Happy Hour Roundup
* Everyone’s taken a whack at the new poll finding that a majority of Republicans think ACORN stole the election for Obama.
But the toplines are pretty surprising, too: Less than two thirds of respondents overall think Obama legitimately won, and over a quarter think it was stolen! Efforts to delegitimize this presidency bearing fruit?
* A party source emails that the DNC raised $11.5 million in October — more than the RNC’s $8.7 million and a record for a non-presidential year under current campaign finance regs. That gives Dems $12.3 million in cash on hand, versus $11.2 million for the RNC — though Dems do also have $4.4 million in debt to none for the Repubs.
* In another sign of the emerging importance of job losses, the House Dem and GOP number-two leaders went unusually hard at each other today. Steny Hoyer’s office unveiled a new attack line: Republican “ideas” parrot Democratic actions.
* To which Eric Cantor’s office rejoined: “The three million workers and their families who have lost their jobs are not about to congratulate Democrats for wasting $787 billion from the taxpayer’s wallet.”
* Indeed, unemployment does appear to have Dems in a political panic.
* Mike Huckabee pushes back on “deplorable” GOP attacks on Obama, says he’s “proud” that the “commander in chief” went to Dover.
* Senator Ben Nelson is still not happy with the Senate bill’s abortion language.
* But Nelson also appeared to admit today that his complaints are partly about gaining leverage for other reasons.
* Wow. Senator Arlen Specter comes out against any troop escalation in Afghanistan, insists it has nothing to do with being locked in a Dem primary.
* Nifty video: Haley Barbour can’t bring himself to say that Sarah Palin is qualified to be president.
* Chris Van Hollen get frequent stimulus critic Dick Armey to admit that he never read the economic recovery bill.
* Obama is really, really, really not heeding demands that he hurry up and make his decision on Afghanistan.
* And here’s today’s very odd installment in the Virginia Foxx chronicles.
Got anything else?
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Did anyone ever do a poll on how many people think Bush stole the 2000 and 2004 elections?
Is it too late?
fiddler — I actually think it would be interesting to compare these numbers to what people were saying just after the Supreme Court decision. My bet is that today’s are way worse.
Anyone know off the top of their head how many people think George W. Bush stole the 2004 election?
Just so we’re clear, I’m talking about Ohio in 2004, not Florida in 2000. I certainly know a few people personally who believe that, but I sincerely doubt it’s any where close to 1 out of 4 — even in my circle of lefty friends.
CalD — you newish around here? Welcome.
But the toplines are pretty surprising, too: Less than two thirds of respondents overall think Obama legitimately won, and over a quarter think it was stolen! Efforts to delegitimize this presidency bearing fruit?
oh f*** that.
bush / cheney stole both of their elections and this country is really really f***ed because we allowed them to get away with that.
just f*** anybody who whines about acorn and unions and blahblahblh … jeebus what a**holes.
Greg come on! The 27% that thought Bush was a great president are the same 27% that think Obama is not legitimately president. This is not a winning of their delegitimation campaign is simply the segment of society not connected to reality.
Aren’t those numbers only for the GOP though? To think that the media would advocate overthrowing the very institutions that allow them to profit… what a weird world to grow up in. What was it like when people actually trusted the outcomes of elections?
“just f*** anybody who whines about acorn and unions”
what about unicorns?
Exactly lfo, there is a die hard group of folks who back Sarah Palin, want to attack Iran, think Bush was a good President, believe in the birther nonsense, and think that a 9 million vote gap isn’t good enough when winning a national election (and a far wider electoral gap).
Paul W I think some blogger put the 27% figure as the hard core loyal GOP that no matter what will support the GOP view–this figure comes from the 27% that voted for Alan Keyes (!) in the senate race in Illinois, even though it was clear he was insane and not from the state.
A few days ago, I linked to a NYRB piece by Garry Wills on the potential electoral consequences for Obama if he were to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan…”I am told by people I respect that Barack Obama cannot pull out of both Iraq and Afghanistan without becoming a one-term president. I think that may be true.” http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23431
Dan Froomkin expresses a similar opinion… http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-news/reporting/dan-froomkin
“oh f*** that.
bush / cheney stole both of their elections and this country is really really f***ed because we allowed them to get away with that.
just f*** anybody who whines about acorn and unions and blahblahblh … jeebus what a**holes.”
