Jimmy Carter's Latest Sanctimonious Publicity-Stunt
Historians consistently rank "Jimmy" Earl Carter as one of the worst US Presidents of the Twentieth Century, worse even than George W. Bush on the three polls which included both of them, and the consensus attitude is that Carter was a chump whose legacy is national humiliation in Iran and runaway inflation at home.
Now this chump of a President and self-appointed Sunday-School Teacher to the World (TM) has added mind-reading to the list of his bogus "talents" and pronounced that...
"...an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African American."
This all-purpose cover for Obama's selling out everybody except a few billionaire bankers was quickly echoed by sleazy proponents of "identity" politics like the despicable M.J. Rosenberg of TalkingPointsMemo, who announced that "in Obama's case, 99% of the criticism is race based."
99%!
So all you progressive or liberal "racists" who were even thinking about criticizing our Dear Leader should just shut the fuck up and drink the koolaid!
And that includes you, Earl Ofari Hutchinson, with your crazy racist claims that Obama once pledged to "dump" the Patriot Act... and it gets even worse!
Obama justifies keeping nearly all of Bush's terror war provisions in place with the standard rationale that the government must have all the weapons needed to deal with the threat of terrorism, even legally and constitutionally dubious weapons. That, of course, was the Bush and Cheney stock line.
Racist! (But isn't this great photo anyway? I love that guy!)
And that also includes those Ku Klux Klan vipers at Black Agenda Report, which is featuring this screaming "racist" headline...
Distracting, Dissembling, Disappointing; Barack is Back!
Why don't they just call him "uppity," and quit trying to find excuses to hate him?
Other prominent "racist" scumbags who pretended to be progressives but finally showed their real bigotry by criticizing Barack Obama include David Sirota at OpenLeft, and Matt Taibbi, with his foaming-at-the-mouth "racist" claim that Obama and Rahm Emanuel accepted a "Big Bribe" from Big Pharma, and Robert Scheer, just another loony crypto-racist who pretends that...
Obama "has blundered into a deepening quagmire in Afghanistan, has continued the Bush policy of buying off Wall Street hustlers instead of confronting them and is now on the cusp of bargaining away the so-called public option..."
Racist!
Racists everywhere!
...except for Jimmy Carter, M.J. Rosenberg, Barack Obama, and Eric Holder, who "told it like it ain't" about this "nation of cowards," where hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers once sacrificed their lives to abolish slavery.
Starting with your opening sentence, one poll does not indicate consistency, and that only showed that conservative historians ranked Carter towards the bottom. Moving on,...oh forget it, you're just a tool.
September 17, 2009 8:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
That link shows 13 polls of historians. Jimmy Carter's average ranking on the which include him is 26th, which puts him ahead of Nixon and Harding among 20th Century Presidents, and slightly behind even Bush on the three polls where they both appear.
Learn to read, moron!
September 17, 2009 8:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
"...on the 11 which include him..."
September 17, 2009 8:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
First learn to link to the a site so that it doesn't bypass the information you want people to look at (moron).
And if only 2, thats TWO, out of the 11, that ELEVEN, put him the bottom quartile, that is not consistently calling him one of the worst. Yeah it doesn't rank high, but he isn't in bottom of the barrel.
Word for today kids HYPERBOLIC.
September 17, 2009 10:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Acamus" hasn't mastered "challenging" computer tasks like scrolling, and just shoots of his stupid mouth after 2 seconds of "research!"
But even if "acamus" could read, and even scroll, he probably still wouldn't notice that what I claimed was that Carter is near the bottom of 20th Century Presidents in the rankings, a qualification that passed right over his pointy little head, and now he "corrects" my blog by discussing the bottom quartile of all US Presidents, including that long list in middle-of-the-19th-Century clowns that everybody hates.
Enough with this dork!
If I wanted to teach the third grade, I would teach the third grade to third graders, instead of retards who missed it the first time around.
September 17, 2009 10:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
you use the words "one of the worst presidents," and if one using logic one would conclude one would assume that it would mean that he would land in the bottom quartile in at least a majority of the survey, which would be six of the eleven. If you want to expand one of the worst to the bottom two quartile, ie 50% of all presidents, in order to feed your desire to demonize Carter, its a free a country.
September 17, 2009 10:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
So I just looked at the poll, which you were talking about, about historians judging Carter, which you were focusing on, and made the assumption that your link sent me straight to the information that backed up your point. My bad. But really how did you set it up that when one goes to the site, it goes right past the info you want people to examine and instead settles on info you don't want to focus on.
September 17, 2009 11:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who the fuck knows how that link set up exactly the way it did?
I got you down to approximately where the relevant polls were described, instead of the top of the page, and if it was still too hard for you to figure out, maybe you should take up a more simple-minded hobby than political blogging.
September 17, 2009 11:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
What is wrong with you? I've read now 5 or 6 posts where you make comments and in each of those posts, you descend into personal attacks, foul language and set out to humiliate people who come to the forum to have serious discussions.
Your rhetoric is awfully close to the person who writes for Hillaryis44. Not just in content, but also in its rudeness and unreasonable viciousness.
Can't find some of the smartest, best informed contributors to this forum from 6 -10 months ago. Did you manage to poison the well?
September 26, 2009 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
{{crickets}}
September 17, 2009 10:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
The only poll done in the last 4 years is the CSapn Scholar from 2009 link and it put George W. at 36th place and Carter at 25th place, George W. was ranked above the likes of Andrew Johnson and Warren Harding, and George W. was probably over rated at that level.
Carter at least is respected and has mediated numerous political disputes throughout the world, not to mention his charity work. Carter also won the Nobel Peace prize. It was for getting a peace deal between Egypt and Israel, and was no small accomplishment.
George W. is not likely going to win any awards or be asked to do a god damn thing diplomatically the rest of his life, the world knows he is a dangerous fool.
September 17, 2009 10:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
yes.
September 17, 2009 11:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is there some history missing about what lead to our "national humiliation in Iran."
September 17, 2009 9:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, 4000 years of it, and every year of it is just another excuse for some peanut-farmer to surrender our embassy to a mob, reduce the only rescue attempt to a miniscule posse, and give command of it to some clowns who had never been in a desert.
But don't forget Carter kept US athletes who had trained for the Olympics all their lives away from those nasty Olympics in Russia, so he could show those nasty Russians a thing or two!
Jimmy Carter is a fucking peanut, with a Bible in one hand and a cellphone to call the media in the other!
"I'm back in the news! Whoopeeeee!"
