This is why I ought not to leave CNN on in the background while I’m working from home.
At least three times in the past 24 hours, I’ve heard James Carville refer to the notion of seating the delegates from Michigan and Florida as Hillary’s “superior moral case.” This fucking idiotic sound bite makes it sound as if seating these delegates is a done deal as far as fairness is concerned.
Okay, I get it. Politicos use sound bites. But Carville looks like a drooling fucking idiot when he clings to it like the landing skid of the last chopper out of Saigon. When he’s asked questions about the agreement about how to treat states that move their primaries up in defiance of party rules, he keeps parroting this shit. When he’s asked about Obama not even being on the ballot in Michigan, he parrots it again. When asked why he thinks we should change the rules after the fact, he repeats it again.
This is one of the things I really can’t stand about politics - when ordinarily smart people are intellectually dishonest and fall back on sound bites and talking points to justify [del]their positions[/del] the positions that have been handed to them.
I’m already fucking sick of this sound bite. Carville, you’re fucking backing the wrong horse on this one. Think for a second and realize you’re dodging the obvious questions and you look like an idiot for it. What’s that going to do for your career when the dust settles post-convention?
That’s the job of someone in Mr. Ragin’ Cajun’s position. There are of course jobs for intelligent people who will always stick to their intellectually-honestly-arrived-at position, and only present it in such a way as to respect their audience’s intelligence – but Assistant Professor in the liberal-arts faculty does not provide the same prospects for big money, face time on national TV, invites to Embassy-Row soireés and chances to actually influence people with real power.
I wouldn’t worry. If Pat Buchanan can still get good-paying gigs, it should be no problem for The Grinnin’ Skull.
I try not to think about Carville’s or Matalin’s sexual relations, together or apart. Let me clarify that…I try not to think about the fact that Carville and Matalin have sexual relations, period. Ewwww…
Eh. At least Buchanan was somewhat photogenic until his face collapsed in on that crimson button he calls a nose. Carville was never photogenic. I hear the Take-A-Pix at the shopping center near his hometown stopped working when his mother tried to get his photo taken at age 3.
Eh…he’s doing a job for a client. He’s like a defense attorney. He wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t do his rhetorical best.
He also said a day or two ago that he’s got an undated check written out to Barack Obama and that he’s going to send the check as soon as Hillary gets out. Don’t take him too seriously. He’s doing what he gets paid to do, and that’s give the best possible spin for his client. He doesn’t get paid to half-ass it. This time next month, he’ll be doing the same thing for Obama.
Pardon the hijack, but could I ask a GQ type thing here (he asked rhetorically)? I don’t understand the big furor over the Michigan and Florida delegates; Obama wasn’t even on the ticket in Michigan and while Hillary carried Florida it was when there were other Dems on the ticket and Obama had not campaigned. Barack wouldn’t even have to win both primaries to get enough votes for the nomination, thus wouldn’t it possibly be suicidal to Hillary for Michigan and Florida to be counted?
What I would like someone to explain is why Michigan and Florida did this in the first place. I get that they thought moving up their primaries would increase their weight, but when it became clear that the party was going to make the elections invalid as a result, why didn’t they say “Oop, never mind, we’ll hold the primaries whenever you want us too.”
I’d be really fucking pissed if I were a Michigan or Florida voter.
Because they thought that the national party was making empty threats and their delegations would be seated anyway. And it still might turn out that they were right.
That’s a very good question, and I’m glad you brought it up. The American people, the hard-working, decent people spread across this great land of ours, are an optimistic, hard-working people in this great country we call America.
Florida kinda sorta has a case, because they were basically railroaded into it by their Republican legislative majority and a Republican governor. The Dems didn’t HAVE to vote for the bill, but the Republicans included a “godfather” provision (an offer they couldn’t refuse) in the elections bill that changed the date, legally guaranteed voting paper trails. The Florida Dems aren’t entirely blameless, though, as the fact that their challenge to the sanctions by the DNC was dismissed indicates. The DNC found that the Florida Dems really didn’t do everything they possibly could have to fight the date change (and, really, the Florida Dems were kind of lazy about the whole thing), so they sustained the sanction.
Ooh! You’re truly destined for greatness! You’re one of us, aren’t you? And you’d be a great guy to have a beer with. And you’re not too bright, because we don’t want some damned egghead making decisions for the country.
Are you on the ballot, or will I need to write you in?
It wasn’t just a matter of laziness, but outright arrogance and thumbing their noses on their part. See here, and watch the linked video in that post. It’s a gem that shouldn’t be missed. Note the dripping sarcasm and the <wink, wink, nod, nod> going on. This was not a “Good Faith” effort to prevent the early primary, this was a set-up job to try to pull one over on the Rules Committee later. Too bad for them it didn’t work.