“Black Man Given Nation’s Worst Job”
This is the title The Onion has given to its article welcoming Barack Obama to his new job. It’s all tongue in cheek, of course.
On a more serious note, I breathe a sigh of relief tonight. It feels like the nightmare is over and we can now start dealing with our huge looming national challenges like responsible adults.
Congratulations to Barack Obama, Joe Biden and to all of us!
I'll pray he can unify the people and not pander to extremist on either side of the political aisle.
See also, this Onion article, which contains a serious message: "Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress"
According to a CNN exit poll, 42 percent of voters said that the nation's financial woes had finally become frightening enough to eclipse such concerns as gay marriage, while 30 percent said that the relentless body count in Iraq was at last harrowing enough to outweigh long ideological debates over abortion. In addition, 28 percent of voters were reportedly too busy paying off medial bills, desperately trying not to lose their homes, or watching their futures disappear to dismiss Obama any longer.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/nation_final…
Karl says
"I’ll pray he can unify the people and not pander to extremist on either side of the political aisle."
Karl, you can do more than pray. You can refuse to be a conduit for toxic rumor campaigns that have the potential to harm the body politic. If you continue to exercise the extreme bad judgment you showed in calling Andy Martin "calm" and "objective", however, you will probably continue to do so.
Five minutes on google is enough to convince anyone with a minimally functioning BS detector that there are serious doubts about Martin's credibility, and, indeed, sanity.
Martin has left behind a clear paper trail of legal documents full of bizarre anti-Semitic invective, as well as news articles documenting his numerous failed political candidacies and his arrest and incarceration for assaulting a TV news cameraman. Even Fox News agrees that he has zero credibility and has apologized for putting him on the air.
If I were your mama, I'd give you a lecture on what happens when you hang out with the lowlifes and deadbeats. As it is, I can only hope you snap out of it.
Persons with "moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character" * we shall have always with us; they only become a problem when large numbers of people take them seriously, as you have done.
(cited by Illinois Bar Assoc. as grounds for refusing to admit Martin)
Is Karl joking? Did he ever complain about Bush pandering to religious extremists?
I hope Obama will watch Palin closely. This woman is dangerous with her unscrupulous use of manipulation to get what she wants:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/10/27/081…
This should lead to changes in both parties towards moderation. If not then the conditions you think created the desire for change will only get worse.
Goverments do not have the ability to solve all of our problems, when they do they create further problems. Both parties must accept responsibility for their part in creating the problems.
William Ayers can admit to mistakes, whatever he really means. In my miond Democrats and Republicans both became more irresponsible in terms financial accountability. Big government must be regulated. Smaller goverment needs less regulation but more individual integrity.
Trying to combine the two. i.e. big government with big regulation is a circular process that leaves individuals (like CEO's and corporate boards) with little internal accountability so their integrity reduces to the lowest common denominator found in the society in which they live.
Republicans and Democrats are equally to blame for the financial and moral conditions that we are now facing.
And how socialists can gloat about defeating facists when their agendas have been defunded beyond recourse without a turn to more oppression than anyone has ever seen from communists is a paradox of libertarian proportions. Deleverage the cryptocracy.
I never said the ideas of Martin are my interest.
I said this time Martin is approaching the matter from the only way that can begin to put the issue to rest, besides ignoring it doesn't exist.
There is an elephant in the room that very well could vanish without an act of congress if the real document were just released. There appears to be little desire if any to address these concerns until Obama is sworn into office.
I said this time it would appear he is the only voice of moderation in trying to settle the questions that refuse to be swept aside.
I know Martin's history and the political machine he tries to keep honest. I am aware of many of his opinions that don't agree with. I keep an open mind when someone tries to look into a matter with a legal right of discovery.
So, Karl, you knew Martin was an emotionally unstable anti-Semite with a history of abusing the legal system? You knew he was behind the orginal "Obama is secretly a Muslim" email campaign"? You knew that he has since admitted he was wrong about that, but has done nothing to undo the damage he caused by it?
Sorry, this does not alter my opinion that you lack good judgment, but it does lower my opinion of your moral values.