Ben Dover already said it all for me.
An interesting compare:
“Twenty-eight percent of Republicans believe President Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States, and 30 percent are “not sure,” according to this poll.
“But before liberals begin to smirk, here’s a poll from 2007, in which 35 percent of Democrats said that President Bush knew in advance about the 9/11 attacks, and 26 percent were not sure.
“So if 58 percent of Republicans are living in a delusional fantasy world because they are out of power, then 61 percent of Democrats were doing the same thing until just recently (perhaps they still are). It’s a clean, apples-to-apples comparison with a clear lesson:
“People get a bit kooky when they’re out of power, Democrats about 3 points kookier — which is probably within the margin of error.”
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/08/friendly_reminder_1_in_3_democ.asp
sbj, there have already been several critiques of the fairness of comparing those two polls. The most important being that even if Bush “knew” about the attacks, it isn’t really clear what that means (did he know that Al-Qeada had us targeted, did he know about the exact attack and let it proceed, was he aware of cells of people operating in the nation?) Compare that to a knowable and publicly verifiable topic like ‘was the last president elected legitimately’ and you are not doing yourself any favors.
“To which Eric Cantor’s office rejoined: “The three million workers and their families who have lost their jobs are not about to congratulate Democrats for wasting $787 billion from the taxpayer’s wallet.”
To which Tena rejoined to Eric’s office – f***k you = you are responsible for the f**king deficit, you mental freak.
@Paul: I think I’d rather go with, “People get a bit kooky when they’re out of power.”
Already up to nine variations of “f***!”
Not to mention… quoting the Weekly Standard which recently printed a story saying that Obama lacks “blood impulse” for what America “is about” due to “Kenyan father,” and a “mother attracted to men of the Third World”… yeah that is a definite source you want to quote.
It’s too bad that Mr. Van Hollen didn’t respond to Mr. Armey’s analogy this way. Mr. Armey I think your analogy is more like you telling people your neighbor has a dead cat in his yard, but you’re blind and have no sense of smell.
I think he let the smug punk off the hook.
““mother attracted to men of the Third World””
Why didn’t the Standard just come out and say it – she liked the big black d**ks.
I can’t believe they said that – that’s a throwback to the days when interracial marriage was illegal. That’s one of the most outrageous, nastiest things I’ve seen yet about Obama and his family.
Well of course you would sbj, that is the narrative you’ve chosen to pursue. Meanwhile, I’m trying to argue that approximately 25% of the nation is almost delusional in how they view this country and various presidents effect on it. Have fun living in their fantasy land of ‘there are bad actors on both sides’ while ignoring how much more extreme, and broad, the GOP fanatics are.
@Paul: It was a link to a Freddoso opinion piece which linked to a Kos/Research poll and also linked to a Rasmussen poll.
It was an opinion!
and sbj quoted them?
Yeah.
“mother attracted to men of the Third World”
I thought that was Pruden in the Wash Times?
“Have fun living in their fantasy land of ‘there are bad actors on both sides’”
I would counter that you are living in a fantasy world if you don’t think their are bad actors on both sides. many commentors here have admitted that. Must someone link again to all of the Bush=Hitler fotos?
“‘there are bad actors on both sides’ while ignoring how much more extreme, and broad, the GOP fanatics are.
The longer they keep this up and refuse absolutely to recognize reality, the longer they are going to stay on the fringes.
This constant false equivalence is beyond childish.
“Must someone link again to all of the Bush=Hitler fotos?”
Yes. Let’s see em.
The real problem with this is the Bush was like Hitler.
Obama isn’t.
THat’s your problem in a nutshell.
“This constant false equivalence is beyond childish.”
The double standards and denial of reality is mind boggling.
You see, Paul? You claim that the right is far nuttier than the left, and then tena comes along and says “Bush was like Hitler.”
Sounds like Virginia Foxx is channeling “Yippie”, I know some of you know who that is. Our current “faux Joe”? Mike Huckabee better be careful praising Obama for anything, he’s likely to get Tea Bagged. And Eric Cantor seems to have short term memory loss.
http://semiskimmed.net/bushhitler.html
““Bush was like Hitler.””
He was. That’s not nutty. He quote Mussolini word for word on 9-12 – he said: They hate us for our freedoms. That’s a word for word Mussolini quote.
