Say what you will about David Frum’s New Majority (possible motto: “Same bad ideas, but with less hate!”), he certainly seems to understand something about Obama that the rest of the Republican party has not figured out:
Let me add here a personal editorial comment. A large part of the secret of President Obama’s political success is his self-presentation as calm, judicious, and fair-minded – and his ability to depict his opponents as intemperate and extreme. You’d think by now that Obama’s opponents would have figured out this trick. You want to beat him? Great. Be more calm, more judicious, and more fair-minded. Don’t be provoked. Don’t throw wild allegations. Don’t boycott. Don’t lose your temper.
Instead, we get Anger Theater. It’s not smart. And it’s not working.
I wonder when the rest of them will figure it out?
passerby
Looks like Frum has enough sense to at least state the obvious. The tide is turning.
Napoleon
I don’t think they are going to figure it out. I truly think they are going to get a lot worse before they figure it out.
r€nato
@passerby:
no it’s not turning. Frum has likely already been denounced as a RINO for not demanding more cowbell, but rather a more moderate and reasonable GOP.
Mike S
Hasn’t Frum been excommunicated from the GOP?
Violet
Not for awhile. Not until they’ve got some sort of leader that does that sort of thing.
Republicans really do like to fall in line. And right now, the closest things to leaders they’ve got are the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck. So they’re following their leaders with wild googly-eyed accusations and ever more stringent purity tests. Until a leader emerges is calm, judicious and fair-minded, they’re not going to be any of those things.
Notorious P.A.T.
“don’t throw out wild, insane allegations” says the inventor of the phrase “Axis of Evil”.
Dude in Jersey
It sounds like Mr. Axis of Evil may be emerging on the other side of puberty. Still a cockroach, though.
r€nato
Frum totally gets it. He points out something I stated the other day about the type of rhetoric Obama uses when speaking; he states the other guy’s positions but presents them as something absolutist, extreme and uncompromising. Then he presents his own position as the reasonable, split-the-difference compromise.
Of course, the anti-Obama hystericals in the GOP don’t really need much help from Obama to look intemperate and extreme.
Tymannosourus Rex
I think you really need to parse out who the “them” is…. if the “them” includes Michelle Bachmann, then the answer is never…. unless by “figure it out” you mean “stay completely clownshit insane.”
r€nato
@Dude in Jersey:
Only after Lee Atwater had terminal cancer, did he turn over a new leaf.
Frum is making all the right sounds lately; has he actually repented of his work for the Bush regime? Or is he just wringing his hands and wondering how the Republican party went so crazy without looking in the mirror first?
Dennis-SGMM
Frum still seems to believe that it’s Obama’s depiction of his opponents as intemperate and extreme rather than the plain fact that the GOP has become just that. Frum is just begging for another Republican organization (The Real Americans Who Are Chilled to the Bone?) to form with the purpose of explaining that they aren’t intemperate and extreme; it’s that Commie Muslim Bastard in the White House who’s just making them look bad.
Screamin' Demon
The twelfth of Never works for me.
Pavlov's Dog
It’s not in their DNA to figure it out – They are always playing the part of being victims.
Jim
How, exactly, does Obama depict his opponents this way? They depict themselves that way, by being that way. “Spending freeze!” “Filibuster!” “Life begins at conception!” “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran!” “Joe the Plumber is my hero! My role model!”
SnarkIntern
Never. Frum doesn’t have it right, either.
Obama is those things, he is not “presenting himself” as those things.
Frum’s team cannot be those things. That puts them at a rather considerable disadvantage.
MattF
Frum is moving away from the Republican party at a rate of about a micron per day. At this rate, he’ll reach a reality-based political sensibility in about a billion years. I don’t think it’s worth waiting.
linda
they won’t.
and i hope they never do because i’m enjoying the hell out of watching this collapse of a national political party that has controlled the u.s. government for the past forty years. in real time; it’s amazing.
Ash
Frum only sort of gets it. As a bunch of people have already said, Obama doesn’t make it seem like anything, or depict them as crazy. They just ARE crazy. And that’s the biggest problem.
Tonal Crow
Liberals like Frum are just soćialist moles trying to destroy America and her GOP. They want us to silence ourselves so that they can take over without a fight. Not. Gonna. Happen. I’m pro-family, pro-God, pro-America, pro-Bible, pro-gun, pro-Bush, pro-war, and pro-life, and I’m damn proud of it — and no way on God’s brown earth am I gonna let these fascist national soćialist Obamanations take away my freedom of speech. Viva Ann Coulter! Viva Michelle Malkin! And deport all Mexicans!
/wingnut
WereBear
Once again, they mistake the image for the actual.
The only reason they are exploring possibilities is that their masks have dropped and they must scramble for a new one.
Just Some Fuckhead
They can’t outcool Obama so why try?
Not In Our Name
@Screamin’ Demon: Just keep telling yourself this. When the people don’t see any change in their fortunes, Bambi and his ilk will be chased out. I remember how long they said the Demons wouldbe lost in the wilderness after 2004, and they still came back like cockroaches.
Still, it will be grand to see Stalin’s politics fail 3 times in one life time. Once with the man himself, the second time with Obama’s namesake Saddam Hussein, and finally with Obama.
JayMi
The situation reminds me of the old Warner Bros cartoons. Bugs Bunny always defeats Yosemite Sam. Because one loses his temper and looks like a fool. Hint-it’s not the rabbit. *sigh* I watch way too many cartoons but it beats the news.
Jennifer
Asking the GOP base to not be angry is like asking a leopard to change its spots. At a certain level, being angry is kind of a prerequisite for being GOP – if they were to drop the whining, the screeching, the constant complaints of victimhood, what would they have left?
Seriously – they controlled EVERYTHING for the first 6 years of Bush rule – but did they EVER stop being angry? These are people who can’t be happy unless they have something to bitch and moan about. That’s not going to change.
SnarkyShark
Come on John, you used to swim in that pool as did I.
The Republicans I know aren’t interested n figuring out shit. They want what they want and they want it now. There is no patience for rebuilding, they want to let their self righteous freak flag fly until they check out. They are bound and determined to ignore reality to the end. They feel they have arrived at the end of a way of life. In a way they are right.
Their myopic pre-1968 world that never was is gone forever.
I for one actively celebrate the passing of bigotry, intellectual sloth and cheesy patriotism. Time to evolve.
passerby
@r€nato:
When I say the tide is turning, what I mean is that, more and more, as the GOP’s statements and talking points have become so nonsensical and bizzare, we are seeing rightwing pundits and apologists forced to include disclaimers, addenda, and/or sundry footnotes with their screeds.
This signals to the audience that they are aware of the party’s madness. Any rightwing waterboy who fails to do this runs the risk of being viewed as just as batshit insane as the party he’s defending and like the party, headed to oblivion.
It’s getting harder and harder to defend the indefensible. Intelligent wingers (oxymoron?) have their future to consider, so more and more we witness them subtly trying to distinguish themselves as reasonable.
My guess is that some will go down with the ship and others are biding their time until they have a “straw that broke the camel’s back” moment when they can establish themselves as free agents and declare the current GOP dead.
Lev
Boy, Obama sure knows how to make anyone opposing him become absolutely crazy.
ImpureScience
Shhhh!
Tonal Crow
@Lev:
Strong is the politics-jitsu in that one.
Pavlov's Dog
I must admit they have been entertaining – From Schiavo, to Joe the Plumber/Palin, and now the new cause celebre, a wingnut beauty contestant that has an IQ slightly above my shoe size. They revel in stupidity. The icing on the cake was making the second dumbest person on the planet, John Cornyn, one of the main faces of the party. Being from Texas, I often wonder how that guy manages to dress himself.
Rick Taylor
It doesn’t matter. They couldn’t do it if they tried.
grumpy realist
I know it’s been said many times, but Obama has an absolute genius when it comes to picking his opponents. The Universe lobbed him a few softballs (Alan Keynes as opponent?!) but for the rest, Obama’s been just great at getting the other side to go pop-eyed, flecked-spittle, veins-bulging-in-forehead screaming nutzoid. (Other side then whines Why Won’t Anyone Vote For Them, Wahhh!)
I think it’s the Cool. The Universe likes Cool and wants to reward its practitioners.
On the other hand….considering that the Republicans always had tendencies towards More-Republican-than-Thou sharkfests, it probably didn’t take Obama too many brains to realize it would be very easy to do things that would come across to the Average American as being Sensible and Moderate but would send the right into a howling frenzy. Which would simply drive more moderates out of the Republican party. Repeat ad infinitum.
Republicans aren’t going to come back until they get out of their Limbaugh/Fox News/Glenn Beck little cheerleading enclave, start dealing with reality, and tell their loudmouths to go pound sand. But because they confuse callers in to radio talk shows with an actual representative cross-section of the American people, the real reception of their policies is never noticed until they lose elections. At which point the problem is always “a conspiracy” of the “liberal media”.
Here’s a hint, guys: if you keep losing elections over and over, maybe It Is You.
Peter J
I hope that having the comments in the wrong order (new ones first, old ones last) isn’t part of the new way.
Hunter Gathers
Frum’s an idiot. Obama doesn’t ‘present’ himself as calm, cool, and in control. HE IS THOSE THINGS. Obama is the type of guy whom you could toss a hand grenade at, he would calmly pick it up, toss it back at you and call you a ‘punk bitch’ in the process. Frackin’ moran.
Chuck Butcher
@Not In Our Name:
I have two intelligent people in my immediate family who talk like this nimrod. The simple fact is that it won’t matter if their fortunes drastically improve under Obama, they’ll have something more like this to say.
I didn’t leave the Democratic Party when they started going stupid – I fought like hell against it. There’s a difference between that and “not in” that they don’t get and won’t get. It isn’t their fault they’re getting whacked, it is all the frauds perpetrated on them by media, ACORN, or whatever. There is no pile of evidence high enough to dissuade them.
I’ll be damned if I’ll try to psycho-analyze them, it doesn’t matter why they’re that way, it matters that they are.
poopsybythebay
The answer is NEVER. As you can clearly see with ‘Not In Our Name’ they are clearly insane and it is most definitely in their DNA. The part they will never get about Obama is he IS cool and judicious and the Repugs are intemperate and extreme. He is not wearing a mask as Bush did–it is who he is. Repugs on the other hand have only been able to win in the last 30 years by putting up a believable phony. Remember “compassionate conservative”? It was not real, but people fell for it. Mr. not in our name is who they really are and no one likes that kind of person unless of course you are one of them, but that is clearly not a majority of Americans. Another thing about Obama is he is obviously a chess player and they appear to be still playing in the sand box–I do not believe they can catch up because he is on a different plain than they are on. On one of the polls recently it showed most Americans saw Obama as a different kind of politician all together and I would venture to say they are correct therefore none of the old rules will ever apply. I do not believe they have it in them to ever catch up or catch on.
dmv
Hopefully never.
Mike S
@Not In Our Name: In other words, Frum needs to give it up.
In other, other words. Frum was talking about you.
Hunter Gathers
@Tonal Crow: You forgot WOLVERINES!
El Cid
“Okay, okay, we’ll dial back the crazy to sunny Reagan-era levels of crazy. But only because we’re losing so bad and all — when we were riding high, we liked the crazy!”
Tony J
They won’t. These are people who think their first mistake was laying down their guns after Appomattox. Now that there’s no General Lee to overawe the crazies, they’re going to bushwack those Black Republi.. ah… Black Democrats every chance they get. The Obamaoist Occupation of Real America will be made untenable in the long term, and the South Will Rise Again.
NIGHTRIDING WOLVERINES!
Mike E
Nothing quells the rabble like calling them intemperate jerk wads — good like with that, Frummy!
Not In Our Name
@poopsybythebay: You are right. Obama does not wear a mask. He was very clearly a Muslim sympathizer. Just look at his record so far. He gave his first interview as President to a Muslim station. He has already declared defeat in the Global War on Terror and has bowed to the Saudi king.
All this was out in the open but people just didn’t want to believe it.
Don’t worry though. Have your little victory dance now. When people see what he does to this country you will all come crawling back to the party of real Americans.
Just Some Fuckhead
I think it’s time for Republicans to purge Frum. Maybe give him one more chance to atone: make him wear teabags on his hat brim to show his fealty. If he won’t do it, he’s out. What’s a Jew furriner with a smart mouth doing in our Republican party anyhell?
Mike E
Hey, Not In Our Face, good luck with that!
Not In Our Name
@Just Some Fuckhead: Again with this liberal preoccupation with sexual perversions like tea-bagging and sock puppetry.
Frum simply needs to stop his Vichy nonsense. The Republicans should stand aside and let the Democrats do their damage so we can be done with their disease once and for all.
SnarkIntern
@Not In Our Name:
DougJ? Is that you behind those Foster Grants?
Hunter Gathers
@Mike E: Don’t be so mean to Not In Our Name. He was recently rejected for membership into the Aryan Brotherhood.
SnarkIntern
Hey, they make good neocons.
kay
This is one of those things that is easier said than done, in my personal experience.
Once the crazy v. rational roles are assigned, it almost never gets better for the screamer. You would think politicians, who talk for a living, would know this, and not get into this situation.
J.D. Rhoades
So, how long do you think it’ll be before Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are calling for this “RINO” Frum to be purged from the party? Because without “Anger Theater” those guys are out of a job.
Chuck Butcher
@Not In Our Name:
You need to up the wattage there bucko. That’s entirely too lamely nice. Hit the high notes on God, especially. The bass notes of Marxism are definitly weak.
One of the main reasons I own guns is people just exactly like you. I’m quite real, BTW.
