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1

Amen.

Posted by Gitai | February 14, 2008 2:03 PM
2

+1. FTW. etc.. etc... etc....

isn't that why we didn't like kerry? because he wasn't charismatic enough?

Posted by infrequent | February 14, 2008 2:07 PM
3

Now THAT was what I call "sensible".

Posted by heywhatsit | February 14, 2008 2:08 PM
4

w00t

Posted by Nerd vote | February 14, 2008 2:08 PM
5

Scary. Brownshirt scary.

And if we ever "all calm down", Obama's not in the running.

Posted by RonKSeattle | February 14, 2008 2:08 PM
6

This is the type of political commentary that is actually worth reading. Thank you.

Posted by SDizzle | February 14, 2008 2:09 PM
7

thank you.

Posted by kissame | February 14, 2008 2:10 PM
8

Right on! Thank you.

Posted by Kat | February 14, 2008 2:12 PM
9

word!

Posted by some dude | February 14, 2008 2:17 PM
10

Can Annie please replace Krugman on the NYT op-ed page?

Posted by jonglix | February 14, 2008 2:18 PM
11

RonK -

Elaborate please.

Posted by Willis | February 14, 2008 2:21 PM
12

Thank you Annie.

Posted by David Schmader | February 14, 2008 2:24 PM
13

W00t!

Posted by NaFun | February 14, 2008 2:24 PM
14

Hmm, Obama's in the lead and now Annie gets conciliatory. Funny that. She wasn't so Kum-Ba-Yah when Obama was behind.

Democracy is messy.

Posted by blank12357 | February 14, 2008 2:26 PM
15

Annie, she didn't say she was "scared," nor did I say I was. Nor did anyone compare him to a cult leader. What she did say was that some of his followers act like cult members, and I think that's a legitimate point. Some Obama fans DO think he's the Messiah. Does that reflect on him? Not directly, although the call-and-response chants can be a little creepy. But their obvious, somewhat deranged enthusiasm (and their ability to shout down fans of their opponent) isn't an argument FOR Obama, either.

Posted by ECB | February 14, 2008 2:27 PM
16

thank you annie. please disregard the troll @ 15.

Posted by brandon | February 14, 2008 2:29 PM
17

please, no one reply to @15. let's keep hope in this thread.

Posted by infrequent | February 14, 2008 2:31 PM
18

Cheers!

Posted by Chris B | February 14, 2008 2:36 PM
19

@14, Having said that, and assuming that Obama wins the nom, the good thing would be that the Nader/Kuchinich/Dean/Obama tension finally gets resolved. Its been splitting the left for years and in many ways helped Bush retain the White House in face of strong opposition.

Clinton's supporters will switch to Obama if they have to, and we'll get a united party and Democrat President out of it. I'll give up having Clinton as the nominee for that. I'm not happy about it, but a united party can do alot of good.

Posted by blank12357 | February 14, 2008 2:36 PM
20

Amen, Annie. As I mentioned below, there's been a concerted effort in the past week or so to paint Obama's followers as cult-like or creepy because they're enthusiastic, and it's sad to see Erica playing a part in that. It's the stupidest kind of ad hominem attack. In her comments above, Erica says that the characterization of Obama's supporters is not an attack on Obama, but that was exactly the gist of the quote she seconded: "I want an adult to rule." Her intention was clear enough.

Posted by Gabriel | February 14, 2008 2:38 PM
21

First of all, @16 and 17, why not reply to ECB? Dialogue!

@ECB: I am afraid of cult members, so I assumed that you would be too, but okay, change it to "being creeped out." You can't have cult members if there's no cult leader, so that was just a logical inference. And as a fellow white person, I'm not totally used to call-and-response stuff either--the last time I can recall doing such a thing was at a Take Back the Night rally. But come on, call and response is a hallmark of the black church and has been used by black politicians for a long, long time. If you prefer response with no call ("Hill-ary! Hill-ary!"), uh, fine. But having a chant that comes in two parts is not inherently creepy. Really.

Posted by annie | February 14, 2008 2:40 PM
22

@15 - ECB, you really should have let this one slide.

