One of the rotating quotes at the top of the blog is, "Republicans are evil; Democrats are idiots." The Washington Post presents the latest evidence:
President Biden is facing blowback from some members of his own party over his mishandling of sensitive documents as his allies express growing concern that the case could get in the way of Democrats’ momentum coming out of the midterm elections.
I don't think party members need to robotically repeat talking points from their leadership, but the difference here between Republicans and Democrats is astonishing. Donald Trump, who isn't even president any longer, received nothing but hardcore support for both his refusal to admit that he had classified documents in his possession and his persistent unwillingness to cooperate after it turned out he was lying. In fact, far from criticizing him, Republicans and Fox News turned the whole thing around and added it to their bonfire of complaints about the FBI targeting innocent Republicans.
But Joe Biden, who is president, is getting only tepid support from his own party even though his error is minuscule at most. This is an almost 100% repeat of the halfhearted support Hillary Clinton got from her fellow Democrats while Republicans (and the FBI!) were gutting her campaign during the whole email affair.
This happens over and over. When things like this crop up, Democrats seem frozen in fear that someone, somewhere, might eventually find some genuinely damaging evidence and then they'd be—
What? A little embarrassed that they'd supported a guy who turned out to be guilty?
It's so aggravating. I wouldn't even want Democrats to act like Republicans, but could they at least act like a normal party? It's pretty obvious that the Biden document affair is a nothingburger, no matter what Fox News says. Nobody needs to protect themselves against the possibility that it might turn out to be a real scandal. And if, against all odds, it does anyway? There will be plenty of time to load your howitzers then.
In the meantime, please stop being idiots. Please.
And now that Pence has done basically the same thing as Biden they don’t even need to worry about looking too partisan!
They can simply say “what Biden and Pence did is a minor issue and they are both handling it correctly, unlike Trump…”
It has the added advantage of being true even😀
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You are completely right on this issue, Kevin, which means of course that the Dems will not listen to you.
It's hard to persuade people that they should be on the Democrats' side when the Democrats aren't even on their own side.
like +50.
Seems to me Democrats are desperate to prevent Biden running again. This document thing is a gift in that sense
Can’t blame them. Biden would get trounced by DeSantis and it’s looking more and more likely he’ll be the Republican nominee. Not that I have another Democratic nominee in mind but Biden was too old the first time, can’t imagine a debate now. It’d be ugly
Oh, please- any debate in which DeSantis participates will be dirty enough.
And while I never supported Biden before due to the Thomas hearings, I'm glad that I supported him in 2020.
Exactly.
Have you ever watched DeSantis actually speak in public? He would lose any debate and then the election in a gargantuan face plant.
You can't beat somebody with nobody and DeSantis is somebody only if you're wearing the kind of beer goggles where you're blinded by your own nuts.
He's a lot like Scott Walker, looks great to local wingnuts, vanishes in the breeze anywhere else.
DeSantis' one effective trick is not to respond to any controversy he creates, he simply says nothing, waits a moment, then creates some other insult to decency that changes the headline until the press is worn out with it and it all seems like nothing but a cloud of popular confusion.
I agree this kinda thing can be aggravating. But I'd cauton one and all that there's a difference between A) actual "party heaping blowback on its own president and standard-bearer in a manner that isn't really justified, and is likewise politically stupid" and, B) a newspaper claiming this is happening.
Nah, bloody Schiff and Durbin and a few other Dems in Congress have rushed to the cameras to tut-tut about the deadly seriousness of the nation's secrets not being properly protected, and said sternly that Biden must be treated no differently to Trump. It's reminiscent of Pelosi stopping the House in its tracks to pass a resolution condemning bigotry in response to Republican histrionics about some innocuous comments Ilhan Omar had made about AIPAC.
and said sternly that Biden must be treated no differently to Trump.
Well, that part, optics-wise, in the early stages at least, is prudent. It won't matter to hardened partisans on left or right, but for purposes of courting normie voters, it's better to reinforce the apperance of impartiality, so that if (when?) it is found that Trump acted egregiously illegally and Biden did not, there's a fighting chance people will rightly believe the process was fair. If this is what Kevin is complaining about, I definitely disagree with him.
I might feel differently if not for the Pence situation. But I think it's clear Washington has a general shitshow-ish situation with respect to the handling of official documents (and I doubt Pence will be the last). If I'm right on that, there's all the more reason to believe Biden has little to fear, politically, from the specter of the Great and The Good intoning seriously about their concerns wrt to problem that cries out for repair.
But obstructing and actively fighting with the government's efforts to track down sensitive documents (the Trumpian approach) is different, and I think most voters get that.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/document-issue-bad-both-trump-and-biden-american-public-views-trump-more-serious-concern
Obviously Democrats are indeed capable of incredible stupidity, so I wouldn't put it past them to overplay the "impartiality" card. But I think we're a ways from arriving at that point. And I expect Democrats won't go there (Schiff, for one, is no dummy, and neither is Durbin).
