It’s only my opinion that he was doing his best to grossly exaggerate his role by letting people reach their own conclusions about his statement. I am certain the statement is technically true.

Sorry but the English language does have some meaning. You didn’t say exaggerate. You said grossly exaggerate.

An example of a technically true gross exaggeration would be something like. Ronald Reagan, the cad and his whore Nancy Reagan had their daughter 7 1/2 months after rushing into a marriage when she discovered she was pregnant. See how your complaint fails to rise to the level of gross exaggeration.

Here’s what people who actually had a lot to do with the internet and their views on Gore’s contribution

But the real question is what, if anything, did Gore actually do to create the modern Internet? According to Vincent Cerf, a senior vice president with MCI Worldcom who’s been called the Father of the Internet, “The Internet would not be where it is in the United States without the strong support given to it and related research areas by the Vice President in his current role and in his earlier role as Senator.”

The inventor of the Mosaic Browser, Marc Andreesen, credits Gore with making his work possible. He received a federal grant through Gore’s High Performance Computing Act. The University of Pennsylvania’s Dave Ferber says that without Gore the Internet “would not be where it is today.”

Joseph E. Traub, a computer science professor at Columbia University, claims that Gore “was perhaps the first political leader to grasp the importance of networking the country. Could we perhaps see an end to cheap shots from politicians and pundits about inventing the Internet?”

The issue is that they took something true and turned it into the he can’t be trusted meme which was unfair, inaccurate and a character assassination and IMO shows more about their character than his.

This link also goes into the other gross exaggerations of what was said to get people to buy into the meme that was IN FACT a gross exaggeration.
http://www.perkel.com/politics/gore/internet.htm

Gingrich’s quote is interesting, but I don’t really have any reason to think that congress had that much to do with making the internet what it is, even if Gingrich thinks so. I read a lengthy wiki article on the history of the internet, and congress isn’t mentioned as playing any sort of primary role. Period. That’s why I continue to find Gore’s statement to be the kind of embarassingly self-important stuff that many clueless politicans say with a straight face. And politicians who try to take any sort of substantial credit for the internet are IMO insulting the scientists, mathematicians and other geeks who did all the real work. THAT is where I am coming from on the internet. If Gore had said that he contributed to intermediate development of it (since its origins predate Gore’s congressional arrival, as snopes notes), I’d have no problem with it.

BY the way, you seem far too smart to me to have REALLY missed the point when I talked about how a statement can be both technically true and an exaggeration.

I can’t make myself any clearer than I already have on the matter of perjury.But I would like to point out to you that when I said that that lying under oath was somewhat worse than simple lying, this QUITE CLEARLY does not imply that lying is “ok.” The diatribe that followed from your rhetorical question on this point is a dishonest way to conduct a discussion. I didn’t say lying was ok. Did I? Yet you used that as the basis for a rant. Come on.

Thanks for the good wishes. Bar Harbor here we come.Acadia rules.

At Nick:

I’ve already acknowledged that Clinton’s sins do not for the most part include hypocrisy. [Unless you want to include sitting with your wife on camera and smiling and pretending you have a happy marriage.] In general, I agree that politicians who invoke really high moral standards on sexual matters are the most likely to be shown to be hypocrites. As I alluded to before, libertines are seldom hypocrites. Nature of the beast.

The bigger a deal you make about setting any kind of high standard, the more open you are to looking like a hypocrite if you fail to meet your own standard. So republicans will in general always look more hypocritical as a group when it comes to sex-related stuff. Democrats run the greater risk of hypocrisy on anything where they set the bar higher than the GOP. Like when Jesse Jackson called NY hymietown or when some democratic staffer paid an illegal alien short money under the table to be a nanny. I forget who that was.

My comment about pro family values democrats was a joke. That’s what ba-dump-bump means. There’s a small set. Namely the blue dogs that the more progressive wing of the dem party would love to boot.I made a joke because I had no intention of buying into your framing. I consider guys who cheat on their wives to be selfish hurtful jerks, regardless of whether or not they have held themselves up as public paragons of virtue. While it may be somewhat more delicious to the audience when a really pious pol gets caught screwing a hot young staffer, I doubt that any wife who has been cheated on feels more betrayed than another because of the husband’s politics.