Posted by Will in Seattle | February 14, 2008 2:42 PM
23

ECB is totally right, and you all are assholes. As someone who was actually at a caucus where Obama people (a minority of the Obama poeple, for sure) shouted down Hillary people, got right up in their faces and called them "Stupid" "Ignorant" "Racist" and all sorts of fun accusations, I have to say that Obama superfans are scary. However, of course you are going to get a few over zealous people when it comes to politics. However, what really bothered me is that the other Obama people (the majority)sat by and did NOTHING. Finally, a few Obama people (including me) apologized to the Hillary people and told the unruly to shut the fuck up. It was utterly disgraceful, and really made me rethink the wave of Obama. If you really don't see how this mob mentality could turn me off to the Obama-craze, well there is no helping you.

Posted by Holla | February 14, 2008 2:47 PM
24

annie, i was semi-joking in my response at 16, but it's hard to have a dialog when someone makes sweeping, offensive generalizations about people, then tries to brush off the remarks... with more of the same ["creepy", "deranged enthusiasm"].

i understand that people are worn out and cynical from the past 15 years of political drama in this country, but to be so dismissive of people because they're actually INSPIRED by a politician - as opposed to throwing their support to the lesser of 2 evils, which is how most people i know think when they go to the polls - is patently offensive.

if you're candidate doesn't inspire you, i'm really sorry to hear that, but don't take a dump on the rest of us because we're inspired by ours. that is all.

Posted by brandon | February 14, 2008 2:49 PM
25

John Kerry's call and response line was "Help is on the way!" It sucked (obviously), but not for lack of trying. Didn't Al Gore have one too?

Would Hillary stoop to attempting such "creepy" tactics? Would Hillary encourage her supporters to "act like cult members?"

Why yes, Erica, Hillary would. I don't blame anyone for being unable to remember the brilliantly conceived "When I say madam, you say president!" Really. Google it.

Yes, it looks like satire, but it's not. Hillary would love to be able to do what Obama can do. She can't. Next best thing is sour grapes.

Posted by elenchos | February 14, 2008 2:51 PM
26

*sigh* Annie, will you marry me? (Oops I got overexcited again)

Posted by Todd | February 14, 2008 2:58 PM
27

You all don't understand. ECB is actually OK with deranged enthusiasm about a candidate - but only when it comes from older feminists.

Posted by go figure. | February 14, 2008 3:01 PM
28

You all don't understand. ECB is actually OK with deranged enthusiasm about a candidate - but only when it comes from older feminists.

Posted by go figure. | February 14, 2008 3:02 PM
29

That is what I have been telling people too. When he is only policy shows, he knows his stuff and has very specific ideas. Main stream media covers horse race and soundbites. Policy doesn't make good soundbites, but claiming that Obama has no depth is an easy bite. The media would have to spend time on policy to cover Obama's depth.

HRC is feeding this as well, and it is going to hurt the nominee. Obama has a firm grasp on policy and his proposals are more detailed that HRC. I am not sure when Clinton or McCain are doing all their policy talk, but I haven't heard it on the campaign trail.

The no depth arguement is just a continuation on the prior "he speaks so well" talk of the media and prior coverage of black candidates. No depth is just a little more PC.

Posted by Yes | February 14, 2008 3:04 PM
30

annie are paultards following a cult leader? i don't think so. larouche more so.

the excitement for obama is much more like paul and larouche than jfk or mlk.

here's what wrong: if ecb brings up resko and the fact that he was literally obamas firt contributor and biggest for a decade and is now in jail and seems to have made big bucks off bad low cost housing, the board would go crazy.

republicans will do it.

Posted by ouch | February 14, 2008 3:06 PM
31

AMEN. Excellent piece. Captured what I've been thinking. Thanks

Posted by Wyclef for VP | February 14, 2008 3:07 PM
32

@23. nobody did anything. except you. and others. who apologized. and told the others to shut up. which is, actually, somebody doing something.

@21 unfortunately, the "dialog" that results from addressing what ECB posts has been less than beneficial in past posts. it ends up off topic and a barrage of insults, accusations, false statements, and nothing too productive. i didn't think we needed another one. but it's your thread!

Posted by infrequent | February 14, 2008 3:07 PM
33

ditto Annie. I think ECB's head finally has exploded. love her stuff all the same.

cheers,

Posted by ho' know | February 14, 2008 3:13 PM
34

ECB@15 is totally right. 50% of Obama supporters, usually the seasoned political veterans like Will in Seattle and elenchos and fnarf, are articulate and fun to debate with. 50%, usually the folks that seem new to politics, act like Obama's shit doesn't stink and that anyone supporting anyone else is a closet republican.

