Originally Posted By Princessjenn5795 "And now I anxiously await claims that I think Obama is Jesus, Buddha, and MacGyver all rolled into one." You mean he isn't any of those things??!! I am crushed...next you will be telling me there is no Santa Clause or Easter Bunny.
Originally Posted By Mr X No PrincessJ, there IS a Santa Clause. There are three of them, in fact. ;p <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111070/" target="_blank">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111070/</a> <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0304669/" target="_blank">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0304669/</a> <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452681/" target="_blank">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452681/</a>
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>84% of Americans wanted it in Chicago. Those are HUGE numbers - it's tough to get anyone to agree that much.<< So the noisy extremists exist somewhere below 16% of the country. They outed themselves on this one, and now we see how tiny a percentage of the population they are (especially since at least some of the 16% against the Olympics perhaps were against it for fiscal reasons, while the extremist nuts just viewed it as somehow pro-Obama to want the COUNTRY to win this bid.) So, all the teabaggers, the noisy wingnuts on the radio and TV, can be pretty much figured as a small extremist fraction of the country and now should just be ignored. They want America to fail.
Originally Posted By Mr X The sheer volume of these people (collectively AND one by one as in the case of Beck/Bachmann et al) certainly is deceptive. Makes you kind of wonder why the Congress and White House so readily acquiesce to their demands, as insignificant as their numbers truly are.
Originally Posted By Inspector 57 <<Our country lost out on hosting one of the world's most prestigious events and conservatives are cheering. Think about it. Where's the patriotism in that?>> Succint. Very well stated. Thank you.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 And here's the thing, too. Rio was pretty much pre-ordained to be the winner, from everything I've read in the past couple of months about the IOC and its decision-making process. These people are crowing because they'll crow at anything they think they can spin into an "Obama defeat," (when in reality the decision had nothing to do with him). They also took the opportunity to criticize him for going to Copenhagen and "embarrassing" himself by "spending that political capital" and still losing. And only his "gigantic ego" made him think he could make it happen by going to Copenhagen. But - as sure as night follows day - if Obama had NOT gone, and Rio had won (as was inevitable), the cry from the noise machine would have been "He didn't even bother! All the other world leaders went to Copenhagen, but no - our Mr. Perfect Sainted Leader couldn't even be bothered to represent our great nation at the moment of this momentous decision. And we lost. HOW MANY JOBS FOR AMERICANS DID YOU JUST LOSE US, MR. PRESIDENT? Chicago isn't getting the Olympics now, and it's your fault. Maybe if you loved America more this wouldn't have happened."
Originally Posted By WilliamK99 But - as sure as night follows day - if Obama had NOT gone, and Rio had won (as was inevitable), the cry from the noise machine would have been "He didn't even bother! All the other world leaders went to Copenhagen, but no - our Mr. Perfect Sainted Leader couldn't even be bothered to represent our great nation at the moment of this momentous decision. And we lost. HOW MANY JOBS FOR AMERICANS DID YOU JUST LOSE US, MR. PRESIDENT? Chicago isn't getting the Olympics now, and it's your fault. Maybe if you loved America more this wouldn't have happened." << So now you guys are criticing Republicans for stuff they didn't even do... Nice job....
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Not Republicans per se - the noise machine. Do you honestly think they wouldn't have said exactly that if Obama had not gone, and Chicago had lost?
Originally Posted By ecdc >>So now you guys are criticing Republicans for stuff they didn't even do... Nice job....<< Remember when the conservatives whining about Obama's speech to children were dead wrong? Remember what their response was? "Well, if we hadn't complained, it WOULD'VE been socialist propaganda." We have precedent for not trusting a damn thing these people say or do.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 That's right. And it's not Republicans - it's the noise machine. There's a big difference and I was careful to make it, because I know and like a lot of Republicans. But the noise machine is different. Right now, they EXIST to slam Obama, no matter what he does. If he does A, they slam him for doing A. If he does B, they slam him for doing B and say a real American non-fascist/socialist/Muslim would have done A. I wasn't talking about Republicans in general, because thoughtful Republicans didn't slam Obama for the Olympics thing, nor would they.
Originally Posted By WilliamK99 The problem is, each side has their own noise machine, so to single one side out for having loud noise machines is unfair... or have the Democrats disowned Michael Moore and friends?
