And Bill O'Reilly will occasionally complains about individual conservatives to try to appear "fair and balanced".

Not convinced.

I'll tell you what though, I'll add up the conservative v. liberal viewpoints expressed on the next few daily shows I watch, and if the liberals are attacked more, I'll have to acknowledge that my perception is off.

I should point out that the daily show certainly isn't required to have any kind of balance, they're just playing to their audience, trying to have a successful show, just like any foxnews show - this is america, and they can do anything they want. I'm just saying in terms of the stuff DT talked about from that time magazine article, there is similar poison for the other side, and the Daily Show (and similar sentiments expressed elsewhere) give out the same poison in a way that's younger, hipper, funnier, and thus less noticed.

And also, yes, you were correct to call me out that I hadn't responded to that directly, that's fine....In a smiliar spirit I'm still waiting for SteveBollea to support the extreme approval/dissaproval ratings he threw out a few page ago, which he used I think to show that Obama is beloved everywhere except the south (and the implications from that with are major, but which I won't get into again).

I'm not interested in having this discussion again - we covered this only a few months ago, and I regret hopping in again - but since you've mentioned me specifically I will reply and leave it at that.

I don't see the Daily Show the same way as you do; though, as I said I used to. Since the "bogeyman" of Bush has subsided, the show is a lot less predictable and bitter and now, in my opinion, takes on the whole beast that is the political-media complex. I think they do this in a pretty sharp way. Though the audience definitely leans left (which, again, I do not) I think that most of the humor is done pretty fairly and they are not afraid to go after their own side when their own side is shitty.

My response was based on the fact that I do not think you really know a lot about the Daily Show yet you. Consistently. Bring. It. Up. In. This. Context, as if it were a giant windmill for you and Sancho to take on.

The Daily Show is just the easiest, most recognizable target for this viewpoint and this poison, and it's probably not to the extreme it was during the Bush years (it would be pretty ridiculous if it was)

This poison being talked about is very easy to see in the the conservative talk shows, and on the liberal side, it exists more in popular culture, in the entertainment industry, and on college campuses. But its the same thing, IMO, but its not acknowledged on the liberal side as often (at least on liberal message boards)

I have brought up the daily show too much, but it (and its equivalents) aren't talked about as often as Limbaugh and FoxNews, which are CONSTANTLY referenced here it ways that make no sense and aren't relevant to anything (like to prove that racism exists, and that non-liberals are crazy or something). To me, that all goes back to the spirit of what I was talking about - invalidating dissenting opinions by positioning Limbaugh as the leader of all those that disagree. That creates an interesting backlash too - when liberals hold up Limbaugh and Sarah Palin to the extent they do, that actually makes them MORE important in the Republican party, because the partisian sheep on that side love to get behind someone that the Dems oppose so much. (which is of course great for the Democrats, though bad for America)

yay!


hahaha - LOVE IT!!!

i just thought you weren't being fair+balanced in your response and i thought that might be for the purpose of trying to "cause trouble" for lack of a better term

yeah - ronnie certainly doesn't lean left, so if he doesn't see the daily show as left-leaning that's saying something!

that's partly rush's own fault though, and beck's own fault. and they've made a ton of money by that being their fault.

the daily show isn't out there advocating things like:

a) "We should have segregated busing. Put all the white kids on their own bus with bars on the windows to protect them."

or

b) there's hidden communist propaganda + symbols in the artwork of rockefeller center

Jon Stewart is just out there cracking jokes and making fun of people and pointing out when people are hypocritical or flip-floppish.

OK, I'll try to approach this a different way. I don't think its at all relevant to anything I've said, but OK - Rush Limbaugh is far worse than Jon Stewart personally, as far as I know. I don't disagree.

I don't think anyone in this thread has supported or defended Limbaugh, as far as I remember. I see the obsession with him as an attempt to lump him with any opposition to Obama or the default liberals ideals (and the belief that Obama supporters care about people, and others don't, and that it's compassionate to want big government, but uncompassionate to have concerns about it).

Those last two ideas are usually expressed more subtly here - but occasionally its just totally overt - we had that exchange a few pages back about how Democrats make better Repubilcans than Republicans or whatever, since they're actually more Christian than Republicans because they actually care about people. That exchange perfectly summed up what I've been ranting about here (the "if you disagree with us, you're a bad person" kind of stuff).

