With the State of the Union on tonight, Ron Fournier’s gotta Fournier on how to know if Obama is being a Very Serious Person or not during his speech, and it’s like discovering the Grand Unifying Theory of Villager.
Here’s but a taste:
The pronouns: Count how many times Obama uses the words “I,” “me,” and “my.” Compare that number to how often he says, “You,” “we,” “our.” If the first number is greater than the second, Obama has failed. He needs to remember the lesson of Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign: Don’t dismiss the 47 percent of Americans who disagree with him.
The man is beyond self-parody. He couldn’t have written more obtuse, pointless drivel if Charles Pierce’s cardboard standee of Ron Fournier was writing Ron Fournier’s columns.
The shellacking: It wouldn’t hurt to acknowledge the inconvenient truth that his leadership is the single biggest reason why Democrats lost the midterm elections in November. What lessons did he learn from the drubbing? How did those lesson shape his agenda? My colleague George Condon notes that every president of the past 100 years has been forced to address midterm defeats. Most have handled the situation with grace. Can Obama?
I mean look at this. Every bit of condescending, pearl-clutching, eye-rolling iota of Fournier’s being is on display here, dismissing the President’s speech some 12 hours before it’s even given. It’s like looking at an ornithology field guide, and seeing a picture of a cardinal, and you put the book down and peer through your binoculars and immediately spot a perfect specimen of a cardinal, engaged in textbook cardinal behavior, doing all the cardinal-type things the field guide lists in order.
You will never find a better, more perfect example of Village Idiocy then this. This is the ball between Buckner’s legs, it’s Mickelson’s Winged Foot shot into the trash can, the 2008 Detroit Lions’ loss number 16 in Green Bay in the 4th quarter. This is as perfectly terrible as scolding Obama for something he hasn’t done yet, but will be blamed for anyway because of willful ignorance can get.
You have to salute the guy, it’s like bowling a perfect game by accident after spending the last six years bringing an incontinent rhino to take a soul-wrenching dump all over the lanes on league night and then setting everything on fire, and one glorious day the stampeding rhino manages to repeatedly slip on the flaming feces and keeps kicking the ball down the lane and manages to rack up 12 consecutive strikes. You know it’s mathematically possible, but you never expect to actually be in the presence of such an event.
Peak Fournier achieved.
RP
It’s also perfect because there’s absolutely zero content. A random word generator would have spat out something more enlightening. It’s amazing that he gets paid for this.
terraformer
If nothing else, the description of the rhino in the bowling alley just made my day.
Bobby B.
“Soul wrenching dump” has moved me, sir.
jayboat
@Bobby B.:
Sums up many a day.
Culture of Truth
If Ron Fournier’s review of Obama’s State of the Union doesn’t have the words “Obama” and “failed” within two of each other, Ron Fournier has failed.
SRW1
It must bug the f*ck out of Ron “Keep up the good fight, Karl” Fournier that Obama’s approval ratings are rising after that midterm ‘shellacking’ when Dubbya’s gliding towads the crazification limit continued unabated after his 2006 equivalent.
IT’S NOT FAIR.
PopeRatzy
“than that” unless you mean your following sentence?
dmsilev
Like Peak Wingnut, Peak Villager Idiot is a lie.
gene108
How did Reagan’s loss of the Senate, in 1986, and arrest and conviction of many, many high ranking officials in his Administration over Iran-Contra derail the “Reagan Revolution”?
Yeah, that question never gets asked.
Obama has a real legacy via the PPACA, and if he can shift the focus of the Democratic party towards the problems of income inequality, we have the foundation of the “Obama Revolution”.
Keith G
From the ridiculous to the interesting, go to The Atlantic The Language of the State of the Union. It’s an interactive chart on the use of certain words in SOTU messages.
MattF
The linguistics blog “Language Log” has a long series of posts debunking the whole winger “Presidential Pronouns and Narcissism” meme:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=15355
It’s ridiculous, but someone has to do it.