And your information about Martin's success in his bogus lawsuit/smear campaign and fight against a corrupt political machine comes from where, exactly? You do know that persons with “moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character” can have their own websites and write press releases about themselves in the third person, don't you?
The facts of the matter are that Obama has proven his citizenship status to the same degree that you or I or anyone other American citizen is required to. This has been accepted by people who have a commitment to objective reality. Only persons whose ideation has a paranoid flavor are prepared to accept a conspiracy theory involving Obama's parents and grandparents, the state of Hawaii, the U.S. Congress and State Department, and on and on. And since this is an irrational belief, it will not be amenable to any sort of proof. Instead, the conspiracy will only grow to include the Hawaii Supreme Court, and on and on.
The poet Robert Burns wrote: "Would to God the giftie gi'e us, to see ourselves as other see us". I cordially extend that gift to you, Karl. I see you as a social parasite. You derive many benefits from a society which, by and large, values mental self-discipline, but you do not yourself practice any form of mental self-discipline. Your mind opens and closes at the whim of your irrational fears and prejudices. Do not, again, try to blow smoke about the impossibility of being completely unbiased. That is not a good reason to abandon any attempt to try to keep the gap between belief and reality constantly in mind, and to try to make this gap as small as possible.
You and Andy Martin are the intellectual equivalent of destitute Grateful Dead fans standing outside the concert venue with a sign that reads "I need a miracle!" The only difference is, the Deadheads sometimes do get their miracle free ticket.
I will still wait to see the evidence everyone claims has been already attested to. Both Kenya and Hawaii have birth records. If you don't see this as a matter in need of clarification I'm not the only one with blinders and subject to delusions of granduer.
Obama has won the election, what is the problem with releasing the sealed copy in Hawaii?
If its the principle of privacy, I beg to differ with the morality of withholding information that can resolve a simple question of where he was actually born and what the status of his citizenship has been throughout his lifetime.
Karl: Based upon the official records of Hawaii and the newspaper announcement of Obama's birth, I think your alleged concerns are absurd. Your wavering standard of proof reminds me of your confident assertion that God sporadically intervenes in nature to change the pace of radioactive decay.
There was once a huge meltdown of the earth's lower crust and upper mantle directly related to the catastrophic event known as the global flood.
I believe it, one day that will be common knowledge.
Anyone who gets to the office of president of the US other than a conservative does so at the expense of national unity. That's the real meltdown the modern media moguls will never admit, but it also is true.
The liberal media pushed McCain upon the Republicans, and then talk radio and foreign interests pushed Obama upon the Democrats. Hasn't this been a real cordial electoral cycle. This time around the Democrats have control of nearly all three branches of government, but its the majority of Americans that are really conservatives that are expected to turn the other cheek as usual.
Karl, why do you hate America?
Someone called someone else a *cough*social parasite*cough*. A certain person must be really really pissed off, because until now I haven't seen her use such strong words. If I was someone named Karl I'd be very careful now… 😀
Karl writes:—"Anyone who gets to the office of president of the US other than a conservative does so at the expense of national unity. "
That is the kind of non-think that has gotten us into the cultural pretzels of the last 40 years. What the hell is so special about a conservative that his or her election couldn't possibly threaten national unity? Do you think Sarah Palin would be a unifying candidate?
As to the so-called Liberal media, the entire edifice of popular news feeds have bought into the Right's misuse of language since Reagan was in office. They've been friend to neither side. The Liberal media almost nothing to reveal George W. Bush for the twit his is until well after the election and tore both Gore and Kerry apart. You should have your early onset Alzheimers looked at, Karl. Conservative talk dominates 70% of the radio, almost that much of the newspaper industry (unless you really think Rupert Murdoch is a squishy-cored liberal), and they have Fox News, which seems to be the only television news most conservatives watch, so where do you get this notion of the "liberal media?"
As to Obama's birth place…it seems clear with the kind of tactics Karl Rove is famous for, that if there was a problem this would have been used as a sledge hammer on the man when he first poked his head up two years ago to start running. Karl Rove is a slime mold of the first order and would stop at nothing to prevent a viable Democratic candidate from challenging the Republicans, but even he has to be careful to base certain allegations on fact.
Many years ago I got into an ongoing debate with a Holocaust Denier. He kept asking for the evidence that the Third Reich had killed "that many" and I among others on the bulletin board kept directing him to sources, citing documents, testimony from key Nazis from Nuremberg (especially Rudolf Hess, who has actually boasted of keeping "abuses" down in his camp), and this guy kept asking for sources, repeatedly. It was as if he could not even see the lines of type we were writing in response. Not that I would ever suggest you are a denier, but you do seem crippled by a similar myopia.
If there'd been a problem like you suggest with Obama, there were a number of politicians of both parties who would have used it long ago, with prejudice. Clearly there must be nothing to it.
But this is how it works, isn't it? Keep repeating the question until people start believing the bullshit. The Republican Party has been doing that now for 28 years. They have nothing to be proud of.
But how dare you suggest that liberals are somehow innately corrupt, incapable of honesty. No way a liberal could get to the White House without damaging national unity? On what do you base that charge, given the record of disruption and "let's you and him fight" campaign tactics used by conservatives up to and including this election?
Karl, you have by any measure in all your posts been generally polite and decent, but that crossed a line. You may have expressed it pleasantly enough, but that charge is patent crap. Everything that has made this country a decent place to live has come from a liberal agenda. But all it seems to take is a little name-calling and allegation-throwing by a conservative to call it all into question, and it shouldn't be.
I suppose the conservatives who thought Lincoln was crazy to sign the Emancipation Proclamation would have accused him of sewing disunity. He must've been a liberal! The media of the day thought advocates of the 8-hour day and child labor laws were anarchistics, insane, hell-bent on destroying the country.
Sorry, Karl, but I think you need to look at the world as it is, not as it "ought to be". Obama seems intent on unifying, on healing, on bringing us back together. In truth, most of what separates Red and Blue is a question of rhetoric, and all the divisions have been inventions of the Right.
Forgive my apparent bellicosity, but I've lost patience for that kind of vacuous "analysis by accusation." It's garbage.
Karl, why do hate our freedoms?
Really, listen to your self!
"Anyone who gets to the office of president of the US other than a conservative does so at the expense of national unity. "
Wow! So it's "wrong for Karl, wrong for America, eh?"
Since elections entail the potential risk of electing a non-conservative, wouldn't it be better to suppress elections in the interests of national unity? Since according to you, Americans are too stupid to be trusted to vote for the "right" candidate every time.
I don't hate our freedoms.
I don't trust the fourth estate of government. Any media moguls, whether liberal media (who claim there are better than others) or conserative strategists (who claim they are better than others) that use mass communications to accomplish any agenda that the people are not fully informed about is biased and capable of distorting any election.
The misuse/abuse of money (especially from biased news reporting) and from other unknown and/or hidden sources has been the crux of our problem.
People are not informed in any kind of a balanced way. Don't try to tell me that the media doesn't use their influence to enforce the values of the people doing the reporting. Both liberals and conservatives do it.
Democrat and Republican doesn't mean much of anything anymore.
People follow the money like they do in most any other public endeavor.
So, actually, Karl, you're attitude is more Mercutioesque? Kind of a "piss on all your houses" distrust?
Well, okay.
Two things, though: the media, in my opinion, doesn't enforce values. It feeds on ratings. We lost our chance at objective reporting when we didn't exempt news programs from the same demands on money-making as sitcoms. The fairest reporting comes from NPR and PBS, but they can only do so much. But values? Don't think so.
Two, Obama is a Democrat by party affiliation. I have a suspicion that the label is all he shares with FDR, LBJ ot WJC. I think we may be in for a surprise. But in the main, I agree with you, there's not much difference between the two parties. What differences there are, however, seem to be irreconcilable.
Mark says,
"the media, in my opinion, doesn’t enforce values. It feeds on ratings."
This is true of talk radio, but not the major network news outlets.
Why does talk radio get accused of not being fair in presenting a balanced viewpoint from liberals. They only survive on ratings.
The major networks and newspapers that present a liberal perspective seem to struggle to even maintain their shrinking market share. If they fed on ratings they would shape their viewpoint to appeal to the ratings.
Conservatism supports its own way in the marketplace of ideas through ratings. In my opinion liberal viewpoints struggle to appeal to a wide cross section of consumers.