Patterico's Pontifications

4/21/2010

Michael Steele Tells Blacks: You Don’t Have a Reason to Vote Republican

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:55 pm



This is beyond mere incompetence. This shows Steele has no idea what it means to be a Republican:

Why should an African-American vote Republican?

“You really don’t have a reason to, to be honest — we haven’t done a very good job of really giving you one. True? True,” Republican National Chairman Michael Steele told 200 DePaul University students Tuesday night.

Steele — a former Maryland lieutenant governor and seminarian serving as the first African-American head of the Republican Party — offered a frank assessment of the American political system.

It’s not a “frank” assessment, it’s a monumentally clueless one that assumes people need to be courted by political parties — as if the only issue for black voters is whether a party sucks up to them sufficiently.

At least in theory, the Republican Party is supposed to be better because it stands for principles that help all people, including blacks. You want to see what Steele should say? Check out Larry Elder addressing the same issue to a skeptical black correspondent:

Do you know that inner-city parents want vouchers — the right to determine where their children go to school? Do you know most Democrats, including Barack Obama, oppose this? Republicans, for the most part, support vouchers. Where vouchers have been tried, kids appear to perform better, with higher parental satisfaction. You tell me, how many things are more important than a child’s education?

Do you know that 36 percent of babies aborted are black, while blacks make up 17 percent of live births? Do you know that polls show blacks are more pro-life than are whites? Yet the Democratic Party — to which over 90 percent of blacks belong — is the party of Roe v. Wade, requiring states to legalize abortion on demand. Do you know that Margaret Sanger, the founder of the organization that became Planned Parenthood, believed that poor blacks were inferior and that aborting their babies made our society better? Look it up.

Do you know that blacks stand to benefit more than whites through Social Security privatization, a position opposed by Obama but supported by McCain? Are you even familiar with the issue and what a powerful income-generating vehicle it would be for blacks? If not, take a look at the research done by the libertarian think tank Cato Institute and the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation.

Good, huh? He’s just getting warmed up.

You speak of policies that have “proven not to work.” What about the “war on poverty” that began in the ’60s, the policies that Obama and his party want to continue and expand? Do you know that today 70 percent of black children and over 50 percent of Hispanics are born outside of wedlock? The welfare state — which Democrats want to expand — has played a huge role in discouraging marriage and destabilizing families. . . . Compassion is not about making people dependent on government. Compassion is about encouraging personal responsibility, and getting people to understand that life is about making choices.

Read it all at the link.

If Michael Steele can’t think of a reason that blacks should vote Republican, get rid of him and install someone who can.

UPDATE: Dan Riehl disagrees:

By focusing on only one line from remarks RNC Chair Michael Steele made to a group, one has to wonder if some folks don’t have issues with blacks they actually do need to resolve. Slamming Steele for these remarks is not helpful to the GOP because Steele is correct. He isn’t calling for the GOP to change it’s [sic] positions, as many white so called RINOs regularly do. He’s speaking to the GOP’s inability to pierce barriers built up by the Left in his own effort to do that very thing. And for that, he should be criticized? I don’t get it. I really don’t.

I agree, Dan. You don’t get it. You really don’t.

172 Responses to “Michael Steele Tells Blacks: You Don’t Have a Reason to Vote Republican”

  1. The quote as it stands is indefensible. Whether in the context of his talk it makes some sense I don’t know. It wouldn’t be the first time a newspaper story twisted something out of recognition.

    MD in Philly (59a3ad)

  2. If Michael Steele can’t think of a reason that blacks should vote Republican, get rid of him and install someone who can.

    oh HELL yes! Thank that stupid thanker.

    redc1c4 (fb8750)

  3. “People don’t walk away from parties, Their parties walk away from them.”

    Well after reading this crap, I suspect people are indeed walking away from the GOP! Idiots like Steele still live, eat and breathe racial politics and a helluva alot of us are sick and tired of the party taking the submissive position of pandering instead of leading with the principles that are the foundation of a once great party.

    Dana (1e5ad4)

  4. I’ve been on the fence with Steele but this is just crazy. Time for him to go. Practically though it makes sense to let him finish his time (less than a year left right?) and then hire somebody who isn’t… conflicted.

    Philip (c040de)

  5. I’m speechless. Which is what Steele should have been. He is not helping the Republican cause whatsoever.

    PatAZ (9d1bb3)

  6. I have to say, Michael Steele is a complete idiot and needs to be replaced immediately. I don’t know how many more dumb things he can say or do before being booted. The guy is not doing good for the GOP, and I am surprised he has lasted this long.

    Chris Hooten (0e1f31)

  7. Between McCain Steele Palin and Huckabee Team R isn’t a brand I strongly identify with anymore.

    happyfeet (c8caab)

  8. Between this and his constant carping about how he’s held to a “higher standard” because he’s black, and how white Republicans are “afraid” of him, Steele has to go. Race politics has no place in the GOP.

    omgbradley (a8a1b8)

  9. “race politics has no place in the GOP.”

    On what planet? Maybe “should have no place,” would be more accurate. That’s probably what you meant. Unfortunately, it is definitely still there, though.

    Chris Hooten (0e1f31)

  10. How about Larry Elder heading up the RNC?

    Dale (219c8d)

  11. I have been on record as far back as 2000 as not being impressed by Karl Rove, who despite his reputation as a ravenous wolverine was always on the defensive. IMHO Rove was too concerned with winning over bloated-government independents, and he presided over monumental blunders like Harriet Miers’ SCOTUS nomination. My idea for the next GOP honcho was simple: S/he would be an eloquent explainer and defender of conservative principles, and would demand that everyone who spoke publicly on behalf of the party be also. If ambitious pols couldn’t at a moment’s notice provide at least TEN reasons why they could never be Democrats, they would never be promoted as a major voice of the party.

    As a right-of-center black man myself, I had high hopes for Steele, who came off as very bright when being interviewed while he was running for Senator. My first inkling that Steele might not be up to the job was his appearance on CNN’s short-lived D.L. Hughley show. Forget how he criticized Rush Limbaugh’s “I hope he fails” remarks as “incendiary” and “ugly” — the worst part of that interview came minutes before when Hughley opined that the RNCC convention “looked like Nazi Germany” — and Steele didn’t smack him down with great prejudice. Laura Ingraham grilled him about that, and his answers were lame. Almost as bad was his insistence to Ingraham that despite his laid-back approach in the face of predictions of the party’s irrelevance, he was working behind the scenes along with veteran strategists, but didn’t want to discuss the strategy lest he be second-guessed. Not the mark of a competent leader — more like a chocolate version of the protagonist of the ’80s sitcom Sledge Hammer!, whose catch phrase was “Trust me — I know what I’m doing.”

    Now, to be fair, things have turned out pretty well for the GOP under Steele with the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia going rouge and the miraculous victory of Scott Brown in Massachusetts, but he has shown the same propensity for unforced errors as Rove, such as feeding dyed-in-the-wool RINO Dede Scozzafava a half-million bucks that went up in smoke when she pulled out of the race and endorsed the Democrat that won. But Steele’s GOP seems to view the grassroots as an obstacle and not an ally, which is too reminiscent of the way Rove and Bush treated the critics of amnesty, expansive education and Medicaid bills, and McCain-Feingold campaign reforms that Bush signed into law, counting on the SCOTUS to strike them down. Dumb. It took until his administration was over and the Dems won all three branches before a dent was finally put into it by persistent conservatives.

    The last straw for me was when he invoked race when calls for his ouster came after the Voyeur Hollywood thing came to light. Hearing that sort of thing made me wonder if he and I are close to being on the same wavelength. To me, it seems he is now threatening to use the Obama approach of quick- drawing the race card when people point to his substandard leadership.

    The problem is, what horse is there to change to mid-stream? I have NO idea, but “any other horse!” is not a smart answer.

    L.N. Smithee (356582)

  12. #11

    You covered much the same ground I had in mind. That moment on CNN marked Steele as the wrong man for the job. He acted embarrassed to be a GOP member, never mind its leader! The man doesn’t seem to be able to vocalize how and why he came to hold his beliefs. This is a deadly flaw in any leadership position.

    He may be a great guy on a personal level but he just hasn’t got the vital backbone needed for the job. Larry Elder would be excellent in the job but I suspect he isn’t enough of an inside player to be up for the job. I really missed having him around during the 2008 election. His was the kind of voice that could have made a real difference.

    epobirs (0e049c)

  13. Steele has now officially jumped the shark. Time to go.

    Icy Texan (684095)

  14. “Do you know that 36 percent of babies aborted are black, while blacks make up 17 percent of live births? ”

    This argument seems to tell me that what you’re interested in selling is telling black women what to do.

    Meanwhile this one:

    “Do you know that blacks stand to benefit more than whites through Social Security privatization, a position opposed by Obama but supported by McCain? ”

    Tells me that you just buy your own dogma.

    imdw (597e10)

  15. “IMHO Rove was too concerned with winning over bloated-government independents, and he presided over monumental blunders like Harriet Miers’ SCOTUS nomination.”

    I thought this was one thing that Rove and Cheney let Bush handle on his own.

    imdw (597e10)

  16. Wait a minute. Shouldn’t Steele be frank and forthright in exposing the frailties of the GOP? As Elder pointed out, there are a great many reasons for Blacks to cleve to GOP ideals, but we have not effectively stood up those issues for review.
    We should be celebrating our efforts to kill the “War on Poverty” and the damaging effects it has had on minorities. And all our other work which Elder touched upon.
    I took Steeles comment as a call to Republicans to proudly take credit where we not taken it in the past.
    Based on our past efforts and our “Champions” of Palin and McCain, it’s not only Black voters that don’t have a reason to vote Republican.

    pitchforksntorches (12026e)

  17. imdw

    Again, please provide proof that Cheney and Rove were the defacto co-president(s) while Bush was an alleged figurehead

    If you would please

    EricPWJohnson (1d0270)

  18. feets, of the four spokesman, it would seem she would be the only one not at a loss for word, when asked that question. McCain would warble ‘My Friends’ and Huckabee would roast a possum’

    ian cormac (a0602a)

  19. Going into the mid-term elections with Steele at the helm is exactly the sort major league blunder which identifies the Stupid Party. And, it isn’t Steele’s one remark, it’s a series of foot-in-mouth gaffs, it’s poor fundraising, substandard candidate recruitment, ostentatious spending, and institutional blindness to TEA Party concerns.

    Steele is out of place, in over his head, and ill suited to head the RNC at this time. He has to go, and the sooner, the better for everyone involved, Steele included.

    ropelight (7ec00c)

  20. I would still like to see the quote in context, not so much because I think Steele is good for the job as because the SunTimes is a newspaper, from Chicago…

    What I’ve heard from Ken Blackwell has been good, and he was another contender for the job originally.

    I’ve only seen a little of J.C. Watts in speaking in real time.

    I agree with you, Mr. Smithee, “My idea for the next GOP honcho was simple: S/he would be an eloquent explainer and defender of conservative principles, and would demand that everyone who spoke publicly on behalf of the party be also.”

    The person needs to be clear and simple without being simplistic, and can redirect a conversation back to make the conservative point when the obfuriation starts.

    MD in Philly (59a3ad)

  21. This would be the Left’s wet dream – the 1st black head of the RNC fired over a racial incident.

    JD (9f2abc)

  22. “Tells me that you just buy your own dogma.”

    Tells me that you just disagree with the statement.

    Some of your best work yet!

    daleyrocks (1d0d98)

  23. “You really don’t have a reason to, to be honest — we haven’t done a very good job of really giving you one. True? True,” Republican National Chairman Michael Steele told 200 DePaul University students Tuesday night.

