Can Hillary win?

[pink_trike]

If Condoleeza Rice were (for some absurd reason) to be given the Republican nomination, do you think she would get votes from democrats simply for being balck and female? Or are the democrats not that stupid?

 

Not all voters fall into two distinct hard coded camps: Democrat and Republican. Yes, some democrat women would vote for Condi. Just as some republican women would vote for Hilary. Men tend to underestimate how women feel about the idea of a woman prez. And some african american democrats would vote for Condi. Like it or not, the personal is political, and the political is personal. Stupidity figures into all human activity, but making choices to vote outside one's party affiliation based on reasons that are not narrowly and traditionally understood to be in the political realm is more complex than "stupidity". There might even be very good reasons to do so.

 

To help understand this, give some thought to how men might feel if there had never been a male prez and they were presented with a a viable male candidate for the first time.

[Pangloss]

Just as there was a large "People for Kerry who dislike Kerry" block of voters, there will be a large "People for Clinton who dislike Clinton" group. Can she win? The debate about voting machine ownership aside...let's hope so. Personally, I'd prefer Pelosi.

 

As with Bascule's position on Hillary, a Nancy Pelosi nomination would pretty much guarantee my Republican vote in the next election. (And a long shower afterwards if that vote went to Bill Frist.)

[Sisyphus]

How could anyone think Pelosi could or should win the nomination?

 

And how can you call Frist genuine? Masturbation can cause pregancy? Terri Shiavo can be diagnosed as conscious from a heavily edited videotape? Either he's very cynically disingenuine, or a ridiculously incompetent doctor. I really think Hillary would eat him alive.

[pink_trike]

Just to be clear, I didn't suggest that Pelosi should or could win the nomination. I simply said that I would prefer her over Hilary.

[Jim]

Originally Posted by Jim

If Condoleeza Rice were (for some absurd reason) to be given the Republican nomination' date=' do you think she would get votes from democrats simply for being balck and female? Or are the democrats not that stupid?[/quote']Not all voters fall into two distinct hard coded camps: Democrat and Republican. Yes, some democrat women would vote for Condi. Just as some republican women would vote for Hilary. Men tend to underestimate how women feel about the idea of a woman prez. And some african american democrats would vote for Condi. Like it or not, the personal is political, and the political is personal. Stupidity figures into all human activity, but making choices to vote outside one's party affiliation based on reasons that are not narrowly and traditionally understood to be in the political realm is more complex than "stupidity". There might even be very good reasons to do so.

 

To help understand this, give some thought to how men might feel if there had never been a male prez and they were presented with a a viable male candidate for the first time.

 

Just to be clear, I didn't make the post to which you refer.

 

We are all generalizing here but my sense is that Condi would get more dem votes for being a woman than for being black.

[Jim]

How could anyone think Pelosi could or should win the nomination?

 

And how can you call Frist genuine? Masturbation can cause pregnancy? Terri Shiavo can be diagnosed as conscious from a heavily edited videotape? Either he's very cynically disingenuous' date=' or a ridiculously incompetent doctor. I really think Hillary would eat him alive.[/quote']

 

I'm saying his personal presence comes across as genuine whereas Hillary seems plastic. I do not know what is in his heart.

 

Let's be fair: Frist did not say masturbation causes pregnancy. He was not "diagnosing" Shiavo or making any pretense that he had examined her. He had to make a judgment as a US Senator and as all senators do brought his expertise to bear on the questions that come before him. A lot of other Senators bring their real life professional experiences to bear although they are in a hybrid situation. He did not have the opportunity to "diagnose" Shiavo and did not purport that he had done so.

 

This is another example of the leftist rags on the web distorting the facts. You can't decry the polarization of politics without parsing through the constant attempt by both sides to "Bork" the opposition.

[pink_trike]

Just to be clear' date=' I didn't make the post to which you refer.

[/quote']

 

Acckkk! Sorry about that!

 

We are all generalizing here but my sense is that Condi would get more dem votes for being a woman than for being black.

 

I think you're right. And my sense is that the numbers would be low for both. Condi isn't likely to inspire a large amount of crossovers from either group. Hilary has a better chance of wooing repub women.

