Scripting News - Latest Comments in Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

Michael Markman (Mickeleh) — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 22:02:35 -0000

typo: first sentence should read: Calling the Democratic Party the "Democrat Party" is disrespectful.

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

Michael Markman (Mickeleh) — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 22:01:27 -0000

Calling the Democratic Party is disrespectful. it's done to annoy. I was given the name Michael. I'm guessing you were too. People who respect us should ask if we go by Mike or Michael and then they follow our preference. if we don't care, we can tell them that. Members of the Democratic Party has made it very clear that we care what we are called. Republicans don't care about that. So they are, at best, inconsiderate, and more likely deliberately nasty.

They also don't want to allow that the Democratic Party might be actually be a democratic party.

If you don't mind what Republicans call our party, you don't have much standing to object to what Dave calls the Republican party.

I wish that Dave would show the Republicans the respect that he expects them to show us. I'll use your comment as an occasion to present one more argument to Dave: Dave when you say "the Republics" you are just adding noise to your own signal. People stop and and go "huh?" instead of following the thread of your argument.

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

David G — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 09:45:22 -0000

Mr. Winer,
Could you please start start a separate blog for your purely political commentary? Or is there an RSS feed for technical topics?
Sincerely, David G.

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

Mike — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 08:30:55 -0000

How is "Democrat Party" trashing the Democrats?

"Democratic" and "Republican" are adjectives. "Democrat" and "Republican" are nouns. "He's a Democrat, she's a Repubican."

Saying "Democrat Party" is just using it as an attributive noun, a common English usage, like with the Peace and Freedom Party. Is "freedom" an adjective?

"Republic Party" just makes you look retarded. Republicans aren't insulted or chastened -- they're simply bewildered.

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

ojbyrne — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 23:02:21 -0000

Somebody sent me this. It Has Begun. I'm especially impressed by the snopes.com reference,
it's sort of like using random phrases to bust spam filters. Also the way the first half of the article is about Obama, and there's suddenly this context switch to Radical Wahabism. And the all-caps MUSLIM...
=================================
The Bible has warned us that 'A man will come from the East that will be charismatic in nature and have proposed solutions for all our problems and his rhetoric will attract many supporters!'

When will our pathetic Nation quit turning their back on God and understand that this man is 'A Muslim'....First, Last and always....and we are AT WAR with the Muslim Nation, whether our bleeding-heart, secular, Liberal friends believe it or not. This man fits every description from the Bible of the 'Anti-Christ'!

I'm just glad to know that there are others that are frightened by this man!

Who is Barack Obama?

Very interesting and something that should be considered in your choice.

If you do not ever forward anything else, please forward this to all your contacts...this is very scary to think of what lies ahead of us here in our own United States...better heed this and pray about it and share it.

snopes.com ..' confirms this is factual. Check for yourself.

Who is Barack Obama?

Probable U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black MUSLIM from Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white ATHEIST from Wichita , Kansas.

Obama's parents met at the University of Hawaii.

When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father returned to Kenya. His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a RADICAL Muslim from Indonesia.

When Obama was 6 years old, the family relocated to Indonesia. Obama attended a MUSLIM school in Jakarta. He also spent two years in a Catholic school.

Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim. He is quick to point out that, 'He was once a Muslim, but that he also attended Catholic school.'

Obama's political handlers are attempting to make it appear that that he is not a radical.

Obama's introduction to Islam came via his father, and that this influence was temporary at best. In reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya soon after the divorce, and never again had any direct influence over his son's education.

Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam. Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta.

Wahabism is the RADICAL teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world. Since it is politically expedient to be a CHRISTIAN when seeking major public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background. ALSO, keep in mind that when he was sworn into office he DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Koran.

Barack Hussein Obama will NOT recite the Pledge of Allegiance nor will he show any reverence for our flag. While others place their hands over their hearts, Obama turns his back to the flag and slouches. Do you want someone like this as your PRESIDENT?

Let us all remain alert concerning Obama's expected presidential candidacy.

The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the US from the inside out, what better way to start than at the highest level - through the President of the United States, one of their own!

Please forward to everyone you know. Would you want this man leading our country?...... NOT ME!
=================================

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

pbump — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 22:58:58 -0000

Something of an aside: being curious about the reliability of the polling firms doing work around the election, I put together a spreadsheet of their past predictions (gleaned from Pollster.com).

Seems Survey USA has the lowest deviance from the actual results over the course of the primaries so far. As of polling last week, They have Obama up 4 in Texas, and Hillary up 6 in Ohio.

More info, and the Excel file, are at http://www.pbump.net/index.... - if folks are interested.

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

clifguy — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 13:54:03 -0000

It's ironic that you're saying on the one hand it's a Republican insult when they don't use the full name of the Democratic Party, and on the other hand it is also a Republican insult when they do use the full name of the leading Democratic candidate. You're joining the very kind of non-substantive, non-policy arguments you claim to dislike.