Democrats do not as a rule make as big a deal about personal sexual morals as republicans. When they gain power, they seem to screw around at comparable rates, even if my my perception is that democrats do it just a little bit more often. If you want me to agree with you that democrats are more realistic about the probability of adultery, you’ve got my agreement.

I am not interested in defending David Vitter. I don’t even really know who he is. Apparently he’s a corrupt Republican who has not yet been deserted by his party. Like Bill Clinton I guess, if you want a more parallel example. I brought up Jefferson because he’s corrupt. It was a pretty simple point.

What you want to do is to keep making comparisons of various individuals in ways that prove that conservatives are worse than liberals: less scrupulous, more dishonest, and so on.

It’s a stupid game. I’ve watched it played for 2 decades. No one ever persuades anyone. Each side preaches to its own choir while excoriating the other. It’s all sound and fury signifying nothing.

Which makes him worse than Clinton how?

In terms of sleazy sexual behavior it doesn’t. That’s the point.

The Hypocrisy is the thing that makes Gingrich worse than Clinton.

Personally I don’t find the perjury argument very persuasive. We all know that if he’d been forced to testify under oath Newt Gingrich would have lied his ass off. Which means de facto you are claiming gross hypocrisy is the same as not being savvy enough to dodge the question.

When is Clinton marrying Lewinsky by the way?

Did you mean to imply that doing staffers, who you are not currently married to, is perfectly fine if you dump your wife for them afterward?

What’s a “pro-family values democrat?” I’m almost certain I’ve never seen one, so the answer must be never. Ba-dump bump.

You’ve never seen Bart Stupak in action, then. He is one of the few non-Blue Dog Dems who voted against HR 3200 while it was in Committee. He only did that because the he wanted stronger pro-life language included.

Or any of the Blue Dogs. You become a Blue Dog because you’re a Family Values guy who doesn’t viscerally hate taxes, and likes the minimum wage.

Seriously though, this is the exactly the kind of scorekeeping I’m certain is pointless, especially when conducted via dueling anecdotes, such as :
If I can give an example of a democrat who disgraced himself and refused to resign, is the score tied? OK, who was the dem hiding bribe money under the ice cubes? Or was that guy actually pro-bribery, in which case he wouldn’t be a hypocrite, so he’s not as bad? :-)

That’s a strawman.

You weren’t asking for an objective standard of corruption. You were talking about sex. And I gave it to you. Objectively speaking Gingrich is a hypocrite. So was Vitter. Add Ensign if you want. Objectively speaking Clinton is not.

As to Rep. Jefferson, the only Dems who stood by him after he was charged were folks in his District. And he didn’t have all of them — roughly 1/4 of his district are Dems who voted for Republican Joseph Cao.The House stripped him of Committee assignments. But David Vitter is still in the GOP Leadership.
<blockquote.I do notice that you didn’t describe anything like an objective and verifiable standard. Which is odd since you cited my graf asking about this.
I thought I did. And apparently you understood what I meant the “objective standard” to be because you just tried to use it in your strawman.

You see for me, if both men are equal (or roughly so in terms of lack of character) and one then adds hypocrisy and destruction of another’s character for political gain while having no character in the department he is complaining about, I find that worse. I find it hard to fathom how any objective observer wouldn’t.

As to my Lied under Oath distinction
I never said that you couldn’t think it was a valid distinction. I just think it is simpler. You don’t have to ask me to tell the truth, I do. I think it is insulting to think otherwise to be honest. You simply give IMO too much credit to the magic words. If someone will lie without being under oath, how from such a person do I have any assurance that they will be honest under oath? Other than gullibility?

When Reagan and Bush said they were not in the loop at the Iran Contra meetings and Caspar Weinberger had notes taken during the meeting that said they were. They were lying. In my opinion about something that is actually important. Why should they get a pass? Why when someone testifies before Congress do we even waste our time talking to them if you don’t really know if they feel compelled to be honest. It was called character when I was growing up. Perhaps we could start all hearings with -”Knowing many of you have no character anybody saying something not true is subject to penalties. You don’t have to take an oath it is expected when doing the people’s business and if you are dishonest, we will smite thee ”

I think we both want honest people in government (and the rest of society) Here’s where I part company with you. You said

To lie to an official body which represents the people of our country immediately after promising to tell the whole truth is IMO somewhat worse.