September 17, 2009 9:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
So there was no one telling the American people that "we don't negotiate with terrorist" and then the American public finds out during a news conference that someone did what we said we don't do and some of the proceeds (i.e. arms sales ) went to the Nicaraguan contras. I seem to remember a press conference about a certain American leader "not remembering these events.
Oh, that's right, I almost forgot we overthrew the democratically elected Iranian government in 1953 to install the Shah of Iran. Overthrowing governments--democratically elected ones at that--seems like a very bad idea because it ultimately turns around and bites us in the butt.
That's some--some is the key word-- of the history missing from this plot
September 17, 2009 9:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, the US overthrew Mossadegh with three CIA agents in country in Tehran, and one of those three (Kermit Roosevelt) was a half-witted tourist.
I actually wrote a relatively long discussion of that bullshit story last year, but it isn't worth finding a link for some yahoo with a head full of unexamined clichés from the comix, like "1849."
September 17, 2009 10:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I see. There was more to the story of "national humiliation in Iran.". We like the parts that suit our needs.
September 17, 2009 10:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, democracy is only important when it comes to our country. When other people want it and it goes against our "national interests," well they're just being selfish. We're all equal, it's just that America is more equal than others.
September 17, 2009 10:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Rootie,
I have read quite a number of historical accounts that differ from your take on the 1953 overthrow so I would appreciate if you can dig up a link to your story or send some of your references my way. Books references would be fine too.
September 17, 2009 10:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, just for you, Saladin, I hunted down one of my old blogs about Mossadegh and the CIA, here,
But this is more fun!
...about "Shaban the Brainless," who probably had more influence on the downfall of Mossadegh than Kermit Roosevelt and the rest of those clowns.
I wrote two or three other essays about Shaban (which I cannot find anywhere, and their host sites have apparently vanished), based on Homa Sarshar's biography, which hasn't been translated, as far as I know, and I had to impose on a Farsi friend for as much as she was willing to translate on the fly.
Decades later Shaban showed up out here in L.A. County, where he frequented a few of the same hot-spots as Jacob Freeze, "the prophetic wonder-man of political blogging."
September 17, 2009 11:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Definitely more fun.
That is some very interesting information and I have copied and pasted it for further reference in case these blogs disappear too (josh wouldn't do that would he?). I don't dispute that Kermit's role is likely over hyped. That part of the story always struck me as over the top. However your rendition of the circumstances leading to the overthrow closely match my memory (granted from the NY times article you cite and history books like the Prize).
But even if Kermit was drunk on the Tennis Courts the millions that the CIA dropped would have had a large influence in such conditions. My understanding is that that their influence was enough to move the revolution in the direction of who BP wanted to take over (I have always assumed that MI6 actually ran that show- might be the bond movies, but they had the local intel, not kermit).
Regardless thanks for sharing. Incidentally, do you have a copy of the Sheppard's book? The publisher appears defunct.
September 18, 2009 1:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ruta, why disrespect 1849 like that? I don't think that's called for at all.
September 18, 2009 2:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. 49 is a pretty cool cat. Maybe I am missing something but I don't get the dis.
September 18, 2009 2:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Rootie dislikes disingenuous and rhetorical questions from poseurs who don't know fuck-all about Iran, and are obviously about to trot out a few clichés gleaned from TV...
And that's exactly what happened with 1849's next bullshit comment about Mossadegh.
September 18, 2009 3:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
That may be your opinion but there's no need to dis someone who isn't dissing you.
September 18, 2009 3:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, forget it ---you're just a tool!
Don't fret -- according to you that quote from 49's first comment to this post is not a dis.
Rootie is actually very precise in his language and 49 appears to be having a very bad day and missing simple points.
The more interesting discussion is what led to the over throw of Mossadegh.
I'd bought the line that it was the CIA's doing. Now I'm not so sure -- 'bought' the Mullahs? Were they totally corrupt (possibl on current evidence) or like right wing religious theocrats every where were the Mullahs already highly suspicious of a modernizing democrat (probable) and ready to believe he was an athiestic Communist once he started nationalizing 'property.'
And Mossadegh doesn't sound very swift -- nationalized the oil industry expecting no problems -- how was he supposed to have guessed that the British might enforce a boycott?
Looks like Rootie's guess is that the coup would have happened if the CIA never existed.
September 19, 2009 12:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rootie dislikes disingenuous and rhetorical questions from poseurs who don't know fuck-all about Iran, and are obviously about to trot out a few clichés gleaned from TV...
Look in the mirror often?
September 18, 2009 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
There was quite a bit more to it than that as I'm sure you know. "All The Shah's Men" has a very good account of how Roosevelt seized the moment in collaboration with the British in Tehran to orchestrate the coup against the great Dr. Mossadegh. They didn't need to have the whole country up in arms. All they needed was to control events in the capitol city and that they did successfully. But for some very lucky breaks, the American effort would have failed. But, sadly for the whole world, Roosevelt and company got the result they had hoped for.
September 18, 2009 2:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ahmadinejad has a couple of hundred thousand fanatical shock troops at his disposal, and all the other resources of the nation of Iran, and somehow he could just barely regain control of Tehran, that colossal city, after watching it slide out of control for weeks.
But Kermit Roosevelt...
Harharharhar!!!
Kermit Roosevelt...
Harharharhar!!!
...and just a few CIA factotums...
Harharharhar!!!
...somehow controlled a colossal city where almost everybody had been bankrupted by the ideologue Mossadegh's totally unplanned and apparently impulsive expropriation of oil fields where no Iranian knew how to extract any oil or export what little they accidentally extracted, and which were the absolute foundation of the whole Iranian economy!
And then Kermit Roosevelt...
Harharharhar!!!
September 18, 2009 3:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, you either misunderstand or are ignoring the facts.
They had to control events, not the city itself. It wasn't Kermit Roosevelt alone. He was simply the lead CIA man in Tehran at the time. And it was not a handful of factotums. The CIA and their allies in Tehran did this in collaboration with the Britishwhose intelligence service had spies everywhere and many allies in Tehran. Among other things they sought and got the support of key military leaders who carried out the coup and who commanded a significant number of soldiers in the capitol. They bought the support of newspapers. They bought the support or silence of the mullahs by and large. They bought the support of thugs and of some members of the legislature. They created an atmosphere in Tehran (a much smaller city back in 53) that was chaotic and in which a coup was possible. By a series of lucky breaks, the coup was successful. Had one or more of those lucky breaks not occured, the coup would have failed.