I guess I should also say I tend to speak up more when I disagree than when I agree, and I agree with molson fully here. I do think that Limbaugh and Hannity get so much play because the left likes to point at them and say "Wow, I'm so much smarter than they are!" Which is ironic, because they're the ones making a fucking killing doing what they do.

Beck is just entertaining as all hell though. I truly (maybe I have to) believe that he doesn't really believe half the stuff that comes out of his mouth. He's like performance art.

I'm aware of it...but I like to envision a future with Arnold or Laurence Fishburne involved somehow. :)

are there really people who think other people are "bad people" just because of what political party they belong to?

i mean i think racists are bad people, and child molestors are bad people, but i don't necessarily characterize people as "good" or "bad" based on their political ideologies, or even their views on social issues (gay marriage, abortion). Is my "tolerance" really that unusual?

that's part of the problem and what i was trying to get at with my initial more "populist" rant - we the people are enabling these divisive personalities to make a financial killing and continue to drive the wedges between us, particularly because it's so entertaining (either to us, making us feel like we belong to something, or to laugh at the other side). They're raking in the money hand-over-fist and just continuing to push us further and further apart and away from meaningful dialogue with each other where we might discover common ground. some would say they're doing it for their own profit, others would say that subtley it's being orchestrated by the special interests and powerful corporations in order to keep us divided so we don't spoil their party and interfere with their profit-taking.

The leap I think molson is getting at here is that the race card gets played regularly when conservatives argue issues. For example, locally the mayor of Garner got fed up with his schools being crowded with the F&R (free & reduced lunch) kids from southeast Raleigh in a county effort to balance schools socio-economically, so they withheld permitting approval on new schools in the town until the county agreed to abide by their own guidelines (no more than 40% F&R in a school, but they bussed in kids to kick Garner schools over that limit, in addition to overcrowding them). Of course most of the southeast Raleigh F&R kids are black, so the local black caucus immediately cried "racism!" and ignored all the facts that went into the decision.

So people on the conservative end are labelled racists, bigots, and elitists whenever they try to debate a policy that the liberal/progressive side of things wants to push. So if you like a conservative policy, you must be a racist/bigot/elitist as well, because you support a racist/bigoted/elitist position.

And yes I know this is flying the other way as well.

As a side note, I've been trying to find the name of the local black caucus for part of the ACORN discussion. They have an inordinate amount of clout in the school board policy that is causing so much headache for parents, helping to push monetary spending well beyond what you think they might otherwise be able to control. And their candidate on the BoE (Rosa Gil) is the one who got bumped up to state office when one of the reps got elected to national office.

People in their 20's get their news from the internet, not the Daily Show.

At some point it's tough to argue the issues. I mean are we really going to debate whether Obama is going to euthanize the elderly? Whether he's a Muslim manchurian candidate? I would love to argue the issues the tea partiers have but I don't really know what they are. I just see a lot of nasty signs about socialism, communism, fascism, etc that don't really discuss any issues in particular.

It's not brought up because it's not true. You clearly don't watch the show and just cherry pick a video or two that gets viral every year. The show bashes those who make fools of themselves in politics. From 2000-2006 it was mostly Republicans as they had all the power. There were some major fuckups during that time that gave them a lot of fodder to work with.

Recently it's been Democrats getting the brunt of the exposure on the show. The media as a whole has always been a target and continues to get bombarded by him on a daily basis. The show has never been completely about politics.

I think his show takes a populist stance. It picks up on low hanging fruit and demolishes it. When a President had an approval rating in the 20's, it's tough not to go use him as your target a lot. As Obama's has fallen, he's picked on him much more. Congress and the media have been free game for him as they've always had low ratings. His audience is younger so he's of course not going to take the stance of your average senior citizen, but I don't consider what he's doing pushing an agenda or supporting a party.

Many people who discredit Stewart as some flaming liberal on the same level as Limbaugh don't watch his show. He simply takes public sentiment toward something and runs with it. He's rarely hateful or preaching. He points out hypocrisy or ludicrous things for a laugh.

P.S. You could make the case that Colbert is a left-leaning show. Although I'd argue that I think his show is more of a parody of the ridiculousness of these cable news pundits who have shows. He chose O'Reilly because he's the most popular and well known.