So if they come before Congress – representing the people, as you say – and lie through their teeth but did not take an oath, it’s OK? I just find that silly. I’m not even addressing the question of legality. You are just giving a pass, once again, to the truly immoral.

You shouldn’t lie PERIOD. I shouldn’t do it, they shouldn’t do it, and you shouldn’t do it. If you make me carry around some Holy Book for every person I encounter to take an oath on, I still have to trust their character to be honest. Guess what, the ones most likely to lie are there before or after the book appears. I’m not arguing the law. I just find it to be a pretty inaccurate judge of character.

Have a good time in Maine. and I do mean that ;-)

During my service in the US Congress, I took the initiative in creating the internet.

For the reason that he didn’t say what the cretins have said he said. There was no need. I didn’t hide it and it was in both links Why did you not acknowledge that Gingrich backs him up on it? Every politician is going to say things in a way that is most flattering. The key word in the previous sentence is EVERY. The Internet community has also said that Gore was accurate if you read the links.

The GOP and it seems you desire to turn his answer into a caricature that only shows your desire to not take on what he did say.

Read Snopes – I think you are taking a position that can only be arrived at if you have a bias toward that answer going in. They didn’t. Of course, they only responded to what he said not the spin.

You then said
It’s only my opinion that he was doing his best to grossly exaggerate his role by letting people reach their own conclusions about his statement. I am certain the statement is technically true.

Grossly exaggerate and technically true in the same argument are a bit at odds I would think.

Parse this part of Gingrich’s statement if you will
Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet.

That is a hell of alot closer to (if not exactly equivalent to what Gore said) than your conclusion

So bottom line Gingrich was there and he was in the other party and he refutes you, Snopes refutes you and still you hold to your conclusion.

Too easy to pass up
…to maximize the nature of their personal accomplishments. If they sound too grandiose, people will laugh at you.

It’s what I think every time I hear “dance of comparative political demonology” :-) Put that puppy to sleep

He was asked what made him worthy of voting for. Being there at the beginning of the Net and pushing for it as one of it’s strongest supporters would be something anyone should have been proud of.

My point on him, for the last time, was… He basically is Bill Clinton.

Huh. I though this was my point. Your statement here puzzles me. Because, previously, you said the following:

I guess I expected you to spot theglaring difference. Again, didn’t vote for Clinton either time (I judged him unworthy) BUT to hit Gingrich territory he’d have to actively smear other people for the behavior he was guilty of himself. I do think that kicks things into the major leagues.

See, when I read this, I interpreted it as stating that in your opinion Gingrich was far worse than Bill Clinton. So, which is it?

I have from the beginning had no problem whatsoever with grouping Gingrich and Clinton morally. It’s the claim that Gingrich is way worse that I find absurd. And I believe that all of my previous posts above made that quite clear when I said this

Instead, I’ve invited you to explain why and how they could be glaringly worse than adultery and perjury.

And when I said this:

Which makes him worse than Clinton how?

I have assiduously avoided defending either Clinton or Gingrich, and have forthrightly acknowledged the ample shortcomings of both, and pointed out that neither is entirely lacking in virtue despite these shortcomings.

I must say I find the Lied under Oath thing a distinction of a dishonest man. You either are or you are not honest and you are not better or worse for saying some magic words.

It’s an objective distinction. Lying and perjury are both dishonest, as you point out. I happily agree. Only one is criminal behavior. Perjury. To make this distinction is to acknowledge an objectively verifiable truth about the world we live in.

Of course it is a bad thing to lie. To lie to an official body which represents the people of our country immediately after promising to tell the whole truth is IMO somewhat worse.

It’s not at all clear to me how you could claim otherwise.I must say that I am utterly astonished to see you claim that pointing out an objectively verifiable truth is dishonest.

This time I really am off to Maine. Feel free to have the last word, as I may not get back.

Regards, Krankster.

We all are partisan. We all need to look to try and see our own biases. I also think it is possible to argue HONESTLY from our position. I also think both sides could help to tone things down.

