Red State throws down the gauntlet, in a post titled “Ignore the Fools and the Foes”:
There are many people dissatisfied with Speaker Hastert’s handling of matters in the House of Representatives in the past year. From the William Jefferson investigation to the Mark Foley investigation, Speaker Hastert has sometimes seemed to have a tin ear. We have, on occasion, shared in these frustrations. But now is not the time for a leadership contest. Anyone who suggests otherwise is a fool or a foe.
We should keep in mind that there are many Republicans who are convinced that the GOP would be well served by some time in the wilderness. The argument goes that conservatives are being ignored. If the GOP keeps the House in November, the GOP will be emboldened to ignore conservatives. If they lose, the GOP will do some soul searching and reconnect to its inner-conservative.
Count us unconvinced. What we are convinced of is that some of the very same people calling for Speaker Hastert’s head right now think the Republican majority should spend time in the wilderness. We should all ignore them and stand behind the House Republicans.
Nothing will be gained by the GOP losing in November, except damage to America. Funding for the Iraq War will be cut. Instead of being able to prosecute the global war on terror, the administration will be bogged down in House investigations. Instead of greater tax reform, we will have stagnant growth and reckless policies.
Shorter Red State- “We have problems. The Democrats are worse.” And if you disagree with them, you are a fool. It is hard to imagine that this message is for anyone other than the hard-core base, as this flippant dismissal of the myriad failures of this current Republican congress’s excesses and failures, failures which will be looked back upon by historians as legendary in size and scope, would be hilarious if it were not so sad and they were not so convinced that they are doing a good job.
That Red State can weather DeLay, Abramoff, the Iraq crisis, the budget explosion, Randall Cunningham, Foley and his complicit crew, the injection of religion in all things science, the wholesale endorsement of torture, the Prescription Drug Plan, the looming crisis in Afghanistan, the breakdown of the military, domestic surveillance, the abuses of Abu Ghraib and the mess that is Gitmo, our completely collapsed international standing, the passage of Campaign Finance Reform, numerous attempts to codify gay-bashing in the Constitution, the hideous Bankruptcy Bill, the Schiavo nonsense, the total abdication of administration oversight, and the hundreds of other things I can’t remember off the top of my head, and still think that they can get away with the pat assertion that the “Democrats are worse” is pretty astounding.
One can only conclude that if Red State Republicans were writing the Gettysburg Address, it would end “that government of the PARTY, by the PARTY, for the PARTY, shall not perish from the earth.”
The Republicans need some soul-searching and some time in the wilderness. They have earned it, and all they have left is lame attempts to blame the media and you and me for finally recognizing that what they really only care about is maintaining their electoral advantage (earmarks, baby, earmarks for the win). I, for one, intend to help them get what they deserve- a very long unpaid vacation.
Dreggas
Shorter Redstate should be:
“Clap Louder and pass the Kool-Aid (red kind of course)”.
The real analogy here being Custer’s Last Stand.
Davebo
Should we really be suprised that the blog of a political action committee dedicated to getting Republicans elected at all levels of government is willing to overlook the GOP’s failures and then scream that the Democrats are worse?
Mike in SLO
Did you really expect them to throw their leadership under a bus just to protect some teenagers? That would mean they actually cared for country before party. The Republican party that for so many years stood with the US against the Soviet Union ends up governing like the Soviets… Go figure!
Crank
John, nobodt at RedState is saying we shouldn’t throw the leadership overboard after the election. The question at hand is whether this is the time for a leadership fight, and the point – a well-taken one – is that anybody who wants the GOP to win in November is a fool if they think such a fight will accomplish anything right now.
You’re willing to live with the consequences of Democratic leadership. I get that. I’m not. We’re disagreeing here because we’ve parted company on which side of these elections we are rooting for.
John Cole
Some things are a touch more important than winning an election.
I am rooting for the Republicans- but the Republicans in 2016, after we have purged the frauds, the crooks, the liars, the religionists, and the big-spenders. It is gonna take a while to get rid of the rot. But who knows, it may be the Republicans of 2012. After all, it only took the current GOP a few years to become completely base and corrupt- maybe the Democrats will have picked up a few of their tricks and soon enough it will be time to support throwing them out.
Dreggas
Was it not “unity” that led them to this mess? After all they kept it under the sheets so to speak until now for the sake of holding the “party” together.
Davebo
Lets see…
The Republicans shouldn’t call for a leadership shuffle until after the elections because to do so now would hurt their chances in November.
Isn’t that the reason Foley was still around in late Sept. to provide his “October Suprise”?
stickler
Whaaa?
