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I think there is some serious political bias in this list. I'm not trying to be critical, I doubt anyone could put together an unbiased list. But the fact that the only Democrat on the left side is John Edwards and that you have him not all the way to the left is pretty shaky.
I'd move Gore much further left as he changed a lot during his various campaigns. I'd probably move Kerry right and Clinton left.
Perhaps you're only grading their actual campaigns? If not, I'd move McCain right as well.
In the end, this is a lot like judging which ballplayer is the "nicest" guy. We don't really know them. My guess is that on your list, on anyone's list, there is going to be someone you put far to the left that is really pretty much their public persona and someone on the right is not. Also, anyone who stays in the game for a long time (Kerry, McCain) will probably look "phony" just because we all change with time.
Again: the term just seems to be a completely subjective one, that ultimately comes down to "I like this guy" vs. "I don't like this guy." And those assessments are in turn almost always (not always, but almost) governed by your political beliefs.
Errrrr.... did you look at the rest of the list at all?
The key part of this statement being "I think." Fact is, we don't really know jack about who any politician really is on a personal level except for the carefully crafted public personae that they feed us (and the equally carefully crafted ad hominem hatchet jobs that their opponents feed us). To even talk as if we know who is and isn't genuine is fairly foolish.
Anyhow, the list is more tilted than I first thought.
Also, what makes a "phony?"
As stated, I have no idea. The word seems to have lost its meaning.
I think that is the crux of it. How do you score "phoniness" in a campaign where every politician in a democracy will attempt to make the voter think that they are what the voter wants. They all have personas, they all hide their complete, true self because, otherwise, who would vote for them? I would argue that a much deeper level of phoniness is do they govern against their beliefs and principles to stay in office. Not make a few compromises but do stuff that is really abhorrent to them to keep their jobs. And there probably is no way to really know that for sure.
I visited the Reagan library recently. Certainly very skewed toward Reagan (I'd love to next go to the Carter library) but if you crossed out the word "Reagan" and took Palin through there she'd curse the vile man portrayed. Anyway, it was cool and my liberal, lifelong Democrat wife loved it.
As stated, I have no idea. The word seems to have lost its meaning.
See, I think you DO know and are just pandering to us to make it seem you're one of us.
To be fair, I should have moved Kerry a notch or two over to the left.
I'd have it in groups
Palin, Romney & Edwards (Edwards perhaps a little bit phonier than Palin, perhaps not)
gap
Dubya & Clinton & Kerry
gap
McCain, Reagan, HRC, Obama, Gore
gap
Carter, Bush Senior, Dole
or maybe the middle two groupings can be merged
I might add that post 99 is perhaps the phoniest post I've seen on Primer in quite awhile, in fact it's downright awesome.
His "I am/was unemployed" sound bite was one example.
The other one was when someone from his own inner-circle said that Romney could reset like an "etch-a-sketch" after the primary, implying everything he said during the primary shouldn't be held against him during the general election.
The flip/flop over various issues has morphed into "phony".
Do you think that Obama would:
*eat a bug
*cut off his own left pinky toe
*throw one of his daughters out of a moving (slowly) car?
*wear assless chaps in public
in order to get re-elected?
By the way, I think the answer is yes, no, yes, and yes. And that no is still flexible; his answer might be different in October.
I really do think she's as uneducated and vicious as she portrays in the media.
the disconnect between her and what she actually stood for/did as a politician and what her fanbase believes her to be is stunningly vast... of course the same is true of Obama, Clinton, Dubya... (Or as the Daily Show book put it, heir of old, prominent, wealthy, North Eastern Family, Yale Grad, sells himself as a man of the people, Political Scientists will wonder for generations how the fcuk he managed to pull that off...
Of course this is subjective, subjectively I have a hard time imagining a human being who is phonier than Mittens, subjectively I can't believe Esoteric's post re Romney was made in good faith, but I'm no mind reader, maybe it was.
Obama: yes, yes, no, yes
Romney: yes, no, yes, no
Palin: yes, no, yes, yes (please?)
McCain: yes, yes, no, no
HR Clinton: yes, no, no, no
B Clinton: yes, yes, no, yes
W : yes, no, yes, no
HW: yes, yes, yes, no
Gore: no, yes, yes, no
Reagan: yes, no, yes, no
I think the Romney as Phony "meme" started LONG before that
I think the answer for every one listed, assuming they believed that it would actually help win re-election, is an unqualified yes...
I think the real question is this
Which politician would literally murder someone (unjustified homicide) if they were guaranteed to get away with it, in order to be re-elected.
