She certainly seems to think like him.

No. Howard Dean is the Robert Mugabe of Fl. and Mich, stealing this election from Hillary, the tough outsider. At least if portraying the DNC as "vote stealers" and "oppressors"  and "anti-Democratic" is in Hillary's perceived advantage.

Hillary has become a classic demagogue, pitting Whites against Blacks, the educated against the less-educated, women against men, rural against urban, riff-raff against the elite, etc.

I was a supporter and donor to Hillary and to Bill before Hillary. But, agreeing with Judis, since SC I have watched in horror as Clinton has used every underhanded and deceitful trick in Karl Rove' playbook against her opponent. She has now run the most racist campaign since George Wallace ran for President.  Her supporters hate Black people.  Not because they really hate Black people, but because Black people--who are the ultimate judge of when a comment is racist--who could have been Clinton supporters have been offended by her nasty racist campaign.

All Clinton supporters are racists. Though they hide behind "lack of experience" or "voting for a woman like me", in reality, we can all see that they hate Black people.

Shame Shame Shame on Hillary Clinton and all her supporters.

hee, hee..

ever get the feeling that poor old kirckick is like that dorky kid who is always trying to eel his way in with the cool guys?  His peculiar charm failed with Chait, who seems to enjoy stomping on kirchick's innards just for the fun of it...

and now he's trying his luck with Isaac.  Bravo. Must be hard carrying marty's bags all the time. I do recommend that you get some new friends.

My goodness -- a Kirchick post that I didn't realize was a Kirchick post until someone pointed it out in the comments.

This completes a seven-day sweep of very good Plank posts from Kirchick. Someone buy the kid a beer, if he's old enough to drink it.

(Granted, I haven't agreed with a single one of his posts in the last seven days, including this one where the Zimbabwe analogy clearly makes Hillary Thabo Mbeki. But the posts themselves have been good posts, adequately written in a style appropriate to the medium and respectful to the readers.)

Sabatia: What's this "all Clinton supporters are racist" trope? Only a fool would say that.  I used to believe - along time ago,  in the cave days - that if people read an elegant publication like TNR that the quality of writing and thinking would rub off on them. Boy was I wrong.

I don't know why you're all picking on HRC for wanting to shoulder the White Woman's burden.

Sorry, Liberal Reformer. Carried away with my displeasure with the way Hillary continues to behave.

But listening to Hillary comparing the Fla and Mich votes to Zimbabwe and then reading Bill Clinton's comments this morning blaming all the racism on the Obama campaign really really gets my goat. I am a long-time supporter and donor to Bill and I supported and donated to Hillary until SC, but now I am very disillusioned with the Clintons. They lie and cheat not to benefit the party or the nation, but only for themselves. They really disgust me. Sorry.

Sabatia: Well, I was wondering. I have been increasingly nauseated by Hillary and finally, I cut her loose (cf. my post on the thread that this one riffs off of). You might want to cool down, though, before you boot up your computer. Fancy me saying that because I really got into out here with an obnoxious guy recently and I wasn't exactly temperate in my exchanges with him. For me, if I am commenting on something out there in the world, I am fine, no matter how passionate I might feel. But if someone jumps me in real time, then watch out. Thanks for your measured reply.

PS: Libby, I have been reading TNR for 47 years, since my Aunt Emma gave me a subscription for my Bar Mitzvah. Also read a lot of great lit as I was an Am. Lit major in grad school. None of the good writing and none of the good ideas rubbed off, obviously.

sabatia,

Don't be so hard on yourself, at least you've stuck with it.

Florida may not be Zimbabwe, but what the heck is the trouble?  Can't that state ever hold an election without it becoming a national drama? Why is it always the battleground of left vs. righ, the locus of all our dividet - Elian Gonzalez, Terri Schiavo?  Is there some deep seated need  for attention?  CNN would be more efficient if it moved its headquarters from Atlanta to Miami.

An Equirer editor once remaked "Thank God for Texas and Florida.  Otherwise we wouldn't have anything to write about."

Time to cut Texas some slack.

Yes, liberal, yet again someone makes a comment, heated to be sure, but in general, not directed at any individual, certainly not at you.  Anyone would understand sabatia's comment as hyperbole, but not a personal attack.  Yet you immediately respond by calling that person a "fool."  YOU are the protagonist in the multiple flamefests in which you engage, but you are completely oblivious to your role, imagining that you are the target and victim and posing as someone who is consistently civil and a gentleman.  Not at all.  This is the third time for you in about as many days.  Not even certain known hotheads, who shall remain nameless, are as consistently embroiled in name-calling as you.

Find a mirror.  Take a long look.

