I don’t see him as much different from politicians who claim to hate government. Either they’re hypocrites, or they’re simply working within the system available to them so they have a chance of making their agenda heard and perhaps executed.
Or it could have been a mildly hyperbolic way of stating the certainty of his opinion, that he might believe otherwise when pigs fly, or Hell gets cable. You seem to imply as much here:
Apparently, you didn’t find that adequate to your needs, so you want to suggest a more elaborate scheme of obfuscation. Based on nothing more than your interpretation of words that also admit of another interpretation entirely.
No, I meant that perhaps Moore was being honest when he more or less admitted that nothing short of Obama’s having become president of Goldman Sachs would be enough to cause him to admit that Obama’s efforts were falling short of his promises.
ETA: And do you realize, don’t you, that you’re only supporting my contention with what you said above – that perhaps Moore was saying that he’d admit that Obama was failing to meet his promises when pigs fly or Hell gets cable? 
Which is saying precisely the same thing but simpy wording it in a pejorative fashion. Its kind of like Obama promises that health care reform will make things better, you claim he’s promising to raise the dead. Why, for instance, do you insist on usng the word “admit” when “said” is just as serviceable? If he actually believes what he says, he’s not “admitting” a damn thing. Youi’re putting words in his mouth, pulling them back out and shouting “Aha! Gotchaya!”.
That the best you got?
Doesn’t have to be the best I got. It’s what happened. Hannity had to press the question several times, and Moore clearly didn’t want to answer it. If he’d merely said “When Obama becomes president of Goldman Sachs, that will be the point at which I feel he has failed in his promises,” I would have described his remark as his having “said” that. But he didn’t do that. It had to be pulled out of him. He stammered and equivocated and did everything possible to avoid having to define when he would be willing to acknowledge that Obama was failing to meet his promises. His answer, when it finally came, was clearly an admission.
Were you born telepathic, or is it a skill you developed over time? Would it astound you to hear that what you regard as “clear”…perhaps isn’t? That your judgement about what is “clear” is, in fact, subjective?
As you listened to GeeDubya lead us into war, at what point did you realise he was “clearly” lying through his teeth? And why didn’t you tell the rest of us, give us the benefit of your penetrating insight? I got it pretty early on, how about you?
So what do you want to argue about, the words I used to describe what happened or what did happen, which was quite a bit different than you said?
You said “MM was sincere, straightforward, and unflappable. He had the facts at his fingertips and he kept ignoring Hannitys bait.”
Only problem is, the clip showed that he was anything but. He stammered and equivocated. He refused to answer when asked about the current unemployment rate versus what Obama had claimed it would be as a result of the stimulous, choosing instead to say he wanted to give Obama more time. Hannity then asked how much time he was willing to give him. Moore demurred. So Hannity tried to pin him down, asking at what point Moore would be willing to concede that Obama had failed to deliver on his promises. Moore again demurred. Hannity pressed it again, making clear he wasn’t going to let it drop, whereupon Moore laughingly stated that when Obama became president of Goldman Sachs, that would be the point where he felt that Obama had failed to deliver on his promises.
Whether I used the word “said” or “admitted” has nothing at all to do with it, as you well know. Neither does my supposed clairvoyance. Both are nothing more than an attempt by you to direct the focus away from what Moore actually said and which you have no other defense for.
*"But nice try and thanks for playing.
Don, what do we have for our parting contestant tonight?
Hey, great news, elucidator! You’ve won a lifetime supply of Zonked rolling papers from Dirty Hippie, the nation’s largest and most beloved supplier of drug paraphernalia ! How 'bout them apples? Not a bad haul for one night’s worth of obfuscation and misdirection, eh?*"
I saw links to parts 1 and 2, but not 3. It’s here.
So I’m just going to record what I see as rhetorical ‘points’ as I watch this a second time through. My initial reaction was that both guys continued to be the same bloviating idiots that they’ve been for years, but I can’t see how you can watch this and come up with the conclusion that Moore ‘trashed’ Hannity.
