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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Give me a holiday from Hillary. This gas tax holiday thing has much more to do with another kind of gas, the kind of gas that's emmited from a pandering politician's posterior.
it'd take a lot of balls for Salon.com to cut ties with the Pentagon and stop taking ad money from the industrial military complex. Joan aint got em.
First, I'm sick of the whole "balls" thing. Even Colbert has pretty much beaten the term to death. Enough already.
As for Hillary on Fox, Joan why don't you forward your post to Keith "Why is that evil b*tch Hillary so mean to Saint Obama" Olbermann? He practically had a stroke on the air tonight over her appearance on O'Reilly, and over the fact that Rush et al are lobbying for her for their own no-doubt nefarious reasons.
If you are so critical of actual, substantial issues such as the gas tax holiday and controversial remarks about Iran, I wouldn't expect you to spend your first paragraph on Hillary Clinton having balls. I don't think it's too much to expect. I've already lowered my expectations for you.
I had thought the Obama supporters who'd been giving you such a hard time for your Clinton slant were off-base. But after your series of worrying posts re Rev. Wright, to turn to this?
Hillary Clinton is a woman of considerable accomplishment, and she's demonstrating true grit in her relentless (and at this point Quixotic) pursuit of the nomination. As I've written before here, at the beginning of this process, when her candidacy was an exploratory committee, I looked forward to voting (and cheering) for her. I didn't pay a lot of attention to the early part of the primaries, but planned to vote for her, And then one night on the radio, I heard Wolfeson (sp.?) on the radio, crossly arguing that the votes in Florida and Michigan should be counted. I felt a physical revulsion and great disappointment because in his attitude and "truthiness" I heard that same angry sense of wronged entitlement I've learned to loathe in the Rove era. From that moment, I began to pay closer attention. Finally, I gave up my excitement about a Clinton renaissance and came -- disappointment after disappointment in one campaign choice after another -- to fear that a Clinton presidency would perpetuate the anguish of Orwellean cognitive dissonance that has been the hallmark of the Bush era. I just can't stand it any more.
Now, HRC supporters will argue that it's Obama that's the big phony. Okay, if that's the way you really see it, then we just disagree. I can't imagine how you could identify in Obama or his campaign anything like the deliberate and often ugly truth twisting that has come out of Clinton's operation anymore -- honestly -- than I could understand how anyone could believe the Bush administration's argument for the war in Iraq. But, hey, maybe I'm wrong. If he does get the nomination, we'll certainly have plenty of chances to find out.
So, okay, Joan. To tweak the wacko Obama supporter's who've been flaming you post after post, maybe this post was a fun idea.
My complaint is that it's uninteresting. Once an editorialist becomes too predictable, once they become too nakedly partisan (without discernible EVIDENCE or REASON), they just get boring. What's interesting is an editorial slant informed by inquisitive, risible, intelligent exploration.
You could make an argument for splitting hairs on the Obama/Wright thing as a form of exhaustive examination.
But this?
I love your voluble commentors (on all sides)!
But I'm afraid you're losing me.
I'd love to see some convincing arguments to keep me paying attention. And I'll be following the thread with interest. But absent something convincing, I don't think it's likely I'll be returning to this discussion with much curiosity.
I'll be looking for all you crazies elsewhere.
I must say I've admired Obama's principled stand against FOX and have criticized Hillary for playing into right-wing audiences. She has gotten major benefits, in my opinion:
1. She makes them (this is my parents we're talking about) realize "she's not as bad as we thought." Now, I'm not saying this has made these particular hard-righters vote for her, but it might have "allowed" them to vote for her in the form of Operation Chaos. Her appearances took away the psychological obstacle of quite literally not being able to pull a lever for her (so to speak).
2. When she, like any candidate, brings up negatives about her opponent, FOX runs with it in a way that other networks do not. Because they are so clearly biased against Obama, the front runner, they latch on to what she says and pursue irresponsibly. There seems to be no check--it's just Obama's opponent and the network who hates him agreeing like crazy. Knowing (at the time) that Obama was not a potential guest, they practiced something under the level of responsibility that they normally do (a feat hard to accomplish)
3. Reagan Democrats--Hillary's supposed demographic who are most certainly part of the audience of FOX--may even have been swayed to vote for her legitimately.
All these things lead to an uncomfortable conclusion (next post)
You tend to make Hillary Clinton sound like......a human being. Balls and all. Can't have that, now can we?
C'mon, Joan, you DISLIKE her saber-rattling on Iran?
That's not the balls-approving language one ought use to describe the behavior of someone desirous of the job which could allow her to instantly burn to death the citizens of a country whose government has not attacked the United States of America.
That's dainty talk. You're tougher than that.
So perhaps there are a couple of obvious conclusions:
1. Hillary is a better "politician." Not sure that's a compliment, especially to good progressives who feel that her cavorting with FOX and Scaife and the VRWC in general is nothing short of a betrayal and total sellout. But if in fact this has moved her closer to Obama in numbers, then she is a better politician. Personally, I object to this particular conclusion on the basis that she smeared Obama in the process.
2. She did a great job on O'Reilly. Barring a few specific objectionable statements (about Wright, god bless the rich, etc.), overall she kicked ass. So, perhaps not appearing on FOX, Obama has simply escaped opportunities to show off. (I didn't see the Chris Wallace interview.)(Come to think of it, did Joan cover it? Why not?)
3. Meeting with the enemy. Now here is the conclusion I like the least but which has nagged at me forever. Which candidate says he is willing to unify the divided, to meet with those who he disagrees with to find common ground, etc.? Yep, Barack. So how is it that Hillary has managed to play nice with FOX and other right-wing jerks and make them (perhaps) come grudgingly around? I know that many people will say that they are laying a trap, waiting to attack her as soon as they can, but in my gut--a place that agrees wholeheartedly and intuitively with Barack's message of finding common ground between enemies--I can't help but think that she has only gained in terms of her "likeability" factor with real righties. I can only report anecdotally: my parents--New Yorkers who previously thought she was the devil--are impressed in spite of themselves with her "fighting spirit," and my neighbor and good friend, another hardcore Hillary hater whom I fought with for years in the late nineties, has started to relate with her in some way. The fact is, they wouldn't know anything about her if she didn't appear on "their" shows. And Obama, the guy who supposedly is going to meet with Iran (and I agree with that!!) can't meet with FOX.
Sigh. Someone please disabuse me.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
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