I just walked downtown and got my hair cut (still going to the same place I have been going for fifteen years, $11 plus tip), and while I was there I read an older issue of TAC that I had not gotten around to yet. That, in and of itself, is amusing. First, I have a ginormous melon. If I were a cowboy I would have to wear a twelve gallon hat. My head is so big I had to special order my hat while I was in the Army, because they usually did not have size 7 7/8’s – 8 in stock. Second, I no longer wear contacts (my logic was there are so many other things I could focus on to fix my personal appearance, so what is another torpedo in a sinking ship? Just wear glasses, they are easier.), and I am blind as a bat without my glasses. To give you an idea how bad my vision is, one day when I was standing at attention in formation in basic training, and I was wearing my birth control glasses (“You’ll never get laid in ’em!”), my Drill Sergeant was behind me, looked through my glasses, and exclaimed: “Holy Cow, Private Cole! Your glasses are so thick you can see the future throught them!” Try standing at attention after that. Thank goodness modern plastics make my glasses much thinner. At any rate, imagine a middle-aged pudgy guy with a basketball sized head wearing an apron and holding a magazine three inches from his face, and you get the picture. The picture portrait of dignity, if you will.
Back to the point. I was leafing through the February 9th edition, and I found this by Jack Ross:
ALMOST COMPLETELY ignored in the excitement over Barack Obama has been the collapse of the New Left revival that peaked between the Nader campaign of 2000 and the Dean campaign of 2003. For a time, with the antiwar movement burgeoning and a deeply unpopular Republican in the White House, the politics of the late 1960s seemed poised to return. Even Students for a Democratic Society revived. But the moment quickly passed. This was more than the end of a fad–it was the death of a distinct American Left. Obama’s mass following and the liberal blogosphere today are moved more by partisanship than ideology, and they have scarcely any sense of a political past. In other words, they have about as much connection to the historic American Left as the pioneers of the New Right had to the Old Right.
To say that Markos Moulitsas and Obama’s liberal netroots represent the triumph of centrism may sound absurd–as absurd as arguing that Richard Viguerie and the 1970s New Right heralded victory for the political Establishment. But Murray Rothbard built a persuasive case for just that claim in a 1977 Libertarian Forum essay, “The New End of Ideology?” The title was a play on Daniel Bell’s The End of Ideology, which celebrated the triumph of the liberal-democratic center–Truman Democrats and Rockefeller Republicans–in the 1950s. Rothbard considered the partisan divide that started to take shape in the late ’70s to be a new end of ideology because it marked a) the final transformation of the American Right into what could be rightly called a conservative movement, characterized by a “drive toward Establishment respectability”; and b) the end of the New Left, in which he and other libertarians once staked a great deal of hope, as it rejoined the Old Left.
***This, then, is our new end of ideology. The Left has ceased to be the Left, just as surely as by the late 1970s the Right had ceased to be the Right to anyone, like Rothbard, old enough to remember a time when conservatives opposed war and welfarism. In place of the radical Left now stands an optimistic, impeccably patriotic mass movement that is far too young to have a discernible character beyond simple devotion to Barack Obama. If the president should achieve little else than to appoint competent technocrats to do what needs doing in both foreign and domestic affairs, this pragmatism will be the one sure path to success for the Left. Any loyal opposition from the Right will be shaped by this fact, hastening a true end of ideology.
Any thoughts on this? Yesterday, someone remarked that should the GOP continue their headlong descent into oblivion, the Democratic Party will become the new Republican party, and what could possibly happen is a new “left” will emerge in the vacuum. What do you think?
Dr. Squid
The story of those glasses makes in seem like you’re the Jon Cryer character in "Hot Shots".
ChrisB
The Kevin Mench of the blogosphere.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
I always take these grand re-alignment suggestions with a huge grain of salt. We heard about it in 1994, then again in 2000 (even though it was much harder to believe because of the stolen election) and again in 2004 (easier to believe because anybody with an ounce of sense could see how bad Bush and his cronies were and yet, he cruised to re-election).
Flash forward four years and here we are making the same kind of general pronouncements. Never fear, the Democratic Party never forgets its ability to screw itself over for any variety of reasons and thus letting the other guys back into the game.
Litlebritdifrnt
Just watched our bright and shiny new Commander in Chief address the troops at Camp Lejeune, (CNN live feed, couldn’t find anyone to bribe to get tickets to the event) it’s gonna make the repubs heads explode watching the reception he got. They about mobbed him after the speech, all standing on their chairs to take pictures, shake hands etc., and there was me thinking the troops can’t stand him, him being an illegal muslin and everything ….. no wait.
Brien Jackson
I literally just heard about this Accountabilty Now project before I read this, so color me a little bit skeptical.
Wile E. Quixote
I too have a big ass head. When we first got on the tanks at basic they couldn’t find a CVC big enough for me and my drill sergeant, in front of the whole platoon, said "Goddamn you got a big-ass pumpkin head Jamison". Good times. Good times.
Napoleon
I could see the Republicans being hammered again in ’12, but I don’t see them going away.
By the way, I totally disagree with his theory that "the left has ceased to be the left". "The Left" is in the White House and in control of the debate. Of course they are not going to be marching in the streets.
Comrade Darkness
It’s like vowel shifts in language. If you keep moving the field one way only something has to fall off the end.
(As a total aside, I was watching some shakespeare clips on youtube and had a realization: that bloke was late 1500s, and this shit should be performed with an American accent to be authentic.)
Dave
So picturing you we should envision…Karl Rove? : )
I have a massive melon as well. When my son was born, he inherited it. It’s so big that when he went for a six-month checkup, the doctor was afraid he had encephalitis or some other serious disease. My wife tried to explain it was normal but he wouldn’t listen.
So my wife had me come down to the doctor’s office. I walked through the door, the doctor took one look at me and said "Oh." And that was that.
However, I have 20/20 vision. So I have that going for me, which is nice.
amorphous
Lordy lordy do I disagree. I don’t know why Ross feels the need to shortchange (at best) people; most of the Libs and Dems and Lefties I know aren’t at all devoted to Obama. They like the bulk of his policies and are thankful for his pragmatism, but they have their core principles, thankyouverymuch, and I think we’ve already seen some of them voice strongly many of their disagreements with him.
This reeks like Ross is eloquently trying to equate Obama and his supporters to Bush and his army of lock-step dead-enders.
