posted
I'm reading this biography on FDR, and it reminds me of what one would say of Obama,
quote:"The art of carrying water on both shoulders is highly developed in American politics, and Mr. Roosevelt has learned it," Lippmann declared. Roosevelt's feat, Lippmann explained, consisted in attacking and defending the status quo simultaneously, declaring the need for fundamental reforms even while disclaiming any such intent. Lippmann had to admire Roosevelt's ingenuity, but he was at a loss as to what the governor actually stood for. "It is not easy to say with certainty whether his left-wing or right-wing supporters are the more deceived. The reason is that Mr. Roosevelt is a highly impressionable person, without a firm grasp of public affairs and without very strong convictions." Certain of Roosevelt's supporters called him a dangerous enemy of those malign forces that currently afflicted America; Lippmann dismissed such descriptions as laughable. "Franklin D. Roosevelt is an amiable man with many philanthropic influences, but he is not the dangerous enemy of anything. The notion, which seems to prevail in the West and South, that Wall Street fears him, is preposterous...Wall Street does not like some of his supporters. Wall Street does not like his vagueness and the uncertainty as to what he does think, but if any Western Progressive thinks the Governor has challenged directly or indirectly the wealth concentrated in New York City, he is mightily mistaken." Roosevelt's record as governor revealed a penchant for brave words rather than bold deeds. "I doubt whether anyone can point to a single act of his which involved any political risk." The keepers of the status quo needn't worry about Roosevelt. "Franklin D. Roosevelt is no crusader. He is no tribune of the people. He is no enemy of entrenched privilege. He is a pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be President."
Lippmann wrote this of FDR before Roosevelt pledged his new deal for American at the DNC. Roosevelt ended up following through, aggressively adjusting public sensibilities concerning the role of government and the economy.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
So your saying that Obama will follow through with his plans for change then? That would appear to be the implication.
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quote:So your saying that Obama will follow through with his plans for change then?
Roosevelt's new deal turned the United States into a planned economy with a myriad of safety nets and an eye towards increasing the purchasing power of the poor.
Obama wants middle class tax cuts, to move troops from one part of the middle east to another, for us to get serious about dabbling our feet into alternative energy, and to throw money at NCLB. That's not a plan for change. That's thinking about a plan for change, or at best, helping more people participate in the same. There isn't a profound conversation about the fundamental inadequacies in Bush's current approach to government. Obama's change would swap out a few parts, and put a new coat of paint on the same.
quote:So your saying that Obama will follow through with his plans for change then?
Roosevelt's new deal turned the United States into a planned economy with a myriad of safety nets and an eye towards increasing the purchasing power of the poor.
Obama wants middle class tax cuts, to move troops from one part of the middle east to another, for us to get serious about dabbling our feet into alternative energy, and to throw money at NCLB. That's not a plan for change. That's thinking about a plan for change, or at best, helping more people participate in the same. There isn't a profound conversation about the fundamental inadequacies in Bush's current approach to government. Obama's change would swap out a few parts, and put a new coat of paint on the same.
First of all, his alternative energy initiatives, if he can make it happen, would bring real change.
He also wants national health care. Something I'm not sure I agree with, but definitely different.
As for comparing FDR to Obama...that's not fair. FDR was an idolized 4-term president with 60 years of history to help put what he said and did into perspective. Obama is a candidate trying to earn our trust and a chance to make change. Only history can judge if he follows through on that promise...assuming we give him that chance.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
I understand why people don't want to vote for Obama, what I don't understand is how people can support McCain. With Palin's fundamental belief in oil, even if she has a problem with some aspects of the oil industry, and the talk of drilling and scattershot approach to alternative energy, I can't imagine they'll get serious about any one alternative plan. He is going to try to cut the budget, that's a given, but military spending isn't going to be touched, which means slying cutting domestic programs.
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posted
Or an even more massive deficit than we're already running, and a vastly increased national debt.
Neither of them is going to be able to have everything they are promising. Prioritizing is going to be key. I already know that the budget isn't going to be balanced, likely not even by the end of their first terms, regardless of what they are promising. There's just too many things demanding funds and not enough funds for them.
Considering the MASSIVE increase in the deficit that was just reported, the next guy will have a HUGE problem on his desk as soon as he gets there. But a lot of our problems are going to require some sort of money to fix them. Tough choices are ahead. I see McCain and the Dems getting together on a cap and trade bill and probably some alternative energy stuff. Dems will hammer it home and McCain would likely sign it, but I'm curious as to what the Dems and Obama would come up with. Republicans had total control for six years and spending exploded, and seemingly we got nothing for it. I'm curious as to what the Dems would come up with.
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quote:I'm curious as to what the Dems would come up with.
Even with both houses, I'm curious to see if the Democrats know how to take initiative and get legislation through with a Republican President.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Remember how earlier I said that I wouldn't be terribly unhappy if either candidate won? I favored Obama, but respected McCain.
Never mind.
McCain's latest ad follows some McCain and Obama back-and-forths on education, and suggests that Obama wants to teach kindergartners how to have sex. Here's the ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nagb3exhNvQ
Here's the script:
quote:Education Week says Obama “hasn’t made a significant mark on education.”That he’s “elusive” on accountability.“A staunch defender on the existing public school monopoly.”
Obama’s one accomplishment: Legislation to teach comprehensive sex education – to kindergarteners.
Learning about sex before learning to read?
Barack Obama: wrong for education, wrong for your family.
McCain: I’m John McCain, and I approve this message."
Alan Keyes tried to use this tactic in the 2004 Senate race. It was made clear that the lesson plan was age-appropriate, not an explicit how-to as this ad strongly implies. At that age, the course was intended to teach children how to recognize and avoid child molesters.
That's it, I'm done defending McCain and I absolutely do not want him in office. Is Obama attacking McCain's policies? Hell, yes. Are some of his claims against McCain biased or worded to be half-truths? Yes. I think he's done better than average, but he's still a politician.
But John McCain has embraced far-right religious leaders he previously shunned, chosen an unprepared running mate solely to win the election, flipped on several opinions to match the opinions of the base, and has accepted the Rovian style of political advertising devoted to winning no matter what the cost to personal integrity or the country. He has become what he spent the last few decades fighting against. I no longer believe John McCain to be an honorable man, no matter how many years he was in a box.
Obama's camp responded:
quote:"It is shameful and downright perverse for the McCain campaign to use a bill that was written to protect young children from sexual predators as a recycled and discredited political attack against a father of two young girls – a position that his friend Mitt Romney also holds," Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement. "Last week, John McCain told Time magazine he couldn’t define what honor was. Now we know why."
quote:I see McCain and the Dems getting together on a cap and trade bill and probably some alternative energy stuff. Dems will hammer it home and McCain would likely sign it, but I'm curious as to what the Dems and Obama would come up with.
Actually, I would bet that the deal with both houses of congress and McCain would be that he gets to do what he wants in Iraq and they get to do all the other stuff. In that case, passing bills will not be a problem (and the Republicans cannot filibuster or face the same threat they gave to the Democrats), but Iraq and foreign policy will.
Of course, that assumes Obama loses, and though there is alot of election to go, it is 50/50 whether he wins.
Posts: 457 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
Well, Chris, this came out of Obama's mouth:
quote:“John McCain says he’s about change too, and so I guess his whole angle is, ‘Watch out George Bush – except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy and Karl Rove-style politics – we’re really gonna shake things up in Washington,’” Obama said.
“That’s not change. That’s just calling something the same thing something different. You know you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. You know you can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change, it’s still going to stink after eight years. We’ve had enough of the same old thing.”
I'm pretty sure he called McCain old and Palin a pig.
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quote:I'm pretty sure he called McCain old and Palin a pig.
If you really believe that, I question your reading comprehension. The lipstick comment has NOTHING to do with Palin. It's talking about trying to dress up something to disguise it's true nature. The next comment about the old fish just reinforces the purpose of the first metaphor.
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EDIT: What Xavier said.
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
Even if it was, is it anywhere NEAR the same level of slander and misinformation the Republicans are throwing back?
I cannot understand the logic behind deficit spending, SURE spend money to make money, I can understand how IN THEORY trying to make the economy grow faster in relation to the debt may be plausible under careful control and discipline, but with American politics its like playing Russian roulette with a few extra bullets just to make it interestin'
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posted
OK, give me an analogy about dressing something tired and worn to look superficially bright and new without using such terms.
But please note that he addressed his comments about McCain's policies. He did not address McCain's character. He did not suggest that McCain wants to pervert children.
I expect politicians to joke about their opponents, to paint them in a bad light, to describe their achievements and aspirations in ways that make them seem to be less than sterling. I have no respect for any politicians who rely on fear and sleazy innuendo to get votes.
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quote:Enough is enough. The McCain campaign’s attack tonight is a pathetic attempt to play the gender card about the use of a common analogy – the same analogy that Senator McCain himself used about Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s health care plan just last year. This phony lecture on gender sensitivity is the height of cynicism and lays bare the increasingly dishonorable campaign John McCain has chosen to run.
quote:I'm pretty sure he called McCain old and Palin a pig.
If you really believe that, I question your reading comprehension. The lipstick comment has NOTHING to do with Palin. It's talking about trying to dress up something to disguise it's true nature. The next comment about the old fish just reinforces the purpose of the first metaphor.
I would give the benefit of the doubt on that one and assume he's kidding. If he's not, then what's there to respond to anyway?
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I'm staying away from the back and forth crap until the first debate rolls around. I'll still check polls or what not to see how the Senate races are going, but this is just plain childish. Two more months of this and NO ONE will want to vote.
When one or both of them decides to be grown ups, I'll start paying attention again.
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quote:I'm curious as to what the Dems would come up with.
Even with both houses, I'm curious to see if the Democrats know how to take initiative and get legislation through with a Republican President.
If this gentleman is correct, the GOP hung up a renewable energy tax credit bill largely just so the Democrats couldn't claim a victory on the issue. (around 21:54)
It takes more than just initiative.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Make that McCain torpedoed renewable energy. The Senate votes were 59for&40against (cloture of debate) with McCain being the absentee.
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posted
Obama was exactly saying that lipstick on pig is a reference to Palin, and the old fish is McCain. Palin just used a lipstick comment in her acceptance speech so Obama knew exactly what he was saying and exactly how it would be taken. Is he really that dumb or did the teleprompter make him say it? If McCain made a comment about shining a light of truth into the blackness I am sure the Democrats would erupt into huge charges of racism.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Obama has used the phrase several times before. So has McCain. So have many other politicians and political commentators. Google "lipstick on a pig -palin" and see how many hits you get.
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posted
Yes McCain used it in reference to Hillary Clinton's healthcare plan and the press skewered him for it. Obama did not just make one analogy, he made two. One aimed at Palin and one aimed at McCain. He cannot be so dumb as to think this would not perceived as personal slams against them.
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posted
But the thing is, it will bring up McCain using it against Hillary. So, it makes McCain look like a hypocrit and Obama still has plausible deniability.
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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posted
Lipstick on a pig is a pretty classical phrase. It's an insulting phrase, but it's not actually meant to imply that the thing being referenced is literally a pig; it just means that the thing being referenced is not made more fundamentally suitable for a given task by being given makeup.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I have no issue at all with people saying McCain said it with respect to Hillary Clinton. It was not right for him to say and McCain did immediately apologize for his remark. Obama should not get a 'pass' for trying to appear tough and letting his supporters defend his actions under the guise of plausible denialbility. McCain is not a 'hypocrit' as he did not defend his remark, he apologized.
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posted
People keep glossing over that Obama made two remarks, one for Palin and one for McCain. He didn't make just the lipstick remark.
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posted
It wasn't one remark for Palin and one for McCain. It was two separate metaphors for THE SAME THING.
Both were metaphors for "That’s just calling something the same thing something different." It's even in the quoted comment!
Either those who are saying the line is about Palin are stupid, or they are dishonest. This is basic junior high English comprehension.
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quote:Reporters quickly unearthed evidence that Obama had said the same thing about Iraq policy, pointing to a reference the Illinois senator made last year: "George Bush has given a mission to General Petraeus, and he has done his best to try to figure out how to put lipstick on a pig."
Later, it turned out that McCain himself used the phrase more than once, including last year, when he was talking about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's 1990s health care plan.
He said last October, "I think they put some lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig."
Speaking about opponents of President Bush's Iraq strategy last year, McCain criticized their reasoning.
"It gets down to whether you support what is being done in this new strategy or you don't," McCain said. "You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig, in my view."
The phrase is a common one, so much so that Torie Clarke, the former Pentagon communications director in the Bush administration -- a Republican and a woman -- named her book "Lipstick on a Pig: Winning in a No-Spin Era by Someone Who Knows the Game."
posted
The McCain campaign makes me angrier every day with their new attacks. They lie about Obama raising taxes. They lie about Palin's political record. Now they are just completely making stuff up in an attempt to smear Obama. There's absolutely no basis for the claim that Obama's comment was sexist. He used a common idiom that has no relation to gender.
posted
I think 1) the metaphors were relatively innocuous but 2) they were specifically chosen for the subtext.
Obama can pretend he didn't mean anything by it, but I can't imagine he didn't realize how it would be taken. Just like I think McCain knew exactly what fears he was playing on when he put Obama in a commercial juxtaposed with Brittney Spears and Paris Hilton (rather than, say two white male celebrities).
