US POLITICS SPRING 2011: Let's just call off this country.

you don't understand that (a) there was no reason to release his "long form" birth certificate" when (b) the percentage of the country that believed he should have released it was never going to vote for him.

I'm not Morbs -- I acknowledge some positives. Understand that my skepticism is rooted in my instant attraction. I read Dreams of My Father in 2006! But I see attraction as a roadblock.

but he's not courting you

xp

For what it's worth: I was once accused on a baseball thread of enjoying these Clemenza-vs.-the-world debates. No, I pointed out--didn't then, don't now. I would really love for someone closer to my own point of view to jump on right now and chime in.

My guess is that he released it not to win votes, but just to shut some percentage of them up--half of 30%? a third? somewhere in there. And, yes, he also released it for political reasons. I'm not oblivious to the fact that Obama is much more of a politician than he presented himself as in 2008. Which is fine--that's politics.

even Obama had a few seconds of icy-stare pique when Myers started talking about Huckabee and Kenya (around 11:40 in the video clip above). Probably manufactured--he has to show he has feelings.

This bit is now suspiciously absent from the video on the C-SPAN site.

You haven't mentioned yet what you would consider an unacceptable compromise, clemenza.

i would've liked to have seen him send some shots @ newt, such an easy target

For as long as you're got four or five Democratic senators who are essentially Republicans, that's hard to say. But I would hope that he stands up for Medicare and Social Security as much as possible in the next big budget showdown (which, as I understand it, is bigger than the one that just took place). But I also realize that your country has a major deficit problem. So I don't have the answer there. I don't think anyone does.

At present "stands for Medicare and Social Security" means "stands for drastic reductions in Medicaid and SS at the same time that I accepted the Bush-era tax cuts as a baseline for fiscal responsibility."

I got nothin' here--I'll have to defer to you on specifics for the time being. But I will check into that.

1) The dinner is a fact of life.

What would happen if the prez just refused to play? That's the prez I want (if I thought there'd ever be another good one).

Yeah, Obama is doing "the best he can" to be Bush 3.0.

clemenza, you're Canadian.

and re that Nate Silver thing placing O on the 'liberal' scale, how did he account for a generic mainstream liberal in 1975 being a Trotskyite loon in 2011? (Answer not necessary. I rue the day Silver left Baseball Prospectus for this trivia.)

You haven't mentioned yet what you would consider an unacceptable compromise, clemenza.

Don't want to speak for clemenza but I think the way that you & I & morbz & k3v & I'm not sure who else think of this thing is from a deep-ideological place different from the way that clemenza & others do. not "better" or "worse" but different at a real fundamental place. from what I'd call just for the sake of sportsmanship "the rational stance," there's no answer to "what is an unacceptable compromise" - if a question comes to the point of "get nothing or compromise," the correct answer will always be "compromise," because small gain is better than no gain, and is perceived by this mindset to always be movement in the right direction.

to the opposing/different standpoint, which I'd call "the emotional standpoint" but ppl can say "irrational" or "childish" or whatever, there is value - symbolic at the very least, but I at any rate would argue that symbolic value has rippling actual effects in many places (vide how aggressive the right is on abortion right now; if compromises that many said weren't really important, practically, had not been made, I believe the right would be much less likely to move so boldly now) - in holding to principle even when it causes you to lose ground/political capital/votes/elections. this good can even be conceived as greater than short-term gains, even though many of these are practical & have genuine benefits for people's lives (we got health care! --except that for the many women for whom Planned Parenthood was primary care provider, they didn't "get health care" in the compromise - they lost health care) which cannot be denied and shouldn't be minimized. In a way, cleaving to principle is to always also be compromising; you are compromising the gains you're turning down.

Everybody already knows that I think this, but I think the longstanding effects of the "when it's compromise or stand your ground and get nothing, there are times when it's better in the long view to stand your ground" have been amply demonstrated over the past eleven years: they are catastrophic.

Carter didn't "play," and he was punished (deservedly). Look at Reagan: he "played" and not only got most of his legislative agenda passed -- besides winning the pundit war -- but changed forever the "conversation" from liberal to conservative.

I accept proudly membership in your/our claque, but I know a lot about presidential power and I accept -- not to mention sympathize -- how to use prez-level "charisma" and control over patronage power for acceptable levels of achievements.

sorry fucked up that last graf, which should read

Everybody already knows that I think this, but I think the longstanding effects of the "when it's compromise or stand your ground and get nothing, some compromise is always best" have been amply demonstrated over the past eleven years: they are catastrophic.

