I love stuff like this, from TalkingPointsMemo:
Today in fun word choice, from Politico: “Few political observers or elected officials doubt that an energized GOP has a headwind at its back.”
This from a Kaplan political chat cracked me up too:
Silver Spring, Md.: I wonder if you could state the evidence for your premise of a “Republican resurgence”. I see a Virginia that did what it’s done since 1977 (vote against the party in the White House) in the presence of an epically bad Democratic candidate… a governor in New Jersey who was wildly unpopular since even before the “2008 debacle” (your baseline)… and – oh yes – a district in NY that went Democratic for the first time since the White House has featured a bath tub. With two unsurprising (from the vantage point of a year ago) gubernatorial results and one historical flip toward the Dems in NY, isn’t it as valid to call last Tuesday a further shift leftward?
Dan Balz: I don’t think I used the word “resurgence” in the piece that ran on Sunday.
The chat itself had been titled “The Republican Resurgence.”
Update. Because I’m a nice person, I emailed the Politico reporter who made the headwind/tailwind mistake to tell him to fix it. But I got this reply: “I will be out of the office on Tuesday, November 10.” So this should be up there most of the day.
cleek
Balz!
Trinity
The Villagers really are a bunch of fucking idiots.
Ron Beasley
From Chris Edelson:
The corporate media is like the Republicans – say it often enough and it will become reality.
MattF
The stupid… AAAAA… it hurts.
Davis X. Machina
They have their story, and they’re sticking to it.
On the tombstone of the Republic will be the epitaph “Killed By A Story Arc”.
Emma
Sometimes I wonder if in the depths of night those dried up raisins they call a conscience come calling… never mind. It’s the modern American press.
geg6
That’s today’s GOP. Bravely fighting the winds by farting into them.
Egilsson
Hah, I submitted this same observation to Balz during the chat, but it wasn’t picked.
I even used “Rochester, NY” as a handle as an homage to DougJ.
Maybe that’s why it wasn’t picked….
geg6
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Too fucking much.
dmsilev
In fairness to Balz, he wasn’t too bad for most of that chat. Plenty of acknowledgments of the real and significant problems faced by the GOP both in 2010 and 2012, the challenges posed by the rise of the teabaggers, etc.
-dms
Hunter Gathers
If Dan Balz gets paid more than 7 bucks an hour I’m going to have to say that this whole ‘meritocracy’ game is fixed.
Scott H
link fail for TPM
Derelict
So, Balz’s reasoning is that, despite the title of the chat, and despite all the articles run about the Republican Resurgence, and despite the overall context of both the question and the chat, the REALITY is that Balz didn’t personally use the term in one article over the weekend. Thus, reader’s point is completely moot and not worth noticing.
Marvelous!
geg6
@Scott H:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/11/i_think_the_word_is_tailwind.php?ref=fpblg
Try that.
Scott H
@geg6: Thanks G.
Aviation-wise, it’s better to have a headwind when you’re trying to take off (or land). Tailwinds only help if you’re cruising.
Brick Oven Bill
Lori is very attractive for a girl remaining in New York, and is emblematic of what is happening nationally. Lori says:
“In participating, organizing and working together as Americans we WILL restore our great nation and our Constitution. Joining this group provides you an opportunity to get to work and “do something” while realizing the true sense of “belonging” to a patriotic community. This group is based on sound values and principles.”
Most of the Teabaggers with whom I Teabag had never attended a political event. So this is not so much a Republican resurgence, as it is a political resurgence among people who have better things to do than bitch.
You might want to get in on this DougJ. The Rochester group is having a Teabag-dinner this weekend, and I bet the food is good. Look them up at meetup.com. You will need to type in your zip code and tell them you are seeking a Glenn Beck group.
Then you can have a nice dinner.
Leelee for Obama
The headwind-tailwind paradox is as cogent an explanation for the condition of the present GOP as anything else, except for maybe a gypsy curse.
As much fun as it is to point and mock, it’s sad that the minority wouldn’t do what is right for their country,(exception: Cao-LA) if a member of their own family was at risk. Loyal opposition is the job of the minority. Loyal is the operative adjective. They just have it modifying the wrong noun.
Buffalopundit
I think what he really meant was that …*ahem*….
This is good for the Republicans.
Violet
I had the TV on this morning while preparing breakfast and had the grand misfortune of hearing Carrie Prejean “interviewed” by Meredith Vieira. Good lord, that walking Barbie has been prepped for TV interviews so thoroughly it sounded like she’d been implanted with a talking point microchip.
She declared she’d been “Palinized” and when Meredith V. asked her what she meant by that she went on a rant about how the “liberal media” had unfairly attacked Sarah Palin. And then started in on how, “If Sean Hannity said the things about Michelle Obama that Keith Olbermann said about Sarah Palin he wouldn’t be on TV” Uh, when did Michelle Obama run for Vice President? And Michelle has been criticized in all sorts of ways – just as badly as Sarah Palin. I guess that’s not part of the talking points.
She also told Meredith Vieira she (Meredith) wasn’t perfect. Way to butter up your interviewer, Carrie.
She’s got that outrage tone down cold. No wonder she’s trying to make a living giving speeches to the teabag crowd. Hot girl who makes sex tapes talks about how gay people shouldn’t get married. That’s the perfect woman for that crowd.
She does need to work on her English, though. She mentioned that Donald Trump “meeted” the pageant contestants. Meeted? Guess they didn’t program her microchip for verb tenses.
Col. Klink
The Steelers won – that’s gotta be good news for Republicans. Or at least bad news for Obama. Also.
Chad N Freude
@Ron Beasley:
This is what used to be called “The Big Lie”. You know who invented it? [drum roll] Hitler! (Not a joke. Click the link.)
Peter J
Heads up their asses more likely.
I’m guessing the teabag movement is trying to give the GOP a colonoscopy, an enema or something.
Chad N Freude
@Violet:
No, no. You misunderstand. Trump meted out the contestants to the press, the audience, the TV interviews, etc.
Karen S.
My dad, who I suppose meant well, got me a subscription to Newsweek, which unveiled its all new self earlier this year. One story in this week’s issue carried the headline “What Coattails?” an analysis of last week’s elections. Needless to say, the phrase “Republican revival” features prominently. (It was written by some think tank scribe whose name escapes me now.) It’s all so silly. I used to be a journalist and I loathe most journalists now.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Brick Oven Bill:
FTW, though I doubt it’s what you were hoping for.
Senyordave
She declared she’d been “Palinized” and when Meredith V. asked her what she meant by that she went on a rant about how the “liberal media” had unfairly attacked Sarah Palin.
Those same brutal, elitist media types must also be responsible for the sex tape that Carrie Prejean has now admitted that she made. I guess they put voices in her head to make her do it.
So the new right wing is okay with teen pregnancy (Palin), sex tapes (Prejean), multiple marriages (Limbaugh), even prostitution (Senator Diapers).
Truly the party of values!
Karen S.
@ Violet
No, she doesn’t. I think the people who lionize Palin and now Prejean adore the fact that they are not well spoken. I don’t think P&P would get the same degree of adulation if they started sounding like the articulate biracial communist usurper who now occupies the White House.
Violet
@Senyordave:
She said she was 17, made it for a boyfriend and it was supposed to stay private. Then she refused to discuss it anymore because “I promised that I wouldn’t discuss what happened in mediation and even if I’m the only one keeping that promise, that’s what I’ll do.”
Brachiator
These people lie and dissemble, and then even more boldly lie and dissemble when caught out.
And Beltway pundits are complicit in this, particularly when they can pretend that they are defending the freedom of the press.
I was listening to Eric Boehlert on Stephanie Miller’s talk radio show noting how Village pundits were rallying to Fox News defense in the face of the Obama Administration’s supposed attack on that faux news organization. The Village were faithfully reporting that Fox News ratings had surged in the face of the White House criticism.
Turns out the numbers were cooked.
A nod is as good as a wink to blind horse.
Maybe there was a brief shining moment in the media when reporters would check facts and proceed with a degree of skepticism. Now they regurgitate press releases and willingly participate in progaganda campaigns.
It’s a resurgence of teh stoopid.
Derelict
@Karen S.:
This is, sadly, quite true. For far too many people, an inability to correctly use English grammar and syntax is perceived as a sign of authenticity. People who actually can speak properly are seen as being overeducated elitists.
Oddly, the vast bulk of the people who hold these views also demand that English be declared the official language of the U.S.
JHF
The level of writing almost everywhere has deteriorated horribly. I looked at an LA Times article the other day that was all but unreadable. Yes, I blame the “education” system, as my very strong impression from the language used in the article indicated a young person. Years ago I used to joke that I would be a scribe after the fall of civilization, because nobody coming along would be able to read or write.
On the other hand, I visited a blog by a 25-year-old woman the other day, and she writes scary-good, way better than I do. Perhaps she is a mutant, or perhaps the LA Times reporter was. You tell me.
rachel
“A headwind at its back.”
Does this mean the Repblicans as bass-ackwards or in a flat spin?
Leelee for Obama
@Derelict: What do you know, another paradox. If they put enough of them together, the planet will be sucked into a black hole. That’ll show us.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Republicans are pissing in the wind? Do tell…
If this is a Republican resurgence then I bet the few remaining sane Republicans are closing the storm shutters and nailing or tying everything down so it doesn’t get blown away by the whirlwind of stupid they are reaping.
Waynski
Was there a Cavuto Mark in the title of the chat?
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Oh, and it that Baghdad Balz opining? Bob’s his uncle.
jenniebee
@Violet:
Jeebus, at least Anita Bryant kept her personal life more or less in order before she went on her Civil-Rights-are-a-Privilege tour.
Flipping through BoB’s link to the Rochester 9/12ers, I discover that one of its members is a guy I used to date. Le sigh.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
“Oh, and is that…”
My bongwater for an edit function. ;)
Karen S.
@JHF (#31)
A journalism professor once told me that reporters, by and large, are not good writers. I’d agree with that, and once upon a time, reporters could rely on really good copy editors to catch their syntactical and grammatical errors. But now when newspapers cut staff, it’s not just reporters who get the ax, the copy desk is decimated or disappeared outright. Thus, a Chicago Tribune reporter can write (as one did a few years ago) of the “breeches” someone committed and make me giggle like the little schoolgirl I used to be and lament the fact that copy editors are an endangered species.
Colette
Raise the mizzen! The GOP is ready to sail athwart a following tide!
Or something.
JMY
Before the 2007, I could have cared less about politics, mostly because of my high school years and I was in my third year of college by 07. I knew about Obama because I was from Chicago, went to Trinity United Church of Christ, went to a high school in Hyde Park where he lived (Interesting enough, his Republican opponent before Alan Keyes – Jack Ryan – was my high school English teacher) and he actually visited my school. It wasn’t until 2007 that I really became interested in politics when Obama declared a run for presidency. I didn’t really know how crazy the GOP and conservatives were because I didn’t watch MSNBC, FOX, or CNN, I didn’t know about Media Matters, or many other liberal blogs. Now everyday I SMH at all the nonsense and stupidity that goes on in this country particularly conservatives, the Christian-Right, evangelicals, Republicans, the right-wing lunatic fringe. I wish I could go back to the time where my mind and eyes didn’t not have to experience such hatred and ignorance, but I’m too caught up in it that I can’t.
So in other words…I blame Obama. lol.
Brachiator
@JHF:
Aside from the massive firings of copy editors and experienced reporters, there is also the Palinization effect, for want of a better term. Some people actively reject book learning, and are proud to be barely literate. Even TV shows, written by people who should know better, constantly push the idea that the good old guy Everyman ain’t no stuck up edjumacated egghead (The World According to Jim is the best worst example of this).
As long as the InterTubes has been around, there have always been people who insist that little things like spelling and grammar are irrelevant and you should just understand what they are trying to say anyway and who are you to correct them and just STFU this is America and their opinion is just as valid as anyone else’s. Also, too.
Hah! We might be closer to these days than you think.
IndieTarheel
“Idiocracy” is becoming reality.
__
oklahomo
@geg6:
Don’t forget Bachman and her merry teabaggers running around the place lighting their farts.
Notorious P.A.T.
