Good Morning!
(Boy, am I glad this week is almost over…)
1 There is an Ethics Alarms category for incompetent elected officials like Maxine Waters, but in general I try not to state the obvious, and Rep. Waters has been an embarrassment to her district, her party, the House of Representatives, her party, the Congressional Black Caucus, her gender, her race and democracy generally for decades. Her latest statement that “Impeachment is about whatever Congress says it is. There is no law that dictates impeachment” is an especially striking example of her ignorance, her defiance of her ethical duties, and her sick partisan extremism, but still: Who that has watched this woman can be shocked at this?
During a Congressional Black Caucus town hall yesterday, Waters called on the black community which, to our pity and its shame, trusts this despicable woman to support impeaching President Donald Trump because “there is no law” restricting the practice.
Waters either is unaware of or chooses to defy the Constitution’s Article II Section 4:
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
A. That’s law. In fact, it’s the law of the land.
B. “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors” is not synonymous with “Anything Congress decides”
One of the worst things about Waters is that she makes citizens who trust her more ignorant about their own country. Her characterization of impeachment is simply false. It is also a prelude to an anti-democratic, ant-Constitutional system in which the Legislative Branch can veto the results of an election as long as one party has a sufficient majority. In this regard, Waters is not alone: this has been a theme of the Democratic “resistance” since the election. That alone is just reason for any rational American to vote against the Democrats, and this would be true if a werewolf were President.
It’s always fun to guess whether Waters is stupid, or lying. I vote stupid. “Bill Clinton got impeached because he lied,” Waters said yesterday. “Here you have a president who I can tell you and guarantee you is in collusion with the Russians, to undermine our democracy. Here you have a president who has obstructed justice, and here you have a president that lies every day.”
Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath, which made him unfit to be a lawyer, much less make the laws. He was also impeached for lying to a grand jury, another crime, and obstructing justice for real, not by firing his own subordinate.
An ethical party would censor Waters the way Republicans supported censoring Joe McCarthy. At this point in its history, the Democratic Party is closer to following Waters’ unethical conduct than opposing it.
2. Major League Baseball is now scrambling to lock a barn door after a completely predictable and avoidable tragedy, with a toddler in the stands being seriously hurt by a line drive foul ball during a game in Yankee Stadium. For over a century, spectators came to games understanding that balls (and sometimes bats) flew into the stands, and that they could cause injuries, so fans had to be alert, bring gloves if they chose, or sit further away from the field. The legal principle is “assumption of the risk,” and it was a condition of entry, written on the back of every ticket. I had, and have, no problem with this. Proximity to the field is one of baseball’s charms, and when someone is hit by a ball because they were looking at their cell phone while the game was going on, I am less than sympathetic.
A few years ago there was a spate of young children hit by balls—Think of the children!-–and MLB directed teams to install netting protecting the stands to the dugouts. This diminishes the quality of the game experience, but MLB was frightened to death that a lawsuit would prompt an activist, baseball-hating judge to void the “assumption of the risk” provisions entirely. The toddler was sitting just beyond the netting, so now it is inevitable that MLB will direct teams to extend the netting, because, again, Think of the children!
The teams, however, not to mention parents, should have thought of the children long before this happened. Babies and toddlers who are incapable of watching the game or protecting themselves shouldn’t be seated near the field. Parents who take children that young to baseball games and sit near the foul lines are endangering them, and obviously so. Many years ago I was sitting in field box seats at an Orioles game and noticed that the women behind me was holding sleeping infant less than a year old. Finally I turned around and in the subtle, diplomatic mode of expression readers here know well, I said, “All it will take is a hard line-drive into this section and a bad luck, and your baby will be dead. I sit here a lot. The balls come screaming into this section. If your child isn’t hit by a ball, it will be pure luck. Do you understand? I don’t want you to feel you weren’t warned, and I don’t want to feel responsible when you are screaming and crying as you hold your baby with a crushed skull.”
She left, surprisingly. And a ball did come screaming into our section. It would have missed her baby, but not by much.
Now that we have set out of this slippery slope because teams were too stupid to place restrictions on where irresponsible parents could sit with small children, a precedent has been set. Some kid will be hit in the head by a home run in Fenway Park’s bleachers because Dad was texting (home runs take a while to get out there), and next there will be netting between the bleachers and the field too. All because nobody considered the worst case scenario, a key feature of playing Ethics Chess.
