Says Maureen Dowd, who thinks that Obama "doesn’t know how to work the system" and "doesn’t want to learn, or to even hire some clever people who can tell him how to do it or do it for him." He's just too good to be good.
Dowd says Obama should have left "the high road," put on "brass knuckles," and clobbered North Dakota Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp with these lines: “Heidi, you’re brand new and you’re going to have a long career. You work with us, we’ll work with you. Public opinion is moving fast on this issue. The reason you get a six-year term is so you can have the guts to make tough votes. This is a totally defensible bill back home. It’s about background checks, nothing to do with access to guns. Heidi, you’re a mother. Think of those little kids dying in schoolrooms.”
Heidi, you’re a mother. Think of those little kids dying in schoolrooms. Give me a break! A powerful female politician would find that incredibly patronizing. I don't believe Dowd really thinks that's what a President would say in a private conversation with a female Senator. That's just pap for NYT readers.
Dowd began with something that sounded slightly tough: "Heidi, you’re brand new and you’re going to have a long career. You work with us, we’ll work with you." Why not make it actually tough? You’re brand new and you’re not going to have much of a career if you don't work with us. But Dowd — even while recommending violence-against-women-y brass knuckles — can't bring herself to invent truly bullying lines for Obama. And then she switches to the same policy arguments Obama used publicly. Finally, Dowd dribbles to such a soft landing that it's inadvertently sexist.
I presume Heitkamp figured out on her own what would play in North Dakota.
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Yes, Senator, Think of the Children!!!.
Honestly, that argument loses me every time. Laws are for adults.
Obama hates working fixed
When the product you're selling is crap its hard to make a sale. Dowd and NYT illustrate the point: the paper is barely hanging on and its market value is diminishing. Come to think of it, so is Obama's.
Oh, he's just too good for us! (Faints slowly down the wall.)
Actually, King Barry probably does hate selling. Selling is work and work is for other people.
And Dowd isn't recommending a sell, she's recommending bullying. It's not the same. Not that either Dowd or Obama would know that. And I doubt that Obama is unfamiliar with bullying tactics or needs assistance from Maureen Dowd on that front. There are lackeys that do that for him. But that's not what this column is about. It's about Obama worship. Just like always.
By November of 2014 nobody is going to give a shit that Congresscritters voted against anti-gun laws.
But we'll remember who voted FOR them.
We here in North Dakota like to call her "Hidey" because she had to hide her far left agenda and her support for Government expansion that is not very popular outside of the fairly Liberal college towns of Fargo and Grand Forks. If she had embraced her true Leftist Liberal core values, she would have lost that election in a big, big way.
Amazing
The lack of self-awareness.
Who is this Dowd person?
Gun controllers labor under the delusion that America is a nation of gun controllers and the only thing standing between current law and sanity is the NRA, which is really just a front group for the Koch brothers.
North Dakota Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp didn't get elected by pissing off her state's electorate.
Obama won his election and she won hers. Obama isn't running again and presumably she does want to get reelected.
But that would require more nuance than Dowd is capable of. Now let Obama come to ND and make the sale to the people of that state and if he does, no doubt she will support it. The onus on the salesmanship is on him, not her.
It’s about background checks, nothing to do with access to guns.
Funny the author of that doesn't understand the contradiction.
Of course when you're wholly ignorant of the nation's gun laws, you make contradictory statements.
Oh, and when I think of President who supports partial birth abortion and who once referred to the possibility of his daughters getting pregnant as "punishment" I totally think: He really cares about dead school children.
Really. I do.
Dowd claims Obama doesn't want to take the time to learn how to "work the system".
What does that involve?
Learning about the issues in each state, getting to know individual Senators and Representatives.
Sounds more like Obama lacks empathy, that's he's out of touch with America.
Sounds more like Dowd is channeling Rush Limbaugh than anything else!
"Obama hates selling. He thinks people should just accept the right thing to do."
This part is accurate. But it's not special to Obama, it's standard liberalism. Debate is for losers. Liberty is irrelevant. Either do the right thing because you want to do the right thing or be forced to do it by a government.
In my adult life (lived largely in deep deep blue), I have met exactly one liberal who wouldn't enthusiastically embrace fascist dictatorship if that fascist dictator promoted liberal ideals.
Since Dowd apparently doesn't care about who accesses guns, remember it is just about "background checks," lets explore this:
Heidi, you’re a mother. Think of those little kids dying in schoolrooms.”
When I read crass emotionalism such as "Think of those little kids dying in schoolrooms" I wonder, who are you trying to convince, yourself?
I ask that because the kid who killed the students and teachers at Sandy Hook stole the guns so "background checks" are irrelevant (He also did it in a state with an Assault Weapons Ban modeled after the 1994 federal legislation).
The nut who shot Gabby Giffords passed a background check.
The nut who murdered those people in the movie theater Colorado passed a background check.
So by invoking such emotionalism on a solution (Toomey/Manchin is a fake solution to a non-existent problem in America) that does not address the problem you're talking about, are you trying to convince yourself you care?
No, MoDo gets it wrong again.
Choom loves selling because he can lie his head off while standing in front of people, basking in their adulation of his Awesomeness.
It's about the only thing he can do, but people caught on a long time ago and they haven't been falling for it for a while.