Accountability? That’s for other people.
jcricket
So if Democrats manage to pull out some wins in 2010 and retain the Presidency, expand control of the Senate and House in the 2012 elections – it’ll be really good news for the Republicans
Right?
Is journalism going to be like gay marriage? We just have to wait for all the old Villagers/pundits to die off before we get anything resembling actual middle-of-the-road “objective” reporting? By then it’ll all be blogs anyway.
Bummer for all the boring local stories few bloggers touch, but otherwise, what am I missing?
Northern Observer
The best part of the headwind at their back mistake is that it means the Republicans are bravely marching forward butt first into the future.
A more apt metaphore I could not have imagined.
Thank you Politico.
And thank you TPM for bringing this gem to our attention.
The Republicans always have a headwind at their back! LOL
Notorious P.A.T.
Someone should link to Carrie Prejean’s sex tape, so we know for certain it exists. I mean, that’s the responsible thing to do.
jcricket
BTW – Democrats obviously suck. We’re all “Creigh Deeds” (for lack of a better metaphor. I think the only thing keeping us competitive is the few that get it, pressure from liberal interest groups pushed by the blogs, and the fact that Republicans can’t run fast enough into the arms of the crazification factor.
Phew :-)
Keith G
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Yeah, and 20 min later I’m still laughing.
Bubblegum Tate
@Karen S.:
This hear copy edittor say’s “dam rite!”
(Yes, I made all those mistakes on purpose. You know, because I’m a copy editor. Ha ha! Ha?)
Bill Rutherford, Princeton Admissions
@jenniebee
“Flipping through BoB’s link to the Rochester 9/12ers, I discover that one of its members is a guy I used to date. Le sigh.”
Wait, a male teabagger that’s been on a date?
Mike in NC
Yeah, Balz is just taking a page from Bush stooges like Scooty Libby and Alberto Gozales, who couldn’t testify before Congress without saying “I don’t recall” a couple dozen times. He’s probably been shopping his resume at Faux for months now.
Sad_Dem
I thought up a joke all by myself.
Q: How does Carrie Prejean wave hello?
A: I dunno. How?
Q: *Makes “button rub” hand motion.*
maya
@oklahomo:
Actually, igniting flamers is the correct thing to do to combat methane gas related warming. That and staying out of Metsican restaurants. Steele should make those planks in the RNC platform. Seems sooo natural.
Brachiator
@Notorious P.A.T.:
If she indeed made the tape when she was 17, it ain’t never going to see the light of day on any legitimate or even semi-legitimate web site. And if she did make it for a boyfriend, then he is a piece of scum for making available to anyone.
And if the people who obtained the tape paid for it, then they are extra scummy. They know that they can never show any part of it, but can play up its salaciousness.
I don’t agree with anything that Prejean said or represents, but if she was in fact underage when she made the tape, no one should be kicking her over this.
By the by, the claim has been made that pageant contestants have to affirm that they have not done any nude video or photography, and it was this that forced Prejean to drop her lawsuits against various people, but it is still crappy that something that people are dumping on her over this.
charlequin
Ugh, “we surround Rochester.” Accurate (90% of the people on that list live in the second-ring suburbs and are happy to leech the life out of the city) yet depressing.
OriGuy
@Notorious P.A.T.: If she really was 17 when she made it, you don’t want to have a link to it on your site. Some zealous prosecutor could want to make a name for himself.
asiangrrlMN
I was snickering along. Then I read this:
And I broke out into guffaws. Why? I thought Cole had written this post. Then I realized it was DougJ., and it wasn’t as funny.
Yes. Using proper English is elitist, doncha know.
@Derelict: This is what you said:
Yes, well, because, shut up, that’s why! WOLVERINES!
Donald G
@Notorious P.A.T.:
Earlier, Violet wrote:
If she was in fact, seventeen years old when the tape was made, then the sex-tape is child pornography, legally speaking. It would not be a good idea for anyone to link to it or download it or view it.
asiangrrlMN
@Brachiator: The only reason I give a damn is the hypocrisy thing again. Don’t condemn other people or promote bigoted laws that discriminate against other people when you, yourself, are not the paragon of virtue you claim. Seriously. It’s not that hard. Do whatever the fuck you want (as long as it’s consensual, legal, yadda yadda) and leave the rest of us the fuck alone.
