the most important election of your lifetime: 2012 american general election thread

by all available evidence Obama has continued if not perfected Bush-Cheney policies of shoot first ask questions later

he Justice Department going after the Bush administration full bore for torture/spying/etc. would have been a huge political clusterfuck.

who cares? Worrying about the Political Consequences only concerns Cokie and the Sunday morning brunch crowd. To me it would have redeemed any administration to see Bush's crimes unveiled, hour after hour. I know Nothing Will Get Done, I guess, if you consider the metric by which DC does its work, but we have a long history and that's what The Long View is for. Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon was one of the grossest mistakes made for the sake of "bipartisanship"

lol are you fucking kidding me

...by all available evidence Obama has continued if not perfected Bush-Cheney policies of shoot first ask questions later

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

i think matt's point was that, relative to the obama admin's list of crimes, the fact that they didn't prosecute the bush admin is small potatoes.

Our job as liberals -- in the same way the so-called Tea Party operates -- isn't to worry about "clusterfucks." Our job is to push and push and push and push a Democratic administration into doing as much as we want as possible. "Political clusterfucks" are irrelevant to me -- that's Barack Obama's problem.

i think matt's point was that, relative to the obama admin's list of crimes, the fact that they didn't prosecute the bush admin is small potatoes.

so he says

...into doing as much as we want as possible. "Political clusterfucks" are irrelevant to me -- that's Barack Obama's problem.

Leaving aside whatever Obama has or hasn't done, don't political clusterfucks automatically make what's possible less possible?

not necessarily. dramatic action tends to generate controversy, but often results in substantial change.

We all go around in circles and say things we've said a thousand times before. I'll stand by something I wrote on some thread a year ago: in terms of bringing the Obama din to a close, Romney will be a relief. (For me, anyway--for a while, at least.)

Yeah vindicating a seething mass of racists will be a big relief

Not what I meant, of course.

That's ok, just being a dick.

I am, I mean.

If it's any small consolation, I imagine Romney will have the people on the right who most hate Obama back to something approximating seething before too long.

He'll turn out to be a black guy

http://cdn.eurweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/romney_philly_charter_shool2012-wide.jpg

"You're just the right height, son."

In horse race news, 538 turned on the national model. O at 62% to win.

Pretty interesting. It's a very tentative 62%--the "nowcast," as he says, with a forecast of something much closer. Silver was a model of precision in 2008, although his own bias was in sync with the electorate there--not sure if that matters or not. One number does strike me as almost laughably improbable: 11.3% for an Obama landslide (defined as a popular-vote margin of 10+ points).

I stand corrected. 62% is his Nov. 6 forecast; his nowcast gives Obama a 77% chance of winning. Don't see it myself.

silentmajority.wav

apathetic40percent.midi

Andrew, I'm pretty close to the aero/morbs side of the spectrum, and I give waaaaaaayyyyy less of a fuck about how history will view things like extrajudicial killings than I do about the fact that the president is ordering extrajudicial killings.

This would be an excellent point if I'd said it was the only or even the main thing that annoys.

Transparency's a bitch, isn't it. Were we better off when our leaders were doing criminal things - and they were all doing criminal things, and always have been doing criminal things, just like lots of people - but we didn't know it? Or only suspected it?

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/09/biden-drenched-by-children-with-super-soakers/

That whole oberturning Jim Crow thing, damn, it was a political clusterfuck.

Even without going to prison, Nixon DID NOT "totally get away with what he did." Most educated people today know he was a monster.

"overturning," blech

I've been reading Twelve Caesars by Suetonius. Supreme leaders are something of a criminal class all by themselves, so it is hard to fault Obama specifically for a criminality that is altogether typical of his class. /theyalldoitdefense

it is not at all hard to fault anyone for their wrongdoing, no matter how common it may seem. millions are imprisoned for crimes that tens of millions commit. it is only by demanding extraordinarily honorable behavior, and by being genuinely shocked and outraged by anything less, that we can exert pressure against the typical criminality of those who rule us.

lol are you fucking kidding me

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, June 10, 2012 3:08 AM (18 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

by all available evidence Obama has continued if not perfected Bush-Cheney policies of shoot first ask questions later

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, June 10, 2012 3:09 AM (18 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

try to read more carefully.

