Richard Viguerie:
“The nomination of Sonia Sotomayor unites all wings of the conservative movement–economic, foreign policy, social, traditional, neocon, and libertarian–in a way we haven’t seen since the early Clinton years.
“Judge Sotomayor frightens all conservatives. As the debate over her nomination heats up, conservatives will provide the primary opposition to Sotomayor and will quickly launch a massive educational campaign using direct mail, the Internet, talk radio, cable TV, You Tube, and other forms of new and alternative media.
That was two days ago. Pretty impressive collapse since.
The Other Steve
Anybody else have some freaky email lists to subscribe john cole too?
I’m looking to share end of times or prosperity gospel. :-)
demkat620
I really don’t know why they think calling her a racist helps the GOP.
People really don’t like this stuff. They don’t want to believe they are this bad.
The Other Steve
I wonder if Pamela Anderson has an email list?
Dennis-SGMM
Obligatory link.
The Other Steve
It diminishes the meaning of the word racist to the point where it’s meaningless.
Death By Mosquito Truck
@The Other Steve:
Just Us Boys Daily Eye Candy Email Digest
Bulworth
They sure do get “frightened” a lot, don’t they? One judge on what will remain a conservative court “frightens” them.
noncarborundum
And they still can’t really say why.
John Cole
You know what’s racist? That out of the millions of Hispanic women in this country, some folks don’t think one of them could have been really smart and achieved what Sotomayor has, and it just has to have been handed to her in obvious affirmative action.
That’s racist.
What Sotomayor said in her speech is the kind of smarmy crap you hear on college campuses or at that kind of panel that no one in their right mind pays much attention to, ever. It was feel good drivel.
Comrade Kevin
I think that’s one of the reasons they do this. If they can destroy the word’s meaning, then when they are (correctly) branded as such, it can roll right off them.
Short Bus Bully
The idea that conservatives are united is as laughable as anything that Rush or Newt has said lately (and honestly, who would be a part of ANYTHING being led by people named “Rush” and “Newt”?). Moderate cons are sitting home hoping no one notices them and kicks them out of the party for not hating brown people enough, the punditocracy is fighting over who gets the highest ratings regardless of message, and independents are looking around feeling homeless since Pelosi and Reid are just as stupid now as they were a year ago.
The conservative GOP is a fractured, headless, flailing mess. To suggest otherwise is to ignore reality completely.
Mnemosyne
My favorite new Sotomayor tidbit: back in 1997-98, Republicans held up her appointment to the appeals court for over a year specifically because they feared it would set her up for a Supreme Court position.
You’d think that 10 years would be a long enough time for them to come up with something, anything that would block her, but nope. All they’ve got is, “She’s Latina! And a chick!”
Martin
Yeah, Rapture Ready, God’s Army, Answers in Genesis and Discovery Institute would be good.
Surely there are some Beagle lists out there.
Should we assume he’s already subscribed to any naked mopping lists?
Punchy
You Tube? Really? The ground zero of teens and 20-somethings everywhere? Ya know, the ones who vote……oh….at least 80/20 Dem/Rep+Indy…..
Leave it to a bunch of old crackers to bring the stupid funnah.
Alan
Shouldn’t this thread include a sound effect of a horse neighing…for being back in the saddle again.
Death By Mosquito Truck
@John Cole:
Ya know what else is racist? You, every time we talk about Ray Lewis. So, ya know, it’s not always apparent to the practitioner.
Pangloss
Fixed.
LD50
Someone has really not heard the news that it’s not 1993 anymore.
John Cole
@Death By Mosquito Truck: You have got to be kidding me. Noting that two men are dead, and the only reason no one knows why is because Ray Lewis has millions and plays professional football and can afford really good lawyers makes me racist?
You gotta be just trying to get a rise out of me with that crap.
demkat620
Yes, John Harwood, the GOP should call her an affirmative action pick.
Women and hispanics will love it.
Where the Pumas at?
TenguPhule
In Republican world, this is all that matters.
Also, can we never have a smooth confirmation for a Conservative prick ever again?
Scalito and Roberts should have never gotten a pass.
Doubly so after this shit.
Death By Mosquito Truck
@John Cole: See?
Tony J
Which wing of this six-winged crypto-biblical monstrosity is the one drawn towards unity by the “No Dogs or Hispanics” rhetoric being used against Sotomayor? Is it the social-conservatives, the ahem traditionalist-conservatives, or is it just something all conservatives are supposed to get off on? Kind of like an unspoken “You Will Know We Are Conservatives By Our Hate” assumption wingnut ‘thinkers’ are comfortable with.
And what, exactly, is the difference between a foreign-policy conservative and a neo-conservative? Did I miss a meeting?
SGEW
I sure hope y’all have been reading Yglesias during all this.