And Choom is the embodiment of the old cowboy saying, there's nothing more dangerous than a coward with a gun. He has no problem getting nasty when he thinks the gang has his back.
When it's one on one and somebody stands up to him, he folds every time.
Obama, just another male who failed to be Maureen Dowd's Prince Charming. She sees his potential but without her his potential will never be realized.
This is a totally defensible bill back home
Right. If only that stupid Senator from North Dakota listed to an air head columnist from New York, who totally knows about North Dakota!
It’s about background checks, nothing to do with access to guns.
Obama, Biden, and all the rest spent 3 months telling us it was all about mentally ill and criminals accessing guns.
The woman is so stupid she can't keep her nonsense straight.
Imagined dialogue:
OBAMA: Heidi, you’re a mother. Think of those little kids dying in schoolrooms.
HEITKAMP: I'm a Senator. And I'm thinking of me dying in the next election.
Ms. Dowd has been a bitter, irrelevant, silly old aunt for quite some time now, which is a shame as she was an excellent reporter, and a decent to good writer.
The fake gun debate never had anything to do with saving lives; it was always about fact free politics. The President misread the polling tea leaves, and assumed that heads he wins, tails he wins. The pols on both sides were simply covering their electoral asses. The President's hissy fit will hurt the Dems in 2014. Harry Reid knew that.
Dowd's argument that the President should have twisted Heidi's arm is ludicrous. As he well knew, there would be hell to pay with Grandfather.
The problem in this case was that Harry Reid (under direction of the WH) decided to try to pass the bill with no debate and no amendments. That's why the bill suddenly needed 60 votes, rather than a simple majority. If they'd allowed debate and amendments, they could have won this one.
"This is a totally defensible bill back home..."
I think Dowd thinks "defensible" means, there are arguments that you can frame in terms that resonate with those people back in North Dakota... those horrible little people you get to represent in this ridiculous system in which that nothing state gets 2 Senators... whoever they are...
Not that those people will actually swallow these arguments.
amazing how "the right thing to do" is always what the left wants to be done.
Give me a break! A powerful female politician would find that incredibly patronizing. I don't believe Dowd really thinks that's what a President would say in a private conversation with a female Senator. That's just pap for NYT readers."
Yet "powerful female politicians" fell all over themselves supporting Obama's plan for "free" birth control because, dontcha know, law-school students like Sandra Fluke are, presumably, too dumb, too dependent, and too poor to buy their own contraceptives.
Why the hell wouldn't Dowd think Obama could give such a speech?
The shocking thing would be if she thought he couldn't.
It’s about background checks, nothing to do with access to guns.
Does Moron Dowd (I know, too easy. Whatever--I'm loopy on painkillers right now. Cut me some slack.) understand the point of background checks? In fact, it's everything to do with access to guns! It's sort of deciding who can and can't have access to guns.
Otherwise it would be a silly bill to throw a collective hissy fit over--as the entire left has done this past week. If the background checks aren't limiting access to guns in any way, what are they accomplishing?
To say nothing of how expanding background checks would have prevented Sandy Hook, considering the little douchebag already wasn't allowed to purchase a gun--though he tried.
And when did we start referring to the tragedy as Newtown? The entire first month, it was called Sandy Hook. Now it's Newtown. Was that a branding thing? Like gun control advocates thought they had a hot metaphor on their hands. Newtown will be Ground Zero for new gun control measures. It's a New Town--for a New Day in America.
I just don't get it.
Thanks for reading.
Every few days this creature called Modo peers out from behind her dense thickets of prose, and makes a point or two about something.
Personally, I'm waiting on that Mark Bittman/Tony Kushner creamed shallot progressive gay race mixed media presentation.
Dowd has accurately represented the position of the Democrats here, which is: "Vote for this or you don't care about dead school children.
Note:
Den. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), co-sponsor of the background-check amendment solicited support for that measure: “If you want to remember those 20 babies—beautiful children—and the six brave teachers…and you want to honor the most courageous family members I have ever met, please vote for this bill.”
The lack of self-awareness.
Who is this Dowd person?
Lol. I love this juxtaposition. Being so introspective and solipsistic has apparently left wyo with little time to actually know anything about the real world around her.
I presume Heitkamp figured out on her own what would play in North Dakota.
Or maybe she just gives a shit about the Second Amendment.....
There is no idea so dangerous that it cannot be discussed by free people. There is no law so urgent that it must be passed without open debate.
If Barry and Harry believed in the merit of their arguments, they'd have brought them to the floor of the senate, thereby enabling passage with a simple majority. It's telling that they didn't.
From this point forward, it appears as if Obama fully intends to slide down the easy slope to the well-worn role of divisive, hateful, community organizer.
My guess is that he fully intends to sit back in his retirement armchair and tweet his instructions to his adoring fans who will stampede, demonstrate, congregate and vote exactly when and how he commands.
It will be the first time someone used the presidency as a stepping stone to uber-community organizer.
I'd take comfort in the fact that Obama is a lame duck president but there is still Hillery lurking and shirking about.
Chris Lopes said...
The problem in this case was that Harry Reid (under direction of the WH) decided to try to pass the bill with no debate and no amendments. That's why the bill suddenly needed 60 votes, rather than a simple majority. If they'd allowed debate and amendments, they could have won this one.