    Since it’s part of Steele’s duty to make the case for voting Republican, that statement doesn’t make him look very effective.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (9eb641)

  24. The only way to stop racial discrimination is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.

    Patterico’s right on this incident. The GOP ought not be engaged in pandering to any race — and by “pandering,” I include shaping its policies for the specific purpose of attracting members of any particular race.

    The Dems are the party of racial bigotry. Playing their identity politics games is a mistake.

    Beldar (37939a)

  25. If one believes that a specific group needs to have a tailor-made appeal, inevitably it will necessitate a squishiness and compromise of principle.

    Either conservative principles stand on their own or they don’t. They should not be tweaked into something different depending on the audience.

    They are consistent and purposeful. And the integrity of them should not be compromised – it doesn’t need to be because they stand on their own.

    They will appeal to some and not to others. It’s a shame Steele feels compelled to apologize and to some degree, tacitly misrepresent conservatism.

    Dana (1e5ad4)

  26. I’ve known racist Republicans (actual racists, like won’t let their baby wear Pampers because at the time they pictured drawings of babies… including black babies… on the waist bands). I’ve also known racist Democrats, including both the old-fashioned kind and the kind who are paternalistic in their racism (as in the soft bigotry of low expectations).

    But I’ve also known a LOT of Republicans who have worked very hard at exactly the sort of outreach that Chairman Steele is calling for: finding common ground, explaining why conservative values are better for everybody, inviting folks to meetings. And those friends of mine are worn out. They’ve had the hand of friendship slapped away so many times by the leaders of the organized black institutions (NAACP, etc.) that they have trouble seeing the point anymore. It’s different talking to people in the street; they’re quite often not as beholden to the political powers that be and will give you a listen… but in their community, there’s a powerful, powerful inertia for voting for the Democrats.

    It is our job as conservatives to sell our party and our principles. We can’t expect everybody to see the light on their own. If we want the votes, we have to convince people to give us the votes. So Steele is right about that.

    What’s he’s wrong about is being defensive, and not criticizing those on the other side who need criticizing. He should be finding ways to drive political wedges between everyday folks and the leftist political organizations like the NAACP which claim to speak for them. He needs to forcefully rebut the claims that our policies are driven in anyway by racial preferences. He needs to call out the NAACP for using the politics of fear (such as when they tried to lay the grotesque lynching and murder of James Byrd at the feet of then-Governor Bush because he refused to sign a “hate crimes” bill which wouldn’t have affected the sentence of Byrd’s murderers at all). Along the way, he can and should make amends for the party’s flaws (and the “Southern Strategy” is probably one of those), but it shouldn’t be unilateral surrender, which is what it often comes across as when he speaks.

    PatHMV (140f2a)

  27. I’ve bitten my lip about this a-hole long enough. He’s incompetent, he’s a poor fundraiser, he’s not a leader, and he’s not even a cheerleader. Worst of all, he got the top party job due to his skin color, because no one in the GOP wanted to give anyone else the job one Steele applied for it.

    He pops of about Rush Limbaugh at the first hint of getting the “Uncle Tom” treatment by fellow blacks, and he bitches about how tough it is for him to sit on his ass and do practically nothing due to all the whites in the GOP watching him. This guy is not on the Republican Party’s side, simply put. And Dan Riehl once again displays his cluelessness on the general issue of teamwork. I think that the GOP needs to find someone to do this idiot’s job for him. He’s gonna be a loose cannon right up until the day he gets fired.

    FatBaldnSassy (9520fd)

  28. Dana… marketing 101 does not require changing your product to make it appeal to other people. The black community does have specific problems of its own. What we can and should do is market our solutions to those problems in an appropriate manner. How does limited government and fiscal responsibility and personal liberty help a community with many unwed mothers, many teenage and young adult males in prison, etc. I think our policies WILL help those communities in the long run, but if I want the votes of that community, it’s my job to show them how these solutions will make them better off.

    So we can have ads with middle class black Americans, talking about how, now that they’ve made it, reached the American dream, and are in a position to give back, to help their own family and own roots, the government upped their taxes, or the government stepped in and through burdensome regulations made their current health insurance too expensive, forcing them back on the government dole of Medicaid. That’s smart marketing, not softening our policies. We can have ads with young black students showing how the government forces them to keep going to the same failing schools. They ask to be given a choice, to be allowed to go to the better, private school down the street, and we show the teachers union telling him to get back in his place, the government knows whats best for him, and we certainly can’t give him a voucher, because his parents wouldn’t know whether the private school is really better for him or not.

    Marketing 101. We need to do it.

    PatHMV (140f2a)

  29. #11 L.N. Smithee:

    I had high hopes for Steele

    Same here. I thought he did a good job here in Maryland, and he is capable of articulating conservatism when he wants to…but the whole business of the GOP pandering for votes defeats the purpose of the party, and Steele isn’t helping to change that direction.

    And that just isn’t going to work.

    EW1(SG) (edc268)

  30. #

    Between McCain Steele Palin and Huckabee Team R isn’t a brand I strongly identify with anymore.

    Comment by happyfeet — 4/21/2010 @ 10:05 pm

    And I want to tell this guy why he’s so wrong, but in this case, I know I’ll lose that argument. I have no idea what this has to do with Palin, but since she endorsed Mccain I’ll assume it’s that.

    “race politics has no place in the GOP.”

    On what planet? Maybe “should have no place,” would be more accurate. That’s probably what you meant. Unfortunately, it is definitely still there, though.

    Comment by Chris Hoote

    Michael Steele is more in tune with Chris Hooten than he is in tune with me or Patterico or anyone who denies any special consideration or treatment on the basis of someone’s race or skin color. Race is a stupid terrible thing for government or political parties to base promises and policies on.

    I want a party “where men will not argue that the color of a man’s skin determines the content of his character”

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  31. Between McCain Steele Palin and Huckabee Team R isn’t a brand I strongly identify with anymore.

    And I want to tell this guy why he’s so wrong, but in this case, I know I’ll lose that argument.

    You will lose that argument because you do not get to define how others identify with the Republican party. Not because he is wrong.

    JD (3b62be)

  32. Next shocka will be the thought that to win over black voters, the GOP should promote policy positions that black voters want. Rather than promote to black voters the policy positions they SHOULD want.

    imdw (71952a)

  33. I thought [Harriet Miers] was one thing that Rove and Cheney let Bush handle on his own.

    Comment by imdw — 4/22/2010 @ 5:03 am

    Source?

    In the miniscule chance that what you wrote is factual: if I was Karl Rove, and Bush told me he wanted his somewhat unremarkable personal attorney’s fledging judgeship to be on the United States Supreme Court, my resignation would be on the Oval Office desk within hours. Forget having a dream job for the Leader of The Free World — I could NOT live the rest of my life knowing I didn’t do everything I could to prevent that from happening.

    L.N. Smithee (52cee5)

  34. 31.Next shocka will be the thought that to win over black voters, the GOP should promote policy positions that black voters want. Rather than promote to black voters the policy positions they SHOULD want.

    The fantasy there is that people vote based on policy positions.

    Subotai (b086f2)

  35. The next SHOCKA would be the idea that principles should not be changed to pander to some identity politics group.

    LN – It just made that up.

    JD (3b62be)

  36. I thought [Harriet Miers] was one thing that Rove and Cheney let Bush handle on his own.

    Miers had Rove written all over her. “She’s a woman, and an Evangelical, and she did not attend an Ivy League school! Perfect!”

    Subotai (b086f2)

  37. “You will lose that argument because you do not get to define how others identify with the Republican party. Not because he is wrong.

    Comment by JD — 4/22/2010 @ 10:41 am ”

    Well, no kidding. But I want to tell him that his interest in a sustainable government that doesn’t go out of its way to nanny us can be found in the GOP, and I’m wrong about that because of some of the people he noted, who happen to be the leaders of the party. Whether I like it or not, Mccain and Steele are the GOP’s leadership, which is a fact I wish where different because that’s a breakdown, in my view, of the power of the philosophy that should be the GOP.

    Don’t be so defensive, JD. I’m not presuming the power to tell people to identify with the GOP. I’m obviously doing the exact opposite of that, admitting that my wish that the GOP didn’t play social engineering games and otherwise deviate from what is right means that I can’t tell happyfeet why he is wrong to not identify with the GOP.

    I realize I’m just wasting my time trying to interact with you, based on the strange way you acted in the Tiger Woods thread, calling me a jerk because I agreed with Tiger that he crossed the line. I think your attitude is based on my comments in one of those threads that you’re not supposed to make personal attacks in… but maybe you shouldn’t take my opinions so personally. It’s not a big deal that I wish happyfeet and lots of other people would identify with a GOP that is better than the Steele Mccain party. No ill will was intended by that.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  38. “The next SHOCKA would be the idea that principles should not be changed to pander to some identity politics group. ”

    And people who have policy views, but aren’t approached because that would be “pandering” to an “identity politics group” is likely to not even want to vote for you even if you advance their policy views.

    imdw (c62814)

  39. #14

    “Do you know that 36 percent of babies aborted are black, while blacks make up 17 percent of live births? ”

    This argument seems to tell me that what you’re interested in selling is telling black women what to do.

    Comment by imdw — 4/22/2010 @ 5:00 am

    You failed to quote the next sentence — “Do you know that polls show blacks are more pro-life than are whites?” It’s not about “telling black women what to do”, it’s about the pro-life values that a lot of black women hold, and which are inconsistent with the values of the Democratic party (which consistently positions itself as the pro-abortion party).

    Robin Munn (fca9e9)

  40. Next shocka will be the thought that to win over black voters, the GOP should promote policy positions that black voters want. Rather than promote to black voters the policy positions they SHOULD want.

    Comment by imdw — 4/22/2010 @ 10:42 am

    What you have written is a perfect example of what’s wrong with identity politics. But you probably can’t even comprehend why that’s the case.

    L.N. Smithee (52cee5)

  41. I’m not buying it. The Harriet Miers debacle belongs at the feet of George W Bush.

    No subordinate or group of subordinates could have pushed Miers on the President. From what I know of executive decision-making, it’s beyond imagination that some administration official or Cabinet appointee could have made a convincing case for Miers to an assembled staff, and not been met with overwhelming opposition.

    Miers shortcomings were obvious and would have been quickly exposed. There is little doubt that GWB decided on his own to nominate Miers, it’s the only possibility that explains why the WH staff could not prevent the debacle.

    ropelight (7ec00c)

  42. “What you have written is a perfect example of what’s wrong with identity politics. ”

    Indeed. so wrong to appeal to what people want. stick to telling people what they should want.

    [note: fished from spam filter. –Stashiu]

    imdw (4f4875)

  43. You out and out stated that people that disagreed with you were jackasses. How could that be misinterpreted, Dustin?

    JD (9f2abc)

  44. LN Smithee, you’re right that the problem seems to be some kind of basic comprehension.

    Of course the GOP (my fantasy version that doesn’t exist, apparently) should tell blacks of the benefits of a color blind small government USA that doesn’t run cities into the ground or allow unions to stagnate our economy. A world where everyone can get a job, do whatever they want, and for the most part, the government leaves us alone.

    We shouldn’t tell black people this because they are black. We shouldn’t really even care that they are black. We should just tell everyone this, and black people because they are part of everyone.

    Instead, we keep hearing how we should target blacks with black favoring policies.

    ” the GOP should promote policy positions that black voters want.”

    That’s wrong. I hope we can articulate conservatism well enough that “black voters” will want us to cut entitlements and take us off the doomed fiscal path, but we shouldn’t bother carving society into groups of people to pursue and play off eachother.

    That’s just wrong.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  45. “#

    You out and out stated that people that disagreed with you were jackasses. How could that be misinterpreted, Dustin?