T Paine
Re: Not In Our Name
I, for one, welcome our new Mooslim Overlords. After Jesus W. Bush smearing lipstick all over the Saudi king, and prancing hand-in-hand with his royal date thru the bluebonnets, the bow was nice and understated — refreshing, really.
But then, I’m one of those fake Americans who doesn’t feel the need to demonize those who disagree with him as fake Americans, so maybe I’m wrong and in need of some waterboarding. On the other hand, if you don’t like it here now that the crazies aren’t running the place anymore, maybe you should just shut up and SECEDE, already.
Accidental Blogger
I think that eight years ago, it would have been hard for Obama to succeed because of the properties Frum is talking about there. Cool, calm, collected doesn’t really go over well with the MSM; they like their politicians over the top and quotable in soundbites. Obama’s success was driven largely by his online support and his ability to leverage said support into electoral success. It’s only because he’s been so successful that the media has had to find a way of explaining that people might actually want responsible adults to solve problems, not ranting demagogues. The GOP still hasn’t figured this out and so they’re going to instead double-down on crazy (As evidenced by ‘Not in our Name’-I’m still trying to figure out how Saddam Hussein is your goto on Stalin policies after the original, I mean you could go with Albania, China, Belarus, etc. any place claiming to be Communist while really producing a dictatorship with a cult of personality issue. I think really that’s just stretching to link in Obama’s middle name). Maybe after one more electoral drubbing this might change.
Josh Hueco
I think Not In My Ass is another DougJ spoof. Just ignore him.
robertdsc
You forgot the first phone call he made as President to a foreign country was to Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority.
Sharpen up, wingnut.
John, can we see Tunch today?
kay
@Accidental Blogger:
He’s, um, growing in the role, though. The press conference last week was better than the one prior, and the swearing in of Commerce and HHS was actually enjoyable and amusing to listen to.
He’s ratcheting up the calm.
lilysmom
Coming out strongly against a Democratic Supreme Court judicial nominee, even before you know who that person is likely to be, is not the most temperate, reasoned tactic in the world. It screams to the nonpolitical junkies, aka the “middle”, that you are against everything that the other side will nominate, no matter what. Old naked man yells at cloud, shakes his fist, jumps up and down and demands that the other side vote for him. Uh, maybe not.
It is kind of sad to see a major political party melt down to the residual nutcase elements but these guys made pacts with various devils and this is what they created. They dreamed of elephants but woke up with fleas.
Renato, you are so right, more cowbell!
Comrade Darkness
@kay: He’s learning faster than Clinton did. I think he has sharper people around him.
We never get specifics about the evils Obama is suppose to perpetrate, any moment now. Irrational fear must be a b*tch to pin down.
Splitting Image
I can think of a couple of candidates:
1) Wyoming voting down a gay-marriage ban. Some Republicans are trying to put one on the schedule and Nate Silver thinks support for that in Wyoming will drop below 50% in 2011, if it hasn’t already. Iowa may have shocked a lot of people, but Wyoming supporting gay rights will shock them a hell of a lot more.
2) Anthony Kennedy retiring. If they’re dumb enough to throw a hissy-fit about Obama replacing Souter with a liberal, they won’t have anything left to throw when it’s Kennedy’s turn. Or Scalia, for that matter. Either one could come up between now and 2016. If the Republicans are reduced to DeMint’s 30-seat Senate caucus at the time, well, too bad for them.
3) November 2012. The Republicans will have a tough time getting to 270 even if their base holds together, and I see no reason to believe it will. If the economy is starting to rebound and the Republicans can’t unite around a candidate, Obama will win 500+ votes.
Accidental Blogger
@kay-I agree that he’s growing in the role. It’s also immensely reassuring to hear the president answer questions on a variety of topics in a way that makes it clear he isn’t reading off notes written on the back of his hands.
Mike S
If I didn’t know better I’d say that not in our name is a new incarnation of dougj. I don’t think he spoofs his own site.
jill
It will never happen until you get rid of Hannity, Beck, limbaugh and the rest. Hannity spends an hour every night saying socialist, radical agenda, radically left, Ayers, communist, apology tour, France…. over and over again.
Hunter Gathers
@Mike S: It is a lazy Sunday. He could be really bored.
gnomedad
@JayMi:
I’ve always liked Obama-as-Road Runner, but this is even more on the mark.
El Cid
By the way, what people like Frum fail to make explicit enough is that the reason for the temper tantrum is that these f***ers just spent the last 30 years having their sh*tty ideas treated as unquestionable truths.
The reason they’re flipping out is that people have seen their pure ideas effected and they’re the ridiculous gobbledy-gook that sane people have long said they were.
Let’s say you grant Frum and the ‘sane’ righties their fantasy Reagan zapped from 1964 or 1972 or 1976 or 1980 — without the Southern Strategy granting Mr. Sunshine Out the Ass a hugely expanding Republican trend, and without the “conservative ideas” being seen as untested but common sense Founding Fatherism, what does he do?
What does Wise, Benevolent, Calm Uncle Reagan do when he can’t lazily thumb a victory off of opening a campaign in Mississippi talking about “states rights”? What does he do when you can’t spout blather about “Big Government” and “lower taxes for the most productive” that isn’t taken as gospel everywhere?
He flips out, or gets drummed out of the Party by Crazy Base World.
Left Coast Tom
@Splitting Image:
Maybe. But Nate Silver’s model didn’t include %-mormon population, yielding the conclusion that Utah will favor same-sex marriage by 2013. I’m not buying it.
In fairness, there aren’t really enough data points to test how %-mormon population should be included in such a model. Utah, Wyoming, Idaho…there’s other states that are above-average, but they’re the standouts.
kay
@Comrade Darkness:
Remember the whole “team of rivals” handwringing?
Have you seen evidence of infighting and egotistical hissy fits? He has some big egos rattling around his “team”, including his own.
I haven’t.
He may be actually pulling that idea off, and I thought it was an absolute pipe dream.
Just Some Fuckhead
Yeah, whoda ever thunk you could go wrong by starting out with the idea science is stupid, microscopic fetal cells are more important than actual living human beings and we can create peace and harmony in the world by bombing the fuck outta everyone? How could this have backfired?
Laura W Intriguing
@Mike S:
LOL WUT?
Comrade Jake
The best part for me is how folks like Limbaugh will dismiss Frum’s call for Republicans to be more reasonable and temperate as a call for them to be more like Democrats.
“We can’t be pussies like Democrats!” they’ll shout as they follow the pied-piper to nutjob land. Forevermore, forevermore.
jcricket
I vote for never, basically. Two big reasons:
1) Republicans are wedded to many huge “anchor” (as in weighting them down) ideas: opposition of global warming, evolution, gay marriage, sensible immigration reform, government/public involvement in healthcare reform. When you’re aggressively wrong on all the important issues you are intemperate, obnoxious, extreme, and out-of-touch. It is therefore near impossible to appear calm, cool and collected – unless you simply lie about your positions (see Rossi, Dino or Palin, Sarah).
2) Republicans score a “0” in self-awareness right now. I know it’s not a representative sample, but that hilarious right wing blog post being passed around (where the author claims the left is full of crazy spittle-flecked fascists, and the right is simply too-nice) should be held up in a couple of years when Republicans have 30 Senate seats and control 25% of the House and 10 governorships. It’s not just issue related, but they really think the public sees Democrats and progressive policies as tantamount to Stalin-era fascism. The public ain’t buying it (even if the press barely makes that clear).
Until #1 and #2 ease up, Republicans will spit mightily into the wind while losing elections by ever bigger margins outside of the deep South + mormon belt.
Delia
@Left Coast Tom:
Remember, the Mormon Republican governor of Utah has already come out in favor of same-sex unions and been disinvited from Crazy-party functions out of state because of it. Utah may have its own special weirdness, but it doesn’t top the current gooper madness.
Comrade Jake
@Dennis-SGMM:
I don’t know. I think the “we get Anger Theater” line pretty much points to Frum recognizing they’re intemperate. You’re suggesting they’re not acting?
I guess it’s possible, but I have a hard time believing Gingrich honestly believes Obama wakes up every morning looking to punish Americans. It’s completely fake.
Just Some Fuckhead
OT, had Mrs. F. pick up some ground turkey because red meat is like the worst thing you can eat after people and I’m sitting here trying to think of how to cook it and no recipe that I’d use ground beef in sounds appealing to me with ground turkey in it. Anyone got any good ground turkey recipes?
JGabriel
John Cole:
The problem with that suggested motto, despite its accuracy, is that without the hate, most of the bad ideas have no reason for being.
So when we get this from Frum (heh, from frum):
It just shows that Frum has completely missed the point. There’s no “judicious” way to appeal to the base, i.e. to show the hate, without, you know, showing the hate – throwing the wild allegations, boycotting, losing their temper.
These are now the badges of Republican authenticity.
.
iluvsummr
@Lev:
And it seems to get worse with time. Look at Alan Keyes.
Test of moderation filter: socíalist.
ETA: Adding an accent aigu avoids tripping the moderation filter – thanks Tonal Crow.
CD
@Just Some Fuckhead:
JSF: I’ve found that ground turkey makes great burgers, if cooked with a little finesse. Finesse meaning (1) mix one envelope of (dry) onion soup mix per pound of turkey for seasoning, (2) brown/sear patties on both sides in a skillet, with a little oil or cooking spray (because turkey tends to have less fat than beef), then (3) pour a touch of water or broth in the skillet, cover tightly, and simmer until patties are just done in the middle. Sounds weird, but it’s great stuff once you get the hang of it.
El Cid
I have a hard time accepting that anyone thinks that anything Newt Gingrich ever says is honest.
Josh Hueco
Watching the Weather Channel now and I see that some ass-nasty weather is heading towards Atlanta. I hope our Juicers there make it through all right.
Hunter Gathers
@Just Some Fuckhead: Turkey tacos are pretty good. Turkey burgers as well. Just season it as you would ground beef and you’re good to go.
Comrade Jake
@El Cid:
Sure, but isn’t that basically saying the same thing? The point here is that this sort of attack on Obama is likely to turn into an epic fail.
schrodinger's cat
I make ground turkey kebabs using the grill or broiler
2.6 pounds 93/7 ground turkey
1 egg
1/4 cup ketchup
2 tbsp hot sauce ( I prefer Sriracha)
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 cup chopped onions
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1 tbsp dried oregano.
2 tsp ground cumin seeds
1 tbsp ground coriander seeds
1 tbsp fennel seeds
kosher salt to taste
I grind all the last three spices together in a spice grinder from whole roasted spices using a coffee grinder that I use just to grind dry spices. Mix all the ingredients, make kebabs grill them or broil them, usually take 8 to 10 mins per side. You can half or double the recipe if you like. Eat them like mini-burgers or like meatballs on pasta.
Questions?
Jackie
@Just Some Fuckhead: Ground turkey makes a great sub for any mexican food that you use ground beef in. Just don’t overcook it or it assumes the texture of rubber. I’ve used it in tacos, tostados and chile and my family does not notice.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I’ve made Lion’s Head with either ground beef or ground turkey. The type of meat you use seems to be basically irrelevant.
El Cid
@Comrade Jake: Yes and no. Frum is still advocating the sh*tty ideas, he’s just concerned about their marketing; I was emphasizing that part of the reason for “Anger Theater” is that they were allowed to grow accustomed to have sh*tty ideas always win. It’s a structural reason behind “Anger Theater”.
But maybe I’m wrong, and Frum’s “correct” enough — after all, had Obama been a weaker and less skilled candidate, and had McCain been less nutty, and had McCain not picked Palin (thanks Bill Kristol!), and had the Bush Jr. / Paulson administration been able to hold off economic collapse for 2 more months, McCain might have won, based on nothing more than image, history, and no fundamental re-examination of the sh*ttiness of the ideas which have dominated U.S. mainstream thinking for a generation and a half.
I always thought that smarter, more committed right wing tyrants could have taken what Bush / Cheney was handed and worked it out to a multidecadal dictatorship, but they seemed much more interested in grabbing everything they could get as fast as they could get it.
Laura W Intriguing
@Just Some Fuckhead: I have a great one for Chiles Rellenos Casserole I’ve made hundreds of times over the last several years. Ground turkey is even better in it than ground beef. I’ve tweaked it and made substitutions and perfected it over the years. Of course, just like my hair, I can never replicate it or get the same results twice, but you are not a culinary spaz like me.
However, I’m so lazy right now that I’m not even gonna go make my own sauteed jumbo shrimp/boiled kale dinner, let alone type it all out for you here in this little box. I’ll get it to ya’ “soon”.
JK
The neanderthal wing of the Republican Party is running the show now.
David Frum is a guy who writes books and columns and has zero relevance or influence.
No Republican of any stature or consequence gives a damn what Frum has to say.
Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, and Michelle Malkin set the tone for discourse and framing of issues within the Republican Party.
Obama Derangement Syndrome has eaten away or destroyed the last remaining brain cells within the central nervous system of the Republican Party.
Buckle your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride with all the wild, over-the-top antics of the Republican Tin Foil Brigade.
Napoleon
@El Cid:
I happen to think you have it exactly right. I don’t see the right coming out of the wilderness for way over a decade from now.
Dennis-SGMM
@jcricket:
Not sure about “never” although the GOP’s pervasive anti-intellectualism is going to keep them in the minority for a long time. It was advantageous and lucrative for them to gradually conflate their base’ mistrust of evolution into a general contempt for science and then a hop skip and a jump to contempt for any sort of thinking. “I go with my gut,” Bush told us. Now the whole party is going with its gut. That should work out for them just about as well as it worked out for Bush.
grumpy realist
(OT to Just Some Fuckhead):
Turkey chili, turkey spaghetti, turkey lasagna….anywhere you’d use ground beef. Just replace the missing beef fat with a bit of olive oil.
