We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Can Obama come back?

I was about to stick this up as a(n) SQotD, but I see that there already is one. Never mind, here it is anyway:

Belief in magic and faith in spells runs strong in political Washington. The New Republic’s print edition describes the reaction of the Administration on “April 14, 2009 as Barack Obama’s standing in the polls was beginning to slip”. Obama was looking for a phrase to bring back the love, “something that would evoke comparisons to Theodore Roosevelt’s Square Deal, Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.”

Obama had hit on the phrase the New Foundation. He tried it out with Presidential historians at a private dinner in the White House. Doris Kearns Goodwin nixed it. She said it sounded “like a woman’s girdle”. Goodwin was right. But it underscores the complete vacuity of a public policy built on wordsmithing. The administration was trying on words like a courtier at Versailles might try on a hat or a dress thinking it would make a difference.

Not that there is anything wrong with hats or dresses or deckchairs. The only thing wrong is imagining that rearranging these articles on the deck of the Titanic will keep it afloat. There’s something crazy about that, something pathetically crazy.

That’s Richard Fernandez reflecting on the declining esteem in which President Obama is now held, abroad and at home.

Two thoughts. First, I’d have put a comma where it says “hats or dresses or deckchairs”, to make it “hats or dresses, or deckchairs”. There is a slight change of gear there, which, I would say, needs a bit of punctuational acknowledgement.

But second, more seriously, is Obama’s present nosedive in esteem, well described by Fernandez, irreversible? Having just watched our own former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, damn near levelling out from what looked like a nosedive towards total catastrophe for himself and for his party, and achieving a very decent, under the circumstances, crash landing that nearly saved both. Brown only lost by an extraordinarily narrow margin, given how things had looked only a few months earlier, and his main opponent, from having looked a winner by a mile, had to make do with leading a mere coalition. Seemingly doomed politicians – inevitable losers, to use the word that Fernandez also uses – can make comebacks. Can Obama? Can this Titanic yet be kept afloat?

One thing that might improve matters for President Obama is that just now (or so it looks to me from over here) even the one party media who got Obama elected are now criticising him, a bit, partly for real, but partly in order that their next burst of slavish support for him will look honest instead of slavish.

On the other hand, if what happened here with Gordon Brown is anything to go by, Obama’s saviours will not be his media cheerleaders, or for that matter his own speechwriters, but his leading opponents, who will somehow contrive to look as clueless as he now looks.

53 comments to Can Obama come back?

  • Mike Lorrey

    Given the First Muslim just endorsed the Islamization of Ground Zero, I very much doubt he can recover. I see the first family is spending a whole 27 hours in Pensacola, FL so they can say they “vacationed” in the Gulf (they are then going to spend the next two weeks in Martha’s Vinyard, which I hear is having a positively dreadful time getting through the present economic circumstances/sarcoff).
    Instead, the dems as a whole are going headlong into a nationwide negative campaign mode attacking all their opponents in the congressional races, and simultaneously tying them to the tea party while continuing to try to paint the tea partiers as racist scumbags.
    The only thing we haven’t seen yet is a Reichstag fire.

  • Gene

    If there is any opponent more capable of contriving to look clueless than Obama, it is the Republican Party. I fully expect an awful candidate for president from the Repubs in 2012. The R’s do in fact have some very promising new talent in the pipeline, especially Rep. Paul Ryan and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, but I have doubts that either will be ready (or willing to undertake) a presidential run that soon. Is American politics approaching a true tipping point, a watershed moment that changes its future trajectory? Yes, I believe it is, but I’m not sure we are there yet, even though it often seems that way. The real moment of truth could very well be 5-10 years away, driven by events and crises that are actually much worse than our current situation, and we may be expecting too much too soon. My fear is that those of us who long for a dramatic shift away from our apparent drift toward EU-style social democracy will be disappointed in the near-term, so much so that we fail to work toward such a shift a few years later.

  • John B

    Indeed.
    Looking clueless seems to be what oppositions do best at the moment.
    Where is a Thatcher, or a Reagan? Those who were so easily able to sweep to power using a proximation of the truth to do so.
    It seems the foxes have taken over the entire hen coop and can pretend to be useless hens and foxes right up ’till market day.
    Otherwise, my simple question is: What are they actually playing at?