Recent money quote:
(emphasis in original)
Xenos
OT, but Autotune the News #4 just came out.
Dennis-SGMM
@The Other Steve:
The GOP has been pretty successful at draining all meaning from any number of perfectly good words.
According to them, patriotism is wearing a flag pin, fear is security, getting five draft deferments is heroic while being wounded in combat proves that you’re a malingerer. They’ve been assiduously making this bed for years. They’ll have to lay in it for awhile but it won’t be the dirt nap their party so richly deserves.
rikyrah
From Ta-Nehisi Coates over at The Atlantic Blogs:
Keep Talking
29 May 2009 10:30 am
Just amazing. Bill Bennett (he of Superpredator fame) and Fred Barnes on Sotomayor:
BARNES: I think you can make the case that she’s one of those who has benefited from affirmative action over the years tremendously.
BENNETT: Yeah, well, maybe so. Did she get into Princeton on affirmative action, one wonders.
BARNES: One wonders.
——————————–
They are who we thought they were.
flounder
Twice in the last 2 weeks NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” has had Viguerie on unopposed to spout his nonsense. One was the day Sotomayor was nominated.
I am trying to figure out what he did to warrant such wingnut Affirmative Action.
Can you imagine ANY news program turning over its analysis of John Roberts to Democrats only on the day he was nominated?
JL
@Death By Mosquito Truck: Ray Lewis was lucky he was able to play ball again. If you think that John is racist because he thinks Lewis got off easy, then I guess that I’m racist too. GEE!
SGEW
@rikyrah: The Barnes idiocy was the subject of this morning’s thread, right here.
BDeevDad
Viguerie forgot the misogynists.
bayville
Any chance the MSM could dust off Robert Bork to discuss Maria’s nomination.
He represents the only part of the GOP not heard from yet in the discussion — the rejected, crazy former Solicitor General wing of the Party.
Death By Mosquito Truck
@JL:
For copping to an obstruction of justice plea when prosecutors realized they couldn’t prove murder? Yer not a racist, yer a full-blown idiot.
Unmelted Stew
Any of you “I’m not a racist!” representers remember Miguel Estrada?
Da Bomb
The Republicans have been in collapse mode since, January 20th, 2009. It has been a completely pathetic downward spiral since then. It like a train wreck, you just take your eyes off of them.
Dennis-SGMM
Can anyone imagine the harrumphing that would have ensued had liberals argued that Alberto Gonzales was nominated for AG in part because he’d be the first Latino to hold that position? Me neither. That Gonzales was a toady and a weak legal mind wasn’t even raised.
Cleon
Beware the “wise” Latina
Who avers she’s better than
Someone of light patina
Who also is a man
Punchy
@John Cole: Or, perhaps, Lewis doesn’t know and is innocent. Betcha never considered that angle, did ya? Couldn’t possibly be innocent, could he, since he’s rich and bl….a football player?
El Cid
Please don’t throw us Democrats in that thar briar patch.
cleek
Liddy knocks it out of the park:
i can understand not caring what Hispanics think… but there’s not much future for a party that tries to alienate women.
jibeaux
Is Ray Lewis another name for O.J., or am I just hopelessly behind the times in my pro athlete criminal news again?
El Cid
I think they need to go after the blind, people who are too old, the cripples, and anybody that’s got to make a livin’ by getting their hands dirty.
Rick Taylor
Republicans in congress sure do have their work cut out for them. They somehow have to disassociate themselves from their crazy base and appear respectful of the nominee, while simultaneously appear to be challenging her nomination on matters of substance. It’s a tough needle to thread, and I very much doubt they are up to it. It makes me appreciate better why some were so angry with Moveon.org during the Petraeus hearings.
The trouble is that even if the public is generous and doesn’t impute the views of the crazy base to Republican congressman, it’s become painfully clear that this is a big part of the Republican electorate which they have to play to.
Dennis-SGMM
@cleek:
The conservatives’ march from batshit-insane racism to actual creepiness is proceeding faster than I ever imagined it could.
jibeaux
@cleek:
Aren’t you glad women exist? If there were only men, Sarah Palin would be vice president.
I know, it doesn’t make any sense. Or does it?!
Dennis-SGMM
@Rick Taylor:
It’s not just the crazy base, it’s Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Dick Cheney, and others. The most visible exponents of conservatism are also the craziest at the moment. It would be difficult for the public not to impute their views to Republican congressmen – particularly when a number of those congressmen have publicly kissed Limbaugh’s ass.
jibeaux
Why would anyone care what a failed burglar and successful crook thinks about anything? If Bill Ayers had a radio show, I wouldn’t listen to it either.
And, the idea of speaking in “illegal alien” makes no goddam sense at all. Also too.
El Cid
I dunno. I bet there’d be some interesting calls if he had an open caller policy.