Your characterization of Mossadegh's nationalization of the oil fields as unplanned and your characterization of him as an idealogue are completely inaccurate. There was no problem operating the oil industry. The problem was finding a market for the oil. Great Britain, in retaliation for the nationalization of oil in Iran led a boycott of Iranian oil in the hopes of toppling the government or of having Mossadegh capitulate and invite the British back in to take over the oil business. Mossadegh sought the support of Truman who was also being asked by the British to topple Mossadegh. Truman refused to intervene in Iran in favor of the British but did he assist Mossadegh. Eisenhower's administration fell for the British line that Iran under Mossadegh was flirting with Communism and so accomplished the British goal of deposing him so they could take the oil industry back which they did and the west exploited Iran mercilessly unitl the revolution of 79.
September 18, 2009 3:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, should read "but neither did he assist Mossadegh"
September 18, 2009 3:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for reciting the familiar story as recounted by Kinzer based on Dr. Wilbur's heroic fiction about himself, and this seamless little fairy-tale is probably credible enough for anyone who doesn't know enough about Iran to ask a couple of very simple questions, and watch the whole fable fall apart.
Just one example, because I'm tired of serving as an unpaid and insulted lecturer for Iran 101, but this one little question is unanswerable enough to demonstrate the silliness of Kinzer's credulous endorsement of Dr. Wilbur's bullshit...
Why did the muslim clergy, without whom no sort of revolution was possible in Iran then or now, turn against Mossadegh?
Were the Ayatollahs also diddled into mindlessness by the all-powerful Kermit Roosevelt and Dr. Wilbur, like everyone else in Iran?
Or were they simply reacting like almost everybody else, and throwing off an incompetent ideologue and dictator who had been governing by decree under "emergency powers" in an emergency that he had created himself, by recklessly nationalizing the oil industry exactly three days after he was elected prime minister?
September 18, 2009 5:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Now this chump of a President and self-appointed Sunday-School Teacher to the World (TM) has added mind-reading to the list of his bogus "talents"
I agree. Mind reading should only be practiced by those capable of determining whether someone else's comments are driven by a "publicity stunt" motive.
September 17, 2009 9:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Mind reading should only be practiced by those capable of determining"
- Surely, you're talking about Josh Marshall, MJ Rosenberg, Maureen Down and Co?
September 17, 2009 9:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm trying to read the mind of someone who has so little respect for this site, and yet shows up here bloviating on a daily basis. All I get is -- ooooooh, it's ugly!
September 18, 2009 12:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good one, Fred, for you!
With publicity stunts, doofus, nobody has to guess about motives, because somebody made sure that the press showed up for the stunt, and after that, the motive doesn't really matter.
But Fred thinks Jimmy Earl passed "judgement" on millions of people that he never met or read or could even name or identify, and made sure he blathered out that "judgement" on camera, because...
Who gives a fuck what Fred thinks?
Out here in L.A. County it's obvious enough that nobody keeps his flabby old face on TV for 30 years, like Jimmy Carter, without working at it every day.
September 17, 2009 9:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's motive: your hatred of Jimmy obviously shows that your daddy didn't love you enough. Better you spew here than go up to some clock tower.
September 17, 2009 10:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great blog!
Have you ever heard of a Ta-Nehisi?
I understand he's a rather foul-mouthed racist who thinks Obama is just a high-minded fetishist?
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/08/obamas-fetish.html
September 17, 2009 9:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for showing up, Lalo.
I was more or less resigned to defending this blog from the usual morons, and it didn't promise to be much fun at all until you posted that link to Ta-Nehisi Coates.
(And I already recognized Jesse's earthy style without clicking the other link.)
God knows it's just a waste of time to debate with dim-witted Obamabots about the ONE, but if the discussion ever gets past that, as with Ta-Nehisi Coates, and we just accept that Obama is not much but a completely cynical politician, then some real puzzles finally appear, like Obama's exchange with Grassley...
G: No compromise!
O: Grassley is helping.
G: Obama is a liar.
O: Grassley is "constructive."
What sense does that make?
Ta-Nehisi Coates calls it a fetish for bipartisanship, but I think that's just another way of saying... What the fuck?
September 17, 2009 10:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
If that is your take, then you're a simpleton. No other word works. Obama has the approach of a community organizer who looks at the desired outcomes three and four years down the road (if one has done real community organizing, this is the approach you have to take). This causes me heartburn on issues like Gitmo, but when dealing with the overall path of legislation, looking at HCR along with reform of wall street, global warmining, the economy, etc. it does make sense and I agree with him.
But all means, keep looking through your cartoon lens.
September 17, 2009 10:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Racists are also capable of violence, such as cutting Obama's nuts off:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aLGkFpsdHo
September 17, 2009 9:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't know Jesse Jackson was for States-Rights?
September 17, 2009 10:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jimmy Earl grew up in the South and can recognize racism when he sees it the same way your familiarity with LA lets you recognize a publicity hound.
There was a lot of virulent criticism of Bill Clinton but he was never called a liar during an address to Congress.
There is an irrational intensity and a willingness to believe totally irrational things about Obama which suggests an underlying racist attitude towards him. It is also telling that the opposition to him is strongest among the groups most prone to racism.
I'm not a fan of Jimmy Earl and your headline catches an aspect of him very well -- so I recommended on that basis alone but disagree with your conclusion that these charges of racism are simply a phony method to get critics to shut up although I do think that charges of racism were made during the campaign to that end.
September 17, 2009 10:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for commenting, AJM.
I don't deny that there are probably millions of of Americans who are inclined to dislike or even hate Obama because of his color... but that's still only a very small fraction of an enormous country which abolished slavery, and enacted and enforced Voting Rights and Civil Rights legislation and Supreme Court decisions like Brown v. Board of Education for the last 50 years, and elected Barack Obama.
Why Jimmy Carter couldn't just say that some criticism of Obama is racially motivated, I don't know.
September 17, 2009 10:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
what he said was the majority of the extreme anamosity toward Obama was driven by racism. That's anamosity, which if you look is not equated with criticism.
September 17, 2009 10:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd go one farther than you do here and say that both the GOP (Wilson's belongs to a group tagged by the SPLC while a top contender for the leadership belongs to an all white country club to cite two examples) and the Townhall Teabaggers are heavily populated by people who are either overtly racist or using the political tools of racial division to stir those who are racist to anger. Let's face it, the Teabag nation isn't really more than a couple million people tops anyhow (and that's being generous IMO).
I agree Carter could have qualified it better. On the other hand, I criticize Obama regularly and didn't for a moment get confused and think Carter was talking about me (at least I don't *think* he was talking about me).
