Take A Breath, Please
Before the Sunday Beltway Boffin shows kick off (confession: I regularly watch Meet the Press, both to scream at the screen and because of a tenuous connection to Tim Russert), let’s reflect on the past few days (and by extension, months) of tilting between Obama and Clinton supporters.
I’m referring, of course, to Obama’s ‘bitter’ speech in San Francisco and his various follow-ups to same. Much as Clinton herself has done in the past, Obama crossed the line in throwing a fellow Dem under the bus:
You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.
Politics is a dog fight, etc. and this race for the Democratic nomination is especially intense, because it’s just so close. But really, there’s no place for either candidate to bash the other in such a way that lumps that opponent, directly or by-proxy, together with Bush and/or McCain. Particularly in such a way that it can be used later by the McCain camp in the general election campaign against whichever Dem secures the nomination.
Certainly such a charge has been leveled at Hillary in the past. It pisses me off to no end when she does that sort of thing. I’m a Barack supporter and I think he’ll be our candidate for president. But I’d happily vote for Clinton if that’s how it all goes down come the convention. And in my opinion, Obama should immediately stop equating the Bill Clinton administration with the Bush cabal, anytime, under any circumstances, ever. More on this later.
Meanwhile, it was sick-making to see the Clinton camp’s reaction to Obama’s so-called ‘gaffe’ mirror almost exactly the spin dispensed by the McCain camp:
Late Friday evening, the Clinton and McCain campaigns criticized Mr. Obama once again for failing to express regret for his remark.
“Instead of apologizing for offending small town America, Senator Obama chose to repeat and embrace the comments he made earlier this week,” said Phil Singer, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton. He added, “Americans are tired of a President who looks down on them, they want a President who will stand up for them for a change.”
Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for Mr. McCain, issued a similar response.
“Instead of apologizing to small town Americans for dismissing their values, Barack Obama arrogantly tried to spin his way out of his outrageous San Francisco remarks,” Mr. Bounds said, adding: “You can’t be more out of touch than that.”
Of course, you have to twist yourself into the sort of Philadelphia pretzel that Obama would surely spurn in favor of fois gras in order to conclude that he is ‘offending small town America’, ‘dismissing their values’, ‘looks down on them’ or is ‘out of touch’. Much as Lambert of Correntewire pretzels himself here:
What struck me was that Obama was really talking about the income inequality chart reproduced on the left; that’s the process that made the jobs go away. So it’s Obama who can’t “explain”, because his Unity schtick prevents him from talking about real conflict over things like, oh, money and power. And because Obama can’t talk about that, he displaces the discourse onto class markers like guns, and religion. The real condescension, to me, is Obama’s brand of meta-leadership through personal conversion as a solution to “bitterness” and a general cure for what ails the body politic, not the class markers (cf. Matthew 11:28), since Obama’s meta is analytically distorting and will prove wholly inadequate to the task at hand. Although I’m ticked off at his use of class markers, too.
Whuzza? Obama ‘can’t talk about’ … ‘things like, oh, money and power’? WTF? Isn’t that what this whole big giant ‘gaffe’ in a teapot is about … Obama daring to talk about the resentments of working class and poor Americans — how their ‘bitterness’ is justified by a system that marginalizes them as an afterthought on the road to newer, greener, global economic pastures, while simultaneously giving them little or no voice in that process and thus leaving them with nowhere to turn but the insidiously proffered wedge politics of the Right?
Let’s be fucking real here, and not let our partisanship for either candidate cause us to take our eyes off the goddamn prize. The shorter Lambert — ‘Obama was technically right, and that makes him so very, very wrong’ — is just sectarianism at its most ridiculously blindered.
As for why Obama was in fact very, very wrong to bash the Clinton administration along with the Bushies. Aside from the 11th Commandment violation, Obama should be very careful about dismissing the sort of governance that he himself would almost certainly emulate. Which is to say that it’s absolutely possible to criticize Clintonomics from the Left (as Lambert in fact demonstrates with the income inequality chart), but in reality Obama is by every indication a Centrist and a Third-Wayer of Clintonesque intellectual pedigree … and given the circumstances of the 1990s would have almost certainly governed similarly to Bill.
And that’s fine. It’s Pollyanna-ish to assume we’d get anything different from a national candidate in this day and age, though a prolonged economic meltdown offers the pardon-the-pun bitter hope of some actual structural changes. What’s more, the smarter sort of Third Way policy can do actual good, especially when compared to the outright starve-the-beast rapacity of the GOP’s ‘economic’ agenda.
And at this point, from a pure political point of view, does anybody have anything but outright nostalgia for the Clinton years?
As Obama says, this little tempest too shall pass. I’m just getting worried that the tempests are coming with far greater frequency right now, and getting a bit distressed by the fractious fault lines that are emerging between erstwhile political foes who really ought to get back on the road to being allies.
Sorry for all the no-joking and whatnot.
But really, there’s no place for either candidate to bash the other in such a way that lumps that opponent, directly or by-proxy, together with Bush and/or McCain.
…
And at this point, from a pure political point of view, does anybody have anything but outright nostalgia for the Clinton years?
I’d like to see a Middle East policy that has less emphasis on dropping bombs on the Arabs, myself.
There has *got* to be a difference between throwing someone under the bus and drawing the publics attention to the bus that just ran someone over.
Is Obama -driving- the bus? did he -charter- the bus?
and most importantly this year: how much did he tip the driver?
After 7+ years of Bush the Democrat Party gives us Obama and Hillary…not a good move.
Here’s why you’re (sorta) wrong.
Senator Clinton is basing a large part of her campaign message on her role in her husband’s presidency. Those years happened. They benefited some, and some did indeed fall through the cracks. But Bill’s government is the tangible basis for Hillary’s campaign, so to declare it in any way off limits makes no sense…
mikey
Dunno. I get why Clinton would feel that Obama’s mention of people slipping between the cracks during Bill’s administration would be an under-the-bus moment — she’s gonna take that personally. I, however, can’t see it that way. It’s a statement of fact.
Of greater concern to me, however, is this “tenuous connection to Tim Russert” thing . . .
And I see that this morning, instead of apologizing for oppressing the Sadlynauts, WordPress chooses to repeat and embrace the errors of earlier this week . . .
the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them.
Obama struggles to talk about the economy and he’s forced to walk on eggshells to avoid setting off alarms throughout the punditocracy. The Clinton years fell within the last 25; even if he doesn’t name the administration the implication remains. Personally, I don’t see this as an attack – certainly not the same as the calculating, pure-politics attacks that have been aimed at Obama.
