Kristol plays the Marx card
By Steve Benen Sunday Apr 13, 2008 5:15pm
The right seems to take inordinate pleasure in red-baiting Democrats, and today, the New York Times' Bill Kristol joins the parade.
I haven't read much Karl Marx since the early 1980s, when I taught political philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. Still, it didn't take me long this weekend to find my copy of "The Marx-Engels Reader".... My occasion for spending a little time once again with the old Communist was Barack Obama's now-famous comment at an April 6 San Francisco fund-raiser. Obama was explaining his trouble winning over small-town, working-class voters: "It's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
This sent me to Marx's famous statement about religion in the introduction to his "Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right": "Religious suffering is at the same time an expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of a soulless condition. It is the opium of the people."
I don't expect much in the way of intellectual seriousness from Kristol, but if he wants to understand how wrong he is, he might want to pick up his un-dog-eared copy of "The Marx-Engels Reader" again. Andrew Sullivan notes that the comparison doesn't make any sense.
UPDATE: (Nicole) Joe Lieberman sees nothing wrong with asking the question either. Figures. Gotta remember to send a big thank you card to Harry Reid for Lieberman's continued chairmanship.
Regardless, I'm as struck by the messenger as I am the message.
Kristol helps define elitism. He makes a considerable amount of money arguing in support of tax cuts for millionaires and military adventures that burden low-income families disproportionately. He's had every advantage in life, and now gets paid ridiculous sums to write regrettable items for the nation's most prestigious news outlet. Kristol probably visits small towns, only to tell his very wealthy friends about how "quaint" they are once he returns to the D.C. cocktail-party circuit and Fox News green room.
Kristol's most notable contribution to public policy came in a 1993 memo he wrote to congressional Republicans, explaining that they had to destroy any effort to pass a national healthcare bill, not because the policy was flawed, but because it would "give the Democrats a lock on the crucial middle-class vote and revive the reputation of the party." If tens of millions of Americans were left uninsured, so be it -- the goal, Kristol said, was to help the Republican Party, not those without insurance.
Barack Obama, meanwhile, used some clumsy language to describe a real phenomenon in struggling communities, where working-class families have fallen behind thanks to the policies embraced by Bill Kristol. Obama, whose faith is genuine, has, like Hillary Clinton, presented a policy agenda that might actually help these communities for a change.
Kristol concluded, "[W]hat has Barack Obama accomplished that entitles him to look down on his fellow Americans?" Oddly enough, I'm tempted to ask Kristol the same question.
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He was actually quoting Groucho. He just doesn't understand there are sunni and shia, Groucho and Karl. Potatoe and Dan Quaalude.
First he is a muslim terrorist, then Obama is a christian radical, now he his a godless communist.
Whats next, Obama is Hindi?
He hasn't read Marx since the early 80s but apparently he enjoys reading comic books and Reader's Digest. How else to account for his childish and narrow vision of the world?
oldtree @ 1:
I wish he would quote Harpo instead.
It's common among wingers to call any philosophy that - like the New Testament - promotes sympathy with the unfortunate, 'socialism'. That's supposed to make us DFH's deny the public interest, like the right wing.
Hey, for the five minutes or so it took him to write his column today he seems to have taken a break from trying to get the United States to attack Iran.
c. atrox @ 3:
He probably got it from the national enquirer.
There's a lot of this going around. David Horowitz parroted this line on the radio today. One of the members of our local school board called our state teachers' union president a communist recently.
When ya got nothing else, fall back on the old chestnuts. Like, from 1952...
Kristol is the consumate bloodthirsty psuedo-intellectual.
The sad thing is that so many Americans are psuedo-brained, and fall for the turd blossoms that pass Kristols lips so effortlessly, especially the GOPer strain of the Americanus Ignoramus.
The end of his column is especially rich:
What, indeed? (Pay no attention to his heritage, his upbringing, his education, his community service, legal and teaching work.) And while we're on the subject, what has William Kristol accomplished that entitles him to look down on those who are actually in the public arena? What has he been right about that qualifies him to comment in the paper of record about anything?
This is rediculous. I had an argument with my republican parents the other night. It was over Iraq and how I thought there wasn't any money being invested back into the United States and how most people in this country don't know how to work on something that is bigger than themselves, or at least those were my talking points. When I asked/said that however many people Saddam killed or kept down, did it compare to the likely 500,000 dead Iraqis, over 1.5 million displaced, without clean water, sewer, and food and gasoline? And that I think we only went there to try and steal there oil because we couldn't "justify" having to pay Saddam for it. The said, "Well, we need oil!" My jaw just dropped. We need oil...
