great expectations
My dear friends, the kind of response I was hoping for when I wrote that previous post was something like this:
Well, Alan, I hardly think we’re in for another Night of the Long Knives or a re-run of the McCarthy era — that’s not what you’re suggesting, is it? — but that really wasn’t the smartest thing for the White House staff to say. They should have known that a request to report to the White House anything “fishy” was bound to get spun as the first steps towards totalitarianism.
See, wouldn’t that have been reasonable and constructive? Instead I got a bunch of rotten eggs flung at my door.
People. Seriously. This isn’t the Daily Kos or No Left Turns. This is The American Scene — the Scene, man! — an oasis — yeah, I know I’m changing metaphors, just bear with me — an oasis of civilized discourse in the vast desert of the political blogosphere. Granted, it’s an oasis with a few putrid patches, but we know how to step over those, don’t we?
Really, I’m disappointed in you folks. Try to do better the next time, okay?
Oasis or mirage?…
— kenB · Aug 6, 10:16 PM · #
Exactly. I thought the same thing reading those comments.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Aug 6, 10:23 PM · #
Well Dr. Jacobs, according to evo theory of cooperation you got exactly the response you were hoping for.
You baited the commentariat with the 1984 link, and got a response commeasurate with your intent.
Of course the flag.gov site will get spun.
We are 4 moves down in the tit-for-tat game and both sides are making cheat moves.
— matoko_chan · Aug 6, 10:24 PM · #
As I said in my post in that thread, I think people reacted as they did because it seemed as though you were the one violating expectations about the reasonableness of TAS. A bit of googling and/or thinking in advance on your part could have avoided the reaction pretty easily. Blaming your audience mostly comes off as you avoiding responsibility for what you actually wrote, instead of what you now wish you’d written.
— on the other hand · Aug 6, 10:25 PM · #
Sorry I checked that one out.
— Julana · Aug 6, 10:29 PM · #
OTOH, did you notice that the quotation from 1984 was in reference to a different news story?
— Alan Jacobs · Aug 6, 10:31 PM · #
Yeah, I replied in the other thread. I think that’s a pretty bogus response, though. The post clearly meant to link them thematically.
— on the other hand · Aug 6, 10:33 PM · #
Clearly my attempts to encourage a sense of humor aren’t working.
— Alan Jacobs · Aug 6, 10:34 PM · #
So, the only response you consider legitimate is the one that agrees with you and criticizes the White House?
Yeah, I guess this is a conservative blog, after all.
— Chet · Aug 6, 10:36 PM · #
Wait, you were making a funny by saying something dumb on purpose? Huh. That changes everything. Now my reality has been re-shaped in a way that makes me want to invoke The Matrix and Baudrillard in the same pointless, bizarre way O’Connor did in that post.
— on the other hand · Aug 6, 10:40 PM · #
/golf clap
;)
— matoko_chan · Aug 6, 10:44 PM · #
Likewise!
— sidereal · Aug 6, 10:47 PM · #
Alan, that’s surely not the only Scene-worthy response you had in mind. Because it sounds like you are disappointed that commenters didn’t say the things you were hoping they would say.
Scolding commenters for that reason is bad form, whether or not you were kidding.
I agree that you can criticize Obama in this case without invoking 1984.
— Blar · Aug 6, 11:08 PM · #
I still like you, Alan. :)
— Ethan C. · Aug 6, 11:20 PM · #
Excellent work, everyone! This is the kind of thing I had in mind all along.
Well, now, I suppose my work here is done.
— Alan Jacobs · Aug 6, 11:26 PM · #
<i>“Excellent work, everyone! This is the kind of thing I had in mind all along.!”</i>
Blowjobs! Big juicy Blowjobs
— bend · Aug 6, 11:45 PM · #
Hmm, I’m not clear on the proper relationship between blogger and commenter — does the responsibility lie with the commenters to please the blogger, or is it more the other way around?
— kenb · Aug 7, 12:09 AM · #
The main point might be that Obama & co. are setting themselves up for a public reaction that could be ugly. By framing protesters as an arranged mob of automatons, and by asking the party faithful to report misinformation, the adminsitration puts itself in petulant light that’s unbecoming of a supposedly open-minded administration willing to listen to the concerns of the people.
How was that?
— mike farmer · Aug 7, 01:25 AM · #
But mikefarmer Obama is required by the rules of tit-for-tat to make a cheat move, because the last republican move was a cheat move, astroturfing townhalls and spreading disinformation.
We are going to win, you know.
Tit-for-tat is unbeatable.
— matoko_chan · Aug 7, 01:29 AM · #
Here you go Dr. Jacobs.
Middleaged white scared low information mobs
your constituents. Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs and Mark Levins and Sarah Palins constituents.
Do you try to help them?
Or do you wait for them to “come around” like Schwenkler.
Or do you just exploit them in timehonored republican fashion, while you play clever mind games with your commenters.
I don’t think you are funnie..
— matoko_chan · Aug 7, 02:18 AM · #
And angry.
very very angry.
The guy they wouldn’t let in was carrying posters of Obama in white joker-face with socialism on the bottom.
nice work.