A general observation, though: in the midst of a fragile, skittish economic recovery, having the government shut down seems to me to be a dubious proposition. I know Clinton won that battle, but he did so in a very different context.

I'm Canadian, yes. So I don't directly feel the impact of whatever takes place in Washington (indirectly, yes, although Canada has maintained surprising equilibrium during the economic meltdown--usually we're much more aligned with what happens in the States). But it doesn't mean I can't take an interest or have opinions, right? I follow American politics much more closely than my own country's.

I accept your answer -- politely and amiably, I hope -- but then wonder if what you know about presidential power requires civility and moderation as virtues, which, as a result, leads you to admissions like "-'ll have to defer to you on specifics for the time being."

I agree that my fuck-the-correspondents scenario would require the American public to not be apolitical zombies, so yes again, I have given up.

aero otm, but I'd backdate it to at least '92: ever since the Dems got 'realistic' with Bubba's Third Way and marched along with BushCheney's post-9/11 security framework, the gains of the Great Society have been nearly obliterated.

Alfred, your admiration for Reagan's 'optics' (bleccchh) seems to overshadow the fact that America loved him because he told them pretty lies.

Your sentence is a tautology. Reread what I wrote.

Well, deferring to you on specifics for the time being means I'll check into it and then decide if what you say is true or not. You said something about Nixon and Monica Crowley on another thread, I disagreed, I checked into it, and concluded that my reading was closer to the truth than yours.

first let me look up tautology

xp

Reagan got what he wanted because (a) he was expert at lying to them (b) the citizenry was SO ready to be expertly deceived.

oh, yeah

there's a ballgame on, so later

lol I've even alienated Morbz.

(I start off by saying "Well..." a lot. I guess I did learn something from Reagan.)

No ballgame, but 52 11-year-olds who are waiting for science projects to be returned. Tomorrow, my country goes to the polls. Tune into your national newscasts about 21 minutes into the broadcast on Tuesday, and they should have a 15-second summary of what happened.

I think the longstanding effects of the "when it's compromise or stand your ground and get nothing, some compromise is always best" have been amply demonstrated over the past eleven years: they are catastrophic.

this is not what you're talking about, but there *are* situations where unpalatable and unfair choices may be best. the example i'm thinking of is tarp, which let incompetent assholes off the hook, but at least prevented graver damage to the larger economy.

it is very unfortunate that steps have not been taken to prevent a recurrence, but that doesn't make the choice wrong.

with u on the pp stuff though!

You have not alienated me, Alfred, I prefer watching the doomed Mets to discussing our doomed country.

but the mets are winning!

maybe our country can win too

so any theories on what this Obama statement at 10:30 is going to be

resigning to succeed Leno

maybe he's gonna say our nukes accidentally got set off

a stern talking-to for the white sox bullpen

speculation is that osama bin laden's been killed. will link.

significant enough for me to come off of ILX hiatus.

dafnalinzer Dafna Linzer/by DavidCornDC. From Rumsfeld's spox RT @keithurbahn: So I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn.

(sorry, that sounded absurd. just dropping by to pass along some possibly good news.

stronger evidence:

daveweigel daveweigel/by DavidCornDC
RT @jacksonjk: House Intelligence committee aide confirms that Osama Bin Laden is dead. U.S. has the body.

yoooo

Zombie Bin Laden still on the loose!

At the risk of sounding gauche, it's not like anyone in the Republican Party, or American generally, much cares about bin Laden. For the former, he was a means to an end. For the latter, they think Hussein did it while bin Laden went down the memory hole.

*America

Morgan Spurlock will finally get some relief if it's true.

yea i mean, kinda like when Saddam was captured, it really doesn't mean a lot as it's ten years too late. still a good thing, obv, but I'm hardly as excited as I woulda been if we captured him in like, say, 2003...if this is even what they're reporting

this Mets game is actually way awesome imo, how can you not like a pitcher named "Bastardo"

msnbc just going for it.

BREAKING NEWS10:40 PM ET
Osama bin Laden Is Dead, White House Says

haha yeah whoever was on before was all pressing his earpiece in going "can i say it involves an event overseas? oh well i just said that, an event overseas"

Wolf Blitzer has said "I don't want to speculate" 49 times in the last five minutes. I'll speculate that he's dying to speculate.

I'm already feeling safer

I won't believe it's Osama til I see his birth certificate. Hey-o!