Noot certainly knows how to play this game, but that’s all he knows. A great rhetorical bomb thrower does not make a great, or even a good, leader

Dems always fall into this trap. Why? It is like they never realize that some people don’t fight fairly and they never get it that when you validate someone who doesn’t fight fairly you just make it that much easier for them to not fight fairly.

Scarecrow has a couple of excellent Oxdown diaries on this very matter:
http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/5523
http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/5537/

why is this discredited serial-adulterer petty-has-been windbag STILL getting airtime on a major venue ??

go figure ..eh ??

Man this three dimensional chess is a bitch, yes?

Somebody thinks that having Sonia pull back, soften, repudiate without retracting, would somehow serve her and the administration, come hearing-time. And they may be right.

Throwing a bone like this to Gingrich and his ilk is painful and stupefying, and makes me wonder if TeamObama is satisfied with a win, but unconcerned about victory.

As always ….. Repugs show up fully loaded and Democrats show up with a butter knife…. It has that way for 8 plus years….. well actually as long as Karl Rove was alive…

For once and I mean you Eric Massa and the other band of brothers actually show what a fighting Dem is like…… The one huge hurdle is the right wing media ….. OMG a Democrat is fighting back…..

So should we show up and fight the media first then the repugs?
Somehow I do not see the media getting it….

why is this discredited serial-adulterer petty-has-been windbag STILL getting airtime on a major venue ??

closest thing the R’s have got to a person who occasionally *appears* to be reasonable?

Who else they gonna trot out – Michael Steele?

hey, wait – I like that idea…..

It was such an amateurish error on the part of a usually competent professional that I tend to think that it was intentional. But I’m at a loss to explain the motivation.

Relax. In the bigger scheme this is a minor part of the battle. The larger picture is that the Republicans continue to alienate Hispanics and women while consolidating their hold on racist white men. I’ll take metastory any day.

This is what happens when you bring a knife to a gun fight. I am amazed that anyone could take Newt seriously. Geez…

I’m thinking he wants to run in 2012.

goddamn. and who the fuck didn’t see this coming. i couldn’t believe it when gibbs buckled; but then to be followed by obama was the suck. i really thought they were showing signs of getting it.

i guess that reflexive crouch is so ingrained…

If doing it right is the objective, and you can do it without pillorying your opponent (although sometimes I am not sure who TeamObama’s opponents are) – as seems to be President Obama’s inclination, why the heck not?

And this isn’t about Gibbs – they can throw him under the bus any old day and he will spring back to life for the next briefing.

How about John E. Bush?

Well, it does enable Newtie to continue to prattle on, claiming the White House’s words vindicate his description of Sotomayor as a racist. Of course, America isn’t buying that. So Newtie looks increasingly isolated from America, as does the rest of the racist GOP. Is that better for Obama in the long run, while not endangering Sotomayor’s nomination?

You be the judge.

Bcz playing dirty is IOKIYAR. Let us not forget that.

For the MCMers*, Republicans have great leeway, may act badly but not be called on it…bcz those Repubs will give way worse than they get.

Dems are required by Hard Pundit Law to be civil and civilized; if Dems use Repub tactics, they are immediately called on that by not only the Repubs but the MCM. Dems are held to a higher standard, bcz IOKIYAR!

Centrist Dems and right of center Dems have more leeway to act contrary to this Hard Pundit Law than liberal and progressive Dems, btw.

*MCMers–Members of the Mainstream Corporate Media

It may be bcz Obama just into that into us DFH types. Or real progressives, real liberals. He didn’t praise St. Ronnie for no reason….

I remember Jane saying quite awhile ago “don’t use Republican talking points” and yet it is done every day right here at the Lake. They WILL use what we give them.

*shudder*

I remain hopeful that the Bush name is so toxic that Jeb would be better off changing his last name to Hitler.

‘Course, Bushes are so low that he’d probably opt for Schicklgruber, and bank on nobody figuring it out in time…..

“There was nothing wrong with what Sotomayor said, “

Really? Just reverse the accusations: “I would hope that a wise white male with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latina woman who hadn’t lived that life.” WOW!! WOW!! If that sounds racist, then the reverse is, too.

