May 1, 2013
"With characteristic contrarianness, blogress Ann Althouse speculates... It's a clever theory..."
Says James Taranto, "but not a realistic plan. There's no doubt that die-hard Democrats will respond in the way Althouse imagines they are expected to.... The Althouse theory raises another question: If Obama succeeded in electing a Democratic Congress next year, what would he do with it?..."
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58 comments:
At least he read your post and stuck to the topic of it.
Is a blogress married to a blogre?
Do they have the troll and trollette over for bridge under the bridge once a week? Gnome i'm say'n?
"Do they have the troll and trollette over for bridge under the bridge once a week?"
A female troll is, of course, a trollop.
I seriously hope you're not offended. I think it's pretty obvious, Taranto admires the hell out of you.
Does anybody NOT spin Obama's fecklessness? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Imagine the clarity of that.
Assume he is the sum of his accomplishments (and yes, winning the Presidency is an accomplishment) and nothing else, all he is good at is....
Winning the Presidency.
God help us.
I'm not offended.
What's the contrary part?
The idea that the whining is part of a plan to win?
That's more like a speculation based on past evidence.
I thought the contrary part was about how Althouse saw the press conference, which was different from how the mainstream commentators saw things.
Actually Althouse's (and Taranto's) contrary views are what draws me to them. Sometimes it's too easy to get sucked into right wing/ conservative groupthink.
Let's put Obama's face on a large silk screen outside the NY Times building.
Passersby can guess at which emotions could be passing over Dear Leader's face, like clouds in the sky.
Welcome to the Obamatron!
There's more to Obama words than meet the eye, there is more than just excuses for the FBI's losing track of the Boston bombing brothers:
Something glaring...
The Russian intelligence services had alerted U.S. intelligence about the older brother, as well as the mother, indicating that they might be sympathizers to extremists. The FBI investigated that older brother. It's not as if the FBI did nothing. They not only investigated the older brother, they interviewed the older brother. They concluded that there were no signs that he was engaging in extremist activity. So that much we know.
Why the effort to single out the older brother so repeatedly?
Yes, the question he asks is the question I was asking. What would Obama do with Congress? I suspect he would do what they want, because he is out of ideas (aside from a general push toward an amorphous "fairness" he envisions the country having).
"Contrarianness?"
There's an ugly word.
Mark (not me -- I have a last name!), that comment at 10:48 is a gem. Wish I'd said it.
Doesn't anyone remember what Obama did when Democrats controlled both houses and Obamacare was the end-all and be-all?
He did squat. He let Pelosi and Reid cobble together a monstrosity and then signed it into law.
He's the honey badger president. Enjoy.
I have a comment about this comment about a comment, but I've forgotten it. That's my comment.
Actually he also seems to be good at doing the little side step.Visions of Charles Durning in my head.
My theory for the presser is that Obama has something to hide and when the president of the United States has something to hide, the rule, developed and perfected by the Clintons, is that you put it out yourself.
If you remember after Benghazi, Obama came out the next day and slipped in a terror remark, that went unnoticed at the time of the press conference, but he later used to some effect against Romney.
The White House was scrambling yesterday... People, wake the fuck up!
"Logic Behind Obama News Conference Hard To Fathom."
"It felt as though something newsworthy must be happening. But as it turned out, not so much."
Never mind things being 'hard' for Obama... The hardest thing is for an adoring press to see anything.
So, yesterday, Obama came out (once again) and primed the pusillanimous press with the theory that the older brother acted alone without any help from foreign jihadis and that we could not have stopped him.
That meekly possum posture, was the same Obama of the first debate... the one that was afraid that Benghazi was going to unravel.
Everything Obama says is accepted at face value... I don't think any other president has ever enjoyed that kind of trust?
Everybody seems to implicitly trust him.
I feel like Rabel, described the inability to respond to the spectacle of the Obama Correspondence Dinner.
