Wow, you’re a complete fucking moron. Informing on each other? My neighbor tells me the latest talking point from Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck or whomever, and I email it to Axelrod or Emanuel. That way they know what to argue against without either of us actually having to watch or listen to Limbaugh/Beck. shudder What else would they want to do? It’s not as if they asked for information about your neighbor.
Really?
This is the part that is funny to me. They have NEVER screamed anything? What does it matter who is doing it ‘right now’. If it’s wrong now, it was wrong then. Sensationalism is prevalent, but everyone does it should not be justification for continuing the legacy of half truths.
Can you admit that or are you so deeply embedded with your partisanship that is would cause a brain tumor for you to be wrong?
Comments like this just make my sad and angry about where our politics have gone. The knee-jerk reaction to everything the other party does, the demonization of the other party, the refusal to acknowledge that the other party are just people trying to do their best to run the country, and simply disagrees about what the best direction is.
Really? The democrats, in their effort to get healthcare for all are going to make sure that republicans don’t get healthcare? They’re going to violate one of the most basic concepts of our government, that all people should be treated equally, in order to fuck you over for opposing UHC?
Umm, you really think they don’t watch Beck or whomever is speaking out against their plan?
There is a moron here alright.
Yes, I seriously believe that, and underlining and italicizing the word “that” doesn’t sway me.
What exactly do you believe their plan is? Are they going to publicly out people? Are they somehow going to track down and arrest everyone who forwards the emails? Are they going to send out clandestine hit squads in the middle of the night? Is the dastardly department of medical denial going to pull the plug on their grandmother? What exactly would any of that gain them? Disinformation is best battled by information.
As far as it being publicly available, that may be true, but than what better way to gather it than to ask the public to do it for you? Mobilizing the base is what the President does, and he’s good at it. So why shouldn’t he use that resource as opposed to using tax dollars to pay government employees to do it?
I actually think this particular idea was sort of dumb on the part of the White House because they should have known that their opponents would jump at the chance to mischaracterize it. But the idea that it’s some sort of sinister plot to create an enemies list is indeed a mischaracterization, a deliberate one.
And I don’t understand you’re last statement about “Big Daddy O” wanting people to be safe. How would his gathering this disinformation make people safer? Are the people forwarding this crap terrorists or serial killers or something?
Well, then, they already know, and telling them would change nothing. Hell, I still haven’t got my toaster oven for ratting out Scylla!
This whole “enemies list” thingy rings a bell, seems as though I remember something very similar. Wasn’t the liberals though. Pretty sure about that. Memory isn’t what it used to be. Or maybe it is, and I don’t remember.
Yes, I have a problem with warrantless wiretapping. However, there were at least two key differences between that and this.
First - The stated goal of the warrantless wiretaps was for the sake of national security. The stated goal of Obama’s plan was to learn what his political opponents were saying about him. The first noble and beneficial to our country, the second petty and beneficial to only Uncle O.
Second - At least the Bush administration had the good sense to try to keep it secret, apparently thinking the public was smart enough to oppose it if they found out. On this point the Bush administration was mostly correct. The Obama administration publicized their plan from day one with in the absurd notion that it was intended to “respond to and debunk the distortions”, apparently thinking the public was stupid enough to buy that line of pablum. The Obama administration was mostly incorrect (except for the few gullible fools like **davidm **and his ilk, it really is true that you can fool some of the people all of the time).
Unbelievable. All I can do is shake my head and pray you’re just being dramatic, because if this is how people actually think, we don’t have a fucking chance.
Gerald Ford! That was it, the “enemies list”! Unless he was the clumsy, well-meaning doofus who kept falling down stairs…
Dude, you are lost. So lost. Come toward the light…
I was highlighting exactly which part of your post I was referring to. Notice how I cleverly underlined and bolded both a portion of your quote and the word “that”? See? It was to draw your attention, not an attempt to sway you.
(Psssst… I did it again, don’t let it distract you.) What do I believe their plan is? Actually, I think it was probably a fishing expedition to see where the disinformation was coming from. They were probably hoping it was coming from a Republican member of Congress (i.e. from their official email accounts), or the RNC, or a Republican governor, etc. so they could point fingers. That’s just my WAG. Track down and arrest hit squads pulling plugs on grandmothers? Nah, the Democrats don’t have the balls. Only a Republican administration could be so bold. 
Huh? Any number of volunteers (e.g. www.collegedems.com) would do it, I’m sure already do do it, for free. Or just flip on Glenn Beck or listen to Sarah Palin. The gathering of the information is neither difficult nor the point of the program. As I said, I believe the point of the program was to see where it was coming from. And they hoped it was coming from a high-level Republican in a position of power (thus Palin doesn’t count) so they could use it as political ammunition.
WIN !!!
Some people might spin it that way. I personally don’t believe it was to create an “enemies list”, but rather as a political stunt (as I’ve stated previously).
The “Big Daddy O” was a dig at liberals who think the government can solve all their problems, cure all social ills, and keep them “safe” from cradle to grave. If, of course, the citizenry would just shut up and turn over all their rights and all their property.
And as for forwarding this crap to terrorists or serial killers? OOOoooohhhh… you’d better mobilize your grass roots and find out!!
Exactly !!!
So why, then, did they do it?
I’m pretty sure you’re joking, but for the sake of those who don’t know, It was Nixon who had an “Enemies List”.
I’m not going to claim that no one else, of either party, has ever had an “enemies list”, but the individuals on those kinds of list are generally people who actually have some power and some ability to do political harm to the person or persons who have compiled the list. They’re not your elderly aunt Mae who forwarded an email she received from her friend Sally.
Jimmy,
I don’t even know where to begin in responding to that long, rambling post so I’ll just address some of the most egregious parts of it.
You’re making my point here, they were asking for volunteers. As far as tracking the source, I don’t think high level Republican operatives or PR firms are going to put an identifiable return address on this stuff.
Quoting a fragment of a sentence which does not in whole concede your point is not a win. :rolleyes:
Which is a straw man. I don’t know of anyone who thinks these emails are a direct physical threat to anyone.
This was simply a misreading on your part. It happens to all of us. I didn’t say anything about anyone forwarding this stuff to terrorists or serial killers. I asked if terrorists or serial killers were forwarding it.
And humorously enough, there were plenty of conservatives thinking the government could keep us safe from terrorists from cradle to grave if we gave up our privacy, right to assemble, and right to a speedy trial of our peers.
FTR, asking people to forward disinformation emails was stupid, though with this particular administration, probably not evil.
Just guessing here, but perhaps to foster a sense of participation. That was one of the big powers of the Obama campaign, the ability to make people feel that they were part of sometlhing larger. And, of course, raising a ginormous amount of money by way of small donations, rather than trying to suck money from big donors.
But don’t worry too much, I tried ratting you out, but I was like 275th in line… Toaster oven, hell, be lucky to get a pack of gum for your sorry ass.
That makes a lot of sense. It sure as hell makes more sense than the idea that they were creating some sort of enemies list.
Wouldn’t it be great if this backfired, and the few dozen remaining Republicans left the party to avoid the scenario Steele describes?
Interesting thought. If they manage to convince a large number of Republicans that a public option would discriminate against registered Republicans, and a public option passes, then they might indeed lose some voters.
Lately it seems like their fight against health care reform has become kind of an all or nothing last stand.
Oh, it always was! I’ve mentioned this a bunch of times, and don’t want to be tiresome, but its worth noting, if you haven’t already.
It is definitely an all or nothing fight it to the last bunker. If anything passes, no matter how watered down, no matter how compromised, its going to benefit people, and damn quick. The only real question is how many it will help, and to what extent.
But everyone who benefits is going to credit the Dems, natch. As well as their friends and relations. Your brother-in-law, who won’t have to “loan” you money so you won’t croak, for instance. And that’s people of the North, the South, East and West. That’s black folks, white folks, brown folks, gays, straights, lesbians, vegetarians, gay brown lesbians, straight white vegetarians… Its the Damn Near Everybody demographic! The really, really, totally awesome demographic. The only people who absitively posolutely won’t benefit are those so well off, it won’t matter.
The Pubbies are *already *behind the power curve, this cannot help but put them further behind. And if the Dems pick up even more power, for sure and for certain anything left out of this go-around will get tacked on to the next one, and the delicious cycle repeats.
So, yeah, they have no choice but to fight this tooth and nail, hammer and tong, lie and bullshit. They must, repeat, must stop this dead, nothing else will help them, any compromise is a defeat.
I think this is why the Obamistas are so willing to compromise, compromise doesn’t mean defeat to his agenda, just victory slightly postponed. At a human cost, unfortunately, but so it goes.
elucidator,
There’s another demographic (well, actually a subset of “Damn Near Everybody”) that he may win over, and I’m sure the Republicans aren’t happy about this at all.