Republican Sanity

Nice of them to speak out today, but they’ll be back to being insane by Sunday.

Your post here is a little confusing Joe…I had to read it a number of times before I realized you WEREN’T talking about their position on the Republican school boycott being dangerous and wrong…instead saying you agreed with them on this subject.

Maybe I’m just a little dense, but I suspect others are having the same problem.

This latest “outrage” from the Republicans is driving me crazy…there’s NO subject they can’t work themselves into a hissy fit rage about when it concerns Obama, no matter how benign!

Too late, Joe, the inmates have already taken over that asylum.

They think hard about the positions they take, deal in some version of the facts–although I find their conclusions dangerous and wrong–and therefore live on the same planet I do.
.
Yes, they live on “Planet Village”, which is why Joe Klein accepts them as Serious people.

see. this happens every time. no matter the poisonous things they say on tv, they just gonna one (relatively) nice thing for people to start praising them. no consequences. joe, you just keep disappointing me every time.

I think Republican beliefs like considering super-processed Ketchup as a vegetable, or that removing the brain damaging lead (Pb) from water coolers and faucets at schools interferes in the free-market’s ability to sell us junky, leaded products, “indoctrinates” (read: makes them stupid) more students than anything old Barry Hussein says will.

I feel sorry for the kids who have parents who politicise the President’s speech to school children about study and play and much else. How do kids cope in a Republican nut house?

Because 2 or 3 individual Republicans demonstrate a faint degree of “sanity” does not indicate a semblance of *Republican* sanity. Where are Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Eric Cantor, etc. on this issue? They’re silent. Silence is acceptance, and the contemporary Republican Party is totally accepting of this intolerable, disgusting lunacy. It serves their depraved purpose of de-legitimizing and marginalizing the president. They are beyond redemption. The problem is that the country needs an Obama education speech more than ever. We have descended into the utter depths of dumbness. As Mencken said, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.” Truer today than ever.

Where were the sane liberals when Gephardt melted down in 1991 when Bush was doing this. A Dean-esque tirade about paid political announcement.

The difference- the liberals NEVER showed a moment of sanity

It is unsurprising that you are too stupid to grasp the distinction between the cases.
.
Gephardt’s accusation was that Bush was using the opportunity to send a partisan message to children. Regardless of whether Gephardt was correct or not (I am completely uninterested in researching whether he was right and will assume for the sake of argument that he was wrong), there is only about a 10,000% difference between accusing a political opponent of utilizing a non-partisan public event for partisan purposes and accusing the President of “indoctrinating” the nation’s students and forming the equivalent of the Nazi Youth.
.
Sorry, but there is no comparison. It must be embarrassing that you and 90% of the GOP are bat-sh-t crazy lunatics.

I was listening to a HC town hall meeting yesterday and a someone asked “why is America the only country on the planet that protests improving health care for it’s citizens, and cleaning up the environment?” Now we can add protests for staying in school and studying to that list.

What’s happening in our country proves both that Democrats have far fewer looneys than the Republicans and that the MSM is biased against Dems (or feel pushed to show that they are not liberal by giving Republicans more favorable coverage overall).

Let’s compare 2001 with 2009. We had a president who did not win the majority vote and who was put into office sooner than might (or might not) have happened if the recount vote had not been suspended in Florida.

Sure there were some on the left and Dems in general who were hopping mad. And I’m not saying there were not conspiracy theories (or basically just accusations that the SCotUS decision was based on politics) abounding in Dem circles.

But did we see town halls populated by Dem congress members exhorting citizens to not recognise Bush as president? Did we have months and months of angry protest meetings where Dems called Bush a commie and a Nazi?

No. The fact that Bush was accepted so quickly is very much due to Dems putting their country ahead of party politics. If we had not been willing to let the matter drop, I think the country would have been deeply divided by the time that 9/11 occurred.

Of course that is presuming that MSM would actually have covered any Dem unrest and protest meetings.

The text books and Teachers exposing liberal ideals is rampant in our schools. This is a fact more so now than ever before.

What you are seeing finally are Republicans who say “enough is enough”. Spread your liberal garbage someplace else, but not into the minds of my children.

If the shoe was on the other foot, and it was a Republican out speaking in the schools about “Creationism”, the liberals would be foaming at the mouth like rabid dogs.

“Write a letter on how you can help me as President”.

Why not have children write letters to Obama asking him to be the “Public Servant” he is supposed to be, and ask him how he will change the Education system so we are competitive with the other industrialized countries, Japan, India, Korea, etc.

Why not ask the President what HE is going to do to stop the further decline in our education outcomes for our children?

Why not ask the President to FIRE incompetent and lazy teachers in the education systems?

Why not ask the President to set standards that ALL teachers must meet, and discontinue the practice of “tenure” for life.

Why not ask the President how he will hold Teachers, Administrative Superintendents and other Educational staff accountable for the education of our children.

