2012 U.S. Presidential Debates

Snorri · Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 1:50 am Post subject:

I am so watching this. Obama is totally saying Romney sucks.
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Snorri · Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 1:51 am Post subject:

he is legit saying that Bush was better than Romney would be. Just straight up saying "well, at least Bush wasn't as fucking stupid as Romney".
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Adyon · Joined: 27 May 2012 Posts: 1169 Location: Behind my Cintiq

Thy Brilliance · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 3661 Location: Relative

Pretty sure Bush is and forever will be one of the worst.

Sam · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 9701

Romney said something that confused the fuck out of me, that "binders full of women" thing. It was like unexpectedly patriarchal in how it dodged the issue of wage gaps entirely just by saying "Don't get me wrong guys I've hired women" and er, oh yeah, he had at least a thousand less weird ways to put it.

Samsally · Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 6701

Binders full of women has apparently already exploded into a full blown meme.
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Samsally the GrayAce

Sam · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 9701

I mean I am totally not surprised. Like I was just sitting there bored listening to talking point after talking point and then suddenly 'binders full of women' wait did I catch that rrrrrrrrokay

Capnlaz · Joined: 10 Aug 2011 Posts: 1 Location: Denver

All this discussion about a "Sound and Fury, signifying nothing".

These people are politicians. If their lips are moving, they're lying!
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The difference between the nearly right word and the right word is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning...Mark Twain

Heretical Rants · Joined: 21 Jul 2009 Posts: 5344 Location: No.

WheelsOfConfusion · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 12450 Location: Unknown Kaddath

He thought his arch rival was defeated, powerless, neutralized. But then, Mitt Romneyman came home to find his women stuffed into binders.

(also, Women in Binders came up before Women in Refrigerators in my Google suggestions. That's just wrong.)

Sam · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 9701

Oh well. I mean that was another drawn out exercise in why the format of the presidential debates is just so unbelievably useless, but at least some of those memes are funny.

if you like it you betta put three rings on it

Adyon · Joined: 27 May 2012 Posts: 1169 Location: Behind my Cintiq

I liked this one the best:

I guess it's been long enough ago, I can laugh at Soviet Russia jokes again. More though, the image was necessary to make it work like that.
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CTrees · Joined: 21 Jul 2006 Posts: 3772

A little more (serious) backstory on the (admittedly hilarious) binders full of women: http://m.thephoenix.com/boston/blogpost.aspx?id=828852

Short version, he did have them, but he sure didn't ASK for them - they were given by groups worried that he wouldn't put any women in his cabinet as governor.
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“Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation”
yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation.

Michael · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 10771

Sam · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 9701

At first I was like "man are people going overboard with this meme or what" but then later on I realized that there's nothing overboard, it's people having fun with a confusing and weird connotation that just ... stood out. I watched it, I was confused for a reason. He was being asked about equal pay for women. He was being asked about gender-based economic disparity, the central overarching privilege and workplace prejudice issue.

The expected part was that he didn't even really address the issue at all, and instead he gave a tone-deaf response that actively avoided the issue entirely; the unexpected part is how weird it actually came out. Emma Keller at the Guardian noted correctly that the inference of his larger speech (unintended, absolutely, but telling, when you reread his whole answer in context) is that women only get hired when a numerical need arises — women don't get considered on their merits except as a second option. And it didn't come out right, and this is what you could anticipate, given that he was concertedly ignoring the question of fair pay at all in the first place.

But it was a bit sublime that we get that clip, and later on I guess we find out it is so pained because it's mendacious to begin with, like so much of the rest of the background radiation of Romney's campaign to begin with. He was trying to get around the fact that literally the best patronizing workaround for the question directed to him had to do with how groups shoved binders full of qualified women candidates AT him, in response to legitimate concerns about gender disparity in appointments, and many moons later here he is talking about how after 25 years of running business and consultation, he's saying the issue is he doesn't know where to find qualified women.

Like Ctrees' link points out:

What does that say?