You know, its just this kind of thing which is why you guys never win any elections. Just trying to help you out, here.
Wait, liberals and Democrats, both here and in the real world, almost uniformly showed a range of response to Biden’s statement from disdain to contempt, and we’re the ones having a denial-fest?
Sad.
Insofar as you deny that the level of outrage would increase by a factor of five hundred or so if it were a Republican, yes indeed.
Yes it is, but that’s how the SDMB works.
Regards,
Shodan
I never understood why people use “articulate” when “eloquent” fits so much better. Just about every political figure (with the exception of you-know-who) is articulate, for crying out loud. Bill Clinton is no more articulate than any other politician. He, like Obama (but in a different style), is simply a charismatic speaker. Both know how to command your attention and keep you interested. Calling them articulate doesn’t convey much of anything except “he talks good”. There’s a lot more to their effectiveness than just nice diction. It’s pacing, it’s tone, it’s inflection, it’s knowing when and when not to gesture with the hands, it’s body language, it’s a calm and collected attitude balanced with poise and confidence, it’s a certain ease that gives the impression of sincerity, but not slickness.
Obama is gifted in all of these things (particularly the last one), which is why he brought the house down at the 2004 DNC. When people fall back on trite compliments such as “articulate”, it reveals that they really haven’t given much thought to why he’s such a powerful speaker. Either that, or it shows that they need to expand their vocabularies a bit.
I’m just sayin’.
It’s not like he has no history on this subject.
I’d be more willing to give him a pass on the Obama comments if it weren’t for this bit.
Doesn’t it matter what was said? For instance, we’ve already cited Bush saying the same thing about Obama, and nobody here on the SDMB, as far as I know, even made note of it at the time. So the idea that outrage would automatically ensue if the comments were made by a Republican is a complete non-starter.
Some have suggested that there is equivalence between Trent Lott’s comments and Biden’s. In the case of the former, Lott was suggesting that the country as a whole would be better under segregation. This is vastly different than being a patronizing ass by suggesting that it is a storybook story for an African American to be articulate and clean.
Don’t you see the difference?
I see you’re doing your mind reading act again. Pretend to know what the other side would say or think in another situation and then behave as if you’ve caught them in hypocrisy.
Well that should get the board going, shouldn’t it? Not to mention the liberal media. But what’s this? I can’t find a single thread about it or so much as a yawn in the liberal media.
Here you have the liberal boogeyman himself uttering almost exactly the same sentiments as Biden (albeit without mentioning the fact that Obama has a “clean” public image) and it scarcely raises a yawn among liberals. Doesn’t that kind of blow your argument right out of the water.
I like debunking psychics. It’s so easy and fun.
Impressive, Shodan.
I’ve never seen quite so many words used in an attempt to convey so little content. What you’ve typed has almost negative meaning- you’re actually sucking the informational content out of nearby threads.
So you say… and yet, some might call it a strawman. Others have shown that liberals aren’t manufacturing outrage at similar statements from Republicans. Again, read my first post in this thread- when I read that quote, I had no idea who Biden was- be he Pub or Dem- and the quote didn’t bother me at all. This, for the record, makes you wrong.
But if it makes you feel better, you can insist I’m lying to save face. Wouldn’t put it past you, either.
And this is the point at which your post’s informational content goes negative. Not to zero- that’d be physically possible. No, Shodan, you accomplish the incredible- you make up facts, then say that any attempt to disprove those facts or disagree with them in any way merely proves your point. Nice try, but we don’t play that here.
Why don’t you move along to some other thread more suited to your maturity level? There’re probably some good ones in the Pit.
Boo hoo. Yes, our society has historically discriminated against “white Republicans.” It is impossible for me to convey in words my deep sorrow at their misery.
Speaking of John McCain, didn’t he raise some eyebrows a few years ago by referring to Asians as “gooks?” I remember it as getting a little bit of attention, in a one-day story sort of way, but I don’t remember a whole lot manufactured outrage about it and now it’s been pretty much forgotten. I did a board search for “John McCain gooks” but got no hits. It must not have caused much of a ripple here either.
He might have got a bit of a pass for actually being tortured by said “gooks”. It is possible. Do you have the context of his statement at all.
Jim
I’m with monstro. If the next 2 years becomes nothing more than, “I’m outraged that you aren’t outraged by the comment from some guy you never heard of until this outrage occured.”, well, I’m gonna have to put a bullet in my brain.
Bidens comments reveal him to be a bit of a dolt, a guy who probably has some outmoded ideas about race. It doesn’t reveal him to be a closet racist. He’s probably less racist than most people. But like most people he still has some ideas about race that wouldn’t stand up to rigorous analysis.
And calling a black guy “articulate” is pretty clueless. Not malicious, but clueless. It’s 2007, can we have a moratorium on calling black guys “articulate”?
Here’s a story on it from 2000.
"Several stories that ran last Friday quoted McCain as saying “I hate the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live… I was referring to my prison guards and I will continue to refer to them in language that might offend.”
It’s been awhile and my memory’s not so great. I’ll see if i can find something about it.
This is from wikipedia:
I think that he tried to clarify it by saying he was only talking about the guards who tortured him. I also think people tended to give him a little more leniency, given what he had gone through. Still, the left could have chosen to amp up the righteous indignation and they didn’t.
Well, 2000 was before the blogosphere. Prehistoric. Sure, back in the day you had Rush Limbaugh on the radio, and Michael Moore doing documentaries, plus a few political magazines that a half-dozen people subscribed too. Nowadays there are tons of bloggers who basically spend all day scouring the news hoping to find a statement by a political opponent they can be outraged by. And then the story gets bounced around the blogosphere, and, as in this case, the outrage isn’t usually about what the person actually said, but about the HYPOCRACY of all the people who AREN’T outraged by it. Why, if a BLUE SNEETCH said this, the GREEN SNEETCHES would be OUTRAGED. So as a blue sneetch, I’M OUTRAGED that the green sneetches AREN’T OUTRAGED. And we can go another meta-level, of outrage about the outrage about the story, or outrage about the lack of outrage about the outrage about the story, whatever you like.
What this proves is that the Internet is the worst invention ever created by humankind.
As I thought, in context, the statement was one that most people would give him a pass on due to his special situation.
Jim
I have seen Biden in a few discussions. He is sharp and a thinker. Which is more than I can say about Bush. I do not argue Cheney is intelligent. He is just a selfish bought off prick. I think Biden could have run an elevated campaign but one mistake is all you get sometimes.
I assumed by clean he meant in the politcal sense, as not accused of things.
Since you continue to use it, I assume that’s sarcasm.
Not total silence no. One thread, with about 8 posts on it when I started this thread. This falls somewhere between silence and minimal discussion in my opinion. But lazy though I am, I checked, and you didn’t.
As I wrote originally, “This board is remarkably silent.” Here on this site. Here. Not in the world at large. As a slightly leaning right independent, I’ve also thought that this site leaned way to the left. Just trying to see if there was a level playing field for all politicos.
This is one of my points. This is at least the third marginally racist comment that I’ve heard from him. The Dunkin’ Donuts comment, the slave state comment and the Obama one. As these have added up, I would have thought there would be more chatter than there has been. But in retrospect it’s only three comments. . .