Ah, Florida.  I know there are other posters who live there, probably, and I had that dubious honor for fourteen years.  Lived in Tallahassee in fall 2000.  Most distinctive memory, aside from all the media getting kicked out of their hotel rooms for the Florida State-Florida football game, was being stuck downtown when a bunch of rednecks (sorry, but that's really the only word that fits) staged a semi-terroristic demonstration by circling a couple of city blocks downtown in their pickups, all sporting Bush or Republican Party signs or banners, all shouting or broadcasting slogans to the effect of "stop the recount."  This went on for about twenty minutes.  It was not so much the demonstration itself that floored me (and I had lived there for about seven years by this time), it was that this event barely made a ripple in the headlines locally, and not at all nationally.  The main thing it accomplished, as far as I could see, was to scare a bunch of children whose mothers couldn't get in to pick them up from preschool.  

At any rate, I quit expecting any sanity from Florida about that time.  It is as dysfunctional a state as there is, populated as it is by various combinations of leftover south Alabamans and Georgians in its north, a broad, contemporary-evangelical swath across the middle, a tumultuous Caribbean mix nestled (sometimes uneasily) with a heavy snowbird something-for-nothing crowd along the southern coasts, with too-rich-to-care pockets bracketing a shadow population of migrants, illegals and the poorest of the poor around the southern middle.  (Palm Beach County is home both to Palm Beach, on the Atlantic, of course one of the richest per capita municipalities in the country, and Belle Glade, out by Lake Okeechobee, one of the poorest.)  The Democratic Party in Florida more or less gave up the ghost ages ago, basically non-functional since Lawton Chiles died with about three weeks left in his second gubernatorial term.  Such Democrats as there are in the state house were fully complicit in the move to push up Florida's primary to its too-soon date; there were only three dissenting votes, meaning most all the Democrats went along with it.  Had they shown a little spine or judgment then, I'd be more sympathetic to their whining now.  As it is, I have no sympathy at all.  

'Bot: The liar is back. You said more than once that you were tired of contending with me. All lies. I have gotten under your skin so much that you are intruding yourself into disputes that do not concern you. I thought you were off to Sarkozyland. Oh right, I suppose you have your pathetic laptop with you. If I made an extremely categorical statement about Obama supporters that was identical to sabatia's sweeping accusation, do I think that you would write it off as hyperbole? Will the price of a barrel of oil descend to $5 by this December 25? Will Walker Bush acquire some intelligence any time soon? You are self- caricature. You are still smarting from when I effectively dissed you last weekend. I am not following you around on these threads as you are me but then I left junior high school a long time ago. You are so pathetic that you stoop to question whether I have a fiancee, as I so stated. I have found that people who behave in that fashion, with no evidence that they can draw on, are often the worst dissimulators themselves. As for my dispute with w. over the California Supreme Court decision, I believe even the hermeneutically challenged could see that I was set upon. I had an extremely civil exchange with someone who took the opposite view that I did. We commended each other on the civility of our exchanges. This kind of conduct is foreign to you, 'bot. What also is foreign to you is sabatia's apology, which I appreciate very much. You would never - and I mean never ever - be caught dead behaving this gracefully. You are so flamingly brilliant, 'bot. You are always so crisp and fresh in your prose; you never employ cliches like 'find a mirror". The frightening aspect of you is that I still am not sure if you are so fatuous that you cannot even recognize humor for what it when you hilariously referred to me as homophobic or if you are that angry and you actually know better. As for you referring to "hotheads", that is the funniest thing yet. Dr. Projection is back. I love your unintentional humor. Objectively humorous, subjectively 'bot. Lastly, I will turn the tables. All Obama supporters are sexist (I already feel the fatuousness arising again and you ready to attack as if I really mean this remark). There , take that down your hyperbolic throat.

Rhubarbs said:

"Granted, I haven't agreed with a single one of his posts in the last seven days, including this one where the Zimbabwe analogy clearly makes Hillary Thabo Mbeki."

FYI - Thabo Mbeki is South African, not Zimbabwean (unless you're making a larger point that I didn't pick up on).

The impression being created by Hillary's comments (and I suspect this view is also held by many westerners) is that Mugabe has been stealing elections in Zimbabwe. Here's Hillary quote from the other day... "You heard Diana talk about coming from a country where votes don't count. People go through the motions of an election only to have it discarded and disregarded. We're seeing that right now in Zimbabwe -- tragically an election was held, the president lost, they refused to abide by the will of the people. So we can never take for granted our precious right to vote."

Well, it's not that simple folks. While Mugabe's democratic pedigree is debatable, it has had little to do with the outcome of elections in Zimbabwe over the years for the simple fact that Mugabe's tribe - the Shona - make up 82% of the population compared to the Ndebele at 14%. The Shona have given their overwhelming support to Mugabe over the years (as had the white minority) when Mugabe was a much more reasonable leader, but his mismanagement of the country has served to turn many of his own people against him. Meanwhile, the oppositon is not exactly united against Mugabe with their incessant infighting.

