“… I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. …” – Barack Obama, 1-16-08
Ronald Reagan. Oh yeah, that guy.
Reagan turned thousands of mentally ill institutional patients out into the street, among his other crimes against humanity. How is a future president who’s hailed Reagan’s tradition of laying waste to useful government services that had “grown and grown”, while demonizing both those services and those who partook of them, supposed to fix health care? How is this quote going to sound on Press the Meat when Tim Russert trots it out on the hypothetical eve of the rollout of Obama’s health care legislation?
And it’s rich to complain about racism but then praise the policies of a man who created the myth of the Welfare Queen and started his campaign for president in a place of infamy. Or to complain about people mentioning one’s youthful drug use and then embrace someone who gave us a war on drugs that’s been a full on witch hunt against minorities and the poor, ever since.
A statement like this would have finished either Clinton or Edwards as candidates because of what Reagan’s legacy did to the lower income and minority voters that are the base of the party. It would have finished either of them with the creative class voters flocking to Obama now, the final ‘proof’ that they were phonies and establishment sock puppets, everyone’s worst suspicions confirmed at last. Hillary Clinton isn’t worth voting for because of something a supporter said, but Obama will get a pass for something that came out of his own mouth.
But that’s the way of it. These sorts of telling moments never hurt the party’s many conservative-coddling Lieberdems.
I know it’s annoying for anyone to say anything nice about Ronald Reagan, but I think it’s indisputable that he put the country on a different path, and I think it is at least arguable that the country was ready for a rollback of the Great Society, although I wouldn’t make that argument. I guess my question is, ‘what, exactly, do you find objectionable in that excerpt?’
Is it that you find it to be factually false, or is it that you think it is bad politics, or is it that you think it means that Obama is some kind of New Democrat in the mold of Joe Lieberman?
I see a lot of Democrats saying that Reagan wasn’t sunny and optimistic at all, but a brutal ogre. The problem with that is that Reagan was both. The country was in a very dark place in 1980, and it cannot be dismissed that Reagan promised to bring us out of that place and he succeeded for a lot of people…just not the least of us.
If I am hearing Obama correctly, he wants to tap into that Reaganesque can-do-ism. He wants to take us out of this dark place.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pleased to see this statement because I think it indicates that his thinking is too mainstreamed. But it doesn’t make me think he wants to replicate Reagan’s policies.
I agree. Obama wants to be the New Inspirational Leader that will lead us out of the awful place that we’re in as a nation. That takes a special kind of leader and he is one of those. Reagan was too. I didn’t like much of what Reagan did or stood for, but he did make so much of America feel good about itself again, somehow. I was too young to really follow the politics in it all but when you speak with people of my parents’ generation, they saw so many awful events in the 60’s and 70’s (assasinations, scandals, recession, hyper-inflation, oil crisis, etc.) that made them think the country was coming apart at the seams. Reagan made them feel like everything’s gonna be alright again.
While Obama has these same inspirational abilities that Reagan did, his policy ideas are completely opposite. What he possesses though, as Reagan did, is the ability to disarm the other side of the aisle. If he wins, we could be referring to a new animal in politics the “Obama Republicans” like Reagan created the “Reagan Democrats.” While these republicans know Obama’s a liberal, they’re surprisingly okay with it because they know we’ve swung too far right as a nation and we need to clean house and fix things with progressive solutions for a while. He’s the guy that they will trust to get us out of this disaster.
I remember Reagan. He talked about hope, morning in America, and other feel good emotions with no ideas to implement them. There was something familar about him. He gave me the creeps.
Obama isn’t Reagan, but I find it troubling that he would invoke Saint Ronnie. How are we supposed to get liberals elected if we can’t expose the truth of the ketchup guy? He’s the guy that spent government money REMOVING solar panels from the White House.
Now that Obama did bring it up, does he see anything else in common between himself and Reagan? Why should we believe that his brand of reaching across the aisle won’t be more rolling over and playing dead?
It’s not just annoying, it’s poisonous to the progressive political rationale.