In the C STreet House, they taught Hitler’s political and messaging methods. They admired Hitler.
REad the goddamn article the guy who spent months there wrote.
The Repugs are like the Nazis. They admire them – at least the C Street House did and Bush spent time there.
http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=612
Bush was not like Hitler.
For cripes sake folks: Hitler conquered several countries, including France, and Bush screwed up both Invasions that he launched.
“Rudy Giuliani Announces He Will Run for US Senate”
sbj – so it’s just nutty. Nothing about the C STreet House. Nothing about quoting Mussolini, invading a country that did exactly nothing to us, nothing about illegal wiretapping of US citizens, nothing about torture. Nothing about just picking people up and disappearing them into Gitmo. Where they were tortured.
That to me is like Nazis. So was the propaganda campaign and you can’t deny there was one anymore. There was.
There is no comparison between Bush and Hitler.
Hitler was as self made insane dictator. It was all his movement.
Bush, on the other hand, was just putty in the hands of Carl Rove and Dick Cheney.
Dammit Liam that’s your opinion. I think they took many pages out of Hitler’s book Because I read the article that almost book length about the C Street House and I know what they were doing in there.
That’s
It’s a straight fact – they would study Hitler at the C STreet House.
Greg, can we add Today’s Insult to the Separation of Church and State as a daily feature?
Here’s today c/o ThinkProgress:
The newest far-right craze is an anti-Obama slogan that is making its way onto t-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, and even teddy bears: “Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8,” which reads, “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.” The meme is also taking off on Twitter, with conservatives calling it “hilarious.” Commentators have noted that it’s unclear whether the intent is to hope for an end to Obama’s time in office — or an end to his life. But a look at the lines in the rest of the psalm hint at the latter:
Let his days be few; and let another take his office.
Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labor.
Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children.
Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.
Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the LORD; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.
Let them be before the LORD continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/19/pray-obama-psal/
Sweet, eh? And oh-so Christ-like.
Nothing says “Do unto others” like a good old fashioned “pray for the leader of the free world’s days to be few” teddy bear.
Ouch. It burns.
Evenin’ ya’ll.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2003/03/0079525
Just read it.
Damn Tena, of course it is my opinion, just as yours is just your opinion.
Bush was a weak figure head who let Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, etc. set policy.
Look deeper at what went on. He was surrounded by right wingers who ran the show. Rove and Gonzo called the shots on the Federal District Attorney purge, and Cheney, with his man Rumsfeld in place, called the foreign policy shots. They were the people who marginalized Colin Powell, Secretary of State.
Look at the people who Gonzo gave power to in the Justice Dept; like that nut job woman from Pat Robertson’s law school.
Look at what happened after Rumsfeld, Rove, and Gonzo were gone, and Cheney lost his control.
The White house became a lot more reasonable.
Hitler was a Strong Man.
Bush was a very weak Man.
And yes it is my opinion. You appear to think that you do not have opinions, but are handing down infallible divine writ.
I am off to watch Community and 30 Rock. Al Gore is on tonight’s episode.
Have a good night all.
Hey Ethan.
Liam – No, I”m basing it on the facts. REad the article.
YOu are just as prone to hand down pronouncements, my dear. I’ve tried to avoid this with you again because you do hand down pronouncements and insist on them just as much as I do.
READ THE ARTICLE. then come back and talk to me.
Or read the book the article became – but come with something besides your opinion – I did.
I’m watching FlashForward myself.
later.
lol. KO just called the teabagger party this summer in DC the white power rally.
Tena, figures you like FlashForward, but I’m DVRing and watching Keith and typing here and then going back to FF.
Ethan, off for the night but unicorns is genius.
“But the toplines are pretty surprising, too: Less than two thirds of respondents overall think Obama legitimately won, and over a quarter think it was stolen! Efforts to delegitimize this presidency bearing fruit”
It seems that turnabout is fair play. For all the people complaining about this who claimed for years that Bush stole the election, I can only laugh in your face and call you a pathetic hypocrite. Heck, I even changed my tune after awhile when I realized he didn’t steal anything. But I can guarantee we will here gnashing and wailing over this. Evidently people forgot about the whole Diebold nonsense and the like.
