Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Elections aren’t won by handwringing, cowering, and/or bashing your own candidates.

Please don’t feed the bears.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Republicans in disarray!

Let’s finish the job.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

You are here: Home / So much stupid

So much stupid

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James Fallows and Marc Ambinder both have good pieces up about the Politico’s absurd meta-narrative piece that came out yesterday. Fallows:

This is about as destructive a case of “who cares about the realities?” press mentality as I remember since miscoverage of the Clinton health care plan 15 years ago, as described here and here. (I am excepting the buildup to the Iraq war, when there were a lot of other factors at play.) I have said several times before that I’ll give the theme a rest — and maybe this time I finally will, leaving it in Ambinder’s hands. But it matters.

Ambinder on the the Spock bullshit:

2. This is a McLaughlin-group meta-narrative that has no resonance beyond Nebraska Avenue NW.

The Politico’s meta-narrative piece combined with a double shot of Cheney makes me feel like I’ve been kicked in the gut. So much stupid, and it’s the same stupid over and over again.

Reader Interactions

66Comments

  4. 4.

    MattF

    Politico’s ‘scoops’ of the past two days (“Obama has a brain!”, “Cheney doesn’t want to go to prison!”) have resolved any doubts I had about them. Bah.

  5. 5.

    Rhoda

    What freaks me out is what David Brooks isn’t saying.

    President Obama faces such a devilishly complex set of constraints that the policy he announces will be partially unsatisfying to every American and to every member of his administration. The fights inside have been so brutal that there have been accusations that the Defense and State Departments have withheld documents from the president to bias his thinking.

    This, coupled with Politico not following up on the no nothing in Afghanistan is our fault Cheney comment is what’s wrong with the media.

    I mean, hello, you’re a top columnist and you’ve got dish that apparently folks feel that State and Defense were holding back information vital to the president’s decision making and you don’t spill? What the hell? That’s Pulitzer material, man!

    Puts the 3 month and endless meetings into perspective if on top of everything Obama has to wonder what they AREN’T telling him.

  6. 6.

    Elizabelle

    Serious question, since some BJ readers probably know this and can offer up some good links:

    How did Herbert Hoover behave in the face of FDR’s attempted reforms?

    I am guessing he was more GWBush (silent for the most part) than Cheney (insufferable) but don’t know.

    Were there national Republicans who got the seriousness of the nation’s plight and worked to bring about reforms?

    I know, sheer laziness on my part in asking and not preliminarily researching. But counting on BJ to steer me to some interesting links.

    It’s my impression that Hoover may have been the wrong president for his time, but he was a patriot and accomplished much in his lifetime.

  7. 7.

    Ash

    @cleek: Well as they’ve said before, they read this shit so we don’t have to. Though sometimes I do accidentally click on a link and curse myself and my stubby fingers.

  8. 8.

    Corner Stone

    I’m confused. Doug has been kicked in the gut and Cole has been punched in the gut.
    Did gut-punching replace neck punching as the official BJ punishment?

  9. 9.

    gwangung

    @Rhoda:

    I mean, hello, you’re a top columnist and you’ve got dish that apparently folks feel that State and Defense were holding back information vital to the president’s decision making and you don’t spill? What the hell? That’s Pulitzer material, man!

    Um, yeah. Isn’t that what they call news?

  11. 11.

    Maude

    Hoover was not happy with FDR at all and he said so at every opportunity. His biography is full of self justification. He was bitter about being blamed.
    When FDR came in, people were scared. Today, the banksters and Republicans aren’t scared.
    FDR has a ton of opposition.
    Reagan tried to completely dismantle FDR’s regulations on the financial industry.
    Clinton got rid of the basic firewall between investment and commercial banks and that produced too big to fail.
    My only question is: why do stupid people have voice boxes?

  12. 12.

    Ash Can

    What the hell? That’s Pulitzer material, man!

    But investigating it would take so much work. Journamalism is hard. Have a heart, will ya?

  13. 13.