If anything my criticism of Carter would be that the observation, regardless of correctness, was destined to become a sideshow and unlikely to bring about any positive results. So in that regard, I would have not chosen to make the statement in his shoes. I'd have preferred to see him finesse the question as Powell did. But fuck it, he's old ... if the crotchety old guys can't let it all hang out - who can?
September 18, 2009 12:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
"but that's still only a very small fraction of an enormous country"
I think you are wrong about that. I think it is a minority in our country (finally) but not by any means "a very small fraction". It's probably closer to something like half of all white people and not just southerners.
September 18, 2009 2:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would add to that, that the virulent racism of some whites is particularly prevalent among the older whites (60 and up).
September 18, 2009 2:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
He didn't say ALL, theefore he implicitly said SOME.
And he spoke of a particular kind of that SOME: the especially INTENSE.
But the reasonable aren't surprised that haters, such as you, aren't likely to tell the truth about those they hate.
Tell us, asshole: How much have you contributed to the country that is in any way comparable to that Jimmy Carter has contributed?
September 18, 2009 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
AJM: I don't understand the special significance the place where a president being called a liar.
What's so sacred about doing it in Congress, as opposed to in an interview, on TV, etc.
I can only rationalize it if I try to think of Congress as some kind of high-priest temple.
And so far I haven't heard an explanation that didn't reek of hypocrisy.
Could you explain?
September 17, 2009 11:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
The House has rules about how its members are to conduct themselves. In practice this has included a type of formality appropriate to a high temple. It is telling that these rules and this practice were first violated with the first black President despite the fact that other Presidents were intensely disliked by partisans.
September 18, 2009 12:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
So booing is allowed but heckling isn't?
September 18, 2009 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Basically yes. Indicating your basic reaction to a speech by appropriate clapping or the reverse has long been prevalent -- turning a speech into an occasion for debate is not. Rude heckling definitely violates the agreed upon rules. Rep. Wilson broke the rules and was appropriately rebuked. His belief the rules did not apply to him is objectionable.
September 18, 2009 2:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Speaking of news conferences and missing history, here's what Jimmy Carter said at a news conference on February 13, 1980:
September 17, 2009 10:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
No offense, gasket, but that story about the US running that particular uprising is groundless... but it's still worth glancing through the usual references to their "super-spy" Kermit Roosevelt, who really had more in common with Maxwell Smart or Kermit the Frog than with James Bond or George Smiley.
September 17, 2009 10:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
No offense taken, RR. You're not required to agree with the statements, you're only supposed to check out the original transcript. There's some interesting stuff there: Afghanistan, Ted Kennedy. In any case, it served to remind me about what I detested about JC when he was president.
Back to the present tense: Jimmy Carter is the Closer. He's been called in to use the race card to shut down all further health care debate. Because now, if you're against health care reform, you're a racist (because you're against Obama).
See how that works?
Carter was the Closer during the primaries too, which I will never forget. I'm not sure why there's a Carter cult here at TPM, but apparently there is.
Anyway, the clue that Carter's the Closer is that his interview is meticulously abridged and contains only the inflammatory part about racism. We never get to hear what Brian Williams asked to trigger Carter's answer. I have searched online, and so far I can't find any other copy of the interview that shows any more footage. So it's being tightly controlled and widely distributed to every single news organization in the country.
It's a set-up. We're being manipulated.
September 17, 2009 11:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now, bring on the bashers...
September 17, 2009 11:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's a very good catch about truncating the interview, gasket. It deserves a much more prominent venue than way down here in these comments.
I have to stop staring at this screen now, but let me say again and as always...
I wish there were some way I could help you find a better venue for your amazingly sharp-eyed detection of all sorts of things that I miss, even when you lead me right up to them.
It's sort of an eerie talent! Aren't you exactly who the CIA should be hiring?
Seriously!
September 17, 2009 11:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Boy. You two are talking the shit today. At least it's 110% pure unadulterated shit. Yeah, Jimmy Carter was aiming to shut down ALL criticism of Obama's health care plan as being racist. Yeah. That's what he was doing. Not talking about our more extreme friends out on the Right fringe. Sure, I'd conclude that from the abridged quote and absence of a question. Did you guys notice that part? OH WAIT! IT WAS YOU TWO WHO MENTIONED IT. JEEZ.
What the fuck? When did you guys decide to strap on dunce cap? Or is it just something you like to do when it's Carter? Jimmy back someone you didn't like so time to trash him?
Let's try this. Ruta, FUCK your moronic polls of historians about who was a good President or not. Really. From a guy with enough brains to question whether 98% of economists are worth shit, a guy with brains enough to question Iranian history, you decide you wanna take some Poll of the Dim and Dimmer, and that's your basis for trashing Carter? Wow. How completely intellectually dishonest. Suddenly you're down with Time magazine style polls of historians. Jesus.
You wanna debate his record? Then get to it. Yeah sure, you guys know all sorts of genius ways you woulda dealt with 2 oil crises, Afghanistan, Iran, inflation, post-Nixon and post-Vietnam world and Middle East peace. The fuck you do. All I need now to completely wreck my day and convince me you two have utterly lost your shit is for one of you to offer up some pale ass defense of Reagan, for "restoring American pride." Whaddya say, Ruta? Wanna go for it? You've already basically said Jimmy shoulda manned up, right? But now you wanna pee your pants about our overseas adventures? And I'd totally dig hearing you two lay out how to handle oil price hikes and inflation. Do tell. Let's hear what ya got. I'm sure there were lots of better examples. Yeah, and how would you genius bulbs have handled Ronnie and the Right doing the saboteur? Oh yeah. And one of you was gonna tell how the Middle East peace deal with bunk, cause apparently, all your goddamn Democratic heroes have done so much better. Yeah. There was...
Yeah. There was fuck all, was what there was.
Or back to point one - it was more that you didn't like Jimmy backing Obama vs Clinton?
I have absolutely no doubt that historians will rank this as one of your best blogs, Ruta. Harharharhar!
Yeah. I get it. Kucinich would be goooood. While Carter was terrible. That's makin' sense.
Whoops! Not!
September 18, 2009 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
quinn, I think your critique of Rootie's using popularity polls is perfectly legit. You probably could have gotten the idea across in even fewer words. Rootie could have used better sources, and he didn't need to insert polls into his argument in the first place.
Now I have to ask: Are you smoking crack? Detesting Carter as a president does not mean I preferred Reagan!! Not sure how you make that leap, but it's completely yours, q, not mine. There are some Dems I have a strong visceral reaction to: Tom Daschle and Harry Reid come immediately to mind, but there are plenty of others. That's because we have only two parties to choose from in this country. Perhaps you don't really know what that's like to have only two parties. Consider yourself lucky. But I reserve the right to criticize Democrats.
