They’re all taken from the first page of this thread.
Really? Then no doubt you can point me to a post where I’ve said that liberals are morons, traitors and/or hate America, or said I was a conservative in anything other than a qualified sense and on some issues, or said I was voting for George Bush. Go ahead, knock yourself out.
Cute… but ultimately ineffective. Gregg is the one who brought up the Census issue first. It was, by his own words, a factor in his decision. We may now “speculate” as to why, hours later, he decided he wanted to downplay its importance. But it’s worth noting that, during his press conference, Gregg never says anything like “Oh that was a mistake” or “I probably shouldn’t have said that.” He simply tried to play it down a bit. I don’t know why. Neither do you.
By the way, why is this Census thing hitting such a nerve with you guys? If you’d like to make Gregg’s withdrawal all about Obama’s disastrous stimulus package, that’s fine with me.
Originally Posted by Starving Artist
I’m still trying to maintain a wait and see attitude about Obama, . . .
Yes I am.
No I don’t.
Again, no I don’t.
I don’t listen to Hannity or Beck and never have. My only exposure is when someone else has 'em on and even then I don’t pay much attention. I don’t see an hour’s worth of either one of them in a year and from what I have seen, I don’t really like Hannity much and I think Beck is a goofball.
Thank you. That’s good to know.
I’m gonna put you to a little test of moral courage and intellectual honesty here, tom: I just did a search in which I put “Obama” in the search field and “Starving Artist” in the poster field. The first page contains all the posts I made that contain the word Obama and it goes back to November 17th of last year. I found posts where I said good things about Obama; posts where I linked to other good things I’d said about Obama; posts where Obama came up in a neutral sense while discussing politics in general; and a couple of posts where I said I thought it would be nice if he wore a coat and tie in the Oval Office.
You are welcome to perform the same search and verify this for youself if you’d like, given that you are so convinced of my [del]dishonesty[/del] disingenuousness.
You will note that nowhere have I mentioned Obama’s “I won the election” remark; his “You can’t listen to Limbaugh” remark; his so-called “clenched fist” on the stimulous package; his problems finding Cabinet members who can stand up to tax scrutiny; his apparent waffling on the so-called Fairness Doctrine in which he now says – amidst calls for just that from Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich (and wife of a liberal radio executive), Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, cite for both and Bill Clinton cite – through his press secretary Robert Gibbs: “I pledge to you to study up on the ‘Fairness Doctrine’ so that, one day, I might give you a more fulsome answer”; his mocking of concerns over pork in the spending bill, and his odd move to bring the census under White House authority. I also have not mentioned the burgeoning impression I’m getting of the amatuerishness, intransigence or ham-handedness on his part which I’ve mentioned in this thread.
The reason I haven’t mentioned them is because I’m aware of my own bias and my basic philosophical opposition to much of what he’ll try to do. I’m also aware that it’s too early to make up my mind about what kind of job he’ll actually do. So I’ve kept these concerns to myself, and I’ve tried to keep an open enough mind to not get worked up over them while I wait to see for a while how things will play out.
I would have continued to keep my concerns to myself had I not come into this thread and seen the near unanimous argument being made that Gregg was being mean to Obama and that all the blame for this SNAFU lie solely with him.
Further, I wouldn’t have gone into it any further than the three general concerns I mentioned upthread (i.e, amatuerishness, intransigence and ham-handedness) had you not forced me to outline my deeper concerns by contrasting them with what little I may have had to say about Obama which was negative.
So, as you can see, you are wrong both in claiming that I have not in point of fact been trying to take a wait and see attitude toward Obama, and you are wrong in claiming that I’m being disingenuous by saying so.
Thus (and here comes the test of moral courage and intellectual honesty, tom)) I challenge you to admit that you were wrong on both counts and to apologize to me both for claiming that my statement on a wait and see attitude about Obama was false, and for claiming that I was being “disingenuous” in saying so.
I eagerly await your response.
I’m just trying to figure out how you determine what is relevant and what is not. I also thought the paragraph I quoted did very little to underscore your point.
Feel free to try to be the much maligned and persecuted voice of reason, though. I predict great success for you.
Oh, so when you were making pronouncements as to his intentions, you were in fact lying.
The much larger question is why you haven’t given an official response. Is trolling now within the rules?
With regard to Judd Gregg, I see very little honour in his withdrawal. He made his bed and he should have slept in it. He should have honoured his president by not undermining him. A traitor of sorts.
What a contrast between him and Colin Powell who suffered silently yet served the president for a full term.
Thank you for pointing out the obvious.
Moving on. Time to play some hardball. He has offered compromise and working together. They can get some of what they want if they take him up on it. He now needs to make it clear that if they do not they will get little indeed.
