The Glade 4.0

Please find me a deliberate statement of support or amelioration for Christie within this thread; after all, this entire conversation stems from Shuyung's observation that Christie is just another politician.

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What are you talking about, fool? Who the heck in this thread is defending Christie?

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The Dude abides.

Attempts to mitigate or ameliorate his guilt by positively comparing him to a Democrat qualifies.

I see, political comparisons that highlight similarities in behavior or action between individuals of disparate party affiliation is partisanship and defending a schmuck? That's a nifty bit of fallacious reasoning. You could probably suggest this thread is a tu quoque fallacy itself on some level, but that's not exactly true. RangerDave made the positive assertion that Christie's behavior was somehow egregious or relatively unique among politicians. Other posters used the most visible executive of the other party to drive home the point that ALL politicians are scum. If anything, largely because of RangerDave's choice of sources, posters were reacting to the front-loaded partisanship of the accusations Andrew Sullivan and the rest of the media have now made major news.

No one is defending or excusing Christie's actions; they're responding to the accusation that Christie is somehow unique and that other politicians don't do the same petty, vindictive, tyrannical ****.

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There is no direct defense of Christie. This is simply another example of either side's inability to tolerate criticism of their party without redirecting the criticism to the other side. It's not a defense, exactly, merely minimization of the issue with the basic argument of "everyone does it".

Well, that's a fair point, however the assertion that all politicians are scum is nonsensical. The only way to even try to defend such an assertion is to pick irrelevant examples of other douchebaggery, which as we all know cannot be logically extrapolated to the whole. Further, I'm guessing there's no coincidence that the comparison was immediately directed at the most prominent democrat. The point could have just as illogically been made with an example of another republican.

Except, RangerDave started with a partisan hit piece from a known partisan source of spurious credibility. I can easily make the point that Christie isn't unique among politicians by choose politicians of either stripe.

George H.W. Bush pulled his fair share of retaliatory shenanigans, as did George W. Bush, as did Reagan; the same goes for Clinton, Johnson, and Ford. Politicians are human beings, and contrary to popular belief, they are not intrinsically better or less susceptible to stupid **** because they are a Republican or Democrat. The fact of the matter is, however, that choosing any Democrat would result in the same thread. Choosing any Republican would have resulted in a hasty generalization about Republicans (but not from you specifically, Arathain). As such, it seems to me, to satisfy you, TheRiov, and RangerDave, there can be no comparative analysis of politicians who are of differing parties. That's balderdash.

Shuyung's post is akin to calling water wet. RangerDave took issue with that statement and attempted to make Christie's action somehow extraordinary. When confronted with known cases of executive retaliation by the President, he went to claims of excessive partisanship on these forums.

Christie is a thug politician. Here are other thug politicians: <insert any you choose here>.

That's all I've said. I chose Barack Obama entirely out of convenience and immediate visibility. I've also been extremely critical of Andrew Sullivan, because Andrew Sullivan deserves worlds of criticism as a thinker and journalist. He's likely a nice guy, but I have this thing for words and his work offends my sensibilities in spectacular ways.

But, you know, we'll forget how much I hated the Bush Administration and their policies; we'll forget my long tirades about the various nonsense that happened before and after 9/11. We'll ignore, entirely, my long, eviscerating posts on Republican economic policy or the stupidity of their monetary policy over the last 20 years. I must obviously hate Democrats more than Republicans because I criticized Obama. I will, however, say this ...

Every day Barack Obama is president is another day I wish Hillary Clinton had received the nomination.

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So, in a thread titled "Christie's Presidential Chances Go Poof", posted to highlight the effects of scandal on someone's presidential prospects, we're not supposed to make comparisons to other current scandals when they're owned by the opposing party?

How exactly is that supposed to work?

I eagerly await your reply.



That's an open question to both of you too, you know. Are elections held in a vacuum? Are the foibles of only one party's candidate to be considered?

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In time, this too shall pass.

Or even other Presidents, I guess.

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The Dude abides.

Taskiss, you can do whatever you want, and I don't think anyone's said otherwise.

I maintain, however, that responding to criticism with "everyone does it" is not a defense, but does minimizes the offense.

