Perhaps my previous post confused you. In response to SA’s speculation that HRC didn’t really care about her philandering husband, I asked that *if * that was the case, what should she have done? What followed was what frank honesty from HRC would have looked like assumingSA’s belief represented the truth.
Then you come in and say:
…as if that hypothetical was real. So maybe I should be asking if you think the Clintons have a “sham of an open marriage”. If you do, why and who are you to judge it? And more importantly, why does it matter to her worth as a leader?
You’re assuming that HRC is in a open marriage for political gain. But there are other reasons to have such an arrangment, and maybe it would surprise you that not all of them are political. Furthermore, the Clintons have a daughter. Are you prepared to say that Chelsea’s existence only serves the purpose of making her parents electable? I mean, why limit your scrutiny to their marriage? You could easily posit that HRC (being the cold and calculating villan that she is) chose to have Chelsea only so she and Bill could credibly fit into the Norman Rockwell ideal of the American family. If you can be so bold as to claim that, I would think you should be able to cite your evidence. If you don’t, but you still can decry their marriage as being a sham for political purposes, I would also hope you can bring something more than conjecture to the table.
I’m not an expert in fallacies, but isn’t this simply an Appeal to the Majority? Poll most Americans and you’ll still get too many folks who believe Saddam and Bin Laden are bosom buddies, but that doesn’t make for truth.
SA, I’ve agreed with quite a bit of what you’ve said here, but this I just can’t buy.
Excusing our lurid fascination with celbrities’ and politicians’ marriages by sanctimoniously claiming they should attain to a higher standard in order to give the American people a tool by which to judge their moral character is self delusion at best, out and out judgemental hypocritical bullshit at worst.
Hillary Clinton is an intelligent woman with an incredible amount of political accumen. It may well be said that she got her husband into office, just as Sam suggested back on page one. I do remember the “co-president” jabs, and I know it seemed to many that Hillary was the power behind the throne. Just like Nancy Reagan, ironically. I’d love to see her make it all the way to the Presidency. I’m just wondering how long she’d survive.
Diogenes, I agree, but
I don’t think that giving gay people the right to marry has any effect on the family unit other than to strengthen it, and
I’ve argued it to death, and it would break down into an irretrievable hijack if we started it again. Some people just will not believe they aren’t being threatened. They WANT to see that gun to their heads.
Well, I’m sorry but I disagree. (How did celebrities get pulled into this?) If someone is telling me that I should agree to their assessment of some problem or some action that needs to be taken, I need to know that I can believe the information they give me. If I feel they are likely to lie or put a disingenuous spin on it because if they were to tell the truth it wouldn’t stand the light of day, then I will be far less likely to listen to anything they have to say.
The problem is, if you can’t believe everything that a person says, you can’t necessarily believe anything they say.
I don’t even come close to believing anything that Bill or Hillary Clinton say simply because I’ve come to view them as being profoundly dishonest, manipulative people. How can this not be an important issue in deciding whether or not to elect them into positions that will have influence over the issues that affect my life?
Sorry. I used celebrities a further example of how fascinated we are with other peoples’ sex lives. Celebs and politicians.
As for honesty: We have currently one of the most dishonest and secretive administrations and presidents in our nation’s history, if not THE most. Are you seriously trying to tell me that just because they man (to our knowledge) has not cheated on his wife, it somehow excuses all the deception, half truths and cover ups?
If so…well, now that you mention it, it may very well be so, because obviously people are swallowing it and coming back for more. Why I have no idea. But apparently the only thing that matters is whether or not you keep your fly zipped. Everything else is forgiveable, up to and including selling my retirement and my son’s life.
She climbs a tree and scrapes her knee
Her dress has got a tear
She waltzes on her way to Mass
And whistles on the stair
And underneath her wimple
She has curlers in her hair
I even heard her singing in the abbey
She’s always late for chapel
But her penitence is real
She’s always late for everything
Except for every meal
I hate to have to say it
But I very firmly feel
Hillary’s not an asset to the White House
I’d like to say a word in her behalf
Hillary makes me laugh
How do you solve a problem like Hillary?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means Hillary?
A flibbertijibbet! A will-o’-the wisp! A clown!
Many a thing you know you’d like to tell her
Many a thing she ought to understand
But how do you make her stay
And listen to all you say
How do you keep a wave upon the sand
Oh, how do you solve a problem like Hillary?
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?
When I’m with her I’m confused
Out of focus and bemused
And I never know exactly where I am
Unpredictable as weather
She’s as flighty as a feather
She’s a darling! She’s a demon! She’s a lamb!
She’d outpester any pest
Drive a hornet from its nest
She could throw a whirling dervish out of whirl
She is gentle! She is wild!
She’s a riddle! She’s a child!
She’s a headache! She’s an angel!
She’s a girl!
How do you solve a problem like Hillary?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means Hillary?
A flibbertijibbet! A will-o’-the wisp! A clown!
Many a thing you know you’d like to tell her
Many a thing she ought to understand
But how do you make her stay
And listen to all you say
How do you keep a wave upon the sand
Oh, how do you solve a problem like Hillary?
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?
Part of it is perception, part is due to uncertainty where Bush is concerned. I trust Bush, I’m in favor of the actions he’s taking, and I don’t believe he lied.
You, on the other hand, don’t trust Bush and take it as a given that he is lying and secretive.
With Bill Clinton, however, there’s no doubt.
And it’s not just about the blowjob. Not by a long shot. His entire time in office was tainted by dishonesty, both in his presidency and in his past, and the same holds true for Hillary.
