Justice Scalia found dead in Texas

[old_gregg]

posner is way too autistic to ever make it through confirmation

[Nakoma]

posner is way too autistic to ever make it through confirmation

Posner made it through the confirmation process to the Seventh Circuit; however, he is too old at 77. Obama will pick someone in his/her 50s or early 60s. He wants a candidate who will serve a couple decades.

[old_gregg]

Posner made it through the confirmation process to the Seventh Circuit; however, he is too old at 77. Obama will pick someone in his/her 50s or early 60s. He wants a candidate who will serve a couple decades.

the seventh circuit is the seventh circuit

[Clark Addison]

[cowboy]

I thought it was fine. He has that goofy clipped speaking style that I don't care for, but I had no problem with the content.

BTW, the NYT video above is not the complete statement. Full statement here:

http://www.mediaite.com/online/watch...alias-passing/

Thanks. I'm more with creekster in that he would have come across a big political winner to ignore the subject of appointment, but he is too small to let it go. How McConnell could be tone deaf enough to bring it up is beyond me. Obama's statement just reflects on him, but McConnell's idiocy reflects on every Republican in the country, including the presidential candidates.

Obama likes to see himself as a man of vision, but his vision is small town and petty and always partisan. It extends only to his immediate interest. He never inspires across the spectrum like Kennedy did or like Reagan did or like Clinton did. That was my point. And after all is said and done, I think this is one of Obama's greatest failings. He is leaving the country more divided and partisan than he found it.

This is especially ironic, considering that Obama's great moment was at the Dem Convention when he spoke about there being no red states or blue states, uniting the country, etc. He is the most divisive President in modern history.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Thanks. I'm more with creekster in that he would have come across a big political winner to ignore the subject of appointment, but he is too small to let it go. How McConnell could be tone deaf enough to bring it up is beyond me. Obama's statement just reflects on him, but McConnell's idiocy reflects on every Republican in the country, including the presidential candidates.


This is especially ironic, considering that Obama's great moment was at the Dem Convention when he spoke about there being no red states or blue states, uniting the country, etc. He is the most divisive President in modern history.

Most divisive president or president during the most politically divisive time in modern history?

I used to laugh at how no matter what GWB did, he was roundly criticized. Some of it he deserved, some of it he didn't. Same dog, different leg. Welcome to the age of tribal politics.

[Flystripper]

Ain't that the truth.

[creekster]

Most divisive president or president during the most politically divisive time in modern history?

A fair question. IMO he is one of the most divisive presidents precisely because he has failed to deal with the factionalized environment over which he was elected to preside. You are correct that the current political climate is deeply divided on numerous issues, but Obama has exacerbated the preexisting divisions and in some cases added new ones that did not previously exist. When I was young I recall thinking that George Washington's farewell address warning against factionalism was naive and quaint. Now, however, I think we have reached the point that he feared. And Obama has been gas on the fire.

[Topper]

A fair question. IMO he is one of the most divisive presidents precisely because he has failed to deal with the factionalized environment over which he was elected to preside. You are correct that the current political climate is deeply divided on numerous issues, but Obama has exacerbated the preexisting divisions and in some cases added new ones that did not previously exist. When I was young I recall thinking that George Washington's farewell address warning against factionalism was naive and quaint. Now, however, I think we have reached the point that he feared. And Obama has been gas on the fire.

I would suggest he is divisive because he lacked extensive experience in the legislature. If he had served more than one term in the Senate and a longer period in the Illinois legislature, he would have learned how to build coalitions, rather than "my way or the highway" approach. Although this time appears divisive, I am doubtful it is any more divisive than in previous periods. We're simply more aware of the divisiveness. Perhaps the hyper-awareness might sharpen the divide, but it does not appear to be significant.

[Jeff Lebowski]

A fair question. IMO he is one of the most divisive presidents precisely because he has failed to deal with the factionalized environment over which he was elected to preside. You are correct that the current political climate is deeply divided on numerous issues, but Obama has exacerbated the preexisting divisions and in some cases added new ones that did not previously exist. When I was young I recall thinking that George Washington's farewell address warning against factionalism was naive and quaint. Now, however, I think we have reached the point that he feared. And Obama has been gas on the fire.

"Reached the point"? That's funny. We reached that point about 200 years ago. Things were far worse in the 1800's, esp. the early 1800's. Good grief, they used to shoot each other in duels.

Andrew Jackson:

The day after Van Buren was elected president, Jackson took the time to reflect on his own presidency with a friend. When asked if he had any regrets about the last eight years, this was his response: “[That] I didn’t shoot Henry Clay and I didn’t hang John C. Calhoun.”

"John Calhoun, if you secede from my nation, I will secede your head from the rest of your body."