    Comment by JD — 4/22/2010 @ 12:42 pm

    Did I? Well, if I did, that was rude. Sorry.

    My recollection is that you were the one cussing at people, and I was saying telling someone that their assertion about Woods’s private life not being ‘the issue’ was only their opinion, and that you were the one calling me a jackass and then announcing that you wanted to cuss a lot.

    But I can’t pull up the page conveniently with the way the server is struggling.

    Regardless, people who call others jackass over their differences in opinion are rude, and I’m rude sometimes and that’s wrong.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  46. See y’all this evening. I have to go golfing 😉

    JD (9f2abc)

  47. Wish I was golfing.

    I finally managed to get the thread ( https://patterico.com/2010/04/18/what-golf-is-about/ ) to load. I actually think it says something about how Michael Steele is acting.

    JD is referencing a comment where I refer to people who think the Tiger Woods brand is stronger in the wake of the scandal. Obviously not normal people. I used the term “jackasses” for these kinds of MTV watching kids. We all know who I’m talking about, and it wasn’t anyone in that thread. Some people really love celebrity gossip and some of those people (they are jackasses) like him more now than they did before the scandal was reported.

    Even Tiger admits his behavior was terrible. Every reasonable honorable person knows he crossed the line. Silly to even argue about it.

    JD came in to call me a “jackass” for being so “judgey”. The way he did it implied I was being judgey elsewhere (why he didn’t point this out in the actual thread that he was vageuly referring to is why I thought it was one of those ‘no personal attacks’ threads, but that’s just a guess and I have no idea about that). Maybe he thinks I’m a prude and was bottling up this feeling.

    Then he had an additional comment where he announces that he really wants to express profanity. Wierd, and it’s clear he’s furious about something. Because of JD’s tendency to not actually discuss the topic of a thread, it’s hard to understand what he’s so mad about. He didn’t reply when I asked then, and I realize he’s barely replying in here either.

    It’s cool. I’ve always been nice to JD, and some people are actually a lot uglier to you when you’re nice to them on the internet. I’ve never insulted him, and I’ve gone out of my way to befriend him, and maybe that plays into whatever thought process he’s having. That’s strange, but I don’t mind. JD is usually very funny in the way he takes potshots at people he disagrees with (usually lefties often trolls). It’s pointless to try to have a discussion with him, as you can see in the Tiger Woods thread.

    It’s a shame too, because when he does articulate a thought that’s on topic, he’s funny and intelligent even when I don’t agree with him. I tried to find an example of this, but didn’t.

    How does that relate to Michael Steele? Well, I think it’s clear that people are too defensive of their own status and not defensive enough of the philosophy of conservatism. Michael Steele is having some kind of passive aggressive attack on the Republican Party that has been going on for quite a while now. You can see that he’s a brilliant man who is quick and compelling… before this criticism of his Chairmanship (speaking fees, the book, etc) became an issue. I don’t think he’s bumbling or making some kind of gaffe when he condemns the GOP again… I think he’s too worried about his personal status to realize that the actual battle that should define his work right now is important enough to put that aside.

    I don’t know what JD’s problem really is with me… I asked him in the Woods thread. Almost everyone here has disagreed with me at some point, and I think mentally healthy people can just accept differences of opinion. And when they can’t, as Michael Steele can’t, it really makes it hard for them to functionally debate.

    No hard feelings JD. You’ve been rude to me, and while I’ve always been nice to you, I’m rude to people when they get my goat. That just doesn’t matter that much. Tiger Woods is a piece of garbage, but you were probably right about whatever secret issue we originally disagree on that is driving this attitude, or you wouldn’t even be so irritated.

    I hope you are Michael Steele himself, and you take to heart the value in not being passive aggressive. I defy anyone to explain Steele’s behavior as anything but a weird interest in undermining the mission of the RNC.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  48. It is so reassuring having advice from Chris Hooten and imdw on how the GOP needs to organize and market itself.
    Their viewpoints are valuable, as they point 180-degrees from what needs to be done.
    Keep up the good work Morons.

    AD - RtR/OS! (898e6a)

  49. “It is so reassuring having advice from Chris Hooten and imdw on how the GOP needs to organize and market itself.”

    It’s not really a ‘marketing’ thing…It’s much simpler than that. If you want a particular demographic to support you, then take on positions that are popular within that demographic.

    imdw (df0dab)

  50. imdw, what positions do you think are popular within that demographic that the GOP doesn’t already take on?

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  51. Dustin, that sentence is getting scary. I mean, given who you are discussing.

    Besides, the Non-Apologist is just here to play games. And the Hooten fellow? Just a troll.

    They are trying to “Speak Truth to Power” here. And it’s kind of amusing, since they are clearly quite worried over the loss of their Hope and Change.

    That is why they work—for free—for Axelrod and his ilk.

    Eric Blair (0b61b2)

  52. Eric, I know, but I feel guilty for being so verbose about something else, and I don’t want to derail a thread about Michael Steele being a real piece of work.

    It is scary to think that we would “take on” a position we otherwise would not, just to get some particular slice of America. You can’t trust leaders who do that, which is why Democrats have to pretend Democrats from 50 years ago were Republicans.

    But I’m still not really sure what the GOP could possibly change their ‘mind on’ to convince loyal democrats to vote for Republicans. Obama’s doing all the heavy lifting lately of scaring us about a collapse of massive spending.

    So, imdw, though I rarely talk to you, I am curious, what issues are you referring to? Easier mortgage approvals? Longer welfare periods? More regulation of [rich people]?

    If it’s that, I suspect we can’t beat the democrats that way. Happyfeet might point out that Mccain already tried a lot of this approach, too.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  53. Dustin, no big deal. They are irritating, but I honestly think they are so worried about the demise of their dream world.

    Eric Blair (0b61b2)

  54. I’m not buying it. The Harriet Miers debacle belongs at the feet of George W Bush.

    No subordinate or group of subordinates could have pushed Miers on the President. From what I know of executive decision-making, it’s beyond imagination that some administration official or Cabinet appointee could have made a convincing case for Miers to an assembled staff, and not been met with overwhelming opposition.

    Miers shortcomings were obvious and would have been quickly exposed. There is little doubt that GWB decided on his own to nominate Miers, it’s the only possibility that explains why the WH staff could not prevent the debacle.

    Comment by ropelight — 4/22/2010 @ 12:11 pm

    Half a year after the inauguration of Barack Obama, Dick Cheney would openly state when inquires were made regarding Scooter Libby’s conviction of obstruction of justice that he wanted Bush to pardon him. Bush flatly refused, Cheney said, despite constant requests. Finally, W commuted Libby’s sentence, freeing him from prison but leaving him with the lifelong stain of a felony conviction.

    More than a year and a half after Karl Rove departed the White House for the last time, I am not aware of any such act of separation in the case of Bush regarding Harriet Miers. If you’ve got some sort of hard evidence, I’d be willing to read it. But until you show me something, the man lauded as the political genius that got GWB elected to two terms and earned the nickname “Bush’s brain” has the Miers nomination tattooed on his neck.

    L.N. Smithee (52cee5)

  55. All I know is that you should never tell a group of potential voters that you have nothing to offer them. It defeats the whole purpose of meeting with them, which presumably was to tell them what the GOP had to offer them, as voters. It is like a car salesman saying they don’t really have the right car for you. Are you going to shop there?

    Chris Hooten (0e1f31)

  56. “All I know is that you should never tell a group of potential voters that you have nothing to offer them.” It’s hard to argue with this too…

    And Steele’s so wrong. The trainwreck of corruption and spending, even just the ramp up from Bush’s level to this Captain Insano level, is a problem that will harm the lives of blacks too. High unemployment and Iran having a nuke is no less a problem for people with darker skin.

    Steele could tell them how this is what the GOP offers everyone, and it’s not out of disrespect that we don’t tailor messages based on color of skin.

    But Steele obviously is trying to harm the GOP. I think Steele was picked partly out of some notion of racial politics, and he’s directly harming the GOP on that specific front. There’s no excuse, and if he’s the RNC chair, how can I be a Republican?

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  57. When you walk into a Ferrari dealership looking for a mini-van, that is exactly what the salesman should do.

    AD - RtR/OS! (898e6a)

  58. If you want a particular demographic to support you, then take on positions that are popular within that demographic.

    You mean like your Messiah, who lied until his nose reached Malaysia during the campaign, and now flounts every promise made? Awesome advice there, Twinkie.

    Dmac (21311c)

  59. Anyone who still finds that brand compelling (And many consider it more compelling now than before the scandal) is a jackass. So it’s a strong brand.

    I find that brand quite compelling, therefore, by your standards, I am a jackass. You will note that I quoted that exact section in the other thread, but apparently you did not read that. Your standard that you said was that anyone that still found the brand compelling is a jackass.

    You also noted that “Oh, and no, normal folks aren’t prone to this kind of failure. ” and “I’m not exactly holding myself up as Mr Awesome to say that I don’t.”. Normal people have affairs, maybe not to the extent that Tiger did, but this is sadly not a unique phenomenon at all. Quite the contrary. Also, Tiger did not hold himself out to be Mr Awesome. The media did that, and the public gladly ran with it. I could not find one instance or quote where Tiger even implied that he was in any way better or more moral than any other person.

    As for this thread, I simply noted where I disagreed with you. Apparently that caused some consternation.

    I do not know what these secret things and unspoken problems that you imagine I might have. You speculate as to my mental status, and attribute motives to me that I do not have.

    Regardless, really have no problem with you. We just sometimes disagree.

    JD (9f2abc)

  60. I’m pretty much getting what I was expecting with Obama. There was some hope he’d be super competent, but let me tell you I wasn’t expecting health care, wall street, and immigration reform, and carbon trading all before the mid terms. That would just be ridiculous.

    But you’re hitting on something. Promising helps. And delivering does too. But there is a distinction.

    imdw (017d51)

  61. Ad – RtR/OS!:

    GOP = Ferrari dealership?
    Black College students = only potential minivan owners?

    That is an interesting choice of imagery. Wasn’t it the Ferrari dealership that walked into the group of potential minivan owners, though? Also, minivan owners will always grossly outnumber Ferrari owners, so maybe a Ferrari dealership is not what the GOP needs to be in order to win elections. Is it the party of inclusion, or exclusion? Just a thought.

    Chris Hooten (0e1f31)

  62. I’m pretty much getting what I was expecting with Obama. There was some hope he’d be super competent, but let me tell you I wasn’t expecting health care, wall street, and immigration reform, and carbon trading all before the mid terms. That would just be ridiculous.

    But you’re hitting on something. Promising helps. And delivering does too. But there is a distinction.

    imdw (d867f1)

  63. It’s not really a ‘marketing’ thing…It’s much simpler than that. If you want a particular demographic to support you, then take on positions that are popular within that demographic.

    Comment by imdw — 4/22/2010 @ 2:08 pm

    “The positions that are popular within the demographic” are often the same ones that are stifling them. The best thing to happen to American blacks as a whole recently was welfare reform, which was largely foisted upon Bill Clinton by the groundswell of support for Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America. It is a step away from LBJ’s Great Society, the “war on poverty” that poverty won.

    Now, Obama’s amorphous campaign promises and wing-and-a-prayer-and-more-taxes entitlement plans have caused some black people to expect a free ride: Free gas. Free mortgage payments. Health care “like Christmas.” Handouts of “Obama Money.”

    So you know where I’m coming from: Eleven years ago, I wrote a long essay in response to Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison’s ridiculous remark that Bill Clinton was the first black President. Morrison’s argument was that Clinton was all but black because …

    Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness; single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s and junk-food loving boy from Arkansas.

    Morrison went on to suggest that part of the motivation to impeach Clinton was his “unpoliced sexuality,” apparently in her estimation yet another black thing about him.

    My long rant, written in one sitting and finally completed at my desk two hours after work, ended thusly (bold added for emphasis):

    If you think that Clinton is all but black, I say, Toni, thanks for nothing. If this reflects your attitude about the inabilities of our people, you are still on the plantation, dearie. You still think we can’t rise above our backgrounds (presuming, as the likes of you do, that we are all born poor and abused and have a defeatist attitude). You don’t think of your own people as having future potential, you think of us as having unremovable shackles perpetually preventing us from being seen as anything but homo sapiens‘ also-rans. You can’t think in terms of equality that is earned — only that which is granted to the lowly by the high and mighty at the threat of violent revolution. You worship Clinton-types because they kowtow to curry your favor and get your vote, not because they view you as equals. You hate blacks like Ward Connerly, Clarence Thomas and Alan Keyes because they want to compete before the playing field is “leveled” the way that many Asian and European peoples who have ventured to America have; your type wants to be fed at the breast of white America, never satisfied that the time for weaning has arrived, yet wailing that it will never come.

    In short, despite your fame, talent, wealth, and accomplishments, you are not an example of the solution. You are part of the problem.

    L.N. Smithee (52cee5)

  64. Michael Steele has succeeded in uniting the republican base against Michael Steele.

    What a putz!

    GeneralMalaise (24d3e0)

  65. “It’s not really a ‘marketing’ thing…It’s much simpler than that. If you want a particular demographic to support you, then take on positions that are popular within that demographic.”

    imdw – It is indeed much simpler than that. You create a climate of fear over voting for the other guys.

    The Democrats need to foster an atmosphere of racism in this country. They need to perpetuate grievances and differences. It’s the primary mechanism they have for keeping the identity groups they depend upon as large block votes together for electoral purposes. You can readily see how defectors are publicly ridiculed and shamed by the left. The biggest race pimps in the country, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, are on call 24/7 to do the party’s bidding. Obama and Rev. Wright’s Black Liberation Theology is just another branch of the tree as is Obama’s focus on Social Justice BS. Without equal outcomes, regardless of the equality of opportunity, Obama assumes there is structural racism in the system somewhere even if it cannot be identified.

    Unfortunately, it sounds like Steele may be buying into some of this pablum. Without that fear of the “OTHER”, how else to you explain why minority groups continue to vote against their interest for Democrat policies which have demonstrably failed to advance their lot time after time across the country.

    It is indeed simple, imdw. Open your good eye.

    daleyrocks (1d0d98)

  66. And the phroase “Steeling” an election is born

    EricPWJohnson (1d0270)

  67. And the Phrase “Steeling” an election is born

    EricPWJohnson (1d0270)

  68. Moron Chris has difficulty with analogies; and, I wasn’t the one who brought up the image of a car salesman/dealership, I just destroyed the lack of reasoning contained within it.

    AD - RtR/OS! (898e6a)

  69. AD – Chris is not the sharpest butter knife in the drawer.

    JD (9f2abc)

  70. He should be finding ways to drive political wedges between everyday folks and the leftist political organizations like the NAACP which claim to speak for them. He needs to forcefully rebut the claims that our policies are driven in anyway by racial preferences. He needs to call out the NAACP for using the politics of fear (such as when they tried to lay the grotesque lynching and murder of James Byrd at the feet of then-Governor Bush because he refused to sign a “hate crimes” bill which wouldn’t have affected the sentence of Byrd’s murderers at all) …

    Comment by PatHMV — 4/22/2010 @ 8:51 am

    Amen! Most galling was that NAACP Voter PAC TV spot in which Byrd’s daughter said Bush’s refusal to endorse a frivolous addendum to the existing hate crime law ‘was like my father was killed all over again.’

    It didn’t seem to be good enough to the NAACP that Bush wanted Byrd’s killers to get, y’know, THE DEATH PENALTY IN TEXAS, to which two of the three participants were sentenced. The third in the truck got life, and won’t be up for parole for at least two decades.

    L.N. Smithee (52cee5)

  71. Who the heck wants to be the sharpest butter knife? And I’m a moron, too, I guess? Attacking the messenger instead of the message is very poor debating skills. Finding common ground with you guys is nearly impossible with the nonstop name-calling. I have tried several times to agree with you on issues, but to no avail. I still get attacked, even when we have common ground. Oh well… I was hoping for better discourse than that. It is almost like you don’t want to have any real discussions here, just “heh heh heh yeah, these Obamaturds are real losers. heh heh heh” “I know, these crazy liberalosers are off their meds again. heh heh heh.”

    Chris Hooten (0e1f31)

  72. Amen! Most galling was that NAACP Voter PAC TV spot in which Byrd’s daughter said Bush’s refusal to endorse a frivolous addendum to the existing hate crime law ‘was like my father was killed all over again.’

    How can the Republican Party fight a message like that, especially as the fifth-columnist mainstream media suppresses any effort to counter such attacks?

    Secret Squirrel (6a1582)

  73. ^and all this, coming from a person who constantly castigates the GOP with wild – ass claims that he never, never backs up with facts.

    Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee, Troll.

    Dmac (21311c)

  74. You do not take your audience into account when speaking, Crissy, and you use language that you have to know to be potentially inflammatory, and then you act all surprised and get the vapors when people fire back. You have done the exact same thing every time you have been here, and it is predictable, and tiring.

    JD (9f2abc)

  75. Did I do that here? Where did I do that on this thread? And what is the deal with “Crissy?” Is that supposed to emasculate me in some way? Do you hate Threes Company? Am I supposed to go home crying to my mommy? What? Can’t you guys just debate the actual issues? Of course small pot shots are going to be fired at each other when people disagree, and should be expected. Petty name calling instead of real debate is not expected, and is oddly confusing when we are in agreement on an issue, for instance this one about Steele. Names don’t bother me, as long as they are accompanied by informed discourse.

    Chris Hooten (0e1f31)

  76. I am just using the standards you espoused yesterday in the thread about the usage of language, where you told us we should remove words that have the potential to cause offense from our rhetoric. Informed discourse would be one heck of an improvement for you. What a Leftist thinks about Steele is nearly as important to me as my toolchest’s opinion on Russell Kirk’s writing.

    JD (9f2abc)

  77. Names don’t bother me, as long as they are accompanied by informed discourse.

    Fine. Let’s see some links for your many and varied thoughts. If you cannot do the minimum amount of effort required to prove your points, then no, we’re not going to take you seriously.

    Dmac (21311c)

  78. Chris, you still there?

    Dmac (21311c)

  79. Sorry JD, this is the wrong thread for that discussion. and Dmac, I didn’t know I needed links to agree with you (which I am doing in this thread). I haven’t made any assertions that need proof. Why is everyone getting off topic so much with me? I know if I actually follow those tangents, I will get complaints of being off topic, or overtaking the thread.

    Chris Hooten (0e1f31)

  80. ““The positions that are popular within the demographic” are often the same ones that are stifling them”

    So apply this to the tea party and not black people and tell me how well that works out for you.

    “Without that fear of the “OTHER”, how else to you explain why minority groups continue to vote against their interest for Democrat policies which have demonstrably failed to advance their lot time after time across the country.”

    Well it can’t be that they come to a different conclusion about what their interest is.

    imdw (0d4fd5)

  81. The messenger is attacked when he presents a message without content.

    AD - RtR/OS! (898e6a)

  82. Shocking that your asshattery follows you around, huh?

    This idea that you brought reasonable discussion here, and were rebuffed by vitriol, is quite laughable.

    JD (9f2abc)

  83. *Sigh* (shakes head) I still think Steele is doing a disservice to the GOP with his antics.

    Chris Hooten (0e1f31)

  84. What a Leftist thinks about Steele is nearly as important to me as my toolchest’s opinion on Russell Kirk’s writing.

    JD (9f2abc)

  85. JD:
    Yeah, and the whole world is about what is important to YOU, right? Labeling me a “leftist,” then promptly dismissing comments from any and all with that label that you have deemed appropriate smacks of a megalomaniacal worldview where you are the sole arbitrator of the worth and veracity of all statements made by everyone. YOU decide who gets labeled, and the label defines the value of the comment, regardless of the ideas shared.

    Chris Hooten (0e1f31)

  86. I don’t understand what Chris Hooten has done in this thread to engender personal nastiness.

    Since I have had some threads where I have enforced absolute civility, I have become more attuned to how personal attacks take down the level of discourse and destroy a thread.

    Is Chris Hooten a leftist? I’ll admit I have not had much time to read the blog comments lately; I have been in trial and still am. But if he is, so much the better. We need more voices from the left here.

    I think Chris has the potential to be a valuable commenter, if this thread is any indication. I don’t see anything that he has done wrong here. Maybe he has thrown out some opinions in other threads that some of you take issue with — if so, why not politely give him the facts to show why he’s wrong?

    I think we could do with a lot less nastiness on this blog in general. I don’t want to force it to be an ultradelicate place, but let’s please try to be more aware about personal attacks — and the fact that they are needed far less often than they are employed.

    Patterico (c218bd)

  87. Yes, I am a megalomaniacal arbitrator of everything I encounter. How silly can you possibly be? As I said, I care very very little what you think of Steele. Others may. I am entitled to my opinion, no?

    We did that in the other threads, Patterico, and when confronted with the facts, he just goes to another thread, and resumes. I will ignore him, but I tire of this pattern of feigned civility, where they toss out predictable and standard leftist claptrap, and then act overcome and amazed when people call them on it.

    JD (9f2abc)

  88. It’s the same passive-aggressive $hit we had to put up with from lovey/emperor/whatever.

    AD - RtR/OS! (898e6a)

  89. “Well it can’t be that they come to a different conclusion about what their interest is.”

    imdw – longhand Latin America dreadlocks bud ragweed subset historical forwarding address gingersnap spiritualism

    daleyrocks (1d0d98)

  90. “Labeling me a “leftist,” then promptly dismissing comments from any and all with that label that you have deemed appropriate smacks of a megalomaniacal worldview where you are the sole arbitrator of the worth and veracity of all statements made by everyone. YOU decide who gets labeled, and the label defines the value of the comment, regardless of the ideas shared.”

    You’re new here, huh?

    imdw (cd4b7a)

  91. How do you feign civility? By definition is that not acting in a civil manner?

    Chris Hooten (0e1f31)

  92. Chris Hooten:

    Tone it down. JD is hardly megalomaniacal.

    What I’m hearing is that your contributions would gain more respect if you backed them up with facts and links. I’ll do my best (within the constraints of time imposed by my job) to see to it that people treat you with respect if you do that, and don’t insult people.

    Patterico (c218bd)

  93. i think I’m a total hypocrite for being such a candyass sensitive when JD ‘arbitrates’ my views and also cheering him on when he’s arbitrating Chris’s aggravating comments.

    Says a lot about me that my 40,000 word comments do not.

    Patterico, obviously your ‘no attacks’ threads are successful, but I think they are partly because there are places where people can be harsher. And Chris isn’t personally attacking anyone as far as I know, but he has been declaring some really irritating things and refusing to back them up. Not a big deal at all, but he’s got this ‘I am being oppressed’ attitude about him, even when he discussed Patterico.com at Bradblog, that is just incredibly effective at annoying the bajesus out of me.

    Like I said, I’m not really coming across as Mr Thick Skin today.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  94. Dustin, to lighten the mood:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAaWvVFERVA

    Eric Blair (f4bc41)

  95. Eric, that about sums it up.

    Chris, perhaps you really are just out of touch with communication, but when you insist it’s not even possible to feign civility, it comes across as dishonesty. Sir.

    Sir, you insist you have all kinds of evidence of O’Keefe cutting parts of a video in order to frame people with crimes. I asked you a million times to show me where that was, and instead, had to follow you to bradblog, where I pointed out that your cries of Stashiu filtering you were not truthful, but because you quoted a word, “Equality,” that you were told was a profanity filter trigger (I didn’t understand what bradblog was, and came back with a neat story about how DailyKos is run by the CIA to harm liberals).

    When you say ugly things, like your constant point that Fox is more guilty than MSNBC of preventing self criticism, even though you say that without personally attacking anyone, your civility is undermined by the apparent attack you’re making. That’s what it is to feign civility. And I’m pretty sure you already knew that.

    You keep saying the Tea Party is particularly terrible for all kinds of reasons, too. Like this argument you’ve seen in several places, but have been unable to actually demonstrate, that people Tea Partying conservatives (not larouchies) are saying Obama is Hitler.

    I prefer to debate liberals, since I actually disagree with them, so I am sorry if I’ve been rude to you (I don’t remember… but it’s likely). Maybe if someone asks you to back up a claim, and you cannot, you just admit you were cannot?

    Eric Blair’s video captures the feeling I get from you, and I know exactly why you think this way. The people at Bradblog are crazy, and the stuff they are saying there, about this blog and a lot of other blogs, are simply ridiculous. If you give us a fair shake, you will be treated well.

    I think you should back up these three points right here and now or admit you cannot back them up. I don’t think it’s enough to just kick that can down the road because the sysop noticed people are being rude to you.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  96. Was Chris Hooten really lying about Stashiu filtering him?

    Maybe he’s not worth defending.

    Patterico (c218bd)

  97. It wasn’t so much a lie, Patterico. He was being filtered, and after repeatedly being told why (nothing to do with POV), he went to bradblog to complain.

    Over at patterico’s, almost every post I make ends up in the “spam” filter and has to be “fished” out. Nice!

    This isn’t a lie, but it really annoyed me because it was after

    I got in the spam filter for that?
    Comment by Chris Hooten — 4/6/2010 @ 10:14 pm

    There is a spam filter (automatic), and a moderation filter (uses keywords). You get caught up in spam, just like imdw… and for the same reason.

    Most comments that went to the filter went there because of the links, and it had nothing to do with ALL CAPS.
    Comment by DRJ — 4/6/2010 @ 10:35 pm

    DRJ, his are less because of links and more because of the type of server he uses. He will continue to be labeled spam frequently and I will fish out his comments in as timely a manner as I am able. Suggesting that I deleted his links or comments was rather annoying since it was not that long before I fished out the comments. I get to the “partisan-hack” comments just as quickly as the substantive ones… as even imdw should admit.

    Comment by Stashiu3

    Chris replied to Stashiu 30 minutes before complaining to bradblog crazytown, so I know he knew he wasn’t being viewpoint censored.

    People aren’t super sweet to eachother here, and that’s a major distraction because of sensitive people like me, and Chris isn’t personally attacking people here so much as being incredibly unwilling to show good faith or see any.

    Is that a reason not to ask for him to be treated politely? Of course not, but boy he annoys the bajesus out of me. My own failing. I know I’m probably making typos because my glasses are in other room, you’re welcome for the brain teaser of another jumble comment.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  98. To be fair, many new people seem to be unable to understand the concept of a comment filter, and it seems fairly routine for them to squeal that their speech is being stifled.

    JD (9f2abc)

  99. The first link went in the wrong place.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  100. “The people at Bradblog are crazy, and the stuff they are saying there, about this blog and a lot of other blogs, are simply ridiculous.”

    Dustin – Yes, yes they are nuts and they say stuff you would not expect to hear outside a home for the criminally befuddled. They also do not like dissent backed up by facts. It disturbs the moronic convergence. That’s why it’s fun to rile ’em up sometimes, especially since it’s so easy to do with all the lies and omissions in the posts over there.

    daleyrocks (1d0d98)

  101. Patterico-

    What Dustin said. As I said elsewhere, when someone goes on about how Fox is the worst of the TV news sources and stands firm on making the spending under Bush equivalent to the spending under Obama it is hard to figure where one is coming from.

    He certainly jumped the gun and was hostile to Stashiu3 and to the blog in general when some tech problems came up. You would have thought he paid $50 for permission to post here and had a right to complain if the server didn’t function as fast as he wanted.

    MD in Philly (59a3ad)

  102. Morrison’s argument was that Clinton was all but black because …

    She left out the most crucial characteristic of all: Clinton’s ideology was mostly of the left.

    I’ll say it again, but if 90% of black America were to miraculously switch from being liberal/leftist to moderate to conservative, people like Morrison either would find themselves becoming so-called self-hating blacks or they’d start pining for the days of Jim Crow.

    As for Michael Steele, his political philosophy is squishy enough that he can’t even understand — or appreciate — the crucial differences betweeen right and left. Most importantly, he can’t even seem to draw a link between all the socio-economic dysfunction that has plagued black America for decades and the mindless liberal politics/mindset dominating that part of American society.

    Mark (411533)

  103. a link between all the socio-economic dysfunction that has plagued black America for decades and the mindless liberal politics/mindset dominating that part of American society.

    This is such a softball, too. He has some kind of obligation to point this out, because it’s just undeniable and very compelling. We hear all the time about how the black community is victimized, and here’s an example that actually plays into that. But the real lesson is that we all need to take responsibility for our personal needs, or our neighbors will do such a worse job via government that our society falls apart.

    This lesson is one I am told blacks refuse to accept. And I know first hand it’s actually a great way to discuss politics with people who buy into the entitlement culture (some of the ones I’ve spoken to about this are black).

    We’re never going to win if we don’t even attempt to win. There was a House election in Florida… last week I think… that we didn’t send a single resource to. Not even a phone bank to tell our known voters about the election. The democrats in charge of the election kept it a secret too. If half of the GOP votes in the last house race in that district had voted, we would have won a landslide, but we didn’t even attempt to win.

    Steele is fully aware of these great arguments. I’ve seen him speak so well about these ideals that I was sure he’d one day be our first black president. Now he’s acting like this stuff is over his head, but I know he’s actually having some kind of passive aggressive war with his own party.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  104. Hooten said:

    All I know is that you should never tell a group of potential voters that you have nothing to offer them. It defeats the whole purpose of meeting with them, which presumably was to tell them what the GOP had to offer them, as voters. It is like a car salesman saying they don’t really have the right car for you. Are you going to shop there?

    All I know is the Republican Party has a platform. Whether a group, or an individual, agrees with that platform is up to them, or him or her.

    And this is going to sound simplistic, but I’m just using your example:

    The Democrats have been very effective car salesmen. The Republicans have not.

    Ag80 (f67beb)

  105. It amuses me that Chris did exactly as I suggested he would, flee to another thread and resume his hackery, when called on it here.

    JD (9f2abc)

  106. That was the first day I ever posted here. I had no idea that some people were allowed to say words like jacka*ss, but quoting them would eat mine up. Also I didn’t know you had to refresh the page after posting, because of a glitch. After it was established what was going on, I made no such claims of censorship. I did indeed complain about your seemingly overactive spam filter over at bradblog. If you notice those blunders on my part have ceased since that first day, now that I am aware of the issues. I do wish you would remove the word jacka*ss, though, as at least a few posters seem to use it regularly, and it makes quoting them a hassle where you can easily accidentally get your comment hauled off into spamland.

    Chris Hooten (0e1f31)

  107. This lesson is one I am told blacks refuse to accept.

    To be more specific or accurate, make that “…liberal or leftwing blacks refuse to accept.”

    Unfortunately, since surveys do indicate that around 90% (if not more) of black America favors liberal policies/politics and Democrat/liberal politicians, the words “black” (or “African-American”) and “liberal” tend to go hand-in-hand.

    Mark (411533)

  108. “. I had no idea ”

    But you kinda sorta did because you replied to someone about that BEFORE you complained to someone about that.

    I know because I not only see the timestamps, but I was followed both threads in real time.

    You had an idea that you were not being ‘oppressed’. But I think it’s just plain obvious you could use and try to see a little more good faith.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  109. Victimology….it’s the IN thing!

    AD - RtR/OS! (898e6a)

  110. “To be more specific or accurate, make that “…liberal or leftwing blacks refuse to accept.” ”

    Michael Steele is apparently convinced of this. I might be the outlier, but I just refuse to accept that, not because of some special respect for any race-hyphen-country, but because I think the argument of personal responsibility is something just about everyone can believe.

    We’re not trying hard enough to get this point across. If only Sarah Palin had Paul Ryan’s brain (I’m a Palin fan, though).

    If we’re going to go down in flames, we need to attempt to engage everyone on this point to a much greater degree than we are. We don’t need to pull this ‘The GOP really doesn’t offer you anything, and we need to start doing that later on” crap.

    A lot of democrats and independents realize that we can’t really expect the government to take responsibility for our personal needs. Some of the dumber ones need to hear it all the time, but it’s a concept both parties used to trumpet.

    “Ask not what your country can do for you” all the way to Clinton promising “two years and you’re out” (I admit, a lot of democrats gave him hell for it and Bob Dole had to corner him).

    Once someone communicates just how huge the liability debt is, and also explains how much better things work if we take care of ourselves if we can (Yes We Can), then it’s pretty obvious what course we should take. Sure, it’s really hard to reach a lot of liberals to even give them this message.

    But Steele was talking to them.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  111. Dustin:
    I didn’t claim I was being oppressed after learning what was going on, but I did claim that my posts were being eaten by an overactive spam filter (at bradblog), which they were. I was originally given many different reasons for my posts getting dumped into the spam filter, some of which were misinformed. You certainly haven’t seen me cry foul about any of that since that day. It is very disconcerting to spend time making a comment, posting it, and then seeing it appear, but vanish soon thereafter as it gets sucked into the spam filter. Sorry if I upset anyone.

    Chris Hooten (0e1f31)

  112. Michael Steele is apparently convinced of this.

    Part of the problem is that all the idiotic, mindless liberalism that dominates black America — and that has been dominating it for eons — is rarely, if ever, focused upon. So lots of people will say “black this” or “black that,” but often sidestep or avoid any mention of how much of black America really is just as much a case of liberal America or leftwing America.

    And such a condition (or ailment) extends far beyond race or ethnicity. For example, look at all the idiotic, mindless liberalism — look at the huge percentage of voters of the left — that is hastening the decline of a country like Greece or Great Britain.

    However, the leftism (or “progressivism”) that dominates so much of black America is far more distabilizing because it runs in tandem with other socio-cultural traits that foster dysfunction. So a bad situation becomes far worse, becomes a double whammy.

    One more thing: if liberalism supposedly makes people more compassionate, decent and kind to one another — or supposedly is rooted in people who generally are more compassionate, decent and kind to one another — then how does one explain all the violent, rough, mean-spirited behavior (eg, popularized in rap lyrics, upheld in rowdy-and-proud-of-it behavior) pronounced in far too much of black America?

    Mark (411533)

  113. “which they were”

    Chris, I don’t know why you’d repeat what I said as though you’re correcting me. I noted that you were factually correct.

    But looking at your tenor, which is saying you’re oppressed even if not articulated, and your use of scarequotes, which is saying you’re being lied to and viewpoint censored to me, shows your latest is bad faith.

    I could be wrong. Anyone can check your comment for themselves, because UNLIKE YOU, I went out of my way to show some evidence for my claims because that’s just decent.

    I mean this without meaning an insult: is English a second language for you? I don’t think it is because you speak it better than I do most of the time, and even had a really ugly grammar nazi episode where you told Patterico that he should say “peace of mind”, which I think shows you are confident, albeit a little rude.