I object to a man who made racism easier to hide being given the cover of this kind of unctuous praise by one of our party’s standard bearers. Oh, the Republicans are going to say forever now, but if Obama could praise him, you must be exaggerating how bad he was if not outright making it up. Now he’s finally got the path cleared for sainthood, let alone all those dead Guatemalans and what have you.
On policy, I thought I made it pretty clear that I object to his repetition of the criticism that government in that era had grown out of control, as it were. What he says now is going to hem him in later. Does he want to give us a better health care system? Going to be damn hard now.
The idea that government in the way Reagan meant it, the provision of public services, was excessive and intrusive is pernicious. The current security state in all its surveilling glory doesn’t come in for the whipping, no, the social welfare edifices of the pre-Reagan presidents get it.
You want to see a disturbing pattern? It’s how this so-called postpartisan keeps kicking left and hugging right. Let’s all hope that you’re right, and he’s just an obfuscator, instead of that I’m right, and he’s just a jerk.
The problem with that is that no one can really tell what these people are like until they’ve been in office for decent length of time (since what they tell people changes from day to day). MY problem with Obama is not that he’s a proven Republican collaborator. It’s with the fact that he hasn’t served long enough for us to get a good idea of his record one way or the other. In fact, I would say that part of the problem is that HE doesn’t know, one way or the other, of where he stands on many issues.
He could be anybody at this point. Saint or sinner. The only thing we do know is that he seems to have charisma.
Obama has more years in office than any other major candidate on the Dem side.
He has more of a record to evaluate than Hillary does!
And his record is pretty good, as these things go. He created and passed a significant campaign finance reform bill in his home state. He passed a somewhat less ambitious bill nationally, which, for all the criticism, is still more than Clinton or Edwards ever did on that subject.
He passed a healthcare bill that, while weaker than what he wanted, was still a significant step forward, when he was in his state legislature. Again, that’s more than Hillary accomplished when she had the full power of the presidency behind her.
Of all of them, Obama actually has the most legislatively progressive record.
But you wouldn’t know that, listening to the shallow press, or, sadly, to a lot of bloggers who don’t do any research of their own.
Another big endorsement for Obama.
TPM Greg Sargent reporting Senator Patrick Leahy, (D-VT) to endorse Obama today.
“That’s a big endorsement for Obama — he’s a major liberal standard bearer who’s been in the Senate for over three decades. More in a bit.”
Thanks, for the clarification, Lisa.I wasn’t aware of that
Thanks. Happy to help. Research is what I do!
You have a right to object, but it is NOT progressive to twist someones words and make them out to be what they aren’t!
I guess all those progressives who run his campaign like Susan Rice et al
have been fooled by Obama……these posts analyzing what Obama said, instead of reading his words verbatim, are congruent to bigdog’s recent comments, desperate and over-the-top. I am sad to see this on this blog, which has been so fair about all the candidates positions.
So fair that BooMan has declared he won’t vote for Clinton because of things that came out of other people’s mouths.
a perfect candidate, you’ll not find.
Clinton accused Obama of being “too liberal.” I suggest you read the whole interview, Again. Also my comment (down thread) with links to Obama, A liberal Reagan that may shed some light.
Amen. Thanks BooMan
some consider Obama to be A Liberal Reagan hence his appeal among Reagan Democrats, Independents and conservatives. Bring them home Obama.
Obama is no lieberdem. Perhaps a misunderstanding of the parallel points Obama was airing. Re-read his position papers and examine his record. He does not shill for the GOP. Unlike Lieberman who is a Republican from surface to bones.
WSJ via Thinkprogress has this: McCain may select Lieberman as VP.
Will Lieberman give up his Senate seat unlike when he ran with Gore?
I fear he could do to conservatism what Reagan did to liberalism.
I just want to re-emphasize this to say: just what the hell would be WRONG with this???? I say, hell yeah! He’s not praising Reagan; he’s just pointing what he did and how.
I’m sorry, but progressives/liberals suck when it comes to the narrative. People don’t see themselves in statistics…they see themselves in STORIES. They like to see themselves in an optimistic light. Can it be bullshit sometimes? Yes. Does it work? YES.
