I miss having a guy smarter than an eggplant running the country.
That was my first formulation. But as people keep on pointing out, we don't know that Bush is stupid. All we know is that what he says, when not scripted, is stupid. I miss someone who could say unscripted, meaningful, coherent things.
Yeah, that's a pretty impressive performance by WJC. I wouldn't say he's unhinged at all there, though. It's a sort of measured, reasonable, and immensely well-informed anger that isn't exactly what characterizes most of the angries on the web (left or right). I think he's able to voice a really strong criticism of the question and the intent behind it without also implicating everyone who might initially be supporting that question. That's really, really tough to do, but it's clearly the best way to handle that sort of spin.
Man, and that sweet, sweet grasp of the facts involved with an issue. You never appreciate what you have until it's gone.
Clinton comes off as passionate and intelligent. Was he this good as president?
Wallace comes off as a tool of the highest order.
Was he this good as president?
I used to watch the State of the Union Address because I was interested.
Well, yeah, we love this, but Drudge has also been linking to it with the tag "Purple faced rage for about a week. That's part of the strategy, you'll recall, of portraying Hillary as "angry." I don't mean this as a defense of the "calm down" strategy, just pointing it out since I know a lot of you don't check Drudge.
but Drudge has also been linking to it with the tag "Purple faced rage for about a week.
Yup. My point is that I really think that "Democrats look unhinged when they're angry: they'd be so much more effective if they calmed down" is nonsense. That's anger, and it's effective. I think Wallace was ashamed, or at least afraid, and he should have been.
There are situations anger is for, and we're in one right now, and have been for a while -- if it's embarrassing to be angry now, when will it ever be appropriate?
"Purple faced rage for about a week. That's part of the strategy, you'll recall, of portraying Hillary as "angry."
Bill's immune to this in ways Hillary isn't. Any linking to that footage is good. Bill's popular, and the only people who are going to watch that and think "unhinged", wouldn't vote Democrat in a thousand years.
Except... his face wasn't purple. And I thought Clinton kept his cool considerably better than I would have.
Maybe Drudge meant, "purple headed rage"
I know a lot of you don't check Drudge.
Zing!
[Slinks shamefacedly away].
That's part of the strategy, you'll recall, of portraying Hillary as "angry."
Which doesn't, of course, mean that Hillary should be less "angry," just that Democrats and their allies need better PR. We'll all be better off when the Democrats are better at labeling their opponents than vice versa. Part of that involves actually being angry, then announcing your anger; and then repeating your angry words over and over again.
And Drudge meant "one-eyed purple-headed spitting RAGE."
What would it mean for HRC to be less angry?
Hey, I've got an idea: maybe the Democrats could stop planning their every move based on what the right wing will say? It puts them at a serious disadvantage, because the right is not restrained by reality or coherence and can therefore respond negatively to anything. You can't win a debate against someone who's not debating.
(Even our intelligent, Ogged-defended conservatives enter debates primarily by means of counter-factuals, if you'll note.)
Geez, Adam, calm down. You sound unhinged!
10: Well, even if he wasn't purple-faced, Ann Althouse said he was fat and had an ugly suit. Sensible moderation!
Let it be known that Ann Althouse is a nasty old crone.
I think Clinton is great in this. What kills me is how anyone is still implying that 9/11 was all his fault. Bush had been president at that point for what, almost a year? Was he even thinking about bin Laden? The bottom line is cliche but true--it happened on Bush's watch.
Both Althouse and Instant Pundit do the "Clinton's just hurting himself strategically by looking so mad" line. Sadly, I suspect they really mean this; I could respect them more if it were a put-on.
WJC improvising a multi-stage coherent argument really does bring up the unflattering contrast.
it happened on Bush's watch.
Yabbut the buck stops over there.
OK, if Tester gets away with "I don't want to weaken the Patriot Act. I want to repeal it," I think we have the proof that forthright liberalism is the way to go.
God, can we take up a collection to provide Bill with all the interns his heart desires in order to get him to change his name or something and run again? Please?
Ignore Drudge. That kind of seriousness is *precisely* the kind of thing we need to convey. It doesn't look wimpy, it doesn't look flip floppy. Focused anger and serious intent about serious things are *fine*. Just no spittle and no screaming.
I'll bet if we stick the guy in a red wig and rename him "Clilliam Winton" nobody will be the wiser.
I was gonna suggest Will Rodham, myself.
