MSNBC Trashes Obama's Address: Compared To Carter, "I Don't Sense Executive Command"

Lanky Livingston said:

Kinda like libtard?

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Or, say, this phrasology?

Comrade Olbermann, Herr Matthews and MSNBC,

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Heaven forbid someone resort to partisan-esque name-calling in a thread with that in the opener.

MikeSr619 said:

Jaimie, are you trying to say I did that?

because if not then please point the finger directly at who you are talking to and NOT thru me.

Thank you.

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You deleted the status long ago, but yes, you said that on facebook along with some other insults in a political discussion. Or possibly you agreed with someone else who said it first, but regardless, the status was erased. And it was not the first time you have jumped to insults in a political discussion. However, this is not the forum for this particular conversation, so if you'd like to continue, go ahead and PM me.

Henry said:

Heaven forbid someone resort to partisan-esque name-calling in a thread with that in the opener.

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ha, good point.

I think its one of the major problems with our country today - the vast political divide. Republicans have insulting names for Dems, and Dems have insulting names for Repubs. I try not to use them, because not only are they counter-productive, they take away from the point that is being made. I only wish it was possible to have a rational political discussion, but I just don't think its possible.

And I'm not talking about average joes, I'm talking all the way up to the white house and senate floor. Its a pandemic.

Ok guys. Deep breaths. This thread is definitely not worth it.

Lanky Livingston said:

ha, good point.

I think its one of the major problems with our country today - the vast political divide. Republicans have insulting names for Dems, and Dems have insulting names for Repubs. I try not to use them, because not only are they counter-productive, they take away from the point that is being made. I only wish it was possible to have a rational political discussion, but I just don't think its possible.

And I'm not talking about average joes, I'm talking all the way up to the white house and senate floor. Its a pandemic.

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See, I disagree with this. Predicto and I used to have lengthy political discourse over at ES. There was a lot of grey noise from other posters, but he and I would usually ignore the buffoonery and have intelligent, heated, yet respectful discourse. I will admit I get drawn into name calling at times and on Facebook I can be inflammatory, but the use of the terms "Tea Bagger" or "Libtard" serve no other purpose than to incite. I have refrained from that here for the most part out of respect for all of you guys. I respect Yusuf on many levels, but when it comes to this, he and I have gone at it many times. I just don't agree with him and I do believe he is partisan.

Elephant said:

See, I disagree with this. Predicto and I used to have lengthy political discourse over at ES. There was a lot of grey noise from other posters, but he and I would usually ignore the buffoonery and have intelligent, heated, yet respectful discourse. I will admit I get drawn into name calling at times and on Facebook I can be inflammatory, but the use of the terms "Tea Bagger" or "Libtard" serve no other purpose than to incite. I have refrained from that here for the most part out of respect for all of you guys. I respect Yusuf on many levels, but when it comes to this, he and I have gone at it many times. I just don't agree with him and I do believe he is partisan.

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There are certainly exceptions to every rule - and I've personally had rational discussions with Republican and Independent friends here in Houston. I guess I'm not trying to say it can't happen, but that its a rarity.

MikeSr619 said:

I sure do get tired of seeing the phrase tea baggers.

its like starting off a conversation with a slap to the face. you arent going to get anywhere positive after that and youve just set the rest of it up for a fight.

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MikeSr619 said:

exactly like libtard..

im not saying one side does it and the other doesnt. im saying that if you expect to have a healthy discussion and lead it off with "hey dumbass" you shouldnt be shocked when you get insults hurled at you.

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Here's the flaw in your line of reasoning. At the outset I don't expect to have a healthy discussion with anyone that allies themselves with the teabaggers, any more than I would expect to do so with a member of the Birch Society, an Olberman or Madow fan, etc. In my mind it's like sitting down with a one year old and expecting not to hear baby talk. Sure there's a one in a million chance that you've just engaged a child prodigy that will be able to talk with you intelligently, but I'm not going to waste my time on that long shot.

If you actually take the time to research the kind of nonsense many in the movement believe, I hope you can understand why I take this view.

Elephant said:

You did not "tone down" anything when you refer to a legitimate ground swelling movement that has influenced many elections in the last 6 months as "Tea Baggers". This is the same type of nonsense someone like Rachel Maddow spews to minimize their influence. It is the same sort of tactic someone like Glenn Beck uses to minimize the extreme views of someone like Rahm Emmanuel and the entire Obama Administration by linking him to Saul Alinsky.