[Pangloss]

Jim, as a doctor he should have known better. Apparently, in hindsight, he agrees, because he's apologized for making the decision that he did. Which is pretty brave given the fact that his one and only chance is to play to the religious-conservative base.

 

So no, it's not an example of "leftist rags on the web distorting the facts" (well maybe the masturbation thing, I can't speak to that issue, knowing nothing about it). He just plain screwed up.

 

That apology, and a story down here about Frist last year stopping on Alligator Alley and saving the life of an accident victim, do carry weight with me. I'm more or less convinced that he's a genuine human being who's just caught up a bit in the power politics of Washington.

 

But he represents a base that I'm not a member of, and he has this HCA/insider trading thing hanging over his head. So unless he handles that and moves rather dramatically back to the center on a number of issues, I won't vote for him.

 

But hey, I'm all for making vague, undefined promises to the far right and then pulling the rug out from under them once in office. (Oh, you didn't think Bush did that by accident, did you?) ;-)

[Sisyphus]

I wish I could find the interview with Frist about abstinence education. He was being asked, as a medical doctor, to defend blatant inaccuracies in what kids were being taught in federally funded programs. He ended up looking very foolish, as he refused to deny that, in his opinion as a medical doctor, masturbation could cause pregnancy. He also refused to deny that tears and sweat transmit HIV (although there has never been a known case), and wouldn't condemn various blatantly and extremely inaccurate statistics regarding contraceptives.

[Jim]

I wish I could find the interview with Frist about abstinence education. He was being asked, as a medical doctor, to defend blatant inaccuracies in what kids were being taught in federally funded programs. He ended up looking very foolish, as he refused to deny that, in his opinion as a medical doctor, masturbation could cause pregnancy. He also refused to deny that tears and sweat transmit HIV (although there has never been a known case), and wouldn't condemn various blatantly and extremely inaccurate statistics regarding contraceptives.

 

 

These were not great moments for Frist but I would not draw significant conclusions about a person without seeing that person's actual words. I'll wait to see the actual interview before closing the loop. I think it is telling that none of the leftist sites cite the actual words used.

 

A great example of this kind of distortion was Feingold's misuse of Robert's testimony. The press just doesn't vet this kind of thing reliabily and I've learned to wait to draw conclusions until I've seen the actual words.

[Jim]

Jim' date=' as a doctor he should have known better. Apparently, in hindsight, he agrees, because he's apologized for making the decision that he did. Which is pretty brave given the fact that his one and only chance is to play to the religious-conservative base.

 

So no, it's not an example of "leftist rags on the web distorting the facts" (well maybe the masturbation thing, I can't speak to that issue, knowing nothing about it). He just plain screwed up.

 

That apology, and a story down here about Frist last year stopping on Alligator Alley and saving the life of an accident victim, do carry weight with me. I'm more or less convinced that he's a genuine human being who's just caught up a bit in the power politics of Washington.

 

But he represents a base that I'm not a member of, and he has this HCA/insider trading thing hanging over his head. So unless he handles that and moves rather dramatically back to the center on a number of issues, I won't vote for him.

 

But hey, I'm all for making vague, undefined promises to the far right and then pulling the rug out from under them once in office. (Oh, you didn't think Bush did that by accident, did you?) ;-)[/quote']

 

 

Once a "fact" becomes conventional wisdom, there is nothing to do but apologize. I'll wait to see the actual transcript.

[Jim]

Once a "fact" becomes conventional wisdom, there is nothing to do but apologize. I'll wait to see the actual transcript.

 

I haven't had the energy to dig more than 15 minutes into the exact words but I guarantee you all before I get started in earnest that there is more to this than simply Bill Frist claiming masturbation causes pregnancy. The actual words will show some subtlety that is wholly missed by the reports.

 

With regard to Shiavo, I'll look for his actual words and I also guarantee that Frist did not purport to be making a medical diagnosis such as he would if he were Shiavo's doctor. I predict that it will be clear that Frist was acting as a Senator and that it was clear he was acting on what information he had as being a Senator even though he interpreted that information as a doctor.

 

I also predict that the actual words of Frist's apology will not blur this distinction.

