Comments on: We’re a nation of whiners and mental cases

By: Mike Carroll

Mike Carroll — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 19:32:30 +0000

I’m actually not dissing his education. I respect a Harvard, or any top flight University, degree although I tend to think the Ivies are over rated.
My only point was that if most people were insulted by a blowhard (and that’s a kind description) like Jackson the human reaction is to take a swing back at him. I still think Obama missed an even better opportunity.

By: Pat Cunningham

Pat Cunningham — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 19:20:29 +0000

Hey, I gave you a left-handed compliment when I said I expected better of you. Most commenters here don’t get such respect. (Now it’s your turn to key on the “left-handed” reference. Y’know, me being a political lefty and all). Besides, if I was grumpy today, I couldn’t have come up with those clever remarks about Pat Robertson’s Clown College and the freedom fries. No, I’m doing just fine. I just hate to see personal achievement like Obama’s academic career disrespected. If nothing else, his education is a shining example to young African-Americans.

By: Mike Carroll

Mike Carroll — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:37:22 +0000

A bit touchy today, aren\’t we. Must have hit a nerve.

By: Pat Cunningham

Pat Cunningham — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:13:09 +0000

Ah, yes, the gratuitous “Harvard elite” slam. Black guy gets a Harvard education, he’s an elitist. What a crock! What an anti-intellectual crock! I would expect that kind of nonsense from some slack-jawed moron who flunked out of Pat Robertson’s Clown College, but not from you. There was a time in this country when an Ivy League education was admired, when the editorship of the Harvard Law Review spoke well of someone. But alas, no more — at least not among the booboisie. (Oops! I used a word that sounds French. We’re all supposed to be Francophobes, you know. It’s the patriotic thing to do. Pass me the freedom fries, please.)

By: Mike Carroll

Mike Carroll — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:16:02 +0000

It was a politically smart move for the base that he has. To win the big prize he needs more of the muddled middle and that is where a sharp rebuke to Jackson would have helped him. Not a show of manliness, more a demonstration of having the capability of taking off the gloves if need be. A little less Harvard elite and a bit more dirth in the teeth.

By: Pat Cunningham

Pat Cunningham — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:54:13 +0000

One other thing, Mike: You couldn’t be more wrong about the way Obama handled the Jackson business. From a political standpoint, he handled it perfectly. This stuff about how he should have “shown that he had a pair” strikes me as weird. This was not the occasion for a display of what you seem to regard as manliness. He played it low-key and got his Sister Souljah Moment. Smart politics.

By: Pat Cunningham

Pat Cunningham — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:40:23 +0000

Mike: You might want to check my latest post this morning about Phil Gramm’s Swiss bank, UBS.

By: Mike Carroll

Mike Carroll — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:14:07 +0000

Pat-I wouldn’t argue that this has been a bad week for McCain with Gramm’s stupid but accurate comment added to the Jackson affair for Obama.McCain has thrown Gramm under the Straight Talk Express because that is what he had to do to lessen the damage as politicians will do (…”I could no more disown Reverend Wright than my grandmother”…). Wright is still under the bus but I think Grandma has been hauled from under.BTW, it might have gone a long way if Obama had responded to Jackson rather than through a spokeman. Might have shown that he had a pair if you get my drift.
That said, bad week for McCain but my point remains-we are not (at least yet) in a recession and we have become a nation of whiners.

By: LD

LD — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:38:13 +0000

Leatherneck is also right that people don’t buy Volvos with a credit card. They’ve been buying them with home equity loans. And people are paying all these loans back and banking stocks have been going gangbusters, right? What are your mortgage numbers again Pat? Ohh….

By: Pat Cunningham

Pat Cunningham — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 01:38:02 +0000

Leatherneck is right. The economy’s doing just fine. The Cubs are filling the seats at Wrigley. JMK Nippon is hiring waitstaffers and dishwashers. The airplane he rode was full. It’s boom time in America. Pay no attention to these items: mortgage foreclosures at record highs; 6,500 retail closings expected by the end of the year, the most in at least eight years; record high gas prices; food prices rising; six straight months of contraction in the jobs market; Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae teetering on the brink of bankruptcy; consumer confidence plummeting to a 16-year low; auto manufacturers suffering, with at least one of America’s big three facing possible bankruptcy; wages stagnant; credit-card debt at astronomical levels; more jobholders losing health insurance and retirement security; and on and on. But, hey, the situation is rosy. Just look at Leatherneck’s anecdotal evidence. Don’t get in a funk just because the government felt a need this past spring to send everyone economic stimulus checks. Consider those checks dividend payments on a booming economy.