a common purpose – a higher purpose.
We are up against decades of bitter partisanship that cause politicians to demonize their opponents instead of coming together to make college affordable or energy cleaner; it’s the kind of partisanship where you’re not even allowed to say that a Republican had an idea – even if it’s one you never agreed with. That kind of politics is bad for our party, it’s bad for our country, and this is our chance to end it once and for all.
We are up against the idea that it’s acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election. We know that this is exactly what’s wrong with our politics; this is why people don’t believe what their leaders say anymore; this is why they tune out. And this election is our chance to give the American people a reason to believe again.
And what we’ve seen in these last weeks is that we’re also up against forces that are not the fault of any one campaign, but feed the habits that prevent us from being who we want to be as a nation. It’s the politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon. A politics that tells us that we have to think, act, and even vote within the confines of the categories that supposedly define us. The assumption that young people are apathetic. The assumption that Republicans won’t cross over. The assumption that the wealthy care nothing for the poor, and that the poor don’t vote. The assumption that African-Americans can’t support the white candidate; whites can’t support the African-American candidate; blacks and Latinos can’t come together.
But we are here tonight to say that this is not the America we believe in.
* * *
Because in the end, we are not just up against the ingrained and destructive habits of Washington, we are also struggling against our own doubts, our own fears, and our own cynicism. The change we seek has always required great struggle and sacrifice. And so this is a battle in our own hearts and minds about what kind of country we want and how hard we’re willing to work for it.
So let me remind you tonight that change will not be easy. That change will take time. There will be setbacks, and false starts, and sometimes we will make mistakes. But as hard as it may seem, we cannot lose hope.
* * *
[Emphasis added]The choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders. It’s not about rich versus poor; young versus old; and it is not about black versus white.
It’s about the past versus the future."
If that isn't tough, I don't know what is. If you don't think that is the voice of an American ready to lead us, then I -- and I would argue, this blog -- cannot help you.
Welcome to Obamanation, Wizard! We weren't feeling 'together' without you. Now that we're in this together, we can get all fired up and ready to go!
ReplyDelete"Because in the end, we are not just up against the ingrained and destructive habits of Washington, we are also struggling against our own doubts, our own fears, and our own cynicism. The change we seek has always required great struggle and sacrifice. And so this is a battle in our own hearts and minds about what kind of country we want and how hard we’re willing to work for it."
ReplyDeleteEmpty rhetoric.
He is a special interest group flunky.
This person is able to hypnotize people very easily. Obama.
Perfect candidate for in the dark Americans.
Must be his preaching background that enables him to lie and manipulate people so well.
Skip, I am going to have to respectfully disagree.
ReplyDeleteObama's rhetoric can be over the top from time to time but empty, it is not. The particular line you quoted speaks directly to me and my questions, doubts and cynicism.
I am not looking for Obama to run off a list of policies at his rallies. I know how to use the Internet and have reviewed his positions and proposals on his website (under the "Issues" tab at www.barackobama.com if you are interested). He has substance. And he has a vision.
I am fired up. Ready to go.
Skip.... You seem to always be so negative... Is anything ever a positive to you?
ReplyDeleteIs every light in your deep dark tunnel just an on-rushing train?
To be certain this is a dark and often depressed group, but I've always blamed Bush and Iraq (and a small touch of BDS) for the negativity here.
But now most all of this group sees a light of hope in Obama.
But not you...
Is there a sunrise, somewhere?
No.
ReplyDeleteNot under this system. Things only get worse until we literally destroy each other in class warfare and resource destruction.
There is no hope for the American political establishment as is.
Oddly I may be one of the more optimistic people round here though.
At least to recognize the dynamic is something.
Social change occurs whether invited or not. We will experience a large dose of that shortly with the collapse of our debt structure system.
Does it make sense to get excited about another loud mouth idiot that extols the pointless and demeaning American political price system ?
Going forward is not possible in a system that cares only about two things now. Making money, and peoples twisted ideas about god.
Our politicians are bought and sold by the special business interest groups and foreign governments that control us now and work against the American people and only want to work with them to keep up the Babylonian Civil Society Price System, Every Thing For Me And Nothing For You -- that insures the death of all of us and the future death of everyone for money.
Get ready for a desultory and demeaning political junkfest.
Better Obama than Hillary/Edwards (that's my guess for the Dems). Skip is right, though: What will she do when the economy falters and the elaborate debt structure does collapse?
ReplyDeleteGiven the current National and personal fiscal state, aspects of technocratic philosophy make increasing sense to me. The U.S. is officially bankrupt.
Nevertheless, I hang in this race by a political thread supporting dark horse candidate, Gravel. I firmly believe that many of his ideas were co-opted by the mainstream candidates.