Even if this is true, it really does not matter. From what I have seen in the last week or so (through the Palin announcement and both conventions) is that those folks who are reasonable and would like a serious discussion are simply going to avoid any such discussions on the SDMB. Why? Because the posters from both sides who are overzealous in their beliefs are going to not merely drown out the reasonable voices with post after post of bile and invective (and fact free illogic), but those zealots are going to simply ignore any thoughtful post. Who wants to spend the effort to think about the issues and actually articulate them when it appears that their thoughts will plummet like stones without a single acknowledgement, lost in a sea of venom?
And the passions are really running high on this election. There are posters (Right and Left) whom I would have characterized as thoughtful on August 24 who have praised their candidates as the embodiment of Washington, Lincoln, Marcus Aurelius, Plato and Jesus while disparaging their opponents’ candidates as unqualified to sweep kennels much less run for dog-catcher. We’re talking about senators and a governor here. Even if one believes that the opposition is completely wrong-headed, the claims that they have no substance or capability are ludicrous. I have even seen such nonsense posted by (previously) “thoughtful” posters when someone did try to inject some rational thought into the threads.
What is my point? Bricker’s rant was silly, not because he was wrong that there is a lot of emotional, unthinking personal antagonism toward the Republican candidates from their opponents–there clearly is. (Just as there appears to be the same emotional, unthinking hatred directed toward the Democrats.) It was silly because it was based on the idea that a small handful of loud and obnoxious people are completely representative of a much larger group of people who remain silent, not out of cowardice or agreement with the zealots, but simply because there is no reason to believe that their voices will be heard above that of the shouters.
Go to a pep rally some time and attempt to carry on a discussion regarding the athleticism and tactics of a team being cheered. That is what I have watched for the last few weeks. Such attitudes have always been here, of course, and was clearly present in the last couple of elections as well as the Democratic primaries, but the number of purportedly reasonable posters who are now willing to disregard facts to chant “Our Team! Our Team! Our Team!” over and over again is amazing.
(I also find it interesting that the “Right” seems to be having a bit of a resurgence on the board. Generally I guess that the Left to Right ratio is about 10:1, here. In the last two weeks, I would guess that among the shouters it is more like 6:1 these days. I have not logged all the posters and kept assiduous notes; it is just my impression. I do not think that this “means” anything. I doubt that the Left has done anything good or bad to bring out more folks on the Right. But it is interesting to watch, nevertheless.)
Sorry, but your thread title is “Convince Bricker that not every Obama supporter is a tool.”
I feel no need to convince Bricker of any such thing, especially since he’s made quite clear that it won’t make any difference anyway.
Further, even if we take your topic beyond Bricker and turn it into a more general issue, it’s still a silly request. If someone acts like an asshole, then that’s their responsibility; it’s not my job to prove my own credentials simply because someone else does something i disagree with.
I’m an Orioles fan, but if some idiot at Camden Yards starts picking fights with Yankees fans, i don’t feel the need to stand up and point out that i don’t pick fights with Yankees fans. I’m an Australian, and if some Australian acts like a douchebag, i feel no responsibility for his actions just because we happen to hold the same passport.
And in politics, as in those other areas of life, i feel no particular need to dissociate myself explicitly from idiots with whom i happen to share one demographic or another. If someone else wants to draw conclusions about me, or about my demographic, from the actions of a few morons, then that’s his problem.
The actual candidate has said that her kids are off limits. There are no commercials from the Dems about them. I doubt if the DNC is going to commission someone to write a book swift boating her.
In the Larry King debate linked to in the Bounds pit threat, the Republican Congresswoman accused Carville of misogyny - which he replied to by noting that he had supported Hillary throughout the campaign.
Bricker seems to have the talking points fax that Colbert got. Any criticism of her for any reason becomes sexist. The only remotely sexist criticism I’ve seen is that she should stay home to take care of her baby. Noting that abstinence education doesn’t seem to work in her family is not sexist. Fathers can provide birth control information too, so both parents are equally responsible.
Maybe Bricker is doing the inverse of Lot at Sodom and Gomorrah. Instead of looking for even one good person to save the city, he is looking for one bad person to convince him that voting for more disaster is correct.
In a Thread That the Board Forgot, I proposed a parlor game: list Republican women, born in 1942 or later, who have more relevant experience than Sarah Palin. I made it to ~32.
Over a couple of days, there was but a single passing reference to Palin’s tumultuous family life, then 2 posts by Sam Stone complaining about the horrible slanders of the Democrats. Other than that hijack, the thread went ok.
I maintain that if you frame the question narrowly enough and do a little policing that some fruitful discussion can be gleened.
Admittedly, opinions of Palin have probably hardened over the past several days.
Oh yeah, the OP.