— matoko_chan · Aug 7, 02:32 AM · #
Thanks FOr Informaions In your bLog…this i Like…
— supra shoes · Aug 7, 03:05 AM · #
Everybody needs to stop being so uptight, there is no reason to start flaming over this. Yes, it probably was a dumb move on the part of the Obama camp because it provides fodder for the extremists without doing much practical good. But seriously y’all need to relax a little. Go read Auden’s “Vespers” from his “Horae Canonicae” cycle. Your type and your anti-type are both necessary for the polis because we both are wrong at some point and need the other as a corrective. After that we can start talking with respect to each other and get something done.
— ryan · Aug 7, 05:32 AM · #
“We are going to win, you know.
Tit-for-tat is unbeatable.”
We who, and win what?
— mike farmer · Aug 7, 07:44 AM · #
Healthcare insurance reform…..it is going to happen.
And “we” are the not-these-people in America.
Those angry old fat stupid white people. They aren’t against healthcare reform and they dont really give a shit about Obama’s birth certificate…they are against Obama …..they are an old angry white racist lynch mob.
That is what the republican base has left.
Ugly.
At least it is obvious there is no “bipartisan” in the teabaggers. Homogeneous old angry white people, as far as the eye can see. Thanks Glenn Beck!
— matoko_chan · Aug 7, 12:08 PM · #
Alan:
Your original point was obvious. It’s a valid criticism, not needing much explanation or defense. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Anointed One had to say something like “I could have calibrated those words differently.” Not a big deal. It’s what we expect from totalitarians.
And since you’re a professor and well-read, I think you’ll agree that Foghorn Leghorn said it best: “There’s something kinda “eeewwww” about a President who wants you to rat on your neighbors.”
— jd · Aug 7, 12:25 PM · #
ryan
yeah, respect these people.
an old white fat ugly lynch mob.
that is the republican base.
Glenn Becks viewers and Mark Levins listeners and Michelle Malkins readers.
Chanting tyranny, tyranny and communist! and carrying posters of Obama in whiteface or with a hitler mustache.
Those people are low information …..do you know what that means? low IQ.
These people aren’t protesting against healthcare reform…they probably need healthcare reform.
They are protesting Barack Obama.
And Dr. Jacobs and the rest of the TAS bloggers are pretending very hard these people don’t exist.
— matoko_chan · Aug 7, 12:40 PM · #
Along these lines, Alan, I have to say I genuinely like the “supra shoes” marketing spam comments. You’re reading along and the comments get heated and BAM! along comes this little bit of generic niceness that sort of wakes it all up. I’d be genuinely saddened if those were to go and I make a point of stopping to read them. They’re like the anti-makoto_chan.
— Sanjay · Aug 7, 01:06 PM · #
Oh, Sanjay, you’re just another bourgie conservative.
The angry old white teabagger-posse would spit on you if they thought you were a liberal, and use you as a token if they knew you were a conservative…..because of your skin color.
The republican base has devolved into a Klan gathering.
— matoko_chan · Aug 7, 01:45 PM · #
What exactly could Obama and his administration do that WOULD NOT be “spun as the first steps toward totalitarianism”?
I do have to admit, however, that seeing the “Stop Snitchin’” vibe of black gang culture taken up by conservatives is pretty darn amusing.
Mike
— MBunge · Aug 7, 03:14 PM · #
Well Glenn Beck says Obama really IS rounding up dissenters and putting them in FEMA trailers (except when he (Beck) says they aren’t) because Obama is a racist hater of white people (though out of the other side of his mouth Beck also says he isn’t) as well as a eugenisist planning to kill your Grandma (though, in his defense, Beck also says violence is bad, apparently even if you think someone is out to murder your grandma).
In other words, compared to what’s out there in the MSM (which includes Glenn Beck), The American Scene IS a bit of an oasis. It’s why I come here even when I disagree. Now just get Riehan to put it all to music and you’ll have a hit.
— tgb1000 · Aug 7, 04:31 PM · #
“Healthcare insurance reform…..it is going to happen.
And “we” are the not-these-people in America.
Those angry old fat stupid white people. They aren’t against healthcare reform and they dont really give a shit about Obama’s birth certificate…they are against Obama …..they are an old angry white racist lynch mob.
That is what the republican base has left.
Ugly.
At least it is obvious there is no “bipartisan” in the teabaggers. Homogeneous old angry white people, as far as the eye can see. Thanks Glenn Beck!”
Oh, I see. Hmm, I didn’t know that.
— mike farmer · Aug 7, 04:43 PM · #
Right, your “neighbors”, like little-ol’ nobody, regular concerned citizen, average Midwestern mom, Heather Blish, who also just happens to be Rep. Steve Kagan’s defeated opponent’s former staffer.
These aren’t your neighbors. This is concerted, disingenuous, scripted astroturfing designed to attack the majority agenda under false pretenses. How are we supposed to actually vote against Republicans if, even when they lose, they’re allowed to set the agenda? Doesn’t any conservative have a problem with elections basically not mattering?
— Chet · Aug 7, 05:21 PM · #
Thnks Motako. You are so well informed. Those stupid poor white people are so terrible and more race-conscious than you. Why are we even trying to fix their lives and health for them? They don’t even know they want health care and are just racists.
When will Obama wake up and stop trying to win over and kowtow to these air-heads? I am so sick of the bud-lite, hot dog eating gestures of our demagogue president. I thought we were electing a real elite who would finally elevate the rat-choicers among us and stop wasting time throwing money at the weak who probably don’t know what game-theory is, let alone how to pay for a mortgage or insurance.
