not nearly no matter where you put the tape measure
― Dr Morbius, Monday, 29 September 2008 17:34 (fifteen years ago) link
move thread to I Love TMI plz
― i am the small cat (HI DERE), Monday, 29 September 2008 17:34 (fifteen years ago) link
jesus christ
― and what, Monday, 29 September 2008 17:38 (fifteen years ago) link
btw Que, Lehrer's brand of mewling "classy" PBS journalism is what makes him a waste of space.
― Dr Morbius, Monday, 29 September 2008 17:39 (fifteen years ago) link
Dr. Morbius i don't ever watch CNN or Fox or any of that shit, because I try not to get too much of my news from the TV. Nor do I have cable. That said, Jim Lehrer and PBS are really not that bad--they go pretty in depth on lots of topics, and they seem fair to both sides. i read papers and blogs and stuff, too so PBS is more supplementary. he runs a good debate. if you really think he needs to be shot like a horse, i don't think there is anything I or anyone else can say to change your mind.
i'm not sure what mewling classy journalism means to you but like i said, TV's a horrible way to get your news, so Lehrer and co suprise me.
― Mr. Que, Monday, 29 September 2008 17:41 (fifteen years ago) link
surprise me--
you on the other hand never surprise me.
he's no Dennis Perrin that's for sure
― A bold plan drawn up by assholes to screw morons (dan m), Monday, 29 September 2008 17:41 (fifteen years ago) link
A thought that haunts him, I'm sure.
― Alex in SF, Monday, 29 September 2008 17:43 (fifteen years ago) link
seriously--i stopped reading after the "Jim Lehrer wants to put a Tek-9 in his mouth" gag. i guess i should read that bullshit instead of watching PBS from time to time, right Morbs?
― Mr. Que, Monday, 29 September 2008 17:43 (fifteen years ago) link
it means he has a mild disposition and eschews the scatology morbs so prizes
he's also a Marine, so good luck w/ that KO, morbs
― gabbneb, Monday, 29 September 2008 17:43 (fifteen years ago) link
not saying it's an illegitimate argument to call him insufficiently hardnosed - in what capacity? he's mostly a newsreader and dialoguer - but we can do without another geraldo'reilly afaic
― gabbneb, Monday, 29 September 2008 17:45 (fifteen years ago) link
i'm saying for TV, he's pretty good. that's all i'm saying
― Mr. Que, Monday, 29 September 2008 17:47 (fifteen years ago) link
Cockburn in last week's Nation:
Unusually early, the real election day this year fell on October 4, the day the House of Representatives finally approved the bailout bill already passed by the Senate two days earlier....
The election of Jimmy Carter in 1976 was ...a season of hope that a new era was dawning, particularly in the arena of foreign policy and the cold war. "If, after the inauguration," Carter's campaign manager, Hamilton Jordan, told the press, "you find Cy Vance as secretary of state and Zbigniew Brzezinski as head of national security, then I would say we failed. And I'd quit." Carter wanted George Ball as secretary of state, but in the backstage maneuverings of the real election the Israel lobby vetoed Ball. Carter was forced to pick Vance as secretary of state and the cold war fanatic Brzezinski as national security adviser. Jordan did not quit.
The real election in Bill Clinton's case took place after his election, when he swiftly indicated surrender by making Goldman Sachs's Robert Rubin his treasury secretary. By May 1993 he had signaled his total submission to the Wall Street banks and the end of any pretense--thin from the get-go--of economic change or social reform.
This year the economic crisis demanded an early real election, designed to fend off the admittedly very remote possibility--Rubin is Barack Obama's close economic adviser--that Obama, victorious in the November 4 election, might claim a reformer's mandate and seek to prize loose the stranglehold of Wall Street financiers on the economy.
On September 23 Obama stated on NBC that the crisis and the prospect of a huge bailout required bipartisan action and meant he likely would have to delay expansive spending programs outlined during his campaign for the White House. Thus did he surrender power even before he gained it. Simultaneously, McCain, endorsing the bailout, destroyed a golden opportunity to revive his candidacy by placing himself at the head of the Republican revolt and seizing the popular mood, which was and remains one of vitriolic fury at Wall Street and the bailout.
Dissent dwindled rapidly in the press as the Accredited Commentariat, from George Will on the right to Paul Krugman in the center, declared the bailout odious but necessary....