This may be hard to believe but Mugabe is not known to rig elections (his cohorts may be so inclined on his behalf, but not Mugabe himself). For all his shortcomings, Mugabe seems to want legitimacy more than anything. The impression that Mugabe is stealing elections has been fostered by the West without much evidence ever being produced. And it doesn't help that Mugabe's been cracking down on the press in his misguideed attempt to control the message to the people. Is Mugabe a despot? Hell yeah, but that does not make him an election rigger. Why rig when he could win legitimately? Results of the recent elections may actually have come as a surprise to him since he never thought the Shona would abandon him in such large numbers. But I guess at some point people's economic interest begin to trump other issues.

Back to Hillary's comments... There is very little evidence that Zimbabweans' votes have not counted, or that they have been going through the motions for naught. that may be what the West wants its people to believe about Mugabe. However, just because they say so doesn't make it so.

I am not a fan of Mugabe because fo what he has done to Zimbabwe, but I don't think he is anymore a vote rigger than George W. Bush.

cspence, as a proud Floridian (originally from Tampa, now in St. Augustine), I cracked up at your take on our state.  On the mark, in the main.

That's why I laugh when people talk about FL as a swing state.  YGBSM.  McCain will win comfortably, and the rest will be status quo.  It's pretty red down here, and not just the necks.

Butchie, I like Florida--my parents winter in Sarasota.  Small condo but who cares?  Everybody's got a pool.  There's amazing bar-b-cue within two miles of anywhere.  And they have giant supermarkets every three blocks.  Yes, McCain will take Florida.  The older Jews ain't going his way--you just have to listen to my parents' friends, and sometimes even my parents:  "I don't trust him."  That could be their motto down there.  I can see an early bird special, a swerving Lexus, and a palm tree, with said motto on their new state flag.

molly - From Tampa south to Naples is particularly Republican.  The midwesterners come to the west coast, the Noo Yawkers/Joisies to the lower east coast. Which is why Palm Beach, Broward and Dade are always so blue.  Which they need to, because if memory serves, Kerry carried about 10 counties of our 67.

Wow, just when the wind dies down from the periodic jacksondyer v nmackenzie slugfests, we now have duo as an undercard...

roi v lib reformer

If tnr ever has a clambake, there is going to be a whole lotta scores to settle and I for one, want to be in the front row...

wkwami, I would assume that everyone here knows that Thabo Mbeki is president of South Africa. And if we are to postulate that Florida is analogous to Zimbabwe, then Hillary, as an ineffectual outsider who talks a big talk about values and principles but whose record of action on the subject at hand ranges from indifference to active abetting of the problem she now denounces, occupies an analogous place in the drama to Mbeki's role in the Zimbabwe crisis.

Don't fret about it too much, liberal.  I don't really think you are going to learn how to behave properly.  I'm simply calling everyone else's attention to your bad behavior, and you obligingly jump the shark.    

bonne journee

Oh, liberal, take note:  There are 20 posts here, and in only one is someone leveling a personal insult at someone else.  That is you calling sabatia "a fool.'  I exclude the insults you direct at me because I am at least addressing myself to your personal behavior while sabatia said nothing to you at all of any kind.

Kirchick, I'm with you if for no other reason that you are not one of the cool kids, as jaunty puts it.

Fuck the cool kids. In high school (I grew up late, so in high school I was short and thus patronized by the cool kids) I did that by giving them wrong solutions in math at a few exams. You see, the cool kids didn't exactly get numbers and equations. That didn't make me more popular, but it sure stopped the patronizing.

sleepy my man,

You may not have been cool but I bet you were awful cute, especially when you got riled...

and I agree, brains are the ultimate cool...but combine brains with joie de vivre and you've got a cool that is nice to geeky guys...

'Bot: You don't quit. You have all the tenacity and charm of a deranged pit bull. You didn't reply to my point on how you would take similar "hyperbole" from me. That is because we all know how you would take it. Are you really as dumb as you look? An Obama supporter on another thread praised me as intellectually honest. Nobody would ever mistake you for such. Just as you jumped in on the side of the woman who jumped me over my highly temperate views on the California Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, so here you bared your lockjaw fangs on behalf of sabatia, who made an intemperate remark and subsequently apologized. Okay, a little thought experiment for you, 'bot: if I had made an equivalent intemperate remark would you be downplaying it on my behalf? Will the Saudi princes roll out the red carpet of democracy tommorrow morning?

'Bot: You don't quit. You have all the tenacity and charm of a deranged pit bull. You didn't reply to my point on how you would take similar "hyperbole" from me. That is because we all know how you would take it. Are you really as dumb as you look? An Obama supporter on another thread praised me as intellectually honest. Nobody would ever mistake you for such. Just as you jumped in on the side of the woman who jumped me over my highly temperate views on the California Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, so here you bared your lockjaw fangs on behalf of sabatia, who made an intemperate remark and subsequently apologized. Okay, a little thought experiment for you, 'bot: if I had made an equivalent intemperate remark would you be downplaying it on my behalf? Will the Saudi princes roll out the red carpet of democracy tommorrow morning?

