Glenzilla on the reactions to Kucinich’s loss:
Both the Prospect and Post recite the trite case demonstrating Kucinich’s supposed weirdness. He’s friends with Shirley McLaine, who believes in reincarnation, and he once (according to McLaine) claimed to have an encounter with a UFO. Is any of that really any more strange than the litany of beliefs which the world’s major religions require? Is Barack Obama “wacky” because he claims to believe that Jesus turned water into wine, rose from the dead and will soon welcome him to heaven? Is Chuck Schumer bizarre because he seems to believe that there’s some big fatherly figure sitting in the sky who spewed fire and brimstone at those who broke the laws he sent down on some stones and now hovers over him judging his every move? Is Harry Reid a weirdo because he apparently venerates as divine the “visions” of a man who had dozens of wives, including some already married to other men?
I agree with him, because I said pretty much the same thing several years ago:
I’ve never understood the “anti-UFO” nonsense or painting people who believe in the possibility of alien life as crazy. First off, a UFO is just that- an unidentified flying object. Pilots used to report them all the time- because pilots often see things they can’t identify flying around in the air. Sometimes it turns out to be weather balloons, other times other things. Sometimes they never figure it out.
Being interested in UFO’s really isn’t that crazy. Likewise, even if when discussing UFO’s one actually met “alien life,” so what? In a culture that takes two weeks off every year to celebrate the virgin birth of a prophet who then goes on to make water into wine before being killed for telling people to get along (RIP, Douglas Adams) and then being resurrected a couple days later, the possibility that there might be alien life-forms somewhere out there just doesn’t strike me as that crazy. Why not?
Congress needs more Dennis Kucinich types, not fewer. Even if he wasn’t a master legislator.
khead
Please expand on “Dennis Kucinich types”.
Villago Delenda Est
There’s “approved weird” and “unapproved weird”.
UFOs are unapproved. Invisible Sky Buddies (and their undead offspring) are approved.
Zandar
My problems with Kucinich? It wasn’t with his weirdness. It was with his ego and the fact he was a terrible Democrat. His votes on major issues resembled Republicans more than the Donks.
When you have the luxury of being a principled progressive, that’s fine. When you’re trying to keep the GOP from wrecking the damn country, he was more trouble than he was worth.
Not sorry to see him go in the least.
gene108
Reincarnation is a strongly held belief by several religions. If it’s weird, then well over 1 billion people on this planet are weird.
Baud
Weirdness isn’t an objective quality–it’s based on perceived deviance from a range of socially prevalent norms. It’s inherently arbitrary.
hells littlest angel
Yes, yes and yes.
David Koch
Cole, it’s much more than just seeing a unidentified flying object.
Kucinich said, the aliens communicated with him telepathically.
I’m not shitting you.
lamh35
Not for nothing, but the people I’ve been in contact with in Ohio (my mom lives in Cincinnati so I do have some Ohio contacts) and elsewhere who were not fans of Kucinich did not mention his belief in UFO as a reason.
Why focus on UFOs?
case in point on reasons other than UFOs that some people had trouble with Kucinich…thx @Zandar
amk
@Zandar:
FTW
Same with saint russ.
Fuck’em.
Yutsano
OT: at the restaurant wayyy early, but I underestimated how bad the drive would be from the north. Hostess is as cute as a button and is quite lovely.
hells littlest angel
@Zandar: You got that right. If Kucinich switched parties, he’d have to support different policies, but he wouldn’t need to make a single adjustment to his personality. He’s got the soul of a right-winger.
John Cole
@David Koch: As opposed to the millions of people who hear from their invisible jeebus that they should hate gay people and that any woman who uses a pill is a slut? I’m still sticking with Dennis, thank you very much.
Even though he was awful on abortion.
Baud
@Yutsano:
Well, then, it’s all worth it.
David Koch
Why? He was anti-abortion Catholic wacko. He was so extreme he voted against stem cell research, against Title X, against late term access to abortion, and he even voted for the Hyde amendment.
He only switched when he ran for president in 2004 (no different than Romney’s conversion on reproductive rights).
Brandon
I’ve probably heard about this UFO stuff in the past, but I honestly never think about it when I am thinking about Kucinich. What I think about is a twitchy little guy who doesn’t seem very personable. I can understand why reporters cannot write this to demonstrate someone’s weirdness, because it is very much school yard bully type taunting, so it makes sense that they go digging for another reason.
But I disagree that Congress needed more Kucinich’s, because I find exactly zero value in having people around for the sole purpose of protest votes and grandstanding, and who have no interest in actually passing real legislation. He can suck it for all I care.
I do miss having more characters and fewer 1%er political service robots in Congress though. But I include in that list Traficant too. But there’s a fine line between being a character and a nut job, like Jean Schmidt, who also got primaried out of her job. Thankfully.