Why does Obama want to spend so much time energy and capital on trying to extend the lives and free-time of these morons when he could be funding research that could help breed them out of existence once and for all. Doesn’t he remember how they turned on LBJ after he wasted his own presidency trying to give the arrogant unlearned workers what they really wanted?
These people are inbred ingrates and should be left to rot in the disease and poverty they have brought on themselves by being ignorant racist masses.
Perhaps I’m just frustrated because I was actually believed all that change talk and actually thought we had gotten past all the pandering to and spending on ignoramuses who should just get back to making my coffee and making my furniture without shouting disinformation as if their opinion means anything when it is not fact-based. Those who know better should not have to explain ourselves to idiots who can’t bother to read the right things, and it sickens me to see another president who thinks it is worth his time to make a case to beasts about something so clearly in their own interest.
Instead, we just get more of the same Christian-slave charity rammed down our throats with Rove-esque double-talk and Nixonian demographic tactics. I now see no one dragged this man down to this level of insubstantial mass-baiting rhetoric. That’s all he ever was, and I got duped just like some white middle-school drop-out janitor when I thought he would be the first elite to actually focus on helping his fellow elites, instead of obsessing over how to spin economic figures and the unemployment of the redneck masses.
All I hear from our new leaders is more of the same LCD focus-group-tested programs and policies aimed at those who are too incompetent to take care of themselves, backed up by ad-hominem misdirection and buzzwords rather than any attempt to explain or defend the right of genetically superior to fix and manage these stupid yokel’s lives. I guess I should have interpreted “change and hope” as just more “tit for tat.”
I can only hope that if we keep letting people call him Hitler and make irreverent, incoherent signs as they did with Bush, he’ll finally wake up and see he’s on the same dead-end road of trying to please a mob of ungrateful, unknowing, fickle neanderthals and maybe even start to speak some substance to the educated few Bush so blithely neglected.
And Chet, take yourself off your mailing lists if it’s going to turn you into one of the hysterical sheep.
Astroturfing is bad because….ignorance should speak for itself? Authentic mobs are the ones we should defer to?
Because elections are the end of all political campaigning, dissent, and settle every issue?
It doesn’t make any sense to cite the easily manipulated as some sort of rightful authority at election time and then, when they come clamoring in uniform t-shirts and glossy signs, to call them illegitimate because they are the chanting puppets of deceitful, eloquent elites.
Please stop parroting these nonsensical talking points round here. We are better than that – your points were written for cable shows, not actual discussions among those who know better. Saying these things make you sound like one of the turfed, ignorant babbling fat white racist republicans who can only echo what they are told.
— Vordy Vlad · Aug 7, 06:52 PM · #
I don’t think so Vlad.
The republicans are just the past protesting the future.
Bush was a dimwitted evangelical bumbler.
Obama is a machiavellian pragmatist and a bricoleur.
One thing about the joker poster is right…although this is waaaay above the grasp of the low information GOP base…Obama, like the Joker, is a force of creative destruction.
They are right to fear him, because their oldways are gone.
One very big mistake the GOP is making now is letting America see the new demographics of the GOP base….old, angry, fat unattractive white people.
Everybody wants to go to Cooltown anymore.
The more the teabaggers are on tv, the more sympathy they will lose.
The other big mistake is tactics only fighting.
They have no strategy.
So they have no future.
One of my friends postulates that the GOP will shrink down to the hardcore fringe and gradually die off, and the dems will split into two bigger parties…both socially liberal…..the fiscal-con democrats and the fiscal-lib democrats.
— matoko_chan · Aug 7, 07:50 PM · #
Chet wrote:
The community has organized against the Community Organizer and the Community Organizer complains.
Though I don’t for one minute think this is really anything at all like what Obama thinks of as organized—not enough ACORN or SEIU shirts.
Is that whining? That sure sounds like whining. No wait, I don’t really hear anything, but I bet that’s whining.
— jd · Aug 7, 08:10 PM · #
It’s the comment section, guys. You gotta do something about the actual comments section here. I love TAS but I hate, HATE, hate commenting here because I don’t understand Textile and I don’t want to understand Textile because everybody else uses HTML. Everybody. Beyond that, it’s hard to tell where one comment breaks off and another begins. They sort of flow together and it’s disorienting. A line between comments would be nice. Seriously. And when the comment section begins to get muddy, or it’s a little harder for people, they start to get cranky. So, what I’m saying is look to the aesthetics first. Then worry about the nature of people’s comments. If the place looks like a nice place where you’d want to dress up and maybe wear a tie, then perhaps you won’t have as many bar-room brawls.
Just sayin’….
— E.D. Kain · Aug 7, 08:35 PM · #
Ma,
I used to believe all that lofty rhetoric too. But it is now obvious that we have only traded one evangelical bumbler who gave the ugly old fat white people free drugs so they could live longer and go spout their uninformed feelings at townhall meetings, and funded useful tyrant-thugs and meals for unconstitutionally imprisoned foreigners in Cuba for an evangelical one-trope-pony who will waste his presidency trying to extend more handouts to these same whiners, and funding useful tyrant-thugs, and meals for unconstitutionally imprisoned foreigners in the States.
I don’t understand why you think Obama’s Machiavellianism is better than the liar Bush’s.
Both Obama and Bush got their strength from the popolo through fear and handouts while neglecting or distancing themselves from their fellow elites.
I wish one of them were truly inept, like you seem to genuinely believe because Machiavel is the problem not the solution.