Preface: The Bet
Hannity and Moore discuss their little bet, which Moore lost. Nine months after having lost, he cops to the lost bet and pseudo fulfills his end of the bargain by standing for a photo in front of the studio’s mock-up of the White House. It’s a joke, but it does kind of cast Moore in a bad light, especially the nonsense about walking through the Upper West Side with the sign. We’re supposed to buy that Michael Moore doesn’t take a cab to the studio, and have an aid carry the sign in a folder? It’s a joking, genial sort of thing (promising the viewers that these guys kinda like each other, so don’t expect Buckley v Vidal pt.II), so I won’t award Hannity a full point, but it’s not a promising start for Moore. (Moore:0 Hannity:.5
Part the First- Religion
Hannity describes Moore as a socialist because he can’t stomach the term ‘progressive’. Moore responds by saying he’s a Christian, they dicker about the nature of wealth for Christians and Moore goes on to show Hannity up for lying about going to Church. Hannity fumbles awfully trying to recover (love that look on Hannity’s face after the 'I went to Mass on Saturday) and poorly attempts to segue into… (Moore:1 Hannity:.5)
Part the Second - Moore’s Wealth
Moore denies he’s a multimillionaire. “The studio pays for my private jet,” is not a great back-up. He eventually semi-admits that he’s a rich man, and then stonewalls Hannity’s fair accusation that his wealth allows him to get an anti-wealth message across. Moore tries to deny that Cuba isn’t a repressive regime, and then poorly attempts to reply to Hannity’s point by bringing up that the US has done evil deeds. Moore, responding quickly to Hannity’s asinine lies in part the first, counters but misses the fact that Hannity confused democracy with capitalism. (Moore:1 Hannity:1.5)
Part the Third- 9/11
Moore begins with a salvo about the 9/11 attacks and how we haven’t fixed the issue. I’m not entirely sure what he’s talking about with the ‘monkey bars’ comment, but I’m guessing he’s talking about some Al Qaeda training videos. Apparently the fact that they’re not up to Western military training means they’re not a credible threat. I get where he’s going, and I understand why Hannity wants to stress the idea that the ‘terr’rists’ are an organized army, but they’re both mulling around a bit pointlessly
Moore manages to finally, eventually, get around to the fact that Bush gave up on searching for the goons/warriors to invade Iraq, and didn’t find any WMDs. Hannity flops explaining that it’s tough to know these things, and that it was all Clinton’s fault anyways. Hannity back-pedals, and Moore hits him hard with it. Hannity looks lost. I’ll give him a point and a half for it, but he does look a little odd for immediately after having recited a list of successful Al Qaeda operations returning to his ‘Monkey bars! They can’t do anything!’ routine. (Moore: 2.5, Hannity:1.5)
Part the Third 2.0 - More Terrorists
Moore gets Hannity to say “I love [the terrorists] in the sense that I want to destroy them.” Bwa-hahahah! I snorted beer through my nose the first time through here. (Moore:3 Hannity: 1.5)
And just before the commerical break, Moore attempts to suggest that Hannity can change hearts and minds, which he should know by the past ten minutes is just not true. Hannity gets to look pious by saying that Jesus is magical, and Moore fails to repeat the “What would Jesus do?” question. No points awarded.
Part the Fourth - Moore’s Power
Hannity goes back to his strong point: Moore has influence and money and power. Moore attempts to deny this, and looks the ass. Hannity hits him with a fairly telling point: why don’t you spend your capital to fix things, if you don’t care about capital? Moore returns that he has done things for those specific people whose stories he’s made money off of, but I’m still left with siding with Hannity on the point that a guy like Michael Moore really ought to have endowed a charity if he cared about helping people rather than raise awareness for politics sake. Moore plays it off well, so I’ll just square Hannity’s points off with a half point for a good line ear-budded in over the commercial break. (Moore:3 Hannity:2)
Part the Fifth- Obama and the Economy
Moore claims Obama got saddled with a bad economy. Hannity replies that Obama made things worse (which Moore lets slide) and then Hannity, completely out of gas, rips a line about an altar to Obama. Moore tries to deflect the issue instead of meeting the central complaint of the economy head-on, returns fire with a crack about Hannity having an altar to Reagan. Both look stupid here, but Hannity puts things back onto track, and ends up looking better for it by not returning an irrelevant attack with another irrelevant attack. (Tempo pays off) Negative points awarded to the audience for having to listen to it. (Moore:3 Hannity: 2 Audience: -10 minutes of life)
Part the Sixth - Responsibility, Capitalism, and What this Discussion Was Supposed to Be About
Hannity begins to brings up the fact that people entered into an agreement to purchase houses and failed to live up to them. Moore responds with an assertion that poor people’s decisions don’t really affect the economy. (Moore:3 Hannity: 2 Audience: Hoping this will go somewhere)
We’re on sensible territory here! The central issue of where blame lies: people not living up to responsibilities they assume versus our economy and how decisions are crafted by the wealthy and powerful. If we can keep going here, this might be worthwhile!