You mean they have to pass the bill to see what's in it?
Sounds like immigration, too.
What happened on Monday may turn out to be extremely Providential.
Quayle said...
From this point forward, it appears as if Obama fully intends to slide down the easy slope to the well-worn role of divisive, hateful, community organizer.
My guess is that he fully intends to sit back in his retirement armchair and tweet his instructions to his adoring fans who will stampede, demonstrate, congregate and vote exactly when and how he commands.
It will be the first time someone used the presidency as a stepping stone to uber-community organizer.
Well, there was this guy from Linz with a Charlie Chaplin mustache...
Excellent post Professor.
Dowd has always been weak-brained in her arguments. You pegged it when ypu said she was adjusting her argument to appeal to fellow weak-brained NYT readers.
Rational thinkng on this issue escaped the minds of gun-control adherents so long ago that it has questionably reached the level of mental illness in the majority of the same.
It is quite instructive that Dowd thinks the silly, emotional bullying she typed is "selling"
The idea of MoDo having a clue what would play in North Dakota is almost as hysterical as Obama having a clue what would play in North Dakota.
Maureen Howdy Doody is silly.
Why is it "inadvertently sexist" and not just sexist? Isn't it a little sexist to assume good intentions on Dowd's part, just because she's a woman?
She makes gross assumptions about what women should or do care about, which is just plain ol' sexist.
Half the people in North Dakota are communists (or near enough) but they also go hunting *a lot* and don't have to think back to their parents or grandparents when they remember the good-times of making gun stocks and buck knives in shop class because that was something they did themselves.
Dowd, are you a mother? The leading cause of childhood mortality is not gun violence, but elective abortions.
Gun control is designed to do one thing: empower a criminal minority to commit involuntary exploitation (e.g. murder, rape, robbery) of law-abiding individuals.
What is to prevent illegal aliens from smuggling undocumented weapons into America? Perhaps the same guns sold by our federal government to arm a criminal cartel, which subsequently murdered several hundred (or thousand) Mexicans, and at least one American?
While proscriptive laws have their value, it is increased risk and opportunity cost which mitigates threats from criminal minorities, including belligerent governments. In fact, when a government prosecutes a selective rule of law, which favors its agents, cronies, and criminals, then it is absolutely the right of people to secure their lives and property from suffering involuntary exploitation.
In any case, why treat symptoms when the causes are known, and when neither causes nor symptoms are addressed by further regulation of law-abiding members of society?
He chooses not to get down in the weeds and pretend he values the stroking and other little things that matter to lawmakers.
It is interesting to see how the left views the failure of the bill. The merits of the bill are unquestionable. The populace is wrong. The only problem is on High King Obama has a foible.
The following is XXX: for all the good people:
Insofar as Obama not being able to give the necessary strokes, let's face it. The press has fondled and tongued his junk so much he must think they are golden. A Narcissist will never reciprocate.
Althouse sees Obama's condescending remarks to Heitkamp in the smallest small bore way as an insult to feminism and fails to register the deliberate insult Obama doles out daily to the whole unexceptional benighted country he is bent on correcting.
solipsistic: : a theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing; also : extreme egocentrism.
Google:
solipsistic site:foxnews.com
9 results (0.17 seconds)
solipsistic site:slate.com About 130 results (0.28 seconds)
solipsistic site:nytimes.com
About 3,830 results (0.22 seconds)
solipsistic: The new leftist power word.
To say that the small time Chicago race hustler who became a two term President of the United States doesn't know how to work the system is to say that Arthur Rubenstein didn't know how to work a piano.
When you think about it, the quote isn't about Zero (there's a shock), but it describes the Bushes to a T.
"Dubya/Poppy hates selling. He thinks people should just accept the right thing to do."
When they got into trouble, the idea that everybody is playing by the same set of rules (or, in the case of the Lefties, any rules) would kick in/
What great comments.
For what it's worth, here's my response to several guys on a thread I'm on who feel that the Republicans keep being losers, here because they couln't even give in on a "background check" proposal which "90% of the people were in favor of".
Inwood
"Some, in a tremendous leap of logic while being completely unaware (especially of Stats 101 & Poll questions) & refusing to use basic research skills, just “know” that 90% of “the people” supported a hodge podge of half-baked proposals masked as legislation which would, hesto/presto, “guarantee no further mass shootings” (e.g., MoDo, today). These folks, who for some reason have anointed themselves as The Highly Intelligent, High Moral Elite, now seem mystified as to how some senators voted “nay” on such proposals. Alas, finding themselves now on the losing side, some of them go further regarding us thoughtful skeptics of the legality and appropriateness of infringing on the 2nd Amendment through hasty-pasty, feel-good ineffective legislative action. They resort to name calling. We’re “stupid”, “stubborn”, “hidebound”, “impervious to reason”, “bitter clingers”, “completely lacking in commonsense or political sense”. That is, when they don’t slander us as “shameful liars”, “responsible for Sandy Hooks”.
See below.
The Dangers of Politically Inspired Moral Outrage—From Sandy Hook to What Next?
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/346011/dangers-politically-inspired-moral-outrage%E2%80%94-sandy-hook-what-next
Lemme fix that headline real quick...
