Do you ever depart from talking points, even to acknowledge the facts? And what will you trolls do once the election is over? Head back over to internet porn? (Maybe you and Andrew Sullivan can, you know, hang out together online.)

Barack’s historical analogy makes sense to me. After all, there was that court case in which a German Jew got the Reich’s Supreme Court to overturn the Nuremburg Laws…. uh, nether mind.

Joe the Plumber’s driving record has nothing to do with the fact that he’s not licensed as a plumber, that he’s a year or more delinquent on his taxes, that he’s not going to buy the company he claimed he wanted to, that he doesn’t shy from publicity, or that he’s related to Charles Keating. Every one of the latter bears directly on the legitimacy of using him as a campaign tool in the way he presents himself and that others present him (i.e. “Joe the plumber who wants to keep taxes low on people who make more than he ever will”) – even if through the use of his own questions. Charging someone else with hypocrisy is not an excuse for ignoring context, unless irrelevance is one’s aim.

And there is no constitutional or legal obligation to answer a generic citizen or journalist’s question, as Sarah Palin’s refusal to meet with or answer questions posed to her by most media organizations proves. People will make of that what they will, and they have. As they will make what they have made of McCain’s outright, baldfaced lies.

Speaking of lies and not being forthcoming, Sarah Palin recently claimed that Joe the Plumber is a resident of Alaska and a veteran. That’s kind of stretching the realm of fantasy even further than I’d expect for the GOP ticket. No Freudian dream analysis necessary when your every waking moment is a walking fantasy. Why not embellish all that even more, though? Let’s pretend she can make him out to be a Navy Seal and militant Alaskan secessionist while she’s at it. At least then her delusions would be interesting.

p.s. (Religious Jews who smoke weed) + (are voting for Mccain because “security)” = stupid, and unable to even look out for their own selfish interests properly. So there

“…just to take a, sort of a realist perspective…there’s a lot of change going on outside of the Court, um, that, that judges essentially have to take judicial notice of. I mean you’ve got World War II, you’ve got uh, uh, uh, the doctrines of Nazism, that, that we are fighting against, that start looking uncomfortably similar to what we have going on, back here at home.”

Make of it what you will.

You forgot to mention that Joe at some point probably had a speeding or parking ticket.

On the above alone you base Obama’s right to deny a citizen an answer.

So much for hypocrisy.

Glad to hear you admire Socrates (that’s how you spell his name, by the way, when writing it in English) – maybe you could ask him what he would think when someone refuses to answer questions that are asked of them. And he could also help explain the etymology of the word “HYPOCRITE”! (Because it’s hypocritical for someone to do what I just noted that a certain someone did in the paragraph above).

The issue at heart is also a certain lack for the capacity to prioritize arguments and to determine what is relevant to conversations generally.
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In any event, here are some facts on Joe the Plumber, since he’s apparently such a hero to so many people:

Joe the Plumber (whose first name isn’t really Joe, who isn’t licensed as a plumber, who owes unpaid taxes, who doesn’t make anywhere near $250,000/year, who isn’t likely to buy the business that he pretended he wanted to buy when he first “approached” Obama), has formed a partnership to consider pursuing a recording contract. What a humble guy, a regular “everyman” martyred by the media, who never, ever sought the publicity of media scrutiny. Oh why, oh why can’t the press just LEAVE HIM ALONE!

Well, maybe that has something to do with the fact that instead of saying “no comment” to interview requests, he agrees to appear on news shows, and confesses that he doesn’t know why he would claim things about Obama that he admits he can’t prove, despite the fact that the McCain campaign pathetically has to appropriate those quotes to make their case. And before you scream “irresponsible” reporting, keep in mind that this is what he admitted when appearing on FOX NEWS! Now I wouldn’t disagree with the idea that FOX is irresponsible. But that’s not the point. The observation is that even on a media outlet favorable to the party he registers with and to the candidate that he endorses, even THEY are struck by his irresponsibility. And that says something.

See Froylein, these are facts. And being able to address the arguments posed by these facts exemplifies the Socratic method. You’ve addressed some facts and clarified some of your arguments above. And that’s precisely the approach to stick to if you’d like Socrates to be as impressed with you as you fancy he should be.

I’ve never condescended to Americans’ voting habits; the question raised was quite a different one, and suggesting the former claim bespeaks either the inability to understand what apparently anybody else who has followed this thread understands with ease or the readiness to state plain untruths.

I’ll refrain from elaborating on how not only absolutely tasteless but ignorant of the political development of the FRG and its Jewry your reference to Hitler is. It may have escaped your attention, but Jewlicious is, more than less, a Jewish blog. I’m just mentioning lest you suggest my political affiliations 70 years ago would have been with the NSDAP. Speaking on behalf of my fellow countrymen, I dare say that over here the majority doesn’t believe that media forced in line – whether by their own political choices or law – is a good thing. Neither do we believe that presenting personal opinions was in any way proper reporting. Just to clarify, that does in no way mean we claim journalists could / should not hold political opinions and vote according to their conviction.

Socrate would have been with me on asking questions. That I obviously hit the nail on the head should not be blamed on him though.

