Supporting yours. Rejecting Bridget Burke’s stupidity.
There’s a lot of stupid in this thread, but it’s not coming from the right. It’s coming from the lefties who got hung out to dry by the administration and are such sycophants that they aren’t even mad about it.
You two are precious.
You must take great comfort in this little enclave, one of the few places where you can say something and not have 20 posters disagree with you. I don’t think you’d last a minute on a less partisan board.
Speaking of which, how’s things with all your Freeper friends?
I’m not in that crowd and I’m sure you know that. I’d get as unfriendly a reception there as here. I tend to get along best on ideologically diverse boards where you can actually state an opinion and people do something remarkable: they disagree politely. Where cites are used to get to the bottom of things rather than as weapons to hit each other over the head with. It’s an amazing concept. I hope to bring it to this board someday. You guys have a lot of potential. Appoint me your leader and I will lead your board to greatness.
Can you give us an example of a “less partisan board”? The Dope definitely leans left quite a bit, but it’s much less partisan than the internet at large.
Which isn’t to say that the internet at large leans one way or the other – but far fewer of the comments on the Dope are party-line idiocy than, say, Youtube comments or Yahoo comments (much less Fox News boards or MSNBC boards).
You might also notice that you get polite disagreement from non-ridiculous statements. If you say “I think the President should have sent the VP to Paris – it would have been better optics than just the ambassador”, you’ll probably get polite disagreement (and polite agreement). If you say it’s “incredibly stupid” and other hyperbolic nonsense, you’ll probably be treated with less politeness.
That’s how it should be, in my view. If you spout Hannity-esque crap, you should be figuratively pummeled. If you trumpet nonsense Mark-Halperin-esque faux-punditry nonsense, you should be mocked mercilessly.
No, but you, adaher & Ted Cruz are.
I didn’t say the mistake was incredibly stupid. What was incredibly stupid was to say that the President didn’t make the call. The reason it was incredibly stupid is because it doesn’t matter. The President is responsible for what his administration does, and this wasn’t some decision made deep in the IRS, or the VA. If it wasn’t him, it would have been someone close to him. Which is why Earnest wouldn’t reveal the name. Not that I believe there is a name, of course. But it wouldn’t matter even if there was.
Sure, why not? They let that kid pretend to be Batman.
His point is that “your” pundits have told you what to think, and you are obligated to fall into line, just like he does when Fox News tells him what he believes.
This is hyperbolic nonsense fueled by your personal dislike of the man.
Okay, I have no problem saying that the Prez likely made the call, or at least I’ll go as far as saying he should have been involved in the decision. I am pissed that the WH flip flopped and said they should have gone. I still think the right answer should have been not to go. We (the US) have an outsized impact when we attend things like this. IMHO it would have been viewed as grandstanding, and the righties would have been ALL OVER that. “Look at Barry, he has to insert himself everywhere”. You’re being dishonest if you say that would NOT have been the narrative.
I don’t blindly support ANY political party or person. I think there are many areas this administration has come up short. The way they have managed this episode has been ham-fisted at best. But that doesn’t make their original decision not to go (whatever reason they really had in mind) wrong. It was the right call. And all the chest beating and bleating the media is doing now doesn’t change my opinion.
Oh, c’mon! Tell me you didn’t roll your eyes when Earnest said it wasn’t the President’s decision.
It’s important to distinguish between people who will look for any angle to attack a President and mainstream opinion. Not many people care what Glenn Beck or Rush is going to say.
We do have an outsized impact, but two points: 1) if there’s anyplace the US wouldn’t overshadow things, it’s at an event with 40 other world leaders. When the US President does the usual D-Day commemoration, it does not overshadow everything. It’s perfectly appropriate and the President stands side by side with the French and British leaders and they don’t appear particularly overshadowed by it. 2) The President has often had a weird concept of when he should make his presence felt. Often on very minor issues, like the Harvard Professor case and the Sandra Fluke kerfuffle with Rush. If he was consistent about his reticence to get involved in stuff, he’d be more careful. Instead, he injects himself into any news story that catches his fancy. This one just didn’t mean all that much to him.
So he personally spoke to Hollande on the phone… to tell him how little it mattered?
This was a job for him. Talking to Sandra Fluke was something he actually believed in. OTherwise, no President would ever have gotten involved in something that trifling.
I didn’t realize you had the ability to read the president’s mind.
These are not “very minor” if they are taken to be symbolic, representative issues, with implications for many more Americans than those involved in the particular cases.
Which would be the interpretation necessary for the President’s appearance in Paris to signify anything. Only 17 people died, not Americans. As has been noted, ‘worse’ things happened around the same time in other countries, with scant attention. The only argument for Obama (or anyone not French) to be there was in the broader implied meanings.