When you do that Mr President, by all means ask my children how they can help you.

square1

Your entire response is reduced to name calling and not caring if Gephardt was wrong but you are convinced Bush and the Republicans are worse.

And President Obama never issues a partisan message does he? Every Teleprompter tirade is demonizing someone but that is not partisan just arrogant self-righteous crap.

Take that explanation to a doctor I am sure he will refill your prescription. Oh wait you won’t get help without a public option.

Republican Sanity : This is an oxymoron from the start!! The folks that Klein mentions at the outset of his ‘blast’ are but a small subset of the lunacy fringe…They are everywhere and Klein seems to be comfortable in their midst..

“If the shoe was on the other foot, and it was a Republican out speaking in the schools about “Creationism”, the liberals would be foaming at the mouth like rabid dogs.”
.
Actually, anyone with half a brain and a firm knowledge of separation of church and state should be foaming at the mouth about Creationism being taught in schools.
.
And do you have an example of those rampant liberal ideals? What, like math? Science? There’s a reason that only 8% of scientists are Republicans and your ever-increasing disparagement of anything scientific has lot to do with it.
.
If the GOP wants to be the party of the ignorant, you’re well on your way.

“But did we see town halls populated by Dem congress members exhorting citizens to not recognise Bush as president? Did we have months and months of angry protest meetings where Dems called Bush a commie and a Nazi?”
.
Actually not just months, but all 8 years.
.
Please click here, southerbell.
.
http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=612
.
I do hope that helps make your day, southerbell. I wouldn’t want you to go ill-informed or biased in your thoughts as to who was demonized the most, Your poor Obama or Bush. Enjoy!

Limbaugh has spent over 20 years building a huge market for this unbridled craziness — and we live in a market-driven culture.

freeinpa,
So what is your opinion: is Obama trying to indoctrinate America’s youth is a massive Orwellian Socialist experiment, or is he doing this to score political points? One response will earn you and other conservatives some grudging respect, and would allow us all to agree that, regardless of political party, there are many sane, rational Americans left. The other response will mean the slow destruction of our country and way of life at the hands of a vast majority of bloody stupid morons. So which do you really believe?

Oh I am sorry momento. Maybe if a Republican was out telling 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders that the book, “My Two Mommies” is really about two lesbians, not “my two mommies”. That by reading My Two Mommies, is really advocating for homosexuality. But, that might pi$$ off a few liberals, no?
.
Maybe a textbook which I know for a fact the science teacher uses locally about “Global Warming”, and he backs it up with Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” is countered with this…
.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=62598
.
‘The Sky’s Not Falling’; “Al Gore’s global warming debunked – by kids!”
.
Perhaps that would be a better choice than let’s say, Creationism versus Evolution.

This backlash is ridiculous. Respect for our elected officials has hit an all time low. Who can argue against the President welcoming children back to school and urging them to succeed in the classroom? For all those believing the misinformation spread by fear mongers read the White House official press release:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/mediaresources/

As for the creationist comment above. The Supreme Court has ruled that teaching creationism in Public Schools is unconstitutional. I’d hope that parent’s who embrace science would balk at a President showing religious preference in a public school by endorsing neocreationism, i.e. intelligent design, which is arguably a Christian theory. Maybe all these crazies should just home-school their kids and give some relief to tax payers.

It appears that the people who didn’t want their children to have to see a single black person at school in the 1960′s are still on the same routine.

[...] Joe Klein of TIME notes that many Republicans, including Mr. Scarbrough, David Frum and John Podhoretz are speaking out against the proposed [...]

Honestly, parents trying to stop their kids from listening to the President’s speech is probably the only thing that’d make kids pay attention to it…

When will the MSM stop pretending that the current Republican party is a rational entity whose policy positions need to be taken seriously?

This state of affairs where Obama, The President, addressing students becomes a hot button political issue, is unacceptable. Discourse about this planned address is absurd and bordering on becoming all out bedlam because Obama has NOT done anything strong and sustained to address the unwarranted and continuing attacks by some right wingers.

Yes, this is a democracy and we can speak out against the officers in power however it must not be some absurd outcry over any and everything.

The Obama administration should call it out as it is and soon! It is a hysterical group of desperate Republicans doing all they can to discredit the party in power so they can regroup their fractured and “directionless” party.
Yet, the White House seems eerily silent on the matter, preferring instead to allow the “airwaves” be ruled by orchestrated hysteria.

What next? Is Glenn Beck going to release a list of “Communists” and “Communist sympathizers” in the Obama administration.

This is absolutely ridiculous. The mere debate of this issue is an outrage.

http://theblindspotsofgod.wordpress.com/

From a terrific Op-Ed in the NYT earlier this week about the way FDR governed:

Roosevelt relished the opposition of vested interests. He fashioned his governing majority by deliberately attacking those who favored the status quo. His opponents hated him — and he profited from their hatred. “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today,” he told a national radio audience on the eve of the 1936 election. “They are unanimous in their hatred for me — and I welcome their hatred.”