    Ash

    @Rhoda: Do journalists even care about Pulitzers anymore? Generally, to get one, you have to go through analysis and fact checking and hunting down sources and corroboration and re-writes and…..phew. I wore myself out just typing all of that. Imagine how those poor journalists must feel!

  14. 14.

    Savage Henry

    The Obama “7-memes” piece was the most blatant, fetid pile of concern trolling I’ve ever seen. The writer was almost sheepish in noting that, actually, this is all contradictory and/or completely made up, but here it is anyway! Next stop, the top story on Yahoo! news.

    The Cheyney piece is just… I don’t have the words. How can someone just publish that horseshit without pointing out that it is only the incoherent rantings of an angry, bitter war criminal who failed at everything when he finally got his big chance?

    Obviously Politico has no concern for even the perception of credibility. Just do stuff to drive the page loads and call it a day.

  15. 15.

    El Cid

    @Elizabelle: Hoover was a complete and utter d-bag on the New Deal and on how Roosevelt and the Democrats were screwing up the nation and spending us into oblivion and destroying freedom.

    Here HH is in 1935 speaking on those matters to the California Republican Assembly:

    …[W]e can with diligence dig the facts out from under these methods, and despite all these obstacles can compute with fair certainty from the present commitments where the nation will be in another fifteen months.
    …
    The first conclusion is that all losses counted in the expenditures are now running over $8,000,000,000 a year. The annual deficit is running nearly three and a half billions, and each dollar of deficit is of course added to the national debt.
    …
    The second conclusion is that the unpaid government obligations which will fall upon the taxpayer at the end of the Roosevelt administration will exceed $35,000,000,000.
    …
    The third conclusion is that this peacetime debt will at the end of 1936 exceed our World War debt by ten billions, and the cost of the New Deal threatens to exceed that of the Great War.
    …
    Incidentally, outside of recoverable loans, the Roosevelt administration spending will exceed the Hoover administration by from $14,000,000,000 to $15,000,000,000. I always have difficulty trying to comprehend what $14,000,000,000 or even $3,500,000,000 really is. But I know that even the mere $3,500,000,000 would buy me 90,000,000 suits of clothes. At least that is about one suit for every mile between the earth and the sun.
    …
    It is of course true that during the last years of the last Republican administration deficits were incurred. Just as advance information on misrepresentation, I may state that the deficits of those years were not as large as are being made to appear by the New Deal publications. They include expenditures which the New Deal now excludes in publishing its own accounts. They also include over two billions of loans to industry, agriculture, and banks, which have since been mostly collected and spent by the New Deal administration. But the important thing is that the Republican administration genuinely endeavored to balance the whole government budget. That was not a pious subterfuge. It was a definite program. The record shows that in the year 1931 the Democratic Congress was urged by the Republican administration to enact additional revenues of $1,200,000,000 and to co-operate in a cut of $600,000,000 of less pressing expenditures. Only a part of this revenue was wrung from the Democratic Congress after nearly six months of fighting, delay, and obstruction, punctuated by vetoes of pork-barrel appropriations. Even then over half of the recommended decreases in expenditures were rejected. Again in 1932, $700,000,000 of additional revenues and $300,000,000 of additional reductions in expenditures were urged, and again, after months of delay, were refused altogether.
    …
    It is not overstatement to say that had the Republican principles of balancing the budget been accepted in 1931 and 1932, the final stone in the foundation of permanent recovery would have been laid three years ago instead of deferred for years hence.

    And, of course, Hoover was right. The massive debt from the New Deal impoverished the nation so much that in the 1950s and 1960s the nation’s middle classes collapsed, starvation was rampant, and the vast majority of the nation was forced to beg in the streets, live under bridges, and hope that the nation’s raw agricultural and primary product exports would be purchased by our vastly wealthier international trading partners.

  16. 16.

    Roger Moore

    @El Cid:

    This is Great News for Conservatives. They’re getting ever closer to ultimate purity and uniformity of thought. They don’t need intelligent criticism anyway.

  18. 18.

    LoveMonkey

    The Politico’s meta-narrative piece combined with a double shot of Cheney makes me feel like I’ve been kicked in the gut.