If you like cabbage rolls, here’s a kick-ass recipe using turkey meat and much fresh dill:
Filling:
1 cup barley (parboil for 5 minutes first) (you can also use brown rice.)
1 lb ground turkey or chicken
fresh dill, chopped (I use 2 TBS at least up to 1/3 cup but then I like dill.)
1 chopped onion, salt and freshly ground pepper
1 head cabbage–preparation: I crack the leaves off one by one, slice out the ribs, then nuke for 1-2 minutes in microwave.
Roll filling up in cabbage leaves. Prepare large pot (6-8 qts): 1-2 scoured carrots in bottom, line sides with leaves, pack with cabbage rolls up to top. Pour in 1 can diced tomatoes and how much water you need to get liquid near top, toss in 1-2 chicken bouillon cubes.
Cook on medium-low for an hour or until barley is done and cabbage is translucent.
Original Russian recipe used beef and rice which also works. Prefer the barley because it holds up better under cooking and using turkey or chicken gives a more delicate taste to the broth. You can probably swap out almost anything except the dill and the cabbage. You’ll find it quite addictive. Bon appetit!
Punchy
OT–this hockey game is tits…..
….holy shit…I mean over.
Crap, I’m the king of being 3 fucking seconds late.
Left Coast Tom
@Delia:
True, and that governor has 80% approval from his constituents.
That’s not the same thing as putting same-sex marriage on the Utah ballot in 2013, as a standalone measure, and seeing it pass. I’d be happy to be proven wrong in 2013 (or 2012, in the case of Wyoming), but the model is meant to measure the rate of change in attitudes, and in the case of Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming, between now and 2012-2013, I’m just not seeing it. It’s pretty clear where a great deal of the money and organizational effort in favor of California’s Prop. 8 (a 2009 state, per Nate, and I hope he’s right) came from.
Delia
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I’m a very lazy cook. One of my favorite things to do with ground turkey is to saute some onions and garlic in olive oil, then add the turkey. Then I add it to the spaghetti sauce of my choice and serve it over pasta. If I weren’t so lazy I would make my own spaghetti sauce.
Laura W
@grumpy realist: (I sent you a couple messages on etsy but you may not know since their system is a bit odd, depending upon how you have your mail preferences set. Didn’t want you to think me non-responsive! ;-)
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
The Republicans can’t get it through their heads that they would have gone down in flames long before now, but there was always one more (let’s call a spade a spade) miracle coming down the pipe to rescue them. Miracles have become so completely their milieu that they don’t notice them, like a fish doesn’t notice water.
Goldwater took a historic trouncing? Well, the Civil Rights Act and the southern strategy managed to get Nixon elected (barely.) But wait! What’s that? The Viet Nam War and the reaction against all the dirty fucking hippy protesters pull Nixon to a huge win in 1972.
Nixon resigns in disgrace, Nixon and Ford drive the economy into the ditch, and we elect a reasonable and intelligent man in 1976. Miracle time! The second oil embargo, the Iranian hostage crisis, and the Orange County “tax revolt” manage to elect fucking Reagan, the 20-Mule-Team-Borax guy, fucking president of the fucking United States! Future historians (if there are any) will never believe this.
Reagan and Bush drive the economy into the ditch, so even though they manage to cover up their uniquely treasonous activities (Iran-Contra, etc.) Bush loses in 1992. He thought the “miracle” of the first Gulf War was going to pull his chestnuts out of the fire, but it didn’t.
But hold! Another miracle! Congressional districts have been ludicrously gerrymandered to guarantee a certain number of minority seats, and the redneck rump districts that are left over sweep a cabal of knuckle-dragging troglodytes into control of Congress. They impeach Clinton for doing something that’s nobody’s goddamn business and can’t understand why he leaves office with sky-high approval ratings.
They manage to steal the 2000 election anyway and “no Democrat will be elected president again for 100 years.” Then Bush is handed the greatest miracle of all: 9/11/01. He rides that to finish pappy’s war and figures that will win the Republicans the White House in perpetuity. Then, in 2008, Bush and the KKKeystone KKKops have destroyed the country to the point that a black guy with Arabic first and middle names is elected president! Their heads are exploding, but just like the Armada, they let their freak flags fly and sail on “In the Confident Hope of a Miracle.”
So far it ain’t happened. Maybe it’ll never happen. Maybe the age of miracles is past. Wouldn’t that be great?
Wile E. Quixote
I think we all need to go over to RedState and sign up for accounts and start attacking Frum for being a chickenshit RINO and a Canadian, just like those other chickenshit RINO Canadians David Brooks and Mark Stain. Let’s turn the crazy up to 11, and if it’s already there let’s make sure that it stays there.
N M
@JSF: Turkey Burgers…
Thankovsky
This is really a lesson we liberals need to take to heart. It’s a fantastic thing that we’re at least somewhat in-power right now, and that the GOP is decisively out of power, but at the same time, we need to remember that they’re basically making the same mistakes we made for six of the last eight and a half years: being shrill, easily provoked, and ultimately unlikeable. We can’t go back to that. We need to maintain our image of calmness, judiciousness, and fair-mindedness.
JGabriel
T Paine:
Oh gosh, we really shouldn’t encourage them. Much as I’d like to have the crazies off in their own separate land of Wingnuttia, stretching from Texas to South Carolina, the truth is it really wouldn’t turn out well. Within a decade they’d be declaring holy war against us, just because, and we’d have to kick their asses all over again and take them over and go through the whole reconstruction cycle, and yadda yadda yadda.
Really, it’s much better to just educate the crazies and slowly but surely reincorporate them into rational society.
.
Delia
@Left Coast Tom:
Here’s the thing about the Utah Mormon response to the larger society. Ever since Utah became a state there’s been an almost desperate desire to be accepted as “good” and “normal” by that society. I think a lot of people were shocked by the negative response to the LDS-sponsored Prop 8 campaign. It was the sort of thing they’ve done before, defending “traditional family values” and they’ve always gotten strokes for it. Suddenly they were getting lots more bad publicity than they expected. So to find themselves on the losing side of an issue, especially when the younger generation is more and more casual about gay marriage is going to put the LDS authorities in a position that’s uncomfortably like the one they found themselves in concerning blacks in the 1970s. They may have to just beat a strategic retreat. Compound this with the fact that some of their best politicians are getting dissed by the Gooper mainstream. I just don’t know how that one is going to shake out.
Common Sense
I say we legalize gay marriage and polygamy simultaneously. That’ll get the Mormons on our side.
Cain
Man, sitting at a bus stop and tryign to start a conversation is going to get tricky.
cain
Texas Dem
Brooks was on PBS Friday night talking about Specter the Defector and the sorry state of the GOP. He said it would probably take two or possibly three more electoral defeats before the party turns around. I get the sense that Frum shares Brooks’ pessimisim.
The seeds of this decline were sowed long ago. The GOP made a Devil’s bargain by (1) welcoming the Dixiecrats who left Dems after they embraced civil rights, and (2) aligning themselves with the religious right. Now the culture is finally changing but the GOP has no political flexibility because the nutbags have take over the party at the state and local levels. And the denial is so deep I’m not sure when they’ll turn things around.
Note also how ironic it is that the author of that infamous phrase, “axis of evil,” is now considered the voice of reason in the GOP. That’s an indication of how far they’ve fallen.
Common Sense
@Cain:
At least you’ll be free to strike up a chat in the men’s room
JK
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
Great post, but do you think Specter can win the Pennsylvania Senate race if he has to face Tom Ridge in the general election?
JGabriel
Wile E. Quixote:
Why would we need to help them follow their natural instincts? Seems redundant.
.
kay
@Thankovsky:
I followed the link, and it’s in the context of the Notre Dame thing. I think Republicans are worried about that, and I think they are right to be worried about it. They’re worried that it will be perceived poorly.
I think it will be. They invited him. Now they’re insisting he simply doesn’t measure up, morally, to them. The former US ambassador to the Vatican sees herself as elevating the President of the United States. She thinks he benefits from standing next to her, and that she is compromised standing with him. Wow. No way to pretty that up. That’s harsh.
I’m not sure conservatives want to go toe to toe with Obama on decency, and civil behavior. Yet, they are. They not only picked the fight, they actually invited the guy.
cokane
Left Coast Tom
@Delia:
I was thinking of this after I posted my last response, but more as an example of the ability of the LDS to hold onto idiocy long after everyone else. At the same time Utah wasn’t a Jim Crow state, so with respect to actively discriminatory measures Utah was always more reasonable.
Of course, Nate’s model (as anyone’s would have to) assumes the causes of changes in attitudes are continuous, therefore predictable. There could be a discontinuous event that changes attitudes in the intermountain west. Your point about Goopers dissing Utah’s politicians on opposite grounds (also, too, I guess Hatch is now a RINO. also) seems to add to the possibility of a discontinous event.
JL
JSF, Turkey meatloaf is great. You can use almost any recipe but just add a tad more seasoning and more liquid.
The moderates Republicans left the party when they realized that cutting taxes for the wealthy and spending like crazy just doesn’t work. It didn’t work for Reagan and it left us on the brink of disaster under Bush, Jr.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@JK:
I’m not entitled to have an opinion about Ridge, because I don’t know much about him. So far it looks like Toomey is a shoo-in for the nomination, but a lot can happen in a year. We can only wait and see.
kay
@Thankovsky:
Kathleen Parker wants Obama to bow out of the Notre Dame commencement, gracefully. Incredibly, the burden is on the President to allow his detractors on the right a chance to slink away, with pride intact, so as not to embarrass the intellectual conservatives.
Yeah. You wish, sister. You’re not getting off that easy. You picked the fight. Now you want him to bow out? Fat chance.
El Cid
@JL: Hell, even Reagan made sure to raise taxes every year after his first year’s giganto-cut for the rich, and it was Ronald Reagan whose 1986 tax reform represented the biggest ever single tax hike on corporations (eliminating loopholes) and instituting the Earned Income Tax Credit, on the argument that the awful burden of eeeevil government taxation falls most heavily (in terms of pain) on the lowest earners.
Note that last point — now propertaritardian ‘conservatives’ have spun Reagan’s argument that the (necessary) burden of paying for the federal government through income taxes should be lifted off the lowest earning working Americans into an anti-liberal whinefest on how awful it is that the burden of the income taxes are paid by the wealthier brackets.
DougL(frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
I knew that Obama becoming President would push some crazies over the edge but I didn’t think that the Repub party would join them. They are rapidly sinking and all they have been doing is drilling more holes in the ship. I bet it really sucks being a old school Republican right now and I don’t see it getting better any time soon. I sure as hell hope not, they need a long time in the political wilderness in search of the political soul they lost long ago. I’m beginning to doubt that they are ever going to find it because most of them are not interested in finding it.
The Repubs have purified/distilled themselves to the point that they are now little more than the party of hate, intolerance and ignorance. As someone else here observed, the sane (and somewhat sane) members of the right-wing media are having to point out various footnotes and detail in an attempt to avoid being tarred by the crazy brush. In doing so they are infuriating the party purists and just making more trouble for themselves.
One thing that hasn’t helped the Repubs is the fact that Obama winning last fall helped to drive the crazy racists out of the Democratic party and right into the welcoming arms of the Repubs. Adding racism and hate to the bottom of the industrial grade wingnut barrel is like mixing baking soda and vinegar, all you get is foam and gas.
And that is all we have been seeing lately, lots of foam and gas.
Laura W
ACK! Italian wine story on 60 Minutes.
Gorgeous photography. Women winemakers.
Let’s all take a break and go drink “elegant” wine.
Politics will still be here tomorrow.
And the next day, and the next 987zillion days after that.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Damn, forgot to put a space in my name and got caught in moderation…lol
Sorry John!
Beauzeaux
kay wrote:
One of the thing I most enjoy about Balloon Juice is that the commenters are usually on topic, very frequently lucid and insightful, and sometimes hilarious.
kay’s comment was full of win on all counts. Nicely done.
Dennis-SGMM
@Laura W:
Sounds good to me. I think I’ll pop over to Bevmo and get a couple of elegant jugs of Carlo Rossi Paisano. I will keep my little finger raised as I tilt up the jug.
Laura W
@Dennis-SGMM: Do I detect a mocking tone whenever you respond to my wine comments?
Why do you hate grapes and yeast, Dennis?
Just Some Fuckhead
So I know everyone’s dying to know what ground turkey recipe I went with.
First, had tacos last night so they were automatically out. This doesn’t mean yer ideas weren’t good, it just meant the timing wasn’t right. Don’t give up.
Secondly, the meatloaf, hamburger, and spaghetti recipes were sorta what I was talking about when I said no recipe I’d use hamburger in seemed appropriate with turkey. So even tho you all meant well by putting ’em out there, this was kinda what I was looking to avoid. The important thing here is we know each other better now and will in all likelihood not have another future awkward encounter like this again.
I fucking loved the cabbage rolls and lion’s head recipes. I wouldn’t have thought of cabbage rolls and I didn’t even know about lion’s head and the only reason I clicked over was to see if we were substituting turkey meat for lion meat. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any cabbage and that’s the excuse I’m going with here because cabbage rolls seems like a lot of work when I’m in the middle of cleaning all the storm windows and screens upstairs and downstairs and lion’s head is prolly best mastered first before substituting the exotic turkey bird.