Ethics Alarms 
Re: #2. I recall the incident at Dodger Stadium – in the 1970s, I believe – when a foul ball hit by Manny Mota struck a young person (boy of about age 11, I believe). The boy died soon after. Jack, you mentioned luck, in your lecture to the lady with the infant. That is why I always bring a glove to the ballpark, no matter where I eventually sit or stand, or what level of ball. The glove is a good luck charm to me, if nothing else.
What explains the number of batters this season who, while in the batter’s box, have pummeled their own faces by their own foul balls? It happened to Colin Moran of the Astros, and, I believe, to your team’s man, Dustin Pedroia. Those are just the ones I know of, off the top of my head. I don’t recall so many players getting hurt like that in any previous season.
Seth Smith also got hit in the face this year by his own foul ball.
Better put netting around players’ heads, then…
Well, honestly, I did think that if I was Colin Moran, freshly recovered from facial reconstruction surgery, I would have gone to bat (and batting practice) with some kind of protective mask, for an indefinite time forward.
Here’s the Mota Story – Alan Fish, age 14, was killed.
It affected Mota, too.
http://www.insidesocal.com/tomhoffarth/2010/05/16/40-years-ago-to-1/
Surprising fact from the article, which was written in 2010:
I wouldn’t have imagined the number was that high.
Amazing that these people keep claiming that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians®™, while either ignoring or outright defending Democratic collusion with the broadcast and print network media.
I wonder how much longer we will have to wait before they start blaming the Jews®™. Will they demand that Robert Mueller investigate ties between the Trump campaign and the Jews®™?
That’s it! Netanyahu’s Revenge! Hlary wasn’t elected because of the ISRAELIS – payback for Obama’s efforts to undermine Bibi’s re-election.
funny
When will progressives realize that the modified Golden Rule is in effect: as you and yours have done to to others will be done unto you?”
The right is awake and watching. Some of them are using leftist tactics against leftists.
Off topic but of interest to Jack: why, do you think, have we already set the record for number of home runs in a season?
Is it great hitters, poor pitching, or something else?
Even more perplexing is the number of hitters who have doubled their lifetime best home run records this season. Many hitters are having a field day! (sorry)
With so many ‘extra’ home runs being belted one has to ask if why. Is it the recently exposed schemes to read pitchers before the pitch? Is it more tightly wound balls? Juicing? Are pitchers simply giving up more to stay healthy and prolong their careers? Many ERAs are up suspiciously as well.
Just a discussion for a Friday
I have been thinking about writing on this, but EA could easily become a baseball blog, and Tex hates baseball. In order, I think it is…
1. Higher average fastballs.
2. Pitchers throwing hard without proper command.
3. Matrics, which convinced many hitters to change their swing to more of an uppercut, as Ted Williams was telling us decades ago. For about two decades, the Charlie Lau/Walt Hriniak school had players like Mattingly and Boggs chopping DOWN at balls. Grounders are hits much more than fly balls.
4. The end of the stigma over strike-outs.
5. Periodic variations in the baseball.
6. Harder bats
7. Season to season fluctuations.
The Times has a piece today arguing that it could be drugs. I doubt it.
HA! Full disclosure: I love what baseball means and I love all the life analogies that can be communicated through baseball, and I do enjoy the baseball posts (especially when they are analogies to life).
What kills me with the sport of baseball and ever getting around to watching a game is the eternity it takes to watch a single game.
That’s a respectable distinction!
Kind of like Don Quixote, Shakespeare and Moby-Dick….
It’ll be something I’ll have to find a way to get over though, because when my son hits the age to be interested in sports or some physical activity, of the big 3, I won’t encourage basketball, and I will forbid football, so my wife and I will encourage him to try baseball.
Some of the Founding Fathers recommended riflery as an alternative to ‘stick and ball sports.’
Though it has become a sport, I don’t count it as such. I see it as a basic and essential skill for complete and responsible citizenship.
A DVR is your friend. Try to start the game late, fast forward past bits you find slow, and catch up at the end or shortly thereafter.
I cut 30% of of tv shows (commercials) and sports is easier than that. If I just have to watch the Spurs (rare) I watch in fast forward, and repeat interesting plays. Baseball requires more attention as a slower sport, but the time compression is greater.
Need I say to strive not to learn the score before you start?
