When I made the Clown Shoes category, I had shit like this from the WSJ in mind:
The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.
I will allow Professor Krugman the honors of addressing this with the measure of shrill that it deserves:
Yes, George W. Bush’s status as the most disliked man ever to occupy the White House shows that America was not worthy of him. And attacks on Bush gave aid and comfort to his enemies — unlike the firehose of abuse that will be directed against President Obama, which will of course be an expression of true patriotism.
George Bush- poor, misunderstood, victim of his own successes. Is it January 2009 yet?
dmsilev
Ahem. I believe that for full schadenfreude, that last bit should read "Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman…"
That aside, has the WSJ outsourced their editorial page to Powerline? It’s getting harder and harder to tell the different between the professional wingnuts and the amateurs.
-dms
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.
He sneered at America and her people as a bunch of rubes, and was in way over his head in any job with more responsibility than Dandelion Watcher.
I’d feel bad for him, trying so haaaaard to lead our country in such a difficult time, if he hadn’t gleefully caused the difficulty.
Cry me a fucking river.
Dave L
Don’t forget the subhead, "What must our enemies be thinking?"
And, yes – Resolve! Because past failure is usually a guarantee of eventual success.
What a bunch of tools and hacks. Thank God for democracy – but for it, we’d be stuck with our clown-shoe overlords forever.
cleek
The president is not to blame for all these problems. He …tried his hardest. He just has special needs!
it’s never Bush’s fault
it’s never Bush’s fault
no matter what happens
it’s never Bush’s fault!
i’ve been singing that song since 2002, at least.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
I have to admit I’m a little surprised anyone is mentioning Bush at all. Sure didn’t hear his name much during the campaign, did we?
Golly, I wonder why?
Incertus
@dmsilev: I second that. Just as whenever President-elect Barack Obama’s name is written over the next couple of months, the title should precede it. It gives me the goosepimples.
r€nato
So Bush did not fail us, we failed him.
Riiiiiight.
WSJ, your tears are like the sweetest nectar to me.
yet another jeff
"It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another . . ."
Hmmm, the writing style looks familiar, maybe the ARE farming out the editorials to powerline.
kommrade jakevich
No one could have possibly foreseen that when you drive a car into someone’s living room and snicker about it, the homeowner might be a bit pissed and expect you to pay for the damage.
Jesus Christ at the rodeo. Someone nab the sorry S.O.B. who wrote that shit and lock him in a round-the-clock Al-Anon meeting.
What? It was signed Barbie P. Shrub? Forget it.
r€nato
Yeah! That’s right!
All that shit – Enron, Katrina, 9/11, the failure of the Iraq war, the housing meltdown, the Wall Street meltdown, the doubling of the national debt in just 8 years, the rampant GOP corruption – all that shit just kind of happened!
Time to give the WSJ editorial board a .45, lock them in the study, and wait for them to do the right thing.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
Bush never lost faith in the people?
"If you’re not with me, you’re with the terrorists" simply because we didn’t agree with a trumped up war that had nothing to do with 9/11? WTF?
yet another jeff
@kommrade jakevich: Yeah, you’d think that after 150 years or so, the Republicans would have figured out that when you send your thieves and cronies in to reconstruct a war zone after a few years of "winning the peace", that there might be some lingering resentments.
I mean, I’m just guessing that there’s an Arabic translation of the word "carpetbaggers."
yet another jeff
@r€nato: Hey now…all that shit happened because he believed in us. That’s how much he loves us.
Rudi
I liked the rehash of W being the next Harry Truman. My guess is history and historians won’t see W as another Truman, maybe a Coolidge or worse. Was that crap actually from Turd Blossom?
yet another jeff
@CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII:
Well, here’s the thing…he had faith that we wouldn’t call his bluff.
r€nato
Even Chocolate News is kinda funny tonight…
gnomedad (fmr. Nixon Hailfire Palin)
When in the last debate (IIRC) McCain accused Obama of running against George Bush, I’d hoped Obama would respond, "That’s funny, John, I thought you were running against George Bush."
