Is there a double standard in this Obama school address controversy?

[intention]

@CurtC

We have not been asked to forward email addresses - please stop saying that and it would help your position here. And it’s also disingenuous to call these email spam messages “private communications.”

They were asked to forward the email messages. Not just the contents. The email messages. Those contain the addresses.

@CurtC

I’ll grant that in an ideal world the President would have said “send us what those emails are saying (and please delete the sender’s info)…”

So it couldn’t happen in the real world, only the ideal world? Why not? They have had the time, and they are aware of the problem. The administration has received complaints about this program, from both sides of the political spectrum, from citizens and Congressfolk, regarding precisely this issue. They have had weeks to say “don’t send the email addresses”. They have not done so. Curious, that … they’ve been told by both Democrats and Republicans that asking for the email addresses is wrong, and they haven’t stopped doing it to this very day. Could you explain again how they don’t want us to send them the email addresses, when your simple request above would have stopped them coming in?

@CurtC

Again, you’re disingenuously setting up a straw man of what I said. I did NOT imply that my situation hinges on the idea that people were lying about him, I set up a situation where President Bush had explained his need to find out the word on the street and ask for help. And yes, I think I and most others here would have thought that it was OK for Bush to do something similar in a similar enough situation. It’s not a difference in how much we trust Bush vs. Obama; in a similar situation both of them would be justified in asking that we forward them what people were saying.

Yes, and your situation justifying the need was that people were lying about him. I don’t see that as a justification, but obviously YMMV …

But let’s take your case. In the runup to the war, many Republicans thought that Democrats were lying to them. Democrats were saying there were no WMDs in Iraq, saying that Saddam wasn’t trying to buy yellowcake, that the sanctions were working, that Al Qaeda had nothing to do with Saddam, and from the Republican point of view those were obviously all lies.

So if Bush had asked me to forward your antiwar email to him, so he could find out the word on the street, that would have been just fine with you?

Why do I doubt that?

And more to the point, does the fact that the Adminstration claims that their opponents are lying give them the right to ask me to forward them your emails? If the Bush Administration couldn’t get “the word on the street”, tough. That’s their problem. And in this internet age, if Obama can’t get the word on the street of all the bogus attacks on the health care plan, shame on him.

@CurtC

All ethics are situational; there’s nothing wrong with that. But we’re not in this case saying the difference has anything to do with which President is asking for the info.

All ethics are situational? So I’ve been misled, sauce for the goose is not really sauce for the gander? Funny, I don’t recall any situational ethics in the Ten Commandments, have they been re-written when I wasn’t looking and I didn’t get the memo? Does the law really say “There are certain times when, because of your situation, it’s OK to rape, torture, and murder your girlfriend”? Was it OK for the Bush administration to torture people because they were trying to protect the US?

Please. Perhaps all of your ethics are situational, but the world is larger than you. For many of us, Bush’s torture was wrong no matter what the situation was.

[Kimstu]

@intention

Dear friends, I get it. You see nothing wrong with Obama asking people to forward email addresses and private communications to the authorities.

No, you still don’t get it. Getting it would require you to realize that we don’t think Obama actually wants the email addresses of people who disseminate “disinformation” about his health care reform proposals, so we disagree with you that he was actually seeking to get those email addresses by “asking people to forward” them.

We do definitely agree with you that if the Administration did want to collect email addresses to compile an “enemies list” identifying people who oppose his health care reform proposals, that would indeed be wrong.

Moreover, we (at least some of us) agree with you that the Administration’s blog and Obama’s own subsequent speech contained unclear phrasing that might be misinterpreted to insinuate that Obama was collecting email addresses for that nefarious purpose.

But none of that implies that Obama was actually, deliberately seeking to find out the email addresses of people who disagree with him about health care reform.

@intention

The point is that we should not be asked to forward email addresses and private communications to the authorities.

Yes, that’s very true. If you only had the elementary linguistic comprehension to add to that sentence “and therefore, Obama should avoid saying things that might be interpreted to mean that the authorities are trying to collect email addresses of people who disagree with them”, there would be no disagreement here at all.