Brachiator
Some of the desire to see a "new Left" emerge ignores the central fact that many in the younger generation of citizens and voters don’t care about the old left-right battles that consumes old lefties. This is a similar mistake that the Cheney-Rumsfeld axis made, itching to fight a culture war that was meaningful only to old farts and right wing policy wonks (this also created the vacuum that was exploited by the neocons).
Still, the old lefty empire is attempting to fight back, if you believe this recent ap/politico news story (the link thingie isn’t working for me, so google for reference):
We saw glimmers of this during the post-primary season, where Pelosi, Reid and other Democratic congressional leaders time and time again demonstrated that they just didn’t understand that the broad support that voters have for Obama does not mean that they automatically endorse every brain-dead idea that old style lefties and "progressives" want to see implemented.
Meanwhile, Obama is deftly handling both his "supporters" and his opponents in the Congress. Good times.
TheHatOnMyCat
I generally agree with Ross. Maybe not on the specifics, but the general idea, that legacy ideology is dead in this country, yes.
Also dead is legacy media influence, if it ever existed.
These things are dead out here, in the real country.
In the towers of CBS, NBC and ABC in NYC, and in Washington DC, the legacy conceits live on, but not for long.
I double dog dare you to go out on the street and find two people who (a) know who David Broder is and (b) give a shit.
Yet in the blogorrheasphere, things like Broder and Will and rightwing blogs demand daily attention. I was going to say DailyKos attention, but that would look too cute.
You can call that whatever you like, but I call it a disconnect. And a prolonged disconnect equals marginalization, then extinction.
And last but not least, I thought the silly "netroots" thing was dead the first time I ever read about it, a few years ago. Absolutely a figment of somebody’s imagination.
PS — my head is exactly the right size.
Nick
1: "Competent technocrats" practicing "pragmatism". Sounds good to me after 8 years of Bush.
2. In basic training we were having an inspection one day, everyone at attention. Next room over some big dumb Irishman says: "Drill Sergeant Elliot?"…..The Drill Sergeant says "Yes?" Big dumb Irishman stammers out—-"Nice day out isn’t it, Drill Sergeant?"
I almost shit myself trying not to laugh.
Jay Severin Has A Small Pen1s
I disagree.
I see the Republican party fracturing into two parts…the crazy ass Christian Right loving idiots and the fiscal conservatives.
Then the fiscal conservatives will draw people from the Democrat party and we’ll have three parties.
The extreme right
The Republicans
The Democrats
The democrats will be forced to move right and the extreme right will be in the toilet.
Jess
I was thinking something similar when I saw "A Knight’s Tale"–one of those comedies that actually provokes some useful insights along with the fart jokes.
patrick
I have a friend with a really large head. He says that while in the delivery room for the birth of their first born, he took his wife’s hand, and she looked at him and said
" You big headed son-of-bitch".
Skepticat
Some people need glasses to read. Some people need glasses to drive. I need glasses to see. It’s such a nuisance to need your glasses to find your glasses.
Dave Ruddell
Maybe we can start a group on Facebook – "Brotherhood of the Size 8 heads". I always hated those parts in So I Married an Axe Murderer where the dad is making fun of "Head". I felt bad for the poor kid.
Zifnab
*bullshit* cough cough *bullshit*
Take a look at the 2000 election. We had a competent technocratic heir – Gore – ready to inherent the White House from a previous pragmatic administration. Why did he lose (the electoral vote)? Because of a blow job? Or because of the grander ideology that had been built up behind it.
If you can convince 50 million people once that socialized health care is the devil, tax cuts for the rich make poor people’s lives better, public education is a waste of money, and fundamentalist religion should be the cornerstone of state policy all on the basis of… what? a gut feeling? The wisdom of your (GOP) elders? Its just a matter of time before you can convince them of it again.
Ideology is sleeping. It’s not dead. It never will be.
I’ve seen enough Obamadrama to disagree with you. There is a section of the Left that supports Obama for what he represents – end to the wars, tax reform that benefits the middle class, competent technocracy – but there are a large number of supports that rally around Obama the figure. Which of these groups is the "majority"? I can’t honestly say as I am still dealing with a very small sample size.
I don’t think many Obama Republicans supported him because he was just so gosh darn charming. Most of his independent appeal comes from the center. But that just adds to the problem. Without charismatic Obama leading the coalition, I don’t know what kind of majority we’d have. Would the same independents have shown up for a less-charismatic Clinton or Richardson or Reid or Pelosi or Biden? I don’t see it. People have faith in Obama and a tolerance for his policies even when they diverge from their own beliefs. That doesn’t come from nothing.
phil
Got ya beat — I wear size 8 1/4. Fortunately, Tilly has hats that size.
jibeaux
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
I also take them heavily salted, but I admit that right now it is hard for me to figure out even what the Republican strategy for viability should be if they were smart, much less what they’re actually going to pursue. In the end, I think it will depend a great deal on how comfortable /normal/complacent things turn out to be. Most people aren’t like me, caring deeply about state secrets, signing statements, transparency of government, etc., and they certainly aren’t like wingnuts, caring about birth certificates and tax cuts and the impending islamocommunist takeover.
I recently read an old (’96 or so) James Fallows article on why people hate the media that was very interesting, and one of the things he discussed was that there was no overlap whatsoever between the questions people asked candidates at town hall style debates and questions asked by the media the previous Sunday. None. Normal people asked about student loans, cops on the street, stuff like that. People just want the government to do the things that it should do, well, and leave them alone when it shouldn’t do something, and otherwise function sort of capably and below their radar. If the Democrats do this and the economy recovers, it’s hard for me to see what the "drill here drill now" set is going to offer them. (of course, then we might see the rise of a more agitated left to challenge from the other side.) If the economy stays poor and/or we don’t succeed in delivering competent, unexciting government, that’s another story, despite their not offering anything beyond faux populism.
TheHatOnMyCat
I do. None.
American politics is all about the two big coalitions.
What’s dead (and the reason why Ross is right) is that the basis for these coalitions is shifting.
On our side, it has shifted toward growth (the coalition is bigger) and practicality (it is anti-ideological).
On the GOP side, it has shifted toward fracture and failure. At least for now. It is shrinking, while ours grows, and it is impractical, while ours is aimed at solving real problems.
So far so good. But I don’t expect their machine to remain in the junkheap forever. They will come back, once they learn to understand the new reality. And once we get too cocky and fuck up our governance.
Das Internetkommissariat
Funny that you are asking that question John. Al Giordano wrote a piece today answering exactly that:
Robin G.