"Obama hates selling. He thinks people should just do what he wants them to do."
much better
Yeats was one the first Senators of the Irish Free State. He was not truly a fascist but he admired Mussolini inordinately. Yeats felt that one of the problems with democracy was that too many dumb people got elected. He felt that the people would be better served if wise men such as he were appointed to govern them. I don't think his views are radically different than those of Modo.
Obama thinks people should accept the right thing to do.
Yeah, like lying, cheating and defaming your opponents to win elections like he and his minions did in 2008 and 2012.
it's silly to conclude that because one poll found 90% support for "background checks," that translates into a like level of support for this particular piece of legislation.
The left really, really got invested in this whole "90%!!!!!" and background checks nonsense.
It isn't clear what they were even trying to accomplish other than to be morally indignant.
I would support expanded background checks if no records were kept.
So... in the case of private sales (or even giving your guns to your kids) you get online and ask for a background check on a person... get back a yes or no (not personal details) print out the page for your own records... and that's that. No record if the sale or gift ever went through, which firearms or how many were involved, or if it was even a serious inquiry.
It should also have a system where a person can check their own info and if they have the same name as a felon there's a way to clear that up.
I would support expanded background checks if no records were kept.
Unfortunately the problem with that sort of thing is that it assumes the government will obey that law. They never do. Who is going to prosecute the US Department of Justice for breaking the law? Interpol?
Too bad Dowd doesn't understand that Senators represent the state they are from (at least they did in the beginning and that they serve as a check on the House by being more deliberative and taking the long term view of things
They can't keep records of things you never tell them... such as who is making the inquiry, why they are making an inquiry, if the sale went through, or any data identifying the guns sold.
OTOH, exactly so... which is why my "default" is to oppose any supposed "reasonable" federal laws trying to control guns, no matter what they say.
But I still might answer "I support background checks" if asked by a poll, because if nothing else, a person who is selling a weapon might prefer not to sell it to a felon.
"When you think about it, the quote isn't about Zero (there's a shock), but it describes the Bushes to a T."
That's very true, especially about W., which is part of why he sucked as a wartime president. It never seemed to dawn on him that he had to sell difficult policy decisions.
"it's silly to conclude that because one poll found 90% support for "background checks," that translates into a like level of support for this particular piece of legislation."
I was trying to point this idea out to some pothead on a different comment thread yesterday.
Note Dowdy's violent imagery with her brass knuckles.
"Note Dowdy's violent imagery with her brass knuckles."
No kidding.
I don't know how that gets to be accidental sexism either. She's visualizing a brutal physical attack on a woman and then pulls "you're a mother, your brain must run on emotion" card.
It's a wonder any of females can make progress at all with MoDo's sort of violent opposition as part of the culture.
"Note Dowdy's violent imagery with her brass knuckles."
No kidding.
You guys are falling into Republicans as Victims mode again (what else is new?).
Dante said...
solipsistic: : a theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing; also : extreme egocentrism.
Sounds just like Ritmo.
And you've fallen into Hectoring Schoolmarm mode again, Phx. No, sorry, I am mistaken about that -- you've never left it!
And you've fallen into Hectoring Schoolmarm mode again, Phx.
Heh. You get called on your bullshit and it's "hectoring schoolmarm."
Gun control is coming whether you like it or not, wingers. This bill was not gun control, but it was an important step towards identifying and stigmatizing the sorts of nut jobs who insist on having guns. Who in this day and age really needs a gun?
The recent lock down in Boston clearly showed that criminals can be safely apprehended if we all just get out of the way of the authorities. When the Founders wrote a "well regulated militia" they had in mind just the sort of armed militias we saw deployed there -- not the nut case wingers fantasizing about stopping crime.
If we had lists of every gun owner in America, we could publish them and embarrass them out of their backwoods mentality because decent people are evolving fast on guns.
Screed From An Imaginary Lefty
Althouse wingers can't stand the idea that someone disagrees with them. "Can't you just leave us to our bullshit, oh Nag?"
It's funny. It's absurd. And yet she is still published, syndicated, paid a wonderful income stream in order to have absurd writing published.
Thankfully I am not an aspiring pundit otherwise like some assistant professor waiting for some full professor to retire/die, I'd be bitter as hell watching them take up tenured space.
William
Why zero in on Yeats? Too many credentialed or to-the-manor-born people think that they are Men of Gold. Wait, that’s Plato.
Again Buckley: I’d rather be governed by the 1st 100 people in the phone book…
Ahh, yes. The pompous NYT writer knows what best for those rubes in the flyover states.
'Support this bill -- even though nothing in this bill would have prevented the killings in Newtown -- because I think he (The President) knows what's best for you.'
Really, it's a waste of time to read Dowd.
How quaint.
Phx actually thinks he called bullshit on somebody.
Here, phx. Have a cookie. Now, go back to your bedroom.
Here, phx. Have a cookie. Now, go back to your bedroom.
You're cute when you punch up. Ineffective, but cute.
"doesn’t know how to work the system" and "doesn’t want to learn, or to even hire some clever people who can tell him how to do it or do it for him."
Shit.. 5 years of this failure for a president who has the leaning curve of a rock and he wonders why things are not going as planned?
And Dowd.. didn't she fawn over this nitwit for years?
