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Originally Posted by Drolefille
Many of the policies in the healthcare bill. The Jobs bill. Voting against the stimulus but writing letters to get money/projects for their districts.
It's why I like Scott Brown, he doesn't seem inclined to be as caught in the "say no, no matter what" game and instead is voting for what he and his constituents want and would benefit from.
I didn't say Palin gets what she deserves, I said I personally would make fun of the really really silly things she said. I had forgotton about the whole "it's not her kid" thing. But yeah that way crossed the line.
For me it's more, I know Obama didn't have a ton of experience. Being from Illinois I'd gotten to know him, and he convinced me he was capable. Palin never could do that, and I didn't like that she was the posterchild for female politicians either.
I don't disagree that it's been there on both sides and that it's gone back for quite a while the Swift Boat people personally offend me as there were people wearing purple heart bandaids. I have no love lost for John Kerry, but you're going to insult every wounded soldier just to make a political point?
I still can't find the graphic but essentially the claim was that within the first 1.5 years they'd debunked way more rumors/myths/etc from either Bush term. Which just makes me wonder whether it's because of this president or because of the internet, or because the opposition has encouraged and sometimes outright said the same things.
But then, I remember yelling at an anti-war protester that no matter what you think Bush is still your president. Do you think I would be wrong in saying that a lot of the opposition to Bush was over what he'd done, while perhaps an uneven proportion of the opposition to Obama is over who he is or what they think he will do? WMDs vs "taking our guns"?
I'm not a fan of ideological "purity." The idea that no democrat could support Bush or any other republican candidate or idea is as silly as saying no republican can support something Obama does or supports. (or support libertarian/green/or i don't know anarchist ideas) Same with "internal" criticism, I like Obama but I think he's screwed things up.
I agree though that we need to get away from the idea that everything we disagree with is destroying America in someway or another. Unfortunately I think it takes more than leading by example. I don't really know what it will take though.
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I think there's a perception that Obama is much further left than most people are comfortable with. I don't know how rational that perception is, particularly when you look at most of what he's actually done, but I think it makes it hard for anyone from a purple to red district to support his policies and remain viable. I don't know that I read these politicians behavior as a desire simply to undermine or resist Obama personally, but more because they think they know what their constituents will tolerate. If they don't get the concessions that they think they need or if they get them but the public backlash is still too great, they aren't willing to sacrifice their careers for it.
Brown's position is solid because he's from a pretty liberal state. He has a luxury that most Republicans don't when it comes to moving to the center or moving from the center to the left.
I favor ideological purity on some level, but I don't support pure party loyalty at all. A lot of what Republicans have done when they've been the majority party is pretty indefensible by conservative or small government standards.
I think you may have interpreted something I wrote more broadly than I intended or maybe you weren't really responding to me, but my leading by example comment was really only intended to be about the public discourse stuff. I think complaining about how bad the other side treats people just feeds the problem, but it's hard to resist too. You know I was outraged about how Palin was treated during the election, but I'm pretty sure my outrage didn't contribute anything.