Republicans, Let’s Play Grown-Up
“Let’s play grown-up.” When I was a child, that’s what we said when we ran out of things to do like playing potsie or throwing rocks in the vacant lot. You’d go in and take your father’s hat and your mother’s purse and walk around saying, “Would you like tea?” In retrospect we weren’t imitating our parents but parents on TV, who wore pearls and suits. But the point is we amused ourselves trying to be little adults.
And that’s what the GOP should do right now: play grown-up.
The Democrats in the White House have been doing it since January, operating with a certain decorum, a kind of assumption as to their natural stature. Obamaland is very different from the last Democratic administration, Bill Clinton’s. The cliché is true: White House staffs reflect their presidents. Mr. Clinton’s staff was human, colorful, messy, slightly mad. They had pent-up energy after 12 years of Republican rule, and they believed their own propaganda that Republicans were wicked. They were oafish: One dragooned a government helicopter to go play golf. President Obama’s staff is far less entertaining. They’re smooth, impeccable, sophisticated, like the boss. They don’t hate Republicans but think they’re missing a few chips (empathy, logic, How Things Really Work). It is true they don’t know what they don’t know, but what they do know (how to quietly seize and hold power, for instance—they now run the American auto industry), they know pretty well.
Does anyone honestly think they can dial back the crazy on this? It seems like it is already out there and way too late. You’ve had Rush, Newt, Tancredo and others calling her a racist for days, you have all the groups that stand to do some serious moneymaking out there screaming radical activist (think Wendy Long and company), and the assorted right-wing magazines like Commentary and NRO and the Weekly Standard have already pretty much staked out a position on the lunatic fringe, and of course the WingNet has followed suit. How do you roll that back?
Can the Wurlitzer play in reverse?
And yes, as many of you have noted in the comments, the admission that the Republicans aren’t grownups and need to “play” to pretend to be adults is rather amusing.
Persia
If you really want some laughs, read the comments.
AkaDad
If you play the Wurlitzer in reverse, you’ll hear Obama chanting.
bago
Yeah… Nooners has her own segment on wonkette. Let’s just say that there are some things you do no want to know all about. Sometimes you just have to look at a columnist and say “surely no good will come of this”, and then you must simply walk on by, leaving that shred of mystery in place.
Consequences are for little people who can’t afford their third xanax by noon.
Dave
No.
The GOP is locked in a self-reinforcing death spiral. They can’t piss off their cranky, white, aging, nativist base. And that means they offend the handful of supporters that aren’t pasty white and/or have brains, and they leave. Which makes the GOP more reliant on the cranky, white, aging, nativist base….
Rick Taylor
Plus you have the long standing tradition of Republicans calling on Democrats to take full responsibility for everything their crazy looney base says. When Move-On.org calls General Petraeus names, Democrats must take a stand and condemn them, or show they are in thrall to their extremist left-wing base. When Democrats give Michael Moore a seat at the Democratic National convention, it just shows how far out they are. Well, Tom Tancredo didn’t just have a seat at the convention, he was one of the Republican candidates. Republican officials have tripped all over themselves to say how much they respect Rush. So what now?
Ned R.
That opening paragraph is pretty much the equivalent of the Onion’s Kelly political cartoons about the “good old days.”
JL
According to MSNBC Wendy Long sent an e-mail to the station suggesting that Republicans should tone down the rhetoric.
The announcer did not say that Wendy was on the show herself screeching about the selection of Judge Sotomayor. Peggy writing that the Republicans should pretend to play grown up is hilarious. Between Peggy’s column and Tom Price’s video, SNL could have a field day.
Montysano
Shorter Nooners: “Deadline approached, so I wrote some words”.
Hunter Gathers
You don’t. The cat’s out of the bag. They’ve gone nutters, and no amount of pleading from Cornyn, Steele or Noonan is going to do any good. Nate Silver has come up with a scenario in which the GOP says to hell with the Hispanic Vote and goes full White Male, which he dubs Operation Gringo
This may not seem like a winning strategy, but they also thought putting Palin on the ticket was a good idea.
