That while half of the beltway media have the vapors over Obama being too mean to Murdoch’s hacks, Chris Matthews is on my television debating with his guests whether or not Obama is “tough enough.”
I think DougJ said it best a while back:
I’m watching Monica Crowley and Pat Buchanan on the McLaughlin group and so help me God, I am praying for a dirty bomb in Georgetown.
These people will destroy us all.
Was it always this bad?
valdivia
why does Matthews say he is not tough enough?
Max
I didn’t see it, but on the Twitter, it says that Chris accidentally referred to Obama as Mohammad. Did you see that?
phoebes-in-santa fe
Was he tough enough to go head-to-head with Hillary? Yes.
Was he tough enough to go head-to-head with McCain? Yes.
Is he tough enough to lead this country? Hell, yes.
There’s waaaay too much time to fill on the 24 hour news cycles.
Comrade Jake
There was some bullshit on CNN.com today about the “wear and tear” Obama’s presidency has taken on Obama, given his recent poll numbers as determined by CNN’s latest and greatest.
It’s a slow news week I guess, so they’re back to their usual tricks: just making shit up.
beltane
It’s been this bad at least since the nineties. Older people tell me that once upon a time, things were much better, but I have no proof of this.
John Cole
@Max: I left the room and made a beverage.
BTW- I’m addicted to this new drink I make. I take a big glass of ice, fill it 1/3 of the way with pulpy orange juice, the rest of the way with diet 7-up. Kind of like a homemade orangina since the communists do not sell it in WV.
Elroy's Lunch
No, it wasn’t always this bad. But that doesn’t matter. It is now.
Beauzeaux
Oh…did they actually cease doing this for a while?
joes527
As I noted in the open thread earlier today … it has been much worse.
That said, I just can’t get all all warm and fuzzy over Tweetie even when he is on track. (don’t know if he is on or off in this case. no tv.)
His style of interviewing — throwing out rapid fire questions and not really listening to the answers because they weren’t really questions so much as accusations — meh.
Linkmeister
If we just had three networks and no cable, we’d all be better off.
/places old fogy hat firmly in place.
JoePo
Everyone knows that in order for Tweetie to think you’re tough, you must first beat your chest, scream gutturally, break low-hanging branches from nearby trees, bare your teeth, and then charge him.
Or wear a codpiece.
Leelee for Obama
Things are worse than I remember them, except for the Vietnam War years, but I was hating Johnson then, so, different. I’m equal opportunity if my party fucks up.
I didn’t watch any cable news today-listened to Jimmy Buffet and Michael Buble and Yo Yo Ma. Very nice, and I didn’t feel like throwing anything except a party.
Chris Matthews is an incredible tool-I refuse to watch him unless someone here says something good happened. It’s better that way, John, honest! It’s not like it’s news, ya know?
jeffreyw
@John Cole: Sounds like my fave beverage, the ice, the OJ, but I use diet Citrus Drop (a Kroger brand).
ironranger
I don’t remember it always being this bad. Once upon a time, people on the tv news shows used to act like adults in front of american viewers & saved the speculative, gossipy, mindless chit chat for off camera.
slag
@Max: BWAHAHAHAHAHA. There’s no way. I don’t believe it.
General Winfield Stuck
Nope, don’t think so. The Conservative Movement hadn’t crashed like now, with the permanent GOP majority on the ash heap of history. That leaves nothing but resentment and desperation, not the makings of civilized political debate.
And it’s going to get worse before it gets worser.
arguingwithsignposts
From an earlier thread, Alan Grayson is taking questions at the GOS. Link.
Comrade Mary
I was watching and Tweety did stumble and call him Mohammed, then recovered, when he was breaking to a commercial.
John, I used to drink the same thing. Then my teeth started twinging, so these days I drink any acidic drink quickly (yeah, diet pop is as bad for your teeth as regular pop) and rinse my mouth afterwards with water so I can hang on to what’s left of my enamel. Grr.
Poopyman
I don’t think so either. Not even in the Clinton years was there this much raw hatred. I don’t remember armed people protesting the president. (Protesting illegals, yes.) The cracks about hunting liberals seemed to be fewer and far between. They were around, but there was less acceptance of them.
Now nobody even raises an eyebrow. Think there’ll be much hue and cry when there are actual killings?
slag
@Comrade Mary:
That’s insane. What could possibly have been the context for that? I mean, I knew that guy was broken in some bizarre ways, but I don’t think I could have predicted this one.
sparky
imo, the “golden age” was an aberration–just like much of post WWII America turned out to be. the problem is that people don’t quite seem to get that 1945-1970 was not the norm. America had its part of the world pretty much to itself as no one was in a position to compete, and so we just kept on doing stupid stuff. then in the 1980s the remedy turned out to be the new stupid stuff–that you could eat imagery. worked pretty well, till about 2008. unless you happened to live in Iraq, of course, or were foolish enough to not be in the top 1% of earners. but in either case that was your fault, so no prob.
otherwise, yeah, the heyday of the press coincided with the heyday of the workingman buying his own house and the lady of the house actually staying at home because she could afford to do so. no more a permanent state of affairs than the position of ice sheets on the poles.
arguingwithsignposts
Pre-civil rights era, it was much worse in terms of “journalistic” organizations just covering shit up. The Lexington newspaper had to apologize for not covering civil rights protests. Rep. Clyburn remembers being jailed during a protest in N.C. that wasn’t even reported on in the paper.
So yes.
demkat620
Crowley and Buchanan? Why are so many Nixon lovers allowed on tv?
And no, it has not always been this bad. I think Perlstein is correct. Nixon broke the country.
kay
@valdivia:
I think it’s so kind of you to extend Chris Matthews the benefit of the doubt with your sincere question.
Because he has yet another crackpot “real America” theory based solely on his overly romanticized memories of his childhood in Pennsylvania, that’s why.
jl
So, the Obama administration has moved from some form of wishy-washy nothingness, and inched towards timid, but calm and semi-assertive quasi-leadership. And the Village gets the galloping fantods (which is Western he-man talk for major vapors).