Here is an excellent article that explains why parents SHOULD oppose Obama’s speech:

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/09/04/why-parents-don%e2%80%99t-trust-the-educator-in-chief-and-his-comrades/

A few other tidbits to back up my assertions:

I’m sure THIS teacher won’t participate in blatant Obama propaganda… oh yeah, right.

Obama and Co follow to a tee the “Ideological Subversion” tactics of the KGB: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/from_russia_with_no_love.html

Van Jones, need I say more?

Star-studded “I Pledge to serve Barack Obama” (don’t miss the last minute!):

Obama (shhhhh) signs up NEA to create propaganda:

Call me crazy if you want, but do NOT try to tell me that this marxist and his radical left teachers union and dept of edu do not have an ulterior motive in mind!

My kids are off limits.

painesright

You’re not crazy, you’re just seriously misinformed. My sympathies.

Rich, move the word “just” to before “crazy,” and you’ve got it right!

So here is Republican Presidential Candidate Tim Pawlenty believing this stuff: http://is.gd/2SZ35
He further implies that since Obama asks kids to write to him, he is planning on doing something nefarious with the addresses he collects:
“There are going to be questions about — well, what are they are going to do with those names and is that for the purpose of a mailing list?”
This is just batsh*t crazy.
If we had a real journalists, Pawlenty would be peppered about this insanity in a very mocking tone every time he tried to get himself some press. Instead, the Time Magazine’s of the world will still kiss the guy’s you know what and pretend he is a respectable person.
Can you honestly say that someone who is willing to spout crazy conspiracies for the biggest paper in his state, like implying the president of the U.S is sinisterly collecting information from the letters he gets from 4th graders (recruits for his secret army???), is any less crazy than that Van Jones guy who signed a petition once?
No, the crazy person is going to run for President, and the other guy is going to be forced to resign because he is too controversial.

where were all the conspiracy theorists when Bush and Co. were trying to sell us the war in Iraq and weapons of mass destruction..I didn’t hear a word from them when there was cause for alarm and panic!! but telling American students to stay in school is ‘propaganda’. How brainwashed are these people?

Commenters:
.
Please actually watch the whole video to which the rightists are gleefully linking in support of their ludicrous claims:
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqcPA1ysSbw
.
None of what’s in this video has anything to do with Marxism, or socialism, or fascism whatsoever –except to people who spend their days looking for that sort of thing under their beds.
.
That being said, can any cogent person give a reasonable answer as to why the copy “I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama” is in this thing?
.
Can anybody defend on principle the –to me, inexplicable– inclusion of the copy “I pledge to serve our President” in what is otherwise a laudable effort to convince Americans to be more patriotic?
.
Isn’t that the worst sort of anti-democratic, propagandistic lunacy, notable chiefly for its resemblance to this horror: http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2004/221104ourleader.htm the billboards of a smiling George W Bush portrait emblazoned with the caption “Our Leader”?
.
At the time this resident wrote in to her local paper about the creepy, Goebbels-esque sign:

One Orlando resident penned a concerned letter to the (registration-restricted) Orlando Sentinel on Saturday about the billboard. As the site is restricted to members, the letter appears below.
.
“The first thing I thought was, when was the last time I have seen a president on a billboard?” wrote resident Dianna Lawson. “Didn’t Saddam Hussein have his picture up everywhere? What next, a statue?”

Can’t reasonable liberals –people who at least nominally advocate for the founders’ vision of constitutional government as the servant of the people, not “leaders” deserving of hero-worship– ask themselves honestly “What in the world were these people thinking?”
.
Isn’t it up to us liberals to be intellectually honest enough to publicly recognize that there may be slightest sliver of something wrong, creepy and un-American about campaigns like the one for which that video was produced, and that rightists –while completely wrong to relate such a campaign to Marxism, fascism, etc– have the teenie-tiniest of real arguments against that sort of thing?
.
At the very least, can’t we honestly ask ourselves about the decision to include copy like that in efforts to reach out to people?

(Unintentionally) hilarious, rusty:
-

The text books and Teachers exposing liberal ideals is rampant in our schools.

-
Did you mean “espousing?” And did you mean “are” instead of “is?”
-
Perhaps you should have spent more time paying attention in school. Perhaps you would be able to write coherently. And you may even have expanded your (limited) vocabulary.

The video was OK until they started chanting “We’re all individuals” and morphed into Obama’s giant head.

Personally I think he should forget the do-your-homework, study-hard stuff and just read “My Pet Goat” to the kids.

but I will say this: they come to their beliefs honestly

Yay. Give them a Congressional Medal of Honor.

