Jon Stewart on the inauguration, interview with Gene Robinson

DOW dropped over 300 yesterday.

  So what's the basis again for all this hope?  Oh, that's right.  He's black.

 What a wonderful time it will be when America truly realizes Dr. King's dream and elects candidates based on their qualifications and competence and not based on something that has as much to do with governing as the color of socks I wore last Thursday.

---

by: MarkiePost @ Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 07:03:08 AM CST

interesting comment...

...considering that i voted for him specifically because i believe him to be both qualified and competent.  

his past as a constitutional law scholar, a community organizer, and a legislator, with an unbelievable knack for gathering the best and the brightest minds and getting them to work together for a common goal, i still believe obama has what this country needs to move forward.

the fact that he is african-american is irrelevant to his skills (although i would argue that being "other" gives him insight into things that your average old white male politician cannot understand about the makeup of our counrty), but relevant to our nation for the fact that historically and systemically those skills have been ignored.

it's the haters that make skin color relevant, and push the mantle of "other"; not the ones who possess the qualities that are hated.  and historically, it takes that first step, of a standout proving the haters wrong, before the relevance begins to wear off.  

---

by: djshiva @ Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 11:27:59 AM CST

[ Parent ]

You can't be serious.

I'll ask you the same questions I've asked for two years:

1)  Show me tangible fruits of Obama's accomlishments as a CA.  Show me how the people and neighborhoods he "served" have prospered.

2)  Show me his experience in creating jobs.  As a person who has never worked in the private sector, nor headed any organization, he has no idea what is required to help an economy

3) His "constitutional scholar" experience has to do solely with race.  Show me something in that knowledge useful to Americans in general.

Only Democrats have talked about his race and made color "relevant".  I presuming you have be referring to them as the "haters", since they are the only ones differentiating him on race.

As someone whose formative years were nowhere near the "other" groups you describe, how would Obama have any more of a "feel" about the makeup of our country as a white politician?

---

by: MarkiePost @ Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 11:50:37 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Well, according to his books

 and in answer to your questions:

1) He didn't do much as a CA - that is, he didn't magically transform the South Side of Chicago from an economically depressed area to a prosperous community, but then again he was one of a very few people doing the work. He does discuss, in Dreams of My Father, the small victories, like the opening of a new job training program and the inspiring of some neighborhood residents to action, but he also discusses his own fatigue with the work. The point of his experience is not that he was a wonderful CA, but rather that the experience gave him a front-line understanding of the poverty and despair among our poor, and the kinds of things that work and don't work in trying to help them change the course of their lives, much like Eleanor Roosevelt's work in a settlement house at the turn of the century influenced her work as First Lady on behalf of the disenfranchised.

2)George Bush was the "CEO President" - enough said.

But seriously, the job of an executive is not to do all the work himself. The point is that Obama has the capacity to understand the broad economic issues and appoint the right people to formulate policies that work. As an economist, I love what he's doing already, it's exactly the kind of thing you need in a time like this. And he's willing to work with those who might have disagreements with him, which is vital (and those who might just be disagreeable, because let me tell you, I've met Larry Summers, and he's an arrogant a-hole. I wouldn't want to work with him on a daily basis).

3) He was actually a professor of Constitutional Law when he was first elected to the Illinois legislature.

---

by: CPT_Doom @ Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 12:01:25 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I think it would have been more useful for Obama to spend time

watching and seeing the difficulties small businessmen and entrepreneurs go through.  These are the people who create jobs.  So much has already been documented about the lives of the 'poor' in America.  We already know that they are miserable.  Let's work on the mechanisms that help them.

I have listened to interviews of the late Milton Friedman, probably the greatest economist of the 20th century, and recognized by both the left and the right.  He said FDR's actions of massive government spending in the midst of a severe recession, while neglecting the private sector, were disastrous, proloning and worsening the Depression.  Obama appears poised to do exactly the same thing.  Obama says he's going to stick it to corporations.  I know it's news to many, but corporations are necessary.  When business suffers, the stock market suffers, 401Ks suffer, charitable giving suffers, and the poor suffers.

How do you reconcile with Friedman's philosophy?  Wny do you think his plans are exactly the right thing?

---

by: MarkiePost @ Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 21:05:44 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Regardless of Obama's experience...

...I would feel better with a dead dog occupying the oval office than I would with Bush or McCain sitting there.

My personal preferences in the primary season went roughly, Edwards, Clinton, Dodd, Biden, draft Al Gore at gunpoint, and then I think I got to Obama.  I have serious policy problems with him.  I think his health care plan as it was advertised in the primaries will make all of the Republican's scare mongering about universal health care come true.  I think the "compromises" he's already pushing for "bipartisanship" are going to squander all of his ability to deliver the change he promised and supposedly wants.

