Bloodless Coup

There's four in this field who couldn't even beat McCain for the nomination, and Romney is at the top of that list. Ron Paul, Romney, and Huckabee all have solid teen percent constituencies, but none of them can break out, and that goes double for Gingrich. Barring some unforseen event, I'd like to see Palin, but I don't think given what happened to Hillary that this country will vote for a woman to be President. It should have been Hillary, and it should be Palin, but the media asks them tougher questions than they throw at Barack.

I must have missed the part in the campaign where Palin answered tougher questions than the ones Obama was asked (and answered).

Please provide links to support that assertion.

You are joking, right Morris? In what universe were Couric's questions to Palin hard? That Palin still looked bad doing fluff interviews was her own problem. Adding to that of course was the fact that for much of the race she refused to answer questions at all! And as highly as I think of Obama's campaign, and I really do, I still think there'd have been no room for him if 1) Hillary hadn't voted for the war, and 2) she hadn't run what was essentially an incompetent campaign.

I also think your read on McCain's win is wrong. Romney and Huckabee both won a lot of states (hence I'm not surprised to see them in the mix, though I'd have though Huckabee would be doing better). The reason McCain emerged though is b/c he was running against a particular set of candidates. It's not like McCain posted a big win in South Carolina or whatever - but he won a plurality against a particular, divided field. Who emerges will depend on how the field gets similarly divided this time.

Okay, I'm not going to do all your homework for you or write up a study that wouldn't get published, so I just found typed in Obama interview transcript and palin interview transcript, and the first ones that came up were Obama's PBS interview and the second page (maybe?) of CBS' poorly organized (I can't find a way to click on the previous or next page) transcript of the Kouric interview with Palin. The interviewers offered about a dozen questions each. Here's Katie Couric:

Katie Couric: But he still has a stake in the company so isn't that a conflict of interest?
Couric: Why do you say that? Why are they waiting for John McCain and not Barack Obama?
Couric: But polls have shown that Sen. Obama has actually gotten a boost as a result of this latest crisis, with more people feeling that he can handle the situation better than John McCain.
Couric: If this doesn't pass, do you think there's a risk of another Great Depression?
Couric: Would you support a moratorium on foreclosures to help average Americans keep their homes?
Couric: So you haven't decided whether you'll support it or not?
Couric: What are the pros and cons of it do you think?
Couric: By consumers, you're saying?
Couric: You've said, quote, "John McCain will reform the way Wall Street does business." Other than supporting stricter regulations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two years ago, can you give us any more example of his leading the charge for more oversight?
Couric: But he's been in Congress for 26 years. He's been chairman of the powerful Commerce Committee. And he has almost always sided with less regulation, not more.
Couric: But can you give me any other concrete examples? Because I know you've said Barack Obama is a lot of talk and no action. Can you give me any other examples in his 26 years of John McCain truly taking a stand on this?
Couric: I'm just going to ask you one more time - not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation.

So this second page of the transcript, Katie Couric starts out with three questions on which she's challenging Governor Palin. That's her job, she's supposed to do that. Then she asks half a dozen questions of a clarifying nature, about what Governor Palin's position is. Then she finishes pressing Governor Palin with three more challenges to what Governor Palin said. Again, that's her job, she's supposed to do that.

