Intellectual dishonesty, Amanda Marcotte is thy name
She never stops. Jesus Christ, she’s the Energizer Bunny of Obama apologetics. Here I am, reading Egalia’s link to the letter in the New York Times about what Hillary might have done differently, and lo and behold, the Marcotte Bunny appears.
“I don’t get the fantasy that she would somehow have a leg up on Republicans that Obama doesn’t have. The Republican base not only hates Clinton; they’ve hated her for decades now,” Amanda writes, in complete non sequitur.
Okay, Amanda? That’s not the issue. Nobody is talking about that. Would the Republicans have hated Hillary Clinton as much as they hate Barack Obama? Sure. End of story.
What people are actually talking about—the thing you’re desperately trying to distract attention from—is what Hillary Clinton might have done differently.
Not that it even matters, since the election is over and Hillary will never be president and it’s all helicopters at Waterloo at this point. Which is why it’s even more pathetic that Amanda’s out there desperately batting back every ball. God forbid that anyone should even wonder aloud if Hillary Clinton might have been a better president. Gotta post a comment to knock that one back, by god.
Of course, the larger frame that Amanda’s pushing here is that Obama’s actions don’t matter. His complete failure as a Democratic president has nothing to do with anything he did or didn’t do, nor with anything he could have done. It has nothing to do with his behavior at all. It’s simply a product of Republican opposition. As for Obama, he might as well grow his hair long and ride around in a cart like a Merovingian king, for all the power he has. Poor guy.
Also, regarding the paranoid Clinton-hating conspiracy thing: mighty brave of Amanda to even mention it, considering that her blog is Exhibit A for how Clinton Derangement Syndrome migrated to the left. Didn’t she help spread every single nasty rumor about Hillary Clinton and her campaign in 2008, no matter how crazy and obscene?
23 Responses to “Intellectual dishonesty, Amanda Marcotte is thy name”
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Ugsome says:
She’s like my now-disillusioned Obot ex– he flails about, moaning about the Tea Party and the Republicans and turning in circles to avoid laying blame where it belongs. It’s sad.
And did you see this delightful item at Corrente? Lambert responded to Amanda’s assertion and got a sharp hippie-punch for his efforts.
http://www.correntewire.com/st....._the_earth
September 3rd, 2011 at 10:37 pm EST -
quixote says:
…he might as well grow his hair long and ride around in a cart like a Merovingian king, for all the power he has.
Hahahahahahahahaha!
I’m not even sure why that’s so funny, but I can’t stop grinning from ear to ear. I can just see it. And it’s a golf cart, isn’t it?
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Cleaver says:
She sounds like a guy I know who watches CNN and MSNBC from sunup till midnight, literally. Here’s his deep political analysis: “The Republicans are obstructing Obama because he’s a n—–.” He utters that last word with a little smirk, like a white hipster douche, to let you know that his (projected) racism is “ironic.”
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Ugsome says:
Cleaver, dollars to donuts he uses the c-word for us ladies with the same ironic abandon.
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Richard Jonson says:
There’s always an opposition party. Presidential leadership always requires overcoming that. A president who can’t do that under the conditions Obama had for the first half of his term is plainly incompetent.
After all, we just had two years where the Democrats controlled the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate. With a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate for several months, and only needing to pick off one of Senators Collins or Snowe the rest of the time. The weakest the Republican Party has been in the last thirty years, and consequently the least capable of actual obstructionism, no matter how much noise it made. To what result?
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Catherine D. says:
She pissed me off long ago by getting all hipster-catty about “baby boomer feminists who just don’t understand today’s women”. Who the hell broke ground for her? I started college in 1975 at the age of 16. I knew women who had illegal abortions, and I know what’s coming around again.
In high school, when I arranged to take music instead of a second year of home ec, I was dragged out of music class and lectured that “a woman’s place was in the home as a wife and mother”. (I was back in music the next day – my parents didn’t necessarily understand their weirdo daughter, but they fought for her.)
I deeply respect the women before me who caught even more sh*t than I did – and as a mathematician, I have certainly collected a pretty good compost pile!
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Monchichipox says:
This is funny. Even with my limited interneting I’ve come in contact with her. I left an innocuous comment(as most my comments anywhere tend to be) in response to her on some blog somewhere. I still remember her response. Apparently I’m a “useless bitch who would probably love to be chained to the kitchen stove.” I remember her response word for word but it’s funny I can’t even remember what I wrote.
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myiq2xu says:
How does Amanda explain Obama’s first two years in office when the Democrats controlled Congress?
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Violet Socks says:
Explain? Amanda doesn’t explain things. She doesn’t traffic in reality. She just insults people and makes shit up.
That link from Ugsome in #1 is classic. And actually, lambert in his turn linked back to this blog, to the last time I communicated with Amanda (not an experience I ever wish to reprise). She was over here to tell us that we were wingnuts in league with Rush Limbaugh for daring to criticize Obama on feminist grounds. That’s her position (or at least it was): that there is no such thing as leftist or feminist criticism of Obama—it’s not possible—and that any leftist or feminist who does criticize Obama is really a secret Rush Limbaugh-cheering wingnut.
Amanda’s lies are so incredible that it’s tempting to believe she is actually out of her mind.
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Violet Socks says:
Nope, I take it back. Not out of her mind. Just eyeing the main chance, as usual: singing the designated Official Punditry Song, no matter how stupid or dishonest. To wit, here’s Jonathan Chait in the New York Times “explaining” what liberals don’t understand about Obama:
The most common hallmark of the left’s magical thinking is a failure to recognize that Congress is a separate, coequal branch of government consisting of members whose goals may differ from the president’s.
Right. That is certainly my problem. I have just never figured out that whole basic three branch thingy.
Un.Fucking.Believable.
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scott says:
Chait’s civics lecture on separation of powers and Marcotte’s reaction about Republicans hating HRC as much as BO underscore for me how much they don’t understand politics on a fundamental level. Yes, there’s another branch of government, with members many of whom don’t like you, and the opposition party at large is nuts. If you want to overcome that, you don’t sit passively and complain about it all as the President, you make an argument to the public about all the great things you want to do for them, if only the other side didn’t hate the public so much and love rich people. Marcotte, Chait, Klein, Yglesias, and Scott Lemieux are great rationalizers of Obama’s failure, but their theses that The President Is Powerless and that using the bully pulpit is meaningless have to be the most self-refuting political theories of modern times. I honestly don’t understand how these folks, who I don’t doubt are intelligent, can miss a fairly obvious truth about the President’s ability to shape public opinion and support when it’s staring them in the face. My only answers are that their allegiance to BO is so emotional that they’ve lost perspective, or that they’re stereotypical eggheads who live in their own heads and can’t understand making a simple case to people that will resonate on an emotional level. Mind boggling!
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scott says:
“Like a Merovingian king.” You made me look it up. Nice.
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tinfoil hattie says:
As a Senator, Hillary Clinton was liked by Republican Senators. GASP! I know. It’s hideous. But she knew how to get along with “the enemy” and she knew how to compromise.
Politics is a dirty game, and if you’re a charismatic inexperienced dude with nothing to offer but your charisma, you’re doomed.
Obama was in over his head from the start. Also, he’s a sexist jerk and quite UN-progressive.
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Eden says:
Despite all the “What-iffing?” going on I’m glad Clinton is Secretary of State. She’s doing a lot of good out in the world- not just through diplomacy but also through development.
The Republicans are in their own little world in the moment, one where basic truths of science and economics aren’t even recognized. Had Clinton been elected we’d probably have slightly better economic policies and no watered down healthcare bill. She’d probably have made the Republicans hurt more politically as well, come to think of it, but at exactly around this time you’d still have people asking “What would Obama have done?” and “progressives” disliking her for her failure to compete with their image of Obama.
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jacqueline tate says:
When facing a guaranteed difficult future, choosing the least prepared and least experienced candidate over the best prepared and most experienced one shows me everything I need to know about a person’s critical thinking skills. Those people forfeit my ears and eyeballs for all time.
