Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

When I was faster i was always behind.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Fight them, without becoming them!

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

If you’re gonna whine, it’s time to resign!

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

In after Baud. Damn.

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This Never Gets Old

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Any chance anyone in the media will call her out on this bullshit:

Former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin on Monday accused President Barack Obama of not acknowledging the sacrifices made by the men and women in the U.S. military.

“There’s been a lack of acknowledgment by our president in understanding what it is that the American military provides in terms of, obviously, the safety, the security of our country,” Palin said during an interview with Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren. “I want him to acknowledge the sacrifices that these individual men and women — our sons, our daughters, our moms, our dads, our brothers and sisters — are providing this country to keep us safe.”

“They’re making sacrifices,” said Palin, who visited the Army base at Fort Bragg on Monday as part of her ongoing book tour. “They’re putting so much on hold right now so that the homeland can be safe and they can fight for democratic ideals around our world. I want to see more acknowledgment and more respect given to them.”

What a detestable human being. And seriously, how about a big FU to John McCain?

I’m seriously so sick and tired of these people. Visit the troops and you are accused of using them as a photo op. Spend one day not genuflecting to the troops, you are accused of ignoring them. I seriously hate wingnuts.

And again, where is the media? When did it become acceptable for this kind of rhetoric to be tossed around?

*** Update ***

Nevermind, the beltway class is really busy atm:

onthejob

Reader Interactions

101Comments

  3. 3.

    Zifnab

    Any chance anyone in the media will call her out on this bullshit:

    Let’s get this screeching harpy up wall-to-wall. Nothing like another village scold telling us all to be more grateful to troops or fetuses or persecuted Christians or whatever the passion du jour is.

    She’s not winning any hearts and minds with this endless bullshit. We’ve all seen her dog and pony show. So let her suck all the oxygen out of the room for the next Gingrich-style hack.

  5. 5.

    licensed to kill time

    I guess she couldn’t be bothered to listen to his address at the Ft. Hood memorial. (Ha! SiubhanDuinne, can I channel the Palienator or what?!)

    You should hear my verbal impression.

  7. 7.

    tidge

    this WILL come back to bite her in the ass. She is about to run,full speed, into a brick wall . do you notice she has the maturity of a prepubescent girl??

  9. 9.

    GregB

    The fact that people are lining up around blocks to listen and see this Wasilla Wingnut and Glenn Beck is making me sick to my stomach.

    -G

  11. 11.

    Kennedy

    Don’t forget that Obama is a dithering asshole for meeting nine (nine!) times with his war council before committing additional troops to Afghanistan. His careful restraint clearly shows no deference or acknowledgment of their sacrifice or service.

    If he really appreciated the conditions under which our troops labor, he would recklessly send them into endless conflicts after consulting a Magic 8 Ball like a real ‘murican.

  12. 12.

    calipygian

    The sooner Levi Johnston releases that sex tape of him, Sarah and an underaged moose, the sooner that this boil on the body politick will be lanced.

    Help me Obi Wan Kenobi. You are my only hope.

  13. 13.

    demkat620

    Anybody catch Kate Obenshain’s act on Hardball just now?
    It was great, Obama was the most evil man who ever lived. They just make their own reality.

  14. 14.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    When did it become acceptable for this kind of rhetoric to be tossed around?

    The day a Democrat thinks about running for president, and ends on the day a Republican becomes president.

  15. 15.

    Matt L.A.

    …after another installment of Bart’s People:

    Lisa: Hmm, thank you Bart, for yet another touching “Bart’s People”. Now, turning to…
    Bart: I just think our veterans deserve a little recognition.
    Lisa: That’s what Veteran’s Day is for, Bart.
    Bart: But is that really enough to honor our brave soldiers?
    Lisa: Eh, heh, heh…they also have Memorial Day.
    Bart: Oh, Lisa, maybe you’re right, maybe you’re wrong! The important thing is, veterans deserve a day to honor them!
    Lisa: [through clenched teeth] They have two!
    Bart: Well maybe they should have three. I’m Bart Simpson.

    …and scene.

  18. 18.

    kay

    The grifter was out of the news for twenty minutes, so she had to spout something nonsensical and “controversial”.

    I like how Obama treats the military, actually. He treats them like adults.

    If we’re silencing conservatives, why do we hear from them so goddamn much? Not a day goes by where we don’t hear the random opinions and impressions of the Grifter or the Cheney clan.