Anyway, going back to that press conference transcript was like revisiting a really, really bad dream for me. Mid seventies and into 1980. Carter made that dream worse by his affect. Yes, I said his affect: the way he talked, and I don't mean his Southern accent. It is something Rootie nailed in his title. Rootie used the word sanctimonious, and it's perfect (I would have used "prissy," but I think sanctimonious is more accurate). But we're not the only ones in this country (not to mention other countries) who have Carter issues! I am not about to canonize him, considering some of the shit he's been involved in.
Who knows, maybe you're a big fan of Brzezinski? Do you know for a fact whether Carter promotes democracy in Latin America over the U.S.'s preferences for their political leaders? I don't really get where you're coming from.
September 18, 2009 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, the Reagan quip came from Rootie's "some peanut-farmer to surrender our embassy to a mob, reduce the only rescue attempt to a miniscule posse, and give command of it to some clowns who had never been in a desert." Which is a longer way of saying that Rootie apparently thinks Carter shoulda been rougher and tougher. To which all I can say is - Welcome to Morontown. Cause if you think that, Reagan's your guy.
Carter gets his ass chewed out because of things nobody could have cured. The Right was reconstituting and was roaring back onto the field, WORLDWIDE, offering grand lies to cure the problems. And the Democrats had fuck all to offer. Ted the drunk?
That first link you gave made me like him all over again. Shit stank, Washington stank, the US as structured stank. And there wasn't too damn much to be done about it. But nobody wanted to face it. Carter had no magic, he just stood up and called it what it was. Sanctimonious? Well maybe. He saw it, he was better than it, and fuck all the political and media voices that didn't like hearing it - because it was THEM that decided we needed grand lies instead. So we got them. That Reagan and his whole crowd were never tried for treason out of that business is still beyond me.
September 18, 2009 8:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL! Thank you! But you said it, not me.
I agree that Carter gets his ass chewed for things no one but a miracle-worker could have fixed. In fact, my link before Brzezinski does a decent job of summarizing how awful it felt in the States after Watergate and Vietnam. The 1970s were horrible, and I'm not referring to long gas lines. The culture, the crime rate, the general nastiness and depression. Don't know if you lived here then, but it was crap. Burn-out was the popular term for kids who did drugs in the parking lot at my high school. There is no more perfect way to describe the post-Watergate '70s America: burned out.
It's generally thought Carter was elected for his non-threatening, Washington-outsider, hun-bun quality and then thoroughly reviled for it. I simply think Gerald Ford was rejected. But neither theory is a reason for electing or not electing someone as president.
My primary issues with Carter have to do with how many people have suffered from his foreign policy escapades.
But another issue I have is that I don't believe Carter is as humble as he professes to be. I just don't. I believe he has more self-pride than even W has. Now whether he does or not, he has the unfortunate ability to come off that way, and that's the quality that pisses me off and may inform Rootie's title, I don't know.
I don't shy away from truth-tellers. But I don't think Carter tells the whole truth. Am I hopelessly affected by my culture? Perhaps. But I also read. There is too much conflicting info about the elections in Haiti and Nicaragua to feel comfortable painting Carter as a saint. And I'd be thrilled to be wrong, q. I have nothing invested in hating Carter.
September 18, 2009 8:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ted the drunk?
Damn it I like my booze as well as the next heartbroken cynical leftest. But I agree with Quinn. I know the left wants to revere the guy, but he was a shitty leader, he was and will forever be dogged by Chappaquiddick.
We deserved better leaders. I wish we had had them. Regardless, Reagan and company deserved to be tried for war crimes. They did evil. I don't know why the liberals thought it was a one time thing. It was wrong. Bush et all has now pushed it and O is worried about being perceived as partisan. WTF.
Wrong is wrong.
September 19, 2009 4:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
The reason why Ted the drunk makes me laugh is because it's the exact but unspoken thought that always pops into my head about Kennedy. Most of Kennedy's faults (perhaps all of them) can be attributed to alcoholism, which liberals enable by never mentioning.
Yes, we need better leaders, but we need better humans in general. I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Meanwhile, I am sticking to my theory that airing the Carter interview clip is a deliberate effort by the Obama administration to manipulate public opinion. The piece is part of a special for Carter's 85th birthday, which hasn't aired yet, and won't air until next month. Yet that one clip has been pulled out of context for saturating the airwaves now. Why? It's not "news," it's an opinion. However, it's being presented as a news story by every major media outlet. Why? Could it have anything to do with the fact that the vote on the health care bill is coming up quite soon? Yes! It could!
After the Bush administration manipulated public opinion in the lead-up to Shock and Awe, after the New York Times withheld the domestic spying story until after the presidential election, and after the revelation that the Bush administration disseminated military "experts" to sell pro-war viewpoints, nobody can tell the difference between "news" and chain-jerking anymore? We are all suddenly brain-dead?
Well, I'm not brain-dead just because Jimmy Carter happened to give his opinion, and no amount of belligerent shouting me down is going to change my mind.
September 19, 2009 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
I can see how you think that that quote was meant to close you down Gasket, but I'm not convinced. Was it picked out and released for a reason? Almost certainly. But was it meant to cover both Republicans AND Democrats? The way I read it, "intensely demonstrated animosity toward BO" is a code phrase for "Republican nutbar." It follows the Teabaggers March and Wilson's Shout and so on, so I'd give pretty good odds it's targeted more narrowly at that wing.
As for my belligerence yesterday, I apologize if it splashed on you Gasket. I was angry at Rutabaga, as I have found myself too often angry at others these past months, over what I view as uncalled for abuse, name-calling and shrieking. I particularly loathe it when people take on some arrogant stance and start it up. I don't get RR's behaviour in this regard. He's fricking brilliant, and person after person has shown themselves happy to come to his blogs here and say so. From the early days when they just shouted at him, there is far more support for his views now, and people have effectively eaten crow (as with Seaton.) In that light, I really don't like it when he begins jumping down people's throats. I particularly don't like it when it's based on something as crappy as a single line from Carter, and polls of Historians.
Anyway, I've been in a time of letting my inner pitbull off the chain when I see that happening. However, I'm not convinced it does much good, and all it's doing is upsetting the hell out of me. A berserker's nervous system has an ugly post-rant collapse stage. So. I'm going to change what I'm doing here. I may simply have to step out of comments altogether. I've been here 16 months, and the physical desire to tear someone's head off is no less now.... ;-)
Hope all is well in Bed-Stuy, Gasket.