If Obama hadn’t mentioned Bill Clinton or if he had praised him in this context then we’re left with the troubling notion that Presidents are powerless to force positive economic change in the face of free trade deals and wide-open global labour markets.
Something else that would blow up in his face.
But don’t you know, Presidents cannot influence the economy at all, unless it’s to make it better through tax cuts. Can’t you people get this through your heads?
I hate to think that it’s happening all over again. A good man is tarred by assholes, and we’ll elect another retarded warmonger.
I had a vivid, detailed dream last night. It was election night, and I was with Obama and thousands of others in a very large room. Someone came out onto a stage and announced that neither Obama nor McCain had won. It was Guiliani! I went around telling people, “We’re fucked. Totally fucked!” Obama took the news calmly. Guiliani came onto the stage to speak, but everyone there shunned him. I’m not making this up. I welcome analysis by amateur and professional psychologists.
Of greater concern to me, however, is this “tenuous connection to Tim Russert” thing . . .
His wife is a friend of my mother’s from college, Berkeley.
Stupidest “scandal” ever. I mean really, how are you gonna sell tabloids with this?
Davis:
We’re fucked. Totally fucked.
But at least everybody shunned him, which means we’re totally fucked . . . together.
No charge. I’m an amateur.
Obama struggles to talk about the economy and he’s forced to walk on eggshells to avoid setting off alarms throughout the punditocracy.
And at the same time they’re sifting every word out of his mouth to see if they can take offense, may of the same people are complaining about the “kid glove” treatment he’s getting. Bleh.
I had a vivid, detailed dream last night…
Yesterday I dreamt I was a ballerina performing in an opera of my own composition, today I dreamt I had a magical toilet that could teleport you when you flushed it. I will cling, white-knuckled, to the hope that the happenings in your dream are as likely to happen as mine are.
If it is true PA residents and midwest residents have clung to White House promises that always fall short, and the Clinton administration promised and failed to deliver on these promises, why not say it? You should be taking issue with the possibility that Obama is blowing smoke up our collective asses here to make us believe that he’s gonna change the system giving rise to assholes like Bush instead of throwing a fellow Democrat under the bus, but this may require asking yourself how responsible Bush is for out state of affairs.
And Clinton’s response is, well, more triangulation.
Fuck it. I don’t care about buses. I’d rather all of them admit there’s only so much they can do.
Test
Fine, now they work.
Davis,
You had a dream that Ghooliani was going to be our next Prez and didn’t wake up screaming.
My analysis is you’ve got balls of solid titanium.
I had to swear off correntewire until after the primaries, for just this reason. I never thought much of Taylor Marsh to begin with, so no loss there.
Over at Drum’s place, I had a Hillary supporter claiming that TPM was more biased and inflammatory against Hillary than ANYTHING appearing on Marsh’s site about Obama. So I invited her to link to the evidence, and in response she linked to a post over at TPM reporting poll results from an independent polling firm that weren’t good for Hillary. So, reporting news not good for Hillary = foaming at the mouth. And it’s probably misogynist, too.
But seriously, for all the “Obama cult” bullshit we’ve heard flung around on the toobs by Hillary supporters, I’ve seen a lot more evidence among them of ODS (Obama Derangement Syndrome) than I have of any real “cult” among Obama supporters.
I’m just ready for this whole thing to be over – and it would be over already if not for the overweening ambition and sense of entitlement of one of the candidates. I’m not saying she should drop out – that is entirely up to her – but it would be nice to see that she at least realizes she has reached a point where she is starting to damage her own future standing. Because so far, I’m not seeing any sign of that.
Politics is a dog fight, etc. and this race for the Democratic nomination is especially intense, because it’s just so close. But really, there’s no place for either candidate to bash the other in such a way that lumps that opponent, directly or by-proxy, together with Bush and/or McCain.
Really? What about when Obama criticizes Clinton’s Iraq vote? Is that lumping her in with the Bush administration, throwing her under the bus? And is it wrong to do so? Fuck no I say and he doesn’t do it often enough for my taste. Not that she’s equally complicit as the Bush administration but she did get on that bus with them and she earned her place under it fair and square. As for pointing out that manufacturing jobs fell under the Clinton and Bush administrations, it’s true and it’s not a regurgitation of right wing talking points either. The question for Obama here is, what are you going to do differently?
You’re, well, right. But Sen. Clinton knows how to use a gun, she said so, watch your back, buster. Those of us who actually live in small towns or rural areas see that the poor didn’t go away when welfare as we know it went away. They just sunk a little more out of sight. I agree that Obama is a centrist, not my cup of orange juice, needless to say, but he actually trusted the American public to understand just how they have been manipulated by successive ReThug administrations & Congresses. I understand perfectly well what he is talking about, I see it every day in the small town I visit for coffee, oh damn, I just identified myself as a, regular person, at least according the to wealthy, gated community types who criticized Obama’s talk. Every small attempt, let’s see, to improve pedestrian & bicyclist access to The Big Lake is seen as some sort of Communist attempt to take land from some holy entrepreneur who has a “some day, baby” plan. It’s no different here than in PA. I came to the conclusion that people will respond to leadership that doesn’t bullshit them. Crap, I suppose I better watch my back too, given Sen. Clinton’s hunting skills. Why does she even bring shit like that up? Given that she doesn’t hunt every goddamn day during ruffed grouse/woodcock season, I wouldn’t want to be hunting next to her no matter how much ten-mile orange she was wearing.
“Sorry for all the no-joking and whatnot.”
Well, just see that it doesn’t happen again.
As for Pumpkinhead – the less said, the better.
I want my motha frackin glass of OJ NOW!!!!!!!!
I’m willing to let Obama’s centrism slide somewhat just because he talks to me like an adult. I’m not going to go too far out on a hyperbole limb here, but I really think he’s trying to change the way political campaigns are done in this country. If he’d been the one who told John Kerry’s “botched joke”, for example, he’d have let the usual windbags screech for a day or two, then he’d have stood up and said “Let me repeat myself just so I’m clear–if you don’t study hard, you end up in Iraq…just like the President. Ask John McCain and Hillary Clinton why they didn’t study harder”. And then would come the standing ovation.
Please, for God’s sake, can you and the punditry please stop yapping about people being killed via bus wheels? It’s the most over-used metaphor of this political season.
C’mon, how many people are murdered each year with bus as weapon? I guarantee more people are killed annually by hunters who’ve mistaken their victim for a squirrel. Hell, I bet subways are used for murder more often than buses.
Abandon your hateful public-transportation prejudices, and let us do our jobs.