Methinks a scarily high % of our elected "leaders" would in fact do that.
I mean, this isn't really knowable. But I've read two books about her, and therefore consider myself a bit of a "Palintologist". I think she'd have run in the Primary in 2012 as a wacko, and parlayed that into a FOX News show.
Edwards' phoniness is mostly personal, which speaks to his complete lack of character. Romney's phoniness is political, in that he's almost pathetic in the way he's changed his stripes on so many issues** it's hard to keep track. Health care and immigration are merely the two most prominent examples.
Unlike Edwards, this sort of phoniness doesn't make him a bad person, but merely a particularly extreme example of a recurrent trait among presidential candidates. OTOH Romney is almost in a class by himself when it comes to this variety of phoniness.
BTW this has nothing to do with Romney's stiff demeanor, his malapropisms, or his forced use of local vernacular. While it's amusing, there's nothing particularly phony about it, in that it could simply mean he's not a good public speaker.
**And it's not long term "stripe changing" via gradual evolution, but short term flip-flopping based totally on the perceived views of his audience. Even Republicans who will vote for him in a blink over Obama have long recognized and denounced him over this.
Read up on the Edwards case. I don't think he should go to jail but if you think any of these other folks are anywhere in the same phony universe as John Edwards...I don't know what. I just don't think rational people can come to that conclusion.
Romney: yes, no, yes, no
Palin: yes, no, yes, yes (please?)
McCain: yes, yes, no, no
HR Clinton: yes, no, no, no
B Clinton: yes, yes, no, yes
W : yes, no, yes, no
HW: yes, yes, yes, no
Gore: no, yes, yes, no
Reagan: yes, no, yes, no please?
Fixed.
Yes, and I don't think its primary proponents have been liberals until very recently. Conservatives have distrusted Romney for years for his perceived "phony conservative" cred. (I mean, liberals thought he was phony then too, but it wasn't until it became clear that he'd be this year's nominee that you stopped hearing it from a lot of conservatives.)
There are many such accounts. Edwards' phoniness is much deeper than the personal.
I think if you frame something as the "evil" of something, you've left the realm of jurisprudence and entered the realm of politics.... Evil is not a legal concept that I'm aware of.
I will say this, I took more umbrage with Alito's tantrum on the mandatory sentencing for youthful offenders than I did Scalia's on immigration... mainly because I thought Alito's response was perverse -- that the case that spawned the suit was atypical (14 yos, not 17 yos) and thus, it was a bad decision. Thing is - the case was about MANDATORY sentencing - in which case, Alito's other 95% of such cases could still get the penalty he thinks they deserve.
Implicit in his argument is this idea that sometimes sentences are 'wrong' - but that's OK... If I'm ever falsely accused of a capital offense, I really hope that Alito and Scalia (and perhaps Thomas) are long gone from the bench by that point. I have a distinct feeling that Alito would have no problem executing someone on a technicality even if he knew the person were innocent...
No politician (especially at the national level) is going to be 100% authentic, but so much of negatives surrounding Romney is his inability to hold a concrete position. Like it or not Americans able to connect more personally with a candidate, even if its fake. I think its more likely that Romney has come across Youkilis by reading Moneyball than ever knowing he won two World Series playing for the Red Sox.
That's a fair point, but in the future kindly refrain from any praise of Scalia's "judicial temperament".
---------------------------------------------------
Andy, there was an account - from an ex-aide, told on NPR - about Edwards addressing a group of workers, I can't recall where, wherein Edwards gave a rousing speech straight along the lines of what the group wanted and completely against what Edwards planned to vote when it came to the Senate. Leaving the stage, the aide told him, "But you're against" that. Edwards replied, "They don't know that."
There are many such accounts. Edwards' phoniness is much deeper than the personal.
No doubt, but when you've done what Edwards did on the personal level, that level of phoniness leaves anything else in a race for the silver. Romney's level of phoniness merely deserves not being elevated to the presidency.
You are correct. "Phony" is not the correct term. The correct term is "pathological liar."
Scalia's recent rants are far more political than judicial, but then again you are a self-admitted Scalia fanboy so I suppose you can't see that.
Perhaps its an occupational hazard, but I've met people like Edwards, I've never actually met someone like Romney.
So long as neither had to succeed to the presidency, we've probably had worse VPs.
Romney used to go to a lot of games at Fenway. He was often visible in the background in face-on shots of RH hitters. It was suspected that his choice of seats resulting in a lot of face time was not coincidental.
And AFAIC Gingrich can give Edwards a run for his money, right down to the cancerous cuckolda. You'd have to be a complete ideologue to say that one of those two cretins is any better than the other. Clinton gets the bronze and Dole gets honorable mention.
Bush I & II
Reagan
Kerry
Obama
Hillary
Gore
Dole
Jimmah
Politicians who are notably "phony":
Edwards
McCain
Politicians who's entire lack of any sort of core being makes the judgement of phony/not phony impossible:
Bill Clinton
Romney
Dick Cheney
I dunno, has anyone ever seen the two of them in a room together?
Biden's actually starting to grow on me, less fake than I originally thought, not that I want him to be president... then again I'm hard pressed to think of anyone who has run for President in my lifetime who I'd actually want to be president... congressman, senator... nope, SCOTUS member... maybe Souter would be half decent.
I don't believe I have ever described myself as a Scalia fanboy, or expressed that sentiment in other words. I agree with his decisions more often than not; I guess I would concede to be a "fanboy" of his writing. (When I say "agree with" I mean as a legal matter, not necessarily as a policy matter.)
The reference was clearly to Scalia's bench reading of his dissent in the AZ decision, a fact obvious to anyone and everyone.
I'd rather have Palin than Edwards. She's a dolt, but seems fundamentally lazy and mostly interested in feathering her own nest. Assuming the President can stay alive, I doubt she'd get up to much real trouble. That would take effort.
Edwards is an absolute sociopath and seems to have more ambition than Palin. Those guys are almost always trouble.
Jesus Christ. Of COURSE it was made in good faith. What an insulting, demeaning attitude to have, to openly pronounce (for all others to see) that dear god anyone who writes an opinion that I disagree with about politics must be a phony liar.
It's not enough for you to disagree with me -- you have to try to and erase me from the conversation by delegitimizing my perspective as something that doesn't even need to be addressed or taken seriously because "of course" it must be trolling. Arrogant, contemptible, and self-indicting.
And that my friends is when the thread has turned from a polite conversation about politics to 'personal'. Time to close up shop!
First, as should be abundantly clear to anybody but the most fervent supporter by now, she's the nasty neighbor who speaks in a pleasant tone of voice while oozing invective. And every indication out of the campaign and lots of other people who have dealt with her as supporters indicates that once the cameras are off she's an overbearing jackass who throws temper tantrums at zero provocation, putting people down at every possible chance, etc. But in public, oh, I'm just a good ol' hockey mom, don't ya know, now don't get between me and my kids, but otherwise I'm so sweet and pleasant and kind, don't ya know.
Second, put her on the spot about anything she doesn't know -- which is a whole lot -- and she's a little kid thinking she can fake her way through the book report for a book she hasn't read (e.g. what newspaper do you read daily - "Umm... all of them?"; favorite founding father - "Well, all of them?"; Supreme Court cases you disagree with other than Roe v. Wade - "Well, um, well, in the great history of America, there were, um, of course there were other cases, like, um, well, like Roe v. Wade"; can you name one - "Well, certainly, um, as Vice President I'd, um, be in a position to, um, deal with cases like, um, Roe. v. Wade...").
And she constantly puts on absurd noveau riche airs while almost simultaneously pushing "Hockey mom, hockey mom, hockey mom", pretends that she has thought about things, pretends that she has opinions on things she's never heard of, goes back on those opinions a day later in an "always been at war with Eastasia" way after her handlers tell her that that's not what conservatives are supposed to think, and on and on and on.
She's nothing but phony. Well, phony and nasty. The nasty is real.
With that caveat, I think Ron Paul is less phony than most, Rand Paul about average, and Paul Ryan far phonier.
With regard to the Kennedy Brothers, I think Teddy was less phony (despite what his detractors think), Robert a bit phonier than most, and JFK a mash-up of Clinton, Edwards and Gingrich (which is to say on the far extreme of phoniness).
With regard to recent NY Governors, I think of the last 5 Governors, Paterson was the least phony, while scary to think that his accidentcy was likely the least phony, what's really scary about that is that most of the ones who ran and lost were even phonier than the phonies who won.
This is pure insanity. You take the semi-competent sociopath over the incompetent nutjob every time.
I do not know Esoteric, and I am not familiar enough with his posts to comment on what he believes or not. His post just struck me as so jarring that I commented on it (more than once) and began speculating.
I still think he's wrong about Romney though.
Aye. Ron Paul is honestly whackadoodle on the issues he's whackadoodle on, and honestly sane on the issues where he's sane.