Gun control? Well I can see why he wants it so bad. He will be blamed for all his failures after he leaves office so I'm sure he want's everyone disarmed.
Hillary? He can't run for a third term so why should he care? All he cares for now is his socialist agenda that is crashing around him (and wait till Obamacare falls flat just before 2014 midterms.
When the time comes for his 'library' like Bush, Clinton, Carter, etc.. have he will be lucky if 1/2 of the number that show up at Jimmy Carters library show up at his (and Jimmy's has the lowest attendance by far.)
Chikelit, "imaginary"?!
Well, you recognize you are a nag. That's a start.
Of course, you apparently have to wait for a long time before someone with half a brain can post "No, phx, you are wrong! AprilApple and Synova are NOT playing 'Republicans are victims' and here's why you are wrong!"
You'll wait unless you actually help them to do that.
You think Paco Wové can do it on his own?
I don't.
It's a pretty safe bet the guys who jump in to call you a name first are the last ones who can assemble a counterargument.
You guys are falling into Republicans as Victims mode again
Err... wut? This is just enjoying (in a schadenfreude-ish way), some really terrible advice one Democratic moron is giving to another Democratic moron in how to deal with a third Democratic moron (who... admitedly, is probably the most level-headed of the three). Internecine conflict is something we all enjoy when it's happening to the other side.
I do think that MoDo has something here - and that is that Obama is really bad at this sort of thing. But, then, he is not really much good at anything except for running for office. His performance, or really non-performance, in running the government is maybe even worse. He at least had a couple years in the Senate and some time in the Ill. Legislature before being elected POTUS, but never ran anything bigger than a Senate office or campaign before that.
I think that he doesn't want to be bothered by any of this. Too plebeian. Cuts into his basketball and golf time, and hobnobbing with the Hollywood crowd.
So, we see the peevish side of him when things don't go according to his exact wishes. How dare the Republicans, NRA, Tea Party, et al., thwart him. After all, he has our best interests in mind for the rest of us peons.
I think that this is just a symptom of why his second term is going to be atrocious.
If you got a better argument I'll acknowledge it.
MAYBE I'll even admit I was wrong. Something Althouse winger warriors could never ever do. Too much character required.
Dowd's finally realized what most of the country realized two years ago? That Obama is the worst kind of bully: an incompetent one.
So! Ms. Dowd went an entire week and didn't write even one column about the Boston Marathon bombings.
Was she on vacation or something?
How about all the other liberals? Where were E. J. Dionne and Gail Collins? Hiding in that same boat that Tsarnaev was hiding in?
Out of the horror of this past week has come one glimmer of hope: Most of the usual liberal suspects in the mass media have shut up.
Jay
I had to explain to a couple of credentialed but undereducated guys on an e-mail thread I’m on that, with all due respect, they, simplistically, see this issue as binary, as Manichean. As a “no brainer”.
I wrote
"First, I do not understand X when he says that he still doesn’t understand the problem the Republicans & the NRA had with background checks
"Do you guys think that either the Republicans or the NRA is against background checks per se? Since both have gone along with the current required background checks in previous legislation, you do realize that the problem might lie with the expanded, repeat, expanded background checks & other parts of the things proposed here, no?
"I assume that X, of all people a self-proclaimed expert in polling, does not agree with the general misrepresentation of the simplistic Quinnipiac poll, as “proving” that 90% of Americans are in favor of the background checks as proposed by the “ban all guns anyway” crowd.
"Because I know that he has taken the trouble to read the second Question, with result, in that poll:
Question: "Do you believe that if there are background checks for all gun purchases the government will or will not use that information in the future to confiscate legally-owned guns?"
Result: Will confiscate: 48% Will not confiscate: 38% No opinion: 14%
"So I would assume that you agree with me that, as someone has noted (edited)
The first question basically records the wishful thinking of the respondents that "of course -- better vetting of gun buyers should be a good thing". But when they are forced, by the next question, to think about what might occur, a clear plurality believes that the information from expanded checks would result in government confiscation of guns.
"And that he would realize that the Senate vote indicates that a number of Senators, among other obvious things, reading the answer to the 2nd Q, realized that their voting constituents are not low-info voters in this area & ignored the hectoring & threats of the LSM & assorted extremists that they had to jump on this feel-good expansion of the government checks now in place.
"I suggest to you all also that the support for The Obama proposals garnered not 90%, but rather a slight majority in another Gallup Poll after those polled answered the same wishful-thinking Q by the same 90%: link
"But then I assume you do agree with The Gallup poll I previously cited which shows that most Americans have “gun control” way down the laundry list of problems/issued that need to be addressed. In fact, it showed that only 4% thought gun control was the most important issue facing the nation, even after all the hysterical coverage and rhetoric.
"And, as time goes by, I assume you’ve become aware that more Americans agree that having a gun in a home is a good idea. See, e.g., the CATO article below.
"And, while I don’t have any poll to back me up, my reading leads me to believe that most Americans don’t know which weapons are being banned or that automatic weapons have been banned since 1934."
Wow
Ritmo caught my joke.
I'll have to up my game.
I'm still trying to get my head around Ritmo doing a one and I done (so far).
OTOH, phx seems to be dancing around this thread like a drunken tourist breaking unfired dishes in a Greek restaurant shouting what he thinks is authentic Greek. He'll get the bill later.