As for polls, there are now five polls out in the past three days that show Obama’s approval rating at 50% or below, with four of them showing his approval below 50%. They are the PPP, Fox News, Quinnipiac and Rasmussen polls, and Gallup has him only at 50%. Multiple recent polls show that pretty much no one wants ObamaCare. Seems that the new polling data has not been kind to this “president”.
“lol. KO just called the teabagger party this summer in DC the white power rally.”
Out of the two dozen or so people who watch his show, I would be willing to bet approximately zero percent of them are black. He must be a racist.
Speaking of Olbermann’s “ratings”:
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/ratings/
Admitting you watch the show is tantamount to wearing a Scarlet H around your neck signifying you are a partisan hack.
“Chris Van Hollen [sic]get frequent stimulus critic Dick Armey to admit that he never read the economic recovery bill.”
Yeah, and neither did the Democrats who voted to pass it. And one need not have read the bill to know it has been a complete failure. Unless of course Obama-worshipping sycophants believe unemployment that is expected to peak at 11%
is a smashing success.
The Obama Record: Record unemployment, record deficits, no legislative accomplishments, foreign policy weakness that makes Jimmy Carter look like Curtis LeMay.
“Bush was not like Hitler.
For cripes sake folks: Hitler conquered several countries, including France, and Bush screwed up both Invasions that he launched.”
You’re an idiot.
The Obama Record; Record unmeployment, record deficits, no legislative accomplishments.
Nate Silver and Tom Shaller on Sarah in 2012… http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/11/palin-calculus-rejoinder.html
Jeff Goldberg at the Atlantic has a question or two regarding Palin’s notions on Israeli settlements…
“Sarah Palin, in an interview with Barbara Walters, talks about settlements:
***
“I disagree with the Obama administration on that. I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don’t think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand.”
***
“More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel”? Who, exactly? Is this her analysis of Jewish demography? Is there a sudden upsurge in Zionist sentiment among American Jews, the only sizable Jewish community left outside of Israel? Or is this an indication that Palin buys into creepy End-Times thinking, in which the ingathering of the Jews, and their mass death, presage the return of Christ? Inquiring minds want to know. http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/11/sarah_palin_predicts_that_the.php (h/t Andrew Sullivan)
I don’t claim to speak for everyone, I’m just looking at the number and the fanaticism of those making provably false claims (like Bush stole 2004 and Obama stole 2008). More people believe Obama was not rightfully elected in the GOP than do Dems who think Bush stole the election, they also have proven themselves willing to act on these beliefs to a much greater degree than those who thought Bush was subverting our nation’s traditions. At any rate, I disagree with Tena because clearly Bush was not Hitler (in fact I think she is closer to the mark when she says he quotes Mussolini, but reusing tactics does not and equivalent wrong-doer make), so if you would like to continue to take my words out of context and point to outliers instead of the norm then go right ahead. I’m not going to try and change the narrative that goes on in your head, I’m simply providing arguments made to convince other rational readers (assuming there are folks here that read and don’t comment) that the GOP is acting as an extreme interest group at the moment rather than a national political party.
“bush / cheney stole both of their elections and this country is really really f***ed because we allowed them to get away with that.”
Shame there is no compelling evidence to support either of those propositions. But hey, there is no compelling evidence Bush is responsible for 9/11, but the far-left believes he is.
The Obama Record: Record unemployment, record deficits, no legislative accomplishments.
Joe, you can just go ahead and leave, no one is reading what you have to say. Thanks for playing though!
“This constant false equivalence is beyond childish.”
Let me get this straight. The moron who compared George Bush to Adolf Hitler, you know the guy who systematically wiped out almost all of European Jewry and launched the deadliest war in the history of mankind, is complaining about false equivalence?
Honestly, you can’t make up stupidity like that.
Furthermore, anyone denying that the Bushitler rhetoric wasn’t far, far worse than what we are seeing now is either suffering from amnesia or is a total fu*****idiot. I have to believe that in the case of Tena, it is the latter.
The Obama Record: Record unemployment, record deficits, no legislative accomplishments.
“Joe, you can just go ahead and leave, no one is reading what you have to say. Thanks for playing though.”
That’s odd. Amazing how people are quoting me and such without reading what I write. And frankly, I couldn’t care less. I will stay here forever to taunt the pathetic Obama-worshippers who frequent this echo chamber.
The Obama Record: Record unemployment, record deficits, no legislative accomplishments.