  • John

    Reagan had a very hard time winning in 1980, in spite of Carter’s blunders , he had the MSM against him with no support from Fox News or the Internet or any alternatives expect a few conservative magazines with limited circulations.He also was facing a governing establishment that may have despised the peanut farmer, but they hated him even more.

    There were lots of doubters, I certainly was one, but he pulled it off.

    Barry is in some ways worse than Carter who could at some levels back then connect with ordinary Americans. This time the Democrat seems to be truly determined to show his utter contempt for the vast majority of his fellow citizens.

    Of course the GOP could blow it. They seem to lack any really big leaders, but it did look that way in 1978 as well, it took a long time for Reagan to prove himself. One never realizes just how good or how bad a politician is until he or she has been gone a few years.

  • MichaelV

    John, the divide seems to be forming between the Republican leadership and some of the Tea Party style candidates. The Republican party leadership is still all over playing political games, rather than dealing with the issues.

    But there are some opposing candidates, who are not on the same page as the leadership, who have potential. Paul Ryan, for example, has been getting heat from the leadership for his Road Map for America. A very decent attempt at reducing government bloat. The Republican leadership doesn’t like it because… well who knows. It’s not their kind of politics. But he’s a strong contender.

    Another that I haven’t seen mentioned yet, but who might have great potential against Obama is Chris Christie, the union-busting Governor of New Jersey.

    I think they’re out there. It’s just a chaotic mess at the moment discerning who stands where, what their true beliefs are, and who supports them.

  • PersonFromPorlock

    The real novelty in the current American political climate is that while nobody understands a billion dollars, everybody understands ‘broke’. Americans now understand, as never before, that America is broke and the first order of business is to rein in spending. That means getting rid of the Democrats, who are hopeless, in favor of the Republicans, who are merely feckless.

    The recipe for GOP disaster is to propose new social programs while waffling about repealing the ones we already can’t afford. I’m sure they’re working on it.

  • the other rob

    Would it really matter, whether Obama won or lost? Looking at the UK, Brown lost, iDave (sort of) won and while he got rid of ContactPoint with one hand, his other hand is about to hand Experian a contract that would give them an incentive to make Crapita’s bad behaviour appear benign. Back in the US, why should we expect whichever career politician (I was about to write “prostitute”, but second thoughts persuaded me that it would be unjust to denigrate prostitutes so) to be any different.

    It seems to me that this may be a case where Perry’s concept of the metacontext comes into play. As long as the “choice” is framed in terms of choice between interchangeable career politicians, it’s illusory.

  • Laird

    Whatever happens this November, two years is an eternity in politician-time. Anything can happen. After the Democrats’ rout in 1994 (remember the “Contract with America”?) no one expected Clinton to win re-election in 1996, either, but he pulled it off. (Never underestimate the Republicans’ capacity for self-destruction.)

    Presumably the Republicans will win big this fall. Maybe they’ll even take control of both Houses. Even if they do it will be by the barest of margins, however, so the Democrats can block anything substantial the Republicans might try to accomplish (they’re even better than the Republicans at obstructionism), and anything which does sneak through will be vetoed by Obama. So we’re in for two years of gridlock.

    That’s fine (“gridlock is good” is one of my mantras, and it’s certainly better than two more years of Democratic governmental expansion), but it won’t undo any of the positive harm which has been visited upon us over the last 18 months (with perhaps even more to come in the lame-duck session after the elections). So where will we be for the 2012 elections?

    The economy will still be in the doldrums (if not worse), but Obama will be able to (credibly, in some quarters) blame that on the Republicas’ “obstructionism”. And if the Republicans end up nominating some old war-horse who thinks it’s his “turn” (think Bob Dole), or some religious fundamentalist idiot (think Mike Huckabee) I can easily see Obama winning a second term. Furthermore, if voters then are still angry enough over the stalled economy it’s by no means a sure thing the Republicans would even retain control of either House.

    So while I’m reasonably confident that after January 3, 2011 (inauguration day for the new Congress) there shouldn’t be a whole lot of new legislative mischief emanating from Washington (which is not to say anything about regulatory mischief, of course, the flow of which will likely continue unabated), there will be no relief forthcoming and the prospects for another four years of Obama aren’t all that low.