Here's PBS:
GWEN IFILL: The president said today we are in challenging times. You said yourself that we are teetering on the edge of a potential crisis.
When you watched what the Fed had to do over the weekend, what do you think as president you would do in reaction to this kind of crisis?
GWEN IFILL: When does it become a Fed bailout and when is a line when it becomes a taxpayer bailout?
GWEN IFILL: Anybody watching this campaign for the last week to 10 days would think it was all about gender and race between what Geraldine Ferraro said and what your former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, said. Do you look at this and think that maybe, with a woman and a black man running against each other, that this was going to be an inevitable conversation?
GWEN IFILL: Is that the speech you'll be giving tomorrow in Philadelphia?
GWEN IFILL: You have also cast this as a generational distinction, the sorts of things that Reverend Wright said being the baggage of fiercely intelligent African-American men of his generation and Geraldine Ferraro's, as well. When does one person's baggage become another person's memory/history?
GWEN IFILL: Has this been damaging to your campaign?
GWEN IFILL: When Senator Clinton sat down with my colleague, Judy Woodruff, for a conversation like this, she said that her election would be shattering the highest and hardest glass ceiling. Would yours be doing the same?
GWEN IFILL: The distinction between you and Senator Clinton that's been drawn by both of you over the last several weeks has been judgment versus experience, so let me ask you about your judgment on some issues, not only Reverend Wright and your association with him over the years, but also Tony Rezko, who you've talked a lot about recently, the Chicago developer who is now on trial on federal charges.
Do you think that your association with those two people or people we don't know about would raise questions about your judgment?
GWEN IFILL: Let's talk about political judgment. Neither of these are new issues. Are these things you could have laid to rest some months ago?
GWEN IFILL: On Iraq, Senator Clinton gave a speech today in which she accused you of being all about words and not about substance in Iraq. Five years, the anniversary is upon us.
Do you think it's likely that we're going to be there longer or shorter? Will either Democrat be able to fulfill the promises of phased withdrawal in a timely fashion?
GWEN IFILL: We sit here today in Pennsylvania. Senator Clinton has said that you are not capable of winning the big states that you need to win in order to triumph against a Republican nominee in November. What are your chances here in Pennsylvania?
GWEN IFILL: You talk about polarizing the electorate. I wonder if you worry that the debate that we're in now, including the standoffs over what's going to happen to the delegates and what's going to happen to you and to Senator Clinton and all these other issues, I wonder if you worry that's going to alienate a lot of these new, energized voters who have been brought to the campaign for both of you.
GWEN IFILL: What's going to happen in Michigan and Florida?

So, where's the challenges? Couric was evenly split between open ended or clarifying questions and pressing Palin with challenges to her answers. So why did Ifill never press Obama on anything? She could have pressed him easily on his associations; he said if he had been in politics longer, he would have known better about watching who his associates are. What does that even imply, that it doesn't matter who ordinary people associate with? That's the most elitist comment in the world, and she didn't challenge him once, twice, or three times as Couric challenged Palin every time Palin wasn't absolutely clear, as she tried to avoid dogging on McCain. Couric did her job, Ifill didn't. And that happened over and over, with Palin getting hammered and Obama getting a pass, throughout the campaign.

As to the other, a good candidate would have beaten McCain. He was too old to win, that's what the data says. Because Republican voters tend to be older than the average American voter, we end up nominating people like Bob Dole and John McCain, because that's who more Republican voters identify with. But they can't win, because nobody wants to sit down and have a beer with their grandfather. As anti-feminist as we are, we Americans are even more agist.

But the combined charisma of Romney, Gingrich, and Ron Paul could fit on the end of a toothpick. Huckabee is just a little too creepy, even if he's good for a laugh occasionally. And they all are liberal on certain issues, so there's no way to draw a distinction between them and Obama which was the greatest failure of McCain when it comes to what he could control, trying to be everybody's buddy.

We need a Jindal who can smoke Obama in debates, or a Palin who has more charisma, who want to tell American how different they are, why they don't think it's fair for everyone everywhere but Louisiana to work for three months, quit, and draw unemployment benefits for the rest of their lives. America should be a shining city on a hill, not a pot smoker playing xbox and eating hot pockets in his PJs.

A shining city on a hill that celebrates teen pregnancy? One that pushes books out of libraries? Where "charisma" means not having approval ratings in the mid-60s to low 70s like President Obama does, but having lousy favorables instead - favorables that are actually lower than her negatives (December 08 NBC/Wall Street Journal)?

And please - pretty pretty pretty please - nominate Jindal. That'd be great for the Democrats.

And wow - you've found an interview where Obama wasn't "pushed". Fascinating. You can also find lots of interviews where he was. He was regularly interviewed for months on end. Whereas for much of her race Palin REFUSED TO BE INTERVIEWED. Talk about an anti-democratic, entitled elitist.

I can't let you get away with this, even if you do believe it. If you want to talk about Palin refusing to be interviewed for the first couple weeks, then we have to talk about Obama refusing to debate McCain for months while he was being challenged by McCain. Obama doesn't fight, he clears the field. When his campaign (not him, but his campaign, Joe Biden) actually got some tough questions, they cut off WFTV in Orlando from further scheduled interviews. They banned reporters from the New York Post, Washington Times, and Dallas Morning News from Obama's campaign plane because those papers endorsed McCain.

Mugabe in Zimbabwe has people who love him too. His people are starving, one in ten children don't make it to five years old, he throws quarter million dollar birthday parties, but they love him because he takes things from RICH WHITE PEOPLE, to quote Obama's Reverend. Obama is a Marxist of the same line, he's being celebrated for taking from taxpayers. Where is Baltar the budget hawk on all this? He never failed to slam Bush for it, but like most of your media, he doesn't say peep about Obama.