OK, if Tester gets away with "I don't want to weaken the Patriot Act. I want to repeal it," I think we have the proof that forthright liberalism is the way to go.
Don't forget the rest of it, which was (IIRC), "The Patriot Act is why we need to keep our guns." The coastal Dems need to sort out with whom they want to ally.
I'd read the transcript a day or so and am interested in the added impact of seeing the online clip.
Reading it, I was very impressed at the coherent, improvised argument Clinton presets. Watching, I'm impressed with Clinton's intensity-- a good sort of intensity that makes his argument even more compelling. The high level at which he's winging it is pretty amazing.
And so I look at the Insty and Althouse posts FL mentioned. And think that the communication problem between the left and right is really about reality, or what people say they see. I look at this intereview and don't see the same event that Althouse saw. I don't see in the transcript the things insty says he saw. I've had times in the past of thinking he was opperating at some sort of superficial level that was the moral equivalent of stupid. Althouse too. Other times, I wonder if they're being honest. But now, I think they look at what I see as green and call it pink.
26 -- It's been a bit of a theme for me today, but under what circumstance would a coastal Dem prefer Burns to Tester?
I think SCMT is harping on a theme of looking for votes in the West vs. the South, although the Southern voters are not stereotyped as gun haters either.
28: Sorry--West/Southwest or South. We're going to have to dicker, and my suspicion is that I'm more comfortable giving up stuff (e.g., gun control) that it would take to get the Western-y vote than the Southern vote. That's a pure guess, though.
The Crooks and Liars video has the beginning of the interview, so you can see their exchange before Wallace brings up Bin Laden. When he does, it's fun, at least for me, to watch Clinton switch from affable good old boy to ass-kicking lawyer.
Also see this LGM post partly about Althouse and her conviction that Clinton's socks are the real story.
There's no difference between Althouse's coverage of politics and her legendarily interminable rambling about America's Next Top Model, except that the latter is more substantive and coherent because she actually cares about it. She'd fit in with the complacent, reactionary, superficiality-obsessed Beltway pundit class just fine.
Oh. Tester has a good shot at reclaiming the Mansfield seat. Easterners are always confusing Montana politics with that of Idaho or Wyoming. It's had a long Dem tradition (with Butte as the locus) and went blue, in state races, in 04.
33: Since when is LGM a right wing blog?
We're going to have to dicker, and my suspicion is that I'm more comfortable giving up stuff (e.g., gun control) that it would take to get the Western-y vote than the Southern vote.
Ideology aside, giving ground on the gun control front won't really affect anything, and should be more attractive from that standpoint alone.
How would you say it compares to the Dakotas? They're also out of reach in presidential elections but have many statewide Dems (5/6 in Congress right now, I think).
Anyway, even if Montana were bluish I think winning there while forthrightly calling for a repeal of the Patriot Act would be notable; if it works there it could work in swing states, and if in the west/southwest we can take CO NM and AZ then WY UT ID and Lubbock can go hang.
west/southwest we can take CO NM and AZ
We didn't lose Iowa and Ohio by much, and I suspect the Western strategy just might help us take those as well.
The Dakotas are more west than south, obviously, but I think there's also a kind of great lakes/upper midwesty thing going on about just being plain decent hardworking people and wanting to elect someone who's decent and straightforward and not overly ideological. The west cares about civil liberties, although the godawful rich born again types like half my mother's family are just jerks. The south cares a lot about god. Both the south and the west, I think, are touchy about being looked down on or seen as outsiders, and thus suceptible to the "eastern liberals" stuff. Regional distinctions are really pretty marked and that's one of the big reasons why minimal federal government intervention is a good line to take out here.
Of course, this is all moot because of the whole electronic voting, election stealing crap.
The south had a pretty racy fling with the midwest in season one, but then the southwest told the midwest about how the south had cheated on it with the west, and they broke up. I hear the writers in season two are going to have the west and south actually get into a long term relationship, but I don't know what the fanbase will think about that. There are a lot of folks out there still longing for a south-northwest hookup, but that just wouldn't be true to the characters, IMHO.
ND has an interesting progressive tradition. SD has had Daschle and McGovern. Still different from Montana, where the engine of the Dem party was unionized miners, not prairie populists.
Pat Williams of MT is one of my favorite politicians ever -- he retired from the House in '96. Butte guy, former teacher. As forthrightly liberal as anyone in the House in the 80s and 90s.