And he's a far far better choice than the alternatives we were given.  And he's got the job.  Whether or not he should have gotten it is irrelevant now, so there's no point in complaining.  Now is the time to worry about what he's doing, not what he did, or didn't do.

---

by: jbhelfrich @ Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 18:20:56 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Pam, the videos are not loading.

"In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant."  The Colbert Report

---

by: Lev Raphael @ Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 07:30:33 AM CST

Oh, he didn't just go there with the Poet Elisabeth Alexander...

Wow. She was there to clear out the mall?  Ouch.

-----
~~Autumn~~

As if there were safety in stupidity alone.
--Henry David Thoreau

---

by: Autumn Sandeen @ Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 07:56:38 AM CST

She suffers from PRS: Poet's Reading Syndrome

Years ago I did an MFA at UMass/Amherst (then #3 in the country) and some of us fiction writers made fun privately of the poets.  They simply did not know how to read their work. This poet was a perfect example--and she should know better!  I've done 100s of readings and gotten standing ovations and I was chafing at her lack of talent as a reader.  She made wonderful resonant lines flat and boring, she didn't link ideas correctly, she took breaks in the wrong places. And she never built across the poem, but kept everything monotone.  It was abysmal.  

"In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant."  The Colbert Report

---

by: Lev Raphael @ Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 08:33:11 AM CST

[ Parent ]

sadly i agree...

as a poet myself, i am really critical of PRS.  i perform my poetry as a living work, not as a dry rendition of what appears on the page.  

there were some fantastic ideas in there, made lackluster by her reading.  i was disappointed, simply because i was so happy to have poetry on the international stage.  sad.

---

by: djshiva @ Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 11:16:59 AM CST

[ Parent ]

I totall agree

her poem couldn't have been more appropriate, more conencted to the mood and Obama's speech--as if they'd discussed it all beforehand, but oy, she was a lousy performer.  That's what too many poets and writers forget: they're performing their work--or should be--for an audience.

"In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant."  The Colbert Report

---

by: Lev Raphael @ Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 11:30:52 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Riffing on Lowry's color rhyme was funny

Just saw the MSNBC idiots Tucker C, Pat R and Morning Joe complain about Lowry picking on whites to get it right "I'm surprised that Obama embraced him after that!"-- I AM HOPING that Jon Stewart is aware of the creaky old rhyme to which Lowry was referring, that was taught to me by my peers in the 70's, that probably every adult descendant of American African slaves has heard.

Orange? Very funny.

MSNBC needs to diversify its behind-the-scenes fact-checking employee pool so on-air personalities don't look like ignorant dopes.

Oh wait; there's no fact-checking anywhere anymore, much-less real news (Hear that, HLN channel?)

...Ready to Go!!

---

by: Fired Up @ Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 08:19:22 AM CST

Orange? Screw Orange! - George Hamilton is not amused

---

by: CPT_Doom @ Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 09:28:37 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Forget fact-checking

None of the talking heads seems to know much of anything, nor do their overly-made up reporters.  I heard someone praise Jesse Jackson as the first African-American to run for president! Hello? What about Shirley Chisholom.  Shamefully, Jackson did not correct the fembot reporter.

"In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant."  The Colbert Report

---

by: Lev Raphael @ Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 10:39:29 AM CST

[ Parent ]

are we sure robinson meant

that the dream he sees being fulfilled for lgbt's in the future is being president, or getting served lunch.  i only ask that in half snark, since we all know how we queers still get bounced from the lunch counter in some states.  legally too, i might add.

Click HERE and sign up: Campaign For Military Partners.

Lurleen on Twitter.

---

by: Lurleen @ Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 09:30:41 AM CST

So what?

We can whip up something faboo using just a George Forman grill, cilantro and some bouillon cubes. Who needs a restaurant :-)

"In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant."  The Colbert Report

---

by: Lev Raphael @ Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 10:09:30 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Sashay! Chantay!

I am so glad that Jon Stewart said that about warren sounding totally queeraphonic with his weird pronunciations of Sasha and Melia.  But even before that, every time I see Warren, I'm sorry to say that he sets off a low-level gay radar alert. He's a bear!

"In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant."  The Colbert Report

---

by: Lev Raphael @ Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 10:08:18 AM CST

I keep thinking he's Chuck Todd from NBC

Which is unfortunate, because Todd is a good guy.  

---

by: CPT_Doom @ Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 11:52:34 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Damn you, Lev

Must fight visual...must fight visual...must fight visual...think of fluffy kittens...fluffy kittens...do not think of Rick Warren in leather...ACK!

/brain explodes, claws out eyes

God save ornery old queens! - kevinchi

---

by: Keori @ Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 12:09:01 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Dana Perino flashes like Men In Black

I mentioned this footage, it's the Moment of Zen at the very end of this episode
   http://www.thedailyshow.com/fu...

"race, taste. and History finally overcome....and you ain't there"
by Tony Kushner

---

by: peteyPornpig @ Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 12:48:39 PM CST