Washington didn't have to wait long at all. Adams and Jefferson got right after each other.

The concern was amplified by an influential—and highly partisan—Connecticut newspaper’s warning that electing Jefferson would create a nation where “murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will openly be taught and practiced.”

And that was the soft stuff.

Not to be outdone by the Federalist president’s attacks, Jefferson had a few negative narratives of his own to pitch.

One particularly stinging attack came via one James Callender—an influential journalist of the time whose incendiary pamphlets had been secretly funded by Thomas Jefferson and who had an axe to grind for having been prosecuted and imprisoned by the Adams Administration for violating The Sedition Act.

Callender wrote that Adams was a rageful, lying, warmongering fellow; a “repulsive pedant” and “gross hypocrite” who “behaved neither like a man nor like a woman but instead possessed a hideous hermaphroditical character.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickunga.../#4e6994b53fea

Now we get offended if a president mentions he will select a new SCOTUS candidate after saying lots of nice things about the one that just passed away. Oy vey.

[New Mexican Disaster]

"Reached the point"? That's funny. We reached that point about 200 years ago. Things were far worse in the 1800's, esp. the early 1800's. Good grief, they used to shoot each other in duels.

Andrew Jackson:





Washington didn't have to wait long at all. Adams and Jefferson got right after each other.



http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickunga.../#4e6994b53fea

Now we get offended if a president mentions he will select a new SCOTUS candidate after saying lots of nice things about the one that just passed away. Oy vey.

While you are correct, unfortunately you do not have a good track record of convincing creekster or topper of anything. I guess it's because you are divisive like Obama.

[hostile]

While you are correct, unfortunately you do not have a good track record of convincing creekster or topper of anything. I guess it's because you are divisive like Obama.

Is he divisive? Or is he just presiding over one of the most divisive times in this board's history?

[Jeff Lebowski]

Is he divisive? Or is he just presiding over one of the most divisive times in this board's history?

[Topper]

While you are correct, unfortunately you do not have a good track record of convincing creekster or topper of anything. I guess it's because you are divisive like Obama.

I agree with JL that politics has been nasty over the centuries and we are simply most sensitive to the current conflicts.

[creekster]

"Reached the point"? That's funny. We reached that point about 200 years ago. Things were far worse in the 1800's, esp. the early 1800's. Good grief, they used to shoot each other in duels.

Andrew Jackson:





Washington didn't have to wait long at all. Adams and Jefferson got right after each other.



http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickunga.../#4e6994b53fea

Now we get offended if a president mentions he will select a new SCOTUS candidate after saying lots of nice things about the one that just passed away. Oy vey.

Yes, these are all very amusing stories and they do have a point, but it is not the point that Washington was making. If you read his address, and everyone should, you will see his fear is that factionalism of the type found in political parties or sectionalism found in areas (north vs, South, for example) give rise to the type of deep divisions that will prevent the enforcement of laws enacted by congress or impair the balance of powers under the constitution or prevent constitutional authority form being exerted. In other words, it is more than an instance of a likely insane president such as Andrew Jackson making a bizarre comment derived from animus. It is the deterioration of the processes of the country to a degree that they are no longer workable absent a cult of personality (Washington's prescience really was remarkable). Washington saw these seeds planted and warned lest they ever grow and bear fruit. Despite contentions of the sort you mention (and I am surprised you didn't mention the civil war, as that was really the type of thing Washington feared, not fisticuffs from ill-mannered and temperamental politicians), and many others, the country has survived.

We seem to have entered a phase, however, that has seen presidents overreach their constituional bounds, because they know better and congress won't act; that sees someone like Trump rise in popularity not because he respects the processes of the country, but precisely because he condemns them; that sees pols on both sides of the aisle insist that they will control processes despite what the other side proposes and whether or not there is good basis for it in the constitution. I would not say that Obama is the worst president we have ever had. Jackson, who you mention, probably fills that bill. But given the context of Obama's installation in office, and given his own admission that the country needed to be unified, and given that he seems to take every opportunity to pander to partisan politics (did you hear his news conference today? it was a good example), I think it is fair to say that he has been one of if not the most divisive presidents we have ever had. And, yes, despite the fact that you or Forbes or wikipedia or whoever can point to many examples of fights and insults and so forth among politicians, the fact is that apart from the civil war era I think we are closer to a loss of constituional process due to factionalism/sectionalism than ever before.


Also, I NEVER said I was offended by Obama's statement. I said it was a good example of how he is a divisive, small-minded leader. And your use of Adams and Jefferson as an example is very apropos. They were on opposite sides quite often, but still adhered to the processes that mattered and, apart from Adams' great blind spot over the alien and sedition acts, remained quite unified in their vision of the overall interests for the country.