Perhaps Noot is running to the right to capture the nomination of that small, southern party. He’ll then run back to the center to try to win the election. Somewhere, Nixon is smiling.

Who cares what Gingrich thinks besides the Sunday morning talk show hosts? Most Americans surely don’t give two shits what Gingrich thinks or why he thinks it. Besides Newt hasn’t got a vote on the matter, and any Democratic or Republican Senator who would take counsel from the most notorious Republican narcissist ever deserves whatever happens to him or her.

I’m confident that Judge Sotomayor can defend herself against the charge that she is a double secret racist from these rejects from Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus. If she can’t, however, then she really doesn’t deserve a seat on the US Supreme Court.

Let’s get it on! Let’s stop wasting time talking about stupid shit with stupid people and overrated Sunday talk show hosts.

The context of that statement is what matters, and playing “if a white guy said x, it would be racist” is so Angry White Man 1990s, isn’t it?

Some analysts think it was good politics for the WH to look reasonable on this point. The main point that no one has noticed since the first reporting is that Sotomayor was talking about being very careful not to be biased unreflexively because of her background, that being aware of it made her potentially a better judge than the white males who have never been made to consider if their ethnicity and gender might lead them to be unconsciously biased. The whole thing is a silly tempest in a teapot.

It’s mainly had the effect of making Republicans look extremely ridiculous, and has also I am sure hurt Sotomayor’s feelings — talk about the joys of having no empathy the Republicans celebrate. They’re rude bullies and everyone can see that, I think.

Finally, in the long run this set of attacks on her, baseless, is par for the course for minorities and women when they do ascend to positions of decision-making. It is ultimately intended to cripple them, either by making them so unsure of themselves (C. Thomas) that they cannot get over them or to make them seem to have less worth than they actually have. That is the real tragedy here, that this could not have been transcended in this case.

Let’s get it on just doesn’t seem like the right kind of way to select a Justice.

Not really. It wasn’t a wise thing to for any person to say.

….Angry White Man 1990s, isn’t it?

wow, I wish I knew the answer to that one.

’round here, it’s till Angry White Man, 1960’s.

At least the Republics can choose between Noot and Limpy Limbaugh when seeking advice.

OK, I’ll bite
This is what she actually said on October Twenty-Sixth, 2006 at Cal-Berkeley, not filleted by your wingnut email listserv:

“Our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O’Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor [Martha] Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

And this is from Alito’s confirmation hearing, January Eleventh, 2006:

But I think that children learn a lot from their parents and they learn from what the parents say. But I think they learn a lot more from what the parents do and from what they take from the stories of their parents lives.

And that’s why I went into that in my opening statement. Because when a case comes before me involving, let’s say, someone who is an immigrant — and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases — I can’t help but think of my own ancestors, because it wasn’t that long ago when they were in that position.

And so it’s my job to apply the law. It’s not my job to change the law or to bend the law to achieve any result.

But when I look at those cases, I have to say to myself, and I do say to myself, “You know, this could be your grandfather, this could be your grandmother. They were not citizens at one time, and they were people who came to this country.”

When I have cases involving children, I can’t help but think of my own children and think about my children being treated in the way that children may be treated in the case that’s before me.

Stay around if you must, but don’t expect to just Ring & Run. As for your above droppings, peddle that tired RNC bullshit elsewhere, won’t you please?

It is good that Newt is getting a lot of attention right now. Yesterday afternoon, investigative writer Geoffrey Dunne discovered that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin lifted long, unattributed sections of a speech last Wednesday, from an article Gingrich wrote several years ago.

The plagiarism was discovered from a transcript made by a progressive Alaskan blogger, AK Muckraker, that was made from an audio recording made by another Alaska blogger, Dennis Zaki.

Here’s a link to Dunne’s article on this at Huffingon Post.