John Cole
@Punchy: Yeah. He didn’t know anything. All a big misunderstanding.
Also, how was Chmura supposed to know the babysitter was underage. And Mark Gastineau’s girlfriend had it coming. And Romanowski is just misunderstood.
Ray Lewis’s complicity in the murder of those men and his lenient treatment by police had everything to do with money and privilege and NOTHING to do with race. If I were in the exact same situation as Lewis, but without the fame and lawyers and money, I’d be doing a life sentence.
MikeJ
Although if women couldn’t vote (a more likely scenario than not existing), the Republicans wouldn’t have bought their own nonsense about PUMAs and disaffected Hillary voters, so they wouldn’t have run Palin.
gypsy howell
I hope they print that one up on big billboards all over America. The kind that light up and flash neon colors. It will be the end of the republican party once and for all. Good riddance, scumbags.
gypsy howell
But the problem is, there is no substance and they know it. But rather than admitting that Obama has chosen a good nominee and confirming her with little fanfare, they HAVE to fight it. And they ain’t got nuthin’ except “stupid menstruating spic bitch,” so they go with it anyway.
Dennis-SGMM
@gypsy howell:
I’m just wondering how these people reproduce.
jibeaux
@MikeJ:
That’s very true, plus people who are denied the right to vote are extremely unlikely to have the right to hold elected office…
4tehlulz
@Death By Mosquito Truck: Truly high-grade trolling. 10/10.
Colette
@Dennis-SGMM:
“Insert tab A in slot B” requires far less cognitive ability than “examine the record and draw a logical inference.”
Face
@Dennis-SGMM: It’s taken awhile to figure out. The Catholic ones tried altar boys and got nothing. The Representives from Florida tried pages and got nada as well. The Senator from Lousey’ana tried hookers, but the Pampers Heavy-Duty soaked up most of his little men.
At this rate, they’ll all be extinct in 50 years.
Jay C
@John Cole:
Yeah, but what seems to have gotten the wingers all in a taking is that Judge Sotomayor’s decisions from the bench haven’t been like this at all: most of the Repubs and conservatives foaming at the mouth over Sonia Sotomayor’s imagined “racism” and “affirmative-action advantages” would probably prefer a SCOTUS Justice who dealt mainly in “smarmy crap” and “feel-good drivel”; as long as it jibed with their ideological prejudices
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Another reason why NPR will never get a dime of my money. Anybody who ever says they’re librul hasn’t been listening to them since the election. It’s been a nonstop stream of right wing mouth pieces.
The only time I’ve heard any of the talking fluff heads on that network actually seem taken aback at the shit coming out of a wingnut’s mouth was when Meeeeeeshell was talking to the racist gun shop owner in TX.
Oh, and Diane Riehm when talking to 3 banking industry spinmeisters when she said “You. Just. Don’t. Get. It.” Or course Diane’s not really heard by that many people.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
That’s kinda hard given the fact the their districts have been gerrymandered so that said district contains nothing but the batshit, insane wing of the party. You can probably name on one hand the number of Repups in the House who aren’t as looney as Bachmann, only they’re quieter about it.
The Senate is not much better anymore. Remember when Hatch was the right wing ideologue in the Senate? Okay, he still is but look at the people now to the right of him? Brownback, Diaper Dave, etc.
It’s hard to disassociate yourself from the crazy base when you are the crazy base.
Col. Klink
This is the political beauty of Mr. Obama’s style.
The President gets to stand there at the center of the storm looking perfectly calm and reasonable with that disappointed but hopefilled dad look on his face as the GOP goes all out Jerry Springer throwing every chair in site. Meanwhile, the inevitable GOP hissy fit pisses off the largest demographic in the country (women), and the fastest growing demographic in the country (Latinos).
My political weather forcast sees the odds of Mr. Obama going out and hitting some mid-range Adams Morgan Salvedoran establishment for a good, (and exceedingly well press covered) pork chimichanga with a side of rice and beans in the next two weeks as high.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
The party is caught between Obama’s relentless reasonableness and infuriating refusal to play the standard partisan 3-Stooges eye poking game on the one hand, and the howling mob that is their base on the other hand. They are being pushed back and forth between these two sets of pressures, and every time they swing one way (cooperate with Obama.., no wait, pander to the base, no wait, cooperate with.., no wait, pander to the base, no wait…), the counter-swing back the other direction becomes stronger.
Today’s GOP is turning into the political equivalent of the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse.
Little Dreamer
@Short Bus Bully:
Well, that’s at least one thing we’ve managed to accomplish in the last eight years. ;)
D-Chance.
Remember THIS Balloon Juice column?
Well… guess what? Sometimes, it’s just too easy…
Balconesfault
I appreciated that John Cornyn was actually intelligent enough to look at the racial composition of Texas and jump off that bus before he went over the cliff on it.
