Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2: Chewing over the News
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The winger talking point on Obama's speech (video here) is shaping up as "it was a cynical campaign rally."
On one level, this response is appalling if not unexpected. On another, it does recognise a reality: Obama's stature has been restored and enhanced by that speech. Sure, he has great writers and a phenomenal command of register, but his pathologically unifying tone -- which hasn't always been fit for purpose in the hurly-burly of legislating -- found a new resonance in that speech.
All the more so in comparison to Palin's self-serving, tone-deaf "blood libel" video speech earlier in the day. What sort of zealot thought that was the right speech to give on the day of the service in Tucson? She didn't get to the two-minute mark before she began pleading that she and her allies were the victims in this.
People will credit the speech if Obama secures a second term, but the momentum actually started shifting shortly after the midterms. The presidential approval polling has been steadily improving for him: on the same TPM page as the Palin video, there's a Gallup poll showing him four points in positive, and even a (generally Republican-friendly) Rasmussen poll with him 49-51. I think it's certain that the next couple of days' polling will give that trend a push.
So, er, yeah. That unifying thing might end up on a campaign poster.
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Going back to the "you lie!" commemorative firearm: linking an offensive remark in Congress with a firearm at a time when a member of congress has just been shot seems like a horrifying example of escalation to me.
Can you imagine the same company bringing out a mark II in a couple of years; this one stamped "you lie dead" ?
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Well, Obama handled that better than anyone I can think of would have.
As we seem to be heading down grief avenue, here's a link to a page dedicated to those missing in the Queensland flood. Facebook and social media does it's bit again.
Queensland Police on FB.
On Twitter. -
Props also to Dan News for his service on the Queensland floods. It was via him that I was able to watch Nine's coverage live this morning.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
I don’t see how saying so denigrates women in general at all. There are very few options for women to succeed in politics. On the political right, there is just the one.
No, Sally, it’s just been pretty denegrating towards a lot of National Party women – MPs, officeholders and grassroots members – I’ve known, worked with, and come to respect over the last twenty years. I can’t believe I have to ask this here (rather than on Kiwibog or the Sub-Standard), and today of all days, but you can disagree with someone’s politics without acting as if they’re less than entirely human.
Sorry, Russell, I know you told me to lay off and I’m done. Time for a cup of tea and some quality spiritual detox with my girl, Janelle.
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Fresh from the archives (and long thought lost - thanks to Rob Mayes who is working on recovering a bunch of old vids), this may the correct thread to post this in just to illustrate that political violence is not unknown in NZ.
I'd not seen it for 25 odd years and I'm buzzing off it.
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Rupert Murdoch sinks a little further and blames it all on some poor girl:
Her kiss-off sent heartbroken Jared Lee Loughner into a sick downward spiral of drugs, depression and dark thoughts that dead-ended in mass murder last week.
Kelsey Hawkes, the first and only love of Loughner's young life, yesterday revealed how the temperamental Tucson teen "fell apart" after she dumped him in high school.
"My breaking up with him was not the cause of him going off the rails, but it was definitely the start of it," Hawkes, 21, told Britain's Daily Mail.
"I remember his face clearly -- he just looked like he had nothing to live for."
"Something changed in him -- he was not the same person when I told him it was over," Hawkes said, adding that Loughner was a "normal person" and not a "weirdo" when they dated for a year in 2005.
Way to go - may as well trash another life.
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oh that's great - where are the people dressed as bees or clowns
(speaking of which anyone remember that great McPhail&Gadsby faux ad for "the Red Squad Sings" with their hit rendition of "Send in the Clowns")
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Steve Parks, in reply to
Loughner must be the first person ever to feel depressed and have dark thoughts after being dumped for the first time.
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Steve Parks, in reply to
…Obama’s speech (video here) …
Seems trite to point out, but I thought it was a pretty darn good speech, overall. (Esp from about 24 min on.) He managed to emphasize that political rhetoric did not cause this to occur, while making points about certain political rhetoric. In doing so he gave Fox News et al as little as possible to use against him. In a way, he came to the defense of Palin.
“And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their deaths help usher in more civility in our public discourse, let’s remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy – it did not – but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation, in a way that would make them proud.”
Political analyst Richard Wolffe made some good points, on msnbc's coverage afterwards, too.
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Where do I start calling bullshit on that?
The original statement was: "There is an ugliness near the centre of the US political discourse (if it can now be called that) which I’ve never seen before – Nixon’s rantings, which were not intentionally public, were nothing next to the words on the hustings and in the media of some of the now elected members of the layers of US government and their advocates."
The events of the 1950s and 1960s in various parts of America counter that. In some towns mayors and the elected sherrif went from their day jobs to KKK rallies. Numerous political assassinations, and of people much more significant than we've seen in this time period. A left wing anti-war movement that tore itself apart and went on a rioting and bombing campaign to 'bring the war home'.
It's probably more centralised at present, but that's probably also because it's by no means as radical so therefore more able to get itself elected to high profile federal positions.
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
The events of the 1950s and 1960s in various parts of America counter that.
No they don't, simply because I'm not old enough to remember those events first hand so the statement stands.
The ugliness of the 50s and 60s was a very, very long time ago and had largely abated in a violent sense by the 1980s, even with the attempt to kill Reagan which was by the 1980s a political aberration.
And you miss the point that most of the bombings and such in the 196os were fringe, unless you equate the Weathermen with the likes of the ugly Senator King of NYC. The central political discourse was largely polite even when heated. That is increasingly often not the case now.
The likes of Beck, Malkin and Limbaugh - hateful vicious people - are very close to the political centre-right. There was no such national equivalent in the 1960s.
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And you miss the point that most of the bombings and such in the 196os were fringe, unless you equate the Weathermen with the likes of the ugly Senator King of NYC. The central political discourse was largely polite even when heated. That is increasingly often not the case now.
The structure was different (everything's always different), but in the South it certainly wasn't fringe. It was mainstream political leaders who were often endorsing or helping organise political violence, and then fronting up to the TVs and saying "this is what happens when uppity niggers start riling up good white folks". Some of these people were quite popular nationally.
No they don't, simply because I'm not old enough to remember those events first hand so the statement stands.
Well OK, I'll give you that technical point. I think my thesis still stands though. There's a tendency to see things that are here and now as the most significant ever. The American political system might be nasty at the moment, but it's certainly no where near as dangerous as it used to be (probably for a number of reasons).
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
The likes of Beck, Malkin and Limbaugh - hateful vicious people - are very close to the political centre-right. There was no such national equivalent in the 1960s.
The only thing they're missing now is a good supply of large telescreens. They've got everything else in place - unfortunately.
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
There's a tendency to see things that are here and now as the most significant ever.
I'm not thinking that at all - hence my references to the other bad eras. The US has an awful history of political violence - I read last year an incredible 1400 page history of NYC up to 1898 (the union of the boroughs) which simply turned my mind in places with the blood, and I'm well acquainted with the reconstruction and the thirties.
It was a very long time ago though. As were the 1950s/60s and Mississippi & Alabama. And as central as some of those people were in those states, they had no national platform that espoused hate in the way that Fox and many of its talking heads do.
"Quite popular" and a credible candidate for POTUS as some of these voices are, are quite different things - George Wallace was about as close as it got and that wasn't very close - as an independent. Put that next to the various batshit crazy GOP contenders lined up for 2012.....
As someone said up-thread, I think a lot of this is flailing at uncertainty. The USA is about to become a very big country that used to be the sole superpower. The base is in decline and the country is still working out why it's not as the mythology tells them it should be anymore.
It will, I think, get worse before it gets better.