“I’m simply providing arguments made to convince other rational readers (assuming there are folks here that read and don’t comment) that the GOP is acting as an extreme interest group at the moment rather than a national political party.”
Yeah, never mind every single poll showing that independents in this country are shifting towards the GOP, evidently because they feel the Democrats are the more extreme party. Furthermore, I would be willing to bet everything I own you never wrote a similar passage about the Democrats when there were huge nut-bag anti-war rallies during the Bush years and 1/3 of all Democrats were telling pollsters they believe Bush was responsible for 9/11. But hey, inconsistency is the hallmark of a less-than-intelligent partisan hack, like you.
The Obama Record: Record unemployment, record deficits, no legislative accomplishments
“Joe, you can just go ahead and leave, no one is reading what you have to say. Thanks for playing though.”
And unless your computer screen can talk, I am not saying anything.
The Obama Record: Record unemployment, record deficits, no legislative accomplishments.
“sbj, there have already been several critiques of the fairness of comparing those two polls. The most important being that even if Bush “knew” about the attacks, it isn’t really clear what that means (did he know that Al-Qeada had us targeted, did he know about the exact attack and let it proceed, was he aware of cells of people operating in the nation?)”
Give me a fu***** break. The above paragraph is the biggest pile of bull**** obfuscation and sophistry I have yet read on this site. Fine if you want to try, unsuccessfully I might add, to explain those poll results away, why don’t you look up some polls concerning the percentage of Democrats who believed Bush stole the election or was illegitimate. Yeah, I won’t be holding my breath on that.
The Obama Record: Record unemployment, record deficits, no legislative accomplishments.
“To which Tena rejoined to Eric’s office – f***k you = you are responsible for the f**king deficit, you mental freak.”
An idiotic response from a total moron. How commendable.
Eric Cantor responsible for the deficit? I don’t think so:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2009/03/21/GR2009032100104.html
The paragraph that accompanies the chart is also worth reading, therefore I will reproduce it here:
“In the first independent analysis, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded that President OBAMA’S BUDGET WOULD RACK UP MASSIVE DEFICITS even after the economy recovers, forcing the nation to borrow nearly $9.3 trillion over the next decade” (emphasis mine).
The Obama deficit for the month of October is greater than it was during the entire year of 2007. But hey, it must be the fault of Eric Cantor, a guy who has been in the minority party for about three years now.
The Obama Record: Record deficits, record unemployment, no legislative accomplishments.
“To which Tena rejoined to Eric’s office – f***k you = you are responsible for the f**king deficit, you mental freak.”
Are you trying to imitate Bob Dole by referring to yourself in that manner?
The Obama Record: Record deficits, record unemployment, no legislative accomplishments.
I’m just going to start cutting and pasting to respond to right winger Joe Lie bermann’s fraudulent claims:
Republican Bush’s last budget was OVER A TRILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT.
If you added up everything that Republican Bush was defrauding US of the last year he was in office it’s more like a TWO TRILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT.
And that still doesn’t account for Republican Bush’s more than DOUBLING of the US debt.
Republican Math is a FRAUD.
Beyond Republican Bush DOUBLING the US debt are the uncounted TRILLIONS that his cronies at the Fed were handing Republican Bush’s corporate buddies.
But Republican’s always blame others for their disasters.
A graph of Republican debt:
http://zfacts.com/p/318.html
Those giant red lines of debt are from Republicans Reagan, Bush 1, and Bush 2.
As for Obama, he’s trying to recover US from the 2007 Republican Great Recession that was a direct result of right wing economic frauds that still have US teetering on the edge of a Second Republican Great Depression.
I suppose now that Joe Lieberman is jamming the site again, there’s not much point in commenting. But I’ll try. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve read a number of comments from some of my favorite commenters here that have given me pause. People living in certain places in the country or holding certain religious beliefs have been characterized as bigoted and narrow-minded and basically wrong about everything. The criticism has been broad, and I feel it should be challenged. I don’t believe we should assume people who live in the “less sophisticated” parts of the country, whether it’s Wasilla or the Jersey coast or rural Texas or other places, all think the same things and for the same reasons. They don’t.