Yeah Ritmo doing a hit and run .... a real stunner. Threads normally go into a death upon his arrival.
I suspect he's heading back to Kentucky to listen to more secret tapes.
phx seems to be dancing around this thread like a drunken tourist breaking unfired dishes in a Greek restaurant shouting what he thinks is authentic Greek. He'll get the bill later.
What a horrible thought.
What a horrible thought.
It ouzo's contempt.
@wyo sis: Ritmo must have seen you as some sort of weak link--somebody he could bully.
If me and Ritmo ever met in real life, in a bar, we could brau beat each other.
What a horrible thought.
Only when you wake up the next day.
Only when you wake up the next day.
Hey as long as you wake up.
I'll give you that!
Just make sure you contact your credit card to see what passed through to your balance.
I don't believe Dowd really thinks that's what a President would say in a private conversation with a female Senator.
Oh, believe it.
I wish I could find a link, but I read an article (I think from First Things) recently about persuading women not to have abortions. The main theme was that persuading them that abortion is bad - which they likely already believe - is less useful than persuading them that the alternatives aren't so bad. But the subtext - which seems obvious when stated, but often seems to be forgotten - is that persuading someone requires that they be persuadable and that you make your pitch in a way that appeals to them rather than to you.
As you imply, "pap for NYT readers" is not likely to convince anyone on the fence regarding any gun control policy likely to be enacted. Frankly, Obama's temper tantrum the other day made it even clearer than he had made it before that he can't empathize with a respect for gun rights. Those persuadable on the votes taken last week would respect gun rights and a healthy gun culture and simply believe that these rights simply need to be circumscribed a bit more tightly around the edges. I don't think the evidence suggests that either Dowd or Obama can empathize with that position.
PHX -
You clearly do not the argument Synova made.
MoDo's a crazed leftist who knows EXACTLY what the rest of us should do.
Benghazi Barry can't sell. He just tells us what we should buy, and gets all huffy when we say NO.
Catching up backwards....
phx... it's not Republican victim mode, after all, the Senator is a Democrat (which she would be because... North Dakota). What it was was calling MoDo a ridiculous feminist hypocrite.
Also... I've certainly admitted when I was wrong here and done so multiple times.
I don't know how that gets to be accidental sexism either. She's visualizing a brutal physical attack on a woman and then pulls "you're a mother, your brain must run on emotion" card.
It's a wonder any of females can make progress at all with MoDo's sort of violent opposition as part of the culture.
Violent force slides behind hiding behind mommy's skirt.
I do the argument Synova made.
I just went back and reread it and I do.
She's making a big deal over Dowd's use of brass knuckle imagery.
Oh that was you. I'm pretty sure your comment "Note Dowdy's violent imagery with her brass knuckles" was not along the lines of "See how hypocritical Dems can use that violent imagery - we can't."
PHX
You clearly do not understand the argument...
Synova: So I think I get it, but correct me. And by the way, I do know you to admit you've been wrong. Keep your damn fool head down.
Okay, synova's argument is MoDo is a hypocrite feminist who wouldn't let any of US get away with slipping that kind of violent imagery by.
I think you are in poor-poor-pitiful-Republican because you are believing or acting as if you believe Dowd was really using violent, offensive imagery.
King Barry does not sell. Selling is for proles.
King Barry pontificates.
Obey King Barry.
phx:
in all seriousness, why isn't MoDo's using violent imagery etc etc blah blah?
Further, perhaps we should define terms? Are we talking what reasonable people would consider threatening? What sissy bitches would consider threatening?
Because if Rush Limbaugh said something similar, I'm willing to bet at least 3 MSNBC personages would be out to decry his call to violence.
phx,
GMAFB. MoDo introducing the violent imagery of using brass knuckles on your opponents in a policy debate isn't "Republicans* playing the victim", it's MoDo playing the thug.
-----------------------------
*And I'm really torn between the notion that you really didn't notice that there WERE no Republicans in this little spat, vs you did know but hoped you could pull a fast one on us. Any chance you'll fess up and tell us which one was actually the case?
In any case, Dowd's advise is bad advise to any president but the president who says "punch back twice as hard and get in their faces."
Dowd says:
"You work with us, we’ll work with you." The mob makes the same sorts of suggestions.
Dowd says:
"Public opinion is moving fast on this issue." [Especially with our misleading poll questions and our compliant media]
[I am begging you, Mrs. North Dakota ball of oil, ignore this poll!]
Dowd says:
The reason you get a six-year term is so you can have the guts to make tough votes.
Guts. Come on woman - you need guts.
Dowd says:
"This is a totally defensible bill back home. It’s about background checks, nothing to do with access to guns. Heidi, you’re a mother. Think of those little kids dying in schoolrooms.”
Actually not only is Dowd doubling down on the left's standard emotional blackmail, she's also asking Heidi to lay down her political life for this bill.
phx:
in all seriousness, why isn't MoDo's using violent imagery etc etc blah blah?
I think the context disarms it, so to speak.
"Sometimes you must leave the high road and fetch your brass knuckles. Obama should have called Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota over to the Oval Office and put on the squeeze..." - Dowd
Probably not the freshest figure of speech in the world but nothing worse than that can be said, other than possibly Dowd was wrong. Obama handled it the better way.
