Actually, I recently gave Democrat Al Gore, in my thread Al Gore warns us about Bush the highest praise I can give to a man for his political courage and call for vigilance. I even announced there my intention to vote for Kerry on account of what Gore said. I am pitting Democrats about things related to their convention which, not coincidentally, is topical. In late August, I will give the Republicans their turn. Although, judging by the bazillion Bush threads, whatever I say will be redundant. Incidentally, just for the record, it’s classical liberal.
No. He didn’t.
No, it wasn’t.
If you’re not going to bother to read or remember your own OP, Lib, then I’m not going to waste the energy in response. Since you can’t parse your own words, what hope do I have that you’ll be able to parse mine?
Pfft. It’s Libertarian as far as I’m concerned.
An astounding denial. Russert: “Are you offended by that?” If he had meant the party, wouldn’t he have said, “Is the party offended by that?”
Another astonishing assertion. Russert: “And what message does that send the average voter?”
From the OP:
It is lucky for me, I guess, that you cannot edit the words that are there.
I’m with you in admiration for what Gore said, but I’m sure you remember that the sound bite on this was that Gore had gone crazy in actually telling the truth. I don’t think that the entire Democratic party starting to sound like Reeder is a good way of winning the election.
But I have a hard time believing that you object to a politician using his scant time on national TV in getting the message across, even if it is not an exact response to the question. I didn’t see it, but it sounds like he was being more responsive than many politicians I’ve seen.
BTW, my understanding is that you only keep the hems and haws and grammar mistakes in the transcrpt of an interview if you are being deliberately insulting, or wish to point out a particularly juicy malaprop. No reason to do it here.
Oh boy, another goalpost. What the verbal struggles showed here was the fact that he was answering on automatic while he concocted his evasive response. An honest answer doesn’t require hemming and hawing. Like I said, just come out and say, “You betcha. I’m embarrassed, and the message is not a good one.”
Regarding Gore, I believe that his speech was one of the best in modern times. No catches, no reservations, no conditions. Like I said in that thread, if he starts with the wealth distribution nonsense, I’ll call him on it. But it will be on a basis of respect. He has earned it.
You got that right, Lib. No meltdown here. You’re as calm as a Buddhist monastary and as stable as the rock of Gibralter. You’ve got your emotions well in hand, and see with clear eyes and iron logic. You’re unbiased, even-handed, open-minded, and almost frighteningly lucid. You’re on top of your game, master of your domain, and lord of the dance, and everyone here is just jealous of how totally keen you are.
Oh, and since you lately seem to have the reading comprehension of a diseased turnip, that was sarcasm up there, you dishonest fuck.
Liberal, I don’t know what you are talking about.
To clarify what I see the problem here:
- No, Obama didn’t directly answer the exact questions and I don’t think anyone here disputes that.
- What people are responding to is not the question of whether he directly answered the exact questions, but rather your characterization of him and his answer as representing either a full evasion of the topic at hand or a change of heart. That he did not repeat word for word his old quote or repeat the question in his answer does not seem, to most people here, to be a serious offense or even a serious evasion of the thrust of the questioning
- While he didn’t say whether or not he was offended, or characterize what message it sends to the voter, he did respond to the general subject: the prevalence of money is indeed a problem, but given that reality, right now he’s obviously more interested in talking about which party is less in that thrall
- Given that, your remarks about psyhics and changing of hearts and your inclusion of every glottal-stop seemed like excessive hyberbole and over the top to what was in general a pretty run of the mill answer
- For someone who made much of us not giving Bush the charity that being human warrants, you certainly don’t seem to be offering Obama any of the same charity you demanded for Bush.
Politician, stumbling when confronted with past comments, refuses to admit hypocrisy. Is that the subject of this Pit thread? It’s certainly not excusable, but I can’t think of any politician who would have done otherwise.
If you’re looking for ideological purity, just about the last place I’d expect to find it would be in one of the two major political parties.
sigh Astounding indeed.
Lib:
Me:
Lib:
Right. Do you really not get this? Russert didn’t ask Obama if he was embarrassed.
Lib:
Me:
[From the OP:
No argument that he asked what message it sent the average voter (and no argument that Obama didn’t answer this, except to say that he felt the average voter would be benefited more by Kerry than by Bush, regardless how exclusionary the convention was). But the question was not whether he was embarrassed.
By the way, leaving aside your continued incorrect quoting of Russert (which has led you to ask us again and again for Obama’s response to a question that never existed), here’s one possible point of confusion:
Obama’s remarks eight years ago were, I think you’ll agree, critical of the Democratic party. Yes? Critical of them for tying access to wealth, critical of them for making the average voter feel they’re locked out of the political process. Hell, critical of them for charging ten grand for some sausages and orange juice. Fine.
So Russert asks Obama if he’s offended by this year’s convention and, implicitly, by the Democrats continuing to shut average voters out of the process. (Incidentally, “offended” is a really strange word for Russert to use in this context. Embarrassed would have been better.) So what Russert means, then, is “Are you offended by the actions of your party (in putting the convention together in this manner)?” This is why it’s relevant for Obama to say that money in politics is a problem for both parties. This is why it’s relevant for him to say that he thinks the Democrats should do more to increase political participation and keep citizens from feeling like they’re not a part of the process. If anything, Lib, you should like his response - he’s sticking to his guns and saying that things still need to change. (And yes, the bit about Kerry’s voting record was silly and reflexive banner-waving.) That’s why I really don’t get what you’re hung up on here, and I’d still be very interested to see how you answer the questions Otto posed to you earlier in the thread.
I’ll post 'em again for you:
Are you upset at Obama because you feel he’s abandoned his ideals? I’d argue he hasn’t. Are you upset because he didn’t directly answer the questions he was asked? Or because he didn’t answer them the way you would have wanted? If someone asks Bush what he believes should be done to improve public schools in this country, and he responds by saying simply that “There needs to be increased accountability, and public school administrators need to see that faith-based education is a viable and valuable alternative,” it’s fair to say that I’d have preferred a different answer. Can I assume then that you’d join my subsequent Pit thread to offer your unqualified support?
[hijack]
I wonder if, when the Illinois GOP finally gets around to finding a candidate to run against Obama, they will refer to him as their 8th choice. Recall that when Kerry chose Edwards as his running mate, conservatives pointed out Kerry’s overtures to McCain and argued that Edwards was Kerry’s “2nd choice.” Let’s look at who were the first 8 choices for the Illinois GOP:
Jack Ryan
Jim Thompson
Jayne Thompson
Jim Edgar
Kirk Dillard
Mike Ditka
Steve Rauschenburger
So, who will be the 8th choice?
[/hijack]
That is exactly what he asked him and you’ve pasted it yourself. “Are you offended by that?”. Is not “you” still the second person pronoun?
There were two questions, Gadarene. That’s why Russert used the conjunction “and”.
I have not incorrectly quoted Russert. I know this because I transcribed it directly from DVR. It was also rebroadcast Sunday night and Monday night. The official transcript will be on-site next week, and you can check it for yourself.
So far, you have said that “you” does not mean “you” and that I have incorrectly quoted Russert when I have quoted him word for word. And now, for no reason at all, and without a shread of evidence that I misquoted anyone, you simply want to throw the question out. Do you have some other transcript? Do you have it recorded on your DVR or TiVo? You are calling me a liar and lying in order to do it. And you expect rational discourse? Damn, you’ve got a big set of balls.
No. For the umpteenth time, I’m upset at him because he evaded the question.
At least now you’re admitting there was more than one question. Unless you’re going to claim that plural means one.
He did not answer them AT ALL. The very thing you accuse me of you defend in him.
Despite his bumbling of the two questions in the OP, he was otherwise quite eloquent, so he will likely get a nice boost from his keynote speech. But he was (and remains) opposed to the invasion of Iraq. That might likely be too unsettling for the GOP.
Gadarene
I used the word embarrassed when it was offended in the first of the two questions. I apologize for that. I was wrong in that regard. So, he should have responded, “Yes, I am offended,” rather than, “Yes, I am embarrassed.”
I didn’t see him on the sunday talk shows, but from what I’ve read, he did quite well. There was also a nice write up of him in The Hill.
Thanks for finally catching that. I thought my brain was going to explode.
But offended and embarrassed are very different things, and I submit that, while embarassment may be a natural reaction to the exclusionary excesses of a party convention, there is nothing that Obama has said, either now or eight years ago, that would lead me to believe that he does take, or has taken, offense at the convention. So Russert’s question is really weird. To me, it makes no more sense than him asking, “150 donors gave $40 million dollars to this [Boston] convention. That’s worse than Chicago, using your standards. Are you aroused by that?”
So no, he shouldn’t have responded, “Yes, I am offended.” Instead, he should have acknowledged that it wasn’t his ideal state of affairs, suggested that there are, and should be, more important issues to the average voter, and expressed a hope that his party, both generally and in future conventions, would endeavor to be more inclusive. And hey…that’s what he did.
Obviously, of course, he could have done it with more eloquence. As I’m sure you would have.
Maybe, Lib you should be pitting Russert for not asking a proper follow-up, in order to get a more defined answer out of Obama.
You can’t fault a politician for being a politician. But you can fault a journalist for flawed or soft interviewing.
Happy
You have a point there, Happy. Unfortunately, if he did that, he might get in only one question per show. 
As I said in the OP, Obama is an eloquent man. There were questions he did not duck — for example, the aforementioned opposition to Iraq. Even though Russert framed it as going against the positions of Kerry, Hillary, and the rest who support the war but just want to fight it differently, Obama held his ground and said that he opposed it then and opposes it now. I think that’s what galled me so bad about this particular one. It smacked of a sell-out. Now that he’s a keynote speaker, he evades the question. He could have said, “Yes, I’m offended and it sends a bad message,” or “No, I’m not offended, and I think you’re full of crap, Tim,” but he chose to say nothing. Kerry’s record. We could all do better. God bless America. Blech.
Wow. I’m still surprised that this is what you got out of Obama’s response. Deride him for being diplomatic if you want; I’d probably agree that he unnecessarily played the “Kerry is good for America” card. But to opine that he chose to say nothing? How many politicians can you find for me who are willing to say that money in politics is a problem for both major parties? Some, probably. Many, probably not. That’s the kind of wave you wouldn’t expect the convention’s keynote speaker to make.
I can understand how you see it that way, Gadarene. I honestly can. You see it as a diplomatic response to an ambush. But please understand that I have a consciousness and an awareness of my own, and that it comes across to me as evasive, and sadly, unnecessarily so.