You should be taking issue with the possibility that Obama is blowing smoke up our collective asses here to make us believe that he’s gonna change the system giving rise to assholes like Bush instead of throwing a fellow Democrat under the bus, but this may require asking yourself how responsible Bush is for out state of affairs.
I do take issue with that in the post above. Again, I think Obama’s on dangerous ground when he criticizes Clintonomics from the Left, because he is going to govern in much the same way Clinton did.
Look, the income inequality stats are one metric, and the Clinton team deserves to be raked over the coals for that. But there are plenty of other metrics — not to mention plain common sense — that show that Clinton economic results and Bush economic results are very different, mostly because the triangulating compromise of the Clinton agenda was nowhere near as damaging to the lower brackets as the out-and-out feudal-corporatist rapacity of the Bushies.
One could even argue that, given the cards dealt to him, Clinton accomplished pretty much as he could, which was incrementally slowing the worst effects of the unstoppable New Deal-rollback that the country was dead set on carrying out at the time. I personally think that to do that, you’d have to ignore the zeal with which he pursued Nafta and welfare ‘reform’, but nevertheless there is some truth in it.
And there is also some truth in the benefits of the smart brand of Third Wayism, which is to say incentivizing in an inclusive way for outcomes you’d like to see rather than simply throwing more money at problems. Obama will be governing in that manner, so it’s important that he articulate as the merits of such governance rather than go the easy route and bash his ideological antecedent, Clinton, for the inevitable failures of such policy-making.
And finally, the dog fight between Obama and Clinton is in one sense good in that it’s sharpening each candidates’ swords for the general election battle and also bringing some important, oft-ignored issues to the debate for a change. But at the same time, I just get worried that some pretty disturbing partisan fault lines are appearing between people who really ought to be figuring out how to get on the road to being allies again.
“I guarantee more people are killed annually by hunters who’ve mistaken their victim for a squirrel.”
I just a read a story about the guy who went deer hunting. He didn’t want to be mistaken for a deer and shot, so he climbed a tree.
It worked. The guy who shot him said he thought he was a squirrel.
True story.
Here’s the problem: Obama’s the best of a very bad lot, but even he doesn’t go far enough. Thanks to a quarter-century of corporation-fattening economic stupidity (and Clinton did not vary from that in any meaningful way), we’re on the verge of a new Great Depression, but with an attendant collapse of the American empire. We need a president who will do bold, Rooseveltian things–not another triangualtor, and certainly not another corporate puppet.
It’s no compliment to you that you’d be happy to vote Hillary. Her record speaks for itself; she is, at best, a lesser evil–and not that much lesser. Obama’s a centrist, but she’s a corporate stooge, right down to her DNA.
Another way to think about Clinton is that she’s toast except that she says she’s not. There is no Clinton nomination in sight, according to the numbers, unless Obama’s secret plan to enfaggotrize us all is unfortunately revealed.
Obama, the winner according to everything the numbers tell us, has no competition and trashing Clinton for whatever reason is meaningless unless he behaves shockingly badly about it, which he has not.
Being ‘happy’ to vote for Hillary is a figure of speech. I mean simply that I will pull the lever for whichever candidate that’s opposing McCain, because flawed and un-Progressive as that candidate will be, he/she will only be maybe 3/4’s the disaster that McCain would be, and that’s something, and I take what I can get sometimes, rather than gnash my teeth and pull out my hair and call everybody else in the country a bunch of idiots for not seeing things precisely as I do.
I am going to literally throw somone under a literal, smoke-belching bus the next time I hear that fucking moronic phrase.
But it’s so nice to see Hillary seize the opportunity to triangulate already – take that, McCain! She’s stealing your “stuck-up unamerican elitist” lines already! Whatcha gonna do this fall, repeat Hillary’s words? Lotsa luck with that, ha ha!
Oh, I know, she’s not really that bad, she only has to say things like this to get elected; once she’s there, she’ll break sharply to the left and shun all these morons, knowing that she’ll have four years to create a socialist utopia that will show all the Limbaugh/Hannity/O’Reilly fans what they’ve been missing in their fear and anger, blah blah, happily ever after. She’s not going to allow herself to be pressured into right wing policies (the ones she doesn’t flat-out adopt on her own, that is). Is that the current line of apologetics? She’ll govern like a Republican, but she won’t call herself one, and that’s all that really matters?
Whatever delusions get you through the night, I guess. I suppose you don’t have much choice when you keep harping on the fact that you’ll vote for the Democrat no matter what. I find, when entering a bargaining session, that it’s best to inform the other party right up front that no matter what, I’ll ultimately accept whatever the fuck they tell me I’m going to accept. This gets all that unpleasantness out of the way so we can engage in some harmless haggling until they give me the original price plus 10%.
RB – Clinton’s not getting nominated, true. But she still has a lot of supporters, and when Obama wins it, getting them to come home is going to be that much easier if he keeps to the high road vis-a-vis bashing or ‘appearing to bash’.
And to some above points, absolutely yes, what Hillary did when she basically said McCain would be better at foreign policy than Barack was waaaay worse than any under-the-bus-throwing (apologies to Buses and non-lazy languaging) he’s done.
I never thought I’d miss Jimmy Carter so badly…
It’s no compliment to you that you’d be happy to vote Hillary.
Faced with a binary choice (which is what we have in our system of government, and probably will have with any plausible path of reform, IRV included), you go for the least bad candidate, period. If I had to eat dirt or eat shit, I most likely would eat dirt.
That being said, voting for somebody is an awful low level of commitment. If you have qualms about the person at the top of the ballot, it would be best to put your time and money toward electing a good set of minders in the House and Senate to minimize the damage. Plus start looking for some real progressive governors who might be crazy enough to run for president at the next opportunity. Not very inspirational, to be certain, but that’s where we’re at.
Sheesh.
Guess it’s time to say it AGAIN.
One of three people will be the president of the United States in November. (Note to the naked emperor- It’s not a bargaining session, it’s a menu with three items on it. You can order one or you can go hungry. You can’t ask for something else.)
Now two of those people, while pretty much nobody’s ideal, represent a less belligerent foreign policy, a more populist domestic policy some chance to see respect for the rule of law reinstated before our government becomes an outright dictatorship.
The other person has promised us more wars, more tax cuts for the wealthy, more worship at the alter of corporate profits and christian fundamentalism, and an utterly unsustainable economy.
Reckon, frankly, you can bloody well do what you want. But “what you want” is going to be chosen from a domain of two choices: Pick one of the above, or stay home. Whining, screaming, and throwing feces over the unfairness of the situation and the process not only won’t change anything at all, it won’t even make you feel better.