Lay-down your life like the other brave soldiers did for ObamaCare. Woman!
@phx: fair enough.
I tend to agree, personally, however--I stand by my assertion that a person from the right wouldn't get the same treatment.
Heh...probably from MoDo herself.
*And I'm really torn between the notion that you really didn't notice that there WERE no Republicans in this little spat,
Honestly, fwiw, the only specific Republicans I envisioned in any of this were AprilApple and Synova. And of course I don't know what actual party if any they belong to.
When you're good to mama, mama is good to you.
I stand by my assertion that a person from the right wouldn't get the same treatment.
If it happens you can say I told you so. I won't run from it.
I never said it was a threat - I said violent imagery.
Brass knuckles = ______ ______
I'll give you a hint.
Violent imagery.
Remember when the word "target" on a certain person's campaign web-page meant that certain person was a murderer or must have inspired murder?
Even though the real murderer never visited the web-page of that certain person(R)
I got it AprilApple.
I was at the range today and as I was leaving a 20-something, white, Gore-Tex clad middle-class hipster was teaching four other (2 women, 2 men) 20-something, white, Gore-Tex clad, middle-class hipsters how to shoot an AR safely and properly. And that, my friends, is why the gun control effort failed this time out. Bark can no more sell gun control than a Deep South Republican Senator could sell an abortion ban. People aren't prone to buy into restrictions of their liberties. Which doesn't stop politicians from trying to pass them.
in all seriousness, why isn't MoDo's using violent imagery etc etc blah blah?
Because no one reads her.
Why don't you call me by my name if you want to discuss something with me. That's a first principle.
go to any left leaning blog, and challenge their ideas
Aren't you on one?
fucks:
Go to Realclimate.org, and ask them about upside down Tijander data. You can say something like this:
"Why do you folks defend Michael Mann's Hockey stick, when he inverted the Tijander Data? I read about it from Steve McIntyre, and it invalidates the Hockey Stick."
This simple question will probably be censured. But if it isn't, it will be ignored in a way as to make you look ignorant, and as a straw man to tear down and feed the flock. In this case, you can find a second order response on the web that will refute it conclusively, and so will be censored.
Seriously, Leftists are really conservatives, and they want to continue the direction they have started, largely in a religious, group think way.
If you really want to understand this, become the devil's advocate and try it out in a serious way. See how they respond to you. See the arguments, and how editors close off opinion.
You can do this at:
String Theory Websites
AGW Websites
Just about any Newspaper in the Country
Liberal Blogs
But here, you simply get what others think, and can keep on posting. Thank you Ann, the bridge.
The real answer is simple: It's Islam.
No, it's Leftism
Stop! You're both right. It's a breath mint and a candy mint.
(Though I lean more to the the Islam explanation. The older brother had a radical Islam diatribes on his Youtube playlist, not Bill Ayer and Bernardine Dohrn.)
We haven't yet reached the point of having much of the real Islam show up, or the Islam which demands submission of wives, keeps them inside looking for knowledge and wisdom and has their husbands out in the world handling all the business.
The kinds of things like child marriage and severe punishment for straying from the faith.
I think the best explanation is that we have such broad definitions of free speech, so the intolerant, progressive multicultural Left isn't in as much power as it is in Britain, Australia, and even Canada to some extent.
Once you reach that point, you get more 'incendiary' imams and leaders of Islam in your cities, and more closed off Muslim ghettoes.
We can do better, and it's incumbent on as many of us as possible to examine this situation and deal with it. We have more legal and cultural support.
I want to pick of the liberals from the progressive herd and appeal to reason.
We can do better.
We also need to do everything we can to help American Muslims and non Islamist Muslims around the world defeat the House of Islam folks, the radicals, the Wahabis, the Salafists and the ones who will radicalize like the Tsarnaevs.
THis is a worthy goal.
week. If the background checks aren't limiting access to guns in any way, what are they accomplishing?
Creating a de facto registry.
As a guest blogger at AoSHQ pointed out last week, Manchin-Toomey prohibits only the Justice Dept from retaining background check records, but not the ATF, other Treasury or other federal agencies
If Pres. Obama can't dragoon even one li'l ol' gal (D) Senator from ND or LA into votin' his way, how's he going to stare down the Norks or Mullahs at the bilateral nuclear talks?
The roots of Obama's rage:
The President wanted a wedge issue with which to club the Republican House ahead of the 2014 mid-terms in order to flip it to (D). He thought he had it with Manchin-Toomey (MT).
Obama never intended MT to become law, he intended it to pass the Senate -- inoculating Democrats -- and fail in the House, both damaging Republicans and rallying his base.
Thanks to the four Red State Dems who told him to pound sand, Obama just had that club taken away and busted upside his own head.
The sickening cynicism of it all is leavened by the entertainment value of Obama's sputtering, fuming Rose Garden news conference. Iswore Isaw smoke coming from his ears.
Selling?
Why that's the intellectual equivocal of getting your hands dirty. That is to say actual work.
And yes it's very much beneath president Obama to engage in such activity. We haven't demanded it of him yet, and we think we can now?
I would imagine he's quite put out by the whole idea.
