I'm confused. hoya, is your issue that the site is blaming Limbaugh where they should be blaming Larry Johnson?

Hoya's just sharpening his talk-in-circles-about-everything-besides-the-actual-issue-at-hand skills for his eventual cabinet position

Yes. More or less.

Rush shouldn't have repeated the rumor, but if Obama wants to create a site that's the clearing house for dispelling these rumors, he might as well be truthful on it.

If the underlying smear is false, as this one clearly is, then why does he need to spice it up by setting up Rush as behind it?

FWIW, the person who basically drove a stake through the heart of the tape rumor was Jim Geraghty from National Review Online.

Woody wrote:Hoya's just sharpening his talk-in-circles-about-everything-besides-the-actual-issue-at-hand skills for his eventual cabinet position

I really wound myself in a knot there. I think I know what I think now, but if anyone reads that from beginning to end, they're bound to be as confused as I was. I was lost on the fact that there were two parts to the website. The last post should sum it up.

In my defense, I've been up since 4:30 and am many states away from where I woke up this morning.

Okay. But it's also true that the Limbaugh show has a much wider audience than some nut's blog. And if he's somewhat switching things around to target an enemy of all progressives, whose behavior all these years has assured he won't get the benefit of any doubts, rather than a Clinton supporter, that's dishonest but probably pragmatic.

I guess the other issue is that scurrilous rumors by their nature seem to be tough to pinpoint by origins. The purpose of that site as I understand it isn't to trace the etymology of smears, but to dispel them (and, let's face, to polish Obama's halo a little as the put-upon victim of vicious lies).

TenuredVulture wrote:Do you think it's responsible to spread wholly unsubstantiated rumors?

by his own admission he's just an innocent jocksniffer who doesn't really know jack about all these lowdown politixy trix, so lay off the poor kid

responsibility geez, that's for people with reputations & stuff

drsmooth wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Do you think it's responsible to spread wholly unsubstantiated rumors?

by his own admission he's just an innocent jocksniffer who doesn't really know jack about all these lowdown politixy trix, so lay off the poor kid

responsibility geez, that's for people with reputations & stuff

Yes, that's exactly what I said. Thanks, as always, for your sterling contribution.

jerseyhoya wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Do you think it's responsible to spread wholly unsubstantiated rumors?

by his own admission he's just an innocent jocksniffer who doesn't really know jack about all these lowdown politixy trix, so lay off the poor kid

responsibility geez, that's for people with reputations & stuff

Yes, that's exactly what I said. Thanks, as always, for your sterling contribution.

so you're telling me I read this wrong then? I'll try to do better

jerseyhoya wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:you must live in a weird area if young people in your area dislike obama

Enlightened.

at this rate, by september you won't even be posting in game threads anymore; all your time will be spent here, clacking away in a haze of ideological dissipation

I care about sports about 10x more than I do about politics.

Gore to endorse Obama tonight. This is only interesting IMO (since of course he'd endorse the Dem nominee, right?) because they're doing it in Detroit, Michigan... sending another signal that Obama wants to undo whatever damage the bungled Dem primary did there ASAP (Edwards also endorsed him in MI), and also for the weird atmospherics of having the world's foremost advocate for action against climate change in the heart of the US auto industry.

(Maybe I'm reading too much into that one. But IIRC a big part of the reason why Gore didn't run on environmental issues in '00 was that he feared turning off the UAW and losing Michigan.)

drsmooth wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Do you think it's responsible to spread wholly unsubstantiated rumors?

by his own admission he's just an innocent jocksniffer who doesn't really know jack about all these lowdown politixy trix, so lay off the poor kid

responsibility geez, that's for people with reputations & stuff

Wait, I don't follow. Who are you calling jocksniffer? I must have missed something. Your justification for calling jerseyhoya names is because he admits to caring more about sports than politics?