Every time I have tried to bring this up, I get called a whiny douche. But many, many of us see it, and it makes us less excited about Obama because it makes us wonder if some of Obamas support comes from breathless loons that will flake out between now and the fall.

Posted by Big Sven | February 14, 2008 3:31 PM
35

@32
yeah, three of us stood up for them. out of 90. the other 87 obama supporters? either silent or laughed. the hillary people were perfectly nice, if a little timid. it's real fucking funny and when mob rule takes over our democracy. so your point was what? the blogs are actually full of stories of obama supporters doing this thing at the caucuses, which is how hillary's statements about the caucus have been miscontrued.

Posted by holla | February 14, 2008 3:39 PM
36

Have read about some Chicago billionaire who bought Obama's house for him. Classy place, valued over a million.

Tell me more Obamaites, for surely, Mc Cain will tell every detail.

The Senator in Alaska, Stevens, is under criminal scrunity because fat cats did his house remodel .... isns't this a slippery slope????

And I hope you are not thinking Mc Cain won't be dirty and mean right off ....Obama and Hillary are having a love fest, smiling and bowing to each other quite often, compared to what is coming.

Posted by Maggie | February 14, 2008 3:39 PM
37

Sven, maybe you ARE a whiny douche... :)

Posted by Clint | February 14, 2008 3:47 PM
38

Not directly, although the call-and-response chants can be a little creepy.

Erica, its a black thing. If you think that's creepy I wouldn't step foot in an AME Church on a Sunday then.

Posted by JJ | February 14, 2008 3:50 PM
39

@36: Then you read something libelous. Obama bought his own house. The sleazy detail is this: Rezko's wife bought the adjoining lot and sold a strip of land from it at market price to Obama. He has said it was "a mistake". If you're gonna hit my guy, get your facts straight.

Posted by annie | February 14, 2008 4:08 PM
40

Alot of Obama's ability to 'inspire' comes from the crowd (or 'mob' if you want to call it that) aspect, from his superdome rallies to the celebrity aping of his speeches on youtube. It's the herd mentality at work and just like it's a driving force behind televangelists. It's also the assumed annonymity, brute force and arrogance of a crowd that can spur people to act in ways they would not do otherwise. The crowd is like the internerd in the way that it can lessen one's typical sense of an individual self and lead one to act in irrational ways. Thus, the "I want Obama to scramble my breakfast, bend me over and make me bark" comments, or, my new favorite, "She's [Feinstein, not HRC] also 74 years old (and with any luck the evil old bat is going to die soon). If Obama wants to pick a war-mongering, corporate cock-sucking, authoritarian asswipe of a Bush supporter as VP he should just offer the job to John McCain or Hillary Clinton."

On a side note. Where has Charles Mudede been on all this? While his posts are often frustrating, many of them have the quality of pieces of conversation being had with someone else who might not exist. It's time to get his bizarre Marxist take on all this.

Posted by johnnie | February 14, 2008 4:22 PM
41

@ 36: sounding too much like a concern troll to me. "I support Obama but in reality all of his supporters are total douchebags." Sorry, not buying it.

Posted by The Grand Wazoo | February 14, 2008 4:22 PM
42

Sorry, meant 35, not 36. can't count...

Posted by The Grand Wazoo | February 14, 2008 4:23 PM
43

i have a question: who do you want all the mindless, cult-like folks to vote for?

Posted by infrequent | February 14, 2008 4:28 PM
44

I just see this all as growing out of the self-loathing Democrats feel and with which they sabotage themselves one election cycle after another.

It's now, apparently, terrible to feel authentic excitement about a candidate. It must be a sign something is wrong with us, that we're creepy or out of control.

Better to go back to the resignation and nominate one more corporate-style droner with maximal brand name. (I'm sorry, but that's Hillary to me.) If we actually showed enthusiasm those mean Republicans would make fun of us and we'd get hurt.

I still maintain HRC gets the nomination. The self-loathing is too strong.

Posted by Andy James | February 14, 2008 4:28 PM
45

Infrequent - Hannah Montana?

Posted by johhnie | February 14, 2008 4:32 PM
46

annie - obama paid $300,000 under asking and rezko paid full price for the lot next door and then sold off 1/6 for 1/6 of the price. rezko makes money on the volume no doubt. putting it in the wife's name makes it worse.

Posted by ouch | February 14, 2008 4:32 PM
47

after the seatbelt incident? and her dad getting hard working sloggers fired from amazon? well, okay.

Posted by infrequent | February 14, 2008 4:40 PM
48

Sven, "50%, usually the folks that seem new to politics, act like Obama's shit doesn't stink and that anyone supporting anyone else is a closet republican."

The only possible answer to this is "WHO CARES?"

Take a look at the candidate, not the kids yelling his name. You'll find all the answers you could want there.

Are they going to flake out before the election? Sure, if you let them. That's what campaigning is all about. If you can't hold them, YOU DON'T DESERVE TO WIN. No one is owed the Presidency. That's actually a fault of your candidate; she does on occasion act as if this moment that she has been working towards for decades is, by virtue of that fact, owed to her.

As for the house deal, I would only ask the people who bring it up, "where is your perfect candidate that has no baggage of that sort, because I'd sure like to see him or her, but I don't think he or she exists". If you're asking "who can stand up better under Republican assault", I think the answer is Obama.

Posted by Fnarf | February 14, 2008 4:49 PM
49

Thanks for the sanity, Annie. Obama clearly knows his shit, and he's clearly run a very smart campaign. He's winning, after all. As others have pointed out, you can be charismatic, smart, and practical all at the same time. It's what makes him so formidable. He's put together a great ground game and is competing in 50 states rather than just a few big ones. It's almost like he could see where HRC wasn't paying attention! This is good for the Democratic party, good for progressives (see the Donna Edwards win in the Congressional primary in MD on Tuesday), and should be a cause for Democratic rejoicing. He's building a movement for change and creating the infrastructure for it through his campaign. That ain't no Kool-aid. That's smart strategy and good organizing.

Posted by Ramdu | February 14, 2008 4:53 PM
50

I am not scared of him. I think he is the best speaker in more than a generation, I think he is compeling in many ways. I think HRC is what we need right now. I have said that -- just those words, and been called a racist bitch. I get that that is the minority of supporters, but it is still unnerving. Go ahead, attack me at will. I will still vote for him in the general if he is the nominee, while I try to forget this ugliness ...

Posted by HRC Supporter | February 14, 2008 5:28 PM
51

HRC Supporter:

I support Obama 100% and also find those comments unnerving. I also don't enjoy being called a brain-dead cult member or Obamamaton, etc. Cataloging our grievances at each other, especially those that are the fault of an ignorant few, strikes me as a harmful exercise.

People of all kinds say ignorant shit of all kinds. Best to move on in search of the sane people.

Posted by Andy James | February 14, 2008 5:52 PM
52

@23, 35

yeah... no. let's run this down.

A few folks out of 90 go to far with their words and 3 people tell them to back off. They do back off.

The remaining 80 or so stay out of it entirely or find it somewhat amusing.

Exactly how does this constitute "mob rule" taking over democracy? And what about not being overly distraught by this makes the rest of the people on this thread assholes?

3 shutting down a few with 80+ abstaining does not add up to mob mentality.

Nice narrative, though... here, I'll give you the studio pitch: Omega Man - at a caucus!

Posted by mobile vulgus | February 14, 2008 6:18 PM
53

AW -

I'm blinded by your common sense. Thanks, and please send more.

Posted by Rob Lightner | February 14, 2008 6:39 PM
54

Big Sven:

To my delight, I discovered that when my individual contributions to Obama totaled more than $3,500.00 for 2008, I was entitled to a full half pound of actual Obama shit. Yeah. Who knew?

Well, when my shit arrived, naturally I was eager to unpack it and get to know it. Where does Barack Obama's shit stand on the issues that really matter? Sure, we all know his shit can stick, but does it stand up?

I can report two important facts that tell you all you need to know about what kind of President Barack Obama is going to be:

1. The shit I was given by Obama does not stink. You heard me. Yes, it's definitely shit, and it was sent to me from Obama himself, but does it stink? No. No stink.

