It’s not surprising that if you go back and look at the three most significant presidential scandals in modern history (Watergate, Iran-Contra, Lewinsky) that you’ll discover that partisans stayed mostly loyal to their president and that the most likely to turn were the most moderate members from the most competitive states and districts. You can call this putting partisanship over country if you like, and I think that’s fair.
But, at the same time, people work hard to get presidents elected for specific reasons, and when a president is at risk of going down it puts a lot more at risk than the fate of one chief executive. Without getting bogged down in the qualitative differences between burgling your opponents’ headquarters, trading arms to terrorists, and lying about an extramarital dalliance, there were people who actually cared about policy who stood to lose if their champion was laid low.
For conservatives who worked feverishly to deny George H.W. Bush the 1980 Republican nomination, the loss of Reagan would have been a catastrophe. Fans of Nixon couldn’t be comforted by the idea of the more moderate Gerald Ford taking over the job. I don’t think Gore presented the same stumbling block to supporters of Clinton, but he didn’t have the same once-in-a-generation political talent which became obvious when he “lost” to George W. Bush in 2000.
Trump is a different animal. Who are the people who really stand to lose if Trump is replaced by Mike Pence? They’re not serving in Congress, that’s for sure. Almost no one in Congress endorsed Trump. Almost none of them preferred him to Pence in January, and even fewer do so now.
To be sure, there are Trump voters out there who like him and didn’t and wouldn’t like any Republican alternative. But they’re not in charge of holding the president accountable.
Just on ideological grounds alone, Trump doesn’t command much loyalty.
So, while Republican lawmakers may be concerned that they’ll be voted out of office if they turn on Trump, or turn on him prematurely, he has less protection than any of the previous presidents whose actions have tested their party’s elected officials in Congress.
He’s also a far bigger headache than any of his predecessors, including Nixon. Nixon couldn’t shake his original sin no matter how he wriggled and writhed, but he didn’t create a new crisis several times a day. He wasn’t grossly and obviously unprepared to deal with foreign policy or classified information. He didn’t contradict his aides on a routine basis. He had an actual legislative plan and he was capable of implementing it. The only thing that Nixon and Trump seem to truly share is a common enemy in the intelligence community. Don’t forget that Deep Throat turned out to be Mark Felt, who was the Associate Director of the FBI.
That commonality shouldn’t comfort Trump and however you slice it, there’s just no way that Trump has as much rope as Nixon had.
Democratic partisans should be hoping that Trump remains on as a lame duck President for as long as possible, tainting all that support him. A quick switch to Pence, on the other hand, could be disastrous for Democratic hopes in the mid-terms and beyond, as he looks positively competent by comparison.
On the other hand, dumping a hugely unpopular Trump in the primaries in three years time could be ideal, as it would split the Republican party and really piss off trump loyalists and tea party fellow travellers. Dumping Trump as the party nominee in 2020 would have the added benefit of dumping Pence at the same time.
Of course all of this would be putting party before country, so officially the Democratic party has to support impeaching Trump sooner rather than later, whilst realising that the longer this goes on, the better their chances get in 2018 and 2020.
Pence is already compromised, shouldn’t be an option. if/ when impeachment starts it’s a long process, as it should be and plenty of time to work out the options in a bipartisan manner. But Pence repeated the lie about Comey when it obviously was a lie, and he must have known about Flynn as well, if not from his own involvement, then after Sally Yates told WH. best option imo hold another election, but that’s way in the future right now.
Interesting that Cornyn turned down FBI. Sasse described T’s giving intel as “weird” [widely panned in comments on tpm] and Corker spoke of T admin’s “downward spiral”. these are the senators who are going to have to bring their consituents along on legal process against T. they aren’t expressing anything forceful to the press,but they are on the committees and have already seen materials. I pay no mind to McCain or Collins who blather on and on but have never stood for anything except their own $$ any time in the past – old dogs/ new tricks etc
Pence is already compromised, shouldn’t be an option.
If Pence is dumped at the same time Trump is, if it comes to pass, that means Paul Ryan becomes President. Do you really want someone that the Versailles press slobbers over? Sad to say but the best bet for Democrats is if Trump remains as president until 2020. Besides, I still don’t think you’ll get 15 GOPers to vote to convict either Trump or Pence in the Senate.
I agree with all you say.