El Cid
Wait — it was just Clintonian “propaganda” that Republicans were wicked?
Really?
Is that why they hunted down Clinton for a blow job and spent 8 years screeching about how Hillary Clinton killed Vince Foster and was getting ready to help the Russians and the UN invade the US to install a s o c i a l i s t dictatorship?
Oh, Peggy, it must be a lonely position to sit atop the only sane balance point in the Republican Party of the Dixie Confederate Baptist Uprising.
BombIranForChrist
I think it’s impossible for them to dial back on the crazy.
The way our modern media works, you can have 90000 moderates, and 10 kooks, and the kooks will get 50/50 airtime with the moderates.
And, well, the Republicans have a few more than 10 kooks.
So I think the more moderate Republicans have a big problem on their hands, and I am not exactly feeling their pain. They were more than happy to ride the Kook Train to a generation of Republican rule, and now they are paying the price.
spudvol
nvm
MattF
Yeah. “Ooopsie. Bygones.”
Anton Sirius
I like the implicit admission that Republicans can only play grown-up, and aren’t in fact grown-ups.
Punchy
Nope, and Peggy Noonan is about to recieve at least 1,583 hate correspondence pieces, including 312 emailed death threats, 21 pundit calls to show her birth certy, and 5 “you suk, Nounin!” diatribes in crayon
Comrade E.B. Misfit
It seems to me that the crazies in the GOP are determined to drive their pool of voters to a group that most closely matches the pool of voters who would support David Duke.
Ruemara
It’s rather hard to dial back the crazy when you’ve cranked it up to eleventybillion!!!!111!!!!, ripped off the dial, burned it, ground it into a fine powder, made coffee with it and shat the grounds.
But I will enjoy watching the marginally saner corporate republicans attempt to defuse it. Commence with the FAIL-fu, GOP.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Conservatives like Noonan have been sleeping with the talibangalists for a generation now and the bigots a generation before that.
It was fine for them as long as it won you elections.
But a funny thing happened Peggers the proverbial morning after.
The political VD you now carry is of your own making. And much like genital herpes, this has no known cure. Sucks being you.
linda
but what they do know (how to quietly seize and hold power, for instance
they’re called ‘elections’ you ignorant crazy dolphin lady.
LarryB
The self-revealing money quote: “Let’s play grownup” (emphasis mine).
OT: Love the new banner add, John. Ann Coulter — Free! Yup, worth every penny.
jrg
When Peggy Noonan is your last, best hope, you’re pretty much fucked.
What makes Noonan think Republicans would listen to her, anyway? She already proved her granola-munching RINOness when she dissed the killah from Wasilla.
Notorious P.A.T.
Why is Peggy Noonan given space in a major newspaper?
MikeJ
Every time Nooners is mentioned, we need to remember:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110005844
TenguPhule
Please note, even the WSJ doesn’t think of the Republicans as adults, but emplores them to at least *pretend* they are.
sgwhiteinfla
You can’t dial back the crazy when you are busy dialing it up.
I haven’t heard a better argument from Republicans in a long long long long time.
Rick Taylor
I’m guessing the dialing back is going to happen during the hearings. The Republicans will be very careful to be respectful, even deferential towards Sotomayor, while at the same time questioning the statements she made and trying to show their base that they do take their concerns, about following the constitution and following the law not one’s feelings, seriously. They will not filibuster the nomination and it will pass handily. They will hope to avoid being tarred too much for the reactions of those they cannot control. The damage will have been done though; no matter how careful the Republican congressman are, the appalling demagoguery of the Republican base whose approval Republicans need to cultivate will be all to plain to anyone watching. Meanwhile, Wingnuts will be disgusted by their representatives’ cave in, but it’s not as though they anywhere else to go and it’s a while until the next primaries.
aimai
Shorter Peggy:
“Can’t you at least *pretend* to be a lady?”
aimai
SGEW
fixt
Ruemara
@MikeJ:
That article is like a living hurl. Savor. I wish her nothing but pain and disappointment at GOP losses. Savor. How unfortunate that her awesomely smug, bland writing style pays more than my job. At least she’s pasty and tasteless. Savor.
