Mark Levin makes a courageous break from the President:
take from Mark Steyn and Jonah Goldberg’s comments that conservatives have been tolerant of President Bush for a long time, given his embrace of big-government from the start. And they have. But I don’t think the issue is that conservatives are generally surprised that the president is a big-government Republican. I just think they’ve had enough of it. In return for their support, the GOP no longer controls Congress and is adrift.
***However, many conservatives believe an intervention is necessary now or in 2008 the Democrats may well retain Congress and pick up the presidency. President Bush is the leader of the party, in charge of the RNC, and for the most part sets the national agenda. And apart from the war (although there’s a growing voice of dissent in that regard) much of the national agenda is seen as misplaced (amnesty) and reactive (global warming).
A real profile in courage- waiting until Bush is at 26% with a few months left in his election to call him out. Bravo, Mark. I am not sure what is more depressing, the fact that it took these “intellectuals” until now to realize what a failure this administration has been, or that what really appears to be motivating him is the possibility of a Democratic President in 2008. I guess I shouldn’t be too smug- it took me until 2004-2005 to realize the smelly dirty hippies were right all along.
Much more here.
dslak
That’s Mark Levin, not Mark Steyn. But he does mention Steyn. That’s probably the source of the mix-up.
Rome Again
I fear they would have been perfectly happy with this president’s policies so long as they weren’t facing a fairly predictable defeat in 2008. I think you are absolutely correct to question this.
DougJ
I have to quibble a little bit here. Although he leaves it til the end, the “amnesty” issue is huge for these nuts. Let’s remember: the contemporary national Republican party was built on opposition to civil rights for African-Americans. That means that a large portion of the most xenophobic, anti-immigrant voters support Republicans.
Without that bloc, there is no Republicans majority. And it’s not just southerners either — ethnic working class voters in the northeast (like my Irish-American uncles) are extremely anti-immigrant as well. They’re also poster boys for people who need help from the government at times (unemployment benefits, etc.) but hate “liberals.” Much of this is based on racism, whether they’d admit it or not.
Jake
Tolerant? Hmm. Let’s check the old Oxford Desk Dictionary & Thesaurus.
1. Disposed to tolerate; 2. Enduring or patient.
Tolerate: 1. Allow the existence or occurence of without interference. 2. Endure (suffering, etc) 3. Be able to take (a drug, radiation, etc) without harm.
Call me a word nerd but I don’t think non-stop cheerleading, daily fluffer sessions and savage attacks against those who disagree fits the definition of “Tolerant.”
Fixed. Steyn is a pathetic little fink who desperately wants to be cool. He’s ditching his geek friend after the popular kids laugh at him a few too many times. Courage indeed.
demimondian
From TFA:
Oh, yeah, Mark, you’re so brave — you can still call Democrats traitors using nice words.
Thousands of dead American soldiers and Marines, tens of thousands of wounded troops, Iraq turned into a breeding and staging ground for terrorists, and every bit of America’s prestige thrown away, and the Democrats are “extreme and dangerous”?
Andrew
Mark Steyn doesn’t have time to break with Bush. The Islamists are out reproducing the Europeans, after all, and there are movie reviews to be written.
Zombie Santa Claus
Reagan Democrats. School busing was a big issue for people like this, too. Keep my kids away from the black/brown/yellow people!
This is why the GOP will probably strengthen its hold in places like Ohio along with the Deep South. However, it will continue to lose support in places like the Rockies and the Upper South, and faces the very real possibility of losing Texas as well. The shift in political strength will probably end up slightly in the Democrats’ favor. More importantly in the short term, anyone who votes for a Republican in 2008 is patently insane.
(I know the polls show Giuliani in a theoretical dead heat in a theoretical match-up with Hillary, but if Giuliani actually won the nomination I’m pretty sure any Democratic candidate, even Hillary, could thrash him quite soundly. They haven’t yet begun to scratch the surface of the dirt on that guy. The ferret-hating police-sodomizer-torture-supporter who thought it’d be a good idea to put NYC’s emergency center underneath the #1 terror target in NYC. His aides are all corrupt mobsters, and his mistresses and social liberalism would make sure that the most extreme elements of his party’s base would turn out in droves to vote for a third party candidacy by Tom Tancredo.)
