Meh, you're not giving enough credit to the lowest common denominator of the left. Pretty sure that I've seen Olbermann spew his rhetoric about Republicans based on anonymous sources within the McCain/Palin campaign. Obviously Fox News is the high (low?) water mark for this type of tactic, but there are bad journalists on the left who do the same sort of thing, just not as extreme. I think that if you have the impression that liberals "never" do stuff like this then you've got a bit of a partisan blind spot.

Anyboy not named Mitt Romney or John Huntsman basically must try in Iowa. Romney just has such a strong hold in New Hampshire, and that's where Huntsman is banking on surprising. Paul is kind of sort of strong in New Hampshire, but without much of an Iowa showing nobody is going to care that he finished in 3rd place in NH 30 points behind Romney.

Paul's road to victory basically has to start with either surpassing low expectations or meeting good expectations in Iowa, and then capitalizing and finishing (at worst) a strong second in NH.

Now if we take this Bloomberg poll to mean anything and other polls follow this upward trend for him, what I just described is a realistic possibility. He'd still have a hell of a road after that, but that would put him on the map as a legitimate contender for the nomination.

It's not using anonymous sources that's the issue. It's making stuff up and attributing them to anonymous high ranking sources. Given how much Cain has lied and how self serving and unverifiable this source is, of course the chances that he just made it up are high.

I don't know the specific Olbermann claim you are challenging (if you are even thinking of a specific claim) but I heard alot of stuff attributed to unnamed McCain staffer that came from respectable people I and thought were likely to be true....which is a far cry from Cain's statement from "some muslim dude".

I disagree with everything you have written here. But as this is a thread about the 2012 GOP nomination I won't get into it.

They must try in Iowa if they care about winning....it hasn't really seemed like Newt has cared up to this point. If he wants to go from extended book tour to real campaign he could potentially make big gains in Iowa.

Talk of actually winning the nomination for Paul is hugely premature...tons of things have to change for that to be reasonable

How distraught would you be if that happened?

Paul is obviously a huge longshot by anyone's standards. All I talked about was surviving the first wave in order to be anything more than a statement candidacy as we head into the next wave of primaries.

It's worth assessing how a candidate could possibly stay in the mix through a couple of primaries (that are less than two months away) to get to the nomination; it would be imagining an entire 50 state scenario that would be jumping the gun.

Yes, that's a very good point and is probably closer to capturing the essence of Fly's post, thanks Max. I am just very sensitive to situations where we celebrate conservative/liberal failures like they are liberal/conservative successes because I think that kind of thinking leads to bad conclusions and a generally poor understanding of the world. I wish I could say that I've never fallen in that trap myself, but of course I can't.

Of course.... also transparency (LOL stonewalling and executive privilege are shiny new toys when we get to play with them)

Going thru the budget line by line to eliminate waste was another part of the agenda obama was gonna tackle personally.... LOL have they even passed an actual full fiscal year budget in his 3 years yet?

Someone promised to close teh Gitmo in his first year in office.... who was that again?

pelosi ran on "draining the swamp" and doing away with the corruption and cronyism if she were elected SotH. LOLOLOLZ.

This is very well said.

I try not to apply absolutes to anything wrt public policies, because I also never apply absolutes to private policies. To be flexible in terms of advancing is important. It's all the details not known about, until you get the keys to the castle. Sure it would be nice to have all the dirty little details in advance of the election, and even better to know for a certainty that the things we want are possible, not just wants.

I guess the results from the last 2 sessions of Congress, the Pelosi led, then the Boehner led, show one side able to move legislation through the House, while the other ran into stymie situations. Both leaders had majorities. Yet the dems tended to get more into policy initiatives while the repubs preferred those of a social caliber.

Of course the senate is a quagmire of the nth degree. Those bums should return to the real days of the filibuster.

This is some ridiculous handwaving here. Germany has had UHC since 1888 and they have the strongest economy in the world right now. Whose work ethic do you think the US is more like - Germany or Greece? Scandinavia has more social services than anyone, and they're doing fine (except Iceland who got caught up in the whole MBS mess).

The US can afford to many multiples more per capita on defense than Europe, but we can't even take care of our own with a service that's been a basic right in every developed country for 30 years? GMAFB. Try to get this through your head - we are already paying for healthcare for every person who really needs it - just in the most capricious, inefficient, arbitrary way possible.

I'm not even celebrating or blaming or whatever, it's just weird how often high profile right wingers rely on that rhetoric clutch of "some important dude, SO IMPORTANT I CAN'T TELL YOU WHO, told me something absurd but I believe it".

I honestly cannot ever remember seeing that from the left. It strikes me, like it strikes Max, like there's a pretty high chance that rather than an anonymous source that the speaker is just making it up and using a fictional 3rd party as cover in the event there's backlash.

But not only does it appear conservatives view those statements as credible, they seem to LIKE THEM. As if there's MORE CREDIBILITY because it's straight insider information, I think they like feeling "included" on a secret.

It's just an observation.

My problem is this always go straight down the middle with he said/she said, teach-the-controversy approach like CNN.

The idea that some highly placed America Muslim leader(??? I can't think of who would qualify) decided to confide in HERMAN CAIN one day that a majority of American Muslims are sekrit terrorists strikes me as utterly implausible.

So we should stop doing that.

So just to be clear that means letting people with appendicitis and no insurance die in the street.

But did they find bat boy?

Tsao going old-school neocon

There are far better ways to have medical welfare than mandating insurance for everyone. Some type of voucher system and reforms that address the things driving up costs (elimination of the medical guild system we have, removal of red/tape bureaucracy that creates high barriers to entry and murders the competitiveness of the industry, disincentives for people to pursue costly frivolous malpractice lawsuits, etc). I don't know how anyone can honestly believe that the lack of any form of competition on price in the healthcare industry is a market outcome.

Ummm no not really at all. We don't have a 'give-a-way-cars-for-free' program (ok that probably does exist), yet somehow even though I don't have $25,000, I can buy a $25,000 car.

Because they can repossess it if you fail to make the payments. Try to get an unsecured $25k loan from a bank, even with a job, much less as a homeless person or someone below the poverty line.

Yeah we could try a bunch of untested theoretical stuff. Or you know we could just do what every other wealthy nation on earth does, and Mass and HI, and old and poor people already in this country.

Why does tsao want more loans for people who cant repay them?

In India people sell their kids into indentured servitude to pay for surgery they can't afford. It's a beautiful free-market system. Who wants to go to school when you can sew soccer balls all day?