Manila Ryce hosts the latest Carnival of the Liberals, and he's got yer Unity Pony right here:
Before we get started, allow me to briefly explain the content of this particular carnival. As you can imagine, during this election season I received many well-written posts about why Hillary sucks and why Obama sucks. Being the great unifying force that I am, I must insist that we find some common ground in agreeing that they both suck, and that no real liberal is honestly happy with the conservative platform of either senator.
I wouldn't go that far. But I was dumbstruck by both candidates' talking points this morning on NPR, about which one of them is BETTER at "reaching across the aisle" and working with Republicans.
I am convinced that Howard Dean's poll numbers show we need everybody's vote except the 27 percenters and the Fundies (overlapping there but still) in order to prevent another stolen election. That anything less than a repeat of 1972 in our favor will lead to another Republican administration, because they can.
1972. Everybody voted for Nixon. And then they conveniently forgot that they had. Yup.
Nevertheless. This is bullshit. Unadulterated bullshit.
(AP) Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama touted themselves as willing and able to work civilly with members of the Republican party during interviews with a newspaper in Ohio, where voters head to the polls Tuesday for a crucial primary election.
During her seven years as a U.S. senator serving New York, Clinton said, she has worked with members of the GOP on topics including child safety, veterans' issues and military readiness.
"My record is clear," Clinton said in a telephone call Thursday with The Cincinnati Enquirer editorial board. "Some people have been surprised by the collegiality between me and my colleagues across the aisle."
But Obama said he less inclined to give in to partisanship.
"Her natural inclination is to draw a picture of Republicans as people who need to be crushed and defeated," the U.S. senator from Illinois said in a separate telephone interview with the newspaper.
"It's not entirely her fault. She's been the target of some unfair attacks in the past."
As president, he said, he'd work with both Democrats and Republicans in Congress.
"I'm not a person who believes any one party has a monopoly on wisdom," he said.
What about a monopoly on "rip the Constitution to shreds and ask us to thank them for it please Mister President may I have another" BULLSHIT, Senator?
Remember the Goldwater slogan, "In your heart, you know he's right?" Well, I still am not convinced we have to play the "other side of the aisle" game, but if we do, in our hearts, we know the GOP is
Happy Leap Day.
But I was dumbstruck by both candidates' talking points this morning on NPR, about which one of them is BETTER at "reaching across the aisle" and working with Republicans.
ReplyDeleteOh, for fuck's sake! Yeah, they should reach across the aisle and give each Republican a nice fat fucking punch in the goddamn face. I think Clinton and Obama need to review PhysioProf's Official Policy on Bipartisanship:
"I don’t want my party to “build bridges” to the psychopathic racist sexist authoritarian sick fucks that are the remaining dregs of the Republican Party. I want my party to adopt a clear unambiguous progressive platform that repudiates all of the pathology of the degenerate Republican Party.
To the extent that there are any Republicans who are sick of the depravity of their party, and not too addled to recognize that it is their party that has single-handedly created the national clusterfuck we are currently embroiled in, they are welcome to join us. Otherwise, they can all go fuck themselves."
http://physioprof.wordpress.com/2008/01/11/official-physioprof-policy-on-bipartisanship/
Ugh.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Obama's comments in particular are pretty offensive. It may be positioning for the general but that doesn't excuse it.
It's not quite on par with Pelosi's "impeachment is off the table" nonsense but it's up there.
Work with the other party? Fuck that. Obliterate them. Consign the Repugnicans to the dustbin of history. Turn them into a footnote, or less. Make them an unpleasant memory that gets referenced with the same respect as the Whigs and Millard Fillmore.
ReplyDeletePardon me for being a centrist liberal here, but what is wrong with Obama's statement? I don't know about the rest of you but I want my representatives to stop the "We are the only ones who can be right" bull and actually work to get things done.
ReplyDeleteIt should not be "You're either with us or against us." It should be "We both want what is best for this country, here is what we need to work on." They have both worked with the other party on things in their respective elected positions.
Both candidates have worked with Republicans on a number of pieces of legislation. Most of the bills that I know of from Clinton have had a centrist/right tilt. Obama, in the national Senate, got the lobbyist reforms passed and in state Senate got a number of civil rights, health care, and also lobbying reform bills passed - some unanimously.
The Right has had some good ideas in the past - the only one I can think of off of the top of my head is the balanced budget law they passed in the 90's (and subsequently forgot once their man was in office). They can have some good ideas. Just because the loudest ones are often the most idiotic ones doesn't mean they are all that way.
We cannot bring this country to where we need to be with 50.1% of the vote (or 49.7% vs 49.6% with other getting the remaining 0.7% as the case may be). We cannot get above that if all we do is play "gotcha" politics or paint the other side as the army of evil. Only 1/3 of this country considers itself part of the Democratic party, 1/3 considers itself Republican. Saying that those are the only two options leaves the other 1/3 out of any political discussion and will just leave us with failure.
Well, I, for one, cannot think of ONE DAMN THING that the GOP or the Right could call a "good idea" in my, like, entire forty-nine-and-a-half years on this planet.
ReplyDeleteNot. One.
That having been said, I will be voting for one of these two people in November. Reluctantly so, but yeah.
Because the alternative is still worse, and that includes staying home.
Thanks BG. It's been awhile since I've received the Don't Sugarcoat It Award. I need to step it up a bit.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I think every post should end with a child cursing. It just wraps everything up in a nice way. Wish I would've thought of that for the carnival.
There is no fucking aisle. Forget the Republicult/Democrap artifice.
ReplyDeleteAll of them have plenty of ideas;
it's their IDEALS that suck.
We have political parties and elected leaders who tolerate the plight of our poorest and neediest citizens, ignore the plight of our eldest citizens, cultivate racial and religious hatred of other citizens, whether of our nation or of the nations of the world, and pursue a policy of self-appointed world policing— only where it suits our political interest— while using the outdated constitution of the United Nations as an excuse to pursue a unilateral policy of hegemony of nations it considers our enemies.
We are Americans, are we not? Yep a lot of us should be rounded up and sent to camps, and staked out over the fire ant hills. But until we can get the justice dept interested in justice, we had all of us better learn to pull together to get our nation back on the right tracks. Will said: "You can be on the right track, but if you just sit there [and whine at each other] you'll still get run over."
I may be boiled alive for saying this, but I'm with John J.
ReplyDeleteWe aren't allowed to kill 'em, we can't seem to get rid of 'em, so we gots to work with 'em.
They may be idiots, but we'll get nothing accomplished if we can't find a way to work with them.
BG, the phrase was,
ReplyDelete"In your guts, you know they're nuts."
More true than it's ever been.
I'm with Quaker Dave on this one:
ReplyDeleteThe Repugs are fucking retarded at best, truly pathological at worst.
Hannity and McCain can talk about being Proud Conservatives all they want and in the end show the world that they're entirely morally bankrupt. There is absofuckinglutely no fucking thing for which Conservatives should be proud, except possibly the efficiency with which they've dismantled and destroyed this country.
I wish we could nuke 'em from orbit. After all, it's the only way to be sure.
I'd start first at identifying the point of view of the enemy, understanding the base prejudices, not seeing them as one monolithic entity of evil, trying to see things through their eyes, and then subliminally planting seeds knowing that our true hope is to appeal to moderates and the rational and that those whose minds are firmly made up are a waste of everyone's time.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteRead this post if you want to know why we can't negotiate with republicans. If that doesn't convince you, nothing will.
ReplyDeletehttp://driftglass.blogspot.com/2008/03/evil-that-men-do.html