Jay Cost says:
The country needs a bad guy to blame for its problems, so day in and day out Obama is providing them with a smorgasbord of villains from which to choose: Wall Street, Big Oil, the Tea Party, Paul Ryan, Rush Limbaugh, the Supreme Court, the Catholic Church, and so on. In fact, virtually everything that comes out of this president’s mouth is about redirecting blame onto some straw man.
He says these are straw men. But, ask yourself, how have these groups been comporting themselves? Do we have any reasons to be critical of Wall Street? Big Oil? The Tea Party? Paul Ryan? The Supreme Court? The Catholic Church?
In every case, we have seen some recent behavior that is absolutely appalling.
I don’t think “straw man” means what Jay Cost thinks it means.
Yes, all those villains are only too real.
Since I can’t write a diary, may I request one? It seems to me that the GOP are on the verge of choosing to run a mirror of the bizarro-Obama they have carefully constructed and so despise:
There are many more similarities (in character) between Romney and BizarrObama every day. BizarrObama and Romney are both claiming the other is ‘hiding’ in speeches and letting it slip that they would be free to show their hand fully only AFTER the election. Seems to me they are literally running toward/as each other.
Before you, dear reader, march out all the differences between platforms and parties, I’m not trying to say the candidates are actually the same. I’m just pointing out the increasing common characteristics between campaign Romney and the fictionally BizarrObama the GOP echo chamber has studiously produced for the last 4 years: the rise of Robama.
Repugs prolly figure that voters will pick a businessman Robama over a ‘community organizer’ BizarrObama.
But seriously, where are his birth certificate and family’s immigration papers? I haven’t personally seen them, so it’s hard to believe he’s even a legitimate candidate.
Here’s the Right’s list of straw men:
Obama
Liberals
Gay People and their Homosexual Agenda Mafia
Atheists
Blackity Black People
Brown People
Women who want adequate health services
Planned Parenthood
ACORN
Feminists
Scientists
and on and on …
And tomorrow it will be something else.
Never understood how they become so offended by stuff they do ALL THE TIME.
You’re mistaking straw man with scapegoat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
Can you create a strawman out of a scapegoat?
Because the picture of what the modern Republican party thinks of African Americans has nothing to do with me or, IMHO, reality.
Can you blame someone yet simultaneously ascribe them qualities they don’t have at the same time?
Gosh Jay, who is responsible for our problems? People getting too many government services? Public Radio? The postal service? Oh, I know, it’s environmental protection. Or black people. Or health care for lady parts. That’s quite a smorgasbord. That’s why we can’t have an alternative energy source that doesn’t wreck the climate and cripple economic growth. That’s why we have to crush budgets for schools and infrastructure but not prisons and aircraft carriers.
Not only does he misuse the term straw man (he means to say scapegoat). The point he is making is in and of itself a straw man argument. By referring to criticisms as scapegoating he’s in effect making a strawman argument himself (ie misrepresenting someone’s opinion into something you can easily refute).
That is a really cute bit of self delusion. After over 3 years of unprecented hatred and uncooperation directed at this president by the Repub opposition from day one, (“Our main goal is to get Obama out of the WH.”), Jay thinks Obama’s speeches against the Supreme Courts attacks on broccoli and their ignorance about how risk pools work is going to hurt the feelings of all conservatives and doom his second term.
Plus, even though Dem Presidents have tried since FDR to have health insurance avail. for all and Obama did it against the most selfish of interests, Obama gets to be branded a failure. Tell me again which great Repub President proposed a health plan that eliminated “preexisting conditions” and significantly cut down on the number of uninsured! I’m ready to listen.
Where to begin?? Cost doesn’t know the diff between strawman and scapegoat; any sort of credibility he thinks he has goes out the window for that reason alone.
Cost is boring/transparent. HE is deflecting blame– from the very persons/groups/corporations he implies are innocent. What a load of crap.