Valdivia
he could have just written the column by typing 3 words: Obama is uppity.
But I think all his columns could be summed up that way. Ugh.
TR
How the fuck is this idiot still employed as an ostensible journalist?
Trentrunner
Fournier was also just on Twitter, chastising Jamille Bouie for saying something like “Most commentary on Obama’s SOU boils down to whether he’s uppity or not.”
Fournier said Bouie using “uppity” was racist; Bouie said it was not. Fournier then said it was.
It went like that.
Now I see from this column that Bouie was referring to Fournier as the calibrator of the uppity scale. Tool.
Mustang Bobby
Hey, Ron, what kind of dressing do you want with your word salad?
Valdivia
@Trentrunner:
I see I wasn’t the only one who thought this. I guess we are all racists for seeing through Fournier.
BGinCHI
This is what happens when lonely, neurotic men can’t get jobs in sports commentary.
Fournier is thinking of Tom Brady but writing about Obama.
I wish I was kidding.
KG
that sounds like a challenge… but I’m not about to take it up because I haven’t had coffee… and am sane(ish)
Just Some Fuckhead
@Trentrunner: Where Fournier grew up, black people are the real racists.
burnspbesq
Can we just stop? Time spent on Fournier is time you don’t get back, and at the end of that time you are dumber than you were before you started.
catclub
I am sure this was exactly what he wrote in January 2007. With Republicans swapped for Democrats.
Or maybe he was cheering for Social Security privatization.
Belafon
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Assumes facts not in evidence.
Morzer
Fournier gangrene used to be just a variety of necrotizing infection or gangrene usually affecting the perineum. Apparently it now extends to the pitiable remains of our hamfisted and hogwashed media.
MattF
@Belafon: Should be “As Fournier embiggened…”
sharl
@Valdivia: Heh, Jamelle Bouie pointed that out to him, and Fournier was not pleased:
ETA: Shoot, too many links –> in moderation. But looks like someone got there before me anyway.
scav
@Morzer: Yeah, I just discovered that myself while (luckily) double checking the spelling before making a dumb joke about Fourier analysis . . . although I don’t think the region of the body has changed that much with the gangrene, merely its attaching itself to the body journalistique rather than the traditional singular meat-ones.
Just Some Fuckhead
Does anyone watch the State of the Union now that there’s a post-speech Word Cloud available?
Villago Delenda Est
My nym. Again and again.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
God, that is such a perfect example of the unbearable lightness of Beltway conventional wisdom, full of buzzwords and smugness, signifying nothing.
Paul in KY
@TR: He’s employed as a propagandist.
Morzer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Of course, Fournier being the fuckwit he is, he had to work in that little dig at an “inconvenient truth” as well.
danielx
@RP:
I’ve said the same thing about David Brooks on more than one occasion. Clearly a movement in Villager circles.
Morzer
I’ll be interested to see how many people here can correctly guess who reacted like this to Obama’s proposal of a tax-hike on the rich:
Calouste
@BGinCHI: You mean just like D.C. is Hollywood for ugly people, political journalism is sports journalism for ….. ?
srv
IDK why Obama does this when he could just do another apology tour.
Ella in New Mexico
The Tone:
“Does he sound like a college professor” = reinforce the R meme that he’s an overeducated uppity Negro who thinks he’s smarter than you vs. “Or does he sound like a preacher” = He’s Ronald Reagan, the Myth
The Substance
“Does the president, like Bill Clinton in the 1990s, express empathy toward the conservative point of view?”= he does what WE want him to do and helps our friends which is good, vs. “Obama’s plan to raise taxes on the wealthy and big banks to help lower- and middle-class Americans hits a political sweet spot” = he does what benefits those peons on Main Street need him to do which is bad.
The Pronouns:
“Count how many times Obama uses the words “I,” “me,” and “my.”= reinforce the meme that he’s a selfish, narcissistic, undeserving Negro college professor. Also, see every Peggy Noonan column about Obama.
