The Real Overconfidence
The unfortunate fact is, Republicans and conservatives pinned their hopes on the economy and four years of unremitting nastiness and anger towards the President to do the job of getting a President elected for them. Told again and again by people that a President can’t get re-elected with job numbers like we have, they bought that. Now they wonder how they could be losing an election. Unfortunately, once again, they’re turning to the myth of the liberal media to deal with a problematic state of affairs.
What the Republicans forgot to do, at the very least, was pick a winner. They picked the guy who came in second last time to the guy who came in second to Bush in 2000, and Obama in 2008. The guy who lost an election to the man who lost two elections.
And why? Something the Republicans are too overconfident to face directly: Not enough people like the people they like. Primaries are finicky things. You have to keep two goals in mind, not merely one: getting a candidate who represents your party the best, and getting a candidate who actually has a shot at winning against their opponent.
The gains in the House are misleading in that respect. How many House Seats are in safely Republican Districts, thanks to gerrymandering? The fortunes of the Republicans in the Senate ought to be the warning. People aren't quite so eager, even in their frustration with the Democrat, to take the Tea Party express on a general level.
That includes with the White House. We've seen disconnects grow as its become more readily apparent that Republicans are not the moderating force some might have thought of them as. Vouchercare has become more toxic than Obamacare, especially since Democrats stopped being afraid of the label and learned to love it. It doesn't hurt that Obama's essentially taken Romney's plan and co-opted it, leaving Romney vibrating between the nodes of repeal and patting himself on the back for the policy.
Also, for all the promised horrors of Obama policy, people see things getting better. They also see a leader who is not prone to panicking, weathervaning to keep up with short term trends. They see a man who is the first to open up negotiations, while his competitors often fight against bargaining in good faith to the last. They aren't seeing the radical, or the jackbooted thug-style policies they were told he put in place.
One way to put it is that the Republicans have been crying wolf about Obama, only to have people learn to ignore it. Republicans were too confident that they could rewrite and revise history. Well, the problem with revising it in progress is that the facts tend to determine how events progress, and you don't know them all. You might believe that something might not or did not work, but that doesn't mean things turn out like you say.
Fact is, nobody's grandma or mentally retarded son is going to be put up before a tribunal and get some sort of sentence. People will never see that, the outrage will never exist. Such lies, at their best, only change people's attitudes before something is passed. When the promised result never happens, only a fringe of unconvincible lunatics holds on to the idea that they actually will happen.
Meanwhile, what did happen takes its course.
Republicans deliberately sought to beat down his polls, but unfortunately, Obama's had the habit of continuing to do things, often at great risk to his own fortunes, that make that difficult. Getting Bin Laden and Getting Qaddafi? That's two on Bush's one. Managing to do both at minimal cost to American life and limb, even considering the recent terrorist attack on our embassy? Even better. Republicans bashed the Stimulus, but the economy improves. Obama's done better than break even at this point, according to the data. He also saved the Auto industry. With any other President, just a few of these would suffice as major policy victories.
With Obama, facing unreasoning opposition that won't give him credit on anything, all of them still add up to an approval rating around 50%. All the Republicans have done over the past few years has still ended up leaving Obama close to getting re-elected.
And what have Republicans done to compete? Literally nothing. They expect people to reward them for getting in Obama's way.
That's a lot to ask, in no small part because you're selling them a hypothetical that's getting thinner as the job market continues to improve. It's difficult to believe Obama is a truly bad leader when the truly bad things don't happen.
And then the question is, have the Republicans helped anything, for all their resistance and criticism against Obama? It doesn't have to be a liberal thing they did. They could have done plenty within the bounds of conservative philosophy to bend the trajectory back their way.
But I suspect that would have meant admitting to themselves that power wasn't coming back immediately their way, that they weren't going to be setting the agenda, like they had for the previous twelve year or fourteen years. Actually dealing with Obama would mean acknowledging the position they were in, that they were down and out. It would mean allowing the Democrats their influence, allowing power to shift. Never mind that this was what the people asked for, they couldn't stand that. If they acknowledged that they now had to work with Obama, questions of purity and party discipline would be out the window, and they'd be in the same position the Democrats were in after 1994, only without even the comfort of the Presidency.
Republicans have been loathe to admit defeat, loathe to admit how deeply unpopular they had become, loathe to admit how badly awry their policy had gone. In place of that admission has come an increasingly inappropriate confidence in the other direction.
So, when the polls say they're losing the rest of America, they can only believe that the liberal media is once again trying to discourage them. It never occurs to them, at least so they would admit it, that maybe the media is doing nothing except reporting what's true, that the results are real, and that they should be discouraged.
If they were in a better place psychologically, perhaps the activists of the party would realize that sometimes it helps to accept the negative. To err is human. To have one's own thoughts, own opinions is American, and if you want your party to survive, without a crapload of pravda-like party propaganda clouding its member's judgment, you need to admit that your party can and has screwed up.
Part of why Obama's in better shape now than he might have been is that he recognized this year that his previous few years course had cost him greatly politically. He could have sat around and just did what Romney does now, and deny that there are problems, but instead, his campaign changed direction, took a more aggressive tack against the Republicans, started insisting more on his position and taking end runs around the Republican's obstruction.
And his poll results improved. Republicans had him approaching thirty after the debt ceiling debacle. Now he's at or around fifty, not a terrible place to be facing re-election at. Folks have warmed back up to him, especially after the convention. On the other hand, Romney has attempted one reboot after another, and stuck his foot in his mouth multiple times without admitting fault. It may seem like strength to him or the Republicans, but really, it's unapologetic foolishness.
Too many Republicans think that Obama would be a pushover coming into this election, and perhaps he was weaker than he might have been. But they overestimated that weakness, and the weakness of the economy. They underestimated people's ability to put the Financial crisis in proper perspective, understanding that Obama's four million (which now are reportedly swallowed in his job gains) were the other side of four million other jobs lost in a crisis that did not begin under him.
Too many Republicans, buoyed by the Tea Party's insurgence, thought that conservatism was back to stay, back favorite among people. It wasn't. Just look at the polls, and you'll find many of their positions aren't among the favorites. They did not consider that the startling sweep of positions wasn't a referendum on Obama's politics, but on people's frustrations.
Frustrations that could easily turn on them, if they did nothing. And what have they done? Boldly moving forward, they proceeded to hammer out an alarming list of policy positions and political controversies that have people feeling less secure about the GOP, and its connection to the American Mainstream. From Sandra Fluke to Todd Akin, Joe Arpaio to Kris Kobach, Donald Trump to Orly Taitz, what people have seen of the Republican party hasn't been its most flattering face. Romney's only one part of Romney's problem, it's the whole party that is alarming people.