Frankly, neither Pence nor Ryan (especially) is an appealing option, and, imo, either would be worse for all concerned than Trump. The best bet for the country as a whole, not just Democrats, is to keep Trump in until 2020 but hope he’s such a lame duck that he’ll be toast.
AND to have someone really decent to run in opposition as the Democratic candidate. There’s the rub, frankly.
except you’re writing about it as if it’s some kind of luxury which in my reading it is not. what some point out is that T being compromised isn’t something that happened overnight, there is thought (how much proof these sources have I don’t know and they don’t say) the fonts of disinformation have been feeding $$$ into PACs for some years; Chaffetz and Nunes are just two of the obviously compromised reps, but there are others. general sunshine is required before even seeing where we go next.
interesting re: Pence
reply to
Trump remaining as President until 2020 while he and his Administration behave as they have would be disastrous to the security and character of our nation. The hell with some game theory of what might work out best for Congressional Democrats.
This is unbearable. I’m not talking emotionally, I’m talking literally. The United States cannot bear four years of these governing actions; if it were made to do so, the nature and quality of the U.S. would be irretrievably degraded.
Paul Ryan’s standing with the press is being damaged by the oceans of water he is carrying for Trump and the astonishing amount of lying he is doing re. the ACHA. I don’t see him as liked by reporters as you do anymore.
Paul Ryan’s standing with the press is being damaged by the oceans of water he is carrying for Trump and the astonishing amount of lying he is doing re. the ACHA. I don’t see him as liked by reporters as you do anymore.
I hope you’re right. But do you want to take the bet that they’ll continue roasting him once he becomes president if both Trump and Pence are tossed overboard? You do remember what happened once Nixon resigned and Ford took over, right? Ford pardoned Nixon and the press moved on. Nixon was never held to account in court for his action. The GOP needs to be tossed on the scrap heap of history. Otherwise we’ll just get Ted Cruz in 2024 or Little Marco in 2028.
Trump needs to go. This is an unacceptable line of behavior from our chief Executive. If you’re insisting on game theory here, game theory out the terrific dangers that would result if we were to allow these Executive actions to continue for four years.
Look, the GOP owns Trump’s behavior, Congressional leadership more than anything else. Ryan and McConnell have been sticking their necks out for Trump for a long time now.
Yeah, I remember what happened after Ford took over. He couldn’t get jack shit done and he lost his POTUS campaign in 1976. Nixon didn’t go to jail, but he lived in infamy, a shameful figure to the end. Nixon is being called forward as a cautionary tale and a historical comparison this very moment.
Nixon won a true landslide re-election less than two years before he was made to resign. And he had been a power within the Republican Party for decades; he had helped elect a number of Congressmembers. Because of his razor-thin electoral win and nearly nonexistent historical relationships with GOP Caucusmembers, I agree with BooMan’s view that Trump will not get as much rope as Nixon did.
Also, too: It’s not just how the press treats Little Paulie Ryan. What the public thinks of the Speaker’s leadership today is more important:
“The American Health Care Act has been a complete disaster politically for Republicans. Only 25% of voters support it, to 52% who are opposed. Even among Republican voters there’s only 49% support for the measure, while Democrats (76%) are considerably more unified in their opposition to it. Voters say by a 20 point margin that they’re less likely to vote for a member of Congress who supported the AHCA- just 27% say they’re more likely to vote for a pro-AHCA candidate, compared to 47% who are less likely to vote for one.
The health care debate has left Congress with a 15% approval rating and 68% of voters disapproving of it. Paul Ryan (25/59 approval) and Mitch McConnell (21/55 approval) are both very unpopular individually as well.”
Additionally:
“Only 40% of voters approve of the job Trump is doing to 54% who disapprove. For the first time we find more voters (48%) in support of impeaching Trump than there are (41%) opposed to the idea. Only 43% of voters think Trump is actually going to end up serving his full term as President, while 45% think he won’t, and 12% aren’t sure one way or the other.
