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Lies, prevarication and deceit again, eh? Joel Send a noteboard - 22/08/2010 01:17:45 PM
Obama is smart enough, has the personality, as well as the temperament that he always sees in shades of grey and nuance, and he would have created these two opinions almost simultaneously.

Obama can have those two opinions together at one time for they are not contradictory.

But he specifically mention opinion 1 to one audience to get a desired result. While on the next day spoke opinion 2 to another audience to get a different desired result. He refrained to mention opinion 2 to the first audience for it would get him in trouble, same thing for the next day but in reverse.

In other words he was purposefully two faced.

In relationships this would make you a ho.

OK, thanks much; I still don't really agree with that view of his intent, but can certainly understand it. We expect that sort of thing from our pols; probably the biggest reason I'm more sympathetic is because I've spent most of my life watching Dems say heavily nuanced things that get perverted into caricatures by their opponents sound bites and the media/public love of Short Attention Span Theater. The same thing happened to Kerry when he tried to explain why he supported the right to abortion while abhorring it personally; it was a nuanced position that most people seemed to find easier to take as noncommital and indecisive when it was neither. Same thing with "I actually voted for the bill before I voted against it: " While the flip flop charge was frequently accurate with Kerry, the most famous example wasn't much of a flip flop. Unfortunately, the well known phrase is a lot shorter and easier to remember than his explanation that he voted for a bill to fund the troops, then watched it stripped of much of the funding for the actual SOLDIERS that was then replaced with contractor kickbacks he naturally voted against. They changed the bill and thus changed his vote, but it's hard to cover all that thoroughly in thirty seconds.

Thing is though, Obama never promised anyone his support for (or opposition to) the mosque and, as Tash notes, was quite clear in his first statement that this plan was (understandably) generating a lot of undesirable anger and grief. He made clear that as long as he's President no one will stop the mosque from being built, while also making clear that anyone with two brain cells to rub together should've expected all the controversy and outrage. The tone was more favorable in the first statement, but if (and we honestly can't KNOW) he did intend his audience to read in things he didn't say, well, politicians would probably do that less if people weren't so often eager to do so. I don't think, have never thought, that's the case though: I think he rightly recognized that while he had an obligation to speak to the law "as a citizen, and as President" because he happens to be BOTH he doesn't have the luxury of taking a position on the mosque itself. The biggest "change" to the extent there was one, in the second statement is that he explicitly said what he strongly indicated in the first: He shouldn't comment on the mosque itself, and he won't. The only way to make the second statement a reversal, back track, or whatever, is to read something into the first that was never there, and the best and easiest way to avoid hearing something he didn't say is to listen to what he DID say.

Not, once again, that this is a widely possessed strength in America; one of the things that frustrated me throughout the Bush administration was that he would announce new policies, detail each step of how he was going to screw the American people, but they would HEAR it as something beneficial because they so chose. He as much as said his tax cuts would give the working class a one time refund check but give the wealthiest ten years worth of tax reduction, but the public HEARD "you all get an annual windfall" anyway. There's not much you can do to help people like that. Watching people willfully misunderstand the current President isn't much more fun than it was with the last one.

