WaPo op-ed combats progressive challenge to Obama with affirmative action pleas

I only wish you were right Old Trooper 2.

Unfortunately, Social Engineering works great! What do you think religion is?

I honestly don’t mean to be provocative but, how the heck do you think American kids can graduate high school hardly literate, with zero skills and STILL feel Great about themselves? Social Engineering!

We live off money borrowed from a Communist country, can’t pay our own way, have over one hundred million prescriptions written every year because our “brain chemicals” are “unbalanced”, have the largest percentage of our citizens in jail in the history of the world and STILL…. We are the greatest country the world has ever seen, unquestionably!

Now, if that ain’t Social Engineering at its finest…. I don’t know what is.

All the best
Mrs. N

Hard Right… What’s with the insults?

Where I come from Conservative isn’t synonymous with stupid. Where do you come from?

(I’m not proud of that, but, if you have a differing opinion is it THAT HARD to articulate it in a polite and intelligent manner? It shouldn’t be you know.)

Respectfully Yours
Mrs. N

Ah yes, the insult you because I can’t express myself whine.
I insult you in response to your insults, but with less subtlety.

Has it ever occured to you that those here have already debated to death the things you insist on “educating” us about? That they are far more knowledgeable than yourself? Obviously not. You come here as if you have discovered a place of knuckle dragging savages who have never seen sunlight. Because we don’t see things as you do we MUST be ignorant and MUST be “informed” and “made to think.” You are NOT our superior and have no business acting as if you are.
We “ignorant savages” see right through you and what you are doing. So take your elitest and condescending BS elsewhere.

It’s interesting how “throwing the first black president overboard” is a big deal, but the first black president throwing the country overboard isn’t!

It’s sort of like Barbara Walters asking Oprah Winfrey if Palin is qualified to be president. Hmm, why didn’t Ms. Walters, who gets paid the big bucks, ask Winfrey if she honestly thought OBAMA was qualfied to be president?

Affirmative action never worked in the oilpatch. Its teamwork, high tech, tech and engineering. Lives are at stake and communication is critical. The tech and hard work automatically eliminates the non deserving. You have to know what you’re doing at all times.

Affirmative action belongs in Congress where it does the maximum damage in the least amount of time. Gerrymander congressional districts so that Maxine Waters, Shiela Jackson Lee, John Conyers, adinfinitum, can destroy great cities like Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc.

Heaven forbid if a child can become literate and develop into a techie or engineer. That’s really unfair. Society needs more lawyers and politicians. Good old fashion corruption is what’s needed.

Mata: Presently, the first link goes to a Jonah Goldberg article at NY Post, not to a WaPo editorial.

oil guy from Alberta: Lives are at stake in the Obama affirmative action debacle. I think some of them have already been lost. But, the worst may be yet to come.

Regarding the article: the fact is, the African-American vote will probably continue to be 90% Democrat no matter who they run. Unless the Republicans (hopefully) run a guy like Allen West at some point. I think Obama runs a significant chance of being fired from the 2012 election.

Now I raise a question. People I actually respect, i.e. people other than B-Rob, are floating this idea of a “long game” in progress, wherein Obama actually has had a plan and sees the big picture. Viz., while we talk about tax cuts and deals, Stimulus II is going through – it shouldn’t, but it is.

But on the other hand, would Obama beclown himself by letting a political rival take over his own Presidential press conference if he had a plan and a game?

I am at least willing to listen to the long game theory if a non-troll makes the argument.

The real irony is, if it hadn’t been for the banking and housing crisis that happened before Obama won, Obama would have still wrecked the economy by the time what probably would be his second term commenced, if not sooner, because he would have still pursued deficit spending, higher taxes, more and more regulations, and health care reform, in addition to Amnesty, Cap And Trade, and no telling what else besides, possibly with more success than what he has had so far. In four years, we would be really up the proverbial shit creek without a paddle.

If the Democrats were that determined to have a black president, they should have gone with somebody like Harold Ford Jr., somebody who at least had some level of leadership experience beyond the level of community organizer and mostly absentee legislator. The Democrats didn’t want a real President though, they wanted an image who would be a national cheerleader for the progressive agenda, and a complicit media promoted him from the very beginning. Now we’re all paying the price for falling for it.

