Say Anything Blog

woah rob, simma…

I’m looking out my window and I don’t see people rioting in the streets over this. I haven’t even seen a frumpled brow in the wake of this travesty. Who’s up in arms? Nobody, because it’s a non-issue.

Carl, they were probably throwing all that food around because of the war in iraq, cause you know how upset the public is about that…

Oh wait, they weren’t throwing food?  Must mean no one really cares about Iraq…

I just got back from the grocery store. Everybody was throwing food around, it was chaos. Because the president cut into prime time.

Point me to someone who really cares that they missed prime time television because the president made his little blurb and you’ll have found someone who must live a carefree life. THEN…

show me someone who takes those people’s complaint seriously and I’ll show you someone just as skewed. “The left jumps all over it bla bla bla”...It’s a non-issue. Nobody’s pissed because prime time was lost. It’d be too perfect a world if that was a real concern for john and jane doe. Fake left/right/inbetween games of zero importance, but all too common a stomping ground for potential debate...as rob’s initial post reveals.

Yes...no big deal.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Carl, go here and watch this segment from CNN Iniside The Blogs.

The whole segment was pretty much about people complaining about the President’s speech during Prime Time.

You don’t care about it.  That’s very good.  I don’t care about it either, but some people did.  Which was the point of the post: Criticizing the people who complained, especially in light of previous criticisms of the president regarding the number of press conferences he gives.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

I’m criticizing your “leave it to the left” generality, and how it pretty much sums up the go nowhere fued. You weren’t criticizing the complainers, you were criticizing the whole “left”. It’s nitpicking, and chalks one up to not taking you very seriouly. I’ve seen the video, mostly a bunch of nitpickers getting CNN time, nothing new.

When several of the left’s loudest voices jump on the President for daring to have a press conference in prime time one cannot help but make generalizations.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

but it’s trite.

So why keep talking about it?

You’ve expressed your opinion, and that’s that…

and I’m talking about left/right ping pong. They both play the same game and are guilty of the same trite crimes, it’s old news. Politician jokes are right up there with lawyer jokes for the same reasons you’re saying one can’t help but to generalize. It’s trite bullshreeaught...why humor it. If you consider yourself serious about politics and the people, stick to what’s serious and let the flocks bickering over trite crap fall behind. You’re just left-bashing over trite crap with your original post...this is your diary, it’s your business...but it’s trite.

I don’t comment on what I see as trite topics. I don’t comment much here at all. But sometimes these things just hit you in context of a larger perspective..."what the hell are people doing seriously arguing over such crap when there’s this and that going on!?!?”. There’s a flood of this bickering happening at all times, and it’s collective influence does no favors to collective intelligence...it becomes the modus operandi. People have influence over eachother. In my work I read blogs regularly, and it’s amazing how people begin to secularly dialog identically to eachother...but it becomes more than polite debate when the aspect of collective influence comes into play. For example: “the left jumps all over the president for cutting into prime time”...argument ensues...and as rob pointed out it’s across the spectrum...the “blog” spectrum. But it’s an issue that has no bearing on anybody’s daily life. John and Jane Doe tune into CNN to see what’s up, and they get news on trite bickering over the president cutting into television airtime. It becomes an unecessary assumption of attitude while accomplishing nothing of importance...just fuel for the self-contained fuedal fire.

Rob and Carl B. - you’re both right!

The Atrios diatribe, was a silly mocking of the Bush White House’s arrogance, but Rob should not be surprised by the reaction of the 50% percent of Americans who routinely don’t vote.

But, Carl B. rightfully called you on your now familiar routine of twisting such trivial matters into a slam against the Left, to distract from yet another example of Bush’s failures.

However, thanks Rob for the link to the Froomkin article, because it kicks ass! He thoroughly breaks down every aspect of the press conference (linking to the transcript and video), while offering analysis from other WH reporters.

And he’s right, Bush had very little new to say. But, Froomkin’s article spreads over 5 pages, meaning what he did in fact say, was of much more importance.

George Bush Sr. is one of the most cognitively intelligent people I’ve seen on television, especially amongst the “dark side”. He had his script, but he could handle questions on the fly very thoughtfully and never saying the “wrong thing”. Was it the cocaine or barbara’s more laid back geneology that done his kid in so wrong for his job? Isn’t it the most nationally known case of nepotism in recorded history?

Rob, I’m more interested in watching presidential press conferences than prime time trash too, and I think its great that he’s finally having more of them.  (In fact, for once, I think there was more of what he said that I actually agreed with than not.)

I also think, however, one of the smartest things the president did during his first term was to limit the number of televised press conferences he had to make.  He’s pretty lousy at public speaking especially when it’s impromtu.  Makes him look pretty numb minded.

I think thou dost protest too much…

The comment about the press conference was apt. Outside the means testing for SS benefits (not a bad idea, IMHO), the whole thing seemed organized for selling the American people on the SS proposal. Did it warrant a press conference? I don’t think so - I’d rather have seen a speech, with a well-organized set of arguments.

It doesn’t help that W, in my opinion, does not perform well at press conferences. He tends to smirk and try to be humorous, which makes him look arrogant and that people outside his Cabinet just don’t understand the important issues of the day. Regardless of what you may make of that proposition, it’s bad PR to give that appearance. So, it probably would have been better to give a speech.

BTW, the same thing applies with the “results show” on American Idol. 30 minutes (if we’re lucky) to give us a one line answer - “Constantine, get outta here - you’re a loser”? But I digress.