OVER AT POWERLINE, Paul Mirengoff is quoting Pat Sajak. Oh, how far the once Grand Old Party has fallen. From citing William F. Buckley to quoting a game show host, though that he’s from the “Wheel of Fortune” is kind of perfect. There are no Republican thinkers anymore. Everyone today is a quipster.
It’s as if President Obama climbed into a tank, put on his helmet, talked about how his foray into Cambodia was seared in his memory, looked at his watch, misspelled “potato” and pardoned Richard Nixon all in the same day. – Pat Sajak
Conservatives continue to jump all over Pres. Obama, who borrowed Elizabeth Warren’s speech themes that amount to saying we’re all in this together. That without roads, the business you build can’t get goods to market. That police and fireman protect our society and make it safe for us all to thrive. It goes on from there, all of you likely remember hearing Elizabeth Warren’s living room rant. The right is calling it a “defining moment” that could cost Pres. Obama the election.
“I think Obama has made the gaffe of the year when he said if you created a business, you didn’t build it. That phrase, ‘you didn’t build it’ should be hung around Obama until the end of his presidency.” – Charles Krauthammer
Somebody needs to tell these guys that the election will be decided by a sliver of people in battleground states like the one I’m living in. Places where there are so many negative ads it will be a miracle if it doesn’t depress the vote to a trickle; single women abhor negative ads, so who knows how many will come out this year. If we’d ditch the Electoral College we’d all be sharing in the negativity equally, so all of America could see the impact of Citizens United and the slush fund that’s become our political system.
However, this isn’t 1988. There certainly won’t be a “defining moment” in the hot summer months before the convention and prior to the debates. But it does reveal how revved up the right is over beating Pres. Obama, that they are grasping at any little straw of hope, which revolves around Obama blowing it, not Mitt Romney winning it.
In fact, the economy could kill it for Pres. Obama, which has been the one constant theme running through every political analysts writings and commentaries, myself included. But no one imagines Mitt Romney winning it on his own merit.
Maybe you think Pres. Obama saying being an American success story means your efforts are tied to others is crazy. You know, that it takes a village to raise a child, but to also make her or him successful it takes a connected network of people stretching across all areas to take her where she wants to go.
Romney and the Republicans believe in ego, ownership and long laces on bootstraps. They believe in family values, they’re just not too crazy about community where things can get messy when capitalism gets super sized and people get marginalized for profit, which they see is good above all.
I’m not crazy about Pres. Obama parroting Elizabeth Warren, because he doesn’t believe it like she does. If he did the stimulus would have been larger, and Obamacare wouldn’t have been a private insurance, Big Pharma gift. If he did he wouldn’t be negotiating a new trade deal in secret. If he did, he would have shown up in Wisconsin just to give Democrats support against Scott Walker.
It’s stupid to say “you didn’t build that” in today’s political, multi-media climate and not think you won’t get hung out to dry. So, taking the heart of what someone else believes and trying it on when it doesn’t fit in the first place and getting caught in their sound bite is almost fitting.
But a defining moment for Obama? I don’t know about that, but it’s got the ring of “I voted for it, before I voted against it” and we all know how that turned out, because no one gets to explain a quip after it’s out, though Obama is trying. However, that the right is reaching to Pat Sajak for pearls of wisdom, when they used to have icons like William F. Buckley says a whole lot more to me.
But then again, I do believe it takes a village, a union, a community, and a properly funded federal government with dedicated public servants who put the people above party and ideology to make a well functioning modern society. The day a majority of Americans stop believing in that premise our chance of coming back to what we once were ceases to be possible.
I wasn’t born yesterday, and I am no shrinking violet when it comes to silly smears and outright distortions, but even I have to admit that I was taken aback by the new depths of dishonesty the right has been willing to sink to concerning Obama’s “you didn’t build it” comment. Yakkers like John Gibson and Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are so confident in the low mental wattage of their listeners, and so confident in their own ability to manipulate the minds of those listeners, that they’ve gladly played the entire clip, which makes it clear to anyone with an IQ above 5 that “you didn’t built it” refers to roads and bridges- infrastructure- and is 100 percent accurate- and then gone on to say “see? Obama doesn’t think people with initiative build businesses, he thinks they are all a gift from the government….”
And we are left to just shake our heads and realize that the people who fall for this garbage were never potential Obama voters anyway- they were people who loathe the President, perhaps feel a little guilty about that, and happily grasp at straws like this to justify their hate. I am not a fan of the President, for reasons I’ve articulated here before- and I won’t vote for him- but these kinds of attacks just demean the people who launch them (if that is even possible) and treat the audience that laps them up the way Lonesome Rhodes treated the slobs who eagerly gobbled up his garbage- with contempt, disgust and maybe even a little hate.
Boy, isn’t that the truth.
Very well said, jjamele.
I second what Taylor and Joyce said, jjamele.
And,these gems and trusims from Taylor:
Americans for the Wheel of Fortune Prosperity:
OVER AT POWERLINE, Paul Mirengoff is quoting Pat Sajak. Oh, how far the once Grand Old Party has fallen. From citing William F. Buckley to quoting a game show host, though that he’s from the “Wheel of Fortune” is kind of perfect. There are no Republican thinkers anymore. Everyone today is a quipster.
First, regarding the Elizabeth Warren comment about ‘it takes a village”:
It’s stupid to say “you didn’t build that” in today’s political, multi-media climate and not think you won’t get hung out to dry. So, taking the heart of what someone else believes and trying it on when it doesn’t fit in the first place and getting caught in their sound bite is almost fitting.
Indeed and exactly! It’s too big on him. It dwarfs him because what Warren passionately believes, Obama only mouths.
