Patterico's Pontifications

7/4/2015

PUS Barack Obama

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 3:40 pm



Kevin Gutzman on Facebook:

The federation’s official name is “The United States of America.” How do we abbreviate it? “USA.” Not “TUSOA,” just “USA.” We omit “T” and “O.” For many generations, it has been so.

So why do we use a “T” and an “O” when abbreviating “Supreme Court of the United States” or “President of the United States?” Let’s be consistent. Rather than “SCOTUS” and “POTUS,” I think they should be “SCUS” and “PUS.”

“PUS Barack Obama” has a nice ring to it. I think I’ll start using that. I’ll link back to this post when I do, so you remember what it means.

106 Responses to “PUS Barack Obama”

  1. Maybe PUSA.

    Nah. Too much USA in there for my taste.

    Patterico (3cc0c1)

  2. POS fits him quite nicely as well…

    😎

    redc1c4 (589173)

  3. #2
    Audit incoming!!!

    steveg (fed1c9)

  4. heh: they already did that to me, last time i made any money worth mentioning.

    i submitted my taxes, with all documents, they edited my return and adjusted my refund.

    i got & spent the money, then about 6-8 weeks after i signed a petition on the WH web page, using my Army email addy, i got another letter saying that i owed them the entire refund back, plus penalties & interest.

    a55holes.

    redc1c4 (589173)

  5. United States Executive Leader Exalted Sultan of State, Barack Obama.

    That one has a more apt acronym.

    JVW (8278a3)

  6. How would you have felt in 2007 about a left-leaning website which talked about PUS George W Bush?

    *My sense* is that this is intentionally disrespectful and is crossing a line which I had expected you to not be willing to cross. I am disappointed.

    aphrael (69b4f7)

  7. Aphrael – I’ll admit it surprised me too. But I don’t recall ever treating his political opponents with such contempt. Obama doesn’t respect those that don’t worship him, so does the fact that those he treats with such contempt don’t respect him?

    JD (addbc4)

  8. Let’s be honest that would have been a mild epithet for Bush considering all the names they did call him.

    Gazzer (ee3742)

  9. UPUS
    [useless]

    mg (31009b)

  10. I watch the John Adams mini-series each year as a reminder of the great men who founded our republic. It never gets old, though it’s also a grim reminder of how far we have fallen.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  11. Colonel we watched that this year and very good it was too. It was also where I learned that being tarred and feathered wasn’t as dire as I had thought.

    Gazzer (ee3742)

  12. SCOTUS rhymes with scrotus, which is pretty close to scrotum.

    Daniel (d42b64)

  13. The acronym is for the office, not the individual who currently holds it.

    That’s a spectacularly important distinction.

    I won’t use “PUS.” It’s disrespectful to the office.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  14. Col. H.: I’m re-watching John Adams for the first time since it debuted. It’s fabulous indeed. But I could strangle the director — those skewed artsy-fartsy camera angles drive me to serious distraction.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  15. I understand about being disrespectful to the office,
    but the person in the office is the biggest bit of disrespect to the office.

    Maybe if he didn’t need to get private divorce proceedings unsealed to win his Senate seat it wouldn’t be so disrespectful.
    Maybe if his political career wasn’t birthed in Bill Ayers home it wouldn’t be so disrespectful.
    Maybe if saying all of the spending of the stimulus bill was going to be listed on the web was the last lie he uttered it wouldn’t be so disrespectful.
    maybe if he only lied about Benghazi 2 or 3 times it wouldn’t be so disrespectful.

    I tend to not be directly insulting, at least I think I tend not to be, but Jesus found it appropriate at times to get a little animated and trash the surroundings.
    I’m obviously no Jesus to have the wisdom as to when such things are appropriate,
    but I’m thinking anyone who doesn’t want to take a stand in a legislature except when it comes to making sure that babies who survive an abortion are killed,
    then maybe it’s appropriate.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  16. There’s a smarmy pajama boy flavor to it. There are worse things that Obama deserves to be called but let’s not throw out George Washington with the arugula.

    nk (dbc370)

  17. I didn’t even notice, Beldar. Such great acting by so many…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  18. You could add an extra “s” and get “puss”. Or an “sy” or “sie”. All are accurate descriptors of the current resident in the White House.

    Comanche Voter (1d5c8b)

  19. I was well aware of Obama before his run. This is from my blog dated Feb 2008.

    Jones had served in the Illinois Legislature for three decades. He represented a district on the Chicago South Side not far from Obama’s. He became Obama’s ­kingmaker.

    Several months before Obama announced his U.S. Senate bid, Jones called his old friend Cliff Kelley, a former Chicago alderman who now hosts the city’s most popular black call-in radio ­program.

    I called Kelley last week and he recollected the private conversation as follows:

    “He said, ‘Cliff, I’m gonna make me a U.S. Senator.’”