You were reading RedState, where any deviation from wingnut fundagelical orthodoxy gets you banned in seconds. Those mouthbreathing yokels think nothing is more important than winning elections. They’re sure as hell not interested in governing, or winning wars. Apparently they’re not interested in stopping pedophiles, either.
Dreggas
DaveBo,
Exactly, there’s a saying that absolute power corrupts absolutely. We are seeing it happen again and again. I thought the point of history class was to learn from past mistakes, guess I was a delusional fool.
Oh and given what I have seen on Redstate, am more than happy to be a “foe”.
Crank
Some things are a touch more important than winning an election.
I agree, entirely. But if we are debating the timing of a leadership battle at a time when the legislative term is almost over anyway, political considerations are entirely appropriate.
I am rooting for the Republicans- but the Republicans in 2016
The amount of damage the Democrats could do with 8 years to control (1) foreign policy (2) the courts and (3) entitlement spending would take at least half a century to fix. We are still paying in so many ways for the Carter years, for example. Look, I have my grievances with the current GOP as well, but I don’t intend to fix them by supporting people who are working directly against everything I believe in.
Fed up!
As a Democrat, it would be hard for me to vote for another party even if my party was behaving badly, basically the alternative is horrible given the reasons John did in his post. Even if the Democrats do take power in Nov. and screw things up and deserve to be kicked to the road, I know what is the alternative now and there isn’t a darn thing that will make me vote for a Republican. I see RedState’s point.
Crank
after we have purged the frauds, the crooks, the liars, the religionists, and the big-spenders
Yes, a party of angels, not of men. Give me a call when you find such a party.
matt
I think my head just exploded.
John Cole
I will settle for a 50/50 split of angels/scum. Lemme know when the GOP changes from the current 10/90 balance it has now.
jg
What leadership? All any sensible person wants is the return of divided government. Not total dem control and certainly no more total republican control. Single party rule sucks ass.
LMAO.
Tim F.
You know from a political standpoint a leadership battle might be the best thing for the Republican party right now. If this scandal does the opposite of go away, does the GOP want people to see them as the party that condones the people who condone sex offenders? The message that we hold people who endanger kids accountable might be very good for them right now.
John Cole
And to be honest, there are a lot of decent men and women in the GOP- John Shadegg immediately comes to mind. But we skipped him for Boehner, and you see how that has worked out.
Pb
This is always what Red State does, and it’s all they do… anyone remember Red State during the Harriet Miers debacle? It took them a day or two to get it together, lock down on the garment rending within their ranks, and re-brainwash the masses to believe that this was all just part of President Bush’s *master plan* to sneak a *real* Conservative–incompetent or not–onto the Supreme Court. As a group or organization, I haven’t seen them ever demonstrate any moral values whatsoever that trump their partisanship. Or at least not since they purged any and all voices of reason on the site months and months ago, anyhow.
Dreggas
Crank,
I can respect that. And the fact you aren’t here slamming everyone as moon bats is refreshing (used to it with most on the “right” these days).
While I disagree we’ll be worse off with the Dems in control I do believe we are worse now than we have been in a long time.
Talking of entitlement programs heres a few of the Rights favorites:
1. Medicare prescription drug benefit – entitlement for drug makers.
2. Farm Subsidies – Entitlement programs for the midwest.
3. Faith Based Initiative – only a hairs breadth from direct violation of the seperation of church and state given that most funds go to christian only faith organizations. Entitlement for religion.
4. The republicans own sense of entitlement that their way works and they should rule as a permanent majority. They have had 6+ years to prove that, they have failed instead they have done everything ass backwards with regard to conservative principles. Their only care, winning elections.
I am not arguing for an all democratic government (IE everyone has a D next to their name). Everyone deserves equal representation and as was seen in the 90’s the government works best when it is divided between people and parties so that all interests are represented.
Davebo
Which is obvious considering the horrific period of upheaval that was 1992 – 2000.
Huge economic gains that actually “trickled down” to the lower middle and middle classes. A president who was and still is wildly popular in Europe and South America. A huge reduction in the federal deficit if not the debt itself.
Yeah, those were the dark ages indeed.
It will surely take 50 years to get beyond those dark days. But it only took about 6 years for the vast majority of Americans to yearn for those horrific days of yesteryear.
jg
Isn’t that what we were told we had been electing these last few years? People who would restore honor to the job? Has it occurred to you yet that they lied about all that crap so you’d vote them in instead of democrats so they could get rich fucking us over instead of democrats?
Divided government benefits the people. Single party rule benefits the party. Which one do you prefer?
maf54
Crank sez:
angel party sounds hott! do we wear wings? we can have it at my place in florida! bring wine coolerz.