Neither represents either side accurately. There are extremists on both sides and for you to suggest the entire Tea Party movement is anything other than something it is not is dishonest at best! Partisan!

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Hello pot, meet kettle. You're correct in characterizing Madow and Beck as fringe elements. However, I'd argue that you are equally as guilty of partisanship to characterize the Obama administration as being extremist. If that were the case we'd have a single payer health plan rather than the private/public amalgam we ended up with. Ditto that for Obama's energy policy, i.e. more nuke electrical generation, more drilling combined with green options. I could go on but I think I've made my point.

As for the tea baggers being some sort of broad-based groundswell, I'd beg to differ. They are nothing more than a lunatic fringe that gets more attention by virtue of being the squeaky wheel at the moment. Once their lunatic fringe ideas and conspiracy theories(see below) are exposed to the light of day, how much support do you think they're going to get/maintain?

Now for the life of me I just can't imagine why I'm finding it difficult to take these idiots seriously. :new_idea: Oh yeah, I know....
Gather Your Armies
Abolish the Federal Reserve
Obama an Indonesian Muslim Welfare Thug
Return to gold standard
Obama will enslave America
Literacy tests for voters, U.N. guards to be stationed in our homes and oh yes, the birther conspiracy stuff

Is the above the type of thing you meant by "representing the other side accurately?" I doubt it. What of the fact that many of these same folks who complain about the Dem's "socialist" policies currently rely on govt. programs like medicare, social security etc.? See any hypocrisy there? On second thought I might actually be overestimating their intelligence.

Elephant said:

See, I disagree with this. Predicto and I used to have lengthy political discourse over at ES. There was a lot of grey noise from other posters, but he and I would usually ignore the buffoonery and have intelligent, heated, yet respectful discourse. I will admit I get drawn into name calling at times and on Facebook I can be inflammatory, but the use of the terms "Tea Bagger" or "Libtard" serve no other purpose than to incite. I have refrained from that here for the most part out of respect for all of you guys. I respect Yusuf on many levels, but when it comes to this, he and I have gone at it many times. I just don't agree with him and I do believe he is partisan.

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Though I disagree with it, I certainly respect to your right to your opinion about my "partisanship". And as was alluded to earlier, in a way it may be true...it's just that I'm partisan towards/against both sides depending on the issue at hand.

MikeSr619 said:

you know my father is a member of the tea party and when insults like this come out and you cant stop generalizing and start saying stuff like "a few wackos" instead of labeling the entire movement and people as wack jobs it doesnt sit well with me.

and the fact that as a black man you dont see how stereotyping and pigeonholding someone to act a certain way just because you see it in others is baffling to me.

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I can see your point on this and I can understand that it's a sensitive topic if someone you care about is a part of the movement. Even so, if my father had been a member of say, the Black Panther Party for example, I'd have no problem saying he was associating with violent extremist nutjobs...whether he agreed with all of their positions or not.

Now I doubt your father is an extremist nutjob and from what I know of Elephant, he isn't either. Obviously there's some percentage of the Tea Party that isn't. The problem is that percentage seems to be quite small. Until such time as they prove otherwise by not having a need for candidates to sanitize their websites, silence large numbers of overt racists and nutjobs at their rallies, and openly disavow the J. Birch Society (for starters at least) I'm going to think horse rather than zebra when I hear hoofbeats.

Again Yusuf, you are talking about the fringe of the entire Tea Party movement. Have you even been to a Tea Party rally? I have. In fact I was at the one where Democrats claimed there were racial slurs hurled at certain members of Congress without corroboration. What I saw were people who were tired of seeing the government continue down a path that the majority of Americans don't want, i.e. higher taxes, more governmental control when if the current regulations were enforced it would likely suffice.

And I was not suggesting the entire Obama Administration was extreme, I was suggesting Beck claims they are. It is like Pelosi taking the comments of 2 Republicans and saying it is the entire Republican leadership claiming the Administration is strong arming BP. That is just false!

For the life of me I cannot believe I am going to say this, but I think this country would have been better off with Hilary Clinton as President. As Secretary of State in the Obama Administration she is not on the fringe.

