This amused me:
Powell reaffirmed that he is a solid Republican and said the GOP must be more inclusive or risk giving Democrats and independents the chance to scoop up disaffected moderate Republicans. He detailed his presidential voting history — yes to GOP nominees Ronald Reagan through the younger Bush, but yes also to Democrats John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter.
“If we don’t reach out more, the party is going to be sitting on a very, very narrow base. You can only do two things with a base. You can sit on it and watch the world go by, or you can build on the base,” Powell said.
Actually, there is a third option. Sit back and make fun of liberals, a group so large it includes anyone not currently flying a Palin 2012 flag in their front yard. It kills me that anyone looking back at the wreckage of the last eight years who says “Wow. That didn’t work out too well” is considered a liberal. Not in favor of torture? LIBERAL! Not in favor of disastrous foreign policy? LIBERAL! Not in favor of the unitary executive? LIBERAL!
And I’m serious. Looking at the silly commercials the RNC keeps releasing, the idiotic motions to rename the Democratic party, and the rest of the nonsense they are doing, they don’t seem content to sit back and watch the world go by or build the base. They seem intent on doing whatever they can to piss off “liberals,” which includes everyone on the planet who may or may not have had Dijon mustard on a sandwich.
This, too, made me laugh:
Limbaugh has called Powell “just another liberal,” said he should become a Democrat and charged that Powell endorsed Obama based on race. Both Powell and Obama are black.
Oh, really? I’m not sure how we will get on without newspapers providing such keen insights.
Rich2506
Hmm, so I count Powell and Meghan McCain (See: her fight with Laura Ingraham) in the Republican moderates’ camp. The other camp has, oh yeesh, let’s see, Limbaugh, Cheney, Gingrich, Rove, Fox News, etc., etc.
Yeah, good luck moderates!
Yutsano
I’ll throw in a fourth option: distill the base until it becomes only the purest of the pure. Then try and win a general election based on those results. Seriously, I’m waiting for them to come up with a reason to not support Rubio in the Florida Senate race. I mean other than the whole brown skin factor.
Yutsano
You can throw Crist and Ridge in the moderate camp as well Rich. Either way this is going to be a major bloody civil war with not too many survivors at the end.
Ben
You know, I think if they’re going to put that offensive Limbaugh quote in, and if they’re going to helpfully clarify it for him by pointing out the Negroes, they ought to at least also add “Limbaugh is white” for the sake of fairness.
John Cole
And BOB just got another week break for racist bullshit that I have deleted.
gianni
But the “LIBERAL!” epithet used to work so well for the Republicans. You can understand why they’d be reluctant to stop using it, if only from force of habit.
This was nicely captured in an episode of the West Wing.
“The West Wing: Gone Quiet (#3.7)” (2001)
Bruno Gianelli: These are some fliers that are being mailed to potential voters at the Iowa Caucus: “Bartlet-Super Liberal.” “Bartlet-Hopelessly Liberal.” “Bartlet-Liberal, Liberal, Liberal.”
Sam Seaborn: Those aren’t coming from our side, are they?
Sam Seaborn: Why are you so bent on countering these idiot leaflets?
Bruno Gianelli: Because I’m tired of working for candidates who make me think that I should be embarrassed to believe what I believe, Sam! I’m tired of getting them elected! We all need some therapy, because somebody came along and said, “‘Liberal’ means soft on crime, soft on drugs, soft on Communism, soft on defense, and we’re gonna tax you back to the Stone Age because people shouldn’t have to go to work if they don’t want to!” And instead of saying, “Well, excuse me, you right-wing, reactionary, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-education, anti-choice, pro-gun, Leave It To Beaver trip back to the Fifties…!”, we cowered in the corner, and said, “Please. Don’t. Hurt. Me.” No more. I really don’t care who’s right, who’s wrong. We’re both right. We’re both wrong. Let’s have two parties, huh? What do you say?
ksmiami
Thanks John – someone has to police those trolls… though, as trolls go, BOB hasn’t really been up to his usual tinfoil hat best lately.
