Since all the other threads have gone to hell and Michael and Tim and Tom are all AWOL.
Archives for 2008
Could Someone Please Explain
One of the things that I am really, really not getting about the right-wing freak-out over John McCain is how they have managed to COMPLETELY convince themselves that McCain is not a real conservative, yet Mitt Romney is a bonafide conservative. Mark Levin:
Let’s face it, none of the candidates are perfect. They never are. But McCain is the least perfect of the viable candidates. The only one left standing who can honestly be said to share most of our conservative principles is Mitt Romney. I say this as someone who has not been an active Romney supporter. If conservatives don’t unite behind Romney at this stage, and become vocal in their support for him, then they will get McCain as their Republican nominee and probably a Democrat president. And in either case, we will have a deeply flawed president.
For as long as I can remember, McCain has been anti-abortion, for fiscal conservatism and balanced budgets and against wasteful spending, and an avowed and committed hawk and ardent military supporter. By my count, that is, or at least used to be, the trinity for the modern GOP. Those were the issues that, at a glance, defined conservatism, and McCain was on the “right” side of every one of them. Mitt Romney, not so much.
So how is it that these lunatics have so completely convinced themselves that Romney, who will say ANYTHING to get elected, is the actual conservative? It is becoming clearer and clearer that Mitt Romney is little more than the Manchurian Candidate for the oligarchy, and the notion of their puppet figure losing to someone who will occasionally tell them to go fuck themselves has them in a real tizzy.
Bush Looks Terrible
I am watching Bush right now talk about the subprime mess, and he looks terrible. His face is flushed and mottled, and there is a Nixonian sweat over his upper lip, and he just looks terrible. He also sounds like he is slightly congested and has an upper respiratory infection.
Although he probably just has the flu, it really is amazing how much the Presidency ages a man.
Great Moments in Amateur Punditry
Me, July 2007:
It is kind of sad, really. I would never have voted for McCain, and I have found him to be a profile in cowardice these past few years- publicly sort of/kind of raising a scene about torture, then toeing the Bush line, etc., and like many others, I still have never recovered from McCain-Feingold, but at the same time it is kind of unsettling and painful too watch someone fall so far so fast.
But it is over. I can say with relative certainty that John McCain will never be President. At least not of the United States.
Couple more predictions like this, and I am ready to take over Friedman’s job!
K-Lo’s House of Crazy
K-LO:
I also think that there’s been some disagreement in The Corner, which indicates where conservatives are. Debate is good and healthy. There’s been a post or two that I do think was inappropriate, and I’ve said so. But generally speaking, I wouldn’t caricature the state of the debate. Fact is, there’s no rally to one candidate. Though one certainly has the mo right now — and yes, he may keep it, but it’s certainly not a sealed deal.
The debate at the Corner has been whether John McCain winning the nomination is the end times for the GOP and the Republic, or if Mitt Romney losing the nomination is the end times for the universe. Seriously- that is the “debate” that has taken place at the Corner. You decide if that is “good” and “healthy.”
Post-Debate Analysis
Here is my deep post-debate analysis:
Anyone who votes Republican in 2008 needs their head examined. Seriously, Obama and Clinton are so head and shoulders above the GOP field, the Dems should walk away with it. Unfortunately, I can still see McCain winning it all.
Having said that, I score the debate for Obama. One of the things I like about him is that when asked a question, there isn’t an instant response spit out. He pauses, he starts to respond, and you can tell he is thinking, and not merely reciting. The highlight for the night was when he called the bullshit fearmongering about immigration what it is- scapegoating. That was refreshingly honest.
There are so few issues that the two differ, but when they do, I tend to agree with Obama. Additionally, he was right about the Iraq war, and it drives me insane that Hillary simply can not admit she was wrong. well, actually, pretty much everything about Hillary drives me insane, although I try to keep that under control.
The most devastating question of the night came from the voter who had never been able to vote in an election without a Bush or a Clinton on the ticker (same for me, too). It is time for some new blood.
The Upcoming Budget Fight
Bush, as one last middle finger to the GOP who has slavishly worshipped him, has offered up a budget chock full of election year treats for the already down on their luck Republicans:
Lawmakers and lobbyists are dismissing the possibility that Congress will go along with massive cuts the Bush administration is planning to propose in the Medicare and Medicaid programs when it unveils its fiscal 2009 budget proposal Feb. 4. A senior administration official said Thursday afternoon that the cuts would total some $200 billion over five years, $178 billion in the Medicare program.
Medicare is “still growing at a rate higher than inflation,” the official said. The budget plan “slows Medicare’s rate of growth from 7.2 percent to 5 percent.” The official added that the plan would reduce by nearly one-third the “unfunded obligation” in Medicare over 75 years. Medicare is funded through premium payments and automatic payroll deductions, but also by yearly outlays from general revenues.
President Bush said in his State of the Union address Monday night that the nation must begin confronting the rising cost of entitlement programs. “Everyone in this chamber knows that spending on entitlement programs — like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — is growing faster than we can afford,” he said.
But even before the news broke Thursday that the proposed cuts would approach $200 billion, lawmakers and lobbyists who reacted to an earlier report that the cuts would total some $100 billion were emphatically predicting that the reductions would go nowhere.
“This budget will be dead on arrival,” Rep. Pete Stark , D-Calif., Chairman of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, declared. Frederick H. Graefe, a Washington hospital lobbyist, insisted that the plan is “dead before arrival!” he insisted. “You can quote me on that — please!”
All those years licking Bush’s boots, and this is what you get in return- attempts to cut Medicare during an economic downturn during an election year where Republicans poll lower than herpes and Ann Coulter is promising to campaign for Hillary over McCain. Anymore compassionate conservatism and the GOP will be relegated to permanent minority status, with nothing but a few religious nuts, a couple warmongers, and Hugh Hewitt. Wouldn’t that just be terrible?
Actually, it would be precisely what needs to happen- the GOP needs to be utterly destroyed, and that has been my goal for several years. I am really looking forward to slipping in that last knife.