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lambert strether says:
Shorter Chait: Vote for Obama! He can’t do anything!
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Jay says:
Can’t agree enough about Amanda Marcotte’s endlessly shameless apologies for Obama. I also wonder if Hillary would’ve been better. I have to imagine she would’ve been better prepared for GOP obstructionism… but the idea that she would’ve gone a different way economically than the Rubinite Team Obama brought on… or conducted foreign policy with more humanity seeing as she has signed onto it… I think anyone who thinks that is being kind of silly.
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Ugsome says:
Jay,
Who might that silly person be? I and other Hillary supporters know her left-of-center politics perfectly well and do not claim she’d single-handedly usher in a social-democratic utopia. Nor have I read anything in the recent spate of buyer’s remorse op-eds that suggest the authors think that.
Hillary’s thorough grasp of policy issues, knowledge of Washington’s mechanics and life-long first-hand experience fending off Republican tactics, even winning their respect in the Senate, prepare her to exercise leadership–the top item in a President’s job description. Readiness for GOP obstructionism is a critical quality in a Democratic president. Obama has proven to everyone’s chagrin that his unpreparedness prevents him from leading. Even if he were more on the side of the people, he can’t set the agenda, put the Republicans on the defensive and present his case to the people. Hence no hope and no change.
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Richard Johnson says:
Did health care reform actually pass? Since most of its provisions don’t come in until 2014, a bill passed by the budget reconciliation procedure in 2013 can obliterate it, and the 2012 election is looking reasonably good for the Republicans. The law we have is polling awfully poorly, and it doesn’t start doing anything soon enough to change people’s minds before it can be repealed. Sure, it polls better when people are educated by the poll-takers about specifics. So who’s going to educate the American people, the same Democratic leaders who have failed to do so in the last two years? And how many years will a successful repeal set back the cause?
Maybe, after Obama won the nomination, the best thing would have been McCain winning in 2008. If he’d won, the economy would be around his neck, the Democrats would be stronger in Congress, and there would have been a first female Vice President of the United States. Sure, we’d still have Guantanamo, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and extraordinary rendition, and the Bush tax cuts, and . . . wait, what would the downside have been, exactly?
Yeah, a lot of small stuff, and Souter/Stevens/Ginsburg might die before 2013. So I don’t exactly regret my vote, but, it’s too close for anybody to convince me Obama was the best we could do in 2008.
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Ciccina says:
Look, the thing about Amanda is this – she’s not the brightest bulb in the pack. Not the sharpest tool in the shed. Not the… whatever. She’s not stone stupid, but she’s nowhere near brilliant.
Somehow she’s managed to work her way into a position where her words have a lot of exposure. Its unfortunate, because she’s not the best of the best. She’s mediocre. But she’s good at producing content (regardless of quality) and she has connections and something of a brand name.
Expecting her to “get it” is self-defeating. Its not going to happen. She may be right every once in a while, but she’ll be wrong a lot more often. Ultimately, she’s just not very insightful.
I”m not saying one shouldn’t criticize her, but… don’t expect her to change.
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votermom says:
Violet, have you seen The Tea Party Zombie Game?
“The Tea Party zombies are walking the streets of America. Grab your weapons and bash their rotten brains to bits! Destroy zombie Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, the Koch Brothers, and many more!”
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2.....total.htmlHarmless fun? If Obama was a zombie in the game would that be ok too?
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djmm says:
Loved the Merovingian kings reference. Alas, even the nastier Merovingian kings got things done. Of course, some of that was burning their rivals and their rivals families alive, but those were different times. And their hair was likely way cooler than the President’s (even though his is probably cleaner, not to mention vermin free).
djmm
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Jeff S. says:
Speaking as a secular conservative/libertarian, threads and comments like these give me some hope that we’ll be OK after all. I probably don’t line up well at all with most political views here, but I appreciate the reasonable trains of thought. My leftie Facebook friends are driving me nuts with epic non sequiturs.
In any event, it seems like you’re feeling better, Violet, and I’m very glad to see it.
