Omnibus Politics Thread: Campaign 2016 EditionFollow

No. I'd say that's literally the whole straw man. I get that many people want to ignore the underlying issue with our government using its intelligence apparatus to spy on the presidential campaign of the party in opposition to the one currently holding the White House in the middle of the election by dismissing it because "Obama didn't directly order it" because "the White House doesn't order wiretaps", but that's really really really missing the larger picture here.


People seem to be dismissing the possibility of something on the grounds that "it would be illegal". Ok. Wasn't it also illegal for someone to leak the NSA wiretap transcripts of whatshisname's conversation with the Russian ambassador? I don't recall a single poster (other than me maybe) even raising this issue, much less expressing any sort of outrage about it. The act of having surrogates do stuff like this on behalf of a highly placed politician is pretty standard. But you'd be pretty darn naive if you didn't think that it's something that Obama wanted to have happen, and someone made it happen. Um... And in the case of the leak mentioned above, we know that Obama did directly take actions which increased the odds of such a leak occurring, right before leaving office. It's almost like he was directly telling folks "Look through as much stuff as possible for anything that can be used to damage the Trump administration". Did he have to personally say this? No. That doesn't remove him from being ultimately responsible though.

Same deal here. It's his administration. The DoJ is part of his administration. He appointed many of those working in the top positions there. He's responsible for the actions they take. What happened to the idea that "the buck stops here". Well, in the Obama administration, it stoped at "the best intelligence we had at the time". Quite consistently. It's a weak excuse.

Uh huh. And? You don't actually think that Trump is claiming that Obama personally installed the taps, or listened to them, or whatever, right? But you could literally interpret it that way. You know. If you wanted to.

Some of us immediately understood that he's talking about the Obama administration doing this, and placing blame/responsibility on Obama. Since he's kinda in charge of what happens under his watch. Heck. As I pointed out earlier, the reference to Nixon/Watergate should give you a hint. There was never any evidence that Nixon himself ordered the break in to the Watergate hotel. He was held responsible for it because people working for him did it, and further because he at least gave the strong appearance of acting to cover up for them after the fact.

You'll also note, if we're actually reading the literal words, he didn't say that a good lawyer could sue Obama. Just "make a great case". Presumably the same sort of civil rights case that such things would be, right? Cause we're just looking at the words themselves, and not going out of our way to misinterpret them, right?

I guess what's jumping out at me is the willingness in this one case to be absolutely pedantic with the language, in ways you'd never care about otherwise. I'm reasonably certain that many people on the Left spoke about "Bush's illegal wiretapping programs", back when the whole NSA thing was a big story. Oddly, I don't recall a single poster on this forum making a point about how that's incorrect because the White House doesn't order wiretaps, but rather it's the relevant intelligence or legal organization that does, independently.

Yet today? That's the entire counterargument. That it wasn't "Obama" doing the tapping, so it's just not an issue. Let's just ignore it then! Yay! Problem solved. Um... really? Kinda missing the forest for the trees there.

Did you miss the part where he says that Obama was "a bad (or sick) guy".

That Trump pointing his finger squarely at Obama. Which, again, is literally the entire point. But nice pivots. You would make an excellent basketball player.

Well, I was wrong, I admit it. Obama admitted that he wiretapped Trump. I guess I owe Gbaji an apology.

Good news for white people in general. Steve King says that the Blacks and Hispanics "will be fighting each other" before overtaking whites in population. Thank blue haired blond eyed Jesus that Italians were accepted into the white people's club during the last hundred years or I might be a smidgen concerned.

Jokes on him. Only thing more oversexed than a mighty Negro stallion is a hot-blooded Latina woman. Once they come in contact, we'll be up to our ear in brownish-black babies.

There's probably nothing to be concerned about when a group of people who insist an ethnic minority is the cause of the majority's problems starts consolidating power.

Edited, Mar 14th 2017 2:21pm by lolgaxe

New Zealand is already the major exporter of Hobbitses, Greek Myths, and now dairy? Those batsards.

So New Zealand becomes Madagascow?

Or Baaaadagascar. Either way all those people fleeing Trump are in for a rude awakening.

It's not "defending". It's more like "putting in perspective". Silly me for trying to apply the same rules to everyone equally.

What's this? A misused hypothetical? My god man, think of my blood pressure. I cannot take this completely unprecedented behavior. Weird that you recognize that I'd make fun of Obama if he had accused Bush of wiretapping without evidence, same as I'm making fun of 45 now, yet you can't recognize your own patterns. We're not talking about "the public square," but specifically your personal reaction to the current situation. You know, the one that is actually happening, which you've actually commented on in a way that actually conforms to your regular pattern. One of those "yes"es is just a distraction from the topic. I distinctly remember one of yous going on a tangent about how that was an underhanded debate tactic. You're kidding yourself if you think that anyone believes you wouldn't be arguing Bush's innocence if Obama had accused him of wiretapping just because he's a Republican. So you admit that you're not actually applying the same rules to everyone equally?