Zombie Santa Claus
Rats fleeing a sinking ship. They think this makes them brave.
Jake
‘Tis true demimondian! The Democratic Party is so extreme and dangerous that putting too many leaders in one spot can cause earthquakes!
Unless that was God’s Wrath at the civil unions bill? Hard to tell what causes these things, but you can be sure some sort of Unwashed Librul Democratic hijinks are involved.
spoosmith
Glenn Greenwald has a great article up on this very issue. He does a great job of pointing out the absolute hypocrisy of the “conservative” backlash against “he once was our hero, but not at 28%” crowd.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
Sorry for the archaic link, but I’m embarrassed to admint that
1) I can’t figure out how to embed the links
2) I can’t figure out how to embed quotes
So sorry for the crappy formatting.
Tim F.
It’s easy to make alternative A look ridiculously, prohibitively expensive when you hand-wave the costs of alternative B.
The Other Steve
Thank God, Bush restored Dignity and Honor to the Whitehouse!
Wilfred
Yeah, but don’t forget Bush’s ace in the hole: Attack Iran. A nice Fox News cum shot of wogs bursting in air will go a long way to soothing any hurt feelings. It’s an easy political calculus where the number of dead brown people is a function of how many illegal immigrants are let into the country.
HyperIon
I found this at WaPo in the comments on Will’s latest column. The problem is the strategy they used to get there. Well, yeah.
Tsulagi
That would be it.
It’s pathetic to watch these conservatives now whine they’ve been victimized. The ‘deep thinkers’ who after the midterms have now come to the realization that it’s HIS fault.
Not shared by a Republican controlled Congress that rubberstamped virtually everything a retarded spoiled brat would demand. Not by the ‘fiscal adults’ who over six years put the country well over $2T in debt while engaging in a gold rush mentality to get theirs first when not getting it for their big campaign contributors. Oh, and certainly not by the deep thinkers during six years whose abilities to clap louder while their asses levitated up for Bush and their men in office like DeLay.
Nope, not that at all. The Pub intellectual warriors were at worst naive innocents. At most their responsibility maxes out at possibly some gullibility in trusting Bush to the extent they did. Their hearts were too pure. Yes, the Sisters of Perpetual Victimhood have decided: it’s Bush’s fault. They man-up like that.
Rome Again
On Earthquakes:
Uh… how about the gradual movement of plate tectonics? Just an idea. ;)
DougJ
True conservatives favor the idea of intelligent shaking. Remember: plate tectonics is just a theory.
Bubblegum Tate
Plate tectonics? That’s God-hating mumbo-jumbo invented by Darwinists in order to re-murder Jesus! The real cause is Intelligent Ground-shaking.
Bubblegum Tate
Damn, DougJ beat me to it.
dslak
This kind of “We were victims, too!” mindset recently came to the fore in Germany as part of what’s called the Historikerstreit. Essentially, the conservatives argued that the Germans were also victims of the Nazis and so ought not to be stigmatized for letting them come to power.
In the end, the liberals won the PR battle, and the conservatives came off looking like asses. If our country is as sane as modern Germany, the results should be the same.
Rome Again
Does that include the events sandwiched in between? I really don’t want my country to go there.
The Commissar
John,
I’m reminded of the motorist who complains that there are two kinds of drivers out there: maniacs who drive faster than him, and morons who drive slower.
That’s how I look at the “Bush is an Idiot Awakening.”
There are two kinds of commentators out there: Moonbats who realized this sooner than I did, and Wingnuts who are slower to catch on.
And that makes you a Moonbat, I guess.
dslak
Well, I was referring to the debate, not the historical events that led to it. So, no.
ThymeZone
Peace out, man :)
les
A touch of word-smithing. It should be “dirty fuckin’ hippies.” John’s formulation leaves out the best part of hippiedom. As best I can remember. Due to the other best part.
