Obama’s “Unity” & “Bipartisanship” = Silence Conservative’s

Did anyone hear what Limbaugh actually said? He said (I’m paraphrasing, but getting it right):

Everyone (Republicans included) are saying that they hope that, for the good of the country, Barack Obama succeeds as President. But I don’t feel that way at all. Frankly, I hope that he fails.

In this context, I think that Obama’s comment was not at all inappropriate.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

@openid.aol.com/runnswim:

That’s not what he said. He stated that he knows Obama’s policies are socialism and nationalization of the private sector and he knows that Obama succeeding means socialism and nationalization. Thus, if Obama succeeding in his policies means socialism and nationalization, then, of course, he wants Obama to fail.

Anyone who actually listens to Rush knows what he said and knows what he means. Most conservatives want the country to succeed and Obama to fail in his goals of socialism and nationalization. Some conservatives, however, are caught up in the HopenChanginess and have abandoned their principles. Rush is not one of them though. He wants America and capitalism to succeed and Obama’s plans for socialism and nationalization to fail. Pretty simple and not very controversial in the least.

@openid.aol.com/runnswim:

RUSH: I got a request here from a major American print publication. “Dear Rush: For the Obama [Immaculate] Inauguration we are asking a handful of very prominent politicians, statesmen, scholars, businessmen, commentators, and economists to write 400 words on their hope for the Obama presidency. We would love to include you. If you could send us 400 words on your hope for the Obama presidency, we need it by Monday night, that would be ideal.” Now, we’re caught in this trap again. The premise is, what is your “hope.” My hope, and please understand me when I say this. I disagree fervently with the people on our side of the aisle who have caved and who say, “Well, I hope he succeeds. We’ve got to give him a chance.” Why? They didn’t give Bush a chance in 2000. Before he was inaugurated the search-and-destroy mission had begun. I’m not talking about search-and-destroy, but I’ve been listening to Barack Obama for a year-and-a-half. I know what his politics are. I know what his plans are, as he has stated them. I don’t want them to succeed.

If I wanted Obama to succeed, I’d be happy the Republicans have laid down. And I would be encouraging Republicans to lay down and support him. Look, what he’s talking about is the absorption of as much of the private sector by the US government as possible, from the banking business, to the mortgage industry, the automobile business, to health care. I do not want the government in charge of all of these things. I don’t want this to work. So I’m thinking of replying to the guy, “Okay, I’ll send you a response, but I don’t need 400 words, I need four: I hope he fails.” (interruption) What are you laughing at? See, here’s the point. Everybody thinks it’s outrageous to say. Look, even my staff, “Oh, you can’t do that.” Why not? Why is it any different, what’s new, what is unfair about my saying I hope liberalism fails? Liberalism is our problem. Liberalism is what’s gotten us dangerously close to the precipice here. Why do I want more of it? I don’t care what the Drive-By story is. I would be honored if the Drive-By Media headlined me all day long: “Limbaugh: I Hope Obama Fails.” Somebody’s gotta say it.

*****

See, it helps when you get the actual words, instead of paraphrasing.

Larry: Once again you are misinformed. I have heard Rush say what he said in it’s fullest context and discuss it repeatedly.

I wonder… did you listen to Rush’s show or did you just hear a sound bite somewhere?

Rush does not want Obama to succeed in turning this nation into another failed socialist experiment.

He also made it clear that if Obama suddenly had a miraculous conversion to Reagan style conservatism he would be the first to stand up and cheer.

Rush did not in any way wish that the country would fail.

And as for that idiot “GOP08_DOA” none of us are so stupid as to listen instead to people like you who only want us to lose.

Did any of you hatemongering libs ever take our advice after you lost in 2000,2002 and 2004? Nope… you just went right on hating and you are still at it.

There may be a handful of prominent Republicans like John McCain who are willing to be your bitch the next four years but that’s hardly a majority in the party.

