Showing posts with label disgraceful. Show all posts
Showing posts with label disgraceful. Show all posts
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
IF???????????????
"The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy and I regret that IF my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation, and particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that, whatsoever."
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Hillary: "Stop me before I bullshit again"
Clinton Desperate to Count Votes, Compares Fla. Primary to Zimbabwe
SUNRISE, FLA. -- Desperate to get attention for her cause to seat Florida and Michigan delegates, Hillary Clinton compared the plight of Zimbabweans in their recent fraudulent election to the uncounted votes of Michigan and Florida voters saying it is wrong when “people go through the motions of an election only to have them discarded and disregarded.”
“We’re seeing that right now in Zimbabwe," Clinton explained. "Tragically, an election was held, the president lost, they refused to abide by the will of the people,” Clinton told the crowd of senior citizens at a retirement community in south Florida.
SUNRISE, FLA. -- Desperate to get attention for her cause to seat Florida and Michigan delegates, Hillary Clinton compared the plight of Zimbabweans in their recent fraudulent election to the uncounted votes of Michigan and Florida voters saying it is wrong when “people go through the motions of an election only to have them discarded and disregarded.”
“We’re seeing that right now in Zimbabwe," Clinton explained. "Tragically, an election was held, the president lost, they refused to abide by the will of the people,” Clinton told the crowd of senior citizens at a retirement community in south Florida.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
As Far As I Know
Confronting the Kitchen Sink
By BOB HERBERT
Published: March 8, 2008 in the New York Times
The high anxiety in the Obama circles has thrown the campaign off its game.
Samantha Power, one of Senator Barack Obama’s senior foreign policy advisers, had to quit Friday after she lost her cool in an interview with a Scottish newspaper and called Senator Hillary Clinton a “monster.”
The campaign apologized for the flap. But Mr. Obama himself seems unsure of how to respond to the trash-and-thrash tactics that helped Senator Clinton defeat him in Ohio and Texas this week.
The anger that caused Ms. Power to blurt out the monster comment is widespread inside the Obama camp. But Senator Obama, for a variety of reasons — some of them self-imposed — is sharply constrained in the way that he can respond to provocations.
And if there is one thing the Clinton crowd knows how to do, it’s provoke.
On Thursday, Senator Clinton’s spokesman, Howard Wolfson, likened Senator Obama to Ken Starr, the independent prosecutor who hounded the Clintons in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Why the Clinton forces would want to inject that poisonous bit of business into the campaign is a mystery.
But there was Mr. Wolfson on Thursday, in response to a call from the Obama campaign for Mrs. Clinton to release her tax returns, asserting: “I, for one, do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election for president.”
More serious was Senator Clinton’s assertion that she was qualified to be commander in chief, and that John McCain had also “certainly” crossed that “threshold,” but that the jury was still out on Mr. Obama.
In other words, if a choice on national security had to be made today between Senators Obama and McCain, voters — according to Mrs. Clinton’s logic — should choose Senator McCain.
That is a low thing for a Democratic presidential candidate to do to a rival in a party primary. Can you imagine John McCain saying that Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney or even the guitar-strumming Mike Huckabee might be less qualified than Hillary Clinton to be commander in chief? It couldn’t happen.
But Senator Clinton never gave a second thought to opening the trap door beneath her fellow Democrat.
And then there was Mrs. Clinton on “60 Minutes,” being interviewed by Steve Kroft. He had shown a clip on the program of a voter in Ohio who said that he’d heard that Senator Obama didn’t know the national anthem, “wouldn’t use the Holy Bible,” and was a Muslim.
Mr. Kroft asked Senator Clinton if she believed that Senator Obama is a Muslim. In one of the sleaziest moments of the campaign to date, Senator Clinton replied: “No. No. Why would I? No, there is nothing to base that on. As far as I know.”
As far as I know.
If she had been asked if she thought President Bush was a Muslim, would her response have included the caveat “as far as I know”? What about Senator McCain? Why, then, with Senator Obama?
In the run-up to the crucial Texas and Ohio primaries, the plan in the Clinton camp, as The Times reported, was to unleash as many lines of attack as possible — a “kitchen sink” fusillade — in the hope that something would work. Senator Obama is still trying to figure out how to respond.