Martin
The Newsweek "Secrets of the Campaign" articles are pretty interesting. Mostly confirming much of what we all speculated on over the last year and a half, but giving some nice insight as well as restoring a bit more humanity to these caricatures.
Note the chapter links at the top – I nearly missed that.
jcricket
Believe me – this stuff is unintentionally hilarious and good for our side. It’s one thing for the freepers, malkin, savage, etc. to argue the party should be more wingnutty. When the WSJ and other "serious" conservative publications read like Powerline you know the GOP will continue to be decimated in elections to come.
I don’t know what the "right" answer would be for how the GOP rebuilds itself into a national party, and frankly I don’t care. They haven’t been an honest opposition party since Reagan, IMHO (i.e. "government is always the problem" is just a dishonest place to start from). And more than just the "wilderness", I want them and the 25% crazification factor to suffer.
Not that Democrats are super awesome at campaigning, but the only thing keeping the GOP from losing another 10 Senate seats and 30 house seats is various non-wingnuts that still vote Republican for whatever reason (libertarian types, habitual Republicans, etc.).
Martin
‘Infidel’ might suffice.
r€nato
listen to today’s Fresh Air. Mickey Edwards says a lot of really smart things, like the GOP needs to abandon the anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-‘elitist’ demagoguing.
Of course, nobody who matters will listen to him for another ten years or so. But still, it can’t be said that nobody knows how to fix what is wrong with the GOP.
Martin
Well, let’s not get too wrapped up in stereotypes after the Dean/Obama masterpiece we just witnessed. If these guys are writing the Dem playbook from here on out, I think the Dems will be goddamn hard to beat.
But yeah, the GOP needs to rediscover that governance is the goal, not winning. And it’s hard to govern when much of what you say is dishonest.
p.a.
Oh Captain, My Captain… George, will you ever forgive me for my faithlessness!!!??? Wwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…
just.fucking.speechless.
Jeffro
Krugman actually said "firehose directed at [Obama]"?
Wow.
Way to GO THERE, Mr. Nobel Winner!!
I couldn’t push more wingnut buttons if I had eleventy gazillion fingers!!
The high-amp thrill of last night is slowly settling into a slow-burn thrill of how the next eight years will go, watching wingers take it, and take it, and take it.
It’s wrong, but it’s so right!!
kommrade jakevich
Maybe the writer is some sort of idiot who thinks "lost faith in," is a polite way of saying "gave a fuck about."
Oh well, it’s funny now. When I’m 60 any ass hat who chirps about wonderful President BushBrat will get my cane upside his head.
r€nato
Mickey Edwards also said this today on Fresh Air… the GOP began to lose its way when Newt Gingrich – who wants to run in 2012! – insisted that beating the Democrats was job 1, job 2 and job 3 for Republicans. Nothing else mattered.
Pretty easy to trace a path from then to today. And isn’t that how all political factions in history become corrupted? They begin pursuing power as an end in itself, not as a means to an end.
yet another jeff
@Martin:
Yeah, I reckon infidel is close enough.
Comrade Stuck
How many times have we heard variations of this fetid horseshit? And how many times have we responded with snark to mock it? Now I just read it and smile at it’s vacuousness. It is chafe in the wind at this point, no more important than commenting on the weather. Fuck these fools. Fuck them all.
r€nato
You know what really offends me about that WSJ passage?
This is not a fucking monarchy. We do not have a king nor do we owe Bush our fealty. He is a president and he is there to work for we, the people.
For the love of FSM. They have a terminal case of Reverse Bush Derangement Syndrome.
yet another jeff
Stockholm Syndrome, pure and simple.
SnarkyShark
I feel like the crazy pills have worn off and reality is starting to slowly come into focus.
As for the WSJ, it is to laugh. They have their head so far up their ass they may never see daylight again.