    “Oh, you are? Who might that be?”

    “Barack Obama.”

    Jones appointed Obama sponsor of virtually every high-profile piece of legislation, angering many rank-and-file state legislators who had more seniority than Obama and had spent years championing the bills.

    It’s an interesting story.

    Mike K (90dfdc)

  20. I actually would prefer just straight up descriptors, such as abusive, arrogant, deceitful, dishonest, foolish, mean-spirited, narcissistic, proud.

    Yet Saul of Tarsus was quite a person until he was “knocked off of his high horse”.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  21. “Entryism” is a tactic used by the counter-culture to corrupt and undermine cherished institutions. In churches, in government, in marriage …. The trick is to excise the Cardinal O’Briens, the Clinton/Obamas, and the Perry/Obergefells, and not to turn our backs on the institutions.

    nk (dbc370)

  22. It’s actually called Gramscism and is a Marxist tactic.

    His tactic is called Cultural Hegemony and is used to destroy any competing ideology, like religion or patriotism.

    In Marxist philosophy, the term cultural hegemony describes the domination of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class, who manipulate the culture of that society—the beliefs, explanations, perceptions, values, and mores—so that their ruling-class worldview becomes the worldview that is imposed and accepted as the cultural norm; as the universally valid dominant ideology that justifies the social, political, and economic status quo as natural, inevitable, perpetual and beneficial for everyone, rather than as artificial social constructs that benefit only the ruling class.

    ISIS is doing something similar.

    Mike K (90dfdc)

  23. How would you have felt in 2007 about a left-leaning website which talked about PUS George W Bush?

    There were plenty such, and I don’t recall anyone on the left chiding them for it.

    *My sense* is that this is intentionally disrespectful

    It certainly is; why should we respect him when he is not a respectable person? People earn respect; Bush has done so, not because he was president, but because he behaves in a respectable way. 0bama doesn’t, and his happening to be president doesn’t change that.

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  24. I won’t use “PUS.” It’s disrespectful to the office.

    I don’t see why an office deserves respect. People either deserve respect or don’t. An office is just an abstraction for whoever happens to be doing a particular job from time to time. For any job, some of those people will be respectable, and some won’t.

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  25. The Presidency is the people’s institution. It is not Barack Obama’s. It is not the left’s which disrespected Bush. We don’t play into their hands. We clean them out and clean it up and try to put people in it who are worthy of it.

    nk (dbc370)

  26. Back in WWII, there was another acronym that had to be changed slightly. CINCUS just had a negative aquatic connotation for some reason.

    John Hitchcock (feac92)

  27. The presidency is not an institution. It’s not even a corporation. It has no existence at all. It’s just a fancy word for the fact that someone is president. So how can it be worthy of respect? What does it even mean to respect a fact? To acknowledge its truth? Fine, I acknowledge that 0bama is president. He’s still not worthy of respect.

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  28. “What’s in a name?”

    “Putz” is a perfect name for BHO even is the initials don’t warrant it.

    Nolanimrod (909c96)

  29. What’s your point, nk? I’ve read the constitution. It says there shall be a president. It doesn’t say anything about an institution called the presidency.

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  30. Every day I wake up sad that this man is holding the country hostage until January 2017.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  31. Potus es scotus r g tgy 5 g addn.

    (translation: Potus and scotus are from telegraph code, not from abbreviation.)

    ‘pus’ wouldn’t work in the code because ‘pu’ was already ‘public’ and newsmen would pluralize ‘pu’ while ‘scus’ wouldn’t work because ‘scu’ was ‘seclude’ and ‘scus’ could be translated as ‘secludes’. Nobody uses the Phillips code anymore since electrons have become so easy to store and a printer cartridge doesn’t cost as much as a small car either, but some of us old geezers used to read news off the AP teletype machine (or was it the UPI wire? this was before they merged so you know how long ago it was) and had to acquire a basic familiarity with the code. Strange isn’t it, how a code which used to be limited to a small group is no longer used by them but is commonplace among ordinary people?

    Oh and I use USSC not SCOTUS.

    max (4fdf98)

  32. “POTUS” doesn’t equal chamber pot?

    Live and learn.

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  33. What’s your point, nk? I’ve read the constitution. It says there shall be a president. It doesn’t say anything about an institution called the presidency.

    Milhouse (a04cc3) — 7/4/2015 @ 11:51 pm

    Must you squeeze the last drop of joy out of living for all who have the misfortune of coming into contact with you?

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  34. That’ll leave a mark.

    ropelight (1a3617)

  35. He does rather beat the tiniest point to dust sometimes.

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27)

  36. Tediously slow death by flogging.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  37. *My sense* is that this is intentionally disrespectful and is crossing a line which I had expected you to not be willing to cross. I am disappointed.

