Reply to a Pseudolibertarian

Kind of like when Rush told all you dittoheads to support Hillary against Obama. Too bad you were too dumb to understand what he was trying to do.

And what WAS Rush trying to do? Please 'splain it to my Lucy, as I'm too dumb to get it. Even YOU have to admit Obama is a much worse President than Hillary ever could be.

Reply to a conservative:

I might as well respond to this, too, before you get too antsy.

"Please 'splain it to my Lucy, as I'm too dumb to get it."

I know that, Jack.

Rush wanted to make sure Hillary Clinton got the Democratic nod because he believed she couldn't win the general election. This primary switching, called primary raiding, has been common in local elections ever since states started having closed primaries. I don't think anyone but Rush ever plotted it for a national election, the numbers are way to big for it to be practical. Of course, Rush is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, nor are his dittoheads.

He is smart enough to avoid spelling it out in these terms because he knows it is unethical. Of course, Rush is not constrained by any ethical considerations himself, but he has caught his tit in a wringer enough times to realize that there are people out there that are. Sociopaths take advantage of this "quirk" of human nature.

Nonetheless, this is typical of the attitude of the Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Cheney, and Rove Republicans. Win the election by any means possible whether they are legal, illegal, ethical, unethical, by hook or by crook; it doesn't matter if the methods are undemocratic and violate the will of the people, as long as Republicans keep in power.

"Last minute party switching to impact a primary election is another problem that has been dealt with in the courts. In a 1973 precedent-setting case, Rosario v. Rockefeller, the Supreme Court ruled that states could set lengthy time restrictions related to party affiliation to prevent last minute party switching." www.infoplease.com/cig/supreme-court/switching-parties.html

Now, I wouldn't go so far as to say that Obama is much worse than Hillary ever could be, as you did. I will say that Sen. Clinton was much better prepared for the job, and would have hit the ground running. She had been in the White House, and saw how things really worked, and had a lot of programs already lined up. She had a more worldly and sophisticated view of foreign relations, and of how to vet staffers. I've never denied that.

You have erroneously accused me of being an Obama disciple for quite some time, despite being unable to provide a single shed of evidence to back up that statement. Of course, evidence to back up your screeds are as rare as moon metal. I have written very little in support of Barack Obama to anyone.  You yourself have whined endlessly that I won't come out and say what I like about Barack Obama. Then, you accuse me of being a knee-jerk Obamaphile. You seem to be quite comfortable with this doublethink. If you don't believe that, produce your evidence now. And don't give me that phony line that your computer doesn't have enough memory. Pry a gold bar out of your cold fingers and buy some decent tools.

Economists realize that employment takes about four years (or more) to recover after a major recession. And that's when the factories are sitting idle, waiting for demand to pick up, which is not the situation now. Our corporations have moved their factories to cheaper labor markets and fired the American employees, and they won't be moving back and rehiring. I don’t know if Obama knew that when he was campaigning, but I did. He has surely been told that by now. Many Republican politicians and conservative pundits also are aware of this, but they nonetheless point out how Obama "lied" about job recovery. They are the liars now, (as they were then.)

The right savaged the Clintons for presenting a complete healthcare proposal to Congress instead of letting Congress write its own. The Clinton plan was not complete, and was delayed for three years while Robert Rubin tried to pay off the huge deficit left by Ronald Reagan.  (Which coincidentally, vastly enriched Rubin's old Wall Street pals). Meanwhile, Congress had not completed a plan in 60 years of attempts. So what happens to Obama? He is savaged for not having a comprehensive healthcare plan in hand on Jan. 20, 2009.

I knew Hillary Clinton had much of her plan already; she talked about it during the campaign. I also knew Obama's people didn't have nearly as much, he didn't talk about it, but so what? The results would have been the same either way. The Republicans would have demanded hundreds of amendments, then voted against it to a man (and woman) anyway, which is precisely what happened. I knew this because it has been happening this way for 60 years. Progressive Democrats have known this all along, and knew the majority vote was crucial. Just as progressive Democrats know true reform will fail without a public option. Even your favorite source, the CBO says the current bill will not raise costs in the future any more than doing nothing, but Republicans still insist it will.

Why do Republican politicians hate the American people so much that they want to saddle them with outrageously overpriced medical procedures and drugs? Actually, the answer is quite simple. It is because politicians, Republicans and Democrats alike, openly accept bribes from the insurance and drug company lobbies, and claim it is their First Amendment right to do so. And the Gods roar with laughter!

Obama's war? LOL!

On Rumsfeld, 12/18/02:

KING: What’s the current situation in Afghanistan?

RUMSFELD: It is encouraging. They have elected a government through the Loya Jirga process. The Taliban are gone. The al Qaeda are gone.

On May 2, 2003 Bush claimed major combat operations in Irag were finished.

President Bush echoed Rumsfeld’s comments in Sept. 2004, saying the “Taliban no longer is in existence.”

So why are we still there? Bush, Cheney, et al., walked away leaving the American people and the US Army holding the bag. Who are the liars here? Obama will go down in history as a typical campaign promise breaker. Karl Rove and Dick Cheney will be remembered as some of history's greatest liars, and their supporters as some of histories greatest fools and charlatans.