KC
Did anyone catch Dobson’s statement? Well, if not, Sullivan has it here. F’n joke. Really, f’n joke. Someone sit here and tell me, honestly, that if the tables were turned and Hastert was Pelosi, Focus on the Family wouldn’t be calling for her head on a platter.
These people are all about power, pure and simple.
Steve
You can’t argue with these people because, as things stand, they’re arguing against nothing but a caricature of what Democratic control would look like. It’s Nancy Pelosi in a fright wig, hide the women and children.
Liberals can overreact to the GOP’s actions, no question about it, but at least they’re reacting to actual stuff that’s going on, actual laws that are passed, actual countries that are being invaded. It’s not all a figment of their imagination.
If the Democrats get power back, and they actually, in the real world as opposed to some fantasy, end up being this awful, I sure hope I have the self-control to judge them for what they are, and not sit around making up ridiculous excuses on the theory that the imaginary Republicans in my head would be so much worse.
And there is no way, simply no way, that even if the Democrats controlled every branch of government, they could ever be as extreme as the current administration. Not in the foreseeable future, in any event. It’s very hard to compete for the extremist trophy with an administration that calls up Jerry Falwell for input on Supreme Court nominations.
capelza
What does it say about the party faithful that they do indeed need to throw the bums out, but not until after the elections?
Doesn’t that send the wrong message? What exactly does it tell the voters…that we NEED these same bums to win?
monk
For too long we have seen both parties willing to do anything to get control of the peoples house. I had high hopes that the Republicans would do the morally right thing even if it meant losing in the near term. I am saddened to see that so many comments here reflect the “damn what’s right, we have to WIN” philosophy. I pray that our country can recover from the great wrong reflected in this attitude.
Dreggas
KC,
saw it on another post, doesn’t Jimmy boy know there is something in the bible about hypocrisy? I think they were called Pharasees (sp?). Of course in his eyes the Republicans in Congress are nought but holy warriors covered in the filth of, and in some cases brought down by the horrible society we live in.
Mike in SLO
Your head is in the sand. Look what your party has done to 1) foreign policy (we have none, the world hates us, Iraq is spinning out of control, Frist wants to make nice with the Taliban) 2) the courts – it used to be Republicans supported the 4th amendment and were against imminent domain, but your Republican controlled courts have gutted that. 3) Entitlement spending… three words: Medicare Part D. Out of control spending on a failed war and the biggest most ineffective department ever created in the history of this nation, the Dept. of Homeland Security. None of what your Republican leadership has done has any traditional conservative values attached to it and you want them to keep control? John is fighting to remove the RINO’s who have infiltrated your party and turned it into a Soviet model. That you can be more afraid of the Democrats, who have proven time and time again that they can never be a united party, than the current pseudo-Republican party that destroys this nation on a daily basis is beyond me I cannot for the life of me understand your thinking.
John Cole
Let’s slow down here. There has been no purge at Red State that I am aware of, and I can say, without exception, that my writing for Red State was nothing but a pleasant experience. In fact, as recently as several months ago, they asked me if I wished to continue writing for them when they were going through their site re-design. I declined, because basically, since Schiavo (my tipping point), it has become clear to me that I don’t see things the same way as most of the editors anymore.
But there was never any purge, and I like all of the people who write there- they were good to me, they were always honest with me, and they really do believe (I think) what they are writing. I just think they are really wrong on a lot of things.
In fact, I have been taking a lot of shots at them lately (in particular Erick), and even though I think I am right and they are woefully misguided, I hate writing those posts because I really do like them as people. Leon, Erick, Mike, Josh, Dan, Pejman, have all been nice to me, never tried to get rid of me, and there was never a purge that I am aware of.
I also specifically went quietly into the night rather than making a big “I am stepping down from Red State because they are all crazy” post because I did not want liberal websites using my change of opinions to attack people I like a lot and still do care about. In fact, I haven’t even tried my password lately and don’t know if I have officially stepped down- I just stopped writing there.
So let’s be clear about that. They are not bad people, they were good to me, and I don’t want people claiming otherwise or claiming there was some sort of purge.
I just think they are really, really wrong, as of late.
Pb
John Cole,
Oh but there was. I know, because I once posted there as well. Their posting policies changed, and they systematically weeded out dissent. That’s a purge.
Crank
John – Well, you and I disagree on this, but I just don’t think you will ever advance conservative principles by electing Democrats. Never gonna happen. Just to give one obvious example, the further the courts lean to the left, the fewer issues will be left for our democratically elected government to decide for itself. Now, a good many of the commenters here are just fine with harm coming to conservative principles. Me, I’m still willing to work within the only institutions we have.
