Sunday Quick Hits
I don't know if the people that write articles for U.S. News & World Report ever speak to the people that write headlines for the articles in U.S. News & World Report because something here doesn't make sense. Note the title in this article:
GOP Confident of Keeping Senate Seats
I know! Funny, right? But then read the first sentence of the article:
Despite Democratic expectations of picking up another four to five seats in the 2008 elections, the GOP claims that it may lose only two more seats, resulting in a 53-to-47 Democrat-to-Republican ratio.
Do you see the disconnect? How can the GOP be "confident of keeping Senate seats" when they're hoping to only lose "two more seats"? Like cartoon Johnnie Cochran said on South Park, "That does not make sense!"
Maine: Susan Collins again demonstrates that she has failed to show leadership during her time in the Senate. This weekend, she has an op-ed in the Bangor Daily News entitled: "Now is the time to seek energy independence". Ummm, Susan, pretty much any time for, say, the last seven years of the Bush administration, or even the last eleven years since you've been in the Senate, would have been a good time to "seek energy independence." So how come you haven't been working to do just that over the last several years? How come you've waited until your election cycle to discuss the problem? In the op-ed, she cites nothing that she has done before 2007 (her election cycle) to address this issue. Ultimately, "Susan Collins" is synonymous with "lack of leadership." (HT: Collins Watch)
New Jersey: Kudos to Blue Jersey for asking a question that others should be asking in their respective states. Republicans Anne Evans Estabrook and Joe Pennacchio, if they made it to the Senate, would ostensibly be voting for Mitch McConnell as Senate Leader. So where do they stand on McConnell's recent disgustingly insensitive comments about our troops in Iraq?
New Mexico: Congressman Tom Udall released a statement thanking Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez for his support in the 2008 Senate race.
15 Comments:
Quick question for you: has anyone other than partisan liberals cared about McConnell's comments yet? Specifically, in the press.
VA blogger?
What are the odds that you have a picture of Senator Joseph MacCarthy(R-WI) tattooed on your ass?
Neal, I'm impressed. You managed to make a post without copying and pasting the same analysis that you always give.
Now, we begin our next assignment: getting you to post substantive items that contribute to a discussion. It'll be a long and difficult task.
Va Blogger you have not answered my question.
What are the odds that you have a picture of Senator Joseph MacCarthy(R-WI) tattooed on your ass?
va blogger,
Do anyone other than partisan liberals care about McConnell's comments? No, not yet. That's not really the point though, and it's the exact same thing your side does. You throw dozens of charges out, most don't stick. But if they do you nail it over and over again. Take Trent Lott's comments about Strom Thurmond a few years ago, initially they didn't cause much in the way of controversy or even attention. However, liberal blogs (namely TalkingPointsMemo) repeatedly push the story and it eventually culminated the Trent Lott being knocked out of his role as Majority Leader. So yes you're right, nobody else cares...yet.
Neal, have patience with VA. Do not get into a name-calling spat with him. I know you were baited, but you have to rise above his petty, sarcastic comments.
VA, I think you missed the point of the Guru's post. His point was that, "Republicans Anne Evans Estabrook and Joe Pennacchio, if they made it to the Senate, would ostensibly be voting for Mitch McConnell as Senate Leader." No change in the policies regarding Iraq or healthcare can occur without 60 votes. New Jersey residents are educated enough to know that Anne Evans Estabrook and Joe Pennacchio would take away from the 60 votes that Harry Reid needs to change policy.
Matthew, no, that wasn't S2G's point. His point was do they share partisan outrage over McConnell's statements. I can't speak for either of them, but its probably "no."
There were two points that I saw, VA... the partisn outrage was the second point... sometimes you have to dig deeper.
VA to answer your question. I found articles about McConnell's statement after one quick search of the National Journal. That article mentioned that talking points Memo havd a story on it, which quoted the News-Gazette of Grayson County Kentucky. That was 1 20 seond search. Would you like me to keep going?
Rob, yes I would, because those stories, if I've read the same ones as you, were about McConnell's campaign event, and are in fact the same story that S2G linked to a few days ago. Those stories do not, to the best of my knowledge, feature any sort of controversy over any of the remarks McConnell made at the event.
If I'm wrong, please let me know.
VA,
At this point I think you are right in that the main stream media have not picked up on Mitch's comments -- they might they might not.
You feel that Mitch simply meant that volunteers are professionals who know the risk and therefore the risk is more acceptable than to a draftee. Maybe, I am not sure about that. The problem is to say this Mitch has to ignore the multiple stop loss orders etc. A lot of people are deployed to Iraq who thought they would be retired and out of the army by now. I doubt very few of them realized when they signed up that the government could unilaterally extend their service for years.
I do think this comment shows a certain lack of sensitivity and concern on Mitch's part. Of course I don't vote in KY so Mitch does not have to be too concerned with what I think or don't think.
By itself you might be right - no big deal. But, depending on what he says in the future it may turn into a deal we will see. I also have to second what Eric said: originally the MSM laughed off Lott's comments and that only became a story after the blogosphere pushed it fairly hard. This is not nearly as bad as Lott's lapse in judgement but we will have to wait and see if it turns into an issue.
The only site I've seen pushing hard at all is this one. I don't think a readership of 50-60 will drive any media stories.
VA,
I've also seen it on Bluegrassreport.
va blogger,
How about DailyKos? It's partisan (obviously), but it has a rather large audience. I've seen similiar posts up on TalkingPointsMemo as well.
here VA, I'll give you the links cause I don't think they are the same stories, but even if they are, they most certaintly do mentione what McConnel said. Heck, the Title for the article on the NJ is What did McConnell Mean.
http://thegate.nationaljournal.com/2007/12/what_did_mcconnell_mean.php
http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/12/gop_senate_leader_mcconnell_appears_to_belittle_deaths_of_american_troops.php
The Graysco County NG article is about his campaign, but it mentiones the line in question, which is where TPM got its source and has started the wavt to the NJ, I bet there are more out there, but the headlines for TPM and NJ are very telling.
http://www.gcnewsgazette.com/articles/2007/12/06/local_news/news86.txt
Post a Comment
<< Home