Lesley
Move on or move out wingnuts. The country has spoken.
Brian J
It’s pretty goddamn rich that this whining is printed on The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. After all, it’s the same editorial page that gave that gave the phone number for readers to buy copies of "The Clinton Chronicles," the Jerry Falwell produced videotape that accused the Clintons being behind several murders.
p.a.
Anyone actually click on the WSJ link and see this info line about the author? :
Interesting. Working for Kerry may have ‘soured’ him. Or he’s hit the skids and is angling for a position in the Bush Presidential Library- now that’s a headline item on anyone’s resume!
jcricket
I couldn’t agree more – but here’s my problem. How does it work?
How do you embrace science and empiricism and not alienate the huge population of evangelicals and other assorted right-wing religious types you’ve been courting?
How do you say "being elite is good" and not alienate all the resentment-driven po-white-folk who vote for you to "stick it to the pointy haired intellectual coastal fifth column types?
Frankly, if you embrace empiricism, you end up concluding things like "the most fiscally responsible healthcare system is single-payer" – how would that get folded into anything resembling a GOP agenda?
How can conservatives take over the middle without losing more than they gain along the way?
Goseph Gerbils
Al Mer’can.
Conservatively Liberal
The purity purge has started, and it has a name: Operation Leper.
Erick the Red(neck), over at RaptureReddyState, has declared that the "special project" Operation Leper is on. The goal of this project is to locate and list the enemies of Sarah Palin. The operation is lucky(?) enough to have their own cheerleader, Michelle Malkintent, leading the tar, feather, pitchfork and torch brigades.
I can only hope that these tone deaf asshats prevail. That they are able to so cripple the remnants of their party that it will take decades for them to recover, if ever. They are focusing on purging any remaining moderate Republicans because they believe that the answer to their woes is MORE COWBELL!!
The Republican party is a national party in name only. They are little more than a regional party now, and if that is what the south wants then let them have it. They deserve it.
Martin
You don’t. You have to alienate them. A nation can’t be divided between truth and anti-truth, and since the GOP has strung them along, the GOP is going to have to exorcise themself of them. That was always the gambit. And the Dems have done it in the past as well by glueing special interest groups to their hip for the purpose of an election or two of turnout – but at some point you have to let them know that what they want simply isn’t part of governance and cut them loose. Fundamentally, that’s the part that they are missing – what the religious right wants isn’t part of what the Constitution permits.
The GOP is at an interesting point. The base, which was just a group glued to the hip are now threatening to take over the whole thing as moderate and proper small-c conservatives abandon the party. That 20% threatens to be 50% and then the conservatives become the special interest. That’s why you will hear no end to Palin being their leader for 2012 – they’re trying to take over from within. They need to be cut loose.
Now, that means that the GOP takes a big fucking hit to their base, but it also means that they stand a chance of winning back many of those that they lost and they still may have them ally with the new GOP much as the libertarians do today. It might take a few election cycles to win back enough to beat the Dems, but eventually it will happen. The alternative is that the GOP will put up Palinesque characters and in the odd year when they win, mismanage things so badly that they get exiled to the woods again for a number of cycles.
But the big purge is necessary and there’s really no way around it. If they don’t do it soon, they’ll lose the party altogether. These are not small players, as Californians just learned – they simply won’t stop.
Ed Marshall
Oh, I know very smart, educated libertarians who would have very elitist, pointy-headed answers for why the magic market would fix everything who don’t believe that the Grand Canyon was created by Noah’s flood, or that worship fetuses.
The problem is there are way more goobers than libertarians, and at least right now there are just more of us than them anyway.
The Moar You Know
Bush beats me, but he loves me. And I shouldn’t have burned the roast.
It’s all my fault.
comrade grand funk
@p.a.:
Everybody, listen to me, And return me, my ship.
Im your captain, Im your captain, Although Im feeling mighty sick.
Ive been lost now, days uncounted, And its months since Ive seen home.
Can you hear me, can you hear me, Or am I all alone.
