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Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Re: Anthony. Nice Drunk Post, but…

posted by on February 5 at 0:01 AM

Yes, O has a stellar voting recordexcept it seems on energy issues:

He voted for the crazy 2005 giveaway to big energy… (Hillary, Kennedy, Feingold, Dodd, Kerry, Sarbanes (!), Schumer, Murray, … and Inslee, Baird, McDermott did not). Inslee’s my litmus test on stuff like this.

And—pattern emergingas the NYT reported yesterday, Obama talked all bad publicly about regulating the nuclear power industry, but behind the scenes he went to bat for them. That is: He misled the public. (I guess that’s a nice way of putting it.)

Oh come on, you say. One issue. Big deal.

Well…

It just so happens that Exelon Corp., the biggest nuclear power plant operator in the USA, is based in Illinois. They are his 4th biggest career contributor.

So, he votes straight liberal on most issues except when it matters to the fat cats who operate in his state and top his donor lists. (They are his 8th biggest presidential race contributor.)

So, I’d say, in fact, he’s soft …when the heat is on. When people are watching. When people are paying.

Look, I stand by the SECB Obama endorse … and for the reasons I’ve stated on Slog …here a few weeks ago…and again today… I think he’s the one to nominate.

And, in fact, unless Zogby is wrong (note that Zogby…of NH infamy…currently the pollster giving O the hottest numbers and framing the headlines, is actually out of step with most other polls) … anyway, unless Zogby is wrong, I expect Obama to win big tomorrow.

We need a Democrat in the White House, so I’m good with his seemingly historic momentum. Let’s ride it to November.

But the anti-Hillary double standard is shrill and embarrassing. Erica’s post (is a little crazy…and a little long), but damn, this shit is on target:

When a sexist idiot screamed “Iron my shirt!” at HRC, it was considered amusing; if a racist idiot shouted “Shine my shoes!” at BO, it would’ve inspired hours of airtime and pages of newsprint analyzing our national dishonor.

Young political Kennedys—Kathleen, Kerry, and Bobby Jr.—all endorsed Hillary. Senator Ted, age 76, endorsed Obama. If the situation were reversed, pundits would snort “See? Ted and establishment types back her, but the forward-looking generation backs him.” […]

Anyway, rah rah Obama.

p.s. JFK was a sucky president.

RSS icon Comments

1

JFK was a sucky president?

HUH????

Steered through the Cuban missile crisis, presided over huge economic expansion, started the mission to the Moon, which generated technology that gave birth and fueled the last 40 years of technological advances.

yeah, real sucky...

Posted by ecce homo | February 5, 2008 12:14 AM
2
... but damn, this shit is on target:

If the situation were reversed, pundits would snort “See? Ted and establishment types back her, but the forward-looking generation backs him.” […]

Ummm... how is that "on target"? I suspect that if the situation were reversed, Obama-loving pundits would indeed say that, and Hillary-loving pundits - like Robin Morgan - would say what Obama-loving pundits are now saying.

I don't understand people who are themselves clearly spinning, and who ought to have the self-awareness to realize it, complaining about the mere existence of contradictory spin, as if they held a patent on that sort of thing.

Posted by tsm | February 5, 2008 12:16 AM
3

OMG finally someone who agrees that JFK was a bad president. if he wasn't assassinated we'd probably remember him the same way we remember carter now: a nice guy but not a great president. great post josh. i always seem to agree with what you have to say.

Posted by Cook | February 5, 2008 12:17 AM
4

"steered through cuban missile crisis?" You mean "Create cuban missile crisis", right?

And "got into Vietnam" too right?

Posted by Andrew | February 5, 2008 12:23 AM
5

p.p.s. Josh Feit's blog posts make me yawn

Posted by andy | February 5, 2008 12:47 AM
6

Andrew you're bringing down the name... Dwight D. Eisenhower got the US into Vietnam predicated by Truman's foreign policy and dependence on his staff to make decisions (kinda like the current Bush).

Kennedy took us to the moon... or which ever Hollywood studio they filmed it in.

Posted by Andy | February 5, 2008 12:52 AM
7

Yeah, he created the cuban missile crisis...

You mean, he made the Soviets place short range nuclear missiles 90 miles from Florida. Gotcha.


The stupid ignorant shit that comes out of the mouths of the retarded children on SLOG never ceases to amaze me.

Posted by ecce homo | February 5, 2008 1:37 AM
8

ecce - yes, I agree with you on Kennedy and in regards to the Cuban Missile crisis and the great technological advances/spin-off's brought on by the moon race....