I find both the practice of sliming via subtext and the umbrage taking for sliming via subtext rather jejune.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Look, I believe he didn't realize what he was saying--believed it since I first saw the clip yesterday.
But I have two questions:
1. Do you think the audience, when they cheered, thought that he meant it as an attack on Palin?
2. Do you think this was a gaffe that, had he thought about it, he would have realized would inevitably lead to this reaction?
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posted
1. Yes they did. 2. I think the Obama people planned this out so Obama could get away with the comments and be able to say "The common analogy is “the same analogy that Senator McCain himself used about Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s health care plan just last year. This phony lecture on gender sensitivity is the height of cynicism and lays bare the increasingly dishonorable campaign John McCain has chosen to run,” said Obama campaign senior adviser Anita Dunn." This way Obama can make his personal attacks and not have to answer for it yet at the same time be able to say "No I didn't do it, he is doing it". I think the Obama camp has learned how to handle the press quite well
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Are we seriously caught up on the meaning of a metaphor here? Wow, I'm sure about a million similar metaphors showed up on every standardized test I ever took. The meaning is pretty, well, standard.
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posted
If you scroll down in the link that Threads posted, Sen. Obama is criticized for his sexist imagery for using the word "periodically" with regard to Sen. Clinton.
That is just hilarious. Or really sad.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
The Washington Post has a pretty good article on the reinforcement of political lies: Palin being against the bridge to nowhere, Obama bringing up McCain's 100-year comment, McCain claiming Obama will raise taxes for all Americans, Obama quoting McCain's "economy is pretty good" comment even though McCain has talked about the troubled economy since, etc. And now McCain's accusation that Obama wants to teach little kids about sex.
Say it loud and long enough and no matter how false it is or easily disproven, people will remember it and internalize it as part of their opinion of the candidate.
Were the same people running Obama's campaign that are running McCain's, we'd be seeing ads that asked why McCain wanted to help child molesters, or why he and Palin hated the Constitution (re: Palin's reference to prisoner rights in her acceptance speech), or why Palin is against comprehensive sex ed when her daughter could plainly have used it. None of those are fair or accurate, but they would accomplish just what the McCain ads are intended to do: rile up the base both with the attacks and against the media outrage that would erupt from them. And some poor "uneducated voter" would believe them.
However, Obama's camp continues to run against policies and not personalities, and I am very afraid the attack ads will ultimately win the election.
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quote:Originally posted by docmagik: 1. Do you think the audience, when they cheered, thought that he meant it as an attack on Palin?
I don't know since I didn't watch the whole speech and can't really judge the atmosphere in the room at the time. My problem is that I don't understand how it's sexist even if it were an attack on Palin. Instead of a pitbull he called her a pig? I don't get it. It doesn't seem to make sense if it is interpreted as a sexist remark.
Posts: 1327 | Registered: Aug 2007
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posted
Tell you what: no more metaphors in political speeches. No more claims about the opponent at all, in fact. Not about his or her policies, personality, motivations, history, nothing. You can say what you'll do and how you'll do it, you can talk about your own life and career, and that's it. The only time you can mention your opponent is during the debates, when your opponent is right there to rebut. Otherwise, the opponent is completely off-limits. Run that way, and see how it works.
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quote:1. Do you think the audience, when they cheered, thought that he meant it as an attack on Palin?
A personal attack on Palin? No, I don't think so. I think -- or at least, I hope -- the American electorate knows what a metaphor is when it hears one.
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quote: A personal attack on Palin? No, I don't think so. I think -- or at least, I hope -- the American electorate knows what a metaphor is when it hears one.
They did believe he was speaking about Palin specifically because of Palin's own self depracting joke about a hockey Mom and a pitbull
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quote:My kids have gone to the University of Chicago Lab School, a private school, because I taught there, and it was five minutes from our house. So it was the best option for our kids.
But the fact is that there are some terrific public schools in Chicago that they could be going to. The problem is, is that we don't have good schools, public schools, for all kids.
A U.S. senator can get his kid into a terrific public school. That's not the question. The question is whether or not ordinary parents, who can't work the system, are able to get their kids into a decent school, and that's what I need to fight for and will fight for as president of the United States.
quote: A personal attack on Palin? No, I don't think so. I think -- or at least, I hope -- the American electorate knows what a metaphor is when it hears one.
They did believe he was speaking about Palin specifically because of Palin's own self depracting joke about a hockey Mom and a pitbull
Huh? A pit bull isn't a pig. I don't see how that follows at all, let alone follows clearly enough that you can be so certain of the thoughts of everyone in the audience.
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