First, Helene Cooper told us the following last Sunday from here…
Democrats often complained about President George W. Bush’s frequent use of a rhetorical device as old as rhetoric itself: creating the illusion of refuting an opponent’s argument by mischaracterizing it and then knocking down that mischaracterization.Well, I think the blog Obsidian Wings did a pretty thorough job of debunking Cooper here, so I’ll defer to them.
There was much outrage in 2006, for example, when Mr. Bush said that when it came to battling terrorists, “I need members of Congress who understand that you can’t negotiate with these folks,” implying that Democrats backed talks with Al Qaeda. That assertion was promptly, and angrily, disputed by Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts.
Now that there is a new team at the White House, guess who is knocking down straw men left and right? To listen to President Obama, a veritable army of naysayers has invaded Washington, urging him to sit on his hands at the White House and do nothing to address any of the economic or national security problems facing the country.
“There are those who say these plans are too ambitious, that we should be trying to do less, not more,” Mr. Obama told a town-hall-style meeting in Costa Mesa, Calif., on March 18. “Well, I say our challenges are too large to ignore.”
Mr. Obama did not specify who, exactly, was saying America should ignore its challenges.
And in the same issue of the paper, we have this gem from Sheryl Gay Stolberg’s piece...
(Obama) told Planned Parenthood that his first act as president would be to sign an abortion rights bill into law; now he says it is “not my highest legislative priority.” He promised gay rights advocates that he would work for the repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, but he has pushed action into the future. A proponent of transparency, he released previously classified memos describing the C.I.A.’s harsh interrogation techniques. But then he moved to block the release of photos showing abuse of detainees — a 180-degree turn from his administration’s previous position.So let’s recap: Stolberg is slamming Obama because 1) he didn’t sign an abortion rights bill (referring to the FOCA, with more info here – how can Obama sign a bill that, in all likelihood, will NEVER pass out of committee, to say nothing of surviving a House floor vote?), 2) he hasn’t repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” even though he hasn’t taken that off the table (nor should he), and 3) he hasn’t released the most recent round of torture photos (even though he did declassify memos describing torture).
On all these fronts, Mr. Obama and his aides have offered detailed explanations of the factors that shape his decision-making. So far, the public seems on board. But in a sound-bite culture, there are limits to how much nuance the public can absorb.
And that raises a question: at what point is President Thinker in danger of being perceived as President Flip-Flop?
Other American politicians have faced this very threat. The first President Bush lost the White House after he broke his famous “Read my lips: no new taxes” pledge. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democrats’ 2004 presidential candidate, inflicted a mortal wound on his own campaign with his now-infamous line about Iraq war funding: “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”
And for this, he gets compared to Poppy Bush’s “no new taxes” pledge and John Kerry’s vote against the $87 million war appropriation for Iraq?
Would you like some avocados with your apples and oranges, Ms. Stolberg?
I’m not going to tell you Obama walks on water, which he plainly doesn’t. All I ask is that the guy gets a period of about, say, anywhere from at least 9-15 months before we actually have CONTEXT in which to offer intelligent criticism of his actions, as opposed to the vacuum we still have now (and yes, I wish he'd decided to release the photos, as I said here, but he didn't, and that's not going to be "the hill I die on," as it were). And if Stolberg and her pals are going to try and nail him, try to do it on something of actual substance, OK?
And finally, on the subject of Times’ reporting, the Page 1 “story” last week was how the Dems supposedly handed the “wedge issue” of Guantanamo to the GOP (and this was before Colin Powell said on “Face The Nation” the he supported closing it also).
In response, here is a Letter to the Editor that appeared in the Times today…
If the Republican Party discontinued its destructive efforts to undercut the administration and applied its energies to the vastly more difficult task of solving the very complicated issues the country faces, it might in the process resolve some of its own problems.Nicely done.
I believe that most Americans would feel a bit more positive about a party that put the well-being of the country and all its citizens ahead of its concerns about regaining power, particularly when a significant portion of responsibility for the existence of these problems may be laid at the doorstep of said party.
What is the single modern invention most responsible for enhancing peoples' freedom and standard of living across the world? Arguably, it is the Internet. Yet, Democrats from revenue-starved states and Congress are proposing to make it less free by taxing Internet commerce. (Content regulation should be coming soon to a screen near you.)Yeah, isn’t it a shame that those bad “Democrats” like John Thune of South Dakota support that dastardly internet tax, as noted here (to say nothing of the fact that, were it not for the leadership of a Democratic vice president, the Internet as we know it might not be developed to the point where we can all take it for granted)?
This should not come as a terrible surprise. After all, the Internet was just too good, too free, too easy, too innovative, and too favorable to small businesses for government to stay away. So now, several states, and Congress, are considering laws that would require online retailers to collect state and local taxes from online consumers.
Also, this tells us that a bill to tax Internet music downloads introduced in California by state assemblyman (and Dem) Charles Calderon faces “long odds,” even though big-box retailers such as Wal-of-China Mart (here) and interests such as Jewelers of America (here) want to see similar legislation passed.
Jeez, first you have those clamoring to charge a fee to view news content as the “solution” for the newspaper business, and now you’ve got these people trying to get a “piece of the action” online also.
Well, it looks like I’ll have no choice but to charge for the privilege of reading my illustrious content, then (joke, I assure you – I may make the Pay Pal link more prominent on the site, but that’s as “mercenary” as I get).
Here is what J.D. said…
Look, I'm no isolationist, but fighting far flung wars around the globe is getting ridiculous. We can't fight every bad guy everywhere.OMIGOD!
Where is the wankerific pundit who called for the return of the draft and tear-gassing hippies in response to Former President George W. Bush’s Now And Forever You Goddamn Better Believe It You Commie Luburuul War On Terra! Terra! Terra! (as noted here)?
Where is the jingoistic imbecile who pilloried former president Clinton for “(failing) to understand the rising ideological struggle of his time”?
Where is the journalistic mistake who once said, during a 2004 campaign appearance, that faux war leader Dubya, telling the adoring crowd that “Freedom is on the march,” spoke words that weren't “Lincolnesque, but his presence made up for it” (here)?
Where is the numbskull who has had not one good word for anyone who opposed the "Mesopotamian misadventure" brought to us by Number 43 (here)?
And NOW you’re telling us that “we can’t fight every bad guy everywhere”?
What a shame that you didn’t point that out when it mattered, which might have saved at least some of the lives noted here.
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