@ ThePaganTemple, Yep. But please remember that only 53% of the American Voters were fooled.
Far from a Landslide, miles away from a Mandate and the past Elections indicate a strong sense of “Buyers Remorse” on the part of some that fell for the marketing of the blank resume empty suit that is the Temporary Resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

That is cause for some hope that the Nation is not 100% comprised of Village Idiots or Drooling Fools. It is the small margin of that 53% that felt duped that can bring the Republic back on track.
The “Swing Vote” is what matters.

We had our Affirmative Action moment in History. The real factor here is NOT race, it is about Experience and Competency. It is about Governing, not Posturing. It is about Fiscal Responsibility and not pandering to Special Interests or some Progressive pipe dream. It is about a changing of the Stewardship of the Republic and not hitting Quotas of race or gender. The Experiment failed so lets look for Merit being the selection standard and not “Firsts”. Just being Americans and NOT Hyphenated Americans is the thing that matters.

The Hyphen is divisive and a factor of Alienation. It serves no other purpose than the establishment of a “victim class” or something that serves to distract voters from the real issues. It is 100% about Class Warfare and a page from Alinsky, Marx and Engels that gives leverage to tyrants and manipulators. That “ain’t” the American Way. It is the path to the decay of the Greatest Nation on Earth.

I yield the Floor and the Soap Box to ……

I wonder which one of Clinton’s remarks to Obama before Obama left was code for “don’t forget to bring back some coffee”.

Affirmative action Presidency. Hmm.

Well, he did walk away from the job. Maybe he’s just not up to it.

my boy Sherman —

If you consider Bill Clinton to be Obama’s “political rival,” you simply don’t understand the U.S. Constitution. Here is a hint — no one who has been president for two terms can EVER run again. So, no, Larry the forklift driver is more of a “political rival” to Obama than a guy who can never run against him for the only job that counts . . . .

Lets See…”Boy”, “YOU CONS” the usual crap from Billy. You He took the Bait as per usual.
The usual demeaning and insulting tone…That’s Our Boy Billy!

Someone lower the bar, Billy is here!

Mata, why do you complain that I have a “racial spin” when your post is about your peculiar definition of “affirmative action” — one that pits the “minimally qualified minority” as you put it, against “others.” In fact, in your zeal to make some racial point about Obama, you miss Colbert King’s entire point: that Black voters will punish the Dems if the whacked out liberal side of the party mounts a primary challenge to Obama and does to him what Reagan did to Ford, what Kennedy did to Carter, and what Buchanan did to George H.W. Bush — weaken by making the president fight a costly primary spending time money and energy that could be better put toward the general election.

Do you disagree with anything that King is saying? Oddly, you don’t say . . . you don’t even meet the merits of his argument; you just use the King article as a jumping off point for your own weird racial argument — that the president who absolutely demolished the GOPer candidate, raising more money that any candidate ever, turning Red States to Blue, was somehow “selected” due to “affirmative action”. Uh, no.

See, one criticism of affirmative action (a criticism Obama shares) is that in the selection process, people get extra points because of their race even if they are socioeconomically privileged compared to others. But in this case, concerning the US election, Obama was the underdog — both to Clinton (the monied and connected insider) and to McCain (the long tenured senator and media darling). He had less personal wealth, fewer connections in Washington, and less name recognition. Hillary hired the top Dem operatives and had millions are her disposal, yet Obama wiped her out in a walk. Obama won NOT because anyone “selected” him over “more qualified” individuals; he won because he out worked, out though, out hustled and out-fund-raised the opposition during the primary and the general.

And let’s face another fact — the campaign for president was, in the case of Obama and McCain and Hillary, the biggest organization either had ever run. How good a job do YOU think McCain did?