Which brings us to the recipe so helpfully provided by Laura W. Regrettably, it was my intention to use the ground turkey in this evening’s meal and Laura’s busy schedule did not permit a recipe submittal in the required timeframe. However, just seeing your name, Laura, made me think of kale and that made me think of zuppa toscano soup and so I fried up the ground turkey with bacon, onions and lots of crushed red pepper and combined it in a large soup pot with chicken stock, sliced potatoes with the skins left on, heavy whipping cream and a fuckton of garlic and .. KALE, wonderful, marvelous KALE!
And it turned out perfect. Thanks for the suggestions folks.
Comrade Darkness
@kay: I get the sense Obama enjoys bouncing these egos around, with him in the middle of a star-shaped org structure. Some personalities get swamped or steam rollered, but others get elevated by being in the center, absorb all that energy and redirect it.
Mousebumples
@Just Some Fuckhead: I personally love sweet and sour meatball made with ground turkey.
Meatball Recipe:
1-1/4 lb ground turkey
1/4 cup seasoned bread crumbs
1/4 cup water
1 egg (beaten – or 2 egg whites, if you prefer)
1/8 tsp black pepper
Mix those 5 ingredients together and make 24 meatballs.
Sauce Recipe:
1/3 cup sugar
8 ounce tomato sauce
1/3 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup water
Combine and place in large frying pan and bring to a boil before adding the meatballs. Cover and cook for about 30 minutes, making sure to turn the meatballs halfway through. When you’re done, there should be about 1/2 inch of sauce left in the pan. If not, you can add 1/4 cup water.
More often than not, I’ll double the recipe and have leftovers all week.
On topic …
Most of the remaining card carrying GOP members have reached the point, in my experience, where they don’t even understand a rational point made against their party’s platform. My dad is down the ticket GOP, and I used to try to engage him in some political debates. We used to have good discussions, but over the past year or so, I feel more and more like I’m just talking to a brick wall.
Comrade Darkness
Test of moderation filter: socíalist.
Tricky.
also socîalist would work, but yours is prettier or prettíer I guess would be more accurate.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
For some reason the site ate my post but I was able to recover it by backtracking:
I knew that Obama becoming President would push some crazies over the edge but I didn’t think that the Repub party would join them. They are rapidly sinking and all they have been doing is drilling more holes in the ship. I bet it really sucks being a old school Republican right now and I don’t see it getting better any time soon. I sure as hell hope not, they need a long time in the political wilderness in search of the political soul they lost long ago. I’m beginning to doubt that they are ever going to find it because most of them are not interested in finding it.
The Repubs have purified/distilled themselves to the point that they are now little more than the party of hate, intolerance and ignorance. As someone else here observed, the sane (and somewhat sane) members of the right-wing media are having to point out various footnotes and detail in an attempt to avoid being tarred by the crazy brush. In doing so they are infuriating the party purists and just making more trouble for themselves.
One thing that hasn’t helped the Repubs is the fact that Obama winning last fall helped to drive the crazy racists out of the Democratic party and right into the welcoming arms of the Repubs. Adding racism and hate to the bottom of the industrial grade wingnut barrel is like mixing baking soda and vinegar, all you get is foam and gas.
And that is all we have been seeing lately, lots of foam and gas.
Dennis-SGMM
@Laura W:
Quel horreur! I’m just a wine plebe. I do get tickled by some of the complicated descriptions though; “It has the full-bodied vigor of Mad Dog with hints of WD-40 and stale candy corn overlaid with the subtle aroma of the interior of a ’65 Chevy with the windows rolled up on a hot day…”
To me, wine falls into two categories: tastes good and doesn’t taste good.
Splitting Image
@Left Coast Tom:
I know what you’re saying. I don’t think it’s a given that Wyoming voters will reject a ban if they put it on the ballot, but I think there may be a surprisingly good chance that they will. Wyoming is one of the few states that didn’t pass some sort of ban after Massachusetts legalized gay marriage, and it isn’t because they didn’t try. As conservative as the state is, they just couldn’t produce the votes to do it. The legislature actually shot down a bill banning same-sex marriage a couple of months ago, and a fair number of Republicans spoke out against it because they thought it was a matter the government ought to be keeping its nose out of. That’s why the rest of the Republicans are trying to do it by ballot initiative.
My point was more about what Republicans would do if Wyoming does vote it down. If it passes, the reaction will be “well, it’s a red state, what do you expect?” If it loses, the ones who aren’t left staring blankly into space will have to realize that they’re losing ground on these issues with real voters, not simply with activist judges and liberal talking heads.
stickler
Very Rev. Bttlxe. Knowled.:
Since I was in 6th grade when St. Ronnie was elected, I really had no idea what his image was before that. Since that time, I’ve come to a deeper appreciation of who Reagan actually was: a fringe nutcase who got lucky. Hell, his 1976 insurgency helped elect Carter (though the hapless Gerry Ford might have managed to lose to a peanut farmer without it).
For some historical context, one (that is, someone less lazy than me) could look for the 1968 Laugh-In skit where they do a News From The Future, 1980 I think. They mention the election of “President Ronald Reagan,” and the audience explodes in laughter. In 1968, Reagan was seen as a wacko and a buffoon. (Which he was, come to think of it.)
Laura W
@Just Some Fuckhead: I live to help. It’s exhausting, but I’m a giver, so I never complain.
Ash Can
@kay: I can’t help but think that the American Catholic Church is getting set up for a world of hurt with this Notre Dame shitstorm. Not only will Obama not bow out, he’ll find a way to make the wingnuts protesting him look like perfect asses. It’ll make headlines, Church leaders will piss and moan about him dissing Catholics, blah blah, and the 50-some-odd percent of Catholics who voted for Obama (the percentage mirrored the popular vote, IIRC) will step back, look at the bloviating bishops, and say, “You know, I’ve just about had it with you guys.” Add this disgust to the dicey economic conditions, and we’re talking a good-sized chunk out of the Sunday collection baskets. Oops.
JL
@El Cid: It was under Ford that the earned income tax credit was passed and Reagan and Clinton both expanded it. I had forgotten that Reagan actually increased taxes on corporations. The tax code was simplified under Reagan by not allowing deductions for interest paid for automobile loans and deductions for credit card interest.
We had storms go through the area and my computer is running slower than if I had dial up. What’s up with that?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Dennis-SGMM: Dennis, you may be singlehandledly preventing us from classing up this joint. I admire yer holdoutedness.
Dennis-SGMM
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I’m just a white-hat in the Navy of Life.
Ash Can
@Dennis-SGMM:
LOL! My Italian grandfather always kept a jug of that crap in the kitchen pantry. You’d think he’d have better taste than that, but I suppose it reminded him of the wine he and his brother-in-law used to crank out in their basement during Prohibition.
kay
@Ash Can:
Can you imagine?
“Bow out, gracefully, before we look like extremists again”.
Can they not help themselves? Is that where we are?
You watch. If religious extremists ruin that graduation, it will somehow be Obama’s fault.
Svensker
Awesome Mexican Turkey Meatball Soup
Make a good basic chicken/turkey stock (or use cubes). Add some rice and chickpeas. Bring to a simmer, just under a boil.
Make some turkey meatballs:
1 pound ground turkey
1 finely minced jalapeno
2 finely minced garlic cloves
1/2 teaspoon oregano, rubbed
1 teaspoon crushed cumin seeds
1 egg
2 pieces bread, soaked in water and wrung out
1/2 teaspoon salt
Mix all together. Drop a small spoonful in the hot stock and cook till done, about 3 minutes. Taste and adjust your seasoning accordingly. You can make meatballs and drop them in the soup, or just drop spoonfuls of the meat mixture in. Cook until meatballs are done.
Excellent served immediately, but really really good if you can let it sit around for a few hours first.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@stickler:
I liked it when one night’s movie at the 4077th M.A.S.H. was Bonzo Runs for President. A few years later it didn’t seem so funny any more.
opium4themasses
@Laura W: he is practically vengeful here.
I hate to see someone with so much wrath of grapes.
Just Some Fuckhead
@opium4themasses: Hehe.
Comrade Jake
@kay:
Oh I think you can bank on that. That’s about as predictable as Sean Hannity still being dumb as rocks for the rest of his natural life.
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I’m still trying to wrap my head around this. I *think* this means that eating actual people is bad for you, followed by the harmful effects of other red meat. But, frankly…I’m not sure.
ETA – And no suggestions from me as I just don’t cook with ground turkey. I don’t like the flavor, texture or overall sensation it lends to a dish. I’ve tried a couple times and it just didn’t seem to work. I’m sure it’s all in my head or something.
KG
I’m trying to figure out if it’s worth staying in the Republican Party and trying to reason with the party carcass or registering as an independent.
The California Republican Party has been in the wilderness for decades now, and hasn’t shown much intention of moving back to relevance. The national party went fucking nuts. And I’m not sure reasoning with them is actually worth it at this point.
Where’s a viable third party when I need one?
Ash Can
@kay:
I don’t doubt for a moment that this is how those extremists will try to spin it. What I’m wondering is how far they’ll get with it in the short term, and how far it will get them in the long term. Especially if there’s public push-back — e.g., from the folks at Notre Dame who invited Obama in the first place — I expect that moderate and liberal Catholics across the country will sit up and take notice, and not like what they see.
opium4themasses
Actually, it’s just that beef is a terrible chaser to human flesh. You need something of a palate cleanser.
Dennis-SGMM
@opium4themasses:
Hey! I’m such a connoisseur that I even sniff the cap after I crank it off the jug.
MikeJ
Look what you made us do!!!!
Weird. Three bangs taken out. Add a fourth and get one. Wonder if six produces none. A way to calm extreme tempers, I guess. !!!!!!
LD50
If only he’d just kissed him on the mouth, like Bush did. That would show the world our toughness.
LD50
So ‘whiny, petulant red-baiting’ is your grand strategy?
Rosali
This is all manufactured fauxrage. If they were consistent, they would have protested Obama’s speech at Georgetown last month. They tried to gin up some fake controversy about the background displays but Obama’s invitation to speak was never crticized the way they’re carrying on about Notre Dame.
Remind me, Is John Kerry still being denied communion?
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@ JSF & Corner Stone:
I know what Corner Stone is saying about the texture of ground turkey; I can only say that if you get it from the butcher, where it looks like it actually came out of a meat grinder, it’s much better than that whipped puree-o’-turkey they sell in plastic chubs. I don’t think that stuff has the cohesiveness to make anything like lion’s head, for example.
MikeJ
Liberals were upset about the invasion of a country that had no means to harm us that killed a million civilians. Republicans are upset that the marginal tax rate on people making over $250,000/year is going to be lower than it was under Reagan.
KG
The pundits (if we can call them that on the right) are mistaking the Catholic hierarchy with the rank and file. Turns out, Catholics ain’t that much different than everyone else – and are actually more gay friendly.
I just can’t figure out how the GOP actually believes that they can win with a socially conservative agenda. Telling people how to live their lives, rather than letting them live their lives, just doesn’t seem to be a winning political strategy.
WereBear
I’m reading Rick Perlstein’s excellent book, Before the Storm, and what is amazing me is that the issues that the wingers are bringing up now are identical, I mean word for word, to what they used to propel Goldwater to the Republican nomination in 1964.
They’re attempting a reboot, only I don’t think it will go as well as the new James Bond.
The world has changed considerably since then, but they have not. They are still fighting the same battles against egghead East Coast pantywaists and corrupt unions and unmanly social programs and the inflationary potential of paying fair wages. When we watch the teabaggers and ask, “WTF are they getting that from?” it’s from the very dawn of the conservative movement as we know it.
I’d like to think that the world has changed enough that the bigotry and con-games aren’t going to work for a while. While racial issues are not over, we have reached an extraordinary point with our current President. This has been a battle that was 233 years in the making, when the Founding Fathers kicked the can of slavery down the road to get all 13 colonies to agree. And we aren’t done yet..
But we are so much closer than we ever were before.
Ash Can
@Rosali:
Oh, definitely. I’m sure their focus on Notre Dame is due to ND being a much more famously Catholic institution, but the fact that they all but ignored Obama’s appearance at Georgetown just makes them look like bigger tools.
PS: As for Kerry receiving communion, I’d bet that, if he wanted, he could easily find a parish that would be willing to make a friendly judgement call on him.
steve s
I’m trying to imagine 2012–
The GOP has just lost the last 4 election cycles, and Obama was reelected 55-45 over republican nominee Basey McWingnut. What’s happening at GOP headquarters? The Michael Steeles, Mitch McConnells, Eric Cantors, Rush Limbaughs, Glenn Becks, are they still on the same page? Still making fun of RINOs and telling their moderates to go to hell and calling Obama a terrorist mooslim marxist? How are they explaining the losses to themselves? And the majority of republican lawmakers, who care more about power and money and campaign contributions, and have seen that dry up, than they do about ideology, how are they reacting? Are they standing up to the wingnuts? Trying to bargain with them? And with the continued shrinking of their white, less educated, more religious, southeastern male base, what new demographics are they trying to appeal to?
Corner Stone
@steve s:
Firstly, this assumes these individuals have the same agenda. Which as we know, they do not.
The Limbaughs, Beck’s, Hannity’s, et al do much better when the Republican party is not in power. They have no incentive nor reward to moderate the crazy in their “assumed” party. I use quotes because I think it’s quite clear they aren’t Republicans but rather entertainers.
Steele will be gone in less than 6 months and never heard from again. Cantor, Boehner, etc. exist in a hard right bubble. They care nothing for the party as a whole, but rather simply exist to be re-elected.