The saddest part of it, record profits for oil companies... CEOs that earn 100,000 a day...
Why don't Kristol and republican's ever want to talk about real issues?
Socialism is a repuke code word for demonizing people who care about others. That's how sick and fucked-up they are. In order to trash people of goodwill, they have to associate it with a percieved insult. Meanwhile, neocons are the biggest welfare queens (socialism lovers) on the face of the earth. Their sick brand of social however is raping the poor and middle class so they can give more disposable income to multi-millionaires!
Democrats need to start using the term sociopath when describing neocons. That would be the truth!
I would like to see someone on the tube ask Lieberman where are his loyalites; the GOP? the United States? or Isreal?
But religion IS the opiate of the people. Even though thats not what Obama was saying.
Considering the fact that the Demosratically controlled Senate has made no inroads in stopping the Iraq occupation(or extra-constitutional eavesdropping, for that matter), I believe that the Democrats made a huge mistake in allowing the LieberMan to caucus with them.
I think they should expell him on principle.
They won't lose any more votes than they would have by phantom filibuster in the first place. And this would set the LieberMan up as the disgruntled and vindictive soul that he is when he appears at the Republican Convention.
Kristol is entitled to his opinion (who cares WHAT he thinks)! However, I do agree that Obama really blew it with the comment he made (but NOT for the reason that Kristol is positing).
This is the baby boomer generation after 25 years of television.
Of course, Kristol could have easily have referred to "Bread and Circuses" (panem et circenses) from Juvenal's Satire X, but then he would be comparing Obama's words to that of a highly respected Roman poet, when Kristol's obvious intent is to imply that Obama is a Marxist.
Good ol' Bill Kristol...a lesser, lobotomized caricature of William F. Buckley. When the going gets tough, you can count on Kristol to resort to a weak ad hominem slur.
I Hate to get in the middle of ANOTHER Obama-Clinton sandbox throwing contest-But whocares? Billy is an idiot. I think everyone's mind is made up-OR It should be. what else do WE need to know?
But get this: during Lieberman's run for the Senate as a Democrat back in 2006 Obama came to a CT fundraiser, urging the supporters to get out there and make sure that Holy Joe won because he was such a "great Democr"at and did wonders in serving CT. The reason Joe lost the Dem primary was because he was pro war (and remember, Obama would not have voted for it, blah, blah, blah). So Joe lost and switched over to run as an Independent with the help of the CT Repubs. So now we fast forward and Joe is not sure if Obama is or is not a Marxist. Talk about hypocrisy coming out of their combine two faces.
Reply to Myshiba:
The truth hurts sometimes don't it? Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to inflame anything here, but if you actually watch the entire speech, or at least a good 15 minutes of it, you'd realize how out of context this has been taken... Just like Reverend White. It's pathetic really. The first candidate willing to speak the truth, plainly, is getting shot down by a bunch of assholes. On both sides...
Over the weekend I heard someone say that Lieberman has become Smithers to McCain's Mr. Burns. Pretty good analogy.
Obama's remark was a two-fer for the Ruin or Rule crowd and their pernicious allies (and, yeah, I mean Hillary Clinton). Not only can they lie and misconstrue that particular remark, but they can also invoke San Franciso (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) doing it.
Pat J @ 21:
I'm from CT and grew up there. Joe was a wonderful guy(back then) championing the little guy. Now He's a hack.
Is anyone seeing the first possible three-way race here? I mean, it's a slim chance, but even if Hillary gets the nomination, Obama has raised so much money. If Hillary doesn't squeezy out the delegates, will she be able to run as an independant? I'm not sure I even care anymore lol...
He was a Muslim last week. I can't keep track of all his affiliations.
He's right. I'd hate to think of a communist like Obama taking charge of this country. Under communism, the government would be corrupt, the economy would be fucked up, the media would be lying toadies who parrot the party line, and we would be engaged in pointless bloody wars to expand a failed ideology.
All you libs should be thankful that we're ruled by conservatives because under conservatism we... uh... um.... well... oh shit.
William Kristol, now there's a guy who really understands the working class! Yeah...right!!
Jake @ 26:
I'm with You. I has become very boring.