Dreggas – Farm spending is welfare and I’m against it, but it’s not an entitlement in the sense that, say, Medicare is, in terms of a program that grows on autopilot without Congressional action.
I gotta run here – I’ve got my own blog to get back to – but basically I vote first and foremost on (1) national security and (2) the courts, and the gulf between the two parties on those two issues could not be more vast, and in both arenas the consequences of moving left in one election can and do take decades to undo. Justice Kennedy is the consequence of the Democrats winning in 1986. The abandonment of Southeast Asia and the current budgetary system are the consequences of the 1974 midterms. Elections have consequences far beyond a particular pork-barrel bill or the latest revelation that there is – as there has been for centuries – corruption in politics.
John Cole
Until recently, I was privvy to editor chat and on the listserv and saw no such mention of an ideological purge. It must have been done in the past few weeks, because otherwise, you wewre just banned for violating their posting standards ( foul language or something or other).
matt
One of the things that makes this argument particularly ridiculous is that the Democrats actually have some really good people running for office this cycle, folks like Jon Tester, Tammy Duckworth, Patrick Murphy, just to name a few. So it’s not even like dems are running a bunch of Dennis Kucinich types.
The idea that the Democrats could be worst falls on its face by itself, but when you look at actual people involved, it becomes completely absurd.
For the first time in years, decades! people are going to be able to vote without having to hold their noses.
Andrew
Give me a break Cole, unless their “standards” are “agree with us or you get deleted and/or banned,” they’ve been purging dissent for as long as I can remember.
Pb
John Cole,
No, like I said, it was months and months ago. If you want to check for yourself, look for a ‘pb’ account, if it’s even still there.
Nope. I was banned (or technically my ability to post comments, diaries, etc., was removed), but not for violating their posting standards, because I didn’t. I also wasn’t warned or contacted about it, either. They weren’t following their stated policies at the time. I have no reason to trust them because I know from personal experience that they aren’t honest, period.
Tsulagi
Well, now there is an inspiring call to arms. Cover your ears, put on your blinders, and keep your eyes focused on the Republican ass in front of you. March!
Even though this president and the entire Republican congress has proven, and happily continues to prove, they’re completely against small government, intrusive government, fiscal responsibility, INTELLIGENT national security, etc., vote for those guys because they tell us they have the cool label. That’s not being a conservative, that’s being a retardocon.
Democrats infuriate me. It’s like herding cats. Maybe why I have a dog. But AT LEAST they’re not sheep focused on the (Republican) ass in front of them following one stupid fucker off the edge of a cliff. Even a cat has more sense than that.
Davebo
No, it’s not an entitlement in the sense that, say, Medicar is.
I don’t recall my farmer friends paying 1.45% of their gross earnings with no cap, for the life of the wage earner, to help fund farm subsidies.
A truly bad analogy there you must say.
Tax Analyst
John Cole, they may be your friends, and I can respect that, but they seem to view the world through a thoroughly hideous and sick prism. If they really are decent people…well, then it’s just freaking sad. Beyond that your paragraph detailing some of the vast litany of Republican failures, transgressions, abuses, contradictions, abdications, and flat-out phony-assed lies and whatever else you want to call them pretty much tells the story. Reminds me of those old “history of the world in 60 seconds(I think it was a minute)” video montages that used to be on “The Smother’s Brother’s” TV show way back in…can’t remember if it was in the late 60’s or early 70’s – somewhere back in that time frame. Well, it reminds me of it EXCEPT that this “Republican Failure Montage” is so very and terribly tragic. Ir would make a very powerful visual display, though, in that fast-paced video format.
Davebo
PB,
The same happened to me over a year ago. And again, with no policy violations, warnings, or explanations. After 3 emails asking I gave up.
It’s their echo chamber, they can have it.
Steve
Grow up. Even Robert McNamara knew the Vietnam War was a lost cause way back in the 60s. Yeah, there was a time when men of good faith believed that we simply had to win in Vietnam or Communism would overtake the globe. Thirty years later, can you just acknowledge that Communism lost after all, and that we didn’t have to continue throwing away an entire generation by making Vietnam our last stand?
Yes, yes, the Democrats will abandon Iraq, and the Islamofascists will rule over us with an iron fist just like the Communists were supposed to. Enough hysteria, please. Everyone else already gets that Iraq was a stupid idea and that the sooner we get back to actually fighting the bad guys, the sooner we’ll beat them. We’re all stubborn, but Iraq is not the hill you need to die on.