I agree with this sentiment, RM...but I also don't see what's wrong with people protesting...even if it doesn't make sense or the fears are unfounded.

IMO, protest does not have to always mean disagreement...and in fact, I'd argue it is usually done out of confusion of intent/policy. And (reasonable) extrapolations of policy does not always have to mean it has to be the intent of the policy. Sure, reasonable must be defined...but we define and re-define it through debate and sometimes those lines have to be pushed in order to find itself again. Sometimes those debates become uncivil as passions flare up...all part of finding the best answer, IMO.

So, while I believe it ludicrous to believe Obama is a Muslim or has intention of moving the country towards communisim...it doesn't mean it is not worthwhile to protest the point/fear of that being a reality so that the potential for the slippery slope is at least, acknowledged. EDIT: the communism part acknowledged...not the Muslim part. Point being, one is debunked and the other acknowledged.

"No Blood for Oil" is a good recent example of this, IMO. It was used prior to both Iraq wars and at least put the concept out there that "this is unacceptable".

Propaganda is mostly effective when people can't recognize it.

I would say that most right leaning people would agree that Rush is on their side. I can't say that most liberals would agree that Stewart is on their side. That's where he is so effective.

But as long as you can see the truth we're all covered.

Or people who don't watch the show get butthurt when he makes fun of someone in their party and need to marginalize it by saying he's on the other team.

Isn't that the whole liberal media bias motif? You can do no wrong if everyone reporting on your wrong doing is on the other team.

Liberals can't see a liberal bias, because liberal is just the "normal" way to them - just like conservatives can't see a conservative bias, because conservative is just the "normal" way to them.

I'm watching the Daily Show as I type this....I won't be able to stomach it for long, but I'm putting my time in.

Here's the kind of thing he makes fun of Democrats about (I think someone mentioned this sort of thing earlier) - not punishing Joe Wilson enough. Or not being strong enough on their health care plan. It goes back to the inherent correctness of liberal ideas, and the attacks only come in the context of when those ideas aren't pushed hard enough.

Republicans have built a platform on the idea of the liberal media bias. Anytime something negative happens it doesn't count because the media is bias. Extremely smart political strategy.

Like I said, you don't watch the show. He made fun of the media for missing the ACORN story. He made fun of Obama and Democrats for giving away all that money to the banks without any regulations. He's hammered Pelosi, Reid, Rangel, and many others. You are basing your jugements off the handful of viral videos that come out every year. Not on the show on a daily basis.

It's a populist show. He plays to the crowd. The country has shifted to the left on a lot of issues over the last 5 years and his show has as well.

I don't have a political affiliation and probably come down more on the right side of the aisle on most non-social issues. I don't see the bias you see and I don't see how anyone could put him in the same sentence as a Rush Limbaugh. One is a political pundit and the other is a comedy show. I guess I don't put The Onion in the same category as National Review.

I'm not a Republican, and I didn't say anything remotely suggesting that something doesn't "count". This is your shtick - exactly what I was talking about above. Someone disagrees with you, and you invalidate the opinion by grouping all people who disagree with you into these broad groups.

And the fact that you view the Daily Show like the Onion kind of proves my point about that show. That's just a joke of a comparison. Unless I missed something and the Onion now does serious interviews with presidential candidates, former presidents, world leaders, and military generals. Even to the extent that liberals are "attacked" (usually in the context of not going after republicans hard enough, or not being organized/strong enough to spread their correct liberal virtues), that doesn't change my point about the overall political relevance of the show, and the window into the way young people view politics today.

I'm actually not sure how someone can't see the liberal tilt of "The Daily Show". Jon Stewart is quite obviously more to the left of the spectrum than not.

The show was run by the people behind The Onion. The Executive Producer has come out and said that was his motive behind shaping the show and the reason he was hired. The purpose of the show was to bring a version of the print "fake news" to the television screen. Might be a joke to you, but apparently the network and people running it didn't think the comparision was that far off.

The majority of their segments are straight comedy have no basis on reality. The lone difference between the two are the interviews, which are probably due in part to the much larger audience of the Daily Show and the success it has had. Jay Leno has been able to bring on major guests such as Presidential candidates, former Presidents, and world leaders, yet I don't consider his show a political show like you must.