    And, of course, there’s always the possiblity that even with control of one or both Houses the Republicans will select “leadership” cut from the same old cloth, who will try to be “constructive” and “work with the President.” (Obama will certainly try to shame them into doing so.) In that case things will only get worse, both during this two-year interregnum and beyond.

    We’re doomed pretty much any way you slice it. (I’m certainly a cheerful fellow, aren’t I?)

  • EvilDave

    1) After the 2010 elections Obama will be back to his favorite game of “blame the other guy”. Just as his stick of “blame Bush” was getting old, he’ll be able to blame the Republican Congress. Nothing will be his fault anymore. With the Democrats running 3 of the 4 levers of visible power (with the SCOTUS being the 4th, and each house of Congress counting as 1), the MSM and Obama have had no-one to hide behind. They have had to own everything. That isn’t a position they do well in. Where they do well is blaming someone else.
    For example, if gas prices are low America is ruining the environment and gas taxes need to be raised. If gas prices are too high, the big oil companies are evil and need to be regulated. See how they create a problem and then they blame the problem on someone else? Same with the sub-prime mess.
    The MSM aids and abets this behavior.
    .
    This means the GOP has a problem, if they win in 2010 they are less likely to win in 2012. If they lose in 2010, there will not be much of a country left to win in 2012.
    .
    2) There is almost no one worth voting for in the GOP for President. Palin & Romney are both uninspiring. Palin has been effectively turned into Dan Quayle. Romney just doesn’t have the charisma, and he has problems with the religious 1/3 of the GOP (Mormons generally being considered a heretical sect, especially on the East Coast, which chased them out to the West 100 years ago).
    BTW, the GOP tends to be 1/3 defense, 1/3 business and 1/3 religious or social values. Most members are only interested in 2 of the 3 poles of the Big Tent.
    .
    3) The GOP leadership needs to go, wholesale. Those people now formally in charge of the GOP are East/West Coast elites that favour medium government and big business. The energy of the party is coming from mid-lands “normals” that favor small government and small/medium businesses. The leaders of the party are at odds with the members of the party.
    .
    4) Never forget the Democrats start off with a 25% lead in the Electoral College due to California.
    .
    5) And of course voting against Obama is an act of racism (or so we’re constantly told).
    .
    .
    In conclusion, I’d say Obama’s chances of winning in 2012 are better than 50%, not a given, but good.

  • Neil Ferguson

    You say tomayto? Well, damn you, Sir! I say tomahto!

    “I’d have put a comma where it says “hats or dresses or deckchairs”, to make it “hats or dresses, or deckchairs”. ”

    Cordially,
    Neil Ferguson
    Yuma, AZ

  • Laird

    If the Republicans run true to form they will nominate Mitt Romney whose Massachusetts health care plan was the disaster the Dems modeled their disaster on. Yet he is fanatically well organized and will raise a ton of money. He won’t be a Bob Dole (and I speak as a former Bob Dole supporter.)

    On the other hand there are a few alternatives out there that are interesting, Christie is one, Mitch Danils of Indiana is another and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana is another. All of them have experience cutting budgets and shrinking big government, and that is the only worthwhile domestic task the GOP has over the next decade.

  • Ed Snack

    Jindal might win the nomination, but as a fundamentalist “young earther” he would be very pushed to win the election itself. Maybe Christie is the best bet, or Ryan. I’d say Palin would have a chance at the nomination too, but she’d have a hard road to hoe to win as well, too many negative impressions already. Mind you, she’s probably the Democrats favoured opponent, could be why Huffington started “taking her seriously”, build her up for the nomination, THEN get into her again. Very Democrat sort of strategy.

  • I thought Jindal was a Catholic.

    I doubt Palin will run, she’s having too good a time right now.

    BTW I just heard that a ‘young Earther” just made a fortune using that theory to buy drilling rights which turned out to be worth a huge sum of donuts.

    I always thought the Usher dating idea was nonsense, but its interesting to see someone use it to make this kind of money.

  • Laird

    I agree with everything EvilDave said.