[ul]
[li]In my view, adding a child to the Vice President’s household is a public event. So, yes, the voters should know that Bristol is pregnant, but that’s about it. Nobody should be pulling her school’s discipline records and to my knowledge nobody has tried. [/li]
[li]The MSM was actually pretty reticent about all this. The McCain campaign announced Bristol’s pregnancy. Public statements about paternity tests were first made by McCain’s spokesman, Steve Schmidt. [/li]
[li]The story about Sarah Palin boarding a ~6+ hour flight from Texas to Alaska in the face of Doctor’s orders seems like fair game to me, as it touches on judgment.[/li]
[li]Yikes! Palin sure has a lot of skeletons. It’s almost as if she wasn’t vetted properly. How could the party of Dan Quayle make such a mistake twice? [/li]
[*]The gossip quotient of the Palin family saga is pretty high. The drama in B. Clinton’s White House doesn’t come close. Ah well, modern conservatives seem to like that sort of thing. For myself, methinks that there are lots of better things to discuss, such as Palin’s utter lack of qualification for the Presidency and the shame of McCain and his staff for picking her. [/ul]
On the subject of repudiating bloggers and over-the-top commentators and personalities, here’s something that I’m loathe to mention but will because I hope the Obama campaign at the highest levels and Obama’s supporters all the way down have prepared for it. I give you at least even odds, probably more like 3:1, that this scenario is going to happen and I hope they have a damage control plan to deal with the fallout.
Almost the minute I heard (the undeniably fine) Track Palin was going to Iraq I thought about this: at some point some Democrat wingnut- a Michael Moore or a Cindy Sheehan or a Ward Churchill, some dimwitted guest on THE VIEW, some blogger with a bit of a rep, whatever- nobody with the Obama campain itself- is probably going to state outright or make a comment to the effect of or a comment that will be twisted into something like “Maybe he’ll get killed in Iraq and she’ll change see the light”. When this happens, it’s going to be an all out shit-storm for days as the Palin-McCain team exploits it like the only woman on a pirate ship and the “[that person] said they’d be glad if Track Palin got killed in Iraq” becomes “Obama’s campaign says they hope Track gets killed in Iraq!” There will be condemnations from Obama himself down to all of his reasonable followers, but it’s still going to be a total shit-storm, and there are enough nutty people out there it’ll happen. (The fact that the Pubs have Limbaugh and Coulter capable of making equally vicious and appalling comments will not come into play for them even more than they come into play for Bricker.)
So, as mentioned, I’m hoping that this scenario has crossed the minds of whoever’s in damage control, because even if it’s said by a Moore or a Gore Vidal or whatever, it’ll be made to seem like it came from Obama himself while speaking to the Nation of Islam. Though I hope I’m wrong- I hope nobody’s that crass or benighted, but I don’t put it past some political provocateurs who just loooooooove to see their name in lots and lots of print.
Sure, I’m with you. Lay off the families. Things like the underage pregnant teenage daughter just needs to be straight news, and people can draw their own conclusions.
Let Palin put her own foot in her mouth. I think she is more than capable of doing it. Don’t provide nits to be picked. For example, the whole flying on the plane thing. IMHO it exhibited horribly poor judgement BUT did not break any Alaskan Airline rules and a doctor declared her safe to fly. So, just get the facts out and let her choke on her own petard in the Debate, a real press interview or when the dirt comes out.
I’m thinking the Dems are responding reasonably smart here. They are pumping up Sarah Palin. Saying she gave a great speech, is a tough opponent, etc. Start looking for the seasoned sportscaster, great debater, a real pro spin to come out from the Dems. The Dems are working like hell to avoid the mistake of accepting a rediculously low bar and then getting bitchslapped when the pubbie “knocks it over the fence.”
Remember Gore was a professional debater and Bush a rookie, so when push came to shove all Bush had to do was survive the debate and it was considered a big win for him. After all, Gore was a professional debator and should have wiped the floor with him. Same low bar was set for Palin and her acceptance speech - She’s an ex sportscaster, eg talking head, so her acceptance speech should have been much better. But viewers were expecting Caribou Barbie and were blown away.
I’m seeing this as “Let’s convince the poor wolf that we sheep can behave nicely”. Gov. Palin was the one who shoved her daughter into the spotlight(the threat of mythological evil left-wing bloggers be damned-show me the evidence) to deflect questions about how she handled her own pregnancy this last time. She is using her two daughters and her son as a shield, and screaming “Sexism!” at anyone who dares question her motives.
Nah, not gonna happen. A lot of the attacks on Palin here have been silly, and I say that having only gone into a fraction of the threads. Handled in a certain way, the family thing is a valid way to discuss the issue of choice, and it’s a valid news story, although the level of attention has long since becoma absurd. Saying Palin an unfit mother because her daughter is pregnant, and thus she shouldn’t be VP, is absolutely silly. I also think the most plausible explanation for the flight to Alaska is that she wasn’t in labor and felt it was safe, though it may have been wrong and was an unnecessary risk even if it was a small one.
But I don’t feel obliged to prove anything to anybody here, and from that standpoint, this thread can’t succeed. The idea of Bricker voting for Obama was always a stretch and I think something was inevitably going to push him over the edge. It happened to be something ridiculous. That doesn’t mean anybody needs to prove they aren’t a tool.
That sounds like a request for a one-sided argument - on a subject where almost everyone agrees to begin with! Most people will tell you family attacks are unjustified. The ones who say it’s okay usually can’t be argued with in the first place. The middle ground is where it becomes contentious: is bringing up one of those family members valid if it touches on an issue of concern in the campaign? It’s harder to draw a line on that kind of thing. I’ve already heard more than I need to about Bristol Palin, and what I needed to hear was basically nothing. I don’t mind that her pregnancy got press coverage, although it’s been stupidly blown out of proportion because the press and public are in the process of sifting through goat intestines to find out who Sarah Palin is. And since it’s getting press coverage, the McCain-Palin campaign has been trying to spin it positively by announcing that Bristol is marrying the father (I presume that would’ve happened anyway), then making the father get a haircut and dress up to come to the convention. That’s just as much a publicity stunt as anything else that’s happened.
I believe that the only valid campaign issues are ones which are in some way relevant to the powers of the office for which the candidate is running.
The President should not make policy on issues that are not within the powers delegated to the President in the Constitution. The Vice President, a fortiori, should not make policy on such issues.
Educational policy is not within the realm of the Executive, and even if it were, the decision about the type of sex education is best left to the lower levels of government.
Bristol Palin would only be relevant to the campaign if A) she were a clear example of the failure of abstinence-only sex education and B) abstinence-only sex education were a valid campaign issue for the Vice President.
B is false, so it’s not necessary to examine A at all. Even though I disagree with Governor Palin and Senator McCain on most major issues, Gov. Palin’s family is utterly irrelevant to the campaign and thus is rightly off-limits.
What I would say here I’ve said in this post on the other thread, just remove the harder expletive. This thread’s title proposition is kind of moot because the person to whom it is directed already KNOWS this to be so, and he has indeed posted on that thread to the effect that his OP there was a hyperbolic “last straw” reaction.
Have we had any talking heads yet saying, “When men hear Palin talk, all they hear is ‘take out the garbage’”?
Any fratboy protesters calling out, “Iron my shirt!”?
Accusations of shrillness don’t count, because unlike Clinton, Palin actually does have a shrill voice.
This fainting couch routine of conservatives who are “just this close” to voting for a Democrat “if only” is like clockwork. There’s really little point to attending to it at all. It’s a variation of the concern trolling that they love so much as well.
“You democrats ought not to do (or say) X, Y, or Z, or you will lose votes.”
Typically, the “just this close” routine is about the specific candidate, and is personality based. " I would have voted Democrat, only I just can’t vote for [Gore/Kerry/Clinton/fill-in-the-blank-with-the-current-candidate]."
Here, it’s “I would have voted Democratic, but I just can’t vote for the person these other people are voting for.” In this case, it is just because these other people were not deferential enough to a CNN poll that suggested the overall horserace number was within 1. Posters were not prefacing their comments with “I realize that CNN suggests McCain is one point behind Obama, but what’s up with Sarah Palin!”
Do Not Buy Into This Same Old Feint Left, Hit Right Routine!
Does it make sense that someone who would chafe at the lack of deference to the “reality” of one CNN poll was considering voting for Obama? All of this kind of nonsense, spouted during each and every election by some conservatives, is nothing more than a ploy to change the message of the opposition. Listen to it, because it tells you what they are afraid of, but don’t buy the “if only” routine.
She does, but the meaning of calling her “shrill” depends on the context. Usually it’s about what you’re saying, not how your voice sounds when you say it.
While I’m seeing a lot of complaints from Republicans (not here) about the sexist treatment Palin is getting, I think a more accurate view is that yes, women don’t get a fair shake, but no politician really gets fair treatment; they all receive coverage that is idiosyncratic and has more to do with the “narrative” (I apologize for using a term that’s quickly become trite) of the media version of public perception than what they are doing in the context of their campaign and so on. It’s part of the whole news package that mixes the worst parts of political coverage with the worst parts of celebrity coverage.
Republicans (and many Democrats) are telling Americans what their families should be like, and what their family values should be. What hypocrisy for them to declare their own families off-limits.
When they start to shut the fuck up about what type of family they think I’m supposed to have, that’s when their own family becomes off-limits, but not until them.
And if Bricker somehow finds my personal attitude a factor in his vote, I guess I’ll have to find a way to soldier on without his support.