So does this make the cast journalists? Guys like Steve Carrell and Stephen Colbert? Are Lewis Black and Dave Attell now pundits? Did Ed Helms breakthrough the mold of embedded war reporter and parlay that into a career as a comedic actor? I mean this is a political show on par with Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, so surely you would have to classify those who report on stories as journalists and not comedic actors.

I think it's tilted toward the views of the public. Bush had dismal ratings and made a lot of huge mistakes that made him an easy target. The show has primarily been in existence during Republican regimes. If Obama has a 30% approval rating next year with major fuckups like Bush, I guarantee they'll be lambasting him every night.

It's entertainment and it wants to attract as big an audience as it can. It's not going to give up ratings so that it can pass some guerilla political message that Molson has dreamed up.

Which means catering to the liberal left, because the right has very little interest in a worthless piece of shit like Jon Stewart & would enjoy seeing him fall on his face (repeatedly actually, on a very hard surface preferrably).
He's about as likely to seriously screw with Obama beyond a tweak here & there as I am of voting for the fence turtle, and even less likely if he's in serious trouble.

I'd never argue that the Daily Show doesn't have a strong liberal bent. But I bet if molson watched it more, he would be surprised how often it goes after liberals.

O'Reilly has gone after Bush and conservatives, but we know how that plays out long-term...

I watched Jon Stewart compare the extreme protestors of the left and right.

On the right -- AR15 gunman.
On the left -- A guy with an anti-Bush t-shirt.

He could just of easily gone after moltov-cocktail throwing protestors but to be safe, he went with the TV-safe move of not being to rough to the left.

Lame.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

I really think John Stewart is the MAC(ish)* college football of political discussion.

If you beat him in political debate people just say, "Oh you should have beat him because he is MAC level of football". Then again if you beat him then he is, "Well of course you should of beat him. he's a MAC level football opponent."

*By MAC I mean any mid-level when compared to the premier conferences.

I must have missed the molotov cocktail throwers at Bush speeches.

Bias, at least how we traditionally define it as it relates to the media, only matters when there's some expectation of neutrality. IMO Stewart isn't biased in any meaningful way because he doesn't portray himself as being fair to both sides. The same goes for Limbaugh and Beck and the rest.

I don't think Stewart has ever tried to claim neutrality. I do think his major foil is the media as opposed to conservatives, but he's certainly sympathetic to liberal ideology.

Go after Obama from the left, perhaps, as I've seen Stewart do on occasion (as in health care). Which, btw, isn't exactly 'tilted toward the views of the public'.

Red Heat (1988) ? ;)

SI

FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Getting a Bigger House

Now this would be interesting to me. I still think the single biggest problem with the government is the money in it which makes the higher ups easily corruptible. If you have more representatives, the money gets more diluted and the members have to be more responsive to their constituency as they can't just wallpaper over their legal bribes with more money.

That said, it does open the field up more to the rich as outside money becomes more important. I've said all along I'd rather just have publicly funded elections or caps on spending but that will never happen, particularly not with this court going the other direction and a bipartisan support of always supporting removing barriers to re-election.

SI

As pointed out, this is an idea that has a very, very long beginning. And hence, will never, ever see the light of day.

It would go a long way in dismantling the bribery of lobbying. If you have to bribe enough people in a pool of 435, it is obviously doable. But to bribe enough people in a pool of 10,000 or even 2,000 it becomes a lot more difficult.

I think it would open up for more specialized lobbying at least. Which I guess is an improvement.

SI

Woohoo! Even you can be a lobbyist! ;)

Pretty funny Joe Wilson sketch from SNL: Update Thursday:

LOL! I like how they all groaned when he said he was from South Carolina.

Well, you have the eco-terrorists burning down mansions out west. Or the Greenpeace folks that go after whalers.

But we've got the folks shooting abortion doctors and planting bombs at the Olympics, so...

I'm not denying there's violence on both sides, but if the gag was to compare people at presidential speeches I'm not sure why there would be a reference to a molotov cocktail throwing leftist.

"Last week a protester brought an assault rifle to President Obama's townhall, but remember the Bolsheviks stormed the Winter Palace."