Imagine a President who took leadership and appointed a group tasked to try to turn things around. I could envision something like the Honest Debate Seal that would be made up of an equal number of Republicans, Democrats and a slightly larger group of Independants (of some sort – details to be worked out) in a ratio of something like 3 Dems, 3 Republicans – 5 not tied to a party who would basically give an ok that the party had not crossed the line. (I’d personally think it would make sense to make people no longer in politics as the arbiters. You’d likely have more reflective thought then)

I brought up Chambliss’s campaign. Here’s what two then currently serving Republican’s said Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona said of one ad, “[I]t’s worse than disgraceful, it’s reprehensible;” Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said the ads were “beyond offensive to me. Now if they could make that assessment and say. We don’t support it. Why do some persist in saying it can’t be done? All it takes is honest, fair-minded people.

The ad could still be run (I agree on the First Amendment) but it would also be possible for the media to say, we’re only going to run ads that have the seal since we want a robust but honest debate. Might even say Federal funds could not be used to fund such garbage (I’d rather that my tax dollars not have to go to support what I find is destructive of democracy) That would provide an incentive.

Just initial thoughts but if you can’t sell mayonnaise in an ad without false and misleading information I would think we could get to a point where candidates could get held to some type of standard. With both parties having a stake in the game, I would think it would be in everyone’s best interest to clean up the cesspool. Right now there is a premium for horrid behavior because there is no penalty for it. Why not encourage everyone to sit down and try to make it better? Or do some have a vested interest in things as they are? We need to demand the world we wish to have.

During my service in the US Congress, I took the initiative in creating the internet.

That’s exactly what he said. Everyone should follow word’s link and read the whole quote. Gore was seriously and IMO quite grandiosely patting himself on the back. Everyone got that? He didn’t say he invented the internet. He “only” claims that he deserves serious and substantial credit for the fact that it got developed.

I’ll let everyone out there decide for themselves how much credibility Al Gore deserves for this statement.

It’s only my opinion that he was doing his best to grossly exaggerate his role by letting people reach their own conclusions about his statement. I am certain the statement is technically true. I am just as sure it was fashioned to imply that hey maybe the internet wouldn’t have happened without Al Gore taking the initiative to create the internet. Which seems silly.

The apple-polishing blew up in his face. And there’s a great lesson in this tale for people who make technically accurate statements that are vague enough to maximize the nature of their personal accomplishments. If they sound too grandiose, people will laugh at you.

Skeleton Closet goes after both parties. Here’s what they had to say about Newt

http://www.realchange.org/gingrich.htm

This is the Sheehy article
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newt/vanityfair2.html

My point on him, for the last time, was… He basically is Bill Clinton. Spot a thing you have a problem with and Newt also has it. The one thing that he goes beyond him on is that he started his career while smearing a lady as not having good family values WHILE he was having an affair. He then bowed out after doing it AGAIN while rallying the crowds against Clinton. That to me, makes him FAR worse. I don’t personally see how anyone without partisan blinders on could miss it. Livingston, Hyde and Gingrich all were leading the rope party and all had had affairs. Livingston honorably resigned and was replaced by Vitter who leads the current threesome with Ensign and Sanford that think Clinton should go for the same offense they still hang around with. To paraphrase, “It’s the hypocrisy stupid” :-)

I must say I find the Lied under Oath thing a distinction of a dishonest man. You either are or you are not honest and you are not better or worse for saying some magic words. Some of us noted that Republicans refused throughout the Bush years and even refused to let their corporate friends testify under oath. That to me screamed they thought they could say anything and not be held accountable. That’s dishonest. Reagan and Bush lied about Iran Contra. Clinton lied about sex. I don’t think the two are remotely comparable.

Snopes is always my first stop when on an intellectually lazy or willfully ignorant refutation. Most of the emails I have received could be dispatched in a matter of a few clicks.

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

The destruction of Al Gore’s credibility was the result of two factors. A GOP who were only too willing to twist what he said and who intended to push the lie and a press so lazy that they would repeat over and over something that could have been verified as groundless in seconds. It’s one thing to defend things you say, it makes an honest assessment impossible when you have to defend things you didn’t say and as Gore found, impossible once it becomes the accepted knowledge.