Voters are both having buyer’s remorse about the outcome of the 2016 election and wishing they could return to the good old days of 4 months ago. By an 8 point margin, 49/41, they say they wish Hillary Clinton was President instead of Trump. And by a 16 point margin, 55/39, they say they wish Barack Obama was still in office instead of Trump.“
I think Pence is still in wide favor. My thinking on this is that the GOP will let “Trump be Trump”, get their more odious stuff done he can be blamed, and then dump or castrate him. Seems that “dumping on Trump” would work for some of their more centrist constituents that they might lose to the Dems. The Trump loyalists would still vote GOP or just stay home. I can’t imagine a large majority “sticking it” to the GOP and voting Dem. Seems a win-win. They’ll just need to time when they agree “we’ve had enough of you!” and then throw him and his Goldman guys out. I don’t think Pence would keep them.
Something like that. I don’t know if Pence will keep the Goldman guys or not, but it’s doubtful that he’d replace them with anyone better.
Frankly, I do not look favorably on a Pence Presidency, and advise against thinking that is a solution. Should this all come to pass and Pence becomes POTUS, we’ll most likely be stuck with him through 2024.
And make no bones, Pence is much more aligned with the Paul Ryan Kochheads. We really will be screwed over. Start saying bye-bye to Medicare and Social Security bc all Pence and Ryan want to do is cut and gut both programs.
Frankly, we stand a better chance (not a good one) with Trump in terms of not losing our social safety net.
Be very careful what you wish for.
Pence is not a likable politician. He was looking like he wouldn’t win his re-election as Governor of Indiana. This idea that his extremism could be remade into an electoral juggernaut is wildly overstated. And he’s Trump’s Vice President, a VP who was explicitly involved in the Flynn story. He is and will be damaged by his association with The Donald.
Trump must be routed from office by any means necessary. It’s important.
agree about Pence, he’ll go down with T imo
What do mean start saying ‘bye’? That has been the plan ever since the left self-destructed and lost the Presidency and a SC seat.
If the GOP doesn’t succeed in destroying these programs it will be a major failure given the left’s own goal in 2016.
We are pretty fortunate, odd as that may sound, that Trump is a corrupt, Putin-loving sonofabitch because that’s the only reason we might have a chance to stop them. You should hope Trump gets bogged down in Congressional investigations through the midterm.
Throw his Goldman guys out and put Schumer/Pelosi/Clinton’s Goldman guys in.
YAWN! Goldman still owns the White House.
Precisely.
Thank you.
AG
I have two responses to this.
Precisely.
Thank you, Booman.
I am personally beginning to think that we will all be…most of us, anyway…shocked at how this goes down. And I do mean how.
An orderly, Watergatesque set of “hearings,” etc.?
I think not.
The pace of life was rather…leisurely…in Nixon’s time compared to ours. Things come to a head much more quickly now. The digital revolution has made secrets harder to keep, and it also fans the flames of outrage much faster and distributes them much more broadly than did the media of the ’70s.
Watch.
AG
Expectations among Democrats are out of control regarding Trump. Taibbi has rightly cautioned about this.
The odds are much higher that Trump will die in office than he will leave.
what are the odds on Labor Day?
near 0.
Ever been part of a white collar investigation?
They aren’t quick.
Not arguing over specific timing predictions, but if you’re waiting on an investigation you’re missing the threshing blades that are mowing Trump down as we speak.
Yea. I doubt it.
But maybe.
When the number in red turns, get back to me. It arguably has increased over the last two months.
I don’t think it really depends on that. That’s not how governments are toppled. That’s how you lose an election.
Then you don’t understand base politics.
Or why governments are toppled.
That’s not how it works. Bush still had over 70% support from self-identified Republicans at his lowest point. There were just many fewer people willing to admit to being Republican. Independent numbers are cratering. Rats fleeing a sinking ship.
Nailed it. Trump is the symptom not a case.
Tell me how this intel community isn’t winning?
This is how he goes down. Just like how Nixon went down, just louder and more public and harder to miss. We won’t be wondering who Deep Throat was for three decades and never getting it right.
There are dozens of Deep Throats, including several in the West Wing.
I still don’t see much incentive for GOP office holders to do anything but hold their noses while they wreck the welfare and regulatory state. McConnell said as much publicly today.
Events are moving fast now. Feels like Comey move put things into overdrive.
The problem with this theory is that Trump is moving the Overton window of what passes for normality with every new outrage. Who could have imagined (say) Clinton or Obama surviving if they had been shown to be in cahoots with the Russians, or had tweeted that “Comey better hope there is no tape of our conversation”??