Hell, I thought ol' Joe McCarthy croaked a long time ago. Apparently, he has been reincarnated in the body of William Kristol.
To loosely quote one of McCarthy's foes, "At long last, sir, have you no shame?"
I've stepped in dung that smells better than Kristol.
And has anyone seen the cover artlcle on the New Republic? An 'analysis' of why Michelle Obama has negative feelings about the US. Hmm - maybe because she isn't a rich old white man who was born to privilege and has never had to scrounge for a living? Nah - they just think she's just ungrateful.
Myshiba @ 17:
I am so sick of this shit, from the msm and the repugs. What Obama said was the sad truth about the state of America. I also heard Hillarys speech today, and she has done it for me. I will not vote for her. I would hate to see McCrazy win, but Hillary really isn't any different.
Powkat @ 23:
Come on, Mr Burns isn't THAT old.
Myshiba @ 17:
it is important what he thinks, this asshole has a national advantage to be heard
and like most(all) gop pundits spewing reichwingneocon trash, the facts and the truth
are important. obama was actually right on with his comments and if you heard the
interviews taken from some of these small towns in penn., you would hear the people
there agreeing with obama and not with the gop liars.
Oh Jesus! Another Obama/Clinton pigpile. How...yawn ...interesting.
JM @ 29:
Actually, like Steve Martin in "The Jerk" he was born a poor black child...
xargaw @ 14:
haha! I would dearly love to see that as well. But you know that the brave soul would immediately be branded as an anti-Semite and get blacklisted from being in any position of influence in the media ever again. AIPAC would then get the senators and congress people in their pocket to pass a resolution entitled "The Patriotic U.S. Resolution Affirming Unconditional Support of Our Friend in the Middle East, Israel and Condemnation of any Efforts to Express an Alternative Opinion."
On Bill Kristol, this guy sounds like a completely unhinged conspiracy theorist who had a nervous breakdown and is now homeless (apologies to homeless people) and muttering to himself on the streets.
seele @ 2:
I think that next, Obama will be the same-old-same-old of elderly, white-haired, white guys in charge of Washington, and that'll be Kristol's reason we should all vote for McCain. Either that, or that Obama is albino.
You know, we really have to get a meme out there in the political culture. Everything this guy says is dead wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG!
You want to know the future? Just look into the Kristol Ball -- and conclude the opposite!
I mean, Karl Marx?! Are you fracking kidding?
Did I read that correctly?
William Kristol has communist literature in his home? And America is supposed to listen to what that commie sympathizer and financial supporter has to say? I'm thinking no.
Pardon me while I wrap an American flag around my ears so I'm not tainted by his anti-American propoganda.
Interesting. I was listening to right wing radio the other night (I was driving someone's parent's car as a favor, tried some of their stations, and 560 Hot Talk was pre-programmed...so i decided to just listen for a few minutes) and this fella named Mark Levin was on a "lib" rant (he even started with "You libs out there"). Part of the diatribe was to call us all Marxists. I am not debating whether this is bad or good, but I do think it is noteworthy that this clown was going Marxy just as Kristol had written his latest article. man, these conservatives sure do pass the index cards around. I'd admire them for their ability to stick together if I didn't find the practice so pathetic and repugnant.
Here comes the newest righty meme, I guess.
Steve,
You DO know that giving attention to Kristol only makes him more legitimate don't you? If you want to discredit Kristol, you should ignore him. When you criticize him, Kristol and all his supporters rally around each other and giggle at how angry he is making people on the left.
If Kristol hears criticism from the extreme left, then this only gives him more energy and self-fulfillment in his ideas, because it means in his mind that he is doing something right. It is solipsistic to think that pointing out his errors in reasoning is enough to make him see his errors. He WANTS the far left to criticize him. That gives him clues that he is on the right track, at least in his own mind.
The more the left criticizes him, the more he thinks that he is doing things right, because he thinks that the left is a totally wrong ideology. So if people on the totally wrong side criticize him, in his mind it means he is right, which will cause him to continue on with his ideas.
I am so amazed that the left (and right for that matter) haven't figured this out yet.
Tehehe...i saw a quote about Obama having trouble with the bourgeois values of middle america as well. This is too hilarious, the world's current economic order is tumbling like a house of cards! The language has changed quite a bit in the last 7 years and now we're starting to see some old words coming back in style so keep using "Marxist" as an insult, it makes me giggle.
