DISQUS

AMERICAblog: Ignoring the 800 pound question in the room

  • Nigel Elliott · 1 year ago
    Breaking....

    Pennsylvania Democratic Presidential Primary
    Pennsylvania: Clinton 47% Obama 44%
    http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/...
  • Polly_Tics · 1 year ago
    I do not think we should judge Hillary on whether or not she chooses to stay with her husband during tough times, but do believe we should come down hard on matters of war, national security and governance for those are the issues that concern us all.
  • Mike_H · 1 year ago
    I completely agree with you, Polly_Tics -- no politician should be asked about the inner workings of their marriage, and Hillary's decision to stay in her marriage after Bill's cheating was revealed is a solely personal matter. I actually find it quite condescending to women AND men when people make the assumption that the only reason she stayed was for crass political reasons.

    There are tons of couples in this country who have had to deal with the issue of fidelity, and some of them break up, some of them stay together, some of them come to an "arrangement", but in each case it's a personal decision. The Clintons are in exactly the same category, and it has nothing to do with any issue that impacts our country or the serious problems we face.
  • Nigel Elliott · 1 year ago
    Colbert and Olbermann played the clip of Stephanopoulos backing off hard questions to Clinton saying "I know you don't want to go there". I am sure Obama didn't want Stephanopoulos to "go there" either, but he did, for over 45 minutes.
    Colbert Report

    Stephanopoulos: I’m not going to ask about that conversation; I know you don’t want to talk about it.

    She doesn’t want to talk about it. Enough said. Let’s move on. Besides, it would have taken away time from asking Obama this:

    Do you think Rev. Wright loves America as much as you do?

    He followed up with the equally pressing question “Could God create a rock so heavy that He Himself could not know you’re a secret Muslim?”
  • Andrew · 1 year ago
    Here's my 800 pound monster in the room. Oil just blasted past $117 a barrel and the local gas station just posted $3.65! What are you going to do about D.C.? Do I stop eating or going to work? Inquiring minds would like to know.
  • AdrianBrowne · 1 year ago
    I'm repeating myself but saying "Well, they're gonna ask it in the Fall" is like saying "Well, my husband is going to beat me so I better learn how to take a punch."

    Why subject yourself to that in the first place?
  • AdrianBrowne · 1 year ago
    Republicans are scared of real issues -- look at the Wingnut blogs --- they're substance-free.
  • aquarius2 · 1 year ago
    Listen ,Stephanopoulus can spin his biased and despicable questions anyway he wants, it DOES NOT change the fact that he was a Clinton employee, that he got questions from Sean Hannity (for christsakes hannity) and that the old lady concerning the flag pin flap was known to the public on April 4th through a Times aritcle. No matter what Snuffy says, he CANNOT CHANGE the facts of that joke known as "debate". 45 mintues of grilling one candidate on gossip, trivia and right wing talking points is not a debate. Stephanopoulos knows it, he is spinning and spinning and meanwhile ABC is gloating in it's rating for the evening.

    No matter what the November elections bring Stephanopoulos will always be remembered as a Clinton and ABC lackey. He will no longer have the credibility he was striving for as an independent moderator. He is owned lock, stock and barrel. MIllions witnessed his performance and both right and left called him on it. So keep spinning George, you made your mark, allbeit a black mark.
  • Sage24 · 1 year ago
    The smug Clintons say that Obama is whining about the debate, and she says that if he finds it too hot he should get out of the kitchen.
    It looks like the Clintons have forgotten that it was Hillary who complained during the MSNBC debate, that she was always asked a question first, and even wanted to offer Obama a cushion (like SNL). Bill the romeo, even hinted that people were attacking Hillary because "she is a girl".

    Oh those Clintons and their double standards.
    The good news is, it looks like her attacks are affecting her more that Obama.
  • Polly_Tics · 1 year ago
    I think that Charlie Gibson is getting off easy in all of this flack from the debate! Georgie Porgie rightfully deserves all kinds of scorn, but we seem to forget that ole' Gibson bro.

    I have already written to ABC a number of times and to a number of different departments, but this time I think that Charlie needs a bit more attention for his own involvement in all of this garbage!
  • Nigel Elliott · 1 year ago
    John McCain is older than plutonium. LOL
    http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=80713
  • Coming Undone · 1 year ago
    Hilary would have been a big inspiration to a lot of women and young girls if she had left Bill and went out on her own and built up her career without Bill. She took the easy way out, she stayed with a serial cheater who embarrassed her in front of the entire world just so she could jump ahead of the crowd in her quest for power.
  • PeteWa · 1 year ago
    "You can't do a tougher question for Senator Clinton than 'six out of 10 Americans don't think you're honest.' "

    What a load of crap, Georgie boy.
    Try this one, you pantload, if you want to ask tough questions:
    "Why did you vote for the Patriot Act and the Patriot Act II, were you just completely ignorant of the contents of the act (and if so, that would lead to tough question number two, especially in light of how much time was allowed for doing your homework in between I & II) or do you think it's okay to gut the Civil Liberties and Freedom that this country was founded on?"