Erm. I will say that the Democratic Party has become extremely centrist as of late, simply by sopping up the fleeing Republican moderates like so many Mormon boys. It’s one of the reasons I wish the Libertarian party would get its act together. They’d take back all our Blue Dogs and make a strong national party (which is essential in a two-party system, obviously), and the remainder of the Republican party would die a quiet death.
Other than that, I wouldn’t say the ideology has died. It’s just that in the last eight years, the situation has become so very dire that pragmatism and competency became the defining factor of the moment — essentially, who cared about ideological purity when the modern GOP was destroying the country? The most important thing was to get them the hell out of office, before it was too late.
I’d argue that now that liberals have a little more breathing room at the national level, we’ll actually see more New Left revivals.
Aaron
One of the problems with this argument is in trying to pin down political ideologies on a two-dimensional spectrum. It works really well for horse-race coverage and manufacturing dissent, but I know very few people who fit along the "conventional" party line.
Another problem is that the "left" in this country has been used to describe everyone from Clinton to Lenin – often with very little distinction between wildly different ideologies. it has basically become the "wit us or again’ us" dichotomy applied to political thought.
So any rumors of political party demise are greatly exaggerated. As long republicans can use abortion and gay marriage as wedge/evangelical issues, they will have a solid base from which to form a national political platform
gwangung
And this hasn’t changed for the last 12-15 years. Or more.
And the media wonder why they’re held in contempt?
Fwiffo
I’I guess I’m among those who are skeptical of realignment. On the other hand, there’s actually every reason to believe that the Republicans are actually in for another ass-kicking in 2010, in spite of the fact that the economy will still be in the toilet by then.
Republicans are really facing a demographic tidal wave. The younger generation is less religious, more pro-choice and way more in favor of gay-marriage. They’re becoming a bigger part of the electorate and are going to eventually render the relgious right almost powerless. Racial and religoous minorities are growing in proportion to white Christians, and Republicans aren’t going to adjust, at least, not any time soon.
My prediction is that Republican base will become ever more radicalized and hostile to moderates, that they’ll continue to lose the Powells and Specters and Collinses. The Democratic majority will continue to grow, until it’s so big that it won’t have any qualms about shedding Blue Dog types completely, who might then form up with the rump Republicans to form some sort of moderated Republican party.
El Cid
One of the reasons I am on the left is that many of the ideas and analyses of reality which I saw as imminently sensible if not obvious were completely dismissed by the liberal mainstream.
I hardly see it as a ‘defeat’ for anything I actually care about when what I previously had to do as a marginalized leftist is now recognized as reality by mainstream liberals.
But, then, it was an ill fit for many people who would more properly fit in modern American liberalism to be forced into ‘the left’ simply because then contemporary liberalism would refuse to include them.
A good chunk of that can be ascribed to red-baiting as a way of attacking liberalism.
Now, there is a much broader range of opinions and policies and viewpoints within mainstream liberalism that you just didn’t used to see throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Back in the 1980s, people mainstream liberals and pundits could just snot off that anyone who didn’t think that the U.S. government had the right to change who governed Nicaragua was on the crazy left, and the only permissible questions for good patriotic sane liberals was how we should go about doing it.
I am still a believer in and supporter of things which simply will not be part of the mainstream range of liberals anytime soon. Yet at least a much greater amount of what I had been (and still am) concerned about is now being addressed within the political system instead of entirely being outside.
Is that a loss? A surrender?
We’ve heard a lot at various times in history about how ideology has ended, and then it eventually turns out that there really are fundamental conflicts of interest within society and between national and international groups, that these conflicts of interests carry with them fundamentally different world views, and that those who wish their interests to win will work to propagate those views.
Comrade Stuck
I would agree that ideology of the left and right and the electorate are in a significant flux right now. He forgets the politics of the 60′ and 70′ was a stormy amalgam of an unpopular war with a high draftee death count and a society trying to wrestle free from Victorian age social constraints.
The republican party has mostly been about a disparate group of factions with some similarities but dominated by hatred of the lefts beliefs and equal hatred for being out of power. They still hate the left, now even more, but the need to come together for winning elections is over for now. Overpowered by countervailing interests that have always been there. And now with southern ideology firmly in control.
I don’t think the left is all that much different than it has always been. It has new causes and new tensions between it’s factions, but mild in comparison to the GOP. We remain, imo, a party with factions that fundamentally agrees with one another, save for different emphasis on importance of one issue over another, and the details for dealing with it. Of, course now that the GOP is insane and irrelevant, that fighting dem spirit too often gets turned in on itself and we argue about a 19 month IRaq withdrawal versus 16, or when Obama does a Crazy Ivan left or right, and what that means.
El Tiburon
I think the new battle lines will be between the blue-dogs and the somewhat-emerging progressive caucus.
If the new Accountability Now PAC (Greenwald, MoveOn, etc) takes off, we could really have a recalibration of the Democratic party.
I guess another outcome of this, once the stain of being a Republican wears off, is that some of the blue-dogs will just put an R behind their names.
Otherwise, I feel the term "the left" is outdated. 60% + of all Americans basically believe the same thing: get out of Iraq, stop bullshit wars, universal healthcare, strengthen social security, go back to real diplomacy, gay marriage, back to science and so on.
If we had a decent MSM, this wouldn’t be so hard.
TheHatOnMyCat
I don’t think they wonder at all. I think they wear it as a badge of honor.
The whole purpose of the media is to act as our representatives in the information stream. Instead they are almost entirely self-referential. That (see my post at #12) is another disconnect, which has already progressed to marginalization, and is headed for extinction.
They talk mainly to each other. They think they are much more important than they actually are.
Comrade Dread
I don’t think the Democratic party will become the Republican party, but I could see it eventually settling back into a more conservative brand: promotion of a safety net, a more progressive tax code (though probably not back to the 90% range), government works projects, promotion of unions, strong regulatory oversight, but otherwise not as energetic as they are now.
Simply because once the economy starts to turn around (And I pray to God it actually does at some point), people will perceive that the damage from Bush has been undone, and they won’t necessarily see the need for a government as active as the Obama administration is now.
And I think the folks who will are probably going to be in the extreme minority and won’t have the numbers to form a new competitive left/Progressive party.
John Cole
@Wile E. Quixote: I had to wear my CVC without the hard outer shell. If brass was around, I would duck tape it on until they left.