I still say that nothing the Republicans have said or done since 11/08 has shown that they are any less assholish than I thought they were, nor any more capable of running this country competently.
Yutsano
You have a sin bin? AWESOME!!!
Napoleon
@John Cole:
Thank God.
demkat620
I hope its not in my lifetime, but at some point they will realize what they have done to themselves. Maybe they really do need to lose a couple more cycles the same way they lost the last two, but they really need to grow up.
Incertus
@Yutsano: Crist talks a good game as a moderate, but he isn’t really one in practice. Okay, he’s more moderate than Jeb! was, but that’s not a hard bar to clear.
Mike in NC
Repubs have introduced a bill entitled the “Keep Terrorists Out of America Act” to protest the decision to shut down Cheney’s prison at Gitmo. The name just screams moderation.
Jackmormon
Good lord. You can do all kinds of things with a base. You can drill holes into it and plant little American flags in the holes. You can use it as a plinph–maybe set up a nice little mausoleum or a bust of Joe McCarthy on top. You could put a nice potted begonia on your base, as long as you’ve allowed for the proper drainage. Depending on how wide your base it, you could stage exhibition dancing on it. All kinds of things you can do with a base…
You could also dynamite it and build a new base, if the old one has structural problems. Or if your base is built on marshy land and starts sagging on one side, you could let it just sink into the bog while you build a nicer, more solid one over here, out from among the weeds.
eric
Jefferson Davis would be a mainstream republican today and Goldwater a moderate.
Eric
Alan
@eric:
A few years ago Freepers called Goldwater a senile liberal in his later years.
kid bitzer
#13–
‘fess up, jackmormon: you ripped that off from “airplane”.
“what do you make of this, johnny?”
and i’m proud of you, jm: knowing the right things to steal from is at least 50% of brilliance.
Zifnab
No it didn’t. Not really. Ask an independent voter – the guys that were swinging between Gore and Bush or Kerry and Bush over the last eight years – what finally made them decide.
I seriously doubt it was Newt Gingrich or Sean Hannity screaming “WHY DO LIBERALS HATE AMERIKA!”
Bush did an excellent job of pitching himself as a moderate in 2000, he offered up lots of tasty free-money tax cuts, and he didn’t shy away from the observation that he and Gore were two sides of the same coin. It was easy to vote for Bush in 2000 because he did an excellent job of camouflaging his agenda. But not so easy that he didn’t lose by a quarter million popular votes. By 2004, he was leaning heavily on the War card and the Fear card, and we STILL got to see some really sleazy red state poll games played before he won re-election.
The Republicans were never as popular as they liked to appear. They relied on a lot of Rovian Math and dirty tricks to hold on to power. I mean, just look at the populations of states Republicans reliably win. States like Wyoming and Oklahoma. Compare them to reliable blue states, like Washington or New Jersey. What’s the difference? Several million people. And you’ve got the big population states like Texas or Florida gerrymandered up the ass to keep Republicans from losing congressional districts.
The “scream liberal” rhetoric and the crazy base that gets so much publicity gives the Republicans a degree of effectiveness that just doesn’t exist.
Alan
For me, McCain choosing Palin as his running mate was nothing more than confirmation the Party had gone nuts. It’ll take an act of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to bring the GOP out of the wilderness.
Indylib
@gianni:
I would love to see a Dem politician stand up and say this at the top of their lungs, in public, in front of cameras.
Obama is good at making the case for liberal values in a quiet way, it’s the way he rolls and I do believe that he really is trying to be the President for the country as a whole. But would it kill Dems in Congress to extol liberal values as good things, unapologetically.
I’m tired of the spinelessness. How long do we have to have control of the entire damned government before the Congressional Dems stop cowering at the same old right-wingtard name-calling?
They don’t have to stoop to the same level as the wingnuts in the anger department, but a little righteous indignation and passion would be appropriate and significant. The wingnuts will always get a certain amount of traction when they call Dems “weak” on what the hell ever they’ve come up with this week, as long as our pols won’t stand up for our side of the issue with some obvious conviction and occasionally raised voices.