The real answer is that you have them 'retire' on 'health' reasons early in the term and pick the guy you know can handle his ####. Dick Cheney may be evil to the core, and Biden might be a doofus, but both of them could probably handle a caretaker presidency.
For whatever it's worth, I finished reading Toobin's book "The Nine" a few months ago, and it made me a big Souter fan.
Somehow I suspect this has more to do with disagreement with his position than with what he said. As Orin Kerr has pointed out, Ginsburg not only read a vigorous dissent in Ledbetter from the bench, but said in the opinion, and then expressly said elsewhere, that her goal was to get Congress to overturn the decisions. She later wrote the same thing in her dissent in Bartlett v. Strickland, although I don't think she read it from the bench. Isn't that pretty much the definition of "political rather than judicial"?
The fact that half of the "reading" was directed at the White House's recent decision on enforcement priorities in immigration policy might clue you into the "rant" section of the program. It won't, because you don't like what is written by Scalia, you like what Scalia writes.
Antonin Scalia spoke approvingly of the first 100 years of the republic, when states enacted numerous immigration/sovereignty laws. He wondered aloud whether Arizona would have even agreed to become a state, had it known that its ability to manage its own affairs as it saw fit would be countermanded by the federal government. This on the same day that the Court invalidated Montana's century-old ban on corporate spending in its state elections.
Justice Scalia has a new book out in which he denounces the 1942 Wickard v. Filburn case that's been cited as precedent in almost every commerce clause case since, including by Scalia himself. In the book, Scalia concedes that "there may be many opinions that [I have] joined or written over the past 30 years that contradict what is written here." But he has an explanation: "Wisdom has come late." However, even wisdom comes with an expiration date: "[I do] not swear that the opinions that join or write in the future will comply with what is written here."
So there's this liiiittttle window of time where this judicial philpsophy applies, and then, may cease to apply again. It's called "this Thursday."
I wuz looking at a lefty site the other day, and some moonbats were suggestig that Alito's and Scalia's evident anger was a sign that the conservative wing had failed to strike down Obamacare...
grasping at straws
I have no idea if Alito was angry or not...
But Scalia's written dissent on the immigration case, all 22 pages of it, is truly remarkable, it is not a reasoned decision or argument, it is almost purely a political rant, but thsi is perhaps my favorite part:
why include the last clause about freed blacks not being allowed into Southern States?
Ayup. Dick Cheney is the most vile American politician I can think of, but I'd put him in the VP/POTUS office every single time over Palin. Palin's *crazy.*
That's insanity. Somebody like Palin is mostly harmless. Too stupid to actually accomplish much, and too lazy to try hard. Grandiose sociopaths like Edwards are a prime source of government created disaster.
Both are more accomplished than any of the attorneys that post here, having had distinguished careers before reaching the Court and receiving the highest rating from the ABA. Not everyone agrees with every decision of every court, but the current disparagement of the Supreme Court by the left is the most sustained campaign against the Court since the southern segregationists pledged massive resistance to the school integration decisions of the 1950s.
Either that, or they feel entitled.
Thomas has a philosophy/judicial ethic, I may disagree with it, but he has one- so does Alito and I really disagree with his- but Scalia- he's a pompous blowhard whose judicial philosophy begins and ends with himself, if we were going to rank Supreme Court justices on our contrived phoniness scale he'd be way on the Edwards/Palin/Romney side of things.
As for Alito "yelling at Kagan," somehow the news media failed to pick up on your friend's tidbit.
Oh, I think they're both highly accomplished and perhaps even brilliant legal minds.... I just think they're bad people without much in the way of a soul (OK, I think Alito likes animals a lot... although, I have a recollection from a Sopranos episode about literature concerning that).
Guess not.
If she did that, then yes that was political.
FTFY.
No. You can combat coherent sociopathy. You can't combat crazy. Sarah Palin is *crazy.*
I just finished Caro's latest volume on LBJ, and Richard Reeves's book from the 90s on JFK. Whatever he'd become by 1968, RFK was a douchenozzle nonpareil from 1958-64.
Sources in the know report he had a very weak handshake.
I'm sorry but THIS IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE, not that the left is currently unhappy with the court but the implicit refusal to acknowledge that the right has been running against the Court ever since the days of Miranda/Roe v. Wade
It's amazing what changes lifetime tenure can bring about, huh? Apparently if you take a reasonably sane, if thoroughly partisan judge and give him a lifetime sinecure with no chance that anyone will ever reprimand him for bad actions, he'll go off the reservation and act as if he's completely above everything. Go fig.