And no Jobs, really, unless you count the ones they're on the verge of destroying in the effort to rush a hack job of reducing the deficit before the economy is prepared to absorb the impact. Republicans think they're simply telling the truth, standing for what's right. They've overestimated how persuasive they've been, and underestimate how far they are from being in touch with modern society. You have whole generations with absolutely no memory of the idealized past many of the grey heads of the GOP would go back to, aside from the movies they watched as kids. If they're nostalgic for something, they're nostalgic for the easier times their parents knew before the Republicans started changing things, started hacking at the safety net, before massive layoffs became such a common thing. Hell, it tells you something that even within the GOP, the running mate for Romney listens to AC/DC.
Time is moving on, but the GOP has expected the world not to move on with it. For my part, I've spent much of my last few decades wondering why this country is in such a funk, why everybody talks as if our greatest achievements are past, and Americans are not capable of more.
One part of it may be that folks don't have the confidence in each other they once did. Everything seems so fragmented. It's one thing to be and individual, but quit another to simply be alone, and powerless. Individuals can come together, do great things together, and then just as easily switch emphasis and do great things themselves. We are not one or the other, we are both. We are part of greater things than ourselves, and then we are ourselves. America's beauty is in the freedom we have to do that, and it seems like we've just been stuffed into one side of the spectrum of possibility, so a few can do what they want, even if it means the rest of us suffer.
I think the Republicans today suffer from a real lack of connection to everybody else. We don't have to do everything private sector, and we don't have to mindlessly eat away at our public sector, at government. Some places its needed, some places it isn't. If the Republicans just admitted that they can't see all ends, can't run the country all by themselves, they would have greater peace, within and without. No one party was meant to rule this country.
The fact that Romney's your candidate and he's doing so poorly, Republicans and conservatives, comes from the fact that the GOP hasn't wanted to admit its weakness, its injury. But the wounds haven't gone away, the pride and hubris haven't left the party, and people haven't forgotten what's gone wrong.
I'd say, try your best to win this election, but understand it's not going to be easy, and that really , it probably never was going to be easy. Prepare yourself for the possibility of loss, but stop thinking that's the end of the world. It's not. As a person who spent half his life under a Congress that disagreed strongly with his values, I can tell you that first hand. I can also tell you that time in the wilderness ends, that eventually, people change their minds. Whether that's the GOP with its doctrines, or people in the rest of the world, it will happen eventually. And yes, nothing will be like it was, but what generation has experienced the world such that anything was ever like it was? Each great generation had its challenges, its economic problems, its wars and controversies. Sometimes religion and faith expand, and sometimes they contract.
If you try and force everything, if you try and stop the flow of history, if try to win every battle no matter what the cost, you will find that you're only human, and you will fail. If you realize that, yes, there will be ups and downs, but you can decide to stick with your principles and learn your lessons and everything, if you let yourself be shaped by the world, even as you shape it, you might find a much better calm in your life.
Yes, Romney might lose. But who knows what happens in four years? Kerry lost, but Kerry was followed by Obama. Republicans won in 2004, but we won the next two elections. I know what it feels like to say the polls don't mean anything, and to charge ahead anyways. I also know what it's like to see the other side in disbelief.
You don't need to fake being confident in Romney, however you vote. You don't need to pretend he isn't in trouble. In fact, i would advise against it. Acknowledge the trouble, acknowledge the problems. Acknowledge the disconnects. It might mean compromise, but real, limited human beings inevitably have to accept imperfect results, if they want to maintain any kind of consistent part of getting what they want out of life. We take what we can get.
Don't pretend this won't be tough. But remember that if you don't succeed, this nation gives second chances.
The right has suffered another temporary break from reality. They’ll snap back. It just may take longer if Obama wins than it normally would.
Posted by: Adam Ducker at September 30, 2012 4:11 PMStephen…you’ve written 2,355 words in your thread to say what? To ask what? You put me to sleep.
The incumbent is ahead in the polls because the Republican nominee is a Big Businessman who does not have the snake oil salesman skills of the incumbent; because unions are fearfull of losing clout; because there are more and more federal and state employees in union protected jobs; because the incumbent has made it possible to get entitlements without having to interview for jobs or accept a job that you don’t want; and because people on Medicare, and those about to go on it, are unwilling to make sacrifices to keep from passing our debt on to our children and grandchildren. Does that about sum it up?
What this group does not realize, nor O for that matter, is that we can’t improve the economy by creating government jobs (teachers, policemen, firemen, etc) or infrastructure jobs and expect to see a turnaround. These job’s payrolls are all met with taxpayer money in one form or the other. Taxes are either raised, the government prints more money, or we borrow from China. Kick the can, kick the can, kick the can.
Until a candidate has the balls to stand up and give us the unattractive truth about the sacrifices that are going to have to be made, and until the voters are smart enough to comprehend that what they are hearing is the truth, take heed and respond to it, there is no hope. We will end up being a Greece, or Spain.
Posted by: John Johnson at September 30, 2012 4:58 PMJ J, sorry to see that you’re such a naysayer, but you’ll find yourself in good (?) company after the elections. As long as so many of you continue to move around with such narrow minds full of elitest attitudes, you make the rest of feel pretty damned good about ourselves.
Posted by: jane doe at September 30, 2012 5:40 PMThanks for the sympathy, JD. I’m no elitist. I lost 95% of my airline related business customers after 9/11. My wife has Parkinson’s disease. It has been tough the last decade, but we still consider ourselves lucky. We can still pay our bills and cover insurance costs. Our concern is for our two kids and our grandchildren. My wish for you is that you pull your head out.
Posted by: John Johnson at September 30, 2012 6:24 PMIs this the same Hispanic Univision who went after Obama in an interview just a couple of weeks ago?
“Video: Preview of Univision’s “bombshell” report on Fast & Furious”
“The Obama administration clearly hoped that the Department of Justice’s Inspector General report on Operation Fast and Furious would be the last word on the scandal. which has been tied to hundreds of deaths in Mexico and the murders of two American law-enforcement officials. However, a new report from Univision to be broadcast tomorrow, previewed here by ABC News, may put the issue back on the front pages. One source called Univision’s findings the “holy grail” that Congressional investigators have been seeking:”
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/29/video-univisions-bombshell-report-on-fast-furious/
Why, yes, it is the same Univision…
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81470.html
Posted by: Frank at September 30, 2012 10:35 PMJ J, perhaps if you were a little more tolerant of situations others are having to endure, the sentiment could and would be returned. Funny how some people get all f—-ed up in their thought processing, though.