Look how much attention Claire McCaskill got when she went after the bankers and financial jerkoffs. She didn’t pull any punches and she was visibly angry. I’d love to see more of the passion she displayed when our elected Democratic officials have a reason to define and defend what the party and liberalism stands for.
dmsilev
Well, they’ve managed to detox the word ‘liberal’. Which is sort of ironic, since they were the ones who made it a dirty word in the first place.
-dms
Wisdom
Enjoy your two years. When the new Obama-UAW-Fiat model line up rolls out, the people you have driven to fear will realize they have been taken for a ride. It will not matter how much dijon you cover it with.
It strikes me as being very disengenuous that the left that called Powell a toady (and far worse with racial overtones, but repeating that left racism might get me banned here) of Bush now sees him as some savior of the Republican party. Conservatives always had problems with Powell, and saw his appointment as a bone to the moderates.
John Cole
Maybe I am not versed in the current right-wing talking points, but why, pray tell, would I ever put mustard on a car?
Delia
Maybe the wingers could take a lesson from the Freedom Fries episode and rename Dijon mustard so it can still be used by rightwing whackjobs. How about calling it ‘Murkan Mustard? That has about the correct ring to it.
dmsilev
@Jackmormon:
Hmmm….
-dms
kay
Karl Rove is saying that Cheney was forced to respond to “unprecedented attacks” from Obama.
I personally believe that Cheney went too far, and rank and file traditional Republicans will be uncomfortable with a former VP launching a 3 week media blitz attacking a sitting Prez. This is based on nothing but my own anecdotal experience with moderate Republicans. I don’t have my “finger on the pulse of the nation”, or anything, just an educated guess.
I’m pleased. I think Rove’s use of “unprecedented” is revealing, because of course Cheney’s media tour is in fact unprecedented, so there’s that deflection we’re all so familiar with. Accuse the other side of your tactics, etc.
It sounds like defense, to me. Like he’s a little nervous. Maybe they have polling?
Jackmormon
Powell was a toady, but, like Olaf, found that there was “some sh— he could not eat.”
omen
this feels like something coming full circle. conservatives first made the word liberal into a dirty word. now their insistence on childish assholery is going to end up redeeming the label.
Jackmormon
24.—Texas and Alaska are a huge tracts of land!
gbear
Go ahead and quote it. Provide links. Back it up or shut up.
Jennifer
@John Cole:
For the same reason that you would drive around on under-inflated tires, turn on and leave on every light and appliance in your house on earth day, and demand that the government cut spending in the midst of the deepest depression in 75 years, i.e. because you’re stupid.
(understanding that I am not saying that you, John Cole, are stupid, but that others who would do all of these things because “blar-har-har it pisses off them pointy-headed intelleckshuals” are.)
dmsilev
@John Cole:
Because only a true barbarian would use relish or, God forbid, ketchup on their car.
-dms
SrirachaHotSauce
@John Cole:
Catsup just didn’t taste right?
(Sorry. I take no pleasure in having to say that. It’s just that I’m a condiment. It’s who I am. )
Jennifer
@John Cole:
In all fairness to wingnuttia, it would make sense if it was the Weinermobile.
Pug
The dijon thing comes from Obama ordering dijon mustard on his burger when he and Joe went out for burgers a week or so ago.
You see, dijon mustard, manufactured by the elitists at Kraft Foods, is not conservative-manly. It is eaten only by elitist wimps, like Barack Obama.
Sean Hannity went on for days about it. He even played the old grey poupon commercials from years ago. It was just hilarious, as you can imagine. Because if anybody is good for a few belly laughs it is Sean Hannity. Well…he or Mark Levin.
Svensker
I sometimes drive to Hackensack, but never to fear. Do you have directions?