The Shellacking
“his leadership is the single biggest reason why Democrats lost the midterm elections in November” = don’t we WISH it was the reason but we have mind control to do here so reinforce the meme that this was some kind of mandate.
And then we come to possibly the most clever mind-fuck paragraph in the whole post.
The Sacrifice:
“Among George W. Bush’s greatest mistakes was not asking Americans to sacrifice in the aftermath of 9/11. He put the nation on perpetual war footing without demanding new taxes or national service. Obama inherited the so-called war on terrorism and doubled down on the mistake of thinking Americans are too cynical for sacrifice. He gives lip service to national-service programs. In his hands, proposals for higher taxes smack of class warfare rather than shared sacrifice. Can he appeal to our better angels?”
=“Let’s pretend we believed all along that Bush was screwing the pooch with a war and a tax cuts and spending increases and that we clamored for more equitable participation from the Manor class. And now lets apply that same idea of equitable participation to the poor, working and middle classes who would benefit from Obama’s ideas, because, as we all know, they don’t do a lick of work for America or their benefits.”
I can’t believe the hubris it takes to write a column like this, but it reveals more than Fournier thought it revealed about all of the ruling R class. They have complete disdain for average Americans. They detest Democrats for getting us to vote for Obama and they hate our Negro President. But more than this, they can’t wait to attack our Emotional/Sociopathic Bitch- Nominee for 2016 so that they can shove a pen into another Bushy-loser’s Presidential signing hand.
schrodinger's cat
@Morzer: Some Republican, I am guessing, who will now be reviled as a RINO or worse.
gogol's wife
@burnspbesq:
I never am aware of his existence until I come on BJ.
MattF
@Calouste: “Ugly but stupid,” as my old friend Irene used to say.
catclub
Be Sure to read Pierce on the SOTU!
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/
schrodinger's cat
@gogol’s wife: Also, Lane Charles.
Morzer
@schrodinger’s cat:
He certainly defines himself as a conservative.
Pogonip
When’s the next pupdate? Does anyone know?
(Where have you gone, Mrs. Cole, the pupfans turn their lonely eyes to you-ooo-ooo-ooo…)
Roger Moore
Is it just me, or is he contradicting himself in one paragraph? Somehow he manages to complain about Obama’s leadership being the primary cause of the Democrats’ failure in November while admitting that all presidents have problems with midterm elections. Does anyone edit his columns?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@gogol’s wife: I think he’s like Sullivan, someone with far more name recognition inside the Beltway than out.. I remember after the first ’12 debate Good Morning American was quoting Sullivan’s ranting (‘running down the street naked, screaming and smeared in beagle poop’, as some foul-mouthed vituperative said) and I was imagining people all over the country saying “who?”
schrodinger's cat
@Morzer: Bruce Bartlett?
catclub
@Ella in New Mexico:
A mistake so big Fournier did not notice it for ten plus years.
brantl
I am pretty sure you are overestimating his intellect.
shortstop
@Trentrunner:
Similarly, a white bubba schools superintendent in Alabama (!) won’t let the kids go see Selma during school hours because the word “nigger” is in it. Uttered by characters who are guys pretty much just like himself.
The right’s takeaway from the evolution of acceptable language in America: All racial references are alike regardless of context and intent.
Morzer
@Roger Moore:
No, his “point” is that all previous presidents apologized gracefully for their “failure” at the midterms and that when The Kenyan Usurper doesn’t bother to turn his SOTU into a vast mea culpa plus agreement to anything the GOP wants he is acting in a most indecorous way (and should, of course, be impeached for his monstrosity). Ron Ass-Gangrene needs the claim about all past presidents to set up his denunciation in advance of Obama’s refusal to turn himself into a pinata and supply absolution for the behavior of Republicans over the last 6 years.