Why is the tactic of fighting, bullying, and lying so egregiously ignorant and base to you when one side does it, but subtle genius of an astute tactician when done by the guy who fooled you with outer-appearances and lies? This sounds like the forced rationalization of someone clinging to the hope that elites actually had a clear choice in November and Obama was truly a transcendent force who was allied with intellectuals against prejudice, bigotry, and oldways.
Or is it just because, down deep, you actually want cheaper health care for the ugly mouth-breathing masses, and still actually think Obama is cool and beautiful for caring so much for them like the Christian shepherd in secular clothing he is?
I don’t see how someone against the unwashed could actually buy any of this manipulative right-speak, crisis hype designed for the ears of the gluttonous mob at this point, after 200 days of Bush III. You really believe the fighting uglies are merely the GOP/insurance company hired muscle like the DNC insists? Why wouldn’t they hire better looking cool people dressed as doctors instead?
The campaign is over. We were fooled again. It’s time to accept this or keep carrying water for the new voice-of-the-downtrodden and living the same delusion as the ugly white old people that any of these clowns are on our side. Just put the Kool-aid down – it’s no longer even flowing and has become bitter and stagnant.
And tell your postulating friend, the Dems are not going to split over ideas as long as they insist on trafficking solely in demagoguery and talking points. Their elites will just move back to the GOP when they get tired of being fooled and used over and over, or when someone they think is better than they rekindles their groundless hopes and redefines cool, new, and change again.
— Vordy Vlad · Aug 7, 09:43 PM · #
Well, no. The community has organized to engage in a debate about how to solve the healthcare crisis, and insurance companies and the GOP have organized to prevent that debate from occurring. The “outrage” is being manufactured by GOP operatives to shut down these town halls altogether.
Surely even someone as dumb as you can tell the difference between participation and obstruction.
— Chet · Aug 7, 10:08 PM · #
Pfft.
You are wrong Vlad and I can prove it.
The Bioluddite Council and hESCR.
Poof! He gets to be my preux chevalier.
;)
Sure he is making cheat moves now, but he’s playing tit-for-tat.
The Cairo speech.
Making Francis Collins NIH director and John Holdren Science and Technology.
The guy is subversive.
He is on game for healthcare…just watch.
He let congress start making the sausage and now he’s got Krauthammer begging for tort reform to be included.
The GOP is making a huge mistake in putting the teabaggers out there for extreme television coverage…its like a marketing strategy designed to destroy the party by revealing the New Demographic of the GOP base— people you could meet at a Klan rally.
Umm…yes because seeing overweight angry old white people have public psychotic breaks and scream themselves redfaced is so persuasive.
Obama is relly, relly at letting his adversaries shoot their own feet off.
He’s not perfect….but he’s pretty damn close.
lawls
— matoko_chan · Aug 7, 10:17 PM · #
relly, relly pro at letting….
;)
— matoko_chan · Aug 7, 10:18 PM · #
And quit being such a wuss E.D.
_ italic _
“ name “ : url
take out the spaces.
— matoko_chan · Aug 7, 10:44 PM · #
and just when i thought it couldn’t possibly get any better…….Palin Alert!!!
YAY!
Obama’s Death Panel Wants to Kill My Down Syndrome Baby
— matoko_chan · Aug 7, 10:55 PM · #
PALIN/BACHMAN 2012 FTW!!!!
hehe, you guyz are so screwed.
— matoko_chan · Aug 7, 11:00 PM · #
Matoko: “You baited the commentariat with the 1984 link, and got a response commeasurate with your intent.”
“Commeasurate?” Is that a shiny new word you learned from Sarah Palin?
— Kate Marie · Aug 7, 11:55 PM · #
E.D.,
You mean we should get some of those atrocious avatars that LoOG stamps on everyone’s comments? Because those are really classy, and would certainly soothe frayed tempers here.
I think it’s more than design that’s the problem.
— Matt Frost · Aug 8, 12:21 AM · #
Ma,
I think you are not who either of us thought you were. And I don’t think you are informed if you think this is all the work of the evil but incompetent GOP like Obama and Jon Stewart tell you. The problem isn’t that these people are being used by the side you hate, but that we have a president who is trying to act on their behalf and knows less about the bill he will actually sign than these idiots he wants to please, but then smears as mere turf and phonies as soon as they start getting nervous about the fishy emails they’re getting and unsubstantial, uninformative speeches they’re hearing. This could be learned by simply going to one of these abominations of self-government or listening to more than the videos and recordings Chris Matthews selects for you. Many of these frightened old fat white people are, or were, Obama hopers who still think voicing their stupid concerns actually matter to anyone.
I think you are far too attached to this single politician and have replaced any sense of elitism you may have had with the wishful blinders of ideology.
How can Obama playing tit for tat and letting his adversaries shoot themselves in their feet at the same time? This guy was supposed to be able to persuade the common man and play the stupid like a fiddle through the magic of speeches and dialogue, all on behalf of the educated class. Instead, it’s just more “Now is the time, let me clear, the time for talk is over, we will punch them back twice as hard,” and calling on union goons to intimidate the ugly voters he needs and seems to want to genuinely serve like another sugar-daddy of the illiterates. Is that incompetence or just his reactionary instincts shining through.
His big, original ideas (to let others think them up and write them down for him) are not subversive, but amount to enslaving more elites in the healthcare industry and bureaucracies to do the bidding and tend to special needs of the special ed white racist morons. And you’re still rooting him on as a hero of progress? You sound just like the willfully blind Palinites who say, “just wait, she’s a deceptive, cunning fighter and quick learner – watch out.” Except this guy is learning on the job.