By the way, you know who should really be compared to Karl Marx? Bill Fucking Kristol!
A guy who offers a dubious academic theory whose application to the real world is lethal.
I doubt Kristol and Lieberman know much more about Marx than what they learned from Joe McCarthy and Reagan. But if Lieberman's cool with calling Obama a Marxist, then I'm more than cool with calling him a bloodthirsty, warmongering fascist.
Drew @ 43:
I respectfully disagree. The "ignore it and it will go away" strategy works before someone like Kristol has gained prominence, status and power. Once he has a place on television and in the culture, he must be countered at every turn. Once he has that power and status, ignoring him is a lot like ignoring your teeth. Sure, they'll go away if you ignore them, leaving your mouth disease-ridden and in painful shambles as they slowly disappear.
At a certain point, some video game entrepreneur tried to sell a game in which the player took the role of the Nazis, and the goal was to exterminate as many Jews as possible. The Jewish community at the time rightly ignored this obviously offensive little ploy, knowing full well that the creator was banking on the controversy to sell his garbage. No one ever heard of the guy because no one made a big deal of it.
But if, for some reason, some huge company had marketed that game, and it began to sell like hotcakes, and the news started to examine the trend, simply ignoring it would not be a good idea.
mutiple talking points from the repugs today!
1) elite obama
1) campaign financing violator obama
1) godless communist obama
pity they couldn't count higher than 1. they have given themselves away.
Smack my ass for blog-whoring but I have comments by Clinton Superdelegate/PA Governor Ed Rendell that pre-date Obama's "bitter" kerfuffle with even less nuance here.
-AF
Andrew Sullivan Is A Fraud
They are attacking the wrong candidate.
The Obama Post and bittergate brought Obama dowm.
In probably one of the dumbest moves I have ever witnessed in politics, Obama refuses to apologize for insulting the voters.
Too late now, he is over.
Drop out Obama.
Wow....so, in Bill Kristol's world, Barack Obama believes in one-party totalitarian domination over the rest of the world for a glorious proletarian revolution against the bourgeouisie (mangled, IK) and there's little to separate Barack Obama from Uncle Joe or Chairman Mao or Pol Pot....
What motherf*cking alternate reality is this guy from?????!!!!!
Drew @ 43: You're entitled to your take, but you're completely wrong. Your approach would work for a low-ranking hack like right-wing blogger Mark Noonan, but Kristol is in The New York Times. He's editor of Weekly Standard, very influential in conservative circles, and on Fox News all the time. During this campaign alone, he's floated BS memes that other conservatives have replicated. It's virtually impossible to "ignore" him, and folly to try. You've got the analysis backwards. Kristol gives liberals a preview of conservative attacks, and it's best to start knocking them down as soon as possible. You're also making the mistake of assuming that Kristol is arguing in good faith. He's not. There are good faith conservatives out there, but Kristol is an odious hack. Benen's analysis doesn't validate Kristol. It notes that he's got a big microphone, but he's completely full of BS (while a reaction to Kristol that accepts Kristol's prejudicial, false framing would play into Kristol's hands). We need much more of those challenges - the liberal blogs excel at it, but many liberal pundits don't, and the MSM certainly doesn't fact-check as much as it should. Remember the Swift Boat smear campaign? Challenging this sort of BS is important for winning elections, but even more so for media reform. Put more simply, how is pointing out that Kristol is completely full of crap possibly a bad thing?
Marx makes more sense than any of our politicians do.
oldtree @ 1:
Actually, its long past time that William the Bloody (doofus) started working on his Harpo Impression. I can almost hear the placid silence now . . .
getalife @ 50:
HOW DARE HE!! How dare he say it like it is and not spin everything and talk to people like we are children. He shouldn't bring up hard truths. He should just say everything is fine like the republicans do. That is after all what it seems people expect and even want from their leaders.
Karen @ 47:
I appreciate your thoughts. But I think you may be overestimating the power that charlatans, like Kristol, have. I consider many lesser tools like Tucker Carlson, and how he has been attacked for YEARS by the left. But he stayed....until his ratings were too low. Those ratings being low is proof that he was starting to be ignored, and it was the low ratings based on ignoring him that got him fired.
I think that's the same thing we need to do with Kirstol. I think you are making him seem more important and more intelligent than he really is when you say that he has gained "prominence, status and power". These things are not permanent, they are temporary. They are temporary because they are based on how much attention they are getting!