 

Really, everyone, when a person is being hung by some words reported by the press, you must look for yourselves at the actual words spoken before drawing any conclusion. I've spent 15 minutes this morning for a direct quote of purported Frist's masturbation gaffe and haven't found it so far. If the quote was so damaging in and of itself, why can't I find it in searching the word "masturbation" on the DNC's search facility? Likewise, I can't find their referencing the words used for a search for Frist & Shiavo.

[Sisyphus]

Well, first of all, I didn't get any of my information from leftist websites. I got my information when I saw the actual interview and was disgusted by it. Secondly, I won't deny he was being very subtle, but that hardly changes anything. In either case, he still is implying something which he knows fully well to be false, and if his actual words were such that you couldn't actually call him a liar, that just proves it wasn't an innocent mistake, and he's more slippery than he appears.

[Pangloss]

With regard to Shiavo' date=' I'll look for his actual words and I also guarantee that Frist did not purport to be making a medical diagnosis such as he would if he were Shiavo's doctor. I predict that it will be clear that Frist was acting as a Senator and that it was clear he was acting on what information he had as being a Senator even though he interpreted that information as a doctor.

 

I also predict that the actual words of Frist's apology will not blur this distinction.

 

Really, everyone, when a person is being hung by some words reported by the press, you [b']must[/b] look for yourselves at the actual words spoken before drawing any conclusion.

 

Of course, and I don't mean to suggest that superficial judgementalism is the way to go with anything of the level of importance as one's presidential vote.

 

But I think you might have missed my point there, and that may be my fault for not being clear. The point I was trying to make was that as a medical doctor he should have understood that it was a bad idea to step into that quagmire.

 

The notion that they needed to throw the brakes on in order to collect more information is ludicrous. He's probably seen and/or read about (in the professional sense) hundreds, if not thousands, of similar cases. His decision had nothing to do with his medical experience -- it was a wholly political move, and a calculated one at that.

 

And as I say, he realizes now that it was a mistake to step in, and has apologized for doing so. How can you view that in any light other than "he messed up"?

 

Do I think that condemns the guy on every level? Of course not. But why you're defending his position on this is beyond me. Why not just admit that you agreed with his first decision, on ideological grounds, and disagreed with his apology, and just leave it at that? Why defend the guy on this issue when he isn't even defending himself?

 

Are you expecting perfection?

 

 

Just as a side note, and this isn't aimed entirely at you (up to you whether this shoe fits), but this gnaws at one of my pet peeves:

 

My definition of a partisan is someone who holds double standards on the same issue depending on who the political affiliation of the person under scrutiny. If you think that's okay for him to have made that mistake because he's a Republican, but would feel differently under similar circumstances for a Democrat then what's the point about debating the particulars? Why bother bringing up the details and arguing about the various subpoints? What difference could it possibly make, given that there are no circumstances under which you would change your mind? Is one here to listen, or solely to convince? If it's the latter, IMO that's a waste of both my time and yours.

[Jim]

But I think you might have missed my point there, and that may be my fault for not being clear. The point I was trying to make was that as a medical doctor he should have understood that it was a bad idea to step into that quagmire.

 

Why? If from the evidence in his possession, he had the sincere belief based on his medical knowledge that she was not in a PVS, why is it such a bad idea? Everyone knew he was not the treating physician and no one was misled in this regard. In fact, wouldn't it be untruthful and cynical calculation not to express his views?

 

The notion that they needed to throw the brakes on in order to collect more information is ludicrous. He's probably seen and/or read about (in the professional sense) hundreds, if not thousands, of similar cases. His decision had nothing to do with his medical experience -- it was a wholly political move, and a calculated one at that.

 

I personally do not have the expertise to make that judgment.

 

And as I say, he realizes now that it was a mistake to step in, and has apologized for doing so. How can you view that in any light other than "he messed up"?

 

I could view it in the light of "getting the full force of the media onslaught off of his back in the only way available to him." Again, I'd need to see the exact words of the initial statement and the apology.

 

Also, you do not deal with my initial point re masturbation causing pregnancy. I seriously doubt he said such a thing and the dearth of the materials on the web on the issue seem to support this view. My initial post started with the point that it seems extremely far fetched that any medical doctor would say that masturbation by itself causes pregnancy.