Please tell me what is so wrong with Obama using the Reagan playbook?
IMO, it’s cosmic payback.
My father died when I was six. My mother got Social Security Survivors Benefits for my sister and I until we reached 18 years old. Before Ray-gun was in office, I was entitled to another four years of benefits if I stayed in school and with that in mind I applied to University. Then I got a letter from SS telling me that those benefits were being phased out I’d get 100% the remainder of that year, 75% the following year 50% the year after and 25% the last year of the program. After that no one would get anything post childhood.
But, as luck you have it, my first semester of university I couldn’t get a full-load of classes. I took a course at the local community college to put me over the 12 unit minimum I had to maintain for my benefits. I called SS to make sure this was OK and was told that it was fine. When I later that year had to provide proof of full-time enrollment to SS my transcript from the University showed my 11 credits from them and the two transfered credits from the CC. Unfortunately they also printed “part time” as my enrollment status for that semester. SS then sent me a letter telling me that my benefits were cancelled and that I owed them for what I had already received. I called and wrote to them several times, explaining and documenting what had happened and was always assured that they would correct the mistake. The never did. Over a year later I was called by some woman from SS wanting me to pay my “debt” to them. I explained again the situation, and that I was still in University full-time (paying everything, including tuition from my job) and she seemed shocked by my story and concerned for me – she vowed to set things right. I never heard from her again. I dropped out of school the following year when I just couldn’t manage work and studies.
A few years later I read about the Reagan Administration’s interference into the Social Security Administration. The article documented how word came down from on high that anyone who could be removed from the survivor or disability rolls for any reason, no matter how slight, should be, and any new people who enrolled to get benefits for were to be stymied. In that article they documented the struggle of a man who had been shot through the head, and because of a problem with his paper work had been dropped from his disability payments. Like me, he was always assured that his case would be straightened out and his benefits resumed. It took two years and a lawyer to get him back the pittance he need to survive.
At least I wasn’t as bad off at that fellow, I could get menial jobs that at least allowed me to pay for rent and groceries.
I never did get back on the rolls. In my file cabinet is a letter from SS telling me that I owe them over two thousand dollars – although what that is with 25 years interest I’d hate to think.
Yeah, the Reagan years, when I learned all about what it means to be cast to the wolves, by the wolves. I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten over the betrayal. Oh, and my family – staunch Republicans to a one.
I’ve been lucky enough to not have any troubles to compare with yours, at least not yet. But your family sounds a lot like mine. How can they be so blind? Or is the question, how did I manage to see reality?
With the possible exception of Kucinich (who actually says things that are coherent, whether or not you agree) ALL of the Democratic candidates are totally corporate.
We are venting a lot of emotions over nothing. Vote, if you like, for who you “like.” Then forget about it.
I don’t give a damn how you shake it….Raygun-omics…the begining of the end..
for the lower people..as they call us
if people don’t get some “ka-hones” it will continue to spiral down for the have-nots.
He’s definitely pandering to the Chris Mathews types, who had it good in the 80s while the rest of us didn’t.
Having said that, we can keep Howard Dean, if we elect him, and his foreign policy advisors aren’t Iraq war hawks.
Those are the two reason he is definitely preferable to Billary Clinton.
There is a third viable candidate running. We are not required to choose between Obama & Clinton.
Calm down please. I think we can still have hope that a black man may be elected president of our country where millions of people worship the memory of Reagan.
I mean, what’s the guy gonna say? – “Your God is bullshit.”
I don’t blame him, nor Hillary for making these sorts of assertions they don’t have to prove. Yes, I despise Reagan, but I don’t care if everyone does. That’s one thing Obama should never say, right? Does our support of him stem from whatever class we think we belong to? I don’t see the problem – “Can’t we all just get along?”
If we went berserk over every little political unpleasantness, we’d be dead by now. Or somebody would.
Given Reagan’s notorious racism, it is unlikely that Obama would tread into this territory lightly. Something is up.
I decided quite some time before this race that I disliked Democrats who tore down the Democratic brand, trashed progressives, and praised Republicans.