None of which of course makes Sarah Palin, as putrid as I think she is, directly responsible for the gunshots this week, although neither does it absolve her from playing a conscious part in the bigger picture of pure ugly.
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recordari, in reply to
I'd not seen it for 25 odd years and I'm buzzing off it.
Ditto. Still have the Broadcast EP, and this has been a long term favourite. Saw them on a 'Beach Tour' in 1982-3 (??) where they did under-age gigs in small community halls. Nearly 30 years ago!
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
The winger talking point on Obama’s speech (video here) is shaping up as “it was a cynical campaign rally."
Meh… and I’m sure these are the same people who would have been outraged and disgusted (and with some justification) when the nut-roots were equally cynical about President Bush at Ground Zero on September 11 2002.
That would really upset me, but then I reminded myself: Obama can never, ever do anything to satisfy those people.
Rupert Murdoch sinks a little further and blames it all on some poor girl:
No he doesn't, SImon, Two vile numpites in the meth-head New York tabloid his company owns did, You've just pulled the most frak-witted trollism here on PAS and attributed it to Russell. Stop.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Rupert Murdoch sinks a little further and blames it all on some poor girl:
No he doesn’t, SImon, Two vile numpites in the meth-head New York tabloid his company owns did, You’ve just pulled the most frak-witted trollism here on PAS and attributed it to Russell. Stop.
Eh? I can’t see trolling or inappropriate attribution to me, or divine any offence in Simon’s comment. Please don't get riled on my account.
But it does bear mentioning that the original story was in the Daily Mail, which is nothing to do with Murdoch.
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Interesting to see prime minister Kevin Taylor’s spokesman John Key refusing to front the media over the decision to seal the Pike River mine. If anyone had any doubts John Key is a lazy, polls driven coward this must surely remove them once and for all.
The disgraceful cynicism of the exploitation of the tragedy for political gain by Taylor and Key followed by the total abandonment of the vicitims and their families when the political opportunity had been milked for all it was worth is incredible.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
Who's Kevin Taylor when he's at home?
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Kevin Taylor = Captain Panic Pants, John Key’s chief PR flack.
It simply beggars belief that our PM is so concerned with not being associated with bad news that he can’t even mumble a few words of condolence or support. When this disaster happened, government ministers fell over themselves to be seen standing with the saint of the hour Peter Whittle or to be broadcast making sad statements of support. Last night and today, Howard Broad was left to carry the whole show.
Key has no moral courage or compass, a trait all to typical of a corporate suit, and simply does as he is told by his media man. That being the case, it is clear who is actually running the country.
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Key is instead at a photo op at Camp Quality (for cancer kids) dressed as Dodgy the clown. Bizarre.
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Dodgy the clown. Grimly appropriate, methinks.
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The other Camp Quality photo in the Dom Post this morning has him positioned (without clown suit) beneath a cross on the school hall wall. That is a the one we will probably see repeated this year.
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
No he doesn't, SImon, Two vile numpites in the meth-head New York tabloid his company owns did, You've just pulled the most frak-witted trollism here on PAS and attributed it to Russell. Stop.
What Russell said!?
And given the acceptable low points that the Murdoch empire sinks to worldwide and that someone up the editorial chain, under their own executive guidelines, made the decision to run with this in the USA and thus play a part in trashing that girl to attribute this solely to the writers is perhaps disingenuous and a hell of a stretch. Or did the paper become a "meth-head New York tabloid" devoid of the hands on direction Murdoch is infamous for?
I suspect you may have found the coffee jar empty this morning, Craig?
But it does bear mentioning that the original story was in the Daily Mail, which is nothing to do with Murdoch.
Sure, but the Mail has no distribution in the USA where running something irresponsibly like this inthe NYP, photo and all in the current climate, will likely cause direct damage to the girl.
The editors of the Post were able to say 'what a pile of UK tabloid shite' and move on. As much as I dislike the NYP, most of the UK tabloids make it look hi brow.
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