It’s like the frog who refuses to jump as the water temperature gradually rises until he is too weak to jump. Every increase in temperature comes to be seen as the new normal. Whereas if the water temperature had risen suddenly, he would have jumped instinctively.
Perhaps even the left in the US have become so inured to scandal they have lost track of how weird this all looks from outside the US. I refused to travel to SA during the Apartheid years even though I had friends there. I am at the point of making a similar decision re: the USA.
You know who isn’t sitting still and tolerating this shit?
The intel community.
With all due respect, many of us Dems are unwilling to call him by his so-called title. I’ll go so far as Lord Smallgloves. Or Poor Midas. Or Lord Dampnut. But. He. Is. Not. My. President.
Lots of us note that his voters wouldn’t leave their daughters/wives, nor their wallets, in a room alone with him, and yet they left our country alone in a room with him. No, there’s no “accommodation” whatsoever. The man was and is a rapist, a fraud, a white supremacist, and a fascist. And sure, we find out -now- that he’s incompetent and Russian stooge.
SO WHAT. He was unfit before, this just makes him MORE UNFIT.
We are forgetting nothing. Forgiving nothing. Accepting NO soft bigotry of “so much crime, who can keep up”.
OK, I concede. I forgot for a moment how diverse the USA is, and how good so many of my friends there are. As a white I would have felt I was endorsing Apartheid if I had travelled to SA at that time. No one will mistake me for a Trump supporter if I travel to the USA.
Always good to remember that in real life, the from jumps out every time, no matter how gradually the water temp is raised. There’s a threshold for everything. Even this.
Trump’s personality is such that his behavior will continue to worsen under the stresses he is experiencing.
PPP: “PPP“
48 for impeaching, 41 against per PPP
More Americans want President Trump impeached than don’t, according to a new survey by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling released Tuesday.
You write:
I dunno, Frank. maybe it’s because you are safely (???) in Ireland, but…in the U.S., it is feeling more and more like the following:
If Trump is not stopped…and stopped soon…something truly dreadful is going to happen here. And if it happens here…bet on it…it will have disastrous effects everywhere!!!
I do not much care how this is done, by whom or for what reasons, although I would certainly like it to be non-violent and lawful. (If of course you can consider this country’s laws “lawful” in any overall moral sense. Most of them have been enacted because corporations paid for them to be enacted, and as we are all realizing, corporate morality starts and stop at the bottom line.)
Better country…and therefore world, quite possibly…before party in this instance, especially since the entire concept of “parties” might well disappear in whatever sort of conflagration is eventually ignited over our flame-haired president’s actions.
We shall see…
Sooner rather than later, I am hoping.
AG
“Dumping Trump as the party nominee in 2020 would have the added benefit of dumping Pence at the same time.”
That’s a rare but not unheard of event in U.S. history. The most recent was LBJ declaring that he would not run again in 1968. His VP lost to Nixon. That’s an encouraging precedent with the parties reversed. However, I can’t imagine Trump doing anything like that. Besides, Johnson wasn’t really dumped.
A more encouraging precedent was the actual dumping of Millard Fillmore by the Whigs. Within four years, the Whigs were no more. We can dream.
He wasn’t? Or do you mean Johnson dumped himself before his party had the chance?
His plan, once he saw the increasingly bad poll numbers early 68 and once he saw Bobby get in, was likely to get out*, let Gene and Hubert beat up on Bobby, producing a diluted vote and a draw, and then announce just before the convention — after seeing his poll numbers rebound after his favorably-received withdrawal decision — that he would agree to come back to unite the party if they would have him.
(there’s an alternative, plausible theory, but it’s too controversial for this site …)
My sense is that LBJ, paranoid and insecure, was always reluctant to enter a tough political race unless he was confident he could control the outcome, the final vote counting. Trump, not dissimilar in paranoia and insecurity, would be slightly less inclined to unilaterally step aside. It would take Ivanka or Kushner, lobbying hard, to convince him. That or a full impeachment process about to knock on his door with a grim announcement.
From a purely political perspective, I think the best case is if impeachment talks heat up when the next Supreme Court Justice leaves. …and then hearings until 2019. I hope RBG is drinking her carrot juice.
From a country perspective, I’m not sold that Pence will be better than Trump, though the damage he does will be of a different flavor.
“Just on ideological grounds alone, Trump doesn’t command much loyalty.”
