Are You As Sick as I Am With These Robotic Responses to Hillary & Barack?

[David Zephyr]

Hillary: "I'm just not sure the country is ready for a woman to be president."

Barack Obama: "I like him a lot, but he just isn't experienced enough, and at this time our country really needs experience."

I just returned from a technical seminar where there were a lot of Republicans and Independents (mostly all white men) and this is the almost robotic responses that I continued to hear. It's like there is "distributive logic" with these people.

Naturally, I had a lot of fun with those that perfunctorily repeat these mantras which are merely ways of masking their internal sexism and racism.

[depakid]

1. We may be sick of them, but

that's a sample of what a proportion of the general public thinks....

[hippiechick]

2. I'm sick of the media stuffing them both down my throat ...

18 months before the freakin' election. :puke:

[Sapere aude]

3. How in the H E double hockey sticks does a country get ready for a woman president?

I guess we need a bunch of movies and TV shows with women presidents in them then we'll be ready.



How experienced was Bush?

[David Zephyr]

I wind up sticking up for Hillary even though she drives me nuts.

IWR vote aside, her support for the Patriot Act & Homeland Defense Dept. aside, when a Republican attacks her...there I go sticking up for her with every fiber in me.

Hillary, for all her faults, would excell over any single Republican candidate on any day the calendar my present her.

Hillary, you are making me crazy. :)

[David Zephyr]

14. Dupe. Deleted.

.

[Skinner]

4. I was talking to a family friend last night who made the opposite point about Obama.

He said that he considered Obama's lack of experience to be a very positive thing, because the more time a politician spends in our system, the more corrupted he is by it.

I hadn't really thought of it that way before, but I think he's got a point.

[tkmorris]

6. I do too, in a way

It does sometimes seem as if any politician that has been in Washington very long becomes hopelessly entangled in the abuse of power that is required to remain there. Are we ready nationally to reject such candidates and elect what is essentially a box covered in question marks?

[Missy M]

10. Lack of experience is not a positive thing .......

in any job. I sure wouldn't want a rookie doing brain surgery on me. I wouldn't expect an inexperienced person to be able to run a corporation. Obama is young and has plenty of time to run for president in the coming years.

[David Zephyr]

15. Maybe that's another reason his crowds are simply gigantic.

Barack is my choice now unless Al gets in. Obama's won me over.

[jgraz]

5. I think the criticism of Obama is valid

I wish more people had made it of our current Moron-in-Chief. I think you can make the same argument against Edwards, btw, though he does have more time on the national scene.

[David Zephyr]

16. Barack's education, work, life & political experience more than qualify him to be POTUS.

And Obama will bring back America's reputation around the world the day he takes office.

[jgraz]

21. I'm not as convinced as you are, but that doesn't mean I think he's unqualified

The problem may not be his lack of experience, but rather my (and others) lack of experience with him. I'd be more comfortable supporting him if he'd had more time to show off his policy choices and leadership skills in the Senate. At this point, I like him better than than Clinton or Edwards, though.

[David Zephyr]

22. That's fair enough.

I will support any of our candidates with enthusiasm.

[Spike89]

7. Should be ideas now, personalities later

I wouldn't have such a problem with the '08 election starting way too damn early if the media took the opportunity to focus on the various ideas and policies of ALL the candidates. It is impossible to avoid the personality-contest nature of the process once the actual primaries start, but sheesh, why do we care how much a haircut costs, how a wardrobe is selected, or if an accent is authentic at this point?
We deserve to have information on these candidates and what they actually would like to do for (and to) us if we give them this power. For crying out loud, if a god-like being appeared with every solution to every problem we faced, that being wouldn't have a chance of getting elected because there'd be too little controversy and the media certainly wouldn't bother covering something we could all agree on.

[Mark Twain Girl]

11. Agreed, right now should be about issues and about all the candidates.

That would be a good reason to start the '08 race so soon, because god knows there are enough issues to go around. At this point, it should be about information and ideas of all candidates and not personalities, or else what's the point of the excercise? But it seems like MSM has decided that the personality-contest in non-negotiable, I guess.