‘Cause when you’re done, hoarse and red-faced, wiping the spittle flecks off your fellows, the situation will still be you have four choices in the upcoming election.
And to tell the truth, you don’t need to keep telling me what you’re gonna do…
mikey
Whereas I agree with you on the 11th Commandment, I do not believe you can know how Obama might handle things like trade pacts and the push to a “Freer Market”. Certainly, we know how the Clintons (and the DLC) handled these questions in the 90s. Obama has already stressed the need for greater regulation on the banking and mortgage industries, while Clinton has not.
While economic policies under GWB have been radical, many of them are certainly ideological grandchildren of those begun by Regan and carried on by Clinton. So, I don’t think it’s entirely unfair to suggest some connection (on economic policies) between them.
steve – you may be right, but then it’s a little bit naive to give him the progressive advantage on the basis of his economic plan being ‘unknown’. I do think that the combination of pressure and his own pretty centrist record will make him a lot more like Clinton than not.
But it would be more fair to compare the unknowns of Obama with the unknowns of Bill Clinton in 1992. And so far, Obama comes up roses in the comparison — for example he hasn’t executed a retarded man to prove his tough-on-crime bona fides, as far as I know.
I hereby nominate “enfaggotrize” as the new Word of the Year. It will be listed in the Very Elite Dictionary of High-Falutin’ Terms as follows:
En*fag*got*rize (adv.) 1. To make extremely gay, or elite. 2. To take away all God, Guns, Guts, and even Balls from either an individual or a whole population.
Oh, and her health care plan really is better, though I also think he’s more able to be convinced to change his mind than she is hers. He’s also waaay better on government transparency and ethics reform.
Oops. I misattributed my quote it goes to Righteous Bubba. I was cuttin’ and pastin’ and I kept having to re-submit because, shall I say it, WordPress SUCKS ASS. What is the deal, anyway? I have to submit a comment six times to get it to go down.
‘appearing to bash’
But not appearing to bash means never mentioning Hillary ever again.
I’ve watched this develop over the months amongst my uber-liberal Bay Area neighbors.
Many months ago, I could say:
“Hey, Bush and the GOP are in the opinion poll crapper! The Rupugs are forming a circular firing squad. It looks like the Dems could run a rubber duckie as a presidential candidate and blow (then-front-runners) Romney or Giuliani out of the water!”
“Yeah”, says uber-liberal, “but it looks like Hillary Clinton is headed for the nomination. I don’t like her much. She’s not uber-liberal enough for me. I can’t vote for just another centrist pol…” etc etc.
Then along comes Obama. A new dawn! Inspriation! Audacity of hope! *swoon*
(This dynamic could be perfectly tracked over on the Great Orange Satan: anybody but Clinton!)
Then: the rebirth of McCain. GOP primaries are over. But Clinton refuses to go quietly into the night under the crushing juggernaut of hope that is Obama. Dems dutifully form their own circular firing squad and start pulling the triggers.
Why? Because Clinton is not uber-liberal enough, unlike say, Ralph Nader, who these guys all voted for in 2000. Of course, neither is Obama. But he’s got the audacity of hope! He’s a cipher, on which we can project our Naderite desires. But more to the point, he’s not Hillary Clinton!
(And Edwards, well, his policies are far more liberal and populist than either of the others, but he’s… well, he’s just another white guy politician. We want HISTORIC CHANGE! So sorry, John.)
Along comes the line of buses to throw each other under. Repugs cackle with glee as the MSM’s long knives come out. Non-hilarity ensues.
—slips on English teacher mask— Um, “erstwhile” means “former” or “previous.” “Erstwhile foes” are already allies.
I meant ‘temporary political foes’ … you are correct, JC.
Fucking WordPress. Anyhow, fuck the 11th Commandment. You yay-hoos are still whining about Nader in 2000. The centrist DLC-type Democrats have been part of the fucking problem, or has there been another bunch of “loyal opposition” gutless toads bending over every chance they got to every stupid decision the Bush administration makes, or am I just crazy. And of course, the Clinton years were better than the Bush years. That’s a pretty fucking low bar to set, so let’s not go nuts with nostalgia. I know a couple folks who completely lost their way thanks to Mr, Bill’s welfare “reform”.
As with most things apart from his taste in music, which I’m not gonna hold against him, I’m with mikey. I’ll be happy to vote for Obama but either way, I’m voting against McCain.
But Clinton refuses to go quietly into the night under the crushing juggernaut of hope that is Obama. Dems dutifully form their own circular firing squad and start pulling the triggers.
Crushing juggernaut of hope? Obama’s a cipher? Man that sounds like something Kraphammer would write. Looks like your locked and loaded for that circular firing squad yourself but thanks for the lecture anyway.
My biggest problem with McCain – and it’s a huge one – is that he ‘cooks’ meat over a gas-fired flame, then calls it “barbecue.”
Completely unacceptable.
If you’re gonna cook with gas, just stay in the house. I want my candidate cooking meat over the heat of a genuine charcoal fire (or, better yet, the glowing coals of a burned down wood fire) and calling that grilling; and in the heat and smoke of genuine charcoal or wood, and calling that barbecue.
Fuck St. John McCain the Torture Apologist / Warmonger / Dick Sucker of the Corporate Elite. He doesn’t know shit about shit.
Now, where’re my matches at?
ersatz
Yeah, he shouldn’t dis the Clinton admin … look at all the good that NAFTA did for the rust belt.
Joe Max said,
April 13, 2008 at 19:19
…
Why? Because Clinton is not uber-liberal enough, unlike say, Ralph Nader, who these guys all voted for in 2000. Of course, neither is Obama. But he’s got the audacity of hope! He’s a cipher, on which we can project our Naderite desires. But more to the point, he’s not Hillary Clinton!
(And Edwards, well, his policies are far more liberal and populist than either of the others, but he’s… well, he’s just another white guy politician. We want HISTORIC CHANGE! So sorry, John.)
Most of the Obama voters on this blog were Edwards supporters who switched when our choice came down to one of two.
So you seem to be preaching to the choir you wish you had, Joe, rather than the one you’ve got here.
As you know, you preach to the choir you have, not the choir you want.
Compared to Charles “Behold the Pockmarked Face of Tyranny” Krauthammer! Ooo, I am cut to the quick, I really am. I think I’ll go cry now.
But firing squad? No me, bucko. I will happily vote for either Clinton or Obama, and sleep well at night doing so. The opportunity shove a black or a woman president down the gullets of the right-wing GOP and watch them writhe and squirm and shake their bruised little fists at the uncaring sky is just way too delicious to pass up.