As the economic crisis continued unabated, people said this showed that the bailout bill had been useless. Not true at all. Its paramount importance was as a show of force, as dramatic as nineteenth-century cavalry cutting down demonstrators at Peterloo. As an instigator of beneficial change, the Clinton administration was over six months after election day 1992. Assuming he wins, Obama has beaten the speed of Bill Clinton's 1993 collapse by almost seven months.
But hold! you cry. Obama may enter office with a secret plan. Even FDR campaigned in 1932 for a balanced budget. And anyway, Obama and Biden will save us from Sarah Palin, Alaska's answer to Eva PerĂ³n! My friends, the ebullient Palin, a provincial right-wing populist in the Poujade tradition, is a distraction from the uncomfortable truth. After the October coup, and Obama's meek surrender, the November ballot is merely a coda.
― Dr Morbius, Monday, 13 October 2008 19:32 (fifteen years ago) link
thanks.
― the schef (adam schefter ha ha), Monday, 13 October 2008 19:53 (fifteen years ago) link
in the backstage maneuverings of the real election the Israel lobby vetoed Ball
this guy
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, 13 October 2008 20:00 (fifteen years ago) link
to Paul Krugman in the center
this guy sounds european :D
― joe 40oz (deej), Monday, 13 October 2008 20:11 (fifteen years ago) link
'lefty' economists write for the Times, lol - somebody tell Doug Henwood
― Dr Morbius, Monday, 13 October 2008 20:21 (fifteen years ago) link
the failed social experiment of america: democracy, capitalism, and the metscompiled and edited by benjamin morbius ph.d.
― El Tomboto, Monday, 13 October 2008 20:25 (fifteen years ago) link
Don't forget foreign-film distribution
― Dr Morbius, Monday, 13 October 2008 20:29 (fifteen years ago) link
is it just me or are there some deliberate misrepresentations here
― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 13 October 2008 21:29 (fifteen years ago) link
that is retarded
― El Tomboto, Monday, 13 October 2008 21:32 (fifteen years ago) link
"obama and bush have both used the same key terms in a number of statements. also he voted for budgets."
― El Tomboto, Monday, 13 October 2008 21:33 (fifteen years ago) link
seriously that's the funniest shit i've read in a minute
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, 13 October 2008 22:17 (fifteen years ago) link
Before joining the newspaper, she was a senior adviser for the Republican National Committee and was appointed a public affairs director in the Department of Health and Human Services by President Bush.
― fifth from the b (The Reverend), Tuesday, 14 October 2008 00:57 (fifteen years ago) link
Right now Obama is holding his cards so tightly to his vest it would be about impossible to discern any of his intentions once elected, apart from those carefully-shaped and electorally-advantageous ones which are officially embalmed in his stump speech soundbites. Very few of those will survive contact with political reality.
We won't see him really shake loose from this mode until after Nov. 4. I wonder if he'll ever come to a point in his presidency where he can cut loose and start freewheeling a bit. Or if that is contrary to his nature.
― Aimless, Tuesday, 14 October 2008 01:06 (fifteen years ago) link
Is that a paraphrase from a post on The Corner?
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 14 October 2008 01:16 (fifteen years ago) link
If so, then it was transmitted to my brain via the luminiferous ether, because I don't read The Corner.
This is simply my impression of the last month and a half since the Republican convention. This stage of the election is all about caution if you're the clear front runner and the undecided vote is not especially large. The election is his to win or lose. He's playing not to lose. Not a very astonishing choice, really.
As for political reality, adding an extra trillion dollars in federal debt in the past 50 days has left Obama very little wiggle room for attaining his platform.
As for 'his nature', he strikes me as quite circumspect and cautious by nature. He speaks in bold strokes, but seems to act with containment. I could be wrong. He'll no doubt grow and change in the job.
― Aimless, Tuesday, 14 October 2008 04:46 (fifteen years ago) link
No president in my lifetime has grown in the job, except malevolently.
― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 14 October 2008 13:39 (fifteen years ago) link
Maybe you're the problem.
― Kerm, Tuesday, 14 October 2008 13:47 (fifteen years ago) link
You never know.
Not saying that O can't do it, but FISA and "I love markets" are not encouraging signs.
― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 14 October 2008 13:53 (fifteen years ago) link
didn't tell liar/homicidal fuckup Colin Powell to shove his endorsement
― Dr Morbius, Monday, 20 October 2008 14:50 (fifteen years ago) link
seems intent on winning election, within grasp with fortnight to go.
besides - not that he shouldn't - but has he even responded yet? i've heard him mention it in a speech, but nothing else.
― schlump, Monday, 20 October 2008 14:57 (fifteen years ago) link
Oh, with supporters like these....
