Patterico's Pontifications

He is “Evolving” on the issue.

dfbaskwill (ca54bb) — 7/22/2013 @ 8:15 am

I believe his name was added to a number of bills in the state legislature in order to “make a name” for him when he ran for the US senate. There were complaints from others in the state legislature. He probably never knew anything about this bill. The important thing was to have his name on bills that passed, which he may even have bothered to vote “Present” on.

Jean (a02173) — 7/22/2013 @ 8:47 am

He was a miserable state and federal senator here in Illinois, although with the quality of our representatives, it’s difficult to tell.

rochf (f3fbb0) — 7/22/2013 @ 8:49 am

Obama did what Emil Jones told him to.

nk (875f57) — 7/22/2013 @ 8:54 am

So, another one of Barack Obama’s chickens has come home to roost. Now, ain’t that just the sort of timely news item that professional journalists, especially the elite press corps that covers the White House, will ask about at the today’s WH presser?

ropelight (22a223) — 7/22/2013 @ 8:58 am

SO much for clean and articulate.

You think President Suckerpunch will ever come clean?

Personally the articulate part is mostly tighty managed stage craft. Sort of like how FDR would “walk” to the podium.

papertiger (c2d6da) — 7/22/2013 @ 8:58 am

I wish we would find this stuff out before Obama holds his look-at-me press conferences and ponderously pronounces on the issue. I know that Obama didn’t take questions after his Friday conference, but it would have been awesome if the first question for that jackass Carney had been something like “How does the President reconcile his current concern about stand your ground with his past co-sponsorship of Illinois stand your ground laws?” But that moment is lost and won’t come back.

JVW (23867e) — 7/22/2013 @ 9:18 am

Personally the articulate part is mostly tighty managed stage craft. Sort of like how FDR would “walk” to the podium.

Comment by papertiger (c2d6da) — 7/22/2013 @ 8:58 am

Or like the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz.

[Adapted from the Wikipeadia article] For those unfamiliar with the story, the Wizard is the ruler of the Land of Oz and highly venerated by his subjects.

Believing he is the only man capable of solving their problems, Dorothy and her friends travel to the Emerald City, the capital of Oz, to meet him. Oz is very reluctant to meet them, but eventually grants each an audience, one by one.

He appears to each visitor in a different form, once as a giant head, once as a beautiful fairy, once as a ball of fire, and once as a horrible monster. When he grants an audience to all of them at once, he seems to be a disembodied voice.

In the end, Oz is shown to be actually none of these things, but rather an ordinary man from Omaha, Nebraska, who has been using a lot of elaborate magic tricks and props to make himself seem “great and powerful.”

Working as a magician for a circus, he wrote his initials (O.Z.)on the side of his hot air balloon for promotional purposes. One day his balloon sailed into the Land of Oz, and he found himself worshipped as a great sorcerer. As Oz had no leadership at the time, he became Supreme Ruler of the kingdom, and did his best to sustain the myth.

The trouble for Obama is that except for the “missing 22 years”, the curtain can be pulled back and his ugly trail can be discovered and brought to light – if you have the desire to do so.

in_awe (7c859a) — 7/22/2013 @ 9:32 am

He is “Evolving” on the issue.
Comment by dfbaskwill (ca54bb) — 7/22/2013 @ 8:15 am

— You forgot the “d-“.

Icy (2c258e) — 7/22/2013 @ 10:23 am

R.I.P. Dennis Farina

Icy (2c258e) — 7/22/2013 @ 10:35 am

With Obama, it is never what is the right thing to do, but what is the most politically expedient thing to do.
He doesn’t give a rat’s Krugman over SYG, only about ginning up his base for the next election, particularly when he feels he’s vulnerable.

askeptic (b8ab92) — 7/22/2013 @ 11:06 am

if you have the ~~desire~~ stomach to do so.

FTFY!

askeptic (b8ab92) — 7/22/2013 @ 11:09 am

President Do As I Say Not As I Do.

CrustyB (69f730) — 7/22/2013 @ 11:09 am

Icy? Stop it. We know.

CrustyB (69f730) — 7/22/2013 @ 11:10 am

He needed a bill or three on which he wouldn’t vote “Present.”

The amused Dana (3e4784) — 7/22/2013 @ 11:13 am

Civil Rights today. What is the truth?

Barack Obama is a phoney creation of the bankrupt far left. His Hope & Change has turned out to be empty rhetoric and a total disappointment.

Here is a man of true courage and true insight, who speaks the truth: Shelby Steele.

Like Barack Obama, Steele’s father was black and his mother was white, yet the positions, viewpoints, of each are miles apart. Why is that?

