IN THE COMMENTS: Too Many Jims (author of the indispensable Monitoring the Cruel Neutrality) writes:
It has been amusing reading the comments for the last week or so. Before that Prof. Althouse would post something and almost immediately a liberal commenter... would pop into the comments and say that Prof. Althouse was a vapid, unthinking apologist (usually for Bush). Republican commenters would deride the commenter and say he was upset because Prof. Althouse is really an intelligent, independent minded, academic woman who has drawn liberals' fire because she has dared wander off the reservation.
Now, the republican ox is being gored and republican commenters are whining like the liberal commenters that Prof. Althouse is a vapid, unthinking apologist for Obama.
Part of me (approximately 10.73%) thinks that Prof. Althouse has not made a decision and/or is leaning toward McCain but that she made the "leaning toward Obama revelation" as part of a blogging as performance art project. Specifically, to see how the announcement would be received by commenters and the blogosphere.
Prof. Althouse is fond of saying that she has found that the left side of the blogosphere is looking for heretics, the right side is looking for converts (my apologies if I mangled that expression). What better way to test that theory.
IN THE COMMENTS: Simon wants to be frontpaged and tagged.
AND: Oh, I get it now.
Posts
316 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 316 of 316It's really going to be interesting to see Obama try to govern if he wins. He is going to please no one. I wonder how long the mantra of hope and change will sustain the believers and various press lackeys before the wheels come off. I give it a year.
McCain was never that great and McCain's campaign has made Bob Dole look clever. That's not easy.
jdeeripper - There will be time to mull over the various combinations that could have/would have/might have worked. I don't think many here had heartburn over Romney, but many or most here did have heartburn over McCain. I really don't think, however, that a McCain/Romney ticket would have closed the distance between him and Obama. It was McCain's delemma, for sure. Evangelicals forcing Palin on him? Not so sure of that, however.
I love it when the science guy shows up. :)
Because Non-People-of-Color have to prostrate themselves repeatedly to prove that they're not racists.
That seems to have been the trouble in this particular case, yes.
jdeeripper - There will be time to mull over the various combinations that could have/would have/might have worked. I don't think many here had heartburn over Romney, but many or most here did have heartburn over McCain. I really don't think that a McCain/Romney ticket would have closed the distance between him and Obama. It was McCain's delemma, for sure. Evangelicals forcing Palin on him? Not so sure of that, however.
Love, exciting and new
Come Aboard. We're expecting you.
Love, life's sweetest reward.
Let it flow, it floats back to you.
Love Boat soon will be making another run
The Love Boat promises something for everyone
Set a course for adventure,
Your mind on a new romance.
Love won't hurt anymore
It's an open smile on a friendly shore.
Yes LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE! It's LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE! (hey-ah!)
Love Boat soon will be making another run
The Love Boat promises something for everyone
Set a course for adventure,
Your mind on a new romance.
Love won't hurt anymore
It's an open smile on a friendly shore.
It's LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE! It's LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE! It's
LOOOOOOOOOOOVE!
It's the Love Boat-ah! It's the Love Boat-ah!
(The Love Boat here at Althouse)
john said...Evangelicals forcing Palin on him? Not so sure of that, however.
No, I don't criticize the evangelicals for McCain picking Palin. I criticize them for contributing to the defeat of Romney in the primaries.
Thanks a lot evangelical assholes. Once again you've given all of us atheists more proof of a godless universe filled with morons.
Good grief, what bs. Take away evangelical voters in the Republican Party and you can say goodbye to ever winning anything.
I think Romney would have made McCain look even worse than Sarah Palin has. I still can't get over how old and sort of slow McCain seemed in the last debate.
I don't understand why primary voters didn't like Romney.
"I don't understand why primary voters didn't like Romney."
Don't you think he's sort of unlikeable?
There wasn't a single Republican worth voting for in the primaries, really. I liked Fred Thompson, but he didn't seem to care much about the nomination.
Frankly, it sucks to be conservative right now.
I know. Only seven out of ten of wives voted for him.
Don't you think he's sort of unlikeable?
You know...I have to laugh a little at this. Yeah. I think he can come off too slick. But, in hindsight (hehe), goodness...he's a ball of fire. :)
jderipper--
I thought the concern with Romney was that he was even less conservative than McCain. Isn't that Mass. health plan referred to as "RomneyCare"?
I mean, yeah, I heard a lot about evangelicals not voting for a Mormon, but I never saw anything to back it up. (I could see the Huckabee "bubble" factoring into it, since he wasn't much of a conservative either.)
No, Palin excites (some of) the base, not all anti-Romney evangelicals. Besides, if Romney's such a good administrator--which I have not heard challenged much--why stick him in the Veep role?
There wasn't a single Republican worth voting for in the primaries, really. I liked Fred Thompson, but he didn't seem to care much about the nomination.
That's s meme that has really caught hold, along with the "lazy" and "no fire in the belly".
I don't think it's particularly reflective of the truth.
I think we're acclimatized to candidates who are desperate to be President these days.
There wasn't a single Republican worth voting for in the primaries, really. I liked Fred Thompson, but he didn't seem to care much about the nomination.