    I could supply the mush brained Georgie Porgie with a host of other just as tough questions, but I doubt he would want to hear them, think about them, and without a doubt would be loathe to ask them.

    What a choad.
  • Mike_H · 1 year ago
    PeteWa, questions about the Patriot Acts and civil liberties would have been more substantial than just about any question asked of either candidate on ABC!! Maybe you should replace the moderators next time. :-)
  • Nigel Elliott · 1 year ago
    John McCain is older than Pakistan. :-)
  • grandma · 1 year ago
    Yglesias:

    It's almost impossible for Clinton to win the nomination at this point. She can't afford to "do the smart thing," help her campaign do a bit better, and then lose anyway. She can't afford to let the game come to her. If she's not going to drop out (which is what she ought to do), then she needs to push everything as hard as she can. She needs to make long-odds plays, because only long-odds plays have any chance of resulting in a Clinton win. It's smart, disciplined, rational politics. It's also extremely selfish, but that's another matter.

    http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives...
  • grandma · 1 year ago
    Oh man ....CNN ....on Hillary saying Obama griping about debate
  • dad · 1 year ago
    George owes them himself.
    They gave him him.
    That was tough
    to him.
    She's Mommy.
  • tofubo · 1 year ago
    OT (abc and george aren't worth the effort anymore, both are lost causes)

    The Gulf War: A First Assessment

    ....I think that the proposition of going to Baghdad is also fallacious. I think if we were going to remove Saddam Hussein we would have had to go all the way to Baghdad, we would have to commit a lot of force because I do not believe he would wait in the Presidential Palace for us to arrive. I think we'd have had to hunt him down. And once we'd done that and we'd gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government, then we'd have had to put another government in its place.

    What kind of government? Should it be a Sunni government or Shi'i government or a Kurdish government or Ba'athist regime? Or maybe we want to bring in some of the Islamic fundamentalists? How long would we have had to stay in Baghdad to keep that government in place? What would happen to the government once U.S. forces withdrew? How many casualties should the United States accept in that effort to try to create clarity and stability in a situation that is inherently unstable?...


    Featuring Richard Cheney, Secretary of Defense
    Soref Symposium 1991
  • grandma · 1 year ago
    oh...and she's been in the White House for eight years.....that's the only way to understand the pressures....

    uhhh...Which pressures?....Bill's escapades??
  • Sage24 · 1 year ago
    Hillary bashes Obama's weathermen connection. What about her own?

    Read.

    http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/20...
  • ldlew · 1 year ago
    I have read all day long about who won the debate and what seems obvious to me but no one else is Obama just wasn't going to play their game. Hillary fell for it, he didn't. He won on principle...she won the debate. Much like he didn't run in Michigan....so she won there. Am I out of it or am I right?
  • aquarius2 · 1 year ago
    OT

    Again with the super rich Clinton supporters, will it NEVER end? Clinton supporters are ripping into Howard Dean for asking for the superdelegates to decide and decide soon.

    http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com...
  • dad · 1 year ago
    When was the last time you asked your boss about her husband's (also your boss) affair?

    George was little.
  • evie · 1 year ago
    Exactly. I don't want to hear Monica or impeachment questions, but let's not pretend she couldn't be asked tougher "character" questions. My sister, who has 4 kids and whose husband is a stay-at-home dad, told me two years ago she could never vote for Clinton because she stayed with WJC. There are a lot of people out there who admire her for staying with them, but there are also a lot who consider it either weak or calculating or both and have no respect for her because of it.
  • consult · 1 year ago
    This is ridiculous. People stay together for lots of reasons after affairs, and sometimes its because they actually do care for each other. Its unfortunate for all of us when it had to play out in such a public way, but one woman cannot say what is "self respect" for another. And, as this campaign has proved, from a career perspective Hillary would have been better off on her own.
  • grandma · 1 year ago
    Idlew...in my opinion....they were out to 'get' Obama......if Obama had attacked back they would have spun it as 'Obama loses it.....his temper and his message"
  • KerrynowCampau · 1 year ago
    In years gone by I used to be irritated with the candidates when I watched a debate.

    Now it is the moderators that drive me nuts. What the hell kind of question is it to ask if your pastor loves America? I mean, really what kind of response it that suppose to illicit. It was asked just to bring up the subject AGAIN.
  • naschkatzehussein · 1 year ago
    There is a post by a Julia Rosen over at C & L on a protest at ABC's LA office today, and someone added that there will be a demonstration in NYC also. If any of you are in those two areas, you might look the post up. I think they're going to handout flag lapel pins to ABC employees.
  • grandma · 1 year ago
    CNN reporting McCain the 9th wealthiest in congress......9 th out of 353
  • ldlew · 1 year ago
    Grandma, I actually think she was part of the game.
  • grandma · 1 year ago
    Idlew....definitely she was part of the game.....absopositively
  • Sage24 · 1 year ago
    Friends, BIG news.