Obama is still miles short of the kind of assertiveness TR, FDR, Truman, Kennedy or LBJ showed. Even Eisenhower. The Obama administratinon’s stance is still well short of the calm but very frim and trenchant assertion of the military-industrial-(Congressional) complex speech.
Let the Village wail, it means nothing. What what do you expect out of a generation of leaders who know nothing about life except corpoprate ladder climbing?
The whole tempest in a teapot may be overwhelmed soon by the developing intra-wingnut kerfluffle. Their purity ball is turning into a bar fight (if a bunch of hysterical lunatics with no grasp of reality whining at each other about betrayals of their alternative fanatasy worlds qualifies as a barfight).
sparky
@arguingwithsignposts: my frothing aside, yeah it was always pretty bad. either you were the establishment or you were thrown in jail for printing sedition, unless like Hearst, Pulitzer or Murdoch, you figured out how to toe the line.
valdivia
@kay:
I guess I just dont watch cable tv enough to know how stupid they all are (ok I hate Tapper and that crew when I see press conferences). So I shoudl assume they do not need an excuse to question his toughness. Only Republicans can be tough.
freelancer
Via thinkprogress:
What a maroon.
Have I mentioned that I support a bizzaro-anti-gay marriage agenda?
linda
absolutely nothing about thoughtfulness, informed consideration of the options, deliberation… it was all about bombing the fuck out of iran.. that’s how you prove you’re a tough guy to tweety.
he’s a such a noxious influence.
Jack
Chris Matthews, protege of Leahy? Him, likely to mischaracterize a prominent black man?
Nah, never could happen, not ever…
Jack
Argh – mind said “Moynihan,” hands typed “Leahy.”
kay
@valdivia:
This is mean, but to me, Chris Matthews is a “type”. He’s the person who returns to his economically distressed hometown and natters on and on about how great the people who stayed there have it, because they’re “real”.
And no one knows what he’s talking about, because they all grew up.
Demo Woman
I’m so distressed with Beck and his rant about volunteerism that the only thing that could help is to find out that Oprah is going to have Bernadette Dohrn on with Sarah. Of course Sarah would not have a clue who the hell Bernadette Dohrn is.
slag
@freelancer: Somebody get that woman a thesaurus!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
“Was it always this bad?”
No. Prior to the 1990s political media was for the most part stodgy and boring. Nobody paid much attention to anything political on TV apart for a few major seasonal events – crucial primaries, the major party conventions, Presidential debates, election night coverage, and perhaps a every-now-and-then really important POTUS live address to the nation. The rest was for geeks and insomniacs. The Sunday morning shows were dull, dull, dull, unless reading the fine print of the latest proposed strategic arms control agreement was your idea of a good time, and there wasn’t much in the way of political news on the rest of the week unless something really important was happening.
Now we have a 24-7 circus freakshow funded by the oligarhy (R) Glenn Beck, and run by the latter day equivalent of the John Birch society and their camp followers.
My theory is that our present level of Der Stoopid is an indirect byproduct of the end of the Cold War. If our media and political discourse had been this moronic back when both superpowers stood armed and ready to kill us all at a moment’s notice, none of us would be here today to bitch about it.
jl
I posted this before in a comment, but that was a long time ago, so I hope I am excused. But when I see these people on TV, either from the media, or most of our political leadership drones, I think of this apocryphal story I found when reading about medieval Chinese history.
So. The revolutionaries had won and were going through the Imperial Palace, looking for functionaries of the previous dynasty who might be useful to running things. They heard some one whimpering inside a room, found him and dragged him out from behind a screen. They asked him what he did. He said he was the Master of the Horse. They asked him what that meant, and the man burst into terrified tears and couldn’t answer. They kept pressing him until he fell down in a heap and blurted out that he had no idea what ‘Mater of the Horse’ meant and begged them to spare his life.
So, I cannot help wondering whether people like Matthews, and the media news actrors and corrupt politicians he hangs around with could come up with a better answer explaining what they actually did, if their lives depended on it.
Recently, I have also been wondering who the revolutionists might be. Hope there are no revolutions at all, but, it is something to ponder.
PS: How can I get ‘Master of the Horse’ into the B-J Lexicon?
Jay B.
@Poopyman:
Oh man, it was easily as bad during the Clinton years. In many ways worse. THEY IMPEACHED A PRESIDENT OVER A BLOW JOB. “They came in and they wrecked the place and it wasn’t their place.” – David Broder. Human stains like Henry Hyde, Newt Gingrich and Bob Livingston broke every possible hypocrisy meter available at the time. Dan Burton, a sitting Representative, shot a fucking helpless watermelon to PROVE THE PRESIDENT KILLED VINCE FOSTER — You think “you lie” was bad?
And don’t forget this was the heyday of Ross Perot who, in many ways, was as big a crackpot as any teabagger — and was a billionaire to boot. A particular joy of a guy who whined about taxes even while making his fortune processing the government payroll checks.
Never, ever, ever forget how bad the Clinton years were in The Village.
Demo Woman
Actually before Reagan you could vote for issues. Mock me if you must but that was the time that folks started voted party tickets. That was the time that Phil Graham decided he was a repub. (thank god) That was the time that congress could no longer come together.
Jay B.
@Poopyman:
Oh, and of course the Clinton years saw the rise of the militia movement, the bombing of the Murtaugh building and the nervous concern among a certain type of nutjob that black helicopters were going to come to round them up. Jesse Helms threatened that Clinton shouldn’t go to a military base because they’d want to kill him.
It’s the same set of stupid, fearful people being egged on by an utterly vapid media and opposition party doing the same fucking bizarre things with the same hyper-tense fixations on things that just don’t matter.
On the Obama-has-it-worse-side — The Internet. So we know what Erick Erickson fears about the President’s ‘evil intents’. But that’s about it.
asiangrrlMN
@John Cole: OT. I read that as, “fill it 1/3 of the way with puppy orange juice”, and I hesitated to ask what you meant by that.