Testify my brother.
I agree with Blake. Thompson was doing near constant editorials along with radio as he entered the race. He was hardly lying down. He just didn't reek of desperation for power.
The media did its best to ignore him entirely and push the lazy meme because he was a real conservative and probably would have won the Presidency. Instead they lavished McCain and Huckabee (!) with coverage and praise.
White is a color. And in the summer I am darker than some of my black friends. Must get my vitamin D, don't you know.
But I am also a person of gender, so I was pleased to see Palin selected. Hey - isn't Palin code for "honkey"?
Have I mentioned, recently, that I have my dog trained to pee on the Obama signs here in the people's republic? I do - he's a good dog.
It's really going to be interesting to see Obama try to govern if he wins. He is going to please no one. I wonder how long the mantra of hope and change will sustain the believers and various press lackeys before the wheels come off. I give it a year
I don't know. Unless he completely screws the pooch during the first few years (terrorist attack and he craps his pants as a response), he will get the Mother of All Passes by the MSM and of course, his adoring followers. Those who are actually expecting an achievement from him may go along with the Blame Bush meme for the first 18 months after which they'll realize he's Carter II and mope with everyone else until 2012 at which point Hillary will come riding in on her broom--whoops-- I mean valiant steed to save us.
No matter what he does, he'll always be admired and worshipped even if Tel Aviv or San Francisco is a radioactive crater for the next 1000 years.
Yeah. Thompson was my guy, too. But I liked Romney.
My nightmare was Huckabee or McCain. Ah, well. :)
I agree with Blake. Thompson was doing near constant editorials along with radio as he entered the race.
I think his problem was waiting too long to get in the race but that's just my two cents.
McCain -- Immigrant amnesty. Self-professed idiot when it comes to economics.
Romney -- Romneycare about sums it up, as does his shape-shifter policies.
Guiliani -- Never really ran.
Thompson -- Also never really ran. At the very least, not good enough at retail politics.
Brownback, Paul, et al. Not serious.
I mean, really. In retrospect, it's embarrassing.
I still love his "I don't do hand shows" comment to that dipshit debate moderator who wanted an answer with a show of hands.
I bet the only hand he wanted to show was the back of his across her mouth.
GO RAYS!!!!
in the past
Simon,
These are the key words. "How do I know you're not all racists?" Is what I remember Ann saying to, or thinking about, all those people. An accusation based on what other people did decades ago.
Am I arguing racism doesn't exist? Hell no. But that reality has been perverted into the assuption that anyone who's not "Liberal" is racist. I say "Hell no" to that too.
Personally, I don't believe in putting yard signs up or bumper stickers or pins or whatever of people you are going to vote for.
But then again, I tend to be a very private person.
Pogo:
I'll get drunk for you tomorrow night watching the Phils. If they win, I can join the celebration (aka riot). We have not done that in Philly since 1980.
Yoohoo!
SImon,
Sorry I am venting so much! None of it is directed at you. I'm just frustrated at how the "race card" is being played in this election. : )
I agree Seven. There wasn't one Rep I could really get behind. The real surprise is that with such candidates that Reps had to vote for, how is Obama's NOT ahead by 30 points?
Fred was the man, but his campaign was even worse than McCain's.
Romney - what can I say. I have worked with many Mormons over the years, liked some, disliked some, some were funny, some, not so much. But Romney never made an impression one way or the other on me.
Huckabee was passing strange.
McCain - how the hell did we end up with him? I am anti-Obama as I can be, but pro-McCain - I can't really get there.
SF - a radioactive crater? Why wasn't I informed? Where will we get our Ghiradelli's now?
P.S. I like Thompson, but he ran a poor campaign strategy-wise and money-wise. You have to accept your starting situation as it is. That's the first rule of politics.
We can't blame the media for Thompson's failure to catch on among Republicans.
Wurly is an attention whore.
Finally I am treated to the original, forever talked about and legendary Titus. Fun stuff.
I've trashed the host occasionally, but I swear that I thought that's what she wanted. I thought she was like a scrappy, antagonistic New Yorker who was daring someone to trash her. I think I was wrong, and will only do it again if McCain wins.
knox: I hear you. I've never felt so badly going into an election. I'm very insulted - wounded, really, and worse, I don't even feel good venting about it. I feel like just discussing the fact that Republicans have pretty much been branded racists simply because we question Barack Obama's policies and fitness to be president is just dignifying it. And it's such an ugly charge. So wrong. Ugh. I'm rambling, sorry.
I devulged a very personal private "habit" to this site.
It took a great amount of courage and fortitude. It wasn't easy. I wasn't sure if people would lose respect for me. But instead nothing.
I felt nothing....from Chorus Line
Every day I went to school and I was very nervous very nervous.
I dug right down to the bottom of heart blah blah blah.
There was a sled and everyone pretended to be sledding. Woosh, Woosh. But I felt nothing.
In case you didn't see it the first time I will repeat.
I pee in a cup.
As a matter of a fact I am peeing in a cup right now.
Fred was the one who got away, I'm afraid. Yeah, the media harpooned him, but he fumbled the opening of his campaign and didn't leave time for regaining ground.
