Girls Are Bad at Math?

[Stephanie]

Why else would HRC insist on arguing the impossible?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-koffler/hillary-clinton-and-the-p_b_103913.html

Quick math quiz: What is the sum of 5 porpoises, 11 fire engines, the Eiffel Tower, 8 molecules of ammonia on the outermost ring of Saturn, and 13 kiwi fruits? In some sense, it's a collection of 38 things, but the collection is one nobody in possession of his or her wits could possibly take any interest in. The moral of the story is that just because basic arithmetic allows you to add two figures together doesn't mean you should, or that the sum will be meaningful if you do. On the contrary, if you're careless, unscrupulous, or both, the result of your work is liable to be a mereological abortion.

Which is why those folks pushing back against Hillary Clinton's preposterous claims to be leading the national primary popular vote have largely been following the wrong trail, as admirable as their efforts have been. Yes, it's true that to arrive at an aggregation of all the votes cast in all contests that puts Clinton ahead, you have to first assume that "the will of the people," nebulously defined, trumps all considerations of procedural fairness, only to then throw out hundreds of thousands of expressions of popular will in support of Barack Obama on procedural grounds. So that even if the Clinton math weren't a transparently cynical and breathtakingly mendacious display of disrespect for the intelligence of the American people (including Clinton supporters), it would still be flagrantly contradictory on its own terms.

But all that is beside the point because there is no such thing as a meaningful national popular vote in presidential primaries, at least as they are currently constituted -- and in perpetuating the myth that there is such a thing, the media and a surfeit of non-Clinton supporters have played an unwitting role in enabling Hillary Clinton's mendacity to gain a purchase in the national political conversation.Adding together the votes of all the primaries and caucuses and seeing who is ahead is like adding porpoises to fire engines to Eiffel Towers to ammonia molecules to kiwi fruits: the sum is numerical gibberish. The difference between the two cases is that it's easy to disguise national popular vote totals as the addition of apples to apples -- they're all just votes right? -- so that thus far, even those who have noticed that there is something suspicious about the math haven't been able to put their fingers on just what the problem is. While at the same time, the Clintonites have been staking out absurd comparisons of their esoteric arithmetic to bloody struggles for democratic and human rights, in an effort to smother any scrutiny of their popular vote claims. No wonder the Clinton math has gulled so many people; no wonder critics of the Clinton math have been emphasizing secondary points.

[AtomicKitten]

1. Hey, it's all smoke and mirrors for Clinton now.

[Stephanie]

3. That old trick never works.

[Shakespeare]

2. Is she drinking again (in that second pic)?

:crazy:

[Oregone]

4. Its easier than reality

Until you wake up in a pile of your own puke (or sober up in a primary you are hopelessly losing but were not previously sober enough to quit).

[anigbrowl]

6. It sure isn't helping her image

Although since I enjoy a drink myself, I'm not going to take it too seriously. In fact, I think she ought to convert it into a positive by appearing in public with a bong. Then she could say she owns the stoner vote.

[L0oniX]

5. There is help available....