But for the sake of argument, let’s say there is a monolithic mindset in these places all fed by the Limbaughs, Becks, PBCs (my personal shorthand for Palin/Bachmann/LCheney), Cantors and Boehners, Kristols, Roves, and Norquists and the rest of the bunch. If it’s based on anger, uncertainty, and paranoia, why do we want to help feed it by coming across as elitists who look down on people of different social and educational backgrounds? If nothing else, it’s bad strategy.
I agree allbut, which is why I don’t really tolerate rhetoric like Bush=Hitler, it just throws away anything else or any other reasoning for what you are saying. Breaking Godwin’s law is something that should be eschewed.
Instead of PBCs: Palin/Bachmann/Cheney
It’s PCBs: Palin/Cheney/Bachmann: environmental toxins.
PCBs: “Any of a family of industrial compounds produced by chlorination of biphenyl, noted primarily as an environmental pollutant that accumulates in animal tissue with resultant pathogenic and teratogenic effects.”
It was right winger “sbj” who first brought up “Bush=Hitler”.
With the added duplicity that, even as he was the first to bring it up, he simultaneously accused the left of having brought it up first.
The more I read from right winger “sbj” the more disgusted I am with his duplicity.
sbj,
“Must someone link again to all of the Bush=Hitler fotos?”
You round up all the Bush=Hitler photos you can find and I’ll do the same for the Obama=Hitler photos. I’d be willing to bet a year’s salary that my pile would be much bigger, maybe by a factor of, oh 100 or more.
You push that meme constantly and there is simply no comparison. Your teabagger compatriots are WAY more prolific in that realm.
I think filibuster joe is pretty harmless given some of the others that comment. Besides once HCR is signed by the President maybe he will move on.
News Reference–that’s an upgrade. I vote for PCBs (the name not the candidates).
“Efforts to delegitimize this presidency bearing fruit?”
Sure, why not, Greg ? With people like you parsing those stupid polls and framing this issue poorly day-in and day-out, why the hell not ?
You must be one happy man.
ABC, I mostly agree with you and do try not to make generalizations about parts of the country or certain classes of people, but I do like to argue with a few commentors here and will continue to do so. And I am fascinated by the religious right, especially the Fundamentalists, but have sworn off Sarah Palin. The Tea Party mentality is not so much a certain part of the country to me but more of a mindset that I will continue to critice and even mock at times. I’m in CA and went to several rallies and Town Halls this summer and believe me I saw the same signs here as other parts of the country.
Paul W, I also try not to resort to name calling, although I admit to losing my temper several times and sliding into
that dead end. I reserve the right to call certain members of the House or Senate idiots though. qb and I called a truce once on name calling but weren’t able to stick to it so that is what it is. sbj and I do pretty well being respectful with each other. And I pretty much agree with everyone here who thinks Cheney/Bush were a complete failure and put us through 8 years of hell and left a huge mess when they left office.
The Hitler stuff bothers me coming from either side but I’ve read that article, not the book, Tena mentioned and I can understand where she’s coming from.
I was glad when Alan Grayson apologized for his Holocaust comment but when he said he was apologizing to all the dead people for the lack of health care I felt like crying. So I like him for bringing attention to the fact that real people are dying in this country and I get pretty angry about it myself sometimes.
And Andy, our Faux Joe will just come back as someone else again. We’re all pretty used to it, best to just ignore it.
Imsinca, I go hard on various people, too, and on the events where people are invited and encouraged to be outrageous and out of control. And I’m O.K. with the implication (environmental toxins) in labeling Palin, Cheney, and Bachmann PCBs.
It’s the broad brush for large swaths of people that bothers me. I doubt both its fairness and its efficacy.
Morning roundup posted:
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/president-obama/the-morning-plum-16/
AllButCertain–it’s the Jersey Shore, not the Jersey Coast
. Trust me, we weren’t and aren’t classists, but we were and are informationists. My parents were working-to-middle class, not college educated, my husband is a blue collar guy. But we’ve always paid attention to what’s going on in the world, and in Northern NJ, most of our working and middle class neighbors did, too. Down the Shore, not so much. And, what a coincidence, it turned out that Ocean County was much more conservative than Bergen County.
A friend of mine from Maine moved to Grand Rapids 5 years ago. She was so isolated in her liberalism that when she saw a car go by with a Kerry sticker, she followed it home, but didn’t have the nerve to park and introduce herself.
So which come first, the demographics or the values?
ABC, you make a good point from an objective point of view. But there is a problem in that the less-developed, less-resourced areas of the country they are not only dealing with institutional difficulties (resources, infrastructure, etc) but social and societal ones too. Where I draw the line is people who make the conscious decision to reject science and intellectual thought and embrace the alternative. Having lived in proximity to “conservative” (rural, south) populations I have no qualm being forcefully antagonistic to that mentality because it is, in many cases, a personal choice, a conscious decision that people make to adhere to that ideology. You can’t fault everyone, as I said above, because there are severe monetary and resource limitations, so education suffers, but in general in today’s modern age with the internet and cell phones etc, there is NO EXCUSE for being a fool. None.
Paul W I think some blogger put the 27% figure as the hard core loyal GOP that no matter what will support the GOP view–this figure comes from the 27% that voted for Alan Keyes (!) in the senate race in Illinois, even though it was clear he was insane and not from the state.
It also mirrors the polling of a generation ago. On the day that Nixon resigned in disgrace, in August of 1974, approximately 25% of the public wanted him to remain in office and fight the impeachment charges.
@Gasman: “You round up all the Bush=Hitler photos you can find and I’ll do the same for the Obama=Hitler photos. I’d be willing to bet a year’s salary that my pile would be much bigger, maybe by a factor of, oh 100 or more.”
I gave you two links to plenty of fotos. You owe me links to sites with 100x that…
Kathleen, thanks for straightening me out on shore vs. coast! I now remember my sister-in-law saying “down the shore.” You’re question is fair about demographics or values coming first. Obviously, we all come out of a cultural milieu that affects our early values, even our personalities. My dad was the first in his family to go to college (his mother got through 6th grade, his dad through 8th), and even with a Ph.D. and moves to various parts of the country, he never entirely overcame a suspicion that he’d risen out of his place. I encounter this insecurity often with other people–very bright tradespeople with huge skill sets and lots of training who feel they’re looked down on because they lack degrees (and I live in a very blue area, voting wise).
The demographics we were all so aware of during the election–the South, of course–and Josh’s observation about the long swath of Appalachia–haven’t gone away. And people tend to live where they feel they’re part of a community of like-minded people whether that means staying where they’re from or moving elsewhere. This is reflected in voting patterns. What makes me uneasy, though, is the suggestion that all the people in a certain place or even in a certain religious group think a certain way. People are more complicated than that. And I think we play into the hands of haters who want to divide us all when we categorize too readily. That’s all.
Ethan, that’s an interesting take. I guess I’d go one step back. Why do the people you’re talking about choose a given ideology if it is a choice? Is it out of sheer orneriness or is it partly because other people who share their views share their fears and uncertainties? I just don’t want to add to that paranoia by creating a stereotype of them that faces a stereotype of “us.”
sbj,
What are your parameters for the Hitler comparisons? Your semiskimmed.net link contains many citations from around the globe. Are you claiming that U.S. liberals are responsible for global disdain of George W. Bush? That hardly seems fair because we know that Bush was/is globally despised and Obama is viewed far more favorably. Liberals have had little to do with coordinating those feelings around the planet.
How many references do you require? Their is an automatic moderation hold on The Plum Line for multiple links. Please let me know what the benchmarks are that I must achieve.
Look first at any non FauxNews coverage of any teabagger rally in the country and I am willing to bet that you will see no shortage of Obama=Hitler references. I am willing to bet that you could have easily seen dozens at any sizable teabagger rally, but that would just be a guess. Where are the links to any such rallies depicting Bush as Hitler.
Do you have any examples of on air media people leveling the Bush=Hitler charge? Limbaugh and Beck have certainly both pushed the Obama=Hitler meme. Many links to those.
I never saw any Bush=Hitler comparisons here in the U.S., certainly not on national media, certainly not being MADE by national media personalities. For you to pretend that there is any equivalency is sophistry and you know it. The much vaunted MoveOn.org ads, were not by MoveOn.org, therefore were NOT their ads, and they NEVER ran.
Two out of 1,500 submissions to a contest included references to Hitler. MoveOn.org posted the videos, as they did all other entries. When objections were made, MoveOn.org pulled the submissions.