Richard Warman is a traitor to Western Civilization and should be hanged.
It may not be electorally wise for Obama to point out the shared hostility toward the working population exhibited both by Republican and Democratic leaders over the past 30 years — even given that the Republicans are about a million times more destructive and dangerous to us schmucks — but it is true nonetheless.
The comparisons to 2000 are completely inaccurate. The differences between the two parties in this election are more clearly deliniated than at any other time in my voting life, and I’ve been voting for 25 years. Take it from someone who spent many of those years voting third party (yeah, including He Who Must Not Be Named)–there’s an actual choice this time.
Yes, the Repubs have moved the dreaded Overton Window practically off the scale, but that doesn’t change the fact that the two sides are still far enough apart to make it a real choice. And you know, if you wanna move that Window a bit in the opposite direction for a change, it seems to me there’s only one way to do it, and it ain’t by opting out of the process.
Additional note: dudes, seriously, fix the comments problem. If I hadn’t saved the above in a word processing application it would’ve been lost forever (no great loss, perhaps), and I would now like your site just a little bit less.
Compared to Charles “Behold the Pockmarked Face of Tyranny” Krauthammer! Ooo, I am cut to the quick, I really am. I think I’ll go cry now.
You’re crying because it’s true. Haven’t you previously chided your fellow liberals in comments here for adopting right wing frames? Your above it all, a pox on both houses rhetoric would be a lot more credible if you took your own advice.
It saddens me to think that most people are going to hear the soundbite that Obama “insulted” the Rustbelt voters, but few are actually going to read or hear the actual speech.
I think it’s also important to remember that what Obama said up in Marin wasn’t a “speech”, though out and written down, but rather an extemporaneous response during a question and answer session.
Which probably explains the un-Obama like awkwardness of the language.
Also, he was speaking to a room full of allies who understood clearly what he was saying, so in the moment he DID communicate effectively…
mikey
Hysterical Woman,
Well, that’s what happened with the whole Wright kerfluffle, innit? Context, even the guy’s exact words or their verisimilitude, didn’t matter. All that mattered is they got a reason to not have to pretend they were gonna vote for Obama. Nobody who didn’t want to know took the time to find out the whole shebang and the mainstream media – which has a vested interest, I think, in keeping us acting like particularly spoiled, mean-spirited children afraid of everything – certainly weren’t gonna make it easy to find it.
Been reading about Richard III lately, friend recomended Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time. If people don’t want to hear the facts, there’s almost nothing you can do to make them listen.
The part that Obama left out that I’m not cool with is that period at the beginning of the chart Lambert linked to when the income going to the lowest segments started to drop precipitously and the income for the highest started to rocket up.
There was this other guy back then who used to be president. Reagan, I think his name was, and it was on his watch that the jobs started to go away. Under Clinton, the decline actually levelled off for a while.
The Reagan administration was also, coincidentally, when those bitter working class folks started to be pointed in the direction of religious factionalism, race, abortion, jingoism, teh gay, and all those other distractions they’re clinging to by, why yes, a conscious strategy of the Republican party.
So no, I’m kind of not good with his laying it off on Clinton’s jobs record that the working class is responding to what they’ve been fed by Reagan’s “transformative” politics. The Democrats haven’t done all that much to save those people, but the unfortunate reality Obama’s pointing to is largely down to Republicans, and specifically the wave of Republicanism that came into ascendancy under Reagan.
If you can’t name it, you can’t change it.
Did I? Maybe I don’t consider the fact that Obama, up until this primary, was largely an unknown quality in the high-stakes world of presidential politics (unlike Edwards or Clinton), as being a “right-wing frame” or “bashing” him. Did anybody here see the bullshit “controversy” over Wright coming? I didn’t.
Just because a broken wingnut clock is correct twice a day doesn’t mean a clock that says the same time at that very millisecond is also broken.
I’m not bashing Obama. I like him. I like Clinton too. I don’t bash either of them. As I say, I’ll happily vote for either of them. It’s like you’re saying that not bashing Clinton is tantamount to bashing Obama, or vice versa.
Like, “How can you not hate Hillary Clinton??? I mean, she’s so… so… Clinton!”
Obama has become more defined in his policy positions over the last couple months (he’s had to), but back in the early Audacity days, I’d ask Obama fans to explain his positions on health care, NAFTA, monetary policy, et al, and I almost invariably got a blank stare. They didn’t know what he stood for. It didn’t matter to them. “He’s not politics-as-usual, man! And he’s not someone who voted for the war! And he’s not Hillary Clinton!”
Great. Support a candidate based on what he’s not. We’ll worry about what he is later, I guess. That’s not bashing Obama. That’s bashing clueless followers, regardless of who they’re following.
It was like the hilarious clips of pro-Tibet protesters in San Francisco being asked to point out Tibet on a map. Not a single one of a dozen of them could do it. (While my 13 year-old daughter could.)
That doesn’t mean the cause of Tibet is not just. It is. I just dislike clueless people, no matter what their political stripe. I expect better of liberals, since we’re supposed to be the smart ones.
But I guess pointing out the cluelessness of my fellow libs when I see it is more of my adopting “right wing framing”, eh?
PS: as far as Edwards goes, I was an Edwards supporter myself. Gave his campaign some cash and everything. But he pissed me off by dropping out before California.
But I guess pointing out the cluelessness of my fellow libs when I see it is more of my adopting “right wing framing”, eh?
Still preaching to the choir you wish you had, Joe.
P.S. Those straw men never had a chance!
Yes they did! I could have gotten one of those straws right in the eye, man! They hurt!
OK, I’ll grant you that one.
One of my straw men jabbed me in the eye once. And just when I had ’em on the ropes!
Along comes the line of buses to throw each other under.
It’s always the same. You stand waiting at the stop for hours, and then three come along at once.
Goddamit, wordpress.
Anyways, fuckital. Shit like this is why I’m addicted to WoW. Anyone have gold they want to donate?
Smut Clyde at 21:49 was a thing of beauty.
i’m sorry your guy stepped in it but to deny the damage and fallout from these very arrogant and condescending remarks is delusional
Bet you didn’t know that more people were killed by buses in Washington DC last year than in ALL OF IRAQ! Suck on it, liberal fascists!
OK, let me see if I can “un-strawman” it, then.
I said that Obama was largely an unknown quality, as to what his policy positions were, and even more importantly, as to what kind of campaign could be run against him, before the primaries got under way.
