• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

The willow is too close to the house.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

We still have time to mess this up!

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

In my day, never was longer.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

People are complicated. Love is not.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

This blog will pay for itself.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Mobile Menu

  • Winnable House Races
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • Balloon Juice 2023 Pet Calendar (coming soon)
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • War in Ukraine
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • 2021-22 Fundraising!
You are here: Home / A Real Charmer

A Real Charmer

by John Cole|  May 6, 20056:33 pm| 24 Comments

This post is in: Democratic Stupidity

FacebookTweetEmail

Why don’t politicians ever learn:

In the course of a discussion on filibusters and Senate rules, Washington’s top Democrat gave the 60 juniors a lesson in partisan politics, particularly about the commander in chief. “The man’s father is a wonderful human being,” Reid said in response to a question about President Bush’s policies. “I think this guy is a loser.

“I think President Bush is doing a bad job,” he added to a handful of chuckles.

“He’s driving this country into bankruptcy,” Reid said, referring to the deficit. “He’s got us in this intractable war in Iraq where we now have about 1,600 American soldiers dead and another 15,000 injured.”

Reid later apologized, but sheesh. Why can’t they control themselves in public?

*** Update ***

Clearly this post is being misunderstood. I don’t really have a problem with Reid calling Bush an ‘idiot,’ much like I didn’t have a problem with Cheney telling Leahy to go F**k himself. My point is that with our media, Reid should have known better (as should have Cheney). Personally, after watching “Question Time” on C-Span, I prefer a move to the British system of Q&A and candor.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « The Prescription Drug Plan
Next Post: Excommunicated Kicked Out of Their Church For Being Democrats »

Reader Interactions

24Comments

  1. 1.

    John

    May 6, 2005 at 6:39 pm

    Poor choice of words, but c’mon, is he wrong?

  2. 2.

    Randolph Fritz

    May 6, 2005 at 6:45 pm

    Considering what Democrats have been called by Republican leaders over the past decade, what’s the problem here?

  3. 3.

    The Disenfrachised Voter

    May 6, 2005 at 6:49 pm

    Heh, Funny stuff. No need to apologize in my opinion. I am so glad Daschle is gone. I love Reid.

  4. 4.

    licked

    May 6, 2005 at 6:56 pm

    Calling the president a loser is a time honored practice.

    I’m a loser, you’re a loser we’re all losers.

    Charming? Charm enters into politics? Since when? Since Dick “Go fuck yourself” Cheney said so?

    I admire your usual non-theological conservative stances most of the time but you’ve got to look past the D’s and R’s next to people’s names and realize right now the “Major league assholes” running this country, both republicrats and demicrons need to start calling them like they see them. No more of this passive aggressive/polite pandering that’s gotten us so far in the last 10 years.

  5. 5.

    John Cole

    May 6, 2005 at 7:30 pm

    I am not making an issue of whate he said, I am making an issue of not having the sense to recognize the shit storm it would stir up.

    Personally, I don’t think it is a big deal- but Reid did, otherwise he would not have called them to apologize. Which gets back to the point of my post- WHY CAN’T THESE GUYS CONTROL THEMSELVES?

    Same for Cheney..

  6. 6.

    ppgaz

    May 6, 2005 at 7:33 pm

    God forbid, a politician speak the truth.

    If they all started doing that, who would need blogs?

  7. 7.

    The Disenfrachised Voter

    May 6, 2005 at 7:40 pm

    I am not sure exactly which Presidental race it was but I remember that one candidate said the other was a believer in monarchy and his opponent replied that the man’s mother was a whore.

    LOL. Ahh the good old days.

  8. 8.

    Stormy70

    May 6, 2005 at 7:43 pm

    Reid and Pelosi make the GOP’s job easier by staying true to form. Hee, hee.

  9. 9.

    Kimmitt

    May 6, 2005 at 8:50 pm

    I think President Bush is doing a bad job, too, and I’m glad my Party leaders are saying so.

  10. 10.

    JG

    May 6, 2005 at 9:34 pm

    I only saw pieces of Question Time on The Daily Show but damn talk about night and day compared to our leaders ‘press conferences’. Blair sat there and listened to people call him a liar and tell him to step down and he actually responded to them. No planted questions in that audience.

  11. 11.

    Paul

    May 6, 2005 at 9:46 pm

    Hearing a member of the party that is in the minority in both houses of congress and out of power in the White House call a two term President who has taken the fight to the terrorists on their own turf, and in the process prevented another attack on our homeland as well as moved to reshape the ME to allow the spread of freedom there, AND simultaneously brought the economy back from the brink of a hard recession, a loser….

    It’s like the Donks have morphed into a collective Baghdad Bob living in some sort of fantasy reality.

    And before all you simple minded lefties start screaming quagmire and Hooverville in spite of all the evidence to the contrary uncomfortably staring you in your obtuse faces, allow me to preemtively suggest, a la Cheney, that you kindly go fuck yourselves.