I’m sure Collins and Holdren and others will eventually make some nice policy changes to please different corporations and institutions that might somehow benefit me, but it seems like this guy’s first, second, and third priorities have been to throw a bunch of money at the fickle, ungrateful, poor, ugly, fat, morons you want to distance yourself from.
But based on your fantastical spin of the situation, I would guess you even registered and voted in the election like one of the 52% of the brainwashed fatties you are trying to dismiss as astroturf and the ugly face of spontaneous democratic participation at the same time.
Enjoy your jury service, servant.
— Vordy Vlad · Aug 8, 01:01 AM · #
He’s so cool, he doesn’t even vote!
— Chet · Aug 8, 04:23 AM · #
Chet writz: These aren’t your neighbors. This is concerted, disingenuous, scripted astroturfing designed to attack the majority agenda under false pretenses.
Wow. It looks like you have some secret information that’s not available to anyone else. Maybe you should report it to the authorities.
— The Reticulator · Aug 8, 05:59 AM · #
It’s kind of funny to watch people like chet and makato_chan put down the townhall demonstrators, and then Barak Obama’s White House comes out undermines them by endorsing the demonstrators’ tactics. “Punch back twice as hard” they’re telling the Democrats.
So much for civil discourse.
— The Reticulator · Aug 8, 06:06 AM · #
Reticulator Dude it is tit-for-tat.
I already ‘splained.
Both sides are on cheat moves now, but the repubs cheated first.
In evo theory of cooperation, if both sides play fair, that maximizes every ones winnings.
Obama gave the task to congress….he wasn’t going to come out with a predefined overspecced plan that was just his. That is what Clinton did.
The GOP could have participated in the sausage-making, got some of their own stuff in there, got credit from their consitiuents.
It is possible though that the conservatives see any kind of healthcare being passed as Certain Doom, so they went all out against.
But the GOP just said no, and went to force-amplification, disinformation, and astroturfing.
Obama is responding to each cheat move with a cheat move.
Tit-for-tat is unbeatable.
So I think we will wind up with some sort of reform.
— matoko_chan · Aug 8, 01:26 PM · #
“Thus, rulers must seem to be generous while spending their money wisely, appear to be compassionate while ruling their armies cruelly, and act with great cunning while cultivating a reputation for integrity.” —Niccolo
It is interesting that people like the Reticulator seemed to believe that Obama should be held to his statements about transparency and bipartisanship while the conservatives are free to cheat……..Obama is a machiavellian pragmatist with liberal tendencies. He will cheat if that is the pragmatic move.
And Obama does actually believe he can make things better for the American people, Vlad.
He is quite smart enough to unnerstand he will have to trick and bully a significant portion of them into it.
— matoko_chan · Aug 8, 01:51 PM · #
And Obama does actually believe he can make things better for the American people, Vlad. He is quite smart enough to unnerstand he will have to trick and bully a significant portion of them into it.
Cool! Great nostalgia trip. We get to do the 20th century all over again!
— The Reticulator · Aug 8, 02:46 PM · #
Chet wrote:
You are one insulting asshole. Why don’t you provide some evidence that the GOP and the insurance companies are organizing these folks? Wikipedia, Daily Kos, or MSNBC will not be accepted as sources.
This, on the other hand, is the kind of behavior instigated by your union thugs.
— jd · Aug 8, 04:09 PM · #
Just the news. Maybe you should watch it sometime?
I did, already. Heather Blish’s false-flag “questions”, remember? Or are you going to pretend that a high-level local GOP official didn’t show up at a town hall put on by the opponent of the GOP candidate she staffed for, and pretended to be nothing more than a local mom?
Wait, I forgot. Was it my thugs who said that people should bring guns and use them on ACORN/SEIU members, or was it yours? Pretty sure that was yours. Somebody’s going to get killed at one of these things, and once again it’ll be the result of riot incitement from the right-wing.
— Chet · Aug 8, 04:20 PM · #
YOu haven’t provided any evidence of anything you’ve said.
— jd · Aug 8, 04:32 PM · #
So, you are going to pretend that never happened. Check. If you can’t even be relied upon to agree on objective reality, there’s really no point in replying, troll.
— Chet · Aug 8, 05:01 PM · #
We get to do the 20th century all over again!
???
are you quite mad?
the problem with GW was he was elected as a culture war candidate with a nonhispanic cauc majority by 5 ec votes, and lost the popular vote. He was a well intentioned evangelical bumbler, but he was not the president we needed on 9/12.
the econopalypse was building all through his presidency, but he didn’t have skill set to anything about it.
and the Grand Misadventure of the Manifest Destiny of Judeo-xian Democracy Promotion MENA was simply a horrowshow for everyone involved.
— matoko_chan · Aug 8, 05:02 PM · #
“???
are you quite mad?
the problem with GW”
Red herring. George W Bush was a 21st century president. I said 20th century. I meant starting with those persons who tried to trick and bully a a significant portion of the people into creating a paradise for them all to live in.
— The Reticulator · Aug 8, 07:30 PM · #
Me: “Wow. It looks like you have some secret information that’s not available to anyone else.”
Chet: “Just the news. Maybe you should watch it sometime?”
Watch??? News is something you watch?