@Rovin:

I doubt it, Rovin. The mass media will be carrying his water and blaming President Bush for any problems for the next 4 years. They will say that Obama couldn’t help anything, because the Bush Administration left the country in such a mess. They will use this excuse for everything for 4 years. And I believe Kos and HuffPo will carry his water in this way as well. And, as always, the useful idiot Obama cultists will fall for it as well, just as they have for everything coming from their cult leader Teleprompter Jesus.

You know, when the next Republican sits in the Oval Office, I hope he remembers this moment, and says to the Democratic Congressional Leaders: “You can’t just listen to NPR, and read the Daily Kos, and expect to get things done!” Unfortunately, the Republican preference for good taste and civility will probably outweigh the urge for delicious irony here; but it’s a nice image.
We can already see that the lovely words that BHO spewed out for his inaugural speech are just so much hot air rooted in the text on a tele-prompter versus any real feeling. Or maybe I just need to get a liberal dictionary where I guess the definition of bipartisan is “you go along with all my ideas.” I’m guessing by his definition there was a lot of “unity” in Stalin’s Russia too.
It does make me truly ill that if the economy continues to tank on BHO’s watch that they will undoubtedly try to deflect the blame back onto the Bush administration, and the media will back them on this (BDS will likely remain endemic for at least the next few years). Whereas if the economy does recover it will “naturally” have been the product of the policies of “The One.”
It’s funny how after years of liberals claiming that Bush and conservatives and general had no grasp of the “nuances” of conflict / diplomacy, that they can hardly grasp the concept of our nuanced take of wishing that BHO will lead our country well, and at the same time desiring that his socialist / affirmative action agenda will fail.
On the topic of the nation leading itself out of this economy malaise, here’s a hint that there’s always some entrepreneur out there ready to capitalize on the latest fad, I heard about it first on the radio this morning, and had to look into it:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4732931_buy-barack-obama-chia-pet.html
That’s right folks, it’s an Obama Chia Pet! This is one BHO piece of merchandise I might have to pick up. I could use the laugh right about now.

This thread is about Obama telling the GOP that they shouldn’t listen to Limbaugh if they want to work with him. You guys are the ones taking Obama’s comment out of context. Limbaugh says that Obama wants to socialize the country. Obama would deny this.

Simply as an aside, I don’t agree at all with Obama’s rescue plan, but it’s simply an extension of Bush’s rescue plan, albeit with a lot more transparency. I didn’t agree with Bush’s rescue plan, either. I’d have just let the financial institutions fail and let the strong, well-managed financial institutions take up the slack, and I wouldn’t have added to the national debt. I’d have had the nation endure a three year recession, rather than a two year recession, if need be, in order to emerge stronger than ever, as opposed to emerging even more in debt.

But what we are talking about here is the appropriateness of Obama telling people not to listen to Limbaugh. If Obama believes that Limbaugh is entirely misrepresenting Obama’s position, as Obama clearly believes, then it is entirely, 100% appropriate for Obama to say, don’t listen to that guy.

You guys trivialize the meaning of “socialism.” Socialism is not the same progressive income tax that the USA has had for 3 generations. It’s not the same inheritance tax that the USA has had for three generations. It’s not the same continuation of social security that the USA has had for three generations or the continuation of Medicare, which the USA has had for two generations. It’s not a health care plan based on the same competing, private sector health care system which we now have. Socialized medicine is where the government owns the hospitals and the doctors work for the government. No one is proposing anything like this, except some true left wing crazies like Nader and Kucinich.

This blog is so much an echo chamber. It’s a sector of the electorate which is in denial of the shifting demographics, which include the loss of an entire generation. The most loyal Republican voters are the white voters who came of age in the Reagan era (the gen Xers). The Democrats will never get those voters. The Democrats are going after everyone else and they’ve made exceptional progress in locking up the millennial generation. And the national Republican party is in the process of losing the national Latino vote the same way that Pete Wilson turned California from Red to Blue a dozen years ago (California always being the national political canary in the coal mine). All the GOP will have is the deep South and Southern Plains and Mountain West, and it will lose Colorado and New Mexico from the later, and probably Arizona/New Mexico, as well.

Echo chamber. The choir preaching to the choir. Because of hysterical, Limbaugh-style exaggeration. Socialist. It has about the same impact and same reality as screaming “Boo!”

