Race, Rudeness, and a Whiny President
by Blake on Sep 21, 2009 at 08:31 Political
The Resident took to the airwaves cable, and satellite channels- all except Fox News (allegedly because they were “whiny”)- hell, he even went on Univision, and I was not aware that Nobama spoke spanish- that is probably from his days as a community rabble rouser activist organizer. What a talented man he must feel that he is.
This guy, who was supposed to be our first post- racial president, just loves to have his proxy posse call out any critic of his policies as a racist. They think that is a conversation killer- and mention of racism immediately trumps logic.
It is their secret safe word.
There are so many words that are “off limits” now- so many jokes you cannot tell, just in case there might be someone there who might actually be offended, oh my goodness. Rudeness, it seems, according to the President’s handlers, comes only from one place- the right- really? Because I seem to remember some truly outrageous rudeness on the left when George Bush was in office, but now that the Man in Black is in the White House, the rules of the game need to be changed- it is not that his skin is a different color, ( a fact the left seems to dwell on more than the right, quizzically), but that his skin is quite thin.
The president of the United States used the Sunday morning talk shows to broadly scold the news media for playing up what he called “rude” and “outrageous” political comments, and urge the 24-hour news networks to consider giving more of a platform to those who demonstrate decency and civility.
Obama blanketed the airwaves Sunday, appearing on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and the Hispanic network Univision in a bid to promote his health care plan. But he also very deliberately used the unprecedented media blitz to chide those journalists who cover him, delivering a similar lecture on every network except Univision about the importance of changing the way media prioritize stories.
“The easiest way to get on television right now is to be really rude. If you’re just being sensible and giving people the benefit of the doubt, and you’re making your arguments, you don’t get time on the nightly news,” Obama said on ABC’s “This Week.”
foxnews.com
Is it rude to ask questions in a manner designed to elicit a direct and honest answer, and to keep asking these questions when a person evades, or refuses to answer those questions? Because if it is, bring on the rude- we have some questions we would like you to actually answer without all the bloviating you normally do, Mr. Resident.
The easiest way to get 15 minutes on the news or your 15 minutes of fame is to be rude. … That’s something that I think needs to change,” Obama said, lamenting the habit of “plucking out a sentence here or a comment there.”
The president was evidently agitated by the coverage the media have given to stories that sprouted as a result of Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., shouting, “You lie,” at Obama during his health care address to a joint session of Congress more than a week ago. Coverage of the outburst seemed to overshadow coverage of Obama’s health care plan itself, and later evolved into coverage of racial controversy after several prominent Democrats, including former President Jimmy Carter, claimed critics like Wilson were racially motivated.
“The media loves to have a conversation about race,” Obama noted on NBC. “This is catnip to the media because it is a running thread in American history that is very powerful and it evokes some very strong emotion.”
foxnews.com
Yes, racism is a very powerful theme- powerful enough that just being rudely direct in your line of questioning, or challenging the veracity of someone’s words is, apparently in some people’s minds, a form of racism.
These progressives are very twitchy people- like someone who has had too much electro- shock therapy, they have a permanent tic- one that shouts “Racism!” at every perceived slam against this administration. Racism is their default position, and that of every liberal, it seems- especially when they are getting pinched in an argument, their “racism” instincts kick in.
Even if it isn’t racism, but just rudeness.
House Republican Leader John Boehner, though, disputed Obama’s assertion that “rude” voices are dominating the debate.
“I don’t know that the tone of the debate has gotten out of control. It’s been spirited,” Boehner said on NBC. And he blamed Democrats for prolonging the controversy over Wilson and race, since Democratic leaders drew out the conflict with a vote on the House floor to formally admonish Wilson — even after he apologized to the White House.
foxnews.com
We have always had spirited debates in the past, every bit as passionate as the ones we are having now. Every bit as rude too- but what we have never had before is a Black president, and that has led to the liberal progressives bringing a new word to these debates- racism- that we have not had regarding a president, or even a vice president. The circumstances are unique, and so the reactions are blown way out of proportion. here is one possibly good thing coming out of all this shouting-
Racism, as a word, is losing all meaning and venom- it is becoming a caricature of a curse word, a knee jerk response word, a throwaway word.
I will leave you with the question if this is really, in the end, a truly good thing or not.
A part of me says yes, and a part of me says no.
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Tags: hypocrisy, Obama, racism, rudeness, the media
That is kind of funny. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN won’t do or say anything that might cast aspersions on the president and where has he been for the past 8 years of the Bush presidency. I don’t have time right now but I could come up with a link to a site that shows all the times that Democrats wished death on President Bush since he wants to talk rude and desrespectful.