As for ‘tough enough’, I think it’s just the contrarian stance. There is nothing Obama could do to satisfy most of the Villagers because that doesn’t sell papers (or get ratings).
MikeJ
@Jay B.: Murrah building.
Balconesfault
Monica Crowley has beeen dropping such turd bombs lately that Mort Zuckerman’s been looking over at her as if she showed up on the set in a bathrobe with birds nests in her hair
LD50
@slag: God knows what he had going on in the back of his mind, but one contributing factor would have been that ‘Mohammad’ and ‘Obama’ have the same number of syllables, the same vowel sounds, and the same metrical structure. That helps the brain confuse words.
Demo Woman
John if you are around two questions, when do you think congress and the public became so divisive and how is Betsy doing today against that bitch Rufus?
Anne Laurie
@sparky:
Excellent summary, insofar as one defines “The Press” as a nationwide media network accessible to “everyone” and mostly telling minor variations on the same stories. People forget that even 75 years ago, pre-radio and pre-truck-based-distribution-networks, there was no real national Press, only many thousand presses of various efficiency and reach. Some historians argue that the rise of national radio networks and high-speed printing machines that could produce hundreds of thousands of newspaper copies was a form of social evolution as significant as Gutenberg’s “invention” of moveable type. You could think of it this way — improved media technology opened up a new ecological niche, and exploiting that new niche led inexorably from small, creative innovators to giant, bloated behemoths. And now even newer technologies, shorthanded ‘The Internet’, have become a new virus or even asteroid that’s changed the climate so rapidly that the top-of-the-food-chain invincible giants, whether herbivores like Chris Matthews or predators like Rush Limbaugh, are looking at starvation because they’re not nimble enough to compete.
General Winfield Stuck
@Balconesfault:
The McLaughlin group during the Bush years was a staple for me. I looked forward to it. I can hardly watch it anymore for the rampant Obama bashing based on nonsense. John Mclaughlin despises Obama with a passion, and the BS from Crowley and Buchanan is just stunning. And both I consider as right wingers with half a brain. Especially Crowley, but she is also 100 percent gold plated wingnut. What a waste.
MikeJ
Bitsy: 3206
Rufus: 3399
Chaka Khan has not released a statement.
Makewi
It’s mostly because Obama is incompetent. He’s really good at whining and pointing the finger at others, but apart from that who is following his leadership? I guess to be fair it should be pointed out that our legislature is even more incompetent than he is.
It’s a sad tale of whining and broken campaign promises.
I think the wise course of action is to focus on birthers, teabaggers, rude congressmen (but only the GOP ones), Fox News, right wing talk radio and of course bush and the merry neocons.
sylvia
Oh my gosh – Rufus is up 200 points over Little Bitsy!
Not good….
Jay B.
@MikeJ: Noted.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that it’s not better or worse, it’s the same. The press is an absolute abomination now and was the same in 1992.
1992: Pat Buchanan calls for jihad against the queers, liberals and the blacks at the RNC (aka the Culture War speech)
2009: William Donohue calls for jihad against the queers and liberals (which now fully include the blacks) in the Post’s “On Faith” section
Mid-90s: Rush Limbaugh at full fat fuck gets a TV show (produced, of course, by evil jackoff Roger Ailes).
Now: Beck (produced, of course, by evil jackoff Roger Ailes).
Mid-90s: Jake Tapper parlays knowing Monica Lewinsky into a higher-profile gig.
Now: Jake Tapper is a RNC cumguzzler on ABC.
Then: Dan Burton, Newt Gingrich
Now: Michelle Bachmann, Mike Pence (Burton’s still around, but he seems strangely subdued)
Then: Militias
Now: Town Hells
Chris Matthews was a thigh-rubbing, meth-addled, ignorant blowhard back then too. And Mo Dowd.
For 15 years we’ve been dealing with a shameful, starfucking, lunatic, dishonest, unintelligent, incurious and raving bunch of morons — and they are at the heart of our political and media world.
jl
Actually, I would perfer that we not focus on “birthers, teabaggers, rude congressmen (but only the GOP ones), Fox News, right wing talk radio and of course bush and the merry neocons.”
I would prefer that the press focus on serious discussions of progress with Iran talks, situation in Afghanistan and Iraq, and on the health care debate and progress of global warming policy through Congress.
I am confident if that were the case, most of the population would not find Obama incompetent (at least compared to availables), and Democrats would sweep the next elections.
LD50
@Makewi:
I can see why you’d rather people didn’t talk about Republicans.
Jay B.
Bush took a giant bite out of this country and if we still can’t blame him for the smoking rubble he left behind then, really, you are one of the most dishonest people in the world.
LD50
@Jay B.: According to Makewi, the deficit and the unemployment rate in this country was COMPLETELY Obama’s fault starting last January 21st.
debit
@John Cole: Add some vodka and you’ve got yourself a winner.
geg6
Jay B.: Totally OT, but you just reminded me that it was Ross Perot (or at least his company) that created the student administrative system we use to this day at my university (with, of course, many tweaks and upgrades). Perot’s political ideas are completely insane but I gotta give him kudos for being the force behind a system built at least 20 years ago that still works like a charm today. So well, in fact, that one of the largest research universities in the nation has tried and failed to come up with a better one in all these years.
Anne Laurie
@demkat620:
I bow to no one, with the possible exception of Hunter Thompson, in my hatred of Richard Nixon. But Nixon only “broke the country” because a solid minority of American voters, plus a sizeable coterie of criminals and sociopaths, wanted the kind of authoritarian oligarchy-slash-kleptocracy that Nixon represented. The war between good and evil is never as simple as throwing the Ring into the volcano, or killing Darth Vader — it’s more like an evolutionary “war” where there are no permanent winners or losers, only different degrees of reproductive success.
slag
@LD50: Yep. Just like earlier today when I typed “person” instead of “percent”. But Mohammed doesn’t just come out of nowhere. Did Chris Matthews ever accidentally call President Bush “President Toosh”? Even that mistake would make more sense.
jnfr
Tweety’s got Daddy issues.
ericblair
@demkat620: And no, it has not always been this bad. I think Perlstein is correct. Nixon broke the country.