    Aphrael, considering how scroungy Obama is in every shape and form, your comment (oh, this therefore has to be a case of being unintentionally disrespectful!?) comes off like mock indignation, like even a bit of sarcasm along the lines of “I don’t think Richard Nixon — or in the world of today’s corrupt Wall Street, Bernie Madoff, or today’s corrupt IRS, Lois Lerner — etc, deserves such disrespect.”

    We don’t need any more feigned outrage than necessary in 2015.

    Mark (e584c3)

  38. Greetings:

    My favorite is “USofA”.

    11B40 (6abb5c)

  39. In keeping with Daniel Greenfield’s 6/30 post at Sultan Knish (“No Truce With The Left”), I’d have to say that from here-on-out, “Truth” needs to come before “Nice”.

    Their whole movement –which is MANIFESTLY against our interests– depends on us keeping our sense of decency and fair play and courtesy. Things like “respect the office” even if you don’t respect the man.

    I submit, gentlemen (and ladies), that it is time for the gloves to come off. Emperor O’Commie doesn’t get a pass from we-the-civilized any more – he’s got no Maahhvelous New Clothes on; despite the office he holds, we need to point and laugh and tell the truth- he’s naked. He’s nothing. We’ve got jackals ravaging the corpus of law, and y’all want to be POLITE????? No. They need to be called out for the war they’re waging against everything American.

    No more Mr. Nice Guy.

    A_Nonny_Mouse (52b38a)

  40. I agree with Mighty Mouse. The time is long past for respecting any of these a$$holes. Once they crossed the line from being “The Loyal Opposition” to actively engaging in sedition all bets were off.

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27)

  41. Love rejoices in the truth. One can be brutally honest out of love when necessary.
    Now, I’m not for a second going to say that everyone’s disrespect is out of love, no indeed,
    but it is definitely true that not all that is “nice” is really “nice”.
    Taking a scalpel and plunging it into skin is not “nice”, but if it is to drain a foul smelling abscess it is good.

    Love in the truest sense of the word is always called for, and that includes pointing out disrespectful behavior when necessary.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  42. Considering what’s been happening lately in the Court, I think we should start calling them DUNS SCOTUS. (See what I did there?)

    Maybe we can change the name of the country to the United Territories of America, so that way Obama can be PUTA.

    grumpy the grump (944707)

  43. Present-snit Obola gets every bit of respect from me that he earns…

    telling me i should respect the “office” is like the idiots in the Army telling me i should respect the rank of someone, even if i didn’t respect the person for good & sundry reasons.

    rank insignia is sold online to anyone with money, and any room can be an office, so neither one deserves respect.

    redc1c4 (2b3c9e)

  44. rank insignia is sold online to anyone with money, and any room can be an office, so neither one deserves respect.

    Exactly. Only people deserve respect, and only when they are respectable people.

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  45. Mark – I am struggling to find a way to respond to you that I consider respectable.

    no, really. I’ve been commenting on this blog for thirteen years. In that time I have gone out of my way to be respectful to *everyone*, including my political opponents.

    And yet here you are not taking me at face value when I’m saying, hey, the subject line of this post is a show of disrespect that I think is offensive? You accuse me of feigned fucking outrage?

    It’s rude, full stop. It’s rude in EXACTLY the same way that referring to former President Bush as ‘shrub’ was. I’ve never engaged in that rudeness in that sort of rudeness, and I’ve called people out for it on my own side of the fence, and I really *am* seriously disappointed in Patterico for doing so, and i’m *furious* at you for your insinuation that I’m faking it.

    I would have thought that thirteen years of extremely polite commenting would have gotten me some credibility on that score. But apparently that was wrong.

    aphrael (c4a2c9)

  46. *Laugh*.

    Apparently my comment in response is awaiting moderation, so I’ll try it again. 🙂

    Mark – I am struggling to find a way to respond to you that I consider respectable.

    no, really. I’ve been commenting on this blog for thirteen years. In that time I have gone out of my way to be respectful to *everyone*, including my political opponents.

    And yet here you are not taking me at face value when I’m saying, hey, the subject line of this post is a show of disrespect that I think is offensive? You accuse me of feigned ***** outrage?

    It’s rude, full stop. It’s rude in EXACTLY the same way that referring to former President Bush as ‘shrub’ was. I’ve never engaged in that rudeness in that sort of rudeness, and I’ve called people out for it on my own side of the fence, and I really *am* seriously disappointed in Patterico for doing so, and i’m *furious* at you for your insinuation that I’m faking it.

    I would have thought that thirteen years of extremely polite commenting would have gotten me some credibility on that score. But apparently that was wrong.

    aphrael (c4a2c9)

  47. it’s about the institution, not the members who have run it aground, although technically it would be POTUSA, wouldn’t it,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  48. Aphrael – he also thinks I am a closeted leftist, so take those opinions with a grain of salt.