September 19, 2009 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
quinn: you, me, Rootie, Billy Glad: We're all disgruntled peas in the same tiny pod. (Or as Flannery O'Connor would say, "They were a very disgruntled crew.") We all four sometimes have problems focusing our formidable talents, so to speak.
Trust me, Rootie knows you're right. Meanwhile, why don't you keep in touch? It might help.
September 19, 2009 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope you won't make that decision, Quinn. Yours is a voice that is really valued here, in whatever mood, and your blogs are missed by one and all. If you are writing elsewhere it would be wonderful if you would cross-post from time to time. We miss the marvel of ice weasels, river running, not to mention your original ode to Acadia.
September 19, 2009 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm with Wendy. I understand where you're at Q. And I'm respectful of any decision you make... But from a utilitarian perspective, you KNOW what the aggregate pleasure calculus looks like here...
;0)
September 19, 2009 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I cinfess I am lost in the meaning of your post, too many twists and turns. But I really like and admire Ta-nehisi Coates, and asking what "a ta-hehisi is" pisses me off.
September 17, 2009 10:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lalo's link to Ta-Nehisi Coates was the most fun part of this blogging experience for me, Wendy, and the only place where anything non-obvious appeared...
And, like imitation, linking is one of the sincerest forms of flattery!
September 17, 2009 11:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fuck you, you pompous dink. "The only place where anything non-obvious appeared..."
Who the fuck are you again? You write some piece of shit rant based on an abridged quote, back your position with a Dancing with the Historians style poll... and now you're up the top of the Originality totem pole and get to diss everyone?
Do you just periodically throw these real hard brain cramps? Or do people come in every now and then while you're writing and totally throw off the quality control by pissing in your tea? That's the only non-obvious question I can see coming out of this blog.
September 18, 2009 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Confess...ta-nehisi...need some real glasses with no smudges.
September 17, 2009 11:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Coates is almost painfully honest about digging into matters racial. I really enjoy watching his mind and sould work through things with his readers and his reading. He has been reading books on the civil war, and telling us what he is reading, remarking, questioning, challenging.
His takes on current nano-stories are always relevant to me; he doesn't have a knee-jerk response in his body.
He said one day lately that he is just sick and tired of trying to talk to his (mainly) white readers about it all. I am glad he's out there; he stretches my thinking, and that's what I need.
Here is a link to a piece he did for The Nation in 2008 called "A Deeper Black." I think it's extraordinary.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080519/coates
September 18, 2009 7:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
There's a lot to think about in that link, Wendy, and I'm not sure that I agree with any of it... but so what?
I also like the way Ta-Nehisi Coates works the non-obvious edges of an issue, and agreement with me is a relatively minor consideration, compared to originality and honesty.
Thanks for posting, Wendy. I could also say approximately the same about you as about Ta-Nehisi Coates...
You're one of the least predictable commenters here, and that's a very good thing, IMHO.
September 18, 2009 1:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
He does get me thinking and considering. Thanks for the comment. I don't care for monolithic thinking much, and neither does Coates. When i ask him questions (or anyone does), you can practically hear the grears churning as he formulates and answer. I like that. Now his football schtick.... i loathe football. (smile)
September 18, 2009 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rutabaga shows just how dangerous a little bit of knowledge and a whole lot of ideology is.
September 17, 2009 11:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, the irony...
September 17, 2009 11:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
About as ironic as your obnoxious avatar
September 18, 2009 1:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here are some other Black voices.
Eric Deggans of the St Petersburg Times:
But I think Carter's statement raises a different question: Will conservatives move to condemn those who make racist arguments against Obama, so opposition can proceed against him that isn't based on race?
What I saw Wednesday, was a lot of conservatives refusing to acknowledge an important fact -- just as you can't dismiss every Obama critic as a racist, you can't pretend there isn't a racial subtext to some of his opposition. Instead, figures such as Michael Steele, Charles Krauthammer and Mary Matalin refused to consider the notion that some Obama critics may be using racist language and imagery.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-deggans/jimmy-carters-words-give_b_289984.html
From Eddie Reeves at Daily Beast:
I am saddened to see placards at rallies and town halls depicting the president of the United States as a stereotypical African witch doctor, or T-shirts depicting him as a monkey, but I am not surprised by it.
I know of very few African Americans who are surprised. Disgusted? Yes. Angry? Of course. But surprised?
Nope, not in the least.
One of the basic facts of life if you happen to have spent any appreciable amount of time as an African American in the United States is that you become very familiar with racism.
You recognize it wherever it rears its head: The store clerk who follows you—only you—around the store. The cab driver zooms past you in your expensive business suit and with luggage in tow, predictive of a lucrative fare, to pick up the college kid in khaki shorts with the backpack a block down. The supervisor who ranks you “average” in your annual review but can’t quite come up with specifics on why you didn’t grade higher.
African Americans’ antennae become attuned early on to racism in all its permutations—from screaming skinhead to dismissive diner waitress. And they also become painfully aware of one of the most pernicious realities—that in most cases, we dare not complain about many of these random acts of soul-sapping humiliation.
We know that very act of speaking out against the very racism that so debases us all too often marks us as excuse-making malcontents looking for the first opportunity to “play the race card.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-09-16/race-and-the-right/
African-Americans know the game. The President and Colin Powell want to downplay any mention of race because they realize that it is a loser politically. But, they don't forget the racism.
They can differentiate between commentary by Coates, Hutchinson, and even carter himself. President Carter criticized Obama for withholding the detainee torture photos. Carter's disagreement was not considered racist.
When Pat Buchanan who is a member of the Sons of the Confederacy writes a column suggesting the benefits of slavery for African-Americans, question arise when he is used as a judge of racial issues. When Joe Wilson yells at President Obama during a joint session of Congress, and it is found that he opposed moving the Confederate flag from the SC capitol grounds and criticized the African-American daughter of Strom Thurmond for exposing her secret, questions of motive will arise.
Carter did not say all criticism of Obama was racist. Carter's criticism of Obama did not result in a charge of racism by the African-American community as a whole.
September 18, 2009 12:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well if 3 POLLS conclude that Carter is worse than George Bush, then it must be true.
Root, you really annoy the living shit out of me.
September 18, 2009 12:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Historians consistently rank "Jimmy" Earl Carter as one of the worst US Presidents of the Twentieth Century, worse even than George W. Bush on the three polls which included both of them"
Having been of voting age since 1976, I can say with absolute certainty that the historians you refer to are idiots.
September 18, 2009 2:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, I was quoting the original blog -- I wouldn't be surprised if the "historians" included Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh -- considered to be wise men by those who don't read books.