Like, for example, eminent domain. Oh wait, the liberal courts actually left that one up to our democratically elected government, didn’t they? Yeah, God forbid the courts stop the government from interfering in your personal life, but if the government tries to interfere with your property rights, oh please, why won’t the courts save us?!?
But yeah, judges are a base-motivating issue, as you demonstrate. Keep turning out at the polls, because no matter how corrupt and worthless the Republicans are, unthinkable horrors will ensue if you let the Democrats win. Why, we’re all out here licking our chops at the prospect of Justice Chomsky. Really. You’re not being played for a fool by a bunch of greedy powerbrokers who know the code words to push your buttons, or anything like that. The Democrats are pure evil and must be stopped at any cost.
Pb
Davebo,
Yep. And it could very well have been over a year ago, hard to say now, especially without an account there.
capelza
Crank..I can’t help myself. The abandonment of SE Asia was because the American people were thoroughly sick of the whole thing, right or wrong. You can technically lay it the feet of the 74 midterms, but I can tell you..the Congress was doing what the American people wanted.
I don’t know how old you are, but I was there. Nixon was elected in ’68 with a slogan of “Peace with honor”. Yet it dragged out for another 4 bloody years. Don’t blame the Deomocrats exclusively..or try to rewrite what happened to fit a contemporary viewpoint. Thanks.
SeesThroughIt
Thank you. This cannot be stated often or forcefully enough.
Matt
There may not have been a purge at RS, but there’s always been the absurd moderation. On any given front-page article, you can be assured that at least 1/4 of the comments are from mods threatening (in the snarkiest, most condescending manner possible, no less) banishment for, well, pretty much anything. You appreciate that they’ve been nice to you, okay, but if you commented there–even in a good-faith effort at discussion–with what you post here, you wouldn’t last a day.
Pb
Matt,
FYI: There was a time when they were more tolerant, and they essentially made a conscious decision to become less tolerant.
Steve
Uh, the tolerant time, if it existed, was a long long time ago. If anything, judging by the comments, they’re MORE tolerant today than they were a year ago. I think it’s because they have like eight guys left.
stickler
As someone else who was banned from RedState, let me share in the festival of WTF when John says
They freely violate their own rules, ban anything smacking of dissent (“Blam!”), and then brag about their ideological purity. RedState is run by a bunch of fascists who worship Big Government and a disastrous foreign policy. Full stop.
If you’re friends with those idiots, then let me suggest that you have questionable taste in friends.
Tax Analyst
not that it much matters, but the montage I referred to was actually “History of America in 60 seconds” I believe. That’s what happens when you get too damned old.
matt
I know politics is subjective and everything and it’s impossible to say definitively that someone is being dishonest, but I’m going to harp on this anyway. How can an informed person look at Conrad Burns and Jon Tester, side by side, and honestly say, “yeah, I’m pulling for Burns there, I think it’s better for the country”.
I just don’t get that.
Pb
Steve,
Yeah, it was. And like I said… they were ‘more tolerant’ back then. But then they realized that liberals = teh devil or something and beat back the invaders.
Pb
matt,
Nope, it’s actually very simple. When you say one thing and do another, when you break your word, then you are being dishonest.
matt
If people lived their lives like that, a lot of us would have to sever several friendships and even disown some family members. I don’t really think it’s fair to judge someone’s character based on their politics. It might seem dishonest and absurd to us, but if they really believe it, what can you do?
Thomas
Pb:
I thought I remembered you. I was wondering how you got this:
…while actually reading our front page. I mean, golly, I guess you didn’t see this days after everything broke, or pretty much every front page by Leon, or…
But then I kept reading, and I found the problem! You’re still smarting over your banning! With the switchover, I don’t know who killed you or why, but you’ve apparently erected your own narrative, so have fun with that.
John: While we disagree rather strongly — not least because if we eliminate everyone you dislike from the party, we’ll have that pure 10% of the country nailed down, and that’s it — but I appreciate the honesty throughout.
Otherwise, in the interest of minimizing the trolling, I echo Crank.
Jon H
Crank writes: “John, nobodt at RedState is saying we shouldn’t throw the leadership overboard after the election. The question at hand is whether this is the time for a leadership fight, and the point – a well-taken one – is that anybody who wants the GOP to win in November is a fool if they think such a fight will accomplish anything right now.”
You think the problem is just with the leadership?
Au contraire, my friend, the rot runs deep.
Pb
matt,
Tell it to them. And incidentally, that’s where I draw the line as well. Those who believe their ridiculous caricatures and stereotypes about liberals–and many of them do–are nothing more than idiotic bigots trapped in a sick little fantasy bubble of their own manufacture.
