Banter Voices

Paul Ryan? Really?

By Oliver Willis · August 08,2012

| 1537 Views | Elections Politics

If I didn’t want to see the right lose back to back presidential elections for only the second time since I’ve been an adult, I’d feel sorry for them with the situation they’ve backed themselves into. Conservatives — like this Confederate sympathizer — appear to seriously be touting the possible selection of Paul Ryan as some kind of positive sign.

Really.

First things first, the vice presidential pick is unlikely to matter. It won’t help Romney with any needed constituencies or swing states. Even the selection of Marco Rubio (who, if he’s smart, will run away from a vice presidential vetting committee because nothing could hurt his bright future prospects more than to be associated with Mitt Romney) is unlikely to help Romney with Latino voters. Self-deportation and all.

At best, a vice presidential pick will hurt you. The selection of Sarah Palin has had the effect of making Dan Quayle looking practically statesmanlike. Palin and her disastrous roll-out so hurt McCain with swing voters, I doubt we’ll ever see a vice-presidential pick that far outside of the box in our lifetimes.

On the Democratic side, I don’t thin Biden helped or hurt Obama in the long run. The selection of Hillary Clinton would have been a wild card. She is one of the few legitimate superstars in American politics, so her case is something of an outlier. That’s just playing fantasy politics at this point, however.

Okay, so, Paul Ryan.

How does this help? Ryan won’t help Romney in Wisconsin. At best he helps a little bit with the base, nothing more. He doesn’t even really hurt that much, in my opinion. Romney has already endorsed the Ryan plan to effectively gut the social safety net, he’s going to be hit on it whether Ryan is his running mate or not.

I don’t get the media excitement over the “veepstakes,” but I understand any possible excitement over Ryan (or most of the likely candidates) even less.

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Christopher Foxx

Christopher, I know what the make-up is of liberals who come here

What you “know” is wrong.

I’ve asked you before a couple times but you won’t give any kind of response, but if you were undecided, what was it about this blog that attracted you here? What kept you here?

Nope, you’ve never asked me that. You’ve told me why I’m here.

This is your M.O. in a nutshell. Refuse to listen to what someone actually says, tell them what they actually believe, and then claim you asked them to explain themselves.

Perfect example: You say “And if the Couric interview sealed the deal for you as you claim…” Show me where I claimed that. Show me where I made any mention of the Couric interview. You’re saying that I claimed something that i simply never did. On the contrary, the reasons I gave for changing my view of McCain were plainly stated yet you have to lie and state that I said something I never did.
Christopher Foxx

No. Romney has no honor. Romney has no principles. Romney is someone I’d never consider voting for and would actually go though some effort to vote against.

Is it really that impossible for you to accept that someone on the liberal side could see something positive in a Republican? You so adamantly opposed to everything with a Democrat label that you can’t see any further than that, and because you’re so willfully biased and ignorant you assume the same is true for everyone else. You have to because it’s the only way you justify to yourself your cowardice.

No, go ahead. tell me again that what I really think isn’t what I told you it is. Tell me again that you know my mind and opinions better than I do.
- Plunket
  
  Christopher, I know what the make-up is of liberals who come here to banter back and forth, and it’s not one of open-mindedness or indecisiveness between voting for a Republican or Democrat when it comes to the White House. There are people like that of course, about 8% of the voting population were undecided this time 4 years ago, under that this year. You weren’t one of them. No one that posted here was. I’ve asked you before a couple times but you won’t give any kind of response, but if you were undecided, what was it about this blog that attracted you here? What kept you here? It’s always been a place for mud-slinging. If a conservative doesn’t show up, liberals have very little to say. It just has never been a place of discussing honestly the pros and cons of competing presidential candidates.
  
  And if the Couric interview sealed the deal for you as you claim, then how did you reconcile that with Obama’s pick of Joe Biden? It’s a serious question given that you were hanging out here at this particular blog, because this blog considered him an idiot and a racist. With Palin this blog pretty much just thought she was an idiot, outside of M2, Burn, Indeed, Downtown Randy Brown and a few other nutcases, but not an out-an-out racist like Biden.
  
  Those are easy questions. If you were indeed on the fence, seems easy enough to answer them.
  - Christopher Foxx
    
    We try, Plunket. But you keep bringing your bullshit into the conversations.
  - Christopher Foxx
    
    It just has never been a place of discussing honestly the pros and cons of competing presidential candidates.
    
    We try, Plunket. But you keep bringing your bullshit into the conversations.
Christopher Foxx

(Sorry, screwed up the tags.)

Romney and his people looked at a policy of the Obama administration to allow states to pursue alternative means of placing welfare recipients in jobs, and said, “Well, how about if we just say that they’re eliminating all work requirements and just sending people checks?” I have no idea if someone in the room said, “We could say that, but it’s not even remotely true,” and then someone else said, “Who gives a crap?”, or if nobody ever suggested in the first place that this might be problematic. But either way, they decided that they don’t even have to pretend to be telling the truth anymore.