Posted by: jane doe at September 30, 2012 11:16 PMWasn’t looking for sympathy, Jane. Thanks for sharing your opinion.
Posted by: John Johnson at September 30, 2012 11:39 PMJohn Johnson-
The real snake oil is that austerity is the cure for economic troubles. Unemployment has risen becaus of austerity, because they’re slashing benefits left and right, bleeding that money from the economy, which in turn makes both the economy and the revenues that depend upon the economy worse.
Austerity is a luxury good, for the most part. If you buy it, it’s money you can’t eat with, it’s money you can’t employ people with, it’s money you can’t drive an economy with. Not one of the country’s that’s attempted austerity to fix the budgets has improved its debt situation. Instead, their economies are doing worse than ours.
It’s not that we don’t need to get a handle on this problem at some point, but attempting to do so now is robbing Peter to Pay Paul. If the economy improves, so do revenues, and so does the fiscal situation. Try and improve the fiscal situation on the backs of the average person, and you end up making the trouble worse, and that you end up passing to your children.
I mean, really, if you try austerity at this point, not only do you fail to pay off the debts, but you also pass on a chronically bad economy for the next generation.
The folks who need to stop buying the snake oil are the folks who are letting the deficit hysteria overwhelm the need to get people back to work.
And you know what that’s about? Republicans fundamentally screwed the pooch on fiscal matters, so this business about being the hardcore fiscal hawks, ready to rescue the nation, is really about avoiding the ugly truth of their own policies.
And what makes that worse, and ties back into my subject as well, is that because of the way Republicans deal with fiscal matters, they actually don’t tend to do the good they’re supposed to. Is it just coincidence that the big tax cuts were followed by failures both in the economy and in the fiscal realm? Today’s policies are no different.
It’s a distraction, more or less. Arithmetic is what we need in Washington, not more hysteria about what we leave our children.
Frank-
Speaking of hysteria, You’re peddling it in spades. This is the real truth. The truth is, you don’t want a strong gun policy that would allow people to stop these guns, you just want a scandal. You want to talk, with no evidence, of it reaching all the way to the top, and then the sick irony is, you want to act like the Obama Administration deliberately walked guns in order to encourage gun control laws.
This is the deep fried bull**** your side peddles to avoid question about your side’s policies.
You want to have it both ways. You want to limit the access of Federal officials to information they need to track guns, and then you want to complain that they didn’t stop the guns on time. You want to maintain egregious loopholes and slap-on-the-wrist sentences, yet you’re asking the ATF and the US Attorneys to prosecute more of these people.
If all you want to do is sit on your ass an propagandize, then you’re doing perfectly. But if you want better policy, the perhaps you better take your head out of Rush Limbaugh’s pilonidal cyst carrier, and realize that your absolutist positions can’t realistically do the job.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at October 1, 2012 12:25 AMSorry, Kid, you have been reading the wrong books.
There have been others in recent times who have overcome crushing deficits and found a cure. Do some research on Canada’s debt to income ratio back on the mid-90’s…while you are at it, read up on what the Governor of Puerto Rico did to turn their upside down economy around. The answers are there…we are either too dumb or too egotistical to seek answers from others…to follow another’s lead.
Let me give you a hint. They laid off a lot of government employees. They reduced entitlements. They transferred gov departments over to the private sector to operate and manage. Low and behold, record unemployment improved and the economy made a turnaround.
End of story.
Posted by: John Johnson at October 1, 2012 12:54 AMI guess I should settle myself down again.
Here’s my thing: I started blogging not so much because I was some dedicated leftist, but because I saw policy going wrong, and the politics operating parasitically to avoid the political cost of admitting those mistakes, rather than operating to change those policies, and run things better.
Politics has become less about what’s in people’s best interests, as they decide it, and more about realizing imaginary agendas, even if it causes great pain and suffering.
Sometimes necessary policy hurts, but we can see results out of it. But that shouldn’t be a glibly given answer to the question of whether something is working or not. We’re supposed to learn from experience, and I would submit nobody is above doing so, especially when things go wrong.
A hell of a lot has gone wrong in the past decade, and my political activism awoke because I saw nothing of our experiences sinking into the leaders, moderating their views, convincing them that perhaps another way would work better.
I think the GOP’s become a party that believes it’s got the truth on a silver plate, and the rest of us just have to catch up to that. No going back, no moderating. Experience won’t teach us anything, it will just test our ability to keep the faith.
God deserves faith, but the works of man should be judged by their fruits. We should not be locked into a bad situation because some guy in Washington is too chicken**** to admit he’s wrong.
Romney doesn’t represent a change from that, he represents a change back to that. We don’t need it. We need a more starkly realistic sense of our world.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at October 1, 2012 1:01 AMJohn Johnson-
End of story?
If you’re talking about Puerto Rico, are you prepared to live with this level of child poverty, which even now is two or three times ours?
Would 16% unemployment count as a good target?
According to the article, Puerto Rico’s credit is almost at junk status, compared to ours, which is at the exact opposite side of things. You can talk about success, but I need you to explain where the bloody economic miracle is in better detail. Try links and quotes.
As for Canada in the 90’s, if their economy had similar growth rates to ours, they could afford some austerity.
But we’re not talking about austerity in a time of red hot growth. We’re talking about a time where the economy is weak.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at October 1, 2012 1:17 AMOk, Stephen…this is it. If you catch me posting on one of your threads after this post, please block me.
Here is a link to what transpired in Puerto Rico after the changes were allowed to work on the 16% unemployment you quote. You, for some reason, had a hard time finding it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzZ_9OIehb4
Look up “ideologue”, print the word on an adhesive label and stick it on your forehead.
Posted by: John Johnson at October 1, 2012 1:52 AMJohn Johnson-
John Stossel. Hmm. Well, I took a few minutes to go throught the video. Not once did they really talk about actual economic growth or employment numbers.
I looked at those numbers. It turns out that the same number of people are employed, just that about twenty-four thousand have left the labor force.
There’s been no jobs bonanza, the unemployment is still high. Those roads and other things Fortuno talks about privatizing? As this article says, you can only sell them once. Meanwhile, the most recent unemployment figures have them at 13.5%, which is 5.4% worse than ours his. They have over 40% of their people in poverty. We have 15%. We had America growing over the last 4 years, after the Stimulus, while Puerto Rico, under Fortuno, continued to recede until just this year.
In other words, I can say we’re doing better than Puerto Rico on most fronts. Why should we endeavor to be more like those who are doing worse?
As for your label? You seriously post a link to a Fox Businss Channel reporter, who seems to be constantly selling an agenda, and I’m the ideologue? I don’t know any other reporter who lifts up a sign from behind him, like Wiley Coyote.
I’m not interested in buying into mythology. Fortuno’s growth has been predominately negative, and he has yet to grow his way back out of it. If you want to provide an example of success, show me Puerto Rico in five or six years with 4 or 5% growth a year.
One last thing. Are you aware of how much of their economy comes from our government expenditures?
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at October 1, 2012 12:26 PMI did a search for “puerto rico economic turnaround” and found a long list of pieces on the subject. They might have been propoganda, but normally you will find a few dissenting views. Most all appeared positive. One of the most recent posts cited a bond rating at it’s highest level in 28 years; another, the lowest unemployment in 10 years. Sorry, Mr. Daugherty, your arguments don’t seem to hold up against the facts.
Posted by: eyeswideopen at October 1, 2012 2:41 PMStephen, you can’t keep moving around all over the place. Stay on point.
We are not in a race with Puerto Rico to see who is doing better by comparing economic figures. We all know that their starting numbers in any category were not the same as ours. I was simply pointing out the steps they took to overcome their problems and decrease their national debt.
You seem to want to ignore them.
The liberal posters and editors on this site don’t even come to your defense, because the convoluted way you string random thoughts together in an attempt to make your point isn’t working.
P.S. I asked you nicely to block my access to your threads.
Posted by: John Johnson at October 1, 2012 3:20 PMhttp://spectator.org/blog/2012/09/30/hugo-chavez-endorses-obama
Posted by: dbs at October 1, 2012 4:59 PMDougherty writes; “It’s a distraction, more or less. Arithmetic is what we need in Washington, not more hysteria about what we leave our children.”
Obama doesn’t know simple arithmetic either is appears.
“In his interview with David Letterman last night, President Obama admitted that he didn’t know the amount of the national debt.
“Now, do you remember what that number was? Was it $10 trillion?” asked Letterman.
“I don’t remember what the number was precisely,” responded Obama.
The national debt, of course, was $10 trillion when President Obama took office, but is now currently at 16 trillion and counting.
“If this is me, I got the credit card guy calling me every day, I start to get scared,” Letterman responded. “As Americans should we be scared that we owe that kind of money? Who do we owe that money to?”
“Well a lot of it we owe to ourselves,” Obama explained. “Because if you invest in a treasury bill or something like that, essentially you’re loaning the government money.”
Obama added that a “majority” of the debt was held by “folks who live here.”
“We don’t have to worry about it short term,” added Obama. “Right now interest rates are low, because people still consider the United States the safest and greatest country on earth, rightfully so.”
The national debt today stands at, $16,077,660,377,043.63.
I will do the arithmetic for both Dougherty and obama and give the amount that is owed today by each and every American. It is $51,266.92.
obama doesn’t know the figure and Dougherty says it’s a “distraction”.
I suppose if one doesn’t pay any federal income tax it is merely a “distraction”. You know…something for others to worry about.
Dougherty is in good company with obama as they both see the need for this debt to increase dramatically. Yup…we don’t have enough debt and we don’t have enough spending to create more debt. That’s their answer to our financial problems…more spending…more debt.
My Goodness…what deep thinkers they both are. It makes one feel better to have Daugherty explain to us that the Reps and Cons are all wrong about debt. If only we would change course and get on the spending bandwagon we could win an election.
Posted by: Royal Flush at October 1, 2012 5:07 PM“Stephen, you can’t keep moving around all over the place. Stay on point.”
JJ, welcome to the world of Stephen Daugherty; “if he can’t dazzle you with brilliance, he will baffle you with bullshit”.
Stephen will jump thru hoops to keep from answering a question.
Take for example my comment #353873; dealing with Univision’s investigation of Obama and Holder’s “Fast and Furious”. What was Stephen’s answer?
He called the article “hysteria”, “peddling it in spades”, “scandal”, “no evidence”, “deep fried bull****”, “sit on your ass an propagandize”, and last but not least “take your head out of Rush Limbaugh’s pilonidal cyst carrier”.
But, what Stephen failed to do was address the investigation conducted by Hispanic Univision. It was not Rush Limbaugh or the Republicans who conducted and produced a documentary on Obama’s and Holder’s “Fast and Furious”; but perhaps Stephen could tell us what effect this investigation will have on the Hispanic vote after it is aired on Hispanic TV?
Frank…welcome to the magical world of Dougherty. obama is the wizard and Stehpen is the Scarecrow. obama hides behind a curtain and pretends to be something he is not…a leader for example, and Dougherty is merely looking for a charlatan to give him a brain.
Posted by: Royal Flush at October 1, 2012 5:21 PMWe know of Obama’s past connections with radicals; I wonder why he protects Holder?
I think the MSM missed this one when they vetted Holder.
Posted by: Frank at October 1, 2012 5:51 PMRoyal, is it possible for a “dumbass” to ever have a brain???
Posted by: Frank at October 1, 2012 5:53 PMSD
“We should not be locked into a bad situation because some guy in Washington is too chicken**** to admit he’s wrong.”
You were talking about Obama, is that right?
Thought so.
Maranatha
Posted by: tom humes at October 1, 2012 6:23 PMtom humes-
Wow, your argument must be so powerful because you, like, changed the names around.
I can name the dumb mistakes that Bush persisted in, what he allowed to get worse. I’ve made those arguments. You just make flip false equivalences. You’re not doing your work.
John Johnson-
The numbers speak for themselves. This program of his was passed in 2009, and even worse years of economic downturn followed it, with less a percent growth now being your miraculous, counter intuitive result. Poverty is much higher, unemployment is higher, and their credit rating remains rather low in comparison to ours.
Fortuno’s economy has been going downhill since he got into office, and you’re trying to give him credit for being on top of the world, when he’s just a few steps out of some rather serious GDP contraction. You can’t just look at the last year. Stossel and Fortuno have cherry-picked the data to make themselves look good.
Austerity sounds wonderful until you realize that much of the spending of a government plows back into the economy. Deficit spending doesn’t burden the people with the bill immediately, so cutting that spending doesn’t cut something that’s drawing off the economy, it’s cutting something that’s feeding into the economy. Now you don’t want too much debt you can’t pay back, but as of this point, our debt is so cheap, people are buying it at sub-inflation yields.
Now you’re supporting a candidate here who did a lot of leveraging of small amounts amounts of money into big, so I don’t buy the argument from you guys that you can’t make money by borrowing it. The economy practically wouldn’t run if it had to advance on a cash and carry basis. That’s part of what made the financial crisis of 2008 so fricking lethal- the paralysis of credit.
We would do much better investing enough to get our economy growing, not invoking these measures you’re talking about, which seemed to be followed by more than two years of worsened economic recession.
We’re not going to trade objectively worse performing policy for better.
As for nicely asking to be blocked, I’m nicely telling you no.
First, because I don’t think I have that kind of privileges, and second because I think that’s a lousy, craven way to win an argument online. I’ll only ask the administrators to block a person if they’re just flamethrowing at everybody else, or their spamming the hell out of the site. And then, I won’t bother with half measures, I’ll be asking the folks upstairs to just kick you off the site wholesale.
But then, you’d deserve it. You’re nice enough, and I have thick skin, so, no. I’m in no panic, no hurry.
dbs-
I don’t care.
Royal Flush-
If our economy remains lame, or worse, gets knocked back into recession, then revenues will be reduced. The fiscal cliff they say is threatening the economy is in part the result of the sequesters your friends in the tea party forced on us.
It’s a balancing act. Economic growth must be restored, and bringing in austerity in such a heavy handed way will not help that happen. If the heavy handed manuevering knocks us back into recession, stalls long term growth, that makes it tougher to keep social spending down, and revenues high.
You want to solve this problem now, which you have spent the pass decade creating. You dealt with the creation of the deficit foolishly, and now you deal with its resolution with an equal lack of judgment. Your intentions were good when you started the deficit up again. You were saying that deficit spending was good then, too!
Now it’s not. I think it’s the letter by the President’s name that’s causing this change of heart.
I didn’t call the article BS. I called the allegations against Obama and holder, the whole scandal BS. It’s the Republicans trying to use the consequences of lax gun laws they can’t be bothered to tightened to impugn the reputations of folks they have political grudges against, like the ATF, the AG, and the President.
Oh, while we’re on the subject of political figures, did you know that Univision is run by a former Bush appointee? Helps to know that.
Oh, by the way, I did some research on the matter, and found this article. It seems like the only think they were armed with were “pillowcases and sheets.” They could find no more mention of stronger armaments than that, such as guns, knives, clubs, or, God forbid, down comforters. The place they were occupying, by the way, was already abandoned.
Isn’t it funny how it works. I swear it seems like the Daily Caller was trying to make it seem like Eric Holder was storming the place like the Black Panthers did the California Legislature. What the Daily Mail describes sounds more like squatting than insurrection. But there you go again. You got to have something to be afraid of, otherwise the rational thinking starts kicking in, and a bunch of spoiled fat guys lose their hold over conservatives who might otherwise think for themselves.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at October 1, 2012 9:19 PMFrank is correct, the polls are starting to tighten up. CNN now in margin of error:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/01/battle-for-presidency-remains-close-in-new-cnn-poll/
Posted by: TomT at October 1, 2012 9:23 PMYou might be the worst debater I have ever encountered, Kid. Your retorts are just hundreds of disconnected words that don’t meet anywhere. Some guy tells you where to go to find that PR’s bond rating is higher than it has been in 28 years ( which means a much stronger economy and smaller debt) and you counter with what? Nothing. Did you even go look, or were you too afraid to knowing what you’d find.
You do have two strong personality traits…you are hardheaded and you have no shame.
Posted by: John Johnson at October 1, 2012 10:20 PMJohn Johnson, you know that just because you haven’t been asked to leave, you’ve also not been asked to stay!!! By all means, feel free to leave at any time…I don’t think you’ll be missed.
Posted by: jane doe at October 1, 2012 10:46 PMThanks, Jane. Always good hearing from you. Are you Stephen’s mother?
Posted by: John Johnson at October 1, 2012 11:05 PMJD, I think JJ is doing a great job. It didn’t take him long to figure out that SD is a kid, who has never had a job, wife, or children. He’s spent his whole life sucking on the government teat; has no concept of real life, and only knows the liberal BS that has been spoon fed to him. Much like you, Adrienne, and Adam Ducker. But….SD is brilliant…if you don’t believe it, just ask him.
JJ will be missed, but you won’t.
Posted by: Frank at October 1, 2012 11:10 PMHAha, Jane Doe is probably old enough to be Stephen’s grandmother.
Posted by: Billinflorida at October 1, 2012 11:12 PMTomT: “Frank is correct, the polls are starting to tighten up.”
Does this mean I get credit for the sun coming up today?
Posted by: Adam Ducker at October 1, 2012 11:21 PMFrank: “Much like you, Adrienne, and Adam Ducker.”
Sorry, Frank. You were breaking up. What did you say?
Posted by: Adam Ducker at October 1, 2012 11:24 PMMy posts have grown rude, so I am going to truly quit responding to Stephen’s threads, Jane. I know it’s goofy to attempt to cure an ideologue. For some unknown reason, I just keep trying.
Posted by: John Johnson at October 1, 2012 11:38 PMJohn Johnson-
First, I suppose you’re not familiar with the style of debate where facts are offered as support for a point, rather than where cheapshots are the only thing leveled.
I could have just said some off-color thing about third world countries. I could have blown the video off. But I didn’t. I listened, and I took careful notes as to what the man actually talked about.
The most glaring omission I found in that video was the complete lack of discussion of either the unemployment rate, or the precise rate of economic growth. What was really left out, given that the law was enacted in 2009, is that Puerto Rico spent 2009, 2010, and 2011, in an even deeper economic recession than it was in going into 2008. Only in 2012, do we actually see any growth, and it’s not all that impressive, not even a full percentage point.
The details I saw the most of where the stats of how many government workers got fired, how much consolidation and privatization was done. But the very statistics that would be important in speaking about basic employment and growth never showed up in their conversation. Given what they were, and what they are, that’s not surprising. You can’t tell people whose economy has been growing since summer three years ago to adopt the policies of a territory whose economy has been shrinking severely most of that time.
If their unemployment and poverty is much worse than ours, why believe that that imitating them will do us much good?
He talks about a ninety percent cut in the deficit. Now let me ask you a question: if over a trillion dollars went bye-bye from the economy, all at once, what would the consequence be? I mean, effectively a ten percent drop in GDP, what would happen?
I would imagine, what happened with Puerto Rico, and other countries that have been forced into austerity. Look at Spain and Greece. Austerity, as it’s been forced on them, has essentially crippled the economy. Depression level unemployment, huge cuts in economic growth. Because the revenues depend upon the economy, it’s undermined the fiscal recovery. They’re worse off now than before.
You folks are like teenagers who bust an engine over-revving it, because you think flooring the gas is all that matters to making the car go fast. The economy, like a car, needs to have its priorities balanced. If we are to do austerity, it needs to be done with patience and prudence.
You can bash me and my style, but that’s not going to win you the argument when your case is fundamentally flawed. We should not follow the example of countries in worse shape than we are, economically speaking.
TomT-
As for national polls? Obama’s three ahead, so it’s between a half a point behind and six points ahead. There’s a lot of territorty that Romney shouldn’t want to be in.
John Johnson-
I don’t let people off easy, especially if they get uncivil with me. They should figure out by now that I try to be more easy going with folks who aren’t trying to argue, like poor Frank there, why nobody should listen to me.
The conservative media has made a lot of debate about character assassination, and that hasn’t served anybody well arguing with me. I don’t like to be insulted, especially when the insult is BS.
Frank-
It’s interesting that you make so many of your responses to me about character.
Frankly, I think those are rather boring and tedious arguments. With a little effort, I was able to present a response to John Johnson that wasn’t about his being a terrible so-and-so.
What can I say about you, that would actually change anything at all about whether I’m wrong or right on a point? The facts remain the facts, and they remain a way to make those who are stubbornly attached to badly supported talking point squirm, without having to really get personal.
I find factual arguments carry more moral force. You should do something or must do something because X is true. If all you do is vent your opinion, who cares? Who has to to acknowledge your side as true?
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at October 1, 2012 11:59 PMNo, I’m not Stephens’ mother, though that doesn’t sicken me, if that’s what you’re proposing. You’re just one of the latest of our trolls, J J , to come in and attempt a hijacking of the conversation with your (?) witty attacks and feeble sarcasm. Frank is actually a newer troll as well, and he isn’t aware of the fact that no matter how hard most of us have tried to ignore his blathering, he refuses to go away.
Jane Doe:
For the record I wouldn’t call Frank a troll though I disagree with him to no end. He’s as on topic as any of us are with his views.
I’m not sure about John Johnson. He doesn’t have to stay or go but I wish he’d either go or stop saying he’s going to go. For someone who remembers the 1970’s he sure does whine a lot.
Posted by: Adam Ducker at October 2, 2012 7:44 AM“Frank-
It’s interesting that you make so many of your responses to me about character”
Actually Stephen, I know nothing about your character; only what you tell us, and you tell us a lot. But what I do know is your desire to be braggadocios about yourself. It is always about you. Secondly, by your own statements, you have absolutely no life experience. You were a student, a dreamer who spends most of his life playing video games and watching movies. You have had no responsibilities as a parent, or even a husband. You probably still live with your parents.
It’s easy to talk about the government’s role in education when it’s not your children being subjected to the system. I love how democrat politicians are such defenders of the public education system, but place their own children in private schools. You have no family in which to provide HC for; yet you are an expert in how HC should be provided for everyone else. You have never owned a business, never met a payroll, and yet you know all about how a business should be run. It’s easy to call for more federal taxes, when you don’t pay any federal income tax.
Lastly, your posts tell us a lot about you; they are way too lengthy, boring, and a means by which you can list all the things you hate about conservatism. Your posts always say the same things; a laundry list of democrat talking points. Why should anyone read your posts, when we can just turn on the Sunday talk show circuit and hear the same things from the Obama talking heads? You never answer the tough questions; you simply move on to new talking points. JJ has your number perfectly.
Let’s look once again at my comments in # 353898:
“Stephen will jump thru hoops to keep from answering a question.
Take for example my comment #353873; dealing with Univision’s investigation of Obama and Holder’s “Fast and Furious”. What was Stephen’s answer?
He called the article “hysteria”, “peddling it in spades”, “scandal”, “no evidence”, “deep fried bull****”, “sit on your ass an propagandize”, and last but not least “take your head out of Rush Limbaugh’s pilonidal cyst carrier”.
But, what Stephen failed to do was address the investigation conducted by Hispanic Univision. It was not Rush Limbaugh or the Republicans who conducted and produced a documentary on Obama’s and Holder’s “Fast and Furious”; but perhaps Stephen could tell us what effect this investigation will have on the Hispanic vote after it is aired on Hispanic TV?”
So what was your answer to the question asked a second time? Why, your answer was to say I’m involved in character assassination. You changed the subject. If you’re going to comment on what I say, or in this case interject your thoughts into the Univision Documentary; the least you could do is deal with the Univision Documentary and not some mythical attack on me. It was not Rush Limbaugh who did the Univision investigation; in fact I never brought up Limbaugh’s name. So why would you? Univision asked Obama some tough questions in their interview with him and the also investigated the killing of many Mexican citizens, by weapons that Holder and company handed over to the drug cartel. It would be hard for even Stephen Daugherty to claim that Univision was a right wing conspiracy.
Frank-
I know a loaded question when I see one. Why should I be stupid enough to grant the loaded question its trap of a premise? If you ask me when I stopped raping ten year old girls, am I obligated to give you the hour or the date?
I don’t have to play these stupid games. I can respond in a manner that suits what I know to be true, about myself and the world.
As for everything you’ve said? You’re contradicting yourself. Some guess you have right. Not married, no kids. But you’re wrong. I have had to support a family, and I have had to deal with healthcare costs, or see my family deal with them. And you know what? I can understand the burdens of raising a family somewhat from my memories of my own family’s difficulties, and from my current experience of watching my peers deal with their families.
You fault me for having an imagination, but imagination is crucial for empathy. Is keeping a family fed all that different if the family you’re breadwinning for is adults, rather than children? Is it any less important to get a father the care he needs than to get a child?
You want to allege that only business owners have the right to comment on the effects of the policy they want. I say that customers and communities that might be affected by their behavior have that right, too. You shouldn’t have to be a nuclear engineer to register concern over contamination from radioisotopes, though it would be nice if you actually come to an argument knowing something.
I don’t like to be ignorant. I like to come to an argument with some kind of support, and very often I will research what experts say. Rarely is your point of view the only one out there, especially among those who are qualified, and never is only the business person the person who has the right to comment on what happens. We can talk about the fairness or unfairness of a policy, but let’s talk in the language of facts and figure.
It’s one thing to tell somebody that they aren’t qualified to say anything. Me? If I want to shut somebody up, or at least knock them off their stride, I go, and I research the issue. Very often, folks on the right depend on sources who had more interest in manipulating people than properly informing them. I’ve exploited that fact dozens of times, exposed the false facts and figures behind their arguments.
As for federal income tax? I get it taken out of my paycheck, along with Social Security and Medicare every paycheck. I felt the effects of both Bush Tax cuts and Obama’s. Right, that’s right, you just assume that I don’t work. You assume that I don’t have a job.
As for what I hate about conservatism? Not as much as you might think. I respect faith, just not hatred, intolerance, or hypocrisy.
I respect the need to keep both government and people within their means. But any family I know would not give up its house, give up the food it feeds its children, or let their grandparents get kicked to the street, just to do that. Folks would fight to find more money, in the way of jobs or loans or whatever, in order to make ends meet. Austerity like that is a last resort. You don’t deny your child a trip to the emergency room, just because you know you’ll owe a hospital bill you’d find it tough to pay off.
You do what you have to do.
America should do what it has to do to get back to economic normality, rather than pretend its not an emergency so one party can reclaim an ill-qualified reputation for being fiscal hawks after having been spendthrifts in more prosperous times.
I have my principles, and many of them are not too far away from a conservatives. I have no qualms about hitting back against governments and groups that have attacked our our country. But I don’t think much of opportunists who try to use the patriotic fervor that getting attacked drums up to shunt us into wars an policies we don’t need. And while sometimes we do need to break the rules in order to get things done, take risks that don’t necessarily have easy outcomes, using it as an excuse to abandon our principles will never fly with me, especially when that abandonment is exactly what our enemies want to provoke.
Above all, I’m a functionalist. To the degree government exists, and is charged by Congress to do a thing, it should be equipped and funded to the extent necessary to do that thing. I have no problem with reducing the size, scope, or powers of government, if the outcome works. If it doesn’t, I point to it and I say, there needs to be a law there, you need to more fully fund that agency and support it, or government needs to be involved there, in one way or another.
I can live with folks doing things another way if doing things that way takes care of business. What I can’t abide are ideologues that keep bull**** policies going, or push for such policies, without any care or attention to consequence. That’s why things like the Debt Ceiling and the Iraq war get me angry. They represent politics getting in the way of good policy.
The Fast and Furious Scandal seems to be just that kind of dysfunctional political stunt that doesn’t solve a damn thing besides making Darrel Issa look busy, and Obama and Eric Holder look bad. If what is in my linked article is true, then what we’re looking at is a combination of some politicians not doing their jobs as far as legislating good gun laws, and not prosecuting cases, and an agency being blamed for not doing what it could be doing by politicians looking to make themselves look good.
So, that pisses me off. It’s political controversy that utterly fails to solve the real problems
And that seem to be the tendency towards which the Tea Party and the GOP have degenerated. That’s where the strength of my opposition comes from. You call me a dreamer? Well, I think the GOP and the conservative movement are dreamers, too, but unfortunately dreamers who have let their feet float off the ground, and blown away with the clouds they have their heads in. Too much of the agenda is pushed without people actually measuring the results.
I support the Democrats because I believe I can get them to confront the problems at hand more easily. Sometimes I get frustrated with them, too, but with Republicans acting utterly clueless, incompetent, and corrupt, I have absolutely no reason to rely on them.
Republicans might find it easier to get the support of a person like me if the agendas they pursued came second to things working in the real world, if they let that agenda shift with the real world. Because they will not keep themselves synchronized there, I can’t in good conscience support the party or its candidates.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at October 2, 2012 12:55 PMFrank-
As for the documentary?
First, if what I’ve read is true, then the people who should be made to feel guilty are the Conservatives who won’t tighten up or strengthen gun laws in order to avoide this.
Second, if the documentary itself just focuses on the victims, rather than say, providing us with a person who can prove a more direct link like you’re always alleging, then at best it’s a human interest story, and at worst, it’s waving the bloody shirt, a propaganda piece that doesn’t change the fact that many of these strawbuyers were allowed to walk off with their guns because the laws and the resources didn’t allow anything further to be done in a suitable timeframe.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at October 2, 2012 2:23 PMIDEOLOGUE
1: an often blindly, unyielding partisan advocate or adherent of a particular ideology
Synonyms: crusader, fanatic, zealot (also idealogue), militant, partisan (also partizan), red hot, true believer
Posted by: eyeswideopen at October 2, 2012 6:02 PMTypical liberal answer Stephen, it’s someone elses fault that the Justice Department and ATF screwed up. For almost 4 years you have been blaming someone else for YOUR PEOPLES screw ups, when is it going to be YOUR PEOPLES fault? If Obama gets a second term is it still going to be Bush’s fault? I suppose the 4 Embassies that were attacked in the M.E. and Lybia were Bush’s fault? NO you can’t blame Bush on that one, this latest screw up belongs to OBAMA and his lackys period.
Posted by: KAP at October 2, 2012 6:42 PMTo all our liberal friends
Yes, Obama has it in the bag. The core Democratic voters can stay home and do the usual things, watch some reality TV, play the lottery, drink beer. No need to come out and vote in November. It is too hard anyway. Somebody may ask you for identification and even if they don’t you will have to read the screen and make choices. It all smacks of effort. Stay home, relax. It is in the bag.
Posted by: C&J at October 3, 2012 7:13 AMKAP-
We have yet to see evidence that Obama ordered guns to be walked, or was even aware of a program like that. Your people haven’t even proven that of Eric Holder. And then came this article that I’ve cited which demonstrates that the guns were allowed to cross the border simply because it took so long to go through the paperwork to find the strawbuyer’s suspicious behavior that the gunrunning was all done by the time the ATF had a line on them. Add to that the fact that prosecutors were reluctant to actually prosecute people, and what’s left?
I haven’t argued a damn thing from “Obama’s so nice and perfect!” That’s just your ad hominem response to me. But my rosier view on Obama doesn’t mean my facts are disproved.
So lighten up and use fewer capital letters. If you want to dispute my conclusions, fine, but try using factual data instead of being outraged that I don’t think like a supposedly independent conservative like yourself. The world’s full of folks who don’t think your way, get used to it.
C&J-
The way I see it, the fact we’re winning doesn’t mean its not been a hard fight to get to that position, nor that the hard fight is over.
Stephen, It happened on Obama’s watch, and he should have known or at least Holder should have known what was going on. When I was in the military and stood a watch I had to tell the next person who took over what was going on what was broke what was happening. So the office of president and attorney general don’t get briefed about things going on I suppose and that is their scape goat for not knowing. Poor excuse!!!!! You portray him as nice and perfect. Now whaty about this latest happening in Libya his fault or was that Bush’s too.
Posted by: KAP at October 3, 2012 11:25 AMLooking forward to the first debate tonight! Unfortunately though, I will not be able to see what all the lefties in Watchblog have to say after the fact. At the moment I’m in New Jersey visiting my mom for her birthday — no internet. I’m at a Starbucks as I write this.
Posted by: Adrienne at October 3, 2012 11:27 AMKAP-
Rep. Issa’s committee has flagged this document as proof that the agents chose to walk guns. But prosecutors had determined, Voth says, that the “transfer of firearms” was legal. Agents had no choice but to keep investigating and start a wiretap as quickly as possible to gather evidence of criminal intent.
Ten days after the meeting with Hurley, a Saturday, Jaime Avila, a transient, admitted methamphetamine user, bought three WASR-10 rifles at the Lone Wolf Trading Company in Glendale, Ariz. The next day, a helpful Lone Wolf employee faxed Avila’s purchase form to ATF to flag the suspicious activity. It was the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, so the agents didn’t receive the fax until Tuesday, according to a contemporaneous case report. By that time, the legally purchased guns had been gone for three days. The agents had never seen the weapons and had no chance to seize them. But they entered the serial numbers into their gun database. Two of these were later recovered at Brian Terry’s murder scene.
What do those facts indicate to you, or are you just not interested in ruining a good story?
They never had a chance to interdict the weapons much of the time, never got the authority to much of the time.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at October 3, 2012 3:21 PMStephen, That still don’t answer why Obama and Holder were unaware of what was going on, especially Holder, He should have been aware of what was going on in his department from day one. Now we have a second tragedy in Bengazi were this administration failed to protect an Ambassador and three others. They said until recently that the protest were spontaneous. Obama instead of going to his briefings read transcripts 60% of the time, you can’t ask questiopns reading transcripts. You would chastize Bush or any other reepublican if this happened on their watch but you give Obama a pass?
Posted by: KAP at October 3, 2012 3:57 PMKAP-
Because the American Government is a huge operation, and you do not trouble the President of the United States with every detail of operations. That’s what the lower sections of the Hierarchy are for. And really, if there isn’t a real scandal, then this whole “Did Obama and Holder know” thing becomes rather obtuse.
The tragedy in Benghazi? Here’s what gets me. If we had followed Republican Wishes, Benghazi would be known as the place where tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed by Qaddafi. So, perhaps if we listened to the Republicans all the time, four state department employees would be alive, and thousands of civilians would be dead.
As for the protests?
God the morons in the right wing media love to confuse these things. The Attack, that is, the attack on the Ambassador was planned, and likely a terrorist attack. The protest was likely spontaneous, not necessarily related.
But who cares, it gets in the way of a good story, doesn’t it?
Just like that nice little “Obama doesn’t attend all his briefings” meme. You concede he always reads the reports, but then you say, you can’t ask questions regarding transcripts.
Yes he can! He can call up anybody at any time, and ask them a question! He’s the President!
As for what I chastised Bush for?
I chastised Bush for getting into a war that was wholly unnecessary, then badly underestimating both the strategic challenges and the logistical challenges posed by successfully running the war. I did not nitpick the Bush administration on small crap.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at October 3, 2012 5:20 PMStephen, At the very least Holder should have had some idea that Fast and Furious was going on. This dumb act that he is portraying isn’t flying. As far as Bengazi and the Embassies Obama should have had some idea of unrest in the area or at least Clinton should have had an idea and let Obama know before he went campaigning in Vegas. Maybe if he did pay attention and go to the briefings he might have prevented the deaths of the Ambassador and three others by providing the extra security that had been asked for.
Posted by: KAP at October 3, 2012 8:32 PMKAP: “Maybe if he did pay attention and go to the briefings…”
Didn’t you get the memo about that lie being debunked? No? There were no briefings to go to. It’s time to move on to the next casual lie you can throw into any critique of Obama.
Posted by: Adam Ducker at October 4, 2012 12:06 AMNo briefings to go to Adam? According to what I googled and that was Daily Presidential Briefings he has or is supposed to have one every day. Now maybe he didn’t think they were important to attend or just in his busy campaign schedule didn’t schedule them or didn’t think they were important enough to be bothered with, but the fact remains 4 people were killed. Maybe they could have been prevented if he did attend a briefing once in awhile. But heck maybe his hob nobing with the Hollywood ellite and took presiBy clicking th
Posted by: KAP at October 4, 2012 12:50 AMSomething occured to me on Benghazi. That something was “The Green Zone”. Not the movie, but the diplomatic compound that served as our embassy there. Not despite having a literal army to protect it, and being fortified out the yin-yang, that place was attack, bombed, and otherwise gone after on a regular basis.
So, you can talk about added security, and whatnot, and I don’t know how much a consulate can add security, given its not a fortified building, but no added security can prevent dedicated enough attackers, especially if they have military weaponry like mortars and RPGs.
And the word is precedence. Presidence, if it’s a word, would be something like the the President doing what he’s doing. As for hanging out with Hollywood Stars? Get real, your guy had Clint Eastwood talking to a chair. If Clint Eastwood doesn’t qualify as a screen legend, then I do.
As for your continued lying here, the President reads the report, so if the information is in there, he learned of it.
What I find interesting here is that once again Congress is demanding that what we do is succeed at the same time they’re cutting us off at the knees. Did you know that the parts of the State Department responsible for adding security just suffer hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts by the same Congress that now demands answers on why security wasn’t added?
Funny how that works. You guys sabotage any additional economic stimulus, then blame us for when the economy fails to fully recover. Your folks water down and drag your feet on gun laws, then bash us when this results in more guns going over the border, claiming we let them walk, when in fact we didn’t have the resources, or often the legal authority to do otherwise without essentially committing what one agent referred to as “highway robbery”
And now you rage at us for failing to secure embassies, after you make deep cuts to the State Department budget for Embasssy construction and security.
Republicans seem to believe the government runs on pixie dust. I guess you have to believe that to believe that endless spending cuts won’t affect the economy or affect the ability of our government to protect us or our interests.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at October 4, 2012 7:41 AMStephen, If the State Dept. requested emergency funds from congress to add security knowing there was an emminent threat to our embassies I’m sure they would have authorized the funds. So you can take your poor me Democrat BS and stuff it. Nothing like a liberal democrat to come up with a dumba** excuse and blame someone else.
Posted by: KAP at October 4, 2012 3:40 PMKAP-
Why were they cutting that budget item in the first place?
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