Garrigus Carraig
@Jess @Comrade Darkness: Shakespearean English is not quite an American accent, as the vowels are quite different, but in both all the r’s are pronounced, unlike in modern London English. I imagine the closest would be the northern English accent, Lancashire, Yorkshire, something like that.
MikeL
I think the rhetoric of an opposition party trying to gain power is different from the rhetoric of a ruling party.
Michael57
Seems to me that one of Obama’s big projects is defining what "the center" means. He is shifting it way to the left. Universal health care, good energy policy, these will all be seen as centrist goals. I hope the Republicans continue to see it otherwise. They used to think they had control of the center. They don’t anymore.
Kyle
I think the guy’s premises is completely off. First, liberals like Obama a great deal, but they seem to genuinely be ready to question any move he makes. However, the premise that the left that rose with Dean has disappeared seems flat out wrong. They were the victors in the 2008. Neither Obama nor the many new Democratic congresspersons would be there if it were not for the excitement generated by the Dean campaign and its continuation with things like MoveOn and the use of the internet for fundraising and message delivery.
In fact, I saw the primary battle between Clinton and Obama as a fight between the old, party-boss faction of the party (Clinton and her campaign of "inevitability") and the new progressive wing of the party (Obama) that took flight when Dean recognized that he represented the Democratic wing of the Democratic party.
Now that we’ve been successful on a national level, we need to clean out the state housees, beginning with California. The party bosses there are killing the state, but getting rid of them will be very difficult because the GOP here is a laughable joke.
TheHatOnMyCat
I agree that this is what he wants to do, and is trying to do.
I am hedging my bets on whether he pulls it off. It seems to me that most of it hinges on the perceived success or failure of his economic measures. If we are sitting in the toilet in 2012, the experiment is going to be over. As Obama himself said just recently, you’ll be getting a new president.
Mind you, nobody here … or anywhere, probably … wants him to succeed more than I do. I just don’t know what the world has in store at this point. A shitstorm is coming that will make this period look like the salad days.
Rome Again
Bullshit, and that you had to ask if pretty amazing in itself.
Jess
The problem with Ross’s argument is that he completely misunderstands what he calls "The Left." The remnants of the radical left of the sixties are either off smoking dope in their yurts, or teaching Derrida in academia. There has been a large and growing gap for quite some time between the radicals and the progressives/liberals/whatevertermisnowfashionable. (At the same time, of course, we have the opposite trend on the other side of the political spectrum, with the merging of big business conservatives with the snake-handling, abortion clinic bombing, wackos of the radical right.)
The critics of the left have tried to conflate the radicals with the moderates for decades now. It was politically successful for awhile, but now has come back to bite them in the ass. In creating straw-men opponents to rail against, conservatives have misunderstood, and therefore underestimated, what they were up against. And then, with the invasion of Iraq, the huge number of moderately liberal, practical, reasonable people who consider themselves left of center were finally pissed off enough to make an organized stand against the insanity and corruption of the right. And have finally reclaimed the political stage. It was never a radical, ideological movement. Just radically pissed off at idiots.
amorphous
@El Tiburon:
And if my mother had a penis she’d be my father… and a hermaphrodite.
srv
The Democratic Party since Clinton has always been the old Republican Party. Bill was son the George Sr. never had.
nogo postal
President Obama has to undo not only the last 8 years but the last 30 years. And,; he wants to do a whole lot. In his first month he has both undone and done some amazing things.
(by the way I hope folks caught the PBS Stevie in the White House program) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MBFLrNZs-Q
cleek
who, superdestroyer ?
all it will take is some unfortunately-timed scandals, or slow action on the economy and the wars, or a major catastrophe which could plausibly be blamed on the Dems, and the GOP will be back in the running.
the voters who make the difference (ie. not the respective Bases) are fickle and inattentive. they want results, and don’t give a fuck about ideology. if the Dems aren’t performing, the GOP will look like a good alternative.
Remek
Seems to me his premise is that both right and left ideologies were carved in stone – never to waver, change, or adapt without abandoning their core values or principals.
I’m not so sure that’s true, at least with regards to comparing present Democratic values to those of 30-40 years ago. I’d venture the Right has fragmented its traditional conservative values now -vs- then much more than the Left has.
The Left still has its stonecutters, but I think the Left overall has become more pragmatic and practical now, while still keeping many of the core principals as its goals.
The traditional fragmented Left/Progressive/Democratic interests have benefited the most from modern technology and the internet. Individuals and groups can communicate easily and swiftly, and come together to realize their overall Democratic goals are similar enough that working together to build and promote the Democratic party as a whole helps everyone benefit in the long run.
Joshua Norton
That there was somehow a "New Left" that spontaneously appeared in the ’60’s is a load of crap. The Civil Rights movement’s time had come and the grownups in the room were pushing for it because it was the right thing to do.
The young crowd was protesting the war because they were the one’s getting drafted and sent away to be cannon fodder.
It wasn’t a "party movement" – it was a movement by members of the party.
Let the same conditions arise again – Drafting college kids to go to the Middle East, Civil wrongs being forced on a class of people by hard core bigots – and a new generation of same cast of characters will once more come to the forefront.
There will always be people who need authoritarians telling them what to do and others who resent it. And they’ll always have their own political representation.
Mike from DC
hmmm… I wouldn’t say that ideology is dead.
What I would say is that conservatism as we’ve known it is hosed, and will stay that way until conservatives can figure out what brought them down, and fix it. It typically takes about a decade for any group to figure that out (during which time, they tack hard to their ideological roots, just like the rump of the repubs are doing right now, or what the dems did after 1968), and then they start working things through.
I would also say that what we’ve been experiencing is the rebirth of the american left. There isn’t one dominant "left", as the author of that article wrote (only read the excerpt, not the entire article) right now. But as it develops and flowers, we’ll see one come to the fore.
So, because american conservatism is in hibernation and the american left is just sprouting, there isn’t any one dominant ideology at the moment, so I can see why the author said as much.
jake 4 that 1
What do I think? I think you (or your drill serjeant) owe me a new keyboard.
But … yeah. My entire family is known for cryin’ inta laaarhge pillas.
Comrade Stuck
@Michael57:
I agree, and that the shift is primarily back to the long time zone for traditional democratic belief. which boiled down, is a fair shake for the average citizen. That’s why it makes me chuckle with glee when wingnuts screach and run around cawing Porkulus, and socialist and Obama’s numbers keep going up. The country has just awoken from a 30 year wingnut failed experiment and get it. Common sense, a sense of fair play, and someone who so far is looking out for their interests is on the job once again. A democrat like Truman, Kennedy, FDR, and a sometimes Clinton. And BTW, trying to save industry and reform it at the same time is in everyone’s interest.
