When Andrew Sullivan is useful
[Posted by Karl]
With a ridiculous cover headline — “Why Are Obama’s Critics So Dumb?” — I get why Ann Althouse (or anyone, really) would not want to bother with the latest from Andrew Sullivan, although he is likely not responsible for that headline. The article is not an ad hominem attack of Obama’s critics, but a centralized compilation of his various apologies for the President. Insofar as his defenses parallel the likely narrative of Obama’s reelect campaign, it’s worth looking at his takes on criticism of Obama from the right (Sullivan also addresses criticism from the left, which won’t play much role in the campaign) on major issues:
Jobs. Sullivan begins — as Team Obama almost certainly will — with Obama inheriting a terrible economy, writing that “[n]o fair person can blame Obama for the wreckage of the [first] 12 months, as the financial crisis cut a swath through employment.” Yet shortly thereafter, he writes:
Since [the beginning of 2010], the U.S. has added 2.4 million jobs. That’s not enough, but it’s far better than what Romney would have you believe, and more than the net jobs created under the entire Bush administration.
Sullivan is comparing Obama’s gross job creation to Bush’s net job creation, ignoring that Bush also inherited a recession resulting from the collapse of the tech bubble. By Sullivan’s own standard, this is unfair.
By the standard of net jobs created, Obama remains underwater and will be lucky to get to zero net jobs created by the end of his term. Conversely, if we simply judge Obama by the recovery, the results are terrible when compared to past recoveries. Nearly a million people have dropped out of the labor force, dropping the participation rate to an historic low, implying an unemployment rate close to 11%, instead of the official 8.5%.
Stimulus. Sullivan’s faulty frame on jobs is necessary to his defense of Obama’s economic stimulus law:
The job collapse bottomed out at the beginning of 2010, as the stimulus took effect. ***
The right claims the stimulus failed because it didn’t bring unemployment down to 8 percent in its first year, as predicted by Obama’s transition economic team. Instead, it peaked at 10.2 percent. But the 8 percent prediction was made before Obama took office and was wrong solely because it relied on statistics that guessed the economy was only shrinking by around 4 percent, not 9. Remove that statistical miscalculation (made by government and private-sector economists alike) and the stimulus did exactly what it was supposed to do. It put a bottom under the free fall. It is not an exaggeration to say it prevented a spiral downward that could have led to the Second Great Depression.
The argument here is that the people who completely misjudged the state of the economy in late 2008 nevertheless got the right solution, which worked in the predicted magnitude. Peter Suderman has schooled Sullivan on the “garbage-in, garbage out” quality of his argument — and Sullivan has recognized it as a valid point, but apparently it’s invalid in an election year.
For the more visually oriented, take a look the now-familiar graph comparing the Romer-Bernstein prediction of unemployment with and without passing the stimulus, and the actual unemployment figures. Sullivan concedes the Obama team’s error of magnitude, so notice two other features of the graph. First, note that Team Obama predicted that passing the stimulus would start bringing down unemployment almost immediately. Second, compare the curves of the various lines. The actual results look much more like the curve of the line traced by the “without stimulus” prediction than the “with stimulus” prediction line. The sloping decline starting in late 2009 predicted by Romer and Bernstein simply isn’t to be seen in the actual results.
Finally, as Megan McArdle — a stimulus backer — has noted, the stimulus law did not stave off another Great Depression. If you want to credit a government program for that, TARP would be the candidate. If you want to credit quasi-governmental action, try the Fed’s quantitative easing.
Taxes. Sullivan writes:
You’d think, listening to the Republican debates, that Obama has raised taxes. Again, this is not true. Not only did he agree not to sunset the Bush tax cuts for his entire first term, he has aggressively lowered taxes on most Americans. A third of the stimulus was tax cuts, affecting 95 percent of taxpayers; he has cut the payroll tax, and recently had to fight to keep it cut against Republican opposition.