Rome Again
Well, it’s my impression that TZ smells quite nice, actually… and I smell just fine, but, really, it’s okay if I’m not the finest smelling thing in Blogostan, since, I’m an Independent! ;)
Andrew
Maybe we can douse the RNC with a huge flood patchouli. Just for ironic fun.
Geoff
This is sort of besides the point, John. The reason it took until 26% for Mark to jump ship is because he’s a PART of that percentage.
Look at the issues the Levin breaks on: immigration (where he assails “amnesty”) and global warming (where he thinks the President’s toothless proposal isn’t toothless enough). Levin is part of that tiny portion of the electorate that thinks the biggest problem with the Bush presidency is that it’s too liberal. The people who decided that it was generally incompetent, hyperpoliticized, and policy-bankrupt left the party way back in the 40%’s and 50%’s.
Richard Bottoms
It must given John some satisfaction to see the ‘Oh My God’ moment happening to the Kool-Aide kids.
I’ll give him props for coming Jesus long enough ago for it to be real. As for these other fuckers, still more of the same ‘but the Democrats would surely be worse’ horseshit.
Me, I am still quite happily saying we fucking told you so.
November 2008 will be such an enormous ass-kicking sufficient almost for it to be worth this mess we are in.
Rome Again
I say we nix the patchouli and go with passionfruit instad, more appropriate.
Dreggas
I ain’t no dirty fucking hippy.
But I agree with them…from a distance…oh and upwind.
semper fubar
The insane thing is they STILL think a democratic presidency would be worse than what we have now. Let’s see — a war with a newly announced 50-year timeline, spiralling deficits, an American city destroyed and never re-built, a justice department acting like Luca Brasi, food, gas, health care and education prices going up up up, the Constitution shredded…. yeah, I can see how having Hillary in the WH would be a disaster compared to this state of nirvana we’re living in now.
Rome Again
Absolutely amazing isn’t it? I wonder what their children will say? Oh, that’s right, their children are all going to be raptured off the earth and leave us here to suffer the harshest global warming consquences alone. Hehe, NOT!
grumpy realist
Don’t we have 40% of Americans they believe Jeebus is gonna return “during their lifetimes”?
When you have that, there’s not much left you can do to keep your empire from decaying into irrelevance–both political and economical. Clap your hands and pray to the Great Sky Fairy; we don’t have to plan for anything in the future.
I’m starting to believe there’s a close link between percentage of religious nuts in a country and that country’s quick decline into historical irrelevance.
Dreggas
Their children won’t say much, after all most are probably in a persistant vegetative state which is why so many of them sympathize with Terry Schiavo…
Chuck Butcher
It might pay the Left to notice that the biggest losers in this illegal immigration mess and the amnesty are the American workers. I give a rat’s patoot if they’re brown, white, or purple martians, creating a labor glut is flat out plutocratic agenda. So while you whine racism you indulge yourselves in classism, screw them workers – shoulda gone to kollyge.
Chuck Butcher
It might pay the Left to notice that the biggest losers in this illegal immigration mess and the amnesty are the American workers. I give a rat’s patoot if they’re brown, white, or purple martians, creating a labor glut is flat out plutocratic agenda. So while you whine racism you indulge yourselves in classism, screw them workers – shoulda gone to kollyge.
Dreggas
And the right hasn’t been screwing the working class these past oh…12 or so years? Quite frankly I couldn’t give a rats ass about immigration. We’ve survived it before and we’ll survive it again. The ones who’ve really been screwing the “American Worker” over are the ones outsourcing their jobs to other countries, the ones who hire the illegal immigrants to work in their factories and, not trivially either, the American worker who wants those low low every day prices so they shop at Wal-Mart which gets a lot of their products from China. Let’s not even go into the layoffs in the auto industry caused because no one wants to buy an SUV anymore because of the fact that gas costs a small fortune but it wasn’t long ago that Americans demanded their SUV’s.
There’s plenty of blame to go around as to who most hurts the “American Worker” and the whole idea that 12 million people are going to tank this country just doesn’t fly.