Liberal (oxymoron though it is), people are entitled to their intemperate views, and you are entitled to agree with them or not and to express your views/ The basic problem here is that you have appointed yourself the arbiter of the manner in which people are allowed to express themselves.  If someone makes a remark that you regard as extreme, intemperate, or hyperbolic, you respond with a personal attack (unless of course they are expressing a point of view that you share and then you volunteer your approval),  Many times, people ignore you when you engage in this behavior..  Sometimes, as with me, they punish you, which you cannot tolerate without becoming unhinged.  Like every bully who ever lived, you can dish it out, but you cannot take it.

You are not civil as you loudly and insistently proclaim yourself to be unless people are observing rules of decorum that you have no right to impose (although, as i noted, you only attempt to impose your rules on people whose views do not agree with yours).  I am perfectly willing to listen to people's extreme views, or their hyperbole, even yours, and respond to it on its merits. I may be sarcastic, I may be dismissive.  Depends on the occasion.  But I don't presume, as you do, to be the arbiter of people's mode of expression.  I may challenge their ideas forcefully, but I don't get into a meta-discussion of how they express those views nor do I respond to their views with a personal attack.  I attack the point of view.   On the other hand, if they want to get into personal attacks in an attempt to intimidate, as you often do, I make sure that it is the intimidator ends up frustrated and suffering, as you are and have been in your exchange with me.

So, don't expect to get off the hook until you moderate your behavior.  As I explained to Molly Simon a long time ago, I don't bear a grudge.  As soon as someone is prepared to resume civilized discourse, I am perfectly willing.  But, so long as they continue to engage in behavior that is intended to intimidate, certainly if it is directed toward me, they are going to be punished for it. I have plenty of patience.

"Bot: Moderate my behavior? My behavior? You are getting more ludicrous by the day. I left off over on the Spine, expecting an end to it. You even lied and said you had enough. Then, as my fiancee Sheena (yes, 'bot, she exists, unlike you I tell the truth) just said, you seem to be following my around, even as you call me a bully, popping up on threads, assailing me. It is the time-honored schoolyard bully technique to follow someone and then point the finger and cry "bully". Take your sob stories elsewhere. I have made myself the arbiter of precisely nothing. I just called someone on an intemperate remark and the person apologized. Then little miss busybody jumped in. You never made one mention of sabatia's apology to me - well, of course not; the apology meme has obviously not lodged in your brain. As for your closer, where do you dream these things up? You have plenty of patience? Plenty of bile, stalking ability, ad infinitum but patience? Patience, like civility, is not your forte. Little miss 'bot, patient you are not.

jauntster, I would pay money to watch the libref-roi contretemps.  Having gone a few rounds with roi, I agree about the deranged pit bull stuff.

Fun to watch, in any case!

butchie,

I say that at this ficticious tnr confab, we get the cage ready, schedule roi v lb, jacksondyer v mackenzie, and in a truly gentlemanly Errol Flynn spirit, I would be willing to lace up with wilcat, with the proviso that if starts kicking my ass, you bring in to cops...

I will buy the first round of beer and dogs...

Agreed.  Guess I'll have a go with mmathog.  Pig-sooey!

Go Gators!

Butchie b: Thank you for the support. By the way, I want to profusely apologize to you. I laid into you by mistake - was it yesterday? - over at E&E, bleary-eyed from dealing with the 'boster. I should have been more careful. I was thinking that I was countering this inane conservative that pops up out here from time to time. I was very chagrined when I read my comments after they were posted and saw that I actually had responded to you. Sorry. Mea culpa.

What I've got, liberal, is your number.  Whenever I want to watch the spittle fly from you mouth and the steam coming out of your ears, all I have to do is push the button.  Any time you want to go a few more rounds, you know just what to do.  I will be happy to oblige.

Nice to hear from you again butchie.

"Dialectical interchange?"  What a howl!  Our very own Hegel.

"Bot: Dialectical exchange actually transpired before Hegel arrived on earth, viz., in ancient Athens forward. Not that you would know this. The howl that people hear is you. Again, iI compose elegant replies and you rant and rave an toss off schoolyard epithets such as "pig", "clown" and "ninnies". I know, the 'bot is so proud of himself. People have your number. One guy out here just today referred to go-rounds with you. You never but never address any substantive points that I make. You are like the little manic third-grader who keeps screaming "so's your momma, so's your mama". You lecture me like a would-be cop and then say that you have my number? What's up with your presence here, anyway? I thought you were off to the City of Lights. So much the worse for them, if this is true. Just what Sarkozy needs, the ugly American.