:D

SI

Well, to be fair I think this is the first time we've had a president who seems to be doing nothing BUT give speeches. And the talkshow circuit. And wherever else he can get himself in front of a camera and in public.

Saw some interesting numbers on appearances. Note that the numbers below do not include the interview marathon from yesterday morning. Obama is really risking overexposure at this point.


Yikes.

dola

Obama open to newspaper bailout.......

Obama open to newspaper bailout bill - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

Megan notes that Democrats probably will push through their form of health care. She also notes that there's a good chance they'll lose power in the House in 2010 should they choose to do so.........

http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/...tarts_look.php

I think you've crossed the line into insanity. If the Democrats push for "reconciliation" on something this big, and it goes party lines (which it would in that case), it's going to be somewhat of a PR disaster, even though they'll get it done. Plenty outside the beltway will care.


A false assumption is being made here. They won't lose BECAUSE they voted against the health care bill, but because they represent relatively conservative districts who may not like that the Democrats passed a health care bill.

Totally disagree. Bush and Clinton were both substance over style, for better or worse. Obama is just the opposite. We're 8 months into his presidency and he's still campaigning. His presidency is an interesting experiment for sure. He's trying to use massive amounts of PR to garner support for his policies.

At this point, I think the copious amounts of appearances are generally detrimental to what he's trying to do. Stop trying to convince people you should do something and just do it already. The large amount of campaign-like appearances demonstrate a real fear from the administration that people don't like his policy proposals. There has been some mention that he's doing it to educate people who don't understand his proposals, but I don't think that's the case. People understand exactly what he's doing on all sides of the policies. The real issue is whether people like it or not and the backlash that could be associated with it.

We're quickly reaching the quarter pole in his 4-year term and not much of note has been passed. Just DO SOMETHING already. You'll have plenty of time to campaign during the last year of your first term.

Generally I think MBBF overstates things, but a dyed-in-the-wool liberal friend of mine just said this weekend (after seeing that Obama will be doing Letterman this week) that he's sick of seeing his face everywhere.

We're seeing this on the other side of KC in Kansas already. There's a couple of 'blue dog Democrats' in conservative districts that are both likely to lose in 2010 due to their support of the more liberal policies that Obama and Congress proposed.

Well, I know a quote by Obama saying he would be "happy to look at" in some random paper's blog is definitely news.

Then again, I forgot that it was Monday morning so it was time for some MBBF fake hand wringing and propaganda push. "Oh noes, the President is doing X. I hope he won't get in trouble for Y" and here it is, right on schedule.

SI

I don't know if this is true, but I get the feeling that the total exposure isn't greater, but that this admin has decided to use surrogates far less and rely on the President more. It doesn't seem like I'm seeing the level of adviser interviews as is normally common, but obviously we're seeing the President a lot more. I get the over exposure issue, although I don't think there are any real consequences, but since I don't see much merit in giving advisers air time, I'd rather it at least come from the guy theoretically making the policy decisions.

Now as to whether people understand healthcare reform, of course there's a problem. If people really understood the legislation there wouldn't be so many people believing in death panels, euthanizing veterans, and British style healthcare. The current anger at all of the above seems pretty clear proof that there are a lot of misconceptions out there.

The Hill is a random paper? Interesting. I consider it a relatively non-bias source for politics.

ISid: But arguing that the policy is too liberal only exacerbates their problems. Some of these Reps won because of Obama's popularity, so taking issue with his policies and lowering his popularity is self-defeating. If the district would prefer a counter to Obama, the Dem, in a general sense, is unlikely to be their choice regardless of his vote on any issue.

I don't think 2010 will be a wave election as the only thing people dislike more than Dems are Repubs. Dems will lose seats in the House, especially in those districts that had increased turnout of Dem voters due to Obama that won't have those numbers in an off-year election. I don't think healthcare makes a difference if it passes as none of it will have gone into effect by next November. The real danger is continued job losses. If unemployment doesn't flatten or tick downwards by next summer that could change things significantly towards the GOP.

That's interesting- I've been gone a year now, but last I checked there was only one Kansas Democrat* in the House. As for Dennis Moore situation, I haven't seen anything that really endangers a 6-term incumbent's advantage. The advantage to being an incumbent is so big and takes so much to overcome, particularly for someone so long entrenched. That said, it's still early and a lot can happen between now and next year.