Here are two (2) Wall Street Journal columns by Steele about the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman incident. The one directly below is dated July 21, 2013 and the one below that is dated April 6, 2012.

THE DECLINE OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS ESTABLISHMENT – Black Leaders Weren’t So Much Outraged At Injustice As They Were With The Disregard Of Their Own Authority
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324448104578618681599902640.html?mod=opinion_newsreel

THE EXPLOITATION OF TRAYVON MARTIN – The Absurdity of Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton Is That They Want To Make A Movement Out Of An Anomaly – Black Teenagers Today Are Afraid Of Other Black Teenagers – Not Whites
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303302504577323691134926300.html

We can return to the great promise that is America. But we can do that only by starting to once again embrace the truth and by refusal to tolerate the lying.

Gary L. Zerman (c788fc) — 7/22/2013 @ 11:27 am

“Hope and Change” is Obama-speak for “I Hope they don’t remember when I Change my tune.”

Tom in Seattle (bea0bc) — 7/22/2013 @ 11:29 am

Comment by Gary L. Zerman (c788fc) — 7/22/2013 @ 11:27 am

Isn’t interesting to compare the lede of that older Steele column with the meme that TM thought that GZ was a member of the Bloods since he was wearing a red top, and that TM’s father is believed to be a Crip.

askeptic (b8ab92) — 7/22/2013 @ 11:44 am

I spent a fair amount of time in 2008 looking into Mr. Obama’s record as a state legislator — and in particular looking at how many of the bills he sponsored ended up becoming law. I’d done the same drill in much more detail on his very short record as a United States Senator, where his influence on significant legislation was laughably nonexistent, but because I’m not an Illinois lawyer and don’t have free access to such things as the Illinois libraries on my Westlaw subscription, I had to rely more on secondary sources — mostly Illinois newspapers and magazines searchable on the internet.

Those secondary sources expressed remarkable agreement, though, in their analyses of state senator Obama’s performance: He very suddenly and very dramatically went from being a non-entity, a token from a comparatively tony neighborhood that included the University of Chicago, to being a principal sponsor of many, many bills that were then passed into law in pretty much the same manner described in the linked report. And those sources were also remarkably uniform in their explanation: The Democratic Party forces that ruled the Illinois statehouse had chosen young Obama as their designated show-horse, and they handed him pre-written, pre-digested legislation to introduce that was already guaranteed quick and decisive passage so that each such new law could become (a) an item on the machine’s “here’s what we’ve done for you lately” lists to its nominal constituents and (b) a résumé credit for the machine’s new up-and-coming public face, Barack H. Obama.

There was much circumstantial evidence cited to suggest that some of the bills Obama supposedly authored and shepherded to passage, he’d never had an opportunity to even read before introducing before the state senate. Sound familiar?

Beldar (7626b1) — 7/22/2013 @ 11:56 am

More and more evidence of “The Manchurian Candidate”.

askeptic (b8ab92) — 7/22/2013 @ 12:24 pm

I blame, in part, the Illinois Republican Party. Instead of getting behind the candidate, Jim Ryan, and telling the public and the media that his divorce (which was sealed) was nobody’s business, and they were behind him 100%, they threw him under the bus, so we ended up with the choice of Barack Obama and Alan Keyes. I ended up not voting in that race at all.

rochf (f3fbb0) — 7/22/2013 @ 12:56 pm

And just why did Peter Fitzgerald decide not to run for re-election to the United States Senate?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Fitzgerald_%28politician%29

Fitzgerald declined to run for reelection largely because many Republican insiders who had failed to support him in his first run in 1998 had made it clear he would not have their support again, in what he knew would be a much tougher race.

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 7/22/2013 @ 1:24 pm

It was a case of:

Conclusion first, Reasoning afterwards.

Obama had to come out against “Stand Your Ground” laws now, because his politics dictated that he say the verdict was wrong. (of course he doesn’t have to have that politics)

He chose the better of the two options, and maybe deserves some credit for that.

Rather than say the jury was wrong, he said the law was wrong.

This way he could avoid blaming the jury.

Or for that matter, promising a federal prosecution.

The next thing was to find a law to blame. That was easy.

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 7/22/2013 @ 1:36 pm

“Stand Your ground” had been part of the disinformation circulated by the Martin family attorneys et al.

President Obama knew, of course, that “Stand Your Ground” had not been an issue in this case. And he knew other people knew.

Now he didn’t want to leave himself open to such an easy refutation.

He reached for an argument to counter that:

Along the same lines, I think it would be useful for us to examine some state and local laws to see if it — if they are designed in such a way that they may encourage the kinds of altercations and confrontations and tragedies that we saw in the Florida case, rather than diffuse potential altercations.

