Wingnut Talking Point Bingo

I wish I could say I was surprised but after the idiotic way that many people, even some pretty smart ones, responded to the “bitter” statement I can say that I’m close to giving up hope for reasoned discourse for the campaign. It does help support my belief that following the “news” coverage (like the coverage of the “bitter” “scandal”!) makes one _more_ stupid than before and so basically should not be done. This is more so with TV than other forms, but blogs are often not too far behind.

It’s unanimous.

[aeiou] Dowd:

The elitism that Americans dislike is not about family money or connections — J.F.K. and W. never would have been elected without them. In the screwball movie genre that started during the last Depression, there was a great tradition of the millionaire who was cool enough to relate to the common man — like Cary Grant’s C.K. Dexter Haven in “The Philadelphia Story.”
What turns off voters is the detached egghead quality that they tend to equate with a wimpiness, wordiness and a lack of action — the same quality that got the professorial and superior Adlai Stevenson mocked by critics as Adelaide. The new attack line for Obama rivals is that he’s gone from J.F.K. to Dukakis. (Just as Dukakis chatted about Belgian endive, Obama chatted about Whole Foods arugula in Iowa.)

She just about hit the nail on the head. I suppose you could mock her for saying the obvious, but obviously it’s not obvious to a lot of people.
If the democrats can’t lead, then they don’t deserve to. And intellectuals who don’t understand leadership and bemoan the vulgarity of the masses. The best don’t lack conviction, they just prefer self-pity. So I guess you’d prefer logic like this

I myself see a close link between democracy as a dogma and the idea that everyone’s opinion is as good as anyone else’s: that is, between equality in respect of voting power and forms of relativism about truth. For if people’s opinions do not have equal value, how can we justify giving their votes equal power? ”
—
Which is to say that bullshit and democracy are natural partners, born of the need to have an opinion when not in possession of the necessary knowledge.

Frankly, I prefer Democracy and Dowd to Philosopher Kings and Colin McGinn. Here’s more

I had in mind experts of many different types, not all specialists in a particular field. Following Plato, I envisage people trained in all subjects relevant to politics–history, geography, philosophy, psychology, etc. These would be the “philosopher kings” (though not our narrow sense of “philosophy”). They could have advisors in a specific field, if necessary, but they would be broadly educated. These experts would work with some democraticlly elected leaders to make policy–but not merely in an advisory capacity.

I’m so sick of all you enlightened motherfuckers. You’re the mirror image of the barbarians you bitch about: no less, and and contrary to your intricate rationalizations, no more.

I just got back from the debate and I can assure, it was even more appalling in person. Afterwards we all let out a collective sigh of disbelief and ran for the nearest shower. I still feel filthy and I’m two scotches in.

Based on what I saw and heard, and on the comments I’ve read about what I missed, I sure wish this had happened:

Sen. Clinton: I have a question for Sen. Obama. Senator, I’ve reached the conclusion that the questions we’re being asked tonight will do little to help voters reach a decision in the Pennsylvania primary, or in the general election. I wondered how you felt.

Se. Obama: Senator, I completely agree. I believe that we are doing a dis-service to the American people by continuing to deal with the questions we are being asked. What I would propose is that we leave, find a quiet place to have a conversation about the real issues facing the American people, and invite to join us any members of the press who wish to accompany us.

Sen. Clinton: Perfect. And let’s ask one of the camera operators to join us as well.

Sens. Clinton and Obama: Good-night, panel, and no thank you for your questions.

In my dreams, I’m afraid.

I just heard a short report on UK Radio 4. Someone asked Obama: ‘Do you believe in the American flag?’

I just longed for him to say: ‘Well, I’ve personally observed it repeatedly, so yes, I do.’

It looks like I was better off listening to eighth blackbird and watching a recording of the Met’s Gianni Schicchi. Bless Tivo. Note that Schicchi thinks his scam, in favor of his daughter, is worth his damnation (according to Dante). Dads are like that.

Ugh. There are times when a reality check fails. A cursory check of the blogs tells me this was a disaster, I should have been paying attention, that this, perhaps the last of the debates among Democrats, was not to be missed. Sorry. I think I had a better time missing it.

«Strange imaginary animals» kept my aged mother attentive from start to end. Eighth blackbird got Grammies for it. Try it, you’ll like it. Even the cat didn’t mind.

Nonetheless, the Clinton campaign sees this as a victory and is defending the debate as a very serious and thoughtful exercise. A quick survey of the internets suggests that many of her online supporters are willing to go along with this assessment.

True to form, she and they are delusional. Three post-debate online polls (ABC, CBS, Drudge) showed surprisingly lopsided support for Obama as the “winner” of this fiasco. In reality I think Hillary “accomplished” two things: 1, she drove her negatives even higher; and 2, she fatally undermined her excuse for staying in the race by conceding that of course Obama can beat McCain. Bye Hillary, it’s been nice knowing ya. (Well, not really.)

What I don’t understand is this: since the 70’s, the Republicans have been tremendously successful in clobbering the news media. Meanwhile, the Democrats put up with this stuff. Why doesn’t it occur to Democratic candidates to get righteously indignant over being asked such nonsense? It would probably poll very well . . .

JP, take a deep breath. Clearly, the media are hell-bent on getting McCain elected, but I personally think he’s going to die of old age before November.

I’m sure it’s very germane to note that Gianni Schicchi is actually trying to help his granddaughter. Which is a better way to go to hell than the debate moderators chose.

If Obama wasn’t thinking about that before I’ll bet he after that travesty. But he’s smart enough not to talk about it until he’s in office.

We don’t need a fairness doctrine. The problem is absolutely not the right-wing media, but rather the establishment outlets.

There can’t be a “fairness doctrine” for the news pages – that simply makes no sense.

And there’s as many self-declared liberals on the op-ed pages as there are conservatives. Only the “liberals” spend their time gossiping (Dowd and Collins), obsessing about Clinton penis (Rich), generally blaming leftists/feminists/ other liberals for all kinds of evils (Kristof). While the conservatives hammer the opposition. No doctrine is going to fix that.

More importantly, today’s celebrity journalists simply don’t share the concerns of the common people – they are rich, members of the elite.

So we’ve got an international crowd here — how’s this stuff compare internationally? Can we identify countries with more and less subtantive (and balanced, if that means anything) election coverage? Does it make a difference?

Hillary was definitely on her game!! However,Senator Obama was blindsided by attacks from Charlie and George!! Obvious who they were going after but, bottom line: the moderators should be ashamed. And, to allow (or perhaps set this up) someone to ask if Sen. Obama is patriotic because of no lapel pin!! Where was Hillary ‘s pin. Please get fair and balanced

Surely that is partly due to the Democrat race being ‘live’ at this point, and McCain only comes in later. When the Republican race was still on, I was seeing plenty of embarassing facts about Republicans popping up, although I generally don’t directly engage with the US mainstream media, but plenty of places on the internet tend to reflect the same trends.

This might even be a good thing – it is well established that voters have very short memories, so blowing loads of ‘ammo’ against McCain while there is nothing for him to win or lose in the immediate future would seem of limited use. Of course Obama has to be careful that some of Clintons attacks against him don’t become unquestioned ‘common knowledge’ that cripples his eventual campaign against McCain, but equally the drawn out Democratic race also gives him the opportunity to become a much bigger and well known political entity, which certainly could aid him in the final analysis if he takes advantage of all the publicity and interest it has been garnering over recent months.

“today’s celebrity journalists simply don’t share the concerns of the common people”

Obama was close to identify their concerns, but way wrong on the reasons. If he really understood, he would not be so condescending.

The “common” people are concerned about preserving their religion and culture, which they perceive to be under attack.

There are reasons for the popularity of a numskull like O’Reilly. At least he correctly identifies the common peoples’ concerns and the things they feel threatened by.

the self-image of the US press as balanced/objective serves to reinforce a single narrative, whereas the politically polarised press in Europe offers conflicting pictures of the various parties/candidates.

Right, I suspect this is a big part of it. Which means something like a revived Fairness Doctrine is more likely to make things worse, than better.

Having a two-party system is awfully convenient for those media folks who subscribe to either/or.

Personally, I’m not expending energy on presidential politics – it’s, imo, the most wasteful way to be active if the goal is actual policy changes, including a change in the system itself (as whatever I do will be totally buried under what the candidates’ billions do).

That’s my main disagreement with Nader people – they are wasting their energy on self-cooptation. (Honestly, if someone asked me to come up with the worst way to build a movement for revolutionary change, I’d advise them to go for a third party presidential campaign.)

However, I’m of course hoping that whatever energy I spend on issue campaigns will effect the election outcome in a certain way. This makes it all the more important for all of us – Democrats or radical – to be relentless in pushing coverage of actual issues.

More importantly, today’s celebrity journalists simply don’t share the concerns of the common people.

Precisely. Questions about job loss and unemployment, mortgage defaults, massive health insurance co-pays, soaring food prices, soaring gas prices … well that stuff is just so very boring to people like Charlie Gibson, who don’t have to worry about any of it. Hence the interest in the much more entertaining and much less interesting symbolic issues. Or else, maybe he’s thinking “Damn, if we put these dangerous negroes in charge, they are going to dip deeper into my capital gains to alleviate the misery of the lower 99% in this country.”

My wife and I just had our best year ever according to our tax return. But we feel substantially worse off, because we’re now spending a fortune on food and gas. And a whole bunch of people are way worse off than us.

Gibson and Stephanopoulos should be ashamed of themselves. Virtually are their questions were stupid — no, goddamn fuck’n stupid.

But the candidates don’t seem to really care. Imagine if the universities sponsored debates — the venue, the cameras, and the questioners (a mix of faculty, staff, townspeople and students who would hash out a set of questions in advance or a real debate with two moderators to start things off and ask a few follow-up questions) and provided the feed to networks and the internet.

Why doesn’t this happen? Because the candidates like the format that exists now. The stupid questions became the way the “moderators” knock the candidates off their banal messages, and in Gibson’s case, make him blather on.

Ultimately though I do think the progressive blogosphere mantra of “more and better Democrats” [in Congress] matters even more than Presidential races. A Congress with a spine would have stopped the war long since, and maybe even prevented it in the first place.

Someone explain to me why we shouldn’t simply “give up” on the race for national office.

I’ve asked myself the same thing, Tyro. Best answer? The Supreme Court. I’ve given up on Iraq (and foreign/military policy more generally), health care, and real campaign reform, and I have very little optimism about climate change. But the one thing I can say with certainty is that Obama’s or Clinton’s SCOTUS nominees would look nothing like McCain’s. As a gay man, that has a very direct and immediate impact on my life.

There are a hell of a lot of absolutely crucial issues where it really doesn’t matter anymore. Don’t let that obscure those crucial issues where it still does.

‘m s sck f ll y nlghtnd mthrfckrs.

Thanks, Henry. You’ve made it fun to read Seth Edenbaum’s comments again.

”more and better Democrats in Congress is a great place to at least start.”

No doubt, and a few more good ones on the other side would be nice too. I don’t give a rat’s dropping what party they are in the aquisition and abuse of power, like your wannbe majic powers, are learned. The is much to be said of big Gov being the/a problem, just like those of both parties have a strong (learned ?) disposition to abuse their privilege when getting in the high chair – no, not all, but enough to keep the game from really moving. Sorry you missed the train, perhaps in a few decades we’ll have a meaningful system of mass transit… fueled by some Harkin for change ethanol of course.

‘Fairness’ is meaningless now because most of the wingnut dogmas (and their perverse logic) is the common wisdom these days.

And that includes the liberals, of course. “‘m s sck f ll y nlghtnd mthrfckrs” is a bit too strong to my taste, but it’s easy to understand how one might feel that way.

re 54: i have no idea what “m s sck f ll y” means. i assume it is something that can’t be spelled out in polite company.

”This thread is over, but (via TPM) this McClatchy article on the voter who asked the “flag” question is worth a read.”

Seems she’s bitter about being left out in the list of being bitter and clinging to G_d and guns. Quite the tough life she’s had, and understandably similar to Hilary’s struggles…

Pardon the bad Ricky Ricardo impersonation; should’ve been “seem to think”

It’s pretty naive to think a political gamesman like Stephanopolous would turn into a little bag of corn syrup on his own dime, just because it felt good.
We’re viewing close at hand the manipulative strength of the most powerful and sophisticated, and organized, whatever that ever was.
Pretending still, after all the evidence that’s available, that Iraq and the last two elections were some kind of massive incompetence on the part of people who should know better is probably comforting to those who can still do it, but it’s whack.
This was an intentional move, to create a desired climate of soft absurdity around the candidates in the minds of the mass audience.

“…we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out.”

Remember those guys? They’re still there.