Dave
All this Democrats becoming Republicans talk is shortsighted. Once that new Accountability PAC gets rolling, the Democrats will have their own version of Club For Growth, chase off the moderates and get all far-left once again.
It’s the circle of life, my friends. Hakuna Matata.
Joshua Norton
Duct tape.
D-U-C-T tape.
Duct. Tape.
Jess
Exactly.
Rome Again
@Zifnab:
Nobody said it comes from nothing. It comes from relief for being released from the hell of the last eight years and giving them man some fucking TIME before we start pushing for him to be challenged. Hello? He’s been in office for five weeks. Rome wasn’t built in a day. If he royally screws up, we will not be afraid to admit it.
I knew the reason why I sided with Democrats since I was a child, the idea of fighting for the little guy, pro-union, being "my brother’s keeper", taking care of people. These are values I’ve always espoused and nothing has changed. My values have not changed, I’m just relieved Bush is gone and giving Obama some time to get settled in. That’s all. I’m sure there are going to be areas where I criticize him after I feel he’s had enough time to get it all together. Hell, he’s still working on his cabinet.
Comrade Stuck
@Joshua Norton:
Nope, it’s duck tape. I got a roll in my hand right now. And have made the same mistake thinking it was duct.
Duck is the brand name though. Though Some do call it duct. very confusing.
Comrade Kevin
@Dave:
What? The Democratic Party has never been "far-left".
bago
I think there’s sort of a zeitgeist of connectedness brought on by the internet, the cell phones, and the twittering that makes it harder to be isolationist. The last time we had total war, it ended in millions of deaths and nuclear attacks. People backed down, and resorted to mid level war, containing things with napalm and agent orange and body counts in the tens of thousands(US)/Low millions(everyone else). Then the old war machine is content with rolling into dirt ass poor countries every once in a while with historically low casualty rates(Leeden Doctrine). This "gee, war is cheap and cool" attitude drives us headlong into Iraq, where after 7-8 long years people remember that war isn’t so cheap or cool.
The point is that it’s harder to shout at other people and scream about how they are foreign and deserve to die when we know them, hang out in the intertubes with them, and date them.
To simplify things ever further, it’s really hard to call for Japanese internment when you are a 4channer.
Suck it Malkin. Also.
Jess
@Garrigus Carraig:
The point is that the modern equivalent Shakespearean English and the popular culture of Chaucer’s day is American English, sports culture, and rock music. Not upper-crust drawing-room comedies of manners.
bago
@Comrade Stuck: There is a brand of duct tape called duck tape, to capitalize on the typo, but it is tape for HVAC ducts, hence the name, duct tape.
cleek
quack quack
Steeplejack
@TheHatOnMyCat:
But what about your cat’s head? How big is his hat?
TheHatOnMyCat
@Comrade Kevin:
Duct tape is the most common name, and the former most common use, of the product which was something that came out of WWII. Wiki.
Some products are now labeled "Duck" tape as a branding thing or as a play on words.
But it is most commonly "duct" tape and can always be called duct tape.
Quack!
Napoleon
@Comrade Stuck:
No, actually it is duct tape. That is the proper name of it. A manufacture of duct tape on the west side of Cleveland though labels their duct tape with the brand name Duck Tape, because people moronically call it that and they thought they could take advantage of it. But still, its proper name is duct tape.
schrodinger's cat
John Cole @33
What is CVC? I have no idea what you guys are talking about.
amorphous
@Comrade Stuck: @Joshua Norton: Why, you fellers can have your cake and eat it, too.
TheHatOnMyCat
I have a 23 lb cat with a very large head. For a cat, I mean.
Comrade Stuck
@bago:
LOL. Being good democrats, we should now have at least one thread dedicated to arguing this out amongst ourselves. No one can duck the question:)
Joshua Norton
It would appear that we’re both right. I guess they just gave up on the whole duct tape thingie and started calling it duck tape so people would know what to buy. But it was originally used to repair ducts.
Now let’s do "tow the line" vs. "toe the line".
Comrade Kevin
@TheHatOnMyCat: Okay, sure, but why was that addressed to me?
Remek
Doubtful. Unless millions of Democrats suddenly hunger for top-down leadership.
"Please, oh great and wise leaders, show us how we may further glorify our corporate and monied masters, and give us our daily talking points so that we can spread thy words of wisdom among the masses!"
The above is what the right wing does. Ain’t gonna happen with Democrats.
Jess
@Comrade Stuck:
It’s duct tape (used for sealing ducts), but there is a brand of it called "Duck Tape" since everybody was making the same mistake. It’s like "Lite" beer, and quotation marks used "for emphasis."
Edit: never mind–faster typists have it covered…
Trollhattan
New left, oulde right, missing center…I’ve got no clue. I think the voting public is so (rightfully) freaked out over the economy they’ll vote for the grownup with the plan, for the time being.
As to glasses vs. contacts I have actual biased opinions based on actual experience. If you can’t get contacts to work you need a new eye doctor, stat. There’s no joy in settling for glasses. Heavy correction (and I’m as myopic as they come) means physically small lenses and a greatly shrunken view, e.g., a 20-inch monitor appears to be 16 inches. It means no peripheral vision. It means foggy vision on rainy, snowy days. It means battling scratches on your $250 multicoated, rolled and polished-edge, polycarbonate lenses. It means foregoing honest-to-god sunglasses.
Yeah, fitting and caring for contacts can be a PITA but the right eye doc won’t quit until they’re right. Either that or it’s the laser (evidently not an option for my peepers, but that’s the way it goes).
That’s a funny DI quip about seeing the future. My bro’s eyes were so bad they kept him from automatic Army induction in those heady days of 1970, when all you basically needed to pass the physical was to fog a mirror. I’ve always considered it a win-win for both he and the Army.
TheHatOnMyCat
It was adopted to repairing ducts, but as the wiki says, was never all that good for that purpose. Its original purpose was to waterproof ammunition cases during WWII.
Actually, it was adopted to sealing ducts more than repairing them. But the adhesives aren’t really up to it.
jibeaux
I have heard that duct tape is actually pretty bad for repairing ducts. I can’t remember why. Maybe it doesn’t handle heat well.