I know that there’s been commentary about the fact that the “stand your ground” laws in Florida were not used as a defense in the case. On the other hand, if we’re sending a message as a society in our communities that someone who is armed potentially has the right to use those firearms even if there’s a way for them to exit from a situation, is that really going to be contributing to the kind of peace and security and order that we’d like to see?

And for those who resist that idea that we should think about something like these “stand your ground” laws, I’d just ask people to consider, if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? And do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman who had followed him in a car because he felt threatened? And if the answer to that question is at least ambiguous, then it seems to me that we might want to examine those kinds of laws.

So what does he do here?

First, he doesn’t completely settle on “Stand Your Ground” He’s open to finding some other laws to blame. He said “some state and local laws”

Second, maybe it is a good idea to come out against “Stand Your Ground” anyway, because the law is bad for other reasons.

Maybe its very existence somehow encourages violent confrontations.

Third, another reason to be against “Stand Your Ground” wouldn’t “Stand Your Ground” give Trayvon Martin a right to shoot George Zimmerman
“who had followed him in a car because he felt threatened?”

Does he realize that he’s saying that would mean Trayvon Martin had a right to sucker punch George Zimmerman because of “Stand Your Ground.”

Maybe he does.

He knows there are problems with his last argument so he says the answer maybe is “at least ambiguous”

And IF the answer to the question of whether Trayvon Martin had a right to shoot (or pummel) George Zimmerman, simply because he felt threatened, is AT LEAST AMBIGUOUS then we MIGHT want to EXAMINE these KINDS of laws.

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 7/22/2013 @ 1:53 pm

Obama has at least five qualifications in his final Stand Your Ground argument.

1. IF the law permits TM to attack GZ.

2. Or it is AT LEAST AMBIGIUOUS if it does.

3. We MIGHT want to

4. Not necessarily repeal, but EXAMINE

5. Those KINDS OF LAWS (not necessarily “Stand Your Ground” but some other law.

I don’t think even Abraham Lincoln waffled as much!!

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 7/22/2013 @ 1:54 pm

Eliot Spitzer on Mark Green’s radio show (taped last Friday just before Presiedent Obnama came out to speak)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-radio/both-sides-now_b_3632771.html

On the Trial and Racial Justice. We debate this premise: “Resolved: the acquittal was the right verdict based on Florida law and known evidence but justice was not done because a guy with a gun stalked and killed an unarmed black boy.”

Eliot agrees more the second half of the formulation since “justice was denied him, his family and the larger community… There’s a difference between the law and justice.” By overcharging, the prosecutors lost credibility and perhaps the case. Erick doesn’t disagree: “Everything about this case makes me angry — the way the media treated it and how both sides made it political. A 17 year-old was killed — what’s political about that?”

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 7/22/2013 @ 2:25 pm

Spitzer is a piece of slime.

SPQR (768505) — 7/22/2013 @ 2:29 pm

Beldar, that largely explains why the actual process of getting legislation passed seems to be something he never learned.

SPQR (768505) — 7/22/2013 @ 2:31 pm

Shelby Steele take on what’s going on, in today’s (July 22, 2013) Wall Street Journal:

The Decline of the Civil-Rights Establishment Black leaders weren’t so much outraged at injustice as they were by the disregard of their own authority.

The purpose of today’s civil-rights establishment is not to seek justice, but to seek power for blacks in American life based on the presumption that they are still, in a thousand subtle ways, victimized by white racism. This idea of victimization is an example of what I call a “poetic truth.”….Poetic truths work by moral intimidation, not reason.

In the Zimmerman/Martin case the civil-rights establishment is fighting for the poetic truth that white animus toward blacks is still such that a black teenager—Skittles and ice tea in hand—can be shot dead simply for walking home. But actually this establishment is fighting to maintain its authority to wield poetic truth—the authority to tell the larger society how it must think about blacks, how it must respond to them, what it owes them and, then, to brook no argument.

The Zimmerman/Martin tragedy has been explosive because it triggered a fight over authority. Who gets to say what things mean—the supporters of George Zimmerman, who say he acted in self-defense, or the civil-rights establishment that says he profiled and murdered a black child? Here we are. And where is the authority to resolve this? The six-person Florida jury, looking carefully at the evidence, decided that Mr. Zimmerman pulled the trigger in self-defense and not in a fury of racial hatred.

And here, precisely at the point of this verdict, is where all of America begins to see this hollowed-out civil-rights establishment slip into pathos….hoping against hope that some leaf of actual racial victimization will be turned over for all to see. This is how a once-great social movement looks when it becomes infested with obsolescence….

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 7/22/2013 @ 2:32 pm

President Obama continues to vote Present!

askeptic (b8ab92) — 7/22/2013 @ 3:38 pm

He was for it before he was against it.

dee nile (e192e3) — 7/22/2013 @ 3:51 pm

Oh, Latin illegals lean Democratic.