We agree that Gingrich is no dummy and IS highly partisan. So when he defends Gore, I’d think it would have some weight. Here’s what he said “In all fairness, it’s something Gore had worked on a long time. Gore is not the Father of the Internet, but in all fairness, Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet, and the truth is — and I worked with him starting in 1978 when I got [to Congress], we were both part of a “futures group” — the fact is, in the Clinton administration, the world we had talked about in the ’80s began to actually happen.”

How many Republicans have you heard say Reagan ended the Cold War? Did you savage them for it? Even though it was a simplification.

So the people you IMO make possible, completely mischaracterized a statement to create a meme that Al Gore couldn’t be trusted. There were a couple of other stories they trotted out and if you looked at them they were all bs. Love Story was another one. http://www.dailyhowler.com/h052500_1.shtml So, when you are allowed to say or do anything and get a pass from the audience, you don’t run on a record. You run on whatever the population lets you get away with.

Eternal vigilance is necessary or the most immoral people are driving the bus.

Gingrich also committed adultery with a subordinate. His third wife (Calista) was a staffer on the House Agriculture Committee when he started sleeping with her. They were committing adultery during the impeachment hearings.

Which makes him worse than Clinton how? When is Clinton marrying Lewinsky by the way?

How many times have you seen Democrats flock to defend a pro-family values Dem caught with his pants down?

What’s a “pro-family values democrat?” I’m almost certain I’ve never seen one, so the answer must be never. Ba-dump bump. Seriously though, this is the exactly the kind of scorekeeping I’m certain is pointless, especially when conducted via dueling anecdotes, such as :

Just look at Elliot Spitzer. He got caught with his pants down, and was forced to resign in disgrace by his own party. David Vitter won’t resign, and he’s running for reelection.

So, there’s an example of one democrat who resigned after disgracing himself, and one republican who has refused to resign after a similar disgrace. This proves what, precisely?

If I can give an example of a democrat who disgraced himself and refused to resign, is the score tied? OK, who was the dem hiding bribe money under the ice cubes? Or was that guy actually pro-bribery, in which case he wouldn’t be a hypocrite, so he’s not as bad? :-)

If I can name two, am I winning 2 to 1? How about 3? 4?

I do notice that you didn’t describe anything like an objective and verifiable standard. Which is odd since you cited my graf asking about this.

(On a wouldn’t it be nice scenario, Don’t know how it could be implemented but hard to believe that movies are deemed more worthy of scrutiny than Saxby Chambliss’s campaign against Max Cleland. Wouldn’t you think a committee of citizens could look at the fact and say- You’ve gone too far here?)

Time is the biggest practical problem with implementing something like this.

Movies are pretty much done months (sometimes years) before the release date. In a campaign most candidates are still fine-tuning their ads on election day, and it’s common for a candidate to create entirely news ads over the weekend before the election.

That means your Citizens Panel has to have a turnaround time measured in hours, not days. Preferably one or two hours.

Unfortunately even if you manage to create a panel like that you’ve got serious Constitutional issues The best you can probably do is give a logo that says “Government-Approved,” which candidates and interest group will be able to put on their ads.

But I doubt many Americans wouldn’t pay any attention to it, and most campaigns (particularly unethical campaigns) would intentionally flout the standards, condemn the “obvious partisanship,” of the panel when it enforced the standards, and get loads of free media when reporters covered the controversy.

kk said:

Notice that I have at no point defended Gingrich for the sins you have repeatedly alluded to. Instead, I’ve invited you to explain why and how they could be glaringly worse than adultery and perjury. Your answer is that Gingrich is a hypocrite? OK, he’s a hypocrite. That’s the best you got? Compared to perjury and adultery and sex with a subordinate, all of which are arguably criminal by objective standards? OK.

Gingrich also committed adultery with a subordinate. His third wife (Calista) was a staffer on the House Agriculture Committee when he started sleeping with her. They were committing adultery during the impeachment hearings.

I have no problem whatsoever acknowledging that Gingrich acts and speaks in deeply partisan ways. And I have yet to get a compelling answer from anyone I have asked to give me an objective and verifiable standard that divides political partisanship into two categories, one acceptable and the other not. Instead I see both sides repeatedly apply subjective standards which score their team better and the other worse, depending on which principle they have placed at the top of the list at the time, in order to win the particular argument on the table.