ThymeZone
A glut of cheap labor is a boon to the middle class, for crissakes. Can you say “Wal-Mart?” Can you say $7 cotton tee shirts and $49 microwave ovens?
Get a clue, man. Cheap labor handles the commoditized tasks, because expensive labor — that’s you and me, amigo — will not do so. That’s why you can live so cheap and so well in this country.
There is nothing better for your pocketbook that cheap labor. Except maybe the removal of the Republican government that has sold you out to the corporate interests.
ThymeZone
Why are Americans fo frigging dense about the ecconomic realities of the world they live in?
Here’s an exercise for you, Butcher-spoof:
Go to Google. Type in “Nogales, AZ” and hit enter.
First result you see is the Google map.
Click on it and drill down.
Keep going until you get to about 4 index marks shy of the full drilldown. Notice that the Mexico side of the border is blank on the map.
Now switch to the “satellite” view.
What do you see? Look south of the border. That’s Mexico. That’s Nogales, Sonora, Mexico.
Notice anything different about the Mexican city as compared to the American one? IT IS HUGE AND COVERED WITH FACTORIES AND WAREHOUSES. That is your “glut of cheap labor” at work.
Now go back to the center of the map you started with, and look at Highway 19, the divided expressway leading up from the main border crossing, west of Nogales AZ and up to Tucson.
Now go a little further to your left, to the West.
Another huge highway! Parallel to Highway 19.
Notice anything? All big trucks. Those are the trucks bringing the goods in from Mexico. The cheap goods that keep your prices down.
Please get a grip on reality. Mexico is already a deeply embedded part of the American economy. It keeps your cost of living low.
ATS
Mark Levin hung on, like so many necons did, because GW kissed Israel’s ring. For many of them, that is the only issue that matters. As with right to lifers, NRA zealots, and other one-track looney tunes, the interests of the United State are ancillary.
With neolibs like Nat Hentoff it is much the same.
Andrew
Dennis Kucinich hates you.
ThymeZone
Why? I said his wife was hot.
Zombie Santa Claus
He’s probably a jealous husband.
Jake
I think history will bear you out. However, historical irrelevance is the nicest thing that happens. Before that, people get pissed off and throw things. Fortunately most Americans are protected from falling in with the nuts by a thick layer of hedonistic librul ooze.
Dreggas
You mean KY, the jelly not the state?
ThymeZone
Succor! Once again I have spit my coffee on a perfectly good keyboard.
Rome Again
All three ounces, eh? ;)
Krista
I think you’re right. On one hand, you’ve got a frighteningly large number of religious nuts. On the other hand, you’ve a culture where fine arts and good music receive not even 2% of the airtime and print space given to Lindsay Lohan’s latest drunken escapade.
I fear the end is nigh…
Dreggas
*bows*
Dreggas
It’s a logical conclusion, after all KY is advertising a new massage oil that also doubles as a personal lubricant. Perhaps we should invest in some and proclaim ourselves annointed by this new an holy oil which protects us from the believers who drink the heathen kool-aid?
Rome Again
Oh, can’t we just sip tea instead? I would like to leave my sex life ideologically virginal, please. Otherwise, I may end up with some kind of hang up and stop climaxing altogether.
Rome Again
And if I happen to notice any performance issues in the near future, I’m blaming YOU Dreggas! Oh God, lQQk what you’ve gone and done.
BrianM
That’s one of the three arguments in American Theocracy. (The other two are dependence on a superseded energy source – wind for the Dutch, coal for Britain – and a shift of the economy from manufacturing to finance, especially debt-driven finance.) On the bright side, life’s not so bad after the decline from empire, so long as the replacement empire is benign. It’s not so bad being Dutch. The decline itself can be unpleasant.
ThymeZone
You know, I want to get behind it. So to speak.
But really, if they’d come out with a product that can also be burned for fuel in my car, then we would really be getting somewhere. Literally, getting somewhere.
ThymeZone
Oh, come, come.
Rome Again
Where are we going? Sorry, I don’t think I can, Dreggas has ruined it for me.