Obama’s signature healthcare law raises $813 billion from 2012 to 2021. Almost half of the “stimulus tax cuts” were actually spending. The House GOP voted for a year-long extension of the payroll tax cut, while Obama demanded an unworkable short-term cut to be offset by… a tax increase.
And it’s not like Obama is averse to raising taxes. He scotched a debt ceiling deal because the GOP offer of $800 billion more in revenue was just not enough for him. Obama also pushed a cap-and-tax system for carbon emissions that would have cost the average household in the bottom-income quintile about 3.3% of its after-tax income every year. So when Sullivan talks about Obama not raising taxes, that is in large part because his plans were too extreme for Congress, even when both houses were controlled by Democrats.
Spending. Sullivan argues “[y]ou could easily make the case that Obama has been far more fiscally conservative than his predecessor,” claiming:
Under Bush, new policies on taxes and spending cost the taxpayer a total of $5.07 trillion. Under Obama’s budgets both past and projected, he will have added $1.4 trillion in two terms.
These numbers are taken from a tendentious graphic published by the New York Times, based in part on data from the lefty Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. There are other ways to look at the data, but in Sullivan’s accounting, Bush gets charged with his tax cuts, but Obama does not, even though — as Sullivan notes — Obama supported renewing them. Obama does not get charged with the Afghan war, although he backed it and even launched a “surge” there. Obama does not get charged with TARP, although he voted for it as a Senator and expanded it as president. He does not get charged with the Medicare drug benefit, although he has not proposed its repeal and is in fact increasing its cost under Obamacare. And while we’re on the subject…
Obamacare. Sullivan writes:
The great conservative bugaboo, Obamacare, is also far more moderate than its critics have claimed. The Congressional Budget Office has projected it will reduce the deficit, not increase it dramatically, as Bush’s unfunded Medicare Prescription Drug benefit did. ***
Yes, it crosses the Rubicon of universal access to private health care. But since federal law mandates that hospitals accept all emergency-room cases requiring treatment anyway, we already obey that socialist principle—but in the most inefficient way possible. Making 44 million current free-riders pay into the system is not fiscally reckless; it is fiscally prudent. It is, dare I say it, conservative.
Obamacare is “moderate” in the sense that it is one percent from a complete government takeover of the health insurance system. Democrats gamed the CBO to get a deficit-reducing score. The CBO’s alternative baseline — the one most consider the more realistic baseline — does not think the savings will materialize. And it’s funny Sullivan should mention the federal mandate on emergency-room care, as it is a driver of the so-called free rider problem, which is largely mythical.
Foreign policy. Sullivan focuses on the least controversial aspect of Obama’s record, claiming “Obama reversed Bush’s policy of ignoring Osama bin Laden, immediately setting a course that eventually led to his capture and death.” In reality, the key info to finding bin Laden was gathered from Operation Cannonball, launched during the Bush administration. Sullivan also claims:
[W]here Bush talked tough and acted counterproductively, Obama has simply, quietly, relentlessly decimated our real enemies, while winning the broader propaganda war. Since he took office, al Qaeda’s popularity in the Muslim world has plummeted.
Confidence in al Qaeda was declining for years in the Muslim world before Obama took office. Then again, confidence in Obama has declined in the Muslim world from 2009-11 (the most recent Pew Global attitudes poll). The latter was one of Sullivan’s arguments for electing Obama in the first place. Sullivan also argued that Obama could reduce the polarization in Washington. Obama started poisoning that well three days into his presidency, becoming one of the most polarizing presidents in modern history.
In short, Obama’s critics on the right are not “dumb” as Newsweek would have it. Nor are they “empirically wrong” as Sullivan would have it. Sullivan tips over into the increasingly familiar tactic of pretending political debates are simply resolved questions of fact. Given Obama’s lousy numbers on most issues entering this election year, he will need better arguments and a better economy to play the “long game” Sullivan thinks is being played.
–Karl
You know what would be interesting, Karl? Asking Mr. Sullivan to comment on BHO’s lack of support for gay marriage.