So, no doubt Plunket will respond a condemnation of Romney’s ad and tactics. After all, Plunket believes that “If you’re worried about dishonest politics, you’d call out [the person] for the dirtbag he is”. (But I suspect, Plunket, that “you won’t. You can’t. You don’t have the cojones” or decency.
- Plunket
  
  Christopher’s going to come back here in four years and tell everyone he was on the fence in August 2012 about who he was going to vote for up until the Romney welfare ad, and that convinced him right then and there he wasn’t ready for the big leagues.
  
  Dolt.
- Christopher Foxx
  
  And Plunket proves me right once again.
Christopher Foxx

Romney and his people looked at a policy of the Obama administration to allow states to pursue alternative means of placing welfare recipients in jobs, and said, “Well, how about if we just say that they’re eliminating all work requirements and just sending people checks?” I have no idea if someone in the room said, “We could say that, but it’s not even remotely true,” and then someone else said, “Who gives a crap?”, or if nobody ever suggested in the first place that this might be problematic. But either way, they decided that they don’t even have to pretend to be telling the truth anymore.
So, no doubt Plunket will respond a condemnation of Romney’s ad and tactics. After all, Plunket believes that “If you’re worried about dishonest politics, you’d call out [the person]for the dirtbag he is”. (But I suspect, Plunket, that “you won’t. You can’t. You don’t have the cojones” or decency.
Zython

Plunket:

Meaningless at best, desperately grasping at straws at worst.

Trending toward the latter.

A conservative who doesn’t know how government works, what are the odds?

It strains credulity to suppose that Obama’ advisors didn’t know anything about his wife.

Yeah, I wouldn’t suppose anything you say, either.

Hey Rachel, forget the despicable Super PAC ad blaming Romney for Joe Septic’s wife’s cancer diagnosis 7 years after he left Bain,

4 years, and they lost their health insurance well before then, which was the point of the ad.

but could you tell us your thoughts on Obama’s chief advisors claiming they had no knowledge of when she got cancer when they had used his story a couple times already in ads?

You just said the ad came from a Super PAC. Super PACs aren’t allowed to be legally influenced by the candidate they’re supporting. Welcome to the post-Citizens United world, bitch.

picked gaffe-prone Joe Biden

It’s interesting that every criticism you have of Obama can be levied against Mitt Romney in spades. Either you’re living in a state of denial, or you have ulterior motives for disliking Obama that you’re not wiling to share.
Wilbur

And Dennis, before you drop any more false equivalences on us, this article:

Paul Waldman has done a lot of academic research on political ads. In fact, he says, he has personally watched “every single presidential general election campaign ad ever aired since the first ones in 1952.” So what does he think of Mitt Romney’s new ad that claims President Obama has a plan for “dropping work requirements” for welfare? ….
“I’ve seen ads that were more inflammatory than this one, and ads that were in various ways more reprehensible than this one (not many, but some). But I cannot recall a single presidential campaign ad in the history of American politics that lied more blatantly than this one.”
- Christopher Foxx
  
  Romney and his people looked at a policy of the Obama administration to allow states to pursue alternative means of placing welfare recipients in jobs, and said, “Well, how about if we just say that they’re eliminating all work requirements and just sending people checks?” I have no idea if someone in the room said, “We could say that, but it’s not even remotely true,” and then someone else said, “Who gives a crap?”, or if nobody ever suggested in the first place that this might be problematic. But either way, they decided that they don’t even have to pretend to be telling the truth anymore.
  
  So, no doubt Plunket will respond a condemnation of Romney’s ad and tactics. After all, Plunket believes that “If you’re worried about dishonest politics, you’d call out [the person]for the dirtbag he is”. (But I suspect, Plunket, that “you won’t. You can’t. You don’t have the cojones” or decency.
  - Christopher Foxx
    
    Yup. Plunket proves me right again!
- Plunket
  
  Paul Waldman is a contributing editor for the Prospect and the author of Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success.
  
  When you blocked the information that started with “Paul Waldman has done a lot of academic research on political ads.”, you weren’t trying to pass him off as a non-partisan academic, were you, Wilbur?
  
  No, of course you weren’t.
  
  But I cannot recall a single presidential campaign ad in the history of American politics that lied more blatantly than this one.”
  
  The a-hole actually defended the Joe Septic ad, which I’m guessing is how you gravitated to him, WIlbur, and then wrote that sentence…..unbelievable. He sounds like M2 doing mental gyrations in his head wondering if Harry Reid did the right thing or not based solely on if it would help or hurt Obama’s chances in the long run.
  - Wilbur
    
    argumentum ad hominem ignored.
    
