I’m very tempted to start categorizing my Facebook friends by the ratio of their real-life to politics posts, then dropping anyone who’s activity is more that 50% political. To me, if you want to talk politics, get a blog, and quit yammering at your captive FB audience. I try very hard–though not always successfully–to avoid any mention of politics, or religion for that matter, in my FB feed.
Most FB political links are never attempts to persuade others to one’s way of thinking, or part of an effort to inform other. The vast majority are territorial markers, meant more to define oneself as a member of a particular group and/or to denigrate those whom the person sees as opponents. This is exclusive rather than inclusive behavior, something that seems to me antithetical to the original impetus behind FB.
This Sarah Palin profile in the NYT magazine seems remarkably positive for that venue. One question it raised over at Commentary is what rationale Palin would have to run, given the supposedly small policy differences between the presumptive Republican contestants.
Given the recent internal GOP fight over earmarks, presumably the “small differences” are the most important ones to Palin. Given that, were I the GOP establishment, and in a panic over another possible O’Donnell scenario, I think I’d spend some time trying to figure out which prospective candidates might might cause her to forgo a 2012 run. Has anyone even bothered to ask Palin whom she’d like to see run in 2012?
Currently reading George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I. One of the repeated themes in the section I’m currently in is that to Nicholas and Wilhelm the idea of a British free press was inconceivable, as the press was so closely controlled in their countries. Essentially, since their governments controlled their national press, they assumed that the British government controlled the British press. This led to any number of misunderstandings between–not only the cousins, but the govenments themselves during the years leading up to WWI.
I was reminded of this while reading this Jennifer Rubin essay at Contentions She says “(Between Nancy Pelosi, who’s looking for the funding behind the Ground Zero mosque opponents, and Obama, who can’t imagine grassroots opposition to his presidency, we have a peek at just how little the liberal elites think of us.)”
Given the ubiquity of bussed-in protestors and identical, premade signs at many of the Left’s rallies, which imply a certain top-down rather than bottom-up nature to those events–could it be that Obama cannot imagine a grassroots opposition movement because he’s never experienced one?
In his first address from the Oval Office, Barack Obama was forceful and focused; comfortable yet commanding. The only surprise was that I was so surprised. I should have seen this coming.
More people than me will be saying it, but last night’s speech was probably Obama’s tipping point, and will likely be remembered as the political equivalent of Jimmy Carter’s malaise speech. It certainly won’t do anything to dent sales of Mike’s book.
I also don’t think O has reached his low point in regards to his low point in relations with the public. That will come after something like an actual malaise speech, wherein we get yelled at for not appreciating him enough.
Be nice to be wrong, for once, if Obama manages reverse course The wife and I are keeping our copy of Whiny Little Bitch out of sight, in order to keep up the illusion for the kids that the President is actually presidential.