    JD (3b5483)

  49. And yet here you are not taking me at face value when I’m saying, hey, the subject line of this post is a show of disrespect that I think is offensive? You accuse me of feigned fucking outrage?

    Aphrael, I admit to not tracking your style of commenting going back to Day One, so I’m not aware of your ever expressing similar resentment when a Republican has been mocked. However, I do know you’re of the left, and liberals tend to be iconoclastic about symbols along the lines of the US presidency/White House, so that alone tends to make your side of the aisle more quickly and easily smirk and chuckle whenever any occupant of the Oval Office is being razzed.

    Beyond that, even you as a devout liberal have to admit that Obama, from A to Z, is a really scroungy, disreputable character, regardless whether you like his politics or not. If an equally scuzzy, contemptible, two-faced conservative were in the US presidency, I could do more than watch with quiet embarrassment if devout Democrats were coming up with a phrase like “PUS.” I’d feel far too sheepish to say “oh, that’s offensive!”

    I think of all the Republicans who recently voted for Obama’s crappy secretive Asian trade agreement, and if a liberal/Democrat snorted that such conservatives were “POS,” and I proclaimed “that’s an undignified way of criticizing your political opposites,” I’d deepdown know that was mock outrage on my part. (And that one controversy involving the “NWO” all by itself ain’t a fraction as bad as the Mount Everest of garbage that Obama represents and symbolizes).

    Mark (e584c3)

  50. he also thinks I am a closeted leftist

    JD, you still haven’t clarified whether you believe the descriptions of Obama’s homosexuality are true or not, and whether you specifically think that no matter how crummy the occupant of the White House is, he should never be slammed to the point where the dignity of the office is tarnished in the process.

    Mark (e584c3)

  51. I used to believe in things like respect for the office of the presidency. Not so much any more. It’s just another guy who has too much power and inevitably abuses it.

    Patterico (4ad822)

  52. Patterico, respectfully, what I see happening is a cycle. The left was disrespectful to Reagan; the right was disrespectful to Clinton; the left was disrespectful to Bush; the right is disrespectful to Obama … and each round in the cycle the disrespect seems to get more vitriolic and nastier.

    The point to respect for the Presidency isn’t so much *the President*; it’s that by showing respect for the institution and its occupant, we keep a minimum level of civility that helps keep us from tearing each other apart.

    IMO at least.

    aphrael (c4a2c9)

  53. aphrael, the pattern you’re seeing has one glaring asymmetry: Reagan and Bush were respectable people; thus the left’s disrespect (to say the least) for them was not justifiable by any measure. There was no need to appeal to them for respect for the office; they should have respected the person. Clinton, on the other hand, is so disreputable that even you can’t deny it, and at least as we see it 0bama is equally disreputable; you can’t ask us to respect te person, and are left resorting to an appeal to respect the office. Well, I’m not buying it. I see no reason to respect an office, no matter who is occupying it.

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  54. I am in the middle of both of you. I think the office is independent of the man. Whether is ennobles him as it did Lincoln, or is dirtied by him as was done by Clinton, it remains untouched when he is gone. Like a thoroughbred who wins a race at the hands of a good jockey and loses at the hands of a bad one. So I’m fine with Shrub and SCOAMF, they’re personal and even beneficial in reminding the sitting President “Thou art mortal”; but I’m uncomfortable with PUS and even POTUS, because they devalue an institution which I consider our patrimony and that of our children.

    nk (dbc370)

  55. This being the 21st century, you may prefer a race car instead of a horse, and in place of the President being the hand that holds the reins of the Executive Power, rather the nut that holds the wheel? 😉

    nk (dbc370)

  56. Aphrael – I think the fundamental difference is that the current occupant is overtly contemptuous of any that dare to not worship him. He doesn’t respect me, or anyone like me.

    JD (addbc4)

  57. Milhouse – in *your* view, Bush was a respectable person and Obama isn’t.

    In the view of a lot of people on the left, Obama is a respectable person and Bush wasn’t.

    How can you expect activists on the left to be respectful of people like Bush if you won’t be respectful of people like Obama? (And yes, I could ask *them* the same question).

    My preference is to behave respectfully towards *everyone*, regardless of how I feel about them politically, except in unusually egregious cases. And even then – I’m not respectful at all of Gavin Newsom, and it would be next to impossible to get me to vote for him, AND YET I’m not going to run around calling him rude names or making rude jokes about his office.

    aphrael (c4a2c9)

  58. there is a preponderence of mere knaves and fools, in the media, who have brought us to this point, most everyone who endorsed obama the first time, and those who voted for him the second time,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  59. now the Dread Pirate deserves most of the contempt we can find, as well as Poet Kennedy, who would embarass a sophist,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  60. as each institution is burnt to the ground, they ask for more kindling,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  61. Mark, aphrael is always sincere and polite. I think it is a mistake to question his motives.