And, more importantly, the opening states didn't vote for him anyway. (This is how people get the government they deserve, of course.)
McCain flounders because McCain has no governing principle that's actually different from Obama. He's gonna do what feels right to him. (Just like Bush. Am I missing Clinton here? I might be.)
All we're really arguing about is whether his feelings are better (or even different!) from Obama.
I know Simon figures that he'd nominate better judges but, you know, the guy's been kissing up to the popular crowd for decades, why would that change?
Don't feel bad about Wurly. His liberal little brother Swurly will be posting now that Althouse has lurched to the left.
He's the wimpy little brother with the concave chest who has the green peace sticker on his hybird and the frizzy white afro with his glasses held together with the band aid at the bridge. They call him swurly because that what all the kids used to call him when they stuck his head in the toilet and flushed back in high school.
He will be picking up the slack.
Expect to hear a lot about global warming and carbon dating.
Of course that is the only kind of dating he is involved with.
My 21 year old gas station boyfriend is coming over in a hour for a booty call.
I told a friend of mine I would call him and leave the phone on and he could listen to us doing it.
That's the kind of friend I am. Always thinking of others.
Well, Titus, for goodness' sake don't get confused when you offer him a glass of Mountain Dew. Just a friendly piece of advice.
When I called my 21 year old booty call today he was "translating for his mother".
How hot is that.
I love mountain dew. That is a very Wisconsin drink.
Go into any PDQ and 1/2 the freezer is bottles of mountain dew.
Not so popular in NYC though.
Prof. Althouse is fond of saying that she has found that the left side of the blogosphere is looking for heretics, the right side is looking for converts.
Wait one second. Isn't this just a rewording of an old Barney Frank adage to the effect that the reason conservatives dominate political discourse in the United States is because conservatives see every liberal as a potential convert while liberals see every other liberal as a potential heretic?
Or did he get it from somebody else?
In any event, when conservatives see every other conservative as a potential heretic, we'll know that they've lost control.
Too late?
I am almost out of wet lube.
Hope we have enough for tonight.
Nothing is more depressing than a not lubed up ass. Too much work. All that friction can cause problems.
My 21 year old gas station boyfriend is coming over in a hour for a booty call.
Does he give you free lube jobs too or is that all part of the full service deal?
The racism thing is a trap.
Modern "liberals" are socialists (however they style themselves), and socialism has always provided plenty of cover for racism.
Classical liberalism doesn't--All Men are created equal and whatnot--but that's best represented by what? Libertarianism, right?
Prof. Althouse is fond of saying that she has found that the left side of the blogosphere is looking for heretics, the right side is looking for converts.
That's a sordidly old cliche and I'd be surprised and disappointed if Althouse ever uttered it.
Aaaaiiiiiieeeeee!!!!!!!!
The Red Sox are out of lube dude.
GO DEVIL RAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, also, there's nothing wrong with avoiding this place or any other before the election.
A lot of us think the bad guys are gonna win. (A lot of us think only the bad guys are running....)
I could completely understand anyone hiding from this crap for the next few weeks. If it's just going to make you feel bad, why wouldn't you.
A real economic and cultural Burkean conservative would have won this election going away. I'm not talking about weirdos wrapped up in religion, either.
"Nothing is more depressing than a not lubed up ass."
I hope you've informed each other of your HIV status and that you plan to use protection. I'd hate for a leathery old queen to ruin the life of a 21 year old. Or vice versa.
You could always go over to Blakes great blog The Bit Maelstrom to follow the progress of his barbarian Western sex novel with unicorns and pointy breasts. Or fun cultural stuff at Zach Sires blog Sire Says. Or Philly baseball and cheesesteak at AJ Lynches blog
The Ringleader. Or RC Ocean or Montana Urban Legend or Victorias Sundries or Eli Blakes guivering wimpfest Deep Thoughts or reader_iams new blog.
There are a lot of places to hang out which could use your support. Just sayn.
Trooper, clearly you haven't been by in a while (except for following that link about my son confessing he humors, rather than listens, to me--ZING!), else you would have noticed the new-ish tagline: "A scratchpad. A scrapbook. A clip file. A blog? Not so much." Talk about a true echo chamber. But thanks for the plug, anyway.
I agree with Blake, and Freeman, about Thompson. His campaign got hit by a narrative, and he wasn't desperate enough to overcome the narrative.
He did make a big mistake in starting his campaign too late. Any other campaign season it would have been fine. But this year all the primaries got pushed up right to the beginning of the year, and he just didn't have a chance.
Also, I blame Evangelicals for his loss. They latched on to Huckabee in the early primaries and Thompson got lost in the middle of Romney and Huckabee.
Being an Evangelical I fully accept the blame for Palin, indeed still think she was the absolute best choice. McCain's problems are McCain and the media.
As for Ann, I don't know why people are surprised. From my reading of her she defaults Democrat, and needs a good reason, such as the war, to vote Republican. McCain's not given her that, even though Palin had her intrigued a bit.
Without a pressing reason the social liberal side, which isn't often discussed here, comes into play.