If you return me, to my home port, I will kiss you mother earth.
Take me back now, take me back now, To the port of my birth.
Am I in my cabin dreaming, or are you really scheming,
To take my ship away from me?
Youd better think about it, I just cant live without it.
So, please dont take my ship from me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah …
I can feel the hand, of a stranger, And its tightening, around my throat.
Heaven help me, heaven help me, Take this stranger from my boat.
Im your captain, Im your captain, Although Im feeling mighty sick.
Everybody, listen to me, And return me, my ship.
Im your captain, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Warren Terra
Don’t cry for him, Wall Street Journal …
The truth is, he never left you …
(And now the point where I sort of wish I knew the full lyrics, to parody them, but I am also glad I do not)
yet another jeff
Bush kept me safe and this is how I repay him. What? No…I walked into a door. So clumsy of me…so stupid stupid stupid and clumsy.
handy
Who the hell defends W. anymore? I mean, really? The guy is an embarrassment even to his own party now.
And, re: the GOP losing their base. Their best chance right now is to get the idea in their collective heads that their base has left them.
Let all these "real Americans" go to the Constitution Party or the KKK or whatever hell whack job cesspool will have them.
gbear
That was just a great show tonight. In the first half, Terry Gross talked with Bill Moyer about the path from the first black man being allowed to vote thru the voting rights act (which he helped write) to Obama’s victory yesterday.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@handy: Who the hell defends W. anymore? I mean, really?
Now that the election’s over and there’s no reason to pointedly ignore him, it’s time to try to do that revisionist reputation- (and knob-) polishing, I guess.
jcricket
Interesting way to put it. And cogent analysis…
You may proceed
They can’t. But I doubt it would be a long-term crippling blow, because I suspect the hard right is less solid than it would seem from the noise they make.
The "religious right" are backlashing not because they don’t recognize the failure of their hate-and-fear based world-views, but because they do. Stop feeding into the fear and many will just walk away, towards the benefits of hope.
Anyway, I don’t think the Republican party is ready to actually do this yet, but more enlightenment-through-lost-elections and it could end up collectively deciding to reinvent itself.
Brian J
What’s particularly sad about that piece of shit opinion piece is the part where he refers to the "character and resolve" of the nation being under attack because people are disrespectful of President Bush. We hear time after time that the Democratic party can’t stand up to our nation’s enemies, but here we have this clown pretending that the state of the country is so fragile, it’s not clear that it will stand up to some opposition. Give me a fucking break.
Brian J
And what would their explanations for the market fixing everything entail?
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@Brian J: And what would their explanations for the market fixing everything entail?
A totally different kind of utterly unfounded magical thinking and superstition. It’s wordier. And numberier.
GSD
Wasn’t Newt running around in early 2007 saying that he was going to tour the nation and was going to be speaking to Americans and would likely be swept up by a movement of Americans so galvanized by his ideas that he’d be forced to run for president in 2008?
Old Newt must have been fantasizing what his life would be like if he was Barack Obama.
What a howl ….Run, Newtie, Run.
-GSD
r€nato
I don’t believe that embracing empiricism automatically leads to embracing liberal positions on health care (though it ought to, and it is certainly true that the more highly educated one is, the more likely one is to embrace liberal politics).
You can be a free-market conservative without rejecting the value of expertise or without being profoundly anti-intellectual and anti-science.
What the GOP has devolved into is something akin to Maoist revolutionaries. Anybody with education is suspect and must be purged! All Hail The Great Republican Proletarian Cultural Revolution!
Chuck Butcher
Well, yes, all that – the real problem is that there already is a Democratic Party. Honest to god, if you take ideological stupidity out of the equation, what do they have left? You can make the assumption that the Democrats will become ideologically stupid or corrupt, but minus that where the hell do you go as a Republican? Certainly, you can do the wait until Americans forget and run the same "free market" bullshit and greed is good claptrap. It’s worked, but that may be a bit of a wait.