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

I posted a reply about 45 minutes ago, but it seems to be caught up in the spam filter.

P.S. thanks for re-posting your GW link. I am going to try and watch it this weekend (maybe during the Louisville/Syracuse game tomorrow (multitasking)).

– Larry W

@openid.aol.com/runnswim:

Larry – I think you’re missing something important in the Limbaugh issue. First, for a President to single out a private citizen is pretty interesting. After all the press and attacks from mass media members, I don’t recall President Bush ever telling the Democrats to stop listening to Chris Matthews or Keith Olbermann or the NYT Editorial Board or Daily Kos or Huffington Post or Moveon or CODE PINK (even though the Democrats were taking their orders from just those groups). And rightfully so. That shows a complete lack of class. Had Obama had added “… just as Democrats cannot listen to Daily Kos and Huffington Post to get things done” then I would call that great bipartisan smackdowns.

Then again, people miss the idea that all those groups I mentioned, including Rush Limbaugh, are not entities in and of themselves, they are a representation of millions of people who share their ideals and values (in other words, they are basically like lobbyist groups who represent millions of Americans and give them an influential voice). When the President of the United States says that the GOP should not listen to Rush Limbaugh, he is really saying that the GOP should not listen to the millions of conservatives in America whose voices are represented by Rush Limbaugh.

If Obama wants to classify conservatives, represented by Rush Limbaugh, as a group who should not be listened to by the GOP, that’s pretty arrogant. The GOP should listen to whomever are their constituents. And I hope we have some GOP members who told the President that he can take his fake bipartisanship and orders to not listen to their conservative constituents and kindly shove it up his messianic arse.

Because those are my thoughts when reading Obama’s classless, arrogant remark.

Thanks for the animated gif. Mike! I think I prefer the “happy” Obama version myself. Now, all we need is an audio file that plays along with it that goes “Chi – chi – chi – Chia.” Or maybe an updated version more in fitting with the figure portrayed: “Ma – ma – ma – Marxist!”

@openid.aol.com/runnswim:

Now, what happens in blogs like this one is that the GOP base gets together in a group mutual support session to express their self-righteous indignation, when said indignation does nothing at all to move the swing voters who decide election results. While you guys are bloviating among yourselves, Obama is out there re-working the electoral map.

If you want to be relevant, you should broaden your readership. And come up with anti-Obama arguments which resonate with 20-somethings and Latinos. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out how to do that.

Forgive my bluntness, but this part is all crap. I sat and watched the ENTIRE Democrat Party and 99% of the mass media become the Daily Kos/Huffington Post/Movon.org/Cindy Sheehan/CODE PINK/Andrew Sullivan Left for the past 5 years and it certainly had no effect on their ability to win elections. So this complaining about conservatives being too “fringe” is a bunch of BS, plain and simple. The so-called “swing voters” had no problem with the utter filth and sewer that is the Left and the Democrat Party and the mass media while they trashed Bush, trashed Black Republicans, trashed Black conservatives, and completely trashed Sarah Palin. So spare me this BS about the right being “too fringe”. Go spend some time over at Daily Kos, HuffPo, Sullivan, Moveon, the liars at Media Matters or watch any mass media “news” report. It’s all hatred and filthy and a smear campaign. And the “swing voters” had no problem at all with that shizit.

>>Obama would deny this.>>

Of course. If he told the people the truth, they’d never have elected him.

>>If you want to be relevant, you should broaden your readership.>>

The problem with that requirement is that to appreciate a reasoned approach such as the Conservative movement has, you have to be able to think logically. That requires above average intelligence, and by definition, means that there are fewer in that group. The average plus the below average naturally outnumber the above average, so the chances are – sadly – that Republicans will have trouble getting the majority unless we happen across someone like Reagan who is not only intelligent, thoughtful, and logical, but also attractive personally and appealing in a movie star sort of way. Obviously, such individuals don’t come along all that often.