I really didn’t think he had it in him. Wonder if he was just helping Kay Bailey with some political cover for the upcoming Repub Gubernatorial Primary.
bperk
@John Cole: Ray Lewis had the most stringent punishment of the bunch. The guys involved in the melee who were not rich athletes were all acquitted.
Shinobi
How to alienate women voters by G. Gordon Liddy:
Lets hope that Gordon learns not to speak while there is someone around to hear him.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Death By Mosquito Truck: Good job of trolling! Man you sucked Cole right in.
G. Gordon Liddy? He’s the same guy who advocated putting a bullet in the forehead of any Fed breaking into your house.
Teach, your children well.
gypsy howell
@Dennis-SGMM: I’m just wondering how these people reproduce.
Date rape drugs
John Cole
@D-Chance.: That would be too funny.
demkat620
@D-Chance.:
There’s a protocol? Who wrote it Pol Pot?
Shinobi
Sorry for the re-post, I must be pre-menstrual.
Dennis-SGMM
@The Grand Panjandrum:
And these are the same people who were bitching about Bill Ayers.
jl
The whole flap over her supposedly racist comments is stupid, even without all the ten minute context of her full remarks.
She said that she ‘hoped’ a person like her with her life experiences would reach a better decision than a standard issue white dude. I think she was expressing what people from “unconventional” backgrounds (unconventional only by the asinine conventions of the upper crust power nexus prestige law bizz) should aspire to. She wasn’t saying at all that being able to produce better decisions was an automatic given just because of race, gender, ethnicity or class. That is how it struck me, a white guy.
In the context of her full remarks, she makes the argument very explicit.
I think that the majority of the country has gotten beyond the GOP’s politically engineered racial and ethnic polarization of the 1970s and 1980s, and will be able to understand this.
I also believe that most people under 40 will see it that way too, because I believe that most of them perceive themselves as an oppressed class, or at least one that has been denied the benefits of previous generations enjoyed. Let’s face it, my groups (many late boomers and X-ers) have been stingy and cut the younger generation loose. Many conservatives are gobsmacked and stumped that their race resentment act isn’t working anymore, but I think that their policies have effectively thrown all non-filthy rich younger people out of the life boat, and they are reaping the consequences.
It is difficult to stir up race, ethnic and class resentment among a group of younger people who view themselves as an oppressed class.
So, I think this is heading for epic fail for the crazies in the GOP. I think Sotomayor is going to impress people during her testimony. I’m starting to look forward to the hearings.
I think Sotomayor will be able to very clearly explain, for example, how her reverse discrimination firefighter decision, that has been a big wingnut theme, was very much driven by legal precedent, and she was doing exactly what conservatives say a non-activist judge should do.
Anyway, I am going to listen to some Public Enemy. They’ve been a big hit with their comeback -not near as good as in the olden days. But they don’t totally stink like I thought they would. “Night of the Living Baseheads” is taking on a new meaning. Maybe they should do with new lyrics written with the dilemma of the current GOP in mind.
jake 4 that 1
Fxd. Also.
Unemployed Poster
Uh-oh. Sotomayor has acknowledged poor word choice as a wiser Latina, through the WH official pronouncements oracle, Gibbsey.
Betsy
Day-um. That is some old school misogyny there. Didn’t think I’d see anything that blatant in this day and age. I thought they’d learned that there were a few things they weren’t supposed to say out loud.
Johnny B. Guud
Good grief. Words fail.
I heard the clip. It doesn’t sound like he was joking around in any way.
Suffice it to say that this is probably the lowest point yet for this “debate” on Sotomayor’s appointment from the Republicans. That being said, I wouldn’t be surprised if the cliff-dive continues.
The politics of this is simple—bring up your concerns about the appointment and punt. Her confirmation to the SCOTUS is all but completed. I’ve yet to hear any argument from congressional Republicans against Sotomayor on the basis of her jurisprudence. All the drivel they say about race, gender, language, etc., just fires up the extremists. Save whatever’s left of the political capital they may have and move on. Save it for the next SCOTUS appointment which in my view, will most likely be a white male—an easier target. Politically speaking, of course.
Martin
Actually, possibly. The waterboarding process is described rather consistently by our own military based on the documentation they’ve gotten from other countries. And the Khmer Rouge is one of the better known users of the technique and documented how it was to be done.
Interrobang
Are Liddy and the rest of these asshats (like the ones who said the same thing about Clinton) not aware of the existence of menopause? I mean, I know Liddy’s a misogynistic idiot, but that’s kind of a stretch. Sotomayor is 55 freakin’ years old, which means that if she hasn’t already hit those golden postmenopausal years, she’s going to be there shortly.