Obama’s two choices weren’t “praise Reagan” or “trash Reagan”. This isn’t binary. Obama brought his up specifically to praise his tactics and push the story of his campaign. Then he mentions Kennedy, but says nothing in praise of his policies or campaign narratives.
When you repeat Reagan’s criticism of the growth of government, you make it hard to do useful things through it. He criticizes both sides in this for pushing an “ideological agenda.”
I know there isn’t a lot of welcome here for discussions of framing, but this is going to bite him if he gets into office. It buys into the story that the Republicans have been trying, inaccurately, to build about Reagan. It buys into the story that the public mandate lies with conservatives, which he’s been pushing for some time now.
And in spite of what’s been suggested all up and down this thread, I’m not with the Clinton campaign. I have been complaining about this sort of behavior by Democrats for years. It genuinely bothers me. It’s why I can’t stand Lieberman. And yeah, let’s look at records. Lieberman has a very high lifetime rating as a staunch liberal, even progressive on many issues. And yet, he was damaging to Democrats long before he went and endorsed a Republican for president because he praised and criticized people from a conservative frame that benefitted Republicans. Other than that, there’s no reason at all to dislike Lieberman any more than any of the others in Congress who voted for the war.
I’d like to hear him say it doesn’t matter if I happen to be Muslim. He is constantly questioned about various rumors floating around about him. His response is always an emphatic, “I am a Christian.” Why can’t he respond with, “What does my religious affiliation have to do with anything?”
Given Reagan’s notorious racism, it is unlikely that Obama would tread into this territory foolishly. McCain is running on the legacy of Reagan and not any Democrat as far as I can tell.
This segment which is apparently from longer interview, is decontextualized and I’d like to hear the full interview. It is only one minute long. In it I do not hear Obama praising Reagan, only describing what happened in 1980 and beyond.
What was the question he was asked? What was the follow-up or even the remainder of his response? I smell the antics of the opposition, perhaps from the Hillary campaign where we have been hearing a lot of distortions of Obama’s record.
This decontextualized segment is obviously intended to Swiftboat Obama and to cast him as a Reagan Republican or Lieberman Democrat. Here is the full interview. See if can come to the same conclusion as the Hillary proponents on what Obama actually said. It is an hour long and I will come back later after viewing.
THE LINK
And I thought the blogosphere was all about rresearching the truth.
shergald’s asking “Cui bono?” and there’s a definite point there.
Trying to tie Reagan around Obama’s neck must be responded to by asking who benefits the most from it.
Having said that, if Obama is trying to invoke can-do spirit to motivate progressives, invoking Reagan is an almost Bushian level of tin-eared faux pas.
If on the other hand he’s actually trying to convince Lieberdems that he’s just an okay and swell peachy guy, well, hey. Reagan is the way to go on that, surely.
Methinks both sides are at fault here for this one.
Still we don’t even know what question Obama was responding to, the remainder of his response, nor about any follow-up questions that may have been asked.
The partial one-minute video is deficient. And why just post such a brief, decontextualized statement?
Methinks for ulterior reasons.
Agree. For starters, the whole video has poor audio. Only Obama comes in clear, even with the sound turned way up. The questioners are almost completely inaudible. And there is an edit right before this quote, so who knows what got him on this line of discussion.
Agree.
I just reviewed the section of the interview where this was quoted from. We should note that right before this quote that’s being used around the blogosphere, there is an edit and I am not sure if he’s answering a new question or if it’s a continuation of the answer from the previous question, with something cut out. However, after the quote everyone’s using, he continues on to talk about the generational changes in politics and how Kennedy also started us in a new direction previously.
What I gathered from this is that he feels we’re at the point right now where we’re ready for a new cycle or direction in our politics, like with Kennedy and Reagan. At those points in history, they were the catalysts of the change to the new direction. He feels he can be that actor in this cycle.
Admiring Reagan as a political actor for his abilities in uniting much of the country country behind some change does not equal embracing his policies. He does have little disclaimers in his discussion about that too, like “look I’m a Democrat…”
People need to calm down and watch the long boring interview before they go and write emotional blog posts like this one. Do your research. Now that I have watched the interview, I feel like we’ve been set up. It’s as if this out of context quote was put out there by an opponent of Obama’s to throw us into this frenzy where we start destroying our own candidates. And some of us fell for it.