How many times have you seen Democrats flock to defend a pro-family values Dem caught with his pants down?

Just look at Elliot Spitzer. He got caught with his pants down, and was forced to resign in disgrace by his own party. David Vitter won’t resign, and he’s running for reelection.

You are really not in any sort of position to either enable or disable the behavior of conservative partisans, because you aren’t one of them. You can’t influence the behavior of someone who doesn’t share any of your perspectives or respect your opinions or insight. People like Glenn Beck, Michael Moore, and so on and so forth are not going to modify their behavior in response to the word and actions of people who are not part of their target audience or their circle of valued advisors and friends.

I accept this.

When I say this, I am specifically speaking within the context of the efficacy of the dance of comparative political demonology. I accept I can’t influence liberal or conservative views within the dance. So I invite them to a different dance. When liberals and conservatives are performing the dance of arguing with the other side that their side is more virtuous than the other, neither side can say anything that will persuade or disable the other.

I really would like to improve dialogue between liberals and conservatives and don’t believe it’s impossible. But as long as the primary interaction between the wings is to argue that one is morally superior to and more virtuous than the other, there won’t be any real progress.

And that’s why I get so irritated by repeated posts about Glenn Beck. Not because I think Glenn Beck deserves defending, but because they inevitably attract comments along the lines of “this just goes to show how morally bankrupt Republicans are.” Then everyone dives back into the muddy rut.

To this day, people think Al Gore said he invented the internet.

I think memes tend to have legs when they ring true. I don’t recall exactly what Gore said, but I did read the actual quote once or twice many years back, and it definitely had that “let me pat me and our team on the back and give us more credit than we deserve” quality. Gore was always polishing his apples, so I don’t feel bad about this one even if the enduring quote is not accurate. John Kerry was the same way.

I guess I expected you to spot the glaring difference. Again, didn’t vote for Clinton either time (I judged him unworthy) BUT to hit Gingrich territory he’d have to actively smear other people for the behavior he was guilty of himself. I do think that kicks things into the major leagues.

Maybe I could spot this supposedly glaring difference if you gave me a detailed account of objectionable things Gingrich did that are worse than

•repeatedly cheating on his wife
•exploiting a workplace subordinate for sexual favors (admittedly, a willing one, but…)
•lying to congress while under oath

Notice that I have at no point defended Gingrich for the sins you have repeatedly alluded to. Instead, I’ve invited you to explain why and how they could be glaringly worse than adultery and perjury. Your answer is that Gingrich is a hypocrite? OK, he’s a hypocrite. That’s the best you got? Compared to perjury and adultery and sex with a subordinate, all of which are arguably criminal by objective standards? OK.

I’ve asked to hold everyone to the same standard. You seem to hold no one to any standard because you feel there are no objective standards and it will always be the way it is.

I’m quite familiar with my positions being spun into the form you cite here. At best, your description is a gross oversimplification. I like to hold people to standards when they are in fact objective.

And I’m deeply reticent to do so as the standards become more subjective. It’s not at all clear to me what objective standard you think you are applying which casts Newt Gingrich in a glaringly worse light than Bill Clinton, unless you really want to count hypocrisy. I’m happy to agree with you that Bill Clinton is not much of a hypocrite. Libertines seldom are. To me, this means that on one moral measures mong many, Clinton might get a better grade than Gingrich.

I have no problem whatsoever acknowledging that Gingrich acts and speaks in deeply partisan ways. And I have yet to get a compelling answer from anyone I have asked to give me an objective and verifiable standard that divides political partisanship into two categories, one acceptable and the other not. Instead I see both sides repeatedly apply subjective standards which score their team better and the other worse, depending on which principle they have placed at the top of the list at the time, in order to win the particular argument on the table.

Oh and for the record, the oral sex is not sex defense was used decades earlier by (drum roll please) Newt Gingrich.

Not familiar? Was it under oath?

I just see you as an enabler. Sorry, but that is the way I see it.

That’s ok with me. You strongly believe that you and I have a certain power that I believe we don’t. “Ennablement”comes from the psychology of substance abuse. It relates to when friends and family in essence support an individual’s bad behavior by failing to confront and condemn it. Only friends, family, and let’s say employers are in legitimate positions where they have real power to “enable” someone.