I’d say that it was Ford’s pardon of Nixon that really screwed things up. That really made it OK to politicize criminal activity in the White House. So after that it was just fine to let Nixon, Reagan, and Bush get away with criminal activity, since prosecuting it would give the Village indigestion, and haul Clinton into a fishing expedition and perjury trap because the Village didn’t like him.
Broder delenda est. (I’m sure I didn’t decline that correctly.)
schrodinger's cat
How is his Tunchness after yesterday’s adventure?
slag
Why are people still eating Makewi’s pie? You gotta be at least 150 or so comments in before you get hungry enough to eat that crap.
MikeJ
Masculine makes it delendus, iirc. Probably better latin scholars around here.
Bill H
For the past two days he has been fulminating about how worried he is about the situation in Afghanistan. He’s expressed concern about the Taliban overwhelming the Army of Pakistan, taking control of the country and the world facing the problem of having “crazies with nuclear weapons.” He’s “worried about” that happening.
And he has been dithering about McChrystal’s plan to put small contingents of “our kids” (I assume he means our soldiers and Marines, many of whom are in their forties and fifties) in small outposts out in the boondocks of Afghanistan where the Taliban can pick them off. That would indeed be worrisome if McChrystal were actually planning on doing that. Apparently Matthews can’t read, or he doesn’t know what the term “defending population centers” means.
soonergrunt
@Poopyman: There have been actual killings–that census taker in Kentucky, the Unitartian Church shooting a couple of years ago where the perpetrator said he did it because it was a liberal church, that guy in San Francisco who killed his sister and brother-in-law because they were too liberal and he wanted to raise their children ‘properly,’ the guy who killed the abortion doctor in Kansas a few months back, the guy back east who killed three cops because Obama became the President and he decided that police were coming to take his guns…
They’ve already been killing us, and being pretty straight-forward about their reasons for doing so. I haven’t seen a lot on the news about that.
LD50
Correct me if I’m wrong, but if someone had expressed such concerns in 2003-2008, wouldn’t that have been called ‘not supporting the troops’?
Thadeus Horne
@Makewi: Heh…you make mouth farts….heh.
Sasha
@Jay B.:
True, but they were never this nutbar this early in Clinton’s term. The current crop hit the ground sprinting.
slag
@geg6: Getting my mother to vote for Ross Perot instead of Bush Sr. remains my greatest individual political achievement to-date. I was too young to vote at the time, but Perot’s bar graphs made me happy.
Alan
OT: I mentioned this last night. Frontline latest show, The Warning, is every bit worth watching. Check your local listings to set up your DVR. Or check it out online.
annie
I cannot remember it ever being this bad. The right media is out of control. They are “spitting in the wind” hoping something sticks. Last night driving home from teaching I listened to Mark Levin and not only was I horrified at things he was saying, but that people were listening. Thinly veiled racism, diversiveness, playing to fear, etc. The more Obama succeeds the worse they get. Taking sound bites of administration officials, without providing the whole speech; using code words to scarce the public, etc. It is beyond anything I have ever heard. And it is 24/7. The more Obama stays calm and pursues his agenda, the worse they get. They cannot stand the fact that he remains pro-active instead of reactive. The less reactive he is, the more they go crazy. I came home thinking that we are all doomed. Ultimately, I believe and hope they underestimate him, and, more importantly, the rational side of the American public.
Cat Lady
@soonergrunt:
What is the latest on the census taker killing? I’m media savvy, and I haven’t heard anything more about it. It’s already gone down the memory hole, and my guess is it’s because the investigators now know it was a Beckian (Fox) inspired hit job. Murdoch is Moloch, and everyone who knows it is afraid to say so, because they might have to work for him some day. Murdoch has succeeded at poisoning the media well, and that’s what’s different now from the “good old days” before media conglomeration.
Makewi
@LD50:
Responsibility. Look it up. Obama agreed to make it his responsibility. I imagine its a new concept for you, so take some time, play around with the idea a little.
@Jay B.:
Sure, everything is Bush’s fault. It’s like a mantra and a security blanket. It’s Bush’s fault, for example, that health care reform hasn’t passed yet.
joes527
@soonergrunt:
That guy … it wasn’t the wingnuttiness that made him crazy. It was the crazy that made him crazy.
He was like 300 lbs and decided he could disguise himself with a motorcycle helmet. (“No one will recognize me now!”) He also cited the fact that he wasn’t invited to Christmas as a reason why he killed.
If he hadn’t had conservatism as a cause to kill for, he would have joined PETA, or the sierra club or the boy scouts and decided that THOSE were causes worth killing for.
That was a sad, sad case that had almost nothing to do with conservative/liberal rhetoric and everything to do with untreated mental illness.
LD50
@Makewi:
Ho ho ho. A Republican talking up ‘responsibility’.
I repeat this message from another thread: The politicians whose asses you kissed had 8 years to fuck things up. When you act pissy that they’re not all fixed in a fraction of that time, I can’t tell whether you’re really that stupid or just disingenuous, tho I’m leaning toward the former.
jl
“Responsibility. Look it up. Obama agreed to make it his responsibility. I imagine its a new concept for you, so take some time, play around with the idea a little.”
Hello Mr good faith gesture, let me introduce you to bad faith game playing.
But that is giving the comment too much credit. Taking responsibility for fixing a mess, is not the same thing as causing the mess. The latter is a matter of history, no matter what Obama chooses to say about the situation.
Xenos
@Makewi:
And in the midst of the absolute, total fail, he is kicking your GOP/Glibertarian ass. I am really going to enjoy the next 7.4 years of this. We have a decent chance of ending up with a functioning country with a future ahead of it, too.
