quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Campaign. The Obama campaign is him running for president. The administration is him running the country. He doesn't use his administration to run his campaign- at least, the two are not the sme entity.
Heh.
Heh. Heh. There are rather defined boundaries between the two organizations. Hehing aside.
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I agree that his campaign and his administration are two different groups. Are you familiar enough with the staff on each to know there is no overlap? I'm certainly not.
More importantly, though, I think he does use his office to campaign. (That's campaign the verb, not campaign the noun.)
quote: I agree that his campaign and his administration are two different groups. Are you familiar enough with the staff on each to know there is no overlap?
Of course there is overlap, but it's still a very important distinction and using the terms interchangeably is nonsensical. It's just as incorrect to credit the administration for an attack on Romney made by the campaign as it is to credit the campaign for passing healthcare reform.
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quote: I agree that his campaign and his administration are two different groups. Are you familiar enough with the staff on each to know there is no overlap?
Of course there is overlap, but it's still a very important distinction and using the terms interchangeably is nonsensical. It's just as incorrect to credit the administration for an attack on Romney made by the campaign as it is to credit the campaign for passing healthcare reform.
But the campaign would happily take credit for passing healthcare reform, right? That's what campaigns do.
Look, I understand the distinction, but I'm not sure why it's as important as you think it is.
In context of this thread, Geraine said the Obama "administration" ran with something, when in reality it was the Obama campaign. Okay. And it's fine to correct his error, but to pretend the error is anything but trivial is bizarre.
At the end of the day, Obama ran with it. He has to own the actions of both his administration and his campaign. Does the substance of what Geraine said meaningfully change with the correction?
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quote:But the campaign would happily take credit for passing healthcare reform, right? That's what campaigns do.
I think you are confused. The Campaign would happily give credit to the Obama administration for passing health care reform. Campaigns don't pass laws, they don't draft laws, they don't lobby for laws. What a Presidential Campaign does is persuade people to vote for their candidate.
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posted
Yes, I understand that campaigns don't, themselves, draft laws. The campaign isn't the same entity as the administration. So in that sense the campaign doesn't take credit for anything. But Obama, via his campaign, can take credit for the actions of his administration. The same way that, 4 years ago, he made promises, via his campaign, of what his administration was going to do.
Because, again, Obama is responsible for the actions of both of them.
What's the point of harping on this distinction? The only explanation I can think of is to try to relieve Obama of culpability for the actions of his campaign. Is that the reason?
If so, it seems hypocritical given that these same people would not just hold Romney responsible for the actions of his campaign (rightly!), but also hold him responsible for the actions of PACs and SuperPACs that support him, etc.
If not, then why? Just a minor correction of Geraine's trivial misstep? Once again: the correction made no substantive change to Geraine's actual statement.
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quote:What's the point of harping on this distinction? The only explanation I can think of is to try to relieve Obama of culpability for the actions of his campaign. Is that the reason?
Alternate explanation: campaign law sets pretty specific boundaries between administration and campaign. Casually conflating the two entities could be interpreted as implying some sort of impropriety by Obama (as incumbent). Insisting on the distinction seemed to be a reaction to that implication, whether or not it was intended.
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: [What's the point of harping on this distinction? [/QB]
*You* are harping on the distinction. I made the distinction once, which was sufficient. You wanted to argue about it, because you didn't like the distinction being (fairly) made. So, if you're asking what the point is of people answering your dismissal of a point you admitted was fair to make in the first place (while you passive-aggressively imply that actually the distinction is meaningless anyway), it's that your dismissal of the point is objectionable. You just can't deal with the idea that you can reject someone else's view of things, and then *have them answer for themselves* without calling that "harping" on the point. Maybe you should just let people get their points across and not worry about who's "harping" on what.
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quote:What's the point of harping on this distinction? The only explanation I can think of is to try to relieve Obama of culpability for the actions of his campaign. Is that the reason?
Alternate explanation: campaign law sets pretty specific boundaries between administration and campaign. Casually conflating the two entities could be interpreted as implying some sort of impropriety by Obama (as incumbent). Insisting on the distinction seemed to be a reaction to that implication, whether or not it was intended.
It is as such.
Wait for the "who me?" Reaction, as if being utterly careless with words is permissible, as long as you can plausibly deny intent.
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I spent a few minutes trying to find a humorous link that could imply that I did, in fact, understand you weren't referring to me and was thanking you ironically. I found this instead, which is better than anything I could have hoped despite not being terribly relevant, so there you go. Enjoy!
quote:Originally posted by Juxtapose:
quote:What's the point of harping on this distinction? The only explanation I can think of is to try to relieve Obama of culpability for the actions of his campaign. Is that the reason?
Alternate explanation: campaign law sets pretty specific boundaries between administration and campaign. Casually conflating the two entities could be interpreted as implying some sort of impropriety by Obama (as incumbent). Insisting on the distinction seemed to be a reaction to that implication, whether or not it was intended.