2. It cures the gout. I'm not going to give you all the details on point #2. I'm just telling you: Obama's shit cures the gout.

Does that guarantee that his shit can be used to fix the economy? Can Obama's shit fight terrorism? Honestly, I don't know. But consider the alternative. Did Hillary Clinton even give you any shit at all? What's Hillary hiding, anyway?

Posted by elenchos | February 14, 2008 6:46 PM
55

The Grand Wazoo @42: No, you actually cannot read. Unless you counted the posts, in which case...

Posted by Co | February 14, 2008 7:39 PM
56

Oh fuck, Johnnie is back and blathering


"She's [Feinstein, not HRC] also 74 years old (and with any luck the evil old bat is going to die soon). If Obama wants to pick a war-mongering, corporate cock-sucking, authoritarian asswipe of a Bush supporter as VP he should just offer the job to John McCain or Hillary Clinton."

Johnnie, you are pathetic, really, you are. You are completely and totally unable to offer any answer to criticisms of Hillary Clinton such as her record of corruption (Norman Hsu, Marc and Denise Rich), her betrayal of progressive causes (voting for the war, marching in lockstep with Bush until it was no longer expedient to do so, supporting torture, buying into more Bush administration lies and voting for Kyl/Lieberman, supporting an anti flag-burning law), her willingness to accept contributions from lobbyists and PACs, the fact that the is the number one recipient of contributions from the health care industry in congress.


Being unable to offer up any defense for Hillary's actions or any reason why, given her record of corruption, anti-progressive stances and support for the war Johnnie attempts to assume some mantle of sophisticated world-weariness, claiming that all of the candidates are the same but that he is still going to vote for Hillary because she is somehow more "honest" about who she is than Barack Obama.


Clinton supporters such as Johnnie remind me of nothing so much as Bush supporters; those 27 percent of Americans who still think he's doing a good job. If you bring up Bush's many character flaws, his obvious stupidity, the bad policies his administration has championed, his willingness to abandon conservative principles to get votes the only tactic the Bush supporters have is to dodge the issue and attack Bill Clinton.


Johnnie and so many other Clinton supporters are just like the Bush supporters, they're not progressive or conservative, the only principle they have is fuehrerprinzip, a blind obedience to their candidate, regardless of right or wrong. The only answer they have to charges against Hillary Clinton is to ignore them, just as the wingnut-o-sphere ignores charges against Bush or attacking Barack Obama or his supporters.


Really, I would like to hear one cogent argument from a Clinton supporter, any of you, about why, given Hillary's support for the war and Kyl/Lieberman, we should trust her now to get us out of Iraq. Or why, given Hillary's corporate ties we should expect her to lift a finger for progressive issues. Or why, given the fact that Hillary said and did nothing while her husband lobbied for and signed NAFTA into law, signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law, signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 into law, signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act into law and signed the Graham-Leach-Bailey act into law why we should assume that she wouldn't be as willing as her husband to pander to bigots and give corporate America everything it wanted. I want you to explain to me why, if we shouldn't support Obama because of his ties to Tony Rezko, we shouldn't also deny our support to Hillary Clinton because of her association with Bob "I wasn't talking about Obama using drugs, really I wasn't" Johnson.


Come on Clinton supporters, explain to me what it is about Hillary Clinton that makes you feel that none of these issues matter and do so without bringing up Tony Rezko, Exelon or accusing Obama's supporters of being nothing more than a lot of pathetic and deluded cult followers.


Oh, and as far as my comments about Dianne Feinstein I stand by them 100 percent. She's a horrible human being. She voted for the war, but now claims to have been "misled", which I'm sure the families of American soldiers who have been killed or maimed in Iraq, and the families of Iraqis who have been killed or maimed find very comforting. She was the co-sponsor of a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning, an appeal to stupid jingoism at it's very worst. She sat on a Senate sub-committee that oversaw contracts awarded to her husband's firm and finally, when the obvious conflict of interest started to surface, resigned from the committee. Feinstein has voted to give George W. Bush everything he wanted. She voted for Michael Mukasey in the Senate Judiciary Committee despite his refusal to condemn torture. She voted for the renewal of the PATRIOT act in 2006 without calling for any safeguards. She voted for the FISA amendments and she voted for granting retroactive immunity to the telecommunications corporations involved in the Bush administration's illegal spying. She's a numero uno Bush enabler, a corrupt, authoritarian hack who has as much contempt for American citizens and civil liberties as Dick Cheney and if she and Cheney both dropped dead tomorrow I'd throw a huge party.

Posted by wile_e_quixote | February 14, 2008 8:47 PM
57

I'm not sure that HRC fans have more fuehrerprinzip than other partisans, Obama fans included. I doubt that they have more, or even any, fahrvegnugen.

I also don't doubt that ECB genuinely likes HRC and her policies -- or, if she doesn't "genuinely" like them, then the definition of "genuine" is so contorted as to be worthless.

I like Obama because he's a cool intellect that can run hot when he needs to, and because he seems to have thought liberal principles deeply from the inside out. Is that a "genuine" reason to like the man and support his candidacy? Or do only resumes count?

As for the rest of the red-meat leftism, wile, I think it's kind of cute, but I also feel like you've cornered me at a party.

Posted by Andy James | February 14, 2008 9:12 PM
58

e@54:

I couldn't even get free shit from Hillary. I had to go get my own Hillary shit. Having spent good money for it, I can't really argue that it stinks, can I? Because that would say more about me than about Hillary's shit.

And it's really all about me. Even though I'm not running for President of the United States. Yet. Though given that there haven't been atheist Presidents since Washington and Jefferson, I realize that I have my work cut out for me. But I digress.

Posted by Big Sven | February 14, 2008 9:19 PM
59

Wile, I'm not sure why I keep clarifying my positions to you when there is so much Morrissey out there to listen to, but you give me the warm fuzzies. That said, I think I've made my stance on Hillary pretty clear. My god, the woman is NOT, I repeat, NOT any hero of the left. She generally represents typical bourgeois liberal positions and her faults are well known.

Neither of the candidates are going to radically change the countries environmental policy, nor end the disparity of wealth, nor put a stop to colonialism (militarily, politically or economically). Don't expect them to. Hillary does have the know how and tenacity to accomplish what may be possible to accomplish in such a situation (except for perhaps withdrawal, which I'll cede to Obama). The lady has been tested *forever* and can stand up to it. The same can't be said for Obama, who has a lot of baggage himself which hasn't been addressed too heavily yet, but surely will be. I don't argue so much for Hillary (indeed, I rarely do) as against people's misguided understanding of what is possible in a presidential election. Change does not come from above, and if anyone believes that the policies presented by either candidate can truly fix the significant problems facing the country, than they either don’t want more than a new paint job on the same old dilapidated house or they have terribly overlooked the deep structural causes of problems such as global warming, poverty, militarism, etc. It would be great to see some of the energy wasted on these primaries expended to create and supplement real movements that would actually address real problems.

There is something terribly frustrating about supporters of any candidate who belief that significant problems can be addressed from above, from the very power structure that created them. Add to that a fairly frenetic delusion about Obama, the cooptation of slogans from people's struggles in latin america paired with sung/spoken endorsements by Hollywood celebrities and a, to me at least, largely unexamined belief in the purity of a single candidate and well, that's where my target will lie. Any clearheaded supporter of Obama, the kinds that don’t misogynisticly accuse everyone else of being cock suckers or nazis for supporting a candidate who is, for all intents and purposes the same as theirs – well they’re fine with me. But I think we know who you fall in those categories.

Posted by johnnie | February 14, 2008 9:35 PM
60

So at my caucus everyone was very respectful of Hillary Clinton, and I was the guy, when one Obama supporter blamed the Clintons for Democratic losses in the 1994 election pointed out that the House leadership had dealt poorly with the fallout from the House banking scandal, which forced a lot of Democrats into retirement, failed to recruit good candidates for other races where Democrats were retiring and that the myth of the Republican landslide was just that, that a lot of the elections were Republicans unseated Democrats were quite close. I pointed out that it was convenient for a lot of Democrats in Congress to pile on the Clintons and blame them when in reality a lot of what happened was the fault of the Democratic House Leadership and that Clinton's coat tails helped a lot of Democrats into office in 1996 and 1998.


But there was a Hillary Clinton supporter there who told us that he could not support Barack Obama because Obama was a Muslim and a man who took his oath of office on the Qu'ran could never become president of the United States. Given this is it fair for me to conclude that all Clinton supporters are ignorant, hate-filled bigots who get their information from Powerline, Little Green Footballs, and the Michael Wiener show?