>innocuous comments Ilhan Omar had made
Yeah, wanna know how I know you're not Jewish?
Can anyone tell me why lefties' dog whistle hearing is deaf in the range of people who attack Jews, especially if their politics are seen as liberal? The number of JK Rowling defenders is much lower than the number of Ilhan Omar defenders.
It's almost like there's internalized antisemitism in the left that they refuse to reflect on.
There absolutely is internalized antisemitism on the left, it's from the people who think Muslims are noble savages.
Please list all of Ilhan Omar's antisemitic statements and how they are comparable to Rowlings digusting attacks on trans women. Then I'll take your criticisms as warranted.
Please cite even one attack on Jews made by Ilhan Omar.
"B) a newspaper claiming this is happening."
This. From that article, the only real criticisms were from Durbin (which is a real WTF moment) and Manchin (R-ish-WVa). The rest is a bunch of boilerplate "this looks bad, but is really no big deal." The NYT and WaPo want this to be a big scandal for two reasons: 1) Clicks. Those "clouds and shadows" articles are easy to write and drive the news cycle. 2) They are angry that Biden didn't confess that he was just as bad as Trump to the press 3 days before the midterms.
I can only assume Republicans watch CNN and read the New York Times to identify new targets for furious attack campaigns, whereas Democrats watch Fox and listen to talkback radio to identify issues they have to "neutralise" so they can get back to discussing the kitchen table stuff that voters love.
KD: "I wouldn't even want Democrats to act like Republicans"
Because they don't is why the House is in Republican hands this Congress. Are you happy about that? If Democrats in California had fiercely opposed, and subsequently tried to recall, 2010's Proposition 20, which took redistricting out of the hands of the legislature, the state could have Gerrymandered 5 seats and had a majority in the House. Red states / GOP leadership are out to win. The Democratic party leadership clearly is not.
Now we are in for two years of crazy committees with insane representatives (MTG, Gosar, Jordan, et al) that will be in the news virtually every day. In the meantime Democrats will preen, admiring their noble disdain for Gerrymandering, hoping nobody notices how foolish they are.
Don't get me started on Democrats nominating SCOTUS justices that are 6 years older on average than GOP nominees. Another instance of, well, gotta call it what it is: innumeracy
"If Democrats in California had fiercely opposed, and subsequently tried to recall, 2010's Proposition 20, which took redistricting out of the hands of the legislature, the state could have Gerrymandered 5 seats"
FYI: the real struggle isn't between Team Blue and Team Red, but between good governance and power-for-power's-sake. The more Dems act like Republicans (such as, like you suggest, gerrymandering their way into power), the more the real enemy prevails.
It sucks, but that's the nature of the asymmetrical advantage the bad guys have.
Thank you.
OK, tough guy. You do unilateral disarmament and see how much good governance you get.
Inevitably, Democrats do poorly in these situations because many of them genuinely want the government to run well and do good things for the people, and they are honestly alarmed. OTOH Republicans are mostly grifters, charlatans, and creeps that are only looking out for themselves and their sugar daddies.
I'm pretty sure I can tell the difference between the behavior of Trump and Biden/Pence. But the media tells us all it doesn't matter.
"But they are similar enough that as a practical matter Democrats can no longer use the issue against Mr. Trump politically, and investigators may have a harder time prosecuting him criminally."
This is presented as fact... a foregone conclusion. This is silly. Some dumbass reporter has decided that the facts don't matter.
So yeah - Democrats and journalists are effing idiots.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/24/us/politics/biden-trump-documents-special-counsel.html
Republicans are evil, democrats are useless. (also idiots!) Democrats are incapable of dealing with evil. It's not in their nature. It happens all the time.
IMO a big reason why Democrats sometimes act like idiots is due to the Obamaism: "When they go low we go high". It was BS when it was said, and it still is.
pretty big stretch to blame obama for dems being idiots because of something his wife said a decade ago.
Yes Biden’s case is different. But it should be pointed out that lower ranking employees in the government lose security clearances and some their jobs for less egregious “security” offenses. Yes all of these people (except of course Trump) were not well served by their aides but where does the buck stop?
That said. Biden would do us and his party a favor by gracefully indicating he was not running for re-election. He’s been a fine calming successor to Trump. But we really don’t need an over age 80 candidate. Did we learn nothing from RBG?
Concern troll's concern is noted.
Like!
I am using it as fodder for my quest to keep the government from classifying stuff thats perfectly fine. See! Caring about classification is for rubes!
Also fuck HRC. Bernie would have won.
what a sad, hateful, stupid comment. but good to bernie bros still whining and having a sad.
The difference is institutional incentives. Debbie Stabenow knows the White House will still take her calls after she shit all over them to an NYT reporter.
If she instead knew there'd be a price for that, it would be different.