Your description is precisely what Obama intended to convey. The partial, out of context video, appears to be little more than a deception by the Hillary camp.
As I stated earlier, they are running scared, and Bill Clinton is ahead of this hysterical pack.
Amen.
Two weeks ago, we had Clinton accusing Obama of being “too liberal” now this diaryist misinterpreting Obama’s positions.
Obama is a Real Centrist and we need to rid the party of the DLC gang and all the Pretenders.
Is that what we’ve been working for as a liberal, progressive blogosphere? A real centrist!?
That dang well isn’t what I’ve been hoping we’d get, and it isn’t what I’ve been criticizing people like David Broder and his crowd in order to achieve.
Screw the DLC, bring us the real centrists!
It’s Orwellian what I’m reading here. Can’t sodding believe this.
DOn’t disagree with your take. My instincts tell me that Obama as opposed to Hillary will flip toward the left when the pressure to do so emerges.
YUP- HE DEFINITELY PUT US ON A DIFFERENT PATH!
He broke a union! He started his campaign in the home of the most virulent racism. Yup, thats a different direction. Ya want more? Look where the new direction has taken us. Stop the revisions folks.
The benevolent dictator concept of ruling was what our ancestors fought against. Get your heads out of your asses. What excesses of the 60’s and the 70’s? PEACE? LOVE? STOP THE WAR? Give me a break.No, don’t give me a break. OPEN YOUR EFFING EYES!
Full quote:
I don’t want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what’s different are the times. I do think that for example the 1980 was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.
Thanks boran2.
Politicians shouldn’t become history professors in interviews. Because then we argue about history instead of focusing on their campaign.
That’s not a full quote.
There is more both before and after what you quote here. If this is all that people are thinking was said, I can definitely understand why they’re getting so emotional. Where did this quote come from? Is someone spreading an out of context clip? Seems so.
He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it.
And the country is ready for something different now. Duh.
I know a lot of bloggers would be more satisfied if Obama actually came out with a stinging denunciation of Reagan and everything he stood for. And, further, he’s not supposed to care that such a statement would turn a lot of Americans against him. Let me know if that works out for anyone.
I seem to recall Howard Dean being criticized once for saying that he admired the ability of the right wing Republicans to organize. So the rules, as far as I can discern, are that it is unacceptable to admire anything about the opposition, or admit that the opposition has ever had any success in achieving their goals.
Gotcha.
By the way, I was soooo intent on remaining a disinterested bystander during this primary season. Then I started reading these sorts of attacks. The one about “Obama dissing Gore and Kerry” was egregious enough that I signed up for the Obama blog and wrote a post.
We even have a “Barack to the Future” bumper sticker on our car now.
If these sorts of attacks continue, I may actually have to send him money.
Same here. I can’t believe the Hillary supporters are running so scared at this point that they would attempt deceptions about Obama’s speech and statements. On the other hand, listening to Bill Clinton’s Obama rhetoric is making me think that he is coming to believe that his position as the greatest politician of our generation (Gingrich) is waning fast.
Bill learned to steal Republican positions in the 90s and called them Democratic, but only the Reagan Democrats believed it. Hillary is more Clintonism, Republican Lite, and must be stopped for that reason alone.
Can I say that Obama referencing Reagan’s “can-do” is creepy while saying that there is something missing from from the initial quote, its context and its analysis which leads me to believe that perhaps Natasha is trying to score points for her candidate at the expense of the whole truth?
+++
By the way, we had some of the debate on at our house. Myself, I liked most of Edwards’ answers. My girlfriend (she remembers when the Beatles were big, mixed race) said that Obama came off as too slick and a little detached (“Where’s his heart? He doesn’t show his heart.”). Clinton reminded her of the woman in Human Resources (“Like women in business who lack self- confidence and overreact, and are on the defensive. A female corporate manager not quite sure how to use her authority.”). Girlfriend said she’d like to “eff” Edwards. (“Wouldn’t you?”) Also, he seems well-intentioned. He’s communicating a message and most-driven by principle.
