Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

This blog will pay for itself.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

You are here: Home / Politics / Republican Stupidity / Sharptonmania!

Reader Interactions

73Comments

  2. 2.

    Zifnab25

    Dear Republicans,
    Obama is not kicking your ass because he is black.

    Ssssshut up! You’re gonna give away our secret!

  3. 3.

    Fulcanelli

    What a lame-ass "me too" stunt electing Steele is. They go from having a leading RNC douche-nozzle Chairman candidate sending out MUP the magic negro cd’s to electing a black man chairman in what, 3 weeks? Lipstick on a pig for sure albeit in a slightly darker shade.
    If this stunt fails to rebuild and restore the party and it’s "image" they’ll scapegoat him quicker than you can say "George Wallace". But that’s why the powers that be in the GOP picked him in the first place. He’ll do as he’s told and tip his hat for a place at the master’s table. Millions of Southern Republicans aren’t going to sleep well for a while.

  7. 7.

    WereBear

    Were there any candidates for the post who weren’t either nuts, incompetent or racist?

    No.

    Thank you for playing Obvious Republican Answers.

  9. 9.

    MikeJ

    In 2010 when they get their asses handed to them again, the GOP will blame the black guy. In the mean time, they’ll be as racist as they always are and loudly proclaim, "I can’t be racist!, Some of my best friends and party chairs are black!"

  10. 10.

    TenguPhule

    Obama is not kicking your ass because he is black.

    But it helps rub salt in the open wounds.

  11. 11.

    SGEW

    N.B.: In my opinion, it is a good thing that the R.N.C. just elected an African-American to become their titular head.* Yes, the transparently gimmicky nature of the pick (much like Mr. Steele’s alleged stint as John McCain’s debate prep "stand in") shows how astonishingly tone deaf the Republicans remain on issues of race. Yes, Lt. Gov. Steele is a dumb ass with dumb ass ideas (he is, after all, a Republican). And yes, it really shouldn’t fucking matter that Michael "At Least I’m Not Katon Dawson" Steele is black.

    BUT

    The President of the United States is of African descent. The symbolic head of the opposition party is a man descended from slaves**. Historically speaking this is an unmitigated good, almost no matter what the circumstances are.

    The Republicans can only achieve progress by accident, and for the wrong reasons, but it is progress nonetheless.

    *Stop snickering! This is srs stuf, and i iz srs commenter.
    **I believe I once read that Steele’s ancestry partially traces to West Africans who were enslaved and brought to the Southern U.S., pre-Civil War, but I can’t find it on teh google, so don’t quote me on it.

  14. 14.

    bago

    The Third Jihad! A secret manifesto on how teh scary Muslins are planning to take down the country from within! By a real doctor! PJTV.

  16. 16.

    rob

    So will Rushbo say on his show Monday that Steele only won this because he is black? Like Colin Powell endorsed Obama because he was black? I bet ole Rush is in an oxy, vicodin, vodka coma right now.

  17. 17.

    SGEW

    Hmmm. Steele’s election may actually be a very calculated move on the Republicans’ part*. To wit:

    While losing for the U.S. Senate, Steele attracted favorable attention across the country as an eloquent African-American Republican. Bush political strategists have told Steele a high-ranking post in the administration’s last two years would curb his independence and cramp his style. Instead, they advised, he could be "a black Rush Limbaugh." (emphasis added)

    – Robert "Douchebag of Liberty" Novak, 11/18/2006

    It all comes together now, doesn’t it?

    *Cue images of Republicans "calculating." I can hear it now.

  18. 18.

    Cabalamat

    Obama is not kicking your ass because he is black.

    Oh yes he is. BTW, did you know that O{s|b}ama is a Muslim? See, his middle name is Hussein which translates as "I hate America and want to destroy it". He’s also an atheist.

    I know all this because Rush told me so. BTW the Republicans are going to run Palin in 2012 and win by a landslide! The only reason we didn’t win this time was because McCain is a lily-livered traitor who doesn’t stand up for real God-fearing American values.