September 18, 2009 8:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was agreeing with your comment. I just find it hilarious that RR constantly pulls these little nuggets out of his ass, and declares them the definitive end of discussion.
Meanwhile, his fluffers on this blog laud him for his "independent" "thinking."
September 18, 2009 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Amen!!! And in the decades after he was president, Harry Truman was ranked as one of the worst also. Recent past history is rarely seen with clear vision. AND how the heck can they tell how bad Bush was? We're still experiencing reverberations - lots of them - from his "leadership"
September 18, 2009 8:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Can't agree with ya on this one Ruta.
I think you are making things too black and white. There is plenty of criticism of Obama that is not racist. But those criticisms don't come from the right they come from the left.
Insofar as I can tell, nobody at all is saying that any criticisms of Obama equal racism. Not Carter. Not anyone I've heard of. What Carter is saying is that much of the virulent right wing hatred for Obama is animated and propelled by racism. I think that is very true and very difficult to argue with. It is very easy to see that this what Carter is saying is true.
I think Obama deserves tons of criticism for his flip flopping on so many important issues and his downright betrayal and lying about some of them. The things the left is angry at Obama for doing are the things that the teabaggers and others agree with. They are so blinded by their racial fears and hatred they can't acknowledge the numerous areas where they agree with Obama. The criticism of Obama coming from the left is not racist at all. The non teabagger conservative criticism of Obama is not racist (though one is hard pressed to find a Republican these days who is not a teabagger).
I also think that fundamentalist Christianity provides a wellspring and breeding ground for racist hatred of all things Obama (see my most recent post on this subject).
You are entitled to your opinion about Carter's Presidency of course. I don't think it's very relevant to the political question of what is behind all the right wing hate of Obama, but again you're entitled to your opinion.
September 18, 2009 1:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama looks and thinks like an anchor-man in some middling media market like Baltimore...
...but if anybody was actually looking for a President, then Earl Ofari Hutchinson is just about what they would hope to see...
...and Earl Ofari Hutchinson not only looks like a President...
... he also thinks like a President, and still has a full set of principles after living in the same cruel world with the rest of us for quite a few years.
So how did we end up with a half-bright news-reader in the White House, and Hutchinson writing articles for HuffPo?
This was a very big mistake!
September 18, 2009 5:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Carter spoke of a boisterous opposition to Obama throughout the country that had racism at it's core. MJ Rosenberg was reflecting on the placards from the 912 rally that he had seen when he used the 995 number. Neither was taking about Liberals/Progressives.
I generally don't read articles from the "KKKers" Black Agenda Report because you often come across gems like this:
.....it was obvious
Submitted by joell on Wed, 09/16/2009 - 18:46.
to anyone not drunk on Obama-mania that he was a fraud. there is no way "the man" would allow Obama's name to be mentioned in the corporate media as a serious presidential contender, without thoroughly vetting him on maintaining the status quo.
most of the Obama voters i know are still in denial.
as a Nader voter, i'm even astounded at how quickly Obama has blatently abandoned campaign pledges and supporters; he's not even trying to triangulate like Clinton, its just so obvious and the list of broken pledges just keeps growing.
there will never be any real change in voting for a democrat or republican; its just not going to happen.
or this:
.....Afrodescendents Must Establish Human Rights
Submitted by mathrise on Wed, 09/16/2009 - 11:20.
We the awakened Afrodescendants have no faith whatsoever in a diseased and dying racist oligarchy which has always imposed ethnocide and forced assimilation on us. Political vampires have no mercy for political hemophiliacs, especially when those bloodsuckers are running out of shady places. Only a very desperate Caucasian ruling elite would appoint a puppet like Obama to create the temporary illusion that the USA has changed its evil ways. However, imploding ghettoes, dysfunctional schools, and skyrocketing unemployment, along with mounting international migraines all bear witness that The Fall Of America is irreversible. Do not wait for more unjust wars, food shortages and more intense weather plagues to erupt before you start supporting the rising Afrodescendant Government in your midst. Our focus is saving and elevating 250 million slave descendants in the western hemisphere by establishing our Human Rights and securing massive Reparations.
As-Salaam-Alaikum,
Senator Malik Al-Arkam
www.allforreparations.org
On second thought, perhaps Black Agenda Reports' ethnocentric point of view does have a great deal in common with the KKK.
Black Agenda Report is not equivalent to Ta-Nehisi Coates who says this about the racism issue:
I don't think Carter called Joe Wilson a racist. That said, one reason some of us try to avoid this discussion is because of its enormous potential for distraction. From a black perspective, I care about the disproportionate number of black people who are sick and dying, not the contents of Joe Wilson's heart.
Still, there's an element of this society that enjoys this debate. It really has nothing to do with health-care, or any other issue, as much as has to do with being confirmed. Some of us desperately want black people to acknowledge that we are not our forefathers. Some of us desperately want white people to acknowledge that the spirit of those forefathers still haunts the land. We enjoy having this fight. We get something out of it--just not a health care bill.
http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/09/the_fight_we_want_to_have.php
Coates doesn't want the race debate because it distracts from the politics. Taking Coates at his word, there will never be an appropriate time to discuss race since some political issue will always be in operation.
Back to the issue of equivalance, arguments for faster withdrawal from Iran , public options in health care, and releasing those innocents from Guantanamo coming from the left are not equivalent to wingnut arguments comparing Obama to Hitler, Peron, Muslims radicals , or birther arguments like those of Orly Taitz. The Liberal/Progressive arguments are fact-based and superior. The wingnut arguments are garbage. There is a stark difference. Carter was addressing a subgroup of wingnuts.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson may look good in a suit, but all he has done is write columns and books. If we are going to play the empty suit game, at least let's get Dennis Haysbert. Haysbert has played both a President and the leader of an elite military squad. Neither Hutchinson or Haysbert are equivalent to Obama. Both would melt under the pressure.
False equivalence is a trap. One could equate a GW Bush comment (quoted from a GQ article on a soon to be released book about GW by Matt Latimer:
He (GW Bush) came in one day to rehearse a speech, fuming. “This is a dangerous world,” he said for no apparent reason, “and this cat isn’t remotely qualified to handle it. This guy has no clue, I promise you.” He wound himself up even more. “You think I wasn’t qualified?” he said to no one in particular. “I was qualified.”
http://men.style.com/gq/features/landing?id=content_10957
with:
So how did we end up with a half-bright news-reader in the White House,
But I'm certain that you and GW are in no way the same.
September 18, 2009 9:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good blog Rootie. And interesting thread. Especially Gasket's point!