Though, I'm a tiny bit surprised because I get the feeling she respects the conservative justices more, even if she agrees with the conclusions of the liberal appointed ones.
I'll ditto the rest, though--I love Blake's movie stuff, especially. The guy can really write (but then, that's not surprising).
Hey I go by all the time, but a lot of the stuff you post is such a quick hit, it doesn't require much amplification.
You can't pile more irony and sarcasm on a big steaming pile of irony and sarcasm. What's the fun in that?
You need a nerdfest to really be able to bust balls.
But your little thing is unique and a lot of fun.
Well, I can't stand the evangelical wing of the Republican Party and I still think Palin is fine. I wish she and McCain would switch places on the ticket, frankly.
The suggestion that Republicans would have been better off with Romney is off-base, I think. Romney's big claims to fame are (a) economics and (b) RomneyCare. The latter is in bad shape (and Republicans were suspicious of it to begin with), so that leaves the former. Let's put it this way: this is not the year for ANY Republican to be running on an economics platform, because the economy stinks and fairly or unfairly Republicans are getting the blame for it. A Republican ticket needs to focus on defense and social issues, and Romney lacks both credibility and experience in both areas.
"But your little thing is unique and a lot of fun."
Hey wait a minute, a girl told me that once in 1982. Rats.
I do read reader's blog (ex-blog?) but it doesn't have a notify thing, which makes it a pain to comment.
It is jaw-dropping to me that there are still
Palin fans out there. She is toxic, turned into nuclear waste by the McCain campaign. Never seen anything like it.
Keep telling yourself that, "integrity".
blake said...No, Palin excites (some of) the base, not all anti-Romney evangelicals.
I said the election was 85% over when Romney lost in the primary. I gave McCain/Romney 15% based on Mitt's proven economic understanding.
Besides, if Romney's such a good administrator--which I have not heard challenged much--why stick him in the Veep role?
Well if McCain/Palin win - something that can happen only if an *old videotape is found of a young, confused Barack Obama having homosexual sex with Fidel Castro and the Ayatollah Khomeini - then of course it would be better for Mitt to have the job as Treasury Secretary.
I think Sarah Palin is capable of acting like the human artificial tree in the office corner which is basically what every VP except Cheney has been.
Palladian said..."I don't understand why primary voters didn't like Romney."
Don't you think he's sort of unlikeable?
Why do you have to like him on a personal level? We're talking about President of the United States not likable neighbor.
* I think the American people will still go with the Redeemer even with the videotape.
knox said...
"I object to the notion that a person can walk into a room and automatically sit in judgement of everyone else, simply by virtue of identifying herself as a liberal."
I just don't agree that she did that. I think she sat in the room, heard what they were saying, and called them to account for the consequences of the policy views that they were expounding. Now, I wasn't in the room, so I don't know exactly what was being offered up. I don't think that federalism - or even subsidiarity - compelled segregation then or would require it now. I would hope that most libertarians would adulterate the pure version of the philosophy with some kind of modifying agent, if only common sense, and conclude that if the south was to be desegregated, now, if the time for all deliberate speed was over (which it was), some form of intervention was necessary, and, so long as it was within Constitutional limits, proper.
Revenant said...
"She was also completely wrong to describe the notion of unforced desegregation as 'pure fantasy' ... There are countless examples of societies moving away from official (and unofficial) racism without being forced to do so at gunpoint -- most of the United States already had, for example."
She was absolutely right. The south had already had a century to follow the rest of the country's lead, and had not. If it had not been forced by law, the changes would have come slowly if ever. There might still be resistance today - and we know this for sure, because over a century after the Fourteenth Amendment outlawed racially discriminatory treatment by state actors, and more than a decade after the Supreme Court had finally admitted it, some parts of the south were still resisting. As Lino Graglia has well-put it: yoou can't legislate morality, but you can legislate conduct, and it turns out that's nearly as good.
"Consider that even the nastiest backwater states would never consider adopting a segregationist system again even if it was legal to do so."
Demonstrates nothing.
Revenant said...
"Ok, I'll bite: why?"
Well, suppose that we had recently repealed the Fourth Amendment, and you were arguing for its reintroduction. In the last fifty years of its existence, the Fourth Amendment was routinely used to get crooks off the hook, allowing procedural irregularity to trump substantive guilt. Although it was designed to prevent oppressive government, it never functioned to protect against that, and instead created a culture that made law enforcement more difficult, ending with the untimely deaths of many citizens at the hands of criminals. Your burden is to do one of two things: to argue that this result is an acceptable trade-off against the benefits that accrue, or to argue that the principle was misapplied in the past and will not result in the same result if reintroduced. As you point out, segregation is hardly likely to creep back in, but a normative philosophy -- and I stress a normative position; this analysis says nothing about positive analysis of the legal framework of the time --that enabled it does have something to answer for.
Sigh. Fred was my man.
First time I have ever contributed to a campaign. More than once.
Boy were we disappointed.
Huckabee was not even a player in our book.
