Nope, none at all. Just ignore the horde of Robertsonites who control major portions of the federal government.
It’s fairly obvious that each Republican faction cannot possibly control the party at once. Moderate Republicans want lower taxes and government out of their lives, the religious right damn well wants feds in your bedroom and up your skirt. The worldview of Buchananites and the neocons more or less exclude one another. If the party wants to keep its coalition and wield power at the same time, somebody has to be the chump. At first reasonable Republicans thought that the Falwell faction were the chumps. Sadly recent events (think Schiavo, or the story linked above) prove that they’re just crappy poker players.
No offense to John, who at least knows when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em.
Zifnab
And he knows when to walk away.
And know when to run.
He never counts his money when he’s sittin’ at the table.
There’ll be time enough for countin’ when the dealin’ is done.
Kenny Rogers (The Really Old One)
… ’cause he’s the coward of the county…
Whoops, sorry folks, I sometimes get my songs mixed up.
Rome Again
Robertsonites would say you got that song wrong Zif, it goes like this:
“And he walks with me
and he talks with me
and he tells me that I am his own…”
stevesh
Still a drop in the bucket in comparison to Critical Legal Studies.
See this article for an overview and a great pun, which no-doubt you will enjoy, or not; at the end:
http://volokh.com/posts/1173846427.shtml
Blue Neponset
I expect Robertson’s clone army will destroy all the Jedi when they think the time is right.
ThymeZone
A two party system relies on coalitions in order to function.
Dems took all the smart people, so it’s tough when you have to build a coalition of people who think the Earth is 6000 years old, and flag burning and Defense of Marriage are the most important things government should be working on.
So 2008 is coming. I’m thinking, 70 Senate seats and 250 or more House seats.
I’m thinking we might be looking at 40 years of Dem majority on Capitol Hill.
Serves the stupid GOP motherfuckers right. What did they THINK would happen when they sold out to the lunatics and let their party declare war on their own fucking country?
Rome Again
Haven’t you heard? Jedi is supposed to be short for Jesus Disciple.
Rome Again
Good question. Why has nobody asked this before?
Krista
Let’s just hope that John hasn’t had the same horrendous facelift as Kenny Rogers.
Chad N. Freude
This is a lot more threatening than the satirical gibes here and elsewhere acknowledge. Torquemada Robertson instituted a law school for the express purpose of infiltration of the government by the Christian Taliban, and his plan appears to have had considerable success. While we’re fighting the exploding Muslims over there, good Christian public servants trained by that would-be assassin of foreign heads of government Robertson are taking control over here. These people are neither liberal nor conservative, they are religio-fascists, and their power has been increasing for the last six years. We can only hope (pray?) that the current DOJ mess forces them out of government and back to their rapturous enclaves of strict revealed “morality”.
Chad N. Freude
A thousand-year Reich.
ThymeZone
And all they got was a 1000-day clusterfuck.
Hyperion
Southern Baptist alert..does any other denom sing that one?
Zifnab
You’re asking the 6000-year-old-earth, everything-is-going-swell-in-Iraq, torture-is-in-the-Constitution wing of the Republican party what they THINK? You need ask them what they FEEL. And they feel God’s Love will guide them to a safe, harmoneous, rich, white world hegemony where hurricanes only strike the non-believers and Jesus passes out tasty marshmallow peeps to the faithful as we’re all carried up in warm glowing beams of light.
jenniebee
Guys, calm the fuck down and get some perspective. This is only one administration. For that matter, it’s only one nation. The Enlightenment marches on. We are seeing at present the climax of a tale told by a fundamentalist dumbass: full of sound and fury and signifying self-detonation. Wake up, smell the coffee and realize that culturally, the left is winning and winning big, and it has been doing so for a long, long time.
We’ve moved the center on racism, sexism and homophobia our way. The idea that ideas about man’s relationship to God are properly limited to the study of theology and should not permeate all other intellectual disciplines is so completely entrenched in the public psyche that when evangelicals suggest otherwise it sounds novel. Evolution is only contested by the deeply corrupt or the deeply religious. As a matter of fact, the narrative of scientific consensus being challenged by a small contingent of well-paid skeptics is becoming so familiar it’s forming its own meme. For all our “under siege” mentality, we are the narrators of contemporary reality.
So it’s great that stuff like this is breaking. The whole foundation of financial and small-government voter support for the Republican party since the mid-seventies was that the religious folks were just a pack of useful idiots who wouldn’t actually get anything that wasn’t already on the government shrinking agenda. They knew that the idiots were revolting but never thought they would rise up. Now they have, and a new revolution in public thought, one in which the center reverses its short-term deviation and resumes its long-term trend, is about to begin. Sit back, pop some corn, and enjoy the ride, peeps.
Chad N. Freude
Fixed.
Nikki
We 7th-day Adventists sing it. At least in the south (NC), we do.
Chad N. Freude
jenniebee makes the optimists’ argument. I’m a pessimist. I can only hope she’s right.
Nikki
Question:
Josh Marshall says that since the hiring rules at DOJ have been changed to allow political appointees to recommend hires, thus allowing the politicization of the civil rights division, we are henceforth screwed. But I was thinking…wouldn’t those same rules allow new political appointees to essentially dump the current “fanatics” and bring in the right guys for the job?