*Funny story- so after 2002, the overwhelmingly Republican state redistricted Lawrence (aka midwest college town, aka blue dot in the middle of a red state) to split it up in an attempt to destabilize one of Moore's solid bases. However, it backfired, as in 2006, Moore won easily and a Democrat won the newly gerrymandered 2nd district as well. Whoops.

SI

In theory, I agree that I'd rather hear it straight from the horse's mouth, but the current tactics are just overkill. There has to be some balance.


The scare tactics are just as insignificant as the Democrats and their supporters' belief that those scare tactics are the real issue here. If you ask the average citizen, they want good healthcare for themselves and don't want to pay more to cover other people while seeing no increase in their care quality. That's the real issue. The rest of it is just politics that provides political fodder.

Yes, it's a BLOG in a RANDOM PAPER (i.e. in that one paper picked up this story, not speaking specifically to The Hill) and furthermore, it said he would consider the issue, which does not signal support or dismissal or action of any sort. I think we've seen that Obama will say that about pretty much everything- "I'm open to ideas", "my door is always open", "I'll listen to anything", etc- unless you propose something politically suicidal like "Hey, we have this bill that allows child molesters to teach at schools".

Call me when a bill gets passed in Congress or ends up on his desk and then we can talk about it.

SI

For the record, there's a huge difference between tax cuts (Bush) and raising taxes(Obama proposal). You can argue whether either was prudent, but the masses will always prefer a tax cut.

I genuinely don't believe the average American voter will care if reconciliation is used. But to say that, I have to define average voter. Yes, there will be some uproar on the right from the echo chamber, but most voters can't be bothered to understand nuance going into most elections so why should this be any different. That said, midterm elections do play to the more politically savvy as turnout is lower.

SI

Yeah- for better or for worse, at the end of the day, this will be all that matters (see post above this one).

SI

ISid: There is, at best, one Republican that will vote for any healthcare reform(Snowe). It's going to be a party line vote regardless of the proposal because Republicans see defeat of healthcare reform, any healthcare reform, as in their electoral interest.

At the end of the day I don't think it's going to have to go through reconciliation as I don't think Dem Senators are stupid enough to filibuster their own President and caucus, but I certainly could be wrong. There really is no folly too great for the Dem Senate.

seriously. i'd be more upset if he said he wouldn't consider it. at least the guy is open-minded. refreshing change.

Granted, but if its a vote of 60 yays, that will make it seem far more palatable to the general voting public.

The difference with the Bush tax cuts, btw, is that tax cuts aren't exactly a new huge government undertaking. Massive tax cuts have been done before.

i think a mandate for individual coverage without an available-to-all (on an individual choice basis...make it one option in the exchange) public option (ie a "somewhat cost-controlled option" in the sense that the government isn't going to try to price-gouge anybody for profits like the private insurance companies do) is bullshit. Even with reform and oversight of the insurance companies then you're still forcing me to contribute to private enterprise's profits and pay to inflate the value of their stock price.

Absolutely true. My ideal scenario would be to leave the Senate the way it is, but to remake the House as a 500-person chamber elected by a national vote and allotted on a Proportional Representation basis. Get rid of most (all?) of the BS local projects that are laden on to bills, force parties to put together coalitions, and create a national stage for some parties aside from the usual two.

To me, the greatest barrier towards improving the efficacy of Democracy in the U.S. is the general apathy towards civics of the average voter, but a strong #2 is the complete lack of functionality present in the U.S. House.


I hope this is hyperbole, because Reagan didn't get the moniker "The Great Communicator" and, to a lesser degree "The Great Delegator" for nothing....

We've had eight years of a President who hid behind his advisers (and Vice President), who shunned the public and the press, and who doled out meaningful public appearances as if they were gold (or Iraqi WMDs), and look where all that got us. Obama's trying a different approach - trying to communicate directly with the public and put himself out there as the public face of his policies and his Administration. Maybe it won't work, and maybe it's not what people prefer, but the complaining about it seems to be just complaining for the sake of complaining.


You can't honestly claim that the media landscape in 1993 even approaches the media landscape in 2009. You also can't honestly claim to compare a media-friendly and outgoing President to one who publicly loathed the press and kept his media engagements to an absolute minimum.