Yes, it is too true- the whiny progressives thought that hatin’ on Bush was a right, but on this resident it is out of bounds- they are like the kid who wants to change the rules to suit him, then takes his ball and goes home in a snit when he finds that he has to play with the same rules as everyone else.
For them, a “level playing field” means one that favors them- they cannot handle true equality, because they lose every time.
I was in a hurry but before I even have to read anything from Dar: about it not existing or something:
http://www.binscorner.com/pages/d/death-threats-against-bush-at-protests-i.html
Still waiting on Victoria to admit she posted a bogus quote and then attacked me twice for pointing it out.
First of all I posted a quote by American Thinker that I thought was legitimate. You say it was not legitimate because a name was incorrect. The point was that more protesters showed up on 9/12 than the left would like to think. You are just as delusional as Pelosi when you say I attacked you.
You called me pathetic. I think I have a right to request you explain to me how pointing out that the quote you used had nothing to do with the 9/12 protest is pathetic of me.
Well, good grief, Adam. You tried to make me out as less than honest for posting that article. However, if I hurt your feelings in anyway for saying you were pathetic, gee I apologize.
I think your “umbrage” at victoria is somewhat “affected”- in other words fake, bogus, made up and in and of itself, “pathetic,” Adam- Your obsession over one quote and the way people, in this case victoria perceives you, is somewhat dare I say it (yes- I dare) deranged.
Climb down off of that cross, use the wood to build a bridge, and get over it.
You are less than honest, Victoria. Not that you notice that and not that Blake cares about truth and facts, though.
How many people were there. Maybe this guy knows.
What I want to know is how that guy came up with an estimate for the coronation. The Park Service is forbidden from doing that.
Oh, they suspended that for the messiahs coronation.
That was probably Axlerod pulling a number from his nether regions- he is good at that- propaganda is his strong suit- not honesty- he doesn’t have that gene.
Less than honest about what? I quoted one website that made a misquote. I have seen the pictures and other websites and other quotes. There was at least 800,000 people there if not more. Now you can set there and deny it all you want to and call me a liar all you want to but it doesn’t change anything. And you forget for every person that was there–there is probably at least 100 people back home that feels exactly the same way. You like Axelrod really think that denying this thing is going to make it like it never happened or something. The people of this country don’t like the names that they are being called because they are opposed to the spending and the massive tax hikes that are coming and the freedoms that are being lost everyday. We actually don’t live in a constitutional Republic anymore right now. It is hard to say what it is.
Ronald Reagon–“How can limited government and fiscal restraint be equated with lack of compassion for the poor? How can a tax break that puts a little more money in the weekly paychecks of working people be seen as an attack on the needy? Since when do we in America believe that our society is made up of two diametrically opposed classes–one rich and one poor–both in a permanent state of conflict and neither able to get ahead except at the expense of the other? Since when do we in America accept this alien and discredited theory of social and class warfare? Since when do we in America endorse the politics of envy and division?”
I’ll tell you since when–since Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and all the rest of the Democrats up on the hill. And Republicans set there and quake in their shoes and act as if they can’t do a thing about it and retreat every time someone calls them a name.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQp0AyaI2ao
This was one of the Tea Party goers from what I have read. Lloyd Marcus. What a racist. (sarc)
Lloyd is a friend of mine. The left would have a hard time labeling him a racist though I am sure they will call him an Uncle Tom.
I was just being sarcastic since everyone at the tea parties according to the left is a racist and their only beef is that the O is black. Oh wait–he is only half black and his heritage isn’t even that of the black Americans in this country.
“I quoted one website that made a misquote.”
I’m still not entirely convinced you understand that it was more than just the name wrong and that the website you quoted was totally in error.
You know what Adam, if a website tries to make a point about something that is entirely true and then uses the wrong quote from someone does it make that point entirely a lie? However, Adam, I am sorry for using that site. I humbly apologize to you because you will continue to harp on this forever if I don’t apparently. However, what does that change? Not a thing.
“…if a website tries to make a point about something that is entirely true and then uses the wrong quote from someone does it make that point entirely a lie?”
See Dan Rather for that argument. But apology accepted.
What Dan Rather tried to show was not true. You all like to say the story was true but the documents false. The story was not true.
Except that Victoria’s premise is wrong as well. There were 60 to 70 thousand people at the 9/12 protest. Nearly all credible data points to this down to the increases in public transportation usage that day compared to similar days and to the estimates made by folks like the DC Fire Department.
There were far more than that Adam- Metro subway said their ridership more than doubled. to capacity, according to the Washington Post- estimates are on average, (except for liberals who always have trouble with numbers) around 900,000.
If Metro subway said it doubled they have since revised that.
When you take all the transit data going back to 2005 you can calculate the average users for a certain day of the week in a certain month.
On the Sep 24, 2005 anti-war protest there were 464,398 rail riders. That is 136,063 above average for Saturday’s in September. Folks estimate between 150,000 and 250,000 people attended that protest.
On the Sep 12, 2009 teaparty protest there were 437,624 rail riders. That is 109,289 above average for Saturday’s in September. The media is reporting 60,000 to 75,000. Some bloggers are saying 800,000+.
Looking at transit data of the tea party protest compared to the 2005 protest, the most I’d be willing to say were at the tea-party protest is about 200,000. This is a stretch because there were other events in DC that day. To say 800,000 people attended the protest and for some reason were so much less likely to take the train than people in other protests is a logical leap, to say the least.
Except that there were scores of buses and other vehicles that brought people from around the country. A number of people did not ride the metro at all.
I provided the analysis of one guy who at least used some calculations based on past events rather than dismissive numbers.
Read it and see what he had to say.
Is this the link you mean? If not post it again and I’ll look.
What do you mean by dismissive numbers?
My point is not that people weren’t bused, it’s just that busing happens in every protest, specially the anti-war protest from 2005 that appears to be very similar in numbers and DC metro activity.
That is the one. The guy does a reasonable job considering how difficult the task is.
There were a hell of a lot more than 70k
This site offers a measuring “stick” so to speak, about crowd size, as well as comparable photos.
http://www.floppingaces.net/2009/09/13/million-american-march-91209/
I know Skye and she is spot on.
Yes, Adam there was only 60 to 70,000 people. (pat on the head) you just go on believing that and living in your own little dream world where everything is just all happiness and light and all hopey changey.
Sorry, but the only dream world is the one by wing nut bloggers who still want to believe that 800,000+ people marched on Washington without significantly increasing the traffic on public transportation.
Sorry, but the true dream world is the one by whackjob liberals who refuse to believe that a whackjob was mistakenly elected Resident, and will only serve one term.
Let’s hope Obama has only one term. I fear for your health at the rate you are going with all this fake outrage. It must get very tiring and stressful.
I am glad you are seeing things my way- it surely reduces my stress, and I know how concerned you are.
method for mob measurement
Even absent publicity-driven pressures to hype the size of a public gathering, no crowd that doesn’t go through a turnstile can be counted without some margin of error. (And as recent election recounts have proved, even counting something as simple as a stack of ballots can have a considerable margin of error.) But some fairly simple math can be used to make defensible estimates of crowd sizes.
The method goes back to the late 1960s and a University of California at Berkeley journalism professor named Herbert Jacobs, whose office was in a tower that overlooked the plaza where students frequently gathered to protest the Vietnam War. The plaza was marked with regular grid lines, which allowed Jacobs to see how many grid squares were filled with students and how many students on average packed into each grid.
After gathering data on numerous demonstrations, Jacobs came up with some rules of thumb that still are used today by those serious about crowd estimation. A loose crowd, one where each person is an arm’s length from the body of his or her nearest neighbors, needs 10 square feet per person. A more tightly packed crowd fills 4.5 square feet per person. A truly scary mob of mosh-pit density would get about 2.5 square feet per person.
The trick, then, is to accurately measure the square feet in the total area occupied by the crowd and divide it by the appropriate figure, depending on assessment of crowd density. Thanks to aerial photos or mapping applications like Google Earth, even outdoor areas can be readily measured these days…
Could 2 million jam into the mall?
Happily for the District of Columbia, the inauguration crowd certainly won’t reach electoral landslide dimensions. But if people jam into the 81 acres of the National Mall between 1st and 14th Streets Northwest at a tight 5 square feet per person, about 700,000 could squeeze in. The open area around the Washington Monument between Constitution and Independence Avenues, back to 17th Street Northwest, could wedge in another 700,000 at the same density. And assuming a looser crowd far back from the inauguration stand on the steps of the Capitol, perhaps another half a million could be milling around in the Mall area in front of the Lincoln Memorial…
Personally, I’ll just go with saying that there were more people than the population of my entire town- sounds REAL big that way, huh?
I guess it depends on how many you think were at the inauguration compared to the 9/12 protest because I find very little evidence to suggest the 9/12 crowd neared the size of the inauguration, which is projected as little as 850,000 on your source page.
That depends on the aerial photos you can find- the ones I have seen I would estimate at around 800,000- 900,000 people- the crowd goes the full length of the mall, and crowds around the monument at the end of the Mall- it is of comparable size to the Inaugural crowd, perhaps a bit smaller, but not by much.