    The a-hole actually defended the Joe Septic ad, which I’m guessing is how you gravitated to him, WIlbur, and then wrote that sentence…..unbelievable
    
    That’s twice with the “Joe Septic” thing. You’re not an a-hole, Dennis, you’re an asshole. Away with you, creep. Come back after you either reach puberty or get done with electro-shock.
    - Plunket
      
      He has my sympathy for losing his first wife. But he doesn’t have my respect for doing what he’s doing exploiting her for notoriety and political gain by blaming Romney for her death, and being the pawn in Obama’s smear campaign.
      - Wilbur
        
        If you need a job, Dumass, I hear Michelle Malkin is hiring people to root around in people’s garbage again.
      - Plunket
        
        Helen Jones-Kelly could use a guy like you to defend her, Wilburn. There are always a few dupes like you that folks like her can count on, knowing the only qualification they need is that they’re liberals in order for you to defend their indefensibly shameless acts.
Plunket

It strains credulity to suppose that Obama’ advisors didn’t know anything about his wife.

It strains credulity to suppose that Harry Reid got a call from a Bain investor claiming Romney didn’t pay any taxes for the last ten years and that Harry Reid gave enough credence to this investor with magical knowledge of someone else’s taxes that he thought it important enough to take it to the floors of Congress to repeat the accusation.

Why you’re being an apologist toady with no remorse, regrets or apparent embarrassment on the one hand and portraying yourself as an open-minded voter with an independent streak is somewhat amusing, Wilbur. Why the games all of a sudden? Just be who you are and let it flow.
- Wilbur
  
  It strains credulity to suppose that Obama’ advisors didn’t know anything about his wife.
  
  Probably someone knew about his wife, but it hardly strains credulity that that level of knowledge didn’t get up to the chief advisors for the earlier run of ads. Ever been part of a publicity campaign, Dennis? This is how it goes:
  
  Flunky: Chief, we’ve got a bunch of people whose jobs were eliminated by Bain and are willing to go on tv for us and talk about it. Here’s a list of them with all the particulars.
  
  Chief: (scans over list) Good job, Flunky, you’ve checked em all out, right? No drug users, no sexual harrasment claims, no pedophiles?
  
  Flunky: Boss, I wouldn’t have put em on the list if they didn’t check out, they’re all squeaky clean.
  
  Chief: Dogsbody, are you on top of this? Is it all good?
  
  Dogsboday: It’s all good, Chief, Flunk did a good job on background. All of them salt of the earth, quite a few lifetime Republicans – this last guy, Soptic, is even a widower. We’ll have em crying in the aisles, boss.
  
  Chief: Okay, Dogsbody, but I want you and Flunky to do a double check, and run it by Lickspittle before you get em in the studio. Leave the widower stuff out of it for now – let’s not get too sappy on this first go-round anyway. I want transcripts and video before it goes anywhere.
  
  It strains credulity to suppose that Harry Reid got a call from a Bain investor claiming Romney didn’t pay any taxezzzzzzzzzzzzzz…………
  
  Harry Reid could very well have gotten such a call. You may question his judgment in what he did with the information he received from that call, but that does not affect the possibility that such a call took place.
  
  In short, in both cases, your questionable assessments of what constitutes ‘credulity’ are a laughable basis for branding people a liar. Your estimation of “who I am” is even more laughable.
  - Plunket
    
    Probably someone knew about his wife, but it hardly strains credulity that that level of knowledge didn’t get up to the chief advisors for the earlier run of ads.
    
    Yeah, not so much, Wilbur….
    
    Obama camp acknowledges knowing man’s story
    
    Apologist toady.
    - Wilbur
      
      Never says there that Obama’s chief advisors knew anything specific about the wife, or that they had anything to do with the PAC’s ad. Are you taking lessons from SaveFerris on how to contradict yourself with your own links?
      
      Pathetic dishonest hack.
      
      While you’re trying to wring something dastardly out of something one of Obama’s staff said about an ad from a pro-Obama pc, all we have to do is point to Romney’s welfare ad itself, which is a) from Romney himself and b) completely dishonest. And that’s just the last in a long line of blatant lies from the GOP”s standard bearer.
      - Plunket
        
        Never says there that Obama’s chief advisors knew anything specific about the wife, or that they had anything to do with the PAC’s ad.
        
        You must be the only guy in America that thinks Stephanie Cutter and Joe Gibbs aren’t lying when they say they don’t know the details of Joe Soptic’s wife’s death. Or I guess you’ll say that they may very well be lying but defending them by saying there’s no actual proof. Even when the Obama campaign already exploited Soptic’s wife’s death in an ad implicating Romney this year….
        
