Comments

1
George W. Bush without the academic gravitas.
2
"A renewed country needs a new president," huh? So the GOP is calling their Great Recession the Great Renewal now, is that it? That private enterprise you so laud, the one that needs to be "set free from the shackles of overbearing federal government," is the reason the country is in this mess, you clod.

"The change we seek will never emanate from Washington, DC." ...which is why Rick Perry wants to be President: to preserve the status quo.
3
Right, I'm living in Britain right now, and not keeping up with the day to day news from the US. But after Obama's cowardly and deplorable kowtowing to the crazies over the debt ceiling, I actually told my husband I didn't think I could vote for him again. I actually said I hoped he used Bush's tactic - what was it called? last minute veto? when he'd cross out bits before he signed? - to slightly alleviate the immense harm these maniacs are doing, and that if he didn't, I could never forgive him. They will destroy the country I still love, and he does nothing to prevent this.

But of course, sadly, he will have my reluctant vote.

Because what else can I do?
4
Don't mis-underestimate your fellow American TV zombie morons. This guy is the next president. Get used to it.
5
I'd rather vote for someone who has the guts to hate me to my face instead of stabbing me in the back telling me that they care.

6
I'd rather vote for someone who lies to me and does moderate, reasonable things, even if they're not the best things, than someone who hates me to my face and burns the nation to the ground.

Of course, I'd rather vote for neither, but the two-party system really has us by the balls, doesn't it?
7
As someone who lives in Texas, let me assure you that he is not exactly like George W. Bush. He is much worse.
8
I'd rather vote for someone who held no one accountable for torture, authorized assassination orders for US citizens, institutionalized permanent detention w/o trial, let Wall Street write their own regulations, and focused on debt reduction and war instead of job creation in the worst recession since the 30's.

The two-party system only has us by the balls if we accept that it does.
9
Obama is a monster who is destroying our constitution while most liberals sit on their hands just because he has a fucking D in front of his name. But hey, maybe if we get an R to do THE EXACT SAME THINGS some of ya'll we'll realize they're bad again.
10
Awfully surprised to not see anything on Slog about the Perry/Geoff Connor gay rumors that have been circulating for years...
11
Perry is much much worse than Bush. Republicans generally are not getting any worthier, so ALL of them are worse than ANY of them were 10 years ago.
12
@6 - they totally have us by the balls. As much as I hate the man who both explicitly and implicitly promised us change for the better and then bent us over and fucked us up the ass (um, is Guantanamo still open? I thought that was THE FIRST THING HE SAID HE'D DO), I will not be able to bring myself to vote third party or to not vote. Because the alternatives are sooo... much... scarier.
13
Perry makes Bush look like a cross between Lincoln and Jesus in comparison. This man executes innocent men ON PURPOSE. And his followers love him for it. Bush was a mush-brained incompetent. Perry is pure, stark evil.
14
@13: On purpose huh, care to cite a reference?
16
I hate to say this but he's Reagan and Bush all in one. He has the look of Reagan with the voice of Bush.
17
It's like the GOP decided that Josh Brolin didn't resemble Dubya enough, so for round two they'd make sure that reality matched fiction.
18
@11 - Word. I would seriously vote for Zombie Nixon over any of the cretins in the Republican Party today. Nixon was a crook, but he was an amateur compared to the the current group of criminals. And he did reasonable things, like start the EPA!

@13 - He's like a less stupid, more corrupt GWB who won't even need a Cheney-esque VP to tell him what to do. :(
19
I've been hearing how the two parties are the same and it doesn't matter who you vote for pretty much forever. And you know what? There's a lot of truth to it. But Perry would be immeasurably worse than Obama, and anybody who lets that happen will share in the blame for what follows.
20
You know, for all the Obama hate/"disappointment", I've still not heard a real convincing case made as to what he could have done differently that would've had a real meaningful impact. He didn't kowtow to the crazies over the debt crisis, he held out until the very last minute, pushing & practically begging for a reasonable compromise that would've raised revenues (I know, I know, he didn't "demonstrate leadership", whatever the fuck that means or would've done to persuade a bunch of shit-brained idiots who signed a pact in blood to not raise taxes and weren't going to break under any circumstances.)

Unfortunately, and I'm pretty sure most of you are aware of this, he's working from within a irreparably broken legislative system that handcuffs him from every conceivable angle.

So with no other options available, he finally opted for the only other seemingly reasonable option that had a chance to prevent the downgrade. Had he not agreed to that sorry excuse for a budget, we would've experienced the same (or potentially much worse) ramifications and a far more maniacal response from the right.

Oh, and screw Rick Perry.
21
George Bush without the brains ...
22
Make sure that none of these lunatics become president?

Ha!

Sorry, you're writing for the wrong rag. It only took until comment 3 to get to the "What's the difference?" comment.

These are the same folks who believed that there was no difference between Gore and Bush, so they voted for Nader.

So of course they don't think there's any difference between Obama and Perry.

Seriously, Sloggers are the Republican Party's best friend.
23
Perry is what my grandmother would have called "oily."

Thanks, 20. I couldn't have said it better.
24
@20 Back in 2009 when he still had the the House and 60 votes in the Senate, he could've actually listened to economists that DIDN'T get us into this mess, and pass a big enough stimulus to have gotten us out of double-dip territory, which would've meant jobs, which would've meant the elections of 2012 would have likely gone far differently.

He could've tied any extension of the Bush tax cuts to their raising the debt ceiling. Or he fucking could've used his LEGAL powers granted to him by the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling himself.
25
If change isn't supposed to 'come from Washington' then why is this bozo trying to get himself there?

And when will Americans finally learn that their president doesn't just get to set policy and make law all on his own? Obama can't get stuff done when the Republicans are spending all of their energy trying to tank the economy so that people won't re-elect him.
26
@22 "These are the same folks who believed that there was no difference between Gore and Bush, so they voted for Nader."

Just because you have standards, doesn't mean you're blind to differences. Would Obama be better than Perry? Most likely (though I do think that there's a far from imaginary chance that having such an openly far-right president during this period of unending high unemployment could possible galvanize the left in a way having a falsely liberal president makes impossible, just typin').

I'm not blind to the differences betwixt the candidates, the problem is I just can't, like you can apparently, blind myself to the knowledge that Obama has ordered the assassination of US citizens, that he has institutionalized permanent detention w/o trial, that he has chosen to hold no one accountable for torture. What's so messed up about actually having standards for politicians you support, and refusing to vote for those that don't meet them?
27
@26 : Why are we blinding ourselves? I mean, seriously, you don't think all that would've happened under a McCain? And more? More worse more? It's a bit much that you assume Obama supporters are blinding themselves to these things. And your solution, the seeing solution I guess, is what again? Let a Republican win so they can take the blame for a trashed economy while trashing it further in the hopes that a true Liberal will rise (2007 anyone?) that won't moderate-out once elected?
28
you girls should just lay back and enjoy it......
29
I don't know what would've happened under McCain, I just know I don't want 4 more years of this guy. My solution, is for people to fucking wake up to the fact that we're only trapped in a two party system as long as a plurality of the electorate believes we are. That's it. If the democrats realized governing as extensions of the corporate boardroom actually kept them from being elected, they'd change. But they don't because they know they have nothing to fear from liberals. We're only in the lesser of two evils trap as long as we believe we're in it.
30
if obama is going to win. let him win w/ the votes he has courted. conservative votes. as long as progressives continue to support anyone who calls themselves a democrat, regardless of how much of the right wing agenda they support, progressive values & ideas will never be represented in our government. we have reached the point that when a progressive votes for a democrat, they are throwing away their vote. until progressives consistently withdraw their support from the democratic party there is no hope for progressive change. we have no political power. zero. they only way to get any power is to withdraw support from the democrats. and yes, that means republicans might win. so what. we're enacting their agenda anyway.
31
outercow, fuckin' ditto on everything.
32
So the defense of Obama rests in our ignoring the fact the Dems had control of both the House and Senate the first two years of his administration?

That's called a weak defense.

33
@15: That's why we should eliminate the death penalty so our governors and presidents don't have to make life and death decisions when it comes to pardoning. But these things are the fault of the DA, not the chief executive. But indeed, that's very regrettable.

Still, Perry would be a breath of fresh air. It takes a Repubican Texas governor to clean up the depravity left by a Demoncratic president. Also, Anita Perry will be a delightful fit in the east wing.
34
29, funny you don't know what would have happened under mccain, but you claim to know what would have happened with a bigger stimulus package.
35
"I've still not heard a real convincing case made as to what he could have done differently that would've had a real meaningful impact."