 

Do I think that condemns the guy on every level? Of course not. But why you're defending his position on this is beyond me. Why not just admit that you agreed with his first decision, on ideological grounds, and disagreed with his apology, and just leave it at that? Why defend the guy on this issue when he isn't even defending himself?

 

Actually, I'm not the one attacking or defending a position which hasn't been precisely defined. Conventional wisdom can arise without any meaningful vetting by the press.

 

Are you expecting perfection?

 

Ummm... no.

 

Just as a side note, and this isn't aimed entirely at you (up to you whether this shoe fits), but this gnaws at one of my pet peeves:

 

My definition of a partisan is someone who holds double standards on the same issue depending on who the political affiliation of the person under scrutiny. If you think that's okay for him to have made that mistake because he's a Republican, but would feel differently under similar circumstances for a Democrat then what's the point about debating the particulars? Why bother bringing up the details and arguing about the various subpoints? What difference could it possibly make, given that there are no circumstances under which you would change your mind? Is one here to listen, or solely to convince? If it's the latter, IMO that's a waste of both my time and yours.

 

Well, since you are clearly suggesting that at least some of this point is aimed at me, I'll respond. When Pres. Clinton was accused of perjury, I did not reach a final conclusion until I had seen the actual deposition transcript and looked at the interrogatories posed. Ultimately, I concluded that the testimony was probably perjurous but, after knowing the specifics, concluded that the statements did not constitute an impeachable offense.

 

I am consistently skeptical about the conventional wisdom established by the press. I challenge you to find a post where I have accepted ridiculous statements attributed to a Democrat on face value without wanting the specifics of what was actually said.

 

To add another example with a belated post script, if Howard Dean is supposed to have said that the United States can't win the warn in Iraq, I want to see the exact words. If the press reports that Sen. Kerry has said that US soldiers are terrorizing innocent Iraqis, yes, again, I do want to see the exact words. The alleged Kerry statement is the closest I can come to a preposterous statement attributed to a democrat roughly equivalent to masturbation causing pregnancy.

 

If something is too good to be true, it usually is. If a highly intelligent person (in this case a world class surgeon) is supposed to have said something imbecilic, it's probably a good idea to take a look at what he actually said.

 

Why is this so controversial?

[Jim]

Well, first of all, I didn't get any of my information from leftist websites. I got my information when I saw the actual interview and was disgusted by it. Secondly, I won't deny he was being very subtle, but that hardly changes anything. In either case, he still is implying[/i'] something which he knows fully well to be false, and if his actual words were such that you couldn't actually call him a liar, that just proves it wasn't an innocent mistake, and he's more slippery than he appears.

 

Do you recall the nature of the subtleties?

[Pangloss]

Why? If from the evidence in his possession' date=' he had the sincere belief based on his medical knowledge that she was not in a PVS, why is it such a bad idea? Everyone knew he was not the treating physician and no one was misled in this regard. In fact, wouldn't it be untruthful and cynical calculation not to express his views?

 

I personally do not have the expertise to make that judgment.

[/quote']

 

He did NOT have a professional/medical opinion that she was in a PVS. He didn't claim to. What he said he wanted was more time to find out if she was, which is bogus under these circumstances, for the following reasons. But before I explain those, you need to be clear that he was not claiming a medical opinion that she was not in a PVS. He was not doing that, Jim. That wasn't his mistake. His mistake was worse than that.

 

The story had been going on for years at that point, with several independent medical examinations, some of which were paid for and ordered by the state, including one which had just been conducted at the behest of the governor, all of which concluded that she was gone.

 

Even if he didn't have full access to this information and a full staff of aids who were paid to be familiar with situations like this at all times (you do understand that, don't you?), Frist also has direct ties and partial residency in Florida, and has for years. He's familiar with events here and was making frequent public appearances long before this came up.

[Pangloss]

Also' date=' you do not deal with my initial point re masturbation causing pregnancy. [/quote']

 

I'm not sure why you want me to comment on that issue. I haven't commented on it except to say above that I don't know anything about it. I'm wondering if maybe you accidentally misconstrued one of my replies above to be on that subject -- let me just clarify that I've not been discussing it.

 

 

I am consistently skeptical about the conventional wisdom established by the press. I challenge you to find a post where I have accepted ridiculous statements attributed to a Democrat on face value without wanting the specifics of what was actually said.