Your media wants to be given non-profit status because they can't sell newspapers at the same time your Democrats in Congress are using diversity (take from RICH WHITE PEOPLE) to justify taking ownership away from radio stations that broadcast conservative talk radio shows. WTF? Seriously, WTF?

What the hell? Obama DID debate McCain - there were 3 debates. He wasn't hiding from McCain, far from it. Is your complaint that he didn't wake up every morning and decide to spend his day exactly as John McCain would have liked? Well, yeah, of course didn't. Exactly why would he want to run his campaign in a way designed by John McCain? But it is abusrd to argue that Obama was ducking McCain - there were the same set of debates that there always are.

And similarly absurd is the notion that over the course of a year and a half long campaign Obama didn't ever face tough questions (ummm, remember March and April of last year). Obviously you can pick out specific points where he avoided them - much as McCain threw people off his bus. But the notion that Obama never faced tough questions over the course of the campaign is silly. If your complaint is that Obama's coverage in the last few weeks was more positive than McCain's, well duh. The media concentrates on horse-race coverage, so the candidate who is behind gets more negative, "why are you failing" coverage - that's not a partisan thing, it's just what reporters do.

And if you think Obama is a Marxist you've clearly got a horrendously skewed vision of what constitutes a Marxist. All I was saying was that Obama would seem to be charismatic, given his poll numbers - and given you were praising (the far less popular) Palin for being charismatic I presumed you thought that was a good quality.

As to budget hawks (which would include me as well) - many are not so blinded by ideological bumper stickers that they can't still recognize that different economic climates call for different policies. The appropriate economic policies of 2009 might look different from those of 2004 (or any other year) - who knew! And budget hawks should like that after pumping much needed spending into the economy (though quite possibly not enough), he is committed to halving the deficit in a few years.

As to you saying that Disney and GE want non-profit status I have no idea what you are talking about - but since you seem to want to rush to the defense of those terribly victimized rich white corporate types I presume you will support them in their effort.

Morris, I'd stay away from the quips about infant mortality for as long as your preferably unregulated, for-profit, if-you-can't-afford-it-go-get-a-job-you-do-nothing-xbox-playing-pot-smoker health care system keeps the United States near the bottom of the developed world in infant mortality.

CNN June 4th, 2008:
"Sen. John McCain challenged Sen. Barack Obama on Wednesday to join him for a series of 10 town-hall debates."

CNN September 26th, 2008:
Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama debated on the campus of the University of Mississippi Friday night. The moderator for the debate was Jim Lehrer of the NewsHour on PBS.

Obama ran away from debating McCain as long as he could, over three and a half months by my count! He agreed to face McCain three times, not ten! Even in September he agreed to a media debate, not a town hall where he could get real questions! The guy is a wuss.

"And similarly absurd is the notion that over the course of a year and a half long campaign Obama didn't ever face tough questions (ummm, remember March and April of last year)."

Show me the transcript where somebody gave Obama as bad a time as Couric gave Palin. If it's so easy to find, show me.

"And if you think Obama is a Marxist you've clearly got a horrendously skewed vision of what constitutes a Marxist."

Marxism: the political, economic, and social principles and policies advocated by Marx ; especially : a theory and practice of socialism including the labor theory of value, dialectical materialism, the class struggle, and dictatorship of the proletariat until the establishment of a classless society

1. Obama's dealings with GM is a great illustration of the labor theory of value. He's pouring taxpayer money into a company because he thinks what they do is important because of the workers involved. It doesn't matter that no one wants to buy their cars because what people value and demand is not his concern, it is only for the laborers.

2. Obama's dialectical materialism is evident from his inauguration, talking about restoring science to its proper place. He doesn't care anything about anything faith based, it's all about the materials, that's why he's restructuring unemployment across the nation everywhere but Louisiana. He thinks if people have things they'll be happy with him, and if they don't have things he's failed.

3. Class struggle is a constant theme of Obama, let's take from everybody who's making a hundred fifty thousand a year, let's give to the poor because they deserve it more. Rich. White. People.

4. Dictatorship of the proletariat is illustrated by his recent push to punish the rich for donating to charity by taxing them on what they donate. He doesn't do that to the poor, and because money as fluid material is the only functional right in a materialist society, saying the poor have a right to do what they want with their money and the rich do not without being punished is de facto inversion of liberty based on class.

Saying rich.white.people do not have a right to own a radio station and giving it to someone from what Obama must consider to be the disadvantaged class is tyranny of the proletariat.