    I am inclined to believe that you actually light up like a neon sign outside a Las Vegas casino.

    Either that, or this blog gig has to be a masochist’s dream.

  19. 19.

    JGabriel

    El Cid:

    Hoover was a complete and utter d-bag on the New Deal and on how Roosevelt and the Democrats were screwing up the nation and spending us into oblivion and destroying freedom.

    Like a Dick Cheney without the torture fetish?

    .

  20. 20.

    Elizabelle

    Thanks Maude and El Cid. Keep ’em coming re Hoover.

    RE Hoover’s 1935 address: the cost of everything and the value of nothing, eh?

    Besides which, it was only that nasty FDR that derailed the recovery for three years. If only he’d followed the GOP plan for balancing the budget, all would have been well in, what 1933? And FDR inaugurated in March of that year? (So that FDR delayed recovery meme comes from Hoover.)

    Thinking on Hoover and the disconnect: When I hear “responsible” people talking about healthcare reform and the deficit, I wonder how they value the 45,000 Americans dead annually because of no or insufficient healthcare (Harvard study).

    People who value numbers more than other people.

  21. 21.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    Moderation? I will just repost until it works.

    The Politico’s meta-narrative piece combined with a double shot of Cheney makes me feel like I’ve been kicked in the gut.

    I am inclined to believe that you actually light up like a neon sign outside a Las Vegas casino.

    Either that, or this blog gig has to be a masochist’s dream.

  25. 25.

    eemom

    this sounded interesting: Alex Koppelman over at Salon reports that the Little Green Footballs dude has Gone Cole, i.e., officially renounced his wingnuthood.

    sorry, this infernal machine I have at work won’t let me do linky.

  27. 27.

    Zifnab

    @Maude:

    My only question is: why do stupid people have voice boxes?

    They’ve got megaphones. Because megaphones cost money. And they’ve got lots of money.

    It’s a beautiful cycle. The rich get richer, rig the system to benefit themselves, get richer, rig the system to further benefit themselves. Whether that system raises the tide and carries all ships or leeches off the masses to fuel their own girth is inconsequential to the titans of industry.

    Deregulating the banks and allowing the regulatory black hole of derivatives basically endorsed the printing of free money for everyone with the right connections. It’s exactly what all the “Buying on margin” crap during the 20s got us, except expanded by orders of magnitude brought about by innovations of the 21st century. The only difference between today and eighty years ago was the myriad safeguards and backstops we’ve put in place since then.

    Those social reforms saved the majority of Americans from experiencing another Great Depression. But they also insulated the same people from the massive shock of fiscal collapse. And the upshot is a braver financial industry, a more callous public, and a weaker blowback from liberals. Had we picked up John McCain as President in 2008, the shit would have continued to hit the fan and – by 2012 – perhaps we’d have gotten the counterwave necessary for a full FDR. But then we’d have a lot more suffering to propel it.

    It’s something of a paradox for liberals. In order to justify the serious reforms a functional economy demands, you need to make people feel the pain that the economic programs are designed to buffer against. You need to watch your business fail and your house get foreclosed and your parents eating cat food, or you simply won’t care enough to toss aside Reagenism.

  31. 31.

    cleek

    In order to justify the serious reforms a functional economy demands, you need to make people feel the pain that the economic programs are designed to buffer against.

    well, not really “make”…

    the pain is inevitable, once you start down the road of deregulation.

  33. 33.

    Leelee for Obama

    @Elizabelle:

    Thinking on Hoover and the disconnect: When I hear “responsible” people talking about healthcare reform and the deficit, I wonder how they value the 45,000 Americans dead annually because of no or insufficient healthcare (Harvard study).
    —
    People who value numbers more than other people.

    Same as it ever was, Elizabelle. Bottom line, that’s the ticket. Tax cuts, war borrowing, cut domestic spending, Wolverines! Also.

  34. 34.

    PeakVT

    @El Cid: Hoover was wrong, but Keynesian-style deficit spending was in its infancy then. Roosevelt himself initially moved in the wrong direction. So Hoover wasn’t acting like today’s Republicans, who are purposefully ignoring 60 years of economic theory and practice when they yammer on about deficits.