Dave C
OT: Fresh from TPM, this video has to be seen to be believed.
Ronin122
@Hunter Gathers:
I just read Silver’s post. Sounds way too unrealistic. Anti-NAFTA, against free trade, maybe support EFCA? Yeah, they’ll sooner support gay marriage than that. First off, if they ever did any of those things, their non-fundie base would abandon them in droves, and likely get rid of any one who went that route in the primaries. I guess mental masturbation is always amusing but in the end it’s still jerking off to a fantasy. And let’s not forget that they are the pro-big-business party (although half the Dems join them); if they did those things, they can say goodbye to all their funds in a heartbeat and watch the defection of corporate donors to the Dems. In short, not gonna happen unless they just fool everyone and pretend to be those things, but I think anyone can see it for what it is.
Tattoosydney
Although the article is slightly batty, Noonan makes at least one good point:
The fact that the chance of that happening is significantly less than the chance that Mel Gibson is going to come back to Australia and move in with my husband and me doesn’t make Noonan’s point less valid. (Urgh, I made myself feel ill.)
Sane Republicans (if such a thing exists) could at least take the opportunity to ask some decent questions and find out what the nominee really thinks, and then vote to confirm – and in doing so distinguish themselves from the wingnut rump. Sure, it might tear their current party apart, but it might just get them reelected as the representative of some other political party.
DanSmoot'sGhost
I recently saw Noonan on tv, and seriously thought, this person is just a complete fucking idiot and lunatic. In way over her head, aping punditry for the camera, saying stuff that is not even remotely comprehensible.
Then I read this piece and I have to say, it is coherent in its funky Republican dumb everything down to cheer practice way, and it is even a little sensible.
Maybe when she is not in front of bright lights, actual thoughts are formed? I can’t explain it.
In any case, the GOP is leaderless and directionless. The voice of this strange person is not going to be enough to prevent further damage.
Trinity
@Ruemara: Win!
crack
Did you mean can the Wurzelbacher play in reverse?
TR
I wonder what Noonan is saying these days when she doesn’t know her mike is on.
kay
@MikeJ:
Noonan should read what she wrote.
“On another last note. Tuesday I heard three radio talkers who refused to believe it was over when the ludicrous, and who knows but possibly quite mischievous, exit polls virtually declared a Kerry landslide yesterday afternoon.
They are Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. The last sent me an e-mail that dismissed the numbers as elitist nonsense and propaganda. She is one tough girl and they are two tough men. Savor them too.”
In 2004, she was savoring these same people.
KRK
Does anyone here speak Noonan? What, I hesitate to ask, is “playing potsie”? (For those of us not named Anson Williams.)
JL
@Dave C: Were you able to watch the entire video?
Phoebe
This is like me asking my cats to please maybe do some dishes, water the plants instead of knocking them over, and just help out a little, you know?
Does she know who she’s allegedly talking to? Has she been doing ANY observing and deducing over the past forever? Wait – did I just ask that?
The Grand Panjandrum
I can’t wait for the reappearance of the militias with middle-aged pot bellied men wearing surplus military garb. As I recall those images from the 90’s the thing that came to mind then comes to mind now: Gabby Hayes. On a more ominous note, wasn’t McVeigh a product of the right wing hysteria over how the Clinton administration handled the Koresh compound fiasco?
Rick Taylor
I’d just like to add, I find it tremendously depressing that the right wing has lurched so far into craziness, that even someone like Peggy Noonan can see it, be appalled, and make sense.
David
Only a national columnist like Noonan gets to start with the premise that Republicans are acting like children, and then proceeds to provide “evidence” about Democrats and their “dubious” credentials at adult behavior.
This pseudo-balance stuff even extends into their opinion columns, though interestingly only when it is necessary to criticize Republicans.
Noonan, as usual, just adds to the Washington gossip, and quite clearly is trying to help the few rational folks left in her party. Unfortunately for her, she will get branded and chucked out of the party soon enough.
Maybe we won’t have to read her grand sounding but generally meaningless writing after that happens.
