Showing posts with label Hillary Clinton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hillary Clinton. Show all posts
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Just who the hell is Julie Bosman, anyway?
Good question.
Until a few minutes ago, I thought she was just the hack who cobbled together this vapid and venal piece in the NYT:
Barf.
But there's more to the story. Turns out she's an Evil Troll.
Until a few minutes ago, I thought she was just the hack who cobbled together this vapid and venal piece in the NYT:
JUNCTION CITY, Ore. — On the day Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was endorsed by the governor of North Carolina, a supporter gave her a three-foot-long balloon replica of herself, complete with blond hair, black pantsuit and wide pink smile, which Mrs. Clinton promptly took on her plane and laughingly showed off to reporters.
On Thursday, little more than two weeks later, the doll lay on the sofa by her seat on the plane, shriveled and deflated.
Barf.
But there's more to the story. Turns out she's an Evil Troll.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Life is short, campaigns are long, and Hillary Clinton is an Alpha dog
At least he didn't call her an Alpha bitch, though technically bitch would have been more accurate if we were really talking about the furry four-legged woofy creatures.
David Brooks has clearly been watching too much Cesar Milan. To wit:
I'm thinking Brooks is the one with the masculinity gap here.
Assertion? Since when did that become a bad thing in a President? Combat? Stephanopouplos is the one who who, out of the blue, launches the unprovoked aggression, suddenly hardening his voice with his questions on the gas tax. Up to that point, Clinton had been speaking calmly and rationally and knowledgably, with just the amount of animation you would expect to see in a person who believes in what they're saying. She changers her demeanor just enough to signal that she's not going to be bullied, but otherwise treats her interlocutor with the same patience that a true alpha dog would show to an upstart pup in a similar situation, so I guess maybe Brooks was right about the alpha part of it.
Domination, on the other hand, I don't think he's a got clue about. It's not my cup of tea, but I could probably set him up with somebody....
Loomed? Over Stephanopoulos? No. Stephanopoulos has just turned the floor over to questions from the audience, and the first questioner --- with a politley worded but nonetheless hostile question --- is standing at a microphone that's been placed towards the back of the room and just to one side of the center aisle . To better talk to this person, Clinton stands up, and stays on her feet when she addresses the wider audience, elaborating on her point.
Stephanopoulos remains seated during her answer, and when he asks his next question, but Clinton is on a roll now. Still standing she turns and answers him directly, then turns back to address the audience, just as she had with the question before. No elbows were involved.
Brooks then goes on --- and really at this point nothing but the most outrageous snark is called for so I'll just paraphrase since I'm all out of snarkery at the moment --- he goes to call her a liar, and a shameless one at that, apparently because she refuses to back down on her proposed gas tax holiday when Stephanopoulos informs her that Every Economist in the Country knows It Won't Work. Not even Paul Krugman thinks it will Do Any Good.
Sure there's plenty of debate over what it would do, but nobody's proven that a tax holiday will be bad, or even neutral. Branding her a liar just because she's got an opinion that doesn't agree with the media-preferred wonks is about as dishonets as they come. When is somebody going to put a leash and muzzle on this Brooks dude?
The rest of Brooks' column is here.
The videos [all 5 of them] of the entire show are here.
I give you the first video here because it's the only one I've watched so far, and judging by what Brooks wrote, it's probably the only one he watched too.
David Brooks has clearly been watching too much Cesar Milan. To wit:
Hillary Clinton went on “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” incarnating her role as the first Democratic Rambo. The Clinton campaign seems to want to reduce the entire race to one element: the supposed masculinity gap. And so everything she does is all about assertion, combat and Alpha dog dominance.
I'm thinking Brooks is the one with the masculinity gap here.
Assertion? Since when did that become a bad thing in a President? Combat? Stephanopouplos is the one who who, out of the blue, launches the unprovoked aggression, suddenly hardening his voice with his questions on the gas tax. Up to that point, Clinton had been speaking calmly and rationally and knowledgably, with just the amount of animation you would expect to see in a person who believes in what they're saying. She changers her demeanor just enough to signal that she's not going to be bullied, but otherwise treats her interlocutor with the same patience that a true alpha dog would show to an upstart pup in a similar situation, so I guess maybe Brooks was right about the alpha part of it.
Domination, on the other hand, I don't think he's a got clue about. It's not my cup of tea, but I could probably set him up with somebody....
A few questions in, Clinton rose from her chair and loomed over Stephanopoulos. The country hasn’t seen such a brazen display of attempted middle-aged physical intimidation since Al Gore took a walkabout on the debate stage with George Bush. It was like watching someone get elbowed in a dark alley by their homeroom teacher.