This is why the thought of anyone voting for Bush baffles me. At the minimum, he put a disingenous spin on our reasons to go to war. At worst, he lied. Either way, it speaks horribly of his credibility.
I fail to see why all this reasoning is so obvious to you with re HRC and her marriage difficulties (which probably won’t even merit an honorable mention in the high school history books), but evades you as soon as the subject of Bush comes up.
Have you ever told a lie? If so, does that make you unfit for office…even if 99.5% of the lies you’ve ever told were harmless “No honey those pants don’t make you look fat” kind of lies"?
By your logic, we have no reason to believe anybody, because there is not one among us who is truthful always.
Quite the contrary. Your responses to that point illustrate clearly, except perhaps to you, that Clinton-hatred is founded in hypocrisy. You condemn Democrats for far less serious problems than you excuse in Republicans. You decry an attempt to keep private matters private, but excuse starting a fucking war on no other apparent basis. Your attempt to deflect the discussion away from that topic is quite illustrative. Clinton-hatred is also grounded in partisan swallowing of spin from the right-wing hate machine, as you also illustrate thusly:
The key words being “perceived as”. Care to discuss how that perception came to be? I doubt you do, really.
In what way? His affairs became public only as part of the campaign to get him for something, as you well know. The time it took from his work was a function of that campaign. Are you suggesting that he was doing a bad job with that peace ‘n’ prosperity stuff because he was looking to get laid? Gee, maybe Dubya should get some too, huh? Guess what, though: His employers, We the People, knew he fooled around before we hired him the first time, and we rehired him knowing even more about it.
In short, no, we still haven’t heard *reasons * from the haters for how anyone else’s marriage is their fucking business. Rationalizations and hypocrisy we have in abundance, though.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it now. I’ll vote for a law guaranteeing the President a blowjob a night if it means we get a stable, growing economy and stay the fuck out of wars.
Seriously. Look at the man’s squinched up face. When do YOU think the last time Laura strapped on the ol’ kneepads was?*
*I feel comfortable asking this question because, after all, they are our president and first lady; their sex life is fair game.
I don’t know about that, Maureen - Laura looks like the kind of broad who only knows missionary and probably doesn’t even move.
But you’re right, their sex life is the national business, it being a portal into their characters and all, as SA tells us. Not, however, are personal histories of alcoholism, drug abuse, criminal records, military desertion, or even business mismanagement and cronyism. None of that has any bearing on our choice of President. There is no need to speak of those things, because, after all, “It’s OK If You’re A Republican”.
And I continued along with that same assumption. I was still working with the original hypothetical. That’s why I found it odd when you started challenging me on the particulars of the hypothetical as if I were the one who created it.
Yes, stating that since a lot of poeple believe something does not make that thing true. That is what I understand the appeal to majority to mean. However, that’s not what I did. I was showing a poll, and using it to specifically illustrate how much some people are “outside the mainstream”. I didn’t use it to try and prove any factual point.
Moral issues are tricky that way. They aren’t black and white. It’s difficult to measure them, and they mean different things to different people.
However, if we are to assume that yes it is in fact true that Hill and Bill have an open sham marriage, then you need to just trust me that this is not something that sits well with typical American voters. If you even need this explained to you then you are way outside the mainstream and out of touch with the values that most people have.
Adultery is as mainstream as it gets, regardless of what people say their values are.
You’re also not citing an opinion poll about adultery but a coded poll about gay marriage. Just because Americans are homophobic doesn’t mean they have a problem with marital infidelity.
And yet you have no problem sounding off on morality like you’re fucking Jesus of Nazareth.
Open does not equal sham, fucktard. And no, I’m afraid I will not trust you. If you can’t specifically produce a cite stating that Americans give a fuck about Bill and Hillary’s marriage arrangement then you have no point. Moreover, you have no point anyway since public opinion has fuck all to do with a president’s ability to his job.
And to take the argument that because they serve us their sex life and marriage IS our business to its logical conclusion–then YOUR marriage is indeed my business, because your life/work/social network may touch me and mine.
It’s ridiculous and hypocritical–like I said early on in this trainwreck–HRC is damned if she did and damned if she didn’t. BC=evil and nothing anyone can say to these GOP’ers who believe this will changer their minds.
To me it’s amazing that they(Bush supporters) willingly swallow the drug addiction, the questionable service record, the alcoholism, the lovely behavior evinced by the twins (and Chelsea is on a Rhodes scholarship? God help me, I would trust Bill and Hillary as parents long before I would Laura and W) the business deals of W. But --as we learned from Rush Limbaugh’s lil addiction–it was never about morals or prinicples at all, and it still isn’t. For those who espouse “family values” and “God bless America no matter what patriotism”(the GOP): it’s all about power, getting it, consolidating it, and abusing it.
DtC, it’s clear to just about everyone on the SDMB that you are a fucking idiot. I guess I’ll have to explain myself once again, just for you.
I am specifically responding to the notion that somebody else proposed that even if Hillary was willingly participating in a “sham”, “open” marriage with a “philanderer” then she is somehow blameless. That she is in a catch 22 situation that will result in controversy no matter what. I’m simply pointing out that, if true, this is no ones fault but her own. If she didn’t want controversy or embarassment than she shouldn’t have put herself into this situation in the first place.
I have not said that open equals sham. I’m simply challenging what you with the face said, and even he did not say that.
And while I’m at it, how in the world would Bush have made her Secretary of State before now? We already had one. Colin Powell? Heard of him? Black guy - short hair - wears glasses? Does that ring a bell?