The words which should be taken seriously are “who hasn’t lived that life”. I think that we can safely say that none of the privileged on the SC have lived that life. Thomas probably came closest but look what it did to him – no empathy for anyone and a hateful, bitter attitude. Huge contrast.

this shit bugs the hell outta me…

i dont think the obama admin “validates the opposition’s frame” — i would quite prefer that they naively offer real and genuine opinions and interpretations of reality. i naively assume that most people weigh things according to reality when they hear it and aren’t led by the nose by horses’ asses who twist and spin…

but of course, in the technological age, everything is propaganda and so we all play the propaganda game, twist and spin, and no one is genuine or authentic.

liberal, radical or conservative — it’s all perception and frame… or pr, or, perhaps, simplistically, nihilism.

if sonia said white men suck because they have, in general, a grandiose assumption of privilege, and newt fuckin’ gringrich sez that’s racist, why isn’t it okay for obama to say sonia could have been clearer about why most white guys are assholes? it makes sense to me.

Special Book Salon upstairs with Senator Byron Dorgan’s Reckless! hosted by Professor William Black

But Joe Biden proved that plagiarism doesn’t matter!

“I would hope that a wise white male with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latina woman who hadn’t lived that life.” WOW!! WOW!! If that sounds racist, then the reverse is, too.

The comment, in context, was about discrimination cases. Even Rachel and KO — and sometimes FDL commenters — leave out the CONTEXT, which is discrimination.

EDIT: and I agree 200% with newtonusr @ #30 and Twain @ #32

I still can’t believe Gibbs flubbed this one. Why can’t the Democrats ever learn how to identify the GOP’s fake outrage/controversy campaigns from the outset, and label them for what they are, without falling into the trap? All it takes is to point out to the people that the GOP does ’oppo research’, looking for a phrase they can blow out of all proportion with spin and contrived outrage, out of any meaningful context, for the sole purpose of creating a ’gotcha’ in order to divert the media coverage away from the fact that the Democrats are in the majority, because the voters want it that way.

And why is it that the media always faithfully gloms onto the GOP fake outrage meme to the exclusion of real journalism?

Newt was also seen with Mike Huckabee and Ollie North this weekend at a well-attended event at Rock Church in Virginia, that Bruce Wilson describes as a part of the melding of the religious right and the militia movement. Willson titled his post about the event at Talk To Action: Christian Martyr Movement Leader Blesses Gingrich, Lays Hands on Huckabee:

On Friday, June 5, 2009, at an event featuring aspiring politicians Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich that was broadcast over the global media networks of GodTV, a rising leader in the rapidly reconfiguring Christian right who has publicly called for acts of Christian martyrdom, prayed over and blessed Huckabee and Gingrich: TheCall founder Lou Engle.

Clearly there is coded language here, referring to the ’martyrdom’ of Scott Roeder.

My comment above was in response to Edward Teller @31.

I’m new here. This is the second time I clicked on ’reply’ to a comment, and failed to have my comment reflect that it was a reply, with one of those grey bands under my name saying ”In reply to Edward Teller @ 31 (show text)”

Would anyone care to tell me how to get it right? Also, the preview doesn’t work for me today.

If Obama said nothing about these stupid rw comments about Sotomayor, they would continue to circulate in the media and he would be accused of not defending her.

On the other hand, he did step up to defend her (and his choice of her as the nominee) by saying (paraphrase) that she might have chosen her words more carefully (to avoid negative sound-bytes taken out of context) but in the grand scheme of her speech/essay, what she said was fine.

Whatever Obama said, whatever Sotomayor said, in any case would be twisted around to make it something else. There is no way to “win” if you are a Democrat in this stupid game. And it’s discouraging to see so many Dems playing along.

They’re obligated to reply because they’re being asked about it. That’s just the reality. And the answer is: it’s a baseless, bad faith attack. You can’t twist that into anything.

Oh darn…only three bites bites? (newtonusr, Blue Texan, and msmolly) But thanks, esp newtonusr for the broader picture(s). Even Leonard Pitts Jr.’s 6/8 column shivers about the statement (“wince-inducing…”) Leonard is African-American.

The broader context, however does not dilute the essential meaning – that she hopes a Latina woman would reach a better conclusion than [a member of…(plug in any group)] who had not lived the Latina woman’s life. It’s just a hope. It might not happen. It’s a hope that the Latina woman’s life offers some perspective that would produce a better judgments than would the life experience of another group. If that’s racism, it’s racism light, for sure.

It’s really a way of saying “I hope my life affords me superior capability to make wise decisions than has the life of a white male.” Me too, because she will on the Court. And not a white male. And we can hope she was right.