Bernie
Noonan my write and talk like she is perpetually stoned but she is no fool (Seriously. Don’t laugh). She is basically a part of the Republican elite who came up with Reagan and realized that pandering to the Bible thumpers and the rubes was the key to electoral success. They would spout their usually code words and dog whistles to get them to vote for who they want but always making sure the rubes’ “betters” controlled the GOP.
But over the past 20 years the thumpers and rubes slowly took over the party. Now they don’t just want some phony white man to tell them what to here. They want their entire insane agenda inacted. Try as they might, the GOP elite can’t put that genie back in the bottle.
Jim
and even in this plea for grownupism:
Diabolically clever of Barack Obama to engineer the downfall of the American auto industry, beginning when he was eight or ten years old, so that a year or so before he won the election, when it was by no means evident that he would be the Democratic nominee or that the Republican party would continue its act of slow-motion self-flushing, the Big Three would come to Washington saying, “If you don’t bail us out, we’ll implode.” Thus allowing Obama and his Democrats to “seize” control.
All of you who don’t believe that Obama plays seventeen dimensional chess, The Prophetess of teh Magick Dolphins has given her testimoney.
Gocart Mozart
First they should work on pretending to be responsible children. After enough experience at that, then and only then can they be expected to to be able to “play grown up” credibly .
Zifnab
No. Dialing back the crazy is a sign of weakness. Suggesting you dial back the crazy makes you look like a Fifth Columnist liberal commie sympathizer trying to undermine the pure hearts of the movement with watered down anti-Americanism.
True Americans are batshit insane. You’re not ever allowed to pretend otherwise.
dmsilev
Yes, and it says “Reagan is dead”.
-dms
Mac
I thought that if you played the Wurlitzer in reverse, you heard “Reagan is a dead man, miss him.”
MattF
@DanSmoot’sGhost
Noonan, once in a while, has something interesting to say. She wrote Reagan’s speeches, after all, so putting one word after another and telling a coherent story is actually within her skill set. I suspect that as long as she’s not writing about wingnut doctrine, e.g., St. Ronald, economics, and/or abortion, there’s an actual thinking person there who manages to struggle to the surface, every once in a while.
KevinNYC
The video Dave C’s just linked deserves it’s own post.
I forgot what I going to say about Nooners completely. YOU WANT TO TALK CRAZY, WATCH THIS VIDEO with two young conservatives rapping:
“Three things taught me Conservative Love
Jesus, Ronald Reagan and Atlas Shrugged”
Mac
Jinx.
Little Dreamer
No! SATSQ
DanSmoot'sGhost
@Rick Taylor:
Mostly true. The only thing I would add is that they are gaming a 4-month operation here, where the big play is going to be healthcare. I believe that what little direction they have is grounded in a set of moves that gives them some kind of momentum at the tercio de muerte — the kill sequence, in bullfighting — when they will try to finish off healthcare reform for the session, and probably for the remainder of Obama’s term(s). This is what they did to Clinton’s attempt, and did with great skill and elegant timing. They are not as well organized now, but they have money, they have the industry and the lobbyists ready, and they have the media buys to pull it off.
I see Sotomayor as just an opening act in this thing. I see them acting with their eye on the big prize later.
That’s what my slightly fogged crystal ball has today.
dmsilev
@Mac:
Heh.
-dms
Little Dreamer
The GOP is not leaderless, they just don’t all agree on who that leader is.
Dave C
@JL:
Do you mean was my computer in possession of the technical requirements to play the or was I drunk/brain damaged/stupid enough to make it all the way through that artistic and intellectual abomination? Either way, the answer is “yes.” :)
El Cid
@Dave C: I would pay money to make sure this video of white Republicans rapping got wider play. Just like I’d love to contribute to making Tom Tanker-Dough the image of the Republican Party.
…
I’m 6’9, head & shoulders above the rest…
Liberals playin’ checkers
I’m playin’ chess
My conservative view
Is ‘Drill Baby Drill’
You can say you hate me
But I’m prayin’ for ya still…
…
We need more women
Of intellectual integrity
I’m talkin’ Meghyn Kelly
Not Nancy Pelosi!