Oddly enough, my family watches the Super Bowl the next day and fast forwards through the game: we want to see the commercials ! 🤗
Well Maxine Waters has no law degree (was previously a Head Start teacher and graduated from Cal State LA with a degree in Sociology so how do you expect her to know anything about US Constitutional Law? She’s a social justice warrior type and a disgrace to the District she represents.
#1 It’s become quite obvious that to Maxine Waters, and many like her, the United States Constitution is an obstruction to her ideological views and political goals.
How long before these idiots propose in Congress to abolish the parts of the Constitution that get in their way?
More on Maxine: https://www.citizensforethics.org/press-release/maxine-waters-named-most-corrupt-member-of-congress/
Like Rangel, Conyers and others, she’s protected by her race. Sad, but true.
Jack,
Does the Constitution define “high crimes and misdemeanors”? I ask not because I think she’s right, but it would be nice to cite chapter and verse as to all the reasons she’s wrong.
Thanks.
Some interesting information on just what constitutes “high crimes and misdemeanors”: http://www.constitution.org/cmt/high_crimes.htm
Based on the resounding success of Hillary’s campaign relying on denigrating an entire half of the electorate as evil incarnate, the latest Star Trek franchise seeks to repeat her level of support in the viewership of its newest series by making the Klingons caricatures of the Trump campaign:
http://www.salon.com/2017/09/22/star-trek-discovery-creators-our-klingons-are-secretly-trumpsters/
Assholes
It’s ok!
Star Trek: Discovery is groundbreaking, featuring the FIRST African American lead in ANY Star Trek series to date!
Oh
Oooo
Until the article writers realized that Star Trek’s *greatest* series, Deep Space 9, already broke that glass ceiling… sending article writers back into ‘amend history’ mode as they rewrote how this is the first series to feature an African American FEMALE lead!!!
I swear, it’s like we suffer so much historical amnesia about race relations. It’s like we forgot that race relations were literally NOT AN ISSUE in American civic life before, say, the era of 2008-2016…
But somehow. Something happened during that time frame that set us back decades. And no one wants to admit that things were going swimmingly, so when African americans do something *now*, it’s like the first time they’ve ever done anything of note in evil racist America.
Uhura kissed Kirk. In 1965. On national TV. Gene got away with it, too.
Race relations are far worse than 10 years ago.
Uhura kissing Kirk was a deliberate political statement, though. And there was a ton of controversy over it.
There was a fine-points argument about that. Some thought it was okay because Uhura kissed Kirk. Rather than the other way round.
You must be mistaken, Pennagin. No one cared about race until Obama.
Those of us not on the left coasts got along MUCH better than today, thank you very much.
“Some thought it was okay because Uhura kissed Kirk. Rather than the other way round.”
THAT is a disgusting way to view things…
It’s like we forgot that race relations were literally NOT AN ISSUE in American civic life before, say, the era of 2008-2016…
Have you lost your goddamn mind?
No, I haven’t.
Then why would you say something as breathtakingly stupid as “race relations were not an issue in civic life” prior to 2008?
I can see arguing that race relations were not *as big* of an issue prior to the Obama era. You’d get no argument from me if you had said that.
Instead, you ludicrously argued that they weren’t an issue at all.
Because you’ve lost your damn mind.
Because it’s not breathtakingly stupid.
It is. Have you already forgotten the racial politics of Hurricane Katrina? The smear that John McCain had illegitimately fathered a black child? Again, I admit that race relations were not as big an issue in the early 2000s as they were now. But to say they weren’t an issue is so absurdly oblivious that I can’t believe you said it. I legitimately don’t believe that you believe it.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2000/07/11/us/poll-finds-optimistic-outlook-but-enduring-racial-division.html
Best part about your dizzyingly asinine diversion is you succeeded in avoiding the obvious thrust of my comment: how journalists, in their biases, completely forgot the black lead of DS9 when reporting on the latest series.
When you make an obviously correct point in the same comment as you make a completely asinine one, you can’t blame the person who focuses in on the asinine one for focusing on that. Especially when you are consistently an asshole to said person.
You are absolutely right to observe that the rush to paint the new lead as the first African-American lead in Star Trek is a symptom of something larger. You were absolutely wrong in your diagnosis, which was that race relations were not an issue in American civic life prior to 2008. It would be far more accurate to say they were not as big of an issue in the 90s and early oughts as they became in 2008. But they were still an issue.