Brian Schweitzer is working out a viable Democratic path for the non-coastal zone. It doesn't translate to the other western states. WY doesn't have the same union tradition, and I have the impression -- unsullied by actual knowledge -- that the miners of northern ID are outnumbered by Mormons of southern ID. Hmm, I was forgetting about Frank Church. Who never served with another Dem Senator from Idaho.
WY has a Democratic governor, but as I understand there was a huge confluence of factors in his factor. All I know is what I read online; the only western places I've lived are Utah and Lubbock, which, no. (Though there is a Democratic Congressman from Utah.)
there was a huge confluence of factors in his factor.
The doctors in the ER had a good laugh afterwards.
confusing Montana politics with that of Idaho or Wyoming. It's had a long Dem tradition (with Butte as the locus) and went blue, in state races, in 04.
What makes me laugh when I go there is that (in Northern Montana anyways) there's an espresso shack like every 100 yards. Clearly a blue state. You can't make this stuff up.
Incidentally, those of you who haven't made it out to Glacier National Park have no idea what you're missing.
NM's solidly Democratic at the state level, and has been for decades. On the national level it wavers; it's been trending Republican lately, but it may be due for a correction soon. In AZ and CO the big factor is immigration, both Hispanic and Anglo. Both groups tend to be more Democratic than the previous population, and both states have become more friendly to Democrats recently, but it's too early to tell how far that's going to go.
I'm sure the Gov of WY is a fine fellow. I'm a little irrational on the subject of that state, and so will leave it at that.
(Though there is a Democratic Congressman from Utah.)
Yeah, but he's the son of a pretty popular Dem. governor from the 80's who died of cancer and has the downtown courthouse named after him. Not sure how the odds are for Dems not named Matheson.
49: Jackson is nice. Also Thermopolis.
gswift, I love Glacier like no other place, but your links don't work for me. Access Denied.
I've never been to Havre or Glasgow, but I bet the espresso penetration is not quite so complete up there.
gswift, I love Glacier like no other place, but your links don't work for me. Access Denied.
Links to pics in blogger can be screwy from this site. Not sure why. Seems hit and miss. Sometimes I paste in a separate window and it works better.
Or, maybe it's Bogger's problem and I only notice it from here.
Does espresso penetration, when not describing a particularly forceful coffee enema, actually correlate with voting for Democrats? Let's not go Kausy.
The NW drinks espresso b/c it's dark half the year. It's not really a democratic thing, although it certainly means that one could turn the latte-sipping liberal stereotype on its head pretty fast up there.
Does espresso penetration... actually correlate with voting for Democrats?
It was a pretty noticeable. Of course UT and ID not great benchmarks with the Mormon thing, but still much higher than the area in GA where my brother's at.
54: Don't knock it. Everyone claims that one of the big GOTV advantages the Pubs have is their ability to predict their voters from consumer profiles.
I suspect there is some correlation; it's not so much that drinking espressos makes you vote Democratic, but more that it's the sort of thing highly educated professionals, who tend to be Democrats, have a taste for, so when they move into an area espresso shops will spring up.
I notice that the pic error from Blogger is "Generated Mon, 25 Sep 2006 05:39:38 GMT by photos2.blogger.com", but the links were all "photos1.blogger.com...". I'm going to try a test changing the links on those same pics.
Fuck. Still not working. Does anyone know what would cause this?
Googling around I found this explanation, "When someone who doesn't already have them in his cache, the blogger.com server prevents remote linking when a new IP tries to directly access the file, etc..."
A test from another site indicates this is true. Fucking Blogspot.
If you paste the url into your browser, it works. You just can't get there from a link.
On the substantive anger issue, I'm undecided. On the one hand, anger is totally appropriate, and as Clinton shows here, it can be used effectively as a tool of political rhetoric. The Republicans know that, and knows there's anger out there, which is why they're already trying to establish the "Hillary (and the Dems) are angry" frame. The subtext is that women (and the Dems) are emotional and unfit to govern. On the other hand, this is Bill Clinton, and the fact that he can make angry work tells us almost nothing about whether anyone else will be able to pull it off. A big part of the answer will be whether a candidate is pursuing the "fire up the base" or the "convince swing voters" strategy.
Cutting and pasting is capital C-r-a-p. Flickr is pretty sweet. I'm a convert. Glacier!
You east coaters can now weep and wonder why God decided you weren't worthy of real mountains.
Why am I looking at Prussian Blue's camping pictures?
How many albums do they sell? Those college accounts aren't going to fund themselves.
