Andrew Sullivan - Leaving the Right

Cicero said:
How did you come to that conclusion? Did the Alaskan voters change their opinion of her when she consented to be McCain's running mate instead of finishing out her term?
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See, now you're just lying. She didn't 'consent to be McCain's running mate' instead of finishing out her term. She agreed to be the VP candidate, then after the failed election bid quit her term.

Besides, that, it's a false premise to begin with. I stated they were wrong to believe her qualified. It doesn't matter if they still believe she is qualified. They would still be wrong, and that doesn't change them being wrong before.


This thread is not about defending the right, rather it is about how Sulli, never a conseravite leader, coughed up lame excuses for why he had to abandon conservatism.
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This thread is about the points he brought up in a specific article. The subject of that article were criticisms of modern conservatism in the US.


What did losing the 2000 and 2004 elections do for VP candidates Lieberman and Edwards? Why didn't they achieve the same prominece as Palin did for being on the losing ticket?
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Because they haven't looked for it and they aren't as sensational. But then again, why the hell would you think Lieberman is less prominent that Palin? And the news has ignored Edwards' life coming apart?

What does that have to do with modern US conservatism?



Not only is Sulli an idiot, he never uttered any substantive analysis of the faults of currrent conservatism in his diatribes for the last two years.



Somehow you managed to remove Sulli from the OP. Why?
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Because ad-hom is a fallacy, and will remain a fallacy. The OP was not about Sullivian but about his article and more specifically the points it raises.


Sulli's criticisms are meritless. There are problems with the GOP, unfortunately, Sulli is too consumed with Palin priapism to make a coherent argument addressing the problems.
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First of all 'the right' is not equal to, 'the GOP' although they are strongly correlated. Secondly, how are his points without merit? You obviously disagree with the Palin point. How about the rest?


What exactly did you find so poignant about Sullivan's travels from his perspective as editor of The Atlantic and as "the most popular one-man political blog site in the world."
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I don't read Sullivan, I don't follow Sullivan, I don't freaking care about Sullivan but the points raised in the OP are very salient right now and do not in any way, shape, or form depend on who the hell Sullivan is.
 
†= Crap!;5462404 said:
Clinton "most successful republican president"

I didn't make it up.
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You might as well have as it is utter nonsense. These dopey bloggers parrot this line.

@ #8:
Yep, Michael Moore wasnt that far off when he once referred to Clinton as the most successful Republican president in a generation (or something like that.


Permabear:
"Well as some say, Clinton was the most successful Republican President since Eisenhower."

Unkown blogger:
For years, I have referred to Bill Clinton as the most effective, or most successful, Republican president of the 20th century, to the bemusement of my liberal and conservative companions alike


Even Greenspan said he wa joking when he made the remark.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me pick up on some interviews that you’ve given this week as you’ve been touring, talking about your book, “The Age of Turbulence.” You said this: “I think Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we’ve had in a while.” Republican?

MR. GREENSPAN: I’m sure he doesn’t like that joke, but if you look at his record compared to what I think appropriate policy ought to be, he’s for free trade, he’s for globalization, he was for welfare reform, fiscal restraint and—true enough, he’s not a Republican. I’m sorry, President Clinton, I didn’t mean to say that. But I must say, I had to follow an awful lot of your particular guidelines and found them very compatible with my own.

Is it just coincidence that this phrase appeared on the internet in 2008 when William Jefferson's wife was running for POTUS and the lame stream media was pulling for Obama?
 
It didn't make any sense anyway.
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It was a knee jerk reaction. I've seen a fair amount of that kind of list over the years. From both sides of the line. It's just posturing crap.
 
While both parties share many of he same sins, the Republicans win the hypocritic award hands down. They pretend one thing (conservatism) while doing whatever they want to serve their needs for power and profit. The Dems do much of the same but at least they do not pretend to be decreasing the government and reining in spending when they are not.

Anyone here remember the last balanced budget, what party did that ??
 
The debate over healthcare has left me despairing that both parties are corrupt and self-serving and contemptuous of their constituents.
 
PixyMisa said:
Wow, every single one of them?
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Yes, all three. While idiots might like to suggest that a sample size of two is too small to make any valid judgements -- and demonstrate their idiocy and inability to count by cutting the sample size down even further -- that also represents a thirty-year track record.
 
Cicero said:
drkitten is a pawnbroker. Any number higher than one boggles his mind. The two GOP Presidents since Reagan are too many to count.
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Every single republican presidential term, since Nixon's second, has shown an increase in debt/GDP. All 6. See my previous link.

All three Democratic presidential terms in that same time period show a decrease in debt/GDP. Since 1973, no Republican president has managed to decrease debt/GDP.

Since 1945, every Democratic presidential term ended with lower debt/GDP than it started. Yet, somehow, Republicans still sell themselves as fiscal conservatives.
 
Ziggurat said:
Care to guess whether or not that trend will continue?
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Yep, Obama was handed the worst recession since the Great Depression. It'll be a freakin' miracle if he manages to come out of it with a lower debt/GDP ratio in only four short years.

I wouldn't be surprised, however, that trend is reinstated in his second four years.
 
Ziggurat said:
Care to guess whether or not that trend will continue?
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Almost certainly not; Obama, like FDR, was dealt a really bad hand. On the other hand, GWB was dealt one of the best hands in the history of the USA and managed to screw it up to the point where Obama was dealt the worst hand of any newly elected president in 70 years.

Tell you what; we'll see who produces a bigger change in debt-to-GDP ratio, W or Obama....
 
drkitten said:
Tell you what; we'll see who produces a bigger change in debt-to-GDP ratio, W or Obama....
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So you think Obama will do better than Bush in that regard? I want to make sure I understand what you're expecting to happen.
 
Ziggurat said:
So you think Obama will do better than Bush in that regard? I want to make sure I understand what you're expecting to happen.
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Yes. My expectation is that Obama will increase the debt-to-GDP ratio, but substantially less than Bush did. (And with substantially better reason.)
 
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