Girlfriend’s adult daughter (mixed race, very liberal), didn’t like Obama skirting photo ops with San Francisco mayor Newsom around the time of the attempts to allow gay marriages. Clinton’s support of the videogame law a while back was offensive to her. She said that Edwards was the least offensive of the three.
Girlfriend’s other daughter, not living at home, supports Obama, but I have no details on why or if she saw any of the debate.
+++
So the very unscientific survey of our household says people doubt Obama’s heart and dislike Clinton.
Natasha should have imbedded the youtube so everyone could judge it for itself.
You have taken a comment out of context and added a lot of meaning that isn’t there. Obama never endorsed Reagan’s policies – he was stating a fact of political anthropology. Reagan was an incredibly powerful force. I remember my liberal Democratic congressman basically saying that they were unable to stop Reagan on many fronts.
Obama was not praising the outcome he was noting the phenomena.
I read that late last night and saw a very dipolmatic answer that didn’t say a damn thing. I guess I can see how one would think of it as praise, but your average GOP voter will look at it and say, “Wow, a Dem. who’s not foaming at the mouth against Reagan!” even though, Obama didn’t say a damn thing.
Obama is all over the map on this and this was bad politics imo.
The fact is that Ronald Reagan was a transformational president. He transformed this country by rejecting the old order and bringing in a new order. Now, I couldn’t stand the man or his new order but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a transformative president.
I get that Obama wants to be transformational too. He’s using the last example of a transformative president who lived in the lifetimes of most voters.
But.
Ronald Reagan stood for something. He spoke against the old order. So that when people voted for him they were voting against the old order too. Or at least Reagan could claim that they were. We all know that many people voted for him for shallow reasons as many people do in elections. But for people who wanted to know what Ronald Reagan stood for, it was plain to see.
Ronald Reagan was a conservative. He embraced being a conservative. People identified with him as a conservative. And they voted for him.
Obama’s problem is that he refuses to embrace being a progressive. If he wants to be a transformative president, as Ronald Reagan was, as FDR was, he needs to tell us HOW he will transform. What is the old order that will be thrown out and what new order will he put in its place.
This was a stupid interview by Obama imo.
And by the way, I’m not one of those people that believe that in order to embrace being a progressive he has to come out with 12 point programs. In fact I think that’s the worst thing he could do at this point in the cycle.
He needs to demonize the old order so that people who once embraced it now reject it. He needs to find the conservative-demonizing equivalent of Ronald Reagan’s “card carrying member of the ACLU”.
Or they want to take a hard look at all of the candidates. Or maybe they support Edwards or Kucinich?
Didn’t he later make a comparison to JFK? I thought he did from when I read about this. Is that bad?
I get why people have a knee-jerk reaction to the Reagan reference but he didn’t say that he agree with his policies, and in the past he explicitly said that he did not, he just said that Reagan was a transformational figure. That’s accurate.
Okay, I just followed the link in the original post back to a post at OpenLeft by Matt Stoller where he shows a YouTube of this dramatically shortened and out of context quote from Obama’s meeting with the Editorial Board at The Reno Gazette Journal. Here’s the description at YouTube for the clip: “Obama talks about his preference for Ronald Reagan over Bill Clinton with the Reno Gazette-Journal editorial board on 1/14/08”
First off, this video is not a complete quote. It’s a sound bite that sounds like one thing when Obama’s full answer was about something much bigger.
Second, as I followed the clip back to YouTube to see who in the hell posted this thing, I find it was posted by some user named Erwinn22, who has been a member for a whole 21 hours and has posted one clip. This one. Suspicious. But hey, this nobody has gotten over 11,000 views of their one video. Pretty good, huh?
You need to see the FULL Video to see what’s going on here.
Frankly I’m disappointed with Matt Stoller. He’s too smart to make such a rookie blogger “mistake.” He also posted
about how a friend of his overheard Obama saying “There is a nasty aspect to politics on the internet that has to be dealt with.” So, is Matt Stoller trying to stir up controversy here? Is he a fabricator here? I don’t know, but I’m going to be alot more skeptical of what he’s advocating from here on out.