Rome Again
It sounds vaguely familiar to what George Bush sings in the shower, I’m thinking. I think he sings it in the Oval Office too.
Chad N. Freude
I realize that this is a serious discussion, but I can’t resist saying perhaps the non-believers should move to Hartford, Hereford, and Hampshire. (Dives under desk.)
Rome Again
This non-believer’s grandfather ws born in Hampshire, and he got moved as an indentured child-servant to Canada. It’s not MY fault I’m here, it was the poor workhouse environment of London in the 1800’s.
stickler
no 100-year Reich?
Curiously enough, that’s what the Germans experienced the last time around, more or less. Lots of promises of eternal victory, lots of calls to Willpower over reality, and then a spectacular flame-out.
If Bush invades Russia without providing winter uniforms for the troops, then the circle will be complete.
Chad N. Freude
Rome –
That was a jokey reference to the song in “My Fair Lady” where Liza Doolittle practices pronouncing the letter H:
“In Hartford, Hereford, and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly happen.”
It certainly wasn’t a reflection on Hereford or a trivialization of the Dickensian practice you mention.
Chad N. Freude
Corrected.
The parallels between the Bush regime and the rise of the 20th-century fascists are too obvious to ignore. I’ve always preferred to compare Bush with Mussolini, even though he hasn’t made the trains run on time.
LLeo
This is the reason I call myself a liberal. I don’t truck with Socialism or P.C., but I deeply believe in liberty and in a limited amount of government sponsered support for the disenfrachised.
My personal motto is “Liberals always win in the end, conservatives always loose.”
The problem is that I believe we need conservatives. I belabor the fact that the Republican Party is imploding. We need Barry Goldwater. We need someone to say “Whoa there nelly, lets consider the uninteded consequences.” Liberal instincts when run amok veer off into the crazyland of Utopia. There will never be a Utopia. Government to large is a threat to the people, to liberty.
Us Liberals are going to have to be our own Conservative voice for a while. If our President had been a real conservative he would have cared about competence and pondered the unintended consequences of his adventure into Iraq.
Right now, and for the next few years, we are going to have to play the conservative’s role. Because the Republican Party is the Party of Authoritarianism and brown shirt Religiousity. I am not certain the Republican Party may ever pull out of this Death Spiral.
Governing is going to be up to the Democrats alone for at least the next 10 years. We have to remember that single party rule is always a bad thing. We Liberals are going to have to be on guard against our own worst instincts, because no one is going to be there with a thinking brain to say “Whoa hold on there nelly!”.
Pb
Ok, let’s get some perspective: this is only one administration with their finger on the button It’s only one nation with 10,000 nuclear weapons.
Wow, I feel better already–I’m glad we had this little talk.
Rome Again
Yes, I know, I’ve only seen that movie about 25 times.
Chad, loosen up man, you really need to stop worrying about whether people get your jokes. You look smarter not clarifying anything at all.
Rome Again
I gotta tell ya Pb, I’m back you on this one.
Chad N. Freude
I couldn’t tell from your post whether you were offended, and I rushed to reassure. I worry about stuff like that except where Darrell is concerned.
Chad N. Freude
Addendum: I do swear or affirm that I will not to try to explain any jokes or snarky references ever again.
Rome Again
Why should you care if I’m offended? Are you here to care about me? NOT REALLY!
I have people to care about me, thank you. Show me some style. Isn’t your name Chad N. Freude? Come on, play the part, man!
Chad N. Freude
OK, You’re ugly and your mother dresses you funny.
And for good measure — Neener, neener!
Rome Again
OK, You’re ugly and your mother dresses you funny.
And for good measure—Neener, neener!
Yup, I truly have believed I’m ugly and my mother ABSOLUTEY DID dress me funny as a child (polyester pantsuits) You’re ABSOLUTELY RIGHT, and you know what? THAT was fuckin’ funny!
Rome Again
and I can’t blockquote LOL
Chad N. Freude
It takes years of practice, privation, and suffering to master.
les
The problem is, Dems and liberals aren’t as good at blatantly cheating for partisan gain; they tend to respect the rules that provided a largely professional, non-political government function. The task of sorting out the republimoles won’t be easy; and the next admin will be (rightly) criticized if it tries to continue the job of turning the entire gov’t into political spoils. Cleaning up this aspect of the bushfucking will not be easy.
dlw32
My dyslexia choked on this; first time through I read this as “does any other demon sing that one?” It’s funnier my way though…
Re: jenniebee’s “it’s only one administration… one nation… the Enlightenment moves on.” Yeah, okay, but I still feel I the need to scream in frustration a bit when it’s my nation that’s done the “Mother may I take 4 Giant steps backwards?”
Rome Again
Well, darn, I just don’t have the energy to commit to such an endeavor. I’ve got something really big on my plate now, and I cant’ make the room for anything else, sorry. I guess I’ll never get the hang of it. My loss.
Rome Again
What’s really funny is that God agrees with you, and says so in the Old Testament.
Larry
Proving that sensitivity training really can pay off.
craigie
Now that’s funny. Even though – or maybe because – it seems so completely possible.