        Obama Campaign Also Tied Romney To Woman’s Death
        
        Joe Soptic, employee for 28 years, whose wife died of lung cancer after he lost his GST health planReuters, 1/6/12
        
        I guess you’ll claim Cutter and Gibbs had no way of knowing her death was on Obama’s website where it was state that Soptic’s wife died after he lost his GST Steel health plan, and that no one told them about it just before they both went on the cable news shows this week defending the ad and distancing themselves from any knowledge whatsoever of Joe Septic and the timeline of his losing health insurance and his wife’s death.
      - Wilbur
        
        Gawd. Tell you what Dennis, I’ll admit that Obama staff lied about how much they knew about a guy that was in an ad that told the truth about the human effects of Bain capital’s vulture capitalism if you admit that Romney’s welfare ad was an outright lie endorsed by the candidate himself. Deal?
      - Plunket
        
        Wilbur, how did you go from this…..
        
        As far as I know his wife wasn’t mentioned, and it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Obama’s chief advisors didn’t know a thing about her…….
        
        and this…
        
        Dennis, [you] would be a despicable liar according to your own standards if you tried to impugn Obama’s chief advisors on this issue.
        
        to this…
        
        Tell you what Dennis, I’ll admit that Obama staff lied about how much they knew about a guy that was in an ad that told the truth about the human effects of Bain capital’s vulture capitalism
        
        Were you honestly shilling for Cutter and Gibb’s obvious deceptions and plausible deniabilities without having read or watched anything on the subject domination the airwaves, newspapers and political blogs on both sides of the aisles? Am I supposed to argue with you from now on assuming you don’t keep up with the news other than what’s written here by Oliver, Zython and M2?
      - Wilbur
        
        I got there by being unwilling any longer to play your game of wanking off on a ginned up non-issue.
        
        Master, bait your own rod.
        
        And of course you once again pass up an opportunity to take a stand on a real issue, like whether the “I’m Mitt Romney and I approve this message” Mitt Romney approved numerous bald-face lies.
      - Plunket
        
        Yeah, Wilbur, maliciously call him a felon….non-issue.
        
        Call him a tax cheat on no-evidence whatsoever, none….non-issue.
        
        Now blatantly lie and call him a murderer….non-issue.
        
        Obama and Axelrod are total scuzzes and you’re nothing but an apologist toady pretending that misleading ads from Romney are about to give you a coronary. You’ll probably come back and tell us in four years that this was the ad that convinced all your independent friends who were on the fence then that they couldn’t possibly vote for Romney after this, that the Septic ad was just a non-issue in comparison.
Plunket

Because I think humans are complicated individuals who sometimes recount their reasoning and motives for actions taken on things other than what was going through their minds at the time. Based on everything I’ve ever heard from you and Christopher, my guess is the odds of either of you ever thinking seriously about voting for McCain are close to zero, and that’s if I added his odds to your odds without dividing by two.

Is that cynical? Of course it is, but usually the guys who were more independent-minded in 2008 aren’t the same guys as you and he have been these last four years coming on here hoping that conservatives get blamed for every psychopath with a gun who decides to shoot a group of people, and they aren’t the kind of people who blindly yell “Racist!” at every opportunity, and they aren’t the kind of people who call you a bigoted homophobe if you buy a chicken sandwich at Chick-Fil-A.
- Christopher Foxx
  
  Plunket: Based on everything I’ve ever heard from you and Christopher…
  …you and he have been these last four years coming on here hoping that conservatives get blamed for every psychopath with a gun who decides to shoot a group of people
  
  You’ve never heard me say that. So as wrong as you are about me there, you’re absolutely right when you say
  I think humans are complicated individuals who sometimes recount their reasoning and motives for actions taken on things other than what was going through their minds at the time.
  
  Case in point: You tell me it’s not possible for me to have considered McCain. Not based on anything I’ve said, but because you have to have me believe I’m as blindly partisan as you.
  - Plunket
    
    You’ve never heard me say that.
    
    You’re right, I haven’t. But that line of thinking is promoted here, it’s Oliver’s belief that conservatives in general ‘own’ the wacko extremist faction and they should pay the political price. It encourages the nuts on the liberal side to this blog, and they show up in droves. If you didn’t believe that viewpoint, or give it credence, then why hang out on this blog and never disagree, or never speak out? Doesn’t take a lot to tell some idiot like M2 to STFU already about his bullshit conspiratorial theories. Doesn’t make you just like him or mean you agree with him, but that’s pretty much the make-up of this blog. What is it here that attracts an independent thinker like you and then not want to say anything about it?
    
    It’s also a blog that bashed McCain and Palin daily back in 2008. Non-stop. Accusations of racism daily. Oliver is about as much an Obama-bot as one can get, so what independent thinker would come here for fair-minded information on either McCain or Palin? You wouldn’t, Christopher. Of all the political blogs out there, even of all the liberal blogs ou there, this is about the last place one would’ve gravitated to if they were sitting on the fence about voting for McCain. So knock off the bs. Be who you are and be proud of it.
    
    Or better yet, tell me why you came here. Was it because you valued the opinions of the conservatives who showed up and thought they might help you decide?
    - Christopher Foxx
      
      Nice of you to admit you’re wrong.
      