I didn't say science was mere drilling. I was speculating that the proposals about teaching science could have been uncreative (and mere drilling) and saying that a foundation is entitled to have a specific vision that doesn't cover all the things that schools must teach. The Annenberg Foundation seemed to be about funding a certain sort of thing and they were entitled to do that. It should not be confused with the obligation of the public schools to provide an appropriate education, which of course, includes science. That would be true even assuming the funded projects were frills compared to science.
I found Romney quite likable. The qualities that others found slick, I found oddly endearing.
Ouch that was a tough one there Simon old bean. I hate the press as much as the next guy, even if the guy is Richard Nixon, but that's a tad over the top.
Troop, I agree, and on second thought have just deep six'd it.
And how the hell do Simon (the commenter) and reader get tags while poor Garage Mahal is left out again. There he is in front of his computer with his tin foil hat and his inflatable Hillary Clinton anatomically correct doll with a tear running down his cheek.
SO UNFAIR!!
The trouble with Romney as either the candidate or the veep is that the financial crisis would still have happened and the Dems would have strip-mined him. They would have claimed that the crisis was the result of people like Mitt Romney; he would be portrayed as the CEO who profits while laying off you, the common man. And while those claims would have been neither true nor attractive, they would have been relentlessly hammered home - just as were all the lies about Palin - and those inclined to support Obama would rationalize their way into being okay with it. No, in the end we got the best ticket we could field, it's just that the inertia in the Democrats' favor was too mch to beat. Will be too much to beat. Well, unless something immense happens, in which case all bets are off. Sometimes things happen. Obama could be indicted under RICO, you never know your luck.
The Red Sox are losing 10 to 1 to those Devil Rays......I guess they did run out of lube.
You know a pre-op trans-sexual came into the store last week and my new employee got a little shook up. I told her to relax, she was just a person who needed a dress like anyone else.
My motto:
Let Tranny be Tranny.
Jeeez, they must have that really good weed in Cleveland Oaf. No wonder the Browns won.
I just waded into Oaf's comment as a public service. Where to start?
What president wants to be a bad president?
I mean, seriously. This is not the fifth grade. Serious foreign policy issues are at stake.
Wow! Two years of Althouse's right-wing commenters presenting her every case they could come up with against voting for Obama while the Obama voters in Althouse's comments sections (myself included) were being belligerent towards her, and she still ends up for Obama. Althouse, who considers the mainstream media in the tank for Obama and has listened closely to all the right-wingers' cases against Obama while having it in her mind to be suspicious of how Obama is presented in the mainstream media, still ends up finding Obama the better candidate. Althouse, who strangely adores Sarah Palin for the same reasons Camille Paglia does despite Palin's lack of qualifications at this time, also agrees with Paglia that Obama is the better candidate.
If you guys couldn't convince Ann Althouse to vote McCain with all of that going for you, why be surprised when Obama wins in a landslide? Could it just be that Obama is simply the better candidate amongst the choice we're given? It doesn't mean he's the Messiah, or the One, or the Great Leader. He's just the better choice on the ballots we'll be handed.
Althouse's right-wing commenters had a blogger who was listening to them with an open mind, for like 2 years now. She paid special attention to anti-Obama or pro-Palin stories in part to help her receive Instalanches to build up her traffic. But you guys couldn't convince her. You guys are failures.
It will be interesting to see how the right-wingers of these comment sections react when Obama turns out to be what he obviously is: A nice young man with a lot of political skills who is a political moderate, loves his country, and who wants to be a good president. Maybe he will be a good president or maybe he won't be (he certainly can't be worse than Bush). But I highly doubt he'll be the things the right-wing has tried to smear him as. My guess is he'll be very much like Clinton, and be advised by people simiular to those who advised Clinton, but without the personal scandals. Plus he'll generate assloads of international goodwill towards our country overnight. Plus he'll help heal some of the racial devisions in America.
I wanna be tagged, too.
What the conservatives should feel good about is they will soon no longer have to defend Bush. I tried to like Bush. I even voted for Bush! But it feels good when you finally acknowledge what you feel in your gut: He's the worst president with the most incompetant administration we've ever seen (well, I'm younger than some of you and Reagan was the first prez of my life).
I also think conservatives will find it a nice change of pace to be the ones slamming those in power instead of having to defend those in power. Maybe that'll be just what the doctor ordered to help the conservatives select better candidates in the future.
People shouldn't fear when someone they dislike wins the White House. It can be a lot fun when you're liberated and can be a hater to the Prez for 4 years!
And, anyway, when Obama turns out to wage the War on Islamo-Terrorism much more vigorously than his most leftist supporters realize he will, it can make the war much more bipartisan! It could turn out very healthy for the country for a Republican Commander in Chief to pass the baton to a Democrat Commander in Chief. Especially now that we've had the surge and Obama cna see that it worked. Kerry might've been a disaster for Iraq, but I think the time is safe now for a Democrat to take over.
"As an African American politician, there is a better than 50% chance is personally corrupt and has at the very least not filed his taxes."
Bigot.
And I mean really, not the faux 'bigot' charges that get made at people who are not for Obama.
Simon said...The trouble with Romney as either the candidate or the veep is that the financial crisis would still have happened and the Dems would have strip-mined him. They would have claimed that the crisis was the result of people like Mitt Romney; he would be portrayed as the CEO who profits while laying off you, the common man.
Yeah I know........ the Evil Old White Capitalist who fired people to cut costs and improve shareholder profits.
RIP WAMU
JFKerry was apparently in town today, talking at the Capitol. I was eating at Ian's at the top of State; I think there were maybe 200 people there, and a good 1/8th of them had McCain signs.
Why would anyone go listen to Kerry?
I didn't say science was mere drilling. I was speculating that the proposals about teaching science could have been uncreative (and mere drilling) and saying that a foundation is entitled to have a specific vision that doesn't cover all the things that schools must teach. The Annenberg Foundation seemed to be about funding a certain sort of thing and they were entitled to do that. It should not be confused with the obligation of the public schools to provide an appropriate education, which of course, includes science. That would be true even assuming the funded projects were frills compared to science.
Thanks for clarifying that, Ann. You had me worried there for a bit.
I would like to see some educational foundations have “a specific vision” that sought to teach science as it really is, though, not according to people's caricatures of it.
Althouse- did you put your comment on the wrong post?
No, she didn't.
Hey, if we're going to be pandering for tags, can I point to this year old comment in which I referred to Althouse as the "once and future liberal"?
Note that in her response, Althouse wrote, "The other night, I dreamed I had told someone I'd decided to support Barack Obama!"
It's the fourth comment down, if my attempt to link to my comment isn't working.
I would like to see some educational foundations have “a specific vision” that sought to teach science as it really is, though, not according to people's caricatures of it.
What do you mean by this, Michael?
EnigmatiCore has got a point.
Now what does EnigmatiCore have to say about those of us who do not plan to vote for Obama? Is that being "racist" as the MSM is falsely saying?
There has been far too many false charges of racism this election. Obama is the only candidate to raise the issue with his false charges against McCain.
Condemn all God-Damned racists and race baiting bigots, Rep. Lewis as another example.
loafingoaf is smoking something
She was absolutely right. The south had already had a century to follow the rest of the country's lead, and had not.
Simon, in what parallel universe had the rest of America been free from official racial discrimination for a century? Try twenty or thirty years. Federal laws *mandating* racial discrimination were still on the federal books -- and enthusiastically enforced, I might add -- until the mid and late 1940s. World War Two was fought by an America where the majority of white people in EVERY state took it for granted that theirs was the superior race, and the propaganda of the time reflected that belief. Hell, the *cartoons* of that time reflected that belief.
As for your interpretation of Ann's reaction, I'll simply point out that impartial observers of Ann's behavior were in agreement that she made an ass of herself. This is entirely credible both because the people in question are generally reliable witnesses and because she made an ass of herself again with her posts on the subject, which consisted of little beyond shallow ad hominem attacks and thinly-veiled accusations.
and we know this for sure, because over a century after the Fourteenth Amendment outlawed racially discriminatory treatment by state actors, and more than a decade after the Supreme Court had finally admitted it, some parts of the south were still resisting.
Simon, you know damned well that for approximately the first 85 years after state racism was "outlawed" it continued to be practiced at every level. The reason this happened was that virtually all Americans were racists until the latter half of the 20th century. The court willfully ignored the plain text of the US Constitution for 85 years! That doesn't happen in a world where, as you claim, the rest of the country outside of the South had accepted racial equality for nearly a century.
So all you're saying is that you "know for sure" that the South wouldn't have moved away from segregation because a single generation after the federal government stopped actively discriminating against blacks and Asians and a decade after it told the states to clean up their act, there were still people "resisting". Well no *shit* there were still people resisting. The Bull Connors and George Wallaces of America were grown men when the United States still thought black people couldn't be trusted to serve with white people in combat. Shockingly enough they didn't have a Road to Damascus experience following Brown v. Board, either. It does not follow that the next generation would have been racial supremacists, too.
"even the nastiest backwater states would never consider adopting a segregationist system again even if it was legal to do so."
Demonstrates nothing.
You're smarter than that. Bear with me here:
A: Both racist attitudes and support for segregation had been declining, in both the nation as a whole and the South in particular, throughout the 20th century.
B: The Jim Crow laws required majority support to remain in place.
C: Today, they lack that support.
This last point is relevant because it is consistent with the overall trend; it is what we would expect, even if no laws had ever been passed on the subject. It doesn't prove that segregation would have ended, obviously, since it is IMPOSSIBLE to prove what would have happened in an alternate history. But it is consistent with the theory that the long-term trend favored, and favors, egalitarianism.
Your argument and Ann's is that even though support for racist laws had been declining for a long time, that support would -- for unknown and unstated reasons -- have frozen at the "> 50%" position and been nailed in place there for at least the next forty years. Furthermore, the only thing capable of unsticking that decline and forcing a shift in societal attitudes was a federal intervention at the state level (apparently federal intervention is able to change attitudes about race even if it can't affect attitudes about drugs, guns, or speeding). You know this, somehow, and know it with such ironclad certainty that only delusional people would dare disagree with you.
I'm sorry, but that's an asinine position to hold. A good argument can be made that federal intervention *accelerated* the shift away from racism, but anyone who thinks it was required for that shift is, well... delusional.