Ed Marshall
I’m not a libertarian, this isn’t my line. I’m ill-equipped to provide their defense (and don’t believe in it anyway).
Eh, fuckit, I was going to try and defend their position, but I can’t manage to do it without running into logical landmines. Maybe you are right, they are magical thinking morons. I’ll just say they aren’t the same sort of magical thinking morons that the Godbotherers are.
Delia
The Rove playbook failed. The 1000 year Reich collapsed, and the grand coalition of neocons, theocons, and rich predators finally collapsed. Now they’re all circling each other snapping at the remains of the corpses and trying to figure out who (if anyone) will survive. The WSJ is reflexively repeating its old jargon like some old record with a scratch in it. It would be comical if it weren’t so irritating. They got themselves into this trap. Eisenhower was president of a perfectly good political party even if I didn’t agree with it. A whole bunch of people took years to take it down this garden path to hell and broke it. Now they’re whining that everybody’s mean to them.
ninerdave
@r€nato:
Reminds me of this piece of election live blogging at Sadly, No! when it was called for Obama:
MelodyMaker
"firehose of abuse" sounds like what most of us have been getting from Bush, Cheney and Lieberman. but. OK
Comrade Kevin
I was just watching my local news, and they were reporting on a bunch of "protesters" in San Francisco who are trying to pressure Obama into something or other.
I bet it would be possible to find people in the Bay Area to protest nice weather.
ninerdave
@Comrade Kevin:
As someone who lives in the Bay Area: no truer words have been spoken. I used to live on 8th St and Market, right across from city hall. There was always some protest going on over there. Got a cause? They pimped it.
As much as I am anti-Iraq war, when I saw the protests, I just imagined Bush & Cheney giggling while watching the TV saying to each other…hey! Look it’s another protest in SF.
While I’m all about protesting when needed, the San Francisco and Berkley have turned it into a fine art.
ninerdave
@Comrade Kevin:
Actually thinking about it, if it was a city hall it was a No on 8 rally.
The No on 8 side sucked. Disorganized, shitty ads, only hit their stride in the last weekend of the election. Horribly mis-managed. Prop 8 passed because of the shitty opposition. They didn’t even get on air until about 2 weeks before the campaign, and then it was lame ad after lame ad. Wasn’t until a few days before the election that the ads actually got effective and the group started to coalesce. IMHO, the lost because the got out campaigned.
Ecks
Eh, to me the whole thing works better with plumbing analogies :)
Comrade Kevin
@ninerdave:
I live in the Bay Area as well (Santa Clara county).
In The Ten O’Clock News story , they made sure they said that the protest was aimed at Obama, and I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with Prop 8
Comrade Kevin
@ninerdave:
I also suspect you’re right about the No on 8 campaign. I remember seeing the Yes ads for quite a while before I ever saw a No one. I thought the Samuel Jackson one was pretty good, but it was probably too little, too late. He’s a bad motherfucker, but…
It’s actually the first ballot proposition I have ever given money to, for or against, and I’m straight.
[edit]
Proposition 187 really pissed me off too, actually, but I don’t remember giving any money to the anti side.
Brandon
The funniest thing about that WSJ editorial, is that it uses the city proposition to rename Oceanside Sewage Treatment Plant as proof people are disrespectful….
…and it failed massively, 70-30, in San Francisco. This is the same place that voted 80% against prop 8 (gay marriage ban). Clearly, being liberal does not mean you are a child. Most liberals in SF are sensible.
Andre
@Comrade Kevin: I think Mr President-Elect is going to have to kiss and make up to get through this.
ninerdave
OT…well maybe sorta…
I was looking for the exact Powerline quote about George Bush. You know this one:
I knew it was on BJ, so I googled
And this was one of the results
Cracked me up then, still cracks me up. John, you rule.
