18 thoughts on “Relativity”

  1. I just read an article on Weekly Standard Online on how the President travelled the road from Post-Partisan to Hyper-Partisan, where the featured “evidence” was the President’s interview in Rolling Stone.

    The Commander-in-Chief gave a candid interview to Rolling Stone? Does this mean he needs to fire himself?

    Seriously, now . . .

    There is the Standard Narrative of the past 20 months, that for whatever the President’s successes and failures, the Republicans have been the stalwart, ideological, and hyper-partisan “Party of No”, doing everything in their power to gum up the wheels of governance and impede what needed to be done. That Standard Narrative takes the form of the “Car in the Ditch us pushing in the mud and the Republicans up on the road drinking Slurpees” stump speech, or the somehow more direct explanation in the Rolling Stone piece.

    On the other hand, we have Representative Thaddeus McCotter, interviewed on Uncommon Knowledge, claiming that least on the Stimulus, that Republicans had “sent over” numerous ideas that “their caucus could support”, but that they were completely shut out of the process early on, where Mr McCotter theorizes that it was a strategic decision, to use the majorities in Congress to “go it alone” rather than compromise with Republicans, which Mr. McCotter claims crystalized the resolve the Republicans into near monolithic opposition, which in itself was a remarkable event in the history of the parties and the history of Congress.

    If the President gave some manner of account along the lines, “We, meaning the platform and ideas I presented before the American people to be elected President, and the members of Congress who were elected to strong Democratic Party majorities in both Houses based on those ideas, decided to act on that mandate and pass legislation for job-creating Stimulus, Health Care Reform to bring health care to all Americans, and Cap and Trade to protect the environment. It was a lot harder than I originally thought because our caucus responds to views and concerns across the many regions of our great country, and we were not completely unified, and in attempting to enact our agenda that we believe to reflect the will of the people, we decided not to make compromises that would have gained Republican votes. As a result, we are only 2 for 3, which is still a great achievement, but I come to the American people for your support to complete our program . . .”

    Well maybe the President is indeed post-partisan. Not only does he scold Republicans with the Slurpee speech, he scolds his fellow Democrats for being faint of heart coming into the election. The President seems to be good at scolding others, but does he ever get introspective and consider not only what he did right but what he did wrong? Or is it all someone elses fault.

    Famously, President George W Bush was pressed for “what he did wrong” and famously evaded the question. His excuse was that what people wanted him to admit as an error was invading Iraq, and he didn’t want to admit error, fundamentally, for propaganda reasons, that is, he did not want to demoralize the troops.

    Is President Obama, likewise, not admitting any error at all, done for propaganda reasons, where admitting error would set back an important cause, such as keeping enough Democrats in Congress to get Cap and Trade to protect the environment. Or does he truly believe that his Administration has “executed perfectly without unforced errors”? Chris G. or Jim, are you able to weigh in on this one?

  2. All the snarky comedians are on their side, yet the Dems speechwriters never seem to figure out how their little tag lines will play out.

    It’s like that (paraphrased) “D stands for Democrat and Drive and R stands for Republicans and Reverse” line the Teleprompter-in-Chief tried out a few weeks ago. My immediate thought was that when you are parked facing a cliff, R is the way to go, as opposed to putting it in D and flooring it.

  3. Echoes of John C. Calhoun:

    Be assured that emancipation itself would not satisfy these fanatics—that gained, the next step would be to raise the negroes to a social and political equality with the whites; and that being effected, we would soon find the present condition of the two races reversed. They and their northern allies would be the masters, and we the slaves….

  4. Jim, Calhoun was wrong on slavery. obviously, so I am not sure why you have provided that quotation.

    If you were going to quote Calhoun, then a better option for this particular thread might involve his passion for states’ rights and nullification, under which states could declare federal laws which they deemed to be unconstitutional to be null and void.

  5. Calhoun predicted that giving social and political equality to blacks would turn whites into slaves. The cartoon says Calhoun was right.

  6. Of course the cartoon is blatently racist.

    They tell me that modern DNA studies reveal East Africans to have more in common with the peoples of the Near East than with West Africans.