Not so sure that is right.
I think Trump is still commanding huge loyalty from his fans. The more push-back against Trump in the M$M, the more his fans cleave to him. Don’t be fooled into thinking otherwise.
I with you guys. I don’t see Trump’s Republican support flagging in any significant way. They wish he would stop tweeting but continue to support him. McConnell and the rest of the jackasses who travel in the GOP know they cannot afford to cross those folks. I think they stand with him until the Republican base turns. And Trump was right when he said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue. I don’t know how our country became so moronic and hopeless but here we are . . .
I am tracking GOP support for Trump here.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SlcfeFcZPJvTDG8PHyHkYV1eqV2OhkYFLrBynaQBl3Y/edit#gid=2076236
193
He is in the mid-80’s among Republicans, and there isn’t a shred of evidence his standing among them hs been hurt at all.
diction that isn’t there, i.e., between
and
For those to be contradictory, Trump’s fans’ loyalty to him would have to be ideological.
It isn’t.
As some wise person accurately (and repeatedly) has observed: he hates the same people they hate. Increasingly it seems clear it’s not much more complicated than that, especially for the cadre that will, predictably, stick with him through thick and thin, to the end and beyond.
some voters have a certain amount of loyalty, for most, no one is offering anything. once some alternatives, ways forward out of the problems are presented, the situation may change. bought off politicians is another matter
This may not have anything to do with comparisons to past administrations, but doesn’t the contemporary media play a role now? Face it, even with deep divides in the parties during the years of Reagan and Nixon, there was no FOX news blaring constantly, contradicting the facts and conflating lies. People who have faith in Trump are reinforced by the bold assertions by the Right and dismiss the reality of Trump’s ineptitude.
Fifty years ago, there was limited information, either delivered by the newspapers or limited options in broadcast television. News correspondents were respected, even revered, like Cronkite. The news was the news back then. People took it as fact and made their choices on political leaders based on what they heard or read.
Now you pick your news sites and blogs for information, and to be honest, most of us pick sites who deliver the news we want to believe. We have walked away from daily newspapers and magazines in favor of what we can read online. So embracing our party is not only easy, but it’s biased to suit us. And the news comes at us a hundred times faster, and the quality of reported news is more “get it out there and check the facts later”.
It’s much easier then to stay loyal to the leader we want. We can back them up with all the facts we want to Google, and we can deny any wrongdoing by a political leader because lots of other people say he’s innocent.
I think it’s harder now than ever before to know what’s true and what’s a lie. It seems to me that Trump is truly a terrible president, a despicable human being, and a disaster for the US, so I’ll keep resisting. But the Republicans who believe him will resist as well.
There is a little local gathering here that took place last night, which I attended. It was a group of about a 15 of us who have all gotten acquainted recently and are interested in discussing politics. It is a 50-50 mix of Trump supporters and Democrats. Now this is all anecdotal, of course, but I think these people could well be representative of the average Trump voter in our area. And in spite of all the steady drumbeat that we liberals hear and read about the daily issues surrounding Donald Trump, I can tell you that these discussions register little, if at all, with these people. They do not view any of this as a negative reflection on Trump’s fitness for office. It just doesn’t matter to them. And I think that the elected Republicans in Congress know that the biggest danger they face is if they suddenly start having public misgivings about things which the base views as completely ridiculous and irrelevant accusations against the President. We might call it a delusional state of denial, but the fact is the people who put him in office are still running the show when it comes to the actions and reactions of elected Republicans.
Whether any of this is true or a complete lie does not influence the opinion of the base voters one iota. They will say some of this might be true, but a lot of it us just made up or distorted to try and make Trump look bad. After all, in their world the media has had it in for Trump for years.
These people are going to stick with Trump well beyond even a bitter ending. He has resonated in some way with something deeply embedded in their psyche, and they will not desert him, no matter how despicable the accusation. All this musing I see among Democrats and the left about impeachment is, in my opinion, a wild fantasy that simply does not take into account how deeply embedded the loyalty to Trump is here in flyover country. Elected Republicans know that, and will not ever want to even remotely implicate that they have any doubts about the actions of Donald Trump.