      Shame you then find it necessary to follow up with a bunch of rationalization for your error, more blanket characterizations and (piece de resistance) saying your mistake was my fault because I haven’t felt it necessary to comment on every discussion that comes along.
      
      A shame, but not a surprise.
      
      Oliver is about as much an Obama-bot as one can get
      
      That explains why he’s never criticized Obama her in print. Oh, wait.
      
      Of all the political blogs out there, even of all the liberal blogs ou there, this is about the last place one would’ve gravitated to if they were sitting on the fence about voting for McCain. So knock off the bs. …
      
      And yet I was. And here I am. So will you admit again that you are wrong, or will you continue to insist reality as you require it to be to live with yourself?
      
      … So knock off the bs. Be who you are and be proud of it.
      
      I am. And I was. And you tell my I’m lying. Fuck you.
      - Plunket
        
        You won’t answer even one of the questions I asked you, so you can’t be who you are and proud of it. Why did you hang out here if you were on the fence when you knew it was little more than a bash-fest blog?
        
        The truth is, everyone, on both sides, who came here to post, knew exactly who they were going to vote for in the summer of 2008. No question about it.
      - Christopher Foxx
        
        You won’t answer even one of the questions I asked you, so you can’t be who you are and proud of it. Why did you hang out here if you were on the fence when you knew it was little more than a bash-fest blog?
        
        Said without a trace of irony (or self-awareness), I’m sure.
        
        Why did you hang out here if you were on the fence when you knew it was little more than a bash-fest blog?
        
        And there, in a nutshell.
        
        You have to believe I couldn’t have considered voting for a Republican. You have to believe I’m as close-minded and partisan and unthinking as you. Which is why, despite my explanation of why I could have considered McCain and despite any actual evidence that I didn’t, you have to insist my mere presence here is proof I’m lying.
        
        You really are a sad, little man. You have my pity.
- Wilbur
  
  Can’t speak for Christopher but I never said I thought seriously (or at all) about voting for McCain.
  
  What I did say, which is true, is that I thought he was a credible candidate for president until a) the Palin choice and b) the ‘suspend the campaign!1!!!’ freakout.
  
  I also said that I knew a lot of people more ‘centrist’ than I who were leaning McCain or truly up in the air before the depth of Palin’s incompetence became clear. That also is true.
  
  Why you would challenge either of these statements is beyond me, except that you’re a bit messed up in the head, Dennis. Politics isn’t everything, Dennis, go out and get yourself a life!
  - Christopher Foxx
    
    Dennis will challenge those statements because if they are true then it means you’re not the idiotic, strictly partisan, childish fanatic that he needs you to be to justify his own idiotic, etc.
Plunket

And guess what, Wilbur, I voted for Obama in my state primary. I guess I should make some half-hearted appeal for serious consideration from you guys that I really, really wanted to give Obama a chance but when I found out he (insert over-used talking point here…..oh, I know how about this…) picked gaffe-prone Joe Biden, the guy Oliver said was an idiot and a racist, I suddenly realized he just wasn’t experienced enough or ready for the big leagues and changed my mind about voting for him in the general.

‘I know a lot of independent voters, who might have voted for Obama, felt the same way.’

Stop with the BS, please.
- Wilbur
  
  See Dennis, this post exhibits your pathology more than any other I’ve seen in recent memory. I have no trouble believing that you voted for Obama in the primary, and maybe even were considering voting for him in the general until something – Biden, or maybe Starbursty Sarah – made you change your mind.
  
  Of course, I _suspect_ that if you voted for Obama it was for the purposes of ratfucking the democrats, but I’m not the sort to equate my suspicions with established fact.
  
  Why you can’t keep the same open mind with regard to others is something you should talk over with your analyst.
  - Christopher Foxx
    
    It’s also Plunket being his usual hypocritical self. Changing your mind about a candidate because of his VP choice is apparently only a bad thing when you do it.
Wilbur

You’re missing the point, Dennis. There are a lot of us who never would have voted for Palin but who assumed when she was picked that she was at least a person of some substance. Then came the Gibson interview, the Couric interview and a dozen other instances of unscripted Sarah, and it was clear that we were dealing with a major league clown.

It not only changed our view of Palin, but our view of McCain. I remember thinking all that summer that if McCain were to win at least it would be a step up over Bush. The Palin business was the first thing that made me wonder whether that guy really had all his marbles.

I know a lot of independent voters, who might have voted for McCain, felt the same way. The post-convention polls were puffed up by people who saw starbursts with the well-scripted ass-kickin’ Palin of the convention, but the souffle collapsed as soon as people realized what a lipsticked pig in a poke they’d been sold.
- M2
  
  Oh no. You’re messing with his girlfriend now, Wilbur. Expect a cacophony of crazy coming your way in 3, 2, 1…
- Christopher Foxx
  
  McCain was one of the few Republicans I would have considered voting for. I was impressed with what he’d gone thru and that he was willing to publicly disagree with the dogmas of his own party. When he first announced he was running for the nomination my reaction was along the lines of “OK, I may have to give careful consideration to how I vote this time around.”
  
  But then he let his ambition to be President completely overrule any other aspect of his character. His willingness to do what he was told was needed to win made it clear he didn’t have the independence or judgment that he’d previously demonstrated, or at least wasn’t making use of them. The man of some character that I thought he was showed that, when it came to being President, he was willing to throw his character under the bus. And he lost me.
  
  (And here, in this sealed envelope, I have my prediction for how Phlunket will respond to a claim from a liberal that they would have considered voting for a Republican.)
  - Plunket
    
    McCain was one of the few Republicans I would have considered voting for. ….
    
    OK, I may have to give careful consideration to how I vote this time around.”
    
    Hahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!
    
    Ok, Arianna, thanks for revealing for us your innermost thoughts on someone you once felt so strongly for. We all know that can’t be easy for you.
    - Wilbur
      
      And the envelope says …..
      
      Poor Dennis, just because he’s a close-minded ideologue he assumes everyone else is as well. Must make his world a very hostile place.
      - Plunket
        
        Hey Rachel, forget the despicable Super PAC ad blaming Romney for Joe Septic’s wife’s cancer diagnosis 7 years after he left Bain, but could you tell us your thoughts on Obama’s chief advisors claiming they had no knowledge of when she got cancer when they had used his story a couple times already in ads? Is it your opinion that the cover-up and the lying is usually worse than the offense and that repetitive lying is something you’ve been very, very concerned about with current political atmosphere? At least, that is, you have been with one party so far. The ‘constant lying’, remember, you said that, oh, about two days ago?
      - Wilbur
        
        The man’s name is Soptic, Dennis. Even if you don’t like the ads, he deserves a bit of your respect and compassion.
        
        Soptic appeared in campaign ads before as one of many who lost his job because of Bain. As far as I know his wife wasn’t mentioned, and it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Obama’s chief advisors didn’t know a thing about her. In other words, just as Harry Reid has no proof that Romney paid no taxes, and is therefore according to you a despicable liar, you, Dennis, would be a despicable liar according to your own standards if you tried to impugn Obama’s chief advisors on this issue.
      - Christopher Foxx
        
        And the envelope said “Plunket, like all wingnuts of his ilk, finds it impossible to consider anything on its merits in a non-partisan way. So he will find it inconceivable that anyone else could. (It’s all part and parcel of being aware of his own failingsand having to them project them on everyone else so that he can feel better about himself.)
        
        Hence, he will dismiss my noting that I could have voted for McCain (or any other Republican) with derision and as a lie.
        
        And Plunket goes… “Hahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!”
        
        Derision it is.
SaveFarris

I don’t get the media excitement over the “veepstakes,”

Every second spent talking about the veepstakes is a second less spent talking about…

U.S. wholesale companies cut back their stockpiles in June as sales fell by the most in three years. The declines in sales and inventories could signal slower growth in the coming months.

Wholesale inventories dropped 0.2 percent in June, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That’s the largest drop in nine months. Sales at the wholesale level fell 1.4 percent, the sharpest decline since March 2009.

Even though stockpiles declined, the steeper drop in sales means it would take wholesalers longer to clear out their inventories. That suggests they may order fewer goods to keep their stockpiles from getting any larger. That could lower factory production and slow growth.

ObamaBoom!!!
- Wilbur
  
  Yes, but unfortunately for the Republicans a substantial portion of the electorate remembers that it was Republicanics who got us into this mess, and Republicanic obstructionism that has kept us in it, so they’re less likely than they might otherwise have been to turn to Republicanics for another dose of the same.
  - SaveFarris
    
    Only the truly deluded believe that turning out the incumbent and electing the new guy would be “another dose of the same.”
    
    You guys are the ones in charge, remember? “Give it to me“.
- M2
  
  Yes, we know Farris. In order for the election to be fair, the Democratic party isn’t allowed to discuss the opposition. It’s almost unheard of in an election.
  
  Americans struggling through rough economic times Republicans have only made rougher = Republican wanking material.
  
  We know.
  - Plunket
    
    Americans struggling through rough economic times Republicans have only made rougher = Republican wanking material.
    
    Right, M2, the American electorate went to the polls in droves in 2010 just so they could vote out Democrats in record numbers and make the economy even worse than it already was. So they could have good wanking material.
    - Wilbur
      
      Unfortunately for the Republicanics, they can’t apply the votes they got in 2010 to the election in 2012.
      
      If anyone needed convincing that letting the inmates run the cell block was not such a good idea, what has happened after 2010 has apparently done the trick. Otherwise Romney would actually be leading in the polls, instead of being behind.
      - Plunket
        
        Walk me through what appears on the surface to be a tangled mess of liberal logic, Wilbur.
        