If any of the elected officials actually cared about the Republican party they would incrementally start pulling back teh crazy. Not all the way obviously as they don’t want to expose themselves to a primary from the right. But they could take steps to still be showmen, criticize the President but not full-on support teh crazy.
In short, none of these people give a shit about the Republican party. Sure it’s more fun to be in the majority and give your benefactors everything they want, but they’ll take what they’ve got, eat a porterhouse at some exclusive restaurant in DC, have a martini and go home satisfied every day.
anonevent
@KG: If that were entirely true, we wouldn’t have laws in states preventing gay marriage. People all the time are wiling to tell others what they should do. The difference right now is that the economy sucks bad enough that people are more concerned with their paycheck. Just wait until the economy improves.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@steve s:
Remember that the minor-party candidates pulled in about 2% of the vote this time. The wingers quote 53/47 but it’s really almost 53/45. I’ll bet they get more like 4% next time, so it might be Obama/Wingnut 55/41. That’s starting to look like a real ass-whoopin’! Will they suddenly “go sane” or crank the crazy up to 12? Who knows? but it’s going to be fun to watch either way.
Just Some Fuckhead
@KG:
lmfao
If you haven’t left already then why rush it?
gbear
@kay:
What a perfectly concise comment.
Oh, and Laura Ingraham is proving the point. The Idea That Republicans Now Have to Move to the Middle is Ridiculous
Rosali
My point about the Kerry communion was that they worked themselves into a frenzy over the issue in 2004 only because he was a Dem running for president and in the news. After 2004, Kerry’s position didn’t change but all of a sudden they stopped issuing religious fatwas against him since he no longer got news coverage.
JL
There’s a post over at Kos about the May 4, 1970 shooting of Kent State students by the National Guard. Even if you are not old enough to remember that day you should read the post. I’ve often wondered what happened to the Guard members who did shooting and to the students who witnessed it.
gbear
@MikeJ:
What MikeJ says.
kay
@Ash Can:
It’s the deference that religious are given that bothers me. It’s speech. Great. Have at it. Just don’t expect to be coddled and protected and enjoy some special status because your objections are religious.
Why is the ND situation different than the students at Stanford who aren’t happy with Condi?
Why isn’t anyone speaking in hushed tones, respecting the Stanford student’s heart-felt beliefs? Because they’re not couched in religion?
Condi is right in their faces, defending her torture regime. Obama’s supposed to not show up, in case someone or other gets upset?
I think Rice should resign, using the ND standard. She’s disrespecting those student’s moral beliefs with her presence.
El Cid
Awesome future party leader “moderate” Jeb Bush:
Great. Citing a hack, lying pseudo-scholar as the important source that Amurkans should read about how FDR caused / worsened / made badderer the Great Depression.
Likewise, Amurkans who are curious about NASA should read books like Chariots of the Gods to see how hieroglyphics prove that aliens built Mayan pyramids, given that one carving looks vaguely like a guy on a rocket.
God damn, but I wish that major Democratic leaders could be as left as the right gets to be fruitcake ultra-right all day long.
KG
@159 – I haven’t left in the sense that I am still registered Republican. Though, I don’t think I voted for any Republicans in the ’08 general.
@157 – the difference is between telling people what they should do and what the must do. When it comes to gay marriage (and really, a lot of social issues) change takes time, there are a lot of people that default to the status quo.
JGabriel
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
What do you mean by this strange use of the word “join”? The crazies are the Republican party.
.
gbear
How much more time to you want to give it? Maybe a not-in-my-lifetime amount of time?
Guess what. It’s time. 28% are always going to scream about it. There’s no point in waiting for them to be ready.
Aimaib
Ants climb a tree:
One pound ground turkey
Soy sauce
Sesame oil
Scallions
Garlic
Ginger
Chili garlic paste
Cellophane noodles
Cook.
Aimai
SnarkIntern
As one who lived in CA while he was governor, I can assure you, he was a wacko, and a complete asshole. And a tool of the Cold War machine the way Bush was a tool of the neocons.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@El Cid:
Remember Quayle essentially quoting The Hunt for Red October as if it were fact? And it worked.
Aimaib
Oh and my compliments to kay at 164. That is almost as great a comment as ratceting up the calm. Sorry for the iPhone typing.
Aimai
KG
@168: I don’t disagree that it’s time. But it also means convincing the majority. Which, based on the recent numbers, seems to have happened.
El Cid
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge: Yeah. Who knew that Dan Quayle citing The Hunt for Red October represented a high point in right wing intellectual discourse, given that nowadays national policy has been based on what happens on the TV show “24”.
kay
@kay:
And, ash can, when I say “your” I don’t mean “you”. I see your point, that this isn’t the majority position at ND or even among Catholics, re: Obama.
I guess I’m just cranky with the complete disrespect that is shown non-religious objections to policy. It’s like that political speech is fair game, but if I raise a religious objection, choirs start singing, and everyone has to start mumbling the establishment clause.
I think the Stanford students are serious, and Condi is right out there defending. I’m fine with that. Why can’t Obama defend his version of morality?
This is a rhetorical question.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@stickler: … look for the 1968 Laugh-In skit where they do a News From The Future, 1980 I think. They mention the election of “President Ronald Reagan,” and the audience explodes in laughter. In 1968, Reagan was seen as a wacko and a buffoon.
Mad Magazine also had, around then, a fake ad for “Ronreagan” Rum, which dismissed Reagan’s political aspirations as drunken pipe dreams.
If only.
tc125231
El Cid
@El Cid: F*@%. I take that back. I almost forgot the whole “Murphy Brown” crap.
Well, at least there are curatives for those (I’m not one of them) who want to look back a couple decades ago as some more golden era of political discourse.
tc125231
@Just Some Fuckhead:
robertdsc
You haven’t been to OpenLeft recently, have you?
priscianus jr
Frum is right, as far as he goes. But it’s not only Obama’s temperament, it’s also his intellect, it’s also the great contrast of his ideas with the last (at least) eight years (but really more like thirty).
It certainly would help the republicans if they had someone of similar temperament. But the thing is, it’s not merely a question of understanding this. Some republicans may indeed figure it our eventually. It’s a question of actually being it. If anybody out there can think of one republican leader, on any level, who could actually be anything remotely like that kind of person, I think we’d all like to know who it might be.
JGabriel
@priscianus jr:
I could be wrong, but I don’t think it’s possible in today’s Republican party. Anyone of similiar temperament would be a Democrat – and if they were a Republican, they would have been chased out of the party, or currently targeted.
I mean, these people think Orrin freaking Hatch is a leftie.
.
kommrade reproductive vigor
No. He doesn’t get jack.
Obama doesn’t need to depict the right as anything. They really are fucking insane and everyone can see they’re insane. What kind of douchehole is Frum that he thinks this requires any effort on Obama’s part?
El Cid
Yeah. Orrin Hatch is a moderate and Dennis Kucinich is a revolutionary communist and no, our system hasn’t keeled over rightward over the past few generations, why would anyone think that?
Gus
If you’re really wondering when the Republican Party will figure it out, read the comments to Frum’s post. No time soon obviously.
demimondian
@Mike S: You must be new here.
Jennifer
After watching the town hall for the New Council for a New America, and the interview on CNN’s State of the Union today, I think Romney and Cantor (and Jeb Bush) get it. These are the faces of the GOP I hope to see more of. These guys get it.
demimondian
@kommrade reproductive vigor: Actually, he does get something — just not the real thing.
Obama manages to *depict* his _opposition_ as intemperate and extreme. As David Frum knows, it’s doesn’t whether that depiction happens to be truthful and accurate, though — Obama’s magic has been in framing the behavior of the American Right so that their irrational excess is seen as such. That has the potential to trigger a sea change in American political discourse.
asiangrrlMN
It’s not that hard to paint the GOP as batshit crazy. As others have stated, Obama IS temperate. He is not playing at anything. It’s who he was throughout the primaries and the endless campaign for the White House. I don’t think Frum gets that, and until he does, he doesn’t really get it.
Got it?
P.S. I don’t drink wine or beer, so I definitely bring down the class in this joint.
P.P.S. Hey, harlana pepper, if you are out there, congrats on getting out there and dating. Are you using a dating service? Which one, if I may be so nosy? OT thread-hijack over.
steve s
How exactly did he do that? When CNN’s got the camera on, and the guy standing in front of it has tea bags on his head and is yelling about muslim birth certificates or whatever, how exactly is Obama doing any framing there?
Wile E. Quixote
@opium4themasses
Yeah, what kind of wine do you serve with long pig. I mean it’s red meat, but would having a red wine with it be too much?
Lesley
and his ability to depict his opponents as intemperate and extreme.
Can’t disagree with this more. Sure, Obama is calm, rational, and thoughtful but he hardly needs lift a finger to depict the opposition because, in fact, they ARE intemperate and extreme. They are perceived correctly. They’d actually have to change to be perceived differently. Merely pretending they’re not intemperate and extreme – as Frum suggests – won’t work with these clowns.
Furthermore, Frum himself is one of them. Ever watched this guy on a panel? He can’t stop to listen, has no interest in anything his opposition has to say. He’s constantly chomping at the bit to say his piece, constantly interrupting, and yaps like a jackhammer boring through cement.
What he’s suggesting is a marketing strategy, but what needs to happen is these assholes on the right need to change themselves. There’s a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening.
asiangrrlMN
@steve s: Yup. I agree with steve s. The right, be it the teabaggers or Limbaugh or Cantor or Perry don’t need help looking stupid, intemperate, and idiotic. They do it all by themselves.
The bottom line is that the Republicans have to do something really, really scary–they need to become more centrist. Yes, they will lose their base, but they have to look at the big picture. They can never win with 28% of the vote. If they are serious about becoming a national party again, they will have to eat it for a few years (or ten) while moving towards reasonableness. I highly doubt they will do that, though.
steve s
Better luck next time.
JK
I can’t wait to see how much more whacked out insane Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh become once Obama announces his choice to replace David Souter.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@steve s: how exactly is Obama doing any framing there?
That is a good point. All he has to do is not let them get his goat. Which ain’t nothing, especially given some of the shit that’s been said about him. But it’s not exactly chess-master stuff.
steve s
I’m open to the idea that Obama is successfully framing his opponents in a bad light. I just think that for the most part they’re doing it themselves.
Comrade Darkness
@Wile E. Quixote: is long pig really a red meat, not white?
The intertubes are failing me here. I’m trying to search if monkey meat is red or not and coming up dry. Heh. (little monkey meat joke, there)
JK
@steve s:
I think Buckley’s powers of perception failed him in his later years because he was a big fan of Rush Limbaugh.
@asiangrrlMN:
Things have reached the point where referring to the GOP as batshit crazy is redundant.
Brick Oven Bill
I will tell you what.
My diet is probably healthier than average. Today it was some rice, olives, and Marie Sharp hot sauce (Belize), with a little bit of butter for the first meal. A sourdough roll with a pat of butter for #2. Dinner was a vegetable-heavy chili with some more of the morning rice. I buy rice in bulk. Yesterday I had a McDouble and small order of French fries ($2.14), and I might do this every few days, but the red wine at night cleans the arteries right out, at least I hope so. My family history is good in this regard.
But when I look at that piece of red meat at the top left, I want to eat it.
It reminds me of The Star in Elko Nevada, which is the nation’s best restaurant. This is run by Basque herders and they serve large slabs of bloody meat that look very much like the PETA or whatever ad. It is the best food I have eaten. They serve it with spaghetti, and salad slathered with dressing, and bread, and green beans, all placed in big community bowls. You get all of this for around $20. You sit next to people you do not know. I have eaten at this restaurant three times in my lifetime.
The flesh is of a texture that I can only describe as the best I have ever had. I have eaten the ‘fancy’ steaks at the in-laws that they bought from some boutique store, and I would describe the texture of this flesh as grainy. If pushed, I would describe the Basque herders’ product as ‘stringy’ and much better. It is chewy with plenty of fat. Perhaps the texture is from sage brush.
The Star is kitty corner to Stockman’s, an excellent hotel-casino, run by Charlie Holder (no relation). I guess my point is that the ad by the do-gooders is counterproductive to their cause. Most Americans have enjoyed a good steak. This is another reason why my kids will go to state school, if the current education system exists in sixteen years (it won’t).
I am also excited that I get to go on a road trip next week, more or less coast to coast, through Elko. When travelling I-80, the best places to stay are Ogallala, Nebraska, night one and Elko, Nevada, night two, or vice versa. I will perhaps check in from Elko. The place in Ogallala is run by a methamphetamines-influenced family, and while it is inexpensive (a single $20 bill), there is no Internet connection. Last time I had to rig up my own toilet flushing mechanism with a coat hanger in the dark as the light was burnt out.
Frum is an attention-seeking idiot, by the way.
asiangrrlMN
@JK: Yeah. Sad to say, but yeah. Still, it’s helpful to point it now and then especially as the traditional media seems to be ignoring this salient fact.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@JK: Things have reached the point where referring to the GOP as batshit crazy is redundant.
Well, you do have to admit it was impressive when Obama convinced everybody the sun was shiny.
@asiangrrlMN: Still, it’s helpful to point it now and then especially as the traditional media seems to be ignoring this salient fact.
Yes. Very true, and it can’t be said enough because of that. It’s also worth reminding the media that, whatever fools the Republicans be, the media are the fools worshipping them.
Snark Based Reality
steve s,
The Buckley quote is gold.
Comrade Kevin
@robertdsc:
They control the Republican party?
asiangrrlMN
@Comrade Kevin: Ah, that would explain a lot!
