Can you imagine how the media would have reacted if the immediate past President of the United States told a group of Republican donors that Democrats threatened the “very core of what this country stands for.” Well, at a campaign event two days ago at the Capital Hilton in Washington, D.C., his successor did just that and we don’t hear much squawking:
The very core of what this country stands for is on the line — the basic promise that no matter what you look like, no matter where you come from, this is a place where you could make it if you try. The notion that we’re all in this together, that we look out for one another — that’s at stake in this election. Don’t take my word for it. Watch some of these debates that have been going on up in New Hampshire.
Must be that new kind of politics. Wonder if his poll numbers would be any better if he spent more time attempting his uplift Americans and less time seeking to malign Republicans.
But they do, and perhaps America would be better off now if Bush had understood (and said) that.
Still your point is well taken: media double standard example #3,444,019.
As in President Obama’s case, a demagogue is not necessarily a leader; demagogues have a way of falling from grace, falling to the Earth, & completely melting down. Obama’s already there.
Fixed it for you. It’s much more accurate now.
Darn it; it should, of course, be “a place where you could make it…”
Wow. How to misread a quote. Obama’s clearly referring to the “let him die” re: the uninsured, and the booing of a soldier who happened to be gay, and so many other examples.
Are you saying that Repubs are all about looking out for each other? Their rhetoric contradicts.
Every single day, a Republican Presidential candidate questions if Obama’s a “real American” or has “real American values.”
While a candidate who toyed with the idea of secession (Perry) is considered a legit candidate by the GOP.
Ok, Fairgame, the president has said that Republican don’t believe in the promise of America, of equal opportunity and that we don’t want to look our for our fellows.
You say the Republicans presidential candidates contradict. Ok, please provide direct quotes. And please tell me why you cite a candidate who received just 1% of the vote in recent balloting. Should we then ascribe the rhetoric of Lyndon LaRouche to the Democratic Party since he tends to best that percentage in various Democratic contests (when his name is on the ballot).
And please provide your evidence that the president is referring to what you said he is referring to. Oh, and, yeah, since when do we ascribe to presidential candidates the angry cat-calls of audience members?
Dan, you’re losing commenters because of junk posts like these. It’s been a few weeks since I stopped by, and you were making the same posts back then too. Bitch about something else, or bitch in a new way… I mean my god, you’ve got to be completely out of ideas if you’re scandalized by the above quote. There’s nothing unique or unprecedented about it, it sounds like typical politician speak that you know everyone uses on a daily basis.
It also doesn’t help that whenever you do decide to respond to any of your critics’ posts, you invariably ignore their points and start asking for sources and assigning homework. I mean, do you really need proof that one of the Republican candidates has said something similar about Obama? We all know you’ve been writing papers and shit so you must be in that mode or whatever, but nobody wants to go track down sources and direct quotes for you when anyone with a passing awareness of current events should be able to accept some of these basic premises.
To sum up, many of your posts are extremely stale, which means everyone’s seen and discussed them before. Also, the demanding tone you take when you respond to your readers is a boring conversation ender that no one wants to take part in. I mean, if I am quantifying something, like talking about polls, and you want to know my source so you can look for yourself, by all means ask for a link. But if somebody says something as obvious and innocuous as Fairgame’s comment, just let it slide. Republicans are using divisive language too and you know it.
Well, Levi, I haven’t seen any of the leading Republicans suggesting the Democrats want to deprive people of opportunity and don’t want us to look out for one another. So, since you hint they’re legion (“obvious and innocuous,” as you put it), it should be easy for him — or you — to track down such things. I invite you to do so.
Please note we are looking for actual statements from leading presidential candidates. Right-wing bloggers don’t count.
So, are you telling me that it’s a “conversation ender” for me to ask my critics to back up their accusations against Republicans with evidence? This time, Levi, you do have a point; my request would be a conversation ender if the evidence didn’t exist.
How about a few from Mitt Romney then?
In particular:
Caught my eye. Isn’t that rather… divisive? Also:
Seems as close as you’ll ever get to “Democrats want to deprive people of opportunity”. Also a very neat false choice right there.
Is Rick Santorum still a ‘leading’ candidate?
Democrats would take away your opportunity to get ahead in life!
Oh, and you said you didn’t want ‘right-wing bloggers’ cited. Can I make an exception if the blogger happens to be you?
Amazing that yours is the most textbook example Daniel.
You’re making the argument Daniel should have. That the Republicans did accuse the Democrats of wanting to deprive people of opportunities, and did so correctly. That would have made for a more interesting debate.