Need I remind you of the idiotic selection of Palin when other much more knowledgeable and qualified people (including women, if he wanted to go that route) were out there, such as Kay Bailey Hutchison? Need I remind you about McCain suspending his campaign, then unsuspending it? Or him deciding not to campaign in Virginia and North Caroline and, instead, campaigning in Pennsylvania. Or him claiming “our economy is strong” on a Tuesday, then when challenged with the facts, flip flopping and saying things were rotten . . . all within 24 hours time. Or him calling a meeting in DC concerning the financial crisis, then not saying anything during the two hour meeting — other than, when Obama asked him his opinion, mumbling a bunch of talking point platitudes when the subject was a specific Bush administration plan. Or, my favorite, after the “town hall” debate, McCain leaving as soon as the show ended while Barack and Michelle sat around for a half hour talking to the town hall audience . . . something pointed out by the CNN folks as the scene played out in the background of their analysis. It was as if McCain had better things to do than mingle with the great unwashed.

McCain self destructed during that campaign, when he was trying to show America how he would run the country. Anyone on the fence would have asked “Do I really want him and Palin (Palin?!) calling the shots?” Uh, no. Obama ran the superior campaign and THAT is why he won in a walk against a better connected candidate with more initial name recognition and a longer history in the public eye.

And another thing — how can you criticize how someone is selected to compete if, when they actually do compete, they excel? Even IF he was chosen by the Dems because of his race, he outperformed the GOPer con by every measure possible. It is pretty haughty of you to claim, in essence, that Obama was “minimally qualified” when he absolutely destroyed your candidate when it counted. It’s like a ghetto kid winning the valedictorian based on his grades, and “others” sniffing that he “still was not good enough.” Memo to Mata — if Obama was “minimally qualified” in your book, and waxed the GOPer con he opposed, then maybe it is your definition of “minimally qualified” that is lacking in any rational connection to the voters’ decision making process. In other words, no one but you actually cares about your personal definition of the “qualifications” of a president.

No, Mata, when you give in to your own racial obsessions and criticize Obama as the “affirmative action” president, you not only undercut the credibility of your own side’s arguments, you also sell short the voters (the majority of them White) who elected Obama president in the first place. Do you REALLY think Joe and Jane Blow, average Americans, voted for Obama because of his race? I certainly don’t. Obama won for the same reasons Bush won in 2004 and 200, the same reasons Clinton won in 1996 and 1992, and the same reason any presidential candidate wins — they present themselves as more in tune with what is going on in the country, they present themselves as the better manager, and their opponent seems simply less desirable. That you ascribe some “other reason”, such as race, as the reason Obama won, says more about you and where you are coming from, racially speaking, than it says about Obama or America.

This country has, to a great degree, gotten over its sordid racial history — enough to elect a Black president less than 90 years after the Klan marched 50,000 through the streets of DC and less than 50 years after Goodman, Cheney and Schwerner were martyred for having the stones to try to help Black citizens vote in Mississippi. You, Mata, in comparison, obviously have a long way to go to get over your racial issues . . . .

Braindead Bob has degenerated into a troll. He’s been embarrassed here so many times he’s just gone to spewing hate and posting in a condescending manner. He knows he’s overmatched and just wants to get under people’s skin.

William, he’s nothing more than a troll these days. He knows what you said and meant. He can’t out-debate anyone here so he just goes for the insult.

The only loud losers I see around here lately are the flocktards that lost the House. HaHaHaHa

Rich, you’re the one coming off like a whiny loser. Either that or your diaper needs changing.

If you want to compare records over the past 30 years, here’s something to chew on.

Reagan: Two terms
Bush Sr. One term
W: Two terms

Clinton: Two terms
Obama: One term (so far)

GOP: 5
Dem: 3

RW, this will be my last OT post on this thread.

1) Did you really go back 60+ years just to avoid being embarrassed?

2) Democrats like JFK would have been run out of today’s dem party. Hardly a victory that should be counted for your side. Americans have been more Conservative than liberal for some time. The dem party has taken a hard left turn over the last 30 years which shows why they have lost the prsidency more than won it.

3) FDR was the LAST socialist president to win re-election. Americans have quickly reversed their mistake when having votied for socialists. Short of the GOP running a corpse, expect the trend to hold.

Old Trooper —

For one thing, most conservatives have a cartoon book definition of affirmative action; stated differently, they have no idea what the history of affirmative action was, how and why affirmative action is applied, or what the legal underpinings for any particular program might be, So here is a quick primer:

1) When employers recruit at minority heavy colleges in order to diversity their applicant pool, that is affirmative action.

2) When employers intentionally diversity officer/advancement pools, or make specific efforts to attempt to diversity officer/advancement pools, that is affirmative action.