My head is telling me that my gut is making sense but nobody else seems to be interested much less making connections... so I'm wondering maybe I'm in a bad dream and I'm the one that needs to wake the fuck up... Wake up and remember to thank the dear leader for giving me health care an Obama phone, three squares and a cot?
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Lem said...
Why the effort to single out the older brother so repeatedly?
Obama came out (once again) and primed the pusillanimous press with the theory that the older brother acted alone without any help from foreign jihadis and that we could not have stopped him.
Unilaterally asked and answered. :)
I've been impressed with the administration's effort to portray this almost from the moment of the bomb blasts.
As I say, whining about needing a better Congress has never worked.
And it's been tried by both sides.
Bob said...
Do they have the troll and trollette over for bridge under the bridge once a week?
A female troll is, of course, a trollop.
I love it!
And ain't it the truth?
Birches said...
I seriously hope you're not offended. I think it's pretty obvious, Taranto admires the hell out of you.
Next to Insta, Taranto's Ann's biggest booster, I'd say.
Mark said...
Assume he is the sum of his accomplishments (and yes, winning the Presidency is an accomplishment) and nothing else, all he is good at is....
Winning the Presidency.
More like stealing elections.
PS I see leslyn's back. The She Devil of the SS must be going in for her 100,000 comment reprogramming.
PPS School out for the summer and staying up to watch the Northern Lights - or just grading finals?
Catching up with these late posts is tough at 6 in the morning.
Once in a while Obama's gut should advise him to skip a presser. This was one of those times. He portrayed the adrift leader Althouse suspects. If I misinterpret, correct me....I'll listen.
When the President, a smart man by most accounts, says .....
We're [the administration] going to try to do everything we can to create a permission structure for them [Republicans in Congress?] to be able to do what's going to be best for the country....
....it just isn't possible to be more insulting, condescending, and smug. This is a highly educated man who frequently votes "present" literally, in the past, or virtually on major issues, right up to this day. He doesn't create plans, he points to goal lines...and moves them occasionally.
I can accept election results. What scares me is that a man, a leader, whether I agree with him or her, whether I like him or her, did not win the election...an institutionalized political collective did. Who is Obama without his staff of Czars and advisors? Does he exist?
Quoting @ ampersand's very apt remark: Gnome i'm say'n?
PS: @ Bob Ellison...if I had a dollar for every comment I forgot before I finished it I could retire. Again.
edutcher just had to say...
PS I see leslyn's back. The She Devil of the SS must be going in for her 100,000 comment reprogramming.
WTF is wrong with you, seriously? Leslyn hasn't said a word to or about you. She hasn't said anything controversial on any thread recently. Yet you deign to denigrate her?
There is NO connection between Leslyn and Inga other than both are female. Both are far different that you imagine. If you did an ounce of research you would know that. I'm glad to see Leslyn back, and guess what...she doesn't need your approval. Really man, who or what do you imagine you are?
MayBee said...
Yes, the question he asks is the question I was asking. What would Obama do with Congress?
Raise taxes.
Gun control.
And that brown shirt civilian army that he promised us.
Why do people persist in making gender-neutral nouns into gender-specific ones? Blogress? Why? Actress? Waitress? Aviatrix?
Women who blog, act, wait tables or fly planes are, respectively, bloggers, actors, waiters, and aviators. There is nothing about these terms that denotes the person described must be male. Such archaic usage reveals assumptions deriving from our past, not our present.
Aridog, he is a daily troll who encourages many of us to never comment. Anne's free speech policy leads to the welcoming give of a biker bar (assuming you are not a biker) for anyone who doesn't tow the Altbilly line.
Foul nasty people have me posting only once or twice a month. I try to limit the time I spend interacting with foul speaking rude people. Sadly, this place has a lot of low class daily visitors, lacking manners.
He should have just used the race card.. instead of trying to generate pity.