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist: Yeah, the media sucks eggs. You can quote me on that.
jcricket
@steve s: Sadly, up until the last couple of months, you’d still have the talking heads treating this kind of behavior as reasonable.
It takes Democrats pointing out that the wingers are, well, wingers, and banging that point home no matter what the chattering class says (i.e. it’ll be doom if Democrats keep standing up for themselves, you know) to make it clear what people who read this blog have known all along :-)
Dance with the devil and the devil don’t change. The devil changes you.
Mwangangi
Finished the thread and now I think:
a.) Frum (and his ilk) still think it’s all [about] optics
b.) I prefer sedate leadership from the large institutions that shape my life (now all we need to find are some non-crazy CEOs and major shareholders)
c.)I’m fucking hungry and all I have is chicken and rice so I guess I’ll fry some chicken (ah… the stereotypes always taste the best)
demimondian
@steve s: Sometimes, doing nothing is the hardest thing to do. Obama has shown an amazing ability to wait — and, contra @Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist, that *is* chess-master stuff.
El Cid
The problem is that you could do a similar thing and focus on an individual from a left or liberal protest, but then the difference comes when CNN or whoever will be filling the rest of the airtime with live commentary & analysis from some supposedly wise right wing figure (Newt Gingrich, perhaps) spouting crazed ultra-right nonsense as they’ve done for 30 years whereas you don’t get the countermanding liberal / left view filling up the honored guest spots.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@Mwangangi:
And yet, I won’t eat lutefisk on a bet. Go figure.
asiangrrlMN
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge: It’s because you are a smart person. I went to St. Olaf College, and they had lutefisk every year for Christmas. My last year there, I told myself I had to try it. I brought my fork to my lips several times, but I couldn’t do it.
I’ll take chicken and rice every time.
Janet Strange
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist: I think it’s more than that (though that is good).
For years, sensible people would groan and throw things at their teevee when some idiot pundit would bring up some batshit R talking point and the Democrat would try (flailing) to answer it seriously. And the idiot pundit would come back with something even batshittier, and the Democrat would try to answer that . . . And anything a normal American would actually be interested would never be discussed at all.
Obama responds to that kind of idiocy with a look, a tone of voice, and sometimes even a little sarcasm that implies, “Are you f’ing kidding me?” And then changes the subject to something that actually matters. Normal people like this. That’s what most normal people do when someone says something really stupid in their presence.
And when you ignore something really stupid someone says and change the subject to a topic the rest of the sane people in the vicinity care about and are actually interested in, the person that said the stupid thing . . . looks a lot stupider than if you actually try to argue with them.
They’ve always been nuts. But Democrats before Obama (except Dean, often) never had that gift for exposing it by simply refusing to pretend that the idiot talking point of the day (birth certificate!) should be taken seriously. He just moves on. Jobs. Health care. Etc. That’s how he “depicts” his opponents as intemperate and extreme. He’s not just doing nothing.
Mwangangi
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge: I have been blessed with better stereotypes.
Which oddly reminds me of the “he’s only this successful because he’s a black candidate” phase of the primaries. Wasn’t that awesome?
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
I think a few more cycles. The GOP is a star that has rapidly gone supernova ejecting the few moderates and principled supporters, leaving behind a wingnut singularity of infinite density, but with little mass.
LD50
What a shame his chances were ruined by Chimpy McHitlerburton. :-(
MikeJ
When I commuted to Sweden I thought this had much to do with why we ate lingon berries at breakfast and lutefisk for dinner. You could just stock up for the day and not eat any more until the next morning.
Of course aquavit helped tide one over.
demimondian
@Mwangangi: Personally, I want to know what or who bawangangi are, as I neither speak nor read Swahili.
asiangrrlMN
@Mwangangi: Yes, we have much yummier stereotypes, me thinks. Dim sum? Bring it!
Oh yes, the “he’s got it easy because he’s black” phase. Good times.
Comrade Jake
@Janet Strange:
Yeah but it was something of a trial by fire to get there for Obama. Remember the 29th (or some godawful number) debate with Hillary? The one moderated by Gibson and Snuffaluffagus, where they asked Obama every dumb, wingnut question in the book? Where George got a question from Sean Hannity for Chrissakes?
That debate was painful to watch as an Obama supporter. He got crushed. The only saving grace was when he brushed it off in NC the next day as though it was no big deal.
demimondian
@asiangrrlMN: Inscrutability? Shao-lin monks doing “kung fu fighting”?
Yeah, no thanks.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@demimondian: OK, I’ll concede that simple and easy are not the same thing, and that mastery doesn’t need to be complicated.
demimondian
@Comrade Jake: But that’s the point. He called them out on it, and, then, the next day, he called attention to the fact that the questions were…intemperate and extreme.
Hmm…
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@demimondian: Inscrutability? Shao-lin monks doing “kung fu fighting”? Yeah, no thanks.
Still better than mine – I get the abovementioned lutefisk from the Swede side and the drunken brawling from the Irish side.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@asiangrrlMN:
Well, to be fair, whenever I encounter something on a menu like:
Happy Family*
*Sea Cucumber optional, please specify
I always specify: no sea cucumber. It might be good, but I just imagine eating starfish, and say no thanks.
asiangrrlMN
@demimondian: No, food-wise, I meant. Egg rolls, spring rolls, noodles, rice, roasted duck, barbecued pork, etc. Yum. I’m hungry now.
demimondian
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge: Um…just what do you think urchin roe is?
demimondian
@asiangrrlMN: mmmm….noodles.
Chicken feet? Thousand year old eggs? Pickled pig’s brains?
Dennis-SGMM
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist:
Scotch, Irish, Czech, German and Italian here. My wife is a Latina from Ciudad Juarez. Our son holds UN meetings in his head.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@asiangrrlMN: No, food-wise, I meant.
There too, your stereotype kicks my stereotype’s ass.
@Dennis – SGMM: Our son holds UN meetings in his head.
LOL! I love that melting pot kind of stuff. Hybrid vigor FTW.
Mousebumples
@Janet Strange: A part of me wonders if Obama’s opponents (first the Clintons, and later/now the GOP) didn’t somewhat escalate, in terms of unwarranted outrage/etc. because they couldn’t understand why Obama wasn’t acting like the typical politician.
I mean, this guy got Bill Clinton to self-destruct politically. Yes, in the eyes of the right, he did that years ago by thinking a bit too much with his downstairs brain. But there were so many Dems (or even left-leaning independents) who were in such shock and disbelief at some of Clinton’s comments in January, February, March of last year.
I don’t know how he does it, but he has quite the talent to make his opponent (seemingly) self-destruct.
Anoniminous
The GOP isn’t going to change until the current batch croaks because they are too fucking stupid.
Good ol’ looney-tune Rep Ron Paul (R-Idiot, Texas) is claiming the mass 1976 Flu vaccines were pointless because a flu epidemic didn’t happen.
So let’s see … a vaccine for a disease is developed, widely given, and an epidemic doesn’t happen THEREFORE the vaccines were unnecessary.
dubbah, dubbah, dubbah, dubbah, duh
Only in Wingnuttystan can someone who spews this drivel be taken seriously.
Comrade Kevin
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist: Both of my parents were born and raised in Ireland, and I’m really getting tired of people claiming that their “drunken brawling” traits come from there.
Dennis-SGMM
@asiangrrlMN:
Char shu bao. The only thing between me and weighing 300 lbs. is the fact that my friend who makes killer char shu bao lives 75 miles away.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@Mousebumples: I don’t know how he does it, but he has quite the talent to make his opponent (seemingly) self-destruct.
I have been repeatedly impressed by that. I think a good chunk of it is absolutely incredible self-discipline and being constantly mindful of what’s most important – “keeping his eyes on the prize” sort of thing. Meanwhile, Washington culture of recent decades has made all its inhabitants, even smart people like the Clintons, into a big bunch of screeching tantrum-throwers and the like.
demimondian
@Comrade Kevin: I think he’s talking about the stereotype, not the actual behavior.
asiangrrlMN
@demimondian: I love chicken feet. Thousand-year eggs aren’t bad, either. I’ve never had pig’s brain, but it might not be so bad. I love roe and urchin and sea cucumber, too. Yes, my food tastes are varied as well.
Crap. Now I’m really hungry.
Dennis-SGMM, that is one of my favorite dishes of all time. Now, I’m craving the red meat of barbecued pig.
mclaren
The consensus here is that Frum doesn’t really get it, and that seems to be correct. Frum is really just restating the decade-old lament that “the GOP needs a better salesman for its batshit crazy nonsense.” If only we had another Reagan, the GOP laments, then our policies would become popular once again.
Unfortunately, that’s not going to work, because the policies of the GOP are crazy, and the American people have finally woken up to that fact. This really does go back to Reagan — but not in the way the GOP thinks. Reagan’s policies were just as batshit insane as the policies the GOP follows today, it’s just that America was much wealthier and oil was much cheaper back then, and the third world hadn’t yet industrialized and the internet wasn’t causing America to outsource all its white-collar jobs to the third world yet.
So Reagan’s batshit insane policies didn’t cause as much destruction and chaos as those same batshit insane policies cause today. Also, Reagan didn’t control both houses of congress, so he couldn’t get us mired in two lost wars in central America.
Frum still thinks it’s all about salesmanship. He truly believes that if you spray the GOP turd with gold paint, everyone will believe it’s 24 karat bullion. Sadly, no.
jrosen
Obama’s cool is one of the very things that makes wingnuts go nutty. He will not be rattled no matter what (although the way he slapped Ed Henry down a few weeks ago shows that he can sting if he wants to).
I’ve heard that he is a very good poker player…which if true means that he is patient and persistent, has steady nerves, is good at calculating the odds and above all can read others’ “tells” and sense what is going on in their minds ( a strong contrast to McCain, who is a plunging sort of dice player, getting off on the rush and not caring if he wins or not….since of course he can afford to lose!) That makes a formidable combination…and among others I think Arlen Specter is about to find that out.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@Comrade Kevin: I didn’t mean to say that I do drunken brawling or that Irish people actually do, just that that is the stereotype I get applied to me for that ancestry. Hell, I don’t even drink.
Pardon my not being clear.
demimondian
@asiangrrlMN: Don’t repeat it, but I adore chicken feet and thousand year old eggs. I don’t eat brain — too much neuroscientist in the family — even pickled, I don’t think one can count on sufficient denaturing of the proteins.
I was simply evoking the “oriental food contains things you shouldn’t eat” stereotype.
Comrade Kevin
deleted
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@Comrade Kevin: I’m not joking about it, I’m resenting it.
Sigh.
asiangrrlMN
@demimondian: A-yup. I don’t eat brains, either. Everything else is pretty much fair game. Ha. I made a funny.
@mclaren: Yeah, what you said, especially the last paragraph.
The Republicans really haven’t grasped that they have an issues problem, not just an image one.
demimondian
deleted
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@demimondian:
Never tried it, but then I don’t like caviar, either.
I think it’s just taken 20 years for the Democrats to get over being gobsmacked by the Lee Atwater attack machine in 1988. It was new, it was different, and they didn’t know how to deal with it.
Ever since, they’ve been cowering like deer in the headlights when the high beams hit them. Well, the lights are getting dimmer, and we’ve learned how to deal with it. I think we largely have Howard Dean to thank for that: he was a victim, didn’t try to reverse that, but worked to get somebody else nominated and elected with what he learned.
burnspbesq
@Not In Our Name:
Wow. You really are delusional.
Let me put it to you as simply and directly as possible.
No. Not ever.
Everything your party stands for is evil.
Fulcanelli
I’d describe the current wingnut condition as a “cultural trance”. It’s the result of a process similar to what voodoo priests do to create zombies but instead of blow fish toxin and poisonous toad flesh, herbs and whatnot the GOP/BigMoney(TM) Brahmins have been using right wing talk radio, FOX, horseshit, lies and divisive cultural ‘wedge’ issues. And with great success, obviously.
Now they can’t kill the beast and it’s tearing up the political landscape and shitting on the lawn in front of the neighbors and they don’t know what to do about it because every time they try to shut down the head programmer they wind up having to toss his salad on national TV or fend off torches, pitchforks and a likely primary challenge from Himmler’s great grandson.
You betcha… Sweet.
For years I dealt with self-employed, blue collar working guys who (a coffee truck owner and a FedEx Ground driver I knew come to mind) drove around listening to Rush, Hannity and the local AM mouth breathers all day. You couldn’t convince these working class guys, who should loathe big money republicans and what they stand for, that they were getting chumped and how it’s gonna come crashing down sooner or later if you put a gun in their mouths. They were like zombies. And I’m in blue Rhode Island! They would not budge an inch. I remember one braying at the top of his voice how George Bush was a “visionary” that will be remembered for years as a great president.
I laughed in his face.
Somebody up-thread said we’ll have to educate them out of their condition. Not a chance.
Comrade Kevin
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist: You know, I realized my comment was rather intemperate, and removed it.
Corner Stone
@Dennis-SGMM:
Has she told you how pissed residents of Juarez get when people refer to it as “Ciudad Juarez”?
Dennis-SGMM
@Fulcanelli:
Nicely put.
Corner Stone
@Brick Oven Bill:
WTF is “kitty corner”?
Dennis-SGMM
@Corner Stone:
Yep. She still has a couple of aunts there. Mostly they complain about how crazy it’s become.
burnspbesq
@Ash Can:
Some of us said that quite a while ago.
demimondian
@Corner Stone: “Kitty corner” (or “catty corner”, in my dialect) means diagonally opposite.