Update: Doh. You people are fast, and you research. I just can’t compete with your fancy pants wiki consultations. I defer.
TheHatOnMyCat
@Comrade Kevin: I clicked on the wrong post?
John Cole
It is both. Also, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but apparently it is also now grammatically acceptable to say snuck and dove instead of sneaked and dived.
Trollhattan
re. Duct/duck tape
Funny story: I’ve worked on HVAC engineering plans and it’s a code violation to use duct tape in the assembly–stuff doesn’t really work. Ironic, to say the least.
BTW, if you want real grip, get gaffers tape.
TheHatOnMyCat
@jibeaux:
Doesn’t handle heat well, and adheres badly on dusty surfaces (which most tapes do). Most existing ductwork is filthy with dust. Also tends to harden up over time and loses its flexibility.
I think "duct" sealing was the common use when it got picked up by the marketeers and turned into a household product, so the name … uh … stuck.
Comrade Stuck
@Joshua Norton:
Maybe, Maybe not:)
John Cole
@Trollhattan: I can get fitted just fine. I just stopped caring, and glasses work fine. I am cool with things as they are.
I am not sure how or when it happened, but somewhere in between 34 and 38, I started to realize why old men wear blue socks with tennis shoes. They simply don’t care.
joe from Lowell
I think he overstates his case, but there’s a kernel of truth in there.
Think about the cabinet appointments that got the biggest cheers from Obama supporters: Eric Shinseki at Veterans Affairs and Dr. Wu at Energy.
There are not left-liberals, or anything like it. They’re reality-based managers who were beloved mainly for the implicit rejection of Bushism that they represented.
Hell, look at that phrase "reality-based community." That’s who we are, and it’s not terribly ideological.
Just Some Fuckhead
What a coincidence John. I got a haircut yesterday, $14 + tip. My mullet was starting to flip out on the sides.
Joshua Norton
I know, and it drives me nuts. I usually try to find some other word to use so I don’t have to end up defending the use of one or the other. Otherwise I’ll sit there vacillating between "snuck" and "sneaked" (mainly because "snuck" usually activates my spell-check) while life passes me by.
Jess
Wow–an entire political thread derailed by duct/duck tape! It’s good for something, at least…
KG
I tend to think that if Obama wins big (or bigger than he did last time) in 2012, the GOP is going to fracture. The social conservatives will likely go and form a third party that is similar to the European Christian Democrats: religious populism.
The fiscal conservatives, freed of the insanity of know-nothingism, will probably make some gains in the West and Northeast. But I don’t know if it will be enough to challenge the Dems for control for a long while.
Of course, if the religious populism works, we could see a left-leaning populism develop, creating basically four parties.
In the 4 party system, it wouldn’t be much different than what we have now, unless the centrist Dems and the fiscal conservatives decided to form a coalition in Congress to keep the populists at bay.
Or, we could just continue to see the two current parties fuck shit up because they’ve gamed the system against 3rd parties.
Comrade Stuck
@John Cole:
Or Snuct in Hillbilly.
TheHatOnMyCat
@Jess: Well, we got an issue going and stuck with it.
( sorry, really )
KG
@83: the only two tools you really need are a hammer and duct/k tape. Everything else is just for show.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Joshua Norton: Or stuck for steaked. On particular commenter comes to mind..
Joshua Norton
OMG – that’s the funniest thing I’ve seen all week.
Comrade Stuck
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I prefer steaked, but only medium rare.
Must now return Cole’s thread to it’s original channel.
Dennis-SGMM
@John Cole:
Most of us are no longer dating, we’ve seen enough of life not to give a shit what a passing stranger thinks of us, and those who have stayed in our lives are used to us by now.
Just Some Fuckhead
@TheHatOnMyCat:
See, if that was my cat, he’d be standing over the severed head protectively, batting it every now and then to see if it had any more gitup.
Jess
@TheHatOnMyCat:
I knew I was entering a sticky situation with that comment…but I decided to roll with it anyway.
Tsulagi
Also long known as 100mph tape to some.
Dude, someone needs to hook you up with a nice blind girl. j/k
Getting older sucks. I had better than 20/20 vision, but now I’m starting to get farsighted. Not that vain, but before I start sporting BCGs I think I’ll try lasik surgery.
Blue Raven
@Garrigus Carraig:
In all seriousness, Shakespearean English sounds a lot like what we think of as "pirate speak." In other words, a Cornish accent. People forget that the people of the island of Great Britain spoke a Celtic language before the Romans, Angles, Saxons, and Normans went through in successive waves and rewrote a few hundred things. This site on the Great Vowel Shift is most enlightening as to the sounds.
smiley
@John Cole: Damn, grading papers just got a little easier. Is it also acceptable now to use then in place of than?
Joshua Norton
I still get tripped up with "affect" and "effect".
Jess
@smiley:
Or "based off" of something rather than "based on"? I’ve given up on that one.
jake 4 that 1
Mmm. I love the smell of false equivalency in the the afternoon:
Uh yeah. That’s why all the people who considered themselves lefties in the 60’s started voting … um … uh …
Oh I see, he’s talking about the RADICAL left. Not just the left. I’m not sure how he skips so quickly from one to the other or if he thinks they’re the same or if he’s just lazy, sloppy, stupid or all of the above, but that still doesn’t change the fact that members of the RADICAL left still vote left. They also remember a time when it would have been difficult for Obama to get elected dog catcher.
mcc
I think this is pretty silly. The article itself points out how silly it is– because it acknowledges in order to clearly set up the boundaries between the post-leftist left and the old far left, you have to put DailyKos into the non-leftist camp.
So, yes. The Dean movement of 2004 is no longer driving the left, at least not in the sense it was in 2006. This is true in at least some sense.
The basic problem is that the difference between the Dean revolution and the Obama revolution isn’t one of ideology. It’s only even barely one of strategy. It’s one of faction. When what we mean when we say that the Dean revolution has lost control of the left is that Howard Dean, the person, and one or two closely aligned people like Joe Trippi, are not currently in positions of power. Obama built his movement on the same ideas and organizing principles Howard Dean used; he took Dean’s formula and refined it. But he didn’t himself come out of Dean’s movement, he didn’t himself work with Dean, he didn’t incorporate Howard Dean or the inner circle of high-profile supporters into the campaign or the administration. One faction is out, another is in.