I don’t think Trump is going anywhere. In spite of how much we try to convince ourselves that he is in danger of being kicked to curb. BooMan seems to think that the IC will eventually get fed up and will spill what they think are enough beans to convince Republicans to pivot away from Trump. But I am not sure even something that seemingly explosive from them would be enough to topple Trump. I think there is a significant overestimation on the left of his political volatility. I don’t think until the 2018 midterms will we have any idea just where things stand with Trump. Until that time, we will just continue with the daily insanity.
I agree with you. Trump’s fans are not leaving him in a trickle, much less in droves. They believe that most of the negative news about him is fake, and to be sure, some of it is fake news.
I don’t see the Republican party turning on Trump anytime soon unless something really big is revealed, and I can’t even imagine what that might be.
Speaking only for myself (pile on if you must), I’m not all that shaken by Russia allegations. Frankly, I wish we could move on from that bailiwick and focus on other issues of concern, like how Trump wants to get rid of public lands, like the dismantling of EPA regulations, etc.
RE:
(Example[s] of the bolded bit, specifically, just in case that’s not obvious.)
You know what the problem is though, right? Not enough people give a shit about public lands and EPA regulations.
Second, what’s there to pile on about? Trump’s Russia connections has been discussed since last summer. Only the willfully blind have missed it. Who can say any of this recent mess is a surprise?
OK, then.
yes. Difficulty in knowing what is true is one of Sasse’s points, something he understands well being on the committee. and his point is that 2018 will be worse. [it’s in the link I posted a couple times]. note: Sasse was elected by T voters but publicly disavowed T and said he wouldn’t vote for him.
Probably, because with the internet, there’s just vastly more out there, good stuff and nonsense, truth and propaganda.
I might suggest here at least a third category, the Gray Basket — Maybe/Not Proven/It All Seems a Little Too Neat/Is There an Agenda Here?, and the like. Iow, use your good judgment and reasoning ability, and exercise the skeptical muscle frequently. Don’t be afraid to draw your own conclusions, even if you’re alone or few agree.
For instance, look for whether the other side is being presented, fairly or at all. When I consistently see only one side being reported — especially with numerous MSM outlets all reporting the same way — my red flag goes up immediately. Most of the Russiagate stories are reported one-sidedly in the msm, all with a clear anti-Russia bias. It all has a ring of state propaganda.
While there might end up being shown something with Trump and Russia, I doubt very much the collusion in the election charges will prove out. More likely some business he had/has with some unsavory Russkie mafia types. That’s my working hypothesis until someone comes up with actual evidence to the contrary, and not just unsubstantiated allegations from the intel community, a group famously trained in deception and not unfamiliar with toppling governments who fail to do their bidding.
You write:
Precisely.
Thank you.
When the PermaGov media agree as a bloc regarding something truly important…like the Viet Nam and Iraq Wars, for example, or Watergate…there is something other than what is being propagandized going on.
Every time.
AG
Will this Democratic hagiographic BS never end? We’re now on our third POTUS born in 1946 and fourth “Boomer” — same generation. Three of whom “won” second terms and the too soon to tell about the fourth. Same generation but apparently the wrong year for those they defeated: 1947 (Romney and HRC) and 1948 (Gore). Still time for more boomer generation people to win the presidency.
Bob Dole was the last of the WWII generation (or whatever we want to call those in that birth cohort generation) to be nominated. Mondale, Dukakis, McCain, and Kerry were the nominees from the subsequent generation.
I understand that you really, really really dislike Bill Clinton, but let’s be honest, he did have a way of connecting viscerally with a lot of people. You might consider his charm to be risible, but charm it was. That’s not hagiography.
Why the birth years of recent presidents make a bit of difference is a mystery to me.
If I interpret correctly what you’ve written over time on this blog, you, too, are of the Baby Boom generation. (As I am, born in 1955.) I have to say that I’ve never attributed any significance to my birth year; after all, I didn’t choose it any more than I chose my parents. But I do know that for many folks 15 to 20 years younger than I, our generation is viewed with scorn.
So he was a good liar. So was Obama.
At that level of politics, you have to be a good liar. Doesn’t mean you are a bad person, just that it comes with the territory.
Hillary was right, about a private vs a public position, but of course was stupid for uttering it out loud, outside her immediate family.
And of course other than the pure hermits, most of us who have relationships and otherwise interact in RL with people also have to be a good liar, in smaller, private ways.
But…where do you draw the line, Brodie?
Really.