How suspicious that someone posted a video of an interview with a presidential candidate. Whatever could they have meant by that?
And Obama has, in at least one instance, paid someone to do oppo research on a member of the liberal blogosphere. He’s criticized the DailyKos community as being boring, unoriginal.
I endorsed Clinton in the first place out of spite against the way she was being criticized. But I’ll tell you, if I hadn’t done so yet, I’d be tempted to because of the way Obama’s being turned into a saint of liberals, when he’s probably the most conservative of the three candidates running based on his proposed platform.
The Dkos community is boring and unoriginal at this point.
Natasha, there is not enough difference between the Clinton and Obama stances on the issues for you to pretend that he’s a conservative. Which is what you are implying here.
I agree completely that he isn’t a saint and I have no problem with peoples criticizing him especially when he makes such politically stupid statements. But he isn’t even close to being a Lieberman.
And endorsing someone out of spite? You detract from your credibility as any kind of political analyist when you admit you endorse candidates out of spite.
It is suspicious because it is only part of an answer, taken out of context and presented as “Obama prefers Ronald Reagan over Bill Clinton.” Had someone done a similar hit-job on either Edwards or even Hillary, I would be just as curious about what’s going on. When I read this quote and then watched the truncated video, I felt something was up because this doesn’t fit with Obama’s political philosophy at all.
By the way, when you go trying to stir people up with shit like this, you really should disclose UP FRONT who you support. It’s scummy pieces like this in the mainstream media that drove me to reading blogs for a more diverse perspective in the first place. I guess it’s just politics though, so carry on. I just hope people can see your motives for what they are.
Oh, for pity’s sake. Did anyone on this thread not know that I endorsed Clinton? Was it not brought up numerous times? Have I tried to make a secret of it? I didn’t have to write a goddam front page post talking about it after BooMan published a piece trashing her, a piece in whose comments he was not asked to define who he was supporting. Did I not write a post only a few days ago slamming the media for its blackout of Edwards’ message, even though he isn’t my candidate, either?
And thank you for accusing me of being scummy and dishonest.
I gave up a consulting gig where I was making nearly $100/hr on a part time basis so that when I went to school full time, the other thing I had time for was blogging about progressive politics for free. I’ve practically been starving myself this last year trying to hold it all together and not have to give this up, and I still found a $100 or so over that time frame on my screaming in pain credit cards to give to progressive congressional candidates Darcy Burner and Donna Edwards.
But I’m scummy and dishonest.
I’d suggest you go do something anatomically impossible, RandyH, but that’d probably just make me shrill.
You want to attack me personally because you disagree with my assessment of the candidates’ merits? Who have I done that to? Who? Who here have I suggested is shilling or dishonest because they support someone else? You guys want to ignore everything that comes out of my mouth because I’m a Clinton supporter, or discredit an actual quote of something Obama actually said, because Matt Stoller also quoted it, you’ve gone off the deep end.
I did not realize that you supported Clinton at the beginning of this discussion. It actually took me while to figure that out. What I thought is that you had been swayed by a deceptive video clip linked to by someone that most of us consider to be reputable.
And I am truly sorry if I made you, personally, feel “scummy” or “dishonest.” Really. I mean that. We can all get worked up over things like this, including me. And I’m just going to disregard that nastiness fired at me as well. No need to apologize.
Have a nice day.
I appreciate that. This has all gotten incredibly personal for so many of is, it’s going to be hard picking up the pieces.
Oh Shut The Hell Up.
The Blogosphere can really be stupid.
Did he say he will do any of Reagan’s policies.
Bet you never even listened. Just heard Reagan and ran like a scared idiot.
Reagan had a way to get things done. Like them or not. The way he went over the media. How about the way he got Reagan Democrats.
Maybe if you had a brain you would realize that is what he is talking about.
And Bill Clinton. Yeah, the economy was wonderful.
But what else did he really get done. Signed off on a lot of Republican plans.
You’re way over the top here.