 

I don't think you have done that, what I think is that you're bending over backwards to give Frist the benefit of the doubt on a specific issue where sufficient evidence already exists (including his apology) to make a determination of the rightness or wrongness of his actions on that one issue.

 

I'm a skeptic myself, but I think there's a difference between being skeptical about "the conventional wisdom of the press" and immediately assuming that they're probably wrong and actively stretching things in a dim hope that they might be wrong if you look at things through a certain, specific filter.

 

Put another way, there's a difference between skepticism and cynicism.

[Jim]

I'm not sure why you want me to comment on that issue. I haven't commented on it except to say above that I don't know anything about it. I'm wondering if maybe you accidentally misconstrued one of my replies above to be on that subject -- let me just clarify that I've not been discussing it.

 

I was using both examples, not just Shiavo, to make my in initial point.

 

I don't think you have done that, what I think is that you're bending over backwards to give Frist the benefit of the doubt on a specific issue where sufficient evidence already exists (including his apology) to make a determination of the rightness or wrongness of his actions on that one issue.

 

I'm a skeptic myself, but I think there's a difference between being skeptical about "the conventional wisdom of the press" and immediately assuming that they're probably wrong and actively stretching things in a dim hope that they might be wrong if you look at things through a certain, specific filter.

 

Put another way, there's a difference between skepticism and cynicism.

 

When a highly intelligent politician is supposed to have said something incredibly stupid, natural curiosity, if nothing else, should make you want to see the actual words. Frist is a potential republican candidate and the fact that the actual words used do not come up on the DNC's own search facility, gives me pause. If Frist said something as stupid as Gerald Ford's 1976 "there is no Soviet dominance of Eastern Europe" gaffe, and it was that clear, I would expect to see the actual words popping up every where on the web.

 

Instead of simply assuming the press is wrong, I have searched in vane for the actual language of these two incidents. I did this for Bill Clinton, John Kerry and Howard Dean before accepting the conventional wisdom.

 

I acknowledge that Frist may have mispoken, had a senior moment or *gasp* been the first politician to triangulate in the history of Sunday morning news shows. However, before I assume that a world class surgeon thinks that sperm from masturbation can divebomb a woman's vagina with a realistic chance of fertilizing an egg, I would like to see what the man was asked and what he actually said.

 

You make the point that Frist was acting as a politician and not a medical doctor in the Shiavo case. I simply responding that I doubt that he ever said anything to the contrary. Of course he was speaking first as a US Senator - that, no doubt, is why he was on TV. I seriously doubt anyone was mislead to believe he had done an examination of Ms. Shiavo.

 

The more craven thing he may have done was to apologize after an overwhelming negative public response. Btw, I note that the Washington Post still believed he should make an apology after the autopsy.

 

Even this highly critical Washington Post article doesn't really muster much authority against Frist:

 

Proffering references to medical textbooks and journals, Frist led his colleagues through to his conclusion. He argued that "a decision had been made to starve to death a woman based on a clinical exam that took place over a very short period of time by a neurologist who was called in to make the diagnosis rather than over a longer period of time." Dr. Frist, in other words, was offering a second opinion.

 

In an appearance yesterday on ABC's "Good Morning America," Frist insisted: "I raised the question, 'Is she in a persistent vegetative state or not?' I never made the diagnosis, never said that she was not."

 

It is unfair to say Frist offered a second opinion. Everyone knew he had not examined Shiavo and as he says here, he simply raised the question about the detail of the examination by the neurologist who examined Shiavo. I, personally, do not know if this is a valid objection medically or not.

[Sisyphus]

Do you recall the nature of the subtleties?

 

He was dodging questions. As a doctor, for example, he must know perfectly well that there has never been a case of HIV being transmitted through sweat or tears (I knew that, and so would any kid who's taken a reasonable sex ed class), yet all he would say was something along the lines of "I don't know" (almost certainly a lie) and "it would be difficult" (misleading, vast understatement). The other parts were of a similar tone, such that you couldn't really say that he was explicitly lying about anything, but he was definitely being intentionally misleading in his implications, and he was defending programs that DO tell outright lies, so it amounts to the same thing.

[Pangloss]

I agree that it's unfair to accuse Frist of offering a medical opinion in the Schiavo case. My take on that is that he was railroaded by the mainstream media. But -- and this is a big but -- he still screwed up. Two wrongs don't make a right.

 

Here's a prime example of how Frist typically gets railroaded by the MSM:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48119-2005Mar18.html

 

After numerous challenges by Stephanopoulos, Frist said that "it would be very hard" for someone to contract AIDS via tears or sweat. The Web site of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says: "Contact with saliva, tears, or sweat has never been shown to result in transmission of HIV."

 

The implication of the above paragraph is that Frist is wrong. But in fact that CDC quote says nothing of the kind. Frist's statement is absolutely consistent with the CDC's statement, in every medical or scientific sense. Therefore it is absolutely false and misleading for the Washington Post to report the story in this manner.

 

Even worse, Frist can't even respond to something like that without blowing it all out of proportion. It's a perfect, typical, absolutely daunting example of how biased the MSM is against conservative politicians. We don't even get to see what these politicians actually think about issues, because our only option is to view them through one ideological filter or another. It's ludicrous!

 

But as I say, two wrongs don't make a right. If he screwed up, then he screwed up, and it doesn't have anything to do with the actions of the mainstream media, the reactions of the public, or the price of tea in China.

[bascule]

You know what I'd really love to see? Feingold vs. McCain

 

But our horrible primary system is probably going to spit out Hillary vs. Condi or something equally bad, or worse

[Jim]

You know what I'd really love to see? Feingold vs. McCain

 

But our horrible primary system is probably going to spit out Hillary vs. Condi or something equally bad' date=' or worse [/quote']

 

What's wrong with Condi?

 

My ideal matchup would be Lieberman v. Condi.

 

What would you propose as an alternative to the primary system?

[Jim]

He did NOT have a professional/medical opinion that she was in a PVS. He didn't claim to. What he said he wanted was more time to find out if she was' date=' which is bogus under these circumstances, for the following reasons. But before I explain those, you need to be clear that he was not claiming a medical opinion that she was not in a PVS. He was not doing that, Jim. That wasn't his mistake. His mistake was worse than that.

 

The story had been going on for [i']years[/i] at that point, with several independent medical examinations, some of which were paid for and ordered by the state, including one which had just been conducted at the behest of the governor, all of which concluded that she was gone.

 

Even if he didn't have full access to this information and a full staff of aids who were paid to be familiar with situations like this at all times (you do understand that, don't you?), Frist also has direct ties and partial residency in Florida, and has for years. He's familiar with events here and was making frequent public appearances long before this came up.

 

Oops, somehow I missed this post. What you seem to be saying is that this issue was so one sided that anyone who expressed an opinion contrary to your own (i.e. that it was time for Ms Shiavo to die) was being dishonest?

 

Although such issues are few and far between, maybe you are right in this instance. In any event, I doubt that Frist would have been involved without several unique factors in the case such as the conflict between Ms. Shiavo's parents and the guardian.

[Pangloss]

But those factors had long been in existence, he knew about them, and the stoppage added nothing new to the picture. It was only about stoppage.

 

It's not disagreement I have a problem with. It's disagreement ad infinitum on specific actions/activities, after a decision has been made. If people want to be partisan about something, more power to 'em. But once a decision is made on a specific case, we have to move forward, even if we disagree. Otherwise we don't have rule of law, we have rule of the more powerful ideology.

 

I disagree with the death penalty, for example, but if I were a judge I wouldn't approve a stay of execution just because I'm ideologically opposed to the DP. You'd have to show me something tangible and relevent to that specific case. Something that might have been overlooked or missed.

 

In this case Frist claimed that he saw something in the video which suggested to him that she was responsive. I believe that claim was false, and I believe that sufficient evidence exists, including his specific apology, to support that belief. I'm accusing him of being dishonest not because he believes that Schiavo shouldn't have been allowed to die, but because he mislead people.

 

Even worse, the actions of Republican senators have opened the door to federal review of any loss of life scenario at the state and local level. This will have ongoing consequences, and none of us are going to like all of those consequences. Such sweeping change should only take place after thorough debate and understanding of the issues, not as an emotional, unfounded, ill-conceived plea to a partisan political base.

 

Anyway, that's how I see it. Your mileage may vary.