You're posting numbers, MBBF, but you're not applying critical thought to them.


One wonders what you would say of FDR and his "fireside chats".

And frankly I find the claim that Clinton was substance over style to be risible.

They are? The only thing I've seen conservatives claim about JFK was his tax cuts.

Jeff Jacoby overreaches in a few ways here:

‘Kennedy’ once meant ‘tax cutter’ - The Boston Globe

In regards to your first point, this story is the lead story on The Huffington Post. That's not a paper, but it's a significant outlet of information.

As far as waiting for a passed bill to chat, this discussion thread is going to run dry in a hurry if we use that criteria given the current glacial pace of legislation with this Congress.

The National Review folks are already trying to show how Bush was a liberal.

Popular = conservative

Unpopular = liberal

It's a sad situation when a person is praised for being open minded to a terrible idea.

Business focused tax cuts are a terrible idea? I think I like the new you.

And they definitely should have, as it will likely bite back in the end.

This isn't really an issue with the Republicans at this point anyway. Until the Democrats agree on something and stop arguing with each other, there's little reading or debate to do at this point. We STILL don't truly know what health care reform even is at this point.

Bailing out an industry resembling a dinosaur who's made bad decisions is what I was talking about. Not much different than the auto industry in that regard. I feel the same about both. But a fine attempt to twist my statement by you.

Economically, he was quite unlike the conservatives of yore. Of course this backlash only started after Medicare Part D was passed by the Administration.

And I'm confident that somewhere along the way multiple people will realize that and it won't ever come to pass.

I have zero problem with the guy saying "if it gets to my desk i'll take a look at it." That's what he should say. He's not commiting to it, not saying he thinks it's a good idea. He's just saying IF it gets to his desk he'll TAKE A LOOK AT IT. That's a pretty noncommital answer. I don't have a problem with him looking at every idea...good...bad...ridiculous, if he determines that it is worth his time to take a look at it.

Why be afraid of new ideas? Sometimes you can learn the most or get the most insight from failure or poor ideas.

There is a HUGE difference between periodic national addresses (fireside, press conferences, whatever), even weekly, versus multiple talkshow appearances and near daily press conferences. We're getting an unprecedented-outside-of-an-election blitz of presidential appearances an order of magnitude greater than we've seen before. It remains to be seen if this is a good idea or not, but the reason I brought it up is that this also means there is much greater opportunity for the nutjobs to show up, so comparing what happens at his appearances to what's happened with other presidents won't make for a good comparison.

Wait a minute. Because he's had more events it makes it impossible to compare people who brought guns to people who didn't? Do you really think if Obama cuts back on his public events the rhetoric will lighten? I don't see any correlation between number of events and what people do at those events.

I think one of the main problems, so far, with the Obama Administration is that President Obama is being too reactive instead of pro-active, in trying to avoid previous Presidents' pitfalls. By which I mean, he's on TV all the time because he's trying to avoid President Bush's habit of not answering all that many questions. He's been very hands off (seemingly) on health care and letting Congress mess things up, because of the appearance that President Clinton was too hands on during his health care plan.

Yes, learn from your predecessors' mistakes, but don't swing the pendulum too far the other way!

The rhetoric has been there, but what conservative actually reduced spending? GHWB was much more fiscally prudent than Reagn or GWB, but he raised taxes, so he's a heretic.

I can't recall a President/Congress that's actually backed up a smaller government rhetoric with significant cuts in government.

Being so hands off on healthcare has definitely hurt him.

Well, if you want to be fair, President Reagan's 1986 tax bill is, IIRC, the highest tax increase in American history. It was passed to correct for the 1981 tax bill not raising as much revenue as anticipated.

Reagan/Bush also did make minor cuts in government agencies, but more than made up for it in military spending. One wonders what a President Herbert Walker Bush would have done with a peace surplus (I forget what it was actually referred to once the Cold War was over).

I do think Reagan was far more pragmatic than modern conservatives envision, not only on some tax increases, but he also jumped at negotiating with Gorbachev when he felt the time was right. I'm not a big fan, but he was far from the inflexible ideologue that many on the right have become.