Lawnguylander replied that I was a hypocrite, since I previously criticized both side’s supporters for their circular-firing-squad behavior and parroting right-wing talking points, and my saying that Obama was an unknown quality was something that a right-wing idiot like Krauthammer also implied, and since he’s a right-winger, anything he says about Obama is ipso facto a “right-wing talking point.” Therefore, I am in effect bashing Obama with right-wing talking points, revealing my obvious hypocrisy.
Have I got it right, Lawnguylander?
But sometimes right-wing idiots say something factual that’s not completely bullshit. Troglodyte immigrant-skull-fucking asshole Pat Buchanan is a vocal critic of the Iraq War, as was “I’m-not-a-bigot-I-just-hate-negroes-and-latinos-for-good-reasons” goat-blower Ron Paul. So then by Lawnguylander’s logic, if I say anything against the Iraq War that Buchanan or Paul ever ALSO said, I must be parroting right-wing talking points, because a right-winger said it too.
At least, that’s how I interpreted his critique.
So I relayed a personal anecdote about how I found so many of Obama’s were also clueless about what he stood for early on, which demonstrates that yes, indeed, he was somewhat of a “cipher”, even to his supporters. I don’t think that was a strawman argument, but YMMV.
Please, for God’s sake, can you and the punditry please stop yapping about people being killed via bus wheels?
I still don’t understand the metaphor. Someone on here finally explained to me recently that it is a sports reference, and that it is a way of saying that a team travelling together to or from a game shouldn’t betray one of it’s members.
Ok, fair enough. No, wait, it isn’t, I’m still lost. Has any team ever wanted to throw a member under the bus? When has this ever once happened, or even been contemplated? Plausibility aside, the assumption seems to be that it would be ok to throw a person under the bus unless that person is on your team.
The expression may as well be, “bombing your own church.” Oh, yeah, you shouldn’t bomb your church. That’s dirty politics.
Oh, yeah, you shouldn’t bomb your church. That’s dirty politics.
Given that the “under the bus” trope is almost exclusively about political strategy and is therefore applied in a moral vacuum, your analogy is probably correct, pedestrian.
We should retire “throwing x under the bus” and bring back “traitor to the revolution” and “bourgeois reactionary”. I know that they have vastly different original meanings, but empty political expressions are interchangeable. All that they really mean is, “You’re in my way, bitch”
Politics is a dog fight, etc. and this race for the Democratic nomination is especially intense, because it’s just so close. But really, there’s no place for either candidate to bash the other in such a way that lumps that opponent, directly or by-proxy, together with Bush and/or McCain. Particularly in such a way that it can be used later by the McCain camp in the general election campaign against whichever Dem secures the nomination.
Speaking of metaphors…
If only Obama and Clinton could be less like this and more like this
the pardon-the-pun bitter hope
For a second there I thought you were going to start raving about cilantro again.
Or possibly litotes. I never could tell them apart.
Bloody buggery bollocks.
The Thing with Two Heads
You’re either on the bus or under the bus.
You’re either on the bus or under the bus.
Dude, I AM the bus.
I’m sorry, did I just blow your mind????
Joe, if you’ll grant me that my own anecdotal evidence of Clinton supporters I’ve argued with being clueless idiots proves as much as your anecdotal evidence of same amongst Obama supporters we can save a lot of words here. They can cancel each other out until you or Krauthammer come up with some other way of proving cluelessness is more rampant in the Obama camp. But that’s not going to happen. It’s just some stale old bullshit so in the meantime I’m just going to assume it’s not a coincidence or some kind magic trick that his support grew and hers declined as they both became better known quantities.
I’m not bashing Obama. I like him. I like Clinton too. I don’t bash either of them. As I say, I’ll happily vote for either of them. It’s like you’re saying that not bashing Clinton is tantamount to bashing Obama, or vice versa.
I don’t know what you’re talking about there. I don’t expect you to bash Clinton if you’re supporting her. I can’t relate to not being offended by the kind of campaign she’s been running since she lost her front runner status but I can understand not criticizing her for things like her reaction to Obama’s “bitter speech” if you’re a Clinton partisan.
[Trying again without a link to see if it slips through]
As you football fans know, the Bus is Jerome Bettis. Thankfully, all this talk of throwing this person or that one under the bus will eventually stop as only so many people can fit beneath him.
Sorry, didn’t see your subsequent comment before I posted.
So then by Lawnguylander’s logic, if I say anything against the Iraq War that Buchanan or Paul ever ALSO said, I must be parroting right-wing talking points, because a right-winger said it too.
No, I didn’t say anything like that. I just criticized the use of that particular point because I think it’s not true and not supportable. I think I’d do it even if it weren’t in use by wingnuts. If I ever show up here or anywhere else saying something along the lines of, “Hillary is harboring some kind of ambition that makes here the most ambitious person ever”, it won’t mean a thing that Maureen Dowd occasionally writes something that isn’t dumb. I’m still sounding like her in one of her lame instances and I think it would be fair to point that out.
Would this be a Magic Bus?
Enough with the false equivalence. Hillary has got a lot to live down–membership in a very disturbing prayer group, actively abetting NAFTA and “ending welfare as we know it”, taking gobs of cash from Big Pharma, voting for the Iraq War and not learning the lesson thereafter, sitting on the board of directors of Wal*Mart during its worst and most labor-unfriendly times (and doing apparently fuck-all about it), dropping a whole succession of balls on healthcare reform back in the day, employing Mark Penn, playing cute with the party rules in uncontested primaries–that Obama doesn’t. Is Obama a centrist with Illinois machine connections who takes donations from shady people? Yes, absolutely. However, he voted the right way on the defining issue of the decade (that would be the war, for those who are busy slagging their uber-liberal Bay Area neighbors), and that alone earns him some support. Add in that he is actually telling the truth about the seriously fucked-up state of the Union, and it’s not even a question.
In the extremely unhappy event that Hillary is the nominee, of course one would and should vote against McCain. But to be “happy” voting for her betrays either a deep ignorance of who she is and what she’s done, or a really befouled set of ethics. So she’s a woman–so’s Margaret Thatcher, and while electing her might have been historic, it wasn’t at all good.
Welcome Aboard, People!
I stopped paying attention to the Democratic nomination process when Edwards (and any substantive debate) dropped out of the race. Ever since then it’s been utter bullshit.