It’s like if a doctor saw symptoms of the common cold and diagnosed their patient with cancer. Yes, journalistic bias in favor of declaring “firsts” and against recognizing prior progressive accomplishments on the grounds that “we have so much work ahead” is a problem. The cause of that problem is not that Barack Obama invented the concept of race. (Yes, that’s hyperbole; let me immediately explain that I mean the cause of that problem is not that race relations being an issue is suddenly a Thing. It’s that race relations are More of a Thing now then they were ten years ago.)
Great ramble.
If that’s how you’re going to react when one of your assertions is proven wrong, fine. Whatever suits you. I trust you won’t repeat the false assertion.
LOL. Says the guy who used hyperbole in the same thread he was crying about the use of hyperbole.
If you’re saying that your claim that Hillary called half the electorate deplorable throughout the campaign was your hyperbolic way of saying she called a quarter of the electorate deplorable once, I wish you would have clarified that much earlier. I really thought you meant it literally. My mistake.
You still don’t get the original argument do you? It wasn’t about a one off quote. It was about the whole attitude that Hillary boosters espoused.
I thought it might be, but when others make arguments about the attitude Trump supporters espouse, you say such arguments are “caricatures based on projected Leftist neuroses.” So I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. Now I see that you believe picking up on subtext and “attitudes” is OK when it comes to your opposition, but not with people you support.
Might make a difference when the off quotes support the assumed general attitude. That’s when one can attribute a “picked up subtext” to an actual attitude.
Is it your position that Trump supporters do not frequently espouse attitudes of xenophobia, racism, or isolationism?
Not anywhere near the level your ilk believes, nor based on some simplistic notion of what your ilk consider xenophobia, racism, or isolationism.
Not to the level worthy of the vilification your ilk relied upon to advance your ideology.
Certainly not to the level that it justifies the new series letting a vast swathe of Americans know they are hated by the shows producers. As I said, I don’t think it’ll be a winning strategy for the series.
Fair enough.
Chris,
Your comment is blatantly obtuse.
You’re trolling again!
Star Trek commenting on contemporary political issues? How dare they!
Here’s the argument:
“We felt like it would be interesting to really look at what’s going on in the United States,” Aaron Harberts told Rolling Stone, noting that the series’ primary villains — an extremist Klingon sect — scream “Remain Klingon,” something deliberately reminiscent of “Make America Great Again.”
As Harberts put it, “It’s a call to isolationism. It’s about racial purity, and it’s about wanting to take care of yourself. And if anybody is reaching a hand out to help you, it’s about smacking it away . . . That was pretty provocative for us, and it wasn’t necessarily something that we wanted to completely lean into. But it was happening. We were hearing the stories.”
What exactly do you object to about this allegory?
It’s stupid? MAGA means that under Obama the USA was weak, economically sluggish, over -regulated, rejected core American values, anti-democratic and dysfunctional. That was obvious to anyone not trying to make a clear message into a sinister code.
We will never agree on that.
And that reveals your character MORE dreadfully than the character of those you truly believe think that MAGA is about all the various evils your people said it was.
Chris wrote, “We will never agree on that.”
You’ll “never agree to that” because your view of the world is warped by permanently attached industrial-strength weapons-grade thickened ideological blinders. #Cornelius_Gotchberg
I’m sure we can all agree on that.
There’s nothing to agree on in res ipsa loquitur matters, which this is. Deciding that one will not interpret what is clear and straightforward based on language’s unambiguous meaning is not a disagreement, it’s just obstinacy.
And refusing to hear clear and obvious dog whistles is deliberately obtuse.
“Star Trek commenting on contemporary political issues? How dare they!”
Faux outrage over a protest never made by the target of your faux outrage. A particularly annoying species of round-about strawman.
“What exactly do you object to about this allegory?”
That it’s based entirely on the same hateful worldview that drove your candidate to vilify half the American electorate. It’s based purely on projecting your own notions about the evils of Trump onto Trump’s voters. So evil, the best method of portraying them are as the Star Trek’s arch-villains.
That you have to ask this question implies intentional obtuseness…maybe to be a devil’s advocate or something? That anyone has to explain this to you tells more about your own neurosis and hate-blinders than it does about those you believe are worthy of the vilification.
But, since you insist:
Make America Great IS NOT about “isolationism…racial purity.wanting to take care of yourself…smacking it away a helping hand”. Those are all the hateful stereotypes the Left did it’s best to win with by hanging those slurs on Trump voters, since, face it, the message of the Left, in the wake of the Obama disaster, is empty and hopeless.
As I said, the creators of this new franchise are going to try the highly successful Clinton strategy: Call half its potential viewership monsters.
