Obama's POTUS Proclamation Honoring Gay Pride Month

[NickCole]

Disagree with his policies, with his solutions, or his personal qualities, but if you really think he doesn't care about actually getting stuff done or whether or not any of it succeeds then I would have to say you are so jaded I don't think you will ever understand anything about him.

I didn't say he doesn't care about getting stuff done or whether or not any of it succeeds.

To the contrary, I wrote he wants "to be written about in glowing terms in history books," and that would obviously require getting stuff done and it succeeding.

But whether or not the stuff he gets done makes our nation healthier and stronger is another story because as I also said, "His choices and decisions are made from a motive of self-aggrandizement rather than the public good."

 

[iman]

See, that's fascinating to me. And I'm still trying to figure it out.


I'm still trying to figure it out. But I'll get it.

All Presidents have huge egos. Every indication is that Obama wants to be an accomplished President, that's why I do not worry about him. Did you see Michiko K's review of the Wolfe campaign book in the Times yesterday? Sounds like a pretty safe and shallow book, but the indications are that Obama is working very hard studying the issues. He may not be a policy wonk like the Clintons, but he is becoming very knowledgeable and has surrounded himself with very good people.

Perhaps your problem lies elsewhere?

 

[Kulindahr]

Well, the addition of the words "to Senate-confirmed" is overt enough. Otherwise, the words aren't necessary if he meant what the Advocate (and Nick's usual grasp at straws) are claiming.

I almost added that as an edit. That little qualifier makes a distinction -- and lawyers are good at distinctions... especially ones not everyone else gets.

 

[Kulindahr]

I guess that wholly depends on if it was Manhattan Chowder or New England Chowder.

Don't forget to distinguish between clam chowder and potato chowder.

 

[Lostlover]

Molten, what happened to you? Why the name changes?

 

[Lostlover]

I left for awhile. I tire of the incessant Muslim bashing, racist, trolling that goes unchecked here. After so long, it's better just to leave for a few months and then come back to try to help those that are truly in need, vs. becoming embittered as it appears a few on this site are tragically afflicted with. But I miss people like you Lostlover, Nik, Marley, and a number of others so pop in to frustrate the idiocy of the right wingnutamas.

How have you been sexy?

Thanks! Glad to have you back even if it's only for a while.

The trolling, sadly isn't done by teenagers on here but by people who are old enough to recall black and white TVs.

JUB, I hope isn't reflective of the gay community. Well, maybe it is. Maybe this is why we're still second class citizens in 2009.

 

[NickCole]

All Presidents have huge egos. Every indication is that Obama wants to be an accomplished President, that's why I do not worry about him.

Ooooooooh he wants to be an accomplished President!!!

Well that changes everything.

Everybody who wants to be accomplished at something becomes accomplished at it!

That's why everybody's accomplished! What a wonderous world of hope and change we live in!

Let me remind you that if wishes were horses beggars would ride.

Every man who's been President has wanted to be an acccomplished President. There are all kinds of things that go into accomplishment on this scale -- and they don't include a work record of success at campaigns followed by mediocre accomplishment in the job, strings of broken promises, pretending in word to be one thing and then in deed being another, taking credit for accomplishments that are unearned or earned by others, and being a master at seduction while churning out disappointing policy and legislation.

Did you see Michiko K's review of the Wolfe campaign book in the Times yesterday? Sounds like a pretty safe and shallow book, but the indications are that Obama is working very hard studying the issues. He may not be a policy wonk like the Clintons, but he is becoming very knowledgeable and has surrounded himself with very good people.

It is an amazing learning process for me, seeing over the past year intelligent people like you get sucked into the ObamaNation seduction.

Yes I read Michiko's review. I also am partway through the ARC. It's nauseating. But instructive. It's called "Renegade," which is perfect because Barack Obama is anything but a renegade and making up an image is what Obama is all about.

The book was written by Richard Wolffe, who used to write for Newsweek but they severed ties after this book. Wolffe now works in Public Relations, about which Wolffe says, "I offer strategic advice to clients on how to interact with the public, whether it’s their stakeholders or public opinion."

Obama proposed the book idea to Wolffe while Wolffe was covering him on the campaign trail ("Why can’t you write a book about [the campaign]? Like Theodore White. Those are great books," Obama suggested to Wolffe, according to Wolffe in Renegade. This, Wolffe tells us, was on March 20, 2008, two days after Obama's big speech on race) and was given special access to Obama the seducer, and it's evident throughout the book that Wolffe is smitten with Obama.