Rome Again
Aren’t we already on that road? Of course, we’re just borrowing more and more and giving it back with interest to usurious corporations. There are few winners in that game. I think the US is turning into an upside down pyramid scheme.
Dreggas
*coughs*bull shit*coughs*
Rome Again
Don’t drop the Baal now Dreggas, you started this!
Andrew
Is that Ba`al Zebûb, Ba`al of Carthage, or a rabbi Ba`al as in medieval Judaism?
What, exactly, are you saying about Dreggas?
jake
Amen! It should be easy to replace marriage with the new sacrament since liberals (luberals?) never bother with such things. Unless they’re gay. And then they just do it to destroy marriage.
But in the interests of tradition I think we should keep the name of the new holy oil as close to the current name as possible. Maybe something that rhymes…
Rome Again
Ba’al the enemy of the bible God.
Andrew
I can has froggy crown?
Dreggas
You say it like it’s a bad thing…really I’ve just been given a bad rap.
Chuck Butcher
Be careful you don’t get any calluses while typing and calling me a -spoof. 30% of my industry, construction, employees are illegal. I hire legal, I pay the best wages I can in the face of declining $/sq ft and I know exactly where the give is in contracting prices, it’s labor you spoof. Oh yeah, low wages are just goddam great, while these guys get ready to slip off the edge they teeter on Walmart is a wonderful benefit. The actual beneficiaries of the out-source/in-source policies are the plutocrats, if you think I’m somewhere on the right, you’re an ass. Being on the side of the worker does not make me a right wing rascist xenophobe, but backing BushCo on this one makes you a tool of the wealthy elite. That is particularly ignorant. For god’s sake, if George II is for it what makes you think it’s any good?
Mexico is a damn mess because of the Mexican government, it is corrupt, xenophobic, racist, and statist so we should be the solution to their dissatisfied populous, if they stayed there maybe they’d revolt and fix it, not with us – US – as an out. While you’re admiring your maps, maybe you ought to run some that show climate, resources, and geography, the place ought to be real nice – it ain’t.
Chuck Butcher
Cross outs are nice, I only wonder where they came from
Zombie Santa Claus
We should conquer them now, conquer them now while they’re weak and we still have the muscle to do it. Then, we’ll absorb them into the US, first splitting them up into 2 or 3 states so that they don’t overwhelm the Electoral College. Then we’ll get our manufacturing back, solve our border problem, and have a shorter frontier to build our fence along (the Yucatan) if those pesky Guatemalans ever start stealing our jobs.
Ho ho ho, bitches!
Andrew
It will just be easier to go all of the way to the panama canal, because then we won’t need a fence, just sharks with lasers.
ThymeZone
Yes, Mr Butcher, I see how you roll. Shown a map with information you can use, you refer to the exercise as “admiring” the map. Dismissive and condescending.
The map teaches you. And a trip to Wal Mart teaches you. Your cost of living is tied directly to the “glut of cheap labor” you decry above.
Decry it all you want, it works for you, it’s a permanent part of the economic system you live in, and it ain’t goin away.
If you actually want to talk about that reality, send a signal. America is not going to “get back our manufacturing” unless we can compete with cheap labor. In this world, labor flows like capital, wherever it is needed. You can’t dam it up any more. Get used to it.
Sam Hutcheson
I have to quibble a little bit here. Although he leaves it til the end, the “amnesty” issue is huge for these nuts.
I agree with DougJ.
Did I really just type that?
Oh well. So be it. If you’re looking for a barometer for these people’s moral standing just reflect on the fact that endorsing torture, repealing habeas corpus and instituting spying procedures on citizens didn’t move them to question Dear Leader. No, what gives them pause and worry is the idea that Mexican laborers might gain some status as real people and that the administration might actually opt for science over superstition. What bothers Mark Levin isn’t the war in Iraq, isn’t torture, isn’t extraordinary rendition or suspension of basic civil rights into perpetuity or a theory of executive power that claims the right to disappear anyone for any reason the president deems worthwhile. No, what bothers Mark Levin is “amnesty” and “reactionary” policies around global warming.
