Are Republicans Stupid, or Do They Think We're Stupid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will. I denounce and distance myself from my party's crazies. I am still a Republican though.

Yay! What we need are more moderate Republicans to make their voices heard and to do as the PP has done.

Haven't Kathleen Parker and David Brooks distanced themselves?

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will. I denounce and distance myself from my party's crazies. I am still a Republican though.

Yay! What we need are more moderate Republicans to make their voices heard and to do as the PP has done.

Haven't Kathleen Parker and David Brooks distanced themselves?

Yes, Parker and Brooks have and I commend them for it. However, they are journalists rather than politicians. The politicians are still pandering. I also applaud the PP who distanced her/himself.

[Anonymous]

Here is of one your top three leaders. Nice. I didn't see a thread about Democrats being stupid anywhere so I added here.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid apologized Saturday for making racially insensitive remarks about Barack Obama during the presidential campaign.

Journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann reported the remarks in their new book "Game Change," which is scheduled to be in bookstores Tuesday.

The authors quote Reid as saying privately that Obama, as a black candidate, could be successful thanks, in part, to his "light-skinned" appearance and speaking patterns "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

"He [Reid] was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama -- a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,' " Halperin and Heilemann say.

"Reid was convinced, in fact, that Obama's race would help him more than hurt him in a bid for the Democratic nomination," they write.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/09/obama.reid/index.html[url]

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:Here is of one your top three leaders. Nice. I didn't see a thread about Democrats being stupid anywhere so I added here.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid apologized Saturday for making racially insensitive remarks about Barack Obama during the presidential campaign.

Yes, people make mistakes. Some people apologize for their mistakes. None of the three Republicans quoted in my original message has apologized for misrepresenting 9/11. To the contrary, apologists for those individuals have insisted their remarks were correct. The issue is not "stupid" remarks, but intentional misrepresentations of fact.

However, I'll note that during the Democratic primary, almost the same point made by Reid was frequently made by Clinton supporters right here in this forum. At the time, I disagreed with that opinion and repeatedly contested it.

Since you are interested in "stupid" remarks, here is what Newt Gingrich said the other day regarding Michael Steele:

"Michael Steele makes a number of old-time Republicans very nervous. He comes out of a different background. He went to seminary ... he's African-American ..."

So, according to Gingrich, "old-time Republicans" are racist and anti-Catholic. Of course, no one whose party is led by Michael Steele should try to provoke a discussion about stupid remarks, but that's another story entirely.

[Anonymous]

Concerning the Reid remark: I thought I was pretty sensitive on racial issues, but I don't quite see what is so offensive about the remark. Is it that he used the word "Negro"?

Can someone enlighten me?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is of one your top three leaders. Nice. I didn't see a thread about Democrats being stupid anywhere so I added here.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid apologized Saturday for making racially insensitive remarks about Barack Obama during the presidential campaign.

Journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann reported the remarks in their new book "Game Change," which is scheduled to be in bookstores Tuesday.

The authors quote Reid as saying privately that Obama, as a black candidate, could be successful thanks, in part, to his "light-skinned" appearance and speaking patterns "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

"He [Reid] was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama -- a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,' " Halperin and Heilemann say.

"Reid was convinced, in fact, that Obama's race would help him more than hurt him in a bid for the Democratic nomination," they write.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/09/obama.reid/index.html[url]

You're reaching. He made a dumb comment, he didn't try to foist a lie on the American people on the airwaves. You're not comparing apples to apples.

[Anonymous]

So when a Republican says something incorrect you assume they intentionally lied to the American people in order to deceive them.

But when a Democrat mis-speaks it is either taken out of context or they apologize later for the misstatement and then it is ok.

You don't think you are applying different levels of scrutiny based on one's political affiliation.

Do you really think that the Republicans created some back room strategy to try and pull the wool over the eyes of America by telling them there were no terrorist attacks under Bush. Really? Think about it for just a second.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you really think that the Republicans created some back room strategy to try and pull the wool over the eyes of America by telling them there were no terrorist attacks under Bush.

They created a backroom strategy to pull the wool over the eyes of America and convince the country that there was a connection between Iraq and 9-11 so that they could justify invading Iraq. Who knows what the hell else.

[Anonymous]

Here's what I think: They make these accusations in hopes that the listeners are stupid and will believe them. Really, they believe EVERYONE has forgotten when these events occured. It makes me sick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Concerning the Reid remark: I thought I was pretty sensitive on racial issues, but I don't quite see what is so offensive about the remark. Is it that he used the word "Negro"?

Can someone enlighten me?

Check out this discussion by two staunchly Republican commentators, in which one maintains it was utterly racist and the other says there is "not a scintilla" of racism:

Do any of you see a parallel, as claimed by Cornyn and Steele (not Jeff, the other one), between Reid's reference to Obama's skin color and Trent Lott's comment that the country might have been better off if the segregationist campaign of Strom Thurmond for president in 1948 had succeeded?

[Anonymous]

Reid was right, but it was not a 'PC' thing to say. Reid is quickly backpedaling when it would be nice to have a real discussion on the merits of what he said. Alas, our culture is saturated in PC (do liberals/democrats have a role in that?), so he chose to apologize when he meant every word. For me, that is the hypocrisy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reid was right, but it was not a 'PC' thing to say. Reid is quickly backpedaling when it would be nice to have a real discussion on the merits of what he said. Alas, our culture is saturated in PC (do liberals/democrats have a role in that?), so he chose to apologize when he meant every word. For me, that is the hypocrisy.

I bet that if he were a Republican, at least some of his colleagues would be brave enough to make the point you and Will have, that what he said is a correct assessment of American gut feelings: light is a bit easier for whites to accept than dark, and sounding white sure helps. It does not make one a racist to admit that race is a factor in American life, nor does an old guy's use of the terms that were accepted when he grew up mean he's a racist -- just that he's an old guy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So when a Republican says something incorrect you assume they intentionally lied to the American people in order to deceive them.

Not necessarily

But when a Democrat mis-speaks it is either taken out of context or they apologize later for the misstatement and then it is ok.

What he said was an asinine comment, an opinion many find objectionable. Not a lie and not a "mistake". He owes apologies all around. What the original post is talking about is politicians INTENTIONALLY MISLEADING the public. Like, "I did not have sex with that woman". That is, perhaps, a comparable instance of lying. Trying to throw Reid into the mix does not make your argument look stronger.

[Anonymous]

What bugs me is the double-standard in the history re-writes. I'm willing to accept foisting 9-11 off on Clinton's failures in intelligence, IF Clinton can get credit for pulling the U.S. out of the Bush-pere recession.

And, if an attack in Bush's first year is Clinton's fault, shouldn't then an attack in Obama's first year be Bush's fault?

[Anonymous]

Reid was right! Obama had a chance to get elected because he is light-skinned and talks like a white guy. That's all that he was saying and it's true. There are people who wouldn't have voted for him if he were dark-skinned and talked like Jesse Jackson. They wouldn't have consciously thought that but it would have played into their decision.