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10747. Jenerator - 3/4/2013 9:41:55 PM I'll copy and paste, too. This is absolutely a stellar education and work resume:
"Ingraham earned a bachelor's degree at Dartmouth College in 1985 and a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree at the University of Virginia School of Law in 1991. As a Dartmouth undergraduate, she was a staff member of the independent conservative newspaper, The Dartmouth Review. In her senior year, she was the newspaper's editor-in-chief,[3] its first female editor.[2]
...
In the late 1980s, Ingraham worked as a speechwriter in the Ronald Reagan administration for the Domestic Policy advisor. She also briefly served as editor of The Prospect, the magazine issued by Concerned Alumni of Princeton. After law school, in 1991, she served as a law clerk for Judge Ralph K. Winter, Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York and subsequently clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. She then worked as an attorney at the New York-based law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.[8]" 10748. Jenerator - 3/4/2013 9:43:26 PM So if we are to look at education and work experience, Ingraham is much more qualified for political commentary than Maddow.
But hey, Maddow is good for inflaming and polarizing.
I cannot stand her. 10749. judithathome - 3/4/2013 10:48:20 PM Well, according to you, she's doing a good job. :-)
I cannot stand many of the people on FOX...they are polarizing and, in my opinion, ill-informed.
But we, as the public, are lucky in that we can make choices of where and from whom we can listen to and value opinions. 10750. thoughtful - 3/5/2013 4:34:22 PM Maddow is terrific...smart, knowledgable, analytical and well spoken.
We need a new movement that will require both parties in Congress to take their jobs seriously...and that job is to serve the best interests of the country...it is not solely to get reelected..... 10751. alistairconnor - 3/5/2013 5:17:57 PM You need a Five Stars Movement (Grillo and co). These people are the real shit. Jexster would love them. 10752. iiibbb - 3/6/2013 3:03:09 AM I like Maddow. 10753. bhelpuri - 3/6/2013 2:10:49 PM Chavez dies + the response is huge waves of idiocy from almost all camps. Though I'd doubted it in his lifetime, it does appear the undeniably big-hearted character has achieved tremendous symbolic potency which will far overshadow his real-life achievements/failures. This does in fact place him in the company of his idol Bolivar (who similarly failed, spectacularly, at almost everything he assayed).
A reasonable assessment (written before he died). 10754. bhelpuri - 3/6/2013 2:13:20 PM Of course unseemly right-winger Yanqui cheering was to be expected when this happened, but what I find almost as offensive is the instant lionization of Chavez by a hugely disparate group of progressives/leftists/anti-colonials and their ilk, who also are busy edifying Chavez into what he most patently was not. Yes, Bolivar, I think El Comandante did in fact make himself into a Boivaran for our times. 10755. bhelpuri - 3/6/2013 3:38:54 PM I do not fully endorse this take on Chavez, but admire its ballsiness nonetheless: the biggest problem Venezuela faced during his rule was not that Chávez was authoritarian but that he wasn’t authoritarian enough. It wasn’t too much control that was the problem but too little. 10756. Wombat - 3/6/2013 6:18:56 PM Chavez managed to combine the authoritarianism and personality cult of a Latin American Caudillo with a shallow and erratic form of what passes for third-world socialism these days. His death is no loss to the world, but it will take many Venezuelans decades to realize what a disaster he was to Venezuela, particularly to the people who venerated him.
What struck me as most interesting was the comparative forebearance with which the US treated him and his various provocations. Had he been around in the 70s or 80s.... 10757. Jenerator - 3/6/2013 9:09:08 PM I predict that our Messiah, Obaama, will become friends with the permanent successor - whether it's Maduro or someone else. 10758. arkymalarky - 3/6/2013 9:18:58 PM Do tell. Careful, Jen, your tea party petticoat is showing. 10759. Jenerator - 3/6/2013 11:23:06 PM I'm actually not a member of the Tea Party.
I'm just ready for Reagan-era revolution. We need a true fiscal conservative back. 10760. Wombat - 3/6/2013 11:28:22 PM I guess it will take Jen a long time to recognize what a disaster George W. Bush was to the United States, and what President Obama has been able to get done in the face of the reflexive and irrational opposition of the insane asylum that passes for the Republican Party these days. 10761. Jenerator - 3/7/2013 12:21:07 AM Oh boy. I'm weighing whether or not I want to go down this road.
:) 10762. arkymalarky - 3/7/2013 12:58:14 AM Refer sarcastically to Obama as a messiah and people will naturally assume you're a member, Jen. 10763. bhelpuri - 3/7/2013 9:28:25 AM Wombat,
Chavez was no Lula, but far removed from the caricature you make of him. In his tenure, the number and percentage of Venezuelans living in poverty was halved. That's an immense achievement, which must of course be weighed up against many other failures.
Further, his resolute anti-American attitudes and stance must be judged as one of his strongest attributes. By holding the line the way he did, a potentially robust new set of alliances came into being that have and will benefit his country and the region. Not least is that Latin America as a whole resisted participating in the otherwise widespread (54 countries?) US-backed programme of extraordinary renditions and torture that spread unheeded after 9/11.
There's plenty to commend about Chavez's regime and legacy, just as long as you take into account the copious evidence in the other column! 10764. bhelpuri - 3/7/2013 9:29:21 AM Jenerator's comments are offered as if by rote. To be expected. "Fiscal conservative" here directly equals "white guy." 10765. bhelpuri - 3/7/2013 9:44:23 AM Chavez wasted his money on healthcare when he could have built gigantic skyscrapers. 10766. Wombat - 3/7/2013 4:12:19 PM Bhelpuri,
You are seriously comparing Chavez with Lula?
Chavez has left Venezuela with soaring inflation (which negates the income gained by the poor), lawlessness, a crumbling infrastructure, and failed social programs (70% of his cooperatives set up to help the poor and illiterate have already failed). And instead of skyscrapers, he sank huge sums of money into a new tomb for Simon Bolivar.
Unlike Lula, who actually had an ideological grounding in socialism--and a background as a labor leader and as an elected administrator, Chavez was an ideological dilettante. I do not doubt that that had Venezuela's government been left-of-center, Chavez would have overthrown it and ruled as a nationalist corporatist, with many of the same trappings.
Lula was also a pragmatist, and had the political skill to convince his party members to go along.
I am surprised that you have a such a soft spot for populist leaders in Latin America. They are no more democratic than the regimes they replaced, and because they have personalized their leadership, they do not leave viable political institutions in their place, once they depart.
The anti-American alliance that you praise will not survive them, and frankly, much of it is little more than rhetoric and empty gestures anyway. It's not like Chavez banned petroleum exports to the US.
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