    Right now the Republicans don’t have an obvious candidate, just a lot of wannabes, none of whom seem very appealing. Christie could be interesting, but while he sounds good so far he has only about a year in office, not enough to form a real track record. By the time of the 2012 primaries he will have had less than three years’ experience (really, only about two when the process starts). Is that enough to create a national base? Unknown, but then neither Clinton nor Bush Jr. had much more (and Clinton had neither a family name nor a high-profile state). And of course Obama has demonstrated that one can win the presidency with zero experience or tangible accomplishment, but if he’s done a bad enough job to be vulnerable in 2012 will the electorate be willing gamble on yet another cipher? I don’t think so, which is why I doubt that the Republicans will nominate someone without high name recognition. Unfortunately, that suggests Romney (Dole redux), who cannot win the general election even against Obama.

    Another interesting wild card is Newt Gingrich. Yes, he carries a lot of baggage, but he also excites the conservative base, is a known quantity, and has probably the highest name recognition of any Republican (except for Rush Limbaugh, who isn’t running). He has the time, experience and money to mount a national campaign, and has been away from Washington long enough to position himself as a “quasi-outsider”. And he is both very smart and a wily, savvy politician. He seems to be testing he waters now, and is probably quietly creating the core of a campaign organization. A Gingrich/Christie ticket in 2012 could be formidable.

  • I beg to differ on Romney. Not that I much care for the guy, not only is he guilty of Massachusetts care, but his line in 2008 when he compared his kids to McCain’s saying “My boys are serving their country by working on my campaign.” is hard to forgive. (McCain’s kids were all in the military and one was an enlisted Marine grunt in Iraq.)

    That said, I remember when Romney ran against Ted Kennedy for the Senate, The Dems launched a disgusting, bigoted campaign against him based on his religion. He lost, but he came back and won the governorship and given the realities of Massachusetts politics, did OK. That is, he kept the huge Dem majorities from running hog wild as they have done recently.

    He works hard and is well organized, and he can raise tons and tons on money. He won’t be the kind of pushover Bob Dole was, he may even win.

    Newt is always interesting but I doubt he’ll be more than a vanity candidate if he runs.

  • Laird

    I don’t dispute that Romney has impressive credentials and campaigning skills. But he certainly won’t excite the conservative base. Any Republican elected in Massachusetts has to be very “centrist” if not actually left-wing (remember Ed Brooke? Or even today’s Scott Brown), and the health care plan he championed will be a significant drag. And the Mormonism won’t help. Even if he should win the Republican nomination (hardly a given) his appeal to the vast middle of an unhappy, even angry electorate will be slim. I don’t see that he could win.

    As to Jindal, he is an active Roman Catholic, a convert from Hinduism (and converts are always the worst, of course!). I don’t know anything about his alleged “young earth-ism”, but he’s solidly conservative on religious matters (anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, etc.). That will play well to the religious Right, and he seems a relatively conventional conservative on economic matters (tax cuts, etc.), although there seems to be a disturbing “green” streak. But is the country really ready to elect someone whose name is Piyush Amrit Jindal? I’m not sure.

    Yes, in a sense Gingrich would be a “vanity candidate”. But as I survey the political landscape he seems to only one electable at the moment. The next two years should be interesting.

  • PersonFromPorlock

    Gingrich is pretty much dead among the GOP base: treated his wife shabbily and let himself be rolled by Clinton during the budget shutdown. When you have neither character nor leadership ability, having ideas (which he does) only gets you hired in a subordinate position.

  • Siha Sapa

    It must be admitted that our president is a self made jack ass, and a windy one at that. Proven yet again by his latest attempt to make Pythonesque humor sound profound and Jesuitical ; “After all we all agree that Stan has the right to be called Loretta…”. Typically weighing in on a straw argument never made about freedom of religion. Manhattan already has mosques as do the other 5 boroughs and abundant alternate locations literally abound. There is only one reason to build there. He doesn’t care? We don’t forget.

  • Laird

    Perhpas, PFP. We’ll see.

  • Sunfish

    Normally, I believe that, in the US system, party trumps person.

    I will vote to re-elect Barry Hussein Soetoro before I vote for any ticket featuring either Romney or Huckabee.

    All three are corrupt statist thug hacks. However, in Soetoro’s case, he’s a Chicago pol and so we’re forewarned to expect no better. The other two, however, claim to be legit.

    As for Gingrich…he fails at character. If his wives couldn’t trust him, why should anyone else?

