You forgot the next line - IOKIADDI.
Regards,
Shodan
It’s OK if a Democrat Did It- isn’t that pretty much what you’re arguing? It doesn’t matter what a Republican did- if some Democrat, somewhere, at any point in history did it, it’s OK?
I guess if you don’t have any other defense…
eh
Merely that there should be a consistent standard.
Take the endlessly repeated “Bush lied about Iraq!” that seems to make up about 90% of the political thinking of many Dopers. I have never asserted that it was OK for Bush to lie about Iraq. And it would not be OK for Bush to lie about Iraq even if Democrats also lied about Iraq.
This is because Bush did not lie about Iraq. Neither did the other prominent Democrats who also beliefs about Iraq were also generally supported by the intelligence.
No one asserts that it is OK to lie. The difficulty is to keep those who accuse Bush of lying to a consistent standard. If Bush lied, then so did Clinton and Hilary and Gore and Albright and Kerry and so on and so on. If Clinton and Hilary and Gore and Albright and Kerry and so on did not lie, then neither did Bush.
There are lots of other examples. A while back there was a big flap because Bush autographed a flag, and there was some faux outrage over what was considered desecration of the flag. So I dug up and posted a picture of Clinton doing exactly the same thing. Now mind you, this does not make it OK for Bush to sign a flag. That was already OK - signing a flag is trivially unobjectionable. It was equally OK for Clinton to sign a flag, and no conservatives on the SDMB ever raised a peep about it.
Again, what I was doing is pointing out the double standard. It happens constantly. Indefinite detention gets howls of outrage when Bush did it, but hardly a raised eyebrow when Obama does it. Sure, there are some tepid, after-the-fact rationalizations, but no more than that. Signing statements, broken promises, deficit spending, lobbyists in government, racist statements from public officials - all dreadful things, and roundly, if not hysterically, condemned by the more fervent and less potty-trained members of the SDMB. If it’s Bush.
See how it works? (I know you don’t, but I also know why.)
Regards,
Shodan
So your response to a perceived double standard is to hold your own double standard? 'Cause, you see, that’s how you come across here- anything a Republican does, no matter how reprehensible, can be excused if you can find a Democrat who did something similar, no matter how tangentially related the two situations may be. And then you hold us responsible for not having denounced said Democrat for that action, since we’re so hypocritical to hold a Republican responsible now- and, in your mind, that excuses any excess or failure on the part of your favorite team.
And what’s more, you never denounce your guys for any action… but then hold us responsible when we don’t denounce our guys. Do you seem to think that our failure to denounce Democrats is somehow a license for Republicans to do anything they want, no matter how reprehensible?
And this is why nobody takes you seriously. You come across as more interested in arguing and taking potshots than in any serious study of the situation. You blame the “Usual Suspects” for being blindly partisan, without (apparently) being aware of your own innate hypocrisy. Every post must end with bit of snark, eh?
I’ve seen you argue successfully. Sometimes you bring up good points. But to accuse others of blind partisanship is ignore the beam in your own eye.
That’s not why *I *don’t take **Shodan **seriously. For me it’s all about the homoerotic martial arts lifestyle.
Yanno, I watch the press, and politically-minded people, spinning like tops over Sarah Palin. I watch, and I wonder. I wonder which potential real Republican canditate is quietly moving behind the ginormous smokscreen that’s been thrown up, and even maintained, by all the pointless and frankly ignorant flopping-and-twitching about everything she does.
If Palin broke wind at her next speaking engagement, I can be assured that scores, even hundreds, of bloggers will slay whole legions of electrons bloviating about it. To no purpose. If she divorces, or gets a dye job, or gets a pony, fer Petes sake!, the Press will be there, filling pointless airtime. Y’all make her the media circus she’s become. If you’d just turn your eyes away, she’d vanish like a bad dream.
Meanwhile, people are meeting, and schmoozing, and lining up support… For someone that isn’t Palin. And when this person, whomever it may be, breaks cover, y’all are gonna be caught flat-footed. Just like y’all were when Sarah first appeared on the scene.
Yes, the Democrats were so stunned and flabbergasted by Palin’s appearance on the national scene that they only won by a margin of 192 electoral votes. I’m sure they are quaking in their boots at the prospect of another candidate emulating that clearly effective strategy.