Morzer
@schrodinger’s cat:
Nice try, but no.
shortstop
@Morzer: He fails, though, for not managing to transition to Al Gore’s corpulence.
shortstop
@srv: It would be really fun to lock you and Fournier in a glass box with unlimited bar service. We could dine out on the results for weeks.
Morzer
@shortstop:
Well, he does manage to get “biggest” into what follows, so he’s probably being “clever” and “subtle” and “literary” by Republican standards.
Fair Economist
The Republicans are scared. They know that Obama can give great speeches. They know that inequality is a big important issue, resonating with both public and pundits. They know that the public is broadly supportive of both lower taxes on the middle class and higher taxes on the very rich. The thought of probably the greatest orator currently active in politics supporting a popular tactic to address an important concern they’re trying to bury has got to be scaring the daylights out of them.
So of course, they’re trying to distract people from the subject of Obama’s speech by discussing anything else they possibly can, including trivialities like the President’s pronoun frequency.
Morzer
@shortstop:
Does the unlimited bar service apply inside the glass box, or is it for the spectators? I should add that I am all in favor of this variety of glass box testing.
Dave C
@Morzer:
Heh. I know the answer, but only because I’ve already read the piece in question.
Morzer
@Fair Economist:
Watching Joni Ernst yip about her rich experience of life on the pig farm ought to make for an interesting contrast.
shortstop
@Morzer: For purposes of clear recordkeeping, I think just inside. However, many of the spectators will no doubt want to go out for a few belts afterward to relive top moments.
Morzer
@Dave C:
I rather think someone is starting to get nervous about the intentions of the Third Estate.
Buddy H
@Fair Economist: The Republicans are scared. They know that Obama can give great speeches.
Yes, and I watch every one of his state-of-the-unions, but can anyone tell me what kind of ratings it gets? The reason I ask is this: when I lived in my old exurb, the people who lived next door had a huge flatscreen, and it was on every night. I remember every single SOTU, the screen would go dark. Almost only time it was ever off.
Balloon-Juicers, Charlie Pierce fans, progressives… we’ll watch. But will the average citizen sit through the whole thing, or just see little heavily-edited snippets from TV news?
Jamey
Fournier did nothing so much as steal Joni Ernst’s post- SOTU thunder… Peak wingnut may be a fantasy, but zero-sum wingnut may be real.
dedc79
@shortstop:
I think your mistake there is treating the decision as genuine (if misguided). The reality is more likely that the guy was looking for an excuse not to let the kids see the movie, and this is the best he could come up with on the spot.
Isn’t this the same excuse that’s been used to prevent kids from reading Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird. That they keep trotting out this excuse doesn’t mean they believe in it.
Turgidson
I’ve been chalking Fournier’s behavior the past few years up to severe dementia. The way he repeats the same simple-minded idea over and over again and does not incorporate facts or evidence into his thoughts, or appear to have any understanding that events have rendered his idea incorrect if not laughable…it just seemed to me like he must have an undiagnosed head injury.
But this dreck has me questioning that assumption. The way he explores his stupid idea in more depth and incorporates recent developments into his “analysis,” if you could call it that. Maybe he’s just a gigantic idiot, and it’s not dementia at all.
Or….he’s playing his assigned part in the wurlitzer just like the rest of the “concerned” faux-centrists like David f’ing Brooks, Frum, and the rest. They’re much bigger snakes than the out-and-proud wingnut wackjobs (who are at least straightforward about their motives and views, even if they are reprehensible) and would be the first ones on the leaky rowboat to Siberia if I had my way.
Morzer
@Buddy H:
I think that’s why Obama is making a more radical offer in this SOTU – with the hope that at least some of it will trickle down through the faucet/Foxet of poutrage and get people thinking and talking. Right now the GOP’s counter-offer seems to involve a lower minimum way proposed by Slavin’ Private Ryan.
shortstop
@dedc79: Good point. But I’d submit that the only reason these people keep proffering this excuse is that they’ve already had significant success falsely equating all language referring to race.
schrodinger's cat
@Morzer: Sully?
lamh36
https://twitter.com/psddluva4evah/status/557589225525104641
Turgidson
@Valdivia:
That’s Fournier’s strategy in a nutshell when he gets flamed on Twitter for being an idiot. Ignore the substantive criticism entirely and complain about the critic’s language, manners, or some other thing, if possible. If not, then offer some sort of inscrutable one-liner that tries to change the subject and/or put the critic on the defensive. Real piece of work, ol’ Ron is.
Morzer
@schrodinger’s cat:
Indeed. It’s a truly fascinating exercise in Sullivan discovering that Reaganism didn’t work, that Obama is proposing something eminently justifiable and pretty much standard-issue liberalism – and yet not remotely making the blazingly obvious leap to “I was wrong in pretty much everything I believed, said and did for roughly 25 years”.
schrodinger's cat
@Morzer: What about his beloved Maggie? Does he acknowledge her contribution to this 1% over all philosophy?
Barney
‘The Tone’ is the worst one of all:
Fournier must have been traumatised by a college professor when he was a toddler or something. That is so dismissive of a whole group of people who teach you facts, and how to think for yourself, and unquestioningly worshipping of another group who tell you how to think based on 2000 year old anonymous books. The latter approach is the mark of a con-artist. Preachers are, of course, frequently divisive – ask a woman, gay person, or, in the past, a black person – and frequently pessimistic too – saying people will be damned to eternal torment, or the world is going to end, or that people today are sinners, unlike the glorious past.
Turgidson
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And also completely fucking wrong, of course. It was decided by the Village, and then sadly accepted as gospel by Dem candidates (even in some blue and purple states) that Obama was their biggest obstacle sometime in mid-2013. Even though the economy is turning around and Obama has always been far more popular than the GOP, even at his nadir. Running on his achievements and motivating more of his voters to come back to the polls would have worked better than “Obama? Never heard of him.” Maybe not in Alaska or Arkansas, granted. But in Iowa, Colorado, North Carolina…etc. etc.
Morzer
@schrodinger’s cat:
Not mentioned. Which is an interesting omission, but very Sullivanesque.
WereBear
@Morzer: We could do some fine speech-bingo with the R’s Reply.
Self-reliant
Deregulation
Job creators
Socialism
Giveaways
In the center:
Freedom
srv
@Fair Economist:
You are floating way too close to the liberal event horizon, there.
You people are no different than the fanbois who climaxed during every Noonerism Reagan’s head muttered.
Nobody normal is going to watch the SOTU, they find them excruciating and embarrassing. But I guess you liberals are into Cringe Vids.
Morzer
@Barney:
Fournier seems to be having his annual Huckabee fantasy climax early this year.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@srv: Which of your meds need adjusting, Ms Taitz?
Buddy H
@Morzer: Fournier seems to be having his annual Huckabee fantasy climax early this year.
ooof!
Turgidson
@Fair Economist:
I don’t think they’re that scared. Obama convened Congress and gave a good speech about a paid-for, full-of-previously-safely-bipartisan-ideas jobs bill in the fall of 2011. The bill polled in the 60s or 70s after it was introduced. Republicans shrugged and ignored or killed it. It was hardly mentioned in the 2012 campaign.
MattF
@Turgidson: Note that the biggest effects of the upcoming SCOTUS healthcare decision will be in swing states:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/king-burwell-dilemma-republicans-swing-states
Ooopsie!
gocart mozart
@Mustang Bobby:
may I suggest “Bush’s Potemkin Ranch”
Ella in New Mexico
@catclub:
And neither did any other in the Fournier classes until the fact that a majority of Americans believing this made it a “inning political position.
Cowards.
Belafon
@Turgidson: They will only be scared if it keeps them from being reelected, and right now, the only thing that keeps them from being reelected is oppoing Tea Party ideas.
JGabriel
Zandar @ Top:
There is no Peak Fournier – there is only the Fournularity.
Bobby Thomson
@Valdivia: the real racists are the ones who see Fournier’s. SAIEW.
JPL
I quibble with the word you. The President normally personalizes his speeches by telling a story about a specific family. In theory he could say the word you while discussing the family but that’s not his style.
If he points at the Republicans and points at them and says you…. whatever, I’ll drink to that..
Lee
The cherry on top of this is that the website does not allow comments.
Cannot have anyone pierce that carefully constructed bubble of his.
Turgidson
@Morzer:
From what I’ve read of him on economics issues, Sully thinks Reaganism was a good thing for its time, but has run its course and is now in fact a malignancy on our economic policy. Which I think is wrong, but at least intellectually defensible. And of course, as usual he’s a couple decades late to the party.
I think Reaganomics was always a bunch of bullshit on the facts, and popularized and set loose a truly warped and previously marginal ideological view of govt as always the enemy and wealth as always virtuous that is as much of a sickness as ever today. All that said, there can be a time and place for tax cuts, even on the wealthy, and for deregulation of certain industries. And maybe the early 80s were one of those times, but to a much lesser extent than what we got from Reagan and his adherents. For as much shit as Art Laffer and his back-of-the-napkin “curve” get from reality-based economists, there probably IS a marginal tax rate at which a critical mass of people would rather sit on their ass and enjoy their leisure time than work. But it’s probably somewhere way north of 50%. Laffer and his band of wankers are always arguing it’s lower than the current top rate, which is how you know he’s a flim flam con man.
As Krugman points out at regular intervals, the Reagan boom was more a product of Volcker (Carter’s Fed chair) going to extreme lengths to kill inflation at the very start of Reagan’s term (creating a serious recession on purpose), but calling off the dogs in a big way right as reelection was approaching, unleashing a boom. Then he got shitcanned for AlaYN GreenspRAND. Huzzah.
SiubhanDuinne
@shortstop:
He won’t let the school’s History Club see it, FFS. The History Club.
Boggle.
catclub
@Barney:
Fournier will hear this no matter what Obama says.
Karen in GA
Peak Fournier? I’m afraid I can’t agree with you there. He’ll outdo this, just you wait and see.
Iowa Old Lady
Speaking of media, Mediaite reports that the Paris mayor plans to sue Fox News:
http://www.mediaite.com/online/paris-mayor-announces-plans-to-sue-fox-news/
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Turgidson: Turns out, from American post WWII experience, that rate is well north of 90%.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@SiubhanDuinne: Says a guy who probably can’t drink his morning cup of coffee without making a joke that it’s black, bitter, and doesn’t work, just like the president.
Turgidson
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Not sure about that. I’ve read (can’t remember where) that basically nobody actually paid that rate on a substantial amount of income due to loopholes and such. But, at least once you get to very high income levels, it’s definitely much, much, much higher than our demented political debate and the whiny rich assholes who influence/control it would ever allow to be discussed in public.
JPL
@Iowa Old Lady: Fox news has won previous court case because they are an entertainment channel. Wonder what the viewers will think of that fact.
Rugosa
I was listening to NPR’s On Point today and they were talking about Obama’s upcoming tax proposals. Some idiot whose name I hadn’t caught was droning on about how “both sides play to their base”, implying that both parties try to appeal to their extremists. Yep, it turned out to be Ron Fournier.
Paul in KY
@brantl: Fournier actually wrote that paragraph?!?!
Fair Economist
@Turgidson:
That was all small-ball stuff. Nobody cares about tweaks to various tax incentives. But taxes on the rich? Cutting taxes on the middle class? This is big stuff, and not easily forgotten. I’d love to see every Dem congressional candidate against a Republican incumbent say “My Republican opponent kept your taxes high so Mitt Romney’s would be low. Vote for me and I’ll change that.”
Paul in KY
@Turgidson: He’s well compensated for the part he plays.
Rugosa
@Morzer:
Our gal, Senator Professor Warren!
danielx
I heart Brother Pierce’s suggested intro for SOTU…..Charles Pierce gives good speech, as readers of any of his suggested speeches for Mitt Romney already know.
“Mr. Speaker, Mr. Majority Leader, thank you for inviting me here tonight to discuss the state of our union. The state of our union is strong, and it’s all because of me, motherfkers, and no thanks to your sorry, wrinkled white asses. I did everything I could do to pull the economy out of the shallow grave your deregulatory frenzy and the two-term nitwit who preceded me dug for it. You stood there like squeaking eunuchs and blocked everything you could, and a narrow slice of the electorate gave you virtually unprecedented control over the entire national legislature. I don’t care. Your party has sold its soul and lost its mind. I’m not going anywhere. So I’m’a gonna do what I goddamn well please, because the state of our union is strong, motherfkers, and it’s all because of me. Nice to see you all again, though.”
Paul in KY
@CONGRATULATIONS!: In a sane world, you would flunk the student for that day. The class assignment was watching the film.
Paul in KY
@danielx: Luther! Step it back a touch…
Rugosa
@Rugosa:
Well, if I’d read the whole thread I would have seen that it was Sullivan. Remarkable, though, that it sounded so common sensical.
NCSteve
@Turgidson: And a key part of what makes him Fournier is his utter imperviousness to criticism. When people were mocking him on the endless “when will he lead? Why won’t he lead? What we need is for him to lead us with his leaderiness to a new leaderly land of leadership” phase, he would read the most acid mockery and kind of give it the wry snort of a prophet being mildly teased for being right who gets the joke but is still right rather than mocked for being a clueless hack. It’s just the damnedest thing to watch.
RaflW
Shorter Ron Fournier:
“Obama has failed.”
That’s all he has to offer. Why discuss him? He has proved himself to be no better than dirty gum on the bottom of someone’s shoe. Beneath notice, yet sticky and annoying.
Calouste
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Most people get to where their income would be taxed at 90% are either workaholics or really love their job, so they’ll keep working anyway. And of course it is mostly based on a deliberate misunderstanding of marginal tax rates. If we raised the marginal tax rate to 90% over $1 million, would all the people who get $1.1 million stop working and throw away the $600,000+ they have left over after taxes from their first $1 million?
Iowa Old Lady
@JPL: I wondered if she planned to bring the suit in a European court and if that would matter.
Turgidson
@Fair Economist:
A bill promising 1-2 million jobs in the middle of a jobs crisis (when the opposition party was, mendaciously and hypocritically, screaming “where are the jobs, Mr. President?”) was small ball?
Democrats have been running on tax hikes for the rich and tax relief for the middle and working classes for years, to varying degrees. And they tend to win the argument in the issue-based popular opinion polls. But not often enough at the ballot box or on the “which party is better at running the economy?” question. Hopefully, given that income inequality has become too extreme to ignore, the Dems can actually run and win big on a platform emphasizing these things. But I’m not holding my breath.
JPL
@danielx: There’s more I’s than you. I’m not counting your because Ron wouldn’t.
mai naem mobile
I’m proud to say I’ve been blocked by Ron Fournier on the tweeter machine. I haven’t been blocked by his parody twitter Ron Fournimeh though. I really haven’t been particularly nasty to him. Weak little jabs but no “you’re wingnut Bushie pundit who sent love notes to Kkkarl Rove” kind of stuff. I did tell him and Matthew Dowd that they need to get a room because they were so lovey dovey with each other. Even funnier is that he retweeted a tweet where i had snarkily said something about Obama not “leadering” on some stupid issue. He didn’t get the snark.
Turgidson
@NCSteve:
Yeah, along those lines there’s a definite whiff of “you little people can fuck right off with your pathetic attempts to have opinions, I’m better than you” to his interactions with non-fellow-Villagers.