    DRJ (1dff03)

  62. aphrael,

    How was the right disrespectful to Clinton? Are you talking about his impeachment, the “vast right-wing conspiracy” response to his scandals, or something else?

    DRJ (1dff03)

  63. Barack Obama is a two-faced, low down, belly crawlin’ yellow dog. If he wasn’t half black he’d have been impeached and run out of town one step ahead of the law along with his crooked Attorney General and his IRS accomplices. But, Obama is half black and his allies, dupes, and useful idiots just can’t let the First Black President be exposed as an enemy of the American people.

    Are there more high crime for him to commit? Are there more lies upon lies he hasn’t told? Are there yet more American soldiers for him to betray?

    ropelight (00d1fa)

  64. In the view of a lot of people on the left, Obama is a respectable person and Bush wasn’t.

    Yes, the left showed their “disrespect” in such unique ways, like Novels about assassinating him and Movies about assassinating him.

    That goes just a trifle over what has ever been said about Clinton or Obama.

    Clinton was disbarred for lying under oath. The impeachment was a political mistake but that was a real question. Clinton, in case you forgot, made his cabinet members, not his PR staff, go out and lie on TV.

    Obama has taken lying to a new height. “If you like your…” “Marriage is between…”

    Mike K (90dfdc)

  65. aphrael is always sincere and polite.

    FWIW, I posted a response to Aphrael several minutes before my reply last night to JD, but it went into moderation and has vanished into cyberspace. The reply contained a quoteline that included his original use of the “f” word, which must have triggered the red-pen bot.

    I don’t feel like fully re-creating the post, but in briefer terms, I said that Obama is such a scroungy, disreputable character, I can’t imagine any person, even a devout liberal, feeling resentment when the guy now in the Oval Office is mocked. I also said that since people of the left generally are iconoclastic about symbols along the lines of the US presidency/White House, it would be surprising if the reaction of someone like aphrael to “PUS” was based on the idea of “we must respect the office regardless of the person occupying it.”

    Mark (e584c3)

  66. take the stewarts, from which sprung the colberts, the mahers, the lettermans, and one sees where the low tide of wretched idiocy, arises from, on the political side, one considers Markos Moulitsas, who got his big break, cheering the murder of American soldiers in Fallujah, that was his entree to the big time,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  67. In the view of a lot of people on the left, Obama is a respectable person and Bush wasn’t.

    Aphrael, that would be analogous to my saying that even the Republicans who went along with Obama’s sleazy tactics of pushing through the secretive Asian trade bill several days ago should never be characterized as underhanded, disreputable politicians. Moreover, that would be only ONE instance of something I find pathetic about various Congressional people of the right. IOW, if such folks also — at the same time — reflected the other seemingly innumerable low-life aspects of Obama, and even if they continued to at least supposedly represent conservative ethos or credentials, I’d feel like a fool and idiot to say they were respectable.

    Mark (e584c3)

  68. Seems only fitting that lefties receive their marching orders, strategies and political philosophy from comedians and clowns.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  69. I think it is a mistake to question his motives.

    Until today, he hadn’t noted that many on the left deem Obama respectable. I know liberals tend to be poor judges of what makes people, things and situations good or bad — and have a knack for transposing good and bad — but I still didn’t (or can’t) believe they’d say — with a straight face — that Obama is respectable. Such an opinion to me actually makes aphrael’s negative response to Patterico’s “PUS” posting even more absurd, since I originally thought aphrael would claim that while Obama was a very marginal person, he still didn’t deserve to be mocked with a humorous acronym, or (and even though aphrael is of the generally iconclastic left) the office of the presidency should automatically give any of its occupants an additional layer of benefit of the doubt.

    Mark (e584c3)

  70. There are people who feel that way about Reagan and the Bushes, Mark. Americans no longer agree on common values or civility. I think it’s a sign of how secular and partisan we’ve become.

    DRJ (1dff03)

  71. My preference is to behave respectfully towards *everyone*, regardless of how I feel about them politically

    After re-reading your post, perhaps my impression of your rebuttals hasn’t been correct or fair. Simply put, do you — yourself — think Obama is respectable?

    Mark (e584c3)

  72. There are people who feel that way about Reagan and the Bushes, Mark.

    DRJ, then it goes beyond ideology and pertains to the basic way of defining what’s respectable or not in a person, president or otherwise. Even if I don’t like Obama’s (or Clinton’s) politics, if their background was very similar to that of Reagan (iow, if it was a life history devoid of blatantly flaky, raunchy qualities, from questionable school records to blue dresses), I’d judge them quite differently and far less negatively.

    Mark (e584c3)

  73. That’s just the thing, Mark. People who don’t like Reagan or Bush don’t like them because of their politics, they’re Republicans. Hell, Bush wasn’t even a conservative he was a damn liberal. So what the left does is they make politics personal. There used to be many Democrats I liked but once they got to the spittle spouting faze of batsh!t crazy I had to bow out. Plus they got to that rut of every single one of them saying the very same thing at the same time and that reminds me of The Big Lie being told over and over so they lose me. They say it’s talking points, I say it’s propaganda and it’s stupid.

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27)

  74. People who don’t like Reagan or Bush don’t like them because of their politics,

    Hoagie, I can live with that. But they, in turn, had better not declare that my disdain for Obama is because of his race, or my disdain for Clinton (either one) is merely because they’re Democrats. Simply put, I wouldn’t care for Obama and the two Clintons, among others, even if they were staunch conservatives. Actually, I might dislike them even more since I’d consider their sleazy, trashy characteristics as tarnishing the Republican/rightwing brand.

    Mark (e584c3)

  75. They have different values than we do, Mark, and as a result they aren’t concerned whether Obama is bisexual or Clinton is monogamous. We don’t have a common moral code anymore.

    DRJ (1dff03)

  76. The question is whether they live up to their moral code — which I think focuses on tolerance, pro-environment, and anti-war. That’s where liberals are their weakest, because they don’t. Obama will announce an expanded war effort against ISIS today. Climate change is based on false data. And there’s nothing tolerant about the left’s fascist efforts to ban words and ideas.

    Condemning liberals for not living up to conservative morality is a fool’s errand. Condemn them for not living up to their own morality.

    DRJ (1dff03)

  77. And laud them when they do live up to their own morality, I presume? Or is that when they get condemned for not living up to conservative morality?

    Leviticus (f9a067)

  78. the left complains about money in politics, when they raise 2-6 times as much the GOP,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  79. speaking truth to power’ becomes treason, an illegal war without congressional assent, is deemed legitimate,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  80. The people who don’t like Reagan or Bush are the same people who turn their heads and pretend they don’t see dead Americans in Benghazi, or pretend Obama was telling the truth about his health care scam, or that there’s not one scintilla of evidence of corruption hidden in emails the IRS pretends they can’t find. They’re the ones who think Hillary’s use of her own private email server is a clever way to circumvent record keeping laws – and they’ll vote for her.

    Remember the vast number of people lined up along the route of Reagan’s funeral procession? Remember how the Leftists had to hold their nasty comments and choke back their rage – they’re the racists who refuse to find fault with Obama’s failed policies, parrot his excuses, and deny his many crimes. And, they do it because the content of their own character is as corrupt as his.

    ropelight (00d1fa)

  81. Do you think people should be lauded for doing what they think is right, Leviticus? I think your generation has been taught that, but people shouldn’t need an award to live up to their moral code.

    DRJ (1dff03)

  82. every word, every act Nixon ever uttered, is preserved in the national archives,

    with zaphod, all the fingerprints have been scrubbed:

    http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/07/the-irs-scandal-day-788.html

    narciso (ee1f88)

  83. In fact, Leviticus, one could argue that lauding every act undermines the moral code. It encourages people to only do the right thing when they know it will be seen and rewarded, when what makes morality work is when people live up to the code when no one is watching.

    DRJ (1dff03)

  84. Leviticus, do you agree with my statement of the liberal code of morality? What about you, aphrael?

    DRJ (1dff03)

  85. 79.And laud them when they do live up to their own morality, I presume?

    Heaven’s yes. Nothing is more worthy of laude and praise than being for the murder of almost a million babies a year, mostly minorities, on the alter of “choice”. And elevating sexual perversions to the level of civil rights is very laudable. How about keeping blacks in the poverty of dependence and replacing the black man with daddy government? Stopping poorer families from getting into charter schools or being able to help their children with school vouchers is laudable, it helps the unions. Driving up the cost of energy and food in the name of silly environmental theories and the price of medicine and health care with government mandates is laudable too. That sure helps the poor as well as the rest of us. Driving Christians out of business for refusing to bow to the state prescribed perversion du jour is very laudable. Why not just execute the damn Christians? There are so many things for which we should laude leftists when they stand up for their beliefs. Especially the belief that after all the death and destruction caused in the last century by leftists they deserve laude instead of contempt. After all WWMSD? What would Margaret Sanger do? She only caused the death of 50 million Africans by lying about DDT. What a Mother Theresa that one was.

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27)

  86. the us president is a craven anti-freedom whore bent on genociding Israel with his persian butt buddies

    who would even pick this jackoff for their kickball team not me that’s for sure

    happyfeet (82d3c4)

  87. Following up on my 78, I should add pro-abortion to the liberal code. Liberals are consistent supporters of abortion on demand, except when running for election. Then they want abortion to be rare.

