The Atlantic - Latest Comments in When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

albatross — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:45:37 -0000

Sid:

More importantly, in news coverage at least, a lot of the audience cares more about whether the speakers/writers are entertaining and rooting for their preferred team than whether they're getting the facts straight or are coherent.

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

Sid — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:24:33 -0000

commenters have noted that sports statistics and polling data can serve as evidence for aforementioned sports/political journalists - to keep them honest.

The problem is that in both cases there is a fair amount of statistical noise and in the end its both easy and common for journalists to cherry pick data to support their claims.

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

$9,000,000,000 Write Off — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:50:38 -0000

...Oops, bad pervious post...

If my company pays me $100,000 and charges clients $200,000 for my services, some posters believe that (a) I stole money from the poor and/or (b) some of that $100,000 belongs to the poor. Fortunately, no responsible person and no person in power believes that. Anyone who said it would fail to be elected. So it needn't be seriously addressed.

And to the responder who believes "bringing us together" means marshalling support for policies, that's makes no sense: its the policies that fix the economy, so, rhetorically, you should mention the compelling policy that will fix the economy.

The point was this: if the quoted speaker meant what the posters are saying she meant, why didn't she just say it? That was Mr. Coate's point and I was just illustrating how such pabulum is the lingua franca of the political class and its chroniclers. Bad speeches and writing abound.

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

$9,000,000,000 Write Off — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:18:24 -0000

Don't bring an English teacher to a political campaign. The vapid, pretentious language hides the hard truth that what you want the federal government to accomplish is perceived by others to harm their interests and what they want it to do (or not do) is perceived by you to harm your interests. It is battle or, to paraphrase the Georgia Peach, politics is no pink tea, and mollycoddles had better stay out. It's a struggle for supremacy, a survival of the fittest.

Here's an example of that vapid BS:

That's why he's running — to end the war in Iraq responsibly, to build an economy that lifts every family, to make health care available for every American, and to make sure every child in this nation gets a world class education all the way from preschool to college. That's what Barack Obama will do as President of the United States of America.

He'll achieve these goals the same way he always has — by bringing us together and reminding us how much we share and how alike we really are.

He'll fix the economy by bringing us together? That fails English, Philosophy, Rhetoric, Economics and Latin. Man up and just say we'll help the poor by transferring money from the rich. At least its honest, direct and plausible. Like Mr. Coates says, its lame to When you're too weak to just out and say what you really mean or plan to do.

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

hugo — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:47:47 -0000

Just to put it in perspective, this is the guy who took up space in the Washington Post last year to write that math wasn't important or worth teaching to kids. So....yeah.

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

albatross — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:27:11 -0000

JordanT:

Agreed, but at least in sports we can now look at statistics to prove points instead of just taking the journalists word on it. I do love it when those journalists have been proven wrong on the "conventional wisdom" by the data, but still spout it out like it's the truth.

Yeah, if you actually look at polling data, it's striking what a different picture emerges than you'd get from the talking heads. The same thing happens with actual election results--remember how Dean was the unbeatable front-runner in 2004, until someone went through the formality of counting a few votes? (And then, he was more-or-less destroyed by looping a funny-sounding scream over and over again on radio and TV, and making fun of it. I wonder if that happened because a lot of journalists felt burned by their comments about his frontrunner status early on, and his failure to win more votes.)

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

peep — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 10:30:54 -0000

I despise Richard Cohen and agree the paragraph you quoted is puerile, but still this post is unfair to him by taking it out of context -- right after that paragraph he wrote:

Still, what commends Obama to me is the impressive testimony of those who have known him over the years. In private conversations, they've told me -- sometimes in an awed way -- of what they describe as his special qualities, particularly the piercing intellect. This is the sort of testimony the American people have not heard -- or not heard enough of yet.

The point of Cohen's post was to dog on Hillary for not offering any personal testimony on Obama's character -- not to say that there was something actually wrong with Obama's character.

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

Brad L — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:26:32 -0000

Corrected it after Morzer pointed it out.

TNC-

I'll take the side against morzer here. Making corrections where meaning is muddled is a good thing to do. But personally, as long as the meaning is clear, I am much more interested in the next thing you have to say, which means I'd personally rather see you spend time on the next post than on fixing typos on the last thing you said. Most people understand that typos happen, particularly in a medium that encourages volume. The common ones, the ones we all make when we are typing quickly, are easy to let slide.

Besides, I'd hate to see the commenters be encouraged to turn into a hundred little Strunks and Whites, rather than addressing the substance of the posts. Since the comments are strong right now, I suspect that would reduce the value of them, and make them somewhat less interesting.

Just the other side of the coin.

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:09:35 -0000

Corrected it after Morzer pointed it out.

Sorry Mike. I'm with you guys tonight. Will be getting myself an AirCard after this one.

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

Carrington Ward — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 08:11:36 -0000

I've heard rumors of a "rednecks for Obama" bumper sticker. But I suspect that's a different ethnicity than Honkies for Obama.

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

editorbob — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 07:58:17 -0000

"Just reading the breaking news makes this white boy all teary."

Benjamin, you said it for me. We are hip deep in history, and I love it. We're still slogging through molasses with a hundred pounds of rocks on our backs, but the ground has now shifted, and it & we can never go back. We've moved it, people!

And I know the campaign's rule is never bring up race (case in point, the Convention), but with all those "Asians for Obama" and so on bumperstickers offered on his website, I wish they'd had the guts to put out one for us white folks. You know, "Honkies Who Love Obama" or something like that. I'd buy one!