It feels like so much has happened in the past 6-7 years, it can't be business as usual. Geez, I was just reading this thread about climate change in Kashmir:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x94947

I don't know if the problem starts with the MSM or starts with the public who consumes it. Maybe a negative feedback loop. But I don't give a fig who donates to whom in Hollywood!

[David Zephyr]

18. Welcome to the DU, Mark Twain Girl

And I'm a Mark Twain Boy, by the way. :hi:

[David Zephyr]

17. Welcome to the DU, Spike89!

The corporate media certainly poisons the discourse. :hi:

[newyawker99]

26. Hi Spike89!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Wetzelbill]

8. I was sick of this stuff almost two years ago

I might have an aneurysm before we even get to the next election.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

9. It's the automatic "talking point" excuse for justifying why they will still vote for whatever

shitty candidate the Republicans put forth.

[David Zephyr]

19. Yep.

It's like by repeating this shit they think it excuses their bigotry. Grrrrrr.

[Proud2BAmurkin]

12. Sick of them but all of them do it because they have to.

never gonna change in age of TV politics

[Donnachaidh]

13. Did you ever think these people might really believe what they are saying?

I didn't know it was *robotic* to voice opinions different than your own. Pray tell, how do you categorize YOUR opinions of candidates? *fresh and open-minded*?

what I'm sick to death of hearing is all these questions brought up to yet again call *mostly white men* racist and sexist.

That's a tactic taken straight out of the Republican handbook.

I thought we were bigger than that. Guess not. :sarcasm:

[David Zephyr]

20. No, I do not believe it for a second.

Many white men are sexist and racist. I know because I'm in that "club" and have lived for nearly 60 years in this country, long enough to have more than a "random sampling" to make that evaluation. And please don't ascribe to that I am saying "most" white men, because I did not.

[Breeze54]

23. He criticizes the baby boomers and HE IS ONE!! lol

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/weekinreview/21broder.html?ex=1327035600&en=b1368edf6827a3a9&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss




Shushing the Baby Boomers

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/weekinreview/21broder.html?ex=1327035600&en=b1368edf6827a3a9&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

snip-->

In his second book, “The Audacity of Hope,” Mr. Obama is critical of the style and the politics of the 60s, when the psyches of most of his potential rivals for the White House were formed. He writes that the politics of that era were highly personal, burrowing into every interaction between youth and authority and among peers. The battles moved to Washington in the 1990s and endure today, he says.

“In the back and forth between Clinton and Gingrich, and in the elections of 2000 and 2004,” he writes, “I sometimes felt as if I were watching the psychodrama of the baby boom generation — a tale rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago — played out on the national stage.”

Mr. Obama would be foolish to run solely as the anti-boomer, Mr. Lehane said, if for no other reason than that the baby boomers are the largest generation in American history, and they vote.

Has he changed his rhetoric?? :shrug:

[David Zephyr]

24. As a boomer, you make a good point.

Bill Clinton, somewhat did the same thing in his biography, spinning a yarn so unbelievable about why he did not go to Chicago in 1968 because he had promised his mom he'd go fishing with one of her boyfriends. Naturally, his "story" can never be proven or unproven, but I am convinced that he thought it might jeopardize his "political career". He then continues with how he sat in a motel catching the news from Chicago and wishing he could be there with..."the kids" like Tom Hayden. Hayden is not only older than Bill, but had bonafides already in the Civil Rights Movement being arrested in McComb, Mississippi when he was a teenager, bringing back POW's from Vietnam and organizing students from coast to coast to mobilize against the war. Some "kid"!

And the "kid" that Clinton mentions, also had been with Bobby Kennedy just the night before he was murdered.

I don't know why politicians feel it is necessary to downplay the heart and passion of activists, but they do.

Still, Obama is a great guy. I hope that someone passes along you kind rebuke.

[hedgehog]

25. Hence the term "Ditto heads". I was at a conference with some Republican types myself,

and it was like being stuck between two Chatty Cathy dolls. Pull the string, and a line of anti-Gore garbage would come out. Pull the string, and another line would come out denying global climate change. It was all pre-programmed, straight to the mouth without engaging the brain. It was rather embarrassing being with these Americans in a group that included Europeans, Brazilians and Koreans. They looked at the Americans as if they were denying evolution.