Well, suppose that we had recently repealed the Fourth Amendment [...]
That's a dishonest example, since you posit a world in which the fourth amendment had been nothing but bad. Ann was accusing supporters of federalism of racism. You and Ann both went to law school, so I'd trust I don't have to explain the many advantages of federalism.
But in any case, the reason why re-imposition of the Jim Crow laws wouldn't be a concern under federalism is glaringly obvious: because, like I pointed out before, the majority is against them. Ann simply shares the common left-wing belief that America is riddled with racists would would drag us all back to the 50s if the government didn't keep them in check. She's wrong, as are you if you agree with her. A democratic supermajority wants racial egalitarianism, and they want it on a state by state basis.
a normative philosophy [...] that enabled it does have something to answer for.
Simon, come on. Do people who believe the ability to amend the Constitution is a good idea "have something to answer for" on the grounds that we could, in theory, repeal the ban on slavery and put blacks back on plantations? I submit to you that the intelligent person's best response to that concern is an eye roll.
Wow. Dust Bunny says this:
"Al-Qaida can take out Chicago with a suitcase bomb and I would cheer."
And no one bats an eye here.
Who knew the anti-American crowd was hanging out at Althouse?
"I wanna be tagged, too."
Bend over, bitch.
Darcy said:
“I would like to see some educational foundations have “a specific vision” that sought to teach science as it really is, though, not according to people's caricatures of it.”
What do you mean by this, Michael?
Hi, Darcy! Thanks for your kind (and I thought very funny) comment earlier.
Basically I mean that I wish schools would not only recognize but teach that science — like art — is rooted in finding the conceptual unities in the human and physical world around us. Too many teachers and people — even some scientists, as we've seen in threads here — ignorantly regard science as simply an empty and soulless catalog of facts — which is very far from the truth, and which inevitably turns off a great many people from the grand quest for understanding the nature of this astounding universe and our place within it.
Oh Palladian, thanks for your interest and concern.
I am nothing but honest with all of my tricks and always, always safe. I live in NYC so obviously we are always on our toes and knowledgeable of the world around us.
Thank you Palladian for your comments. All is well.
And Palladian as far as HIV goes I hope you are read up on all the HIV literature.
There are different individuals with "HIV". Some who have been diagnosed are actually off the meds and no longer carriers and have are undectable. That is quite common today. Thank God.
I have never seen garage mahal ever attack the blog host, Althouse.
It struck me that, say eight years ago, that sentence would have been pure science fiction, with "blog" being a monstrous parasite, and "Althouse" being either the innocent host, or the commanding officer of the speaker.
Professor A., I apologize if I have ever called you a "liar and a McCain toady."
jdr: I too, voted for Mitt Romney, and hoped he would be at least the VP candidate. I don't know why throwing red meat to the base was such a priority -- where was the rightwing going to go? Bob Barr?
Re: Althouse
Althouse is a liberal, she always has been and always will be. It's been a long time since 9/11. She's drifted back into liberal thought. However, let the Sears Tower in Chicago be blown up and thousands die, she'll vote for McCain in a nanosecond.
Simon wrote: I don't think it's remotely credible to compare respectful but robust criticism of some of what Althouse writes, which she will very likely get from conservatives here, with the vicious, contemptible vituperative filth poured out daily by the anti-Althousiana like Doyle.
Simon, as is typical you do not give yourself enough credit. You and your conservative brethren are truly beyond compare, tanscendant in your greatness and virtuousness, particularly, in contrast to the diseased liberal sewage. You and your fellow conservatives are heroes and the wind beneath our wings. In my book you cannot possibly hold yourself and those conservatives who are reflections of you, in high enough esteem.
Thank you, Michael. That was beautifully put.
I'm going to share that with my son. There's a very good chance that he'll be a science guy. ;-)
'Republican presidents never have a mandate' goes back much farther than W in 2004.
IIRC the careful parsing of Republican presidental victories goes back at least to GHWB's crushing Dukakis in the EC. Commentators claimed he had no mandate because the Republicans failed to maintain (or reestablish) control of one house of Congress. Regan's lopsided win in 1984 was subjected to some of the same scrutiny since the Republicans lost seats in the Senate during that election. When Bill Clinton was elected, however, the focus of the commentariat shifted almost exclusively to his EC totals with no discussion of the fact he only won a plurality of the popular vote in both 1992 and 1996, and failed to help the Democrats regain control of Congress in 1996.
Simon and Revenant,
I saw your comments regarding the tendency of republican (you say conservative) commenters to be more civil toward Prof. Althouse than the Doyles of the left. From the comments I recall, the two of you (and probably most of the commenters Rev mentioned) have been critical of Prof. Althouse's arguments rather than resorting to the "Prof. Althouse is a vapid, unthinking liberal" arguments. Nonetheless, I will resist the urge to apologize (and the more real urge to issue a snarky non-apology apology).
As a caveat, let me say that I am not aware of all the internet traditions here. Though I certainly know some of the names of prominent, accepted commenters there are others who go in and out and I am not sure where they fall on the accepted commenter to troll scale. (I suspect that many here place me on the troll side of the spectrum.) I don't get the handbook and I don't know the secret handshake, so all I have to go on is what the commenters write. If they make republican arguments, I think they are republican commenters. Maybe all the republican commenters who are being uncivil and making arguments against Prof. Althouse are really trolls.