Also, as anybody knows who’s ever bothered to actually pay attention to women in a sense less superficial than “nice tits hurr hurr hurr” knows that once the actual period starts, the PMS part is over with. (That’s why it’s called PreMenstrual Syndrome, boys and girls.)
Well, I always did want to kick Liddy square in the nuts; if I ever meet him, he’s going to find himself face-to-face with one seriously pissed off feminist.
jl
@Unemployed Poster:
Well, yeah, sure. Democrats kick themselves in the ass, what else is new? The Dems will be disappointed in their attempts at self-destruction because of the mass of Stupid arrayed against them.
How is that weak-ass concession going to stand up against gross and skanky wingnut menstruation jokes?
Shinobi
@Interrobang
G Gordon Liddy, the 300 year old Virgin?
But seriously, why would they bother about understanding how baby factories actually WORK. All that matters is that they cook and make babies and that you don’t piss them off during their “babyfactorytime.” It’s not like they are actual people or anything.
SGEW
Don’t do it. He will shoot you in the head.
[I say this as someone who has actually (briefly) met the man. He is scary.]
Svensker
Besides being assholic and misogynist it’s also really stupid, assuming that Ms. Sotomayor has gone through menopause at this stage of her life.
Dave S.
That Viguerie quote kinda works if you imagine Emperor Palpatine saying it.
Martin
Remember, go for the headshot.
Dennis-SGMM
Mittens Weighs In:
kay
Karl Rove says she’s “combative and argumentative” and he’s concerned that she won’t be “effective” on the Court.
But Karl Rove doesn’t give a rat’s ass if the liberal is effective on the Court, his fondest hope is that she won’t be persuasive or effective, so I can only conclude that he’s scared, or he’d be promoting the ineffective liberal.
Scared of a girl. Again. Story of his life.
DanSmoot'sGhost
Fixed.
Calouste
OT, but Petraeus just booked himself a one-way ticket out of the GOP. On FOX as well :
MacCallum: Where do you think those people should go?
Gen. Petraeus: Well, it’s not for a soldier to say. What I do support is what has been termed the responsible closure of Gitmo. Gitmo has caused us problems, there’s no question about it. I oversee a region in which the existence of Gitmo has been used by the enemy against us. We have not been without missteps or mistakes in our activity since 9/11 and again Gitmo is a lingering reminder for the use of some in that regard.
MacCallum: What about the concern that a Khalid Sheikh Muhammad or anybody of that ilk might be tried here in a US court and the possibility that some of the treatments that were used on them that they could go free.
Gen. Petraeus: Well, first of all, I don’t think we should be afraid of our values we’re fighting for, what we stand for. And so indeed we need to embrace them and we need to operationalize them in how we carry out what it is we’re doing on the battlefield and everywhere else. So one has to have some faith, I think, in the legal system. One has to have a degree of confidence that individuals that have conducted such extremist activity would indeed be found guilty in our courts of law.
MacCallum: So you’re confident that they will never go free.
Gen. Petraeus: I hope that’s the case.
MacCallum: (Ticking time bomb scenario)
Gen. Petraeus: ….T here might be an exception and that would require extraordinary but very rapid approval to deal with, but for the vast majority of the cases, our experience downrange if you will, is that the techniques that are in the Army Field Manual that lays out how we treat detainees, how we interrogate them — those techniques work, that’s our experience in this business.
MacCallum: So is sending this signal that we’re not going to use these kind of techniques anymore, what kind of impact does this have on people who do us harm in the field that you operate in?
Gen. Petraeus: Well, actually what I would ask is, does that not take away from our enemies a tool which again have beaten us around the head and shoulders in the court of public opinion? When we have taken steps that have violated the Geneva Conventions, we rightly have been criticized, so as we move forward I think it’s important to again live our values, to live the agreements that we have made in the international justice arena and to practice those.
So he says:
1) Torture doesn’t work any better than normal interrogation
2) The US have violated the Geneva Conventions
3) Criticism for that was justified
4) The US should start behaving again
5) Gitmo should be closed
TenguPhule
JUST SHOOT HIM.
geg6
@Interrobang:
Not to mention the fact that they obviously don’t know enough about female biology to know that not every woman has pms. I’m 50 years old and never once suffered a single symptom of it with the single exception of sore boobs for a day.
Shocking as it is that someone would say something like that in this day and age, the fact that it was Liddy that actually said it is most definitely not shocking. When is that felon finally gonna croak?
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
G. Gordon Liddy? REALLY?! I thought we put his fucking ass in jail in 1974. What is he doing on my radio machine? If I ever got put in jail, after I got out, I’d never get another job the longest day I lived.
Nixon administration retreads? This is what they’ve got? Shit, this is going to be easier than I thought!
DanSmoot'sGhost
Not at all like that cuddly Justice Scalia.
Zuzu's Petals
@jibeaux:
Oh yes, Gordon Liddy, unrepentant terrorist and John McCain’s “good friend” and fundraiser.