…
Superman!’
Not s o c i a l i s m!
Waterboard
That terrorism!
…
Three things taught me
Conservative love
Jesus, Ronald Reagan
And Atlas Shrugged
Watching on the YouTube, I know I clicked the button for “High Quality,” but it appears not to work. Apparently it doesn’t improve content, just the clarity of crap.
Tom Betz
You missed the best line in Nooner’s piece:
Politically she’s like a beautiful doll containing a canister of poison gas: Break her and you die.
Nooner nails it, for a change.
Fwiffo
This requires DougJ’s immediate attention.
Dave C
@El Cid:
I really love the line “We need more women Of intellectual integrity. . .” because I think it unintentionally communicates so much about their view of women.
El Cid
@Dave C: Well, it’s because all them Democrap bee-yatches like Nancy Pelosi and Barbra Boxer and Hillary Clinton are both evil so ci alist schemers and brainless affirmative action babies, just like Maria Soda-major.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Yes.
The first evidence we’ve seen of this is the run on ammo. These are the same, pot-bellied, white bigots who were “playing army” back in the 90s during Clinton’s terms.
They’re like roaches only without any of the redeeming qualities.
grimc
If you play the Wurlitzer forwards against the newsreel footage of the Hindenburg, it matches up exactly. Also: Any clip from America’s Funniest Videos where an adult is hit in the crotch by a kid.
Thadeus Horne
Wasn’t Noonan the caddy in “Caddy Shack”?
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Which is “women should be barefoot, pregnant and chained to the bed…with just enough slack to get to the kitchen.”
BrYan
Why hasn’t anyone asked Joe the Plumber what he thinks about Sotomayor yet?
Zuzu's Petals
@Dave C:
Oh God.
“Jesus, Ronald Reagan, plus Atlas Shrugged.”
Priceless.
SGEW
All you need to know about Peggy Noonan, via Wonkette:
Not only does she want to “keep on walking,” she also has very strong views about what footwear you should do so in.
Martin
I agree. They spent 1992-2000 engineering the base to be insane. The base now expects insane, and they need to deliver.
LD50
No, free is still too much.
LD50
No, free is still too much.
hidflect
@AkaDad:
There’s the YouTube video playing “Yes, we can” backwards… It says: “Thank you Satan!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MEAq8NwEWs
Seebach
@Dave C:
There is no God, after all.
greynoldsct00
Alrighty then… mopping up coffee spray from my keyboard and monitor…
binzinerator
And the point is, Nooners is agreeing with most of the public that the GOP is childish and likes to play make-believe and won’t even try to pretend to behave like an adult.
And Obama’s staff would be exactly right. The reason the GOP is childish and likes to live in fantasy and won’t even try to pretend to behave like an adult is because they’re are lacking in empathy, logic, and How Things Really Work.
It takes some o’ that missing logic to figure that out and see that Obama’s staff is right, which is why Peggy can’t, and if she ever did, she’d still need to act like an adult to admit it.
And she doesn’t even seem to grasp that most of the public is aware the GOP at best can only fake maturity. People don’t want ersatz, they want the real deal.
It’s make-believe shit like this…
… that assures me Nooners is still refusing to grow up.
And for fucks’ sake, what is it with these people and their need for resentment and victimhood? A suppurating wound? It’s the hyperbole of a child with an adult’s vocabulary. When my 4-year-old falls down she cries and cries and you’d think her leg needed amputation and she insists on a band-id even if the skin isn’t broken. Bork was an unfit sack of shit and a pig and time has only hammered that home. And that was what? More than 20 years ago? There’s a good-sized chunk of the population who now can vote and hadn’t even been born then. And the conservatives are still crying about terrible it was when they fell down and got scraped and their knee was almost skinned right off really it was but nobody in the world cared and they never got a band-aid put on it or got the boo-boo kissed to make it better.
I suppose it’s merely another expression of their childish mentality. Nobody suffers like they do yet they will console themselves that Billy and Joey and Jenny got hurt too and of course someone else is always to blame.
Nooners is a sixth-grader among the elementary school kids.