But if you think they have all been civil you haven't been paying attention. All of the quotes below are from one thread with the exception of the quote from Host with the Most.
Host with the Most said...
As to regarding the issue of anger on the left, Ann you are so full of shit that I could smell it as soon as "Althouse" showed on my computer.
Paul said...
Obviously Ann's in the tank for O. Otherwise how could a law prof look at this report and not realize it's entirely bogus?
Hucbald said...
Nice punt! If you think it means something, Ms. Fancypants Law Prof, what would that be?
Oligonicella said...
"... but let's resist the impulse to slough off this report. It means something."
An assertion without merit. Try something substantive, like say, logic.
memomachine said...
Hmmm.
@ Ann Althouse
It means something?
Bullshit.
paul a'barge said...
It means if you're a Republican and you try to defend yourself against spousal abuse, you're guilty.
That's what it means.
Get a clue.
Simon,
I'm sure the legal debate holds some water.
Doesn't change the fact that it was absurd to accuse the people in that room of racism. Were they maybe a little too insulated and nerdy to hear how their "Big L" Libertarianism sounded to a Liberal? No doubt.
But they were accused of outright racism. That's a pretty big leap, and a repugnant accusation. There's pretty much nothing worse you can accuse someone of in this country.
Revenant said...
He says (among other things) that the GOP "big tent" looks more like a "yurt" now.
What the heck kind of political party has a tent big enough to accommodate voting against it? The sole purpose of a political party is to elect candidates. If you're voting against the Fnordian candidate, you aren't a Fnordian.
funny, i remember the pity party coming out a different way after the CT dems voted lieberman out
funny, i remember the pity party coming out a different way after the CT dems voted lieberman out
I am really looking forward to Revenant's response to this.
I am really looking forward to Revenant's response to this.
Well since you ask, I will deign to acknowledge Exalted's existence. :)
Exalted,
Lieberman differed from most of the Democratic Party in that he supported the war and most of them didn't. He was in other respects a standard Democrat -- pro-choice, pro-union, anti-gun, pro-taxes, etc. Furthermore the Democrats apparently thought him enough of a Democrat to make him their VP candidate, and he hadn't changed any of his positions since then. Lieberman was expelled from the party not for opposing the party, but for defying the antiwar moonbats. Even AFTER they threw him under the bus he still caucused with the Democratic Party.
Now, if he had (for example) endorsed George Bush in 2004 like he endorsed McCain this year, trying to expel him from the party would have been entirely appropriate. Since being thrown out of the Party he has moved further away from it; fancy that.
Darcy said:
Thank you, Michael. That was beautifully put.
I'm going to share that with my son. There's a very good chance that he'll be a science guy. ;-)
You might buy him the Bronowski book. I see it's available at the Advanced Book Exchange (abebooks.com — world's best used book store, or rather 10,000 associated used book stores) for as little as $1 — or $5 in hardcover.
TMJ--
If you think that even remotely compares to the attacks on Althouse from the left-wing, you've not been paying attention.
I'm glad I checked back.
Revenant: Enjoyed that. Thanks! :)
And Michael McNeil: Ordered! Thank you very, very much. We'll both read it.
Thanks for the tip on the site, too.
Blake,
I have no doubt liberal commenters have been worse to Prof. Althouse over the last 4 years than the republican commenters have been over the last 11 days or so. My only point was that republican commenters now are making the same kinds of comments that liberal commenters were derided for previously.
Except for "Host with the Most", not really, and even there I take "full of shit" to mean "on this particular subject".
So, not yet, anyway.
There's no dave™© style ranter, just for example.
Blake,
My original comment in this thread noted a specific type of comment. Namely one where the commenter argues "that Prof. Althouse is a vapid, unthinking apologist for Obama [or Bush]." If you don't think the comments I cited above (re-read especially Paul's) fall into the type of comment I was describing we are just reading things differently.
I think in the course of responding to Simon and Revenant, I may have veered into talking about civility rather than narrowly focusing on the type of comment I noted in the original comment. In that respect, I would not be surprised to learn that dave (as one example) is more vile and vitriolic than the republican commenters I noted above. But again, that is a different point than I was trying to make initially.
TMJ--
Ah. Sorry. One of the hazards of these mega-threads is that it's easy to miss the point....
Namely one where the commenter argues "that Prof. Althouse is a vapid, unthinking apologist for Obama [or Bush]." If you don't think the comments I cited above (re-read especially Paul's) fall into the type of comment I was describing we are just reading things differently.
How do you get from the one word response of "bullshit" to an accusation that Ann is a vapid Obama apologist? How do you get there from "Nice punt! If you think it means something, Ms. Fancypants Law Prof, what would that be?"? That's certainly a *snarky* response, but it accuses Ann of dodging the question (which she did), not of being unthinking or pro-Obama. The examples you cite just aren't very good, save for one or two.
Ms. Fancypants Law Prof
Rev, c'mon.
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