I think the TRUE reason why people on the left think he needs to be attacked is so that they have something to talk about, that is, so that they have a source for engaging in discussions. I think in this sense, the left RELIES on Kristol. Without Kristol, who is going to be attacked?
I honestly believe that "symbiosis" is a very prominent aspect of human nature. As a person who does not consider himself to be left or right, I find that the left and right are almost dependent on each other. The people on each side use the other to advance their own agenda, and this is probably the reason why improper usage of the other side is frequent. For example, Kristol probably hates communism, and so he needs a way to communicate it. He therefore uses Obama, someone on the left, as the target for his thoughts.
I really think that this mentality of not understanding symbiosis is the primary reason why so many errors are made in applying one's own ideas. People on both the right and left use the people on the other side in order to get their message across, even if the person or people chosen have absolutely no connection at all to what is said.
This mistaken ideology is perhaps further a result of the terrible philosophy of treating people not as ends but as means. Kristol is treating Obama not as an end him himself, but as a means in order to advance is own neo-con agenda.
I don't know, does this make sense? I think you would understand this.
getalife @ 50:
pathetic
I was once told I was being Marxist, when among coworkers, I responded to a question why so many people in the Middle East were angry, by saying "A hungry man is an angry man." No, I replied, just a Wailer. Get up and stand up.
Oh my gosh. I can't believe the MSM and the left-wing blogospere is making this Lieberman flap into a really big deal. If you go back and listen to the whole speech and take everything he said into context, it all makes perfect sense. Instead we get one or two cherry-picked sentences and then it gets parsed every which way but Sunday and all the talking heads go crazy. People are really going out of their way to try to misconstrue his words.
He really wasn't trying to condescend to anyone or disparage their beliefs; he was just trying to talk about what's really bothering people, what's really on their minds. Sure it may have been awkwardly worded, but in many respects, he was telling people the truth. It's about time we had a politician who wasn't afraid to tell people the hard realities.
And besides, even if he worded things in a way that made people offended, I'm sure he deeply regrets that.
getalife @ 50:
You DO understand that the people Obama talked about are rallying around Obama in a positive way, don't you? Did you know that groups of bitter people are starting to form that are saying Obama "gets it"??
But this is besides the point. All the media are wasting their time talking about a few fucking WORDS someone said, meanwhile it was discovered Bush signed off on a fucking TORTURE memo, and all the goddamn media can do is ignore THAT and focus on two or three words? Do you not see the insanity in this? People are being TORTURED and we're worrying about a few words?
You talk about DUMB moves, well sir, THAT is a dumb move. And you eat it up...sad...
What is pandering and insulting to working class folks are Clinton and McCain and the rest of these "explainers" rushing to tell working class voters what to think about what Obama said.
I love that their finally getting to recycle their Cold War garbage. Kristol is about as convincing as a bad guy in a George Clooney political flic.
What was the point of posting this article by Bill Kristol? Was it to minimize the questions about Obama and what he said about the voters of PA to a group of wealthy contributors at a San Francisco fundraiser? Kristol is a moron and this is nothing more than trying to deflect from the issue. There are legitimate concerns about what Obama said but again, no questions allowed.
What Obama said was insensitive and insulting. Of course people are bitter about what's happened to our country over the past 7+ horrific years but saying that people "cling" to their guns and their God because of it is just stupid. Why can't he just apologize and own his mistakes. We've already got someone in the WH that cannot admit a mistake and I don't want another one.
Bill Kristol @ 62:
Are you talking about yourself in the third person?
Next week the reich-wing MSM will claim Obama is a transvestite.
Miles Tougeaux @ 15:
Funny how those that are the most religious also vote against their own economic best interest they only see the moral view
If one considers the target audience for his statement, the typical Fox news loyalist, then the statement DOES NOT HAVE TO MAKE SENSE! To these toothless fans, the act of simply making ANY STATEMENT "on the TV" makes it TRUE! Kristol knows this, as does Rove and the rest of the neocons. He is no fool. He plays these people for the fools they are because after all, their vote counts as much as any college political professor's. He harvests votes ANY WAY HE CAN... and believe me, that is the ONLY way they would garner votes after all that has transpired.
63: And Hillary still has to admit her "mistake" in voting to authorize the Iraq war.
