American Politics Thread 2014

wait this thing is still on?!

Press conference was at 11 est? 4 days of traffic shutdowns and Christie knew nothing?

http://brucemctague.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Schulz-I-know-nothing.jpg

HE IS STILL TALKING

it's fuckin awesome really. the right-wing twitter spin is "THIS is how you do an apology press conference. answer EVERYBODY'S questions. no 'no further questions.' just answer until there are none"

the underrated a spin is "wow this dude loves to hear himself talk"

Sam Stein ✔ @samsteinhp
Halperin and Heilman's next book: "Lane Change"

lol @ "traffic study"

aero i hate to quibble but afaic can tell the right-wing twitter spin on this is BENGHAZI

er extra can tell there

FreeRepublic.txt ‏@FreeRepublicTXT 3m
This afternoon, Christie will announce, "I am a Gay American."

- and all will be forgiven.

just when you think they can't surprise you by finding the most hateful spin imaginable

FreeRepublic.txt ‏@FreeRepublicTXT 3m
This afternoon, Christie will announce, "I am a Gay American."

idgi

in a way tho i can see conservatives' point about this and benghazi, both christie and al qaeda are really into revenge

idgi

― panettone for the painfully alone (mayor jingleberries), Thursday, January 9, 2014 6:08 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think the 'joke' is "haha he will come out as gay and then it will all be good bcz you can't dislike gay people in obama's america"

my memory is failing -- that refers to someone in particular

mcgreevey

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BdjokkACMAA-_om.jpg

did Christie dip his face in carbolic acid

yes

powerful conservative images

the fun thing now is watching all the tales of further petty retributions leak out

yeah imagine how badly they'd fuck over someone who was in charge of a place where they actually needed votes to win

Gov McGreevey rather sleazily used coming out of the closet as a way to smother questions about favors for his boytoy (and skip outta Trenton).

but that scandal wasn't as fun bcz he was a thin Democrat

well he just resigned so no one cared to follow up

Also no one died

his problem is that the right wing of the republican party is against him and he won't get the nomination, right? am i wrong to suspect he would own in a presidential campaign though?

the right wing of the republican party was against john mccain and mitt romney

he won't get the nomination because he's an asshole and comes off like one not because of his politics or this scandal

who's gonna get the nomination though

I have no idea, but I expect the nominating process to be hilarious sad and scary (ie just like last time only moreso)

feel like it's gotta be a governor, no remaining party satraps in Congress that even want it afaict, and Rand Paul or Cruz will never make it

paul ryan has a good shot imho

Ryan/Palin ticket

*masturbates*

god why are you not permabanned

that would be blasphemy!

oh, you were talking to waterface, nvrmind

paul ryan has a good shot imho

― lag∞n

agree w/ this, dude is positioning for sure

the party loves him too, they totally lost their shit over him at the convention

plus those sad sad eyes, who can resist

gop loves guns and w/ paul ryan the gunshow is always in town

hey, you ladies get your tickets?

Josh Barro:

How did Christie not know? There were 117 days between when the Bridgegate story broke and when the governor learned that one of his Deputy Chiefs of Staff, Bridget Kelly, had called for the lane closures. One of his close confidants whom he just selected to run the New Jersey Republican Party, Bill Stepien, is also implicated. Despite the fact that increasing national attention was being paid to this story through the fall, Christie — who has a background as an aggressive prosecutor! — had no idea some of his closest allies were involved. Why was he so oblivious? Christie has been reduced to insisting that his staff has been out to control and lying to him about what they're doing. That's not an ideal talking point to have to lean on.

Why would Christie's appointees have thought this was a good idea? Politicians survive scandals of staff misbehavior all the time. But in this instance, the misbehavior was conducted on Christie's behalf, in order to execute a political strategy to benefit the governor. How did Christie create a culture in which his appointees in his administration and at the Port Authority would get together and assume this was something the governor would want them to do?

It begins:

KJL: What was your impression of Christie’s press conference?

HEWITT: That was one of the most fascinating, indeed riveting two hours in recent American political history. The comparisons to Nixon’s Checkers speech will arrive soon, and of course already have arrived vis-a-vis President Obama’s standard duck-cover-filibuster pressers. Authentic, transparent, unscripted and sincere. Very powerful.

lol yes the "Authentic, transparent, unscripted and sincere" Checkers speech

yeah christie didnt even use a teleprompter. white house or bust.

wait, the checkers speech was good? i thought it was considered despicable and self pitying, but i wasn't there... xpost

hewitt is amazing

"Nixon's speech was seen or heard by about 60 million Americans, including the largest television audience to that time, and led to an outpouring of public support. A huge majority of the millions of telegrams and phone calls received by the RNC and other political offices supported Nixon. He was retained on the ticket, which then swept to victory weeks later in November 1952. The Checkers speech was an early example of a politician using television to appeal directly to the electorate, but has since sometimes been mocked or denigrated. Checkers speech has come more generally to mean any emotional speech by a politician."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkers_speech

the Checkers speech was "good" in the sense that it rescued Nixon's political career

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh163n1lJ4M

and he managed to trick Ike into releasing HIS tax records, which resulted in Ike thinking Nixon was an untrustworthy louse

Ike was a little slow on the uptake there