Umm, speaking of science..has anyone checked out Obama's science policy? I thought not, because he doesn't have one. Clinton is the only candidate that has anything remotely related to a science policy.

If Obama wins this tomorrow I'm voting for my Labrador as president come November...Obama is all talk, just like, as someone put it in a post earlier, Reagan, but no plan to back up all that talk. Man, I can't believe all the sheeple that are ga ga over him.

Posted by notonthehill | February 5, 2008 1:50 AM
9

If ECB and Robin Morgan are complaining about pundits being idiots then I wholeheartedly agree with them. Pundits, typified by the speak-first-think-later Chris Matthews, have indeed unfairly beat up on Hillary and slathered love on Barack. On the other hand, there have been many thoughtful and impassioned cases made for Obama and critiques brought against Clinton. See Fareed Zacharia's recent piece in Newsweek or Andrew Sullivan's piece in The Atlantic. Yet Clinton supporters never attempt to address these well argued cases for Obama. At most we hear only that she has "the most experience", before launching into a diatribe against her unfair treatment in the media. Never do they address the very compelling arguments made that Obama and not Hillary could expand the party, or boost down ticket candidates, or garner support from independents. Never do they say why we shouldn't worry about Hillary's high negative ratings, or why she won't galvanize Republicans against her, or how she would be better than Obama against McCain. On policy issues, I have yet to hear a well reasoned defense of her refusal to call her Iraq War vote a mistake. I could go on. Hillary supporters seem to believe that her superiority as a candidate is so obvious that they don't need to explicitly spell it out. If they cannot answer these questions then they will persuade no one.

Posted by markinthepark | February 5, 2008 2:07 AM
10

And I refused to address the main issue raised in this post, which was Obama's energy votes.

My response is: shame on Obama.

Posted by markinthepark | February 5, 2008 2:22 AM
11

Oh give me a break Josh.

At least he's willing to talk about realities, whereas Sen Clinton still has us bogged down in Iraq and the pro-oil pro-coal pro-gas policies her family helped not just perpetuate but increase tax breaks for.

(sigh, what spin will the desperate Clintonistas come up with next ...)

Posted by Will in Seattle | February 5, 2008 2:50 AM
12

(as a side note, I was born at Lackland AFB, where my dad did sigint intercept during the Cuban Missile Crisis, tracking those missiles ... so blaming JFK is like blaming my dad for translating Russian into English and code-breaking, while I was being born and then sleeping with a rattlesnake in my crib)

Posted by Will in Seattle | February 5, 2008 2:53 AM
13

Okay, guys, I agree that this conversation is silly. ECB particularly gets to me, as a successful, feminist, Hispanic female in mathematics. She is often angry and irrational (not a good combination) and embarrasses me. Anthony's drunk-post wasn't much better, but he doesn't have quite the same history, or post volume.

But @notonthehill: about Obama's science policy, you are misinformed. He's considered by many the science and technology candidate, with the TechCrunch endorsement, Lawrence Lessig's strong support (google it), Harold Varmus (Nobel Prize winner in cancer research, with 7 years heading the NIH followed by Sloan-Kettering under his belt)... and we know for sure that he supports scientists. There was a recent article in Science that quoted him as saying that we need to teach "how to use scientific inquiry to make intelligent public policy", and saying that he showed unending support for research.

I'm firmly in the science camp and hope you look into him a little more carefully.

Posted by V | February 5, 2008 2:56 AM
14

Again, I'm not saying Obama is perfect, and the Exelon thing is certainly upsetting. But I have no illusions that Clinton is un-beholden to special interests--in fact, given her experience, I imagine she's much more so.

The quote you pulled there is on target, of course. There is a huge double-standard. Sexism is much more tolerated than racism. That's not Obama's fault, nor is it a creation of the current media. Most importantly, though, it has nothing to do with electing a president.

I'm not anti-Hillary. Not at all. She'll be a strong president. I just don't see where having to put up with sexism says anything about her as a candidate. And I'm much more interested in the potential effect of Obama's mass appeal than I am in more polarization, which, sadly, is what I think she'll inspire.

Posted by Anthony Hecht | February 5, 2008 6:10 AM
15

I'm not hearing any HRC supporters threatening to move to Canada if Obama gets the nomination.

...so he can't be all that bad.

Posted by NapoleonXIV | February 5, 2008 6:40 AM
16

Forget Camelot, Obama has the potential to be the most transformational President since that other guy from Illinois.

Posted by collie | February 5, 2008 6:50 AM
17

It's worthwhile to remember that the Cuban crisis was provoked by Kennedy's deployment of missiles aimed at Moscow to Izmir in 1961. If anyone is to be credited with avoiding nuclear war in 1962, it should be Khrushchev.

Posted by JP | February 5, 2008 6:54 AM
18

Ecce, I'm very proud of you, vis-a-vis your defense of JFK. If you were here, I'd give you a cookie, and a pat on the head.

Josh, you are wrong, wrong, wrong. Bad reporter!

Posted by catalina vel-duray | February 5, 2008 7:17 AM
19

I'll get on the Kennedy was a crappy president bandwagon. Great speaker, great thinker, admirable agenda, couldn't get a damn thing done unless it was the wrong thing.

@6

I'm guessing you've read the Pentagon Papers, but please to recall: at the beginning of Kennedy's presidency, there were 948 American military personnel in Vietnam. By 1963 there were 16,732. Oliver Stone had it backwards: Kennedy essentially created the Vietnam war, by virtue of inexperience, lack of good advisers, and poor judgment. From the NYT publication of the Papers:

1963: Michael V. Forrestal, White House aide, reports to Kennedy that long, costly conflict should be expected. Vietcong recruiting is so effective that guerrillas could do without infiltration.

United States by October, has 16,732 men in Vietnam. Planning for withdrawal continues, study says, on "the most Micawberesque predictions" of progress.

Posted by Judah | February 5, 2008 7:21 AM
20

And does anyone else recall that Kennedy's 1960 campaign was predicated on a missile gap that didn't exist, and that his father probably helped him steal the election in any case?

Posted by Judah | February 5, 2008 7:23 AM
21

Clinton's refusal to call her vote on Iraq a mistake is simple. Faced with evidence of possible weapons of mass destruction, she believed that threats of military force were a valid way of gaining leverage for inspections. I think that she refuses to apologize because still believes it and doesn't want such an option to be constrained in the future. This position is hardly crazy or difficult to understand and is not inconsistent with her current position -- that there never would have been a vote if the intelligence was properly handled, it is time to leave Iraq, and she is going to get us out.

It also has the advantage of leaving her with a consistent Senate record to avoid charges of flip-floppery and to ward off the usual perception of foreign policy softness that plagues Democrats when she faces off with unabashedly pro-war Republicans in the general election.

Posted by josh | February 5, 2008 7:30 AM
22

So.....what everyone is saying is:

President Obama's gonna be even greater than Kennedy?

Posted by NapoleonXIV | February 5, 2008 7:30 AM
23

I know Josh will not read this but thank you for saying on Slog that JFK sucked as a President. Historians have never rated him very highly (Bay of Pigs comes to mind). The only success he had was the missle crisis.

You want a decent (though also flawed) Democrat to embrace? Try that guy in the wheelchair. What did he do again? Yeah, lead us through the Great Depression, built our social safety net and lead us through World War Two.

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger | February 5, 2008 7:38 AM
24

Speaking of Lessig, click here for his take on the Clinton / Obama matchup.

Posted by Ryan | February 5, 2008 7:39 AM
25

Too true about JFK. RFK, now, he had potential.
The only amusing part of the "iron my shirt!" incident is the way Clinton handled it, with grace and wit. And I say that as an Obama girl, but you've gotta give her props on that one.

Posted by Hypatia | February 5, 2008 7:40 AM
26

Wait, I forgot, no one wants to embrace FDR's legacy since he was one of those CRAZY liberals. And not just any liberal but a liberal who was not scared to be a liberal.

That and this great quote from a speech he gave at Madison Square Garden just before the 1936 election: "my enemies are united in only one thing: and that is their hatred of me and I welcome that hatred" and "it has been said that the captians of industry have met their match, now let them say they have met their master"

Can you imagine either Hillary or Obama having the balls to say that?

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger | February 5, 2008 7:43 AM
27

Hey, Josh. Why did you ignore what factcheck.org said about the NYT Exelon story? You've had two days to digest what it said, and so why don't you respond to it?

And if Erica's post is "crazy" what does that make yours? Sane?

Posted by elenchos | February 5, 2008 7:49 AM
28

listen. everyone posting to slog. the people you're getting worked up over are BOTH LIARS they will BOTH TAKE MONEY FROM CORPORATIONS. they will both sell you out for a bit of money from large companies. they will both be two-faced, lying, cheating POLITICIANS. it's sort of in the job description in this country. this back and forth is 100% pointless.

YOUR VOICE DOESN'T MATTER IN AMERICA.

but it's cute you still think it does.

Posted by voice of reason | February 5, 2008 7:50 AM
29

The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Republicans will hate you right to your face. The Democrats will be nice to you then fuck you behind your back.