When she had a chance to display 'Profiles in Courage" Sen. Clinton choose "Profiles in Triangulation".
(I'll still vote her over mcbush, but she really should stop sniping and acting like a spoiled princess.)
We have lots of bitter people around here, they use to make automobiles here in Detroit, before the price of gasoline hit the roof. The latest poll of Michigan shows Obama passing Clinton.
Bill Kristol should stick with the Marx Brothers, not Karl Marx.
Drew @ 60:
Well Said!!
I don't think either Kristol or Lieberman meant he was a Marxist in the sense of "one who follows the philosophy of Marx". More in the sense of "very very scary person that all true Americans should fear and loathe".
Bill Kristol, the neocon warmongering pig that never gets nothing correct...and I mean absolutely nothing!
Powkat @ 32:
Politically, the magazine generally supports center-left, liberal policies.
Why is a so called progressive magazine for liberals smearing Michelle Obama faux style?
Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Zeppo and Gummo have passed on, but Dummo has got a sweet gig at the NY Times...
The smoking gun on Hillary:
In multiple meetings with Theda Skocpol, both Bill & Hillary Clinton spoke about the working class and
I'd like to see Theda Skocpol share about those meetings on the national news...
Talking Points Memo
First Reverend Wright gets pilloried for telling the truth about US foreign policy and racism at home, now Obama is getting it for pointing out the obvious.
As far as religion goes, Marx was spot on. Right wing despots through history have used religion as a tool to rally the masses and obscure the institutional power structures that lay at the root of their impoverishment and disenfranchisement. What's the fuss? What Obama said is the same point made by Thomas Frank in "What's the Matter with Kansas?" It is no secret that poor and blue collar workers who vote Republican against their own economic interests do so because of two factors: The Democrats, under the leadership of the corporate imprint Democratic Leadership Council, alienated working class voters by abandoning their economic interests in favor of chasing corporate campaign financing (anybody remember NAFTA?). Having no more reason to vote Democratic, they turn to the Republican party who have marketed themselves as representing blue-collar "values" i.e. God, Guns and
Gays. Do we have to pretend that this phenomena doesn't exist? Are we elitist in pointing out that under the DLC and Clinton, the Democratic party lost its soul and alienated the working class?Anybody who denies that what Obama says is the truth is being willfully deceptive.
Kristol, O'Reilly, Alan Keyes and assorted other morons have degrees from Harvard, Yale or Stanford. That only means they have academic ability. Beyond that they have the intelligence of a teaspoon.
getalife @ 50:
Aaaah, if only you were to apply your screen name to yourself.
Anyhow, care to point out where and when did Obama insult the voters?
Tyler Durden Says:
It's mind numbing the contortions they have to go through to re construe Obama's words as an insult. This story has no real legs but that won't stop the pundit class from trying to make a mountain of BS out of it.
Oh. That fucking retard still has a voice?
Kristol has been a bigger terrorist and un-American slug than almost anyone, always a spokesman for the worst possible plan.
Is there any news outlet that is not on board with destroying our republic?
I know this is the op ed page but if they allow this - how can they claim their goal is not an America in the gutter?
I know, next week we will see an article in the NYT about how our political discourse sucks. Tweety likes to talk about that before he introduces Coulter.
Our nation has NO CHANCE LEFT. NONE!
This was a great and mighty nation and it has taken a lot for the conservative movement to kill it, but they have succeeded.
Snowball @ 79:
From where I am standing and if I have any faith in the majority of Americans, it looks like Obama said some things that made a lot of sense (straight talk, indeed. McMealyMouthed ought to take note) and that the people he was addressing were going to respond, if not favorably, then with a respectful ear to someone who is talking more on the real and less bullshit politico-speak; engaging in real dialogue. The righties had to get ahead of that and make sure those same people were insulted by explaining to them just how insulting what Obama said really was. No WAY were they going to let the masses get any kind of truth without their take on it, meaning: negative spin.
I love the way Getalife@50, Dennis@59, and Bluesage@63 have to come to grips with the fact that their views on Obama are very similar to Bloody Billy. One can be a conservative and not realize it guys and girls. Aahahahahahahaha!!!!
As much as I hate to say it, watching conservative sissy-boys like Kristol, Hannity, and all the other pretty boys on Faux and in the rest of the media, convinces me that the only way out of this lust for war in America is to bring back the draft, and a draft with no deferments.
Bonkers Hussein @ 83: