Do we have media full of Ron Burgundies, or just partisan hacks?
When MSNBC got an advance copy of Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell’s convention speech, the network landed another scoop. “For four years,” McConnell planned to say, “Barack Obama has been running from the nation’s problems. He hasn’t been working to earn reelection. He has been working to earn a spot on the PGA Tour.” A fool might think this a not-exactly-veiled reference to the fact that Barack Obama plays a lot of golf, more than 100 rounds since he was elected. But MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell is no fool.
Asked what he made of the line, O’Donnell confidently replied, “Well, we know exactly what he’s trying to do there. He’s trying to align . . . the lifestyle of Tiger Woods with Barack Obama.”
Martin Bashir asked O’Donnell whether he really believed that. Couldn’t McConnell just mean what he said?
O’Donnell went into full eye-roll mode. “Martin, there are many, many, many rhetorical choices you can make at any point in any speech to make whatever point you want to make.” According to O’Donnell, McConnell’s speechwriters chose the golf reference because “these people reach for every single possible racial double entendre they can find in every one of these speeches.”
Bashir, who for a moment gave the impression of neural activity, was convinced. “Wow,” he exclaimed. “Things are getting lower and lower by the day.”
I vote for both.
Wow …
“Anchorman” really isn’t a bad analogy for that level of delusion.
So I wonder, are they dumb enough to believe what they’re spewing or do they just think their audience is dumb enough to buy it?
Do they even have an audience outside the studio?
If someone keeps hearing all those dog whistles, it’s likely because they’re a dog.
While watching at home, Chris Gerrib exclaimed, “Wow! That O’Donnell is one brilliant, incisive guy! He’s almost at Obama-level intelligence!”
Larry J,
if it barks like dog, and it runs like a dog, and it humps like a dog…wait, that was Clinton.
Racial double entendre? What? He’s black, he’s on a golf course so he should carry someone’s clubs “…or that’s what Conservatives think anyway”, ?
If the press hears dog whistles, and Obama eats dogs…
I’m reminded of that scene in “Bowfinger” where Eddie Murphy’s character, upon hearing a member of his entourage comment, “It’s ain’t Shakespeare,” makes some tortured argument that the guy was calling him a, “spear-chucker.”
The only correct answer to that question is “Yes”.
McConnell’s line is stupid, not racist. Cable “news” is a wasteland.
Stupid? Were it Harry Reid saying the about George W Bush (had Bush played as much golf as Obama) you would have thought it brilliant.
Yep, Jim. It’s “stupid” to expect the President to do the nation’s work and not just to polish his swing.
Just as stupid as it is to expect him to do the job he was elected to, and not to spend three years shirking while in continuous-campaign mode.
Stupid of the Democrats to expect either one, that is. Us on the right side of the aisle knew what he was long ago.
It’s “stupid” to expect the President to do the nation’s work and not just to polish his swing
Do you honestly believe that Obama’s performance as president has been hampered by the amount of time he’s spent playing golf? He spends much more time exercising — has that hurt his presidency as well?
It’s just bizarre for McConnell, who’s sworn to oppose everything that Obama does, to complain that Obama doesn’t do enough.
spend three years shirking
So handling the worst economic crisis in 70 years, passing the biggest ever stimulus, passing the biggest ever health care reform, reforming student loans, bailing out Detroit, pulling out of Iraq, overthrowing Gaddafi, killing Bin Laden, drone-killing hundreds of others — that’s shirking? You may not like the things he’s done, or how he’s done them, but it’s stupid to argue that he hasn’t done enough.
“Do you honestly believe that Obama’s performance as president has been hampered by the amount of time he’s spent playing golf?”
That would be being generous, blaming his performance on golf. Maybe the truth is he’s just incompetent and golf has nothing to do with it.
Do I honestly believe…?
Not just yes, but hell yes. His time off or time ON with the Hip-Hop, Hollywood crowd has taken up time he should have spent doing things like getting a budget passed or talking to our ONLY Democratically elected and overseeing government in the Middle East, Israel.
He had time for Talk like a Pirate Day but NOT for Israel. Is that YOUR idea of honest, hard work Jim?
he should have spent doing things like getting a budget passed
The set of budgets that can pass the House, and the set of budgets that Obama would sign, have no intersection. The problem isn’t that he (or the House) hasn’t spent enough time working on the budget. It’s a deadlock that will only be broken by an election (and perhaps not even then).
He had time for Talk like a Pirate Day but NOT for Israel
Yes, he took five minutes to have his picture taken with a guy in a pirate outfit in 2009. No, he isn’t going to have yet another meeting with Netanyahu this week, the week of a UN meeting and the week before the first debate. Do you really think that another meeting is going to make a difference in US policy?
George W. Bush spent less time on the job than any other recent president, Obama included. But he wasn’t a failure because he was too lazy to do his job, he was a failure because he was bad at what he did do. Does anyone actually think he’d have been a better president if he’d just put in longer hours?
Ron Suskind
Richard Miniter
Bob Woodward
All of these book writers, stupid? Fore!
Confidence Men
Leading from Behind
The Price of Politics
“Do you honestly believe that Obama’s performance as president has been hampered by the amount of time he’s spent playing golf?”
Actually, I believe that Obama’s performance as President has been hampered by the fact that he is incompetent at any basic political skills, bigoted, lazy, egotistical, spiteful towards the nation he’s supposed to be caretaking for, unpatriotic, and as corrupt as the day is long. Even for a Democrat, I mean.
Do you honestly believe the time he’s spent on the golf course has been spent producing the results he claimed he would work for during his campaign?
…actually, you probably do.
DaveP – Continuous campaign mode seems routine to anyone looking at it from outside (like me, a Brit) and is far from being restricted to {}bama.
I suppose it’s an inevitable result of people wanting to be President for the power, the privileges and the hand-and-foot service for as long as they are President. Is all that crap really necessary?
If being President was regarded as an unpleasant duty (and possibly a hazardous one) that was entered into for the good of the country, America might have better Presidents who thought of the good of the country instead of their own. I believe it used to be that way – when did it stop?
It stopped long before any of us were born, perhaps as far back as Jefferson. I look at it this way – the president (any president) is the nation’s most successful politician at that moment in time. The overwhelming majority of the time, I distain politics in general and politicians in particular.