This isn’t an interesting difference. It’s office politics. If you look at the actual differences of opinion that stem from whatever’s left of the Dean machine and whatever form of "the left" is coalescing around Obama, you’ll find the differences come basically entirely down to personal politics [this person does not like this other person], and tediously abstract disagreements about framing. There’s no substance here, there’s nothing that means anything to America at large. A lot of the differences are transitory or coincidental– again, DailyKos is counted among the "Obama" new new left and not among the "Dean" old new left– why? Only because they decided to support the Obama faction and not the Edwards faction a year ago.
What remains in the article– besides arbitrarily identifying one leftist faction with "ideology" and one leftist faction with "partisanship" for no reason more solid than that the second faction, technically, currently has control of the party– is the recurring condescending conservative fantasy that those dumb kids who voted for Obama don’t know anything, have no convictions, are only in this for a personality cult of Obama. This opinion is being voiced by American Conservative magazine. What exactly would they know about it?
Laura W
I’ve not been so relieved since the day I learned dreamt and dreamed were both acceptable.
@Joshua Norton:
That was just funny there.
Just Some Fuckhead
John, just as an FYI, the ladies in your
priceage range now have long since stopped caring about what you look like also. Just being with someone who cares about them and being able to care for someone else is usually enough.Just Some Fuckhead
Oh yeah, and having a fucking job, especially these days – big plus.
jake 4 that 1
@John Cole: "This is what it sounds like when diveds cry" doesn’t scan as well.
smiley
@Joshua Norton:
One comes before and the other after?
Joshua Norton
But what’s with wearing their plaid polyester pants belted directly under their man boobs?
Mike in NC
@schrodinger’s cat
CVC is a helmet worn by combat vehicle crews, i.e. tank drivers and gunners
passerby
Funny story John. "…see the future." Ha!
As for Jack Ross, I think this is a pivotal observation that applies to the rightwing as well:
In fact, it could also be applied to the realms of religion and science. There seems to be a human tendency to follow the crowd, there’s safety there, where you don’t have to risk being wrong all by yourself if you go along with the prevailing belief system. Also, too, one can avoid self examination and find security in numbers. No room for independent thought–that would draw swift and scornful mockery and accusations of troll-hood and/or heresy.
Because I consider my self socially progressive, I identify more with the Democrats. As for fiscal conservatism, neither of the two parties have exhibited this as a matter of policy, so a pox on both their houses. Here’s hoping for intelligent debate vs partisan hackery.
Shygetz
I think the difference is that the American Left has become technocratic instead of populist…if that’s what the author meant by the death of the Left, then I agree. But the idea that an ideological Left is dead with Pelosi as Speaker of the House is silly, unless one makes the unfounded assumption that the ideological Left MUST be populist.
Martin
I think language fails us here.
Kos isn’t about ‘centrism’ but about ‘realism’. You can fairly argue that there’s a gap in what the Kossacks value and what they achieve, but it’s pretty clear to me that the one thing they value most is realism – is facts, evidence, rule of law, and so on. If you point out their facts are wrong, they’re generally very quick to stand down and correct.
Now, that used to be called ‘conservatism’, so any realistic conservative (talk about a dying breed) could see Kos as being centrist, but there’s really nothing centrist about it. Do what the evidence shows should be done, if it’s unclear whether to go left or right, go left. That’s Kos and I’d say that’s a pretty good definition for modern progressivism.
The problem isn’t that Kos or Obama have gone centrist, it’s that there’s nobody on the right offering "do what the evidence shows should be done, if it’s unclear whether to go left or right, go right." The right offers either "do what the evidence shows should be done, if it’s unclear whether to go left or right, do nothing" – libertarianism, or "go right regardless of what the evidence shows should be done" – GOP. That’s not to say that there isn’t a left version of the GOP – there is, but they don’t have a voice. The old Democratic party (pre-Dean) was "go wherever we stay relevant". There was no principle they would stand firm on – everything was negotiable to stay in power. That was Clinton.
But look at where DKos put their support to see what camp they see themselves in. They rejected Clinton, turned on Edwards based on his behavior, but also rejected guys like Kucinich who they saw as unrealistic.
But the key to Obama winning was the promise of honesty, realism, and accountability. That should appeal to the majority of voters and nobody in the GOP is even hinting at going there. That’s not centrism though. That’s the foundation on which both the left and right should be building.
Jess
@Martin:
Well said!
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
Funny how a decade or so can make something that once was undesirable into the next hottest trend.
I looked at the picture in the Wikipedia article and it doesn’t all that different from glasses like these:
Birth Control Glasses for the 21st Century
JasperTPaddlin'
QFT! If you need a taping job done right, use gaffers tape.
JasperTPaddlin'
@The Cat Who Would Be Tunch: I have been absolutely gobsmacked by the new appreciation for what I call "ugly glasses." WTF?!
Edit: And I know that I am looking at some of you, BJ’ers!
schrodinger's cat
@Mike in NC
Thanks for answering my question. I figured from the context
that CVC is some kind of head gear, unfortunately I am
completely unaware of most matters military, so thanks for the info.
Catsy
The idea that the "new left" that was defined by Howard Dean’s candidacy is somehow dead or marginalized is laughable on its face.
Obama’s 2008 campaign is the firstborn child of Dean’s Internet activism, small-donor fundraising, and most importantly his 50-state strategy. These three things made the difference in 2008, and Dean’s overall strategic approach was overwhelmingly vindicated by Obama’s victory.
From the ideological and policy sides, Obama is also not far from Dean’s positions on gay marriage, Iraq, the Bush tax cuts, health care, and a myriad of positions that few national politicians had the courage to make before Dean did. Are they identical? Of course not. But Obama’s centrism and broad appeal are not a repudiation of a progressive, "new left" agenda, they are the vehicle for putting it into action.
Ross’s conjecture needs work.
Litlebritdifrnt
I would like to add to the language thingy
"ensure" v. "insure" (often used incorrectly in my local newspaper and bound to have me tearing the paper to shreds and then howling at the moon.
"fill out" v. "fill in" (as in a form)
"could care less" v. "couldn’t care less" (because the first is just silly and defeats the purpose of what you are trying to say).
Oh and its duct tape in my household.
Wile E. Quixote
@Tsulagi
You had 100mph tape? luxury, sheer bloody luxury!. We only had 90mph tape.
I think that Martin’s summary is an excellent description where we are today. The "left", such as it is is more pragmatic than doctrinaire. The right, well the "right", such as it is, has gone completely fucking batshit insane. In another thread on the site today someone said that the Republicans were becoming the party of the mean, stupid and ignorant dregs of society, which I thought was a pretty good description.