Where do you draw the line?
I’m with Gandhi, myself.
AG
Some truth in that. Especially his ability to discern the meaning of that citizen’s question at the Town Hall debate in 92, the woman who asked how the national debt affected the candidates personally. Bill got it; Poppy famously did not.
He also fairly skillfully navigated a rather rough early primary scandal over Gennifer Flowers, and managed it sufficiently so that enough people were able to finally calm down — compared to 1988 — about a politician having an affair.
In terms of political talent in his generation, only Mario Cuomo was comparable. But only Clinton decided to run.
Not everyone uses the generational boundaries you seem to be. I’m a fan of Strauss and Howe,* who use different boundaries than you do. In particular, they have different start and end dates for the Boomers. Their scheme has the Boomers beginning in 1943 and ending in 1960. That makes Kerry a Boomer, not a Silent, and Obama an Xer, not a Boomer. I may not persuade you otherwise, just as you won’t change my mind, but be aware there are other ways to divide up the generation that lead to different conclusions from the ones you came to.
*So is Steve Bannon, but we can’t pick our fellow fans.
That fits Kerry and Obama much better.
Your point? “Depends on the definition of “is?”
The US Census Dept defines the “Boomer Generation” as the cohort born 1946 to 1964. Take your beef to them and not those that use their definition. However, as the subject is Bill Clinton and his being a “once in a generation politician” doesn’t matter if the starting or end points differ because at a minimum he’s now one of three from that generation that has been “elected” POTUS. (Only one of whom who managed to get a majority in those five elections and the one with the lowest plurality was WJC in 1992.)
It also doesn’t change the fact that no US President was born in the years 1925 through 1945 which probably doesn’t mean anything other than that the “greatest generation” dominated national elections for over thirty years (forty years if we include the older WWII general in that period).
Really? I mean, really, really? Are you seriously this obtuse? WJC possessed more natural, political talent in his little finger than Gore, Kerry, and HRC combined. Romney has even less talent and charisma than HRC and Gore, and the only talent Bush had was the ability to have enough connections to steal a close election.
And I doubt anyone would consider Trump to be anything other than a once in a generation disaster.
Do you have an objective criteria for “natural, political talent?” Or like Republicans that repeat that Reagan was some sort of political god, do you simply accept whatever swill “opinion makers” serve?
How did WJC use his awesome political talent? IOW, what did he deliver while in office that to this day you continue to praise? Or maybe you appreciate that he encouraged Trump to run?
If WJC was so incredibly talented, how did the GOP flip both houses in Congress within two years and didn’t relinquish their majorities in the next three election cycles? Even Truman got his Congressional majorities back after two years.
Objectively? He defeated the Bush crime cartel. Objectively?
He was the last democrat to carry any part of the deep south. Objectively? When he left office, the country was in better shape than when he entered the White House. Objectively? He appointed more women/minorities to the federal bench than any president before him. Objectively? He simultaneously put a bug up the ass of lefty purity trolls AND right wing nut jobs. I call that a win/win.
Granted, he did plenty that pissed me off, but I’m not a fucking child and don’t carry blind hatred around because I didn’t get my sparkly blowjob unicorn.
responded as though Marie’s questions were genuine!
George Bush had an approval rating under 40.
No sitting President has ever been re-elected with a number that low.
Just about any Democrat would have won in 1992.
He had talent. But winning in 1992 isn’t a very persuasive argument.
Almost any democrat? Jerry Brown? Tsongas? Of course they could’ve, if only they could figure out a way to beat Clinton.
If the donald had the support team of bush none of this stupid stuff would have happened. Note where is Cheney or his spawn who is a current member of congress? But, the donald burnt the bridge to the Bush family and they are enjoying this trump chaos. Think about this…Sessions left the FBI director alone in the office with a president who has no knowledge of obstruction justice laws. I ain’t no lawyer and I would have never left the room. Beauregard is stupid on level of Mr. Magoo. Pence has made a career of stupid.
“…how did the GOP flip both houses in Congress within two years and didn’t relinquish their majorities in the next three election cycles?”
The clearest explanation is that Clinton and his first Congress had a strong progressive set of accomplishments, including raising tax rates on wealthy people, and made a long run at passing very progressive health care reform into law. The American electorate, ginned up by a right-wing Wurlitzer which did not exist under previous Presidents, reflected their lack of comfort with such progressive governance by rejecting its practitioners.