Bet it will work swimmingly for them.
Your characterization of Hillary’s campaign is simply based on a lie. At no point did she “denigrate half the electorate” as evil, and in no way did her campaign “rely” on that. She said–once–that about half of Trump supporters (which would be under a quarter of the electorate) were “deplorable,” and that the rest were good people with valid concerns. She immediately walked that back by saying she shouldn’t have said half were deplorable, and emphasized that the majority of Trump supporters were good people with valid concerns.
But the idea that #MAGA has nothing to do with racism or xenophobia is willfully obtuse. It’s like you’ve never even said anyone use it, or how it’s used.
And the idea that Star Trek shouldn’t take aim at Trump, when it has told cautionary tales about what he represents for its entire history, is crybaby whining.
Chris wrote, “But the idea that #MAGA has nothing to do with racism or xenophobia is willfully obtuse.”
Now you’re intentionally being an asshole political hack.
“You’ve been going strong all day. You deserve a break today.”
Oops, that should have been…
“You’ve been trolling strong all day. You deserve a break today.”
Sure. Correctly noting that #MAGA is often used to signify racism and xenophobia is “trolling,” while Tex’s lie about Hillary’s campaign is OK, because you hate Hillary more than Trump.
Chris wrote, Correctly noting that #MAGA is often used to signify racism and xenophobia is “trolling,
Yes Mr. Chris, it’s trolling, own it.
Make America Great Again is no more used to signify racism and xenophobia than your own name; you’re self-proclaimed “correct” claim is a false flag, it’s a dog whistle to ignorant people. The interrelationship between the phrase and racism and/or xenophobia is a bull shit false flag smear being ginned up by leftists political hacks such as yourself; there is no relationship and claiming so makes you appear to be an idiot – which is your usual mantra.
You’re a leftist political hack and a troll and recently it seems that you’ve been intentionally push buttons trying to bet banned.
Chris wrote, “Tex’s lie about Hillary’s campaign”
I’m fully aware that was you trolling again; but, please provide proof that what Tex wrote was a lie.
I already provided a factual summary of exactly how tex’s claim is wrong; you’re free to show me where I’m wrong. But it’s interesting that you don’t ask tex to prove his case that Clinton’s campaign was based on calling Trump supporters evil.
Perhaps I should not have called his claim a “lie.” Perhaps tex is referring to the subtext of Clinton’s campaign. Then again, I’ve just been informed that reading subtext into a campaign is bigoted and wrong, so that can’t be it. This is so confusing! Is reading the subtext only OK when it comes to the people you hate?
Chris,
If you make idiotic claims, you’re going to be branded an idiot. You’ve been intentionally projecting that you’re an idiot, you’ve earned the branding that you’ve been trolling for, wear it with pride.
As for what I think tex has refereed to…
In a Clinton campaign speech, Hillary said, “you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it.”
Roughly 55.5% of the United States eligible voters voted in the the 2016 election; roughly half of those voted for trump and Clinton; roughly 128.7 million people voted; Clinton branded 32.2 million of them as being a “basket of deplorables”, “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic”. Clinton branded half of Trump supporters as monsters, equivalent to being evil, and the political left proceeded to project that branding across the entire swath of Trump supporters and they, including Clinton, still does today.
Maybe using the phrase “an entire half of the electorate” was numerically inaccurate but labeling it as a lie is more of your typical bull shit trolling hyperbole. How’s your trolling working for you?
Zoltar, can you define what you mean by “trolling?” I think we have very different definitions of the word. You seem to be using it to mean “anyone who has a different opinion than me, and who refuses to bend to my will by accepting that my opinion is objectively correct.” If that’s not what you mean, can you clarify?
But the difference between a quarter and a half was not my only problem with tex’s statement, as I explained. He claimed the Clinton campaign “relied” on demonizing Trump supporters throughout the campaign. One statement, which Clinton immediately walked back, does not justify that assertion.
I think it might be fair to argue that the subtext of the Clinton campaign was “Trump supporters are bad people.” But if so, this was in response to the subtext of the Trump campaign being “Be very afraid of Mexicans and Muslims, and keep scary foreigners out of the country so we can be great again.” And I think Clinton’s subtext was at least as subtle as Trump’s.
Trolling describes a commenter who is only participating to disrupt the discussion, irritate readers or the author, and is not engaging in good faith—arguing for the fun of it, simply being inflammatory and provocative with no other purpose.