    DRJ (1dff03)

  88. Milhouse – in *your* view, Bush was a respectable person and Obama isn’t.

    No, I don’t accept that. It’s not just in my view that Bush is a respectable person; it’s an objective fact. The evidence is in the way he lives his life. It’s got nothing to do with his politics. Similarly it’s an objective fact that Clinton is a disreputable person’ this is simply beyond dispute. The evidence about 0bama is perhaps more ambiguous and subjective, but I despise him not for his political views but because I think he has demonstrated a long record of disreputable behaviour.

    In the view of a lot of people on the left, Obama is a respectable person and Bush wasn’t.

    Once again, they are entitled to their own opinions but not to their own facts. Anyone who claims Bush is not a respectable person is simply lying.

    How can you expect activists on the left to be respectful of people like Bush if you won’t be respectful of people like Obama?

    The same way I expect people to respect Norman Borlaug while I despise Andrew Wakefield. Masters and charlatans are not interchangeable, and nor are gentlemen and cads.

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  89. Yes, the left showed their “disrespect” in such unique ways, like Novels about assassinating him and Movies about assassinating him.

    I have never understood what was supposed to be wrong with these, or what even links them to the left, apart from a general assumption that novelists and filmmakers tend to be on the left. Does anyone know what the film makers’ politics actually are? Does anyone care? Is there any reason a right-winger would not have made the same movie?

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  90. Clinton was disbarred for lying under oath. The impeachment was a political mistake but that was a real question.

    I still don’t know whether it was; and even if it was, I don’t know whether that would have been an excuse not to do it. Was it not the House’s sacred duty, regardless of the political consequences? Should the current House impeach 0bama for his multiple, undoubtable offenses, even knowing that there is no chance that the Senate will convict him?

    Clinton, in case you forgot, made his cabinet members, not his PR staff, go out and lie on TV.

    And so did 0bama.

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  91. the Republicans who went along with Obama’s sleazy tactics of pushing through the secretive Asian trade bill several days ago

    Sorry, no matter how many times people say this it doesn’t get any truer. There is nothing secretive about the bill that passed. And there will be nothing secretive about any trade agreement that might, as a result, one day be put to Congress for approval. The state of negotiations on agreements currently in the works are, of course, secret until they are concluded, just as has been the case with every agreement the USA has ever negotiated since the days of George Washington.

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  92. They have different values than we do, Mark, and as a result they aren’t concerned whether Obama is bisexual or Clinton is monogamous.

    Who does care about those things? I certainly don’t. One needn’t go there to note that Clinton is very obviously a bad person, or that 0bama shows every sign of being one too.

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  93. And laud them when they do live up to their own morality, I presume? Or is that when they get condemned for not living up to conservative morality?

    There is only one morality. Not living up to a false morality is a virtue, not a vice.

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  94. They have different values than we do, Mark, and as a result they aren’t concerned whether Obama is bisexual or Clinton is monogamous.

    DRJ, perhaps because I use the adjective of “scroungy” to describe Obama and Clinton, you take that to mean I’m honing in on their personal peccadilloes. But that assumption, in effect, trivializes why I have such disdain for them and, in turn, why they’re really such disreputable characters.

    If anything, Obama’s homosexuality and Clinton’s philandering are almost quaint aspects of those 2 occupants of the White House when placed against the backdrop of the ideologically corrupt nature of Obama (his brazen disregard of the Constitution, his nurturing the ongoing sleaziness of the IRS, etc) and the absurdly sordid dishonesty of Clinton (to say the least), stretching that to include things like his probable rape of Juanita Broaddrick.

    Mark (e584c3)

  95. There is nothing secretive about the bill that passed.

    Milhouse, you’re going to have to do a lot better than that to make me think the trade bill is not just a cynically non-transparent game, but that it will be merely another illustration of the concept behind “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

    washingtonpost.com, April 23, 2015: The Financial Times sums up the debate, “But what, precisely, is the Trans-Pacific Partnership? To some, it is the ‘gold standard’ of trade deals…. To opponents, the TPP is a ‘giant corporate power grab’ that would endanger food safety, access to medicines and national sovereignty.”

    The TPP is very large and broad. Think of it like an omnibus bill in Congress, where a bunch of the treaty’s drafters get to toss in pork to keep their constituencies happy. No one is completely happy when an omnibus bill is passed. Same deal here.

    The TPP covers so many different industries, that few people remain who aren’t worried about what the final treaty may contain. Many of the complaints leveled against the Trans-Pacific Partnership are the same that were made against NAFTA 20 years ago. As Matt Stoller pointed out in 2012,

    NAFTA-style agreements have provisions that constrain domestic food safety, environmental and health regulations, shield foreign investment capital from domestic laws, and generally transfer sovereignty from the government to the corporate sector. Consequences of these kinds of trade agreements include offshoring of U.S. manufacturing and service-sector jobs, inexpensive imported products, expanded global reach of U.S. multinationals, and less bargaining leverage for labor. The debate over this direction in trade policy was particularly acute in the early 1990s, and NAFTA serves as an effective symbol of agreements that follow the basic model.

    A belief that most Americans will not benefit from this trade agreement is one of the biggest arguments against the TPP. A recent study from the liberal-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research predicts that 90 percent of workers in the United States would see a decrease in real wages under the TPP. CEPR also asserts that cumulative GDP gains in the United States won’t be much more than 0.13 percent by 2025 — not much more than a rounding error.

    …The fact that few people know exactly what’s in the TPP hasn’t helped resolve these worries. Not only are many of these aspects of the trade agreement touchy subjects, they’ve mostly been kept hush hush. Trade agreements are usually secretive processes — no one wants to endanger a long and political ordeal by bringing more voices with just as many opinions into negotiations. Around 600 corporations with stakes in the talks have seen draft text, as have a few labor unions. Congress and the public have not, except for the few chapters released by Wikileaks online last year.

    The secrecy of the negotiations has many legislators miffed. Sens. Warren and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) have been particularly outspoken about how little we’ve been told about the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

    Congressional Republicans have been more supportive of the trade agreement process, but not all of them. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) was also displeased by the fact Congress was not kept in the loop with how the treaty process was unfolding. He released a statement after being barred from negotiations last July that read: The TPP process should be transparent and open to oversight, not a secretive backroom negotiation. TPP agreements impact multiple sectors of the American economy—especially our ability to innovate and create new intellectual property, as well as preserve an open Internet. Congress has a constitutional duty to oversee trade negotiations and not simply act as a rubber stamp to deals about which they were kept in the dark. While I had hoped the TPP would permit me to observe this round of the negotiation process firsthand, our efforts to open TPP negotiations up to transparency will continue.”

    Mark (e584c3)

  96. Mark, the act Congress passed was completely public; it extended for another six years the fast track authority that every president has had for the last few decades. It had nothing to do with any specific trade agreement that the president might negotiate, including the one that is being worked on now. Of course the current negotiations are secret; when have negotiations with foreign countries ever been held in public? Why would you expect them to be? And why would the House be kept up to date on it? It’s none of their business until and unless the president presents them with an agreement to vote on. When and if he does that, the agreement will of course be public, just like any bill that comes before Congress.

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  97. This is one of the stupider posts in the history of this blog. Will Patterico call President Cruz “PUS?” No, he will not. What are we, 10 years old?

    carlitos (c24ed5)

  98. one time this president of the united states came by my unlicensed taco truck and wanted to know if he could have the carne barata plate but substitute an extra taco for the tamale and I pointed at the sign what said NO SUBSTITUTIONS

    and he was all like “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM????”

    and I was like “mister you’re holding up the line you want the barata plate or not?”

    and he was like “um ok do you take Amex?”

    (We have a sign that clearly says that yes we take Amex. Effing idiot. But I didn’t say that out of respect for the office.)

    happyfeet (831175)

  99. When he first took office, I was hoping Community Organizer In The United States would become a meme. COITUS for short.

    malclave (4f3ec1)

  100. Patterico, respectfully, what I see happening is a cycle. The left was disrespectful to Reagan; the right was disrespectful to Clinton; the left was disrespectful to Bush; the right is disrespectful to Obama … and each round in the cycle the disrespect seems to get more vitriolic and nastier.

    The point to respect for the Presidency isn’t so much *the President*; it’s that by showing respect for the institution and its occupant, we keep a minimum level of civility that helps keep us from tearing each other apart.

    IMO at least.

    I think there is far too much fawning over the President (whoever it is) and indeed over anyone who is famous — and I am fine with anything that takes any of that down a peg and reminds us that Presidents (or actors or whoever) are just people.

    I don’t know that respect for the office of the Presidency is necessary to civility. I think it is possible to have contempt for what our government and that office have become and still be civil.

    Patterico (3cc0c1)

  101. And why would the House be kept up to date on it? It’s none of their business until and unless the president presents them with an agreement to vote on.

    Milhouse, your response makes me want to say “and if someone — rooted in tradition and supposed credibility — told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?”

    Mark (710c48)

  102. Insulting politicians (and kings and dictators) has gone on since politicians, Kings and dictators began. It isn’t wrong but it can be perilous.

    DRJ (1dff03)

  103. Note the Chicago Times hated Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Journalists can be clueless in every era.

    DRJ (1dff03)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.1379 secs.