Screamin' Demon
Apparently this clinically insane ex-convict and full-time assclown isn’t aware that the average age of menopause is 51. Sotomayor will be 55 on June 25.
I guess knowledge of this sort is too much to expect from a misogynist. It makes him feel all oogy inside.
TenguPhule
And again I am forced to wonder, why is this man on tv instead of rotting in prison?
Calouste
@Dennis-SGMM:
How can Mittens “weigh” in on anything? He should be disqualified from the light flyweight division of politics for being underweight.
patrick
Fixed that.
Also: There is only one correct answer to the question “are you a racist?” and that is “yes, but I’m trying to get over it.”
We’re all racists about something to some degree. The point is trying to do something about it in our own hearts.
The wingnuts think embracing it is a virtue.
Martin
Well, the GOP needed someone to go on the radio and tell the wingers how to shoot ATF agents.
Screamin' Demon
@TenguPhule:
Head shots, head shots.
No, not that head. The little head.
geg6
Meanwhile, Newt is doubling down on the racist meme:
swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/05/29/newt-gingrich-doubles-down-on-sotomayor-racist-claim/
jl
This is gonna be fun. Newt is feeling left out and is turning up the volume on the Lunatic speaker:
“Now Newt Gingrich has responded to Sen. Cornyn’s call to basically shut the hell up by turning the volume way up on the Sotomayor as anti-American racist freak by invoking the Civil War, civil rights and arguing that American civilization itself may be at stake if he[r] brand of racism isn’t defeated.”
talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/05/putting_out_fire_with_gasoline.php?ref=fpblg
DanSmoot'sGhost
I mostly agree with that. We are wired to be wary of others who are not like us, somewhere in the lizard part of the brain.
But the good news is, we can get over it, and operate at a higher level.
Well, some of us can. And then there are Republicans.
jl
@geg6:
I guess that is why Newt does it: he craves an audience. Hope these fools know we are all listening to their every dumb-ass word.
This might be good, if it gets people interested enough so there is a mass tune in to the hearings. After all this nonsense, they will (I firmly believe) see a very sensible, centrist, articulate and reasonable person.
Actually, she is a little too centrist for me, but what do you expect from Obama who is turning out to be Mr. Centrist himself.
Gus
Yeah, he’s not like a typical conservative 101st chairborne type. He’s a sociopath who would have no problem killing.
kay
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
I hope she’s combative. Please, oh, please.
She’ll have to watch that smiling little weasel Roberts. He’s slippery.
eemom
I have seldom been as pissed off at the NYT as when they ran that “Sharp Tongue” headline yesterday. I mean, I am never one to use the word “sexism” lightly, but that shit is fucking sexist as all hell.
Go ahead and laugh, but I just kind of assumed the NYT was at least maybe ONE level above the rethuglican smear machine.
Adrienne
Whoops. There goes his 2016 Presidential Bid. Republicans no likey this kind of talk.
I wonder if they’ll publicly denounce Gen. Petraeus after all but crowning him the Messiah a few years ago. That would be a sight to see.
The Moar You Know
@Death By Mosquito Truck: I bow to your superior troll-fu. You are a most worthy practicioner of the art.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@TenguPhule:
Because you didn’t eat your brussel sprouts when you were a kid.
This is what happens.
Adrienne
He’s not “turning out to be” a centrist. He’s doing exactly what he said he’d do while campaigning for 18 months. I really don’t understand how anyone can clutch their pearls about anything Obama has done. I mean, maybe about things that he hasn’t done yet (DADT, etc.) but everything he has done so far has been almost to a “T” what he said he’d do. Anyone what was actually listening should’nt be at all surprised.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@Adrienne:
How long before they start calling him “Betray-us?”
BretH
GOP Tries to Tone Down Criticism of Sotomayor
Republican leaders fear racially tinged rhetoric emanating from some conservatives could damage GOP prospects among women and Hispanic voters.
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/29/AR2009052901538.html?hpid=topnews
jl
@Adrienne:
I agree completely. I am not surprised and told people that Obama would be a Mr Centrist type of person.
I was completely convinced during the election when an article came out that said the consensus among his past law students was that he would be a ‘ruthless pragmatist’.
All the legal analysis I have read (as opposed to ridiculous smears) say that Sotomayor is a very centrist judge.
Like I said, I am beginning to think all the wingnut lunacy is a good thing if it gets a bigger audience for the hearings. The contrast between wingnut propaganda and the reality will produce another epic humiliating fail for the nutcases and conmen on the right.
Unemployed Poster
jl:
“News” item: Liddy, who’s been doing this occasionally for over thirty years, throws a “holy shit” word bomb to start another 15 minutes of fame.
So what?