Serenity, thanks for doing Levi’s work for him, but there’s a problem. In not one of those quotes did any of the candidates suggest the president wanted to deprive people of opportunity or wanted to reduce our society to a dog-eat-dog system.
Saying that the president favors a European-style entitlement society is not the same as suggesting he favors ethnic exclusion or greed.
And look what I said. Note the operative verb “serves” in the section you highlighted. I didn’t say Democrats seek to limit our freedom, but that their policies serve to do so. I did so so as not to impute their motives.
See the difference.
Indeed, I hope that in similar critiques of Democrats I was as careful as I was in that passage. Unlike the president I don’t have a paid staff vetting my writing, so I may slip up every now and again. Oh and I’m not the President of the United States. I put myself forward as a conservative blogger.
Hooray,
We are going to have a “debate” over whether Obama is correct in his attacks on Republicans and the Republicans more or less started it by not being in lockstep with Obama as he “fundamentally transforms America.”
“Both sides do it” is not the premise of the left, it is the conclusion that authorizes the premise that trashing the other party in any way, shape or form is political business as usual.
The TEA Party and Sarah Palin shot U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords by inciting Jared Lee Loughner through uncivil political speech. Therefore, Obama can be justified in saying that Republicans do not believe in the promise of America or in equal opportunity for all Americans and that do not want to care for our fellow Americans. Nothing uncivil there. Just political business as usual and, from a Progressive point of view, necessary red meat to get the various factions out to vote.
Bingo, Heliotrope.
One has to realize that the problem here is not how we disagree with Obama, but that we disagree with Obama at all.
Levi, Pomposity, and their new allies have established, per the word of the Messiah Obama, that those who disagree with him in any way, shape, or form are racist bitter clingers who are out to destroy him, end their ability to avoid having to take care of the children they produce, force them to pay for their own health care, push old ladies over cliffs, and gun down Obama Party politicians.
The latest spin from them concerning Obama’s appointments is instructive. Obama is justified in ignoring the Constitution and two hundred years of precedent because the country is in rebellion. Criticism of the President equals civil war. Indeed, the Messiah should declare Congress in permanent recess and rule by fiat instead of giving any voice whatsoever to those who would dare criticize his enlightened policies.
Keep in mind that these were the same people who for eight years assailed our ears with their high-pitched cries of “tyranny” and insisted that the same pro-forma sessions of Congress that they now deem illegal were necessary to block the evil Bush.
The Obama Party is ripping off its mask and burqa and standing before us now with its most naked and obvious beliefs exposed. We have “rights” only inasmuch as we agree with and obey Obama. We have property only inasmuch as Obama deems we “deserve” it. Our work is valuable and meaningful only inasmuch as Obama states it to be. Anything else is rebellion against the state and must be duly punished.
Oh, God, no! Not the burqa. Please don’t let me see the face!
NDT, I have sat mesmerized by a burqa clad woman at the banquet table balancing the food on the fork and threading it up under the burqa to get it to her mouth in a graceful manner.
The food must cross the edge of the table until the elbow and the lap at at the same level and the arm must come up under the veil as the head tilts slightly and the eyes move upward to maintain eye contract with others while not distracting others as the invisible hand and fork and food finds and feeds the obscured mouth.
It is damn near sensuous.
Of course they are different! They are on different sides of the political divide. Why would a line Obama says about Republicans be exactly the same as a line that Republicans say about Obama? Obama is going to ding Republicans for being greedy and corporate, Republicans are going to ding Obama for being wussy and socialist. Is that surprising to you? Are you really making the case that unless Republicans make the same word-for-word attack that Obama did, they are engaging in polite, rational discourse?
The question is who is being absurd and hyperbolic, and the bottom line is that you have no good reason to be upset over what Obama said. His comments are so unbelievably tame against the backdrop of the rest of political discourse that it bores me to tears. If you’re going to have a fit over it and then ignore crazy Republican attacks about death panels and birth certificates, I just don’t know how you can try to justify yourself by arguing unless the Republicans say the exact same thing that Obama said, they are in the free and clear.
No, oh my god, this is a train wreck of a conversation. You really have nothing without your semantics and little ‘tests.’
And, Levi, you have yet to provide examples to back up your points. If little tests, as you put it, are so silly, then it should be relatively easy for you to take them.
Please, please provide just one where the much maligned George W. Bush directly faulted the motives of his opponents as his successor does in the quote above.
For that is the appropriate comparison.