That’s the real flaw in your argument. You are really not in any sort of position to either enable or disable the behavior of conservative partisans, because you aren’t one of them. You can’t influence the behavior of someone who doesn’t share any of your perspectives or respect your opinions or insight. People like Glenn Beck, Michael Moore, and so on and so forth are not going to modify their behavior in response to the word and actions of people who are not part of their target audience or their circle of valued advisors and friends.

I accept this. Let me just close by touching on a thought has come up as I have thought in detail about this ongoing conversation over the last few days. On several occasions, you’ve made comparisons to parallel aspects of liberals versus conservatives. And I felt this was missing something, and couldn’t put my finger on it at first. But now I think it’s simply that liberals and conservatives don’t really have parallel flaws and blind spots. From my personal perspective, I find that liberals have an unrealistically optimistic view of certain aspects human nature, and conservatives have an unrealistically optimistic view of certain other aspects of human nature. Liberals continue to expect people to be more altruistic and less self-centered, more civically focused and less subject to inertia and entropy than centuries of history has shown them to be. When it comes to things like, say, rising up and demanding political accountability as you describe. But then when it comes to other things like adultery and sleepjng around, then its the liberals who accept human frailty and conservative who are unrealistic.

I’ve puzzled over the gap between what people should do and what they actually do for years. My study of this gap has given me my own sense of human nature. People are not going to rise up and demand substantially better behavior from politicians. Most of the time, they aren’t even really paying attention. They’re not going to rationally conquer their biological urges either. The heart and the loins will keep wanting what they want.

I said and you objected to
Glenn Beck has a “huge” following?

I should have said one of the largest following of all of the commentators on the air. (I also think there is a cascading effect since it floats downhill.) How many crazy things have you heard enter the population that started with some nut starting it. To this day, people think Al Gore said he invented the internet.

You also objected to
He [gingrich] is also immoral in a way that leaves Clinton in the dust.

and responded
As always, I find place like this to be a delightfully easy spot to get off the train.

I guess I expected you to spot the glaring difference. Again, didn’t vote for Clinton either time (I judged him unworthy) BUT to hit Gingrich territory he’d have to actively smear other people for the behavior he was guilty of himself. I do think that kicks things into the major leagues.

I’ve asked to hold everyone to the same standard. You seem to hold no one to any standard because you feel there are no objective standards and it will always be the way it is. The problem I have with that is I had no problem saying Clinton was unworthy of the office. That means I can also objectively have the same view on Gingrich for the same offense and when Gingrich adds hypocrisy to the scale, I have no problem saying it weighs more. Oh and for the record, the oral sex is not sex defense was used decades earlier by (drum roll please) Newt Gingrich.

I just see you as an enabler. Sorry, but that is the way I see it. Have a nice vacation though.

He [gingrich] is also immoral in a way that leaves Clinton in the dust.

As always, I find place like this to be a delightfully easy spot to get off the train. Not just because its the kind of comparison and weighting that I find fruitless. But also because I wouldn’t put many folks on a lower moral plane with regard to honesty than Bill Clinton. Who cheated repeatedly on his wife, and screwed a dumb young intern while President. Which was a reckless and venal and possibly criminal thing for a man in his position to do. Then he lied to congress about it, was impeached, and disbarred. To choose one over the other is somewhat like asking me to say whether vomit or feces makes a more delicious meal. The smart folks step away from the table.

Bruce Cockburn has what I think is a great line “Kick at the Darkness Till it Bleeds Daylight”

Libruls just luuuuuuuuv to say stuff like that. Do you seen any irony in the extraordinarily high probability that this is precisely what Glenn Beck thinks he is doing? Any at all? Even a scintilla? Kick all you want. You’ll kick ’til you die and won’t effect the behavior of those evil conservative partisans one bit. Every kick you take just exhausts you while reinforcing their certainty that they must kick harder and more furiously.

But hey, good luck, maybe the next kick will the one that finally gets a totally different result from every previous kick.

You then said
Anyway, I really don’t know that I expect honest open dialogue from politicians themselves.

We’ll never get it unless we demand it.