IndieTarheel
@John Cole:
And right after I got the “pie-n-ator” installed. Oh well, back on point…
They do seem to be embracing option 3 pretty hard…
Wisdom
@gbear:
Unfortunately for the left, the public will remember their flip-flopping.
jl
That was an Associated Press article featured on a corporate media site, so it is just corporate media, I don’t see how that dumb story is specific to newspapers.
I haven’t seen any commenter recently say that breaking up the corrupt, dysfunctional, and useless corporate media conglomerates should be a high priority. So I will say it for the record for this post.
As an almost lifelong Democrat and good card carrying moderate liberal, I don’t accuse them of being in the tank for the GOP either (though I do think the effect of their Bush era troops still has a big effect). They are chasing after the annual double digit pretend paper profit rate, so they can do the modern era corporate financial BS (which will continue, thanks to President Changey we’ve got ourselves here). They will start to kiss corporate Democratic ass soon whenever that becomes convenient. Or maybe they will turn democratic governance into eternal World Wresting Federation style political celebrity trashtalks, if that is where the profits lead them.
These corporate media whores will lick whatever butt, and sing whatever song they need for their next tranche of money and government favor. For information, they are useless.
It amazes me how much space is taken up in the media product by celebrity blowhards yakking over political BS. I don not remember it always being this way, but maybe I am not old enough.
The corporate media is a danger to democracy and needs to be smashed. How’s that for ‘angry lefty’ schtick?
MikeJ
Someone using the name “wisdom” ironically informs us that 1) the left is monolithic and is always united around one point of view 2) opinions about who is right and who is wrong never change, regardless of the actions of the people involved.
FWIW, I still have a pretty low opinion of Powell (mobile chem labs, powder that looks JUST LIKE this fake anthrax, etc), he just happens to be the least insane of a noxiously festering lot.
Notorious P.A.T.
How do we know Limbaugh didn’t endorse McCain just because they are both white?
kay
@Wisdom:
Liberals said Powell was a Bush/Cheney toady because they knew he was a moderate, a fact you just affirmed, and Bush/Cheney were radically right wing. It made sense, in terms other than race.
Rush Limbaugh knows Powell is a moderate, too. He’s kicked Powell out of the GOP for those moderate views.
But Rush decided to attribute Powell’s backing of Obama not to Powell’s moderate views, but instead to Powell’s race.
One makes sense, the other is race-baiting.
SrirachaHotSauce
@jl:
Hm, needs spittle.
Bill E Pilgrim
I so love it that the Republican right (which is virtually all there is, now) is focusing their energy on things like which mustard is politically acceptable and which isn’t, or whether any is, or whatever the hell it is.
I live in France and had the pleasure of trying to explain the “Freedom Fries” thing to a number of friends here over the years.
I almost always got the same response, to a person. First, they’d never heard of it. Most still haven’t, I would think.
Second, they were mildly bemused, but far, far from being able to grasp it enough to be insulted, because let’s face it, without being immersed in our particular brand of wingnut-versus-reality politics “WTF?” is about the only response it deserves, and most as I say didn’t even rise to that level of response, just sort of “Oh…I see.”
The next part though was the best, and came without fail, every single time I told the story. The person would pause, think for a moment, and then say “But… they don’t think that “French Fries” are actually French, do they? They know they’re from Belgium, right?? They eat them with mayonnaise there!!”
The last line was included far more often than you’d expect, and all said with the eyes growing wider at each word, outrage having finally been achieved.
It may have said more about the two cultures than anything I’ve ever seen.
I can’t wait to get on the Dijon thing. Though that is at least from France, despite apparently a lot of it being grown in Canada now. May not be as fun though.
Notorious P.A.T.
Yeah, Wisdom, if Chrysler builds a crappy car the public will forget all about the war in Iraq, hurricane Katrina, the financial crash, Jack Abramoff, Terri Schiavo, etc. Are you stupid?
Notorious P.A.T.
Thank you.
In Powell’s book he went on and on about how “we can never, ever again go into a war without a plan”. . . then went and supported Cheney/Bush’s war without a plan. Sounds like a toady to me. Oh no! I’m a racist! I’d better join the party of the Southern Strategy–they are as pure as could be.
jl
@SrirachaHotSauce:
I can’t figure out the html code for spittle. Sorry.
Ed in NJ
The funny thing to me is that Powell is nothing if not an opportunist. He was recruited by both parties as if he was some kind of 5-star football prospect. He chose to go with the winning program at the time, the Republicans. But look at his voting history-Kennedy, LBJ, Carter, Reagan, Bush.
I’d have more respect for Powell if he just admitted that he’s an independent. But he has to continue to claim he’s a Republican because his political appointments came in Republican administrations.
kay
@Notorious P.A.T.:
Rush attacks Republicans who break with the hard-right line all the time.
He could have easily done the same with Powell, just on ideology. It might even have been more effective, on that basis. It serves his whole line, which is “conservatism didn’t fail, we just weren’t hard right enough!”. Powell was in the Bush Administration. They have to pretend Bush was a fluke, so that would hang together nicely.
He chose to bring race in because he thought it would resonate with his listeners.
They’re his listeners. I have to assume he knows what they respond to.
omen
@Notorious P.A.T.:
was it me, or did he sound mushy on the subject of torture?
found it. powell:
Colin Powell told Bob Schieffer he has “no idea” if the enhanced interrogation techniques used during the Bush administration were effective.
“I have no idea,” he said on “Face the Nation” Sunday. “I hear that they were. I hear that they weren’t.
SrirachaHotSauce
@jl:
No prob. Hang around here for a while, somebody will lend you some.
whatsleft
John – as has been stated quite clearly – NO MIDDLE GROUND
h/t Jon Stewart
Notorious P.A.T.
I know, I’m just walking through the door Limbaugh opened.
Altough, ever since the ESPN/Donovan McNabb incident, I have a hard time believing Limbaugh is not, personally, a racist.
Notorious P.A.T.
Wow! What a strong stance! Forget the legality, morality, or tacticality of torture–did it work? That’s the question.
TenguPhule
In Ur Base, Killing Ur Dudez!
JL
@Jackmormon: Powell handed in his resignation at the end of the term which is protocol. He did not expect that it would be accepted.
Svensker
@Wisdom:
The public will remember a diary on Daily Kos? Wow. Had no idea the Great Orange Satan was so powerful.
Dennis-SGMM
I cannot get over Powell’s UN speech on Iraq’s possession of WMDs. He of all people knew better yet he gave the speech anyway.
He used his stature and authority to provide a rationale for a senseless war that resulted in the deaths of more than 4000 of his comrades in arms.
Speaking as a member of the brotherhood of them what has been shot at (To quote Bill Mauldin) I find Powell’s conduct to be that of a son of a bitch. He sold out the people who have no voice in the corridors of power and who rely on their superior officers to speak for their best interests. There are few greater crimes.
Ked
@Wisdom:
Hmm. One borderline spoof troll gets sent packing and another shows up in the same thread. It’s BOBalicious, baby, and don’t spare the sweet/spicy mustard.
I smell socks.
Johnny Pez
@Notorious P.A.T.:
Yes.
SA2SQ
JGabriel
Wow. That’s right up there in the School of Obvious with the Lou Reed lyric: The I went to the chair / And sat in it.
.
Jay in Oregon
@MikeJ:
Wisdom also fails to point out (or notice) that half of the comments on that article are taking the writer to task for the Uncle Tom symbolism.
Hell, the very first comment on the article is:
Delia
I spent half of last night arguing with that moran birther troll. I just can’t waste tonight on a dijon-mustard troll. And may I add, only today’s GOP would make dijon mustard into an issue.
TenguPhule
See also Mai Lai, cover up of.
Powell is and has always been an asshole.
Notorious P.A.T.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jun/02/usa.iraq
Slothrop
Mustard-gate is entirely hilarious.
As has been mentioned again, and again, Grey Poupon mustard is, at least in the US, an entirely American-made product.
The same does not hold true for Canadian-made Grey Poupon:
What’s more, the Grey Poupon Squeeze Bottle Ad is based around a fart joke.
Elitist!
Dennis-SGMM
@Notorious P.A.T.:
And in the face of all that he made a speech supporting the Bush administration’s contention that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was an imminent and existential threat to the United States. That foreknowledge marks him as the worst sort of maggot.
LD50
It’s a Wingnut thing — we wouldn’t understand.
burnspbesq
@ Svensker:
Other than to go to court or to the hospital, why would anyone ever drive to Hackensack?
AlanDownunder
The more you define as liberal anything that is not batshit crazy, the more liberals you have to get hot about – and the more targets you have, the better you are doing, right?
WestVirginiaRebel
I think what is happening to the Republicans is similar to what happened to the Democrats in the Sixties during the civil rights era. The “Dixiepubs” are now driving the agenda, but the moderate “New Republicans” are, hopefully, waiting in the wings. I don’t think it’s just a coincidence that one of the saner ones, Jon Huntsman, will be abroad for the next few years while the GOP keeps stumbling around like a blind bear in the woods.
Re the West Wing quote-as someone who still thinks of himself as basically conservative, I also wish the Democrats would do this. I might not agree with everything they say, but at least I’d know exactly where they stood and could respect them for it.
As for mustard and cars…why on Earth would you want to eat a Fiat, anyway? Wouldn’t a Honda be a lot more tasty, especially with hot dog sauce and ketchup?
Little Dreamer
@Pug:
Oh, I thought it was because Dijon is a city in France. Hmmm, silly me!
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Everyone knows that you serve a Honda on soba with a bit of fresh wasabi. A Fiat should be served with a pesto sauce. Grey Poupon is best on a Peugeot though it will do in a pinch for a Renault.
someguy
Liberal criticism of blacks who act against the interest of blacks generally is not racist. It’s pointing out a fact. For instance, when Clarence Thomas rules against Lilly Ledbetter, he’s issuing a ruling that disproportionately impacts blacks. It’s making the ruling that a bona fide Klansman would want him to make. The reason it’s not racist to point this out is because it is “man bites dog” sort of news – you’d expect that a black guy who came up out of poverty would not be oblivious to the fact* that his actions crush minorities. When minorities get in bed with The Racist Party, it should be pointed out that they are supporting a party that is covertly racist, from top to bottom, and sometimes overtly racist, like when Trent Lott let his hatred and bigotry show in a few careless comments a couple years ago. Lie down with the dogs…
*I’m giving Thomas the benefit of a doubt here and assuming he doesn’t know what he’s doing. It’s possible he does what he does because he has a self-hate thing going on, or is intentionally currying favor with the wingers who put him on the court, but I’m not willing to go that far.
Svensker
@burnspbesq:
One day, I’ll drive there to try the famous hamburger diner that’s always featured in the local papers, but otherwise, the hospital and court are the only reasons.
But I love the name.
superdestroyer
Both sides of the Republican arguments are really just trying decide the path to failure. The Powell and Ridge want to try the Demcoratic-lite, me-too big government, compassionate conservative route. Of course, it will alienate most of the volunteers in the Republican Party while failing to attrach any Democrats. If people want bigger entitlements, bigger government, pork barrel spending, open borders, and social engieering they will always vote for the Democratic Party. Look at how the Demcoratic-lite has been a massive failure for the Republicans in New England.
The Limbaugh stay pure, “true conservative” party was going to eventaully be overwhelmed by demographic changes in the U.S. The incompetence and stupidity of the Bush Administration just sped up the process by about twenty years.
On has to ask what politics would look like if Bush would have had as a approval rating if he had balanced the budget and eliminate a couple of cabinet departments. Probably no worse than he ended up with but at least would have been a real conservative.
Faux News
Thank you TP! I have friends and family who were in the army as both enlisted and officers. They despised Powell for being a boot licking toady who would say/do anything for a star.