LD50
@Makewi:
Seriously, don’t you have anything better to do after work than shoot out endless batches of whiny petulance and then get kicked all around for it? Has your charmless personality made it so you have no other way of getting attention?
Mark S.
@Bill H:
Oh, for Christ’s sake, has he? Pakistan has got a billion and one problems but they are not in any danger of being taken over by the Taliban. This kind of paranoia just makes the situation over there more dangerous.
freelancer
@Alan:
Thanks, I forgot about that. That and Obama’s War, I know what I’m doing tonight.
Mark S.
Can we please not feed the troll? It seems like every single godamned thread has been jacked today.
Beauzeaux
Are Bush defenders still trying to play that asinine get-out-of-jail-free card? Seriously?
Makewi
@LD50:
That’s the only message you have. It’s all Bush’s fault. Probably because you are a pathetic loser.
LD50
@Makewi: I repeat:
Seriously, don’t you have anything better to do after work than shoot out endless batches of whiny petulance and then get kicked all around for it? Has your charmless personality made it so you have no other way of getting attention?
Makewi
@Xenos:
Nah, the won is a one-termer. He can’t get anything done even with a majority in both houses. I imagine the Bush hate is something that you can carry around with you for years. Like herpes.
LD50
@Makewi: First fisting, now herpes. I think I see a pattern here. We probably *are* the closest thing Make Wee has to ‘friends’.
Cat Lady
@Makewi:
Mark this: the one and only time I will give you any attention because you’re an undeserving mindless clueless attention whore and a waste of precious time:
I know you are, but what am I?
/sticks tongue out
chrome agnomen
i voted for bitsy, but, damn, there sure were a lot of cute ones.
Mnemosyne
Next time someone is at the troll store, can you please pick us up a couple of new models? I think the ones we have are broken. They just keep repeating the same thing over and over again like when the Paula Prentiss robot gets broken in The Stepford Wives.
Fwiffo
Vince Foster, man. Vince fucking Foster.
soonergrunt
@joes527: While I’m certain that he’s mentally ill, it is conservatism that pushes the mentally unbalanced to kill. I rechecked my old Boy Scout motto–
A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.
Nothing about killing people in there who wronged you. But there’s all sorts of that shit in today’s conservatism.
Bad Horse's Filly
OT: I just voted for Bitsy. She’s at 3254! Yeah.
Makewi
@soonergrunt:
Then I suggest you hide under your bed because conservatives are now the single biggest ideological group in the country at 40%. Thanks Obama!
Ruckus
I think it was bad but has gotten worse. There has always been a bias one way or another, mostly seeming to go in the direction of who ever is in power. Until what, the last decade or so that is. And until Fox brought utter bullshit into homes every day. 24 hr per day.
30-40 years ago checking facts was a lot harder and slower. We didn’t have access to instant video letting us see for ourselves. No internet to discuss how crappy the stories were. By the time you could check out a story the next 12 had passed you by. You trusted the news because you had no way not to. Newspapers had relevance because they could get the back story. Now that function is done faster by the internet. And instead of one or two sources (your local paper) for backup there are many, although a lot of the internet is just repetitious. But even that has merit, because with blogs we can actually discuss issues, something very rarely (never!) done with TV or newspapers
slag
I know people have a thing against Charlie Rose (personally, I like him because he lets people talk), but C&L’s got some good video of him talking to Andrew Ross Sorkin on Too Big to Fail.
MikeJ
Ever as bad as this now? You be the judge:
Death panel dimes.
dmsilev
@Mnemosyne: Do you think the warranty is still good on this one? It’d be nice to get a refund.
Sadly, though, most trolls aren’t much better in terms of ease of use. Rumor has it that Apple will soon be releasing the iTroll; maybe that’ll be a bit better.
-dms
Zuzu's Petals
@Makewi:
In case it’s slipped your mind.
Mark S.
@Mnemosyne:
@dmsilev:
I’m holding out for the iGass.
fisher cat
@Makewi:
So bitter. You’re blowing your chance to become a classical liberal wrestling diva for Jeff Goldstein.
freelancer
@Makewi:
I tremble before the right-wing’s ability to campaign and win elections:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#33406478
Oh, and Go fuck yourself. You’re the worst thing about this fucking place. Given the choice between your banishment and continuing WordPress issues, I’d happily take outages and a few admin posts.
Demo Woman
@chrome agnomen: But if you look at the ears and you look at the cocked head, she is really the cutest ever.
Makewi
Bush knew about the terrorist attacks and did nothing, or better yet it was actually the federal government under Bush that brought down those towers. They lied us into a war using the same lies as the rest of the government was telling, as well as the previous government. They are shredding the Constitution.
The difference is, you people believe these things, and so they are “reasoned discourse”. It hasn’t gotten worse, the shoe is just on the other foot.
soonergrunt
@Makewi: Wow. You really are fucking dumb, aren’t you? People who bragged six months ago about being conservatives deny they ever believed that shit today, and that’s in Oklahoma.
And one other thing, you stupid oxygen thief–After two tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq as an Infantryman, there’s nothing a couch and keyboard warrior like yourself or most other people like you could possibly show me. At least the Taliban fight for what they believe in. Most conservatives are beneath contempt, seeing as their belief system is primarily geared towards their own immediate greed. With nothing larger to believe in than whatever they petulantly want at that particular moment, they won’t risk anything. Those that tend towards violence tend to be mentally weak and incapable of serial thought, let alone complex planning. In other words, no threat to somebody like me.
Demo Woman
@freelancer: Don’t feed the trolls. It’s healthier.
LD50
@Makewi:
So there were WMD’s in Iraq? Do tell.
arguingwithsignposts
I’m taking this as an open thread to say that Jon Meacham and Joe Scarborough both suck as commenters. Their concern trolling and flat out LIES (in the case of Scarboy) are completely infuriating. I’m so glad I don’t have cable.
geg6
You know what I say to lying, stupid, whiny trolls? Only the single best movie line of all time. I fart in your general direction!