Giving everybody 25,000 a year for three months of work during a single year is tyranny of the proletariat that will lead to a classless society because no amount of rich people's riches will be able to pay for it, so everyone will end up poor (unless you apply the dialectic here as well in which case some would inevitably overpower others throwing the society out of balance again as instead of the Pentagon and polices stations being attacked by Ayers types, G. Gordon Liddy types would go after unemployment offices).

Charisma is like everything else a quality only so good as what it serves, if you believe the Hagakure.

"And budget hawks should like that after pumping much needed spending into the economy (though quite possibly not enough), he is committed to halving the deficit in a few years."

Well, if I ran up almost four times the deficit of any other President in American history (Bush included), it would be a great thing to leave office only running up debts twice as high as any other President in history.

"As to you saying that Disney and GE want non-profit status I have no idea what you are talking about - but since you seem to want to rush to the defense of those terribly victimized rich white corporate types I presume you will support them in their effort."

You don't call yourself a Marxist either, do you?

"Morris, I'd stay away from the quips about infant mortality for as long as your preferably unregulated, for-profit, if-you-can't-afford-it-go-get-a-job-you-do-nothing-xbox-playing-pot-smoker health care system keeps the United States near the bottom of the developed world in infant mortality."

Yah, that's probably why we have an exploding obesity rate, because people can't afford things.

1. There are, to the best of my memory, always 3 presidential debates. Obama did what candidates usually do Mo. In what way was that hiding?

And no, neither I nor Obama is a Marxist, and if you think so, you are deluded - it's as simple as that. He believes in a progressive income tax. So does most of the country. Are you saying ours is a Marxist country? And what kind of Marxist would have just approved one of the biggest tax cuts in US history? In your vision of the world it would seem we already live on a thoroughly Marxist planet. That would come as a surprise to the governments in Havana and Moscow.

And the notion that he doesn't believe in anything faith-based is laughable. Along with his predecessor he appears to be the most truly religious president since Carter.

And so you admit you aren't really interested in charisma, you are interested in, I guess, ideological purity. Thanks for the clarification.

"And what kind of Marxist would have just approved one of the biggest tax cuts in US history?"

Check the news, he's seeking one of the biggest tax increases in US history on the rich and giving that money to the poor. Equality is never more than about opportunity; equality of condition is not the condition of this world.

"Along with his predecessor he appears to be the most truly religious president since Carter."

I've listened to his pastor. Something about chickens coming home to roost, right? The rich Americans got what they deserved on 9/11, huh? Nothing Marxist there.

Charisma is a kind of talent; like talent, it is as good as what it serves. I would hardly call the liberty to become successful "ideological purity" but suit yourself.

You should send a note to all the people who grew avariciously wealthy under Clinton's tenure, and explain to them that this occurred despite the absence of their liberty to pursue it, since Clinton's tax structure was not materially different than Obama's will be . . . in two years, if and when the redistributing upward tax breaks of the Bush administration roll back.

And as for infant mortality, I'll take your incoherently non-responsive comments to mean, "Touche."

Oh, and Armand, you're entirely too generous. Obama is clearly more faith-driven, throughout his life, than Bush was. Bush found it late, attended church sparingly for most of his days (including those between his being born again and deciding to run for president), and relied on it only when it was time to run for national office and toady up to the fundagelicals.

Indeed, that's something that amazes me about the far right. They'll elect people for saying the right words, even though the public record makes it hard to ignore that their feints at religiosity are cynically calculate to garner precisely those folks' votes.

But then maybe those chickens came home to roost this time around, when a bunch of the more god-fearing folks defected for the person whose policies and principles square better with the New Testament read as a whole.

I've listened to his pastor.

I've listened to Rush. Are you a bigot, a prescription drug abuser, a misogynist, or just all of the above?

Moon,
I don't recall Clinton's rules forbidding the writing off of charitable donations or mortgage interest payments, no matter the income level, which is the point. Obama wants to create to Americas, one set of rules for those making $250K (for now, in the campaign it got a lot closer to $100K), another for those making $25K (everyone else who has ever holds a job for three months, as well as the disabled, like those who qualify becauase they drink too much, who are already receiving this). He wants to sanction doctors who provide care to those who can afford it when it is not deemed the most efficient by his government panel, i.e. when it exceeds the level of rationed care.