In fact, imagine a world where the President was straightforward about opposing gay marriage.
Where do you think Mr. Sullivan’s politics would be then on all of these issues? I think we both know the answer.
Mr. Sullivan is a cheerleader, not an analyst.
Simon Jester (9d3a20) — 1/17/2012 @ 7:49 amSullivan wants to focus attention on the trees when voters are going to look at the forest (the overall economy). If voters view the forest as being in bad shape, Obama is going to lose*. To the extent they look at the individual trees (Obamacare, stimulus, etc.), their view of those trees is going to be influenced by their view of the overall forest (if they think the forest is in bad shape, their view will be that there is something wrong with the individual trees). It stands to reason: if the forest is in bad shape, the trees are in bad shape and don’t try to tell me they aren’t.
Because of this, the public won’t bother to get into the nitty-gritty that Sullivan (and you) get into… too much effort for them (remember, they’re unengaged).
One final thought: as to Obama’s ‘it could have been worse’, where does that ever work? A football coach is hired and three years later the win-loss still stinks and he claims it could have been even worse? He gets fired. A CEO is hired and three years later the business is still in the toilet and he takes credit for the business not being bankrupt? He gets fired. America doesn’t reward people for not making things worse… we expect life to get better and if someone doesn’t deliver – and soon, we want someone else.
* the exception being if he can demonize his opponent (one reason I like Romney is that I think he is the one who will be hardest to demonize among the mushy middle).
steve (369bc6) — 1/17/2012 @ 7:54 amAndrew Sullivan is an idiot.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/17/2012 @ 7:54 amNewsweek was going easy on conservatives. The headline that was rejected was:
Why are Obama’s critics so evil?
AZ Bob (7dbcdc) — 1/17/2012 @ 8:01 amsteve,
Agree with most of your comment, although Romney (if nominated) will be demonized as a Wall Streeter in a year where that’s a particulalrly bad look.
Karl (5a613f) — 1/17/2012 @ 8:07 amBTW, if I agree that swing voters won’t get this detailed, why did I get this detailed? Because while most folks right of center simply dismiss Sullivan, his arguments here deserve a rebuttal for the permanent record of the Internet.
Karl (5a613f) — 1/17/2012 @ 8:09 amMilky loads obscures the real picture.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/17/2012 @ 8:18 amFair enough on #6
As to Romney getting demonized, if I had to pick my poison, I’d rather have to deal with the Bain issue than with the baggage of the others.
Remember, it’s not Wall Street per se that gets voters upset, it’s the double perception that their actions led to the crash and they got bonuses after being bailed out. Neither applies to Bain/Romney. Presumably Romney’s team will get their act together and give Romney some talking points before the general campaign starts. And just how is Obama going to attack? With videos of people who allegedly lost their jobs under Bain? Obama can’t win that fight, Romney can and should counter with videos of the millions more people who lost their jobs under Obama.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to have to try and convince the mushy middle that Santorum and Perry aren’t going to drag them all off to church and watch what they do in their bedrooms. Or that Gingrich isn’t unstable and would launch the missiles because someone didn’t show him enough respect. Or that Paul wouldn’t blow everything and everybody up pursuing his philosophy.
steve (369bc6) — 1/17/2012 @ 8:21 amWhy are Obama’s critics so
evilracist?Fixed it for
BfC (2ebea6) — 1/17/2012 @ 8:22 amyouNewsweek.If Marxism has a black face, it’s racist to oppose it. Now, is this a great country, or what?
ropelight (41e0e4) — 1/17/2012 @ 8:25 amIf Marxism has a Belgian face your a um wait is it racist t be against belgians?
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/17/2012 @ 8:28 amBain Capital or Das Capital
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/17/2012 @ 8:38 amKapital
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/17/2012 @ 8:39 amWhich Belgian to hate? There is a Socialist face there.