You could say that Bill Clinton showed his political talent by overcoming the two government shutdowns in 1995 and 1996 and gaining a smashing re-election win. To lay the lack of Congressional electoral success entirely at his feet is to literally ignore everything else that was going on during that political era and the lead-up to it.
You may wish to ignore all that; we don’t have to.
DNFTT!
.
Holy Shit…
The New York Times is reporting that Trump asked Comey in writing to close the investigation in Flynn in February!
I do believe the excrement has now officially hit the overhead oscillating device.
This isn’t going to end without violence.
A lot of common people with a lot of guns have a lot invested in this man.
They’ve waited all their lives for him — he’s the real McCoy, not a compromise candidate like McCain or Romney.
An out-and-proud sharer in their hatreds.
They’re going to roll over passively and give this up?
I don’t think so.
Yep. That’s pretty much says it all on that front.
I’m not on board with this. This melodrama will play out over the next few weeks/months and by the time that it’s obvious that Trump is done, a majority of that base will have accepted it. I live in an area with lots of Trump voters;they may still be watching Fox, but they aren’t publicly defending the guy. After last week and this, only a rabid partisan would still be proclaiming belief and support of the guy. The ones on cable tv trying to carry water for the president even now have obviously weak and flawed arguments.
Polling data consistently suggest he’s experienced no significant erosion of support from his base.
They may not be as vocal as they were (although NPR seems to regularly find some who are to interview), but my take is that they’re now just seething in (more or less) silent resentment, not that they’re abandoning him in any significant numbers.
Yeah but we got em outnumbered.
Not exactly, Comey wrote a memo detailing a conversation with Trump directly after the fact. The White House denies his version of the conversation, but such memos by FBI agents are often used as valid evidence in trials.
Oh my mistake. I read the headline that showed up in my inbox wrong.
Mistook a comma for a period which changes the meaning quite drastically from Trump asking Comey to let the Flynn thing go in a memo to Comey saying in a memo that Trump asked Comey to let the Flynn thing go.
Indeed. If true the shit hath hit the fan.
Your reasoning is flawed. Trump has more rope than Nixon had. Nobody liked Nixon either. Forty-three years ago, the institutional Republican Party was still willing to work within a two-party system; it had not created the propaganda feedback loop that, today, has convinced it that it has a monopoly of legitimacy and that therefore any means, whatsoever, justify the end of staying in power. The good thing about this is that when Trump goes down, he will take the Republican Party with him; only a few scattered individuals will detach themselves. The bad thing is that it will make the collateral damage much greater.
I had a similar reaction. Upon consideration, I concluded booman meant something like “Dems need to pay out less rope for it to be enough for Trump to hang himself with than Nixon required.”
And who knows, I could be right. It could happen! (Only booman can say.)
BooMan, shame on you! Putting Lewinsky in the same category as Watergate and Iran/Contra!
Even in this context, it’s all wrong — it dignifies what they attempted to do by mimicking the procedures of actual investigation of real malfeasance.
Felony perjury by a sitting President is real malfeasance in my book. I’m old-fashioned that way.
Nixon was worse? Fine. We can put that on Bill’s tombstone: “NOT AS BAD AS NIXON”
But why the fuck were they looking at his sex life? All because of a moving target that shifted from the Whitewater nonsense over to Bill’s women. (Like, as if W. Bush or Romney or any of them would hold up under that kind of merciless scrutiny on their shady business dealings and family bullshit.)
The pattern is now striking and unmistakable:
Of all the above, McMaster gets the least sympathy (i.e., NONE — not that the others get more: they made their beds . . . ) after living through this charade yesterday, then coming back for a rerun today: “Please, Sir, may I have another?”
As I suggested above, no tears — not even crocodile ones — will be shed by me on behalf of these enablers. Schadenfreude is more the plat du jour.
Every frikkin one of them deserves every frikkin bit of the misery they’re in.
The tweet that stood out for me was from yesterday:
Joy ReidVerified account @JoyAnnReid 13h13 hours ago
GOP source to me tonight says donors are nearing revolt. That could be what’s finally pushing GOPers away from Trump.
she said that on Lawrence O”Donnell last night. another panelist said he was hearing from T supporters who were becoming disaffected