Open Thread- Yeaahhhhh!!!!

Posted on April 19, 2008 by riverdaughter

I heard from a lot of disgruntled Conflucians that I let the Obama supporters respond (or not, as the case may be).  I apologize.  I hope everyone got outside and did that whole spring thing.

This is an open thread.

Filed under: General

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23 Responses

  1. ghost2, on April 19, 2008 at 8:52 pm Said:

    Riverdaughter,

    I am going to post this a second time. This is really TOO GOOG to pass up.

    http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeff-poor/2008/04/19/helen-thomas-blasts-obama-media-coverage-he-no-martin-luther-king

    Helen Thomas Blasts Obama Media Coverage: ‘He is No Martin Luther King’

    Remember Helen? Perhaps the most respected journalist today. Remember her famous question to Bush, “why did we go to war in Iraq?”. Remember, her taking to task White House spokemen every day, at the time when press was in a collective fetal position? Yes, that Helen Thomas.

    Helen says:

    “We’re in the midst of a presidential campaign which is really getting rotten – down and dirty between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama,” Thomas said. “The Democratic candidates – Obama has the edge, he’s a rock star. He’s galvanized the youth vote of this country, but I have yet to see what he has done to take the highest office in the land. He is no Martin Luther King and his campaign, like all others, is backed by people with deep pockets.”

  2. sarah, on April 19, 2008 at 8:58 pm Said:

    That thread disturbed me. To me it seemed as if you were ready to acquiesce that he will win this nomination, – and that you were ready to embrace, that possibility.

  3. myiq2xu, on April 19, 2008 at 8:59 pm Said:

    There is a picture at Media Matters allegedly showing that it wasn’t a little birdie that Obama was offering to Hillary.

    Gee, a still photo, from another angle, shows something different?

    How do we know where his fingers were immediately before and after the still picture?

    What’s the provenence of the picture? Is it even the same rally? The same point in time in the rally?

    Look at the faces of the crowd, they aren’t cheering and laughing like you can hear in the video.

    Sorry, the evidence is no evidence.

  4. MABlue, on April 19, 2008 at 9:09 pm Said:

    People are focussing on the wrong offense.

    First of all, he pretty much said Hillary is in her element when things get in the mud, and proceeded to make the “Bird shit off my shoulders” gesture. To me, those are inexcusable offenses. He can get away with “the finger” because he can credibly argue that he was wiping something off his face, but not what he said and did repeatedly after that.

  5. Honora, on April 19, 2008 at 9:20 pm Said:

    I feel so liberated, free at last, free at last, thank you RD I’m free at last. MABlue– I totally agree, assuming that he did not give her the finger, for the sake of argument… he brushed shit off of his shoulder and his shoe. I want a real President.

  6. riverdaughter, on April 19, 2008 at 9:22 pm Said:

    Sarah: Heck no, I was just testing a theory that the Obama supporters are all about anti-Clinton, not pro-Obama. They couldn’t give me or you or anyone else any good reasons to hire him. I understand that some of the reasons for choosing a president are based on a mystique and charisma. But you have to have a baseline somewhere. They need to meet the basic qualifications. And just as I suspected, there just wasn’t much there. His resume is very thin.
    Jeez, Louise, acquiesce to Obama? As if.

  7. sarah, on April 19, 2008 at 9:28 pm Said:

    Riverdaughter – please allow me to post this now….I just got around to it. I am hoping your readers will like one more of these. They were so funny the other day, but /i got so busy I just couldn’t be a member of the “Creative Class.” – been making calls for Hillary lately.

    Post Debate Mad Lib –
    Well now, slap the kernals off the corn and knock the eyes off the potatoes ! Was that the smoothest piece of hogfat you ever saw or what! Obama just fired up the BAR -BEEEEEEEE-Q! He was boot-lickin’ ready and fresh! Hillary just looked plum-tuckered out and off her hash slinging’, kitchen sink flinging’ timing today. I just felt a 0.22 piece of birshot in my BEEEEE – hind when he spoke!

