It's not 1994---you can't triangulate with Google, Youtube, Stewart, Colbert, and DU!

[rudy23]

Maybe some of the current political advisors who are trying to take a lesson from Clinton's presidency need to have this fact brought to their attention.

Bill Clinton's triangulation would NEVER have worked if we were able to use search engines and accessible videos to put his contradicting statements side by side. He could get away with a lot more triangulating because:

1)"Triangulating" and the DLC were not household terms among those who follow politics in 1994 the way they are in 2009 going into 2010.

2)The internets were not there to hold him accountable. Triangulation is a tool that takes advantage of people's faulty memories. It worked because when Clinton contradicted himself, we were left to say, "I could've sworn he said something different on this last month." Then you would've had to go to your public library and spend hours on a microfilm projector trying to track down the contradicting statement.

Triangulation is not going to work for Obama, as evidenced by the reaction his administration is getting in Democratic circles such as this one. We the people are armed with the internets this time, and triangulation should go the way of Prodigy, grunge, and Arsenio Hall. It's only going to backfire on Democrats as we're seeing now.

[nenagh]

1. I wondered

the very same thing

[Jazzgirl]

2. Wouldn't that be....

quintagulating? :evilgrin:

[hootinholler]

3. So what ever happened to Arsenio?

:rofl:

-Hoot

[rudy23]

4. Is your screen name an homage to Arsenio's Dog Pound? j/j

I didn't realize he still had so many devoted fans :silly:

[hootinholler]

17. Um, no.

It actually came from the Snuffy Smith cartoon via my grandfather.

:rofl:

-Hoot

[SIMPLYB1980]

5. LoL! You can't hit a target without it.

Which is why "progressives" never hit their target.

[EFerrari]

6. And you can't hit more than one target with it which is why the OP is right.

[SIMPLYB1980]

8. Hitting one target is better than hitting no targets.

Imo. Which makes the OP wrong.

[EFerrari]

9. And that is the OP's point. You can hit one target

but the rest are still standing.

[SIMPLYB1980]

10. Then you reload and take aim at the ones still standing.

Or did you think we would get everything done in less than a year?

[jgraz]

12. Which is why "triangulating" is the wrong word.

I prefer the term "lying". So much easier to understand.

[SIMPLYB1980]

15. No triangulation is the proper word.

http://www.answers.com/topic/triangulation

1.
1. A surveying technique in which a region is divided into a series of triangular elements based on a line of known length so that accurate measurements of distances and directions may be made by the application of trigonometry.
2. The network of triangles so laid out.
2. The location of an unknown point, as in navigation, by the formation of a triangle having the unknown point and two known points as the vertices.

[bvar22]

7. An example:

Here is Obama during the campaign:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZG8Zq8V54k

Where is that guy today?
Those who are insisting that Obama is just fulfilling his campaign promises weren't paying attention.

[rudy23]

13. Clinton would've gotten away with this in 1994. Obama's advisors are overlooking the difference.

To them, there's probably not much difference between 1994 and 2010. They probably feel like the 90s were just yesterday. Obama needs some fresh blood in there to put him in touch with today's political climate.

When Clinton triangulated, we just had to wonder if he was taken out of context or something. We usually gave him the benefit of the doubt while he talked out of both sides of his mouth, because we trusted him more than we trusted our own flawed memories.

Obama is doing a much better job of using the language to appear ambiguous--yet we are much more capable of taking him to task with links like the one you just posted, where we can illustrate a clear contradiction in words and deeds.

This time we're not using our flawed memories to hold our leaders accountable, we're using perfect computer memories. Big difference. 2010 is not 1994--somebody needs to tell the Obama admin.

[Warpy]

11. Wouldn't that be "pentagonate?"

Well, somebody was going to say it.

[rudy23]

14. Haha. I meant you can't triangulate with the new technology on the case, which those 5 employ..

But I appreciated the joke. :)

I should also throw bloggers in there---in addition to the great discussion board we have here.

[samsingh]

16. you forgot to mention Olbermann

[Ruby the Liberal]

18. This is what cost Hillary the nomination

instant information. The Clinton machine wasn't prepared for it.

Obama raised awareness in a way that no one had ever done.

Sad he chose to surround his admin with the "old way" team. He should have stuck with what worked for him in the campaign against her. In front of the issues and IMMEDIATE responses to adversaries.

Lieberman/Snowe/Nelson/Lincoln/Baucus et al should have never been given this much time/room/air play.

[truedelphi]

19. I thought that with this Presidency being the 1st one coming into office due to

technology, using the internet, Blackberry, Palm Pilots (and other devices) to keep abreast of things that Obama would realize the blowback should he lie to us.

But maybe it doesn't matter.

The income inequality is such that those of us who only vote, and only send 20 or 30 bucks to a campaign, maybe we just do not count.

And whether we vote for him or not in 2012, I think the deal has been cut and the voting machinery, as deplorable as during the 2004 cycle, will let him win regardless of what the real vote is. He has given the Wall Street crowds, the Pentagon, DOD industries and the Big Medical Industries everything they want.