Why does Ann write cheesy lines like calling this guy, "beautiful man"? Who does that? I know she is projecting what he thinks his ardent or otherwise supporters think of him. But.. it sounds icky that she thinks that they think that.
Foul nasty people have me posting only once or twice a month.
Soon to be less than that, I hope.
@Robert Cook,
Taranto likes to play with words. It's part of his schtick. A few days ago he used the word "ruthfull" to describe someone who was the opposite of ruthless. His use of the term blogress is just his way of having fun. Don't read anything more into it.
"Such archaic usage reveals assumptions deriving from our past, not our present."
Or maybe he thought the awkwardness of the archaic-sounding term was mildly amusing ('humor' seems to be pretty much lost on you, Cook).
Damn you Maturin.
"Anne's [sic] free speech policy leads to the welcoming give of a biker bar (assuming you are not a biker) for anyone who doesn't tow the Altbilly line."
They're just glowing pixels on a screen, you know. You can respond (or not) and they can't beat you up.
...so proud of the sabotage....
Stay classy San Diego!
I continue to ask anyone and everyone to explain how Obama is in any way or manner smart. Ever since the ridiculous "man of supple intelligence" thing before the '08 election, I saw the typical 100MPH freight train of Obama "genius" cultifying and narrative compliance bearing down on the country through the lame MSM. Just like with that dope Jean Francois Kerry in '04. It's one of the most boring and stupid of all lefty beliefs: that the democrat is always the nuanced, intelligent, wise and balanced candidate. Just laughable, and yet it crops up every election without fail.
DrMaturin said "[Taranto's] use of the term blogress is just his way of having fun. Don't read anything more into it."
It's more than that, of course. He could write "habablap" and nobody would laugh or think much of it, but "blogress" is a specific taunt. I don't know what Taranto means by it exactly, but communication is usually a two-way thing. I think he's poking fun at genderism.
Yes, editors of law reviews are idiots....
Especially really competitive ones...
"...('humor' seems to be pretty much lost on you, Cook)."
Heh. You have no idea.
@Bob Ellison,
"I think he's poking fun at genderism."
You make a good point. One thing he wasn't trying to do was to promote some kind of patriarchal hegemony (or is it hegemonic patriarchy, I get the boilerplate confused sometimes).
Sometimes it's too easy to get sucked into right wing/ conservative groupthink.
Isn't it the definition of groupthink that it's easy to get sucked into, regardless of ideology?
(I suppose true anarchists might be exempt from this)
"...('humor' seems to be pretty much lost on you, Cook)."
Heh. You have no idea.
Did you have to google "heh"?
@pm317
Oh, but sad to say they DO think exactly that..
Lem,
Re: the "older brother" thing, I'd guess that that's merely an attempt to avoid having to say "Tamerlan Tsarnaev" repeatedly, or (worse yet) having to say just "Tamerlan" repeatedly, as though he were on a first-name basis with they guy. You know, like he was with Trayvon Martin.
Benghazi was a long time ago
"Women who blog, act, wait tables or fly planes are, respectively, bloggers, actors, waiters, and aviators."
-- Of those listed, actor/actress is the only one where a differentiation might be needed. It may not matter the gender of the waiter, blogger or aviator, but the gender of the person I want to play a role may matter, and actress is cleaner than "Female actor needed." Likewise, the other terms provide additional clarity of language for English due to our lack of gender in everyday speech.
Simply by changing le to la, for example, in other languages can identify things for you that, in English, we need a whole new word for. I wonder if anyone is going to be telling most every other language to get rid of their archaic gendered language.
Robert Cook,
Such archaic usage reveals assumptions deriving from our past, not our present.
Would you pass "blog-diva"? Or is that also "archaic"?
Enh, as someone said upthread, Taranto likes to have fun with words. So do I. (Back when I was working as an editor, I wanted an email account in the name of "editrix." Alas, some other female editor with a sense of humor had gotten there first.)