AnotherBruce
Yes, this day has finally arrived, Peggy Noonan, John Cornyn and Michael Steele are the only Republicans that have any sanity when it comes to the Sotomayer nomination.
Never thought I’d use the word “sanity” in conjunction with those names.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
@Dave C: No flow. No rhythm. No verbal skills. And, obviously, no self-awareness.
The Moar You Know
I read Nonnan’s article and thought it made some sense. Then I read the associated comments and watched the 28% percent crucify her for it.
So I wondered – how does one get into that mindset? I thought I’d experiment. First I smashed my head into the wall, but all that did was dent my wall and give me a headache. Then I went and listened to an endless loop of “God Bless America” mixed in with a bunch of Charlie Dnaiels, but all that did was make my headache worse.
Then I went to the garage and filled my paint respirator full of gasoline and breathed that for ten minutes and you know what, guys?
I get it now. It all makes sense.
TenguPhule
Hey, there is no need to insult pigs like that.
steve s
peggy noonan:
(glances over to see what the Republicans are saying): “Osama HUSSEIN likes fancy-boy mustard!”
someguy
Not grownups?
40% of the population who are perpetually infantile cretins who’d be stripped of the franchise if there were sanity or IQ tests for voters, is more like it.
Adrienne
As I mentioned on my blog, in my last post (in FEBRUARY! yikes I should get on that) everything I ever needed to know about politics I learned from watching the West Wing.
There’s a great scene btw. Pres. Bartlett and Leo where Bartlett is recalling the pres. campaign and Leo convinces a skeptical Bartlett to run. Leo tells him, “Act as if ye have faith and faith shall be given to you. In other words, fake it till you make it.”
This is what Nooners is telling the Republican party – Fake it till you make it. Fake it until your party actually decides that they want to be relevant again. Fake it until the Democrats fuck everything up and people will look twice at you again. Fake it until you come up with some actual ideas. Do something – ANYTHING – other than this modern day political kamikaze mission.
linda
@MikeJ:
mike, you clipped the best part of noonan’s quote:
“Let us savor.”
lol.
Adrienne
Everyone please, don’t rush to your bombshelters. The end of the world is coming, but PLEASE proceed in an orderly fashion, single file now children… ahem.
When these rodeo clowns are your last best hope, you should just go jump off the nearest cliff.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
@Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse: OK, maybe they are very, very self-aware. From their MySpace: “Sounds Like: A combination between Fergie and Jesus.”
Michael D.
This is the same Peggy Noonan who called Sarah Palin a “transformative political figure.”
Now, Palin was transformative – she transformed the Republican Party from the already backward party it became into some of the batshit craziest people on the planet.
But I have a feeling Noonan was being fawning.
Is this the same Peggy Noonan that called Mitt Romney, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter “reasonable people.”
Isn’t this the same Peggy Noonan who told us that we couldn’t have a president [Edwards] who would spend five minutes in front of a mirror “poofing his hair,” but had no problem with George W. Bush – the man who prepared for an interview by flipping of a guy holding a camera?
Peggy Noonan is an idiot. In fact, if you Google “Peggy Noonan is an idiot,” as I did when writing this, there is a ton of great stuff.
She helped create the atmosphere.
Adrienne
That was her public face where she towed the party line during an election like a good Republican sheep should. What she said when she thought noone was listening however, is a different story:
binzinerator
Somebody forgot to tell Peggy Noonan that the American people have already listened, weighed and thought.
See, Peggy, grown-ups call the end result of this process “an election”. You know…just like the one we just had where the American people told the children the adults were now going to run things.
What a silly git she is.
Will Danz
@binzinerator:
One of the things that proved what a pig Bork was: two years ago the alleged enemy of “tort reform” sued the shit out of the Yale Club (for a cool million!) because he fell off a speaker’s platform when giving a talk there. Obviously, this is the EXACT situation that would send Bork and his fellow wingnuts into hysterics, whining about the litigious society, trial lawyers, the whole usual bunch of crap.