🙁
i cn hz Magical Mystery Tour? kthnxbai
By the way, Joe Max, we poor stupid uber-liberal Bay Area natives haven’t recently gotten around to thanking those of you who moved here from Flyover to tell us just how dumb we are for your service. So thank you. You join the proud ranks of the dot-commers who rolled into town and tried to remake it in the image of their Chapel Hill/Grosse Pointe/(insert town here) stomping grounds, and opposed rent control and bike lanes and other non-free-market abominations. Thank you again for letting us know just how far from the perfection of the rest of the nation we have fallen.
you may be right, but then it’s a little bit naive to give him the progressive advantage on the basis of his economic plan being ‘unknown’
It’s a valid point. For myself, it’s simply a choice between the devil you know and the one you don’t. Like many others, I feel that the devil we’ve known has proven so disastrous that we are willing to try the unknown. I’m not sure it’s naivety as much as it is a desperate hope that something can change for the better.
I wanted to throw myself under a bus on Friday after I found out that I’m but one degree of separation from the Shrieking Harpy. Neither of our connections to the person in the middle is close but I’m still spooked. Somebody hold me, please.
Only if you hold me!
U cn hz Magical Mystery Tour.
Also, a little something for your head.
This country deserves what it gets if we have an election between Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Since 9/11, Americans have shown nothing but arrogance, cowardice and ignorance. Do I care which one of these idiots takes the country down faster? The sooner America hits rock bottom, the sooner I don’t have to see this kind of vapid “news.” I will NEVER vote for Hillary Clinton. She had one chance to show some integrity and courage and – SHE VOTED FOR THE FUCKING WAR! She made a political decision to vote for a war, because she thought it would help her when she ran for president. She was not “duped” by George W. Bush. That war, predictably, cost hundreds of thousands of lives and is the most ruinous thing that this country has done in my lifetime (a lifetime that spans back before Vietnam, for the record). To vote for Hillary Clinton is to say to the next asshole politician when the next “war of choice” comes up, that the wise thing to do is vote for the war. There are any number of reasons not to vote for Clinton, but that is the only one I really need.
You know what? I’m not fucking done. Let me add this:
Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, far from being presidential candidates, should have resigned in disgrace. I don’t know what they knew when they made their heinous vote for the war, but I’d like to find out. Perhaps they should be sitting next to Bush and Cheney at their war crimes trials.
And another thing…
Oh never mind.
btw, Obama’s response to Clinton was: How can Clinton say that he is out of touch with small town America? She’s the one who voted for the bankruptcy bill written by credit-card companies.
Is that throwing her under the bus? If so, she deserved it for throwing small town Amercans under the bus.
If everyone is under the bus, then no one is under the bus.
Just saw this, and I have to say: Smut Clyde wins the metaphor contest.
The fact is, the liberal media is biased against McCain.
If everyone is under the bus, then how are the wheels going to get any traction?
For that matter, if everyone is under the bus, then who the fuck is driving?
Teh Clintons.
Teh Democratic Party.
Teh Song.
Snorghagen, no matter what, remember: the wheels on the bus go round and round.
I’ve been searching for somebody who might have strapped himself under a bus but these guys preferred station wagons.
#
isaac said,
April 13, 2008 at 22:13
i’m sorry your guy stepped in it but to deny the damage and fallout from these very arrogant and condescending remarks is delusional
============================
Can you give me some examples of a few non-Clinton supporter from PA that were offended?
Anybody besides Hillary or the Press complaining?
the expression “thrown under the bus” jumped the shark awhile ago.
The expression “jumped the shark” has been thrown under the bus.
Friends, countrymen, people who hate Hussein Obama, lend me your ears; I come to bury Hussein, not to praise him. Let me get to the crux of the matter: Hussein decries or dismisses capitalism, technology, industrialization, and systems of government borne of Enlightenment ideas about the dignity and freedom of human beings. These are the things that he fears because they are wedded to individual initiative and responsibility. He uses highfalutin terms like “undemonstrativeness” and “parallelogrammatical” to conceal his plans to create a Frankenstein’s monster. In this scheme of his, a mass of grandiloquent words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details. We become unable to see that every time Hussein gets caught trying to convert our children to cultural zombies in a mass of unthinking and easily herded proletarian cattle, he promises he’ll never do so again. Subsequently, his dupes always jump in and explain that he really shouldn’t be blamed even if he does because, as they allege, honor counts for nothing.
It would be nice to say that besotted diabolism doesn’t exist anymore but we all know that it does. Hussein insists that he has no choice but to shatter and ultimately destroy our most precious possessions. His reasoning is that it’s okay to concentrate all the wealth of the world into his own hands. Yes, I realize that that argument makes no sense, but Hussein cannot tolerate the world as it is. He needs to live in a world of fantasies. To be more specific, Hussein claims that he is clean and bright and pure inside. Predictably, he cites no hard data for that claim. This is because no such data exist.
Others may disagree but I avouch that the Hussein-induced era of sham and deceit and pretense will draw to a close eventually. But I digress. If Hussein opened his eyes, he’d realize that he expresses only the noblest intentions, singing praises to the value of community even as he enacts policies that mute the voice of anyone who dares to speak out against him. He wants to see to it that all patriotic endeavors are directed down blind alleys where they end in frustration and discouragement. It gets better: He actually believes that there is something intellectually provocative in the tired rehashing of dissolute stereotypes. I guess no one’s ever told him that it is not uncommon for him to victimize the innocent, penalize the victim for making any effort to defend himself, and then paint the whole mutinous affair as some great benefit to humanity. At this point, our task is to open minds instead of closing them. Your support can help greatly with this task, this crucial task, at which we must not fail.
Sadly, No!
“Friends, countrymen, people…”
Last time. Shut the fuck up.
Friends, countrymen?
Really?
Fuck you, dood. You aren’t even original….
mikey
But Clinton refuses to go quietly into the night under the crushing juggernaut of hope that is Obama.
I for one would like to see more accusations that someone has been thrown under the juggernaut (unless this is some dog-whistle implication that Obama is a secret Krishna-worshipper).
I would also like to see a Bollywood version of ‘Wicker Man’, where instead of being burnt alive in a giant wicker construction in order to propitiate the spirits of the earth, Sergeant Howie is thrown under the wheels of the Jagannath Chariot. A dance number follows.
I never met a phor I didn’t like.
Each time I’ve come back here today I’ve thought the post was titled Take a Bath, Please.
Irrelevant? Sure, why not? What isn’t?
They keep beating that dead bus, but it never makes lemonade.
If you just skip over Matt’s post, it’s like you’re given all these extra minutes to live and love and enjoy the universe. It makes life a little lifeier.
Buses don’t kill people. People kill people. With buses. Sometimes. Metaphorically speaking.
— From My Cold Dead Hands (angrily waves metro bus pass at sky)
I never met a phor I didn’t like.
I never met a Pfhor I didn’t kill.
Y’know, I’ve run over two people on purpose over the years.
In ’77, with a ’61 chevy pickup, and in ’82 with a ’71 dodge dart.
And let me give you some advice.
See, usually, when you actually throw humans under your wheels, you’re pretty fucked up. So you do the deed, and you go on with your bidness.
Then, the next day, you’re all strung out and hung over and you’re trying to scrub people guts n hair n shit off the bottom of your car.
Dood. It’s NASTY. And smelly. And sticky. And hella gross.
It just is.
Here’s my advice.
Don’t do it in the first place. Bus or not….
mikey
Friends, countrymen, people …
Matt,Matt,Matt…..*sigh* The generator again? Please tell us definitively, are you a parody troll, or just a troll?
Here’s a third way for ya,
For most of the Clinton Administration, the RWers controlled Congress, and the economic agenda . Clinton roadblocked a lot of the worst stuff , much that’s since passed, but he could roll back little , if any , that came during the Reagan/Bush years .For example , he vetoed accounting law changes that helped make Enron, et al possible . However , it was overidden , in large part to two current McCain advisors, Phil Gramm, and Saint Lieberman. He can be faulted for certain…distractions that took his time and hurt his credibility, but criticism of econmic trends that include 1992-2000 aren’t necessarily an indictment of Bill Clinton . Hillary should chill, and both should remind people of that stuff.
Obama’s running on Change, not A Trip Back to Clintonland.
“San Francisco remarks”, indeed. We know the subtext there.
That from the campaign which won the California primary.
Clarification —–
Q: ARE Americans bitter?
If no, then Obama should apologize & STFU.
If yes, then McCain, Clinton & the Talking Head Brigade should extrude their crania from their warm, dark pungent hiding places long enough to apologize to Obama & the voters … & STFU.
From what I’ve seen & heard, this one’s a big resounding YES.
Q: Are we not bitter?
A: We are Devo!
This from the local paper today, in response to Taller David Rossie.
“Barack Obama thinks we Middle Class folks are bitter…???
Wrong..!..I used to be Bitter…..now I’m enraged almost to the point of going into a scat heaving frenzy…
I’m frustrated that I cannot satisfactorily articulate my utter contempt and disgust for:
Iraq War
Gas Prices
Airlines
Motorists
Politicians
Barristas
Molesters
.
.
.
.
name it, I probably hate it…..!!!”
Posted by: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
:-))))))))
Shit like this article are what I like about this site, you consistantly prove that you are the wittiest, most intelligent bloggers on the net.
Obama is a raging Muslim!
No wait, Obama is a crazy Christian!
Scratch that, Obama hates religion and religious people!
Seriously wingers, make up your minds. This is getting dizzying.
I’m jumping over the bus, Evil Knievel style. Chicks dig it.
MAKE A FREAKING FAVICON FOR THIS WEBSITE!
THANK YOU!
ahh but see, the lack of a favicon is in and of itself in fact a favicon…
DocAmazing chunked:
How many erroneous assumptions can one person make in a single post? Let’s count the ways.
I didn’t come to SF from Flyover. I came here from NYC. (6th Street near 2nd. This was in 1976, and I can still smell the curry.) I was born in Detroit, but left when I was nine. I lived in SF for twenty years, and now I live in Oakland (and no, not in the hills.)
I voted for rent control in SF, damn, it must have been 1978 or 79. I rent now, and always have. I ride a bike myself, not religiously, but I use the bike lane that runs along Macarthur avenue.
I’m not a dot-commer, I’m an audio engineer. I watched dot-com rise and fall, as it fucked up the rental market in the City so badly I moved to Oakland. I work for UC Berkeley, and I’m a union steward (UPTE/CWA 919).
So: not a “flyover”, not a dot-commie, not a libertarian, not a free-booting capitalist, been living here since I played in the first punk bands in North Beach, voted for rent control in SF, I use bike paths, I’m a union steward. It’s quite possible I’ve been living in the Bay Area longer than you’ve been alive, if the juvenile petulance of your reply was any indication.
That’s an awful lot of wrong for just one post.
Well, I’ll certainly never look at a bus the same way again. Smut Clyde wins.
So what have I won? If it involves big bowls or dicks, then I may not be able to attend the prize-giving ceremony.
‘Thrown under the bus”, yes it is redundant, I think we should clamour for the return of “Capitalist Running Dogs” and similar phrases, they have a kind of nice, old fashioned feel to them. And it kind of describes old Hilary anyway.
The fact is, if you support Osama or Hitlery you are a fag.
The truth is, only people in the closet cream themselves over Republican candidates.
Gotta say, I’m with Matt T. where the 11th Commandment is concerned – and most other stuff in that particular comment. It’s a bad commandment.
It’s been around a long time, too.
Holy See: Thou shalt speake no ill of ye churche.
Honest priest: But yon monsignore hath buggered children innumerable!
Holy See: Shushe! Hold thine tongue and all shalt be welle.
Fast forward a coupla generations, and whattaya got?
Not the best metaphor, but I hope you get the general idea.
mikey, try this iteration – “My stupidly incredulous and provincially narrow-minded fellow countrymen …”
Iraq War
Gas Prices
Airlines
Motorists
Politicians
Barristas
Molesters
One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong…
The fact is, my girlfriend just won “Best of Show.” I’m so proud.
Wow, Joe Max, a New Yorker and still a tool! Your uber-liberal neighbors must be so very proud to have you living among them! We poor stupid native Oaklanders must apologize for having a hometown that fails to live up to your expectations. After all, we apparently all voted Nader (yet somehow California’s electoral votes went to Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004…strange…) and we’re not as smart as your daughter, who can tell us the latitude and longitude of Lhasa–we just visibly oppose China’s occupation, which clearly marks us as dopes.
Meanwhile, I’m about your age (played the Mab back in the day as well), a pediatrician in a charity clinic in the Mission (and a union member–rare for a doc).
I think I prefer you uber-liberal neighbors. Less judgmental. But again, a heartfelt thanks for being around to correct me, and them, and us. We’re so gald you decided to come to town and tell us poor hicks what’s what.
Apology accepted.
Hysterical Woman said,
April 14, 2008 at 16:02
Iraq War
Gas Prices
Airlines
Motorists
Politicians
Barristas
Molesters
One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong…
Don’t know . There’s one Starbuck-es , and two local places here, that would have anything resembling a barrista . I’ve never been in any of ’em. Maybe they are that bad? 🙂
I don’t understand this hating on barristas. There’s nothing wrong with medieval catapults.