A good article for lefties to think about. I think there is truth in this liberal's argument.
It drives me nuts when I turn on some of the commentators on MSNBC and they waste part of their hour with having a supposed debate between a leftie and rightie. Only the righties endlessly repeat their party's talking points (usually with no deviation) and smirk or do that phony laugh. How much better use of time would it be to have real debates over issues! Surely they could find a real conservative and real liberal to argue the issues, not play the partisan game. We can't just find fault with someone else. We have to work for solutions.
Maybe it's because I am a leftie, but I see more ability to cogently argue points from the left than from the right. A recent example of this inability of the right to actually look at an issue came from one right wing Congressman on MSNBC debating the supposed release of classified information and how it was done to benefit Obama and was treason. Okay, so if it was treason, then is it always?
I'd have more respect for his point if he had added it has happened on both sides (if it even has with the Obama people). The thing is, where was this guy when the Valerie Plame story blew up with an obvious connection to Dick Cheney? Why didn't the commentator ask the Congressman about the time when the right deliberately outed an agent only for revenge with no concern for who else it revealed or what secrets it corrupted?
If this latest is really so bad (not sure how some of it even was classified given one was the wantabe bomber where that kind of story seems to me to be a police event), but if it's all so bad, why wasn't Cheney charged as that went beyond Scooter Libby and we all know it.
And is there a single intelligent reader who didn't smirk when they heard someone was infiltrating and damaging Iran's computer system? I mean it doesn't take a rocket scientist or insider to think-- that's our guys doing that as one more way to stop nuclear proliferation.
But instead that right wing Congressman from California just repeated how awful this was without drawing any connection to how it's happened before when the right kept their mouths shut other than to defend the Bush administration. If he had been on a right wing cable news show, I'd not have heard it or been so irked by it. Instead he was on a liberal news show.
So the left is all worried and fretting that Obama is not doing enough, wringing their hands, interviewing those like James Carville to see what Obama should do. Well they can start by not supporting discussions of issues that aren't issues and are instead simply partisan sniping. Enough already. There are a lot of important problems to discuss and leftie news programs should be where the debates are heard. Partisan debates aren't even debates. They are simply talking points repeated ad nauseum.
Incidentally, I don't remotely think it's over for Obama despite the whining. He doesn't get swerved off course and when he was criticized by a leftie writer for having a barbecue meal out with his daughters, as though that wasn't important and only the campaign was, I wanted to tell that guy-- Obama gets one chance to raise those girls and make them feel important. He's doing exactly what he should do and more power to him for it!
I don't disagree that he needs to get tough on Romney and bring up all of what Romney stands for-- over and over again but with real issues. There are plenty of them. Romney himself provides more daily. But if Obama was doing that all the time right now, it'd get old long before November. He needs to show people he's attending to business-- which he is doing-- and that he doesn't get knocked off keel by every wind. He's doing that too.
Just to be fair I am including that article by the writer who wrote to Obama-- grow a few. It looks to me, based on how he has operated in the past, like Obama has no need for that advice!
I will add one thing though-- if Obama really believes Republicans will actually work with him if he is re-elected, he's surprisingly naive. Americans need to grow some themselves and finally start electing one party to do what it claims it wants to do. No more of this stagnation by voting. The Republicans only want him to fail, and if that takes bringing the rest of us down with him, they don't mind.
For the next few blogs here, not sure how many, I want to explore some issues and ideally not partisanship. Sure I know that the right wing tends to see things one way and left another but that is sometimes based on real issues. How about looking at a few?
6 comments:
"Obama gets one chance to raise those girls and make them feel important."
I think that, whatever else, Pres Obama is living his personal life in a way that provides a great example for other fathers - of whatever skin tone/ethnic group.
Cop Car
Do you think any of the Republicans can really make a good argument that keeping taxes low on the rich is going to solve our economic and debt problems? How can the left and the right have a rational discourse when the "ideas" of the right are so irrational?
The problem is, we have to keep an eye on what those people are up to but not be infected with their poison.
Great post!!!! I look forward to seeing the ones to come!
It will be interesting to see the extent to which unfettered campaign contributions (an overwhelmingly large amount sides with Conservative candidates and issues, thanks to the "Citizen's United" decision) will paint the picture we see in the media.
I read the full article about Liberals, by the way. It was very good and I agree with it's tenants. However, as most of these articles do, they try to end on an "Up" note. In this case, hoping that voters will turn away from sensationalism and distractions and look at issues, therein giving a glimmer of hope. But that is not the reality - people are easily swayed by brightly-colored objects and mesmerized. The term "informed voter" is practically and oxymoron. You know, probably well now from my previous comments, I don't hold much optimism.
I haven't given up but we do face a time with a multitude of voices all with the 'correct' way to fix things and none of which agree. Many, like was mentioned above, have been tried, are putting us where we are but the right wants to double down on them. Logic? pfffft!
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