Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (120102)	6/14/2005 5:06:38 PM
From: DMaA	Respond to of 793707

Surprised you ladies didn't bring up the latest politician to get a case of "the vapors" was MR Voinovich Taranto today - What makes George Voinovich so contemptible? Michael Collins of the Scripps Howard News Service posed the question over the weekend, in an article amusingly titled "Scorn Over 'Buckeye Boo-Hoo' Mystifies Experts": Ever since Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, got all weepy on the Senate floor a few weeks ago, he has been widely mocked by pundits, wags, bloggers, editorial writers and just about everybody else with a sense of emotional superiority. . . . Although it's nothing new for politicians to become the laughingstock of an increasingly cynical public, even the experts are a little baffled by the outpouring of hostility directed at Voinovich's outpouring of emotion. "We don't universally make fun of politicians when they cry--that's the interesting thing," said Randolph Cornelius, a Vassar College professor and researcher who has studied human emotions, and weeping in particular. In some cases, in fact, letting the tears flow can enhance a politician's image. Think Rudolph Giuliani and 9/11. Giuliani's emotional, misty-eyed public appearances in the days after the terrorist attacks softened his brusque image as New York mayor and helped him build needed political capital, Cornelius said. The difference, of course, is that tears were one appropriate response to the enormity of 9/11. Similarly, we saw a congressman on TV during the recent stem-cell debate who was in tears as he talked about the plight of cancer-stricken kids, which is indisputably sad. Voinovich, by contrast, was blubbering because John Bolton, a man who is purported to be socially rough-edged, is about to become America's ambassador to the U.N. This is not something that would make a normal person weep. "If he cried every time he thought of a brusque federal official, Lake Erie couldn't hold all the tears," political scientist John Pitney tells Collins. The emotional incongruity of Voinovich's response is enough to make him seem weird, but the contempt to which he has been subject is also owing to the way in which he came to oppose Bolton. At first he seemed totally indifferent to the question of who would be the U.N. ambassador, not even bothering to show up for the Bolton hearings. He finally appeared on the day the committee was to have voted on the nomination, listened to the Democrats ritually denounce Bolton, and then declared himself troubled, causing a delay in the vote. When the time finally came to send Bolton's nomination to the floor, Voinovich declared that he had been persuaded Bolton was "the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be" and that he would oppose the nomination on the Senate floor--though it didn't become clear until later that he hoped to drown Bolton in his own tears. What makes Voinovich's lachrymosity so ludicrous is its sincerity. Does Chris Dodd or Joe Biden or John Kerry or Barbara Boxer cry herself to sleep thinking about mean old John Bolton going to Turtle Bay? Not a chance. Their campaign against Bolton was totally cynical, motivated by a combination of ideology and partisanship. And Voinovich fell for it! Their phony sanctimony touched his heart and drove him to tears. His crying fit on the Senate floor was a display of weak-mindedness as well as emotional incontinence. Or, to put it another way, the Democrats can't win elections or accomplish much of anything else--but damned if they can't make George Voinovich cry. Even an expert should understand why that makes him the most ridiculous man in politics today.

To: Lane3 who wrote (120102)	6/14/2005 5:43:09 PM
From: haqihana	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793707

Karin, I am not the one that brought up the concept of hysteria in relation to anything. I don't advocate the beating of anyone, except in defense of life, family, and home. The flag is a sign that says we are Americans, who we are, and what we are. Some people get angry at the protest burning of the flag, because the feel that is a protest against them, personally. Since those people do not display the symptoms of hysteria, then it is not hysteria. The dictionary defines hysteria as episodes of hallucination, somnambulism, amnesia, and other mental aberrations. That does not have anger as a part of hysteria. The reason that hysteria is connected with women, is that the base word is "hustera" which came from the ancient Greek, and means "womb" in English. It is the contention of scholars that this word was used because some thought that the trait of being hysteric came from disturbances in the womb. Hysteria is a malfunction of the mind, and causes a person to react more outwardly, and more strangely, because of some event. That is not merely emotional. Even hate, which is also a malfunction of the brain, is not hysteria.