No, I won't kill you, just make a couple of points.

1) If this is acceptable rhetoric, then most of the nominations in this thread are bogus, and therefore Obama's original assertion that over-the-top rhetoric hinders debate must have been wrong. In fact, in that case, I'd submit that nobody has submitted evidence of anything of the kind in the 6 months this thread has been opened, and nobody has any business complaining about the level of rhetoric.

2) If we're agreed now that this level of discourse is acceptable, then I'd like to submit, respectfully, that Joe Nocera is a Jim Jones style suicide cultist, intent on wiping out the economy deliberately, in order to have as big a party as possible before the hammer falls.

I'd be interested to hear any objections to my rhetoric.



Yeah, that means you're closer to Greece than we are!



Balanced Budget is the right term, but this whole battle has been fought tooth and nail to AVOID that very thing. The "budget cutters" are tacking on another 7 trillion in debt. The other side wanted even more. How can you agree with balancing the budget and also agree with not balancing it?

I just hope (for the future) that there WILL be...

If it's just the rhetoric you can't live with, we don't even disagree. To be honest I didn't even notice that this is "The Rhetoric Thread".

Oh okay, and you did say that the comparison with terrorism was a bad choice, so I'm not sure if you're defending him or not. The point of this thread isn't really to discuss public policy, it's to examine the claim that hateful over-the-top rhetoric contributes to things like the Gifford shooting. You could have the best message in the world and still be guilty of expressing it in a way that inspired violence, so these are two different questions.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/273444/hell-you-people-jonah-goldberg#

Interesting diatribe by Jonah Goldberg about the rhetoric of the media in recent days. Funny in a sad way, too.

Another nomination (I've been remiss lately)

USA TODAY: Will the 2012 Obama 'kill' the 2008 Obama?




That's far from the worst thing we've seen in this thread, but it's at least as bad as using a bullseye in a target ad, so it deserves a nomination.

It will be even more embarrassing if Romney isn't the Republican nominee.

If he's not, at least they can claim that it was because of the smear campaign, and save a little face that way (assuming that they go ahead with it, and assuming that they want to brag about it).

This thread may have just become obsolete, as the administration has just recanted the words that led to its formation in the first place.

Everything Obama said after the Giffords shooting is now out the window. All that bit about extreme rhetoric inciting violence and making it harder to get things done is off the table. In response to Jimmy Hoffa Jr's clearly violence inciting words this week about how we're your army, we're ready to march and take those sons of b****es out, Obama shook his hand immediately afterwards. When questioned about it specifically, the White House communications director said that the administration was declining to denounce it as they didn't want to be the Speech Police for the party.

Which means, of course, that everyone in this thread who took his earlier words seriously, and submitted nominations to this thread, myself included, should be ahshamed of ourselves for trying to be the speech police. The new line is" Hate Speech Good. Or acceptable, at the least. The irony is that Obama himself has just given his blessing to the Birthers to say whatever they want about him. We can still disagree with them, but nobody can criticize them now.

In Obama's speech tonight he used the word "individual" as the noun and "they" as the pronoun. I'd be happy if he would just speak English.

Yeah, but he also said we can't be the Speech Police. Any more. So some time in the last 6 months, he changed his mind.