Now…if we had qualifying tests before people could vote, the situation might be different. Which is why the Dems are so adamant about universal sufferage…

Whilst I’m all for protecting the dignity of the POTUS office; after all the adulation that has been heaped on BHO, seeing him reduced to a Chia Pet seems like a very necessary “taking down a notch” of Obamessiah.
On another topic; as I’ve said before my friends, while you may not agree with them, it is important to listen to what your opponents say. Sometimes what they may see things we do not. I think that Larry may have an important point. The messages and policies of the GOP may be intelligent, and “right” per se, but we’re not “selling” them well. Since the era of mass communication began (around when Roosevelt started up with his radio fireside chats), being able to attract the voting public with your message has been important. Then, since the era of the televised debate with Kennedy (who I consider the last patriot Democrat), appearance has been another salient factor in the voters’ choice of candidates. McCain may have been a true patriot, but he wasn’t great at selling the message to emerging demographics. It honestly isn’t that the GOP needs to change its message; we just need to package it better. We need to be looking for the next Ronald Reagan my friends, someone who can stir the American spirit, who knows how to communicate on a broad scale.
I’d be the first person to approve of an I.Q., history, and current events test prior to someone being allowed to vote. But, since we are currently stuck with the system we have, there is a degree of pandering that a successful candidate must pay to… While we don’t have to “dumb-down” our policies as a party, there’s the matter of “phrasing” and “couching” our arguments in a manner that will draw in the widest voting bloc.
Let’s just hope that we’re not too screwed from BHO’s policies when 2012 comes around so we can set America back on the right path.

Aye, I guess Larry missed all the Pepto Bismol clad hags parading through the streets of Washington DC, accosting Condi with mock blood stained hands, trying to crash the Convention. Jodi Evans bundling for BHO? The trips to Pakistan and Iran? Please.

Larry, I have loads of wonderful photos that include the Witches from Code Pink if you’d like to see them. This is the safest way to view the hags and their followers as you don’t have to worry about being bowled over by the odor.

The difference here is as Michael in MI pointed out in #30 – it isn’t us who are “fringe”.

BTW, Larry…you would probably be surprised to learn just how many of us Latinos/Latinas are with the GOP! I come from a HUGE Mexican family and 99.9% of us are, guess what???REPUBLICANS! That includes my second and third cousins who are definitely in their late teens and early 20’s.

I have a funny story that my hairdresser shared with me just yesterday. She is not only Mexican, but her parents brought their large family legally to this country when she was very young. Two of her very caucasian Democrat clients were in shock to discover that she was wholeheartedly a Republican! After their repeated attacks on her belief system (she finally gave up trying to complete a sentence with them because their tangents were unyielding), their final comments to her included something to the effect “…but you’re poor and uneducated”!

So, even us poor, uneducated Mexicans/Latinos/Latinas/Hispanics (you pick…I answer to ’em all and without regard for any associated negative connotation…it is what it is…a descriptor!)…even us po’ folks have wriggled our way into a party that is obviously geared for the predominately white, educated, and wealthy. Or, those are the requirements if you ask some Democrats.

But, we did so proudly! I guess that is gonna really throw that whole theory that “we” are looking for the free stuff this country offers to those who are willing to take advantage.

Ahhhh yes, I feel another topic coming on…

Aye, I guess Larry missed all the Pepto Bismol clad hags parading through the streets of Washington DC, accosting Condi with mock blood stained hands, trying to crash the Convention. Jodi Evans bundling for BHO? The trips to Pakistan and Iran? Please.

You guys focus all your emnity on the left wing fringe. I consider the Daily Kos, Huffington Post, the prominent MSNBC pundits, etc. to be the immovable Left, just as the Southern Evangelicals and the prominent Fox News pundits are the immovable right.

These are not the people who decide elections.

There is a Leftist “fringe,” and there is a Rightist “fringe.” These people make all the noise. Obama is going to throw a few meaningless bones to the Leftist fringe and spotlight the Rightist fringe, and attempt to anchor the Republican party in general to the Rightist fringe.