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

flygyrl72 — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 03:38:05 -0000

Hey Morzer,

Ta-Nehisi does use the correct version of "you're". It's for "you are". "Your" is a posessive noun, right? So it wouldn't have been correct to use it in that sentence.

But what does *s*Pax mean?

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

Mike — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:57:17 -0000

Nothing all night. T-N C is a hard one to figure out.

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

Shine — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:53:30 -0000

Now, do you have a real reason for people not to give Ta-Nehisi a friendly note about an error, or are you just going to play the all-American anti-intellectual card again?

No, I have no real reason for people not to point out typo's. I do have issues with didactic finger pointing. You simply could have said something like "Ta-Nehisi, its, you're, not your, please ..." Like I said, it happened with Yglesias all the time, and commenters had fun with it. Maybe you were, but I missed it. However, you wrote "you're NOT your, please ..." That's the online equivalent of raising you're, ahem, your voice.

I was going to write something about your "all-American anti-intellectual card," but you misread my reference (it's a gamer reference), so I'll leave it at that,

Anyway, this is silly. I'm done with this post. Since I'm sure you'll need the last word, flame away, morzer.

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

Robert M — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:35:14 -0000

Sid

Your description that sports journalism and political journalism are the same thing is slighty off. What you described is political punditry and TV football announcers have in common. A lot of noise telling you what you just heard in a campaign speech or saw on TV. Political journalism is closer to a radio announcer describing any sport but football.

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

brent — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:07:02 -0000

He'll fix the economy by bringing us together? That fails English, Philosophy, Rhetoric, Economics and Latin.

I suspect you are being a bit disingenuous here. Is this really such a muddled statement for you? Certain types of politicians solve problems by gathering popular support for their proposals. Another way of saying that is "bringing people together." Hope that helps.

Man up and just say we'll help the poor by transferring money from the rich. At least its honest, direct and plausible.

This statement could be applied to any economic approach that isn't rooted in oligarchy or feudalism. In other words, unless one desires to return to the days of robber barons and indentured labor, there will always be some policy approach that can be described, within the context of a very limited mindset, as a transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor. The question for people who are not insane is finding the proper balance.

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

MoeLarryAndJesus — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:05:45 -0000

There's a bucket of Cohen's used Depends up on ebay, in case anyone wants to bid.

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

ed — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:00:07 -0000

Richard Cohen is a grumpy old pseudo-liberal (recall his offense at Stephen Colbert's transcendent schtick at the otherwise useless and loathsome White House Correspondents Dinner and Wankfest). And the "what's this guy all about? He really needs to show me something" bit is nothing new. It's how lightweight pseudo-independents like Kathleen Parker and Megan McArdle justified their wildly unjustifiable support of George Bush, Jr. back in '04.

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

Chet — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:50:51 -0000

Man up and just say we'll help the poor by transferring money from the rich.

Technically, all we're going to do is reduce the amount of money being transferred to the rich - typically, from the poor.

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

brent — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:37:43 -0000

Even with people like Kristol and Krauthammer out there, Cohen still always manages to surprise me with the pure lameness that he is able to muster every week. However, I think this is an unfair read of his column. It seems to me his point was really more a criticism of Hillary Clinton for not doing a better job of endorsing Obama's personal characteristics. I disagree with him in the sense that I don't think that sort of endorsement was really what was called for and it wouldn't have seemed as genuine from her anyway. But his point is not really to disparage Obama. On the contrary, he feels that he would be well served by people hearing more of his personal biography from prominent party leaders like Hillary.

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

$9,000,000,000 Write Off — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:45:38 -0000

Here's an example of that vapid BS:

He'll achieve these goals the same way he always has — by bringing us together and reminding us how much we share and how alike we really are.

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

bdbd — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:18:35 -0000

Isn't this an utterly weird (and very unusual) word choice ("striver") in the headline to this "profile" of Obama by Jodi Kantor in the Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/us/politics/28obama.html?hp

(The presentation of the note in the Wailing Wall story is strange too)

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

morzer — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:16:07 -0000

Shine, I think you are streets ahead on the school-marm issue, and no doubt your teacher must take some of the credit. Now, do you have a real reason for people not to give Ta-Nehisi a friendly note about an error, or are you just going to play the all-American anti-intellectual card again?

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

frankie d — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:08:59 -0000

you never see guys like cohen on the right.

he's never gotten over being absolutely wrong about iraq, and the fact that he was subsequently ostrasized by liberals for his horrible judgment on the war.

instead of just sucking it up, admitting that he was wrong and going about his business, he's turned on those he previously may have supported. but those who have a bit of moral authority over him now because they were right about the war and he was wrong.

and thousands upon thousands have died.

now, giving credit where credit is due, he has offered his mea culpas and noted, for posterity, that he was in fact wrong.

but he's never forgiven people like obama for being right.

on the right, guys like that just hunker down, take their hits and continue on.

but often, liberals like cohen never seem to recover and subsequently end up harboring a deep animosity, maybe hatred, for those who'd proven that they had superior judgment.

that is part of what is going on here.

again, it only happens on the left.

Re: When you have nothing to say about Barack Obama

Jen R — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 20:47:45 -0000

He is famously the man from everywhere, which means nowhere.

With all the coherent writers out there, this guy has to crib ideas from Peggy Noonan?