Meantime, in classic borking fashion, the argument against a SCOTUS nominee moves to a focus on the nominee’s extrajudicial maladroitness. That’s standard practice. It’s the way the game is played, and the White House moved back a bit today on the chessboard.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@patrick:
This. I know I’m trying my best to get over some of my childhood imprinting (not that it was particularly virulent). I think it’s more important to judge a person by how they want and try to be rather than whatever momentary knee-jerk reaction they might occasionally have. Problem is, the Rump GOP is all reflexes, with no brain to keep them under control.
Even if I were a racist, I don’t understand this extraordinarily fine-grained racism they’ve got nowadays. When I was growing up, you were either White, or Black, or “Oriental” (Yeah, I know that’s considered an insult these days, but I don’t know why). Sonia Sotomayor is definitely “White” to me. She’s certainly not “Black”. Therefore “Race” doesn’t enter into the matter for me.
demkat620
@geg6: So is Tancredo on Hardball right now. OMG this is unreal.
Adrienne
@DanSmoot’sGhost: Exactly.
We know they have no shame, but I’m guessing they just “walk on by” and don’t acknowledge that he said it. They won’t be seen coming out en-masse against a sitting General (unless of course, you’re Gen. Colin Powell – who’s BLACK so it doesn’t count)
Joshua Norton
Kind of hard to do, since there seems to be an overwhelming majority of them in the party. The Republicans demanding we mispronounce her name, the ones saying everyone graduates summa cum laude unless they’re D-students, the ones discussing mind-corrupting Latino food, the ones calling her an affirmative action pick, or maybe it’s jut the ones running around in circles screaming “BLARGH BLARGH LATINO CHICK BLARGH!”
Personally, I blame racism. Those jowly, lily white folks just cannot catch a break here.
dbrown
@kay: Rove affraid of a female? Like the asshole only gets turned on thinking about fudge packing little boys – why wouldn’t he be affraid of an intelligent and strong willed woman?
asiangrrlMN
G. Gordon Liddy? G. Gordon Liddy? Karl Rove? Karl Rove? Sorry for repeating everything twice, but I am dumbfounded that these men are actually allowed to speak in public.
As for Sonia Sotomayor’s statement–I don’t think it was racist or smarmy. What she was saying is that we all bring our backgrounds with us, and that those of us aware of this fact will do well to not let it unduly affect us. I agree with this statement.
As for Mancow, I wondered about the legitimacy of it because everything was done so loosely. I had seen the video of Hitchens being waterboarded and the video of the Playboy guy being waterboarded, and it was much darker and meaner than when Mancow got ‘boarded.
gypsy howell
Getting off on tangents about whether or not Sotomayor has reached menopause, and whether Ggliddy should be aware of that, kinda misses the point here about how offensive his remarks are.
TenguPhule
Word origin, that’s why.
asiangrrlMN
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge: Oriental is an insult because the west named the Orient in opposition to them, the Occident. I prefer Asian. Yeah, I know, I know, but it’s better than Oriental. Asian at least just describes the land mass from where I come–it’s not some made-up “exotic” name (again, I know!). You don’t hear Occidental any more, but you still hear Oriental. Plus, all the damn stereotypes that go with it. The inscrutable Oriental, for example. It just screams of otherness.
WereBear
For the love of sweet roasted wallabies, I wouldn’t believe it if my outrage meter hadn’t broken back in 2003.
Well, guess what, Gordo, your own party thinks your hormones screw with your head more than a lady’s does with hers. Christian groups promote modest prom dresses and debate sex-segregated schools so the boys will be able to concentrate. They’re the ones who get bent out of shape over a nipple. They’re the ones who put their careers in jeopardy over wide stances in men’s rooms and meth binges with gay prostitutes.
To broaden the scope, how many sex scandals have caused trouble for politicians? And how many of those have involved a woman’s career?
Add in the “mine’s bigger than yours” foreign policy of the neocons, and it’s pretty obvious which sex has the hormone problems.
Adrienne
Exactly. The more they paint her as a flaming leftist radical type, Che Guevara in robes, who’s as dumb as a box of rocks and can’t open her mouth without chanting “Down with los Gringos” after each sentence the more they are setting themselves up for failure. People are going to tune in and instead see a proud Latina, an intelligent, eloquent, tough but fair and open minded judge, who came from humble roots, but studied hard and worked her ass off to not only make something of herself but to rise to the top of every academic and professional endeavor in which she has undertaken. They are setting the bar so low that she won’t even have to jump over it. It will be a fucking cakewalk.
tc125231
@Death By Mosquito Truck: jerk.
jake 4 that 1
Or
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@asiangrrlMN:
I go by what people want to be called, so I don’t use it any more, but I have to be careful. Just my age, that’s all.