    They never, ever shut up. Never an unexpressed thought or impression, no matter how inane or mean-spirited. That would require some self control, and discretion.

    Did she say anything mean about her grandchild’s father? Wouldn’t want her censored, or, God forbid, to self-censor.

  19. 19.

    Senyordave

    Partial copy of post I made on last topic:

    And Palin? Call out that dumbass, mention her by name, challenge her to a fucking debate. That piece of garbage (let’s face it, if she were a male pol she would be subjected to vitriol of an amazing level, so I’ve decided to raise the level myself) did single-handedly help to poison the well on healthcare.

    I want to see some leading Democrat call her out on this. Make this an issue, force her to defend herself.

  20. 20.

    The Bearded Blogger

    The juxtaposition of “starbursts” and “assholes” in the tags produced some interesting imagery in my mind…

    The thing is, Obama is to be criticized for anything… that the criticisms are silly or assholish just means that they haven´t found anything legitimate or serious to criticize (which is a shame, the US could use an opposition party)…

    Obama has only been in office one year, and they’re already breaking out the silly. By 2012 he will be criticized for one or more of the following:

    a) being too “tall”
    b) being a warmonger
    c) not starting any wars
    d) not taking enough vacations (in a ranch)
    e) taking too much vacations
    f) breaking wind, while in the bathroom

  22. 22.

    mistersnrub

    But when Obama salutes the returning deceased, he is not respecting them, it’s all for show quoth the wingnuts.

    I am eagerly awaiting someone to pull a Joseph “Have you no sense of decency” Welch moment on this repulsive shit-for-brains.

  23. 23.

    Da Bomb

    She is just a completely despicable human being. She has the brain the size of a pea and no morals. She got elected as governor of one of the 50 states(the biggest welfare state there is) and is now seen as some sort of coherent national political figure. She has the IQ of a paper clip and the common sense of Kelly Bundy.

    I cannot stand that this woman makes a mockery of education and hard work! And the gall she has to just perpetually lie.

    I just don’t understand how people can honestly take her seriously.

  25. 25.

    JK

    Palin’s asshole father also took a cheap shot at Obama

    Palin’s father, who greeted visitors as his daughter signed copies of the book, said in an interview that Obama’s handling of the military was “scary.” “I see a decline in our might,” Chuck Heath said. “People used to be afraid of us and respect us, (but) they’re not afraid of us and don’t respect us anymore.”

    h/t http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/23/palin-fort-bragg-book-sig_n_367441.html

    Palin is not a detestable human being, she’s a detestable subhuman creature who she could crawl back to the primordial ooze from which she emanated.

  26. 26.

    freelancer

    http://washingtonindependent.com/67874/poll-53-percent-would-definitely-not-vote-for-sarah-palin

    The new Washington Post-ABC News poll sneaks a little bit of reality into the maelstrom of Sarah Palin news. Fifty-three percent of Americans would “definitely not” vote for Palin in a hypothetical 2012 presidential race. For comparison, when the Post asked this question about then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) in 2006, only 42 percent said they’d definitely vote against her. Palin’s solid support — those who’d “definitely vote for” her — is 9 percent, about half of Clinton’s in 2006.

    and TNC:

    http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/11/and_now_a_word_from_the_base.php

    Just the sheer volume of responses confirm my suspicions, the liberals are scared to death of Sara Palin because she stands for freedom, honesty, decency and motherhood. Not afraid to speak her mind and not afraid to confront critics. Her message rings true to much of America, remember Obama did not win in a landslide. Quote polls all you want in your rants. Will she run for President? Are her qualifications less than a community organizer? If she runs, she will win.

    …
    This puts me in the mind of the early 90s when Negroes were running around parroting that Menace II Society line, I’m white America’s worst nightmare: Young, black and just don’t give a fuck. I was kid, but even then I used to think, No you’re not. You’re your momma’s worse nightmare. You’re your next-door neighbors worse nightmare. White people got expensive jails and cheap graves for niggers like you.
    […]
    Likewise, Palin’s base confuses “liberal fear” with some kind of populist power, by ignoring the fact that a lot of people who want nothing to do with us pinkos, are afraid of Palin too.
    …
    People misunderstand fear. It doesn’t always cause your foes to cower in a corner. Sometimes it causes them to beat the crap out of you with a bag of rusty nails.

    —————–

    (crosses fingers, burns offering to blockquote gods.)

  29. 29.

    General Winfield Stuck

    @calipygian:

    I want to form a Balloon Juice Kitteh Force to hunt down the plug to the wingnuttosphere and pull that fucker with extreme prejudice.

  31. 31.

    Ash

    @JK: The nut falls right next to the tree, I see. Yeah, people were afraid of us, sure. They also hated our fucking guts and hoped we’d all screw ourselves. I guess that’s the the wingnut definition of “respect” though these days.

  33. 33.

    kay

    @JK:

    He’s confused.
    Many people are afraid of his daughter, particularly the people she lied about and smeared in that book, and who have to work for a living, but none of them respect her.
    The two things are not the same.

  34. 34.

    The Bearded Blogger

    @JK: So according to Sarah’s father, if the world isn’t afraid of the US something is wrong?

    Extrapolate this to interpersonal relations… this guy thinks if people around you don’t fear you, it’s scary. Might explain a bit about Sarah’s upbringing.

    At what point can a country be diagnosed with a mental disease?

  40. 40.

    calipygian

    @kay:

    I fervently hope she’s the GOP nominee. Complete sincerity. It’s my dream come true.

    It will never happen in a million years. Even Republicans can read polls.

    Now, I have ZERO doubt that she will run as a “Conservative” though….ESPECIALLY if the GOP does the half way sane thing and nominates Mittens.

  41. 41.

    Ash

    Yes, I’m sure if Kalpen Modi wasn’t already working for the White House he would totes be invited cause we all love the resident Indian stoner dude.

    Kill me now. Please, just do it.

  42. 42.

    Tonal Crow

    @General Winfield Stuck:

    I want to form a Balloon Juice Kitteh Force to hunt down the plug to the wingnuttosphere and pull that fucker with extreme prejudice.

    You can’t pull the plug, but you *can* overload it into failure by raising the level of crazy. Let’s get out there into the ‘sphere and troll like we’ve never trolled before. The more furious the boil, the sooner will come the day that wingnuts will lose enough credibility to become a permanent (small) minority in all but the most backward of isolated rural areas.

  43. 43.

    Mnemosyne

    @kay:

    Many people are afraid of his daughter, particularly the people she lied about and smeared in that book, and who have to work for a living, but none of them respect her. The two things are not the same.

    That’s part of the problem for conservatives, though: for them fear=respect. They just can’t comprehend that they’re not synonyms. They have no way to process the idea that you can fear someone but have no respect for them.

    These are the same people who still think that beating your children with a belt is the best way to get them to respect you. After all, if they cringe every time you walk into the room, that proves they respect you, right?

  44. 44.

    The Bearded Blogger

    The story of the US, in Palin-dromes:

    2000 Rise to vote, sir.
    2003 No, sir, away! A papaya war is on!
    2008 Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?
    2009 No, devil lived on.
    2009 Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas
    2009 Was it a rat I saw?

  45. 45.

    SpotWeld

    See, if Obama spend a large amount of time talking about the troops he would have been “politicizing the dead solidiers”, if he keeps it low key he’s “now talking about the sacrfieses”

    Bush simply blacked out the media entirely and called anyone who questioned him a traitor.. certainly that was a much better tatic (for him.. the troops.. not so much.)

  46. 46.

    General Winfield Stuck

    @Tonal Crow:

    Let’s get out there into the ‘sphere and troll like we’ve never trolled before.

    Okay. But we’re gonna need wetsuits, a lot of wetsuits.

  48. 48.

    Chuck Butcher

    @Da Bomb:

    I just don’t understand how people can honestly take her seriously.

    Sure you do, or could easily if you wanted to. I sure can’t blame anyone for not wanting to, the picture is depressing in some respects. But…

    These folks who like her are going to exist whether there is Palin or not. If not, they’ll find someone just like her, or more dangerously, just like her with just enough intellect to not step in the shit at every turn. Palin is a gift to the left, try real hard to not wish her disappearance.

    I think she is stupid, simplistic, and inflamatory. So what? She puts it right out there for people to see and to be very afraid of, who cares what the people who’d rather see you die than vote for you think about the color of the sky – or anything else? The only real worry is that some winger will get wound up enough to do something violent and disasterous. That doesn’t require a Sarah.