Why would he want to take the historic, traditional write off away from charitable donations? He wants to make us into Ireland, or the old Soviet Union, or anywhere else that's tried to give the material condition of as much and as good to every citizen ignoring the very science he claimed to restore to its rightful position because that science says it's not money that makes people happy. Happiness comes when people are engaged in life, things like work that Obama wants to eradicate as a way of settling the score for the labor people's ancestors invested.

He wants to make the unworking poor into winners of his Obama lottery that he isn't going to pay for, and when that money stops going out he knows another generation of pathological narcissists will become aggressive and demand that to which they are entitled for being poor, for being failures and victims. This is pretty f-ed up.

The truth is he wants power more for himself more than he wants to give it to the poor; half the new Obama taxes are energy taxes that will hit the poor who can't afford hybrid cars harder than the rich who can, nor can they afford as well the front end costs of energy efficient appliances.

"And as for infant mortality, I'll take your incoherently non-responsive comments to mean, 'Touche.'"

Yah, do that.

"Obama is clearly more faith-driven, throughout his life, than Bush was."

Apparently not, because when asked about Reverend Wright sermons for the past several years, he said that's "not the person [he] met twenty years ago." How did he miss years of church because that appears to be your criterion for faith? He called Father Phleger's words "divisive" and "backward looking." You tell me, did he take his children to his church, something that if you measured faith by church attendance he would surely do, and let them listen to people like that because it was good for his faith or his political career?

He didn't even stand with his church, he threw them under the bus because he didn't want "the church subjected to the scrutiny that a presidential campaign legitimately undergoes." What the hell is that? If he's a man of faith as measured by his church, how can he dump them out of a political calculation? And if he's a man of faith who believes in his church, why was he worried they couldn't withstand the scrutiny of a campaign?

I don't know what version of the New Testament you're reading that squares 9/11 with chickens coming home to roost. Did you take a correspondence course in the New Testament from Father Phleger? You really should send a thankyou note to B.O. because he got Phleger's church almost a quarter million dollars for programs like that, you know, before B.O. threw him under the bus.

Jacflash writes: I've listened to Rush. Are you a bigot, a prescription drug abuser, a misogynist, or just all of the above?

Obviously you haven't, because all Rush's transcripts are in full on his website archives, and if you had listened to Rush you would know the only things that sound bigoted are taken out of context, which is exactly what your Media Matters exists to do, shut down free speech by taking things out of context.

I've listened to Democrat Congressmen like Jack Murtha and Democrat Senators like John Kerry badmouth our troops, and the Left says nothing; I've listened to Democrat Senators like Byrd who are racists and the Left says nothing; I've listened to Democrats protect those who abuse interns and the Left says nothing. How dare you call Rush a mysoginist and yet protect Bill Clinton who abused an intern? How dare you call Rush an addict and yet protect New York Governor David Patterson?

Democrats are the most judgmental people in the world, always bashing whites like Obama's inauguration, you protect Joseph Lowery the faithful Obama's preacher who's still waiting for white "to embrace what is right." What about, I don't know, whites who died in the civil war to end slavery? What about whites who died in the civil rights movement? What about passing the civil rights act? What about a majority white supreme court that ended seperate but equal? What about the great society programs, affirmative action, hiring quotas, housing quotas? What about majority white America electing a freaking black President?

But your judgmental Marxists want to stir up resentments, not settle them. Your Democrats want people with a sense of entitlement based on skin color alone. Dr. King wanted people to be judged on the content of their character, yet Obama kowtows to Iran's dictator. Obama goes to worship at the churches of vengeful preachers. Obama marries a woman who makes hundreds of thousands a year but doesn't think she should have to pay back her student loans. I see racism; I see Obama.

Oh, I've listened to Rush, and I don't read Media Matters. I call Rush an addict because he is. I call him hateful because he is. I bring him up because YOU have defended him here in the past. I don't recall saying anything pro OR con about any of the Dems you listed here (aside from the president and his spouse) except to note that IME Kerry has a jerky staff. Broad brush much? Do you understand that there more than two ways to view any given issue, and that some of us might live outside of your little RedState paradigm?

I am judging you on the content of your character. I am finding you, over and over, to be some sort of bizarre Freeper magpie, picking up shiny bits of rants here and there and dumping them en masse anytime one of us contradicts the edicts from your Maximum Leader. I don't actually think you understand half of what you say here.

For example, might I suggest that you read at least a bit of Marx before using the term "Marxism" here again? You are making a fool out of yourself.

I had used chickens coming home to roost to the defection of Christian moralists to the Democratic party. You exhibit such great variety in finding ways to play dumb in an effort to divert attention from your lack of response to critical points -- it's rather a pity you couldn't turn that energy toward providing substance for your points.

There's not a seriously literate person prepared to actually parse the full text of his comments who thinks Wright said what the right says he said. But, hey, why read it when you can just turn on FOX and let them tell you what to think. Not to mention, that anyone who thinks 9-11 was anything other than a surprisingly late introduction of the middle-east-meddling United States to the world of terrorism that just about every other nation had, by then, long-since been forced to face is historically ignorant. This is not to express an opinion on our "meddling:" it's merely to observe that people with individual agency and weaponry and intellects every bit the equal of ours might, sooner or later, bristle at having their affairs managed from without. Twice in our history has a serious effort at that been made here: in one, we rocked the British; and in the second, we blacklisted scores of beloved celebrities. Lashing out at perceived invaders or oppressors, physical or cultural, is hardly something we should fail to appreciate.

The New Testament speaks very clearly, though, to what to do when you are attacked like that, and it doesn't say a damned thing about starving and killing civilians in an effort to flatten a country with no demonstrable connection to the original injury.

Even if the ridiculous account, promulgated by more than a few of your side's core personages, that 9-11 was god punishing us for the gays or for not tithing enough or what-effing-ever were right, it would still be shocking that it took God so long to get around to it. After all, Stonewall and Roe v. Wade were a while ago, no?

As for Rush, don't you owe him an apology? Or at least some sort of offering? Don't all Republicans, now that they've made it so abundantly clear that into the darkness but for the grace of Rush go they?

At least we don't let Janeane Garafolo run the party.

Oh, and as for Clinton and taxes, despite the fact that you aren't really talking about taxes, and despite the fact that you're taking one small point, distorting it far outside the range of what it actually does (it graduatedly reduces the amount you can deduct for charity as your contributions go up, the inverse corollary of a progressive income tax, but then you knew that anyway), let's drop Clinton. Let's look at the post-war period, shall we? Three decades of average 4% growth -- in modern American history as good as it gets, bar none. Marginal tax rates at the highest level during that period ran between 71% and 90%, and somehow entrepreneurs kept going to work, kept dreaming things up, and kept getting rich. Care to explain how a marginal rate of 40% at the upper level is turning us into USSR? Because our post-war peers knew something about the USSR, and didn't seem to mind the higher rates, nor did it do anything in particular to derail the economy or prohibit innovation.

Jacflash,
Way not to respond to anything I said. Might I mention as you claim I do not understand what I post that you typically post "just trust me" comments. When I asked you to explain your objections to my points on the Fannie Mae mortgage crisis, you didn't, just called me an idiot who didn't understand. When I called you on your position in the obesity thread, you said you'd read a book, that I should read it to. I should just trust the book you read.

What I do here is explain my points, and I get one linered by Binky and I get insulted by you, but I don't get much argument outside of Moon and Armand when he's in the mood. I keep up with the research on people with impulse control problems because that's who I work with, and I don't like taking people's word when it comes to things even they often do not understand. I can't imagine going into session with an alcoholic or gambler and saying, "Okay, I trust that you have a handle on this."

I not only have to know what's coming next for them, I have to be able to explain to them in language they understand what they can (and should) do differently, and I have to match that explanation to their experience. My sense is Moon does the same thing with his work. Why would we blog at all if we were just going to trust what someone else tells us? Blogging is not just identifying with someone when we agree, it's also making a distinction when we disagree.

Your position is not unknown in the Left, it is common. Gore continues to say we should just trust him, but he won't even debate an expert on climate. Obama disagrees vehemently with Rush, but he won't debate him. Why not? If he were as good a speaker and as right as you all think he is most of the time, he would, because he'd believe he would win. But he won't, just like he didn't want to debate McCain. When people don't want to talk except when they're on a teleprompter, I think they're hiding something.

Unlike you, apparently, I don't think a person flipping a genetic switch on makes them a bad person for the rest of their life. Maybe you think it's unforgivable, and that's between you and your higher power, but I believe in redemption, that human beings are not so simply black and white that one bad deed condemns them to hell.

I believe as Rush does that he should face consequences when he breaks the law. I believe as Rush does that it is wrong to live as an addict. But if the majority of this country felt as you did, there would be no confidentiality laws because we would just assume people would do it again, so it would be best to warn other people.

I could understand if you said he was a liar like Obama who promised no lobbyists, no earmarks, no increased taxes on the poor, promising to rely on public funding for his campaign, breaking all these, then I understand not listening to him because who can believe a word he says?