Also, I live on “Occidental Avenue”. Drives me crazy having to repeat it five times and then spell it. I want to scream: “You know the word Oriental, don’t you? How can you not know the word Occidental!?” But I don’t dare.
(I think the objection is that “oriens” mean “east”, and that’s east from Europe, and that’s Eurocentric. But really I think the etymology of “Asia” involves “sunrise”, so it’s really the same thing.)
Colette
@patrick:
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
Nuh-uh. I accept Patrick’s point, but lefty old loony liberal though I am, I can’t let the idea that Republican = racist go by (“racist = statistically somewhat more likely to also be Republican” is as far as I’ll go). Leaving that kind of sweeping generalization unchallenged is more worthy of Malkin’s comments section than BJ’s. For example, my right-wing reactionary Republican brothers are as un-racist or as trying-not-to-be-racist as anyone I know. If anything, their absolute disgust with and knee-jerk revulsion at expressions of racism is stronger than mine. But they’re still wingnuts.
Origuy
@Screamin’ Demon: Some idiots were saying the same thing about Hillary last year. I’m not sure if Liddy was among them, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
patrick
I’ll come right out and just admit it.
I’m bigoted against Canadians – with their beady little eyes and flapping heads and whatnot.
They look just like us, they sound pretty much just like us, and they’re sneaky.
You never know what they’re up to, but you can bet it’s trying to foist some class of polite socialism on us.
I don’t trust them. We need a big ‘ol fence up there.
Death By Mosquito Truck
@tc125231: So?
asiangrrlMN
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge: That’s why I put the I know, I know in there. For me, though, it has to do with all that damn exotic crap that is affixed to the Orient. Plus, the fact that no one uses Occidental any longer (that’s funny that you live on Occidental Avenue). I still get asked where I come from because I am Asian. Being called Oriental just underscores how very foreign I’m supposed to be. Which is bullshit. I was born in MN (but told I couldn’t have been because I’m Asian), and I am about as exotic as lutefisk.
geg6
Bad enough that the GOP is taking the race road. I know enough GOPers to know that many of them are offended by these kinds of attacks and this is not making them feel any better about being Republican these days. But I have yet to hear a single one of them express outrage over the sexist attacks against her. And this is what they really should be worrying about. In the past, the GOP has found ways to woo women like soccer and security moms. But I’m guessing they will not take kindly to yet another false trope about how our hormones make us stupid and crazy and unable to reason. Many of those “moms” have or have had careers, as the demographic was always about middle and upper middle class women. Women, incidentally, who were also likely to have been single moms at some point and/or been victims of the second shift that working women face even now. They know how tough they’ve been to get where they are and to protect and nuture their families. And this sort of dismissal gets noted and filed away for future reference. That’s more than half the voting population, pissed off. I don’t know how a party recovers from that. Even Jesus Freak women, for the most part, don’t go for that kind of talk.
noncarborundum
@TenguPhule:
“Oriental” means “Eastern”. It’s from the Latin word for “rise”, because the sun rises in the East. (Just as “Occidental” is from the Latin word for “set”.)
Now, obviously, East Asia was named “the Orient” because it was toward the East from a European point of view. Is this the source of the word’s offensiveness, the fact that it labels Asians from a European point of view? (Of course, East Asians are Eastern from the point of view of most of Asia, too.) Because if it’s not that, then I don’t understand what it is.
noncarborundum
To be clear, I don’t dispute that many people find “oriental” offensive, I just have a little trouble with the claim that this is because of the word’s origin. For that matter, the most offensive racial term at all is, in origin, just a variant of the Spanish word for “black”. The offensiveness is not in the origin, it’s in how the word came to be used.
TenguPhule
@noncarborundum
Origin, not meaning.
It was originally used as asiangrrlMN explained, a “other” distinction of strangeness. By very bigoted white men.
henqiguai
@asiangrrlMN (#133):
I don’t know; lutefisk seems pretty ‘exotic’ to me. I did six years in the Cities, and managed to never get any closer than passing on by the stuff in the refrigerated sections in the grocery store.
noncarborundum
@TenguPhule:
Not a problem. You and I are just using conflicting definitions of the words “origin” and “meaning”.
Little Dreamer
@Shinobi:
That man is the most reprehensible piece of shit.
What a jerk!
AhabTRuler
@Little Dreamer:
That statement is clearly defamatory of (to?) shit.
bago
Occidental is in Pioneer square.
asiangrrlMN
@henqiguai: Heh. I went to a Lutheran College where they served lutefisk every Christmas. Nasty stuff.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@bago:
Actually there bits and pieces of Occidental all over. It’s the route of the old Occidental Railway. I live in Burien. It’s just an extra street between 1st and 2nd Ave. S. that picks up and stops here and there.
Little Dreamer
@AhabTRuler:
Are we now stating shit has other good qualities besides being fertilizer?