Clinton should spend the rest of his life giving speech lessons to Democrats. Democrats are so fucking mealy-mouthed and flat.
Espresso in Montana: there's pretty intense Hollywood presence in the beautiful areas. Perhaps by now the locals have accepted that, but back 20 years ago they were pretty grumbly.
The worst states for Democrats are in the Northern Rockies, Great Plains, Great Basin, etc. This is because they're almost all white, but the whites there are probably more receptive to Democrats than whites in the South, where white and black effectively vote against one another.
On the other hand, this is Bill Clinton, and the fact that he can make angry work tells us almost nothing about whether anyone else will be able to pull it off.
See, this seems wrong to me. We have a million ineffective politicians, and one effective guy. And all the ineffective politicians are cool, and reserved, and never let themselves sound excited because that would mean they were unstable. And the effective guy gets angry when he's angry, and stays rational, sensible, and an effective communicator through his anger.
The lesson I take from that isn't "Boy, no one else could possibly pull that off" it's "What say we try doing what he does?" Newt Gingrich wasn't 'uniquely effective' in demonizing Democrats -- he passed out memos explaining exactly how he did it so that people could emulate him.
But the other rule is "don't try to be somebody you're not" If you're cool and reserved, you have to go with that, because you'll look a lot worse trying to match somebody who's been using a different style all his life and feels natural doing so. If you're a Northeasterner, you need to find the way of expressing that really is natural to you.
Honestly, you Southerners and Westerners, we do get angry and show it. Our candidates, from wherever, are not going to get past the authenticity test media gatekeepers have been applying as anybody but themselves.
I think that at all levels (candidates, spokesmen, etc.) Democrats should be looking for people who are able to talk. Kerry was awful. Dukakis was awful. Mondale was awful. Gore was awful as a condidtae, though he's improved. Most of the big-name Senators are awful.
A lot of it comes from spending your whole life in bureaucratic, academic, and committee environments where frank talk is death, and various sorts of evasion, cliches, and jargon are absolutely required.
I actually have to wonder if there's anyway to go BUT anger.
The accusations the Dems are levelling are serious, and they have been for some time. Everyone knows they think, even their moderates think, that Bush has done some seriously wrong things. I could see it being the case that they have to be angry in order to convince people. A lot of people get swept up in passion, and I think there are also many people who will dismiss serious charges if the accusers don't display the right amount of passion.
I'm not happy about it, but it seems likely that anger would be a great campaign strategy.
How did I miss this other masterful Clinton refutation?
Don't know how good I am at reading Clinton, but it looked to me like he was going to give a calm response until Wallace interrupted him with his petulant 'let me finish the question' thing.
I think 72 is as wrong as can be, as are the many suggestions in this thread that Clinton was winging it-- giving an honest, from-the-gut reaction. I think it's likely he expected the question (or some variant thereof) and planned the bulk of his response. He probably even rehearsed in front of the mirror, trying to come up with a tone and gesturing sufficiently angry yet not over the top. That's the sort of thing good politicians do, and Clinton is (whatever else) certainly a good politician.
I don't think the speech was any less effective for this, mind you, but to pretend it was improv seems naive.
I could of course be wrong. But I doubt it.
good point, Brock, although I'm not sure Clinton would even need to specifically prep for that question before going on Fox. He's been dealing with that particular question for quite a time now, so he's clearly already developed an articulate response. It seemed like a lot of Clinton's annoyance came particularly from Wallace's cowardly method of reaching the question, hiding behind the old "viewers want to know" canard. But again, this is part of Clinton's political genius, he can make predeveloped ideas seem off-the-cuff and spontaneous, and he's very adept at expressing passion without making the viewer/listener feel attacked.
Clinton's anger works b/c it comes from (or seems to come from) sincere feeling; it's anger bred of concern. The Hillary = angry meme isn't about anger per se, you dorks: it's a code word for "hairy-legged bitchy feminist."
So, what do you think? Is Jon Swift really an honourable conservative, or a sort of low key version of Gen. J.C.Christian?
Today's NY Post headline is blaring at us that Condi says Clinton's Terror Story "Flatly Wrong".
77 - Jon Swift is a parody artist. I'd stake my life on it.
Was Clinton prepared? He should have been, but he didn't have to be. That guy is fantastic at thinking on his feet and dealing with whoever he's with. I used to love his press conferencees even when I disliked him (which was right up until the impeachment). He just was so quick, so smooth, and so good at channeling the conversation.