The book copies the idea (there is little that Obama doesn't copy from someone or something) of Theodore White's Making of the President series about JFK (and subsequently others), and as White did of JFK, Renegade paints Obama in a heroic light.

This, which I just read last night, is an example of what Wolffe tells us, describing the Obama campaign’s media strategy: "They had little aptitude for or interest in winning the daily or hourly news cycle." That's classic Obama-style image-engineering and is completely at odds with the truth of his campaign's mastery of the minute-to-minute combat of the 2008 news cycle. It's also completely at odds with what's known about David Axelrod's strengths and style. The book is propaganda, and laced with lies, plain and simple.

That you take a New York Times book reviewer's descriptions from a fawning piece of propaganda as trustworthy in describing who Obama really is, provides the most perfect way of showing how Obama supporters see him and why they see him that way.

Perhaps your problem lies elsewhere?

What I said about Obama during the campaign has turned out to be true, and we're only months into his Presidency. Obama supporters here would love to show how I was wrong, but they can't. ObamaCo is proving me right. The problem lies in ObamNation.

 

[Kulindahr]

Does potato chowder come in Manhattan style?

I always kinda figured potato/corn/vegetable chowders all only came in New England style.

(I may yet learn something new today.)

I don't know about Manhattan style, but they come in Midwest style -- and potato chowder apparently comes in "San Francisco style", but then San Francisco often insists on having a style all its own.

 

[lostnfound]

Pride Month...hmm.

Yet, he won't support same-sex marriage? I honestly don't get it.

 

[Kulindahr]

Pride Month...hmm.

Yet, he won't support same-sex marriage? I honestly don't get it.

Maybe because he believes that marriage is between a man and a woman?

I know a number of gays who oppose gay-marriage laws, for various reasons. I oppose them because they're just another special-interest grab at government-sanctioned privileges not available to everyone.

 

[Zeno Lorea]

Actions speak louder than words.

Obama gives moving speeches, but what has done for gays? Nothing yet, nothing! Except for federal employees, the 0.1% of your country who only feather their own nests.

For Buddha's sake, Americans, WHERE IS YOUR RAGE?

 

[Zeno Lorea]

What that sentence says is that Obama is the first President to appoint gay candidates to Senate-confirmed positons, not that he's the first President to have gay candidates confirmed by the Senate in his first hundred days.

Yep, reminds me of Tony Blair boasting and bragging about the UK being the world's only nation to be a member of "the EU, the UN Security Council, NATO and the Commonwealth". France is not a member of the British Commonwealth, you see.

 

[Kulindahr]

Actions speak louder than words.

Obama gives moving speeches, but what has done for gays? Nothing yet, nothing! Except for federal employees, the 0.1% of your country who only feather their own nests.

For Buddha's sake, Americans, WHERE IS YOUR RAGE?

I think a lot of people are still feeling relieved that we're done with Bush. I have heard frustration starting that Obama's spending more than Bush dreamed of and the economy still isn't changing (around here, the official unemployment is between 12% and 16%, depending on the agency doing the measuring, but a figure that doesn't shut out some people for various reasons makes it between 18% and 22%... and climbing). Even contractors folks consider well-to-do or wealthy are scrambling -- more than a few people are too busy trying to survive to have to complain.

Incredibly, some complaining I have heard is that "he's too friendly to perverts!"... meaning us.

 

[archive]

Stupid people...

I find it curious how people expect the economy to turnaround in mere months.

america is the "give me it now" nation

 

[Kulindahr]

Stupid people...

I find it curious how people expect the economy to turnaround in mere months.

I don't.

Over and over, I find this proclamation appropriate:

We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.

Many, many people treat the government as though it were a sort of deity, to which prayers may be addressed, and from which blessings flow. They have taken to heart the attitude behind many campaign promises, that politicians can wave a magic law and make things better. Even while they complain that it takes three years just for the government to make the preparations to spend the money appropriated to rebuild their local road, they still expect overnight results.
Where those of the first century expected a Messiah who could summon legions of angels to set things right, today people expect our 'messiah' to summon legions (of legions) of dollars and set things right.

Then when miracles don't happen, and there's nothing they can understand about the problem, let alone do, they turn to something they (think they do) understand, and don't have to think about because they know in theirs guts they're right -- so the economy is forgotten, and gays get reviled.

 

[Kulindahr]

america is the "give me it now" nation

And the "make me comfortable" nation.