Balloon Juice! Still the #1 place for skull fucking kittens. If that’s not a liberal value, I don’t know what is.
ninerdave
@Comrade Kevin:
Ah, I’m in Oakland. I’m still catching up on the MSNBC bobble heads so I missed the 10 o’clock news (which is the best local news broadcast period).
My view is the No campaign, thought they were a shoe-in. They forgot that between the SF, the Coast and LA there is a really big trailer park that votes. It wasn’t until the very end that they realized they might loose.
Tangentially, why is it that we can modify the California constitution with a simple majority? Seems like a really, really low bar.
AnneLaurie
Nah, the Newt is still fantasizing his life as the GOP version of (the GOP’s vision of) Al Sharpton — perennial spokesman for the Aggrieved Old Straight White Men special interest group. The guy every media village idiot keeps at the front of the rolodex because he’ll attend the opening of an envelope & is always prepared to show up for the 4:30am talk spot, as long as he’s guaranteed 30 seconds of air time plus a quality white wine and some imported brie in the greenroom. Newt tried that ‘governance’ stuff once, but the universal derision that greeted his WATB tantrum when he shut down the entire federal government (national park rangers, VA checks & all) because Bill Clinton wouldn’t hand-escort Newt to the front cabin of Air Force One convinced him that his talents would never be appreciated in an atmosphere of compromise & rational choices. And the WSJ / Clownhall lackwits moaning that conservatism cannot fail but it can *be* failed are Gingrich’s natural prey… he’ll call them ‘allies’ in public but it’ll always be Newt in the center skybox and his fReichtard/Tavangelical supporters in the nosebleed seats.
ninerdave
@Brandon:
Yet if I still lived in the City, I would have voted for it, childish it may be. It’s very apropos, and really for a sewage plant, it has a gorgeous view. I think one of Cindy’s houses is around there off the Great Highway.
Bubblegum Tate
Meanwhile, Bush sycophant Matt Margolis took all of a day to become a complete whiny titty baby
Jebus.
ninerdave
@Andre:
I knew the moment that Obama was elected teh ghay would spread like the plague.
ninerdave
@Bubblegum Tate:
Yeah and Cheney’s use of the Constitution as toilet paper didn’t give him pains. I’ve seen the Constitution once, I expect that the next time I’m in DC, I’ll see Bush, Cheney and Yoo’s skid marks all over it.
Fuck you.
Rommie
It’s just extraordinary to think that the current GOP would tar and feather both Eisenhower and Lincoln if they wayback-machined and sought the reins of leadership. (They’d try to do the same to Teddy Roosevelt, but he’d shoot them in the face)
In cruising around my usual forum haunts, it’s delicious tears from the usual suspects who’ve had their years of smug taken away. Things like how the economy is going to collapse, now that corporations will prepare for the Obama’s Nightmare Socialism by cutting back massively on labor and capital. A major push to end Affirmative Action, now that there’s proof positive that prejudice is dead. The abject FEAR some of them have of the next few years, like there is some kind of payback coming at the end of a billy club.
Just once, I’d like to see Obama lose his cool and tell them to GROW THE F### UP. He’d immediately get his cool back, like the Fonz, but just one time, I’d like to hear it.
SnarkyShark
Fixed.
And that pain is your conscience trying to get out and failing.
Person of Choler
I wondered if the whomping that Obama and the Democrats gave the Republicans would be a a palliative if not a curative for the Bush Derangement Syndrome continuously on display here.
I guess it wasn’t. It’s still the BDS ward of the Internet Lunatic Asylum.
oh really
We should be ashamed of ourselves for treating
George Bush, WAR CRIMINAL,
with so little respect. Goodness knows, we’d have never been so mean to Slobodan Milošević or Klaus Barbie.
Conservatively Liberal
It would help if he would quit wrestling his one-eyed wonder weasel while worrying about the end of the world. It is a well known fact that wingnuts can’t multitask.
DBrown
No matter "We the People" lack respect for Bushwhack’s the war criminal and his cohorts, the World has taken a fresh look at us and think we have changed for the better. This cahnge just because we simply voted for a man who just simply thinks clearly and is smart. Go figure?