Originally Posted By skinnerbox Michael Moore does not produce "noise" like Fox News and Rush do. His documentaries have a liberal slant because of the subject matter, but the facts in those films are just that. Noise is about misinformation, distortion of the truth, and outright lies. Show me one piece of information in any one of Moore's films that's not true. Go ahead. He shrubs his info until it's squeaky clean or else he'd lose more than his shirt in court.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox "Shrubs"? Whoa. I meant "scrubs" of course. Other discussion boards have edit features. Sure would be nice if LP did. Just sayin'.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder Well, one of the last things I think I'd want to be doing is defend Michael Moore.
Originally Posted By Princessjenn5795 <<No PrincessJ, there IS a Santa Clause. There are three of them, in fact. ;p>> Thanks, Mr. X The funny thing is that these crazy people do not even notice the inconsistencies in the things they say. They scream at the top of their lungs about being patriotic and then denounce the president for trying to bring the spotlight to our country in a positive way through the Olympics. It is kind of like when Rick Perry said that Texans are the most patriotic people in America so Texas should secede from the United States. Huh!?
Originally Posted By Mr X ***The problem is, each side has their own noise machine, so to single one side out for having loud noise machines is unfair... or have the Democrats disowned Michael Moore and friends?*** I'd like to see some examples of Democratic leadership kowtowing to Moore or Olbermann the way GOP leadership grovels at the feet of Limbaugh. Got any?
Originally Posted By WorldDisney I guess this makes me a 'bad American', but I had no clue we or Chicago was even bidding for the olympics until the day before Obama went to Copenhagen lol. Not a clue, seriously. Oh well, theres always next time! And now its a good excuse to FINALLY get myself to Rio in a few years time. Never been, but been sooooo dying to go ;D
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <The problem is, each side has their own noise machine, so to single one side out for having loud noise machines is unfair... or have the Democrats disowned Michael Moore and friends?> First of all, my post wasn't about "the right wing noise machine is worse than the left," it was only saying that they would have slammed Obama whether he'd gone to Copenhagen or whether he didn't go to Copenhagen. And that's true - it's what they do. Second, yes there are some left-wingers who would, say, criticize Bush for something relatively minor like this, whichever decision he made, and they can be just as knee-jerk about it. BUT, they are indeed far less influential within the Democratic Party than Rush and Hannity and Drudge and etc. are with the Republicans.
Originally Posted By gadzuux >> First of all, my post wasn't about "the right wing noise machine is worse than the left," << No, but it WAS about trying to differentiate between the noise machine and the republican party - and I don't see it. I think you're letting rank and file republicans off the hook too easily. ALL of this crap that's being spewed is traceable directly back to the GOP. I understand that not every person who votes republican also supports the birthers, deathers, tenthers, teabaggers, paliners and ditto heads, but they enable the nonsense to continue unabated. It's similar to saying that not all muslims blow themselves up or wage holy jihad, but it's also not 'unfair' to associate them with those actions. Or the people who cheered wildly when OJ was acquitted. Those displays were motivated by some ugly truths that polite people don't want to acknowledge publicly. And so it is with republican supporters - the reasons they're cheering the olympics committee is not unlike why those poeple were cheering for OJ. It's not straight racism, but there's always more than a whiff of that in the stew. Many republican voters would love to absolve themselves from the excesses of their own party. I say no way - if they're savvy enough to recognize the GOP's actions and tactics and choices for what they are - they have to own up to being a supporter of it. And it's for this very reason that we don't have a lot of participation from right wing defenders on these boards. Every day, we toss up examples here of cynical and exploitive manuevers from the republican party. "The party itself" - not some fringe trailer park whackjob with a sign and a gun, but actual elected officials and high profile spokespeople. And these little episodes are indefensible - glaring and obvious examples - everything from snarky pundit comments right up to actual federal criminal offenses. There's just no good way to defend these actions, so they don't even try. Who would? Anyone who still believes that this modern day republican party actually does represent them is effectively saying that they're every bit as corrupt and morally bankrupt as the GOP itself is. Hold them to it. Don't let them squirm away from accountability for their own actions. When logic and reason and hard facts don't work with them - and they won't - it becomes more apparent that the motivations of these people are based on something else - something polite people have learned to suppress, but it's never far below the surface.