He could have acted like he was large and in charge the first 2 years (which he was with a Democratic Congress). But no.

Didn't cave on the debt ceiling? He held out and held out and at the last minute it got done? Not much for leadership there.

It's not that he's a bad leader but his style is compromise and consensus and that ain't the Republican way and won't ever be. They are vicious, myopic people who want to burn this country to the ground if they have to in order to get control back. (Yes, I believe that.)

Obama has got to man up and start ignoring them. Just push the agenda he elected on and just tell them no the same number of times they say no to him.
36
I think a lot of you that have no respect for Obama whatsoever need to take a trip outside the liberal east and west coasts and see what he's up against. He's not a dictator, thus he has to work with people you'd rather ignore, over run, destroy, hate on, whatever. As much as it irks me too, dumbasses deserve basic respect and the right to vote and the right to be represented. It's the drawback to democracy.

As far as this Rick Perry joke, I think he will fail. He has shitloads in common with GW, but he is not as earnest.

Go Obama. Yeah, he's not me, he doesn't agree with everything I think, but he is stopping the bleeding and working with people that would test every last sane nerve of every one of us.

Point by point, he has made huge strides on all the major issues UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES. The circumstances being the hard core red state CITIZENS OF THIS COUNTRY, just like us. If you want to ignore the circumstances, then you are not being serious about what is going on, and you are just using the forum to work out your daddy issues. Sorry, but grow up.
37
@34 Most sane economists say the stimulus wasn't nearly big enough, if we had a much bigger one, more middle class people would've had more money, so there would have been more demand for goods and services since more people could afford them, so more demand, more jobs. This is pretty basic economics so far. It would follow then that there probably would've been a lot less resentment at the democrats in 2010. The aggregate actions of large groups of people are just "a bit" easier to predict than individual psychology.
38
Rick Perry is to Chevy Chase what Sarah Palin is to Tina Fey.
39
Just what we need, another Texas govenor to solve all our problems, just like the last one did. One can hardly wait.
40
If all the people complaining about the rigged two-party system put all their political will into passing instant-runoff voting or some other more representational voting scheme, I'd march right alongside them. Great idea. Start from the grass-roots, work on the local level first.

But if your proposed solution is anything along the lines of teaching the Democrats a lesson by withholding your support, I have no time for you. You hate Obama for compromising with conservatives, but your proposed solution amounts to complete capitulation. And the more effectively you evangelize for the capitulation-by-principle you so emphatically advocate, the more swiftly your complete disenfranchisement will proceed.

Taking your ball and going home is not a winning option.
41
@40 All of the above, Proteus. We definitely need to reform our voting system and indeed more energy needs to be put into that. But why can't we try to teach the Democrats a lesson too? The Tea Party tried it on the Republicans and it worked! They primaried every moderate Republican they could, and now practically every GOP rep is voting like Ayn Rand for fear of getting primaried again. As a strategy for bending a major party farther from the center it WORKS. Granted this is harder to do at the Presidential level, but far from impossible (and of course should be attempted at all levels).

And I for one don't hate Obama for compromising with conservatives, I hate Obama for BEING a conservative. A progressive wouldn't turn a blind eye to government authorized torture, wouldn't authorize permanent detention w/o trial, wouldn't authorize the assassination of US citizens w/o trial, wouldn't extend tax breaks for the uber wealthy while cutting programs for the poor in a recession with monstrous unemployment.

It's not capitulation if I actually don't want him to win. I'm in the fucking game, man. What part of "trying to get people to realize they're only trapped in the two-party system as long as they believe they are" am I not explaining enough? If enough progressives and independents disenfranchised with Obama finally realize it, then we just finally got our enfranchisement back.
42
I've got a bad feeling about this
43
Lets wait and see if Obama signs off on cutting Social Security and Medicare...before I give you my final final answer.
44
OuterCow -- take a chill pill and let the adults handle this.
45
@41: What part of "I've heard this song and dance a million times before" don't you understand? And the Tea Party? Really? All the Tea Party proves is that, as long as your "populist movement" is entirely funded by billionaires as a means of legislating their wish-list in the most expedient manner possible, they'll pay to print the posters and run the footage of you and your friends waving signs (with slogans they wrote) on the TV networks they own. You know what? That's not a strategy that a true progressive movement can emulate.


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