  49. 49.

    Mike in NC

    FU to John McCain?

    Every day of the week and twice on Sunday, when he pollutes the TV airwaves at the behest of the Village Idiots. On a happier note, SC’s favorite son Mark Sanford has been charged with 37 counts of ethics violations.

  50. 50.

    Brachiator

    When did it become acceptable for this kind of rhetoric to be tossed around?

    This is standard operating procedure for the GOP Slime machine, and Sarah Palin apparently now has it down pat. She has learned well from her puppetmasters.

    This reminds me of some of the sleaze that Rudy G used to toss around while cloaking himself with the mantle of 911.

    Whoever wrote this stuff for her is good. She says, “I want him to acknowledge the sacrifices…” as though she were the White Shadow President of the United States. And with the president’s speech about possible troop deployments in Afghanistan coming up.

  52. 52.

    Zifnab

    @calipygian:

    It will never happen in a million years. Even Republicans can read polls.

    The public is strongly against health care reform.
    Americans are demanding that we stay the course in Iraq and Afghanistan.
    John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are very popular legislatures.
    Also.

  54. 54.

    Darcy

    I’m not linking, but Audible has her book, read by the author. One guess as to which length. Also, kill me now.

  55. 55.

    calipygian

    @Zifnab:

    The public is strongly against health care reform.
    Americans are demanding that we stay the course in Iraq and Afghanistan.
    John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are very popular legislatures.
    Also.

    Correction – they can correctly read polls when it is in their interests to do so.

    Better?

  56. 56.

    Fern

    They’re putting so much on hold right now so that the homeland can be safe and they can fight for democratic ideals around our world.

    No, Sarah, it’s not your world, or America’s world.

  57. 57.

    D-Chance.

    @freelancer:

    From that comment thread:

    Me, I want her to be the only voice of the Republican Party. I want them to be so dumb they can’t see what a disaster she is. Give her total control of the whole GOP system.

    She will run them into the ground so fast they’ll have whiplash for the next century wondering where they went wrong.

    This sounds about right from the Liberal perspective. A generation ago, Republicans were successful in painting the Democrats as being the party of Teddy Kennedy and Jesse Jackson… so far left and so radical that no sensible centrist would ever consider voting for anyone but a Republican. Now, Teddy no longer has a body temperature of 98.6 degrees and Jesse is about as hip as MC Hammer. Sarah! and Michael Steele are the new Kennedy and Jackson… and the Left is more than happy to use them to paint the GOP today in the same manner that the Republicans used Democrat extremists back then.

    Turnabout is fair play, I guess.

  58. 58.

    Annie

    And exactly how is Miss Sarah supporting our troops?

    By trying to sell them her bullshit book…That’s why she was there. So she can make millions, all the while posing, smiling, winking, waving, and laughing all the way to the bank…

  59. 59.

    Zifnab

    @calipygian:

    Better?

    I’ll concede that some Republicans know how to read polls. Certainly, the new Governors of New Jersey and Virgina know how to read a poll.

    But the fire-breathing wingers of the GOP certainly don’t. And you only need to look as far as Michael Steele or the ill-fated “Stay the Course” campaign of 2006 or the Huffman campaign in NY-23 to suspect maybe they’re happy to just blame ACORN for every loss and keep on losing.

  60. 60.

    eemom

    if Sarah Palin winks and there’s no TV camera, does Rich Lowry still jerk off?

    I’m trying to get Zen about this, before it drives me over the edge.

  63. 63.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    I have not read all the comments so forgive me if I am parroting anyone else but WTF! We (those of us who have served in the military)SIGNED UP, no one held a gun to our heads, there was no draft, we did it completely and utterly voluntarily, we signed on the fucking dotted line, we took the fucking oath, we did it all voluntarily, WE FUCKING VOLUNTEERED! For gawds sake I am all for respecting and honoring the troops but turning them into saints is just silly. As far as Bible Spice is concerned we should all be genuflecting at the feet of every returning service man or woman the minute that said service man or woman returns to US soil. I mean WFT! I have a question for Bible Spice, how much would you honor a female soldier who decided to have an abortion because a pregnancy would interfere with her tour in Iraq and she didn’t want to make a male soldier have to take her place?

  66. 66.

    jenniebee

    @kay:

    Many people are afraid of his daughter, particularly the people she lied about and smeared in that book, and who have to work for a living, but none of them respect her.

