The General American Politics Thread

[Patticus]

My, isn't that a disgusting ad.

Bill's speech was a-okay as far as fact checking goes too:

Former President Bill Clinton’s stem-winding nomination speech was a fact-checker’s nightmare: lots of effort required to run down his many statistics and factual claims, producing little for us to write about.

Republicans will find plenty of Clinton’s scorching opinions objectionable. But with few exceptions, we found his stats checked out.

http://www.washingto...og.html?hpid=z7

Anyone have any thoughts on the Biden and Obama speeches?

I thought that Biden spoke very well, avoiding the gaffes he's known for and delivering what seemed to me to be a really heartfelt speech. Hopefully it'll play well with the veterans.

Mr. Obama, on the other hand... well, it wan't what I was expecting, but then again neither was the venue; it wound up being back in the same indoor arena that Bill and Michelle and all the others had spoke in rather than the larger outdoor complex, thanks to the stormy weather that passed through that day. I don't know if that has hurt his campaign or not, but I do know that his speech wasn't as powerful as Clinton's was last night. I dunno, maybe I just expected him to lay into Romney and Ryan a bit more.

He has 60 days to secure his re-election over Romney, and by Jove I hope he does it.

Edited September 7, 2012 by Patticus

[Stacy]

My, isn't that a disgusting ad.

Bill's speech was a-okay as far as fact checking goes too:

http://www.washingto...og.html?hpid=z7

Anyone have any thoughts on the Biden and Obama speeches?

I thought that Biden spoke very well, avoiding the gaffes he's known for and delivering what seemed to me to be a really heartfelt speech. Hopefully it'll play well with the veterans.

Mr. Obama, on the other hand... well, it wan't what I was expecting, but then again neither was the venue; it wound up being back in the same indoor arena that Bill and Michelle and all the others had spoke in rather than the larger outdoor complex, thanks to the stormy weather that passed through that day. I don't know if that has hurt his campaign or not, but I do know that his speech wasn't as powerful as Clinton's was last night. I dunno, maybe I just expected him to lay into Romney and Ryan a bit more.

He has 60 days to secure his re-election over Romney, and by Jove I hope he does it.

One thing I did like is Obama pretty much called Romney a Cold War hasbeen seeing as Romney said Russia was America's number one threat and not terrorism!

But I agree with you he could of been more aggressive.

Edited September 7, 2012 by BW199148

[Barry the Nomad]

That commercial is like a Tim & Eric infomercial without the product at the end! I almost expected Bob Odenkirk to yell "Well now you can fight gay marriage with the B'arf™ Gay Marriage Fighting System!"

[Tornado]

I was thinking about what Limbaugh was trying to get at while I was in Retail Management class (Shut up. The class is boring despite the teacher being enthusiastic and she's young enough that I can't get away with fucking around with my PSP instead), and I think I figured out what he was alluding to. When he says that Obama didn't struggle, I think what he is referring to is how Obama was basically groomed by the Democrat Party to run for President in 2008 the second he took national stage in politics.

Which makes a lot more sense than "lol he's not black." It doesn't really mean anything regardless, because even if it was supposed to be an argument about something it isn't as if Bush wasn't similarly groomed; or as if the GOP can talk about entitlement when Romney is their main candidate, but I do at least understand what his point was now. I think.

Edited September 7, 2012 by Tornado

[The Kid]

I was thinking about what Limbaugh was trying to get at while I was in Retail Management class (Shut up. The class is boring despite the teacher being enthusiastic and she's young enough that I can't get away with fucking around with my PSP instead), and I think I figured out what he was alluding to. When he says that Obama didn't struggle, I think what he is referring to is how Obama was basically groomed by the Democrat Party to run for President in 2008 the second he took national stage in politics.

Which makes a lot more sense than "lol he's not black." It doesn't really mean anything regardless, because even if it was supposed to be an argument about something it isn't as if Bush wasn't similarly groomed; or as if the GOP can talk about entitlement when Romney is their main candidate, but I do at least understand what his point was now. I think.

Wouldn't the whole "He didn't struggle" argument be more convincing if Romney was black? You know, instead of a rich white man?

Isn't pretty much every politician groomed at some point? Wasn't Romney pretty much groomed towards a more hardcore conservative outlook over the past few years? I'm just trying to figure out what Romney was trying to accomplish with his argument, and why he thought it would do anything.