    But you act like a lot of basic concepts completely elude you. Your use of scare quotes when talking about the filter: if you didn’t mean to say that Stash was lying, what in the world did you mean?

    000

    Mark, you’re right. It’s not that hard to see just how destructive outright liberalism (I hate how that term describes big government over individual liberty) has been in so many places. It’s one of those things that I think really changes minds if we just force the point repeatedly.

    If Michael Steele had spoken about this all year instead of his book and his Hawaii junket and how awful the GOP is, I know it would have gotten through millions of heads. Now, one big damn problem is that Steele and those like him, who seem to be leading the GOP right now (I see Huck and Romney are the frontrunners in popularity contests) do not really believe in this small government ideal. So I’m asking Ronald McDonald to sell tofu.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  114. Look everyone, including Dustin, can we all put this to rest? That was the FIRST day I posted here, and I didn’t have a handle on all of the system quirks. I didn’t mean anything by using quotes around “spam” and “fished out.” that is what I had been told. I had not had any experiences at any other websites where I was having things thrown into a spam filter for quoting other people, and the comment would have to be physically “fished out” of the system later on, so I thought that was a little strange and not very user friendly, so I posted a comment at bradblog. I am not responding to this anymore. Again I apologize if I upset anyone by being unfamiliar with the system. Now please talk about Steele, and not me.

    Chris Hooten (0e1f31)

  115. I’m happy to put it to rest, and I agree that we might as well do so. But I think you should stop being a jerk, which is simply what you were then because you are a member of a paranoid community, bradblog, that made you think we were demonspawn.

    Your failure to back up any claim, and your instant assumption that you’re being victimized, are going to lead to people pointing out how you’ve behaved.

    I accept your apology, Chris. I hope you stay and we discuss all kinds of stuff, and your attitude change reflects the kinds of realization that would go along with an apology.

    If you can’t back up a claim, just admit you are making some kind of guess. That’s pretty much all I’m asking, actually.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  116. “This lesson is one I am told blacks refuse to accept.”

    Forget what I said about merely taking on policy positions which line up those of people you are trying to get to support you. I was wrong. When you’re trying to teach black people lessons they ‘refuse to accept,’ it goes much deeper than that.

    imdw (8222e7)

  117. Forget what I said about merely taking on policy positions which line up those of people you are trying to get to support you. I was wrong. When you’re trying to teach black people lessons they ‘refuse to accept,’ it goes much deeper than that.

    Comment by imdw

    I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. The entire point of the comment you quoted was that I am sure they do accept the message if it’s presented to them, them being believers in the entitlement culture of any race.

    I think you’re trying to call me a racist by actually reversing what I said via a selective quote, but I don’t want to put something like that on you without asking you first: is that what you’re doing? You shouldn’t do that do me, dude. I’m not a racist, that’s what’s so insane about this.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  118. #54, LN Smithee, your conclusion is in conflict with your assumptions. If the Dark Lord himself was unable to sway GWB on a pardon for Libby, who deserved one, then it’s muddleheaded to assume that the Architect could somehow compel Bush to make the undeserved Miers nomination. It’s contradictory.

    Rove had great influence, true, but even he couldn’t make GWB appoint an unqualified upstart to the Supreme Court. You acknowledge GWB could stand up to Chaney, yet you assume Bush was unable to resist Rove? I can’t agree.

    The President’s staff would have been appalled and outraged If Rove had attempted to force the Miers nomination. They would have immediately formed a protective shield around GWB and opposed Miers with the same arguments which scuttled her nomination only weeks later.

    I can’t offer any evidence, either way, and neither can you. No one has taken credit for bringing the Harriet Miers nomination to the forefront. We do recall she was Bush’s lawyer working in the WH vetting nominees.

    Which BTW is similar to how Bush picked Cheney, DC was working to find a VP candidate when GWB picked him for the spot. Was Bush going back to his old playbook? I think so.

    ropelight (5dcb5b)

  119. FWIW, I am going to address the ongoing discord between Mr. Hooten and others. This is also posted over on the “Letter to the Editor” thread, which are what the details deal with.

    The point of this post [“Letter to the Editor”] was the humor of the formerly drunken sailor complaining about his reputation being sullied by comparisons to Obama. He points out that at least when he ran out of money he didn’t continue spending. Most of us saw that as funny, making the real time reference to the historically unprecedented deficit spending under Obama.

    To a large extent, whether deficit spending “returned” under Bush or not is beside the point. Rather than being content to see the humor in the comment, you turn it into an opportunity for debate, and a debate that which doesn’t make a lot of difference right now even if you are 100% correct.

    Most of us see your comment as purposefully annoying. The response to you that I liked best was JD’s, “Someone once pointed out that if Bush spent like a drunken sailor, then Obama is spending like the Spanish Armada on crack.”

    Now, perhaps you did not mean your comment to be annoying. Perhaps you are overly compulsive about what you consider to be the facts, or you deal with ADD or another brain “hard wiring” issue that makes interpreting social cues unusually difficult. Then again, maybe you just made the comment to irritate because you couldn’t simply enjoy the humor of it.

    To the degree that you persist in your version of the facts, some decide to ignore you, others are inclined to demonstrate your claims are wrong, and others point out that even if you are right, that is no defense for the degree of deficit spending we are now encountering.

    So, what was meant as an enjoyable post has become a debate on whether FDR-like spending and beyond in a time of recession is a good thing or not. That is far, far away from the original intent of the post.

    That is why [some] people are annoyed with you. It seems at times that you go out of your way to be contrary, even when you claim to agree.

    Now, others may agree or disagree with my thoughts here, but this is why I will try to ignore your posts.

    MD in Philly (59a3ad)

  120. When you’re trying to teach black people lessons they ‘refuse to accept,’ it goes much deeper than that.

    They refuse to accept those lessons for the same reason that Arabs in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip refuse peace with Israel.

    In the end, it is about wanting to hold onto hate rather than take personal responsibility.

    Michael Ejercito (6a1582)

  121. “They refuse to accept those lessons for the same reason that Arabs in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip refuse peace with Israel.”

    So here we have Steele’s point very well made.

    imdw (fb8a08)

  122. Why don’t you just scream racist and get it over with?

    People have laid out above a variety of public policy issues that the African-American community and the Republican party share positions on – school choice, same sex marriage, etc … You just pretend to ignore that.

    JD (b537f4)

  123. 121, here we have my evil twin making a stupid non-point.

    I use WD-40 as deodorant (1d8b6d)

  124. “When you’re trying to teach black people lessons they ‘refuse to accept,’ it goes much deeper than that.”

    imdw – See the politics of fear above, why the Democrats need racism.

    daleyrocks (1d0d98)

  125. “When you’re trying to teach black people lessons they ‘refuse to accept,’ it goes much deeper than that.”

    imdw – Exactly. How about putting Detroit or New Orleans at the top of the list as shining examples of Democrat success stories, or Washington D.C. schools?

    daleyrocks (1d0d98)

  126. daleyrocks – The actual results of their proven failed policies do not matter. All that matters is that they care more.

    JD (b537f4)

  127. “All that matters is that they care more.”

    JD – Just when they need votes.

    daleyrocks (1d0d98)

  128. “All that matters is that they appear to care more.” FTFY

    The Federal government is full of people that think they know the answer; some are even well-meaning. But most are only good at campaigning – which is why so many bad decisions have been made over the past several decades.

    The Republicans picking Steele seemed like a good decision. It wasn’t.

    Corwin (ea9428)

  129. daley and corwin – Excellent corrections. Mea culpa.

    JD (b537f4)

  130. “Why don’t you just scream racist and get it over with? ”

    I prefer that other people jump to the conclusion of racism, since that is not my conclusion. But feel free to give us your witty commentary.

    “The Republicans picking Steele seemed like a good decision. It wasn’t.”

    Can someone tell me again what the reasoning here was? I never quite figured out why they went with him. It couldn’t have been affirmative action. The right doesn’t believe in that.

    imdw (05d41e)

  131. “It couldn’t have been affirmative action. The right doesn’t believe in that.”

    Obviously you’re not serious and noting that the GOP practiced a little AA while knowing just how evil it is.

    That’s a valid point. But I also think Steele was a very impressive preacher of the goodness of conservatism, and became this backstabbing loser when his lifestyle and lack of focus was criticized.

    It’s not hard to believe that he was to be an excellent leader, based on how he used to speak. If you believe in pointing out that race isn’t that important, I guess it makes sense to highlight one of the many prominent republicans that aren’t a white male. Not how I think, but the tactics are pretty obvious.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  132. “It’s not hard to believe that he was to be an excellent leader, based on how he used to speak.”

    It’s interesting. Leading an entity like the RNC or the DNC is much more than about speaking. Though it is amusing that Steele’s most visible problem is his speaking. Did people really consider him to be a good speaker before?

    imdw (ee5a97)

  133. Becoming President was all about reading from a teleprompter, so why should leading the DNC or RNC be any different?

    JD (5375e6)

  134. 132, Mr. I’mWD-40, could you use some of that product to lubricate your earcanals so that real information get to that vast wasteland between your ears?

    PCD (1d8b6d)

  135. Comment by daleyrocks — 4/23/2010 @ 8:33 am
    Comment by JD — 4/23/2010 @ 8:44 am

    Progressives are anchored by the belief in Governance by Good Intentions.
    Actually accomplishing something (especially if it is positive) is beyond their purview;
    but, they’ll feel good about themselves (the Self-Esteem Generation).

    AD - RtR/OS! (9562e0)

  136. Comment by Dustin — 4/23/2010 @ 11:45 am

    Wasn’t AA codified into Federal Policy by that notorious Left-Winger, Richard Milhouse Nixon?

    AD - RtR/OS! (9562e0)

  137. Comment by Dustin — 4/23/2010 @ 11:45 am

    Wasn’t AA codified into Federal Policy by that notorious Left-Winger Richard Milhouse Nixon?

    AD - RtR/OS! (9562e0)

  138. imdw, I notice that when I ask you direct questions that relate to what you meant, you ignore it. You’ve probably done this several hundred times, to me dozens of times. But you demand people answer some pretty vague and generalizing questions.

    I considered Steele to be a good speaker at one point, yes, which I said several times.

    Why haven’t you answered direct questions, if you want to discuss this?

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  139. So here we have Steele’s point very well made.

    That is correct.

    There are reasons for black people to vote Republican.

    But those reasons are trumped by base hatred.

    There are reasons for the Arabs in the Gaza Strip to make peace with Israel.

    But those reasons are trumped with base hatred.

    In the end, how do you reason with people who fully believe arguments like “It’s not ‘spic’ or ‘nigger’ anymore. They say, ‘Let’s cut taxes.’? How do you reason with people who party and hand out candy every time one of their children blows up a bus or a restaurant in Israel? How do you reason with people who would threaten to kill someone over a cartoon?

    Secret Squirrel (6a1582)

  140. “Becoming President was all about reading from a teleprompter, so why should leading the DNC or RNC be any different?”

    I know you bemoan “talking points” but let’s ignore the rhetorical abilities displayed at, say, radio talk shows or television interviews or Q&A’s with the opposition party or event televised debates. Let’s ignore them because when your supposed “gaffes” are coming out in unprepared responses to the press, then it’s not really a question of ‘telempromters.’ Not to mention the fact that chairing such an organization requires other skills, like organizing and fundraising and party-building.

    imdw (017d51)

  141. “that notorious Left-Winger, Richard Milhouse Nixon?”

    I consider Nixon to be quite liberal in some respects, to be honest. Maybe I’m just that far over the edge, but I could make a good case for that.

    imdw is right to claim that some of Steele’s appeal is his race. What a mistake the RNC made!