PaulW
Yes.
It’s just we have it on 50 channels 24/7 and 900,000 blogs updated by the hour inflating the public noise to make it seem worse.
Zuzu's Petals
@Makewi:
Yeah, that’s right up there with the numbers from 2004 and earlier. Seems people weren’t all that willing to identify themselves as conservatives during GWB’s second term.
Demo Woman
@arguingwithsignposts: Since I don’t have cable I have no idea what you are talking about. Scarborough has always sucked. Has he done something more egregious?
Left Coast Tom
@John Cole:
I like Orangina sold in France.
I really dislike Orangina sold in California. It lacks any real tang, and tastes sickly sweet in comparison to the European stuff.
Mark S.
@soonergrunt:
OK, soonergrunt is allowed to feed the troll. That was awesome!
arguingwithsignposts
@Demo Woman:
No, just his usual bullshit, but I was letting the Hardball internet stream run today, and just noticed how much FAIL he is in general. Although it did seem that Mika grew a bit of a spine in talking about the WH/FOX kerfuffle.
geg6
Okay, I really hate feeding a troll, but I just gotta ask. What is this obsession you dimwits have with trying to connect truthers with liberals? I mean, ALL of the truthers I know are Ron Paul fans, not a man known for his liberal views. Unless you don’t understand that “libertarian” is not a synonym for “liberal.”. This is a serious question.
Honus
@Poopyman: There have already been actual killings. I’m thining Dr. Tiller, the Tennessee Unitarian Church, the Pittsburgh cop killer, according to the perpetrators themselves these were all inspired by conservative rhetoric.
freelancer
@geg6:
geg, Can I try to answer for the fucktard? Thanks.
Anyone that’s not a conservative is a liberal.
John McCain = Liberal
Ron Paul = Liberal
Olympia Snow = Liberal
etc.
LD50
@geg6: I don’t think the ‘reasoning’ goes any further than ‘Bush was president at the time, so anyone who says he did anything wrong then must be a liberal’.
Chuck
@Makewi:
Now Balloon Juice has two pie lovers.
soonergrunt
@Mark S.: Oh. Errr, thanks.
Mike G
In the 80s Wally George and Morton Downey were buffoonish freak shows at the margin. Their current-day reichtard counterparts Beck, Limbaugh, Coulter et al are mainstream and treated as respectable media kingpins.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Yes.
SA2SQ.
@MikeJ: Holy fuck we’re a stupid ass species.
Seriously, whose idea was it to trust us with fire?
Mike in NC
After I have another beer I’ll need to Makewi.
soonergrunt
@kommrade reproductive vigor: I think that may have been an accident, honestly.
donovong
@soonergrunt: Dude – you cannot see it, but I am giving you the biggest standing ovation in the history of blogdom. For The Win.
Thank you for your service to the country and this blog.
Mike in NC
Per Wikipedia, Joe Pyne died in 1970 from cancer. I vaguely remember that TV freak show. He was the founding father of the wingnut pundits. If he were alive today he’d be a billionaire. Life is so unfair.
General Winfield Stuck
Well, I’m going to watch a movie. Blood Diamonds, for the third time. There is currently a shortage of good movies being made. Must be Obama’s fault..
Mark S.
Can we haz open thread?
kthxbai
freelancer
@Mark S.:
Don’t leave! They’re probably gonna post an open thread here for you in a sec.
HRA
“[T]he “golden age” was an aberration—just like much of post WWII America turned out to be. the problem is that people don’t quite seem to get that 1945-1970 was not the norm. America had its part of the world pretty much to itself as no one was in a position to compete, and so we just kept on doing stupid stuff… the heyday of the press coincided with the heyday of the workingman buying his own house and the lady of the house actually staying at home because she could afford to do so. no more a permanent state of affairs than the position of ice sheets on the poles.”
Of course, it was not the norm. Most households did not even have a TV until the mid to late 50s and most of it was very sparse newscasting and entertainment. They got their news from the local newspapers and sometimes the news was gotten late. Who ever thought the day would come when you could get on a pc or watch cable for instant worldwide news?
arguingwithsignposts
@freelancer:
promises, promises.
Twisted_Colour
Off topic…
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/racerelations/videos.htm
I’m not sure if this vid will work outside of Australia, but if it does – cringe and enjoy.
soonergrunt
@donovong: Thanks!
geg6
soonergrunt FTW. Bravo, sir! You are now doubly my hero.
Mark S.
I can’t understand why Makewi took off. Maybe she had a hot date or something.
Demo Woman
@General Winfield Stuck: My last Netflix movie was The Tunnel. Not sure why I put it on my list, I assume it was a BJ recommendation
anyway it was excellent. A true story about a tunnel built in the early 60’s to east Germany to aid relatives to escape.
Excellent movie and since it was released in2001, it’s probably not Obama’s fault.
trollhattan
Lacking an open thread and given it’s not completely off-topic, ladies and germs, I give you the Libertarian CNN Makeover!
Really. Also.
http://sites.google.com/site/savecnn/
Demo Woman
@Mark S.: Makewi knows she will never be as good as Gass. Gass is a hard troll to measure up to.
soonergrunt
@geg6: Thanks!
@Mark S.: I’m not sure that’s a huge loss.
trollhattan
p.s. The Bitsy count is tirdy-tree hundred, even. That’s good, yes?
Brick Oven Bill
Soonergrunt, we share the same respect for Islam. I, for one, kind of respect those guys, and am not against some sort of theocratic government, so long as it embraces the seven Liberal Arts. Islam will need to be modified. Mohammed was not the Prophet.
I will not bow to Mohammed, as he was a short person, and was most definitely a sexual deviant. I will however Bow to Ted.
To an interesting decade.
General Winfield Stuck
@Demo Woman:
I saw it and it was great. Another just as good was Zelary
mclaren
Well, yeah, because…it’s the same people who were spouting craziness 40 years ago.