In our present climate of nasty partisanship over the most irrelevant points, McCain is attacked by the right for not defending his supporter who used Obama's full name and at the same time is attacked by the left for not denouncing that supporter strongly enough. This incident raises a very important question for this election cycle: does the country really prefer a moderate as many people have claimed? Or will McCain get killed in the cross-fire between two groups of partisans who enjoy the fight too much to notice what they're doing to the country?

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

davidlynch79 — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 13:02:20 -0000

nader is a spoiler, lacks compromise, for strict ideal, should have run as democrat. bushcain is unethical, and so are bushcain voters.

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

fdsa — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:34:19 -0000

John Kerry also had about the same charisma as Al Gore.

At least Barack Hussein Obama's handlers have seen American Idol.

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

Nando P. — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:17:41 -0000

I guess you already saw this, but there's a video of Bill Clinton talking "how to choose" a candidate, and apparently, well, he's talking about Obama.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

Harl Delos — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 08:10:24 -0000

Both Obama and McCain will raise taxes. They're both aware that running a deficit is highly corrosive of the American economy, destroying jobs and lowering the standard of living, especially among those who are least able to switch jobs.

Attacking NAFTA is important in the midwest is important, because it's a bad law. The concept is good, but the law itself is bad. Both McCain and Obama are historically free-traders, and they both recognize that free trade improves our economy. They also both realize that if a Mexican is going to take your job away, it's better that he do so by working in the US as a legal resident, so that he can pay taxes, and join the melting pot, rather than by working in a Mexican factory owned by a US corporation.

There are two ways to force companies to behave responsibly, in the public interest. One is by imposing regulations. The other is to allow individuals to force responsibility upon them, by suing for damages, and inflicting enough pain in the form of punitive damages to get the behavior to change. (That is, the day after McDonald's lost to Stella, they lowered the coffee temperature from an outrageous 190F to a scalding 148F.) McCain will excoriate Obama for favoring regulations, because regulations are often poorly written to the point of being counterproductive, and regulatory oversight is a bureaucratic nightmare that is a major drag on the economy, and McCain will be right about that. Obama will likely never consider excoriating McCain about "tort reform", a GOP favorite, in which victims of irresponsible or malicious acts are forced to accept the economic burdens without recourse.

This election should be a slam-dunk for the Democratics, but it won't be, in part because they are always so incensed by social injustice that they can't explain themselves in simple terms to the voters. If the Democrats could learn how to couch issues in the proper language - "the death tax", the "P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act" or the "defense of marriage act" - they'd have a better chance of succeeding, but in the long term, the population is moving from blue cities to maroon suburbs and to red rural areas, and that means individual liberties are going to triumph over group rights.

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

Harl Delos — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 07:46:44 -0000

When's the last time you voted for a candidate who won by *one* vote?

The only wasted vote is the one that's not counted. Maybe you stayed home. Maybe you didn't RTFM, and your vote was discarded. If you write in a vote for "Donald Duck" and he hasn't been registered as a write-in candidate, your vote doesn't get counted. (And Donald Duck isn't just a cartoon character. He was a guest on Johnny Carson one night. His parents named his that before Walt Disney came up with the character you're thnking of.)

Huckabee hasn't dropped from the contest, even though he has no realistic chance to win, because when people vote for him, it *does* change things. People have a right to express their idea, and calling their candidate a "spoiler" is a feeble-minded insult to both the candidate, and those who favor his ideas.

In the '68 national Democratic convention, one of the delegates voted for Julian Bond in the first round. He wasn't yet 35 at the time; even if the Electoral College chose him, he couldn't have assumed the office. Never the less, it wasn't a wasted vote.

I've been a Nancy Nall fan since the 1980s, and after watching the events unfold yesterday, I'm even more of a fan. I'm thinking about writing in her name on my Pennsylvania GOP primary ballot. It won't be counted; among other things Nancy is a flaming liberal of a Democratic, bless her sharp pen, but then, the GOP ticket is pretty well determined already.

(I don't care *what* you say, Dave, it looks *stupid* to call someone a Democratic. If the Republican party members are Republicans, then the party made up of Democrats should be the Democrat party.)

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

Michael Markman (Mickeleh) — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 01:51:12 -0000

If you want to insult Republicans by refusing to use their full name, calling them Publicans. That's way nastier than calling them Republics. See Wikipedia In Rome, they were contract tax collectors. In the New Testament, they're villains. In the Renaissance, publicans were saloon keepers "and by extension a slang term for a pimp."

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

Michael Markman (Mickeleh) — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 01:36:33 -0000

I appreciate your passion on countering the contempt that Republicans show in mislabeling the Democratic party. If what they are doing is wrong, then why should we also do it? Is this the Sean Connery speech from "The Untouchables"

"You wanna get Capone? Here's how you get him. He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way. And that's how you get Capone!"

Even if we adopt the insult-for-insult stragegy, there's another problem with calling them "the Republics" The United States is a Republic. "Republican" is a faction. "Rebublic" is all of us. They'd love us to concede that they are the Republic party. But they're not. If anything, they're the unreconstructed Confederacy Party.

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

Phil Wolff — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 00:14:18 -0000

There *is* such a thing as a "wasted vote." When you vote for "Donald Duck", you know your vote won't affect the outcome. So you force yourself to choose among viable candidates, even write-in ones.