Or maybe it was a man named Ed I. Trix.
Matthew Sablan,
Some women who act are actually [!] pretty touchy on that subject. I had a female co-worker not long ago who also acted professionally in musical theater, and she was adamant that she was an "actor" rather than an "actress."
Nonetheless, your point is obviously right. I guess when you put out a casting call ("Actor Wanted"), you describe the character by sex and age, among other things, and if a bunch of young men show up trying to look like the aging matriarch that is the character you're trying to cast, you just don't hire them. (And hope they're too poor to sue you...)
. But governing or legislating is more complicated. It requires both compromise and persuasion--the ability to yield to your adversaries and to make them feel it is in their interest to yield to you. It also requires a practical sense of both how your ideas will go over politically, how to make them go over favorably, and how they will actually work in practice.
If only the last part were actually true. Generally speaking in modern American politics of the Obama era, many politicians aren't concerned with the results side of things. These days everything is about optics, about how things appear to the American voter, not about the actual results of any particular piece of legislation in the real world. There's little real accountability anymore.
Nonapod speak Heap Big Medicine..
Aridog said...
Leslyn hasn't said a word to or about you. She hasn't said anything controversial on any thread recently. Yet you deign to denigrate her?
Why is it so unreasonable to remember how nasty people were when they first showed up? I don't like how he goes about it, but let's not pretend she's somehow above it.
"Did you have to google 'heh'"?
No, I'm faintly aware it's associated with some "qwikypundit" of some kind or other.
Aridog said...
edutcher just had to say...
PS I see leslyn's back. The She Devil of the SS must be going in for her 100,000 comment reprogramming.
WTF is wrong with you, seriously? Leslyn hasn't said a word to or about you. She hasn't said anything controversial on any thread recently. Yet you deign to denigrate her?
Yes, because she's part of the Lefty circle jerk and her appearances are in the service of the talking point du jour.
There is NO connection between Leslyn and Inga other than both are female. Both are far different that you imagine. If you did an ounce of research you would know that. I'm glad to see Leslyn back, and guess what...she doesn't need your approval. Really man, who or what do you imagine you are?
An American with a right of free speech?
I know to a control freak like you that's scary, but I have as much right to speak my piece as anybody.
You don't like it, I can't help you.
And leslyn and the She Devil probably are the same person. As I've said, if you look at the rhetorical styles, vocabulary, and talking points, there are probably only a couple of trolls with a couple dozen sockpuppets.
Thanks for the update Cook.
Will you be keeping the minutes at this months's meeting?
Ooooh Dennis, there's some lovely filth over 'ere
Robert Cook said...
Why do people persist in making gender-neutral nouns into gender-specific ones? Blogress? Why? Actress? Waitress? Aviatrix?
Women who blog, act, wait tables or fly planes are, respectively, bloggers, actors, waiters, and aviators. There is nothing about these terms that denotes the person described must be male. Such archaic usage reveals assumptions deriving from our past, not our present.
Oh. Crap. Comrade Bob teaches english.
Such archaic usage reveals assumptions deriving from our past, not our present.
Much like your hilarious political postings.
edutcher said ...
And leslyn and the She Devil probably are the same person
And again you demonstrate gross ignorance. Amuse yourself if you must. You stuck your *weasel* word in there because you know you are full of it. How dare anyone question you!?
You tickle me with your assertion of your free speech rights at the same time you try hard to intimidate and suppress those of others. Hear you R-O-A-R, eh?
Aside from the grandiose speculation that Obama will win anything come 2014 is the idea that he can. He won't, he knows it and if he continues down the trail of failed triangulation and just showing up for the sake of it, he'll lose the senate too. In fact, I suspect that republicans will gain majorly in the house. If democrats continue to insist on foisting taxes and 2nd amendment regulatory controls, they are going to lose huge in both houses I think.
Maybe we should start calling Althouse the "Blogressora." So there, Taranto!
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