Incentives matter. But who incentivizes the incentivizers? (And why does discussing politics make it so tempting to butcher language?)
Have cake, be just like Republicans.
Eat cake, be not like Republicans.
Choose one.
The article in question is from the New York Times, not the Washington Post.
In my view, it vastly overstates the amount of criticism directed at Biden by Democrats.
+1
Yes. Josh Marshall, tpm, has a good rant about how the NYT is "Whitewatering" this issue. The Times has a long history of taking the rightwing spin and lies, and sanctifying them by enshrining them as "news." Ditto for Wen Ho Li, Vince Foster, Benghazi, HER EMAILZZZZ!, and all the rest.
They seem to have it in for Democrats, particularly the Clintons.
100%
Everyone needs to re-read "What Liberal Media?"
Yep. Pretty soon the actual details won't matter and it will all be speculation by various "insiders" on the appearances and how it will affect the 2024 election.
It's pretty obvious that the Biden document affair is a nothingburger, no matter what Fox News
That sentence should read no matter what the New York Times says.
Right, people act like the NYT is liberal. Maybe their editorial line is, but they love nothing more than a decades' long mission to destroy any Democrat having success and love nothing more than to shield the misdeeds of Republicans (holding NSA story until December 2004 vs. going with "but her emails") in order to convince absolutely no one they aren't liberal.
Part of this is that Dems are idiots, but as others have pointed out, most of it is that the NYT really, really wants this story so they have something to ask Chuck and Hap at the diner in Ohio about.
This is all the same stuff that Eric Alterman wrote about 20+ years ago in "What Liberal Media."
And Dems have to talk like they're being called on in law school instead of talking like a normal person.
We Democrats have become, or are, the party of the spineless whisperers. We don't take a strong stand and yell about it like the repulsives. Our loss.
It's very odd that the stupid Democratic party isn't replaced by a smarter one that does know how to explain itself better or how to take the offense in political discourse. Or else it's odd that the individual idiots belonging to the Democratic party aren't replaced by more adept politicians within the party. Wouldn't the ability to make good arguments also apply in primaries?
It would probably be more pertinent to think of how the media operate than how stupid Democratic politicians are. To sell papers or get viewers the big media have to appeal to a wide range of people, most of whom are interested in any kind of scandal rather than real major issues. If they don't do well in this kind of competition they will go out of business. The big media are big business and they have their own biases, in favor of - other big businesses who buy advertising time and space. Writers and pundits are not wage-earners or union members themselves - in fact media management is opposed to unions in their own business.
Why there is no leftist equivalent of Fox News and other wingnut media is a good question, but maybe the support of big money - which favors Republicans - comes into play. This is not something that Democratic politicians have much influence over.
There are. Those people are called "Never Trumpers" and they write at the Bulwark and they are very good at politics but Democrats won't listen to them.
Would've had 52 in the senate had we listened.
So why don't the Never Trumpers and Third Way and other "moderates" have there own super-party which smashes the crazy extreme parties? When Kevin or you or all the other people who think they know how to do politics get elected then you will have some credibility - then you will be good at politics.
You have it backward. The Republicans are the stupid party, and the Democrats are the evil party! (insert smiley face here)
Trust is to politics what lubricants are to a car.
If Democrats were engineers instead of politicians, they'd be arguing with each other that lubricants that are a waste of money, except for part of the car that "we" care about.
If the MAGA party were engineers instead of politicians, they'd all agree that a much less expensive car can be designed by eliminating all the expensive lubricants and all the much more expensive lube systems.
TBF, Biden's team is doing him no favors either. They're the ones responsible for the drip-drip-drip. Don't see why they couldn't figure out to just wait until they'd looked everywhere to report on the whole thing at once.
Would like to be able to mute any rude delusional misogynists.
These are, of course, the same people who are exorciating Biden for the 'optics' of sticking to promises made and withdrawing from Afghanistan by the previously agreed upon date.
In other news: Kevin totally takes what the MSM says at face value.
"I don't think party members need to robotically repeat talking points from their leadership"
I do.
It's so aggravating. I wouldn't even want Democrats to act like Republicans, but could they at least act like a normal party? It's pretty obvious that the Biden document affair is a nothingburger, no matter what Fox News says. Nobody needs to protect themselves against the possibility that it might turn out to be a real scandal. And if, against all odds, it does anyway? There will be plenty of time to load your howitzers then.
Amen! Especially those in the press acting idiots around this like Jonathan Alterman and Jack Shafer
One can appreciate the fact Demcrats are the Borg when it comes to party leaders. At the same time, one wants to facepalm muttering "With friends like these...."
Thing is, when you have anonymous sources, there doesn't even have to be much of a breach of party discipline for the reporter to push the line he wants to push.
"some members of his own party" could be a couple of junior staffers, or even just a couple of Democrats the reporter knows.