  • Paul Marks

    Ture it is four years since the Republicans lost Congress – but the public (“helped” by the msm) still think in terms of “Bush in power equals Republicans in power”. The fact that Harry Reid (or whoever sat on Senator Reid last) and Nancy Pelosi (plus Chris Dodd and Barney Frank in banking and so on) were really in charge passes most people by.

    And it has only been two years since 2008 and Bush – too soon for Republicans to be forgiven for him?

    And make no mistake – wild spending Bush was terrible, and the Republicans (back in 2001) went along with his wild spending ways, destroying their credibility as a party of fiscal conservativism.

    The road back will be tough – in spite of some good policy people out there (in spite of the endless attacks upon them – people like Rand Paul, Sharon. Angle, Ken Buck….are all good policy people, not perfect from a libertarian point of view, but light years better than Bush).

    Remember that in most States (New York is a special case) Republicans get the candidates the vote for in the primary – for example in Connecticut local Republicans could have had Peter Schiff – but they voted for the wrestleing lady.

    So if the lady turns out to be not very good against the Democrat (an activist government prosectutor in chief – who specializes in strong arming business enterprises) or is elected and turns out to be another Senator Collins or Senator Snowe, well see above. That was your CHOICE.

    Of course (as Libertarians often point out) the defect of the “political market” is that if the majority make a bad choice – all indivduals (including those who made the right choice) suffer. However, in a lot of primary elections the good (the roll back government) choice was made – so now it is up to people to get the good candidates elected (to the Senate, to the House – and at State and local level).

    As for team Obama……….

    Their plan is fairly straightforward – have their friends the msm (and the EDUCATION SYSTEM – never forget the power of the schools and colleges “children you must educate your parents”, and the teacher’s texts are written by Saul Alinsky, Bill Ayers and so on) attack all dissent as “racist”.

    “But what about black opponents Paul” – easy. Either pretend they are white (as MSNBC did when it showed a conservative with a rifle on his back whilst they denounced white racists – carefully not showing the man’s head or arms, because he was BLACK). Or use the “Uncle Tom” line – “yee there are black Tea Party goers – there were Jewish Concentration Camp guards” (that line was actually used by the msm).

    However, there are limits to this approach – it being not just evil (that need not be a problem in politics) but also rather insane. And sounding obviously insane can be a draw back in an election campaign.

    More interestingly the Obama people are trying something else – ATTACKING THE LEFT.

    This may sound somewhat odd (as Barack Obama is about as far left as it is possible to be, without being a clone of Pol Pot), but it sort of makes sense.

    By lots of attacks on the “professional left” with their “unrealistic expectations”, team Obama makes their man seem “moderate” a “pragmatic man of the centre” and so on.

    Of course it is a lie – but lying need not be bad policy in politics.

  • ragingnick

    Americans are slowly waking up to the horrible mistake they made when they elected a kenyan muslim thug. Even with the pro Obama communists in control of both the media and Academia the truth about the what kind of man Obama really is cannot be hidden from people forever.

    I only pray it is not to late to Save America. How sad, how tragic and incomprehensible that only 20 years after supposed defeat of communism we now have a marxist as leader of the free world

  • I beg to differ on Romney. Not that I much care for the guy, not only is he guilty of Massachusetts care, but his line in 2008 when he compared his kids to McCain’s saying “My boys are serving their country by working on my campaign.” is hard to forgive.

    I finally have increased respect for Romney. The idea that you can only serve your country by serving the government is morally wicked.

    Although, I’d have even greater respect for Romney if he had said that his kids were serving the country by fighting the evils of campaign finance “reform”.

  • But aren’t they serving the government by working on his campaign?

  • Millie Woods

    Obama is toast. A lot of the people who voted for him did so in order to feel good about casting a vote for a half black man. The same phenomenon occurred in Quebec when suicidal anglos showed how broad minded they were by voting for the separatists. Their reward? The abolition of the public use of the English language except on federal property and for reasons of health and safety. The result for francophone Quebeckers – something like twenty years ior so of economic stagnation. As for anglo Quebeckers, they’ve relocated to Ontario and Alberta where they are prospering. And separatism in Quebec these days? France has too many troubles to stir things up and were it not for the federal subsidies Quebec would resemble Haiti north.

  • half black man? What does it mean?

