Obama '08?

georgeob1 wrote:

Odd that most liberals and Blatham in particular have been more than willing to attribute serious malformations of character in Richard Nixon, George Bush and Dick Cheney, and to cite them as the central elements in their hateful administrations. So "character" is indeed important to them, but perhaps only among their political opponents. Hard to reconcile the serious character assaults on the figures in the current administration with the interdict Blatham now proposes among democrat candidates.

Odd, how you manage to extrapolate Blatham's position in this thread, in that bolded sentence above, to something that "they" - the liberals, most liberals - do.

Odd, I mean, considering that much of this thread has actually been talk among liberals about the character strengths and flaws of Obama and Hillary, rerspectively. And that Blatham and Lola in this latest conversation have been more or less alone, both in disagreeing with some of our points about Hillary in this regard, and with the importance of such points itself.

The old reflex instinct, I suppose. There isn't a negative observation about some individual liberal that can't be conveniently extrapolated to "how the liberals just are" - no matter how many counterexamples there are at hand right there that need to be ignored to do so. The temptation is just too great?

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Lola wrote:

nimh wrote:
What if there are flaws of character to be considered?

If there are, we should consider them in any candidate. However I haven't heard any valid example of character flaws in any of the democratic candidates so far. Manufactured character assassination is a dirty trick of the Republicans, brought to it's most disgusting height by this administration, particularly Karl Rove and Cheney. These dirty tricks will come soon enough from the Republicans, we don't have to help them out before they get started.

This is exactly the logic I called Blatham on in my previous post. I believe you if you say that you, yourself, do not believe there are "any valid example of character flaws in any of the democratic candidates so far". However, a large number of your fellow Democrats, of your fellow liberals, believe otherwise. Many here have serious doubts about Hillary that are not tied to her political program, but to her personality, to the way she has gone about politics, the way she does politics, to what some see as her lack of honesty, reliability and transparency, to what others see as an excessive confrontationalness, to what disagreeing posters, on the other hand, see as her excessive waffling and triangulating. These are all points brought up, not by some evil demonic Republican smear machine, but by passionate left-of-centre voters and fellow activists.

It's not just Hillary, either. I really like Edwards, for example, I think his platform is by far the best, while I do think he really believes in it. But I acknowledge that other progressives have serious doubts about his character, and see him as an opportunist, a player, who lacks sincerity at least as much as Hillary. I dont agree with those takes, but I realise they are based in those other posters' extensive readings as well as their instinctive responses, and so they are just as "valid" as my positive evaluation of him as a person is. And even I recognize that while his drive and convictions are his strength, he just isnt, by lack of better ways to put it, a very strong personality, a leader. I choose to overlook that, but for others this might be a valid ground to reject him for someone else.

These are primaries. All of you Democrats and progressives are now feeling out what candidate has the best papers, both substantively and in terms of qualifications to lead, as well as best chances to win general elections. Though of course I, too, would want the media to spend more time on policy and less on character, character strengths and flaws are always also a consideration, and it is the right and the duty of Democrats to consider them now, now they still can. Unity can be established during the general elections. It is then that the contrast to Republican politics will be overwhelmingly clear whoever the Democratic candidate is. But now is not the time to dismiss criticisms of Hillary and others, brought by Democrats and fellow liberals, with always again references to how 'thats just what Rove and Bush want you to believe'.

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Hold up now, all galloping horses.

You can look, over the last year or so here, for instances where I have denigrated any of the Republican candidates on a point of "character" (and we aren't being terribly clear about what that word means and why it would be important) other than two cases; McCain for his pandering to the religious right (but s to this, I've also noted he has no chance of winning if he doesn't) and Giuliani.

The term is used very sloppily or very subjectively and to that degree, it isn't worth much as an analytical tool. A lot of americans presently would consider sexual preference or sexual behavior a 'character' issue. Many would consider irregular church attendance or lack of faith a character issue. Allowing or encouraging a daughter to consider an abortion would be a character issue. Lying will be a reprehensible character issue in one instance (say, re getting a blowjob) but acceptable in another (say, Cheney re WOMD evidence) and another person will say the converse in those two cases.

But this character stuff operates at a fairly visceral, non-analytic level and that's why it is used so much in politics. It packs a real whallop and doesn't have to be true and certainly doesn't have to be proven. In that aspect, it is like the use of fear or the use of some of the logical fallacies (ad hominem to denigrate, or appeal to authority to pump up).