Details:
“Robert Bork sues Yale club over injuries
Tort reform advocate asks for $1 million after fall
Published Saturday, June 9, 2007
Former Yale Law School professor and one-time Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork filed suit against the Yale Club of New York on Thursday, citing injuries sustained while speaking at the alumni social club last summer.
Bork, 80, who is seeking $1 million in damages, is claiming that he fell while trying to step onto a dais to speak at a June 6, 2006, event hosted by New Criterion magazine. The absence of a handrail or stairs caused him to fall, striking his leg on the dais and his head on a heat register, the suit claims. Over the past year, Bork has suffered “excruciating pain” and undergone extensive medical treatment and surgery to address the resulting hematoma on his left leg, according to the suit.”
4tehlulz
@The Moar You Know: I don’t have a garage, so should I just substitute crystal meth for the the inability to huff?
BruceK
Red matter. Of course, you’ll probably end up creating a full-blown wingularity in the process, but … actually, that’s not a bug, that’s a feature, isn’t it? Just so long as sane people can stay clear of the event horizon.
EddyTeddyFreddy
Sums it up perfectly. Thanks for my fall-off-the-chair-laughing moment of the day.
Bubblegum Tate
@TenguPhule:
For real. Pigs give us delicious, delicious bacon. What has Bork ever done that can possibly compare?
Tim (The Oher One)
Comments are on fire today ! Win !
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@Dave C: Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, that “rap video” made my eyeballs and ears bleed.
Eric B, Jay Z, and Biggie together couldn’t teach these guys to Rap.
Elie
The Republicans seem in much worse shape than the Democrats during their period in the Wilderness. Their complete insanity and inability to martial any kind of coordinated, sane approach and response is pretty startling – no matter how much we kid around about it — its scary that so many people – even though a minority — can be THAT crazy.
I guess we could think as per DANSMOOTSGHOST upthread that they are being cagey and setting up some complex multi step strategy to deal with blocking health care. However, its hard for me to see how this helps their political capital and credibility enough to enhance their power or position. It seems more a strategy for if you expect a race war.
I am just taking it in — waiting to see how far out there things can get and how (on the off chance) they could make a real positive change in their strategic position, what that would even look like from where they are now.
It feels more like observing some mass group suicide — some isolated tribe decides to go out guns blazing knowing that they just can’t interpret what a photograph means or why their most advanced weapons do not work in this new world. Its deeply tribal – deeply about losing your relevance and effective link to the larger culture.
Cris
Bump. I want to know too, and the tubes aren’t telling.
PeakVT
And it turns out that Republicans are wicked.
Go figure.
Mike P
@AkaDad:
That comment was full of win.
rikyrah
They need to continue to bring it. Expose themselves for who they’ve always been. I’m past being outraged. Consistent disgust is the emotion I’m on now.
Phoebe
Grand Pajamarama at 41, thank you, because today you have cleared up something that has caused me sporadic befuddlement in the past, because now I know that Gabby Hayes and Gibby Haynes are two completely different people. Whew.
Neil B. ♪
Check out WaMo with Steve Benen’s take, at http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_05/018396.php. Here’s one quote from GG Liddy:
“Let’s hope that the key conferences aren’t when she’s [Sotomayor] menstruating or something, or just before she’s going to menstruate. That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then.”
Breathtaking, even for right-wing talk radio.
asiangrrlMN
@Cris: I found that potsy is the New York term for hopscotch. Read more here.
As for Ms. Noonan, I can’t read anything she writes without hearing in my head her carefully-cultivated bland voice saying, “Sometimes, you just have to walk on by.”
And WTF for the whole trashing Clinton thing? Give me a break. She may have a point, but she sure makes it in a loathsome way.
HyperIon
@Michael D.:
yup.
and NOW she wants her fellow republicans to be reflective.
HAHAHAHA!
tc125231
@Persia:
Ruckus
@The Moar You Know:
The good part is that after you take off the mask, get a couple of minutes of oxygen, you’ll be back to normal. (minus what, a liver or some other somewhat useful organ)
The 20% will never figure out how to come up for air, so there we are.
asiangrrlMN
Oh, and as for Dave C. and that heinous video–thanks a whole hell of a lot. I cannot unsee what I have seen.