From what I've seen on Slog just as many Clinton supporters worship Hillary Clinton with the same slavish, cult-like devotion that they accuse the Obama supporters of suffering from. Clinton supporters such as Johnnie, Maggie, ouch, Big Sven, ECB or Holla are as incapable of hearing any critique of their candidate as they claim the Obamatons are. They try to be concern trolls (ouch), pass themselves off as world-weary sophisticates who claim that the game meaningless and rigged but all things being equal they're still supporting Hillary (Johnnie), repeat bullshit claims that could be easily refuted by a few seconds work on Google (Maggie, the Clinton supporter at my caucus who claimed that Obama was a Muslim), froth at the mouth about what deluded assholes Obama supporters (ECB, Big Sven, Holla) and how Obama is all fluff but no substance (Hey, could some of you Clinton supporters point me at speeches of hers you felt were particularly substantive on policy details? I sure haven't heard or read any.).


Then there's the claim that Obama supporters feel that his shit doesn't stink. From what I've seen of Clinton supporters they don't even believe that Hillary shits at all or for that matter even has excretory orifices. How else can you explain their fake concern over the Republicans swift-boating Obama (Newsflash, they already are, as witness the e-mails going out accusing Obama of being a Muslim and having attended a Madrassa. Of course some of those might be coming from Clinton supporters.) while simultaneously insisting that similar attacks won't harm their candidate, despite the far greater amount of baggage she carries? How else can you explain their lack of concern over the inherently anti-democratic dynastic succession of Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Bush, and Clinton (and maybe Clinton again), letting two families run our country for 24 or 28 years?


The only "case" that the Clinton supporters make for Hillary Clinton is that things were pretty good while her husband was president (which he and she had nothing to do with), vague and unsubstantiated claims that she cares about the little people and that she won't be as bad as a Republican because she's pro-choice.

Posted by wile_e_quixote | February 14, 2008 9:37 PM
61

wile_e: could you make your points in 1000 words or less? I kind of nodded off reading your comment after the first half hour or so. Thanks.

Posted by Big Sven | February 14, 2008 10:26 PM
62

johnnie @ 59


The same can't be said for Obama, who has a lot of baggage himself which hasn't been addressed too heavily yet, but surely will be.

OK, bring it up. Come on Johnnie, convince us. Show us all of Obama's horrible baggage that hasn't yet been revealed by the press.


Here's how to write a post like Johnnie.



  1. Claim that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are really the same and that there are no substantive differences between them based upon your vague and undocumented assertions that Obama has baggage that hasn't yet been revealed.
  2. Claim that "real change" (whatever that may be) cannot come from within the current socio-political system because it is inherently corrupt.
  3. Pretend that you are better informed and somehow above it all because you recognize that the system is inherently corrupt.
  4. Pretend that you are sensitive, concerned and care a lot, more than anyone else in the whole world, and certainly more so than those frenetically deluded Barack Obama supporters, by reciting a litany of bad things to include, but not limited to, militarism, global warming, poverty, disparities in wealth, etc.
  5. Co-opt slogans from people's struggles such as "change does not come from above", "acting for change", "real movements addressing real problems", etc.
  6. Use phrases such as "deep structural problems", "typical liberal bourgeois" and "power structure" to prove that you are a very serious person.
  7. Misread the posts of your opponents and accuse them of misogyny.
  8. Misread the posts of those you disagree with and accuse them of labeling everyone as nazis
  9. Label all Obama supporters (except for a "clearheaded few") as misguided, ignorant or "frenetically deluded".
  10. Despite your world-weary sophistication and dismay and despair that the masses have been fooled into believe that the election matters when in fact they are not "creat(ing) and supplement(ing) real movements that would actually address real problems" support Hillary Clinton, even though she's never going to do anything significant.

  • Posted by wile_e_quixote | February 14, 2008 11:09 PM
    63

    THis is a very good Obama article. It's not about his army of robots, though. It's about his civil liberties cred:

    http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=56b5000b-a425-4ff9-a818-ad218bbe8d1b&k=74892

    Posted by Phoebe | February 15, 2008 3:39 AM

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