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I'm inclined to think that the style of the discussion about "character" these days results from a marked inclination to engage with journalism, and other ephemera which gives a quick buzz to the ego rather than the tested and sifted best in the literary tradition.

The candidates under discussion are on a remote plane as far above those that are so eager to strut their stuff in dissecting them psychologically as are Homer's characters as far away in time,

The tendency is to fail to consider any underlying intentions (pathological be definition) in the candidates beyond those they formally express and which they are well practiced at expressing. It is as if they are to be scrutinised like animals in a zoo or a Pavlovian laboratory.

But the real world in which they live is remarkably similar to our own and especially in its important aspects.

Mr Rove's piece about the "vanity mirror", and Mrs Clinton's determination to insist that she didn't have it fitted, is much more the sort of evidence needed to engage in character analysis. Mr Rove's as well.
Why does he think vanity in a woman is a negative factor? Has he suffered at the hands of female vanity? Isn't vanity a prime American value? Are Mrs Clinton's denials suggestive of guilt regarding vanity? From what would such guilt stem? What is Mr Rove's view of the attitude of Americans to vanity and female vanity in particular. What must he think if he thinks we don't know that Mrs Clinton is vain and that we need him to point it out to us and charge us a fee for doing so.

Where does vanity originate?

The photographs of the Polk County School Board exude vanity. On the Schopenhauerian scientific description of women they are one big lie and nothing else but a lie. A pure illusion. Make-up by Beauty Products Inc. a subsidiary of Vanity International.

Those photographs bring us closer to the real character of those people than any of the worked over texts they put out. One feels one could describe quite accurately their bathrooms and bedchambers. Every picture tells a story.

Maybe the inability, if it is not a reticence, to delve into the real character of the protagonists stems from a vague notion that to do so will reveal something of the character of the self doing the delving and thus the high-sounding but esssentially empty abstractions are reached down off the shelf. A vanity manifestation.

Marcel Proust, from whom character analysis can be learned to some extent, received a letter from an American lady who claimed to be "27, living in Rome and extremely beautiful" She said that she had spent 3 years reading his book, (his monument to posterity so-to-say), and "understood nothing".

Dear Marcel Proust, she wrote, stop being a poseur and come down to earth. Just tell me in two lines what you really wanted to say".

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Here's a statement from Australia's Howard from Feb this year...

Quote:

If I was running al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for [Barack] Obama, but also for the Democrats.

And last night, Howard got crushed in the election.

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I gather there was a 6% swing and that isn't crushed.

Probably Spice Girls fans voted against him.

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spendius wrote:

I gather there was a 6% swing and that isn't crushed.

Probably Spice Girls fans voted against him.

Quote:

The national two-party preferred swing to Labor of 6.3per cent was the second-largest since World War II, bettered only by Gough Whitlam in 1975. Labor looked certain to secure 86 of the 150 House of Representative seats and hoped for 90 - a gain of at least 30 seats.

sidney morning herald

And it looks like Howard is going to lose his own seat. Real pity, that.

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spendius wrote:

I gather there was a 6% swing and that isn't crushed.

Probably Spice Girls fans voted against him.

don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

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Or, as the spice girls, wonderfully curious about matters literary, would have it,

"Don't ask for who the wind sucks
it sucks for you"

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nimh wrote to Lola:

Quote:

This is exactly the logic I called Blatham on in my previous post. I believe you if you say that you, yourself, do not believe there are "any valid example of character flaws in any of the democratic candidates so far". However, a large number of your fellow Democrats, of your fellow liberals, believe otherwise. Many here have serious doubts about Hillary that are not tied to her political program, but to her personality, to the way she has gone about politics, the way she does politics, to what some see as her lack of honesty, reliability and transparency, to what others see as an excessive confrontationalness, to what disagreeing posters, on the other hand, see as her excessive waffling and triangulating. These are all points brought up, not by some evil demonic Republican smear machine, but by passionate left-of-centre voters and fellow activists.

nimh wrote to george:

Quote:

Odd, how you manage to extrapolate Blatham's position in this thread, in that bolded sentence above, to something that "they" - the liberals, most liberals - do.

Quote:

The old reflex instinct, I suppose. There isn't a negative observation about some individual liberal that can't be conveniently extrapolated to "how the liberals just are" - no matter how many counterexamples there are at hand right there that need to be ignored to do so. The temptation is just too great?

Odd how you extrapolate from my position to something "a large number (would that qualify as "most?") of us liberals" believe or do. I can just as easily say that there are a large number of my fellow Democrats, of my fellow liberals, who agree with me that all this talk about character is just another word for politics. So what's your point?

