links for 2009-09-14

  • Rep. Joe Wilson accuses Democrats of "playing politics" by continuing to discuss his heckling of President Obama. Whenever you hear a politicians accuse another politician of "playing politics" about an inherently political matter, this is how you know that they're full of shit. This is like accusing a poker player of "playing poker," or a baseball player of "playing baseball." What else would you have them do?

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

3 replies on “links for 2009-09-14”

  1. I think you’re willfully ignoring his meaning, which uses the word “politics” in the way that people use it when referring to “office politics”: Back-stabbing, playing others off each other for personal gain, and other such nasty sociopathic behaviors.

    Of course, I mostly agree with the Democrats in their criticism.

  2. I just don’t buy it. This sort of complaint is common among politicians—just browse through some related results on Google—and it almost always means “in the game of politics—the game that I choose to play—I am losing.” On rare occasions I’ll see it used in a manner that’s convincing, such as when a non-political issue affecting or run by non-political people is suddenly subject to political whims. This is not one of those occasions.

Comments are closed.