        Forget your moronic claim that Republicans are running the show, are you claiming the American electorate voted out Democrats in the House and Senate because they wanted Republicans to vote for the Democratic agenda, because it was so successful and more of this good thing would be even better for our economy?
      - Wilbur
        
        Not really that hard to follow Dennis, provided the following two conditions both are true in the follower: a) s/he has an IQ over 75, b) s/he is not a dishonest hack.
        
        Voters voted republican because congress was broken and they wanted to see it start working. Instead what they’ve gotten is 24/7 partisan Republicanic hope-he-fails obstructionism. If you think the 2010 elections were an expression of a desire to return to the sort of horse-and-sparrow economics that Romney is peddling, you’re badly deluded.
      - Plunket
        
        BS, Wilbur. Our political system is set up to obstruct the majority party’s agenda if the voters feel that party’s agenda is not working for the country, and that’s what they voted for.
        
        If you want to find solace in some recent D+19 polling tabs that people don’t hold Dems responsible in any kind of significant measure for the way things are going economically, be my guest, but right now you haven’t even convinced yourself that’s true. You throw it out there as if you just read that particular headline on The Huffington Post, though, and not with any real conviction.
      - Wilbur
        
        BS, Wilbur. Our political system is set up to obstruct the majority party’s agenda if the voters feel that party’s agenda is not working for the country, and that’s what they voted for.
        
        Which does not mean that they are firm believers in the other party’s agenda, and if the result is two years of unbroken fail from the other party, they may think again.
        
        You throw it out there as if you just read that particular headline on The Huffington Post, though, and not with any real conviction.
        
        a) It’s been a long time since I read anything on the Huffington Post
        b) If by lack of conviction you mean less uncritical partisan hackery for my side than what you regularly display for yours, I stand … uh, convicted.
      - Plunket
        
        Which does not mean that they are firm believers in the other party’s agenda, and if the result is two years of unbroken fail from the other party, they may think again.
        
        They may, and then again they may not. Not many prognosticators are giving Dems much chance of re-taking the House, and not many are giving them a great chance that they hold on to the Senate. Not Nate Silver, either. That doesn’t gel with what you’re saying. If they were giving Obama and Dems the pass for these past two years and blaming it on Republican obstructionism, please explain why it is that Dems aren’t in better shape to get their majority back in the House and better odds that they keep the Senate? According to you, both should be a slam dunk instead of the odds favoring Republicans and more ‘obstructionism’.
        
        Your logic is convoluted, to say the least.
      - Wilbur
        
        your logic is convoluted
        
        Too bad your frontal cortex is apparently not.
    - Wilbur
      
      i.e. the republican tactic of holding the economy hostage and hoping that people blame it on Obama has not been working to well.
    - M2
      
      Yes, I know I am right. When is the next Repeal Obamacare vote coming in the house? And when it does, it will be the ____time?
      
      I hope your next debt ceiling stunt doesn’t cost you another billion-plus, you being the fiscal watchdogs and all.
    - Christopher Foxx
      
      Phlunket: the American electorate went to the polls in droves in 2010 just so they could vote out Democrats in record numbers and make the economy even worse than it already was.
      
      Ah, so the current state of the economy can be now laid at the feet of the Republican majority. Good to know.
      - Plunket
        
        So, Christopher, I’m curious, since it can be predicted with 100% accuracy that when a liberal starts a sentence with “So” that the following sentence will be a lie, why is it that you guys keep on doing it?
      - Christopher Foxx
        
        How to respond. How to respond. Hmmm, let’s see.
        
        I could be pedantic like you and point out my sentence didn’t start with “so”.
        
        Or I could point out how, in typical fashion, you claim as a fact something that just isn’t true. Or how, in similarly typical fashion you use a personal insult to avoid actually dealing with the implications of your own words. (How efficient of you to do both in a single sentence.)
        
        Or I could simply say
        “So, Phlunket I guess you’re completely right when you say anything a liberal says after “so” is 100% a lie.”
        which, I figure, has a fairly good chance of going right over your head as my previous comment also seemed to.
- Wilbur
  
  And of course Obama will do anything to draw attention away from what he’s done on the economy, which is why his record on the economy is the first link at the top of his website.
  - M2
    
    But Mitt is going to create 12 million jobs. Because he says so.
    - Wilbur
      
      He will – In China.
      
      He’ll also make sure that unemployed autoworkers will be able to return to jobs in the auto industry by standing at intersections and cleaning the windows of the Bentleys that his fellow 1-percenters will by buying with their tax cuts.
      
      All the Bentleys might result in a few jobs in the UK as well.
Plunket

Then the aggressive response that Ms. Couric somehow engaged in “gotcha journalism” just convinced me, & many others, that Palin simply was not ready for the big league.

Oh my, your sincerity is just so endearing, dwee-bee.

