There it is. First press conference. By stating without qualification that Hamas is a terrorist group, Obama has just made it very difficult for those in the State Department who are going to make a relentless case for direct negotiations with Hamas.
Contentions
“…Support of Terrorist Groups like Hezbollah and Hamas…”
John Podhoretz
| @jpodhoretz
02.09.2009 - 8:18 PM
02.09.2009 - 8:18 PM
It reeks of desperation from the Obama team. Change the subject (off the stock market) and go to Obama’s strength: campaigning. They are trying to create someone for him to “run” against. A sign of real weakness.
Time magazine, wrong again. I did NOT vote for his O’liness and I did NOT expect any better from him; all they had to do is LOOK at his effing record to figure it out. He defeats opponents by getting them kicked off the ballot! What the hell is wrong with the media? Doesn’t ANY of these fools comprehend that what a person DOES matters much more than what he SAYS? And they wonder why nobody buys their stupid magazine anymore. My dog has more insight into a person’s character than a modern MSM journalist.
Don’t you think this trope about “new politics” is getting a bit long-in-the-tooth?
It’s simply as small detail that Obama is operating not at all as he claimed–because his speeches, for those not mesmerized by his oratory, were vacuous, banal, and content-free–but as his past actions indicated. A left-wing ideologue (Alinsky, Ayers, Wright, et al.), raised the Chicago-way in politics, whose record hints of nothing else.
Lets just say, there are some of us who are not surprised at the unfolding disaster that is his administration.
The American people voted for him–and they are getting it, and getting it royally.
Ah yes, keep flogging the “childish things” talking point.
Like your side doesn’t continually attempt to make Nancy Pelosi or Barney Frank the poster children for liberalism. Now you are out of the gutter and on the high road. Never mind all that AyersRezkoBlago stuff, you now are the party that opposes ad hominem attacks.
Whatever. You got your clocks cleaned. Sweaty, unlikable, pill-popping Rush is now the bloated face of your party. Your Congressional and party leaders have shown that they are wimps. Your party chairman is permanently damaged. Your party approval is at an all time low. And the only answer you have is to call Obama childish. Hey, isn’t that an ad hominem attack?
Wow. You can’t even keep up the premise for one entire blog post.
The “argumentum ad hominem” is not the same thing as any insult. An ad hominem attack would be “Obama’s policy on mortgage foreclosures are wrong because he’s a doofus.” Accusing someone of hypocrisy – behaving childishly after high-mindedly standing against childish things, for instance – is not an ad hominem attack. Nor is it an ad hominem attack to suggest that a hypocrite can’t be trusted: Untrustworthiness is a logical implication of hypocrisy.
Now, if I were to call the author of #4 a tedious self-superior troll of the usual Obamaton type, that isn’t an “ad hominem” attack on the author of #4. It would be if I said, “What he says is stupid because he’s a fool.” I would never dream of saying such a thing. In addition to being an ad hominem attack, it would be to state the obvious twice over. Why bother?
“Seemingly unable to deal with them, and clearly unable to halt a collapsing market, they are reaching back to the playbook of the last Democratic president. It isn’t very attractive, and it will, I think, come back to hurt them.”
I disagree with this part of your blog. I do not believe this is a calculated maneuver. I believe it is just a weak mindset/psychology that exists in many liberal Democrats (and not as prevalent, in my experience, but existing as well in conservative Republicans) that was controlled to some extent during the campaign but rears it head now that it is over.
“You got your clocks cleaned. Sweaty, unlikable, pill-popping Rush is now the bloated face of your party.”
This comment reflects the fact that it’s starting click in to leftists (because they own 401k’s too!), that Obama looks like a disaster as president –THUS, they’ll go his strength as a campaigner. That is what this “Rush” demonization is about. Rahm prays that Rush takes the bait. Rush should only be taking about policy: not himself.
“Your Congressional and party leaders have shown that they are wimps.”
Eric Cantor, a wimp? Mmm. He gets every single Republican in the House to vote against the Pelosi-Reid-Obama “stimulus” plan –TWICE! — and that’s wimpy? No. It’s real leadership.
“Your party chairman is permanently damaged.”
I like Michael Steele but not as RNC Chairman. Trying to appeal to young voters by applying the party’s principles to “urban-suburban, hip hop settings” dumbs us down.
“Even those who voted against Obama expected something more, and something better, than this kind of thing.”
Oh really? Some of us may not have expected the market to plunge as it has; but some of us, looking at O’Bama’s friends and associations, at his journey to, through and from Chicago politics, at his extreme liberal voting record, at his changes of position to deflect criticism, his disloyalty to those long-time associates, and last but surely not least, his lack of experience in administration (notwithstanding his references to his political campaign experience) clearly thought (not just felt, but judged!) the day following the election that America was experiencing a decline, experiencing it in fast forward.
See Comment 8. Joe Klein links:
“It takes a fair amount of amnesia for a political spinmeister like Pete Wehner–who spent six years spreading venom as Karl Rove’s designated hitter–to chastise various Obama capos for attempting to transform the GOP into the POL (Party of Limbaugh). It’s today installment of the OMG hysteria that has infected various Republican hacks as their ship sinks–OH MY GOD, Obama is going to sign a bill with earmarks! OH MY GOD, he wants national health insurance! OH MY GOD, the market is going down–must be Obama! OH MY GOD, another appointee with tax problems! He’s finished! He’s flailing about! (A Freudian would note a fair amount of projection here.)”
Thing of beauty!
It has been quite obvious that the Obama team’s focus on Rush Limbaugh is a shot across the bow in a “personality challenge.” Obama is “the personality” of the left: its icon, its human rallying point, its anthropomorphic embodiment for dreams, laughter, inspiration, and tears. And it is entirely clear that this personality ascendance is the basis of governance for Obama. This is NOT a distraction or a manipulation to him. This IS his political method. This IS politics and government.
Team Obama is trying to knock down Rush Limbaugh as a unifying, iconic personality for Obama’s principal political competition. Obama recognizes in Rush a personality that has some of the same effects on conservatives that Obama has on leftist-progressives. The knowledge that Rush is out there, making the case to the public that they would make themselves, if they could, gives the die-hard conservatives — the ones who would really and truly fight the Obama agenda — hope. Rush Limbaugh is competition for Personality in Chief, in a way no GOP politician is.
Maybe some of this is instinctual with Team Obama, but the grand cotillion of public rhetorical strategy is really too complex a matter for it not to be the product of calculation as well. Rahm Emanuel doesn’t just “happen” to get riled up and blurt something out about Rush Limbaugh during an interview.
This only looks childish if you conceive of politics and government as matters of competition and consensus within the bounds of an unbreachable constitutional framework, and of a social code in which mutual respect, and the priority of the public trust, trump personal vindication.
If you do NOT see politics and government that way, waging Personality Warfare can make perfect sense. The trolls demonstrate daily here at contentions that Obama has some number of unquestioning loyalists who will tolerate any assault on constitutionalism, the rule of law, and their fellow man — and lie to us and themselves about what’s going on, or at least be utterly self-deceived — in the service of their belief in Obama, as a transcendant, transformative personality.
Now, I think the Obama cohort is mistaken in part of its understanding of the Limbaugh dynamic. Limbaugh’s fans are not, in fact, unquestioning in their approach to him. Rush is not an Obama-like figure in that sense. But Obama nevertheless accurately recognizes in Rush a PERSONALITY competitor, one who articulates and synthesizes in a way that rallies millions, and one who inspires and motivates. In these terms, Rush Limbaugh is, indeed, Obama’s competition.
I note that Team Obama has some basis for congratulating itself on setting conservatives against each other by focusing on Rush. (I wrote more about that at my blog yesterday.) I also note that there wasn’t a “rush,” if you will, to rally around David Frum and his embarrassment over Limbaugh. It has been good to see that most consverative commentators want to shift the focus away from personalities, with the visceral understanding that personality politics is not where honest, constitutional government comes from.
But I recommend we not deceive ourselves about what Team Obama is doing here — or let the left divide us by dictating to us whom we must be embarrassed by. A radical leftist is never giving advice intended to honestly benefit his political opponents.
I don’t know.
I think that “we have nothing to fear but Rush himself” makes a great campaign statement & we are in the perpetual campaign here, no?
Peter, you are seeking substance. Repeat after me; “Defeat Rush”.
Or “Defeat Martin, Barton, and Fish”.
#5
Nice try, but even your pretense for an insult is erroneous.
The Dem argument is that Rush Limbaugh is the de facto leader of the Republican Party. The Republican response is that Democrats are being childish.
That is an ad hominem abusive or argumentum ad personam, if you prefer, butthead. Even if it were true, which it is not, it has no bearing on the original assertion.
As I don’t understand what the above sentence is supposed to refer to, or could possibly mean, I’ll set it aside.
Actually, conservatives have had several responses to the issue. Many of us, for instance, I totally uninterested any claims regarding Limbaugh’s role in the Republican Party, and many, either in that context or independently, have called upon no less an authority than Barack Obama to declare the issue irrelevant.
I don’t believe that someone who cared much about honesty, standing by one’s word, and other values without which civilized discussion becomes impossible would have so much difficulty understanding what is actually a very simple argument:
1. Obama campaigned against what he called “childish things” – an allusion to I Corinthians Ch. 13: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. …And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
2. Focusing on personalities and otherwise personally attacking one’s political opponents rather than focusing on ideas and proposals is just the kind of thing, as explained at greater detail in the top post, that Obama once called “childish”: Paul and presumably Obama wouldn’t consider such behavior worthy of Christians, expressive of the faith, hope, and love that suffuse Obama’s vision and values.
3. Therefore, Obama is being a hypocrite, and is untrustworthy.
4. Furthermore, if you think that what he said during his campaign was right, then what he’s doing now is wrong.
The “childishness” of a particular kind of political tactic is a characterization of Obama’s. The point isn’t that Obama and the gang are being “childish”; the point is that, however you choose to characterize what they’re engaging in, it’s not the serious, bi-partisan business that Obama promised to be attend to.