You call Rush hateful, but who is it that believes the rich are not worthy of their riches? Apparently it is Obama who is filled with hate. Who is it that believes Americans are not smart enough to know what kind of cars they should drive? Apparently it is Obama who has contempt for other people's intelligence. Who is it that believes Americans should not be able to give freely to an charity they value? Apparently it is Obama who despises what other people value.

You listen to Obama, but not to Rush, because Rush hates contempt for the exceptional. Rush hates the Procrustean sword that says all must be made to be alike. Rush hates the way Obama wants to remake the universe that enslaves the successful. Rush hates it when government steals people's life, liberty, and property; I hate these things too. To hate the opposing forces of success and failure is to hate humanity itself, for some days each of us will be successful, and others each of us will fail, and so learn better how to become successful.

Does that make me rigid, to hate failure and love success? To hate ignorance and love appreciation? To want these things I love for myself and all those around me makes me hateful? Obama's agenda seeks to end discrimination between success and failure by lifting up failures and calling them successes. That's putting lipstick on a pig. The pig knows it's still a pig, it's only the idiot applying lipstick that's ignorant to the difference.

Moon,
I hate to keep doing this to you, but I'll catch up on your comment later.

I think that's the first time I've ever heard soft violins over a tired right-wing diatribe about how some "left" hates a whole bunch of things the real left in fact does not, in fact, hate, and how the "right" loves a whole bunch of things that its policies scream it doesn't like at all.

Poor Morris. He loves everyone, really he does. It's just a tough sort of love for everyone who hasn't already made it (the folks who have can do no wrong, should be helped out with generous perqs that they've, you know, earned, because this time they're gonna give back voluntarily, really; the folks who have not, on the other hand, they'll only love us more in the long run if we tilt the playing field against them).

Truly, Morris, you embody Lakoff's account of the jackbooted paternal leadership model at the heart of conservatism to a T. And I'd almost be willing to engage it as legitimate if it didn't tend to involve granting a pass to the people who are already privileged and, in practice, blatantly confound anything approaching the equality of opportunity the Framers sought to ensure.

"And I'd almost be willing to engage it as legitimate if it didn't tend to involve granting a pass to the people who are already privileged and, in practice, blatantly confound anything approaching the equality of opportunity the Framers sought to ensure."

Here you illustrate the Left's foundation, an enduring resentment against those who succeed. You won't even think about it because it would deprive you of your anger.

Wrong. My enduring resentment is of fools who think the successful have succeeded entirely on their own merit and without an entire culture, with all its stratifications, upon which to stand. It's Darwinism as self-fulfilling and self-serving fallacy -- the strongest succeed, and I've succeeded, threfore I must be superior and I don't owe anyone anything -- and it's wrong on any reasonably just account.

Morris, what in the freakin' world are you talking about? Why on Earth do you think the president of the United States should sit down with every blowhard who wants to debate him? The president of the United States has things to do. I'm all for a responsive president who talks to the press - sadly something we saw to little of under Bush II, or for that matter under the last few years of Clinton, but why that means he should be helping Rush's ratings instead of working on solving our health care problems or our complicated relations with Russia and Pakistan is just wacky. Sure Rush and his producers will whine about this, but not debating him doesn't suggest anything beyond the fact that the president of the United States has better things to do. And I think the American people, who likes Obama waaaaaaaaaaaaay more than they like Rush, is fine with that.

And as to this: "Rush hates the way Obama wants to remake the universe that enslaves the successful. Rush hates it when government steals people's life, liberty, and property; I hate these things too." Again, what the hell are you talking about? First, Rush is more than fine with taking way the liberty of, say, drug users who aren't him, and I'm presuming women (I don't know his views on reproductive freedom - but I'm guessing he's part of the forced pregnancy brigade). Secondly - what exactly is Obama stealing? Third, Obama wants to raise the top income-tax rate but he's going to raise it to a point faaaaar less than it was under the bulk of the Reagan presidency. Was Reagan a Marxist who hated the successful too? I mean clearly Ike must have been, but what about St. Reagan?

Moon, perhaps you were looking for this?

"Wrong. My enduring resentment is of fools who think the successful have succeeded entirely on their own merit and without an entire culture, with all its stratifications, upon which to stand. It's Darwinism as self-fulfilling and self-serving fallacy -- the strongest succeed, and I've succeeded, threfore I must be superior and I don't owe anyone anything -- and it's wrong on any reasonably just account."

You are arrogant in your assumptions about what other people think, eh? You reckon that every successful person is a sociopath by virtue of their being successful. So you want to wipe out the successful class, bring them down to show them who's boss? You lefties wonder why I call you Marxists.

But your last quip, "it's wrong on any reasonably just account" is laughable on its face. Justice presumes everyone gets what they deserve. In a world of individuals, there would have to be differences in outcomes because people are not all the same, but your critique would call such a world unjust because on its face any world with different outcomes is to you proof of its injustice. Further, any parent who wanted to give their child a good education or a good standard of living if they could afford it would be a criminal perpetuating injustice.

There could be no just world that led to different outcomes by your standard, so there can be no individuality. Your attack presumes disbelief that individuality is by design, despite the fact that without individuality, we would not recognize any experience as being any different from any other experience; so the necessary condition for experience is your evidence of injustice that you seek to remedy.

I'll get to the rest of you later.

"but why that means he should be helping Rush's ratings instead of working on solving our health care problems or our complicated relations with Russia and Pakistan is just wacky."

I'd settle for him working on the banking credit crisis, because that's all this recession ever had to be. But when he uses his bully puppet to utter "depression" what is it, a hundred times, people stop buying because they're afraid of losing their jobs; without goods being bought, stores lay people off so people do lose their jobs. He spent a good two months after his election talking down the economy, so unemployment skyrocketed and the stock market's cut in half. But this never had to be more than a banking credit crisis, until he made it so. He wants to take credit for 25 jobs he saved, how about taking credit for losing a trillion dollars from the stock market?

"...but not debating him doesn't suggest anything beyond the fact that the president of the United States has better things to do."

What's he doing? His first priority was closing gitmo, then a green infrastructure bill. He's got a treasury secretary with 17 vacant deputy positions, and instead of telling the Senate to fill those as their first priority, he tells them to draft a green infrastructure bill, and now to worry about health care, not fixing the credit crisis. He's more worried about scuffling with lawyers so he can keep his secret, unaccountable blackberry than saving our economy, and yet he still takes the time to bad mouth Rush.

Why is it that it took him a week to worry about the due process rights of terrorists but a month and a half to worry about the right to life of people with diseases that could be cured by stem cell research? Who's setting his priorities?

Wow. Wow. Did you really say "forced pregnancy brigade?" Actually, I think Rush is part of the brigade that wants to put octomoms on depo so we don't have to pay them for making babies.

Obama didn't go out and work to create a product or render a service, but he's taking the value from others' products and services. Given just the interest on his projected trillion dollar deficitS, he's taking not just the value of people's investment in their work, he's taking their children's as well. Who pays for his stimulus? He wasn't elected to run up almost two trillion dollars in deficit just his first year, he never said anything about that in his campaign. He lied in order to take what doesn't belong to him, so he's a thief.

He's stealing the value of several weeks or months of work. If he wanted to really stimulate the economy, he'd give everybody refunds of up to about $2,000 depending on what they paid in, give it on a credit card that expires at the end of the year so nobody can save it, but he wants to spend other people's money how he sees fit.

"Third, Obama wants to raise the top income-tax rate but he's going to raise it to a point faaaaar less than it was under the bulk of the Reagan presidency."

You enjoy having me disect what you can figure out for yourself? Reagan lowered the rate, that's why it wasn't so high under all of his presidency. If you want to know why he didn't do it sooner, ask Tip O'Neil, leader of the Democrat Congress that supported lowering the income tax rate during Reagan's Presidency.

The administration is working on the economy, including the banking crisis - this is the work that has you so worked up, calling them Marxists, even has he goes far too far out of his way to propose plans that smell of (cue the spooky music) "nationalization".

And yes, I said "forced pregnancy brigade" - what of? Rush and company want to force women to be broodmares, which is certainly closer to forcing slavery than anything the Obama White House has proposed. That Rush isn't always on the side of liberty - who knew!

He didn't create a service? Ummm, what do you call the stimulus bill? That'll pump masses of money into the economy and save/create masses of jobs.

And so every government that passes taxes is thieves, eh? Well, better lock up every government in the Western world then.

And what did happen in the 82 recession? Reagan and Tip lowered the top rate - but only to 50% (waaaaay over anything Obama is proposing) and he also RAISED other taxes. Again, growth resulted. And actually Reagan raised a number of taxes throughout his presidency. So ... that makes him a thief? And you'd prefer it if Obama took the top rate back to Reagan's 50%?

And yes, Obama is always working on environmental issues as well as the economy. The polls show that most Americans prioritize both over pleasing Rush.