I agree with Spendius, character is a highly subjective term. We all have one.

I don't say this to discount the opinion of any of my fellow liberals. I've already made it clear that I include my own opinions in this consideration. We have every right and duty to discuss our questions about candidates. And we have an equal right to express our questions about the questions. What I am saying is that I don't see a single example so far of anything close to a character flaw in any of these democratic candidates.

As far as I can see, some of my fellow liberals and some of the candidates are bending over backward, in contortions to make distinctions about character that are not there. And in that light, the democratic running mates should be very careful. If you want to discuss issues of bad character, I'll need some better examples than those currently under discussion. And further, the examples provided are an example, as I said already, of ineffective politics. Notice, if you will, that this criticism is not of Obama's or Edward's characters but rather of their skill. I'm not questioning their integrity.

I believe you when you express concerns about Hillary's "personality" which is another word for character. From my perspective, Hillary's "personality, the way she has gone about politics, the way she does politics, to what some see as her lack of honesty, reliability and transparency, to what others see as an excessive confrontationalness, to what disagreeing posters, on the other hand, see as her excessive waffling and triangulating" are attributes of a skillful politician.

As Soz says, she likes Obama. I like him too. I like them all. But as Thomas has pointed out, gut feelings are not the only and certainly not the best basis on which to make a final choice. On the other hand, gut feelings should not be completely discounted either. But when we consider our feelings about candidates, it's important to look for bias. We all have at least one.

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georgeob1 wrote:

Do you think that the attempt to cover up a petty buglary is materially worse than one directed at covering up a few blow jobs in the office, shady real estate deals, or the sale of presidential pardons?

A burglary to bug the phones in your political opponents' headquarters is ...

(1) ... most certainly worse than receiving blow jobs from a consenting intern, in which no third party is harmed.

(2) ... worse than shady land deals that didn't happen, and worse than the sale of presidential pardons that didn't happen. Both Whitewater and "Pardongate" were extensively researched by federal investigators, who concluded there were no grounds to indight Clinton.

(3) ... even worse than the land deals and the pardons if they had happend. If the federal investigators were wrong and Clinton had acted wrongly, he still would haven't abused his presidential power to undermine America's democracy. Along the same lines, it's worth noting that Clinton never came close to firing the prosecutors on his case the way Nixon got Archibald Cox fired.

You are insinuating moral equivalence where the cases are nowhere close to morally equivalent.

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The Oregon cow-girl wrote-

Quote:

What I am saying is that I don't see a single example so far of anything close to a character flaw in any of these democratic candidates.

Well some of us do. We think that anybody who seeks power, and these candidates give a new meaning to the verb "to seek", have a screw loose.

We tend to accept the analysis of the Marquis de Sade that ambitious control freaks given power are pretty darn dangerous.

On that reckoning all the democratic candidates have a big deal character flaw.

If I may be allowed a speculation, a nutty one I'll admit, I might say that the American constitution was written with a hatred of aristocracy by a bunch of sodbusters reading by candlelight who had not worked out that the French revolution had taught the toffs not to take the masses for granted. That they were fighting a battle that had already been won.

And now they are ruled by who wants power the most.

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Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.
Friedrich Nietzsche

I don't live that much with the character. I find it hard enough having to spend so many hours with the character during the day.
Catherine Deneuve

The test of character is having the ability to meet challenges.
Walter Annenberg

Sometimes it's a character you want to play or a story you want to tell. Sometimes it's just to pay the bills.
Daryl Hannah

Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. There are too many people who think that the only thing that's right is to get by, and the only thing that's wrong is to get caught.
J. C. Watts
And one more funny quote

Leadership to me means duty, honor, country. It means character, and it means listening from time to time.
George W. Bush

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spendius wrote:

The Oregon cow-girl wrote-

Quote:
What I am saying is that I don't see a single example so far of anything close to a character flaw in any of these democratic candidates.

Well some of us do. We think that anybody who seeks power, and these candidates give a new meaning to the verb "to seek", have a screw loose.

We tend to accept the analysis of the Marquis de Sade that ambitious control freaks given power are pretty darn dangerous.

On that reckoning all the democratic candidates have a big deal character flaw.

If I may be allowed a speculation, a nutty one I'll admit, I might say that the American constitution was written with a hatred of aristocracy by a bunch of sodbusters reading by candlelight who had not worked out that the French revolution had taught the toffs not to take the masses for granted. That they were fighting a battle that had already been won.

And now they are ruled by who wants power the most.

