Symmetry required it: 2012 american general election thread #2

Morbs thinks most americans would love to see Kiarostami movies if only we'd let them

Actually I think Mitt enjoyed a bump just prior to the first debate

yeah polls were narrowing beforehand

He sure acted like he had just enjoyed a bump before the debate.

Maybe Obama should have enjoyed one too.

they're probably some of both but if i had a candidate who lied like that i would be more turned off to voting for them, not more excited!

― Mordy, Saturday, 6 October 2012

obama told a bunch of lies tho. he said he'd repeal nafta. he said he'd hike and index the minimum wage. he said his team would use every avenue to block AIG bonuses. he said he wouldn't unilaterally authorize a military attack without imminent threat. he said health care negotiations would be transparent. & if we include his administration over the last four years they told a bunch of lies.

saying youll do something and then not accomplishing it isnt necessarily a lie, its a lie if you never planned to do it in the first place, otherwise its just a failure or changing yr mind

romney lied because he claimed to have never said things that he said

He sure acted like he had just enjoyed a bump before the debate.

― pplains, Sunday, October 7, 2012 1:12 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

i dont think obama ever said hed repeal nafta

there's good evidence these were lies. repealing nafta - his aide went to canada to ensure them it was pure posturing with no intention beyond it. plus anti-nafta feeling was high, nothing happened.

on AIG, christopher dodd told cnn obama officials sought to keep AIG's bonuses. plus he filled his admin with bankers.

on healthcare, he made no discernable effort at transparency that i know of

unilateral attack with no imminent threat, he "changed his mind" i guess

minimum wage, he changed his mind having promised something with 70% public support.

he promised to renogegotiate it

maybe his aid was renegotiating nafta

well now YOU'VE lied

I MISPOKE

for anyone who cares, the O'Reilly-Stewart "debate":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A051B-uPopM

Gibbs was actually good for a change on Meet the Press this morning. Said some things his boss should have said the other night.

heavens zvookster, don't EVER suggest Obama lies

dont worry no one around here would EVER engage in sloppy self righteous political grandstanding

or reality

Watched 15 minutes of the O'Reilly thing, couldn't take anymore...painful

Obama's denials/distortions/omissions of fact on drone warfare alone are legion, but they're not "lies" I bet.

i wasnt saying obama never lies, i was saying zoodawgs accusation and conflation w/romneys thing was sloppy

probably some good reasons to not raise the minimum wage in the middle of the biggest recession in a century. min wage affects food service jobs the most and I think there are a lot of people who can/will be replaced by machines @ mcdonalds et al. I remember seeing this in france, where the min wage is higher - you order at screens and pick up your food at lots of american chains. I don't think min wage = higher unemployment is a universal truth but I think the context matters but its something you push for during good economic times not bad and that's probably why it's been a non-issue. 70% support exists for lots of things that haven't been recently politicized - half of those people haven't been told what their opinion is yet.

I know the Sunday-morning panels are all buddy-buddy when the cameras are turned off, but you could see Mary Matalin's genuine contempt for Paul Krugman on full display this morning--or, as she kept hissing at him, "Doctor-Professor Krugman."

doctor-professor-blogger-nobel laureate krugman hiss hiss

Her bangles are jangling!

Whenever Alfred argues with me about Rod Stewart in the '80s, or Raging Bull, I'll henceforth be referring to him as Doctor-Professor Sotosyn.

"My colleague, the Canadian, insists on civility..."

herr professor doktor doktor.

watching the connecticut US senate debate now, and so help us god if linda mcmahon wins

I saw a commercial for her in spanish at my laundromat in ny. she seems like a very inspiring woman.

She married into a family of glorified carneys

not the right kind either

http://image2.findagrave.com/photos/2003/314/8077835_1068591668.jpg

i have no idea how that was "self righteous political grandstanding", lag. i guess it must be sloppy because if there are no weaselly semantic outs for those claims, like romney has for his, they aren't really lies. it seems more rational to argue the opposite tho.

iatee obama was promising this in like Oct 2008 when ppl were writing "what went wrong" economy articles in major newspapers. and he was gonna raise it not just once, he said, and "not every ten years, but every year" thru linking it to inflation. if the state of the economy occured to him as relevant, we didn't hear it. it doesn;t sound to me like you even believe the argument that it's not for down times (poor people put their money straight back into the economy) or that it raises unemployment. it's been a non-issue i guess because triangulation points to the middle classes, funding points to the rich.

whereas in 2008 it sounded pretty inspirational

self righteous political grandstanding was of course aimed at morbs, but anyway lol at calling difference between broken promises and lying a weaselly semantic out

man the way stewart and o'reilly just steam-rolled over e.d. hill was pretty obnoxious

whereas in 2008 it sounded pretty inspirational
--zvookster

lol to you I guess?

even if you believe increasing min wage is likely to be stimulative rather than v. possibly counterproductive atm there are lots of very-clearly-stimulative policies that are/were/will be a better use of political capital and better for poor people. like extending unemployment benefits.

Was extending unemployment benefits better for poor people or middle class people?

when you've been out of work for more than a year the distinction gets pretty fuzzy. in any case, poor people.

http://chzmemebase.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/internet-memes-obama-the-king-of-america.jpg

hey iatee watch these http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/as-candidate-obama-promised-to-raise-the-minimum

ya go find where I said 'Obama never said that'. I said it would have been a stupid use of political capital.

this is why it's a bad idea to get yr political news from buzzfeed

xxpost. I always saw it more like "If you don't extend my unemployment benefits, I'll end up like all those poor people making minimum wage." Good for the economy maybe, but stimulating the already stimulated.

It's probably because I was working for minimum wage at the time, and the papers were full of sob stories of people getting unemployment checks double anything I've ever earned.

lotsa people on unemployment get less than they would at a 40h min wage job.

iatee do u work or volunteer with the campaign? yr mad hacky. point is this was part of the inspiring hope rhetoric & it was bullshit.

maybe you shouldn't believe the hope changey shit then you can be less bitter afterwards

obama lied, zvookster cried

Obama didn't keep promises and maybe never intended to, but I don't think that's in the same ballpark as Romney's lying at the debate. Suddenly saying that your healthcare plan covers pre-existing conditions, and then having your campaign forced to concede that it doesn't the very next day, is flagrantly (and perhaps rightly) presuming that you can say whatever you want on the night and not enough people are going to pay attention the next day for it to matter.