I continue to contend the real problem here is that many on the right want the President to come out and condemn the proposed mosque in the harshest terms, while many on the left want him to praise and laud it in the most glowing ones. He won't do either because he has no business doing either, so they're both pissed at him for serving a broader interest than their own personal niche (and incidentally affirming the spirit as well as the letter of the First Amendment. ) I don't really think think the fault there lies with Obama though. If we're really being honest with ourselves, I think that's what most of us want, a President who won't take federal action to shut down mosques next to the WTC, or church groups carrying signs that say, "God hates fags" or synagogues branding all Palestinians as violent thugs, however much he may detest each of those actions. Yes, his refusal to embrace or condemn any one groups agenda while still affirming their right to pursue it will still enrage a lot of people but, thankfully, still a percentage of the populace far too small to dictate policy.
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An amusing column on the NYC mosque by Maureen Dowd.... - 20/08/2010 12:33:27 AM 1420 Views
wow, that was an interesting read - 20/08/2010 02:03:52 AM 788 Views
Gingrich thinks he is a deep thinker? - 20/08/2010 09:42:15 AM 633 Views
We've been through this, too, haven't we? - 20/08/2010 10:12:15 AM 926 Views
He makes historical references as often as possible, or at least in pretty much everything I've seen - 20/08/2010 12:37:02 PM 741 Views
As he was a history professor and writes histories and alternate histories, this is not surprising - 20/08/2010 05:33:48 PM 931 Views
I'm aware of that - 20/08/2010 11:47:32 PM 660 Views
Re: I'm aware of that - 21/08/2010 12:40:29 AM 945 Views
Re: I'm aware of that - 21/08/2010 01:19:37 AM 800 Views
Re: I'm aware of that - 21/08/2010 01:59:48 AM 688 Views
Conservatives love Rome. I don't know why. - 21/08/2010 01:20:27 AM 742 Views
Rome was more often than not governed by aristocrats and did, after all, invent the republic. - 21/08/2010 04:50:53 PM 1059 Views
"One man, one vote" always reminds me of Pratchett - 21/08/2010 05:03:35 PM 715 Views
Me too *NM* - 21/08/2010 06:53:22 PM 462 Views
Except there doesn't seem to be any conflict between either position. - 20/08/2010 10:06:20 AM 877 Views
When has logical consistency trumped politics? *NM* - 20/08/2010 01:50:55 PM 368 Views
True, but it does mean there's no "there" there. - 20/08/2010 02:41:49 PM 703 Views
He has to learn he needs to be crystal clear on sensitive issues - 20/08/2010 02:03:43 PM 943 Views
In Washington, one must always present the APPEARANCE of integrity... - 20/08/2010 02:40:24 PM 807 Views
Clinton lied about the BJ but what is your airtight proof that Bush lied? - 20/08/2010 07:44:53 PM 872 Views
Ask and ye shall receive: - 21/08/2010 06:42:50 PM 1062 Views
This is a bit along the lines of what I have been thinking. - 20/08/2010 07:49:15 PM 913 Views
that sort of illustrates the problem - 20/08/2010 08:56:42 PM 761 Views
It does - 22/08/2010 04:56:54 PM 678 Views
Can't find anything now on the context of the second statement. - 21/08/2010 05:05:51 PM 804 Views
I didn't see the problem either. He was simply stating the obvious. - 21/08/2010 01:39:44 AM 652 Views
maybe - 21/08/2010 02:49:40 AM 892 Views
Wow that is probably the best Dowd column I have ever read - 21/08/2010 01:35:36 AM 681 Views
Yes, his backtracking was quite pussy-ish. *NM* - 21/08/2010 04:00:31 AM 327 Views
How did he "backtrack" exactly? - 21/08/2010 04:35:33 PM 957 Views
c'mon Joel. are you being intentionally thick? - 21/08/2010 05:02:27 PM 983 Views
Having read those quotes I don't think he was backtracking on anything. (With link to speech) - 22/08/2010 06:27:06 AM 931 Views
*NM* - 22/08/2010 01:37:23 PM 371 Views
did you take into your consideration - 22/08/2010 03:50:59 PM 676 Views
I can't imagine why they would express concern over it. It wasn't controversial. That is on them - 22/08/2010 03:58:32 PM 871 Views
that would be - 22/08/2010 04:02:08 PM 967 Views
But quote B just reiterated what he said the first time. - 22/08/2010 04:13:21 PM 797 Views
I agree he is not backtracking - 22/08/2010 06:49:36 PM 785 Views
I agree with you, Joel and Tash on this one. - 22/08/2010 07:52:34 PM 837 Views
While we're picking sides, I'm with Mook and Roland. - 22/08/2010 08:20:11 PM 712 Views
I never fail to be impressed with your intelligence - 22/08/2010 08:25:11 PM 856 Views
I like how he's got rhetorical talents when it works - 22/08/2010 08:32:15 PM 729 Views
nope just human *NM* - 22/08/2010 08:37:17 PM 395 Views
that's not what Paul just said. - 22/08/2010 08:42:24 PM 789 Views
He couldn't stay out, no. - 22/08/2010 08:56:47 PM 834 Views
I don't want to argue with you on a Sunday, my religion says I have to relax. - 22/08/2010 09:03:54 PM 851 Views
key word: seem - 22/08/2010 09:06:40 PM 770 Views
I was only using that term for you guys. I don't feel like beating you with a rolling pin until you - 22/08/2010 09:14:39 PM 669 Views
good thing - 22/08/2010 09:39:52 PM 1072 Views
he could have and should have stayed out - 22/08/2010 09:57:57 PM 805 Views
I think he's certainly got rhetoric talents... - 22/08/2010 08:54:11 PM 1225 Views
You don't really seem like you're taking a side to me. - 22/08/2010 09:14:02 PM 889 Views
I'm not even taking the time to comment on something so obvious as what he did. *NM* - 22/08/2010 02:53:10 AM 450 Views
Except, of course, that you just did. - 22/08/2010 12:30:00 PM 805 Views
Joel - 22/08/2010 05:37:45 AM 976 Views
That last line was golden. *NM* - 22/08/2010 05:40:56 AM 422 Views
His phrasing in the first speech implied that it was a bad idea. But legally they have the right. - 22/08/2010 06:32:59 AM 900 Views
nonsense - 22/08/2010 03:39:30 PM 849 Views
I still don't see how it can be misinterpreted except by intent by the listener. - 22/08/2010 04:08:52 PM 823 Views
so we have reached the point of no return... - 22/08/2010 04:18:46 PM 831 Views
In your case it would have to be number 2. - 22/08/2010 07:38:20 PM 808 Views
ah, but I have no agenda here... - 22/08/2010 07:41:59 PM 634 Views
lol.<3 - 22/08/2010 08:49:35 PM 813 Views
that it is... - 22/08/2010 08:57:05 PM 770 Views
Tash you are very much a fair person in this world - 22/08/2010 08:34:38 PM 890 Views
Or there is another option: 3) He was using tact. - 22/08/2010 09:01:49 PM 811 Views
On the off chance that this: - 23/08/2010 12:38:48 AM 998 Views
I do remember your reply... - 23/08/2010 02:57:29 AM 1229 Views
Lies, prevarication and deceit again, eh? - 22/08/2010 01:17:45 PM 1281 Views
that was a decent explanation.... - 22/08/2010 05:18:18 PM 753 Views
Thanks. - 22/08/2010 05:41:28 PM 809 Views
I do feel bad for them - 22/08/2010 08:40:36 PM 703 Views
Re: Joel - 22/08/2010 07:53:51 PM 837 Views
Agreed. *NM* - 22/08/2010 08:25:38 PM 522 Views

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