    I disagree. Steve Schmitt and Nicole Wallace had built their reputations for years before they every clamped eyes on Waah-zilla. Lying and smearing the people around you never works when the people you’re smearing are on more solid ground than you with the people you both have to impress to continue to advance in your respective careers. The establishment wagons are circling, and Waah-zilla is, as ever, on the outside.

  67. 67.

    Calouste

    @Da Bomb:

    Sarah Bundy, Kelly’s long lost cousin. Of course, it is more likely that she is actually from Peggy’s side of the family, the Wankers.

  69. 69.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    @trollhattan:

    Holy fucking hell, that’s the funniest goddamn thing I’ve seen today.

    I mentioned this in an earlier thread, but Texas Monthly’s Paul Burka makes the case that our very own Gov. Goodhair is angling to be the 2012 GOP presidential nominee. I dare say if he wants it, he could easily get it. Unlike Palin, he’s done his time in the Governor’s mansion (10 years). He has a record to stand on (at least on the stuff that matters to “conservatives”; we won’t talk about education or uninsured rates or the number of inmates we’ve put down). Also unlike Palin, he’s got more than two brain cells to rub together. If it does happen, he could be very attractive to a wide swath of voters who would never consider Palin or Huckabee or Romney.

    Yeah, he was massively unpopular in 2006, winning with only a 39% plurality. But we’ve gotten to know him over the last 10 years. The rest of the country doesn’t have a clue.

    You’d think after LBJ and the Shrub nobody would ever want another Texan to be President, but just in case…

    WILL Y’ALL LISTEN TO US THIS TIME?!

  70. 70.

    Mac from Oregon

    Come on, folks. Let Sarah have her two years as President then launch her campaign to be Empress of All She Surveys.

    “Mooserines!”

  71. 71.

    Quaker in a Basement

    Say, what’s the line on whether Chuck Toddler will stop star gazing long enough to notice that the leader of the biggest frikkin democracy in the world is in for a visit?

  72. 72.

    kay

    @jenniebee:

    I said this during the campaign, and I meant every word.

    Palin is a person who inserted herself into her sister’s divorce battle, bent on some wacko vengeance, to the point where the family court judge had to intervene, and remind Todd and Sarah that if they destroyed the children’s father life and reputation, there wouldn’t be any child support.

    That’s what we’re talking about here. Someone who jumps at the chance to butt in to someone else’s divorce, and punish the father of her nieces and nephews. While governor.

    That’s way out there on the nasty spectrum.

  74. 74.

    Tsulagi

    how about a big FU to John McCain?

    I dunno about that, you gotta appreciate the comedy. Finally, Condi would be correct with her patented “No one could ever have anticipated.”

    Yes, compare and contrast. Barak Obama’s to Sarah Palin’s performance as commander in chief.

    Didn’t our valiant teabagger class during the election cycle make a big deal that Winky, in contrast to Obama and even McCain, had proven herself as “commander in chief” of the Alaska National Guard? You know, the guys led by Palin keeping us from the Russian hordes the diva on a snowmobile could see from her window? Making sure Putin’s head flew overhead strictly according to its flight plan?

    She heard the call. Well, until she quit her CIC day job to go on the wingnut welfare rubber chicken circuit and rake in seven-figure advances on a book written for her. But she sees the big picture. Fuck you ANG troops. Sarah Palin Country First.

    @calipygian:

    It will never happen in a million years. Even Republicans can read polls.

    You betcha. But you don’t see the big picture quite like they do. As evidence from that teabagger think tank, RedState, Yes, She Can? ON Sarah Palin and 2012…

    Bush pollster Matthew Dowd looks at why he thinks it’s possible – not likely, mind you, but possible – for Sarah Palin to win the White House in 2012.

    Thank you, John McCain.

  75. 75.

    Mustique

    @demkat620:

    Saw her -not only is she dumb and inarticulate, she’s immature and couldn’t refrain from making faces. She’s a moron. I threw my book at the TV at one point. Someone needs to stop her.

  76. 76.

    AB

    Whoevers writing the note is an idiot, as the guy known as Kal Penn is probably assisting organizing the event.

  77. 77.

    kay

    @Katie:

    People are missing Palin’s essential and core nastiness.

    They’ll figure it out. It’s the one thread that ties her life together.

