False dichotomy much?

Frum, how many logical fallacies can you run through?

I do believe him to be a Social Democrat, I do believe him to be weak, dithering, and way too naive.

I believe him to be a fairly honorable man, he has a great family, and from all appearances seems to be a decent interesting guy and a good Husband and Father.

He did associate himself with some very awful people however. I do not believe he shared their views however. These were the movers and shakers of Chicago Left Wing Politics. You had to be on these folks good graces to win elections as a Democrat.

However there is nothing Racist or “Below the Belt” about people bringing up who he associated with, especially since the President asked us to judge him by who he surrounded himself with. After all if Bush was associated with people like this we all know the Democrats would have had a field day with it.

Even though the Democrats were just as insane and off the wall, if not worse, during Bush’s Presidency that does not mean we should follow suit. We are supposed to be the grown ups after all. Instead we have acted like brats and sore losers as well as jilted lovers telling America “He will never love you like we did”. In the words of Berry Goldwater “Grow up Conservatives!”

As for fox news, I will grant you that their commentator’s are very much conservative and GOP sympathetic. However their straight news service, especially Fox News Sunday, is pretty impartial.

MSNBC is the same way, it’s commentator’s and some of their anchors are basically the media arm of the DNC and the Progressive Caucus, and yet I don’t see a WH boycott of them.

There are cultures–and people with traits similar to those cultures–that show at least two faces.

The first is upwards, to those with greater prestige and authority: They are submissive. Only if there is something they really, really want do they risk “face” and honor to challenge the powers that be. Otherwise they’re essentially fawning, at least in public where it matters (and the only thing that really matters is what’s in public).

The second is downwards, to those with lesser prestige and authority. To those that are properly submissive and fawning, they’re benevolent, kind, magnanimous. They are lessers, and the duty of the greater person is to nurture and tend their lessers; this garners them more face, more honor. If their inferiors do not show proper submission, then they’re essentially bullies and demand respect.

Equals are treated variously. You treat them kindly if you want something and it’s worth the minimal trade-off in face, the currency of public honor. You treat them harshly if you can garner more face that way.

You defend your friends the same way. It’s all a kind of calculation: If you win by defending them, you defend them. If you win by turning on them, you turn on them. It’s not personal.

Life is trying to maximize your standing, and making sure that far more are submissive to you than you are submissive to.

Note that such cultures tend to have ways of remedying public interpersonal conflict. Sitting down quietly and resolving the problem isn’t it, because the resolution has to be public and both sides are interested in maintaining face. Usually some token humliation is sufficient by the lesser person, because people aren’t stupid: They know that the humliation is ritual, that the reconciliation isn’t heart-felt, and that it’s all a matter of public games. It’s like an 18th century duke whose wife is cheating on him–as long as nobody knows, it can be ignored by him; however, as soon as it’s publicly stated, he has to require satisfaction. It doesn’t really matter if she is unfaithful. Truth is not subservient to honor.

In societies where there are no good conflict resolution strategies–Iraq comes to mind, because all the strategies are low-level between locally accessible and familiar clans while the main issues are between much larger units over greater distances–then the society is violent. You don’t dare accept being disrespected, even if what you’ve done is shameful, because the mere fact of being disrespected is shameful. You don’t dare to allow others to not show you the respect your status requires be given you because that’s disrespectful and strips you of your status. If you’re disrespected, you have to avenge the dishonor. (This is entirely asymmetrical, as such societies often are: *Your* status is what’s important, so if you want to be a social climber you go about dishing out disrespect, because that’s not only fine, but commendable . . . from your point of view. You’re only owed respect; respect you show is what you need to show, either to save your skin or to get something.)

A lot of this is just politics. Politicians in such societies frequently play these games–not thinking of them as games, of course–to maximize their own prestige, but also the prestige of their group. If their group is low in prestige, the first order of business is to make sure nothing disrespectful can ever be said about them. The second order of business is accruing importance and “face” to them. All politics is tribal; more so now, I think, than at other times. We call it “partisanship”, but it’s still a kind of tribe-based thinking. You find justification and excuses for those in your tribe, while assuming the other tribe is as bad as possibly (I’d say “humanly” possible, but dehumanizing the other tribe is standard “best practice”).

Obama shows, I think, more of this than most politicians. If true, then your question can’t be answered as phrased and is in need of revision. Obama’s neither essentially a bully nor a push-over, because (most of) his framework is essentially cast in different terms. He’s both and neither. It’s a testable hypothesis, of course: Look at situations he’s likely to be involved in, and figure out whether submission or defiance will get him more. Consider whether or not he has reasons to believe (since it’s only his beliefs that matter in his calculus) his opponent is below him or above him. Moreover, since he’s been exposed to both cultures in spades, and has to know that many of his allies and friends also aren’t consistent in how they apply this. So don’t expect 100% compliance with this kind of thinking; if you get 80% accuracy, consider it a successful experiment.

At that time, Fox was not a major organizer for political rallies opposing Obama’s policies. With their central role in creating the tea party movement, Fox clearly transitioned from being a news reporter … to being a news creator. There is not even a veneer of impartiality left.

And Obama would likely have the same issue granting an interview with any of Fox’s faces save perhaps Shep Smith.

The issue was Obama’s deliberate snub of “Fox News Sunday.”

Fox News Sunday doesn’t include ANY of the conservative commentators you worry about: Hannity, O’Reilly, etc. The interviewers are responsible journalists like Major Garrett, whom even the Obama Administration admits is a responsible journalist who asks fair questions.

The snub of Fox News Sunday was simply an attempt to isolate Fox News from the Obama Administration altogether.

BTW, Obama had been interviewed by Bill O’Reilly during the 2008 campaign. At that time, Obama had no complaints.

And dont’ forget…their three most popular and emblematic candidates right now remain Palin, Huckabee, and Romney. None of whom have any national appeal – or even within their own party.

As far as Fox “News” – they have consistant ‘trouble’ identifying congressmen and senators – whenever one of their own steps in it, they put ‘Democrat’ over their photo. And polls showed years after 9/11, Fox watchers were still believing Saddam Hussein was responsible for it. If they cannot even play fair in journalism, is it any wonder why no one outside of Fox supporters would even bother to watch this theater of the absurd? Why would Obama subject himself to a second rate ‘news’ source?

I do not expect Obama to conduct a public debate with Iran or North Korea … this would be counterproductive and beneath a President of the United States.

It is not possible or useful to debate someone face to face when they have made it clear that they will repeat disproved allegations as fact. It becomes impossible to prepare for every false fact you will have to refute, and one ends up either accepting their premise so that you can speak on a broader scale – or spending your entire time swatting away inconsistencies and lies. In neither case would it be possible to be Presidential.

This would not have been akin to Bush coming on Meet the Press, or even Chris Matthews – but rather akin to Bush coming on Air America Radio, or Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Fox’s News Division – not simply their pundits, but their news – is propogandistic on par with those actors (and actually more partisan, since Air America and Olbermann regularly criticize Obama with an intensity we never saw on Fox until perhaps late into Bush’s second term).

Could George Bush have submitted to an interview with someone like Air America’s Marc Maron and looked Presidential by doing anything but standing up mid-interview and walking out? Likely not. And Obama would likely have the same issue granting an interview with any of Fox’s faces save perhaps Shep Smith.

…..is a fairly typical example who sit around navel gazing and inventing all kinds of pseudo psychological fantasies to reinforce what his dislike for the president who basically continues to carry all before him. They need to do some navel gazing about the state of the Republican party because on a scale of 1-10 (with 10 worst) their political problems are at 9 by comparison with the the president’s 3 or 4.