Paraphrasing for lack of an official transcript.
Friday night's mashup on HBO left us shaking our collective heads in amazement over Rep. Jack Kingston's D-(elusional) wingnutesque comments on Obama. Many of them with extra adjectives used only to inspire the least of these amongst us.
However, mixed up in the sideways messages was a tidbit that speaks to the larger issue within the current administration as well as the GOP base as a whole. Cuba. The argument about Obama potentially meeting with Raul Castro... Bill Maher missed a golden opportunity to linguistically bitch-slap the collective GOP mantra. As Jack pissed all over Obama's message of speaking with the Cuban leadership, he barely took a breath before launching into what we should say to Cuba.
Here's where the nuance starts and stops.
Obama wants to speak with which we have disagreements.
The GOP talking points want us speaking at or to.
Dialogue be damned. We're gonna tell you what to do, demand results and then attack you if you don't comply. Rather than sitting down like fully evolved homo-sapiens and exchanging words and encouraging an opposing party to meet half way... edicts must be given.
Ironically in the Austin debate last week we heard Hillary parrot much of the same points Rep Kingston used... last fall when I saw Bill Clinton speak he made a point that, "we cannot make peace with those we agree with" and went on to expand on the concept of the importance of dialogue. Has he recently experienced amnesia or is he being gagged by his wife's operatives?
Either way... the results are the same.
Posted by kerry at February 25, 2008 09:42 AM