Or suit yourself and continue your own dialectical masturbation.

Americans will vote however they will vote, and you can condescend to their voting habits or try to understand them. In either event, I’m not concerned. After all, I’m not a resident of the country that voted for Hitler. If I were, perhaps I’d see the world through the lens that you and your friends do. But I’m not, so perhaps I have less reason to pretend to be worried about American campaigns and elections and the state of American democracy in the long run.

America’s an important part of the world, and a country that’s worth engaging. I’d hate to live in a box that’s so small as to make me think otherwise. But feeling good about oneself is important, Froylein. I hope your sneering accomplishes something of greater importance than just that, though, but it doesn’t seem likely. It’s too bad that your inability to explain how you intend to refute a single, identifiable fact that I mentioned (surely not every fact that I mention is one with which you disagree) doesn’t provide some sense of embarrassment or introspection with which to balance out your snide and misguided arrogance, but no matter. It’s too delusional for most people to take seriously.

Have fun living in your Nixonian dreamworld. Joe the Plumber and friends will need company. From there you will be able to pose the many, many incredibly easily discredited accusations that are so important to them. You know them. They’re the accusations that are phrased in the form of a question.

“I don’t think it’s entirely necessary for me to explain, once again, why I believe that Rashid Khalidi is not a danger to the Republic. I also don’t think I have to rehearse the controversial idea that Barack Obama was not, in fact, the Hyde Park chapter president of the PFLP-GC. (That was Rahm Emanuel.) But there’s a video out there of Obama saying kind things about Khalidi, and on the general principle that information in an open society shouldn’t be kept secret and that the voters should make up their own minds about whether or not they trust certain candidates, this video should be set free. But a pro-censorship organization called the Los Angeles Times, which has the tape in its possession, is hiding it, for reasons it won’t fully explain. And it’s looking more and more ridiculous each passing day.”

You might want to obtain an introductory book on literary analysis and read up on the criteria of “reports” compared to “expository texts” and “feature stories”. Once you get that distinction right, you may actually qualify to join the discussion. Don’t use Wikipedia though; the articles on there concerning the above-mentioned literary categories are lousy at best.

BTW, if I made it a little game to check catch phrases from your comments on Wikipedia, and your responses appeared worthy of giving credit to the original author and their platform, would you donate to that site?

I’m not sure that you have a good understanding of America’s political culture.

I would suggest you read the article from the New Yorker.

It is not difficult to discredit someone (who is a shill for the McCain campaign BTW, related to Charles Keating – ask your faculty if they know who that is) who is being used by them to equate progressive tax rates with socialism. Socialism is government ownership of the means of production. The right wing is trying to equate tax structures less progressive than those endorsed by Nixon and Reagan as “socialist”. If they want to claim that Obama, by asking for a return to much less steep Clinton-era tax structures, is a “socialist” (which by the way is used in a pejorative sense in America since we don’t have viable socialist parties like you do in Germany), then that’s fine – as long as they want to argue that Reagan and Nixon and George H. W. Bush were also Socialists. But they won’t – because they’re either dishonest lying hypocrites who are obsessed with message and winning at all costs. And you don’t seem to understand why they are rightly criticized for that. Nor do their blind followers in the states.

It’s not better or more professional reporting that they want, but for people to agree with them and to endorse their agenda – whatever that is (they haven’t really thought it out all that well). And they don’t agree with them. No journalist can “fix” that. Unless he’s a tyrant. Or just way more paternalistic than any respectable professional should be.

As for your “entire political science faculty”, I would suggest they get in touch with their colleagues or counterparts over here – American political scientists.

If your comment about “pick(ing) on a citizen that dares to ask a critical question” is in reference to the infamous “Joe the Plumber”, then I can only laugh that anyone would take that farce seriously.

The GOP is upset because, no matter how anyone chooses to present their story, no one is buying what they, McCain or Palin has to say. At some point one must grapple with this reality. If there were a way for anyone to believe them, someone would have found a way to have made that happen. We’re talking about a political affiliation which, after making an enemy of all media by the first president to resign after lying about breaking the law to dig up dirt on his position opposition, and worshipping Reagan’s “communication” skills, became so maniacally obsessed with “message” that no one believes them anymore. Sorry.

Shifts in American political power seem to move in 40-year cycles. By 2048 perhaps the conservatives will have found a way to rebuild. It will involve learning how to base their movement and tactics on something other than habitually lying about everything that comes out of their mouths.

Allow me to quote the great ck:

“A big threat to a democracy that grants freedom speech is a media that is told how it should report. Free speech requires that it be granted equally to the dumb, the biased, the offensive and those who we just don’t agree with. I have more faith in the general public’s ability to discern the truth than I do of anyone trying to impose it.”

I agree completely.

As I noted above (and apparently nobody bothered to read), Michael S. Malone describes himself as a “technology writer”. And it’s a bit hypocritical if not solipsistic to the point of absurdity for someone who decries the proliferation of editorials to explain his case in the form of – you guessed it – a ranting editorial.

“This is the opinion of the columnist and in no way reflects the opinion of ABC News.”

Fighting fire with fire is rather hard when you’re smothered in kerosene.