  20. 20.

    Rosali

    @Jay: He’ll resign sooner or later. A person can swallow his self-respect only so many times before he bursts. Look at Mel Martinez. He endured the 2006 Anti-Latino Hate Tour but finally quit this year when the repugs weren’t even trying to pretend that they cared about the Latino vote.

  21. 21.

    SGEW

    Oho! I had totally forgotten the confluence of Mr. Limbaugh, and Michaels Steele and Fox!

    But there is another ad, another race featuring a Michael J. Fox ad where I also commented, said the same things, and that’s in Maryland, and in that race, the Republican, Michael Steele, has vaulted ahead, and he just got several key endorsements from black leaders in Prince George’s County yesterday.

    What’s the difference? The difference is that Michael Steele didn’t sit back and take the ad. Michael Steele launched a counter ad with his sister, who has MS, because the ad, just as the ad in Missouri against Talent, the ad in Maryland professed and claimed that Michael Steele doesn’t care about stem cell research.

    – Monsieur Limbaugh, 10/31/2006

    [Anyone ever see this ad? I’m not sure if I want to dig further and watch Mssr. Steele and his M.S. suffering sister attack Michael J. Fox.]

    Deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole.

  22. 22.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    In 2010 when they get their asses handed to them again, the GOP will blame the black guy.

    I don’t know if Steele will last that long. Once the fRighties realize the brown doesn’t rub off they’re going to be really angry.

  23. 23.

    Rosali

    He’ll resign after he gets tired of having to swallow his self-respect. It took a while but Mel Martinez finally reached his limit.

  25. 25.

    Brick Oven Bill

    Obama is not kicking the Republicans’ ass because he is black; he is not kicking the Republicans’ ass because he’s off to a pretty rough start.

    ‘Change’ does not mean a hyper-partisan trillion dollar spending bill that will release only a quarter of the money this year, 88% of which is reported to be ‘non-stimulus’ by the Wall Street Journal. I have a suspicion that ‘I won’ won’t cut it when judgment is passed.

    ‘Transparency’ does not mean that questions from the press pool are unwelcome when a President decides to yuk it up with those who he perceives to be his friends. Ending press conference transcripts is also a dumb PR move in the age of YouTube. This forces reporters to work, which is not good for PR.

    Debating talk radio is kind of dumb when you plan on silencing them. Debating them empowers them.

    Hiring three lobbyists for prominent positions isn’t too sharp after you’ve pledged not to hire lobbyists. Hiring a Goldman Sachs lobbyist as Chief of Staff to an ethically-challenged Secretary Treasury was unnecessarily overt, especially when you are about to try to get the taxpayer to buy all of those bad loans, that we were supposed to have already paid for. You know, those loans that the Treasury Secretary oversaw.

    Ten days is not long enough to get in trouble. Getting in trouble takes time. The Presidency is a tough job. First, they walk into windows.

  33. 33.

    skippy

    lol! i can’t believe they fell for it!

    i’m sure the rank n file (emphasis on "rank") of the gop are having various apoplectic strokes and heart attacks.

    meanwhile, not to point the finger @ the right wing exclusively, has anyone else noticed that msnbc has hired a plethora of obama-like reporters for their line up?

    suddenly, it’s hip to be erudite and colored!

  35. 35.

    ThymeZoneThePlumber

    Steele won a scholarship to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. In his first year there, Steele was elected class president and was a member of the fencing team. He struggled academically, however, while pursuing a major in biology and was nearly kicked out of the university at the end of the year. After garnering As in summer classes at George Washington University, Steele was allowed to continue at Johns Hopkins, and he eventually earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations in 1981.[2]After college, Steele spent three years as a seminarian in the Order of St. Augustine in preparation for the priesthood. He entered the Augustinian Friars Seminary at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. As a seminarian, he taught freshman world history and senior economics for one year at Malvern Preparatory School in Malvern, Pennsylvania, but ultimately decided on a career in law and he left the Seminary prior to taking the vows. Steele then entered the Georgetown University Law Center and in 1991, he received his Juris Doctor degree. He worked as a corporate securities associate at the Washington, D.C. office of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. From 1991 to 1997, Steele specialized in financial investments for Wall Street underwriters, working at Cleary’s Tokyo, Japan office focusing on major product liability litigation and at its London office on corporate matters. Steele left the law firm and founded the Steele Group, a business and legal consulting firm.