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/2433
BfC (2ebea6) — 1/17/2012 @ 8:43 amto*
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/17/2012 @ 8:47 am____________________________________________
Newsweek’s value is about as high as the amount paid for it not long ago by its current owner: $1.00.
I recall even back in the days when printed material still was king, when it still was quite mainstream and competitive, that Newsweek always seemed like a non-essential knock-off of Time magazine. Nowadays? Even more so that way, far more so. And I’d sense that even if I liked the political slant of Newsweek.
Mark (411533) — 1/17/2012 @ 8:49 amNewsweek has about as much use as an Iranian hooker on an brooklyn street corner.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/17/2012 @ 8:51 amNo, Sullivan is not useful, and let’s use the most obvious example;
https://twitter.com/#!/SarahPalinUSA/status/159160957795450881
narciso (87e966) — 1/17/2012 @ 8:51 am________________________________________________
America doesn’t reward people for not making things worse
You have to qualify that observation by excluding the many urban areas throughout the United States — or various rock-ribbed blue states — where regardless of how bad they’ve been and how bad they’ve become (Hello, city of Detroit!), most of the people in such communities close their eyes and vote blindly for anyone or anything that smacks of liberalism. In that regard, such voters are similar to quite a few folks in places like Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico.
Mark (411533) — 1/17/2012 @ 8:56 amMark: true, but those aren’t the regions/people who are up for grabs and whose votes will be the difference this November.
steve (369bc6) — 1/17/2012 @ 9:00 amSullivan is a demented assclown.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/17/2012 @ 9:02 amThe great conservative bugaboo, Obamacare, is also far more moderate than its critics have claimed. The Congressional Budget Office has projected it will reduce the deficit, not increase it dramatically, as Bush’s unfunded Medicare Prescription Drug benefit did. ***
Not to mention the insurance we will all be forced to buy will be more expensive due to all the mandated coverages.
MayBee (081489) — 1/17/2012 @ 9:12 amSo Sullivan can say Obama hasn’t increased taxes, but if the administration defends the Constitutionality of the mandate by calling it a tax, then Sullivan will have to acknowledge that insurance premium increases are tax increases.
16. I wonder what the actual paid circulation is for this house organ rag of the democrats. Didn’t magazines used to have figures in each issue breaking down subscriptions, newsstands sales, etc.? I had a free subscription that recently expired and all it says is a 1 year subscription is $41.08. The mailed copy doesn’t even have a price on the cover. How many people read it and accept all the opinion as gospel truth? As if I’d believe anything contributor Paul Begala has to say. Of course they favor the Chrissie Matthews school objectvity- JFK and Obama are Gods to be fawned over. And Hillary is somehow the most popular politician in the country? based on what? I agree she’d be better than Obama, but remains a lying sack of shite, going back to Whitewater days or flying over Bosnia, etc. And now we hear that Michelle o will run for Senate in ’06? Don’t tell me where, Illinois?
[note: released from moderation. –Stashiu]
Calypso Louie Farrakhan (0a0939) — 1/17/2012 @ 9:15 amjust the Obama gross job ‘creation’ compared to the Bush net is ridiculous. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a liberal trying *that* hard to save Obama from his record.
They must really take the stupidity of the reader for granted at Newsweek.
Also, if we had a real press, America would realize that the OBL triumph resulted from OIF, resulting in a lot of egg on the faces of certain pundits. We also would discuss just how poorly this triumph was handled. It proves that our SEALs are amazing and our president is not.
Dustin (7362cd) — 1/17/2012 @ 9:15 amWell it arose from skillful mining of intelligence from Gitmo (Quahtani among others) and the TSP, both things the Times crusaded against,
narciso (87e966) — 1/17/2012 @ 9:17 amAnd come on. Fast and Furious. How Obama has more than 5% approval after that is a testament to how dumb his non-critics are.
Dustin (7362cd) — 1/17/2012 @ 9:20 amHow long before Bloomberg raises the minimum wage to $900,000?