You're just an old sceptic Spendi. Yes, it does take someone special to make it to the top, and it does require a lot of weighing of priorities. It has to do with human nature. In my opinion the Democratic candidates are all ethical, hard working, probably driven people. But they are people who are willing to try to make government work. It's more than I'm willing to do. I wouldn't have their job for any amount of money. You may not like it, but its the way of humanity. Throwing tomatoes at the participants doesn't get you the show you want. It just makes a mess and is a distraction.

As to your last sentence, who doesn't want power? It's no sin to want to be influential or to work to increase your influence. What makes the difference is how one goes about getting it. I think much of the debate among our present Democratic candidates amounts to what Freud called "the narcissism of minor differences" in Civilization and It's Discontents. You can refer to that work for a fuller explanation of my point. We all have to manage our aggression in a constructive way, we don't get the choice of having it or not. So the question is how do we go about getting what we want and is it also best for others?

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Thomas wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:
Do you think that the attempt to cover up a petty buglary is materially worse than one directed at covering up a few blow jobs in the office, shady real estate deals, or the sale of presidential pardons?

A burglary to bug the phones in your political opponents' headquarters is ...

(1) ... most certainly worse than receiving blow jobs from a consenting intern, in which no third party is harmed.

(2) ... worse than shady land deals that didn't happen, and worse than the sale of presidential pardons that didn't happen. Both Whitewater and "Pardongate" were extensively researched by federal investigators, who concluded there were no grounds to indight Clinton.

(3) ... even worse than the land deals and the pardons if they had happend. If the federal investigators were wrong and Clinton had acted wrongly, he still would haven't abused his presidential power to undermine America's democracy. Along the same lines, it's worth noting that Clinton never came close to firing the prosecutors on his case the way Nixon got Archibald Cox fired.

You are insinuating moral equivalence where the cases are nowhere close to morally equivalent.

As usual, very well said, Thomas. Thanks.

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Thomas wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:
Do you think that the attempt to cover up a petty buglary is materially worse than one directed at covering up a few blow jobs in the office, shady real estate deals, or the sale of presidential pardons?

A burglary to bug the phones in your political opponents' headquarters is ...

(1) ... most certainly worse than receiving blow jobs from a consenting intern, in which no third party is harmed.

(2) ... worse than shady land deals that didn't happen, and worse than the sale of presidential pardons that didn't happen. Both Whitewater and "Pardongate" were extensively researched by federal investigators, who concluded there were no grounds to indight Clinton.

(3) ... even worse than the land deals and the pardons if they had happend. If the federal investigators were wrong and Clinton had acted wrongly, he still would haven't abused his presidential power to undermine America's democracy. Along the same lines, it's worth noting that Clinton never came close to firing the prosecutors on his case the way Nixon got Archibald Cox fired.

You are insinuating moral equivalence where the cases are nowhere close to morally equivalent.

Also worse than illegally using FBI files against political enemies? And also worse than using the IRS to intimidate and silence your political enemies? Also worse than pardoning terrorists and criminals in exchange for money and favors? Also worse than sexual harassment and potential rape of many women? Worse than receiving foreign campaign money to influence a domestic election?

I could think of a few more questions, too, Thomas.

Also, as a matter of recollection, the Democrats, I don't know about Clinton, did in fact illegally tap into cell phone conversations of Republicans, which was only considered a very minor, almost non-news worthy occurrence at the time, but not totally dis-similar to Watergate if you really want to get all fired up over that.

In regard to wiretapping phones on their enemies list, apparently a few presidents perfected that art, along with the FBI, I think JFK for sure, and probably a few others.

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I know the thread has long since moved on, but let me say my problem with Hillary is not her "character", it's what I perceive to be her modus operandi.

I understand what blatham says about being a team player (I'm paraphrasing), I just have a different sense of "team". If I were a Democrat, I might see it differently. But I'm a floater in an open primary state, so my allegiances are elsewhere.

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Lola wrote-

Quote:

You're just an old sceptic Spendi.

Do you think I'm as sceptical as those who hedged about the powers of the Presidency with all those procedures designed for no other reason than what I had suggested.

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freeduck

Let me assure you that there are two aspects of the american electorate (or any other) which I think are entirely healthy...non-aligned voters and apathetic voters. Quite different creatures, surely, but both serve to inhibit consensus and 'rush over the cliff' madness. Other than when I was 18, I've never been a member of a political party. I understand your differentiation between character and mode of operation and I think it is valid.

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Wilhelm Reich had a perfectly valid and sensible reason why virile young men joined political parties.

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