Whatever anger and frustration he may be feeling, he should stick to the high road. He can’t win wrestling in the mud with Hillary Clinton. That will not put Barack Obama in the White House.
Mr. Obama’s strength was his message of hope and healing, the idea that he could bring disparate groups together to work on the nation’s toughest problems. That has gotten him this far, which is much further than almost anyone expected.
He now needs an added dimension. He needs to articulate a vision. He needs to spell out to voters where he wants to take this country over the next few years, how he will alleviate the suffering of millions trapped in vicious economic circumstances and what he will do to restore the honor and prestige of the U.S. around the world.
Political campaigns are not about fairness, but they can often be about vision. Voters want more from Senator Obama.
He may not be able to close the deal with, say, working-class whites, but he more than anyone else has the eloquence to try and make a compelling case. He should go for it.
We have seen election after election in which candidates have won by fanning the anxieties of voters. Elect me, or something terrible will happen to you!
That is now the Clinton mantra, which is a measure of how grim our politics have become.
By BOB HERBERT
Published: March 8, 2008 in the New York Times
The high anxiety in the Obama circles has thrown the campaign off its game.
Samantha Power, one of Senator Barack Obama’s senior foreign policy advisers, had to quit Friday after she lost her cool in an interview with a Scottish newspaper and called Senator Hillary Clinton a “monster.”
The campaign apologized for the flap. But Mr. Obama himself seems unsure of how to respond to the trash-and-thrash tactics that helped Senator Clinton defeat him in Ohio and Texas this week.
The anger that caused Ms. Power to blurt out the monster comment is widespread inside the Obama camp. But Senator Obama, for a variety of reasons — some of them self-imposed — is sharply constrained in the way that he can respond to provocations.
And if there is one thing the Clinton crowd knows how to do, it’s provoke.
On Thursday, Senator Clinton’s spokesman, Howard Wolfson, likened Senator Obama to Ken Starr, the independent prosecutor who hounded the Clintons in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Why the Clinton forces would want to inject that poisonous bit of business into the campaign is a mystery.
But there was Mr. Wolfson on Thursday, in response to a call from the Obama campaign for Mrs. Clinton to release her tax returns, asserting: “I, for one, do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election for president.”
More serious was Senator Clinton’s assertion that she was qualified to be commander in chief, and that John McCain had also “certainly” crossed that “threshold,” but that the jury was still out on Mr. Obama.
In other words, if a choice on national security had to be made today between Senators Obama and McCain, voters — according to Mrs. Clinton’s logic — should choose Senator McCain.
That is a low thing for a Democratic presidential candidate to do to a rival in a party primary. Can you imagine John McCain saying that Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney or even the guitar-strumming Mike Huckabee might be less qualified than Hillary Clinton to be commander in chief? It couldn’t happen.
But Senator Clinton never gave a second thought to opening the trap door beneath her fellow Democrat.
And then there was Mrs. Clinton on “60 Minutes,” being interviewed by Steve Kroft. He had shown a clip on the program of a voter in Ohio who said that he’d heard that Senator Obama didn’t know the national anthem, “wouldn’t use the Holy Bible,” and was a Muslim.
Mr. Kroft asked Senator Clinton if she believed that Senator Obama is a Muslim. In one of the sleaziest moments of the campaign to date, Senator Clinton replied: “No. No. Why would I? No, there is nothing to base that on. As far as I know.”
As far as I know.
If she had been asked if she thought President Bush was a Muslim, would her response have included the caveat “as far as I know”? What about Senator McCain? Why, then, with Senator Obama?
In the run-up to the crucial Texas and Ohio primaries, the plan in the Clinton camp, as The Times reported, was to unleash as many lines of attack as possible — a “kitchen sink” fusillade — in the hope that something would work. Senator Obama is still trying to figure out how to respond.
Whatever anger and frustration he may be feeling, he should stick to the high road. He can’t win wrestling in the mud with Hillary Clinton. That will not put Barack Obama in the White House.
Mr. Obama’s strength was his message of hope and healing, the idea that he could bring disparate groups together to work on the nation’s toughest problems. That has gotten him this far, which is much further than almost anyone expected.
He now needs an added dimension. He needs to articulate a vision. He needs to spell out to voters where he wants to take this country over the next few years, how he will alleviate the suffering of millions trapped in vicious economic circumstances and what he will do to restore the honor and prestige of the U.S. around the world.
Political campaigns are not about fairness, but they can often be about vision. Voters want more from Senator Obama.
He may not be able to close the deal with, say, working-class whites, but he more than anyone else has the eloquence to try and make a compelling case. He should go for it.
We have seen election after election in which candidates have won by fanning the anxieties of voters. Elect me, or something terrible will happen to you!
That is now the Clinton mantra, which is a measure of how grim our politics have become.
Friday, July 6, 2007
The John Hopkins University
What a piece of shit.
Fouad Ajami, a professor (and he has won prizes! They love to give each other prizes!) at the esteemed university I once thought seriously of attending, has written a piece for the Wall Street Journal attracting some attention in which he says of Bush's approach to morality: "the one defining mark of [his] moral outlook is the distinction [he is able to make(?)] between friend and foe," which really only illuminates how difficult it is to find something nice to say about Bush. Being able to tell the difference between friend and foe is something we expect of our five year olds, something we hope our presidents have managed long ago. As well, the action of marking friend and foe is only the beginning of a process to determine proper action and context of action for the self. In the Bush presidency, marking friend and marking foe involves a process that has typically led to great corruption and great heartache. We are not talking about Churchill here. Instead we are talking of roses for politically connected corporations and endless ache for others.
Now Ajami was writing this piece earlier and calling for Bush to pardon Libby. His piece, pedantic, insipid and superficial, went beyond straining the bonds of credulity however and entered the realms of the insultingly delusional. He wrote:
How does one have the audacity or just the sheer stupidity to compare Scooter Libby to a soldier right now? How is he comparable? When soldiers in Iraq fall are they wearing custom tailored suits while being advised on their movements by lawyers who bill thousands of dollars an hour? Is the consequence of their falling an easy stretch in a minimum security jail? In another tack, was it a war that the White House was fighting in order to convince the American public that attacking a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 or any terrorism directed against the United States was the right move to make even as we invaded another more culpable foe? If it was then war, then are we accusing the Bush presidency, by application of this logic, of bringing civil war to the United States? An odd and idiotic defense of the indefensible.
Getting caught up in this part of his article is to miss the point elsewhere that this fool who has a koosh job in a comfortable university (a university started in much more a spirit of challenging established authorities when it was begun about 130 years ago which has clearly lost its way on that score) believes that Libby has sacrificed something out of a nobility of spirit in choosing to reveal the identity of a secret United States agent and obstruct the justice of the United States in the pursuit of a flawed and tragic policy that has not revealed anything of any nobility at all, but has just allowed the rotten fruits of this administration to smell more strongly in the light of the larger stage of war than they would have if Bush was simply giving the environment away (another thing he excels at).
Why do we suffer these fools so docilely?
How does Professor Ajami have a job when he so publicly reveals not just his ignorance, but an appalling lack of reason, intelligence or any sense whatsoever of a political philosophy that contains insight, distinction or foresight? He is an apologist. A flunky. Increasingly, our system of higher education rewards morons like this while the more original thinkers are included out of a process out of fear that those more original thinkers will reveal these flunkies for what they are: dangerous fools with no more right to pontificate and teach than the dogs they resemble.
So a big "Go Fuck Yourself" to The John Hopkins University and the lapdogs they hire for this pathetic and dangerous administration.
Fouad Ajami, a professor (and he has won prizes! They love to give each other prizes!) at the esteemed university I once thought seriously of attending, has written a piece for the Wall Street Journal attracting some attention in which he says of Bush's approach to morality: "the one defining mark of [his] moral outlook is the distinction [he is able to make(?)] between friend and foe," which really only illuminates how difficult it is to find something nice to say about Bush. Being able to tell the difference between friend and foe is something we expect of our five year olds, something we hope our presidents have managed long ago. As well, the action of marking friend and foe is only the beginning of a process to determine proper action and context of action for the self. In the Bush presidency, marking friend and marking foe involves a process that has typically led to great corruption and great heartache. We are not talking about Churchill here. Instead we are talking of roses for politically connected corporations and endless ache for others.
Now Ajami was writing this piece earlier and calling for Bush to pardon Libby. His piece, pedantic, insipid and superficial, went beyond straining the bonds of credulity however and entered the realms of the insultingly delusional. He wrote:
In "The Soldier's Creed," there is a particularly compelling principle: "I will never leave a fallen comrade." This is a cherished belief, and it has been so since soldiers and chroniclers and philosophers thought about wars and great, common endeavors. Across time and space, cultures, each in its own way, have given voice to this most basic of beliefs. They have done it, we know, to give heart to those who embark on a common mission, to give them confidence that they will not be given up under duress. A process that yields up Scooter Libby to a zealous prosecutor is justice gone awry.
How does one have the audacity or just the sheer stupidity to compare Scooter Libby to a soldier right now? How is he comparable? When soldiers in Iraq fall are they wearing custom tailored suits while being advised on their movements by lawyers who bill thousands of dollars an hour? Is the consequence of their falling an easy stretch in a minimum security jail? In another tack, was it a war that the White House was fighting in order to convince the American public that attacking a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 or any terrorism directed against the United States was the right move to make even as we invaded another more culpable foe? If it was then war, then are we accusing the Bush presidency, by application of this logic, of bringing civil war to the United States? An odd and idiotic defense of the indefensible.
Getting caught up in this part of his article is to miss the point elsewhere that this fool who has a koosh job in a comfortable university (a university started in much more a spirit of challenging established authorities when it was begun about 130 years ago which has clearly lost its way on that score) believes that Libby has sacrificed something out of a nobility of spirit in choosing to reveal the identity of a secret United States agent and obstruct the justice of the United States in the pursuit of a flawed and tragic policy that has not revealed anything of any nobility at all, but has just allowed the rotten fruits of this administration to smell more strongly in the light of the larger stage of war than they would have if Bush was simply giving the environment away (another thing he excels at).
Why do we suffer these fools so docilely?
How does Professor Ajami have a job when he so publicly reveals not just his ignorance, but an appalling lack of reason, intelligence or any sense whatsoever of a political philosophy that contains insight, distinction or foresight? He is an apologist. A flunky. Increasingly, our system of higher education rewards morons like this while the more original thinkers are included out of a process out of fear that those more original thinkers will reveal these flunkies for what they are: dangerous fools with no more right to pontificate and teach than the dogs they resemble.
So a big "Go Fuck Yourself" to The John Hopkins University and the lapdogs they hire for this pathetic and dangerous administration.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Only the Fucking Cubs
Chi Cubs 5, NY Mets 1
Bottom 9th: NY Mets
- R. Dempster relieved W. Ohman
- D. Newhan singled to center
- R. Castro lined out to right
- C. Gomez singled to right center, D. Newhan to third
- C. Beltran hit for A. Burgos
- C. Gomez to second on fielder's indifference
- C. Beltran walked
- E. Chavez walked, D. Newhan scored, C. Gomez to third, C. Beltran to second
- R. Gotay singled to left, C. Gomez scored, C. Beltran to third, E. Chavez to second
- S. Eyre relieved R. Dempster
- D. Wright hit for S. Green
- D. Wright singled to center, C. Beltran scored, E. Chavez to third, R. Gotay to second
- C. Delgado singled to right, E. Chavez and R. Gotay scored, D. Wright to second
5 runs, 5 hits, 0 errors
Chi Cubs 5, NY Mets 6
Bottom 9th: NY Mets
- R. Dempster relieved W. Ohman
- D. Newhan singled to center
- R. Castro lined out to right
- C. Gomez singled to right center, D. Newhan to third
- C. Beltran hit for A. Burgos
- C. Gomez to second on fielder's indifference
- C. Beltran walked
- E. Chavez walked, D. Newhan scored, C. Gomez to third, C. Beltran to second
- R. Gotay singled to left, C. Gomez scored, C. Beltran to third, E. Chavez to second
- S. Eyre relieved R. Dempster
- D. Wright hit for S. Green
- D. Wright singled to center, C. Beltran scored, E. Chavez to third, R. Gotay to second
- C. Delgado singled to right, E. Chavez and R. Gotay scored, D. Wright to second
5 runs, 5 hits, 0 errors
Chi Cubs 5, NY Mets 6
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