I am a Holocaust scholar and I deplore any minimization of the horror of the Holocaust by trivially invoking the specter of Hitler and his murderous actions. Bush was no Hitler, but in his willingness to make war for solely domestic political gain and by invading countries without just cause, Bush opened himself up to the comparison. Last time I checked, Obama had not invaded the Sudetenland, nor anywhere else. The Obama=Hitler comparisons have not the slightest basis in reality and are thinly veiled racist attacks.
Let’s limit ourselves to rally footage, on air media comparisons, and pundits. Would that be acceptable to you? If we indeed have a liberal media, I would think you would endorse these parameters, for the MSM’s hopelessly liberal tendencies should push the available file footage exponentially in your favor.
Game on?
Right winger “sbj” is officially a duplicitous weasel.
“sbj” blames the left for what HE brings up and then claims an obscene false equivalency that never existed.
He wants pictures of the right wing’s obscenities?
Wade through this filth:
http://images.google.com/images?q=Obama+Hitler
And let’s be clear, many of those Obama Hitler images have been shown on national TV, while the far fewer images of Bush Hitler NEVER showed up on TV.
Right winger “sbj’s” pretense of objectivity is an obscene facade.
@Gasman: Let’s say we start with the zombietime link I provided: 27 individual pics of Bush Hitler comparisons. Let’s use your 100 times as many metric and now I will ask you to produce 2700 pics documenting the Obama Hitler comparison.
Better yet, let’s start at this link:
http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=image&fr=404_news&va=bush+hitler&sz=all
13,198 Bush Hitler images. Let’s see you produce 1,319,800 images of Obama Hitler.
I see that google images has 2,070,000 Obama Hitler images and 1,920,000 Bush Hitler. Not only does this show there to be an equivalency, I’m afraid you would need to produce 19,200,000 Obama images to equal 100X.
That’s either 2700 images at protest rallies, or 19,200,000 general images you can collect from anywhere – don’t expect me to count!
“sbj”: “Let’s see you produce 1,319,800 images of Obama Hitler.”
“sbj” not even five minutes later: “I see that google images has 2,070,000 Obama Hitler images….”
When I looked it was 2,130,000 Obama Hitler images.
Right wing torture advocate “sbj” uses right wing math to conclude that:
2,130,000 is the same as 1,920,000? Uhm, NOT!
Obama hasn’t even been in office a year and there are already 200,000 more image counts for the offending image than have accumulated under the eight years of Bush’s Presidency (plus the ten months since).
How do you even look yourself in the mirror, “sbj”?
Right winger “sbj” has repeatedly made false statements, when he’s been corrected he’s twisted his statements like a snake, and when shown to be undeniably wrong he’s changed the rules.
@Gasman: “You round up all the Bush=Hitler photos you can find and I’ll do the same for the Obama=Hitler photos. I’d be willing to bet a year’s salary that my pile would be much bigger, maybe by a factor of, oh 100 or more.”
So I eagerly await 19,200,000 Obama Hitler fotos.
sbj,
You use an internet search engine to determine numbers!? Your link is NOT 2700 images of Bush=Hitler. If you scroll through the first two pages there are multiple repeats. Even using your criteria, the number is much lower. I suspect that there are also many images which have no connection at all.
You still have not responded to my observation that many of the images that you cite are foreign in origin. Shall U.S. Democrats and liberals be held accountable for all global images of bush=Hitler? Your beef was that domestic LIBERALS had engaged in that behavior to an equal or greater degree than teabaggers. That is pure nonsense and you know it.
Filter out images from foreign sources, duplicates, and unrelated images, then we can compare.
I proposed an honest set of criteria and you respond with your typical B.S. You don’t do well with factual content, so you inflate your responses with ridiculous hyperbole. If the Democrat/liberal connection with the Bush=Hitler images was as clear cut at you claim, why haven’t FauxNews, Limbaugh, etc., been citing the same “proof” as you to defend the teabaggers? They certainly have not done so to any great effect.
Oh my that’s weak! The zombie link had 27 fotos at demonstrations in San Francisco and other cities – domestic. You claimed, “my pile would be much bigger, maybe by a factor of, oh 100 or more.” So please produce domestic demonstration fotos 27 X 100 = 2700 of ‘em.
You still haven’t.
You claim that the teabaggers are 100X worse – prove it?
“sbj”, forevermore you will be known as the right wing troll who supports torture and thinks that 2,130,000 is the same as 1,920,000.