— The Reticulator · Aug 8, 07:37 PM · #
Matt:
“You mean we should get some of those atrocious avatars that LoOG stamps on everyone’s comments? Because those are really classy, and would certainly soothe frayed tempers here.”
Hey – that was a purposeful move on my part to incite commenters to pick their own avatars. It hasn’t worked, and actually I’ve replaced them with nice abstract images. Very soothing, actually.
But you’re likely right. I just hate Textile, so I’m complaining.
— E.D. Kain · Aug 8, 08:23 PM · #
You have to be pretty stupid, or just plain dishonest, to believe that the White House is telling anyone to shut down town hall discussions, like the GOP are telling their thugs.
There really is no parity here.
— Chet · Aug 8, 08:27 PM · #
There is never parity because Obama is smart and right and on our (the masses) side so he can’t be wrong, by definition.
Why would someone who is inherently wise and sell-spoken ask us to report our neighbors’ fishy arguments so he could compile their e-mails?
He is constitutionally incapable of wanting to discourage free speech or intimidate speakers.
Who do you think he is? GW? Blasphemous fallacy!
If he were that bumbling with his tactics and speech and clumsily thuggish how could he have persuaded luminaries like me? Inconceivable! We are not like those ignorant sheep he had to manipulate like a confused Machiavellian with pure and righteous ends to help the common racist man. Not that it wouldn’t be completely blameless even if it could be true (it can’t). Tit for tat is justified if your infallibly right, sanctified, and can convince me.
It’s not his fault there are so many unemployed losers around for the GOP to hire for these events – it’s always the fault of Bush (evil), so was possibly even planned years ago.
Sure he uses phrases like “get in their face,” “punch back twice as hard” and “the time for talking is over,” but he is not encouraging aggressiveness among his uniformed union and community organization supporters.
You just willfully misinterpret these statements, but that does not make him a poor speaker with no talent for choosing phrases that clearly express his unparallelled insight and wisdom.
Of course, he has nothing to do with these thugs they don’t really single out on my picture tube reports, but that doesn’t mean he has no authority or sway with the DNC and its associates.
And don’t act like I have to give a specific example of a ranking republican official actually inciting violence and doing everything you accuse Obama of (except due to racist motives and inept simpleminded tactics).
Just look it up – GOP is evil so ergo they are behind any violence that occurs. Duh! you stupid insulting jackass!! But if you have no reliable dictionary just leave the news channel on and they’ll imply it all. I’m sure they tell me everything I need to know in my talking points I absorb from them and repeat here in the comments to build my memory skills.
Oh, sorry, I thought I was Chet for a moment.
— Vordy Vlad · Aug 8, 09:10 PM · #
Chet writz: “You have to be pretty stupid, or just plain dishonest, to believe that the White House is telling anyone to shut down town hall discussions, like the GOP are telling their thugs.”
So what is it that the town hall protesters are doing that Obama wants them to punch back on, twice as hard? Twice as much thuggery? Twice as much shouting?
Unfortunately, there is no way to defend that kind of remark without getting yourself in deeper, but please do try anyway.
— The Reticulator · Aug 8, 09:20 PM · #
You know….when I usta be a republican, that was one thing I loved about Reihan (besides his unique and playfully subversive skull furniture) was his empathy and the fact that he actually cares about the working class, the sam-clubbers, the ‘slines, the noble-yeoman-farmers….even though…..in RL they would spit on him because of his skin color unless they knew he was a republican, and then they would brag on him and use him as a token.
Obama is like that too….he actually thinks he was elected to be president to all americans. That is why Francis Collins is NIH director and why he invited Rick Warren to speak at his inaugration.
It is gobsmakingly obvious that those fat scared ugly old old white people have been scaremonger….seniors on medicare protesting govrnment insurance?
WTF do they have?
Do they want medicare and medicaid stopped?
— matoko_chan · Aug 9, 02:25 AM · #
Classic self-betrayal.
Ma cares for the common man.
It’s what he always respected about that stooge who doesn’t know everyone he works with and for hates him, Reihan – his incredible ability to have compassion for even people who have different opinions.
I guess that’s why he’s so faithful to Obama, cuz he’s for the little guy.
Not just the privileged few, but all Americans – especially the stupid, fat, white, ugly, old, racist morons who are so easily scared into thinking that they’ll have to share and ration benefits with healthier taxpaying youngsters just because they don’t understand Obama’s eloquence and medical authority when he lectures doctors, patients and caregivers for needlessly wasting money on extending their lives and performing unnecessary procedures.
Compassion, charity, and forcing elites to pay and care for fat idiots is so admirable and Christlike. But that’s Ma – true to his principles and consistent to the core.
And like Obama, he’s willing to serve them at any cost, even if he has to use all the same tactics as racist redneck inbreds “twice as hard” in order to help those racist redneck inbreds keep breeding and supporting NASCAR and buying rascals.
Health is a fundamental right, like life and our sense of being secure in our freedoms, so it justifies anything – that’s why he never shirked from supporting Bush’s own bold measures, like torture, for any chance of keeping us safe.
Why should any sense of truth, coherence, integrity, or reason hold him back from insisting we ram through a wasteful program right away that will spend more for less by any means necessary?
Ma CARES for his fellow stupid racist medicare dependents, so how could he be wrong? And even if he is, he can always just blame Bush or change parties again and still act like some expert who can’t be fooled. It’s America baby!
Why should the seemingly terrible strategy and irrationality of making health care a number one priority during a recession and after rushing through such a huge stimulus bill dismay him?
Obama seems really cool, and he doesn’t even seem to be concerned about what provisions are in his own bill. All good.
Sweet compassion washes away all doubt, worry, and reason, baby. Caring cleans your conscience white as snow.
Too bad more republicans can’t share this saintly, strangely self-satisfying, feeling of compassion.
Well, except that stooge Reihan who works with and for those who despise him, like an idiot. Oh, and of course Obama’s own John the Baptist: G-dub. That guy was great.
In the end it was Bush’s big heart that made up for all his mistakes, (and we can only assume won compassionate Mato’s vote).
Mato doesn’t think in terms of party – he is just a man of the people, looking out for his fellow ignorant citizens on both sides of the aisle, rich and poor, black and white, perfect and racist.
So it makes sense that toko would try to love a demagogue like Obama by imagining him as a very deceptive and cunning Machiavellian with the glorious purpose of making everyone have health insurance.
Of course, it doesnt hurt that he hates gays and gay marriage like inclusive evangelical Obama and his spirtual guides Rick Warren and Rev. Wright. Or at least that’s what we must conclude from his frothing blind loyalty to the guy.
You might call him a populist, but he doesn’t care cuz he doesn’t think in terms of names and labels. We are all equal by virtue of being American to him, cuz all Americans are equal on the inside, so equally deserving of our compassion. We should care for them all equally (I don’t care how many of them you know – be admirable like Mato and Obama). But some deserve more time and energy because they were born with certain disadvantages and into poor situations.
You really have to be a selfless righteous lover of the least amongst us to understand people and all apparent differences that way. If only we all had the leveling eyes of mato.
— Vordy Vlad · Aug 9, 05:17 AM · #
hahahaha!
Dude, ima grrl.
And its early times yet.
AND Im still waiting for Reihan to apolo for for ganking us with sarahpalin.
I haven’t forgiven him.
That is the ancient problem of how to give the ‘slines some degree of self government when they are too stupid to use it wisely.
A democratic meritocracy is optimal solution so far.
My sempai-sama, Plato of Athens, thought a philosopher king was the solution…..in America we democratically elect meritocrats that are populist approximations of the idealized PK. Electing ‘slines simply won’t work…cite Epic Fail Palin.
— matoko_chan · Aug 9, 01:40 PM · #
Do you know what is superhilarious?
When conservatives try to lay claim to the sentiments of Thomas Jefferson and Andy Jackson especially.
TJ was a polymath meritocrat, and Andy was a war-hero unionist that would have told Palin to stay home and take care of her children and gut-shot Glenn Beck and left him for dead as a dirty seccessionist/anarchist.
— matoko_chan · Aug 9, 01:48 PM · #
“They aren’t against healthcare reform and they dont really give a shit about Obama’s birth certificate…they are against Obama …..they are an old angry white racist lynch mob.
That is what the republican base has left.
Ugly.”
Gosh, it does seem like the only solution is …..camps, yeah camps. that would be a good, final solution. And Matoko if you need to know where to find them to round them up, head over to Sam’s Club. Bunches of them there. some even working there.
— C3 · Aug 9, 04:08 PM · #
We don’t need “camps.” We just need birthers and Birchers, and everybody else too ill-informed and stupid to participate in public democracy, to be fully marginalized. They can do whatever they want, live wherever they want. They just should have zero political influence.
— Chet · Aug 9, 04:43 PM · #
“We don’t need ‘camps.’ We just need birthers and Birchers, and everybody else too ill-informed and stupid to participate in public democracy, to be fully marginalized.”
— Yeah, let’s fully marginalize all those ill-informed mouthbreathers who don’t “watch“ the news like you do, eh Chet?
LOL! ;)
— Kate Marie · Aug 9, 06:21 PM · #
no ty C3.
I just want conservatives to take responsibility for doing the right thing for the base ‘steada farming them for votes with demagoguery.
— matoko_chan · Aug 9, 08:37 PM · #
You really think it’s beyond the pale that we should insist that the only people who participate in public democracy are the people who can perceive objective reality?
Someone who thinks Obama was born in Kenya is deluded. Delusion is a kind of mental illness. Are we really supposed to defer to the skewed perceptions of the mentally ill? Really? How does that work, in your mind?
Someone who thinks that they’re going to have to bring their baby before a Death Committee chaired by the president is unfit, mentally. Your party puts such a person in the second-highest political office in the land, Kate. Maybe you should LOL less and worry more.
— Chet · Aug 9, 10:03 PM · #
“Someone who thinks Obama was born in Kenya is deluded. Delusion is a kind of mental illness. Are we really supposed to defer to the skewed perceptions of the mentally ill? Really? How does that work, in your mind?
Someone who thinks that they’re going to have to bring their baby before a Death Committee chaired by the president is unfit, mentally. “
And for someone who believes the administration plotted 9-11?
— C3 · Aug 9, 10:23 PM · #
That they planned it? Deluded. That they were warned and did nothing? Accurately informed.
— Chet · Aug 9, 10:58 PM · #
Don’t recall ever mentioning the political party to which I belong, Chet. But you know because you watch the news.
And you seem to be suffering from delusions of your own, Chet. I wasn’t making an argument in my comment. I was simply mocking you.
LOL! ;)
— Kate Marie · Aug 10, 02:38 AM · #
Go away KM and take Sockpuppet Concern Troll Victoria with you.