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  142. imdw, are you ever going to answer my questions? I have to explain the actions of millions of people to you, but you can’t explain yourself to me?

    Why is it so hard, perhaps impossible to get you to answer questions?

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  143. Imadickwad obviously has little knowledge of what a DNC/RNC Chairman’s duties are, but perhaps I can help it here:
    The primary job of the chairman is to be the public face and voice of the Party establishment, and to RAISE MONEY!
    Therefore, public speaking, and being comfortable around all types of individuals, is paramount.
    The management of the organization itself is usually left to a COS and the various under-staff.
    The chairman is charged with implementing the policies determined by the National Committee, through his staff;
    but he HAS to raise MONEY, for it is the MONEY that is the Mother’s Milk of Politics.

    From all indications, Mr.Steele is not raising the funds at the same rate as has been determined needed.
    If there are complaints in the Fall about a lack of resources flowing to critical campaigns, and those complaints are merited,
    Mr.Steele is toast – if he’s still around!

    AD - RtR/OS! (9562e0)

  144. I consider Nixon to be quite liberal in some respects, to be honest.

    There definitely were some squishy aspects to his ideology. I even recall a very liberal columnist of the LA Times a few years ago waxing poetic about Nixon. Another columnist explains why that shouldn’t evoke a “huh!!”

    nationalreview.com, Jonah Goldberg:

    Nixon has a fascinating reputation as one of the most right-wing presidents of the 20th century. This impression is largely a product of the fact that few presidents have been more hated by the Left. But simply because the left despises you doesn’t mean you’re particularly right-wing. If LBJ were alive, you could ask him about this. Or just take a look at poor Joe Lieberman.

    The truth is, Nixon was the last of the New Deal-era liberal presidents. He sponsored and signed the legislation creating the Environmental Protection Agency, the Water Quality Improvement Act and the Endangered Species Act. He oversaw the establishment of Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Nixon created the Philadelphia Plan, the springboard for racial quotas; pushed for Title IX (the women’s “equality” law); and hired Leon Panetta (later Bill Clinton’s chief of staff) as his director of the office of civil rights.

    Nixon pushed aggressively for national health insurance that would cover 100 percent of the nation’s poor children. He increased federal spending on health and education programs by more than 50 percent and massively boosted spending on the National Endowment for Humanities. He tried to increase welfare with his Family Assistance Plan and Child Development Act.

    Economically, Nixon got along swell with the chamber of commerce crowd, but he was well to the left of almost any leading Democrat today, championing wage and price controls as a legitimate tool of state, and boasting “Now I am a Keynesian in economics.”

    ^ I can muse that perhaps it was Nixon’s liberal tendencies that ultimately made him flaky and foolish enough to allow a mess like Watergate to arise under his watch. He certainly revealed paranoid tendencies — which tend to be exacerbated when a person lacks a lot of, or enough, common sense — going back to at least the early 1960s.

    Mark (411533)

  145. AD, you’re right about the money.

    I know a lot of people say you have to wine and dine and act like Donald Trump to attract great rich donors, but I’ve read about several who are put off by waste, and that makes so much sense because business leaders are all feeling quite a crunch right now and want fiscal conservatism.

    2010 is extremely critical. It’s a surprise opportunity, since most though Obama would be a popular leader and he’s turned out to be really counterproductive (it’s been a year since a press conference as a result, but you can’t stop the impact of looking like a bad leader).

    If he was raising a ton of money, an argument could be made that it didn’t matter that he’s a terrible voice for the party and local politics will overcome. But he’s a double failure. Sarah Palin is supporting him strongly, I think because she realizes we are stuck with him this cycle and it’s better to support a bad leader than to undermine a bad leader you are stuck with.

    I’m extremely frustrated.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  146. Ah, Richard Nixon. He ran on George Wallace’s platform and implemented Hubert Humphrey’s.

    PCD (1d8b6d)

  147. People forget that Nixon was a Quaker, graduated from Whittier College (a Quaker institution), was a life-long member of the East Whittier Friends Church, and Progressivism was in his soul.

    He became an enemy of the Left because of his campaign for Congress against Gerald Voorhis and his Senate campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas, both notorious Leftists; and his service on the House Un-American Activities Committee where he helped to expose Alger Hiss.

    AD - RtR/OS! (9562e0)

  148. I find it fascinating that 2 presidents associated with the Republican Party and conservatism, referring to both Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon, apparently — and in reality — had liberal streaks in their philosophy. One was sneered at for making the Great Depression truly “great” — and understandably so, since Hoover ratcheted up taxes and spending — and the other was sneered at for a variety of things, including Watergate and (as mentioned by AD-RrR) attacking Helen Douglas for being “pink.”

    In so many cases, when something truly idiotic or corrupt is being analyzed — whether it pertains to a person, policy or situation — inevitably liberalism/leftism is at its core. That includes probably the main reason Michael Steele isn’t articulating a good statement on why 90% of black America embracing liberalism is so self-destructive. IOW, I bet some left-leaning tendencies in the back of his mind are getting the better of him.

    Mark (411533)

  149. Actually, Mark, Hoover didn’t make the Depression “Great”, FDR did with the Depression within a Depression (37-38).
    Hoover’s policies were straight from the Progressive handbook, and he was derided by Calvin Coolidge for many of his suggestions during the CC Administration, and for his policies during his own.
    FDR, aside from his New Deal fanatacism, took most of Hoover’s policies intact, and just ran with them a little faster –
    remind you of any current President you know of?

    AD - RtR/OS! (9562e0)

  150. “FDR, aside from his New Deal fanatacism, took most of Hoover’s policies intact, and just ran with them a little faster –
    remind you of any current President you know of?”

    There are some similarities: Dow collapsed during Hoover and Bush. Dow rebounded during FDR — and is doing so too under Obama. We’ll see how it turns out.

    imdw (017d51)

  151. imdw, are you just not aware of the question I asked, or are you simply ignoring it and trying to change the subject with another obnoxious partisan troll?

    Admit it: you reverse the obvious meaning of what I said, with a hatchet job quote, and implied I was a racist when my point was obviously not racist at all. You’re a race hustler who can’t make a point or win an argument, so you resort to very dishonorable methods.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  152. Dow rebounded during FDR

    Good Heavens, you are an idiot.
    9-3-29…Dow reaches historic high of 381;
    3-15-33…FDR in office since 3-4, Dow climbs to 62;
    1-1-34…Dow at 100!;
    8-2-37…Dow peaks at 187, begins long slide;
    12-28-37…Dow at 119;
    11-2-40…FDR wins 3rd term, Dow closes at 132!
    (all figures from “The Forgotten Man” by Amity Shlaes)

    The Dow would not reach it’s pre-crash high until 1954 in inflation adjusted numbers (Wiki).

    AD - RtR/OS! (9562e0)

  153. Hoover’s policies were straight from the Progressive handbook,

    I’m embarrassed to admit that I originally fell for the pre-conceived notion of Hoover being an uncaring, laissez-faire, let-them-eat-cake rightwinger. But as things turn out, he apparently was quite squishy philosophically, even about whether he truly wanted to be a registered Republican or not.

    And I’ll mention another big blunder associated with left-leaning sentiment but, at the same time, also linked to a Republican/conservative. I’m referring to Ronald Reagan getting blubbery and doing a Jimmy-Carter routine by going against his own PUBLICLY stated policy of never negotiating with a hostage-taking nation. And, as the saying goes, the rest is history. Of course, I’m referring to the Reagan White House secretly dealing with Iran, which then led to the debacle of Iran-Contra.

    Liberal sentiment tends to make people stupid. Worse of all, it doesn’t even make them truly generous in the way they donate time and money.

    The lesson in all this, or the moral of the story: If people ever hear a little liberal voice in the back of their mind, make sure to tell it “you’re devoid of logic, you’re devoid of true, sincere compassion, you’re liable to embarrass me and make me look like a friggin’ joke!!”

    Mark (411533)

  154. During FDR’s first term the dow grew nearly 4x. Of course then FDR started listening to morgenthau…

    But yes. There are major problems with looking at the DOW and comparing it to the overvalued peak.

    “3-15-33…FDR in office since 3-4, Dow climbs to 62;”
    “11-2-40…FDR wins 3rd term, Dow closes at 132!”

    So in less than 8 years, the Dow doubled? That’s what a 9% growth rate? Anything else Shlaes got?

    imdw (603c39)

  155. You seem to forget the pre-Crash high of 381, and that the fact that the great Crash dropped the Dow from 261 to 230.
    So, on 11-2-1940, the Dow stood at less than one-half of what it was on opening on 10-29-29!
    It was truly an economic miracle wrought by the New Deal!
    And these are not “deflation adjusted” numbers, which would make the 1940 number even less.

    As has been said by others (many times):
    Stupidity this great must truly be painful!

    AD - RtR/OS! (9562e0)

  156. I’ll repeat: liberal sentiment tends to make people stupid, including falling for the idea that FDR deserved being kissed on the butt for helping America during the Great Depression…

    newsroom.ucla.ed:

    Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

    After scrutinizing Roosevelt’s record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years.

    “Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump,” said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA’s Department of Economics. “We found that a relapse isn’t likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies.”

    In an article in the August issue of the Journal of Political Economy, Ohanian and Cole blame specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures that Roosevelt promoted and signed into law June 16, 1933.

    “President Roosevelt believed that excessive competition was responsible for the Depression by reducing prices and wages, and by extension reducing employment and demand for goods and services,” said Cole, also a UCLA professor of economics. “So he came up with a recovery package that would be unimaginable today, allowing businesses in every industry to collude without the threat of antitrust prosecution and workers to demand salaries about 25 percent above where they ought to have been, given market forces. The economy was poised for a beautiful recovery, but that recovery was stalled by these misguided policies.”
    ______________________________

    Pro-labor policies pushed by President Herbert Hoover after the stock market crash of 1929 accounted for close to two-thirds of the drop in the nation’s gross domestic product over the two years that followed, causing what might otherwise have been a bad recession to slip into the Great Depression, a UCLA economist concludes in a new study.

    “These findings suggest that the recession was three times worse — at a minimum — than it would otherwise have been, because of Hoover,” said Lee E. Ohanian, a UCLA professor of economics.

    The policies, which included both propping up wages and encouraging job-sharing, also accounted for more than two-thirds of the precipitous decline in hours worked in the manufacturing sector, which was much harder hit initially than the agricultural sector, according to Ohanian.

    “By keeping industrial wages too high, Hoover sharply depressed employment beyond where it otherwise would have been, and that act drove down the overall gross national product,” Ohanian said. “His policy was the single most important event in precipitating the Great Depression.”

    “Hoover’s response illustrates the danger of knee-jerk policy reactions in a time of crisis,” he said. “Almost always when bad policies are adopted, it’s during a period of crisis. The real risk is picking a cure that turns out to be worse than the disease.”

    While economists have long debated the factors that led to the Great Depression, Ohanian’s findings are novel because they don’t simply pinpoint — they also quantify — the considerable impact of such labor-market distortions. The findings also challenge Hoover’s pro-market reputation.

    “This was a president who had served as secretary of commerce under his predecessor, yet many of the mistakes he made were remarkably similar to those later made by Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose reputation is much less market-based and more pro-labor,” Ohanian said.

    Mark (411533)

  157. AD – Their versions of history are written in pencil, so they can edit on the fly.

    JD (9f2abc)

  158. imdw, that’s called cherry picking, and even doing so aggressively, you admit FDR screwed up. You said the Dow recovered under FDR because you don’t care what the truth is. That’s really all there is to it.

    I’m sure Obama will also do the same, blaming some adviser, and I’m sure you will keep asking strange and off topic questions while refusing to answer simple requests that you explain your own points.