What is it about Ohio anyway?
khead
Digby has a sad too.
JordanRules
@John Cole:
Which is one big, big reason why we don’t need more of him in congress IMO
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
Fuckin’ A / For once I agree with Greenwald, and mon capitan. I have seen a UFO up close and personal. I was loaded and taking a whiz in a lake at night, and it skimmed over the surface back and forth, then stopped maybe a hundred yards off shore and watched me water the lilies. Had blue and green lights, and dint make a sound. Then whizzed off into the night.
There is a reason why I live between the VLA, and Roswell and the World’s only commercial spaceport, in the middle of that triangle of truth. I want to be where the action is, when ET returns. Dennis is my UFO hero and fearless in his quest for the twoof. He’s kind of odd and spastic, but then so am i.
You all leave Dennis alooooooone!!
Anton Sirius
There’s some inconclusive scientific evidence that alien visitations, angelic presences, out of body experiences etc. are all actually variations on the same basic neurological phenomenon. So maybe Kucinich’s “weirdness” isn’t so different from Joseph Smith’s at all, at all.
Ron
Kucinich was a terrible legislator. Being a legislator requires compromise. About the only time I can think of where he was willing to do that (eventually after his ego got stroked enough) was the ACA. I’m not saying I want a bunch of blue dogs or congressmen that will give away everything, but voting against a democratic bill because it isn’t pure enough is not legislatively better than voting against it because it’s too “soshalist”.
David Koch
Kucinich also has no class.
When he lost Tuesday he refused to call Marcy Kaptur and concede and then he ripped her as a dirty politician.
Sore loser.
pecola
The lore of Dennis Kucinich is so much more interesting than Kucinich is, in actuality.
julie
Marcy Kaptur beat Kucinich by 11 points. we know the better candidate won.
http://www.toledoblade.com/Editorial-Cartoons/2012/03/08/Kirk-Man-who-fell-to-Earth.html
Veritas
BREAKING
The Latest Rasmussen Tracking Poll has Obambi down by 5 points vs. Romney. That’s a wild swing from just a few days ago!
Question: if Romney is so weak and damaged, why is he clearly STILL ahead of Obambi among likely voters according to the latest poll?
Thymezone
Kucinich is an asshole and deserves no particular respect. His “impeachment” proposal against Obama re: Libya was a stupidass political stunt worthy of the Tea Party. Screw him and good riddance to him. He’s an ineffective legislator who just revels in getting attention.
slag
@hells littlest angel: Right there with you on that.
David Koch
@John Cole:
You’re such a troll. I didn’t defend the kooks who say they hear Jesus. To the contrary.
Kucinich is no better than Pat Robertson or Dubya saying God talks to them.
amk
@John Cole: Guess his being an UFO whacko gives him a pass on everything else including his standing up for his buddy, syria’s assad?
Stupid framing by gg and faithfully regurgitated by you.
Trentrunner
Kucinich discredited the progressive positions he held (and we like) by being a believer in not-popular supernatural stuff.
Yes, as truth propositions, listening to “aliens” is no more factually-based than listening to “God,” but politics is tribal, and you’d better believe what the tribe believes.
And I mean, really, do you think Obama truly believes this Jesus shit?
Baud
Gentle request: It’s a nice night–please don’t feed the troll.
Rafer Janders
@David Koch:
And many, many mainstream Republican politicians (George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, Gingrich, Michele Bachman, Santorum, etc. etc. etc.) are on record as saying that they heard voices inside their heads from an invisible sky-being, and that they then did what that voice told them to do. If Kucinich is described as “wacky” for his beliefs, then news organizations should apply the same label to all those people I noted above.
slag
@Baud: Right there with you on that too.
J. Michael Neal
It depends. If you are arguing from first principles as to whether belief in UFOs is any weirder than Christianity as a logical premise, then no. They are equally odd.
However, that’s not what is at question in the argument being made as to whether an individual who believes in UFOs is any weirder than an individual Christian, at least in most cases. The overwhelming proportion of Christians (or Muslims or Hindus or, for a number of decades now, Mormons) didn’t adopt the belief as adults as a statement of rational belief. They were raised as Christians from an age when they were too young to be making a rational decision as to what they believed. That they continue to be Christians says almost nothing about their capacity to make rational decisions and a lot about the capacity of human beings to rationalize *any* set of beliefs that they are indoctrinated in when they are young.
Belief in UFOs tends to be very different. While there are some that get indoctrinated in that belief when they are young, most of those believers consciously adopted it as adults, when they can more reasonably be criticized for irrationality. In this, it’s like Scientology.
On average, belief in UFOs says a lot more about whether or not a particular adult makes decisions in a rational manner than does belief in Jesus. That latter says more than nothing, but not nearly as much.
David Koch
Kucinich now has more time to spend with his buddy Assad.
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/06/dennis-kucinich-syria-problem
ditch digger
Have we ever been visited by extra terrestrials? Who the hell knows, maybe someone did a driveby of Earth sometime in our 4 billion year history. As for their being life somewhere else in the universe? I think with the odds you are almost crazy not to think there isn’t.
One of my favourite books I ever read way back when was Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot, it had a chapter either by him or his colleague that went along the lines of:
There are an estimated 2 Billion galaxies in the universe, but they were all created for ours.
There are an estimated 2 billion stars in our galaxy, but they were all created for ours.
There are 9/8 planets in our solar system, but they were all created for ours.
There are an estimated 3-20 million species on our planet but they were all created for us.
There are however many religions out there, but they are all wrong except for yours.
In your religion there are X amounts of divisions/sects, but the others are wrong and you are absolutely right.
When you keep boiling it down it just becomes vanity to think we’re alone.
Yutsano
Wow. No troll chow yet. I’m proud of y’all.
Waiting for peeps to arrive. Initiating the waiter into the ways of BJ. Also. Too.
Baud
@Yutsano:
Really hope you mean Balloon Juice there…
JordanRules
@lamh35: To expand on that, it didn’t stop him from being elected before either. Did it not help him in a Presidential bid? Sure, and I’m good with that considering his other positions. So GG even going on about the wierd thing seems like another soft foot tap on the line he’s drawn in the sand regarding this admin.
artem1s
voters here in D-10 gave Dennis a lot of slack for a long time. when it comes right down to it, he just stretched our patience a little too often. He had gotten so oppositional he couldn’t be counted on to fight for any legislation that would help the region if he decided that some little itty bit of it violated one of his pet peeves. And forget about him being able to sponsor anything. His support had become the kiss of death for a bill. and the region desperately needs someone who can home the bacon. He had completely lost the ability to do that.
and he was in no way a broad spectrum progressive. after 9/11 he pretty much only card about looking good opposing the war. I’m not saying he was wrong at all. I’m saying he wouldn’t support anyone else so they were never going to show up for him no matter how right he was.
I hated that the party had been trying to hamstring him for years but he just wasn’t affective anymore and we’re never going to get someone decent until he goes. Kaptur may not be the best possible replacement but at least it looks like she won’t be completely useless in terms of actually representing the district.
David Koch
Barack Obama’s hilarious response to a UFO question.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmJnFZy-PtU
The Dangerman
@Yutsano:
You could put a sign on the window saying “BJ Meetup Cancelled” and take advantage of being early.
Triassic Sands
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Given the state of scientific knowledge in the late eighteenth century, maybe not. But if he were around today and still believed the same stuff, he’d join Obama, Schumer, et al. in qualifying as nutty.
Caveat: Who knows what politicians really believe. The simple fact is their chances of getting elected if they admit to being atheists are pretty much zero. So, a professional politician has little choice about what he or she professes publicly. Jeebus knows a lot of politicians, especially all those devout Republicans, act as though they haven’t a clue what Jesus taught — they’re mostly still locked into the genocidal God of the Old Testament, care little to nothing about the well being of their neighbors, and relish an execution as much as they claim to abhor an abortion.
Anya
@Zandar: Also, too he’s a graceless asshole. Case in point, he attacked Marcy Kaptur after his loss.
Yutsano
Hostess D-man. Hostess. Slight flaw in the planm if you were here though… I’d take pictures. :)
LAC
You mean Glenda took time out of his “cry a bucket of tears for a terrorist” campaign to wail about another useless… I mean … principled progressive? That is mighty Brazilian of him.
hildebrand
I am not sorry to see Kucinich go – as he did nothing in the House. Nothing. I can stand a great many things, including all sorts of abject weirdness, but I cannot abide people who don’t think that they actually need to do the jobs they are hired/elected to do. Kucinich was a yet another prima donna, an ego wanting to be fed, stroked, and admired for his awesome iconoclastic tendencies – all the while not caring one whit about the country or his constituents. The people of his district, and the country, will be better off without him.
Sly
Am I strange for wanting more master legislators and fewer ineffectual back-benchers?
Apparently so.
Hell, I’ll take more invisible party drones who get reelected with ten point margins purely through good constituent services over more Kuciniches. Even if that desire makes me history’s greatest monster in the eyes of people I really don’t care about. I’m pretty sure that I’ll be able to sleep at night.
boss bitch
Like hell we do.
Rick Taylor
It didn’t bother me that Kucinich talked about UFO’s. But when he said he might select Ron Paul as his running mate? That cemented my decision I was not taking him seriously as a presidential candidate, even though he was closer to me on the issues than any of the others.
Lynn Dee
@Zandar:
I agree. A little too much grandstanding for my taste. He’s also been completely graceless in losing, even sort of ridiculous. His “defeat has never had power over me” comment reminds me of The Black Knight from Monty Python’s The Holy Grail. (“It’s only a flesh wound!”)
Clime Acts
I haven’t read the comments here yet, as I will, but I have to say after reading this post, John, that you continue to refuse to see that your blog is dominated by exactly the kind of people who mock Kucinich, and believe such things as having an open mind about UFOs and not taking the government’s official 9/11 story as gospel are are beyond the pale.
I realize most of these commenters operate from a position of fear, and are seeking to impose another form of “village consensus” even as they mock the one in D.C., but those motivations don’t excuse the behavior. Just try commenting about one of the former under an anonymous nym and see what happens.
You really don’t read many of the threads here, do you.
FoxinSocks
I think I’ve mentioned this before… Never seen a UFO, but I believe I’ve seen ‘aliens.’ You know those stereotypical 3-foot-tall suckers with the gray skin and the big eyes? Yeah, those guys.
I honestly don’t think they’re alien life forms, but rather inter-dimensional beings. It’s hard to describe, but they don’t feel like they come from this universe. And as kooky as it sounds, they do speak to you telepathically…or rather, communicate feelings to you rather than words.
Or maybe I just have a brain tumor. Or a really overactive imagination.
Lynn Dee
@Veritas:
Rasmussen? Seriously? And what kind of idiotic juvenile refers to Obama as Obambi?
Viva BrisVegas
@ditch digger:
Most likely we are either alone, or alone in any practical sense.
The volume of the Milky Way is about 4 times 10 to the 13 cubic lightyears.
If there were 10,000 advanced civilisations in our galaxy, which is a mighty big if, then there would be on average one civilisation per 4 x 10 to the 9 cubic light years.
The radius of a sphere that size is about 1,000 light years.
If someone were 1,000 light years from us, it would make damn all difference because we would never know that they were there, and they certainly would have no way of getting here.
Lynn Dee
@Thymezone:
Hear hear.
ruemara
I’m as embarrassed to be a former Kucinich supporter as I am to have been an FDL supporter. The more I’ve learned of him, the more he’s been a grandstanding, ineffective, mealy mouthed, self-aggrandising sham. He and I may have agreed on many positions, but I’m not sorry to see him go. He’ll have to go preen somewhere else. And his absolutely graceless denunciation of Marcy Kaptur, a far more reliable democratic progressive vote and an effective legislator, was beyond the pale. Sorry, I can’t join you in this one.
Clime Acts
@David Koch:
How do you know this did not happen? I mean, other than that you “believe” it did not happen, just as Kucinich believes it did. After all, he was there.
Do you disbelieve EVERYTHING you weren’t present to see happen? If so, I commend you for your consistency.
Karen
I won’t miss him. He’s the gold standard that the extreme left holds for all Democrats who don’t care that if someone that leftist had a chance of winning the Presidency he’d at least win the primaries. I know that moderate is a dirty word for a lot of you and you refuse to vote for someone more “electable.” You know who else feels that way? Rick Santorum’s groupies. I’ve always lived in blue states but I recognize that Democrats in red states have to be more to the right or they don’t win. I know from experience that up until recently, blue state Republicans have sometimes been to the left of red state Democrats. But I would rather have some of what I want than nothing. I’m pragmatic. I care more about one of the three stooges getting in office. Especially with the war on women. At least I know with Obama, we’re not living in Christianstanistan and if it’s all the same to you, as a Jewish person, I feel safer. Theocracies are not my baliwick, especially when I’m one of the people who they’d shove in Israel to kill off to bring on the end of days.
Lynn Dee
@Clime Acts:
Quote: “I realize most of these commenters operate from a position of fear,”
Oh for God’s sake. What an utterly puerile comment.
David Koch
@Karen: Actually, Obama is a proud member of the tribe.
http://www.thelifefiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/obama.jpg
http://www.hartman.org.il/Blogs_View.asp?Article_Id=237&Cat_Id=275&Cat_Type=Blogs
The Dangerman
@Lynn Dee:
Same kind as give any weight to that Republican pollster; friends don’t let friends read Rasmussen.
Y-Guy, a Hostess?! Well, you could pass my name along if your feeling like doing a good deed, for example “are you fond of California sunshine and self-described Dangerous men?” (that last part always seemed to trip me up; actually, most of the women I dated in Seattle said they’d never move to California, which might explain my continued single status).
Viva BrisVegas
@Lynn Dee:
That’s because Bambi was a wuss who fought his nemesis to the death and then saved his people.
Whereas Obama is the wuss who killed bin Laden and has almost exterminated the al Qaeda leadership.
Persia
@JordanRules: Seriously. The last thing we need when the Republicans have decided women’s rights need to be rolled back at all costs is a Democrat who agrees with them.
Clime Acts
@Lynn Dee:
Hmmmm…how so?
JGabriel
@Veritas:
I’m just guessing here, but probably because Scott Rasmussen tweaked his likely voter model to benefit Romney and help him out in the primaries. Really, Veritas, no one to the left of Jim DeMint and Roger Ailes takes Rasmussen seriously anymore.
.
hildebrand
@Clime Acts:
Time to take Ockham’s Razor out for a spin, no?
Jewish Steel
@Clime Acts:
Have you seen the pics of Tunch? He’s fucking HUGE!
We’re all a little nervous of the 2am scratch at the door.
Hob
I’m not suspicious of Dennis Kucinich because he saw a UFO. I’m suspicious of Dennis Kucinich because he cozied up to the Natural Law Party and Ron Paul, and has some Ron Paul-ish economic ideas. I’m sympathetic to most of his other positions (at least since he became pro-choice), but I don’t see how anyone could not see him as being flakier than most other Congressmen (not including the black-helicopter crowd).
NobodySpecial
The problem I have with UFO/Alien nonsense is this: Given the time and effort required to build a single spaceship capable of traversing the galaxy, does anyone REALLY believe that aliens are gonna use it to putt around a galactic backwater and kidnap random Arkansans?
And seriously, some people’s hatred of Kucinich is quite telling. They don’t use half of that vitriol on guys like Heath Shuler, who spend their time turning Democratic bills into Republican ones.
Heliopause
@David Koch:
Christians claim to communicate telepathically with an invisible deity.
hildebrand
@NobodySpecial:
Elementary, actually – nobody expected better of Shuler.
Heliopause
@David Koch:
Kucinich is no better than the fellow with the nuclear go codes in terms of conversing with invisible entities.
Cacti
I dislike Kucinich for being a professional purity troll and a lousy team player.
The root word of progressive is “progress”. DK brought none of it about, unless you consider firebagger circle jerks to be progress.
Cacti
@NobodySpecial:
Fer reals.
Nobody around here has anything bad to say about blue dog pols.
Wait, which blog are we talking about?
Exurban Mom
@artem1s: Exactly what artem1s said. Truth.
Clime Acts
@hildebrand:
Is it your position that the official 9/11 story, in ALL of its facets, is the “simplest” of possibilities?
priscianusjr
Lawnguylander
Kucinich believes in “invisible Jeebus” and that aliens traveled thousands or millions of light years to plant thoughts in his head so, yeah, he’s wackier than other god bags. Twice as wacky so I wouldn’t be surprised if he believes a lot of other crazy shit too.
Davis X. Machina
Sometimes it’s not you, it’s your friends…. and Kucinich was ill-served by some of his.
At the Maine state Democratic convention in ’06 a lot of us came in a day early — yeah, I know we’re supposed to go all three days, but it’s expensive, and in an off-year, to boot — to try and get the convention’s platform committee to adopt a plank calling for investigation into impeachable offenses by Bush and Co.
We wound up spending much time, most of it on procedural votes by ill-informed delegates with no notion of the convention’s rules, or parliamentary procedure generally, on a motion to amend the platform on the floor – the platform-committee ship having already sailed, and having been too ‘inside-baseball’ for them — to call for a state cabinet level Department of Peace, to mirror Kucinich’s call for a federal department of same.
They couldn’t tell the convention what such a department in Augusta would do, who would staff it, what it would cost — but if there was a federal one, by god there should be a state one too. Took nearly two hours.
Then the motion calling for the convention to endorse in its platform an investigation of the Bush White House for impeachable offenses in the run-up to the Iraq war, and the treatment of Iraqi and other prisoners, politicizing the Justice Dept, etc, etc, finally came up — and the reason why most of us turned out — and there wasn’t a quorum left. The call for investigations passed, but it was irregularly adopted, and swept under the rug. Luckily the media had long since left, the plank that interested them — the one calling for impeachment investigations — having not come up when they were there.
There was probably a majority in support of K’s federal-level Department of Peace plank, too…
Just about every convention I have attended — all of them since ’86 — has had a similar Kucinich-centric fiasco happen. They won’t learn the rules, and they flounce off when they lose and/or get called on it.
feebog
You can tell a lot about a person’s character when faced with a loss. Kucinich failed big time; no class lame sore loser.
Cacti
He wasn’t even a barely competent legislator.
16 years of bupkis.
priscianusjr
@ditch digger:
hildebrand
@Clime Acts: Yep. Not even close. If some of the small details are a bit off, I’ll not sweat it. But certainly the story as related is the most straightforward explanation of what transpired on that wretched day – anything else reeks of rampant over-complication. But please, bring forth the spectral evidence.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Heliopause: I disagree,if by “the fellow with the nuclear go codes” you mean the current President. I have heard President Obama speak of his faith, but I have never heard him refer to hearing directly from G*d. Perhaps I’ve missed something.
And I admit that I’m of the view that talking to G*d is known as prayer, while G*d talking to you is known as schizophrenia. Thus I see a distinct between Christian faith, which the President observes, and telepathic communication with aliens, as Kucinich describes.
I will likewise admit that as someone from the other end of Ohio, I’ve always found him a grandstanding putz (who has some good ideas, but many awful ones). Any pass I might ever have given him, he lost with his graceless response to defeat by Marcy Kaptur. Who has always served her district, and the state, well.
Shawn in ShowMe
@NobodySpecial:
Give him another five years. Shuler’s a Junior Baiter. Kucinich is a Master Baiter.
priscianusjr
@Clime Acts:
Shawn in ShowMe
@priscianusjr:
DougJ’s aliases.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Shawn in ShowMe: FTW.
Karen
@Lawnguylander:
So Kucinich is a Scientologist?
That explains alot.
Jewish Steel
@Shawn in ShowMe: Nice.
Anoniminous
@Davis X. Machina:
NOW do you understand why the Jacobeans wheeled out the guillotines?
“Shut. The fuck. UP!”
whack
aimai
Any progressive Democrat who votes down a bill “from the left” should be thrown out. You can be progressive and work to drag things to the left without siding with the Republicans on crucial votes just to fucking grandstand. There’s no difference between a blue dog/republican wannabe and someone like Kucinich who can’t get anything done but who pisses away everyone else’s oppportunities. Bernie Sanders–there’s a great man. You can see from his voting record that its possible to be seriously a man of the left, and an Independent, and still vote with the Democrats to get things done.
aimai
Lee Baker
I grew up in Northeast Ohio about the time Kucinich was getting his start politically. He was on the Cleveland city council from the West Side and, by all appearances, got his leverage from mobilizing the anti-Stokes vote. (Carl Stokes, first black mayor of a large city — which Cleveland more or less was at the time.) He lent his support to Ralph Perk — the one who caught his hair on fire — one of Cleveland’s four or five Republican mayors since the time of the dinosaurs, and this move earned him political IOUs. I had him cast as a cynical and probably racist opportunist, and spent years wishing for him to run in a jurisdiction where I could vote against him.
Well if you live long enough some things come around. Perhaps Kucinich is still an opportunist, but he is, like Ron Paul, ON ONE ISSUE at least, on the side of sanity. (So there you go BJrs, that’s tantamount to my endorsing him for president — or for Pope if I were still Catholic.) I don’t really care about the alien stuff or the other off-the-wall opinions and votes. For all the realpolitik heavy hitters out there, Kucinich poses no threat of holding major office, and in the meantime what other opportunities does our political system afford to give expression to simple rationality on issues like endless war and endlessly LIMITED civil liberties than “kooks” like Dennis? If I see them I’ll vote for them.
The Raven
@khead: Yeah,
what Digby said.
Hob
@Clime Acts: Let’s see: recently arrived commenter starts out by insulting everyone else (by saying they speak out of “fear” rather than having honest opinions); pretends not to understand why that’s not cool; and immediately wants to change the subject from Dennis Kucinich to 9/11. Can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to engage you in serious discussion.
Hob
@Anoniminous: Jacobins. It’s probably for the best that the Jacobeans were not in charge of the revolution.
boss bitch
We need people who can get things done and get people to follow them. “courage of his convictions”? Dennis had a sword and didn’t know what the fuck to do with it.
Karen
IMHO, Bernie Sanders is more liberal than Kucinich will ever be.
Clime Acts
@Hob:
Let’s see: I’ve been reading and commenting here under various nyms for at least five years; insulted only the people to whom I clearly referred as those who “dominate this blog” (clue: that’s not ‘everybody’); and I mentioned 9/11 which is not exactly the same thing as changing the subject to ONLY that topic.
Are there any other misleading characterizations you’d like to offer?
Joel
Pragmatism is a distinctly American philosophy. Emerged from our shores, and it’s one of the things that make this country great. Kucinich never appreciated this.
Anoniminous
@Hob:
Oh, crap and dang nab it.
Davis X. Machina
@Hob: There’s the real possibility then of people drinking toasts “To the King’s head over the water!”
Hob
@Clime Acts: No, you’ve got that job covered. Carry on trolling.
Clime Acts
@Hob:
weak
Odie Hugh Manatee
He ain’t my guy but I won’t miss him, IMO the better of the two won.
Now he’ll have lots of time to hang around in the woods at night hoping that an alien proctologist drops by! ;)
Marc
We had two good people forced into one district, and Kucinich behaved like an absolute jerk and poor loser. He wasn’t defeated by a wing nut – he was defeated by someone with a real record of accomplishment who actually does things for her district.
Color me completely unsurprised that preening outsiders like Greenwald and Digby apparently know better than the Democrats in the district, or the people in Ohio familiar with how well they actually did their jobs.
Nothing wrong with being an atheist, by the way, but everyone has beliefs that can be mocked and distorted by people. The religious commentary in this thread has been pig-ignorant in its description of what religious people actually think. The sky fairy crap isn’t going to convince anyone that isn’t already with you, and it will piss off a lot of people who might be your allies and friends. I’m a religious pluralist, which means that I let other people describe their own beliefs instead of spending my time insulting things that others believe. If someone uses their religion to tell me what to do that’s my business – but I’m not going to tell people that their unprovable things are worse than mine.
JoyfulA
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): The president is an adult convert, attracted by the good the churches were doing in his community. He joined the United Church of Christ, which does not have rigid doctrines a member must follow and is generally peace and justice oriented.
Jewish Steel
With truthers all up in this piece we could use Joseph Nobles. But where is he, hmmm?
Further evidence of conspiracy if you ask me.
Marc
Good article over at Booman, by the way, on the main topic:
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/3/10/204544/389
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
I call a Greenwald!
Follow Greenwald’s link, and there’s no such claim.
There are plenty of committed Christians who don’t interpret the Gospels’ claims literally. Obama may be one of these…Or maybe not. But one thing is for certain: In the piece Greenwald links, the President makes no such claim.
ETA: This is either trolling or poor reading on your part, Cole- ‘fess up, please.
Mnemosyne
@JoyfulA:
Fred Clark at Slacktivist found a link to an interview Obama did in 2004 about how he became a Christian, and it’s very interesting. He links it very deeply with the Civil Rights Movement and getting in touch with his identity as an African-American:
Yep, Obama believes wacky things like thinking that African-American churches helped black people maintain their strength and sense of identity, especially during the Civil Rights Movement. What a weirdo.
Omnes Omnibus
I got to know Kucinich a little when He was a an Ohio state senator and I was working the the Dem Senate caucus against tort reform. He did yeoman’s work in committee hearing highlighting the absurdity of the manufacturing lobbyists’ testimony. In my opinion, he does better in the minority when his gadfly tendencies can be brought to bear on appropriate opponents. Between Kaptur and Kucinich, I think the voters in Ohio made the right choice, but there still should be a place for someone like Kucinich.
FlipYrWhig
Greenwald praises Kucinich while conceding that he never got anything passed because, he reasons, talk without action is politically beneficial too. Interesting, that.
Omnes Omnibus
@FlipYrWhig: John Kerry has been an effective senator despite not sponsoring large amounts of legislation. He used his committee roles to spearhead investigations. Introducing legislation is not the be all end all of a successful congressional career.
David Koch
I’m waiting for the PL conspiracy theory that Obama and DHS “coordinated” Kucinich’s loss.
Seriously, when that bore Cenk got fired from MSNBC he started a CT saying it was Obama who was secretly behind the move.
Then when Bloomberg evicted OWS, the usual suspects started a CT saying it was Obama who was secretly behind the move.
The wingers and PL have a lot in common — they both see Obama as a shadowy, scary Kaiser Soze. Of course they come from it from different places. The wingers are racist, while the PL are paranoid from all the pot they’re smoking.
sharl
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s a great point about John Kerry. His past also demonstrates how hard it is to actually “do democracy”, at least in the manner idealized and glamorized by Hollywood (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and similar fare).
I’m thinking specifically of the now ancient BCCI affair, where Kerry did the right and honorable thing, digging out malfeasance and naming and shaming those who deserved it. For all his efforts, he received little long-lasting credit and very few attaboys, while pissing off a lot of colleagues – folks who perhaps might have otherwise been willing to help him bring some bacon home to MA – while living up to his oath of office.
Theatrics and grandstanding – not to mention actively courting our easily corruptible and lazy media – will get you better press than doing honest work. Same as it ever was.
Anahymen
Coincidentally enough I just met Kucinich today in Anaheim. We were both at the convention center there for the Natural Products Expo West. I can say that he is a very nice person and came across as being very genuine. I don’t know enough about his actions in congress or during the primary to weigh them against the generally positive feeling I had about him after our brief interaction, though.
Bruce S
“Even if he wasn’t a master legislator.”
Problem is, so far as I can tell, that’s sort of an understatement. I’d say that Congress/Senate definitely needs more Bernie Sanders types. I’m not that sorry to see Dennis go, given that he was running against another outspoken Dem, because his public presence wasn’t – for whatever reasons – taken very seriously. Very decent guy, but had a persona similiar to that of Ron Paul’s on the right, where one gets the feeling that you can anticipate just about every word that’s going to come out of his mouth, you’ve heard it all before and that it’s only going to impress the choir.
Dream On
Ever heard that on-air spat between Kucinich and Thom Hartmann? Kucinich took easy offense at a innocuous comment by Thom, and turned all Joe Pesci. Hartmann apologized, but I think the wrong person did.
AxelFoley
No. Just…no.
AxelFoley
@Zandar:
Or, better yet, this. Zandar, Dook fan that he is, explained it perfectly why Dennis won’t be missed.
AxelFoley
@Marc:
Thank you. Fuckin’ atheists can be as bad as extreme religious nuts.
I don’t go to church regularly, but I do believe in God, and to see folks I agree with for the most part politically spew their venom against those that believe pisses me off.
You don’t believe? Fine. But don’t mock those that do. You’re no better than those that mock you for your non-belief.
Johannes
Count me in as a member in good standing of the religious left, too. (Also, too?) As to Kucinich, he’s receipted and filed as a charming (sometimes!) eccentric who asked good questions, especially on the subprime mortgage crisis, but didn’t succeed at getting much done. Sorry to see him lose out, but i think the voters called it right–to get the most bang for the seat. As to Glennzilla, his current long-running series of foreign policy/war policy/and the constitution posts seems to me to be far outside his area of expertise, and nowhere near as analytically sound as his past writing. In particular, GG doesn’t grapple at all with the cases addressing Americans who are involved in battlefield hostilities against the US–his notion that targeting one such (who is a leadership position) for killing represents a violation of due process is, shall we say, scant on precedent or logic. Just my 2 cents, as a GG post kicked this thread off.
Chuck Butcher
It is easy enough to call out Dennis on his votes, it takes a bit more effort to see if he ever sacrificed a D bill.
harlana
it has been my experience that if you express a belief in God or an afterlife you will be spat upon in this particular space
although i rarely did in the first place, i will never comment on this subject again here – i don’t want to feel hated and despised for my beliefs anymore than i would want to impose my beliefs on others – i can respect others for not believing – but it doesn’t work the other way around, not here
i don’t give a fuck what others believe as long as it doesn’t involve sacrificing animals, children and other helpless living beings
so all of you intolerant assholes can suck a mammary
harlana
oh, and it’s too bad the criticisms can’t be more original, but it’s same old, tired recycled shit i have been reading here for years
Shawn in ShowMe
@AxelFoley:
Balloon Juice is built on mockery. Why should the line be drawn on mythology?
vernon
Kucinich’s vote “resembled the Republicans”? Christ almighty, that must be the state of the art in head-up-your-ass party line sophistry. So, like, you’re a Republican if you oppose the Big Pharma lobby, since they wrote our health care bill. Slick how that works.
The moderate Republicans didn’t disappear; they conquered the Democratic Party over the last 20 years and now govern in its name. And you idiots think you’re being good Democrats by supporting them. You deserve what you’ll get.
McJulie
I don’t care what you think the voices in your head are. I care what you think they’re telling you to do.
New agers, for example, believe a whole bunch of objectively wacky things that I’m highly skeptical about, but I usually agree with their politics, so I don’t sweat it. (Unless they are vaccine deniers!)
The free market isn’t even technically a deity, and yet its worshipers do untold harm in the real world, so I sweat it quite a lot.
Kucinich, like Ron Paul, seems to appeal to one-issue anti-war voters. I understand that, in a way. I’m pretty close to being a one-issue voter on women’s rights.
PanurgeATL
@Marc:
Thanks for the link. VERY wise words from TarheelDem over there.
FlipYrWhig
@Omnes Omnibus: Good point about committee work. Did Kucinich do any of that? The only D Congress-critter I ever hear commended for committee activity is Waxman.
Mostly I find it fitting that Greenwald wants to praise Kucinich for championing issues by talking about them, rather than by doing something about them, and that he’s constructed an elaborate apologia for how someone who raises awareness of issues without channeling that into a change in policy is so very valuable to political discourse. That’s not Greenwald talking about Kucinich, it’s Greenwald talking about Greenwald.
Heliopause
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Indeed.
“It was on those streets, in those neighborhoods, that I first heard God’s spirit beckon me. It was there that I felt called to a higher purpose – His purpose. ”
He also says that he reads the Bible every night. Needless to say, there is little rational difference between claiming that one communicates with invisible entities through vaguely described mental processes and claiming that one receives wisdom from invisible entities through the intermediary of texts written by Bronze Age goat herders.
There is one important distinction between the beliefs the President claims to hold and those that Kucinich is alleged to hold; politically powerful people decided 1700-ish years ago that one set of irrational beliefs was the respectable one and others were not. Inertia has taken care of the rest.