You will, I hope, forgive me if I choose to divine the meaning of “moderate” from various and other sources. Nothing personal, it’s just that for decades now, every Democratic candidate—including Bill Clinton, whom all but the most overproboscised Pinocchios will now grudgingly admit was a centrist—has been painted by the right as the second coming of Che Guevara, regardless of their actual platform, words, or deeds.
It was in the Stimulus Bill right after the $8 billion for the bullet train to steal your children from Disneyland and sell them into prostitution at the Bunny Ranch.
Can you give us an example of Obama doing something that was more liberal than what he campaigned on?
I remember songs sung about Martin Luther King in school too. Is he the Zombie Antichrist?
Hey. Sometimes there are exceptions based on the particular circumstances (in this case, the historical x 9000!!! case of our country electing a black President.)
Yes, it is that damned important. It shows we are slowly emerging from the barbaric ages of ‘oooh, look at how he/she looks, therefore X’. You want me to get upset? Show me where my 401(k) is dropping into the toilet based on the … oh, wait, it’s up 30% this year! Get bent.
There’s already a thread on this, here.
And I can only repeat my own comment, here.
What a bunch of blowhard nonsense.
Clinton governed as a moderate after he got his leash yanked in 1994. The same is very likely to happen to Obama in 2010.
No doubt you still wake in the middle of the night, covered in a cold sweat thinking about the countless 100,000s of innocent Iraqis you butchered…for no particular reason.
Meanwhile, yeah, let’s get all outraged about a fuckin’ jingle. Asshole.
:rolleyes:
Whoa, steady, hoss! Pretty surely one "100,000s ", could well be two, three is probably a stretch…
If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times: don’t exaggerate!
I fucking hate these bizarro-world condemnations: “The person who looks like you but lives in another dimension and has a goatee failed to condemn this when it happened with goatee-Bush, so therefore you’re a hypocrite!”
Who gives a shit about such hypotheticals?
Spock voted for Obama. Evil Spock voted for Hypno-Toad.
Taken in isolation, this incident doesn’t mean much. The reason it’s resonating so strongly, however, is because people are getting a sense that the apparatus of government is increasingly being bent to serve partisan purposes.
For example, I’m sure you’re all familiar with the fact that the White House recently tried to use the NEA to organize artists to create propaganda supporting the White House’s policy goals. This is far more worrying than a rogue teacher indoctrinating some kids.
The stimulus bill was targeted at projects that supported and benefited liberals. Seven billion dollars was supposed to go to ACORN. States with Democratic governments and senators benefited disproportionately over states that had Republican governments and Senators.
The Attorney General’s office is far more politicized than the Bush AG’s office. The summary dismissal of a case against the Black Panthers is a good example, and one which has opened the AG’s office up to investigation.
Congress has squashed or attempted to squash multiple investigations into corruption by Democratic Senators like Charles Rangel, Chris Dodd, and John Murtha.
There seems to be a growing cult of personality around Obama himself. He’s been on the cover of major news magazines constantly, artists are creating murals of him, published materials from the White House are personalized with his personal campaign imagery, he had his own ‘presidential seal’ made before he was even sworn in, etc. Obama refers to himself in speeches far more than is customary for Presidents. Pro-Obama rallies are often festooned with images of Obama himself. You never saw people at Clinton rallies holding up big paintings of Clinton.
None of this by itself is the end of the world, but when you put it all together it starts to look a little creepy to people who aren’t Obama supporters. So when video pops up of a school teaching kids to sing his praises, you get a strong reaction.
Since the days of George Washington, America has had a culture of treating the current occupant of the White House as merely a caretaker. Respect was given to the office, not necessarily to the man. Washington refused to be titled when some in the new government wanted him to be referred to as royalty or in some other way to refer to him in a way that separated him from the people. He was adamant that the President should not be personally elevated above any others, and America has by and large kept to that tradition. The treatment of Obama seems to be somewhat of a break from that tradition, and it makes some people nervous.
Pardon me, but what could possibly be more appropriate to Black History Month than celebrating the first African-American POTUS?
Wow.
Sam, did the previous 8 years simply not happen in your part of Canada? Not a single thing you talk about wasn’t done just as prominently and just as egregiously during that time, and yet you act as if this is something new and frightening.
Increasingly? Are you fucking kidding me? The apparatus of government served nothing but partisan purposes from 2000 to 2008.
In during the Bush years, the White House and DoJ forced out lawyers who didn’t toe the Republican line.
And that sort of pork-barrelling has never happened before, right? I think this sort of partisan funding allocation stinks, but for you to pretend it’s something new is either a poor reflection on your intelligence, or on your honesty.
Oh, i get it. This is actually an ironic post, right? Right? Because you can’t be serious. Either that, or you’re a blithering fucking moron.
Again, it’s never happened under a Republican administration, right?
You mean, the President of the United States has been on the cover of news magazines? I guess that’s also something that’s never happened before, right?
Artists are creating murals? Oh my fucking God! What will happen next? Will people actually write books about him?
Are you on crack? Did you completely miss the Cult of Reagan? The love for the man, and not just the office, was central to Reagan’s presidency. Hell, most Republicans are still drinking from that particular Kool Aid bottle, although i guess that’s partly because their most recent president was shown to be such a chump. But even the loser who vacated the White House back in January has more than his share of hero worshippers over the past decade.
When you say that all this “makes some people nervous,” what this really means is that it “makes Republicans nervous because they only like the game of Glorify the Leader, Quash Dissent, and Supply Pork to Your Cronies when they are the ones holding the purse-strings.”
Not familiar with it. Cite please?
Politics as usual combined with republicans that wanted to stand against the stimulus bill.
Also unfamiliar. Cite?
And cite again. Sorry if it seems demanding of me.
And this is utter shit. Another half assed justification used to continue garbage politics. “Obama is popular and we’re scared.” This despite the fact that he is the first black president (thusly relatively historic) and the fact that his approval ratings are going down. Some cult of personality.
I’ll say it again. You want to say that it’s about issues? Make it about issues. Making an issue over the myth that there is some widespread cultlike fanaticism about Obama makes you look like an ass, which really is where you can stuff this “cult of personality” nonsense. If people liking the president makes you nervous, maybe it’s time you just grew a pair.
the school districts statement about the video:
Cite?
The Democrats folded like a cheap suit on that, so goes the nefarious conspiracy to register poor people to vote.
I see zero problem with increasing voter participation, even if the net effect happens to benefit one political party over another. It makes sure the government better reflects the will of the people. I’m sorry that offends you.
I wouldn’t begrudge a voter registration drive in the Appalachia region, even though it would be likely to hurt Obama and the Democrats.
Sam, what the hell has got into you? I’m serious, here, not messin’. I mean it, what the bleeding fuck has gotten into you! You never used to pull crap like this, you were always reliably conservative, but you put up a fair fight, never hit below the belt. Well, hardly ever.
Lately, that’s all blown away, like you’d been replaced by somebody far less reasonable and far more bitter. You never shrank from sharp words, but lately you’re just plain nasty!
I want **Sam Stone **back. I like him, and I don’t much like you.
You know what? I’d bet they’d do it. These people have faith in democracy, they *believe *in it. They’re that stupid, God bless 'em!
I’d like to see the video of that one.
Just don’t try to take a census there.