  79. 79.

    kay

    @Katie:

    It’s classic. She humiliated and demeaned the whole Alaska legislature, so they, um, wouldn’t work with her.

    Then she blamed her assistant.

  80. 80.

    BruceFromOhio

    @Chuck Butcher:

    The only real worry is that some winger will get wound up enough to do something violent and disasterous. That doesn’t require a Sarah.

    McVeigh and Nichols had it pretty well wrapped up long before Ms Palin had her first telecast. QED

  81. 81.

    Xero

    DNCC comm director Brad Woodhouse responds to this:

    “Just in the past four weeks the president has met with troops on bases in Jacksonville, Alaska and South Korea and the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M,” Woodhouse said. “While it’s not surprising that Sarah Palin will lie and ignore the facts to appeal to the right wing, tea party fringe of the Republican base, what is surprising it that anyone else would pay attention to what she has to say.

  82. 82.

    Wile E. Quixote

    This piece by John Payne says everything about what American conservatism has become, one can only hope that Payne is right.

    http://www.amconmag.com/postright/

    This video of excited Sarah Palin fans at a book signing in Ohio tells you almost everything you need to know about contemporary conservatism. These people are Palin’s biggest fans, and they presumably read given that they are all preparing to purchase books, yet almost none of them know Palin’s stance on any political issue outside of abortion. Given its source, I’m sure the video highlights the least informed among the crowd, but even the most informed news junkie would have trouble explaining Palin’s positions because she has never explained her politics in anything but generalities. Palin’s massive popularity has nothing to do with policy and everything to do with who she is.
    …
    One of the women in the video says that Palin will bring “realness” to office. What the woman is really saying is that Palin is a “real” American like her fans and not like the all those “fake” Americans on the coasts and in the cities. In short, Palin is the embodiment of conservative identity politics. Conservatism has retreated from being a set of supposedly timeless ideals to the position of a cultural preservation society. People are willing to vote for Palin for no other reason than that they believe her to be part of their tribe. And like all identity politics movements, conservatives have come to see themselves as oppressed victims, whose way of life is about to be destroyed at any minute by Mexicans, terrorist, homosexuals, and the main stream media.
    …
    Now setting aside the complete lack of evidence that conservatives are oppressed (not to mention the mountain of evidence that conservatives have been eager oppressors for almost the past decade), this is an ironic and revolting development. During the Clinton era, when I was young and still described myself as a conservative, conservatives dismissed identity politics and victimology. Past injustices were no justification for special treatment from the government, they argued. Now people like David Horowitz whine about liberal bias in academia and practically beg for affirmative action for conservatives and their ideas. The old conservative belief in meritocracy is gone–if it was ever really there–replaced by the mentality of an embattled tribe. Any culture that is so easily loosed from its moorings, will not last long…and does not deserve to.

  83. 83.

    Kevin Phillips Bong

    @Litlebritdifrnt: Amen to this. I signed up voluntarily as did everyone else in the current Armed Forces. I appreciate the occasional head nod and thank you as much as the next guy, but I don’t like being used as the political pawn that must never be forgotten. As for the “freedom isn’t free” crowd, the last time we were protecting American freedoms was probably the Cold War. Terrorism is a law enforcement issue.

  84. 84.

    Chat Noir

    @JK: The amount of ignorance from the people in that video is staggering. And all the Ohio State clothing? I’m guessing most of those folks aren’t graduates, just football fans.

    Just wow.

  85. 85.

    DaBomb

    @Grumpy Code Monkey: Please for the love of weeping baby Jesus. Let that not be the case. That bastard need to bow out of the political arena. He’s such a hairy bump on the teat of life.
    @Calouste: Hell, that’s a thought. @Chuck Butcher: I understand that she gives the uniformed and the inarticulate a voice, but damn she is such a blatant liar.

  86. 86.

    Chuck Butcher

    @DaBomb:

    I understand that she gives the uniformed and the inarticulate a voice, but damn she is such a blatant liar.

    Tell me the last time these folks weren’t lied to. They believe, it is faith not critical thinking. This is why Sarah, by herself, doesn’t scare me – there is a gulf she simply cannot vault which is to get half the voters to be believers.

    With the full might of the US govt and a shitty candidate like Kerry, GWB barely managed to scare the voters into re-electing him. She has nothing. Her chunk is large enough to guarantee her attention and even possibly get her the 12 nomination, but it isn’t squat in national politics as a self sufficient force.