Loomed? Over Stephanopoulos? No. Stephanopoulos has just turned the floor over to questions from the audience, and the first questioner --- with a politley worded but nonetheless hostile question --- is standing at a microphone that's been placed towards the back of the room and just to one side of the center aisle . To better talk to this person, Clinton stands up, and stays on her feet when she addresses the wider audience, elaborating on her point.
Stephanopoulos remains seated during her answer, and when he asks his next question, but Clinton is on a roll now. Still standing she turns and answers him directly, then turns back to address the audience, just as she had with the question before. No elbows were involved.
Brooks then goes on --- and really at this point nothing but the most outrageous snark is called for so I'll just paraphrase since I'm all out of snarkery at the moment --- he goes to call her a liar, and a shameless one at that, apparently because she refuses to back down on her proposed gas tax holiday when Stephanopoulos informs her that Every Economist in the Country knows It Won't Work. Not even Paul Krugman thinks it will Do Any Good.
Sure there's plenty of debate over what it would do, but nobody's proven that a tax holiday will be bad, or even neutral. Branding her a liar just because she's got an opinion that doesn't agree with the media-preferred wonks is about as dishonets as they come. When is somebody going to put a leash and muzzle on this Brooks dude?
The rest of Brooks' column is here.
The videos [all 5 of them] of the entire show are here.
I give you the first video here because it's the only one I've watched so far, and judging by what Brooks wrote, it's probably the only one he watched too.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Dereliction of duty
It's a serious charge that Joe Wilson --- yes, that Joe Wilson, Mr Valerie Plame --- levels against Barack Obama.
Senator Obama, as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations committee and chairman of the subcommittee responsible for NATO and Europe, could have, and should have, been conducting hearings and other oversight actions on the Bush administration's handling of the war Afghanistan. Did he?
You can read the rest of it here.
That just decided it for me. If for some goofy reason, and don't count us out of the running for goofy, Florida should hold another primary, I was leaning toward voting for Hillary simply on identity politics alone. That "iron my shirt!" really got to me.
They're both still Republicans if you ask me, and very similar to each other [and different from me] on the issues I care about, but now I have more reasons to vote for Hillary: she was just as busy as he was, running for President and all that jazz, but she made time to look out for the environment, and he couldn't be bothered, not even once, to check on a war.
As an antiwar treehugger, I've just found my line in the sand.
Update 3-4-2008:
Okay, I'll back up somewhat on this. There are some good arguments here both for and against expecting Obama to have taken a greater leadership role on Afghanistan than he has done since his election to the Senate. So, it's not out of line for him not to have done more [since the subcommittee he chairs traditionally hasn't been all that active on Afghanistan in recent years] but he had opportunities to roll up his sleeves, get to to work, and get involved in some important areas of foreign affairs, but appears to have passed them up.
Not a big deal if you're just a freshman Senator, but not a good choice if you're planning to become President shortly.
Senator Obama, as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations committee and chairman of the subcommittee responsible for NATO and Europe, could have, and should have, been conducting hearings and other oversight actions on the Bush administration's handling of the war Afghanistan. Did he?
But, instead, Obama, by his own admission, offers the excuse that he has been too busy running for president to do anything substantive, such as direct his staff to organize a single hearing. "Well, first of all," Obama was forced to confess in the Democratic debate in Ohio on February 26, "I became chairman of this committee at the beginning of this campaign, at the beginning of 2007. So it is true that we haven't had oversight hearings on Afghanistan." To date, his subcommittee has held no policy hearings at all -- none. At the same time that Obama claimed he was too busy campaigning to do anything substantive, racking up one of the worst attendance records in the Senate, Senator Clinton chaired extensive hearings of the Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health and attended many others as a member of the Armed Service Committee.
You can read the rest of it here.
That just decided it for me. If for some goofy reason, and don't count us out of the running for goofy, Florida should hold another primary, I was leaning toward voting for Hillary simply on identity politics alone. That "iron my shirt!" really got to me.
They're both still Republicans if you ask me, and very similar to each other [and different from me] on the issues I care about, but now I have more reasons to vote for Hillary: she was just as busy as he was, running for President and all that jazz, but she made time to look out for the environment, and he couldn't be bothered, not even once, to check on a war.
As an antiwar treehugger, I've just found my line in the sand.
Update 3-4-2008:
Okay, I'll back up somewhat on this. There are some good arguments here both for and against expecting Obama to have taken a greater leadership role on Afghanistan than he has done since his election to the Senate. So, it's not out of line for him not to have done more [since the subcommittee he chairs traditionally hasn't been all that active on Afghanistan in recent years] but he had opportunities to roll up his sleeves, get to to work, and get involved in some important areas of foreign affairs, but appears to have passed them up.
Not a big deal if you're just a freshman Senator, but not a good choice if you're planning to become President shortly.
Monday, October 08, 2007
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