3) When employers hire people from non-traditional backgrounds to diversify their applicant or officer pool, that is affirmative action.

4) When employers give extra “points” to applicants for particular reasons, that is affirmative action.

5) Most affirmative action programs are voluntary and do not run afoul of any cognizable legal constraints. The ones that get the most judicial scrutiny are where hard quotas are in place to award jobs, positions in colleges, etc., especially if governmental bodies are applying those quotas.

6) Diversity programs, where colleges, employers, etc. work to ensure a racially and ethnically diverse pool are legal, for the reasons explained best by a collection of former Chairs of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs (maybe you have heard of them?). The Chairs submitted an amicus brief in response to the U. of Michigan diversity/quota cases a few years ago. In short, relying on the experience of the US armed forces, the Court noted organizations work best when they are racially and ethnically diverse and thus reflective of societies demographics. This is not my personal opinion: this is the opinion of the United States Supreme Court, reflecting the findings and arguments of the retired Chairs of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

* * * * *

The problem I have with cons is threefold — 1) that they misuse the phrase “affirmative action”, which includes recruitment and training efforts to diversity applicant pools, and have false redefined it to mean “racial discrimination against White males”.

2) cons never seemed to be all that jazzed up about race discrimination until they figured out “hey, White people are starting to get the short end of the stick”. In other words, until Whites started getting a taste of the medicine that had been inflicted on others for years, then all of a sudden “racial discrimination is bad” started to trip of con lips. In other words, cons use affirmative action (which, in reality, affects VERY FEW employment or admissions decisions) as nothing more than a political wedge issue.

3) Many cons don’t oppose ONLY discrimination; they also oppose the entire goal of diversifying the workplace. You can see this in con support of “English only” policies in the workplace and even opposition to minority recruitment efforts.

4) Cons NEVER seem to come out against the kinds of affirmative action that aid White people. I saw this first hand in law school at a Federalist Society meeting. Michael Williams, then a Bush I official in the Department of Education (now on the Texas Railway Commission) had the cons eating out of his hands when he explained his opposition to federally funded colleges setting aside scholarship monies for minority students. But where did he lose those same cons? When he also opposed, for example, scholarships that are set aside for students of Swedish ancestry. You should have seen their little con faces turn red when they figured out that White-set aside goodies would also be called into question! Ditto college legacy admissions (which overwhelmingly benefit non-minority students), job connections dependent on fraternity or sorority membership (again, due to segregation, disqualifying of minorities), and “word of mouth” and nepotism hiring. Bob Gates, is one of the few cons I know who actually addressed the fact that things like legacy admissions aid the White population to the detriment of the non-White population which, due to blatant discrimination in admissions (ask Haley Barbour what I am talking about) and/or the lingering effects of that same discrimination, have fewer number s in the legacy and “Sigma Chi member” pool.

So in short, Old Trooper, you ascribe to me, out of shear ignorance, a “pro-affirmative action” position that is inherently misleading. I am all for affirmative action that diversifies applicant and promotion pools. But I don’t think ANYONE (White or non-White) should get an admission or a promotion just because of their race. I support the legally recognized definition of “affirmative action” and the goals of diversity; I reject entirely the GOPer cons’ racially divisive and inherently misleading definition of the phrase.

@ Hard Right,

It is a proclamation of the MSM’s potential for influence that a moral degenerate void of principles like JFK would become such an icon.

We can thank Life Magazine and the deal that company made with the Kennedy clan for “access,” in exchange for creating the ephemeral “Camelot.”

Hey B-Rob, how about if people succeed regardless of government mandates? Wouldn’t that be true success?

MATA imho since FDR it’s the Dem Party that has led the fight for human rights,minority rights,civil rights,women’s rights,a free press and a protected environment.The Republican Party has for the most part been obstructionist in all these areas.I believe in a strong military and TERM LIMITS.
These issues are more important to me than tax rates,unemployment rates, or inheritance tax rates.Obviosly many here will disagree.As you know I greatly enjoy reading your insights.

I also believe The U.S.Marines are the world’s greatest fighting force and 3 years in the military or the Peace Corps should be required of all citizens.Small price to pay.

Semper FI RJW