Posted by Brian Kinney | February 5, 2008 7:56 AM
30

I'm a liar. I take money form corporations. But still, your assertion that my voice doesn't matter is really turning me around.

I just hope that some day I can post something on the slog that influences somebody else as much as you have influenced me. Thanks 'voice of reason'! Thanks!

Posted by elenchos | February 5, 2008 7:56 AM
31

Facts are for bitches.

Posted by Mr. Poe | February 5, 2008 8:03 AM
32

I will vote for D no matter what but I my biggest worry is what happens to Obama after he is nominated. Bill's Jesse Jackson remarks will look like praise compared to what the Rs will be saying. HRC going to Florida the night of the vote there will be nothing compared to the new improved 527s.

Then when the Middle East heats up how will Obama handle it and how will his supporters handle it?

I repeat, I will support him or her in the general. I worry that before the negatives, that go beyond the pale (Harold Ford)start, he is already only about even with McC. Nothing I say here or anywhere at this point will make any difference, the dye is cast. Whether the media have been fair or not doesn't matter.

JFK greater in memeory.

Obama voters, single focus or will vote entire ticket?

Posted by whatever | February 5, 2008 8:37 AM
33

JFK was a mixed bag in his 3 years in office. But I don't think the comparisons between Obama and him are apt anyway-- if we're going to invoke the Kennedys, I get more of an RFK vibe.

Posted by Joe M | February 5, 2008 9:07 AM
34

JFK was a sucky President. He was so pumped full of pills and drug shots the whole time he was in office he barely knew where he was. His administration was reckless and chaotic. And, most people forget, because of the way he died, it was not very popular. The mantle of greatness was laid over him after his tragic death. He was the figurehead of youth, but that was symbolic more than anything. He DID start Vietnam, too.

The guy who busted heads to make civil rights happen was Johnson. Even Eisenhower, in a much more difficult climate, actually accomplished more than JFK. Kennedy was weak. He gave a good speech, not unlike our man Obama, but didn't really have the power to make things happen. Too busy trying to bang Marilyn and Marlene Dietrich and a hundred starlets, maybe.

Bobby Kennedy was the shining light in that family.

Posted by Fnarf | February 5, 2008 10:01 AM
35

@31 - and this post is why I keep changing my mind and deciding that Mr. Poe is wonderful.

Posted by Will in Seattle | February 5, 2008 10:04 AM
36

Gee, that Exelon vote sure does suck. How many people has it killed? I mean, are there 600,000 dead Iraqis because of it? Are there 2 million Iraqi refugees because of it? Is it going to cost our children and grandchildren trillions of dollars? How many American soldiers have died because of his Exelon vote? Cause until Obama has a vote that authorizes something with those kinds of consequences, he's still got a better record than HRC.

And she still hasn't even apologized for it.

Posted by Gitai | February 5, 2008 10:24 AM
37

@34
LBJ?
LBJ moved civil rights along?

How dare you diss MLK in such a racist fashion. You are just like Hillbill, injecting race into this contest. Tsk, tsk.

Posted by unPC | February 5, 2008 10:47 AM
38

MLK/LBJ squabblers should not neglect to accord Harry Truman his due for his part in integrating the military by executive order in 1948.

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/9981.htm

Posted by Lloyd Clydesdale | February 5, 2008 11:13 AM
39

Following up on what #27 said, it's stunning that commenters called Josh out the last time he reported the Exelon story and he's still repeating the same bullshit.

Josh, you either have a shitty memory/attention span or you're deliberately ignoring the fact that the Exelon legislation is politically infeasible.

Which is it?

Posted by keshmeshi | February 5, 2008 11:19 AM
40

"Voice of Reason" @28 clearly voted Nader in 2000. Good thinking!

Posted by Matthew | February 5, 2008 11:36 AM
41

@39, if I recall, the website from that other post was not to factcheck.org but factcheck.barackobama.com.

I just went to factcheck.org and didn't find anything about the NY Times Obama article.
If it's there and I didn't find it, let me know though. I'd be interested to read it.

Posted by arduous | February 5, 2008 12:46 PM
42

@27 and @41:
It wasn't factcheck. org, it was factcheck.barackobama. com:
http://factcheck.barackobama.com/factcheck/2008/02/02/fact_check_on_new_york_times_s.php

(pardon the broken links, otherwise I can't post the comment due to Slog's anti-spam rules).

@28:
And you think posts like this show that you are smarter?


Posted by NaFun | February 5, 2008 1:41 PM

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