Yeah, that explanation makes a lot of sense. Thanks, Juxtapose.
Although, again, in context I think one would be hard pressed to argue that Geraine was trying to imply that.
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Wait for the "who me?" Reaction, as if being utterly careless with words is permissible, as long as you can plausibly deny intent.
From who? I'm not the one who said it, and Geraine hasn't been involved since you corrected him. Or did you get confused and think we were the same person?
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posted
A student just called to ask how he could "retroactively drop" a class. I (barely) refrained from asking him if he were related to Gov. Romney.
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I got sucked into work and expected romneytalk to sort of descend to that droll, non-schadenfreude-producing levels of meh. But the sinister cackling LIE-beral (or whatever) in me got to finally kick up gnews and see that romney had failure cascaded through the bain stuff out to Britain to uh
fail really hard at an international relations trip.
like really hard
bad enough that this may be the first time i think a dailymail linkup is ultimately the most appropriate
posted
I love how he distances himself from the "Anglo-Saxon heritage" comment and then turns around and declares himself "a guy from Great Britain".
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posted
The severity of Romney's "gaffes" are overblown, especially the one relating to the Olympics. A few months ago London wasn't ready, security-wise, so it's valid to scrutinize their current level of preparedness. Having been involved with the winter Olympics in 2002, Romney has special knowledge concerning various risks and aspects of security. Cameron's thin-skinned response shows he can't differentiate between criticism and insult.
Apparently their level of preparedness approaches that of precognition. The Korean peninsula must have recently been reunified under the South Korean flag and somehow they had already prepared the appropriate flag for when the (former) North Korean athletes took to the soccer field last Wednesday. Amazing.
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quote: A few months ago London wasn't ready, security-wise, so it's valid to scrutinize their current level of preparedness.
A week ago, there were doubts about London's preparedness, security-wise. It's not that Romney was actually wrong about that stuff. It's just that he probably shouldn't have said it while he was a guest of honour in the city and the British government was rolling out the red carpet for him.
It's the equivalent of spitting your food into your napkin at a dinner party and then giving tips to your host on how the meal could have been prepared to your liking. It's simply not diplomatic, and shows a shocking lack of judgement.
The multitude of other gaffes... forgetting the name of the politician he was talking to, mentioning top-level spies by name, talking about seeing the 'backside' of 10 Downing Street (which sounded like he was talking about the Prime Minister's bottom)... that was just icing on this particularly weird cake.
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posted
Remember: foreign policy and interactions were important when *Obama* was running, not Romney. Get with the program!
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Remember: foreign policy and interactions were important when *Obama* was running, not Romney. Get with the program!
British reaction has been priceless.
But I'm sure the right-wing media will be talking about how Godless commies in Britain sang a paean to their healthcare system during the Olympics opening ceremony instead of Romney's faux pas.
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quote:Romney said that the culture of freedom in the US was the single most important factor in America's economic success.
"Like the United States, the state of Israel has a culture that is based upon individual freedom and the rule of law. It is a democracy that has embraced liberty, both political and economic," he said.
But he also gave a lot of credit to israel's healthcare system and admired how strong government controls keep costs low and care effective and uh well whatever!
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: But he also gave a lot of credit to israel's healthcare system and admired how strong government controls keep costs low and care effective and uh well whatever!
That's a misrepresentation of what Romney said. He admired the low cost of Israeli healthcare but didn't credit the low cost to government controls.
And I wouldn't call it incredibly effective. According to the Boston Globe:
quote:There are some out-of-pocket payments, such as visits to specialists and pharmaceuticals, and the plans do not cover dental or eye care.
...
There are some downsides to the Israeli health care system, which could be some reasons why the costs are lower. The country’s hospitals — many of which are government-owned and operated — are often over capacity, which means patients are routinely kept on gurneys in hallways or in waiting rooms. For nonemergency procedures, such as a hip replacement, patients may have to wait several months.
Despite our healthcare problems, we're doing a bit better than gurneys in the hallway. Plus, two of the most expensive parts of our healthcare - specialists and pharmaceuticals - are still paid out-of-pocket in Israel, which means they're scrimping when it comes to the more costly, critical aspects of healthcare.
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quote:Despite our healthcare problems, we're doing a bit better than gurneys in the hallway. Plus, two of the most expensive parts of our healthcare - specialists and pharmaceuticals - are still paid out-of-pocket in Israel, which means they're scrimping when it comes to the more costly, critical aspects of healthcare.
They still aspire to be Canada.
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posted
I love this game: when someone brings up Canadian healthcare Ina disparaging way, I say: "yeah, I totally agree. It's pretty much a disaster. The worst socialized medicine system around. Too bad we can't do that well."