Unbelievably a Saudi said to a WP reporter the most amazing thing I have yet read about what we did in the election: "Today the United States said not ‘We want change’ but ‘We have changed,’ "
Amazing.
Bilby
I don’t think the writer of the WSJ piece is a regular employee of the paper. At the end of the article it has:
Mr. Shapiro is an investigative reporter and lawyer who previously interned with John F. Kerry’s legal team during the presidential election in 2004.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
Comrade Jakevich, sixty is much too young for a cane, sweetheart. Hit them with your golf club instead. ;)
El Cid
@Brandon: I was opposed to the idea of naming a water treatment / sewage plant after George W. Bush Jr., on principle.
Water & sewage treatment plants serve a valuable, necessary albeit unsavory role in our public infrastructure, life, and health.
I think that probably a lot of people didn’t want to insult the sewage plant by naming it after a useless, awfully harmful and malignant George W. Bush Jr..
Now, if maybe you had proposed naming the raw fecal and sewage matter itself as it came into the plant after Bush Jr., I might could go along with that.
Conservatively Liberal
Looking in from the outside gives a perspective that those on the inside can’t get. Our nation is no longer run by old pasty white guys who are led around by the nose by greedy corporations only looking to fatten their bottom line at the expense of everyone else in the world. That world view of America died on November 4th, 2008, and we helped to kill it.
We elected a man of color for the most powerful position in the world, a man who has the talents necessary to lead this nation of ours. A man who wants to work with the rest of the world on an equal footing, not demanding concessions just because we are the biggest and meanest kid on the block. America showed the world that while we have been pretty stupid in the recent past, we have recognized that and are moving to correct the problems.
January 20th, 2009, the end of an error. Barack has a chance to make history, and I hope he acts accordingly. Unlike any other president, he is in a unique position to effect major changes on the way our nation moves in the world.
I hope he makes the best of it.
kommrade jakevich
Translation: I sharted and it stings!
Remind me again; Democrats are the wimpy, whiny, faggy bitches and Republicans are the big, tough, hardcore dudes. Have I got that right? Because sometimes, like when I actually listen to what they say, I get a little confused.
cleek
one of the comments…. responding to someone who thinks that there’s no foul in saying it, if it’s true:
—
No, you don’t go public with it
Achance November 5th, 2008 at 11:33 p.m. CST (link)
even if it’s true. If you take a paycheck from the Party or a candidate/elected official, you don’t play kiss and tell if you ever expect to work again.
—
that’s right: screw the public’s need to know. if McCain wants to pick a raging idiot, that’s his prerogative, and it’s the duty of all good Republicans and their affiliated media outlets to maintain whatever illusion McCain wants to project, damn the potential consequences for the well-being of the US.
that, my friends, is putting Country First !
Jon H
NPR ran a clown shoes cavalcade earlier.
A Mara Liasson (NPR/FOX News wench) story about expectations for Obama featured input from Norman Ornstein, Michael O’Hanlon, Bob Kagan, and Michael Gerson, AND NOBODY ELSE.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Remember, it’s always been the Major Frank Burns’s Presidency:
"Everything is either not my fault or God’s will."
Conservatively Liberal
@cleek:
That is what I find most disturbing about the right, the demand for loyalty beyond all reason. To hell with everything else, just do your part to maintain the Grand Illusion and all will be well for the party. If the party is safe, then that means the nation is safe, right? Nothing else matters.
In their mind, the Republican party and the people who comprise it are the ‘country’ they are talking about putting first. Nobody else matters to them, it is all about them and their rules for us. Governing is the art of compromise, and these assholes have no intention of compromising. It is their way or the highway.
I am glad that we were able to show them the way to the highway.
Jon H
El Cid wrote: "if maybe you had proposed naming the raw fecal and sewage matter itself as it came into the plant after Bush Jr., I might could go along with that."