Kimmitt
“Questionable taste in friends” isn’t precisely an aspersion on someone’s character, more of a note regarding the persons with whom they keep company. This isn’t HUAC here.
Steve
You guys have this real teenage power-trip fascination with the banning ability, complete with an unshakeable belief that the banned people are really, really steamed up about it afterwards.
People make cracks about the banning practices at RS, not because they are jealous or resentful, but because those practices are genuinely laughable.
Pb
Heh. Yep, apparently it was over a year ago. And note, that comment is in the diary of a person who got banned from RedState (over Katrina, apparently), and in reply to *another* person who got banned from RedState (“for daring to suggest the universe was more than ten-thousand years old”?!). Go figure.
matt
Yeah, we’re basically on the same page there, and maybe I’m splitting hairs, but I don’t believe the above makes you a “bad person”, it just makes you…an idiot trapped in a fantasy bubble.
Pb
Oh wow, hey, Thomas, I didn’t even see you there. Actually, I’m still appalled by the blatant dishonesty that is enforced and required over there. And in that respect, my personal brush with it is just the tip of the iceberg. But I’m also saddened at the promise of what RedState could have become, but didn’t. When faced with the prospect of open and honest dialogue and discussion, instead of embracing it, your site chose to retreat and close ranks, acting like you were trapped in a castle under siege on all sides. In many ways it’s a reflection of what your party has become, but that’s not just your loss, in fact we are all poorer because of it.
Andrew
Thomas, you’re so brave to post an online rant saying how cranky you were about Miers. Geez, what cajones!
Red State is a little right wing glee club that is just as bad as Democratic Underground. There’s no reasonable discussion at either place. They’re both full of cowards who do’t brook any dissent.
Blue Neponset
I think the gang at Redstate will overlook quite a bit as long as they keep getting their Judges confirmed. If you look back over the Dubya years, conservative judges are really all he has delivered to his supposed conservative base. You might also noticed that the only time the base got in Bush’s face about anything was when he nominated Miers to the SC.
HyperIon
no one has noticed this yet?
Krista
Wow…for a fellow named “Crank”, he’s incredibly polite, isn’t he? I think that was one of the most interesting, refreshing disagreements I’ve seen on here since I arrived.
scarshapedstar
Shorter, shorter Red State:
“HOMO NUPS?!”
cd6
You think the Dems would be better? Ha. You show me a list of everything the GOP “screwed up” and I’ll show you how the Dems would have made it even worse, thankfully our heroic and many leader Bush and his buddies are in charge.
First column: GOP events. Second column: How the Dems would have been worse
DeLay -> Barney Frank is gay
Abramoff -> Michael Moore is fat
the Iraq crisis -> cut and run
the budget explosion -> If we wouldn’t have lied our way into this war, we wouldn’t have all the terrorists distracted by trying to kill our troops. What was your plan, Dems? Ha.
Randall Cunningham -> Ted Kennedy killed somebody
Foley and his complicit crew -> Again, I go back to Barney Frank being gay. He probably would have let some gay protitute with no press credentials into White House press briefings or something
the injection of religion in all things science -> hey that’s how Jesus wanted it, and Dems wouldn’t have listened
the wholesale endorsement of torture -> Stop living in the past. We’ve turned the corner on human decency. This issue is totally win win for the right.
the Prescription Drug Plan -> Dems would be force feeding birth control pills to 5 year olds and we all know it
the looming crisis in Afghanistan -> wait, where?
the breakdown of the military -> You say ‘breakdown’ but I say, all the homos are gone, even the ones that speak Arabic, so mission accomplished
domestic surveillance -> Johny Q Terrorist would be free to call up his buddy Freddy P Jihad to plot killing all our adorable school children. But with warrantless wiretapping, no one will ever be killed again
the abuses of Abu Ghraib -> just a few bad apples
and the mess that is Gitmo -> uhh that was more bad apples. goddamn all these apples
our completely collapsed international standing -> John Kerry would have made out with everyone in France on national TV
the passage of Campaign Finance Reform -> actually this would probably still be there
numerous attempts to codify gay-bashing in the Constitution -> Dems want to put mandatory homosexuality into the Constitution
the hideous Bankruptcy Bill -> Dems would have done something that made sense and we all know poor people don’t deserve dignity
the Schiavo nonsense -> unfortunately dems murdered her just like teh wanted, otherwise she’d be off jumping rope or reading a danielle steele novel right now
the total abdication of administration oversight -> dems would bog us down with “responsibility” and “accountability” and other marxist nonsense that doesn’t work in the real world
and the hundreds of other things I can’t remember off the top of my head -> omg what a strawman this is. those weren’t all real, they were photoshopped creations of the MSM.