Just slightly.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/07/22/Poll-illegal-immigrants-Democrat

gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 7/22/2013 @ 4:43 pm

http://shark-tank.net/2013/07/22/democratic-congresswoman-flip-flops-on-racist-stand-your-ground-law/

narciso (3fec35) — 7/22/2013 @ 5:35 pm

This link reminds us “Stand Your Ground” was an alleged cuplrit early in the case. Congresswoman Frederica Wilson introduced the Stand Yur Ground Repeal Act in June, 2012. (it would withhold aportion of transportation funds from any state that that has a law “that allows an armed person to pursue, confront, and shoot-to-kill an unarmed person in public.”

I don’t think any state has any such law.

Sammy Finkelman (16fe92) — 7/22/2013 @ 8:12 pm

No, but if a state did, it would be Texas 😉

SPQR (768505) — 7/22/2013 @ 9:52 pm

Remember the Alamo!

papertiger (c2d6da) — 7/22/2013 @ 10:35 pm

how about if we just shoot to wound the miscreant?

would the Honorable Ms. Wilson be okay with that?

redc1c4 (abd49e) — 7/22/2013 @ 10:38 pm

This is what post-racial America looks like.

AZ Bob (c11d35) — 7/23/2013 @ 7:32 am

watch was insanely easy before, however right now it’s virtually impossible

バレンシアガエディターズバッグ (f9a5c4) — 7/23/2013 @ 10:13 am

He didn’t: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/07/22/rumor-check-did-barack-obama-co-sponsor-legislation-actually-strengthening-illinois-stand-your-ground-laws/

Mike (4da1fa) — 7/23/2013 @ 8:38 pm

“Stand Your Ground Declares Open Season on Black Males,” a must hear podcast. Does the SYG laws work against African Americans, some believe Blacks were the intended target of such laws. South Carolina’s ex- attorney general Charlie Condon declared “open season” on home invaders, after a rash of burglaries took place in his state. However, some believed the declaration gave many a “license to kill.” Learn the three Ws to always ask yourself before using deadly force, understanding SYG laws may just save your life. George Zimmerman’s defense team decided against using a SYG defense for GZ, learn why.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/centerstage/2013/07/20/stand-your-ground-declares-open-season-on-black-males

Center Stage (6eabc0) — 7/24/2013 @ 7:18 pm

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/354312/houston-woman-stands-her-ground-shoots-knife-carrying-attacker-charles-c-w-cooke

narciso (3fec35) — 7/24/2013 @ 7:23 pm

34. This link reminds us “Stand Your Ground” was an alleged cuplrit early in the case. Congresswoman Frederica Wilson introduced the Stand Yur Ground Repeal Act in June, 2012. (it would withhold aportion of transportation funds from any state that that has a law “that allows an armed person to pursue, confront, and shoot-to-kill an unarmed person in public.”

I don’t think any state has any such law.

Comment by Sammy Finkelman (16fe92) — 7/22/2013 @ 8:12 pm

35. No, but if a state did, it would be Texas 😉

Comment by SPQR (768505) — 7/22/2013 @ 9:52 pm

You’d be surprised at the state that does specifically authorize a person to pursue their attacker in self-defense.

http://www.lbcrimlaw.com/aop/california-self-defense/

http://www.eurekacriminaldefenselawyer.com/Criminal-Defense-Blog/2012/September/Californias-Self-Defense.aspx

http://www.ledger-dispatch.com/news/local_news/article_5e21f07c-f494-11e2-860e-0019bb30f31a.html

Following the verdict in Florida’s George Zimmerman trial, the watchful eye of the nation turns its gaze toward “Stand Your Ground” laws, which less than half the nation has, though most states have a variation of such laws. California has its own version of self-defense law, but is not a SYG law.

Although California law does not require defendants to retreat before defending themselves, the ability to retreat — among all other aspects of the situation — is considered, according to Amador County District Attorney Todd Riebe. Defendants are allowed to stand their ground and defend themselves, and if reasonably necessary, to pursue their attacker until there is no longer any danger, even if safety could have been achieved by retreating.

Steve57 (2dd692) — 7/24/2013 @ 7:45 pm

They also had one looking for the one armed man;

http://www.freep.com/article/20130723/NEWS01/307230095/

narciso (3fec35) — 7/24/2013 @ 7:51 pm

Yes, it would be Texas.

nk (875f57) — 7/24/2013 @ 7:53 pm

Yes, this is helpful’

http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2533446#.UfB-KWEfWoM.twitter

narciso (3fec35) — 7/24/2013 @ 8:26 pm