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/17/2012 @ 9:20 amBut, Dustin, the pundits have to play Psychological Twister on this subject. If they didn’t, they would be revealed at having been played by a golf-playing bored Chicago pol dispensing favors like cabbages in a medieval square.
And the pundits are smart. Just ask them!
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 1/17/2012 @ 9:25 amYeah… they are especially smart when it’s time to ask the hard questions such as ‘who is Trig Palin’s mother?’ and ‘just what was in Sarah Palin’s womb when Trig was in utero?’ 🙂
I admit, if I was capable of plausibly playing sophist in Obama’s defense, I’d feel quite brilliant for that amazing feat. Too bad I’ve yet to see the Obama apologist who does a passable job.
Dustin (7362cd) — 1/17/2012 @ 9:28 amDon’t worry, Dustin. When pressed, they will just trot out things from Ron Paul’s newsletter as justification for smart people having wacky ideas.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 1/17/2012 @ 9:30 amOf course, needless to say, Obama is a longtime reader of Sullivan, in fact relying on one of his notions, about no torture during the Second World War, that was debunked by none other than Journolister Ben Smith.
narciso (87e966) — 1/17/2012 @ 9:33 amRomney is the only candidate with the competence to lead/run this country. Debating skills and bombast are not what the job requires.
bio mom (a1e126) — 1/17/2012 @ 9:36 amI looked for the cache, because Politico is often viral;
4.6.238.254/search/srpcache?ei=UTF-8&p=Ben+Smith%3B+Churchill&fr=moz35&u=http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=Ben+Smith%3b+Churchill&d=4991478254868038&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=29f0f5b3,fa26e653&icp=1&.intl=us&sig=WrQCEg.E4wB0fLvWoEI.bQ–
narciso (87e966) — 1/17/2012 @ 9:37 amA reader points out, though, that that’s a seriously contested claim. The Guardian published an article in 2005 the alleged torture of German prisoners in the “London Cage” between 1940 and 1948.
The paper described the facility as a “torture centre” and quotes one detainee — an SS officer — alleging “that he was doused in cold water, pushed down stairs, and beaten with a cudgel. Later, he says, he was forced to stand beside a large gas stove with all its rings lit before being confined in a shower which sprayed extremely cold water from the sides as well as from above. Finally, the SS man says, he and another prisoner were taken into the gardens behind the mansions, where they were forced to run in circles while carrying heavy logs.”
narciso (87e966) — 1/17/2012 @ 9:39 amYeah, narc. Obama was basing fake-factual presentations on Andrew’s assertions at the same time Andrew was on a hunt for Trig’s real mother. And yet, Obama had the audacity to whine that questions about his birth certificate were racially motivated.
MayBee (081489) — 1/17/2012 @ 9:57 amMayBee, what else has the guy got? The press has carefully prepared Teh Narrative™ that any disagreement is at heart racist.
Why, now pundits are trying to claim that Glenn Reynolds used “racist language” about Obama’s picture. It didn’t matter that Reynolds used the language in reference to a similarity to Jimmy Carter.
Teh Narrative™ rules. So no wonder the guy runs to it.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 1/17/2012 @ 9:59 amWhen you have the wrong premise, you often come to the wrong conclusions, Biden in particular sold the stimulus based on that premise, of 8% < unemployment
narciso (87e966) — 1/17/2012 @ 10:01 amsteve (8),
The SoCon thing is more an issue for Santorum than Perry, but Reagan was more socially conservative for his time than either of the Ricks is for this one. I question how many true Indies buy attacks on SoCons, given the abysmal failure of the SoCon agenda since at least 1980, and arguably since 1968.
Karl (f07e38) — 1/17/2012 @ 10:04 amThis was linked on an earlier thread, showing Sullivan’d cluelessness
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2009/04/not-a-lawyer-or-even-a-clear-thinker.html
narciso (87e966) — 1/17/2012 @ 10:08 amSullivan has completed rewritten history here. Obama didn’t promise the stimulus would “bring unemployment down to 8 percent”, he explicitly claimed it would prevent unemployment from ever reaching 8 percent. For crying out loud, look at the damn graph.
BlueOx (f7a330) — 1/17/2012 @ 10:08 amKarl, my memory of the run up to 1980 was that many, many people tried to paint Reagan as being fundamentalist, either in a positive or negative way. And yet he supported a few, um, non-conservative things as governor of California.
I wonder if today’s pundits would call that flip-flopping? Probably.
I just think that memory sculpts reality sometimes.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 1/17/2012 @ 10:09 amBlueOx- good point. Also, that transition team became the real team, IIRC. Unless we are going to pretend they’re all gone now because they were part of the “transition”, as opposed to the fact that the Obama WH has had a lot of turnover.
MayBee (081489) — 1/17/2012 @ 10:24 amSullivan is too clever by half, like that tool Syme, who ended up denounced by his family
narciso (87e966) — 1/17/2012 @ 10:27 amA whole dollar?
Somebody got ripped.
mojo (8096f2) — 1/17/2012 @ 10:53 amAndrew Sullivan is as useful as Tina Fey………which means he ain’t.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/17/2012 @ 11:03 amWho is Syme?
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/17/2012 @ 11:03 amI mixed him up with another character;
Syme — Winston’s colleague at the Ministry of Truth, whom the Party “vaporised” because he remained a lucidly-thinking intellectual. He was a lexicographer who developed the language and the dictionary of Newspeak, in the course of which he enjoyed destroying words, and wholeheartedly believed that Newspeak would replace Oldspeak (Standard English) by the year AD 2050. Although Syme’s politically orthodox opinions aligned with Party doctrine, Winston noted that “He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly”. After noting that Syme’s name was deleted from the members list of the Chess Club, Winston infers he became an unperson who never existed.
narciso (87e966) — 1/17/2012 @ 11:07 amI love how coal is a bad thing………according to the ultra-leftys.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/17/2012 @ 11:09 amWhen Does Chuckles Johnson at LGF denounce Obama as a right-wing terrorist.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/17/2012 @ 11:10 amHow long before Coal is made illegal?
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/17/2012 @ 11:13 amLet me guess leftys our water is trying up because of climate change right?
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/17/2012 @ 11:26 amdrying*
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/17/2012 @ 11:26 amSullivan is useful only as a ‘teaching opportunity’
narciso (87e966) — 1/17/2012 @ 2:01 pmin what not to say,
Hey Your using children as pawns in your haatred of teh teachers union
/Leftys
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/17/2012 @ 2:11 pmPayroll Tax cuts=Good
Tax cuts for the rich=bad
Andrew Sullivan and his lickspittle are inconsistent in their class warfare.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/17/2012 @ 2:12 pmAnybody who disagrees with us is wrong and lying. I like coming to these types of boards to discuss the issues of the day with bobbleheads like you guys and gals.
righty righterson (88d25f) — 1/17/2012 @ 2:16 pmI think this may be like that idiot piece by Zakaria some months back,
narciso (87e966) — 1/17/2012 @ 2:18 pmI ‘spect this might become a dadgum big issue for Rick Perry’s campaign…
“Texas! why you do me like that!”
– Rick Perry
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/01/romney-dewhurst-lead-in-texas.html
Colonel Haiku (b486eb) — 1/17/2012 @ 2:21 pmhttp://biggovernment.com/jpollak/2012/01/16/why-is-andrew-sullivan-so-dumb/
narciso (87e966) — 1/17/2012 @ 2:37 pmColonel Haiku can never let go of his never-ending Perry derangement.
Andrew Sullivan is suffering from syphilis induced douschebaggery.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/17/2012 @ 2:43 pmNJ is devstated by tax cuts………..how dare they cut taxes.
/Libtards who probably don’t pay taxes.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/17/2012 @ 3:07 pmdevastated.