So Hannity compliments Moore on attacking a couple of Democrats, and Moore calls him out on it. We’re back to pointless sniping. Hannity again brings us back to topic after this exchange, which again makes him look a bit better.
Hannity raises the point that it was government regulation (an assumed anti-capitalist, pro-socialist stance) that began the cycle of events that lead to the mortgage crisis. Moore looks a little like he’s trying to squeeze out a grundy while listening. (Moore:3 Hannity: 3)
Moore responds that if those regulations caused the mortgage crisis, we should have seen the results earlier. Or, at least, that Reagan-Bush should have done something about it. As far as I read it, it’s a denial of the fact that the mortgage crisis was a fake balloon that took a long time to pop, and it’s an attempt to transfer blame from Carter to his successors instead of the central issue of regulation versus deregulation, which is kind of the whole crux of the issue.
Moore recovers, and brings up deregulation as the real reason that a bubble grew before it popped. Deregulation, he claims, started heavily with Reagan and Clinton, and was really accelerated by Bush II. Hannity looks confused in an attempt to defend Bush for a moment, perhaps praying for another commercial break. (Moore:4 Hannity: 3)
We’re running out of steam here. Hannity brings up that Moore didn’t harp enough on two of the thousands of guys responsible for the mortgage crisis. Moore wins a point by not being Hannity. (Moore:5 Hannity:3)
Part the Seventh: Moore Strikes Back
We’re continuing, happily, on the regulation vs. deregulation argument, which is of course the difference Moore and Hannity have about unregulated capitalism. Moore notes that the FBI says 80% of mortgage defaults were due to bank/lender fraud, and not lender irresponsibility. There’s some semi-relevant snipes at Bush II eliminating FBI white collar crime investigation units, but it’s not the right place for it. Still, it’s data which makes Sean-baby stutter. (Moore:6 Hannity:3)
Hannity asks the simple question (although he doesn’t make it simple) of whether people should be responsible for contracts they sign. Moore responds that the borrowers were lied to, but doesn’t really make much of a return on the issues of responsibility for agreement. Moore says it’s normal to sign contracts without understanding them, Hannity says he does. There’s a brief exchange about their own contracts, where it comes out that people read and understand the things that are important to them. Hannity wins, if nothing else, by the terrible, completely unrelated, rape analogy. (Moore:6 Hannity:4)
Moore is under fire here. He can’t really get out of the whole “People signed agreements which they didn’t understand that they can’t live up to” and moves on to blame the people who schemed the unfair agreements up. He goes back to the FBI statistics, which Hannity finally responds to by implying that he thinks Moore made the stats up. I’m disgusted by both of these fuckers.
Ah-hah! Moore declares that medical bills are the number one reason that people who sign contracts are unable to fulfill them. I thought Sicko came out last year. Hannity doesn’t rise to the bait, as it’s a diversion. It’s weak, but Hannity comes out looking slightly better here by focussing on the issue at hand. Half a point. (Moore:6 Hannity:4.5)
Part the Eighth: Denouement
Moore demands that Hannity respond to his question on healthcare. Hannity wriggles away from the issue. Moore then brings up a telling fundamental point about the progression of capitalism in our country: we don’t produce any more, we just shuffle goods and services around, and make money off of money. It’s a good question, but doesn’t seem to address anything we’ve heard so far. Commercial break, end of segment, Moore looks like he’s going to shit himself again while listening to Hannity. Moore:7 Hannity:4.5
Does Moore look smarter and more in command of the issue than Hannity? Sure. Does he do so overwhelmingly? Not in my book. Hearkening back to Buckley/Vidal, I miss the educated debates of Firing Line. Hell, I miss the Novak/Kinsley debates on Crossfire. What’s happened to the political media?