Yusuf06 said:

Let's look at this objectively for a moment. Obama has made some missteps in this crisis but the one basic, unalterable, and unavoidable fact is that the Feds have zero, zilch, ningún ability to plug this leak and probably not enough capacity to control the spread of the oil. The technology, equipment and know how to plug the leak is all on BP. So Obama is in a position where the only thing he really can do is pretend to be in charge and verbally flog BP about the head and shoulder area repeatedly.

Moreover, the same would be equally true if McCain were POTUS. Perhaps the only difference is that McCain probably wouldn't be trying to subject a good upstanding company like BP to a Chicago style shakedown.

My ideal scenario for Obama to manage this crisis would be for him to in essence give Jindal and Louisiana the middle finger.... "Hey, aren't you the guy who just said you wanted more drilling and that you oppose the Democratic view that the way to strengthen our country is to increase dependence on government?" Well, here you go Now deal with your oil spill on your own.

Obviously that's never going to happen but I can dream.

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All Bobby Jindal would have to say is if it wasnt for your enviromentalists and government wackos we would be drilling in shallow water and on land now Obama clean up me beaches

Elephant said:

Again Yusuf, you are talking about the fringe of the entire Tea Party movement. Have you even been to a Tea Party rally? I have. In fact I was at the one where Democrats claimed there were racial slurs hurled at certain members of Congress without corroboration. What I saw were people who were tired of seeing the government continue down a path that the majority of Americans don't want, i.e. higher taxes, more governmental control when if the current regulations were enforced it would likely suffice.

And I was not suggesting the entire Obama Administration was extreme, I was suggesting Beck claims they are. It is like Pelosi taking the comments of 2 Republicans and saying it is the entire Republican leadership claiming the Administration is strong arming BP. That is just false!

For the life of me I cannot believe I am going to say this, but I think this country would have been better off with Hilary Clinton as President. As Secretary of State in the Obama Administration she is not on the fringe.

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I have to think the only way you'd say that about Hillary is in an Obama administration. Were the roles reversed, the Tea Party would be calling Hillary "Hitlery" or some such and you'd probably see it the other way around and think of Obama as not being on the fringe.

In any event, I think you're misunderstanding the concept of "lunatic fringe". If there were only a few nutjobs sprinkled throughout the movement here and there that misrepresented the overarching goals and objectives of the Tea Party, that would be a lunatic fringe. Instead the equation seems to be reversed. That is, it seems there are a few people on the fringes of the Tea Party that have good sense but they're either incredibly apathetic when it comes to the nutjobs, or they aren't concerned with them until they start to get negative press. From that I can only conclude that those few Tea Party folks with sense are the erstwhile lunatic fringe of the movement and the nutjobs are the mainstream. In other words, it's bizarro world.

I'm sorry but that's just not a political movement I want to gain any traction. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Ditto that for nutjobs on the far left. Hell, ditto that for any nutjobs from anywhere along the political spectrum. About that at least, I think we can agree. It's just a question of whether one sees the Tea Party as mostly nuts or not. I happen to say "yes" and you and some others say "no"...well, you do for now anyway.

As for your contention that you saw nothing like people being spat upon or racial slurs being hurled, I believe you. Nonetheless, that doesn't mean it didn't happen. The video I've seen certainly seems to suggest that it did. Moreover, Barney Frank, John Lewis and others corroborated the incidents. So either they were all lying in an effort to gain public sympathy/support and these incidents never happened, or they did and you were elsewhere. Not too hard to believe at a circus that size.

As always I'm certainly open to being proven wrong. Please feel free to provide some links to Tea Party sources that explicitly disavow the influences/positions I mentioned earlier. Bear in mind that if you're going to prove that the nutjobs are in fact the lunatic fringe and not the other way around, you're going to need a good number of links just to match what I've posted already. Lotsa luck with that.

First off Yusuf, how dare you suggest I would ever use Hitler to describe Hilary. You have never heard or read anything I have ever written to make such an assertion! And you should apologize for making such a claim. I have not disrespected you in such a way, I do not deserve that sort of treatment from you!

In fact, your entire most recent post is littered with untruths! You are totally misrepresenting the Tea Party movement because you choose to believe what you want to believe with no real experience to support it, only what you choose to extrapolate from certain media sources. You even expose your subjective views with statements like the video tape you saw proves your assertion that racial epitaphs and spitting occurred when even Jesse Jackson Jr. would not support that theory and I watched him walk by with 2 video camera phones in his hands during the entire incident.