"On that Saturday 10,000 households in Scranton were canvassed for Obama and another 5,000 canvassed on Sunday. I realized that we did just what the "Chicago Machine" would do. I had seen it often enough in my youth: the Ward Boss, the Precinct Captains, and the Block Captains...caring and knowledge of the individual affairs of each citizen goes with the system...The audacity of it: to build a nationwide machine based on the Chicago Machine. Now nobody groan - the Chicago Machine WORKS. We have seen the birth of a huge, wonderful Machine, the new Dem Machine, which will carry us all forward into an Age of Mutuality." -- Martha Miller
"Being a liberal and a young upstart, I always questioned things - especially my superiors. Over the last month I have stopped this habit...By and by, the Mother Brain has earned my respect. Instead, I take comfort knowing that my time is not taken for granted; my superiors use me efficiently and intelligently. To me, that matters more than you know." -- Ryan Kushner
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/beverly-davis/otb-campaign-journals-oba_b_135285.html
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 23 October 2008 15:35 (fifteen years ago) link
I realized that we did just what the "Chicago Machine" would do.
holy shit.
― Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse (kenan), Thursday, 23 October 2008 15:37 (fifteen years ago) link
build a nationwide machine based on the Chicago Machine
― Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse (kenan), Thursday, 23 October 2008 15:38 (fifteen years ago) link
the Chicago Machine WORKS
christ on a cracker.
― Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse (kenan), Thursday, 23 October 2008 15:39 (fifteen years ago) link
Well, a mirrorworld anti-Chicago Machine where there's no neighbourhood coercion or turkeys, yeah?
― Bedframes and Broomsticks (suzy), Thursday, 23 October 2008 15:40 (fifteen years ago) link
I think you get the option to be wired into the Machine OR Mother Brain.
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 23 October 2008 15:41 (fifteen years ago) link
"the new Dem Machine, which will carry us all forward into an Age of Mutuality."
Somewhere, Huxley laughs?
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 23 October 2008 15:42 (fifteen years ago) link
xpost to suzy: or graft, bribery, extortion, racism, waste, arrogant flaunting of all of the above, and on, and on, and on...
― Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse (kenan), Thursday, 23 October 2008 15:43 (fifteen years ago) link
This is a book that person, however well-meaning, has obviously not read.
― Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse (kenan), Thursday, 23 October 2008 15:47 (fifteen years ago) link
The other day my mom started foaming about La Machine Chicago - and tying O to same - based on living there for one year only. Try to argue with her and she's all OH YEAH, I BEEN TO HYDE PARK - IN '67.
― Bedframes and Broomsticks (suzy), Thursday, 23 October 2008 16:09 (fifteen years ago) link
I think she should have stuck around for 1968.
http://bp1.blogger.com/_WriF8m2mVt0/SBe9zYQnloI/AAAAAAAABs8/4xsk-CjVrQo/s400/David+Douglas+Duncan--Dem+Con+68.jpg
― Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse (kenan), Thursday, 23 October 2008 16:27 (fifteen years ago) link
(What makes that photo is the banner in the distance reading "HELLO DEMOCRATS!")
― Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse (kenan), Thursday, 23 October 2008 16:36 (fifteen years ago) link
It's possible that he's a little TOO awesome ...
― polyphonic, Thursday, 23 October 2008 17:22 (fifteen years ago) link
haha Dr. Morbius you should e-mail John Dean, tell him you found the liberal authoritarians finally, they're no longer a theory.
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 23 October 2008 17:41 (fifteen years ago) link
were they ever just a theory?
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 23 October 2008 18:40 (fifteen years ago) link
I think they're a whole corner of that ideology graph thingy, actuellement.
― Bedframes and Broomsticks (suzy), Thursday, 23 October 2008 18:41 (fifteen years ago) link
I think that well-known ideology graph thing (http://www.politicalcompass.org/index) is pretty clearly a libertarian indoctrination tool. There's a whole body of literature surrounding the concept of authoritarianism, and as far as I know to align libertarianism as its polar opposite strongly misrepresents authoritarianism.
― Dan I., Thursday, 23 October 2008 22:16 (fifteen years ago) link
don't confuse Political Compass for the World's Smallest Political Quiz. The former makes conservatives foam at the mouth because it (generally) pegs them as authoritarians, and libertarians foam because its emphasis on value questions highlights their proximity to conservatives.
― sad man in him room (milo z), Thursday, 23 October 2008 23:26 (fifteen years ago) link