  • Laird

    Alisa, are you serious? His mother was white, and he was raised by his white grandmother. Did you really not know this, or are you asking something else?

  • Alisa:

    I did say I would have preferred Romney to talk about serving the country by opposing a certain piece of horrendous legislation sponsored by McCain.

    But McCain’s assertion basically boils down to the idea that you’re somehow less virtuous if you don’t join the military, and it’s an idea I find odious.

    Then again, I’m somebody who wishes we’d treat our so-called “public servants” like the hired help they are: call them “boy” and “girl”, and treat them no better then we’d treat department store assistants.

  • Nuke Gray

    Of course he will recover! all american Presidents take time to learn their job. Clinton’s first few years seem wasted, but he might have needed them to get up to speed. The Republican victory in ’94 would have galvanised him into doing better. So, if the Reps do well this term, that will act as a spur for BO to improve his performance. Just like Clinton did, and he was re-elected in ’96, which would have seemed unlikely in 1994.
    And I’m not worried either way, because I would really prefer the Libertarian Party to get in, but that seems unlikely.

  • tehag

    “New Foundation” exactly describes Obama’s and the Democrat’s goals: get rid of all that pesky freedom, capitalism, and democracy, oh, and Jews, too. Their apeing of the worst of the IslamoSocialist EU knows no bounds.

  • Yes Ted, I was just making an aside – sorry:-)

  • Nuke, you really don’t get who Obama really is, do you?

    Laird, get ready to wait for my next comment to get un-smited…

  • mehere

    It’s sobering to think that Obama was, apparently, the best the Americans had to offer at the time.

    He gave numerous signs of being vacuous, shallow, uninspiring (despite the teleprompter working overtime) and clueless to how the world really was before his election, but the media ignored it all and got excited by the fact he was a different colour as if that really mattered. The best person was the best person, irrespective of race or gender.

    Meanwhile the man pinned his foreign policy on being nice to people who decidedly did not want to be nice to the people who voted him in, made some appalling appointments to ensure the level of ‘expertise’ in Washington stayed low, and having decried people for merely doing their job then railed against those who raised a voice against him as he went on to leave confusion and dismay in his wake.

    He proved completely unable to land Chicago the Olympics (despite personal intervention on we assume were clear instructions from his ‘hometown’), he threw a massive debt on the American people and powered through legislation that no one had read (his health bill). He has astonishingly instigated a legal case against one of his own States (Arizona, for daring to try and stop illegal immigration and the flow of drugs), made as many gaffes as the hated Bush did and yet manages to play golf endlessly without worrying. But then if his job is so pointless maybe it doesn’t matter where he is.

    Can Obama survive? Probably because the opposition is feeble and his hangers-on so determined, but how depressing.

  • Laird: I am well aware of that information, and I see absolutely no reason why it should have any relevancy to anyone who is not a racist. Working on the assumption that none of us here is a racist, I ask again: what does it mean? Why is it important what color was his mother, or his father, or what color is the man himself? The only relevancy these questions may have is in the political and cultural context, but even then only the last one is of any actual importance. How many blacks are there in the US who have absolutely no whites among their ancestors? I’d bet very few, if any, and in that sense Obama is no different (again, unless you are a racist and have nothing better to do with your time than count the percentage of this or that gene or whatever in another person’s DNA). If a man with a set of genes and outward appearance identical to Obama lived in the South in the first half of the last century, would he had been forced to sit at the back of the bus? Of course he would, and that’s all that matters. The man is black for any intent or purpose that matter to a non-racist.

  • PersonFromPorlock

    Well, 2010 and 2012 are the Republicans’ to lose… a thought which gives me no comfort at all.

  • Millie Woods

    Please Ailsa give me a break. In these PC times how is one supposed to describe a person with one white parent and one parent of African origin? Where I grew up the population consisted of French and English citizens. The French were almost uniformly catholic but there were also English speaking catholics described as Irish. Children of mixed French/English parentage who went to the English Catholic schools described themselves as Irish. One frequently heard the self-description – my mom’s English and my dad’s French and I’m Irish. So I’ll call Obama Irish and make you and the rest of the PC cohort happy.

  • Laird

    Alisa, you phrased your question very poorly, and I took it literally. If you had asked “what is the relevance of that” I would have replied differently.