Not at all. I’ll go through this one more time. From Gregg’s statement:
However, it has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and* the Census** there are irresolvable conflicts for me.*
OK? It was important enough for him to mention as one of the two reasons he was withdrawing his nomination. That’s what he came up with when drawing up his statement; it was obviously on his mind. It is one of the reasons for his decision. That’s not a “lie,” nor is it “speculation” on my part. It’s right there. Now, why he decided a few hours later to downplay this factor, I have no clue. If you find out, please let me know.
Again I’ll ask: why is this Census thing such a sensitive issue with you guys?
Oh sure, I remember even further back than that. I remember the time someone called you an asshole and you proudly admitted it, saying something that you "owned’’ it. (And I must say it’s nice when, on that rare occasion, we find something on which to agree with each other.)
And I remember when you shrieked and screamed like a little girl when a dog bit you and you stamped your feet at and hysterically cursed out and frightened the poor old couple it belonged to because [mhendo] WAH!..dey were supposed to keep dat mean old dog restrained and they didn’t!!! WAH!..and den it bitted me." [/mhendo] And I remember you chiding me for bringing it up twice in two weeks – this because I was stunned at your wussitude.
I also remember thinking – upon learning recently that you were married – “Oh, that poor woman! I hope he doesn’t have any kids!”
And politically, I remember when Obama said he wasn’t in favor of it and posters here said there was no way – that no one was even pushing for it – and now we have several Senators doing just that and Obama issuing waffling statements about his need to look into it more closely.
I have lots of other memories about both you and politics. Shall I go on?
That’s a good boy…now you’re thinking. That’s a good start. But I wouldn’t rush it: critical thinking takes time and you’re relatively young yet. 
To repeat:
I agree completely.
Do you also extend that logic to Gregg; that he also should not be interpreted in the worst light possible, with partisan assumptions?
Well, look at it this way: it might just be the polar opposite to the “instinctive reaction” that some conservatives I’ve read elsewhere are having (“this brave, brave man may be Presidential material!”).
In the end, I don’t think his motives were entirely selfish, nor do I think he’s worthy to be President just because of them (nor do I really think that most conservatives will vote for, or even remember, him just for that).
Wait a minute. Referring to Obama by his given middle name constitutes “trolling” now? You’ve gotta be kidding. It certainly wasn’t trolling to refer to President Bush as ‘Dubya,’ was it? Even outside of the Pit! What would the reaction have been if I’d said that I found ‘Dubya’ to be disrespectful? Be honest. If I, as a filmmaker, decide to make a sequel to Oliver Stone’s W and call it Hussein, am I somehow being disrespectful?
Well, I’m happy to stay within the rules here. If it is indeed trolling then I’ll stop right away. Please advise…
More “mirror image” than “polar opposite,” IMO.
Every idiocy has an equal and opposite idiocy, I suppose.
They are the most hypocritical pigfuckers on the planet. They ran an entire campaign claiming to have the candidate who would get everyone to work together because he was this big shot fucking “Maverick” who could get the Democrats and Republicans together, as if that was such an important, significant goal for them. But as soon as their guy loses, fuck the bipartisanship, fuck reaching across the aisle, fuck working together and continue fucking the entire country in the process. I no longer just disagree with their politics, I actively loathe them. I want to see their party ground into dust and destroyed. Bring on 2010, fuckers.
True enough. What’s your excuse?
Mea fuckup. :smack:
Clearly I should have gone on long enough to mention that I was talking about the amusingly named Fairness Doctrine when I said that.
I will say this: in much the same way I appreciated Obama’s straightforward “I screwed up,” I appreciate Gregg’s “I made a mistake.”
Nobody here is making any logical case for this being anything other than exactly what he said it was; if he was really some sort of scheming hyperpartisan, the logical thing for him to do would be either stay in place as some sort of enemy within, or – more plausibly – back out claiming that the Obama team had broken promises or that the Census thing was an insult or some such. There’d be no proof otherwise leading to an ugly he-said/he-said in the media for two weeks, and it would have given Obama a huge black eye.
He did none of those things. Instead, he blamed himself, apologized repeatedly and offered nothing but praise for the administration. He’s the one that looks like a schmuck, far more than Obama.
I’m really not getting the vitriol here as anything beyond “he’s in the other party, and he won’t do what we want him to, therefore we hate him.”
Even larger is the question of why a troll is allowed to continue posting.
You’re at least being stupid. “W” is used by the Bush family itself to distinguish one George, H.W., from the other, W. You call the president “Hussein” for no reason other than the infantile notion that associating him with an arab dictator will arouse anger in his supporters and bigotry in his opponents. It’s the same reason Republican troglodytes used his middle name at Idiot Palin rallies. And it is because you know this, but pretend not to, that you are a troll.