In case you haven’t noticed, Obama has clearly earned the early respect of conservative columnists and commentators, such as George Will, David Brooks, Charles Krauthammer, and Peggy Noonan. Even William Kristol has been quite muted and does not appear to be able to muster meaningful criticism, to date.

If Obama can win at least grudging respect from these people, he can certainly hold onto and expand his votes among the centrists who decide elections. Obama had to contend with serious misgivings about his “experience” and administrative competence. Within a short period of time, he’ll be the most experienced politician in the nation, with respect to current challenges, and he’ll have convinced skeptics that he’s qualified for the job. This alone should get him an additional 8% of the electorate to keep him over the 60% level, where he’ll be able to do pretty much whatever he wants.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

P.S. I just Google “code pink” and found their website:

“Impeach Bush and Cheney”

They are an extreme fringe movement which appears to be a first class vexation to the spirit.

I have never thought that either Bush or Cheney committed an impeachable offense, as much as I do disagree with many of their actions. I am very much opposed to the concept of persecuting sitting Presidents, whether George W Bush or William J Clinton. In my mind, there is a huge difference between responsible political opposition and personal persecution.

– Larry Weisenthal

Mike’s Global Warming Swindle video:

OK. It’s now 2:05 AM PST and I’ve watched the whole, bloody one hour and 15 minutes of it. As I anticipated from reading the title and watching the first minute and a half, it is pure propaganda, as much so as Gore’s slide show.

There is just a little bit of science, and a whole lot of sensationalistic editorializing (e.g. about scientists selling their souls in search of grants and political orthodoxy and straw men about how people who fret about climate change unanimously — according the the video’s editors — feel that Africans should be denied electricity if it doesn’t come from solar or wind power).

I’ll only address the science part of it.

Firstly, this particular Mike/Larry disagreement started when I made the assertion that it is without controversy that humans are raising CO2 levels and that CO2 levels are rising at an accelerating rate since WWII and that humans (i.e. homo sapiens) have never lived with CO2 levels as high as they are today, meaning that we didn’t evolve to live with CO2 at the levels they are today. I said that, as a medical scientist, I’m vastly more concerned about the effects of these CO2 levels on human biology and human pathology than I am about the effects on climate change, per se. I also said that allowing this to continue is constituting the greatest human guinea pig experiment in history.

Mike disputed these assertions.

Well, there is not one thing in the video which challenges my statements above regarding atmospheric CO2.

We then move into the climate change area — as I stated, an area of far lesser concern to me.

The video makes several points. First, there are many things which drive climate change, and that CO2 is a rather minor contributor. Such things as water vapor, sun spots, methane. The most prominent scientist featured in the video states “I believe in global warming. I just don’t believe that CO2 is behind the warming.” Parenthetically, there are those who would deny that warming is, in fact, occurring, but I think it’s safe to say that the preponderance of evidence certainly does support the concept that there has been warming over the past century. So the earth is warming and CO2 is increasing. Are the two related?

The video focuses on something which has been known for a number of years, namely that the beginning of the historical temperature increases have typically preceded the increase in CO2 levels by about 800 years. In other words, higher temperatures increase CO2 and not vice versa.

But this is a false argument against current global warming theory.

e.g.

What has to be understood is that what happened in the past is not relevant to what is happening now, because what is happening now is unprecedented. Never in the history of the earth for which we have ice core data has CO2 increased so rapidly; at present because of the release of carbon which has been sequestered in underground oil, coal, and gas deposits for hundreds of millions of years. So what we had before was an equilibrium. Occasionally, there would be remarkable sun spot cycles, for example, which would initiate global warming. The global warming would, in turn, release CO2 from the ocean. The CO2 release would then “take over” from the sun spots and amplify and sustain the warming period. This is precisely what one would predict from atmospheric models and is entirely supportive of an important role of CO2 in regulating global temperatures and climate. Yet the video documentary makes no mention at all of these data and arguments. The video documentary only interviews scientists who are climate change skeptics. It does not give mainstream atmospheric scientists an opportunity to respond.

This is why I continue to recommend the following website/blog as the single best source of information and points of view regarding climate change:

This is a blog open to all scientists to express and debate their points of view and discuss their data.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA