Oooh, look! A sternly worded letter! To be followed, no doubt, by an even more sternly worded letter! To be followed, maybe, someday, (perhaps after more sternly worded letters by a sternly worded subpoena. Which Rove will of course ignore. And then Conyers will.... jump up and down, bang the table, and hold his breath....

And then he'll stop.

And nothing will change.

Boy, I'm sure glad I worked so hard on that '06 campaign to elect a Democratic majority...

Posted at May 5, 2008 5:59 PM in response to Conyers Threatens Rove with Subpoena for Testimony on Siegelman

Wow, we have an offensive novelist!

Both in terms of length, and in terms of fiction.

I will attempt to provide a little bit of analysis of snippets from this novel-length entry, as time permits.

Let's start here.

Who, pray tell, are those great numbers of TPM posters (whom you despise, which is apparently why you are here) who agree so wholeheartedly with Rev. Wright?

You're a perfect example of the type. It has apparently never occurred to you that anyone who's serious about political discourse must, I repeat MUST, test his ideas against his opponents both as a measure of their worth and in the hope that those of intelligence and good will might find merit in views they hadn't properly considered. You're just a partisan cheerleader or, more bluntly, a rabid dog.

For starters, for all its bombast, attacks and name-calling, this pseudo-response completely evades the question posed! Not only does offensivetoyou (wow, that handle is indeed prophetic, but I think it bears some shortening from here on out) never names a single TPM poster who "agrees wholeheartedly" with Rev. Wright, and cites not a single piece of evidence -- not a quote, not a phrase, not a snippet -- that anyone here on TPM harbors that particular sentiment. (Now to be fair, the term "wholeheartedly" was mine, not offensive's. But I note that offensive hasn't disputed it, and I think it's fairly implied in offensive's actual quote, which reads: "I find it eminently reasonable to believe that Wright and/or millions of those who agree with him (including a great number of TPM posters) do not have my interests at heart." I can recall one whom I personally tangled with a couple of weeks ago -- squarepeg or Square Peg, I don't remember which -- and I don't even know if that poster "agreed wholeheartedly" with the good Reverend.

The closest offensive comes to "showing" someone who supposedly "agrees wholeheartedly" with the Rev. is, well, me. But even then, offensivetoyou doesn't actually say that I do that. Rather, offensive simply asserts, without evidence, that I am a "perfect example of the type," whatever that's supposed to mean. That's a fine example of content-free, certainly evidence-free, slippery rhetoric.

And here I thought that "serious ... political discourse: in which a person "test[s] his ideas against his opponent" had to be based on, you know, evidence and stuff. Silly me.

Evasiveness is one of the first markers of political and intellectual cowardice, and is an obvious marker of intellectual dishonesty. So is name-calling in lieu of evidence... both of which (among other things) are in full flower in offensive's posts, including the one under discussion.

Like BHO said about the Rev. Wright (paraphrasing), offensive, you are caricaturing nobody but yourself.

Posted at April 30, 2008 1:20 PM in response to Obama: Dump Wright Now Before He Destroys You

A few lies from the Clinton camp in Ohio about NAFTA, aided and abetted by the right-wing Canadian PM and his minions, certainly helped.

But you haven't addressed the issues, have you?

How come the Inevitable One didn't have this all sewn up by Super Tuesday, as she expected?

How come The Prepared One ran her campaign deep into debt?

Last October, nobody thought Obama had a chance. Hillary was already the Presumptive Nominee. How come this Inevitable, Prepared, Ready On Day One candidate blew it so badly?

Not that I expect you'll answer with any degree of substance, "boy."

Posted at April 30, 2008 2:56 AM in response to Obama On Wright: "I Might Not Know Him As Well As I Thought"

one of the reasons the Democrats keep losing elections is that people like WRoss think they know better than the electorate. they look down on the "bitter" people in the fly-over states...they label as "racist" anyone who doesn't see racism everywhere...they have contempt for people who love America...and they praise the blame-America-firsters like Michael Moore and moveon.org.

Bought the Atwater/Rove line hook, line and sinker, I see. This is the backlash politics very carefully (and successfully) cultivated by the hard right over the last 30+ years, here on full display from gretz. Word for word.

And you're right. I disdain you, because I disdain fools. And if you actually believe what you posted, you are, in fact, a fool.

I post the source of this quote elsewhere in this thread, but I challenge you, as I challenged offensive to you, to identify the speaker, date, and location:

God didn't call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war. . . . And we are criminals in that war. We've committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I'm going to continue to say it. And we won't stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation. But God has a way of even putting nations in their place.

I'll give you a hint, though: it wasn't Michael Moore, and it wasn't anyone affiliated with moveon.org.

I'll give you another hint: He couldn't have been affiliated with moveon.org because he was murdered about 30 years before moveon.org was founded.

Last hint: He was, however, denounced as an America-hater, and probably a blame-America-firster.

Some things never change.

Posted at April 30, 2008 2:41 AM in response to Obama: Dump Wright Now Before He Destroys You

I'm not going to vote for someone who doesn't like my skin color or culture and blames me for their troubles and failures.

I wasn't aware that Louis Farrakhan was running for President. Or... oh, wait... did you mean Obama (you know, the black guy)? Do you have any actual, you know, evidence that he doesn't like your skin color or blames you for his troubles and failures? Or do you prefer to operate on dark insinuations and innuendo?

I find it eminently reasonable to believe that Wright and/or millions of those who agree with him (including a great number of TPM posters) do not have my interests at heart.

Who, pray tell, are those great numbers of TPM posters (whom you despise, which is apparently why you are here) who agree so wholeheartedly with Rev. Wright?

By the way, how do you feel about Pastor John Hagee and Pastor Rod Parsley?

Posted at April 30, 2008 2:29 AM in response to Obama: Dump Wright Now Before He Destroys You

...And speaking of offensivetoyou's Scary Angry Black Men...

It's time to play "Guess the Quote," boys and girls!

Name the date, place, and person speaking:

God didn't call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war. . . . And we are criminals in that war. We've committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I'm going to continue to say it. And we won't stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation. But God has a way of even putting nations in their place.

Give up?

Here's a hint.

Here's another from that well-known Angry Black Man (or is he a Guilt-Ridden Anti-War Progressive?), Andrew Sullivan.

Posted at April 30, 2008 2:24 AM in response to Obama: Dump Wright Now Before He Destroys You

If you mean do I find anti-war views to be mostly defeatist, cowardly nonsense...Yes.

Wow, truth! Because the wars we have been involved in over the last 50 years -- Vietnam and Iraq for starters -- have been such amazing victories for America's standing in the world and her vital national interests! They've really made life better the American people! They've made the world a safer place! Really worth fighting! How's that $3 trillion working out for ya? Half a billion a day, whee! And all on the national credit card, held by the Bank of China! I mean, we have nothing else to spend that kind of coin on, right? (I wonder why Bush and Cheney aren't asking anyone alive right now to actually pay for their little war. Perhaps it's because doing so would turn even more Americans into nonsense-spewing defeatist cowards?)

Posted at April 30, 2008 2:12 AM in response to Obama: Dump Wright Now Before He Destroys You

the fact is Obama won't go further to dissociate himself with Wright because he doesn't want to alienate his base, which is black people and guilt-ridden white libs like you.

Yet another trolling armchair psychoanalyst. And the use of the epithet "libs" puts gretz firmly in the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, the same wing that's sold our country straight down the river over the last thirty years.

Posted at April 30, 2008 2:02 AM in response to Obama: Dump Wright Now Before He Destroys You

All Things Considered ran a very interesting exchange yesterday (April 28) between Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri (a Clinton supporter) and Rep. David Price of North Carolina (a Wright supporter). Cleaver defended Wright's record (not necessarily his recent pronouncements) in fairly strong terms; Price was critical of Wright. Not what one would expect, unless you get into the head-spinning exercise of figuring out how and why defending Wright's record is actually a good Clinton move and attacking Wright a good Obama move, etc., etc. You could go there, but it involves too many I-know-that-you-know-that-I-know-that-you-know's for me to wrap my brain around.

Worth a listen. IMHO.

Caveat: I heard it late last night, as sleep was finally taking hold. I'm pretty sure I remember what I heard, but I haven't listened to it again today.

Posted at April 30, 2008 1:58 AM in response to Obama: Dump Wright Now Before He Destroys You

I gotta say, the vid bugged me.

Why? As cut, anyway, it plays right into the "Obama Offers No Specifics" meme.

We hear him going on for nigh-on 2 minutes about how she's "fired up" and he wants her to be his running mate. Lots of style. No substance.

And then he says "OK, let me answer the question." AND.... Cutoff!

So... does he answer the water question more substantively in the footage on RawStory/CNN?

Unfortunately, someone (CNN, I assume) also faded out in the middle of his answer. He took a bit long to say that the diminshing water supply was caused primarily by global warming. But the 82-year-old questioner asked about whether he and his wise advisors (her words) were working on the problem, and asked him to name one specific thing he'd do to address the problem. We never got to see the complete answer on the clip.

And to be honest, as someone supporting Obama (check my posts if you're skeptical) -- he took too much time to get around to the answer. From what I've seen of Hillary, when she's not channeling Karl Rove or Lee Atwater, she's able to get down and wonky pretty quick. I like that. I imagine she would have gotten to the specifics pretty quick. I want to see more of that from Obama, and less of the "fired-up" stuff. We get that already.

Posted at April 30, 2008 1:47 AM in response to Obama Picks a Running Mate