Answer: nobody. Nobody thinks that. Nobody EVER has that reaction. Which leads me to believe that you are either 1.) The Most Sheltered Liberal In The World, without any exposure whatsoever to intelligent people who hold opposing views (doubtful), or 2.) You in fact knew full well I was serious but, instead of actually trying to engage with my argument -- precisely because it wasn't farcical, but rather raised decent points that you didn't think you can successfully address without having to back off of some your positions -- you decided the better tactic would be to act if I had to be a put-on because nobody defending Mitt Romney could possibly be serious or speaking in good faith.
And yes, I take it personally. I take it plenty f**king personal when I go out of my way to try and articulate a position in good faith (with a lot of verbiage to make sure I'm not being too casual or careless) that runs counter to the rather self-congratulatory liberal CW around here, and the response isn't just to say that I'm wrong, but that I'm DISHONEST and FAKE and PHONY and (impliedly) SLEAZY for taking a position that you disagree with. That is a major "go f**k yourself" moment. I don't mind being disagreed with. (I expect it, in fact.) But I do mind when someone acts as if I'm to be psychologically erased from the map as an inconvenient opinion and does it with such snotty, high-handed arrogance.
Can someone remind me again why this thread is open?
I confess to not being able to fully monitor the various sources of "offense" between which the liberal lurches, but wasn't the most "offensive" provision of the Arizona law the "Your papers, please," upheld 8-nil by the Supremes?
I dunno. I get more of a lazy, stupid & opportunistic vibe from her. For genuinely bug-eatingly crazy GOPettes, I'd say Michele Bachmann sets the bar.
English isn't your first language, is it?
I'm not discussing the written dissent, David. I'm discussing the bench reading. Try to keep up.
You're doing that cute little thing where you confuse "agreeing with David Neiporent" with "being correct on the merits" again.
I agree,and several of us responded to that post in non-personal terms. Why didn't you answer those people instead of ignoring them and concentrating on the one that made the personal accusation?
I would say that it is a normal/ non-rant decision, I disagree with it being particularly "well reasoned"
so let's see, Alito wants to ignore the fact that the petitioners are 14 because the ruling will also impact 17 year olds, fair enough
Alito says that typical defendants will be 17.5 year old thrill killers...
Alito acknowledges that judge swill still have the discretion to sentence those 17.5 year old thrill killers to life in prison with no parole...
What does the majority ruling say? It says that you can't have a law that AUTOMATICALLY AND MANDATORILY sentences those under 18 to life in prison with no possibility of parole. The ruling will prevent a 14 year who was a bystander to a murder (but a participant in a robbery related to said murder) from being sentenced AUTOMATICALLY to life in prison with no possibility of parole.
That the ruling will also prevent Alito's 17.5 year old thrill killer from being automatically sentenced is what seems to get Alito's and Scalia's knickers in a bunch- even though the individual judge using his/her discretion, can still impoe life without parole...
That's your idea of well-reasoned?
This does seem a lot more accruate.
Isn't this what everyone here is explicitly and specifically saying about everything politicians say?
As for the point in your earlier post, I will briefly point out that Romney's inherent political principle is conservative leaning pragmatism, i.e. whatever works, within certain bounds governed by a general ideological orientation. (This, actually, is sort of what Obama sold himself as during the 2008 race, and then promptly revealed himself to be a standard-issue liberal ideologue.) A lot of the "flip-flop" accusations and such simply carry no weight whatsoever with me, as they completely ignore the fact that we live in a nation where the ideological center of gravity w/r/t economic/government/spending issues has shifted sharply to the right (or rather to the libertarian) over the last several years. We simply aren't the same country in terms of general attitudes towards size and power of Federal government as we once were in 1990s or even the early '00s. Positions that were kosher for conservatives and Republicans now are on the liberal side of the spectrum -- and this is a wonderful, wonderful thing, but I don't hold it against politicians who were around during that era for having taken positions then, in order to be responsive to the will of their constituents, which is why they're elected, that they have had to evolve on as the sands have shifted.
I find "rock solid ideologues" who don't change regardless of how the electorate changes to be largely deplorable, NOT admirable. I think people who fetishize that quality as "noble" or "principled" are fooling themselves. You might want that as a personal quality in a friend, but politicians are supposed to run the friggin' country, and I see no virtue whatsoever in glorifying, literally, the idea of a non-responsive government full of elected officials who do what THEY want and don't give a damn about what YOU want.
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