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quote:Originally posted by capaxinfiniti: Despite our healthcare problems, we're doing a bit better than gurneys in the hallway. Plus, two of the most expensive parts of our healthcare - specialists and pharmaceuticals - are still paid out-of-pocket in Israel, which means they're scrimping when it comes to the more costly, critical aspects of healthcare.
This is ... a reasonable post! But this part:
quote:we're doing a bit better than gurneys in the hallway.
isn't true. Our overloaded metro systems frequently have gurneys in the hallway. Very frequently. And even if we never had any gurneys in the hallway and Israel did, it does not mean we're doing better than them. We are not. They are spending less than half the gdp per capita on healthcare than we do, and israelis receive better care overall than we do, and do not have an endemic problem with a significant percentage of the population being without coverage for nearly anything short of ER coverage. For everything that they are 'scrimping' on, we are ruefully abandoning tons more to the Invisible Hand, which has delivered us a culture of medical neglect, bankruptcy, and out of control premiums.
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posted
Absolutely brilliant article, ElJay. That article needs to be shown to every person who doesn't understand why universal health care is important and so much better.
And Canada's system isn't the worst in the world at all and I think that story really just comes from rich people who command care along the levels of Grey's Anatomy. Imaginary care for the vast majority of people. Aside from the annoying and expensive oversight of dental care (Chiropractic is covered and dental not, are you kidding?!) it is better in terms of quality than the UK in my personal opinion.
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posted
I stole the article from Raja, incidentally, who posted it on sake a week or so ago. But yes, I think it's very good, and a good read for people who buy into the myth that Canada's care sucks.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: I love this game: when someone brings up Canadian healthcare Ina disparaging way, I say: "yeah, I totally agree. It's pretty much a disaster. The worst socialized medicine system around. Too bad we can't do that well."
Who disparaged Canada?
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quote:Originally posted by ElJay: I stole the article from Raja, incidentally, who posted it on sake a week or so ago. But yes, I think it's very good, and a good read for people who buy into the myth that Canada's care sucks.
Canada's care has its problems.
Yet the difference between the state of their system and the state of ours is such that canadians are often quite sincerely (and without significant misapprehension of what our system really is) astonished with how terrible our system seems and happy that they don't have it, and frankly baffled with why we try to convince ourselves that our system is better than theirs.
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quote: Nevertheless, close and repeated study of his campaign in real-world situations has yielded a standard model that has proved eerily accurate in predicting Mitt Romney’s behavior in debate after debate, speech after speech, awkward look-at-me-I’m-a-regular-guy moment after awkward look-at-me-I’m-a-regular-guy moment, and every other event in his face-time continuum.
The basic concepts behind this model are:
Complementarity. In much the same way that light is both a particle and a wave, Mitt Romney is both a moderate and a conservative, depending on the situation (Fig. 1). It is not that he is one or the other; it is not that he is one and then the other. He is both at the same time.
Probability. Mitt Romney’s political viewpoints can be expressed only in terms of likelihood, not certainty. While some views are obviously far less likely than others, no view can be thought of as absolutely impossible. Thus, for instance, there is at any given moment a nonzero chance that Mitt Romney supports child slavery.
Uncertainty. Frustrating as it may be, the rules of quantum campaigning dictate that no human being can ever simultaneously know both what Mitt Romney’s current position is and where that position will be at some future date. This is known as the “principle uncertainty principle.”
Entanglement. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a proton, neutron or Mormon: the act of observing cannot be separated from the outcome of the observation. By asking Mitt Romney how he feels about an issue, you unavoidably affect how he feels about it. More precisely, Mitt Romney will feel every possible way about an issue until the moment he is asked about it, at which point the many feelings decohere into the single answer most likely to please the asker.
Noncausality. The Romney campaign often violates, and even reverses, the law of cause and effect. For example, ordinarily the cause of getting the most votes leads to the effect of being considered the most electable candidate. But in the case of Mitt Romney, the cause of being considered the most electable candidate actually produces the effect of getting the most votes.
Absolutely brilliant
That is pretty funny. The only depressing thing about it is...it pretty much describes almost every single politician in our system. This quantum theory perfectly describes the creeping, frustrating feeling I get every time someone wearing a suit and tie, who gets a check from the government, stands in front of a camera and begins to speak.
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posted
I'm not sure I agree with that. I feel like the majority of our problems especially over the last couple years are that politicians have steadfastly stood behind a series of increasingly extremist policies, rather than waffling to a state of absurdity.
Romney's political positions are like quicksand. Most of our politicians are like concrete.
What we need is a set of politicians who are more like a potted plant.
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On the other, it's about time Reid grew a pair and about time the Democrats starting punching back. This is exactly the sort of thing that Republicans do all the time, and Romney is throwing an absolute hissy fit over it.
And now everyone will wonder, seriously, why not reveal your returns?
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posted
I don't need 10 years of tax returns. I'll accept one of his tax returns from any of the eight years prior to the ones he's already released.
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