    Holy shit, think about this, T(axed)E(nough)A(ready) Party is based on historically low taxes? The lying doesn’t matter, it’s the belief.

  88. 88.

    Brachiator

    @Wile E. Quixote:

    The old conservative belief in meritocracy is gone–if it was ever really there–replaced by the mentality of an embattled tribe.

    Conservatives believed in “meritocracy” only because they were convinced that they would always be on top. Their bizarre delusion that they are the only true patriots, the only “real” Americans, the only legitimate government of the United States, etc., is pretty much to be expected.

    That Palin so effortlessly plugs into this is somewhat surprising. I thought she was too limited intellectually to be aware of anything other than her own ego. But she is a nasty piece of work.

    I still don’t think she has much of a political future. But I may have under-estimated the amount of damage that she will do until she finally fades from the public consciousness.

  89. 89.

    Chuck Butcher

    @Brachiator:

    But I may have under-estimated the amount of damage that she will do until she finally fades from the public consciousness.

    It may seem like I’m being a contrarian, but she’s a favor, the dangerous and damaging ones are the Romneys and Pawlentys. Their lunacy comes in under the radar and they’re appealing enough in their public personas to dupe the center. Have no illusion that they aren’t the GOP that you loath and wouldn’t run another BushCo. GWB may have been personally incompetent, but remember that he had the full backing of establishment GOP and their input. Blaming him for the outcomes is like blaming the car for what the driver did. And yes, I do regard him as a lying POS.

  90. 90.

    Yutsano

    It may seem like I’m being a contrarian, but she’s a favor, the dangerous and damaging ones are the Romneys and Pawlentys. Their lunacy comes in under the radar and they’re appealing enough in their public personas to dupe the center.

    Bingo. This, plus two massive weak sauce candidates, are why both Christie and McDonnell won. They both essentially ran to the center to cover their wingnuttiness and either will have to stay there to get anything done (both have hostile legislatures) or obstruct and kill their political futures. Not that it will matter to McDonnell, all he can do after this is either the Senate or aim even higher.

  91. 91.

    matoko_chan

    Look Dr. Cole….Team McCain knew exactly how unfit Palin was from the git-go. Where they FAILED was in overestimating her malleability. The GOP wideboiz knew that the only way to get Palin into the oval office was riding McCain’s coattails before the electorate got a good look at her.
    Then they’d have 8 years to pygmalion her, and if Sick Grandpa kicked while in office, so much the better.
    But she wouldn’t play galatea to their pygmalion.
    She wouldn’t study, she wouldn’t prep for interviews, she wouldn’t go back to Alaska and govern and read some books like Dr.K and Jonah Goldberg told her to.
    But she can’t there from here anymore.
    I, personally, just want the media to ax her this one question….

    GOV PALIN, DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE ENDTIMES?

    I don’t really care that the reason Palin was nominated to the VP slot was that she gives old white guys wood. That is a shrinking demographic (lol). I also don’t care that she is a pathological liar and exhibits all the symptoms of NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder).
    I don’t even care that she is ignorant and uneducated enough to believe in YEC (young earth creationism).
    However, I do care that she apparently believes in teh Rapture and a measurable segment of the electorate including reasonably intelligent people like Ross and Reihan believe it would be just fine to give her the nuke launch codes.
    This is a seriously disturbed person who would be extremely dangerous in a position of power.
    And the news media needs to ask her about her beliefs.
    She doesn’t get a pass on “religious tolerance”.

    [Ice said,] “Over forty percent of the world’s Jews now live in Israel. What Sarah Palin probably believes is that this is the first regathering,” when the Jews all migrate to Israel.
    “This is a condition for the second regathering, the regathering in belief, when the Jewish nation is converted. Then there will be the battle of Armageddon, because remember, Satan wants to wipe out the Jews to prevent the Second Coming, but Jesus comes to rescue the beleaguered Jews. We believe that the Jews are going to be converted so that they can call on Jesus to rescue them from Satan.”

    Palin and Graham.

    She quizzed [Billy Graham] on the presidents he’s known and wanted his take on what the Bible says about Israel, Iran and Iraq, Franklin Graham reported.