    Being of Near Eastern ancestory myself and hence being a racial kinsman of President Obama, I find the depiction of the long, narrow face and big ears sticking out in the cartoon as obnoxiously offensive in its stereotyping.

  7. asdfghjkl;”;lkjhgfds

    Jesus. H. Ch–

    Look, Jim. Read these words carefully. They mean exactly what they say. They are:

    NO ONE HERE CARES THAT OBAMA IS BLACK.

    NO ONE. AB-SO-FRIGGEN-LUTELY NO ONE. CARES. ABOUT. THE. COLOR. OF. BARACK H. OBAMA’S SKIN. NO ONE. NOT ONE PERSON ON THIS WEBSITE. NOT ONE PERSON IN THE SERIOUS OPPOSTION TO HIS POLICIES. HIS POLICIES. NOT HIS PERSON. NOT HIS ANCESTRY. NOT HIS DNA. NOT HIS MELANIN COUNT. WE ARE OPPOSED TO HIS POLICIES. HIS POLICIES.

    Get it? I mean really, do you get it? If after the above you still post your cute little digs, I am going to assume that the substance that fills your skull is concrete.

    You know who DOES care about Obama’s race, and lets it color (no pun intended) all of their opinions? Liberal Obama supporters. Which includes Obama himself — he obviously is extremely conscious of who his daddy was and how he can use his race against his own supporters. (Like the environazis who made that video — everything is about controlling his followers, not reaching out to anyone who isn’t already backing him. He doesn’t give a shit about conservatives or any other political opponents because as far as he is concerned people who don’t support him don’t really fully exist.) Anyway, you can tell how race-obsessed they are because like Jim here every time the Won’s name is mentioned with less than glowing praise they yank out the racism! snark.

  8. Actually, Andrea, I have to admit that it’s sort of cool that we finally broke the ice and voted for a black president. I sure couldn’t see any other reason to vote for him.

    And I think, as I predicted, that he’s going to unfairly inoculate a lot of people from doing it again for a generation or two. It’s what affirmative action does, casting suspicion on the qualified because so many unqualified have been elevated for no other reason than the melanin content of their skin.

  9. Yeah but we don’t CARE. It’s one thing to think “cool, the president is black.” It’s another thing to have it affect every single facet of your political life. The fact that conservative and otherwise voters are going to give the next black candidate an extra hairy eyeball is completely the fault of the race-obsessed affirmative action junkies who backed Obama up in the first place. I’ll say this now: if the choice had been between Obama and Al Sharpton, I would have voted for Sharpton. Sure, he’s a scumbag, but at least he knows how to hustle. Obama could fuck up a PTA meeting. He has NO people skills.

  10. “everything is about controlling his followers, not reaching out to anyone who isn’t already backing him”

    Interesting hypothesis, and explains the scoldings directed at liberal base.

  11. “Actually, Andrea, I have to admit that it’s sort of cool that we finally broke the ice and voted for a black president. I sure couldn’t see any other reason to vote for him.”

    Rand, I have already gone one record that I voted for Mr. Obama in the Wisconsin Primary, which probably was at a key juncture in clinching the nomination.

    I was not participating in Rush’s “Operation Chaos.” Rather, I could read the subtle signs that it was going to be a big Democratic Party year, and I was voting for who I wanted if I Democrat was getting in.

    I had two reasons for voting for Mr. Obama. Hillary Clinton. Richard Holbrooke. I naively believed that Mr. Obama would introduce a “Third Way” into foreign policy as my relatives overseas were suffering under Democratic and Republican administrations alike.

    Now instead of our Serb adversaries having to deal with Mr. Holbrooke, it is being revealed what a first-class a** h*t he is in dealings with our Afghan allies.

  12. Oh look, Jim the Bigot Troll is race-baiting again. What a shock. And here I thought he was gone for good, what after being soundly thrashed for hypocritically accusing others of his own standard routine.

  13. Andrea, I suspect a lot of Obama voters were thinking, “Look how cool I am because I’m voting for a black man to be president.”

    It wasn’t about who was best for the country. It wasn’t about who was best qualified for the office. It was about how it made the voters feel about themselves.

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