Corner Stone
@Dennis-SGMM: My best friend and his family live in Juarez. He runs a bar in Mexico and our business in El Paso. If I don’t speak to him every 2 or 3 days I’m scared to death he’s gone. The shit he tells me about everyday life…
He also gets really pissed when I correct his Spanish. He’s natural Mexico and I learned from a tutor from Spain. He hates it. If he didn’t love me he’d probably kick my ass.
tc125231
@Brick Oven Bill:
Fern
@Aimaib:
Now that looks excellent!
Brick Oven Bill
‘Kitty-corner’ means across two streets. Like if you need to push the ‘walk’ button twice in an urban area. In Elko, Nevada, you just stagger at a 40-50 degree angle.
Brachiator
@Fulcanelli:
Have any of these people changed their minds?
I agree with the majority sentiment here that Frum is clueless. He confuses style with substance and foolishly believes that the GOP just needs a makeover to get back on the goodfoot with voters.
And though it is clear that citizens are giving Obama breathing room to bring some change, I wonder if some of these dittoheads (apart from the unregenerate lunatic fringe) are still clinging to false hope.
tc125231
@JK:
Corner Stone
@demimondian: Demi – I am aware of all internet traditions. Point being, I’ve never once heard it called “kitty” anything.
I get a little sensitive when people invoke my given name.
Mwangangi
@demimondian: Did you misspell my handle or are you asking about something else?
Mwangangi is a name I was given by my Kikuyu friend while she was going to school here in the states.
It’s pronounced: Mwa-ga-gee; I’m told that the pacing of the pronunciation will let a native Kenyan know where you’re from.
The non complicated part of my bloodline is Yemeni.
demimondian
@Mwangangi: No — the plural of Mwangangi would be Bawangangi in Swahili. I believe, although I’m not sure, the Kikuyu uses the same structure.
Fulcanelli
@Brachiator: I no longer work where I used to so I don’t see them (now self-employed). But when I talk with former co-workers and I bring up the subject of shop talk about politics with these guys we knew it seems: The Song Remains the Same.
asiangrrlMN
@Mwangangi: Oh, my bad. I thought you were Asian. That’s why I started the whole Asian food stereotype thing. Sorry!
@Corner Stone: Huh. That’s what it’s called here, too. Kitty-corner. Funny.
opium4themasses
@Corner Stone: It’s not so much an internet thing as a slang thing. I noticed it more when I lived in Iowa than other places though. It may be Great Plains slang. Like calling fizzy drinks “pop”.
Dennis-SGMM
@Corner Stone:
H
Although Spanish is my wife’s first language, she took university courses in the language and the literature here. She’s been credited with speaking Castilian Spanish.
Corner Stone
@asiangrrlMN: Yeah, we use “caddy” down here. Not splitting hairs here, just honestly never heard it said “kitty”.
Ha.
asiangrrlMN
@opium4themasses: It IS pop. Just like casserole is a hot dish. And bars aren’t just places where you drink–they are a delicious dessert, too. (Example, lemon bars). Duck, duck, goose? Oh, no, my friends. It’s duck, duck, gray duck.
opium4themasses
Pfft, silly MinnesOtan. Besides, it’s grey duck.
Also, dinner is what you eat at noon.
Corner Stone
@Dennis-SGMM: My teacher is from Zamora, in the heart of the Castilian dialect.
It’s funny because all the Hispanics here in TX can understand me very well but I sometimes have to ask them to repeat a few things. The enunciation is very different, even if a majority of the words are similar.
Tex-Mex is a little different than Spanish.
asiangrrlMN
@opium4themasses:
Dinner? What is that? We have breakfast, lunch, and supper. And, it’s GRAY duck. We’re not Brits, for goodness sake.
demimondian
@opium4themasses: Pfft, silly immigrants.
I’ll bet that you think that roof and hoof have the same vowel as hoot, too.
opium4themasses
I also remember the V section of the phone book being almost an entire book to itself. I lived somewhat close to Orange City.
Brick Oven Bill
AsiangrrlMN; As an Asian, you must be good at math. I like big rhombuses and I cannot lie.
passerby
@JL:
Thanks for that Kent State link JL. Good read. And good diagrams and photos. Wow.
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
I tried sea cucumber at a Japanese restaurant. It tasted fine, like meat and potatoes but the texture, my god the texture made me gag. I managed to swallow the bite I had but, to this day, even right now, I’m gagging at the thought of it. None for me thanks.
Mwangangi
@demimondian: There are a lot of similarities, but enough differences that it makes it really hard if you only know parts of each language (like me).
By the way it means wanderer or searcher in Kikuyu, what does it mean in Kiswahili?
@asiangrrlMN:
Oh… the rice… I was talking about the chicken! and I got kool-aid too… what?!
Cain
@Mwangangi:
No no no.. you need to be frying okra as well. THEN it’s the stereotype!
cain
Corner Stone
“I found God, at the corner of 1st and Amistad”
To hark back to the recent music threads – that may be the greatest opening line of a song in the last 10 years.
asiangrrlMN
@Brick Oven Bill: Oh, B.O.B., it feels wrong to laugh at your comments, but laugh I will.
@Mwangangi: Yeah, my bad. Sorry again. It DID lead me down the road to temptation, though, so it’s all good. Yeah, I ate. Nothing particularly Asian, though. Plus, I was taking your name as M. Wang. Ang. I. Don’t ask me why. I guess I just wanted to make you a brother/sister (I’m betting guy).
Cain
@demimondian:
Let’s not forget chilled monkey brains. It was the chinese who ate that, not the indians!
cain
Corner Stone
@Cain: Can we just stop with noodles? I enjoy teh noodles.
Cain
Jeez, the first thing that came to mind was “that would be a good pornstar name”
cain
asiangrrlMN
@Cain: No brains!
@Corner Stone: Noodles are good. Rice, too. Yum.
Cain, heh. You made a funny.
Mwangangi
@Cain: Have you had fried okra? I don’t like it. Now give me some perfectly salted watermelon, and I’m all over it.
If I wasn’t so lazy I’d make biscuits too, but then I’d have to find my pint glass.
The only veggies I have left (haven’t hit costco this month yet) are a can of string beans.. oh well they’ll do.
@asiangrrlMN:
oh yeah, and Yemen is in Asia… but we both know what you meant.
My slave blood is very strong, so I essentially just look like a black man; except for the beard. Apparently that’s how Yemeni beards grow. I got called out as Yemeni by a cat working in a bodega. It was weird besides the fact that I stopped speaking Arabic when I was five.
Fulcanelli
All this chatter about re-branding the GOP with the “Republipalooza” All-Star tour and all the other bullshit is just that: Bullshit.
There are no new ideas, just untested ones. Like what Obama’s trying to make happen. The wheel will be still be round for a long time to come, and human nature takes a long time to change.
The Right had 28 years to demonstrate how it’s governing philosophy was better and all it did was siphon off massive amounts of wealth from the poor and middle classes, bankrupt the treasury and kill people by the hundreds of thousands, millions even. The poor are still fucked coming and going and used as cannon fodder and the middle class has swelled it’s ranks. They should tax the rich at Eisenhower era levels, and confiscate off shore corporate and personal bank accounts for restitution to the US taxpayers and veteran’s families starting with the Bush family fortune.
And for those who, like me, whose blood boils thinking that the Bush administration criminals who implemented the torture program in our name might get off, take heart in this:
Nazi death camp guard John Deukmanjuk was recently found guilty of 39,000 counts of murder over 60 years after the fact and is being deported back to Germany. The kitteh is out of the bag and these torturing right wing neocon pricks are going to get theirs, whether Obama’s fingerprints are on it or not.
Comrade Darkness
@Corner Stone: Never heard anything but kitty-corner where I grew up:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kitty-corner
Your spelling is an interesting variant, btw. False etymologies involving golf courses could abound from it.
Cain
@Corner Stone:
Certainly… rice or wheat? (I love rice noodles.. us south indians have something called ‘sevai’ that is very similar to to the vietnamese dishes except no meat and different spices. Good stuff. Asians would probably like the southern cooking.
@Mwangangi – do you make those biscuits that’s made I think with butter, milk powder, flower, eggs and something else it’s bite size and it has a little bit of sweetness to it. I can never remember the name, but my friends would always bring some for me when we meet since I love them so much. It’s some Kenyan cookie..
cain
asiangrrlMN
@Fulcanelli: I agree with you that one way or another, Cheney and Rummy and the rest will suffer retribution of some sort. Because I am very bloodthirsty, I hope it’s life in prison. However, I am not sanguine that that will happen.
@Mwangangi: Yes. Yemen is in Asia. However…it’s not ASIAN, if you know what I mean.
I like fried okra.
asiangrrlMN
@Cain: I am allergic to wheat (gluten, really) and dairy, so I should stick to rice noodles. However, I don’t always do what I should.
Corner Stone
@Comrade Darkness:Ha! I guess..
Never heard anything but caddy corner in TX. And that is definitely c-a-d-d-y, not the variant with a T, much less this disgusting “kitty”.
“Kitty corner”? It’s almost as much of teh suck as The Beatles. Kidding! Kidding peopleses!
Corner Stone
@asiangrrlMN: Me either. Normally I do what I can, not what I should.
SnarkIntern
Offered without comment.
Comrade Darkness
@Corner Stone: “Catty” would be closer to the original “cater”. I envision school children concocting these variants, personally, and until recently they couldn’t communicate except locally.
Corner Stone
@Cain:
I may or may not love you at this point. Sexual orientation aside, I am down, down, down with any kind of noodle you can bring.
iluvsummr
@SnarkIntern:
Wimp!
asiangrrlMN
@SnarkIntern: Observed without response. No, wait, I do have a response–are you fucking kidding me?
@Corner Stone: Then you are still one step ahead of me–I don’t even always do what I can. Where is our open thread??????
Comrade Darkness
@SnarkIntern:
Can I comment then?
But he said, “If God wants to do something like this, he can do it.”
I, personally, would prefer to place my money on a god that could drop life-size, full-color statues of his mom right in every single town square at noon on a nice fresh sunday morning. Not leave a small, holy-ish looking grease spot that gives off a whiff of carne asada in some obscure, albeit authentic, little restaurant in flyover country.
Corner Stone
@Comrade Darkness: Ummm, is that a slam, or…what?
Comrade Darkness
@Corner Stone: No, not intended as one. Mutations of words are often attempts at rationalizing them into something more familiar. Or to make them easier to say. Cater-corner (the original) has that R-Hard C combo that would make a speaker (especially a child) want to mutate it out of there.
Kitty/Catty/Caddy just reminded me of children’s jump rope songs for some reason. Which have very wide-spread and interesting variants. If I can find a link, I’ll supply. Fascinating stuff.
Mwangangi
@Cain: nope, just regular butter biscuits. The biscuits part of biscuits and gravy, without the gravy. I use a pint glass as a biscuit cutter (I find that is the perfect size for a biscuit).
asiangrrlMN
@Comrade Darkness: His mom/lover–depending on how you look at it.
Cain
@Corner Stone:
Heh. :)
We use rice sticks to make the noodles these days. (eg we use the chinese stuff) Traditionally, what we do is pressure cook the rice over a long period of time. And then we put it down this wooden hopper and rice noodles get pressed out. I’ve seen my grandmother do it a couple of times and it’s hard work! We kids used to help sitting on it cuz it was kind of hard to push down.
Just a bit of trivia.
cain
Mwangangi
@SnarkIntern: Holy– oh wait.
Chuck Butcher
heh, stereotypes. As far as I can tell my direct ancestors have been in this country since before the Revolution so ties to “exotic” places are pretty hard to find and they seem to have been Yankees right along, also. I supose I’d be a WASP if the Germans and Dutch weren’t there (Dutch as in New Amsterdam).
I grew up with kitty corner and sometimes catty corner but never some golf version and pop or soda pop. I also grew up in the mid-west of Ohio and knew it stopped at the Mississippi and the others were the Plains States. I guess things change.
Cain
@Mwangangi:
Sorry, when I meant “biscuits” I meant the european/british connotation. I guess I should have said “cookies”. :-) The stuff I was eating would probably not be good with any kind of gravy. hehe.
cain
asiangrrlMN
@Chuck Butcher: Midwest, represent! That’s how we roll, bitches! Though you’re now on the West Coast, yes?
JGabriel
Brick Oven Bill:
This from a Glenn Beck fan?
.
Comrade Darkness
@asiangrrlMN: Yeah, the Christians didn’t fall far from the Greeks in the Soap Opera of the Gods department, that’s for sure.
I was just reading something about a branch of Xtians that don’t believe Mary was really pregnant, just a transit point. I’m overly paraphrasing here. It sounded very “birthed from a lotus flower” to me when I read it. Very non-western.
asiangrrlMN
@Comrade Darkness: Like Venus springing up from the foam? Or Athena being born in the…liver, I think it was, of Zeus? One of his organs. Funny.
Chuck Butcher
@asiangrrlMN:
Well, I’m closer to the Pacific than you are the Atlantic, but this is a big state and I’m only 40 miles from the eastern border, about 400 miles from that puddle. It will take around 8 hours of driving pretty fast to get to the water.
West Coast means a lot of things to people that have not much to do with NE OR. (or E WA, either)
Comrade Darkness
@asiangrrlMN: You’re getting into an area that’s been a hobby of mine for a few years. Those origin stories are just one of endless versions and the ones that survived–that we think of as canonical–say more about us, than it says about the Greeks that established them because there was no such broad agreement about where these characters all came from, contemporarily.