[Nepenthe]

I would accept the argument that "struggling" was only or even mostly in reference to Obama's campaigning and not any sociological obstacles he may or may not have faced in his life if the entire quote hadn't been laced with a blatant racial context. Let's ignore the fact that being groomed for the position isn't anything particularly unique to Obama: Why in the world would Rush deliberately obscure his point about Obama being groomed for the presidency under observations about Obama's and his mother's race if that's all he meant to criticize or make a point of? He wouldn't, because it makes no sense, because Rush wasn't talking about or alluding mostly to Obama's campaign. Why are we even giving this guy the benefit of doubt on this? If this isn't a goddamn dog whistle (it can't even be called that; there's nothing particularly subtle about this), then I don't know what is short of him asking people to burn a cross on the White House lawn. xP

Edited September 7, 2012 by Nepenthe

[Autosaver]

[Patticus]

Bill Clinton is a better boss though, countering every accusation leveled at the Obama administration and using actual facts and maths, which were conspicuously absent from the RNC:

What did sensible, moderate Republicans think of the two conventions? This article was written by one, so let's see:

It’s fashionable to say that conventions don’t matter. And it’s true that it’s been a generation and a half since the last time there was genuine drama in real time (that was 1980 in Detroit, with its near-miss with the Reagan-Ford “dream ticket”).

They do matter, though. Maybe not in the way Detroit did, or Chicago in 1968 did, or Los Angeles in 1960 did. But impressions are created amid confetti and cable coverage that reach political civilians (another way of describing normal Americans) that, together with the autumn debates, tend to clarify — and even decide — presidential elections.

Which is why Republicans should be particularly glum this weekend. The further Democrats progressed into their convention this week in Charlotte, N.C., the more glaring the shortcomings of last week’s GOP convention became. By the time the last of the confetti fell on the Democratic convention floor, it became frustratingly clear that the most compelling speaker in Tampa, Fla., had been Clint Eastwood’s chair.

These sort of observations that I make in the middle of a convention swoon always drive campaign surrogates and party hacks crazy. When I dismissed John Kerry’s 2004 acceptance speech as rushed and sweaty, the crowd booed angrily and a fellow journalist threatened to climb across the table and punch me. Cooler heads would prevail the next morning when the Boston Globe’s legendary writer Tom Oliphant wrote the same thing in his column.

A few months later, Republicans like me struggled through one of the worst debate performances since James Stockdale famously asked who and where he was. George W. Bush’s 2004 performance wasn’t quite as bad as Perot’s running mate in 1992, but Bush 43 seemed at a loss for words during the first round of questions and then even more flummoxed after he asked for extra time.

With the added time, the president jutted his shoulder, blinked his eyes rapidly and cocked his head before saying “It’s hard … it’s hard.” Sen. Kerry won that first debate going away. I said so on air immediately following the debate and advised Mr. Bush to stay home for the final two debates if he could do no better. According to a top campaign official, Mrs. Bush gave her chastened husband similar advice that same night.

Many of those same Republicans are in no mood to hear how badly their party was outperformed by the Democrats this week during the prime-time performances that millions of Americans watched.

Michelle Obama connected her family to the American Dream in a way neither campaign has managed all year. San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro offered a joyous takedown of Mitt Romney while wearing a smile as wide as the West Texas sky. And Bill Clinton. Oh my. Convention speeches rarely reach that level.

If there was any letdown this week it was that Barack Obama’s speech sounded recycled at times and resembled a State of the Union address more than a soaring acceptance speech for president. He avoided talking about the stimulus, the Affordable Care Act and the reason Americans should believe their lives will be better over the next four years than they were during his first term.

But while Obama said nothing new, he said it much better than when Gov. Romney said nothing in Tampa. And you could tell by the boisterous reaction of Democratic delegates who left the arena Thursday night looking fired up and ready to go. Maybe there seemed to be such a disparity between the two conventions because the Republican Party has never been the least bit excited about its nominee. Or maybe it’s because Democrats were simply blessed with a deeper bench of political athletes in 2012. But whatever the reason, Republicans were lapped by their rivals and may ultimately pay in November for botching Mitt Romney’s debut.

And that means that these conventions will have mattered — a lot.

A guest columnist for POLITICO, Joe Scarborough hosts “Morning Joe” on MSNBC and represented Florida’s 1st Congressional District in the House of Representatives from 1995 to 2001.

http://www.politico....0912/80910.html

Interesting factoid; Joe Scarborough probably murdered his attractive young female intern when he was a congressman, but let's not let that get in the way of a good read...

[Tornado]

Bill Clinton is a better boss though:

They should make that crazy bastard president.

Oh.

Why in the world would Rush deliberately obscure his point about Obama being groomed for the presidency under observations about Obama's and his mother's race if that's all he meant to criticize or make a point of?

I actually do have an answer for this, but it would be a particularly unflattering stereotype towards a typical Limbaugh listener.

Edited September 7, 2012 by Tornado

[Tornado]

Obama, as usual, was a great speaker, as any dictatorial mastermind should be.

Clinton, pretty good speech for a child molester, I'll give him that.

Where the hell do you get this stuff? More importantly, how did you come to think of such borderline-libelous and ridiculous misdirection tactics as being proper political discourse?