The only thing good about the conduct of Obama and his operatives regarding Limbaugh is that at least while they’re condescending to attack a popular talkshow host personally, they’re not assaulting whatever relatively healthy sector of the economy they still haven’t gone after.
But I would never expect someone who considered that Swampland outburst a “thing of beauty” to understand any of this.
Dave
What we have here is an example of “Ignoring the Question”, “Ignoring the Point-At-Issue” or “Arguing Beside The Point” on the part of some Dems, some pretty-close-to-The-One Dems, & even The One himself to Eric Cantor.
If this is not childish because it is so serious & possibly so effective, it is conduct unbecoming.
The adult answer to “how will I (The One) govern?” or “how will we (the members of his Administration) solve the problems we’ve identified?” is not
“Rush Limbaugh is the de facto head of the GOP, & he’s “a Big Fat Idiot”
though it may get people to loose sight of your ineptitude (or even get you elected a Senator from Minnesota).
I would think that you would say that you hope that this diversionary ploy would fail, or (with apologies to our host) peter out for the sake of the Country.
And while you are correct that any attack on the type of disreputable people Obama associated with is an ad hominem attack, an attack, that is, on his character, principles, & (hopefully) former beliefs & statements, you’re Ignoring the Point-At-Issue. The point being that Obama parried these attacks, apparently successfully judging from the Election 2008 result, by saying the words quoted by Peter, that these attacks were just “phony and foolish diversions”; by promising us (or his Kool-Aid drinking followers anyway) “answers” to the “real problems in this country right now … not distractions, not diversions, not manipulations”. Some promises; some answers.
14
Padding a non-responsive answer with additional words does not make it a better answer.
“The Dem argument is that Rush Limbaugh is the de facto leader of the Republican Party.”
I know you want to sidestep the core issue, and make this about Obama’s “childishness,” but “I don’t care” is not an answer. The reason your leaders duck the same argument is because they aren’t willing to risk a bite from the big dog. And so, they affirm the assertion.
It is not Obama who is seeking to shift attention from his challenges — he is riding a wave of popular support — it is Republicans who are running like roaches from the bright light of truth. They have the leader they deserve — an unelected, unaccountable, unappealing hack whose last good idea was to climb on Ronald Reagan’s coattails.
It’s hardly childish to criticize the opposition leader, and I don’t see anyone else who fills the bill.
It is apparently a true demonstration of the competence of Obama, and his trolls here, to lavish attention on Rush Limbaugh, a radio personality. Obama has apparently decided squabbling with a radio personality is the best way to distract the public from the miserable job he is doing. And of course, squabbling with a radio personality is not exactly a debate about policy or the issues, but that is apparently Obama’s priority. All hail the Messiah and his New Politics.
Fascinating. (I thought Obama won the election, why is he still campaigning?)
Jim Cramer, the financial guy on CNBC, also seems to be in the BHO administration’s sights. His response is great.
http://www.mainstreet.com/article/moneyinvesting/news/cramer-my-response-white-house?page=6
Lame. We still have Bush/Rove automatons endlessly repeating talking points. No sign of life or intelligence. I found this via a link from TIME but rest assured I won’t be back.
Dave
Padding a non-responsive policy regarding “real problems in this country right now” with additional attacks on Rush does not make it a better policy.
Again, didn’t you & yours tell us that, when The One was anointed, such phony and foolish diversionary attacks would cease? Try to stay focused on the “real problems in this country right now”.
Obama to Drop Shield if Russia Helps with Limbaugh!
http://www.scrappleface.com/
This is a losing PR strategy for the Dems. The more they try to publicly attack Rush Limbaugh as the “leader” of the Republican party, the more Limbaugh will have his rebuttals aired–also publicly. That’s a fight the greenhorns in the Obama Administration cant win. Like him or not, Limbaugh is good at what he does, and he’s absolutely corect about the incompetence of the present administration.
Limbaugh may be disliked by a large segment of the population, but that’s largely because his media crafted caricature is more familiar to the public than the man himself. The Establishment Media loathe him, but they wont be able to resist playing up this story. When one media outlet airs a story like this, all the other ones follow along to avoid being scooped. Besides, they hate him too much to restrain themselves.
This isn’t a boring public tiff between Rosie O’Donnell’ and Donald Trump. It’s a tiff between the Boy Blunder and a man who earns his living skewering Democrats and their left-wing policies–A very affluent living. The harder the Administration pushes their tawdry attack, the harder the much more skilled and media savvy Limbaugh will push back. The sneering Obama will come across as petty, thin-skinned and panicky, while Limbaugh will calmly make his case to a segment of the public he doesn’t ordinarily reach. Considering how many lies the President is prone to tell, this could turn out very badly for him.
This PR strategy by the Administration will expose Obama more than it will help him.
People, please.
Dave is a troll. Don’t feed the trolls. All you get is more troll $hit. At least Mbaku had the dubious decency to leave only one idiotic comment, instead of crapping all over the thread. Refuting troll lies and fallacies can help inform other readers about important issues, but refuting nonsense that was obviously meant only to disrupt a serious discussion is a waste of time. Don’t allow yourselves to be baited by someone as manifestly stupid as Dave Dickless.