    Losers.

  12. 12.

    J Caesar

    May 6, 2005 at 10:15 pm

    Ahh, to be British… where it’s right proper to call the Prime Minster a Lying Sack of Crap.

  13. 13.

    aw

    May 7, 2005 at 12:18 am

    WHY would there be more of a shit storm with this than there was when Dan Burton called President Clinton a scumbag?

  14. 14.

    Paul

    May 7, 2005 at 1:17 am

    Ah I get it…Calling Dubya a loser as a two term prez and his father a winner, even though he lost his bid for reelection, redefines the terms so that the Donks in spite of having their clocks cleaned can imagine that they are “winners” too, rather than the pathetic bunch of naysaying obstructionist failures that they actually are. How Orwellian.

    The difference between calling Clinton a scumbag and Bush a loser is that by any honest assassment of character Clinton is indeed a scumbag, whereas Bush confounds and infuriates the left because he keeps winning over and over, and it has made them utterly insane.

  15. 15.

    Compuglobalhypermeganet

    May 7, 2005 at 1:38 am

    So, a Democrat is calling a two-term Republican President a loser. As usual, the lefties are only good for the irony.

  16. 16.

    Randolph Fritz

    May 7, 2005 at 4:07 am

    “WHY CAN’T THESE GUYS CONTROL THEMSELVES?”

    They can. They do. This is politics and, these days, combativeness gets votes. Wish it didn’t.

    “The best lack all conviction/The worst are full of passionate intensity.”

  17. 17.

    Justin Faulkner

    May 7, 2005 at 5:20 am

    Harry Reid is doing a pretty damn good job so far, IMO.

  18. 18.

    Christie S.

    May 7, 2005 at 11:27 am

    I’ve always been of the opinion that you can truly get a reading of someone’s stance by listening to the invective they choose to spew.

    Who knows…more people might actually watch CSPAN or pay attention to their politicians if it were more entertaining to the general populace. Gotta love the Taiwanese coverage of their legislature.

    The above opinion was written with half-hearted snark fully intended.

  19. 19.

    rilkefan

    May 7, 2005 at 11:57 am

    Given Bush’s unpopularity, what do you expect Reid to do? Lie? The sooner the press realizes the above, the better for the Dems.

  20. 20.

    KevinA

    May 7, 2005 at 12:22 pm

    Heh, Reid was dumb for saying it.

    That said, a question for the group: How do y’all think Pres. Bush would handle something like a)Question Time or b) Prime Minister’s Questions?

    My guess is that it would not be pretty.

  21. 21.

    Paul

    May 7, 2005 at 12:22 pm

    “what do you expect Reid to do? Lie?”

    ummm….you REALLY don’t want to go there, do you?

  22. 22.

    Kimmitt

    May 7, 2005 at 2:53 pm

    Bush confounds and infuriates the left because he keeps winning over and over, and it has made them utterly insane.

    NOTE: The following statement implicitly includes my opinion that Bush is a damned fool who has compiled a political record of relentless failure:

    Well, yes, one tries very very hard not to come to the conclusion that the majority of Americans are too stupid to see through the facade. The choice is between anger and despair. I’m leaning toward despair these days.

  23. 23.

    Rick

    May 7, 2005 at 2:58 pm

    …one tries very very hard not to come to the conclusion that the majority of Americans are too stupid to see through the facade.

    Kimmitt,

    The percentage hovers between 43% (1992 election) and 49.8% or thereabouts (1996 election), so no, it’s not a majority.

    I broke the trail on your feeling of despair.

    Cordially…

  24. 24.

    The Disenfrachised Voter

    May 8, 2005 at 1:08 am

    “‘what do you expect Reid to do? Lie?’

    ummm….you REALLY don’t want to go there, do you?”

    Ha, this coming from a Bush voter. Priceless.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

Fundraising 2023-24

Wis*Dems Supreme Court + SD-8

Recent Comments

  • Baud on Twenty Years Gone (Mar 20, 2023 @ 6:54pm)
  • karen marie on Twenty Years Gone (Mar 20, 2023 @ 6:54pm)
  • Chief Oshkosh on Twenty Years Gone (Mar 20, 2023 @ 6:53pm)
  • PJ on Twenty Years Gone (Mar 20, 2023 @ 6:52pm)
  • suzanne on Twenty Years Gone (Mar 20, 2023 @ 6:52pm)

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
We All Need A Little Kindness
Classified Documents: A Primer
State & Local Elections Discussion

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Mailing List Signup
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)

Twitter / Spoutible

Balloon Juice (Spoutible)
WaterGirl (Spoutible)
TaMara (Spoutible)
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
TaMara
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
ActualCitizensUnited

Join the Fight!

Join the Fight Signup Form
All Join the Fight Posts

Balloon Juice Events

5/14  The Apocalypse
5/20  Home Away from Home
5/29  We’re Back, Baby
7/21  Merging!

Balloon Juice for Ukraine

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2023 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!