It’s best not to attribute too much depth to political machinations. Yes, they’re frequently lying and bullshitting, but the lies are usually not that secretive. Sarah Palin really believes she can be president and that she deserves to be president, and that she’s being treated unfairly by elitists and the press. I know somebody who was insisting, about a year and a half ago, that Barack Obama was just a stalking horse for Hillary Clinton, to make it look like she was facing a little real opposition on her way to being nominated. And we know how that worked out. The problem with these types of conspiracy theories - Cheney’s going to resign, Palin’s not really the candidate - is that they assume politicians have little to no ego. In fact, they usually have little else. Palin’s not a smokescreen. It may be terrifying to admit, but she’s the reality.
I completely understand this viewpoint. It’s very seductive. “A major political party couldn’t possibly be THIS STUPID…it must be a smokescreen!”
Unfortunately (and I say unfortunately because I do think we need at least a more or less equally-matched opposition party), it’s not a smokescreen. The Republicans really HAVE fallen this far. Palin is real. McCain “suspending his campaign” was real. Teabaggers are real. Birthers are real. People selling t-shirts of Obama as Curious George are real.
They used to be hidden, screened from sight by the majority of Republicans, who were, to various degrees, either thoughtful conservatives (like Bill Buckley) or moderates (like the Chaffees). Now, like the legendary first performance of Haydn’s “Farewell Symphony”, these sane people have filtered off, alone or in twos or threes or groups of more, quietly, leaving behind the base of the base…crazies and loons, Birthers and Birchers, racists and haters. The Great Coalition of Reagan has fallen apart.
If ONLY Palin were a smokescreen. I’d cheer to find that out.
I just finished pointing out exactly the opposite is true.
You didn’t really read it, did you?
Regards.
Shodan
sigh
Hey, I tried to extend an olive branch. That’ll teach me.
I don`t say this to intentionally be rude but I think your problem is that you don’t watch the press and politically minded people closely enough. Since Obama’s inauguration, a whole bunch of potential candidates have been talked about and proven themselves awful. Bobby Jindal was talked about until his Mister Rogers act and everyone wrote him off. Jon Huntsman was talked about as a possibility, but Obama made him the ambassador to China. Mark Sanford was talked about, but he chased a coyote into the woods because he wanted to fuck it and got caught. John Ensign was talked about but he had an affair too. Pawlenty and Romney seem like they’re still serious.
Palin gets a ton of coverage because she’s crazy stupid and it’s fun to laugh at her. Nobody in the press ever thought she had any chance at getting the nomination in 2012 and if you pay close enough attention they haven`t been remiss in covering actual potential nominees either. If anything the biggest problem is just with the would be nominees - that they keep destroying any chance of it ever happening.
How about me? Can I accuse others of blind partisanship?
All you can do is make vague insinuations about unspecified people. Making a direct accusation against a specific poster seems to be beyond your abilities.
Completely misinterpreting what I say is not an “olive branch”.
I do not believe that what a Democrat does justifies what a Republican does. I do not use a double standard.
I was against deficit spending when Bush did it. I am against deficit spending when Obama does a shitload more of it. I made no objecting to Bush signing the flag. I made no objection to Clinton signing a flag. Bush did not lie about Iraq. Clinton and Hilary and Kerry and Albright and Gore did not lie about Iraq. (Well, Clinton lied about his motives for Operation Wag the Dog, but that doesn’t justify anything. He lied about everything.)
When I say one thing, and am immediately accused of saying exactly the opposite, it is difficult to conclude other than you aren’t reading.
Regards,
Shodan
Indeed. Today I read an article speculating that some person will be a perfect vice presidential candidate for the Republicans in 2012. (Sorry, can’t remember who it was.) People are definitely talking about this kind of thing.
Prediction: a fundamentalist Christian PAC will buy thousands or tens of thousands of her books so that it makes the New York Times best seller list overnight.
Yep .Bush lied about iIaq, is 90 percent of the political thinking of many dopers. You show a deep understanding of what others think. What an ass.
They won’t have to. All she has to do is put exclusive photos in it and it’ll sell like sno cones in hell.