Joke Line,

I think it’s great that you guys have hip names for one another. “JPod” is a cool moniker.

Glad you’re applauding his judgment to call out the stupidity, but can he be forgiven for his far more damaging stupidity that helped lead us into Iraq?

can he be forgiven for his far more damaging stupidity that helped lead us into Iraq?
.
Klein yesterday:
.
“even when we do awful things like invade Iraq and torture people, we usually right our course before long”
.
See, it’s all water under the bridge. I mean, we don’t even have troops over there any more, right?

Hooray — Klein pronounces J-Pod to be “serious”!!

Maybe this means he’ll get the journolist club membership invite.

My wife and I will homeschool our children if Obama goes ahead with the Illinois plan to impose the instruction of sexuality, including homosexual intercourse, on our nation’s primary school children.

Yes, Obama will personally teach your children how to buttf*ck.

Let’s try this again, rusty.

“Write a letter on how you can help me as President”.

When you do that Mr President, by all means ask my children how they can help you.

First off, President Obama was asking students to write about how they could help the President improve education.

However, the rest sounds very good, rusty. As a (private) school teacher, who operates under no system of tenure but instead gets yearly contracts, I wholeheartedly agree. And, apparently, so does President Obama. Check the last page of this article:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/31/090831fa_fact_brill

Does that change your mind just a little bit? My guess: you’ll scoff, call me a name, and provide a link to a poorly-vetted article on a Fox News site that proves Obama is a rabid communist who wants to eat our children. Hopefully I’m wrong.

Art now this is one that is okay to ignore because clearly tillis is a by product of tammy and her dad.

“Tillis” is probably a troll in the classic sense, but I just wanted to write “buttf*ck” in a Swampland comment. I’m quite childish.

Yes.

I would agree with you, except that the video was created by Demi Moore, not the Whitehouse. In fact it was created by Ms. Moore before Obama was even sworn in.

You can’t really criticize Obama for somebody else’s pledge of support.

“There’s a whole swath of white America where ignorance is now celebrated…and some serious fact-based education is badly needed.”

LOL!

I assume Mr. Klein will be writing the inside story on this vast swath of ignorant white America?

Of course Mr. Klein is frequently provided with fact-based education so he’s wrong to imply that’s what’s missing. There’s a saying about horses and what’s ineffective in addressing their dehydration that might relate to the state of ignorance across America.

Did anyone actually go and READ what is being celebrated as a voice of reason on the right? JPod says Obama’s speech will probably be OK – he might even inspire some black kids to study! But even he does make it political, this isn’t like the 1800s when kids didn’t have Hannah Montana to show them how totally booo-ring presidential speeches can be. If they aren’t thinking, “I wish I was at home playing my Wii,” they’ll be so resentful at having to listen to Obama talk about health policy that they’ll be thinking of ways to overthrow the government (complete with eye rolling). Except for those ass kissers who do respond to the indoctrination – ridicule will take care of them.

They assume we are all poisonous little beasts like them.

Podhoretz wrote: “What if the tactical mistake we made in Iraq was that we didn’t kill enough Sunnis in the early going to intimidate them and make them so afraid of us they would go along with anything? Wasn’t the survival of Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35 the reason there was an insurgency and the basic cause of the sectarian violence now?”

Sorry Joe – JPod is as insane and sociopathic as the worst of the wingnuts. Just because he finds a nut once in a while doesn’t mean you should be patting him on the head. He is bloodthirsty and an embarassment to polite society.

So sorry painesright but I am not able to accept anything to be serious and credible from someone that uses Michelle Malkin as a reference. She’s two steps below Ann Coulter in crediblity and I didn’t think there would ever be anything lower than Coulter.

Podhoretz wrote: “What if the tactical mistake we made in Iraq was that we didn’t kill enough Sunnis in the early going to intimidate them and make them so afraid of us they would go along with anything? Wasn’t the survival of Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35 the reason there was an insurgency and the basic cause of the sectarian violence now?”

Joe, in this post, in your desperate search for a “reasonable Republican,” you have chosen a man who successfully advocated that the US engage in a war of choice that resulted in the waste of at least a trillion dollars and the death and disablement of hundreds of thousands of people, among them over 15,000 US soldiers.

Do you have any sense of morality? Or has your narcissistic desire to appear to be a reasonable broker and thoughtful man completely overwhelmed your sense of right and wrong?

let me suggest an answer: You would have decried Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia, but you would have admired the Italian Fascists’ publicity about attempting to build schools and roads there……

If the speech is so innocuous why was it necessary for the Administration to publish a teaching plan for the speech? In all the speeches in the “Republicans did it too” was there ever a teaching plan?

The easy answers to the first question are:

1-He is an arrogant liberal and only he knows what is best and what needs to be learned.
2-The NEA is so incompetent they have no idea how to teach.

Second question, the answer is no.