Turgidson
@mai naem mobile:
I got blocked for begging him to get his dementia treated and reminding him that he had friends like Karl Rove to help him “keep up the fight.”
I was just trying to help. Ungrateful jerk.
rikyrah
tell the truth, Zandar
sm*t cl*de
dismissive, dour, arrogant, and argumentative
Sounds positively Churchillian.
Valdivia
@lamh36: made my day. The french daily show has been relentless it’s been awesome how they make fun of Fox as cowards.
Howard Beale IV
@TR: When you’re a conservative journalist, failing up is not a bug-it’s a feature.
JPL
@JPL: That I don’t know. It’s time to call on the lawyers to answer that one.
jl
From Mark Thoma’s Economists View blog
Obama and I, Me, My, You, We, Our
‘ If Ron Fournier had spent a minute or two looking into the facts of the matter, he might have discovered… ‘
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2015/01/obama-and-i-me-my-you-we-our.html
That’s a pretty funny line, ‘ If Ron Fournier had spent a minute or two looking into the facts of the matter’.
The media is infested wall to wall and nonstop with BS political analysts talking about head fakes, credibility, inscrutable political signaling games to accomplish that that and the other. Tiresome stuff. I quit listening to it.
I figure it, the economy and labor market is looking up (sadly, too late for the midterms), gas prices are down, Obama’s popularity is rising, Obama knows that the public is behind him on many of his major policies, it is now or never to get stuff done for Obama, and I hope Obama is starting to put some effort into building a case for the Democrats in 2016.
So, why not be assertive? For me, what’s not to like (edit: given the political circumstances right now, but that is how it always is in politics)? for the pundits, what is so complicated? But, they need to earn a buck, and there seems to be an audience for it.
JGabriel
Turgidson:
Krugman covered that in one of his blog posts, or maybe an op-ed. I’m too lazy too look it up right now. But it turns out someone did a study to figure out what that rate was and it was about 75%, give or take 2-3%. In other words, it was somewhere in the mid-70% range.
Mike J
@JGabriel: For people who would be paying that rate it’s irrelevant if they did sit on their asses.
If we still had brackets that high. nobody outside of the entertainment industry makes that kind of money through labor. It’s almost always through the market, which has an even lower tax rate.
Patricia Kayden
I couldn’t find a comment section over there. Was going to let one fly. Thankfully, Fournier is so brazenly stupid that I cannot imagine anyone taking him seriously.
danielx
Ooh, Ron Fournier has done hit the big time, according to the amount of commentary his swill has received today. Charlie Pierce, the Wonketariat…one could almost feel sorry for him.
Almost.
Also, too, the photo of Fournier heading Pierce’s post features him with exactly – exactly, I say! – the same rictus-like smile I’ve seen on Bloody Bill Kristol’s mug in every picture of him I’ve ever seen. Coincidence? I think not.
jl
@danielx:
“The photo of Fournier heading Pierce’s post ” makes him look like Don Rickles (pbuh, or is he still alive?) on Zoloft.
Anyway, the main problem with Fournier’s BS is that the factual claims he makes in his column are simply not true.
His headline gotcha is BS. Obama’s use of pronouns, is like most of the rest of his statements and actions, the model of perfect moderation, right in the middle.
What could it be about this Obama, a very moderate president, in some ways more like Eisenhower than any Democratic president that prompts such BS from the likes of Fournier? Probably he is an effective Democratic president, and probably that he is black, and probably that he has no trouble identifying with the average working stiff out there. That is three strikes against him in some circles.
AxelFoley
@Howard Beale IV:
True.
Citizen_X
@Barney: Because nobody does more damage to the country than college professors, right?
Oh, he should be like a preacher, Mr. Fournier? Like, say, Al Sharpton, is that what you mean?
Ah, but no. He means like MLK. Who was beloved by everybody at the time. So beloved that white people surveilled him, beat him, jailed him, and ultimately murdered him.