    Now, I realize you just want to go on and on about some off topic point, and if you bait your hook with something mean or dishonest enough, someone will be compelled to respond to you, so every thread you enter becomes a trainwreck.

    You can’t even deny you called me a racist for saying we can treat races equally. You’re a true democrat. Weren’t you calling MLK a communist? That was also a democrat favorite.

    As for the actual topic, you seem to be obsessed with race. It really matters to you that Steele is a black man, and you condemn those who don’t want to consider race at all. When you called me a racist, that was projection, wasn’t it?

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  159. “You seem to forget the pre-Crash high of 381, and that the fact that the great Crash dropped the Dow from 261 to 230.”

    I included that when I said it collapsed during Hoover. But really, it’s not fair to him — that was clearly overvalued and measuring recovery by returning to the boom numbers is a poor idea.

    “You said the Dow recovered under FDR because you don’t care what the truth is. ”

    I said it rebounded.

    “Weren’t you calling MLK a communist?”

    Lots of people did. Take a look at what he wrote and see if you would.

    imdw (017d51)

  160. Stupidity this great must truly be painful!

    AD - RtR/OS! (9562e0)

  161. It’s long past the point of self parody, and I know it’s silly for me to talk to someone who once admitted he was fantasizing about a right wing child rape/murder because he thought it was “funny”.

    We all know that he’s here to poison the well.

    It leads to extreme polarization. People who disagree on smaller more interesting matters wind up teaming up to refute insane claim after insane claim after insane claim. Liberals and moderates probably happen across the thread and see just how irritated so many commenters are, and we don’t get to discuss things with them, either.

    imdw doesn’t want them to discuss anything. He constantly aims to change the topic of the thread to defending the right from some slur.

    This thread is a total softball for democrats. Here we have the party of fiscal conservatism mired in amazing spending waste. Steele had an investigation done to clear Steele of Steele’s spending… he might as well be from Chicago or ACORN. They aren’t effectively shaping the message, except as the post says, to unite the GOP in hostility to its own party leader.

    Compare that to Howard Dean. The right called him a nutjob, and said he wasn’t a responsible leader, but he did a better job handling money and assigning duties and leading the spirit of his party. They planned and organized and selected 3, maybe 4 election in advance. Money was ready for an ambitious 50 state every district effort that had actual objections and reasonings (SecStates, for example).

    The party the GOP calls loose with spending and weak on leadership showed us the meaning of leadership. It makes one wonder if the RNC keeps telling us to worry about unsustainable spending and poor leadership just to fool us and scare us into supporting them, even though have a terrible record on spending and cronyism. Steele, Mccain, Romney, Huckabee do not add up to the ideals the RNC uses as bullet points when it asks for money… money it doesn’t even spend on election preperation.

    This is a major softball for a democrat. Every thread has some of these major aspects that a thoughtful democrat would bring up. Aphrael or Leviticus often discuss them, but much more often, it becomes this *crap*. Chris Hooten demanding we admit he only said FNC was clearly worse and not “way” worse, or that Bush “ran out of money for the first time”. Or imdw making comments that might actually be designed to be easily knocked down (tempting low hanging fruit to derail a thread).

    I don’t really want to spoonfeed the discussion points to the liberals who are just to busy hating us to try to argue the actual topic. I know this is actually some kind of “lulz” game for some people. Great trolling.

    I hope a few democrats don’t get the wrong impression. We’re angry at the stupidity more than the political slant. We’re tired of these boring losers who come to a discussion thread with the idea that it would be cool to not allow much discussion.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  162. Thanks Mark for the education. When was the excerpt from the UCLA folks written?

    MD in Philly (59a3ad)

  163. No offense, but most of the hate is coming from you guys. You read so much into what I say, that you can’t see what I actually am saying most of the time. Whatever.

    As far as the Steele debacle, I have been thinking about it, and elected officials are supposed to represent their constituents, not the ideals of their party. They get elected to govern the way that the masses want to be governed. Trying to ram all those values down the throats of voters is not going to be very effective, unless the voters have the same values. This is a democracy, and everyone gets a say in how things are to be governed. This means that compromise is an essential part of any successful governance. If you are completely uncompromising, and demand that everyone agree with your values, or they can’t be part of the club, your club is probably going to shrink and shrink and shrink. It looks absolutely horrible when the head of the RNC, a black man, meets with college black students, and he literally tells them that the GOP basically has nothing to offer them. What message does that send (it’s pretty obvious)? How many of those students went home thinking, “Wow, I totally want to be part of that party, they are really looking out for me.” Surely the GOP has something to offer to everyone, and they need to be focused on those things.

    Chris Hooten (0e1f31)

  164. When was the excerpt from the UCLA folks written?

    The piece on FDR dates back to 2004, the one on Hoover to 2009. What’s surprising is that both analyses say nothing about the huge tax increases that were proposed and passed into law under Hoover and Roosevelt. And the effect such new burdens would have had on the psyche — among other things — of investors and entrepreneurs throughout the country.

    Also, no mention is made about FDR trying to get the IRS to let him wiggle out of paying for the very tax increases he had imposed upon more affluent Americans, of which he was one.

    My awareness of such basic facets of US history has been revealed to me mainly because of the curiosity triggered by discussions in this forum. And, again, the more I look below the surface, the more I realize how corrupting, idiotic and misguided liberal sentiment truly is, whether it emanates from a Democrat (naturally), Republican or Independent, etc.

    Mark (411533)

  165. As a quick point, if I had said some of the below, for instance, “the more I realize how corrupting, idiotic and misguided liberal sentiment truly is, whether it emanates from a Democrat (naturally), Republican or Independent, etc.” but replaced liberal with conservative, or tea party, and placed naturally next to Republican, then I would be attacked for trolling this thread, and spreading hate speech, and only trying to create discord here. I’m just making a point, I don’t feel that way about Mark, myself. But I have a very strong feeling that many of you would feel that way. It is kind of a double standard.

    Chris Hooten (0e1f31)

  166. Ah, but Chris, Mark actually brought new facts to the discussion, and related how they changed his appreciation for the period in question.

    AD - RtR/OS! (9562e0)

  167. But I have a very strong feeling that many of you would feel that way.

    I wouldn’t, certainly if you dig up information that illustrates the way that a particular type of ideology you’re not in sync with (in your case, that being conservatism) leads to failure and nonsensical results. Moreover, I’m quite willing to point out the impact of socio-political sentiment I don’t care for — in my case, that being liberalism — regardless whether it emanates from a person generally of the left, right or center.

    Moreover, I’m willing to cite Republicans (or folks on the right) like Herbert Hoover and Ronald Reagan, much less Richard Nixon, as being guilty — unfortunately — of such behavior on occasion.

    Mark (411533)

  168. I now shall ignore all the previous comments, as I merely wish to comment on the post.

    Where’s the link to Mr. Steele’s full speech? Without that, this entire post is pointless. I agree with Dan Riehl, except I do get it. It’s fun to whine about stuff you can’t explain.

    Bad Science (6807e1)

  169. I now shall ignore all the previous comments, as I merely wish to comment on the post.

    Where’s the link to Mr. Steele’s full speech? Without that, this entire post is pointless. I agree with Dan Riehl, except I do get it. It’s fun to whine about stuff you can’t explain.

    Bad Science (6807e1)

  170. “I now shall ignore all the previous comments, ”

    You sound like a smart person. Steele’s blowing it in many ways, though. Dan’s disgusting assertion that people who are sick and tired of Steele have unresolved race issues is also a great comment to ignore.

    He’s angry, even at this point, about people unsatisfied with Steele? He thinks there isn’t enough basis for that, but there is enough to accuse people of racism? The most powerful RNC operative and the US President are black men. It’s besides the point that there will always be pigs, sexists, racists, etc.

    Dan doesn’t have the full link to the speech either. We have to deal with what we do have, and it’s a pattern of incredibly backwards comments and terrible fundraising performance and fiscal discipline. *There is no doubt that if Steele were not Black, he would already be gone* which is what the democrats are gloating about.

    So don’t tell me he’s being persecuted for being black, when it’s quite the opposite. I wish the Dans out there would just get over their issues with race, because that’s not relevant, and if John Mccain said that the outrage would be 100X greater.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  171. LN Smithee, your conclusion is in conflict with your assumptions. If the Dark Lord himself was unable to sway GWB on a pardon for Libby, who deserved one, then it’s muddleheaded to assume that the Architect could somehow compel Bush to make the undeserved Miers nomination. It’s contradictory.

    1. Re-read my first comment at #11. Never did I say Rove “compel[led] Bush” to nominate Miers. I said he “presided over monumental blunders like Harriet Miers’ SCOTUS nomination,” and further wrote in reply to imdw that if I was Bush’s top political adviser and saw that he was determined to reject qualified jurists in favor of his personal attorney, I would quit. Why? Because 1) It would be clear he wasn’t listening to anything I was saying; 2) when the fact that she wasn’t qualified would be inevitably (and rightfully) be exposed by the Democrats in Judicial Committee hearings, it would scar not only Bush’s legacy, but that of the GOP (whose members would either have to fight their own President or suffer the electoral consequences of voting for her) for decades to come; 3) In the unlikely event she would be confirmed, I would have to spend the rest of my livelong days having to defend her presence on the Court, especially if — like other GOP nominees — she “evolved” into an emotional, unfocused gooey center.

    As it stands, Rove can just shrug off the Miers nomination as a mistake that was ultimately corrected. If it hadn’t been, imagine him — or any Republican, for that matter — having to squirm when asked why Obama’s more-qualified radical nominees should be rejected when GWB chose a crony for the Court over legitimate candidates like Samuel Alito.

    2. I don’t know if you were active in right-of-center web circles on the run-up to “Fitzmas,” the day leftoids looked forward to for celebrating the indictment of scads of Bushies by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. If not, in a nutshell: a rumor swept like a fireball through the leftosphere that up to five Bush Admin aides were to be targeted in the Plame episode, including Rove, Powell (who was still their enemy at the time) and possibly Cheney, making it the first step to their ultimate goal: Bush’s impeachment. When the news came that only Cheney COS Libby was facing conviction for obstruction and perjury, they were crushed, but hopeful that it was a ploy to get him to flip on Cheney, Rove, or even Bush himself.

    Fitzgerald did nothing to tamp down that kind of talk, refusing to rule out out the possibility of further indictments, but, of course, they never came. And Libby’s conviction had no impact on the only pertinent questions in the Plame kerfuffle; Who “leaked” her name to Robert Novak (A: Powell’s deputy Richard Armitage) and whether or not doing so was a crime (A: It wasn’t, regardless of what Henry Waxman or Sean Penn believes). Some suggest that what Libby perjured himself about shielded his superiors from conviction, but that doesn’t stand up to either the evidence or logic. But even if he was the sacrificial lamb for the crimes of the Bush war roomies, pardoning him would have a Nixonian ring to it, undermining U.S. Attorneys and the concept of equal justice. If you’re a Republican, that’s not what you want.

    I can’t know what Bush’s thinking was on Libby, but my stance is clear and consistent: Just as with Clinton, if Libby lied under oath, he should have been convicted. He should be happy with getting to serve his time outside bars. And Cheney? Looks like Bush had to remind him who was in the Oval Office, and who was in the rectangular one.

    L.N. Smithee (46a32f)

  172. Thanks, Mark.

    I think there is a book waiting to be written, “The Non-Idiot’s Guide to the Things You Were Taught That Were Wrong” (or, Paul Simon was right, after all of the things you were told in high school that were wrong, it’s a wonder you can still think at all.)

    And with that, perhaps I will have both the first and last word on a thread (not that it matters.)

    MD in Philly (59a3ad)


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