I have made a lot of spelling mistakes.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/17/2012 @ 3:11 pmOf course we can blame Obama for the economy. He was presented to us a the Great Healer, a Messiah who was going to fix everything… EVERYTHING… that was wrong in the world. He was “…kind of a god” who was going to HEAL the economy, free us from financial worry, and deliver us unto prosperity. He was The Great Uniter, who would end racism and class divides. A man of Superior Morals who would end war, strife and torture. The world was going to like us again. The seas were going to stop rising and pollution was going to vanish forever.
He was elected to fix… everything. Just because no mortal could possibly be all that was promised is no excuse. Obama was no mere mortal, and gods do not fail! He, it’s his fault
[note: released from moderation. –Stashiu]
Chuck Roast (941bbb) — 1/17/2012 @ 4:40 pmThis is the day that the oceans stopped rising.
JD (d5e24e) — 1/17/2012 @ 4:58 pmSully is a soiled, limey buttplug. He’s only here for the cheap weed.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/17/2012 @ 6:41 pm62. You have company, inbred conservative scrota lapper that you be.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/17/2012 @ 6:44 pmThe great conservative bugaboo, Obamacare, is also far more moderate than its critics have claimed. The Congressional Budget Office has projected it will reduce the deficit
Why in the hell should I ever trust CBO projections? How did that forecast work out?
Alan K. Henderson (6725b5) — 1/17/2012 @ 10:18 pmWhat? No Birther Section? I thought Sullivan would be all over that as it is apparently his favorite hobby with Palin.
LadyLiberty1885 (aa73b1) — 1/18/2012 @ 5:22 amDid you all catch this?
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/dear-andrew-sullivan-why-focus-on-obamas-dumbest-critics/251528/
The author used to work with Sullivan, and does not seem terrifically right wing.
He exposes some interesting truths.
Simon Jester (f225fb) — 1/18/2012 @ 5:46 amShorter version: it’s okay for Obama to do things that it is bad for Republicans to do.
Amazing.
Simon Jester (f225fb) — 1/18/2012 @ 5:47 amBrief moment of sanity passed;
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/01/17/the-atlantic-huntsman-flopped-because-rightwing-nutjob-media-or-something/
narciso (87e966) — 1/18/2012 @ 6:02 amGo to hell Gary.
At least I admit my mistakes.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/18/2012 @ 6:07 amCan we, as conservatives, cut to the chase here please? Obama knows Romney will turn the economy around and create jobs and he and his surrogates can’t tolerate that possibility. Romney, of all the candidates after the crap he’s taken, will be almost “possessed” to repeal Obamacare just on principle. Whether conservatives still holding out on the next George Washington candidate buy it or not, the Dems have already made up their minds that he will do it. He has said he will do it a hundred times. It is us on the Right that are holding him back. He’s never said anything different. They fear a governor who actually governed that has created jobs in the private sector and want desperately to face Newt or Rick Santorum who just voted or supported legislation withiout governing that they can caricature as extreme.
Dave B (982f20) — 1/18/2012 @ 6:13 amThey see what I see. A former Speaker forced to resign claiming “he” created” millions of jobs because he supported legislation of a standing President is just not believable. Neither are the claims of a Senator that supported or voted for legislation regardless of their true convictions. They never had to govern people that wanted something else yet applied their conservative principles to whatever was decided by others. Romney has.
Perhaps Perry has to some degree but Obama doesn’t fear him. I love all our candidates but come on! We’re comparing Romney with McCain? A career politician Senator against another career politician Senator with no record and charisma as opposed to an articulate governor with a vast businesss background? Now Obama has a record. He wants Newt in the worst way or better yet Rick Santorum or Ron Paul.
The DNC is telling us who they fear but we choose to cling to our hopes and aspirations of the next Ronald Reagan or George Washington to be our nominee despite the evidence. After all Romney is a “moderate Msssachusetts liberal” according to the way he is being portrayed despite his current stances on issues. We can pretend that this is true but but the Left surely isn’t. They know what they’re up against.