    If part of Palin’s religion includes a belief in using Israel and the Jewish population of MENA as staked goats to bring down teh Rapture, I think the electorate has a right to know.

    And perhaps…..just perhaps….if the electorate had known about Bush’s Gog/Magog fantasies….hundreds of thousands of muslims would not have died in Iraq.

    L2p, Chuck Todd and the rest of you poseurs, l2p.

  92. 92.

    matoko_chan

    l2p is l33tspk for learn to play…..your class.
    In the case of Chuck Todd, his supposed class is journalist.

  93. 93.

    TR

    @Wile E. Quixote:

    Conservatives still believe in the meritocracy. From the late Irving Kristol:

    “I remember back in the late 1990s, when Ira Katznelson, an eminent political scientist at Columbia, came to deliver a guest lecture. Prof. Katznelson described a lunch he had with Irving Kristol during the first Bush administration.
    …
    The talk turned to William Kristol, then Dan Quayle’s chief of staff, and how he got his start in politics.
    …
    Irving recalled how he talked to his friend Harvey Mansfield at Harvard, who secured William a place there as both an undergrad and graduate student; how he talked to Pat Moynihan, then Nixon’s domestic policy adviser, and got William an internship at the White House; how he talked to friends at the RNC [Republican National Committee] and secured a job for William after he got his Harvard Ph.D.; and how he arranged with still more friends for William to teach at Penn and the Kennedy School of Government.
    …
    “With that, Prof. Katznelson recalled, he then asked Irving what he thought of affirmative action. ‘I oppose it,’ Irving replied. ‘It subverts meritocracy.’ “

  95. 95.

    matoko_chan

    TNC brings teh hardcore pro, per usual.

    This puts me in the mind of the early 90s when Negroes were running around parroting that Menace II Society line, I’m white America’s worst nightmare: Young, black and just don’t give a fuck. I was kid, but even then I used to think, No you’re not. You’re your momma’s worse nightmare. You’re your next-door neighbors worse nightmare. White people got expensive jails and cheap graves for niggers like you.

    I mean, I guess some substantial portion of white people were afraid–but these fools were confusing white fear with some kind of actual black power. This was false for many reasons, among them, many people who weren’t white were also afraid, and generally acted accordingly. Likewise, Palin’s base confuses “liberal fear” with some kind of populist power, by ignoring the fact that a lot of people who want nothing to do with us pinkos, are afraid of Palin too.

    People misunderstand fear. It doesn’t always cause your foes to cower in a corner. Sometimes it causes them to beat the crap out of you with a bag of rusty nails.

  97. 97.

    Paul in KY

    Billiam, I wish you hadn’t sent me to a Republican site to read the gushing (dare I say Starbursting) review. I don’t like giving them page hits.

    You probably could have exerpted the quote.

  100. 100.

    jim koeller

    You folks have all got it wrong. Every male in the US is simply thinking with the “little head”. At this point, naturally, all rational thinking goes out the window. Damn! Isn’t she cute! Did you see her in those jeans! Great ass!! Politics, lies, brain dead rhetoric, religious stupidity, none of that matters!! She is the ultimate MILF!!

  101. 101.

    Tom Degan

    “The fact is, this country’s going broke….We’re spending money we don’t have and passing it onto our kids, and at some point somebody’s got to say, ‘Enough is enough'”

    John Boehner

    QUESTION:
    Where was this jackass when the halfwit from Crawford, Texas was spending the United States into a bankruptcy so paralyzing there is no precedent for it in all recorded human history? Where was his outrage when when the Bush Mob plundered the nation’s treasure by making war on a country (Iraq – just in case it slipped your mind) that was a threat to absolutely no one? Is he really serious? That’s the really funny thing – he is.

    John Boehner is as crooked as they come. Since the departure of Tom Delay he has become the corrupt politician’s corrupt politician. He is the new face of organized political sleaze. Someday we’ll all realize this. As hard as he may try, he’ll never be able to escape the wrath of history. The fact that he has always been (I’ll be polite) “ethically challenged” should not surprise anyone who’s paid even scant attention to his career these past twenty years.

    In June 1995, at a time when Congress was deliberating tobacco subsidies, he was busted handing out checks (bribes – let’s be honest) from the cigarette industry to various members in a naked attempt to influence their votes. This incident occurred in plain view right on the floor of the House of Representatives. Is this a great country or what?

    http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com

    Tom Degan

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