    What a woods, crawlin ‘ , ruffed grouse shoot we had today here in PA. His response to George’s question on how to properly marinate and tenderize wild turkey was right out of “Down Home Cookin” and made my mouth water more ‘ an all get out! And she just couldn’t deliver the knock out blow that she desperately needed. What an amazing response on the interconnectedness between snuff chewin and deer huntin’ here in backwoods and bitter PA . Do the voters of PA see what they have in this guy? His supporters are all so and “You-uns” and “Chipped ham” kind of people. I think he’s finally put their fears of not understanding Pennsylvanians as guntoters- and religion clingers to rest once and for all. Andrea, you’ve been on the Clinton campaign bus. Have her beer and kielbasa supporters come to accept that she’s proabably not making pierogies next Christmas?

  8. gqmartinez, on April 19, 2008 at 9:42 pm Said:

    My “spring thing” = writing the big “T” and making figures in high res. Woohoo. *sigh*

  9. kiki, on April 19, 2008 at 9:52 pm Said:

    ok, this is interesting. my husband and I went out to dinner tonight and got talking about politics – actually I was telling him about this very blog. a little background – he is a lifelong republican (he’s 58) who no longer supports or respects that party (thanks, W) and is now a Hillary supporter and voted for her in our primary. so he assumed that I would vote for whichever democrat was nominated, and when I said I wasn’t sure, he was a little shocked. actually a lot shocked. he said “surely you wouldn’t vote for mccain” and when he said that, it did seem like a “surely” thing. I said I might not vote for president at all. I’m so conflicted about this! I do not want to vote for obama and I do not want to vote for mccain. I’ve never not voted for president since I was eligible to vote in 1972.

    oy!!!!!!!!!

    I was able to articulate my feelings fairly well, and he understood where I was coming from. the lightbulb moment was when he said “so obama might be another bush, an easily manipulated lightweight”…yeah, I think maybe. that’s a problem. but mccain isn’t a good solution. in the end, we agreed that we just hope hillary gets the nomination.

    but he’s like many many people who don’t read blogs and don’t spend a lot of time online and really don’t know much about the obama campaign. he didn’t understand at first why that whole campaign really does piss me off and insult me. he does now, but many people get their news from the msm or headlines online, and they really don’t know what’s bothering us about obama and his supporters.

    pointing it out makes us seem whiny. saying they started it makes us seem whiny. my husband understood where I was coming from, because he listened to me and cares about my feelings, but our conversation made me realize that a lot of people – good, open minded people – just aren’t getting good open minded information if they’re not digging for it online.

    I don’t know what to do about this, except wish and hope and pray. oh, and donate. and keep my fingers crossed.

  10. riverdaughter, on April 19, 2008 at 9:59 pm Said:

    Sarah: LOL! Well, that was colorful and folky. Loved it!

    Gqm: I feel your pain. Figures are always a bear. No matter how nice you make them, someone has an opinion on how the would be more understandable if you would just turn the image. Aghhhh! But it will all be over soon.

  11. sarah, on April 19, 2008 at 10:01 pm Said:

    I can appreciate your feelings exactly. I have decided that the “best” the Democratic party will get out of me this year (if Obama is the nominee) is that I will write-in Hillary’s name, and vote for the downticket Dems.

    I also have voted Democratic since 1972, and have never missed an election. I have to say that I”m feeling the party has deserted me, and Obama type supporters dismiss me and/or take my vote for granted.

    His campaign of playing the race card on good Democrats, blocking re-votes in Michigan and Florida, slighting the accomplishments of Bill Clinton’s presidency, “you’re likeable enough Hillary”, whining about the debate questions, vile comments toward Hillary by his supporters, his tacit approval of sexist remarks etc has totally turned me off. I just will not vote for him.

  12. hlr, on April 19, 2008 at 10:02 pm Said:

    gqmartinez: “T” and making figures in high res

    So. Are they letting you use any of that new-fangled software?

    I had to use LaTeX w/ PostScript figures.

    sarah: brilliant, just brilliant.

  13. kiki, on April 19, 2008 at 10:04 pm Said:

    sarah, yeah. since my husband is a brand new democrat he doesn’t feel the “taken for granted” part. you and I and so many others do.