    LATEST NEWSWEEK POLL SHOWS OBAMA LEADING HILLARY BY NEARLY 20 POINTS. UNBELIEVABLE. GREAT.

    http://www.newsweek.com/id/132721
  • Nigel Elliott · 1 year ago
    Sage24,

    Whoa...That Newsweek poll is INCONCEIVABLE! LOL
  • Rob Mule · 1 year ago
    No debate...Stephie looked like a fool. He should resign ABC and not dream up fantasy excuses for the Washington Post.
  • aquarius2 · 1 year ago
    OT

    This needs to be addressed and squelched IMMEDIATELY by the Obama campaign, IMHO.
    McCain has sent a letter asking for donations and telling the contributors "Hamas wants Obama" The quote is from some whacked out source yet McCain has sent this letter to thousands.

    http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/
  • ShirleyGoodnessanMercy · 1 year ago
    Stephanopoulos, what a dumb fuck. What does it matter how difficult the question is... WE DON'T NEED TO ASK CANDIDATES DUMB ASS QUESTIONS THAT DON'T TELL US HOW THEY WILL FIX THIS FUCKING COUNTRY!!

    Why can't these dumbass pundits get that? They think we care more about Hillary will respond to the shocking revelation that some people don't trust her than what she would do to get us some fucking health care???

    Stepganopoulos needs to take a year or two off and go live in the real world a while. He needs to go work for minimum wage in Tuscumbia, Mississippi, for a while.
  • SPatrick · 1 year ago
    Monica Lewinksy is not current nor newsworthy. This is a no-win for Hillary Clinton and you know it. If she stay she has no self-respect, if she leaves she is a quitter. I think to rise up from a fiasco like that and still be as successful as she is shows a great deal of self respect. Lucky for her, self-respect comes from within not from a blog. :)
  • AngelaChanning · 1 year ago
    Or, how about a question where Hillary stood by her husband after the Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones and Katherine Willey issues? What did she know and did she participate in the "They must be sluts or nuts" campaigns?
  • tlsintx · 1 year ago
    that's the point...the weather underground crap was neither current nor newsworthy either...it was dug up by right-wing idiot sean hannity and added absolutely NOTHING to the decision to be made, in fact, it was designed intentionally to smear Obama and it just happens to smear Hillary too, thanks to Bill's pardons.

    and the other point is, Hillary is happily playing along with the smear crap.
  • Belinda · 1 year ago
    How about any question that starts with the words "Monica Lewinksy."

    Even though it may not be politically correct, I think it's a legitimate question. Bill Clinton's perjury and Hillary's attempts to cover for him and then create her own lies indicates a lot about their character. I'm in my 30's and it used to be that a serial liar and corrupt schemer like Hillary would not be voted into office. She has too many character flaws and has the highest negative rating of any cadidate. People simply despise her, only she doesn't seem to get it.
  • LeslieB · 1 year ago
    I can think of a lot more relevant questions to ask Clinton about than Lewinsky, which was a non-story then and it's a non-story now. For example: Hillary Clinton, you gave Bush carte blanche to attack Iraq and most recently Iran. You claimed you did so to bring diplomatic pressure to bear on both nations. But tonight, you basically declared war on Iran, based on information proven to be wrong in an NIE report, and you're also promising to use US forces to police the Middle East.

    Have you been completely honest with your supporters about your position on the Iraq war and Iran?
  • jr · 1 year ago
    "here is the golden Cheeto award"-Jonah Goldberg to George
  • OlderAndWiser · 1 year ago
    I'll say it again: No self-respecting feminist would ever stay with a serial adulterer unless she had another agenda. How can you retain any dignity knowing he'll probably do it over and over again?
  • DAB · 1 year ago
    I'm an Obama supporter, but I think a Lewinsky question is even less relevant than a Pastor Wright question, if only because of the timeframe. And both questions are silly and irrelevant, to be sure.

    I'm not sure why, given my gender (male), my orientation (gay), and my candidate (Obama), but I also take offense at suggestions that there's something wrong with Hillary for not leaving Bill despite his obvious marital infidelities over the years. We can't fault John McCain for ditching his less-than-perfect first wife when the 2nd wife showed up gleaming with money and looks, and then fault Hillary for NOT ditching her less-than-perfect first husband, unless you want to parse degrees of imperfection and who "should" be married/stay married to whom and who shouldn't. Which, as a gay man who thinks marriage should be a choice between two adults and not the public, I don't.

    So I say Lewinsky questions are off the table, as they should have not been a part of any "special prosecutor" investigation in the first place. I think Pastor Wright questions were NOMINALLY relevant a month ago, but by this point, it's just trying to stoke fire where there is none, so George and Charlie both failed, is the bottom line.
  • SPatrick · 1 year ago
    "No self-respecting feminist would ever stay with a serial adulterer unless she had another agenda. How can you retain any dignity knowing he'll probably do it over and over again?"

    I guess it all depends on your definition of a good marriage. Maybe we should all have your marriage?
  • mirth · 1 year ago
    If she stay she has no self-respect, if she leaves she is a quitter.
    SPatrick

    Whatever she does, I think she has plenty of self-respect. It's respect from others that she lacks.
    If she leaves there will be wild cheering, and she can probably spin that in a self-aggrandizing way.