Instead, you keep asserting that Obama actually does want to collect email addresses of people who disagree with him, while in the same breath claiming that you don’t actually believe that that’s what he wants to do. It’s your inability to resolve this logical contradiction in your own statements that’s drawing so much criticism down upon you here.

[kaylasdad99]

@intention

Originally Posted by kaylasdad99
Man, you give WAY too much benefit of the doubt to the Republicans, that they’re putting stuff up in good faith.

What are they going to have to do to get you to call them on their shit?

Say what? Read what I’ve written. I’ve described them in a variety of ways, none of them pleasant. Yes, some of them lie. Yes, some of them are out to get Obama by fair means or foul. Yes, some of them are willing to use any tactic to achieve their ends. I’ve said all that before.

And some of them are just like my father-in-law, an old man who is fearful of change. He doesn’t do any of those things, he’s just worried about how he is going to survive in an uncertain world …

What’s your point? That if some of our opponents are immoral liars, that we should not keep our own house in order?

You’ll have to say more about this, I have no idea what you’re trying to get across.

Check this out:

@kimstu

Instead, you keep asserting that Obama actually does want to collect email addresses of people who disagree with him, while in the same breath claiming that you don’t actually believe that that’s what he wants to do.

And THAT’s what I’m talking about when I say you’re giving the opposition too much benefit of the doubt for good faith.

[davidm]

You know why they aren’t asking people to remove the headers? I’ll tell you.

How many people would even know how to forward emails without the headers? How many people even know what headers are?

Asking the typical user to forward something without the headers would be like asking them to forward it in Unicode. Ain’t gonna happen. Ain’t even gonna be understood. You might as well be speaking Martian.

[Jack_Batty]

If Obama wanted dirt on his enemies, he’d do it the old fashion way … warrantless wiretaps.

This is the 21st centrury, ferchrissakes.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@Jack_Batty

If Obama wanted dirt on his enemies, he’d do it the old fashion way … warrantless wiretaps.

This is the 21st centrury, ferchrissakes.

Come to think of it, I’m honestly not sure I know the answer to this: is the right-wing claim that Obama’s request to forward those e-mails was meant to have a chilling effect rather than an information-gathering one?

[intention]

Kimstu, many thanks, we are approaching agreement.

@Kimstu

No, you still don’t get it. Getting it would require you to realize that we don’t think Obama actually wants the email addresses of people who disseminate “disinformation” about his health care reform proposals, so we disagree with you that he was actually seeking to get those email addresses by “asking people to forward” them.

We do definitely agree with you that if the Administration did want to collect email addresses to compile an “enemies list” identifying people who oppose his health care reform proposals, that would indeed be wrong.

Moreover, we (at least some of us) agree with you that the Administration’s blog and Obama’s own subsequent speech contained unclear phrasing that might be misinterpreted to insinuate that Obama was collecting email addresses for that nefarious purpose.

But none of that implies that Obama was actually, deliberately seeking to find out the email addresses of people who disagree with him about health care reform.

Don’t know how I could make it more obvious. I don’t think Obama was deliberately seeking the email addresses of people who disagree with him. Are we clear on that?

My point was that the collection of email addresses of people who disagree with him, deliberately or accidentally, for good purposes or bad, is wrong. And refusing to destroy them if they have been sent in accidentally, despite repeated requests to do so, is both wrong and really, really dumb.

@Kimstu

@intention

The point is that we should not be asked to forward email addresses and private communications to the authorities.

Yes, that’s very true. If you only had the elementary linguistic comprehension to add to that sentence “and therefore, Obama should avoid saying things that might be interpreted to mean that the authorities are trying to collect email addresses of people who disagree with them”, there would be no disagreement here at all.

OK. The point is that we should not be asked to forward email addresses and private communications to the authorities, and therefore, Obama should avoid saying things that might be interpreted to mean that the authorities are trying to collect email addresses of people who disagree with them. So we agree.