  • Laird

    Millie, we actually have several words for that. “Mulatto” means a person with one white parent and one black parent (although the term is also used generically, for someone of unspecified mixed racial heritage). A “quadroon” is someone with one black grandparent (i.e., is 1/4th black), and an “octoroon” is someone with on black great-grandparent (i.e., is 1/8th black).

    Isn’t the English language wonderful?

  • Nuke Gray

    Yes, Alisa, I do know who Obama is- and when he walks across water, so will you!
    Seriously, though, I thought that Jews didn’t believe in the Antichrist?

  • No Laird, I did not frame the question poorly – try to think longer about what the word ‘mean’ means. In general, people should think a bit longer about what ordinary words mean – it could help them avoid poor (limited) interpretation of these words.

    Nuke: it’s Christ who we don’t believe in, Antichrist is a different matter;-P

  • Millie Woods

    Oh me oh my – now Ailsa’s gone all Clintonian on us with a proclamation of what the word mean actually truly etc. etc. means. And Laird thanks for the info about mulatto etc. but in these PC days if one dared to utter such terms the reaction of the touchy feelies is horrific to contemplate. My French mother language compatriots I’m glad to say are free of such tender scruples. Anything complicated or non-functioning is referred to as chinois.

  • Laird

    So Alisa, I’m supposed to consider all the alternate definitions of the words you use and try to guess which one you meant? No, thanks. As a rule I’ll apply Occam’s Razor to language: when a straightforward reading of your words suggests a simple question that’s how I’ll interpret them, rather than straining to find some snarky veiled criticism.

  • Laird

    “Anything complicated or non-functioning is referred to as chinois.”

    Why Millie, how racist of you!

  • OK Laird, I phrased my question poorly – can we be friends again?

  • Laird

    You have to ask? I didn’t think we’d stopped.

  • Millie Woods

    Laird, enquiring minds want to know. If the white part of the racial mix is a Scot do we have a macaroon?

  • Laird

    🙂

  • Nuke Gray

    🙂
    Can I join the love-in?

  • You need a hug dear?

  • Paul Marks

    I am going to be happy bunny for once.

    If the Dems lose in November I think it will show that the endless propaganda of the “mainstream” media AND the education system (the schools and colleges) has failed. And remember the media, political and ACADEMIC class is throwing everything into the support of the regime (it is not like 1980 where a lot of the msm mocked Carter – or 1994 where the educated classes rather looked down on Clinton and co).

    If they fail it will not just mean that most people reject Obama – it will mean that most people have rejected the msm and the education system.

    The entire establishment has tied themselves to Obama – so that if the people lose faith in him it means they have also lost faith in them.

    And I believe the people have lost faith in the entire political, media and academic class.

    I think the enemy are going down.

    Yes they will leave ruins behind them (an economy totally undermined by a credit bubble financial system and impossible liabilities from the entitlement programs and the govenment worker pensions and benefits) but I believe THEY ARE GOING DOWN.

    The above will be tested soon – in November we will know if I am correct or incorrect to be optomistic.

  • Laird

    I wish I could be as sanguine as Paul. Unfortunately, I can’t. I won’t repeat my earlier post, but I fear that even if Obama’s team is routed in November it will merely be a temporary victory for the forces of good. We’ve already fallen off the cliff; at best we’ll be grabbing hold of a root and temporarily slowing our descent into the abyss.

  • Paul Marks

    Laird has a point.

    For example, when I see “business shows” (PBS it may be – but it goes out on Bloomberg) such as that of “Charlie” Rose I am struck by the lack of any connection to reality in them.

    Obama and his legislation are good – any opposition is just political posturing (and so on). And endless “experts” and “intellectuals” are brought on to say all this.

    So yes the entire establishment (including many business people) are either lying though their teeth – or so disconnected from reality as to be close to mentally ill.

    However, I have never said the establishment could be won over.

    Nor have I even said the economy can be saved.

    Bankruptcy may well be inevitable now.

    However, civil society can be rebuilt (restored) IF enough people wish to do this.

    And I believe that many MILLIONS of people understand the basics of what has gone wrong and are desperate to rebuild after the crash.

    The establishment people (school, university, media, poltiical and financial) are just going to have to get out of the way – or be pushed out of the way.