Pat Buchanan? Nixon’s speechwriter? The guy who wrote all those red-meat lines for Spiro Agnew to spew out to screaming pro-Vietnam-war crowds?
Same guy.
The same freakin’ people have been giving us a golden shower of mass insanity for at least 40 years. So, yeah, at least, in my lifetime, it’s always been this bad.
Violet
I’ve asked everyone I can think of to vote for Bitsy. I do have a cousin who’s deep into dog rescue, but I don’t have her email address and she lives in an entirely different part of the country from me. I can try to track her down, but I don’t think she’d be very dependable at voting.
asiangrrlMN
OPEN THREAD OPEN THREAD OPEN THREAD!
Tunch! Tunch! Tunch!
Sorry, but I iz bored with old fred. I can haz open 1, pweeze?
Violet, you are really doing a great job with the Betsy voting thing. Kudos to you!
kthxbai.
MikeJ
Would be better if Rufus wasn’t at 3571.
slag
@Mark S., @asiangrrlMN, thirded.
Mike in NC
Yeah, no shit B.O.B. You weren’t expecting the Spanish Inquisition, either, were you? Nitwit.
jl
@asiangrrlMN: Funny, I was thinking just along those lines myself.
Here is a tip: Download your favorite pics of Tunch. When you are beaten down by tragic nonsense and disgusting hilarity, set your desktop to Tunch and drink in the Tunchitude.
My fave is Tunch, Guardian Warrior of the Tomato Patch.
And, I have vote for Bitsy, again? When will this end?
freelancer
@trollhattan:
Jesus,
that person presents a helluva C.V. I can’t imagine why they don’t hire him right now. Libertopia, indeed.
and the piece de resistance of this libertarian Media CEO wet dream, mandating your company be a “helper” to other corporate giants:
chrome agnomen
the most merciful thing in the world, i think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. we live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far./HPL
just sayin’
soonergrunt
@Brick Oven Bill: I’m fairly certain that we have nothing in common.
My respect for the Taliban extends to my respect for them as warriors. Having read the Koran (know your enemy and all that good shit) I know that radical Islam is as divorced from real Islam as Christian conservatism is divorced from Christianity. Indeed, conservative Christians have more in common with radical Islam than with other Christians.
So, no theocracy of any type for me, because the idea is anathema to a free society. The ideas are mutually incompatible.
As far as Ted goes, that is the most overcompensating motherfucker I’ve ever seen. Wracked with guilt over his draft-dodging during the Viet Nam war (whatever one thinks of that mess) he has recreated himself as SuperPatriot. I suspect that he’s about as brave now as he was then. I’ve seen enough overwrought braggards fold when push comes to shove to know that some stereotypes exist for a reason.
No. I’m not sure what you’re on, or what your schtick is, but I suspect that we wouldn’t have much in common at all.
Violet
@MikeJ:
Yeah, no matter what, it always seems like Rufus is 100-200 votes ahead. Arrgh. Bitsy needs another shot of really good publicity. I wish a high profile blogger would give her a shout out.
jeffreyw
Those of you looking for something to watch, I can recommend Heimat, a monster series depicting a German family through the years starting around the first world war. It’s in German with English subtitles. We just finished the first part-six discs from Netflix and await the seven disc part two, also in queue is the three disc third part. It really grows on you.
Brick Oven Bill
Ted is serving a valuable purpose soonergrunt. I’ve got my metal.
Violet
My favorite movie this year is Anvil. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like heavy metal music. It’s a great story. You can’t believe it’s real.
jeffreyw
@jeffreyw:
Here’s the Wiki
asiangrrlMN
@jl: Where to please I can download said pictures of Tunch? I lurve him!
Oh, and this is the last week for Little Bitsy, so vote vote vote!
P.S. PHILLIES WIN! YAY!
MNPundit
@John Cole: I use Sprite Zero instead of diet 7-up. My parents use mineral water.
You did not invent this.
But welcome to the society.
slag
@soonergrunt: Extra credit for that.
I’m now fairly convinced that BOB is at least three people. Whether or not BOB is at least three different individuals or one individual with at least three different personalities remains a question.
freelancer
Okay,
I’m off to watch Frontline’s “Obama’s War” and “The Warning”, and then I think I’ll put in Sunday’s premiere of The Venture Bros. to lower my Blood Pressure.
MikeJ
Install the greasemonkey script here:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/60092
Allows one click access to just the image from a google image search.
Go to http://images.google.com/ and search for
site:https://balloon-juice.com
For each pic of tunch, right click on the word “view” under the pic and select “Save link as…”
asiangrrlMN
@MikeJ: I thank you, Sir.
I had to turn the SafeSearch off in order to get pics of Tunch, Lily, and friends. WTF is up with that?
MikeJ
@asiangrrlMN:
Pics like this probably.
Martin
Full-sugar ginger ale FTW.
Steeplejack
@John Cole:
Throw a shot of vodka in there and you’ll have what my mother used to call her pre-dinner “health drink” back in the ’70s.
TenguPhule
Yes.
The only difference is, you’re on the other side this time.
Wile E. Quixote
@LD50
Well ever since the restraining order that prevents him from going within 1,000 yards of an elementary school, and his addition to the sex-offenders registry, no, he doesn’t.
Steeplejack
@jl:
Which Eisenhower gave on his way out the door, by the way (January 17, 1961).
reid
I’m proud to say I’ve been McLaughlin-free for about two months now. I finally followed through and deleted it from the tivo list after one final rant on their web site. I don’t miss it at all.
You know, I think McLaughlin actually irritated me more than Buchanan.
Mark S.
@freelancer:
What would that cost, a year’s subscription to Reason and a mustache comb?
It’s also where they work and fuck. Geez, I don’t think you’re going to get a bunch of young people watching your network just because you got Charles fricking Krauthammer.
jl
@asiangrrlMN: Just click on the category ‘cat blogging’, which Coles seems to use for both cats and dogs and animals of all sorts, and you will have all the Tunch and Lily pics you want, all lined up.
Pick your favorite classic Tunch portrait.
Then right click on the image and choose ‘save picture as…’ or nearest equivalent, depending on what system you have.
You have to be careful with Tunch pics though. Sometimes I set a Tunch pic as background and my PC screen goes completely white. Probably have to reduce those Tunch pictures a little bit.
General Winfield Stuck
New Libby pic.
soonergrunt
@jl:
I know he’s a little stout, but Dude!
jl
@soonergrunt: I am fair and balanced. I just report, you decide.
Mark S.
How to write your own Megan McCardle post.
soonergrunt
@jl: hahahahahahahahaha!
Steeplejack
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Agree. The atmosphere is a lot noisier now, by many orders of magnitude. And all of the loud noise and bright lights seem to have affected people, reinforcing the illusion that there is something of dire significance going on every minute of every day that requires their attention right now. Except that it’s always something like “Is the president tough enough?” or “Did Michelle give Barack a terrorist fist bump?” But it’s on TV and everyone’s talking about it, so it must be important, right?
In contrast, I remember in the mid-’70s visiting a friend from journalism school who had just gotten called up to the bigs at the Washington Post. She was covering something like suburban Maryland city council meetings, but, still, it was the freakin’ Post. In the golden Woodward-Bernstein era. I was a reporter at a good-sized Southern newspaper. Both of us were pretty politically aware, but we were amazed when we went to a Sunday brunch at one of her coworkers’ homes and everything came to a dead halt for Meet the Press and Face the Nation. Twenty people breathlessly glued to the TV for something that I could remember last seeing only accidentally when someone turned on the TV too early for Sunday NFL football. It felt like I had walked into a Twilight Zone episode.
So what’s my point? Er, maybe that back then hardly anyone was a policy wonk and now everybody is a policy wonk, if only because the info pipeline is so much bigger and you can’t avoid the stream. Back then it was the print media, three TV networks, a few shows on PBS and no Internet. Even if you wanted to be a 24/7 political junkie, there was no way to get enough of a fix. Now you not only get more content than you can possibly handle, you can get it pre-spun for you. Fox News? Freak Republic? GOS? Take your pick.
The old “talking heads” shows were quiet, soft-spoken and wonky–to the point of boring–but with more (real) content than shows now. And they were usually about the actual issues, not all “meta” about how the issue is being framed, are the Democrats losing the “narrative,” is this good news for John McCain, etc., etc.
Shorter me: we have more political discourse now, but it is much cheaper political discourse. On the whole. There are valuable nuggets out there, but you have to dig a lot harder to find them. And the signal-to-noise ratio is extremely low.
Actually, the one thing that I think is a vast improvement today is the better communication and feedback system created by the Internet. Back then, if you saw something that pissed you off you could write a letter to someone, if you were sufficiently exercised, and it would just go down a hole. Now you can get on a blog immediately and find thousands of people to agree or disagree with you, depending on your mood and level of combativeness. And, more and more, you can go to the actual source and comment there. That’s all to the good.
MikeJ
Nobody on tv is a policy wonk these days. Policy wonks actually know about what a policy is and what the effects will be. The people you see on TV can argue about if this is good for X or if Y will be able to stop this, but they can’t tell you anything about the actual policy.
Steeplejack
@debit:
Great minds, etc.: @Steeplejack.
Cain
@jl:
I think though circumstances were different then. This isn’t the same country as it was back for those folks. We live in a 24 hour news period and these news outlet have already shown that they can bend the truth in any which way they can. You can’t just be assertive, Bill Clinton did something like that and he got his ass kicked.
The republicans are trying to replicate the winning strategy that got the republican in power when Clinton was president. They are throwing everything they can and see what sticks. Already you see that the 24 hour news guys love a great controversy and put these dunderheads on all the time. News have become a dumber version of wrestling. So instead, you need to be careful and let the shit they throw stick back on them.
It is paying off! More and more republicans are no longer identifying themselves as Republicans but as independents. The strategy that they are following (blindly at that.. what a bunch of fuckers.. no thought at all) is causing them to self destruct and fox is helping a lot by having all the craziness under one roof. It’s fucking perfect.
What they don’t seem to understand is that even if they do somehow knock Obama off his game, what alternative are they going to represent. They’ve shown that they have no ideas. Look those fucks, waving some shit ass bill during the last presidential address like they have soem fucking plan. They’ve never discussed anything in that piece of paper after the presidential address. The alternative to Democrats are not Republicans, it’s an independent or third party candidate. They haven’t realized that yet. Wait till a credible conservative party movement starts.. then we’ll see.
No. Damn. Credibility.
Steeplejack
@freelancer:
Venture Bros. is back?! How come I didn’t get the memo? Now I’ve go to see if I can find a rerun. And make sure it’s on the DVR schedule.
Steeplejack
@MikeJ:
Read “political groupie” for “policy wonk,” then.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Political junkie. Better.
I still haz no edit.
asiangrrlMN
@jl: Thank you, too. Even easier!
@General Winfield Stuck: So fricking unbelievably cute.
Maus
Not because he’s at all concerned with reality, mind you. I strongly believe Tweety picks his sides with a coin most days. There’s just so little logic to whether he makes sense or not, I’ve given up trying to piece together the patterns, it’s like the bible code or something.
matoko_chan
No….because it is not just the local decline of the neo-confederate WECs, but the global sunset of Big White Meddling Bwana.
Happening in Merry Olde England too.
A black president in the Land of the Free spells doom for teh global anglo-saxon minority.
slightly_peeved
Must disagree there. The ones that tend to be attracted to libertarianism are the ones that don’t get to do either, in my experience.
Original Lee
@soonergrunt: If it’s not too late to add to the applause, I am clapping until my arms fall off (in a good way, not like a Z or anything like that). Good on you!
Makewi
@soonergrunt:
Poor baby. Did the tuff widdle grunt hear something he didn’t wike? Blow it out your ass tough guy.
Zuzu's Petals
There really are people in this world who are incapable of embarrassment.