Of course, none of this is Bush's fault. He didn't make any mistakes. He just had an eight-year run of bad luck! His good luck in life is that his daddy's rich.

When Obama makes a speech of high ideals and hopes, he is slammed by the right for being an empty teleprompter reader, able only to dish out platitudes of no substance. Then, when he presents substantive facts and proposals in measured tones, he is excoriated by the right-wing claquers for not being a great orator like Winston Churchill or Abraham Lincoln.

And you dare call me an Obama apologist? You who have excused every calamity visited upon us by the Bush Administration. You who claims that what Bush did is no longer relevant or important because he is no longer President? Tell that to the families of the dead and maimed American soldiers and the dead and maimed Iraqis.

President Obama and we will have to clean up the Republican messes, just like Roosevelt and Clinton did before. And if Obama doesn't succeed in one year, it proves he is a liar? How pathetic you people are: Dittoheads, praying that all the administration's programs will fail so we can be taken over by the robber barons again.

You claim you are terrified of Obama because he is Bush III. Why would you be afraid of that? You loved every minute of the Bush Administration. To this day you cannot bring yourself to criticize any part of the Bush Presidency. You are one of the biggest Bush apologists alive.

My goal has always been to kick the Neo-cons out of power because their goal is to return this nation to the so-called "Golden Era", where a handful of immensely wealthy individuals control all wealth, and all branches of government, including mayors, governors, Senators, and Congressmen, police commissioners, judges, D.A.s, the lot. I was not a Bush hater, as you repeatedly accused me of being. I have consistently maintained the position that George W. Bush is a witless pawn of the Neo-cons. I was against all the Neo-cons that had hijacked the Republican Party, whether they were criminal masterminds or simply wretched toadies.

Why do you think the real movers and shakers didn't run for the top office themselves, but instead put up buffoons like Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Palin? (Even McCain was a know-nothing playboy, much like the hapless George Custer. Both of them should have stayed in Washington, D.C. haunting the ballrooms, instead of going out west to seek fame and fortune, then screwing things up for everyone else).

They stayed in the background because they knew that voters would instinctively reject creepy cold fish like Rove and Cheney.

Why didn't the Neo-cons support intelligent conservative leaders?

Because they didn't trust honest conservatives to carry out their plans. They felt they could control puppets whose ability to think critically had been negated by blind adherence to an ideology. Puppets that would follow "suggestions" of their advisors. Suggestions like breaking into the Democratic National Headquarters and then denying it. Suggestions like arming guerillas in direct violation of federal law. Suggestions like lying to the world about WMD and Iraqi-Al Qaida alliances. Suggestions like Obama will set up "death panels" to cull the lame and elderly from our ranks.

Only the rump of the Republican Party, which is made up mostly of Neo-cons and other extremists, want to run Sarah Palin. Not because she can win, (though they hope she can) but because they know she is a clueless, easily manipulated moron like George W. Bush, and because she is good at whipping up more fear into people that are already miserable and afraid.

Of course I knew Obama had to go through a learning curve because he responds to the people, and to changing conditions around him. He listens to other people, something the Neo-cons never do.

Bush, Rove, Cheney, Nixon, Reagan, all felt free to violate federal law and never varied from their paths, even when faced with the horrific consequences of their actions, because they considered themselves to be Masters of the Universe, and above mere mortals. How did you put it?

"Now, I'm jumping into my $77,000 car and making a completely unnecessary trip into town so I can waste gas, pollute the environment, and piss off some more liberals, while I sneer at the peasants I pass along the way."

"I call them "peasants", and I don't just drive around them, I roar at full throttle so they can eat my dust and breathe my exhaust fumes."

Oh! Of course! It's satire!

You know that old saw, "Full many a truth is oft told in jest!"

December 8, 2009


Addendum:

In her book, “The Sociopath Next Door,” psychologist and author Martha Stout describes in the course of more than two hundred pages the characteristics and dangers of sociopaths. She writes on page 9:

“About one in twenty-five individuals are sociopathic, meaning, essentially, that they do not have a conscience. It is not that this group fails to grasp the difference between good and bad; it is that the distinction fails to limit their behavior. The intellectual difference between right and wrong does not bring on the emotional sirens and flashing blue lights, or the fear of God, that it does for the rest of us. Without the slightest blip of guilt or remorse, one in twenty-five people can do anything at all.”

Ms. Stout is concerned about how to classify sociopaths. On page page 13 she writes:

“Singular in its ability to unnerve even seasoned professionals, the concept of sociopathy comes perilously close to our notions of the soul, of evil versus good, and this association makes the topic difficult to think about clearly. And the unavoidable them-versus-us nature of the problem raises scientific, moral, and political issues that boggle the mind. How does one scientifically study a phenomenon that appears to be, in part, a moral one? Who should receive our professional help and support, the “patients” or the people who must endure them? Since psychological research is generating ways to “diagnose” sociopathy, whom should we test? Should anyone be tested for such a thing in a free society? And if someone has been clearly identified as a sociopath, what, if anything, can society do with that information? No other diagnosis raises such politically and professionally incorrect questions, and sociopathy, with its known relationship to behaviors ranging from spouse battering and rape to serial murder and warmongering, is in some sense the last and most frightening psychological frontier.”