moral of the story: you don’t have the balls that they do at redstate to defend america from godless sodomites like barney frank and the whole balloon juice commentariat
cleek
RedState’s posting rules used to say that you could be banned for not contributing to the goal of getting conservatives elected.
t. jasper parnell
You know, and I mean this nicely, Mr. Cole routinely defends his pals because they are nice, which is nice, but the fact is that those who continue to support this corrupt and criminal cabal, nice though they might be, are not just wrong they are destroying this country. Not because Foley had a tough time keeping it (verbally) in his pants, not just because the War goes bady, not just because the budget is a mess; not just because they have granted the president extraordinary powers but because they do not see that they have become the thing they hate. What or who was Carter? A deeply religious vaguely successful southern govenor. His desier, ultimately, was the moral reawakening of the American people. What did we get? A man incapable of dealing with the larger forces always at play in real life. It is one thing to condemn a moral malaise it is quite another to craft a budget that calms the money and ultimately serves the people. Clinton may have had no morals, or in any event no ability to follow them, he may have been a man who never met a compromise he didn’t like; he did, however, leave the Republic wealthier than he found it and as secure as it could have been. Nice guys can, pardon the expression, go screw. Give me pragmatists, whosoever bad their tast in 22 yr olds might be.
DaveMon
All those hot, virgin teen boy asses won’t mean a thing if you’re dead
Fledermaus
That whole comment was brillant but this one deserves repeating:
Jon H
I think Bush could go on TV and reveal that he knew about 9/11 beforehand and allowed it to happen, that he intentionally set up the military to beat itself to shreds in Iraq without being able to win, has been in cahoots with North Korea to help them go nuclear, and has also been transferring money from the Army’s force protection budget into a personal swiss bank account, and Red State would be saying “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT! Now is not the time to surrender! We Must Support The GOP!”
Jess
Oooh, I pick this one for my mega-favorite!
Dustbin Of History
The Dukestir’s working on his passing game for when he gets out of the slammer? I hear Tampa Bay’s looking for veteran help.
The Other Steve
Ohhh… projection.
You’ve got that pure 10% nailed down. The rest of us 90% think you’re all a bunch of fruitcakes who can’t find their own ass.
craigie
I don’t think this. I know it absolutely. And not just Red State, but all the Red Staters they represent.
Vaughn D. Taylor
“If the Democrats get power back, and they actually, in the real world as opposed to some fantasy, end up being this awful, I sure hope I have the self-control to judge them for what they are, and not sit around making up ridiculous excuses on the theory that the imaginary Republicans in my head would be so much worse.”
I will join you judging the Dems, and I’m a Dem. However, it’s going to be a difficult 2 years with a Democratically controlled congress and Bush in office, so I hope they are capable of living up to their promises. It’s going to be a non-stop head butt fest.
In the history of everybody on this site (most likely), there has never been a government as corrupt as this current one. Both Republicans and Democrats have made plenty of mistakes in the past 40 years or so, plenty — but nothing compares to what we have witnessed in the past 6.
To be fair, there still are good congress people on both sides. But, single party rule has brought out the WORST in both parties making it impossible for anybody to shine. If there was ever a doubt as to how destructive single party rule can be, there should no longer be now.
Catsy
I think this just about precisely captures my disappointment in Redstate. I used to be an avid participant on Tacitus, and when Tac first posted about the idea of a conservative counterpart to Daily Kos, my first thought was, “sign me up!” Someplace to actually go and discuss issues with conservatives, where civility and productive dialogue would be enforced–how can you lose?
Apparently, by turning the site into a propaganda arm of the GOP, dedicated to consolidating Republican party power–the elephant over the Stars and Stripes, just like the GOP itself. At this point I’ve pretty much given up on political dialogue with anyone who still supports today’s Republican party–they’re either uninformed or actively malignant in the sense of being able to overlook too much that is genuinely anathema to all that’s good about this country, for the sake of keeping their party in control.
Redstate consists, from what I’ve seen of about 40% dedicated kool-aid drinkers who are just there to throw slurs and dittos, 50% actual thinking conservatives with varying degrees of disagreement with the GOP, a 5% rotating population of liberals, and 5% horrifying little monsters like Tbone, whose eliminationist fantasies and rhetoric are easily as vile and dangerous as your average Hizbullah cheerleader.
The “posting rules” at Redstate are simply a joke. Full stop. Moderators and conservative regulars get a free pass 99% of the time for tossing off some of the snidest, nastiest one-liners on the internets towards anyone advancing an argument that a liberal or Democrat has used–regardless of the veracity of their argument.