— matoko_chan · Aug 10, 02:42 AM · #
I’m still not getting the joke, unless it’s you.
— Chet · Aug 10, 02:55 AM · #
Hi – that was a purposeful move on my part to incite commenters to pick their own avatars. It hasn’t worked, and actually I’ve replaced them with nice abstract images. Very soothing, actually.
— jordan 6 rings · Aug 10, 03:18 AM · #
Ah, dear Lady of Substantial Substrate, who’s Victoria?
Go look up “commeasurate.” You’ll find it in the same place Sarah Palin will find the Department of Law.
Lawls! ;)
— Kate Marie · Aug 10, 03:54 AM · #
I’m still not getting the joke …
Of course you’re not, dear boy. Now run along and watch the news.
— Kate Marie · Aug 10, 03:58 AM · #
You’re incomprehensibly asinine.
— Chet · Aug 10, 05:12 AM · #
A site that allows sockpuppets is just not a serious site, Dr. Jacobs.
This place is becoming a joke.
— matoko_chan · Aug 10, 11:15 AM · #
lawlz….unless it is a conservative site……then it is just an acceptable force-magnification cheat.
;)
— matoko_chan · Aug 10, 11:18 AM · #
Matoko, if you’re accusing me of having a sock puppet, you’re very much mistaken, but your being wrong in this instance is sadly “commeasurate” with your typical behavior in the comments here at TAS.
I must really get to you, though — that makes me giggle. Lawls! ;)
I hereby ask and invite Dr. Jacobs and anyone else at TAS to investigate the accusation of sock puppetry, by the way. I’m getting really sick of Matoko’s tactics (as well as her bad grammar, bad spelling, illogic, and “eliminationist rhetoric,” to use a “progressive” term).
— Kate Marie · Aug 10, 06:14 PM · #
If you expect them to care, maybe you should do something besides troll the bottom of 80-comment threads. Nobody reads this far but the three of us.
— Chet · Aug 10, 07:52 PM · #
That word “troll,” Chet — I don’t think it means what you think it means. To me, the word troll suggests some obnoxious a**hole who hangs out at blogs he doesn’t like and whose comments consist of a) accusing anyone who disagrees with him of arguing in bad faith; b) calling the contributors and other commenters “morons;” c) constantly chiming in on the posts of contributors he particularly dislikes (likely because of their religious views) with snide and worthless and absolutely puerile sniping.
I like to snipe at the snipers, which is puerile and worthless, too, but it’s fun. Call it my own little game of tit for tat. And we all no you can’t lose when you’re playing tit for tat.
LOL! ;)
— Kate Marie · Aug 10, 09:49 PM · #
Make that “we all know you can’t lose when you’re playing tit for tat.”
I must have been possessed by the spirit of Matoko Chan for a moment there.
LOL! ;)
— Kate Marie · Aug 10, 10:48 PM · #
Sure, I can be obnoxious and assholish. It’s the internet, after all. But I can also be substantive, and I can point to a dozen posts in the past week that offered substantive arguments for my views and against the views of conservatism.
You’ve produced not a single such post, at least not that I’ve ever read. Not ever. You never comment before 40-50 posts, which is when I suspect you’ve learned that nobody with admin privs is paying attention and therefore you can troll as much as you like.
This is, frankly, unfair and insulting. It’s much more likely that you don’t like me for my religious views. You’re a troll and, likely, a bigot.
— Chet · Aug 10, 11:58 PM · #
Ah, poor widdle Chet feels insulted. Cry me a river, buddy.
You’re right, though. I am a bigot. I’m bigoted against ill-informed ideologues who think in slogans and talking points and constantly portray those who disagree with them as either dishonest or stupid, or both.
As for the rest of your comments, they’re — as usual — factually incorrect. I can assure you, for one thing, that I hope people with “admin privs” are paying attention. I don’t care what idiotic, insulting nonsense Matoko spouts, but when she tries to make others here believe that I have a sock puppet, she has made an accusation that is both beyond the typical insult and verifiably false. I have brought it to the administration’s attention.
— Kate Marie · Aug 11, 12:21 AM · #
I just think you’re dishonest and stupid. It’s not a universal thing.
— Chet · Aug 11, 12:54 AM · #
I just think you’re dishonest and stupid.
Then God’s in his heaven and all is right with the world, dear boy. The interlocutors who say such things are precisely those who have slogans where their brains ought to be.
P. S. Two legs bad, four legs good!
P.P.S. LOL! ;)
— Kate Marie · Aug 11, 01:24 AM · #
It’s just too bad you’re not any cleverer.
— Chet · Aug 11, 02:47 AM · #
It’s just too bad you’re not any cleverer.
Ah, but here’s the thing, dear boy. That’s exactly what I say to myself all the time. Maybe it’s the function of my greater maturity, but I try my best — and often fail, I confess — to be humble about my gifts, which is why I don’t make it a habit to insult the intelligence of others, no matter how incredibly stupidly they might come across in their writing. Calling everyone else a moron and praising one’s own intellect seems to be the habit of the callow, the ignorant, and the insecure.
— Kate Marie · Aug 11, 03:03 AM · #
And, you know, that’s certainly the impression you engender. Humility. LOL!
How gratifying that you choose to make an exception for little ol’ me.
— Chet · Aug 11, 05:50 AM · #
You’re quite welcome, dear boy!
— Kate Marie · Aug 11, 06:18 AM · #