Unfortunately, thanks to the way the MSM has fawned over him for the last 5 years he really believes he's always the smartest man in any room. (Except for those few times its above his pay grade)
PHX: Obama handled it the better way.
Yes, emotional blackmail, the better way. Tough to shame anyone when he has none himself.
chrisnavin said
We also need to do everything we can to help American Muslims and non Islamist Muslims around the world defeat the House of Islam folks, the radicals, the Wahabis, the Salafists and the ones who will radicalize like the Tsarnaevs
Yes, it's that 99% of Muslims that's giving the other 1% a bad name
The right thing. Heh.
How many times does one have to re-discover that Down is a c*nt
Yes, selling is soooo capitalistic. That would be like going behind enemy lines again for Barry.
If only we were China for a day...
Sorry Modo, the job duties of a president do not include imposing your own brand of morality upon the entire country.
phx said...
You guys are falling into Republicans as Victims mode again (what else is new?).
Right. By repeating Dowd's imaginary comments to a Democrat.
Great observation.
Really. I mean, you're not a fucking idiot or anything.
From Inwood said...
Jay
I had to explain to a couple of credentialed but undereducated guys on an e-mail thread I’m on that, with all due respect, they, simplistically, see this issue as binary, as Manichean. As a “no brainer”.
Good stuff.
I'm guessing what you wrote didn't sink in for them???
When you've been affirmative actioned through life, the thought of working to accomplish a goal is nothing more than a foreign concept.
So, are we saying someone needs to suggest he Always Be Closing?
I'm guessing what you wrote didn't sink in for them???
See; Comrade Bob.
If the anti gun nuts were just about backround checks at gun shows or the Internet I'd agree with them. If there's a loophole that allows potential criminals to buy a gun site with no check whatsoever, then it probably should be closed.
But, no. The anti gun advocates have to go full hog and try to ban guns, limit the size of clips etc.
And that's Obama's leadership style. "Some might say that they want children to be killed by machine guns, but we need to adopt my reasonable proposals, otherwise you just don't care about the kids" would be his argument. And his reasonable proposal is not at all reasonable, nor involves the slightest bit of capitulation on his part. But its his enemies that are the intractable ones.
The proposals suggested by the dems wouldn't have stopped the school shooting in this case, but armed guards in school might have.so why doesn't he bend and adopt the NRA,s common sensical proposal in his push to save the kids?
Phx wrote:
Althouse wingers can't stand the idea that someone disagrees with them. "Can't you just leave us to our bullshit, oh Nag?"
is this the argument you plug into every conversation? Is it even applicable in this case?
Synova wrote:
I would support expanded background checks if no records were kept.
So... in the case of private sales (or even giving your guns to your kids) you get online and ask for a background check on a person... get back a yes or no (not personal details) print out the page for your own records... and that's that. No record if the sale or gift ever went through, which firearms or how many were involved, or if it was even a serious inquiry.
It should also have a system where a person can check their own info and if they have the same name as a felon there's a way to clear that up.
If you buy a gun from a gun store, where a background check is run does govt keep a record of those purchases?
I think its reasonable for purchasing guns at a show, or from the Internet to have the same background check in place. If those background checks involve for keeping a record then there should be a similar record of those purchases.
And if they don't, then the background check should work the same way. I honestly don't know the answer to that.
I do know this. Someone in my family died. He owns hunting rifles. His wife had no interest in his guns, but her brother wanted them. So she had to fill out paperwork and then send the info to the state so that they were aware of the transfer of the gun.
Which sounds then like they (govt)have a record of the transfer.
Thanks to the four Red State Dems who told him to pound sand
Including our senator who was getting absolutely hammered with ads in the local market about his potential support for this bill. He's a nepotism senator but this might have finally gotten him thrown out.
A. Althouse: "But Dowd — even while recommending violence-against-women-y brass knuckles — can't bring herself to invent truly bullying lines for Obama."
W.R. Mead made the same point:
"Ms Dowd speaks of brass knuckles and then shows us a doily; at some level it speaks well of Ms. Dowd as a human being that even when she tries she seems unable to come up with an offer someone can’t refuse." http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/04/21/gentry-liberals-and-brass-knuckles-the-case-of-maureen-dowd/
Walter Russell Mead has fun mocking MoDo.
And he's right when he suggests that we will see more and more of this anger on the left...
The President should watch his back; there are a lot of Dowdians out there in Liberal La La Land, and as an inevitably disappointing second term unfolds they are increasingly ready to blame everything they don’t like about the state of the country on what they are sure is his incompetence, his political cowardice and his sloth.
oops, missed you Bill!
We have never in America witnessed a better sophist or 'snake oil salesman" in Plato's words than our current POTUS.
The only thing Obama has in his bag of tricks is knowing how to deliver a speech with rising articulation (signalling passion) at the right times in delivery. His most recent "campaign speech" in Boston is only one of hundreds of examples of his mastery at crescendo at the right time in a speech.
Both Aristotle and Plato would have completely hated Obama for his rhetorical tricks - his ever present straw dog fallacies - his trickster -ness.
Obama is the ultimate salesman - Dowd is delusional. So are a lot of those who have been tricked and "sold" to by this snake oil salesman.
Obama sells. That's about all he does. He sure doesn't know how to govern - most agree on this point - including Maureen Dowd.
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