Batshit insane. Still.
jg
You can’t say the tactic doesn’t work. Some of my more rabid Bush loving friends are also starting to turn against Bush. While also declaring themselves to be strong conservatives.
BrianM
Being doggedly serious: Yes, that’s one of the three claims in the book.
Rome Again
The fate of the gods?
Rome Again
BrianM, did he actually take it through the process and show what happens at the end of that? The corporate windfall and the rest of us screwed?
TDaulnay
I’ll start taking these ‘conservative’ changes of heart seriously when they start working to 1) rescind the Military Commissions act, 2) condemn and end the signing statements abuses, 3) condemn and end torture and indefinite imprisonment, and 4) end unfettered governmental spying on our citizens. Until then, they are hardly conservatives, nor are they really Americans as I was raised to understand the term (in Gerry Ford country).
Chuck Butcher
TZ, I can read a map. I’ve watched in horror for the last 2 administrations as they just shrugged off what they are doing to our country and those who work with their hands.
I don’t have to get used to it and cheap labor doesn’t do a thing for me. Fuck You is the plutocrats response, nice to see you echoing it. We can follow your shoulder shrug for a few more years, things will get a little tougher down on the lower rungs and it will start to sting in the middle, but at some point the wheels come off. The national debt is already insane, the trade deficits are already insane, and the condition of the bottom 30% of earners can’t get much worse without things going bad.
The statistical trends are disasterous if they’re followed. Immigration isn’t the biggest problem by any means, but it has a huge and direct effect on lower blue collar income. The labor rates in my industry are now below poverty. Those cheap wages you tout are one of the driving forces for all the poverty services the government provides and somebody pays that bill – sooner or later.
BTW, re-read your post regarding the person who is dismissive. Spoof yourself, TZ. I mentioned the Left ought to take a look, the Right couldn’t be bothered. You take umbrage and tell me – so what? Fuck your so what. Things got this way and will stay this way because of “so what.” I’m not Darrell, and you may bite off more than you can chew. I don’t say, “so what” not ever, and I don’t do, “so what” not ever. I’ve already spent the time, energy, and money – mine and others – to make a Congressional run, I work like a dog to make a living and then I turn around and do Democratic work. But then, some of us can at least work up to snarky comments.
Ydef
While I love seeing all this unbridled optimism from the left (yeah, it’s about fuqn time the rest of the country recoils at the message of the burning shrub) I can’t help but still be too profoundly concerned about the possibility of the whitehouse being hijacked by forces on the right next year to be able to write-off as a forgone conclusion a democratic presidency as many of you here so easily do.
Why?
There still are so many unsettling issues brandishing huge red flags to be very worried about. Consider that despite bush sinking to unprecedented levels of depravity never experienced before by a modern president you still have Guiliani beating Clinton in polls by at least 5%. Any democrat should be ANNIHILATING considering the way things are for the conservative party right now. It also reveals how effective the right wing spin machine still is even now in influencing people that Hillary is an unelectable figure . Of course it’s something she can overcome, but it gives you an idea of the forces she’s up against and the fact that if there’s one candidate that social conservatives will still turn out in droves to support Guiliani, it’s a Clinton ticket. There still exists the very effective Faux News fountain of misinformation that serves as the central spoke of the axis of the pathetically complicit and sheeplike American MSM. And perhaps most frightening to me is that the highly secretive, proprietary voting machine infrastructure manufactured by the same right leaning, crypto-fascist organizations that delivered the questionable shenanigans of 2002 and 2004 are not only still intact but multiplying with as little oversight as ever. It would be a huge mistake to become complacent over the 2006 results since the manufacturers remain staunchly on the right with little to no oversight. In fact they are even complemented with a justice department and voting division of the civil rights department, two bodies with traditional roles of ensuring free and fair elections that are now packed with loyal republican stooges willing to take any means necessary to maintain their party’s hold of the executive branch. With as much outright corruption that’s occurred the past six years without having to be held to account it’s hard to see how any sensible democrat can be that satisfied at the demise of GWB enough to say that there’s no way a republican will be elected in ’08.