I’m going to respectfully decline your request on the grounds that I have no wish to rehash an old argument. I hope you will respect my decision; if not, you are free to act foolish. Have a nice day.
Of course I respect your request, Zoltar. I hope you have a nice day as well.
I think that’s a pretty good definition, Jack.
I don’t think there’s a need to respond to this.
Pretending like one comment she made didn’t mean what it did mean is a refutation of what every objective observer saw is a self-evidently broken argument.
Thanks for this.
“And the idea that Star Trek shouldn’t take aim at Trump, when it has told cautionary tales about what he represents for its entire history, is crybaby whining.”
More sideways strawmanning in the same vein as before. Of course Star Trek is free to make political commentary. Did anyone argue otherwise? NOPE!
I just think its probably a bad move to make the arch-villains of your show a series of Trump-voter caricatures based on projected Leftist neuroses. Clearly this does also move beyond mere political commentary.
But I know you are too far gone to realize that.
The caricatures are based on what many Trump-voters actually say and do. Trump and his most loyal followers lend themselves well to caricature because they behave like caricatures.
Star Trek has always stood against xenophobia, isolationism, strong man-ism, and cults of personality. If you don’t believe many (not all) Trump supporters exemplify those ideals constantly, you haven’t been paying attention.
Pretending like one comment she made didn’t mean what it did mean is a refutation of what every objective observer saw is a self-evidently broken argument.
I don’t know what *this* sentence means. It’s a self-evidently broken sentence.
I assume you mean I’m pretending Clinton’s “deplorable” comment didn’t mean what it clearly meant. Not so. It meant that she said half of Trump’s voters were deplorable, once, then immediately walked it back. What you said it meant was that she called half the electorate deplorable consistently throughout her campaign, and relied on this strategy. I trust readers can decide which of our interpretations of her statement is more accurate.
Chris wrote, “I assume you mean I’m pretending Clinton’s “deplorable” comment didn’t mean what it clearly meant. Not so. It meant that she said half of Trump’s voters were deplorable, once, then immediately walked it back.”
Immediately?
Really?
She insulted 32.2 million “deplorables” on Sept. 9, 2016 by branding them as “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic”, “some of those folks — they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not American”
So Clinton “immediately walked it back the statement, interesting. What part of that did she walk back?
By “walked back”, do you mean Clinton actually apologized?
Remember she intentionally insulted 32.2 million people on Sept. 9, 2016, so when did this immediate “walked back” apology take place? I want to read her actual words where she walked this back.
Where did that “walking back” fall on the apology scale?
Remember Mr. Chris, the political left proceeded to project Clinton’s branding across the entire swath of Trump supporters and anyone that argued against Clinton and they, including Clinton, still project that branding today.
“I don’t know what *this* sentence means. It’s a self-evidently broken sentence.”
It’s pretty easy, but I’ll do the work for you:
“Pretending like one comment she made didn’t mean what it did mean”
Your attempt to soften the clearly intended slur against a vast swath of the voting public, which is firmly in line with the electioneering strategy of the Left, this go around.
“*that pretense* is a refutation of what every objective observer saw”
Picking that one quote of Clinton’s, and arguing that it didn’t mean what it did mean, and then using what you think is a refutation of that one quote, does *not* change what every objective observer saw. Wow, I can’t even explain this simple sentence without repeating the sentence.
“is a self-evidently broken argument.”
This one is even easier. The act of strawmanning a cherry picked argument that you misconstrue is a self-evidently broken argument
Again, I did not argue that Clinton’s statement did not mean what it meant. You did.
Suit yourself. Pick a minor detail that diverts from the very original (and accurate) observation about the strategy of vilification that was relied upon.
Chris wrote earlier, “It meant that she said half of Trump’s voters were deplorable, once, then immediately walked it back.”
I replied in part, “Remember she intentionally insulted 32.2 million people on Sept. 9, 2016, so when did this immediate “walked back” apology take place? I want to read her actual words where she walked this back.”
Support your argument Chris, where is this walk back statement from Clinton?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Clinton+walks+back+deplorable+comment
My comment above was unnecessarily snarky, and after reading Jack’s post today and some of the comments, I’d like to apologize and try again, Z.
Here is some of what she said:
“Last night I was ‘grossly generalistic,’ and that’s never a good idea. I regret saying ‘half’ ― that was wrong.”
Not the world’s best apology, I’ll grant you.