  14. kiki, on April 19, 2008 at 10:15 pm Said:

    I saw this interesting video on TGW:

  15. Aeryl, on April 19, 2008 at 11:17 pm Said:

    kiki,

    I already realized that, which is why I have always taken pains, to refer to her as Clinton or Sen. Clinton, as I do Obama. I understand that her campaign was trying for something different by referring to her by her first name, but in situations where you are discussing candidate preferences or just horse race, I always try to accord her the professionalism she deserves.

    It is so hard, the needle women must thread to be recognized as equal, it is so much bs.

    But it has come to the fore this year, every woman I know talks about the way she has been treated, and want to vote for her(I live in KY, so we will!!) Many are convincing their husbands. I do hope this will be the year that we can put to rest the lie that women are not as capable as men.

  16. kiki, on April 19, 2008 at 11:30 pm Said:

    I was aware, as I posted, that I called her hillary and called the other two candidates by their last names. it seemed the natural thing to do, but yeah, there are always nuances in politics. it’s all confusing.

    I think of her as hillary. I honestly, personally, like her. I also think she has the best grasp of the issues. I don’t necessarily think she can make everything better, but I do think she knows what’s wrong and will try to do what needs to be done to fix it.

  17. Eleanor A, on April 20, 2008 at 12:18 am Said:

    Hm. I got into a confrontation of sorts with someone I know IRL over this…she started making small talk, telling me all about how she’s looking forward to Tuesday (all this time I know we’re on opposite sides in this primary)…I about bit my tongue off, until she started going on about the process, and how GREAT it is that people are noticing how ridiculous the ABC debate was…Somehow I managed not to say what I was really thinking, but I foresee some real ugliness this fall from some folks who’ll expect me to support Obama, should he get the nomination.

    Oh well. Guess I don’t need to be buddy buddy with folks who are gung-ho for disenfranchisement anyway.

  18. Cdalygo, on April 20, 2008 at 12:37 am Said:

    Eleanor, maybe we need to start telling people now. Though it’s hard because if folks have not been paying attention we look best as “sore losers” and worse as “racists.”

    I made the mistake of glancing at mydd front page. Wow those people are amazing. They are pushing the still photo of bird flip incident and an LA Times poll showing him up in Indiana (a paper that like my hometown SF Chron has looked pretty damn silly ever since she took CA).

    I find myself telling my partner and fellow Hillary supporting coworkers that I trust McCain more with choice than Obama. That’s not something I will share with others (yet) but I do feel it.

    Not a place I ever imagined ending up in . . ..

  19. ronkseattle, on April 20, 2008 at 12:44 am Said:

    Re the Media Matters photo: It shows exactly the opposite of what the Fingercaust denialists claim!

    Media Matters (and J Singer at MyDD) claim it shows a two-fingered face scratch.

    Look at the shadow the fingers cast on Obama’s cheek. There’s a definite (large) gap between the tip of his index finger and the tip of its shadow.

    This means the first finger is definitely NOT touching his cheek.

    That doesn’t mean it never did. touch, because that’s just one frame. It would take more frames to establish the finger never touched the face — and indeed the full sequence shows just that.

    Developing: The Obamacaca Moment. [George Allen’s Macaca Moment occurred on August 11, 2006. The first mainstream mention wasn’t until 8/15 or 8/16; the first blog notice wasn’t until 8/13 … and the accompanying denials and dismissals were remarkably similar.

  20. Palomino, on April 20, 2008 at 2:08 am Said:

    ” . . . if folks have not been paying attention we look best as ’sore losers’ and worse as ‘racists’”:

    I’ve been thinking about this. And I’ve concluded that there are two kinds of sore losers.

    There’s the kind of sore loser like Obama, ornery because he’s in pain after shooting himself in the foot during the Philadelphia debate. What does Obama do? Does he learn from his failure? Does he resolve to start doing his homework so he won’t ever again suffer the humiliation of getting so decisively beaten on national TV? No, not Obama. He binds his self-inflicted wounds with contempt for Hillary Clinton, giving her the finger and dissing her in front of people who came to watch his Hope-n-Change (TM) medicine show.

    And then there’s the kind of sore loser like you and me, if Obama does succeed in riding, not his Unity Pony, but Ted Kennedy’s beat-up sorry old nag, all the way to the nomination. You bet we’ll be sore if that happens. We’ll be sore from being kicked to the curb by Barack Obama and his nasty brownshirts, and by Ted Kennedy and John Kerry and Tom Daschle and Pat Leahy and Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean and Donna Brazile and all the other members of the Clinton Derangement Caucus (CDC). And if their severely underqualified candidate, who has now actually disqualified himself with his highly inappropriate conduct, is shoved down our throats after having blocked revotes in Michigan and Florida, we’ll be sore all over again.

    So, yes, we’ll be sore losers.

    Will that make us victims?

    Hell no.

    Because we can bind our wounds with the self-respect of people who have come to after being kicked in the head once too often. We can walk. Why not? We won’t owe Ted Kennedy and his little cream-puff puppet anything but a serious ass-kicking.

    If we want to vote for Democrats downticket, we can do that. It will help, if John McCain becomes president. Which is what will happen anyway if Obama is the nominee–as more than one person has pointed out, Obama can’t win the presidency with African Americans and people who buy brie.

    Evidently the CDC isn’t worrying about a McCain presidency–little enough to pay, they think, for the pleasure of thwarting Hillary Clinton–so why should we? We’ve survived more than seven years of George W. Bush, and we’ll survive four years of John McCain if we have to. So stay home. Write Hillary in. Vote for Cynthia McKinney. Or if the polls are tight in your state and you can stand to do it, vote for McCain.

    We can walk. They think we never will, but we can. And then we can send a cheery postcard from an undisclosed location to Howard Dean and the CDC.

    They wanted to create a movement, and they sure did. Little did they realize that WE are the ones we’ve been waiting for!

  21. jacilyn, on April 20, 2008 at 2:19 am Said:

    HRC has GOT to get back on the issues, onto what she has to offer.

    Someone has GOT to do something, and I don’t know what to do. I just know that all of this garbage about negative campaign tactics is bad for her. It is feeding the wrong wolf. Somehow she has GOT to get her message out – and it has to be a message that isn’t all about Obama.

    The reason to vote for her is because you want what she offers. The more she gets away from this, the worse it is for her.

    This bugs me so much I can’t sleep…I can’t shake the feeling that she is being sucked into a trap. I feel like HRC is being totally derailed from what is really important.

  22. jules, on April 20, 2008 at 2:32 pm Said:

    jacilyn, I agree with you. Please forgive me if you are already aware of this, but HRC’s new campaign strategist sent out an email asking for ideas from her supporters. Here’s the link: http://www.hillaryclinton.com/action/ideas/?sc=1797&utm_source=1797&utm_medium=e

    Also, I found an article about undecided superdelegates. It sounds like a good number of them don’t want to be pressured into a decison now. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080420/ap_on_el_pr/undecided

    I’m hoping a lot of those undecided SDs have seen, and been disgusted by, the video clips from Thursday. As others have commented, the crowd’s reactions and BO’s pause/facial expression really give away the true nature of the gesture. And thanks, MABlue, for explaining the full meaning of the shoulder flick. I just thought it referred to dirt. How juvenile can this guy get!

    I taught college-aged students for a number of years. (BTW, I never referred to myself as a professor because, like BO, I was an adjunct, so that “law professor” stuff really kills me.) Anyway, I can’t help seeing him as one of those students who writes long, verbose papers with lots of big words but no real argument or evidence. That kid who can’t help but open his mouth in class, even if he hasn’t done the reading and has no clue, rambling on about some vaguely philosophical tangent, until the teacher or a prepared, bright, confident student shuts him down. Unfortunately, the real-life scenario doesn’t seem to have a “teacher” willing to step in, though we all know who the prepared student is! Charlie Gibson may have slipped in a comment that BO didn’t really answer a question, but very few are calling him on his BS. Going to read that Helen Thomas article now….

    P.S. This is my first real comment, though I’ve been reading for a while. I have learned a lot from my frequent visits here. Thanks!

  23. daria g, on April 20, 2008 at 6:01 pm Said:

    Local hip hop station played “Dirt off your shoulders” just now. Not typically on their playlist since it’s a couple years old. LOL.

    It shows exactly the opposite of what the Fingercaust denialists claim!

    Yes, it does. Did this come up on the Sunday chat shows? this isn’t about the media swiftboating a Democrat, after all, since he really did it.

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