Somehow made me imagine a sitcom pitch for "The Satans Next Door", a cross among the Beverly Hillbillies, Donna's family in the That 70s Show (without Donna), and the Lannisters in Game of Thrones (obviously named for Lanny Davis, now working for the football team formerly known as the Washington Epidermises). But writing it up wasn't as much fun as imagining it, so I gave up.
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| A lighter Lannister moment, via. |
Otherwise spent a certain amount of time trying to treat conservatives as I would like to be treated, with varying degrees of success, first with respect to a partially rational shutdown commentary by
Jim Geraghty of the National Review: [jump]
Yastreblyansky As a liberal, I happen to think the US government could do a good deal more than it does. But I can respect conservatives who think it takes on too much. I can't respect those who seem to think it shouldn't do anything at all and who laugh at dedicated civil servants being put out of work. I don't think they are conservative at all but a well-dressed, well-fed gang of hooligans, and I'm happy to agree with you that this is not helping anybody.
There is pretty much no one who thinks government shouldn't do anything at all so you are arguing against a straw man.
Rhetorical hyperbole is not the same as strawman. Anyway never mind, I'm not feeling so friendly any more.
It's too bad you're not feeling so friendly any more (no, seriously, no sarc tag). Both sides do need to work together to come up with a solution. Please understand that we conservatives constantly see our ideas twisted into straw man arguments and are attacked more viciously than terrorists actually trying to kill us (all of us, libs and cons). When the President is willing to sit down with Assad or the Iranian president, but not Republican leaders, well, can you see where we rank. Under such a barrage of hate and garbage throwing, the difference between rhetorical hyperbole and straw man becomes difficult to distinguish. Please continue to visit con sites and converse with others.
Thanks, and back at you. Although I can't resist adding "attacked more viciously than terrorists actually trying to kill us" might be just a tad hyperbolical in its own right. And PBO has spent years sitting down with the Republican leadership and finally wining and dining them and playing golf with them and above all making offers to them that fill his own supporters with rage and fear. This last Boehner trick of refusing to submit the Senate CR to the House is too much. He's rejecting not only the other two branches of government and the other house of his own branch but the bipartisan majority of his own house. No, he's not killing anybody the way Assad is.
The best way to think of it IMO is that "refusing to negotiate" is in itself a valuable negotiation tool. Boehner has to give Obama some reason to believe negotiations would accomplish something before there's even a reason to sit down. (And while he's officially willing to negotiate with Assad that's for free; he's not likely to have to actually do it until the situation changes so much that negotiations could work.) Obama's current I-won't-talk stance is clearly a negotiating stance: it's I-won't-talk UNTIL you end the shutdown, which you could do in about 20 minutes.
No reply so far, other than that single downvote.
And in really-no-reply news, the sad end of my interaction with Mr. Steeze here, who had been telling me how Obama was not a king who could do whatever he wanted but must force Harry Reid to pass one of the many CR resolutions besieging him from the House of Representatives (force him, I guess, in a non-kingy kind of way). When I objected that nothing the House was sending to the Senate could pass there no matter what non-king Obama said, while the CR already sent back to the House by the Senate could be passed in 20 minutes if the Speaker would allow a vote, he became haughty:
I don't think he decided I was too stupid to bother responding, because they never do; they always hope to reduce you to helpless quivering with a withering last word. The only time they normally let you alone is when you ask them for evidence ("Link, please?"). I'm afraid in this case he must have realized he was wrong. Pity. It was a very intense relationship for a little while.