The thing that bugs me about this is that there are still questions that neither side, the left or the right, is raising, such as "why do we have to leave 50,000 troops in Iraq?" or more generally "What do we need such a enormous military for?" "Why are we the world’s policeman? and "Is our empire really such a great deal?". The "right" won’t raise those questions because they just love the military, although not enough to actually join it or anything. The left won’t raise them because they’re afraid of being accused of being unpatriotic by the right.
les
Yeah, the left and liberalism went away some where. Oh, about Obama’s budget:
Joe Klein:
Robert Reich:
Sully (for what it’s worth):
Pundits don’t remember what liberal/left means; they’ve swallowed the repub swill.
BombIranForChrist
As someone who is sympathetic to the "new left", I don’t see it happening. There are as many kooky and unsavory characters on the far left than there are on the far right, and I don’t see them becoming anymore relevant.
The main problem with the far left and far right is that they are both unhinged from reality, and America is generally too pragmatic for them. We cycle eternally between the Republicans and the Democrats because in large historical terms, Americans aren’t swayed by ideology but by their immediate circumstance, and the far left and right are too divorced from the immediate circumstance to make any impact at all.
JasperTPaddlin'
@Litlebritdifrnt: plus, eminent & imminent; lose loose loses looses.
Laura W
@Litlebritdifrnt: Valentime’s Day.
V A L E N T I M E’ S
Drives me mad.
AnneLaurie
It would be very, very comforting to the mostly-white-upper-class-males at AMCONMAG if Obama’s not-brain-dead centrism could be defined as "radical liberalism", because that would mean that the national norms really hadn’t shifted very much after all. Unfortunately, Obama is not and probably never has been a "radical", or even a "leftist" in the usual (non-Rethug) meaning.
People forget how (comparatively) FAST our definition of normal really has changed. I was in high school when the Equal Rights Amendment was still alive, and the centrist take was ridicule at the very possibility that women might be allowed/required to serve in the military, much less in the infantry. When Shirley Chisholm and Bella Abzug got shived by the "centrists" at the 1972 Democratic convention, it was explained that "ordinary people" would never take a Negro lady or a big fat New York Jew seriously. And as for "crazy talk" — in those days, anyone who failed to recognize that possessing homosexual urges was objectively disordered was subject to involuntary psychiatric incarceration in a majority of the 50 states. Sure, We Liberals felt this was a very unfair, highly unfortunate state of affairs… but what could possibly be done, when Those People were so backward & modernity-proof?
Change happens, and if we’re lucky the direction of change will continue to be towards *more* rights for *more* people, *most* of the time. The only way America’s going back to the 1960s (the real 1960s, not that end-of-the decade Woodstock-Nation shite that didn’t really happen until the 1970s) is if the global economic catastrophe gets so much worse we’ll probably overshoot Eisenhower and go straight back to Buchanan. And even the ANCONMAG guys wouldn’t really enjoy that nearly as much as they imagine they would.
Mac from Oregon
I too have a large head. If you think getting drafted and then having to special order head gear was not a target for extra pt and kp think again. I was hoping it would get me out of the military but no such luck.
My helmet was so large that it must have looked like a tank coming to the enemy, as soon as I showed up they would leave. OK by me and my fat head.
Now My body has swollen to match my head, not sure that I don’t want the fat head look back.
Trollhattan
@ Laura W
Never open your Valentimes at the libary.
Your wellcome.
Chuck Butcher
When I see Nancy Pelosi described as a leftist I think I’ll lose my damned mind. Nancy may be a tad left of center, but to wander off into Republican framing and describe her as a leftist is comical.
Now I may behave in a mostly pragmatic manner in politics but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to swallow bullshit like calling Nancy a leftist. Maybe the center has shifted a bit back leftward, maybe not. I don’t know what Obama’s inner thoughts are, but his politics flat out are not leftist.
He proposes to put a bandaide on health care that’s stroking out by creating another damned insurance agency? That’s somehow lefist? By that measure advocating for single payer must make you a damn commie. I recognize the political exisgencies that dictate his approach, but the idea that I find a good thing is missing entirely from that equation.
John,
I’m very near sighted and with age find myself in the bifocal world. I wear contacts, not as a matter of vanity but because I work in gritty and dangerous environments that dictate scratch proof safety lenses and plastic ain’t. The weight of safety glass prescriptions w/bifocal is simply intolerable and once bent over working the the glasses swing moving the focals in and out of my vision and my tools are unforgiving. I wear the contacts and use safety glass photogreys in prescription zero in wire frames. Polycarb shooting glasses last a matter of weeks before they’re too scratched to see through, my glass ones are 3 yrs old, but $200.
Comrade Darkness
but in both all the r’s are pronounced,
It’s not the missing Rs that get to me. It’s the extra ones.
Funny story about Canadian’s pronunciation for that tan color the army uses…
The canadians heard the brits saying "khaki" which of course comes out like karrrki and so they thought the R really was in there and now distinctively say "car key" like that thing you need to start an automobile.
AnneLaurie
@Comrade Darkness: Here among the Massholes, we don’t lose Rs but we do shift them around. When I first moved here 20 years ago, it cracked me up every time the chief of police opined solemnly about "lawrrrr and aww-dah". The local joke goes that korea is what you do for a living, and Career is that country in South Asia.
Steeplejack
@John Cole:
This correlates very closely with the realization that you have reached the age at which you have become invisible to women, at least in the sexual sense.
Steeplejack
@Comrade Stuck:
Snuct is the past participle. "I snuck in there yesterday, but I have snuct in quite a few times
beforeafore that."Gemina13
I’m a pragmatic progressive. I have my principles and my thoughts on what would make a better society, not to mention a better country. I also know politics is a home-based sausage factory. My belief is, if you don’t have the stomach to find out how it’s made, stick to eggs for breakfast.
I like Obama and I like a lot of his ideas. That said, when he fucks up, I’m going to say so. Geithner and Summers? Hiring them was a major fuckup on his part. Not abandoning the Bush Maladministration’s defense tactics in court on the treatment of detainees? Another fuckup.
::dies laughing::
I’ve grown up with my brothers’ tales of Camp Pendleton. "What the fuck’s wrong with your fucking eyeballs, you piece of cocksucking maggot shit?" is what they probably would have heard if they’d shown up with glasses. Which is why Marine DIs scare the shit out of me, and why I’d like to meet your drill sergeant someday. :D