Yes, and in case it wasn’t clear the underlying claim is **if you make an assertion on a forum dedicated to fighting ignorance, you should be able to back it up. ** Otherwise, it’s just hot air.
If you can’t back it up, there are tricks you can use like softening your claim or tacking on “IMHO”.
For example:
“Monkeys fly out of my posterior.”
“Cite?”
“Oh sorry, IMHO monkeys fly out of my posterior.”
“Oh well then: carry on.”
Um actually I had no idea what was being referenced. No worries, but I don’t get my news from the TV. I had read those speeches and news reports of the same, but “Apology” didn’t really cross my mind. So yeah it did clarify a lot.
Furthermore, once we have ~10 examples we can assess them. It is a fact that the words “Apologize”, “Sorry” or even “Regret” appeared nowhere. If we were to drill down further, I’d request that proponents of this view give the Obama quote that best strengthens their position. Then we could discuss it. What I’m seeing here is part evasion, part post-Modernism. To wit, if somebody feels something, it contains an emotional truth. While this view is popular in certain circles, I find it bunk.
Of course. In that case the speaker intends to send a coded message to one group and a banality to the wider public. Pointing out the messaging is entirely legitimate.
It’s quite another thing to hallucinate an apology out of speech that explores cultural misunderstandings. Words have meaning. Facts matter. You don’t just get to make shit up.
Right up until the spring of 2003 I thought the only real important thing about the presidential election was the effect it would have on the composition of the Supreme Court. Then we invaded Iraq and I thought to myself “OOPS! I shoulda been paying more attention to the fucking nutjobs that have taken over the Republican party”
Right now there are 4 justices in their 70’s, two liberal and two conservative.
I don’t think poorly of Romney. I think he’s wrong on a lot of things but I dont think that a congress full of Mitt Romneys would have been willing to harm the country in an effort to harm Obama’s presidency.
But, I do think that the current Republican party has a lot of people who are Republicans first and Americans second. They rationalize it by telling themselves that any temporary harm they may inflict on America in their attempts to harm the Obama presidency is far outweighed by the good they would be able to do if only they got power… again.
Conservatives weren’t the only ones to hear an apology. When it became politically damaging, then there was disagreement over what he meant. I didn’t see any disagreement before conservatives made hay out of it.
I saw the same thing with the “you didn’t build that”. First it was an amazing truth that he spoke about the importance of collective action, and when that proved to be too damaging it was just a banal observation of little importance.
Politically damaging? Hardly. Only to the extent that right wing hallucinations are politically damaging.
Well, actually he was riffing off of Elizabeth Warren. And the point is we all owe an impossible to repay debt to our forefathers, those who lay the bricks to create the schools we learned in, those who built the roads, those who burnt midnight oil to construct the incredible edifice of knowledge called science.
And modern conservatives think it was all done by pampered CEOs and financiers. Lame.
Those flip flopped interpretations were coming from you. You were the one flinging all manner of stuff as you tried to find something that would stick. It’s a problem you face because you are not arguing from a coherent position, but rather in an attempt to score political points for Team Romney. This is especially challenging because Team Romney has no integrity themselves, so you often have to dance through odd musical time changes.
I read somewhere that there’s a book claiming that Obama really wants to win for two reasons: the Supreme Court, and the fear that Romney and conservative economic policies will take credit for any economic turnaround that happens.
I can see why Obama’s supporters would definitely think both would be, at the least, incredibly damaging.
Yes, I should clarify: the implication was that Obama believed that a recovery would inevitably happen, and that Romney and conservatives would take credit for it when they did nothing to help it along, and thus add legitimacy to policies that he thinks are wrongheaded.
Again, this is all in some book (IIRC), and thus should be taken with a grain of salt, but extended beyond claims of what the President thinks to his supporters in general, I think it’s a good set of reasoning to understand their mindset.