Even without going to prison, Nixon DID NOT "totally get away with what he did." Most educated people today know he was a monster.

― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Sunday, June 10, 2012 4:43 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And future Justice Department actions had nothing to do with that, surely you'd admit?

Plus there's tons of Nixon image rehab, some of it still ongoing.

Our job as liberals -- in the same way the so-called Tea Party operates -- isn't to worry about "clusterfucks." Our job is to push and push and push and push a Democratic administration into doing as much as we want as possible. "Political clusterfucks" are irrelevant to me -- that's Barack Obama's problem.

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, June 10, 2012 3:24 AM (18 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a fullbore prosecution of the Bush Administration for war crimes would be the defining act of Obama's presidency. He wouldn't be able to get anything else done for years. You have to pick your battles, and I'd rather he pick health care or energy policy. I'd also rather he didn't legalize assassinations.

He wouldn't be able to get anything else done for years.

How would that be any different than his record so far?

for me, healthcare reform>torture prosecutions. I know some on this board think it's nothing, or worse than nothing, but for me it's a big deal.

and the blowback/mixed results of Bush era torture/spying prosecutions would be even worse than healthcare imo.

We don't know -- it's never been tried! Gerry Ford ruined it for later generations of TV viewers.

The people don't want Bush or his cronies to be prosecuted for anything. The wars might be unpopular, but Obama going against "The Military" (that's how it will be framed) would be disastrous and play right into every bullshit narrative the Right's been pushing about anti-defence lefty 'weaklings' and Americans are so pathetically reverent to the soldiers "WHO SACRIFICE SO MUCH FOR OUR SECURITY". If you can break down "average America"'s saddo blind spot to the utter shittiness of the military then maybe, but it's a country of morons so whatareyagonnado. Also Healthcare definitely more important.

liberals listing priorities >>> liberals condescending to the public

Don't give a shit about condescending to stupid people.

Ford really had a great opportunity; he was from the same political party, he probably wasn't going to be elected President, why not make a fucking stand and not pardon the bastard? Oh well.

Since, I'll repeat, we have never indicted a president and his administration's policies it's purest Chuck Todd (who patiently explained in numbing detail back in 2009 exactly why Obama shouldn't pursue Bush) to pretend we know what's going to happen. Anyway it's useless to protest now because Obama could theoretically be indicted by future administrations for continuing Bush's crimes. Chuck Todd will be around for a long time.

we've never dropped a hydrogen bomb on a city, makes ya think

They should start indicting quick though because time is running out to bring all those dead back to life.

we'll let you pick the bodies of people who've died from inadequate health care.

cheers!

for me, healthcare reform>torture prosecutions.

man, with real respect & love, I have such a hard time understanding this. this is "something I get" = "people who got tortured can go fuck themselves." morally I cannot understand this.

and to be clear about it, that's because "there is a conceivable/imaginable reality in which your health care issues get resolved" is more realizable than "there is a conceivable/imaginable reality in which people who get tortured do not get tortured" - one, while probably practically intractable, isn't as "once you cross this bridge, you can't go back over it" as the other

Prosecuting a past offence doesn't seem nearly as important to me than helping the millions in the country who are presently suffering medically and financially due to the fucking woeful system America has.

there is a quite conceivable reality in which we never torture people again, there is no conceivable reality in which all americans get first world health care in the next 20 years.

if you really think issue #1 is 'more realizable' than issue #2 I dunno what to say.

maybe start by asking yourself how much money there is in the torture business.

iatee!

Our job as liberals -- in the same way the so-called Tea Party operates -- isn't to worry about "clusterfucks." Our job is to push and push and push and push a Democratic administration into doing as much as we want as possible. "Political clusterfucks" are irrelevant to me -- that's Barack Obama's problem.

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, June 10, 2012 3:24 AM (18 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is OTM. Why are we always playing political Fantasy Football, trying to out-Rahm Rahm, or out-Axelrod Axelrod when the right has proved that the most effective tactic is to demand 100% of what you want all the time?

the right has proven the costs of overreach almost as often as they've proven its benefits