How about naming the plant’s main sewage inlet pipe after him?
Conservatively Liberal
Nope, the pipe actually does something useful, unlike the current occupant of the White House. Stick with the contents of the pipe, which is much more appropriate. ;)
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
Unfortunately, they’re standing at the bus stop without the ability to pay the fare.
TheFountainHead
Nah, they’re standing in the middle of the highway waving their arms frantically while hoping to avoid oncomming traffic. Those who stop to help are ignored.
Dennis - SGMM
George W. Bush: his presidency died for our sins.
AkaDad
To be fair to Bush, all war criminals are misunderstood.
Dennis - SGMM
So I went to Shapiro’s website.
Some of his other, lesser known gems:
"The Democrats Should Praise Lieberman, Not Shun Him"
"Joe Lieberman may be the Democrat’s last hope at regaining White House"
"Revenge behind the takeover of the Democrat Party by far left"
"President forsaken"
Shapiro would fit right in at Red State, I’m surprised he’s not writing for them now.
demimondian
@Brandon: That’s what I was thinking, too.
Although I *was* looking forward to San Francisco selling the solids extracted from the sewage as "Bush fertilizer"…
Dave_No_Longer_Laughing
"Yes, George W. Bush’s status as the most disliked man ever to occupy the White House …"
Oh, "disliked" isn’t the right word. It’s more like "not wanted." W is likable; he’s pleasant and friendly. He is!
Disliked, unfriendly men in the White House: Jimmy Carter, Herbert Hoover (though I’ve read that he wasn’t all that unfriendly) and maybe Andrew Johnson.
W got eight years in the White House. …and he could have done a better job, poor treatment by the press or not. And had the Republican party not wasted the cred they had in 2004 (i.e., Ed Koch and Ron Silver speaking at their convention) things would’ve been different. But… it all started soon after and they didn’t see 2006 in the proper light. They’re idiots for that.
Anyway, I hope President Obama does a great job. He ran a great campaign against a tenacious (but not good enough) opponent and, like Clinton vs. Bush and Perot, won the election fair and square.
Crual Jest
It occurs to me that the NYT should trade Kristol to the WSJ for a few reporters, a draft pick and some cash. We’re talking win-win here.
gex
@jcricket: Shorter jcricket: Reality has a well known liberal bias.
BruceK
Quoth DeLong, quoting The Poor Man:
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Conservatively Liberal:
Let’s not go nuts, here. There are still plenty of those guys in power, in all parties, at all levels of government. This was a step in the right direction, but it’s going to be a few electoral cycles before we really cut into their power in a significant way. I’m confident it will happen, eventually, but we’re not there yet.
Something I hope President Obama hammers on in his inaugural address and every speech afterward is that we’re not anywhere near done yet. It is our responsibility to stay involved from here on out. We cannot let ourselves relax or get complacent again, or any progress we make will be trashed in short order.
Cruel Jest
@Crual Jest:
Sockpuppet!
Er, I mean typo. No wonder it got caught in moderation.
Comrade Darkness
As I look to the *past*, the *last eight* years anyway, it is not hope I feel, but fear. I fear the devastating damage that *George W Bush has* done to this country. I am so scared for our country, and the *death* of our liberties that I have experienced actual physical pain.
Fixed. Too easy, that one.
Have any one of these loons ever read the f*cking constitution? They cheered while Bush dismantled the bill of rights and now *fear* what a president might do? wtf?
Dave_No_Longer_Laughing
Knock it off. You’ve lost nothing and gained on the 2nd Amendment. Put a sock in it, folks, on the "lost rights" meme. There are serious fish to fry and it all has to do with the economy first, the GWOT, second.
Mike G
Yes, George W. Bush’s status as the most disliked man ever to occupy the White House shows that America was not worthy of him.
Reminds me of Hitler in his bunker as the Red Army chewed through the Berlin suburbs, ranting that Germany didn’t deserve to survive because it had failed him.