While true, this sentence can be shortened to just the first part, and be just as accurately predictive of what the future of American politics holds:we’ll never get it. Some pols will be better and others worse, but they’ll always be politicians. They’ll wrap themselves in the flag and the family and the bible and so on, and try to convince you that they are more strongly in favor of all good things (like family, schools, public safety, and a strong economy) and more strongly against all bad things (like crime and the H1N1 virus and terrorism) )than the other candidate. And on all the issues where folks seem split, they’ll talk out of both sides of their mouths, These are not new things, fads that will pass. They are the nature of the beast. It’s human nature that politicians tell us what we want to hear, because we like to hear what we want.

BTW, dropping off the grid for vacation starting tomorrow.

You said
Well, the problem with your analogies is that they apply to situations where there’s probably an objective standard that’s pretty easy to apply…the law.

That was my point. We as society agreed on a code of behavior that was codified in law. You offered lying and I suggested hypocrisy. Don’t you think we could all agree on those? It’s just a start, but what a start. I would have no problem kicking out anyone of any party guilty of either. It would also be entertaining to hear people arguing that we shouldn’t have those minimal standards. (On a wouldn’t it be nice scenario, Don’t know how it could be implemented but hard to believe that movies are deemed more worthy of scrutiny than Saxby Chambliss’s campaign against Max Cleland. Wouldn’t you think a committee of citizens could look at the fact and say- You’ve gone too far here?)

As to Newt- He is intelligent, no doubt. In an immoral person, I think that makes him more dangerous. He is also immoral in a way that leaves Clinton in the dust. When someone repeatedly shows (and Gingrich has) that he is outside the bounds of honesty and that he will say anything to make a partisan point (including disagreeing with his own positions) he brings nothing to the debate except that he cannot be counted on to offer honesty.

You then said
Anyway, I really don’t know that I expect honest open dialogue from politicians themselves.

We’ll never get it unless we demand it. I’m old enough to remember that it wasn’t always like this. The tolerance of it is what has allowed it to grow like mushrooms on a mountain of manure. It’s why I am so against looking the other way. I have no problem with either side arguing strongly for their point of view. I also realize that everyone looks through their own lens. I expect that. I just want the debate to be honest.

The problem with Glenn Beck is that I think thinking Americans look at him and don’t take him seriously (assuming the rest see that as well) BUT He does have a huge following and he does pull the strings of a segment of the GOP base like marionettes. Think of kooky fringe as a small segment if you will but look at the depth of that pool and you might see there’s more manure to grow on than you might think. Bruce Cockburn has what I think is a great line “Kick at the Darkness Till it Bleeds Daylight”

kranky said:

An individual mandate to buy care? The GOP vehemently opposes this. They believe people should be allowed to choose whether or not to buy insurance. It’s like you’ve never even listened to what conservatives say.

No, it’s like you didn’t start listening to them until they figured out opposing the individual mandate was a good talking point.

You’ll be hard-pressed to find anything like “vehement opposition” from GOP pols before September. Grassley supported it, none of the Senate finance committee GOPers opposed it in May. Frist currently supports it.

I’ll admit their support was tepid, but it was there. And a major reason we know they don’t want to compromise is that they did a total 180 on this issue. It magically went from being a necessary (if regrettable) element of reform to being a deal-breaker.

So to sum up, here’s what the GOP gets out of the Baucus bill:
*The individual mandate, which none of them opposed in May, Grassley voiced support for in August, and Frist still supports.

*A national insurance market, with standard regulations, and increased competition, that Jimmy claims would solve health care completely.

*Anti-fraud measures in Medicare. This is something the GOP wants, and it’s something that’s in the current bill. So by definition it’s a reason for them to support it.

*Deficit reduction via Medicare cost controls. These are not price controls because a) a substantial part of the savings is stopping fraud, and b) Medicare already publishes a price list. It’s called a fee schedule. Nobody has to take Medicare prices, nobody but Medicare has to pay the prices on the fee schedule. The cost controls simply mean the prices on that list will grow slower than currently projected.

And if they asked they’d get tort reform. They’re not going to ask, because if they did the tort reform they want would probably be included, which would make it more difficult for them to convince people like kranky they have no reason to support the bill.