I agree it should not see the light of day. However, she’s the idiot who sued the pageant, knowing full well she had made the tape and then signed the pledge or whatever the stupid pageant calls it that she hadn’t done any such thing. Brains, this one has not.
Ed Drone
@Sad_Dem:
Well, I thought as how anyone shaking hands with Carrie Prejean had better wash their hand afterward — after all, we DO know where that hand has been!
Ed
pika
Headwind. Giggedy. Quagmire as Next-Top-Pundit.
Brachiator
@asiangrrlMN:
I give wide latitude to what people do as teens, and see no need to bring a heavy artillery barrage about hypocrisy or even the supposed promotion of bigotry.
It’s not about whether the tapes should see the light of day. They ain’t never gonna see the light of day on any web site that wants to stay in business. If she in fact made the tapes when she was 17, the people holding onto and talking about this material might be dealing with child porn, depending on the jurisdiction.
Idiot she may be. She was an idiot to believe in a former boyfriend who may have betrayed her over a private moment to make a buck. This is a sad warning lessons to a lot of teens who are too free with a web cam or a cell phone cam, who have no idea that their adult lives might be sandbagged by immature errors of judgement.
This is a little different from people like Madonna or others who did nude work for commercial photographers who “promised” that the more explicit stuff would not see the light of day, only to see the photographers seek to cash in when these people later become famous.
georgia pig
@Violet:
In Carrie Prejean’s country, the Vice President is the President’s wife.
rs
@Brachiator:@Ron Beasley: It’s reasonable to attribute any spike in Fox ratings to curious viewers like myself who wander over to the asylum to watch Beck throw feces. Somewhat similarly, I would bet that the biggest reason for Democratic negatives are people like myself who are disgusted with their subservience to their corporate masters. The same people who report and explain polls and ratings are generally the same people who have been wrong about everything else.@Brick Oven Bill: Take him up on the invitation. Thom Hartmann suggested something interesting on his show yesterday- progressives should infiltrate and take over the Tea Parties with genuine populism. Show up with signs slamming banks, NAFTA, billionaires, corporations who off-shore their workforces, etc. The knuckleheads do share our hostility for the real bad guys, they’re just easily distracted by shiny objects ( and dark faces).
Brachiator
@rs:
The point is that there ain’t no spike in Fox ratings. It is not reasonable to attribute any rationale to a lie.
But I take your point that “the same people who report and explain polls and ratings are generally the same people who have been wrong about everything else.” But, like quisling Democrats, they have to please their corporate masters.
Peter J
Didn’t she make the same excuse for some of the topless photos? Can’t remember if photos taken when she was 18 or older turned up or if it turned out that she was lying about only being 17, but I recall it being either.
Only one thing I want to know though. On the video, did she at any time take God’s name in vain?
thomas
Villager wizdumb – it hurts
Brachiator
@Peter J:
The topless photos were taken by a professional photographer at a commercial shoot. I’m not sure of her age here or whether she lied about her age. But it is common for photographers to crop photos that are revealing, and even to do nude studies. Honorable photographers won’t seek to exploit the unused shots. I also don’t know what understanding that Prejean had about how these photos would be used. However, here she was actively pursuing he modeling career.
The stuff with the boyfriend are another matter entirely.
And as I noted, some of this is not a matter of an excuse, but a matter of law (with respect to anyone seeking to display or exploit videos that she made if underage).
DougJ
And I broke out into guffaws. Why? I thought Cole had written this post. Then I realized it was DougJ., and it wasn’t as funny.
Why was it less funny when I did it? I’m a more/less believable nice person?
henqiguai
@Brachiator (#64):
And yet, there are teenagers serving life in prison, and/or on death row. At seventeen, laws notwithstanding, most teenagers are blithely exercising many of the rights of adulthood; and it is only an artifact of our culture and laws which define that age group as “childhood”.
In a protected class that seventeen year old is, but the presence of the tape puts her in violation of the contract. And, as asiangrrlMN said, it’s the hypocrisy thing.