But as far as facts go, none of them hold a candle to the RNC

The only highlight of the RNC was Clint Eastwood doing a long rambling monologue to an invisible strawman Obama which might not have even been sincere.

Edited September 7, 2012 by Tornado

[Nepenthe]

Even just skimming through, Politifact would probably disagree with the assertion that the RNC has had more truthful speakers than the ones at the DNC, especially considering how even Fox News slammed Paul Ryan for blatantly lying.

[Komodin]

Obama, as usual, was a great speaker, as any dictatorial mastermind should be.

Biden, as usual, was a buffoon, being that his only great speech was plagiarized.

Clinton, pretty good speech for a child molester, I'll give him that.

But as far as facts go, none of them hold a candle to the RNC

... Am I the only one here who, even with full prior knowledge of the man being staunchly Republican (and I don't really have a problem with that), just can't take this post the least bit seriously?

[-Robin-]

It was a better source for gag material than the DNC, I'll give it that.

[Patticus]

One of the most annoying things about the RNC was the conspicuous absence of any kind of workable policy initiatives backed up by verifiable facts and figures. I understand that they wanted the event to be all about introducing Mitt "The Annoying Eyelash Batter" Romney to the electorate, but why did policy announcements and basic fact checking have to be thrown out of the window to make way for all that? I mean jeez, come on, if you have to lie to the public to have a chance of winning you really shouldn't be in the running for president at all.

Say what you like about the DNC, at least the speakers there got most of their shit straight before they stepped out on stage.

[Tornado]

And yet it was still a million times better than the DNC

Yes. We're all just a little bit gay for Clint Eastwood. That doesn't mean that a may-or-may-not-be-serious speech where the man talked to a chair is automatically better than Bill Clinton going all out in terms of serious campaigning in a way that Obama wishes he still had the charisma to do.

Edited September 7, 2012 by Tornado

[Balding Spider]

... Am I the only one here who, even with full prior knowledge of the man being staunchly Republican (and I don't really have a problem with that), just can't take this post the least bit seriously?

No not at all. This post is something you'd find in the response section of a Yahoo political articale.

[Nepenthe]

The best thing about Clint Eastwood's rant wasn't even anything he said, but rather Obama's response to it:

It is difficult to pull a "gotcha" on a man who knows how the Internet works.

[Tornado]

I apologize, I got my facts mixed up. It was Gary Glitter who was a child molester, not Bill Clinton. http://entertainment...rticle/3262909/

That's the kind of thing you should really make sure of before you bring it up. As it is, that isn't even relevant to the topic. You might as well be saying that someone who likes Roman Polanski films is also a fan of statutory rape; or someone who likes the Penn State football team just loves themselves some sexual assault.

Still Al Gore tried to rape a woman when she wouldn't give him a ******* at a massage parlor. I just had to fit one in there.

Was Al Gore a keynote speaker at the 2012 DNC? Has Al Gore been anything besides "that guy from Futurama" and a one-note joke for the past 6 years anyway?

Edited September 8, 2012 by Tornado

[Sami]

I'm not sure if I should be laughing at you or the stuff you're spouting.

[Komodin]

And when Patticus says "this guy killed a woman" when it has nothing to do with his politics, I feel authorized to take cheap shots as well.

Two wrongs don't make a right. A tad cliche, perhaps, but it still applies here.

[Autosaver]

Spiky, do you happen to watch Fox News by any chance?

[Tornado]

And when Patticus says "this guy killed a woman" when it has nothing to do with his politics

That's the funny thing. Patticus actually did say that. "This guy might have killed a woman, but it has nothing to do with his politics or this article so don't act as if it does."

Specifically:

Interesting factoid; Joe Scarborough probably murdered his attractive young female intern when he was a congressman, but let's not let that get in the way of a good read...

Is it possible that he brought it up to ruin the credibility of the written response defending the viewpoint he was taking? Yes. But there are certainly more altruistic reasons that I can think of, such as making sure anyone in this thread who looks up Joe Scarborough doesn't find out that that happened and decide that the article is full of shit.

In any case, that's quite a bit different from saying "Clinton, pretty good speech for a child molester, I'll give him that" or implying that the DNC supports child molestation because of the song they chose for the proceedings.

[turbojet]

Spiky, do you happen to watch Fox News by any chance?

I mean really...

[Shan Zhu]

Obama, as usual, was a great speaker, as any dictatorial mastermind should be.

Biden, as usual, was a buffoon, being that his only great speech was plagiarized.

Clinton, pretty good speech for a child molester, I'll give him that.

But as far as facts go, none of them hold a candle to the RNC

Sir: please consider joining the liberal camp. We've met the requisite troll count over here for the moment. Xièxie.

Edited September 8, 2012 by Shan Zhu

[turbojet]

Sir: please consider joining the liberal camp. We've met the requisite troll count over here for the moment. Xièxie.

You are new here so I'll just tell you.

He ain't trolling.