    I guess he can take the Épée to the masque.

  36. 36.

    SGEW

    @amorphous:

    Aw, come on there. Footnoting is my best prophylactic against my otherwise interminable parentheticals (comedic or otherwise), personal asides (politics is personal!), disclaimers (SGEW + None Of Your Business), and insertions of (what I believe to be) relevant (but not quite pertinent) information.

    See how much more annoying that is than footnoting?

    Besides. Good footnoting jokes can be quite challenging, as you yourself have (inadvertently?) pointed out yourself, above.

    [insert appropriate emoticon here]

  40. 40.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    Time to place your bets:

    How long will it take to the GOP to circulate the meme that they’re way less racist than Democrats because Steele is a "real" African-American (i.e. descended from African slaves) whereas Obama is only an Afaux-American.

    I’m putting my money on 10 Feb. 2009.

  45. 45.

    kay

    @Josh Hueco:

    They’re completely convinced Obama plans to "silence" Rush Limbaugh.

    Have you ever, in your entire adult life, heard more from Rush Limbaugh than you have in the last three days? I don’t listen to his program. Yet, I heard him. I can’t avoid Rush Limbaugh.
    This fact, this barrage of speech by Rush Limbaugh, of course, leads them to believe that Obama planned to silence Rush Limbaugh, but failed.
    Because that’s what a sane person would conclude, right? Not that there was NO plot, but instead, that the plot FAILED.

  46. 46.

    SGEW

    It’s beautiful.

    Um. A joy forever? I hereby declare you the chief innovator in the modern post-ASCII internet art movement.

  47. 47.

    The Silent Fiddle of Nero

    @kay:

    Actually, I think a sane person would conclude that there was a plan, to make Rush go nutzoid and in turn, with vigorous airing of his rantings, prove to all the non-dittoheads that this man is indeed dangerous. It marginalizes the crazies even more. It’s brilliant strategy.

  51. 51.

    MikeJ

    What the fuck is Brick Oven By-The-Way-Whose-Ashes-Are-In-All-Those-Photos-of-Brick-Ovens Buffalo Bill mumbling about?

    The only thing I’ve ever seen him talk about is pie.

  53. 53.

    Delia

    @The Silent Fiddle of Nero:

    So now when it gradually becomes clear to almost all of that part of the world that doesn’t already realize it that Rush is a deranged loony who can’t string five words together without swinging out into lalaland, then it will be Obama’s fault?

  55. 55.

    Brick Oven Bill

    Silent Fiddle of Nero makes a very logical suggestion to be quiet. This is probably good advice. But, at the risk of sounding sappy, I’ll defer to Hyman Rickover*:

    "For the citizen, this courage means a frank exposition of a problem and a decrying of the excesses of power. It takes courage to do this because in our polite society frank speech is discouraged. But when this attitude relates to questions involving the welfare or survival of the Nation, it is singularly unfitting to remain evasive. It is not only possible, but in fact duty of everyone to state precisely what his knowledge and conscience compel him to say."

    And to dispel the rumors that swirl from those such as Josh Hueso; those ashes are from my backyard trees. I have my own chainsaw! And ice storms. This was a good winter. Somebody else criticized me for keeping rice in the pantry, stating that rice does not have many nutrients.

    This is why I keep crackers in the kitchen.

    The squirrels love little pieces of crackers. And then they go back into the forest and collect more nutrients. And then they come back for little pieces of crackers. Me and the squirrels get along great.

    *The first address is technical and excellent, the second address is philosophical and stunning, if you continue to re-read it as you pass through life experiences, the third address is good and a nuanced slam on Jimmy Carter, as I read it, and the fourth essay has nothing to do with Hyman Rickover whatsoever, but is good, in a completely different way, nonetheless.

  58. 58.

    J. Michael Neal

    They’re completely convinced Obama plans to "silence" Rush Limbaugh.

    Why the fuck would Obama want to silence Limbaugh? It looks to me as if the winning strategy is to hand Rush a microphone, and hope he gets invited on Larry King.

  59. 59.

    Shygetz

    They’re completely convinced Obama plans to "silence" Rush Limbaugh.

    Are you kidding me? Obama’s plan is very clearly to shine the light on Rush AND convince the Republicans to cozy up to him. And it’s working brilliantly. As long as the Dems can convince the Republicans to cozy up to the loony base, the Republicans will remains a regional party (who unfortunately is in my region…sigh).

  60. 60.

    Fencedude

    @The Silent Fiddle of Nero:

    Ummm, correct me if I’m wrong, but actually drawing blood in fencing is an illegal move, isn’t it?

    Speaking as a fencer, if you draw blood during a fencing bout…you’re doing it REALLY WRONG.

  61. 61.

    Brick Oven Bill

    When it takes 45 minutes (and counting) to have a light-hearted comment be ‘moderated’, some people get worried about the 1st Amendment.

    It doesn’t stop with Rush, by the way.

  62. 62.

    TenguPhule

    88% of which is reported to be ‘non-stimulus’ by the Wall Street Journal.

    And since when has the WSJ had a reliable track record?

  64. 64.

    SGEW

    And since when has the WSJ had a reliable track record?

    The proper phrasing is, I believe: ". . . until when did the WSJ have a reliable track record?"

    The death of the Wall Street Journal as a reputable institution is one of the smaller tragedies of the Bush era, but a tragedy nonetheless.

  65. 65.

    Fencedude

    @TenguPhule:

    By "reported by" he obviously means "written in an editorial".

    I’m not going to bother trying to find out if thats true or not, but I put the odds at somewhere around 95%.

    WSJ’s reporters generally know what the fuck they’re talking about, the Editorial Board…not so much.

  66. 66.

    Brick Oven Bill

    I’d answer you TenguPhule, but, if I understand this moderation filter correctly, you are not reading this. We probably can agree that Gigot is not that sharp. If you can see this, respond please.

  67. 67.

    robertdsc

    Hiring three lobbyists for prominent positions isn’t too sharp after you’ve pledged not to hire lobbyists. Hiring a Goldman Sachs lobbyist as Chief of Staff to an ethically-challenged Secretary Treasury was unnecessarily overt, especially when you are about to try to get the taxpayer to buy all of those bad loans, that we were supposed to have already paid for. You know, those loans that the Treasury Secretary oversaw.

    This, I agree with. The rest, wingnuttery at its finest.

  71. 71.

    The Silent Fiddle of Nero

    "For the citizen, this courage means a frank exposition of a problem and a decrying of the excesses of power. It takes courage to do this because in our polite society frank speech is discouraged. But when this attitude relates to questions involving the welfare or survival of the Nation, it is singularly unfitting to remain evasive. It is not only possible, but in fact duty of everyone to state precisely what his knowledge and conscience compel him to say."

    Brick Oven Bill, if you’re going to cite this as an example of your reason to speak, please explain why you are only speaking out since the end of the Bush era and the beginning of the Obama era and not during the darkest period of time when Bush actually fucked up the country.

    Your protestations are in vain if you can’t explain why you ignored Bush’s spectacular display of flushing the country down the toilet. Go make a pizza, it will be more productive.

  72. 72.

    The Silent Fiddle of Nero

    Uh. That whooshing sound you hear is your comment sailing over my head.

    I’m not expecting you to understand the importance of the date, and I’m not going to explain… just suffice it to say I put all bets on a date of February 10th once and it cost me, big time. You’ve heard of "beware of the Ides of March"? I’m telling you "beware of Feb. 10", that’s all.

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks