The Al Smith dinner (not what you think)

[Bob78164]

I was struck by some video of the Al Smith dinner last night. Trump actually had some good jokes before he went off the rails. The one I noticed was the line where he bumped into Hillary and she very civilly said, "Pardon me."

I found two things notable about Hillary's reaction. The first was that she laughed uproariously at the line. The second is that it looked to me like she started laughing about half a second before the rest of the room. This tells me that not only does she have a very real sense of humor, but she's also really, really smart. --Bob

[jarnon]

I found two things notable about Hillary's reaction. The first was that she laughed uproariously at the line. The second is that it looked to me like she started laughing about half a second before the rest of the room. This tells me that not only does she have a very real sense of humor, but she's also really, really smart. --Bob

You don't think the Al Smith dinner is rigged and corrupt Hillary was told Trump's jokes in advance?

I liked this joke:

You know Michelle Obama gives a speech and everyone loves it, it’s fantastic. They think she’s absolutely great.

My wife Melania gives the exact same speech and people get on her case, and I don’t get it! I don’t know why. And it wasn’t her fault.

Oh I’m in trouble when I go home tonight. She didn’t know about that one. Am I okay? Is it okay? Cardinal, please speak to her.

[silvercamaro]

....she's also really, really smart.

Smart is not usually the first word that comes to my mind when I hear about somebody who, according to Miss Huma, doesn't know how to send email on a desktop.

[BackInTex]

....she's also really, really smart.

Smart is not usually the first word that comes to my mind when I hear about somebody who, according to Miss Huma, doesn't know how to send email on a desktop.

Yep. I'm thinking she was coached to "laugh at his jokes about you because it will endear you to your base as being 'above the crap'. And if you laugh sooner than everyone else, your base will think you're smarter."

Actually, I don't think she got the joke sooner than anyone else. I think everyone was just waiting for her lead to be sure "it's O.K. to laugh at that one".

[BackInTex]

Oh. And it is what I thought. You'd somehow put Hillary at the top of a pedestal for an undue reason.

[ne1410s]

Maybe she laughed early because she remembered when that joke was first used for Nixon...

[Bob78164]

....she's also really, really smart.

Smart is not usually the first word that comes to my mind when I hear about somebody who, according to Miss Huma, doesn't know how to send email on a desktop.

Why can't you disagree with her politically but still give her credit for being smart? --Bob

[silverscreenselect]

....she's also really, really smart.

Smart is not usually the first word that comes to my mind when I hear about somebody who, according to Miss Huma, doesn't know how to send email on a desktop.

Why can't you disagree with her politically but still give her credit for being smart? --Bob

There's no cure for Clinton Derangement Syndrome.

[BackInTex]

....she's also really, really smart.

Smart is not usually the first word that comes to my mind when I hear about somebody who, according to Miss Huma, doesn't know how to send email on a desktop.

Why can't you disagree with her politically but still give her credit for being smart? --Bob

Probably could if she were. I think her husband is smart.

[Bob78164]

I liked this joke:

You know Michelle Obama gives a speech and everyone loves it, it’s fantastic. They think she’s absolutely great.

My wife Melania gives the exact same speech and people get on her case, and I don’t get it! I don’t know why. And it wasn’t her fault.

Oh I’m in trouble when I go home tonight. She didn’t know about that one. Am I okay? Is it okay? Cardinal, please speak to her.

Turns out he plagiarized it. --Bob

[Bob78164]

....she's also really, really smart.

Smart is not usually the first word that comes to my mind when I hear about somebody who, according to Miss Huma, doesn't know how to send email on a desktop.

I don't know how to create or manipulate an Excel spreadsheet. And it was years before I learned how to text with a cell phone. Does that mean I'm not smart? --Bob

[flockofseagulls104]

Smart is not usually the first word that comes to my mind when I hear about somebody who, according to Miss Huma, doesn't know how to send email on a desktop.

Why can't you disagree with her politically but still give her credit for being smart? --Bob

Probably could if she were. I think her husband is smart.

If getting a lot of people to think you're smart, in spite of a track record of no concrete accomplishments and multiple failures is being smart, then she's smart.

If mastery of the art of lying, manipulation, and deceit in the pursuit of power is a measure of intelligence, then she is smart.

If self-promotion and self-aggrandizement is a measure of smartness, then she is a genius. (But then, so is Trump).

[silverscreenselect]

If self-promotion and self-aggrandizement is a measure of smartness, then she is a genius. (But then, so is Trump).

One of Hillary's problems over the years is that she's not a natural politician, as she's pointed out so many times. She is calculated (not a bad thing if you're trying to decide whether to launch a military attack or how to respond to a terrorist threat), she works behind the scenes (the record of legislation she pushed through without much fanfare is significant) and she tends to turn people off with some wonkish replies to questions. She's not Bill Clinton, or Obama, or Trump. And, she's a woman, so she has to constantly face criticism about her demeanor, her look, and her laughter.

What Republicans can't stand about her is that she is smart. That she destroyed the same Republican candidate who destroyed 16 primary opponents without working up much of a sweat. That she''s taken all the crap they've dished out for 30 years and is about to become President and she's going to be able to move a lot more of an agenda through than Bernie Sanders could, precisely because she knows what buttons to push with the opposition and how to work with them. Much as I hate to give him credit, Ronald Reagan was also a master of that, and he was also a smooth talker (which Hillary isn't), which made him uniquely effective in recent politics. Modern Republicans adore Reagan but they're not willing to do what he did over and over again.

So, Flock, go ahead and believe people like Hannity and Limbaugh. They're like Trump; they get rich off gullible suckers like you and manage to keep their ratings going by channeling anger and doing nothing about it other than mouthing off attack points of the day and enriching themselves.

[ghostjmf]

Dunno why I'm getting into this, but I am, aren't I:

I like to think I'm smart. So have various other people, including professors, in my life. I often start laughing early at jokes others do, eventually, laugh at. I also sometimes laugh at things no-one except me finds funny. And I don't laugh at stuff it seems everybody else finds funny, like most comedians, including the original cast of SNL (except for Gilda Radner, who I kinda considered my celebrity soul-mate, if they'd had that concept at the time). I haven't even bothered w/ subsequent SNLs. But if I was at all awake (it was on around 2am here) I used to stay up even later to watch Second City TV.

I got trained as a software engineer & have the certificate (but no subsequent job) to prove it, but the 1st programming course I took was in COBOL because people had told me there would be jobs in it precisely because it was, even at that time (the 90s) an antiquated language. This course had a prof who was not one of those who thought me smart. The reason? They revealed that it was because on the 1st day, I didn't know where the "on" switch was on their computers. It was a diff machine than the one I used at work. I don't know why locating a hidden "on" switch is supposed to be how you rate students' intelligence.

I have one relative & one friend, both of whom I think, along with their profs & their colleagues in their professions, are smart, but who refuse to acquire cell phones. The friend when they were lost recently knocked on doors to get someone to let them use a phone to call a friend. I think both these people have been terrified by the cell phones they've seen in use, each diff from the other. The relative refuses to use a computer, too. The friend has a computer in use at home. But they're on various sites, such as Facebook, only because either friends signed them up or they get in by clicking on friends' messages when they appear (I think its the latter). They have no trouble posting in various forums that are legacy programs from the non-web internet.

When I got my tablet, I begged to watch when they set up my gmail accounts, but the T-Mobile person whipped through it very rapidly, too rapidly for me to take notes. "You'll never have to do this", they said. "You mean I can't ever sign out?!". "No, you don't sign out." Seemed like bad security to me.

So a week or so ago, I pulled my purposely-left-on, something I do only when expecting or hoping for e-mail tablet out to find "my gmail had not been setup". Stifling panic, I shut the tablet off. When I turned it on again ("turning" being an old phrase we still use, from back in the days when people used to turn lamp wicks, & later the knobs on some electric lamps) it went though the rebooting procedures I had hoped it would & voila! my gmail was back. I do know enough about interaction with systems, which is a skill in no way related to programming itself, to have tried that. Along with "wiggle the cord to make sure its plugged in, &/or any short is unshorted" on corded systems.

I can't take "didn't know how to set up their e-mail" on whatever system a sign of a candidate's stupidity. Lack of familiarity around computers, definitely. Might even give some insight on why HC wanted a private server; along with it probably came protocols for e-mail she was familiar with.

So far, by the way, no-one has said her private server was ever hacked. As opposed to every other system on earth, apparently, including the supposedly very secure servers used by various US govt agencies. Which does not mean I think it was the right way to go.

[Bob Juch]

If getting a lot of people to think you're smart, in spite of a track record of no concrete accomplishments and multiple failures is being smart, then he's smart.

If mastery of the art of lying, manipulation, and deceit in the pursuit of power is a measure of intelligence, then he is smart.

If self-promotion and self-aggrandizement is a measure of smartness, then he is a genius.

Fixed it for you.

[ghostjmf]

To continue: One of the things that had me off HC in the 2008 election was that her campaign was spending $300/night on hotel rooms for staffers while Obama's staffers were reportedly doubling up in the cheapest decent motels they could find. It was just the best way to use funds, not that Obama wanted to deny his staffers luxury, or whatever makes a $300.00 hotel room so much better (they're all candidates to have bedbugs &/or cockroaches, in my book, not to mention those bodily fluids that the staff doesn't clean off stuff the fluids should not have gotten on, say various reports; I betcha knew that if I mentioned Gilda R. previously I was about to channel my own Roseanne Roseannadanna).

And one of the things that had me off Obama was a remark he made to HC in an early debate which sounded a lot like "oh be quiet little woman", though that wasn't exactly it. I've googled for it recently & can mostly find mutual-admiration-society stuff, followed by "they hate each other" stuff, but not that remark. (It certainly wasn't a remark about how "hot" she wasn't, or how "nasty" she *was*, just the usual dismissal of a woman for being, well, a woman.)

My candidate in that primary was Edwards, based on his politics. Shows what a great judge of moral character I was (well, he fooled his sainted wife, too).

[Bob78164]

And one of the things that had me off Obama was a remark he made to HC in an early debate which sounded a lot like "oh be quiet little woman", though that wasn't exactly it. I've googled for it recently & can mostly find mutual-admiration-society stuff, followed by "they hate each other" stuff, but not that remark. (It certainly wasn't a remark about how "hot" she wasn't, or how "nasty" she *was*, just the usual dismissal of a woman for being, well, a woman.)

I'm guessing it was the "Oh, you're nice enough" line. --Bob

[ghostjmf]

That was it. Said in a very dismissive way (I point out for those who don't remember it).

[ghostjmf]

Googling shows the evil word was "likeable" (enough).

[flockofseagulls104]

....she's also really, really smart.

Smart is not usually the first word that comes to my mind when I hear about somebody who, according to Miss Huma, doesn't know how to send email on a desktop.

Why can't you disagree with her politically but still give her credit for being smart? --Bob

How 'bout this Bob, I will give her credit for being smart if you admit she is a serial liar, a very flawed person and candidate, but you are going to vote for her anyway.

[Bob78164]

How 'bout this Bob, I will give her credit for being smart if you admit she is a serial liar, a very flawed person and candidate, but you are going to vote for her anyway.

Facts are not negotiable, flock. She's either smart or she isn't. In my view, there's a raft of evidence that she is, but she's been so politically demonized that people like you simply cannot bring yourselves to acknowledge that she may have any positive qualities. --Bob

[littlebeast13]

How 'bout this Bob, I will give her credit for being smart if you admit she is a serial liar, a very flawed person and candidate, but you are going to vote for her anyway.

Facts are not negotiable, flock. She's either smart or she isn't. In my view, there's a raft of evidence that she is, but she's been so politically demonized that people like you simply cannot bring yourselves to acknowledge that she may have any positive qualities. --Bob

A person's intelligence isn't a fact.... it's a matter of opinion, as you and flock have already so elegantly demonstrated. One person's genius is another person's dumbass. Lord knows I've been called both plenty in my life...

lb13

[BackInTex]

Facts are not negotiable...

You are correct.

However, whether or not the "facts" are true is negotiable.

And once agreed they are true, what they mean, is negotiable.

There is no fact Hillary Clinton is smart. "Smart" is a relative and subjective term. And that is a fact.

[flockofseagulls104]

How 'bout this Bob, I will give her credit for being smart if you admit she is a serial liar, a very flawed person and candidate, but you are going to vote for her anyway.

Facts are not negotiable, flock. She's either smart or she isn't. In my view, there's a raft of evidence that she is, but she's been so politically demonized that people like you simply cannot bring yourselves to acknowledge that she may have any positive qualities. --Bob

Yes Bob, Facts are facts. The fact is that some video that no one saw was not responsible for the Benghazi attacks, yet Hillary told the families of those who were killed that it was, and told her daughter and foreign leaders another story, and did not object when Susan Rice told the American people that it was the video. She lied.

The fact is that she did send and receive classified emails on her private server. Yet she told Congress and the America People that she didn't. She Lied.

I could go on and on, but you know them, yet you ignore them. The facts show she is a serial liar. Yet I assume you are going to vote for her. So admit that you are voting for a serial liar and I'll tell you she's smart.

[SportsFan68]

How 'bout this Bob, I will give her credit for being smart if you admit she is a serial liar, a very flawed person and candidate, but you are going to vote for her anyway.

Facts are not negotiable, flock. She's either smart or she isn't. In my view, there's a raft of evidence that she is, but she's been so politically demonized that people like you simply cannot bring yourselves to acknowledge that she may have any positive qualities. --Bob

A person's intelligence isn't a fact.... it's a matter of opinion, as you and flock have already so elegantly demonstrated. One person's genius is another person's dumbass. Lord knows I've been called both plenty in my life...

lb13

I bet not many people call you lazy. And yet, there is that same horrible avatar, year after year . . .