It's not a matter of "everyone does it", the thread was specifically created to incite conversation on presidential candidates challenged by an environment of scandal, and what the effect of scandal has on the chance of winning an election.

That led to conversations on other political figures mired in scandal, whole parties mired in scandal, scandal, scandal and more scandal. Elections are decided by the electorate, and the emotions of the electorate decide the decisions. Different people make their choice different ways, some consider just the merits of individual candidates, some consider the merits of the candidate's party. That put all those different components into play in this thread.

The thread begged the question, specifically, and folks rose to the occasion.

Whether conservatives really dog pile on liberals here on this site or not, the political comparisons in this thread were well within the boundaries of the intent of the OP, and crying "foul" at this point is disingenuous. As evidence I offer this: Did the reputation George Bush earned in office affect any other Republican's chances of reelection? Then consider the effects the reputation of Barack Obama will have for any election Christie participates in. And, that there's the stuff the conversations here have touched on.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Taskiss,

You'll notice nobody started rolling their eyes at the thread until the discussion dissolved into "Obama sucks" on page 2. It was no longer about a politician's chances at surviving scandal, it was about how much Obama blows.

I call it like I see it.

So, "George Bush sucks" had no affect on other republican chances at elections since his presidency?

Of course it did. The president is the party leader and at a minimum, lots of folks vote along party lines, and hatred of GB had democrats voting in droves. The thread's about "presidential chances", remember. If you don't think Obama's presidency will affect Christie's chances, I don't know what to tell you other than I strongly disagree and I think you're wrong.

You don't have to be great to win an election, you just have to have more people vote for you than the other guy. Any reason people would vote for Christie over the other guy is legitimate fodder for this thread, by definition.

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In time, this too shall pass.

The GOP is dead. The death throes will last for at least another election cycle. Be interesting to see what replaces it.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Continued fiscal insolvency of the USA. That's what.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

I was talking about which version of Conservative party organization will rise in its stead. Your answer is correct DFK!, but it is correct no matter which party is in office. The debt hasn't dropped this century.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Oh no doubt. That would have been my answer if you'd said "the Democratic party is dead, it will be interesting to see who replaces them."

All answers are the same, and eventually the insolvency will catch up with us.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Sullivan would (and has, at length) argued that traditional conservativism, particularly Burkean conservativism, is not about locking existing social stuctures in amber, but rather about balancing a healthy respect for and desire to preserve institutions and practices that have stood the test of time with a pragmatic empiricism and recognition that as the facts on the ground change, institutions and practices must evolve and adapt accordingly, always with an eye toward stability, gradualism, and realism (as opposed to the ideological purism or utopianism more typical of liberalism). Hence, his view is that: (i) we now know homosexuality is a largely innate characteristic consistently exhibited by a non-negligible percentage of the population and not the mental illness or moral failing we once thought it was, (ii) marriage is a long-standing cultural institution that encourages stability, commitment, and prosperity both within individual families and in the society as a whole, (iii) excluding homosexuals from marriage in the present cultural context not only harms gay couples and their children, but also undermines the moral legitimacy and unique stautus of marriage itself in the eyes of many, particularly younger generations, and (iv) creating alternatives to marriage (i.e., civil unions) will also undermine the unique legitimacy of marriage, so (v) therefore, the conservative thing to do is to stabilize gay families and preserve the cultural legitimacy and ubiquity of marriage generally by incorporating gay couples into the existing institution.

So, basically, Andrew Sullivan claims to be a liberal or conservative as meets his needs and is attempting to redefine conservatism to leave no room for what he'd likely call small-minded people. Amusingly, however, your synopsis of the Burkean logic isn't bad. Unfortunately for Sullivan, that explanation is not in-line with his variable position on the matter. Sullivan is rather inconsistent and generally resists what he'd call mainstreaming for a slightly more radical push at legitimization. The Burkean Conservative would contend that society will accept homosexual rights in its own time and way, without significant top down pressure. The role of government is to assist legitimization in happening, not force the issue. And Sullivan by and large would rather force the issue than not.

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People were saying that about the Dems in 2004.