It was apparent that while shouting his displeasure with what was going on, spittle was released toward the Representative. He did not intentionally spit on the Congressman. If he indeed spewed racial slurs and intentionally spit on the Congressman, the story would have had much more traction than it did and that man would have been charged on the spot! Capital Police would have taken him into custody since spitting on a Representative of the US House of Representatives is a crime!

But here you are making a claim with no basis to support your theory, again! Since your obvious bias and suggestions about my character are so unfounded, it is time for me to remove myself from the discourse. Say whatever you want from here on out, your use of such tactics has proven your inability to have respectful dialogue.

This just seems apropos-it fits all sides equally well.

From The Education of Henry Adams-Henry Adams, published posthumsly in 1918.

Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always
been the systematic organization of hatreds

redskins26 said:

All Bobby Jindal would have to say is if it wasnt for your enviromentalists and government wackos we would be drilling in shallow water and on land now Obama clean up me beaches

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This may be the ultimate irony in all of this. We stopped drilling in shallow water for fear of damaging the environment and well...not working out so well.

Elephant said:

First off Yusuf, how dare you suggest I would ever use Hitler to describe Hilary. You have never heard or read anything I have ever written to make such an assertion! And you should apologize for making such a claim. I have not disrespected you in such a way, I do not deserve that sort of treatment from you!

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You are absolutely correct. At the time I was trying to make another tongue in cheek poke at the Tea Party folks, in particular their penchant for demonizing Obama via the use of Hitler mustaches on his pics. However upon reading it again I realize my comment was directed equally as much if not mostly at you personally. The oversight was made worse by my also failing to make clear what I was referencing. That was just stupid and I hope you'll please accept my most humble apology. I'll edit that out as soon as I complete this reply.

By way of explanation, I have ADD and I am a blowhard and very often the combination ends up with me apologizing for putting my foot in my mouth. Again, I'm really sorry. Though we clearly disagree about this issue, I hope I've made clear that my opinion of you is different than my opinion of the Tea Party at large.

Elephant said:

In fact, your entire most recent post is littered with untruths! You are totally misrepresenting the Tea Party movement because you choose to believe what you want to believe with no real experience to support it, only what you choose to extrapolate from certain media sources...

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I know you said you wouldn't reply. Nonetheless, I must ask you to point out what I've said that was untrue. The spitting incident is certainly debatable as there's no conclusive proof that I've seen. However that's why I said the video suggests that the incident did happen. Ultimately one is left to draw his/her own conclusions on these incidents, either of which is defensible.

However, if you go back to my post with the multiple links and actually go to those sites, you'll see that much of what I posted was from the group/individual's own website. Even where that's not the case, I wasn't able to find any cases where these folks repudiated these statements. Also, what about the sanitized websites of Rand Paul and Sharron Angle? Sorry but there's just no "ebill left wing media plot" to blame as a way out of those cases.

Speaking of choosing to believe what one wants to believe, I find it interesting that you chose one of the few links I provided that fit with your view of my position. Please feel free to comment on any of the other cases I posted where media bias is not in question.

I think it's also instructive to note that many of the nutjobs that I provided links to earlier are candidates for office. Therefore, given the continued support of their followers, enough of them in fact that they've been elected in several states, I can only conclude that a significant percentage of the movement does in fact agree with most if not all of these candidate's frankly, scary positions. Please do feel free to provide an explanation for how a few isolated individuals managed to somehow get candidates elected to office or force runoffs.

That, along with everything else I've seen from them is the reason for my opinions of the Tea Party. I hope you know me well enough to realize that I wouldn't draw that conclusion based solely on an isolated nutjob here and there. In fact, I'm a bit offended that you suggest that's the case. However, you've got one coming so no big deal.

Again, I'll reiterate that I'm open to being proven wrong. Please do post some links to Tea Party groups or individuals that openly disavow the nonsense I mentioned earlier. Again, I think that's going to be a difficult task but I'd certainly like to see you try. I think you might find it an instructive exercise...maybe even one that might start you down the path to political independence.

In any event I think it's obvious that neither of us is going to change the other's mind on this which is certainly OK. Therefore I'm going to shut up about it before I/we highjack the thread any more than it already has been and before I end up tasting my Nike's again.

What I will promise you though is that I'm going to go to a few Tea Party events to see for myself what they're about. I'll be sure to let you all know about the results.