You make it sound as if at the time you were putting some serious consideration into your decision.

You’re a liberal concern troll on a liberal blog.
- db
  
  Gee Phlunk,
  
  You sound as if you care.
  
  Actually the McCain flips in his positions, going as far as to deny that he was a “maverick”, in search of Republican Orthodoxy, ended my consideration fairly early.
  
  The Republican response to the Palin/Couric interview convinced me that it was the same old Republican Party. All the talk about bi-partisanship & cooperation was just so much hot air.
  - Plunket
    
    Actually the McCain flips in his positions, going as far as to deny that he was a “maverick”, in search of Republican Orthodoxy, ended my consideration fairly early.
    
    Fine, db, even if I take that you at your word on that, which is hard to do, then why pretend the Couric interview was a catalyst for you? It obviously wasn’t.
    
    All the talk about bi-partisanship & cooperation was just so much hot air.
    
    I guess you’re going to tell me that you’ve been impressed with Obama’s carrying through on his promise of bi-partisanship and cooperation lines that he convinced you of back in 2008, right? Throw out the talking point that Obama did try, but Republicans were just too darned mean to him?
    
    Go ahead, give us your best Rachel Maddow impression. Wilbur’s got your back.
    - Wilbur
      
      Calling the truth a “talking point” does not make it any less the truth, Dennis.
db

Zython,

The Katie Couric interview was a softball one. The problem came when VP Candidate Palin proved herself incapable of answering the easiest of questions, i.e. “What newspapers do you read?” That question is not designed to be a stumper.

Then the aggressive response that Ms. Couric somehow engaged in “gotcha journalism” just convinced me, & many others, that Palin simply was not ready for the big league.

Oliver,

“Since (you’ve) been an adult” does not give us a very large sample. But I will (once again) urge all of you not to take things lightly. Romney can win the election. We haven’t begun to see the impact of the billions that Romney can raise.

BTW I’ve stopped buying Scotts lawn products.

I’d suggest you not get into the word games with Phlunk. It’s a waste of time.
enlightened liberal

You are dumb.
Zython

Wisconsin has voted 8 gazillion times in the past 18 months and every time, Republicans have come out ahead.

Democratic majority in the Wisconsin senate says otherwise.

It wasn’t until the fall of Lehman Brothers and McCain’s “let me suspend my campaign at the drop of a hat” routine that Obama re-took the lead for good.

The Katie Couric interview didn’t do them favors, either.
- Plunket
  
  Democratic majority in the Wisconsin senate says otherwise.
  
  Meaningless at best, desperately grasping at straws at worst.
  
  Trending toward the latter.
  - Christopher Foxx
    
    Yeah. When Farris claims the Republicans always win and someone points out they’ve lost in the majority of campaigns for state Senate, that’s “meaningless”.
    
    Facts that contradict what you want reality to be are “meaningless”.
    
    The wingnut mind in action, ladies and gents.
    - SaveFarris
      
      For starters, the Wisconsin Senate doesn’t meet again until January, before which there’s yet another round of elections. What good is a majority in a body that doesn’t meet?
      
      Secondly, you might want to speak with Sen. Tim Cullen. He changes parties about as often as the weather and that “majority” held by the Democrat party may be anything but.
      - Christopher Foxx
        
        Aaaand Farris moves the goal posts.
        
        Farris says, “Republicans always win in Wisconsin.”
        Zython says, “Actually, the Wisconsin Senate is majority Democrats.”
        Farris says, “Ah, who cares who wins the elections.”
SaveFarris

Palin and her disastrous roll-out so hurt McCain with swing voters.

I know you’d love to believe that, but the facts say otherwise. According to RCP, Obama was leading 48-44 the day Palin was announced. Palin gave McCain’s campaign a shot in the arm and 2 weeks later, he was leading 48-45. It wasn’t until the fall of Lehman Brothers and McCain’s “let me suspend my campaign at the drop of a hat” routine that Obama re-took the lead for good.

Ryan won’t help Romney in Wisconsin

You sound pretty sure of yourself. Almost as sure as when you made your prediction that “there’s no way in h*ll Corzine loses to Christie”. Wisconsin has voted 8 gazillion times in the past 18 months and every time, Republicans have come out ahead. (Barely, but still). Romney’s already within striking distance, then you go and add a favorite son? Bet against them at your own risk.

I don’t get the media excitement over the “veepstakes,”

You should: every minute talking about something OTHER than Obama’s epic failure of a Presidency is a win for Democratics. That’s why Team Chicago keeps trying to change the subject.
- http://www.thedailybanter.com/author/oliver-willis/ Oliver Willis
  
  Somebody needs to Google “convention poll bounce”.
- Christopher Foxx
  
  Wow. You almost sounded like you were attempting to engage in reasonable debate. Then, of course, you wrap it up with “Democratics” and show once again how much you really just aren’t..

Banter Voices

Paul Ryan? Really?

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