I will give them one thing, though–they’ve come up with a remarkably effective mechanism for “refuting” completely factual liberal arguments while avoiding the cognitive dissonance that usually results when honest people deceive themselves. The people at Redstate have invented the “KnownFact(tm)”. By taking an accurate description of what the argument is–a “known fact”–and rendering it childishly thus, this cutesy CamelCase neologism allows them to completely dismiss an argument without exposing themselves to the danger of thinking about it too much. It’s been so successful that they’ve branched out with it into terms like
“BushLied(tm)”–again, by taking a factual statement and imbuing it with silliness and contempt, they manage to avoid the necessity of confronting the truth by embracing the term and turning it into a label useful to them. It’s really a brilliant piece of anti-intellectual Orwellian wordcraft.
Pb
Catsy,
Exactly, and bravo, you’ve summed it all up and then some. You seriously should stick that up as a blog post somewhere, where a few more people besides just you and me will read it. :)
I never really got into Tacitus, but I’m a big fan of Scoop/Slash sites in general. I actually was at Slashdot in the beginning, and then went from there to Kuro5hin and finally to Daily Kos, so I’ve closely watched both the communities and the software rise and fall and change and evolve.
Generally the evolution has been that you start out with an interesting site, you acquire an active userbase, and then you go through cycles of explosive growth and assimilation, which can quite often change the culture and character of the site, not to mention the usual technical scaling difficulties and frustration. If these difficulties cannot be overcome, or if the dictator(s) at the top cease(s) to be benevolent, then you end up with a period of decay and stagnation, and lose much of the original userbase that made the site what it was in the first place. That’s more or less what happened to Slashdot IMO, and why Scoop was written and Kuro5hin was founded, and also it’s more or less what happened to Kuro5hin as well.
However, Daily Kos is still growing, the culture has changed somewhat–but not as much as you might think–and the dictators are still more or less benevolent, and the site has been scaling to keep up with the growth. But Red State’s life-cycle was nasty, brutish, and short. My hopes for it were the same as yours: for “a conservative counterpart to Daily Kos”. I looked at it as a sister site, but I think they looked at us as more of an invading horde, so that was the end of that, and they essentially went straight from growth to stagnation by fiat, because that is what they and their dictators wanted to do, more or less. Of course, Tacitus himself is no longer among them.
As for your percentages, I think it’d also be interesting to see how those categories corellate to seniority and status, if at all. For instance, I’ve always been appalled by ‘hunter’–everything I’ve ever seen from him has been so consistently hyper-partisan and venomous as to be essentially past the realm of caricature. And naturally he’s a regular, and a well-respected member of the community…
And I agree with your other points. Their KnownFact(TM) in particular might as well be a badge of honor as far as I’m concerned. However, before they invented it as a handy heuristic for discarding arguments, they didn’t actually behave that much differently, it just sped up the process. I’d cite an old discussion to support that point, but it’s somewhat hard to follow without nesting!
Faux News
Which is obvious considering the horrific period of upheaval that was 1992 – 2000.
Agreed. That whole “Peace and Prosperity” thing under Clinton was WAY over rated.
Faux News
THE best post ever about Red State! Catsy, you hit it right on the head. Too bad we can’t post it on Red State. They would just shout “Whale” (Troll) and ban the poster.
sammy
Randall Cunningham?
Look, I don’t think he lived up to his potential in the NFL either, but even I’m not sure that can be pinned on the GOP. If you’d said McNabb, now…
(Okay, I’m new here. Assuming this joke has been made plenty of times before. Sorry.)
Lee
This point is long past but I wanted to make it about Crank’s post.
The Republicans can no longer say they are strong on National Security with a straight face. From cutting funding to our active troops to cutting funding to the VA, Republicans have lost whatever high ground they once had on this issue. That the Republicans can only parrot the ‘stay the course’ line with our current catastrofuck in Iraq demonstrates their absolute abdication of any true concern over national security other than how it pertains to getting reelected.
If them Dems had enough balls they would call them on it.
Gadman
Mr. Cole – Will all due respect, you’re full of shit. I love your site, and the debate that takes place here…
…But I was GADMAN on Redstate. Look at the I was banned without warning. They even did an entire front page post about it.
http://www.redstate.com/story/2005/5/6/145831/0922
You can tell a lot about people by who thier friends are, and if you call those fucking assholes friends of yours, it doesn’t speak well of you.
tBone
Once again I feel complelled to point out that that’s Tbone with a capital T. I seriously have to think about changing my username.
For the record, my fantasies and rhetoric do not involve elimationism or Hizbullah, but there may be a cheerleader or two in there.