On the topic of all this 'whitey' 'black baby' etc sort of stuff...this rumor-mongering is ridiculous. the sort of 'if it were true this would impugn their character' crowd who bring this stuff up but don't want to be pointed the finger of blame deserve to be blamed for this crap receiving attention. it doesn't matter if it's true...some people want to believe it's true, some start to act as though it might be true, and others start to think of the person being assailed differently because 'what if it's true?!'. and then it's as though the burden of proof is upon the public figure to somehow prove they aren't the horrible monster that the rumor makes them out to be.

this may be politics, but it's not a way to pick government leaders.

pacino wrote:On the topic of all this 'whitey' 'black baby' etc sort of stuff...this rumor-mongering is ridiculous. the sort of 'if it were true this would impugn their character' crowd who bring this stuff up but don't want to be pointed the finger of blame deserve to be blamed for this crap receiving attention. it doesn't matter if it's true...some people want to believe it's true, some start to act as though it might be true, and others start to think of the person being assailed differently because 'what if it's true?!'. and then it's as though the burden of proof is upon the public figure to somehow prove they aren't the horrible monster that the rumor makes them out to be.

this may be politics, but it's not a way to pick government leaders.

Yes, and I think we should be sure to blame the individuals who make the decision to spread unsubstantiated rumors, not abstract "political machines." It lets the irresponsible people in media off the hook. You should be discredited as a source of news, not undeservedly lumped into a whole class of people.

It's a real shame that Obama feels the need to systemically discredit all these ridiculous rumors.

Edit: Fixed my word choice to clarify.

i agree, that's what i wrote in the first half. the limbaughs deserve to be lambasted

drsmooth wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Do you think it's responsible to spread wholly unsubstantiated rumors?

by his own admission he's just an innocent jocksniffer who doesn't really know jack about all these lowdown politixy trix, so lay off the poor kid

responsibility geez, that's for people with reputations & stuff

Yes, that's exactly what I said. Thanks, as always, for your sterling contribution.

so you're telling me I read this wrong then? I'll try to do better

jerseyhoya wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:you must live in a weird area if young people in your area dislike obama

Enlightened.

at this rate, by september you won't even be posting in game threads anymore; all your time will be spent here, clacking away in a haze of ideological dissipation

I care about sports about 10x more than I do about politics.

We are on a sports message board, yes?

I will be very disappointed if Cole loses tonight. I can't think of anything in the political world that is similarly going to influence my mood.

I have often mentioned that I care more about the elections side of politics than the policy side. I'm not sure how that means I don't know anything about policy. I have admitted to being poorly versed in certain issues, like cap and trade. I try to be up front about my motives when posting in the thread. Most of the time, it's me being generally interested in the give and take of politics; sometimes I'm bemoaning the shape of the party. On election nights, I love looking at county by county returns and trying to call the races before the networks, and other times I'm confusing myself in by misreading a page when defending Rush.

I'm not sure how you quoting that proves anything other than the fact that you consistently add nothing to this thread.

dajafi wrote:Gore to endorse Obama tonight. This is only interesting IMO (since of course he'd endorse the Dem nominee, right?) because they're doing it in Detroit, Michigan... sending another signal that Obama wants to undo whatever damage the bungled Dem primary did there ASAP (Edwards also endorsed him in MI), and also for the weird atmospherics of having the world's foremost advocate for action against climate change in the heart of the US auto industry.

I find it exciting in that the question wan't whether Al Gore would endorese the Democratic nominee or the Republican nominee, but whether he would endorse anyone at all. Environmental voters may be looking at the energy and environment section of McCain's website and thinking "Hey, he's not so bad," with all the green splashed all over the place. But maybe with Mr. Inconvenient Truthiness backing him Obama gains more votes.

Are there really people sitting around, going, "Oh man, I don't know if I want to vote for McCain or Obama...WHY WON'T AL GORE TELL ME WHICH ONE TO VOTE FOR?!"

Does Al Gore's endorsement mean anything to anyone at this point?

all of these endorsements do mean something to some people out there, or politicians wouldn't covet them so.

But was John McCain inviting Al Gore over for tea and crumpets, holding out hope that he'd pick him? There's no way anyone who respects Al Gore as a political figure was trying to figure out which candidate he'd endorse.

these things do solidify 'the base' behind a candidate to, and speak to the larger donors and players in a party, with all their money. this was probably as much for that as 'environmentalists'. fwiw, i would consider myself one of those and don't really like the way al gore conveys his message.

I honestly don't understand how anyone could vote for McCain after the GI bill thing.

Absolutely disgraceful.