You've piqued my interest with your version of the Iran coup. I had a friend who was working on the coup for his PhD at the time the CIA 'lost' their Iran files. And so most I know about it I got through him. He was a member of the Riahi family, so initially biased in his take, but nevertheless he eventually came around to something like your view - much more interested in internal dynamics with the Ayatollahs, and also the Tudeh's link to Moscow. He was digging through the KGB files last we were in contact, which I'm sure must be revealing. If you've got more on this, be my guest...
Seriously, ruta, you've got some great blogs which you put up elsewhere, which I'd love to see here. Could you cross-post in future, or provide links? Thanks.
September 18, 2009 7:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the kind words, Obey, and you probably have a better source than I do for what really happened way back in 1953, especially if you're connected to the Riahis of the Encyclopedia Iranica. Scholars and movie stars! Can you please get me an invitation to one of their parties!
When I was reading gasket's ultra-sharp comments that you mentioned, I was also vaguely reflecting that my brain works on a relatively coarser level of reality, and after I have a big picture of Tehran where nobody has any money, and really... no money, then the details of how that chaos fell apart and together again only have a picturesque interest for me. I like collecting photos of Shaban the Brainless from scattered memoirs, for example, but all the scheming little players from England and Russia fade together.
Kermit Roosevelt and the otherwise obscure Dr. Wilbur are a useful fiction for the CIA and other assorted Unnamed Government Agencies... legendary hustlers that they love for us to hate. But about grand national movements like the Iranian revolutions, or Russian resistance to Napoleon, I think Tolstoy got it right, with what you might call an emergent consciousness distributed sometimes among millions of people, and then all the calculations of generals and spies are whisked away like dust.
September 18, 2009 8:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're forgetting the billionnaire philanthopists in the the clan. I'll get you an invite as soon as I manage to swipe one for myself. An impressive family...
I'm always somewhat ambivalent about sifting the fine-grain in these stories. It's like my penchant for walking up close to pointilist paintings - there's something fascinating about seeing them as just pointless spots on a canvass. Or another way of putting it - I do get a sense of cognitive dissonance between attributing agency to little human actors in a larger play, and seeing that agency disappear when one takes a broader view, but I can rarely grasp the sense in deciding between the two perspectives.
That said, I find the CIA's rendition of the 'history' of the coup interesting more for what it says about the agency's sense of its own AGENCY than what says about the actual unfolding of events.
Anyway, philosophy of history, not my forte...
September 18, 2009 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
That is a great comment Obey. Well said.
September 18, 2009 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't let the Terrorists Win - Pass Healthcare Reform
"Are some Democratic legislators who are squabbling over health care secret supporters of the Taliban? Are some Republican legislators in cahoots with Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?"
"If Democrats fail to find a health-care compromise they may doom their president's foreign policy, and their own reelection chances. They will certainly be helping the Taliban"
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/currents/20090913_Worldview__Taliban_s_unwitting_assistants.html
This is the best read of the week. Jimmy Carter is a one-trick pony compared to this.
September 18, 2009 9:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
For me, this was eerily reminiscent of Republicans demonizing anyone who resisted Bush/Cheney...
Opposing Obama is equivalent to helping the Taliban and Ahmadinejad...
Just like opposing Bush/Cheney was equivalent to helping al Qaeda?
Isn't it also possible that the Taliban have been watching Obama "bargain" away anything that looked like principle or commitment, and will only "bargain" in terms of almost total surrender on our side, like Grassley "bargaining" about healthcare? Aren't they likely to conclude that Obama will give away the store before he fights?
Thanks for posting the link, Lalo. It brings up a whole spectrum of interesting questions about how Obama is perceived elsewhere, and what the consequences may be, and I don't pretend to have answers to my (sort of) rhetorical counter-questions.
What do you think?
September 18, 2009 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
No no no. Kool aid has nothing to do with it. Hell, I drink koolaid all day long when I am not drinking coffee.
Actually I use the sugarless and mix it into my tea. Makes kind of a cherry tea. So instead of paying 25 cents a can, I mean this works out to be like...like a few cents a glass.
No, I think the critics should sit down and shut up after putting celery up their arses.
I hate to quote Canadians--God knows--but in this case she has it right. But make sure you use that KY stuff first. Prevents hemorrhaging and such.
THE END
September 18, 2009 2:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
seems like a waste of perfectly good celery, myself. How about a Jerusalem artichoke? Or maybe root of poison oak?
September 18, 2009 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why would an elderly ex-president who is settled and heading towards only getting older perform a "publicity stunt?" What exactly is he doing publicity for?
Joe Wilson on the other hand performed one and it was totally contrived. THIS was a publicity stunt if you are really looking for one.
Some people in our country react strongly to the truth or in your case, overreact. What is your blog really about?
September 18, 2009 5:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am extremely disappointed in Obama (and don't try to post comments on the Huff Post that criticize the Democrats because they won't post them. HP gets a 100% for acting as the best Liberal Police of "Liberal" blogs. Their hypocrisy on what they will allow and won't is astounding).
I am disappointed as hell in Obama but I also suggest you look at some of the photos of people at the so-called "Town Hall Meetings." The signs, masks, and symbols they brought were, sorry, incredible racsist and hateful. I mean, maybe you think a mask of Obama with a white cross pasted across the forehead is just plain political discontent but I gosh darn it, don't. I kinda think Americans do hate and they do hate really really well. In fact fundamentally, I think Americans hate one another's guts for one reason or another (thanks Glenn Beck, Sean H, Rush L because I know you consider national hate a badge of your success).
Check out some of the photos/U-2 videos of some of the happy folks who showed up at the meetings and if you still think Carter is wrong, well, I might suggest you get your head examined or
see the American version of the world for what it is--racist. Keep in mind too Obama did NOT agree with Carter in his assessment. He did NOT agree if this makes you feel any better.
September 18, 2009 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090817/lacewell_video
September 18, 2009 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Troll: Take you hate-speech to Free Republic, or whatever like cesspool exults in your horseshit.
The first person damaged by your hate is YOU.
And, as hate is IMMORAL, you couldn't reach high enough to scrape shit off of the sole of either of his shoes.
Did I say you're an asshole? If not, then I will:
You're an asshole.
September 18, 2009 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's a lot of ugliness here, perpetrated by the infantile Rutabaga, who seems to delight in contorting reality and spewing hatred. He has great concern for the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and other far places, but great contempt for those he lives amidst. Maybe you need to move out of Malibu, my precious?
September 18, 2009 7:46 PM | Reply | Permalink