But then again, I do believe it takes a village, a union, a community, and a properly funded federal government with dedicated public servants who put the people above party and ideology to make a well functioning modern society. The day a majority of Americans stop believing in that premise our chance of coming back to what we once were ceases to be possible.
This couldn’t be said any better.
I remember the “it takes a village” outrage- when one knuckle-headed, knuckle-dragging moron after another fell over themselves to call into shows to insist that No, They Raised Their Kids All By Themselves- no one helped them find teachers, day care centers, nannies, baby sitters. No one helped them find the schools, libraries, and neighbors. Nobody provided the vacation locations, the books, or the educational channels. No one gave them access to clean food, clean water, and safe toys.
Nope, it didn’t take a village to raise THEIR kids- they did it THEMSELVES.
What. A freaking. Crock.
And how very little distance we’ve traveled since then.
And I totally agree that Obama’s big mistake was in attempting to mouth words he simply does not believe- this sounded like Romney extolling the virtues of honest labor and the honest sweat that comes with it. PLEASE.
And one self-important moron after another calls in to get licked up and down by the host as he or she recounts how haaaaarrrd they worked without Any Help At All to fulfill their dream of having their own business- and how the infrastructure, education system, etc had NOTHING to do with THEIR success.
The most hilarious ones, however, are the callers who phone in to tell all about how everyone in their family works for the same business- the one started by somebody’s grandfather 100 years or so ago- “no one gave him a handout, no one gave him a job, he struggled to make this business a success!” Yes, so you could feel superior in your job- which you have by dint of your last name- and live off the sweat of dead grampa’s hard work. Sick.
It’s difficult to think this kind of stupidity will stop unless and until the Two Corporate Party system which both feeds and needs it stops. One group I keep mentioning who keep on working for such change: http://www.fairvote.org/
Fox has also been a huge part of the dumbing down as well. They have truly been a pox on whatever was left in this country of having a honest, forthright debate about any of the issues. They have told so many lies and have deliberately twisted things so dreadfully that the significant audience who buys their tainted goods are LOST forever to logic, truth or even listening to another POV. I’ve seen this in my own family with a couple relatives.
MSNBC and CNN have also been problematic but not in the way or degree that FOX has been.
Thanks for posting that link to Fairvote, Joyce.
What is funny is that it is so very easy to get back at Romney while at the same time shutting them all up with and ad entitled “The Hypocrite” It will quote Romney saying exactly the very same thing that Obama did then segue on to discuss his lack of character.
Instead the Democrats are apologizing to Ann Romney about her dancing horse.
Presidential elections don’t have to be this way.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. There would no longer be a handful of ‘battleground’ states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in more than 3/4ths of the states that now are just ‘spectators’ and ignored after the primaries.
When the bill is enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes– enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538), all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%,, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: AZ – 67%, CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 states. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions possessing 132 electoral votes – 49% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
NationalPopularVote
Follow National Popular Vote on Facebook via NationalPopularVoteInc
The Electoral College is, and always has been, an affront to Democratic Principles.
I am sick to death of being told that the Presidential race is “dead even” in the popular vote BUT “The President has a distinct advantage in the electoral college” and how the people of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida are basically going to be picking the next President, so my vote really isn’t necessary thanks anyway. I am a citizen of the United States- why should my vote count for “less” just because of the state I happen to reside in?
This is grotesque. Al Gore was the choice of the American people in 2000, I frankly couldn’t care less who “won” by .0000001 percent of the vote in Florida. And if not for our corrupt, hopelessly out of date system, it would have been trivia, anyway.
Oh, how far the once Grand Old Party has fallen. From citing William F. Buckley to quoting a game show host, though that he’s from the “Wheel of Fortune” is kind of perfect. There are no Republican thinkers anymore. Everyone today is a quipster.
Not that Vidal fully matched-up to Buckley, but the Dems certainly don’t even have a Vidal either.
But, it is actually only the Dems that are supposed to have one. We (fiscal conservatives) need only our own bootstraps, not an inspirational leader prodding us to do what we do, nor do we actually need much government to do what we do.
Yes, we do use public infrastructure to faciliate our livelihoods, but we could have that without “government” per se……….witness the advent of private tollroads. So, for Obama to say I would not be where I am without you guys……..yes, he should be ridiculed for it.
What a totaly foolish comment.
Go and try starting a business in Damascus or Cairo or anywhere in Africa and see how strong your bootstraps are. What colossal ignorance you demonstrate with this comment. I have always read your comments thoughtfully, wanting to give another view a chance. No more. Not enough brain power going on there.Just ideology.
Oh yeah, that’s why Glenn Beck can get thousands of pasty fast old people to take buses to Restoring Honor and Restoring Love rallies, and Limbaugh and Hannity can make millions preaching the gospel of Ignorance and Greed for decades. Because Conservatives “don’t need an inspirational leader.”
Please tell me the Progressive who gets millions of people to tune in every day, slack-jawed, to tune in to get marching orders.
Then Somalia would be the perfect place for you to reside and run a business.
What drives me crazy is that Obama cannot for the life of him make a case for government. He won’t even use the word thus lending to the confusion over what he meant. I agree with JJamele anyone not locked into hate mode should have been able to figure it out but for an articulate man he sure botched that delivery.
Maybe he “can’t” because he doesn’t want to.
Maybe he really is just a Conservative Republican. Or just doesn’t have an ideology beyond Getting Barack Obama Elected.
Botching a delivery is standard for Obama. He has a real problem with off the cuff speaking. His problem is that he has no ideological compass. When you don’t have a compass, you don’t believe in any ideas therefore you can’t make the case for any policy.