That's what explains the irrationality of the folks who freak over guns: there's no evidence whatsoever that limiting the availability of firearms to the law-abiding does anything to change the behavior of criminals, but guns make them nervous, so....

And it explains the irrationality of those who oppose treating gays as people; there's no evidence whatsoever that honoring the words of the Declaration of Independence for everyone will harm society, but gays make them nervous, so....


A local columnist a couple of years ago observed that the "there ought to be a law!" syndrome was almost invariably driven by things other people do that the one wanting the law doesn't like. Echoing R. Heinlein, I wrote in and urged people, if they were going to support a new law, to make sure it was one that would keep them from doing something they felt they shouldn't be doing... and leave other people alone.

 

[Kulindahr]

LL could have learned something from that two-hour long, lively discussion: older folks and younger folks can and indeed routinely do (certainly at Posh) interact, buy each other cheap drinks, slap each other on the back and generally act like human beings, even if the age range spanned some fifty years -- from 22 to 72.

I know I learned something: the passion young folks feel for Obama is real, it is rooted in not just hopes but in their belief that this change will come. Will it? I don't know, but I do know that that kid from St. Johns made a very convincing case, and it was one of the best political conversations I've ever had. And I felt proud that gay men of all ages could engage each other in serious, civil political discourse, and learn something from each other. I mean, that's what we're here for isn't it? Or are we here to trash and blame each other's generation?

I think that standing opposite that passion young folks feel is a despair older folks feel over continuing to hope for actual change, when the constant for all their lives has been politics as usual... except they get worse.
If Obama blows it, the older folks are at least cushioned against an abrupt, shocking, despair, because we've learned not to expect more out of what the system gives us -- the younger may be crushed.

 

[Lostlover]

Stupid people...

I find it curious how people expect the economy to turnaround in mere months.

I like how Obama can get the blame for gays' problems in his 151st day when a lot of people that are bitching are in demographics that supported the bigotry against gays.

It's the worse kind of pot calling the kettle black scenario.

 

[Lostlover]

I think that standing opposite that passion young folks feel is a despair older folks feel over continuing to hope for actual change, when the constant for all their lives has been politics as usual... except they get worse.
If Obama blows it, the older folks are at least cushioned against an abrupt, shocking, despair, because we've learned not to expect more out of what the system gives us -- the younger may be crushed.

Cushioned? They built the sofa and are now shitting on it.

 

[NickCole]

I had a couple of beers at Posh during happy hour yesterday and got involved in a really interesting (and gasp -- intergenerational!) conversation -- two twenty-somethings from St. Johns University, two retired (68 and 72 year old) guys, and a thirty-ish fashion designer. One of the college guys disagreed with the generally negative Obama comments and posed a question: what president has ever come into office facing the depth and variety of problems that Obama has faced? I offered FDR, but as he ticked off the litany (Iraq, Afghanistan, the economy, Iran, NK, the banking fiasco, the deficit, health care, etc), I retreated and agreed with him: Obama really inherited big, stinking piles of shit, none of which can wait. So again, I do vacillate -- I want Obama to get on the hump with gay equality, but one cannot ignore the realities of what he faces.

LL could have learned something from that two-hour long, lively discussion: older folks and younger folks can and indeed routinely do (certainly at Posh) interact, buy each other cheap drinks, slap each other on the back and generally act like human beings, even if the age range spanned some fifty years -- from 22 to 72.

I know I learned something: the passion young folks feel for Obama is real, it is rooted in not just hopes but in their belief that this change will come. Will it? I don't know, but I do know that that kid from St. Johns made a very convincing case, and it was one of the best political conversations I've ever had. And I felt proud that gay men of all ages could engage each other in serious, civil political discourse, and learn something from each other. I mean, that's what we're here for isn't it? Or are we here to trash and blame each other's generation?

This is all so vague. Was the conversation as vague?

I've found that to be the case with Obama supporters from as far back as the Primaries. The notion of "change" is meaningless because of COURSE there'll be change. There's always change. The question is what will the change be, and that's always where Obama supporters start to talk about how terrible everybody else has been, how much Obama has to deal with, how hard it is and how nobody else could have done better so give him a chance and ignore his failures.

What we needed from this election was a President who can lead authentic reform -- in the economy and financial services, in health care and energy and foreign policy. But ObamaCo are not reformers and the only time they're competent and bold is when they're campaigning for Obama the candidate.

Of course many Obama supporters really believe "this change will come." Believing the seduction is what seduction is all about.