Okay, I’m really getting incoherent and should go to bed…
Shorter version: We choose that canon, not them.
Mwangangi
@Cain: Yeah, I was wondering; which was why I put the “& gravy” part in so you would know what I was talking about. I know many British educated people and we have fun conversations.
The recipe I’m trying to steal from her is the one with the steak and the coconut milk; and she owes me, I taught her how to properly fry chicken, and make real Macaroni and Cheese.
asiangrrlMN
@Chuck Butcher: Oregon is West Coast-ish to me. There is some beautiful scenery in Oregon. Sigh. Good memories and bad all wrapped up into one.
@Comrade Darkness: I devoured the Greek and Roman mythologies when I was but a young lass. I found them endlessly fascinating–much more so than the Bible.
Hm. It’s getting late. I’m going to vacuum the basement and then go to bed. Night, all.
Brachiator
@Comrade Darkness:
Rationalization may have been the biggest influence on kitty-corner. The Wiki on false etymology notes:
A recent example might be the brief controversy in which some wanted to re-name Fishkill, New York into something presumably less violent, because people had lost awareness of the original Dutch, “Vis Kill,” or “fish creek.”
Pip's Squeak
@Brachiator
fishkill = Dutch fish creek can’t be right. *viskil doesn’t exist. It was probably viskuil. kuil is either ‘hole’, or the baggy bottom of a net used for fishing. Hence, kuilvisser, “net-fisherman”.
Pip's Squeak
With apologies, I retract comment 316. Viskil is not in the dictionary (van Dalen), but kil meaning, among other things, ‘bed of a river’, ‘a deep’ is. The meaning ‘creek’ is said to be dialect/provincial.
Chuck Butcher
I keep getting translations of vis as fish. I’m not Dutch, sooo…
Xenos
There are a lot of “*kills” in NY, especially as you head up the Hudson river. My favorite is the little town of Poestenkill (‘at the river’). I remember some people getting put off by the debris of the twin towers being sorted out, and inspected for human remains, at Fresh Kills, on Staten Island.
Anne Laurie
You sure it wasn’t just the (semi)modern Jansenists, trying to disassociate His Most Holy Self from any contact with icky, Eve-cursed ladybits? Did it sound like something Ross Douchehat would find plausible?
Josh Hueco
@demimondian:
Sounds like an episode of Fear Factor.
MR Bill
Late to the party, It’s gonna be another rainy day in Trendy Blue Ridge GA.
We also use ‘cattycorner’ or ‘kittycorner’ for ‘diagonally across from’. While the southern Appalachians are a goldmine of colorful speech, I’ve come to wonder if some folks don’t exaggerate and work to sound down home. I’ve seen children of northern parents move here and immediately start using “ax” for “ask” and “skrate” for “straight”. My own kids, though born and raised here, get “You not from here are you? You don’t sound like it..”
And there are a couple of decent dim sum restaurants in ATL that serve chicken feet in brown sauce and rice noodles with shrimp..
lovely.
Pigs brains scrambled with eggs and ramps are a traditional food here. I like ramps, and the brains are ok after you get over the ick factor.
bago
I prefer duck, duck, Gray Goose.
bob h
Don’t, when one of your major issues is national security, allow prominent members of your Party to talk about secession.
brantl
“A large part of the secret of President Obama’s political success is his self-presentation as calm, judicious, and fair-minded – and his ability to depict his opponents as intemperate and extreme. You’d think by now that Obama’s opponents would have figured out this trick. You want to beat him? Great. Be more calm, more judicious, and more fair-minded. Don’t be provoked. Don’t throw wild allegations. Don’t boycott. Don’t lose your temper.”
As many have said, HE ISN’T FAKING,IT’S NOT A TRICK, and second, LOSING THEIR TEMPER, BEING PROVOKED (often by a change in wind direction) AND NOT BEING CALM, OR JUDICIOUS OR FAIR-MINDED IS THEIR STOCK IN TRADE, THEY’RE A ONE TRICK PONY AND THEY TURN THAT TRICK WITH PRIDE.
Oberon
You want to beat him? Great. Be more calm, more judicious, and more fair-minded.
Good point, but OTOH, you don’t beat your competition by playing to the competition’s strengths. MSNBC finally figured out they shouldn’t try to be more wingnutty than Fox. The Republicans can’t succeed as the Party of Crazy, but neither will they beat Obama as the Party of Calm Thoughtful Leadership.
MikeJ
I dunno. One hour of Olbermann and one hour of Maddow vs three hours of the guy with the dead intern.
geg6
@JK:
LOL! Not.Gonna.Happen. Anyone who seriously believes a moderate could possibly pull off a primary win in PA is seriously deluded. And I’m pretty sure that Ridge, although a Republican (which immediately calls into question his grasp of reality), is not known for his delusions. Any previous GOPers who won statewide office who were moderates are no different from Specter. And the fact that Ridge is pro-choice? Fuhgeddaboudit.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Too bad they’ve chased off all of the people capable of even faking calmness, judiciousness and fair-mindedness. Even if some moderates respond to Steele’s gracious invitation he’d still have to get Rush’s permission to let them speak.
How’s the Purity Purge working out for you guys? Bwahahaha!
Hunter Gathers
@MikeJ:
Olbermann could devote all 3 spots of “World’s Worst” everyday to torture apologist Joe The Scar. I would feel sorry for Brzezinski, but she’s nothing more than dim bulb eye candy.
burnspbesq
@Hunter Gathers:
I must be misunderstanding. Did you call Rachel “dim bulb eye candy?”
Rachel is far from a dim bulb. And while there are millions of us straight men who wish she had a straight twin sister, the primary source of her attractiveness is not physical – it’s located between her ears.
Svensker
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist:
Lutefisk?
Urp, blech, yeech, aarrrgggghhhh.
People say that Swedes have a high suicide rate because of the dark, cold weather. But people are wrong. It’s the lutefisk….
Smelly, putrid, gelatinous, old, long dead fish. Slash your wrists time.
Michael
@burnspbesq
Make that “while there are millions of us straight men who wish she and a bi twin sister with a really adventuresome side would come and play with us….”
harlana pepper
@burnspbesq:
I believe he was talking about Mika B
btw, I used to feel sorry for her, that’s been a while
Michael
kommrade reproductive vigor
Shoulda heard Kantor get testy this morning – John Gibson (CNN) was asking some mildly probing questions about the rebranding, and Kantor managed to get visibly frustrated about it.
Hunter Gathers
@burnspbesq: No, I was calling Mika Brzezinski dim bulb eye candy. And that’s being nice.
harlana pepper
Apparently, I’m always sleeping during the good threads, just my luck
jhaygood
@SnarkIntern:
harlana pepper
You guys and Rachel M, making you wish you were a man trapped in a woman’s body. (or something like that) ;)
Cat Lady
@Michael:
I saw that too. I think the dynamic setting up is that the press can only hear the “core principles” buzz words so many times – and we may be there – before they’ll insist what the policies are. The nostalgia for Reagan is being called out too. They’ve got nothing, and with each “rebranding” effort, they’re opening each cupboard, which is as bare as all of the others. After all, we’ve been waiting to hear the “new ideas” since Nov. 6th. Has anyone asked Cantor how he’s coming with that list of budget cuts?
Michael
@Anoniminous
And I’ll remind you – thats DOCTOR Ron Paul.
It kind of explains why he’s in Congress as opposed to engaging in the practice of medicine.
Michael
@Cat Lady
It hasn’t dawned on Scarborough quite yet that the Reagan vehicle has stalled and can’t get started up again. They can try and jump start the battery, but the block is broken and some pistons are blown.
They went to the Zombie Reagan too many times – now people are questioning the very suppositions that Reaganism was built on, and it is found wanting in all areas.
Lets review –
– substituting shallow sound bite “principles from the gut” as opposed to engaging in thoughtful diplomacy
– a conscious redistribution of wealth and political power from the lower classes to the top tier, magnifying the status quo
– reflexive defensiveness of inexcusable international corporate interests which actually complicate diplomacy and harm people in lower classes, particularly in Latin America
– discouraging corporate and governmental accountability toward individual
– encouragement of a form of “wedge” politics which paints ethnic and religious minorities as the targeted “other”
– overentangling with the Vatican and Muslim extremists over international abortion and reflexive anti-Soviet efforts
– perpetuating the failure of the Cuba embargo
– Iran/Contra
Yep, that’s a stellar track record. Run on Reagan, pubbies.
Hunter Gathers
@Michael: Don’t expect them to change anytime soon. Reagan and Dubya were only POTUS’s of the past 50 years they even really liked. They despised Eisenhower. They didn’t like Nixon because he wasn’t a true believer (he’d be a liberal by today’s standards), Ford was a blip on the screen, and they thought Bush 41 was a pussy for not going all the way to Baghdad during Desert Storm. They love Reagan because he was able to sell the public a handfull of shit as sunshine, and they adore Dubya because he did what he was told to do by Lord Sidious himself, former Nixon lackey Cheney. All they can talk about is Reagan. Only a dipshit praises Dubya these days.
They’ll continue to elevate His Royal Highness of “I can’t recall” until they are reduced to 30 Senators.
Cat Lady
@Michael:
Let them run on Reagan all day every day. They want to, so let them. Everyone under the age of 30 is all like wut? They only know of him with Alzheimer’s. Not the kind of branding effort I would choose, but that’s just me. In the meantime Obama’s talking over their babbling heads. As long as Eric Cantor is on TV trying to market 30 year old failed policies, it means he’s not doing any serious work, not that he ever did or ever could or ever intended to. But he could at least look like he’s serious. Every time he opens his mouth and talks about new ideas, it’s clear he’ll never get around to having one. The media knows that too – in order to keep these clowns coming on these shows, they’ll actually have to propose something. Hilarity will ensue.
Napoleon
@JL:
Thanks for the Kent State link. I grew up very close to the little Jewish cemetary they buried Sandy Scheuer in, and have walked many times over the area where the shootings occured while visiting friends at KSU.
El Cid
If we agreed to give them a section of Texas scrubland and build for free a giant temple for Ronald Reagan, complete with 200 foot tall Reagan statue and a Creationist Museum, would Republicans just leave?
Michael
@El Cid
I’d happily throw in the Reagan corpse with free mummification and the glass box it goes in, so they could file past and gaze upon it lovingly.
BruceK
Just one note: I believe that rather than retiring on the watch of a White House and Congress in which the wingnuts are teetering on the edge of screeching irrelevance, Scalia would prefer to replace every vital organ in his body with cybernetics, or issue his proclamations on original intent as a brain in a jar sitting on the Supreme Court bench and hooked up to a computer.
Ditto Thomas.
RememberNovember
Funny thing- you can use teabags to reduce swelling over the eyes. Maybe the GOP should do that and they’ll eventually see the light of day.
Xecky Gilchrist
@Svensker: My dear departed ma knew how to make lutefisk, since the recipe was passed proudly down through generations of her family – but out of kindness, she never made any.
The glögg, though – that was more like it. I didn’t like drinking it much, but the whole house would smell awesome when she brewed some of that up.
Ed Drone
Frum: “Calm, judicious, and fair-minded — learn to fake that and we’re home free.”
Ed
maya
Better yet, they should just dig the Fupper up and run him again in 2012. Would any of them know the difference?
Turgidson
@BruceK:
I agree. I fully expect Scalia to keel over dead at the age of 90 or so while writing yet another dissent that spends more time insulting the majority than actually saying anything useful beyond “it’s not in the Constitution.”
Corner Stone
@Svensker: The only time I’ve ever seen Anthony Bourdain rag on some culture’s food it was in on of the Nordic countries. Some concoction of shark and pickling or rotting or some shit.
He ate eggs cooked in dirt in some misbegotten African country with less complaining than this stinky as all hell cuisine.
Xecky Gilchrist
@Corner Stone: Might have been this stuff.
Corner Stone
@Xecky Gilchrist: Yes, XG, good call.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@Xecky Gilchrist:
My Mom never made lutefisk, but then she wasn’t the Norwegian in the family. She made really good lefse, though. Sometimes now I’ll roll up a flour tortilla with sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg, but it’s a poor substitute. Not as bad as the lefse they sell in stores, though.
asiangrrlMN
@Corner Stone: Anthony Bourdain. Mmmmmm, I would have a big serving of THAT any day!
The Tim Channel
Shorter Frum: The Barnum and Bailey meets Jerry Springer school of politics has officially jumped the shark.
Yeah. A kinder, gentler Republican. Let’s see how that works out.
Enjoy.
...now I try to be amused
Obama’s Flame Warrior type is the Kung Fu Master:
“Many lesser Warriors delude themselves into thinking that they are masters of war, but few are the genuine article. The true Kung-Fu master fully appreciates his own superiority and is therefore unruffled by petty provocations. When forced to fight, however, he quickly crushes his opponent with devastating blows.”
Thankovsky
@Ed Drone:
Meh…there was a time when they were the party of Nelson Rockefeller and the like. There may come a time where they’re able to return to that archetype. I doubt it will happen within the next couple decades, but it all depends upon how the Democrats evolve, how successful Obama’s agenda turns out to be, etc etc.
Personally, I’d love to see a race where both parties are vying to come off as more pragmatic, sober-headed, judicious, and fair-minded. America benefits when the party in power is challenged by a strong, pragmatic opposition. Unfortunately, what we have now is a weak, ideologically-driven, obstructionist opposition. So quite frankly, even though I’m a proud, lifelong liberal, I’m hoping that the day the GOP returns to its pragmatic, sober-headed roots comes soon. Just about the last thing the progressive movement needs is for the Democrats to become too complacent in power.