The monkey bars comment refers to the Afghan films of many years ago when Al Queda was training there. Al Queda were the ones responsible for the towers. It was not the Taliban. Taliban has no designs on America. They just want to get back in control of the country. They have succeeded. But there are practically no Al Queda in Afghanistan. Al Queda is not very big at all. That was the point Moore was driving at. We are attacking a country to get Al Queda and they are not there. The Taliban does not want them there. They are in Pakistan .And there are very few of them to get.
Since we don’t know who they are and how many, we can chase them forever.
Is Moore still claiming that the opposite of capitalism is democracy?
As best I can tell from this video, he thinks the opposite of capitalism is Christianity. He was saying so to needle Hannity, though.
About that mortgage crisis thingy: Hannity was lying. Hannity knew he was lying, he was offering a distraction that doesn’t support the slightest effort at examination.
He repeats the gross canard that somehow the banks and mortgage lenders were cruelly compelled to make mortgages against their interests and better judgement. But you and I know that under the Bushivik administration, if the banks found any legislation onerous and burdensome, they could have ordered up new and better legislation as easily as you might order a pizza.
Hannity is awash in information and media, it simply isn’t possible that he is unaware of this. He repeats this deep dish batshit pizza because the people who write his checks want him to. From those to whom much is given, much is expected, and Hannity is a very intelligent man who has offered his intelligence in the service of darkness. If I were a Christian as he purports, I might seriously examine the advantages of atheism, given my prospects.
You apparently believe that you have a sharp wit and a Swiftean gift for satire. How very sad. I will resolve to be more gentle with you in the future.
I’d be happy if you just resolved to be honest.
The irony, it burns.
Okay, I’ll issue the same challenge to you that I have to the handful of other posters around here who’ve accused me of being dishonest: How’s about you cough up some instances?
I’ll wager crickets chirp.
Try every single political discussion you’ve been in. At best you’re not dishonest, merely incredibly partisan, which is about the most you can say of elucidator as well.
And no, I’m not going to dig up examples of you disregarding evidence that doesn’t fit your worldview, although they come up quite frequently, most often with regard to your extremely dubious memory of bygone days. Anyone who’s followed politics on this board doesn’t need examples, you wouldn’t accept them anyway, and frankly you just don’t merit that much attention.
Yes, I’m partisan, and I don’t make any bones about it. That still leaves the partisan winds that blow around this place coming about 98 percent from the other direction. Still, partisanship isn’t dishonesty.
Disregarding suspect evidence from partisan sources with an obvious agenda does not equal dishonesty.
If you’re going to claim dishonesty on my part regarding the past, you’re going to have to illustrate it if you want to have any credibility. I have no hesitation at all in saying that I stand solidly behind anything I’ve said about the past. If you want to claim I’ve been dishonest, you’re going to have to show it.
I only merit enough attention for you to accuse me of lying but not enough for you to come up with examples, is that it? :rolleyes:
Do you realize what this post of yours actually consists of? Basically you’re saying that we disagree, therefore I must be dishonest. Typical. Nobody can possibly disagree with people like you without villainy of some sort being the reason. This is just another example of the arrogance and elitism that people like you are known for.
Man, what a great idea! Lets comb through all of Starving Artist’s posts to find examples, and then post them all here, so he can defend himself voluminously on each and every one, and then we can…
I interrupt this post with sad news. Sr. Hamster Speedo has committed suicide. He was a credit to rodents everywhere, and will be sorely missed. A spokesman for rodents said he was very sorry to hear this news. This post will be suspended in respect.
Actually, you claimed first that elucidator was dishonest, when at best you two disagree. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and all that.
And yes, you’re not worth hunting down examples. You shit in every post you make.