Comments on: Brad Woodhouse, class act

By: sharpie

sharpie — Thu, 30 May 2013 22:39:35 +0000

Three cheers for her majesty the queen:

Hip hip: hoorah

Hip hip: oh forget it.

By: Mrs Whatsit

Mrs Whatsit — Thu, 30 May 2013 20:22:41 +0000

Mr Whatsit has advised me, correctly, that I should have written “media have” rather than “media has” in my 11:44 comment, so I am hereby acknowledging my error. It can be something of a trial to be married to a literate man. 😉

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Thu, 30 May 2013 20:21:27 +0000

mousebert:

I wasn’t meaning to suggest the Times is brave. The statement was somewhat sarcastic (and note the word “momentarily”).

By: Gringo

Gringo — Thu, 30 May 2013 19:08:50 +0000

“The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists — the Taliban and Hamas this morning — in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize.”

Which brings forth the main reason why I switched from Yellow Dog Democrat to Yellow Dog-Anything-But-A-Democrat: the strident partisanship of the Democrats. By 1980, I had turned into a third party, a “plague on both the Demo and Pub houses” kind of voter.

I noticed that in the Senate vote on Iraq War I in 1991, all but about five Democrat Senators voted against troops going to Iraq. That seemed to me to be a case of the Democrats playing partisan domestic politics on the international scene. I then decided to never again vote for a Democrat Party Presidential candidate.

In the 2000 election, I voted third party, so I was initially neutral regarding the ensuing recount brouhaha between Gore and Bush. I noticed that Democrats wanted to change the rules regarding eligible and ineligible ballots- dimpled chads and all that – in various counties that Democrats controlled. Yet because the Democrats controlled these counties, Democrats had set the rules in those counties regarding regarding eligible and ineligible ballots. I concluded that for Democrats, rules and procedures meant nothing- political gain was all that counted. I also remember that Democrats didn’t want to count overseas Armed Forces ballots.
[Recall that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has changed the procedure for filling a vacant US Senate position three times in the last 20 years , changing each time according to which party the Governor belonged to at the time].

After the 2000 election, I decided that I would not waste my vote on third parties, but vote to defeat the Democrats.

By: mousebert

mousebert — Thu, 30 May 2013 18:45:42 +0000

The NY Times–belatedly and momentarily locating its long-lost cojones–refused, and that’s what Woodhouse is refering to. I do not concur. NYT, still in its heart, wants to defend the Obama administration but is fearful for its own tarnished reputation, so it is now being more cautious. Not brave at all.

By: kcom

kcom — Thu, 30 May 2013 18:28:25 +0000

"Do people like this understand that we have a Constitution?" Do you mean that really old and confusing piece of paper those Tea Partiers keep going on and on about? At this point, what difference does it make? [These lines write themselves ;)]

By: davisbr

davisbr — Thu, 30 May 2013 16:49:24 +0000

“…belatedly and momentarily locating its long-lost cojones ….

🙂

…nice bit of color, that.

By: Lizzy

Lizzy — Thu, 30 May 2013 16:07:35 +0000

Woodhouse implies that when the administration says “Come” it is the press’ duty to say “Where and when?” Anything short of total obedience means all bets are off.

This is totally in line with what we’ve often heard about the WH press office’s treatment of reporters: verbally abuse reporters who dare publish negative stories about Obama, threaten to cut off access as a consequence, and actively exclude & delegitimize any organization who doesn’t play ball (Fox). They will even get prominent Dems and other members of the press to join in (see: Woodward, Bob).

By: Mrs Whatsit

Mrs Whatsit — Thu, 30 May 2013 15:44:54 +0000

It’s not just the tone — it’s the content. Woodhouse apparently believes that freedom of the press — that is, the “right to gripe” — is conditional upon a newspaper’s willingness to follow the AG’s orders and is forfeited if a newspaper declines to do as it’s told. That is, in Woodhouse-World, the DOJ is in charge of whether or not the media has any constitutional protections. (It’s quite true that the DOJ does behave as if this is what it thinks!) Do people like this understand that we have a Constitution?

By: Geoffrey Britain

Geoffrey Britain — Thu, 30 May 2013 15:18:39 +0000

What I find of interest is that in ‘projecting’ Woodhouse reveals himself and his party; “The 2009 version of the Republican Party has no boundaries, has no shame and has proved that they will put politics above patriotism at every turn.” In the quote above, just change “Republican Party” to Democrat Party.

Standard tactic, accuse the other fellow of ones own sins.