Uhh, no Mike. I think I've made quite clear that I don't hold that opinion of everyone in the Tea Party...just most of them. Obviously there are exceptions but as I pointed out, they're exceptions to the rule, not an illustration of the norm.

Again, I'm still waiting to see someone prove me wrong by posting links to the masses of mainstream Tea Party sites where they explicitly disavow the positions I talked about earlier. Heck, I'd even settle for sites where they simply don't mention any of the silliness like the birther nonsense, aboloshing the Fed or being enslaved by Obama or the U.N., etc. If as you say I've selectively chosen isolated cases in order to make my point, it should be easy for you to come up with several examples to the contrary thus proving me wrong without even having to work at it. After all, you'll be looking for something that's commonplace among the group. Right?

IMHO it's not walking the line. I think it's a reasonable question and one that I've asked myself a few times. The conclusion I came to is the same one I've come to before regarding stereotyping. That is, there is often some degree of truth to stereotypes and one is generally on sound footing as long as he/she is able to remain aware that the "shorthand" stereotyping allows for does not always hold true. As I said, I'm fully aware of that fact and I think it's not at all unreasonable to draw the conclusions I have based on my own research which I've invited you or anyone else to refute-with no takers yet. Again, where are all these "normal" sensible Tea Party folks that I'm ignoring in favor of the kooks? And why is it that these normal, sensible people vote for the kooks in such great numbers?

Does the fact that I've actually made a very real effort to actually find out if my opinion was unfounded (which I did long before this thread BTW) sound like the type of stereotyping you described? I'd say no. Quite frankly I think I've done a lot more research on the Tea Party than the great majority of them have done about the issues they're so irate about. Or is that somehow unfair of me to point that out?

Crap. I just remembered something. I said I was going to stop hijacking this thread and then I kept flapping my gums. But I still have more Tea Party stuff to say so I'm going to either start a new thread or continue an existing one if it's already been brought up.

This time I really am outtie on this thread.

Yusuf06 said:

Quite frankly I think I've done a lot more research on the Tea Party than the great majority of them have done about the issues they're so irate about. Or is that somehow unfair of me to point that out?

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I get it that you enterred your "scientific" exploration of the Tea Party with an unfettered mind seeking only the purest truths. I get it that you were never predisposed to any biases of your own. But this last is so outlandish...and is so emblematic of the very thinking you claim to disdain...that it made me burst out laughing. There are millions of Tea Party supporters direct and indirect. Not even considering your methodology for determining what these inveterate ingrates and kooks might actually think and how they structure thier internal pictures of the screwed up reality our current government is shaping for us, you aren't even close to something resembling a sample set. We'll also lay aside the implied assertion that you have expertise in all the "issues" that "irritate" Tea Party types.

Why not accept the "reality" of what the Tea Party truly is: an agglomeration of people with varying "issues" (e.g., States rights, individual liberty, effective regulation) articulated in greater/lesser depths of profundity...united in their oppostion to a politician and party that has increased social polarization, wildly mismanged economic affairs, breath-takenly mishandled foreign policy, incompetently handled crises, exploited rather than solvde immigration conflicts, demonized instead of compromised....a leader who tacitly approved and acolytes who practiced the most vicious sorts of personal attacks in the years leading up to the election (I personally read death wishes for the then sitting President on blogs of well known liberal columnists for well known newspapers that went unchallenged by monitors).....should I continue?

You should be happy there is a Tea Party...it is a more or less controlled vehicle for venting the white hot anger and distrust of millions of people. It is also obviously a viable political force, however unfocused (and without any centralized leadership structure) it might be.

You know, I'm not a Tea Party participant, but I happened to be attending a conference earlier this year that was also the scene of a large Tea Party event. I had the opportunity to observe these Americans you find so incongruent to your higher sympathies. They're the same folks working for insurance companies in Kansas, serving as federal contractors in Texas, or laboring as taxi cab drivers in Virginia. Your "research" more than likely scratches the surface.

My recommendation is that if you are going to cavil hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people (Tea Partiers and sympathizers)...do it right. don't wing it based on attending some meetings in one State, in one city, at one time during the political year.

Henry said:

Or, say, this phrasology?



Heaven forbid someone resort to partisan-esque name-calling in a thread with that in the opener.

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So you're saying Matthews and Olbermann aren't partisan?