Friday, February 05, 2010

If At First You Don't Succeed, Take the High Road

I haven't mined WAMK for material in a while but I think there are two interesting things in the epic comments battle from this post.

One - Madeline's Dad says this at one point: Obama is popular, but his policies are not. I'm not going argue with that; poll data backs him up. And if the polices are unpopular it's because the opposition has succeeded in painting them that way. But that's fine too - it's a return to adult politics. I'd much rather see this than mud-slinging. There was a lot made of Scott Brown's brief appearance 20 years ago as a nude model, and just on the basis of that unfairness he earned my support. If it doesn't have to do with politics it doesn't belong in the campaign.

Still, as happy as I am with the right over this emphasis on lying about policies over lying about personality, I can't help but notice that they seemed to have arrived at it after failing so spectaularly to gain traction with personal smears during election season. Don't put it down to nobility, put it down to switching tactics to go with what works better. Lee Atwater's ghost is waiting, probably in his own private room in the RNC offices, until he's needed again.

Two - Here's a sampling of my remarks in the comments, all about my belief that perhaps Obama's budget projections could turn out to be accurate.

...Interestingly, those big spikes on the chart happened after recessions. Just sayin'.




...Since the point is unusually low you could argue that it will tend to normalize; if that's the case it might even shoot up higher quicker.

...Anyway, neither one of us knows what's going to happen; we should check back in a few months. You were right about Obama's popularity after all. Perhaps you're right about this.


That's the tone I take all through the discussion, which is why this response surprised me.
 
Can you point to any single benchmark prediction the Obama Administration has made that has been met? I can't. Why do you put blind faith in his predictions on his budget?


BLIND FAITH! This is how Fox hosts characterize Juan Williams and Alan Colmes and the host of other wishy-washy centrists who appear in their studios. Anything that doesn't jibe with the echo-chamber is far-left-loony. You can easily see where this "liberal media bias" idea has come from, based on the above exchange.
 
Incidentally there are probably a good half dozen or so projections that were met or exceeded, but the talking points focus on employment because it's dramatically off estimates. No, I don't know what they are. I'm supposed to be working right now. If I get a chance this weekend I'll google a little and post 'em here. Hope I'm not wrong!

1 comment:

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