However, he did not avoid saying things like that. And despite being put on notice that it was wrong, and having time to fix it, he still has not done so. Does this mean it was deliberate? No. Does it mean it was stupid? Yes.

@Kimstu

Instead, you keep asserting that Obama actually does want to collect email addresses of people who disagree with him, while in the same breath claiming that you don’t actually believe that that’s what he wants to do. It’s your inability to resolve this logical contradiction in your own statements that’s drawing so much criticism down upon you here.

I don’t know what he wants to do. I only know what he has done. I have said repeatedly that he is not trying to create an enemies list or do anything wrong with the email addresses. I only know that he still, as we speak, despite repeated requests, despite having time to do so, has not clarified his statement.

Me, I think that’s just monumental incompetence. However, it does give me an understanding of why people are upset about the issue … because he hasn’t fixed it, and it’s obviously broken. And when you leave gaping holes like that, the opposition will definitely notice them.

[intention]

@Captain_Carrot

No, that since many of our opponents are either unscrupulous liars or directed by them, that we shouldn’t treat them as rational human beings who can be persuaded by the appropriate argument.

Oh, yeah, that will win the day for our side. I see how well that’s been working. :rolleyes:

[intention]

@davidm

You know why they aren’t asking people to remove the headers? I’ll tell you.

How many people would even know how to forward emails without the headers? How many people even know what headers are?

Asking the typical user to forward something without the headers would be like asking them to forward it in Unicode. Ain’t gonna happen. Ain’t even gonna be understood. You might as well be speaking Martian.

Thank you kindly, davidm, that is very true.

Which means that in practice, here in the real world, a request to forward the emails is a request to forward the email addresses.

I’m sure you can see the obvious corollaries of that in the context of our discussion.

[Hippy_Hollow]

I have to be honest. I’m an Obama supporter and I viewed this as a very neutral pep talk for kids. However, if Bush 2 was doing the same thing, I’d probably bitch and moan about it and assume the worst. I wouldn’t take my kids out of school over it though.

I am a little disappointed that the Dems seem to be so Keystone Kop-esque advancing their agenda, though. WRT the lesson plan - didn’t anybody think that putting “the president” as the person that kids were supposed to help would give wingnuts an opportunity to pounce? Why not “the president and America” or something along those lines? Somebody should have caught that.

I also think it might have been smart for Obama to share the dais (or give second billing) with a Republican, maybe this first time around. Perhaps someone like John McCain, Bobby Jindal, Olympia Snowe - just to bring forth the idea that improving education is something that all Americans can get behind. I think making the offer would have blunted the furor, and any GOP member dumb enough to refuse to join the President would come across like a world-class asshole.

The one thing that I wish was made more explicit was how important it would be for kids that might identify with Obama - kids of color, kids from single-parent homes, etc. - to hear Obama make a speech about the importance of education. I guarantee at least one kid is taking his or her schooling a little more seriously after that speech. And that’s one less kid that will be breaking into your house, robbing you at gunpoint, or sucking up taxpayer dollars in jail somewhere.

[intention]

@kaylasdad99

Check this out:
And THAT’s what I’m talking about when I say you’re giving the opposition too much benefit of the doubt for good faith.

Accusing other Obama supporters of bad faith is perhaps not a real productive tactic. You might instead try to understand the points I’m trying to make, and cut me some slack if my words are not clear. Too many people are blowing off other folks’ legitimate concerns for my liking, claiming that they’re acting in bad faith and they’re just dupes of the right wing. It’s a great way to avoid cleaning up our own house, but other than that it is not very effective.

The claim is always that “they’re just opposing anything we do”. Well, for the times when that’s true, it’s true on both sides. When Bush I spoke to the students, he was investigated by a Congressional committee for that heinous sin … funny how you all seem to have forgotten that.

When Bush spoke to students, Democrats investigated, held hearings
By: BYRON YORK
Chief Political Correspondent

The controversy over President Obama’s speech to the nation’s schoolchildren will likely be over shortly after Obama speaks today at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. But when President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech on October 1, 1991, from Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC, the controversy was just beginning. Democrats, then the majority party in Congress, not only denounced Bush’s speech – they also ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate its production and later summoned top Bush administration officials to Capitol Hill for an extensive hearing on the issue.

Unlike the Obama speech, in 1991 most of the controversy came after, not before, the president’s school appearance. The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president’s political benefit. “The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props,” the Post reported.

With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. “The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students,” said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader. “And the president should be doing more about education than saying, ‘Lights, camera, action.’”

Democrats did not stop with words. Rep. William Ford, then chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate the cost and legality of Bush’s appearance. On October 17, 1991, Ford summoned then-Education Secretary Lamar Alexander and other top Bush administration officials to testify at a hearing devoted to the speech. “The hearing this morning is to really examine the expenditure of $26,750 of the Department of Education funds to produce and televise an appearance by President Bush at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, DC,” Ford began. “As the chairman of the committee charged with the authorization and implementation of education programs, I am very much interested in the justification, rationale for giving the White House scarce education funds to produce a media event.”

So please, enough with the “they’ll oppose us no matter what”, neither side has clean hands in that regard. The way out of it is for both sides to stop claiming that everything the other side does is motivated by blind opposition and led by liars. That path goes nowhere. For example, the insistence that opposition to health care was all astroturfed and led by professional naysayers and was nothing but kneejerk reaction led Democrats to overlook and ignore the actual opposition that was out there. It pissed off people who were neither astroturfed nor led by anyone, those people who have actual concerns about the plan, and whose actual concerns have been ignored by Democrats like Captain Carrot who say things like “we shouldn’t treat them as rational human beings”.

As a result, the chances of the health care bill passing have been greatly reduced, which is a huge tragedy.

[ElvisL1ves]

@Hippy_Hollow

I also think it might have been smart for Obama to share the dais (or give second billing) with a Republican, maybe this first time around. Perhaps someone like John McCain, Bobby Jindal, Olympia Snowe - just to bring forth the idea that improving education is something that all Americans can get behind.

Sarah Palin was free that day.

[Bosstone]

@intention

Accusing other Obama supporters of bad faith is perhaps not a real productive tactic. You might instead try to understand the points I’m trying to make, and cut me some slack if my words are not clear. Too many people are blowing off other folks’ legitimate concerns for my liking, claiming that they’re acting in bad faith and they’re just dupes of the right wing.

Then perhaps you need to focus your efforts on making your position more clear. You’ve been shown strong examples of why you’re being taken in bad faith (and since the “bad faith” contention is being applied because you’re not acting like an Obama supporter but saying you are, reiterating it isn’t helping). If it is just poor writing on your part, which ironically you’re lambasting the administration for, then you need to acknowledge and improve it. Telling others to treat you as A while firmly acting as B is not a real productive tactic, as you put it.

[davidm]

@intention

Thank you kindly, davidm, that is very true.

Which means that in practice, here in the real world, a request to forward the emails is a request to forward the email addresses.

I’m sure you can see the obvious corollaries of that in the context of our discussion.

No, it means that there is an unavoidable side effect. It does NOT mean that that was the intent, and no I don’t see the supposedly obvious corollaries. why don’t you spell them out for those of us not on your planet.

[intention]

@Bosstone

Then perhaps you need to focus your efforts on making your position more clear. You’ve been shown strong examples of why you’re being taken in bad faith (and since the “bad faith” contention is being applied because you’re not acting like an Obama supporter but saying you are, reiterating it isn’t helping). If it is just poor writing on your part, which ironically you’re lambasting the administration for, then you need to acknowledge and improve it. Telling others to treat you as A while firmly acting as B is not a real productive tactic, as you put it.

Give me an example of my bad faith. I am an Obama supporter, but not an Obama sycophant. I don’t agree with everything he’s done. I still support him. I just commit the heinous crime of speaking my mind when I think he’s screwed up.

You seem to think that an Obama supporter should sit around and say “Oh, yes, he’s the man, he never fails, he’s wonderful and all powerful.” Not my position at all … and I still support him. Yes, strange as it may seem, an Obama supporter can lambast the administration. I see from what you write that you don’t understand that, but it’s true.

Ironically, rather than being helpful, your type of unquestioned support does great damage to our side. It prevents us from finding and fixing our own faults. This guarantees that the Republicans will find and exploit our faults … that’s double-plus ungood.

PS - Insulting people who voted for Obama and accusing us of bad faith might not be the best tactic if you want us to vote for Obama again …

[Kimstu]

@intention

OK. The point is that we should not be asked to forward email addresses and private communications to the authorities, and therefore, Obama should avoid saying things that might be interpreted to mean that the authorities are trying to collect email addresses of people who disagree with them. So we agree.

Yes, we absolutely do. Thank you.

@intention

However, he did not avoid saying things like that. And despite being put on notice that it was wrong, and having time to fix it, he still has not done so. Does this mean it was deliberate? No. Does it mean it was stupid? Yes.

I would modify the wording of this last part slightly:

And despite being put on notice that it was potentially confusing or misleading, and having time to fix it, he still has not done so. Does this mean it was deliberate? No. Does it mean it was a poor choice of phrasing? Yes.

Other than that nitpick about tone, I have absolutely no quarrel with those statements either.

@intention

I only know that he still, as we speak, despite repeated requests, despite having time to do so, has not clarified his statement.

Me, I think that’s just monumental incompetence.

I would disagree with this somewhat, but I think it’s something on which reasonable people can disagree. My take on it would be that yeah, it would be nice if he made it absolutely clear what he does really mean, but at this point there has been so much fuss over this issue by unreasonable people that perhaps it is wise, from a strategy viewpoint, for him just to let it go. It’s not clear to me that any clarification he could offer from now on would do much more than just fuel further nutjobbish distortion and misinterpretation.

What you call “monumental incompetence” I would call “a PR squabble caused mostly by ill-will, illogic and hysterical paranoia from anti-Obama right-wingers, but exacerbated by the Administration’s own inept, or at least imperfectly ept, handling of the situation”. However, in this case we are at least on the same page, just arguing about the proper tempo.

[intention]

@davidm

No, it means that there is an unavoidable side effect. It does NOT mean that that was the intent, and no I don’t see the supposedly obvious corollaries. why don’t you spell them out for those of us not on your planet.

Read what I said. I did not say it was the intent. I said it was the outcome.

The obvious corollary is that if you ask people to forward emails to you, you’ll get the email address, so you can’t claim that you’re not collecting email addresses as many have claimed here. Sorry for my lack of clarity.

[Shodan]

@intention

Give me an example of my bad faith.

Any criticism of Obama is automatically evidence of bad faith.

since the “bad faith” contention is being applied because you’re not acting like an Obama supporter but saying you are, reiterating it isn’t helping

You’re not acting like an Obama supporter. Obama supporters must automatically, reflexively accept whatever he says, and whatever spin his sycophants want to put on it. That is the only acceptable attitude.

The hive mind does not tolerate dissent.

Regards,
Shodan

[Knorf]

@Shodan

Any criticism of Obama is automatically evidence of bad faith.
You’re not acting like an Obama supporter. Obama supporters must automatically, reflexively accept whatever he says, and whatever spin his sycophants want to put on it. That is the only acceptable attitude.

The hive mind does not tolerate dissent.

What nonsense.

But seriously, how is this post acceptable by SMDB rules? I find being associated with a “hive mind” incredibly insulting, and there’s no doubt in my mind that this line was directed as an insult. It certainly doesn’t contribute anything meaningful to the debate.

[CurtC]

@davidm

How many people would even know how to forward emails without the headers? How many people even know what headers are?

Asking the typical user to forward something without the headers would be like asking them to forward it in Unicode.

But they don’t need to mess with the headers, they just need to drag their mouse over the parts of the forwarded message that show who it was previously from, and hit the “delete” button.

Is there more to this that I’m missing? There are email headers showing a “Reference,” but I think it would take a subpoena, signed by a judge, to get an ISP to open their records to find the details of the email message in the reference header. If I’m mistaken about this, I’d like to know.