This is realpolitik, I think. If you're voting for a Republican, you want a candidate that can beat whoever the Dems throw against you. Ability to win is a valid criterion, if not a prerequisite, for how I invest my vote.

And while you're right, that nobody is entitled to my vote, isn't it willful blindness to ignore that your appeal reaches into one of the existing parties? And that, based on experience, you might earn enough votes to swing an election?

As for the "chance to win", the dems and republicans have over 100k electeds in local, state, and national offices. They have local committees and clubs in every city. They will spend over $500 million in ad bucks.

As voters and as candidates, we serve democracy by acting to elect the best candidate within the system we have.

Effectively, a vote for Nader which would have gone to a Democrat is a vote for McCain.
Nader knows it.
And doesn't care.
The same logic elected George Bush.
I wonder if any of the people who voted for Ralph last time will vote for him again.

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

RacerRick — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:27:54 -0000

They'll also attack him by mentioning that he's going to raise taxes and increase protectionism.

Both of which are true.

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

Jason Lefkowitz — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:52:56 -0000

No, you are missing the point.

Republicans don't say "Democrat Party" to directly sway voters. They do it because it's disrespectful.

The idea is to make your opponent appear weak by doing something disrespectful to him right to his face, and then having him do nothing in return.

When you do this, you send the message that your opponent is weak. If he was strong, he'd stop you from disrespecting him. But he doesn't, so he isn't.

Josh Marshall calls this the "Bitch-slap theory of politics":

One way -- perhaps the best way -- to demonstrate someone's lack of toughness or strength is to attack them and show they are either unwilling or unable to defend themselves -- thus the rough slang I used above. And that I think is a big part of what is happening here. Someone who can't or won't defend themselves certainly isn't someone you can depend upon to defend you.

...and it explains a lot about GOP tactics in the modern era.

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

Ryan — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:15:15 -0000

Republican operatives will come up with something better than Hussein, if they haven't already. Using that name just reinforces Obama's central message of being a uniter, and it's not 2002 any more, our culture is actually more interested in the mideast than every before, eg McCain's own daughter wears a keffiyeh. Trying to be divisive in this manner is not only outdated by highlights exactly the thing Obama wants highlighted -- that Republicans are (allegedly) divisive fearmongers.

No, it'll probably be something to do with Obama being an amateur. Here is former McCain adviser Dan Schnur in the NYT yday

http://campaignstops.blogs....

(Schnur is a former prof of mine and I'm not saying his above essay is unfair or fair or good or bad, though I enjoyed reading it)

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

dave — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:07:29 -0000

Now you're saying something different, and sorry this is wrong too.

First, I am not an insider.

Second, if you read the previous messages in this thread, the point has already been made, this is not just about insiders.

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

BDP — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:03:51 -0000

Incidentally, John Sidney McCain III has his own "Swift Boat" storyline.

http://www.vietnamveteransa...

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

alain — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:11:08 -0000

You missed my point. What I offered was an analysis of recognizing what types of issues matter and which ones are just inside baseball. Calling it the Democrat Party is inside baseball. Going after Kerry with the Swift Boat ad is a PR firestorm that needs to be put out. I'm speaking from the perspective of someone who has been there on the ground working and responding to what happens. I worked 3 successful political campaigns - two for Senate and one for Congress - so I'm not speaking from ignorance here. When you're in the midst of the fray, it's important to remember that while you do need to develop a response to the things that matter, getting worked up about comments like "the Democrat Party" are not the kinds of issue you should be spending limited energy and resources responding to.

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

dave — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:50:40 -0000

You couldn't be more wrong about that.

John Kerry parsed it mostly the way you did and he didn't respond to the swiftboat attacks.

Guess who got to give the concession speech on the first Tuesday of November?

You may understand the politics of your kids, but you don't understand American politics.

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

alain — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:42:22 -0000

There is a pettiness to politics that consistently amazes me when our elected leaders and their followers or true believers fall into it. The Republicans do it for the same reason my three year old teases her five year old sister - because it gets a reaction. They know that their target, the Democrats, will become enraged. It has nothing to do with trying to sway voters because the only people who notice and respond to it are the true believers. If nothing else it is a coded thumb to the nose with a sputtering raspberry attached. The very fact that you respond to it means they have succeeded. If you're not careful, you immediately fall into a trap of being responsive to shadows in the night and looking for offenses at every turn rather than focusing on what your message ought to be. As Phil says, this quickly pulls the whole dialogue down the drain and isn't really helpful to solving problems. Politics isn't and shouldn't be about scoring points on the other team, but instead on actually implementing policies that make a difference.

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

Jasperjed — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:01:11 -0000

Thank you very much! And isn't the point to vote your ideals, and not just try to pick the winner?

Re: Fear bombs of 2008 (Scripting News)

dave — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:52:01 -0000

you're entitled to your opinion, but in this case i don't agree.

why not write a letter to your republican congressperson and senators, if you can get them all to stop doing it, then i will stop.

seems like a reasonable offer to me.