If someone can explain why the stock market, in the face of an impending economic meltdown, soared 420 points today, I am all ears.
Archives for March 2008
How to Convince Those Who Choose to Be Stupid
So, to the speech. I was immediately turned off by this:
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
Of course the highlighted sentence directly contradicts his statement made in his Huff Po post just a few days ago:
The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation.
One of those is a lie. I rarely use that word, and, in fact, have a real problem with those who misuse it routinely. When I use it I mean saying something you know to be untrue. So Obama either never heard him say controversial things about domestic and foreign policy while he sat in church or he did. Two days ago the answer was he hadn’t. Today he has? I can only believe the reason the answers are different is he is aware of some proof that will expose his first statement as untrue.
The stupid, it burns. Obama is talking about two different things. Was he personally there for the remarks which started this controversy (God damn America,etc.)? He says, in the Huffington Post piece, no. Was he there when Rev. Wright made other remarks which could be considered controversial? Yes, today he tells us, he has been.
This is not a lie, it was the polar opposite- it was complete honesty.
McQ can’t be that stupid. He really can’t. He was in the military for years and handled heavy weaponry, so I hope to God he really is not that stupid.
I need a filter that blocks out everything at Q and O other than Jon Henke posts.
*** Update ***
McQ responds, proving he is dumber than we feared:
John Cole, in what could be called “the audacity of a dope” tries to explain away Obama’s admission that he has indeed heard the controversial things his pastor has said while sitting in church after saying he hadn’t.
I remember when Cole used to be worth reading.
How could you possibly remember when I was worth reading? You can’t read.
How to Convince Those Who Choose to Be StupidPost + Comments (266)
The Speech Was A Failure
Obama’s speech on race was a failure because the Confederate Wanker lost his “gag reflect”:
11:32: Mercifully, it’s over. Once I finally regain control over my gag reflect, I’ll check around the blogosphere for other reaction to his speech.
When Hillaryis44 and Bob Owens both tell you the speech sucked, you know you are on to something! I think I will need to check with Red State and the Corner to make sure, though:
Blame whitey, and raise high the red flag of socialism. This is a serious candidate for the Presidency? Toast, toast.
While the others are havens for douchebaggery, I really, really do not get Derbyshire. It is almost like he is bi-polar. Some times he makes remarks that are completely and totally level-headed , sane, and rational (see here and here for examples), and other times, he seems to be going completely and totally insane. This is one of the insane moments.
At any rate, consider this an open thread.
Welfare Queens
On Wall Street:
The Wall Street titans have turned into a bunch of welfare clients. They are desperate to be bailed out by government from their own incompetence, and from the deregulatory regime for which they lobbied so hard. They have lost “confidence” in each other, you see, because none of these oh-so-wise captains of the universe have any idea what kinds of devalued securities sit in one another’s portfolios.
So they have stopped investing. The biggest, most respected investment firms threaten to come crashing down. You can’t have that. It’s just fine to make it harder for the average Joe to file for bankruptcy, as did that wretched bankruptcy bill passed by Congress in 2005 at the request of the credit card industry. But the big guys are “too big to fail,” because they could bring us all down with them.
Enter the federal government, the institution to which the wealthy are not supposed to pay capital gains or inheritance taxes. Good God, you don’t expect these people to trade in their BMWs for Saturns, do you?
In a deal that the New York Times described as “shocking,” J.P. Morgan Chase agreed over the weekend to pay $2 a share to buy all of Bear Stearns, one of the brand names of finance capitalism. The Federal Reserve approved a $30 billion — that’s with a “b” — line of credit to make the deal work.
Thirty billion. You have to wonder why there have been no counter-top investigations. When Graeme Frost made the profound mistake of telling America that he had benefitted from a government program in the debate over the SCHIP expansion which would cost the taxpayers a similar amount, he got the full-on Beauchamp. Personally, I need to know what the countertops look like at some Bear Stearns households.
Random Video Aggression
Hey Gavin – DON’T FALL ASLEEP!
By the way, Hitchcock was right. It’s the birds who will finish us off.
The thread is open.
Obama’s Speech
I am watching it live. Seems to be, well, reasonable and well thought out and works for me. This portion seems to me to be refreshingly candid and long overdue:
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
It really is quite magnificent, and the fact that Obama is sincere, and means it and is clearly not just reading from a teleprompter makes it even better.
I also really respect the fact that he didn’t just throw Rev. Wright underneath the bus.
*** Update ***
Youtube FTMFW:
Monday Open Thread
No re-vote, apparently.
I feel bad for Florida voters, but they really need to do something about the people who caused this problem. The Democratic leadership in Florida. This is not on Hillary, Obama, or Howard Dean.