TalkingPointsMemo is reporting that one of the proposed amendment for the Baucus bill includes a triggered public option. The amendment's sponsor? Olympia Snowe. I still think that's the grand compromise that will eventually get this passed.

Since I am anti-GOP right now, this will probably come off as a challenge. But, really, I just wonder. Even if Obama does not meet the hopes and predictions that people had for him, will the GOP reap the benefit of that?



I am not sure who will benefit from the Democrats stumbles, but it does not look like the GOP from here.

Maybe The Modern Whig Party ?

Or is it pretty much impossible for a third party to come into being today?

that's a pretty shocking depiction of the GOP's slide into a regional party albion...

Let's not go crazy here. The GOP still has plenty of presence in the Midwest. Obama stole a few key states, but there's still plenty of conservatives to go around. I'd vote 'No' in that poll as well because I'm not terribly happy with the GOP right now, but that doesn't mean that I'll be voting for Obama or a Democrat for senator anytime soon. I'm not too happy with either.

$425 million coming back to us from BoA.

It's like an American version of the Parti Quebecois.

Could you stop parroting Andrew Sullivan? :p

And I know you were because you made the same mistake he did, pointed out by a reader (which he also posted: The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan), that Parti Quebecois is a party in the Quebec Provincial Assembly while Bloc Quebecois is the national party that is concerned with the province of Quebec.

haha yeah I saw it on another board.

I also like the comment posted from your link:

"It is very clearly a protest, and its goal is secession from Canada. But, in contrast to the GOP, it actually votes on key laws, participates in discussion, is open to compromise, and even has proposed a series of bills which were eventually accepted as laws. Like it or not, this party has played its part in Canada legislative branch. They may want to split, but they act like any democratic party should, and play the same ball game as every other party in recent memory. And they don't hide their motivations: they know they will never be in power, and use their 50 or so deputies in a respectable manner as not to prevent the parliament from functioning.

Which may be more that can be said of the GOP at this time."

Nate Silver seems to be picking up on this idea to some degree, too: FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Health Care Is Hazardous to Poll Numbers for Grassley, Other Senators

At this point, I think that the GOP needs to make sure that they take enough of a break from the negative portrayal of the Dems to have the time and energy left over to present the positive case for the GOP. Otherwise, they run a risk of getting caught up in the sweep of "throw the bums out."

There are thinkers in the party (several of them frequent this thread) who see the GOP as more than "anti-Obama/Pelosi." Those folks need some mike time.

(By way of antecdote, my brother in law is an educated moderate conservative who voted for Obama. He's one of the easy votes for the GOP to get back. As it is, he's getting more and more uncomfortable with his Obama choice as time goes on. But he's not running back to donate time, and money, and (possibly) even votes to the GOP. He's the one who sent me that link to the Modern Whigs--with a sort of "this is what I want" vibe to it. When moderate Republicans are spending their time finding third parties on the web instead of listening to the GOP, it seems like the GOP is only doing half of what it needs to do in order to get back into power.)

The problem is that the ones that do well in the Midwest like Mark Kirk are constantly bashed by people on the right.

While true; recall, once again, the 2008 Republican Presidential nominee wasn't a right wing darling like Mike Huckabee, but rather John McCain, who was and is constantly bashed by people on the right.

Another note: When you consider that the Dems control both houses of Congress and the Presidency, the GOP has done an amazing job of keeping them on the defensive. The only things that the Dems have really passed were bailout measures that were necessary for the country but did not really advance the Democratic agenda vis a vis the GOP agenda.

So far, with all of their advantages, the Dems have not passed cap-and-trade, have not passed health care reform, and have not confirmed any federal judges save one.

I don't know if the GOP strategy is the best one for winning elections, but it may be the best one for controling the agenda from the extreme minority position.

is there a corresponding democratic view of this?

Which ones?

Indiana, for sure, but I don't know after that. It always matter how Midwest is defined.

Well, that's why I asked. It's tempting to say Obama "stole" all the "Midwest" states Kerry didn't get, but how many of those states have 1 or more Democratic Senators and/or a Democratic governor?

That's making an argument that the "Midwest" isn't in play for Democrats which flies in the face of recent events.

Well, that's not what I meant by 'stole'. I meant that he landed a few states that generally go to Republicans more often than not. I certainly wasn't implying that they were states that Democrats could never win.