Sarah Palin was my candidate. She didn’t run. Her “non-endorsement” endorsement of Newt and her husband’s endorsement of Newt is meaningless at this point. Her experience of being an executive was important to me. She wants the “vetting” process to continue so that we have a stronger candidate but does she really? What if Romney is the stronger candidate as he has shown he has been?
As a person that voted for McCain in the last election ONLY because of Sarah Palin I ask if she will support Mitt Romney at some point? Ann Coulter, Nikki Haley, Christine O’Donnell, and others have supported him already. Not exactly “establishment” Republicans. Other governors support him. When are you going to get on board for the country?
You don’t like him and your “Sarah PAC”doesn’t like him. It’s obvious but it’starting to be counter-productive.
At some point your’re going to have to come to grips with the fact that people that love you also support Mitt Romney for other reasons. We don’t care about the amount of hours a candidate supports something as much as we care about where they stand on issues today.
Governor Palin you didn’t run when we wanted you to. So we looked elsewhere in this dire time, especially to someone that had executive experience. After all was said and done we decided on Mitt Romney. Please don’t insult us by endorsing but not really endorsing another candidate with no executive experience. He’s a time bomb waiting to go off just before election day. I, for one, have a hard time squaring away your passion for Reagan conservatiism without recognizing what Romney is telling you he is going to do if elected and supporting him now. You don’t have to like or support him but please don’t damage him in the general election like you’re doing. You haven’t given him a single compliment on his stances in this entire primary and it has not gone unnoticed by those of us that counted on you to run but had to go elsewhere and who, for the record, never said an unkind word about you.
IF Romney wins and continues Obamacare don’t whine.
Romney paying less taxes does not mean he will take it easy on the millionaires there is such a thing as a tax and spend hypocrite.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/18/2012 @ 6:23 am72. Too late. TEAs, the antiAmerikkkan heartless stingy god infested terroristic bomb throwing dashers of babies heads are freaked ’cause the stupid Wasilla populist thinks Romany hasn’t a pure bloodline.
Listen to Rove, walk to the light, darlings.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/18/2012 @ 6:39 amhttp://biggovernment.com/tloudon/2012/01/18/kyrsten-sinema-communist-connected-arizona-state-senator-to-run-for-congress/
narciso (87e966) — 1/18/2012 @ 6:41 am73. “Her “non-endorsement” endorsement of Newt and her husband’s endorsement of Newt is meaningless at this point.”
I wrote a 23 page paper once for a course titled “The Call”.
Now I am mortified and embarrassed to find I had neither plumbed, nay, even glimpsed from afar, Meaninglessness. What a wasted life I’ve led.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/18/2012 @ 7:11 amAndrew Sullivan is the same idiot who said Israel’s hatred of Palestine is born out of the fact that their anti-muslim bigots when they are just defending themselves.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/18/2012 @ 3:14 pmI must have been absent the day Andrew Sullivan did something useful.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/18/2012 @ 6:04 pmhttp://dailycaller.com/2012/01/19/exclusive-100-tea-party-leaders-to-announce-support-for-newt/
Meaningless.
gary gulrud (1de2db) — 1/19/2012 @ 8:33 amKarl, this is a magnificent banquet of a post — feeding the world’s largest troll.
Don’t feed the troll.
Beldar (0da9e7) — 1/19/2012 @ 9:57 pmAnybody who disagrees with us is wrong and lying. I like coming to these types of boards to discuss the issues of the day with bobbleheads like you guys and gals.
Comment by righty righterson — 1/17/2012 @ 2:16 pm
— Thanks for driving by!
Icy (d7eedf) — 1/20/2012 @ 12:11 amWhat a wasted life I’ve led.
— You betcha.
Icy (d7eedf) — 1/20/2012 @ 12:14 amSullivan is as useful as muscle atrophy.
DohBidensSockpuppet (ef98f0) — 1/20/2012 @ 11:18 amDamn.
DohBiden (ef98f0) — 1/20/2012 @ 11:18 am