  35. 35.

    ricky

    If you change the title of the Politico piece to Seven Stories the Press Doesn’t Want the Public to Know About It it would be accurate. The problem for the press is that most of the public that matters already does know.

  37. 37.

    Mark S.

    5. Americans want their POTUS to be an exceptionalist, and Obama ain’t an exceptionalist.

    Because Americans love it when the rest of the world hates us.

    I wonder how true this actually is. Most Americans don’t really care about foreign policy until we are in a war. Do they constantly need reminders from their president that we are the bestest country in the world? I would be interested in some good polling on American attitudes on foreign policy, because I suspect most people do not think like Bill Kristol.

  39. 39.

    donovong

    I am inclined to believe that you actually light up like a neon sign.

    Either that, or this blog gig has to be a masochist’s dream.

    Also.

  40. 40.

    BDeevDad

    Ambinder posted White House internal joke email about Politico so watch the screams of Obama is trying to silence critics.

  41. 41.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    Simply look at virtually all of the Politico’s hacks and who’ve they’ve worked for and it’s easy to see why all of the dead tree media and their broadcasting/cable brethren are in the world of hurt they find themselves in these days.

  42. 42.

    Maude

    @Zifnab: I keep harping on Clinton repealing Glass Stegal. That gets me furious. Also the Commodities Mod. Act of 2000. In that sense, I think that Clinton was wingnuttier than the wingnuts.
    Reagan got far in dismantling the regs. Merger and acquisition ruined so many companies.
    A Soloman Bros. department came up with securitizing mortgages.
    We have been sunk low by the cheeters.
    Let’s play Red Queen and Off With Their Heads.

  43. 43.

    Midnight Marauder

    @AngusTheGodOfMeat:

    Wow, not even my Binford Super Parser can figure out why my post at 20 is in moderation. That’s quite an interesting piece of software you guys have there.

    I think the dual life you’re living might have something to do with it.

  44. 44.

    Cris

    I am inclined to believe that you actually light up like a neon sign.

    Either that, or this blog gig has to be a masochist’s dream.

  46. 46.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @Midnight Marauder:

    Not sure what that means, but it was the “Lost Wages c@sino” phrase that triggered the mod filter.

    I am always flabbergasted at that filter. Mainly, at the idea that some jerkwad programmer actually wrote it and advanced it into production and got away with it.

  49. 49.

    Zifnab

    @Maude:

    I keep harping on Clinton repealing Glass Stegal. That gets me furious. Also the Commodities Mod. Act of 2000. In that sense, I think that Clinton was wingnuttier than the wingnuts.

    Clinton didn’t fight the issue. But there were well over 60 votes in support of these moves in the Senate and a majority in the House. He didn’t want to disrupt fund raising for his allies by pissing off the bankers with a veto that was just going to get overturned. But it’s not like he wrote the bills.

    The cruel fact is that even when we have a Democratic Supermajority, the liberals are still in the minority and even the moderates don’t have more than even odds. Clinton wasn’t going to fight a battle he didn’t think he could win. It’s another example of cowardice on the part of our party. But I wouldn’t run off and call Clinton a wingnut.

  53. 53.

    Elizabelle

    @eemom:

    GONE COLE: is it in the Lexicon?

    Can add “see Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs” as part of definition.

    Because here is his post on “not going off the cliff” with the current GOP. Personally, I would number them differently, but any of us could have come up with most of them. Welcome to the rational world, Mr. Johnson.

    (And hope BJ doesn’t get in trouble for my posting his entry in entirety):

    WHY I PARTED WAYS WITH THE RIGHT

    http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/35243_Why_I_Parted_Ways_With_The_Right

    1. Support for fascists, both in America (see: Pat Buchanan, Robert Stacy McCain, etc.) and in Europe (see: Vlaams Belang, BNP, SIOE, Pat Buchanan, etc.)

    2. Support for bigotry, hatred, and white supremacism (see: Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Robert Stacy McCain, Lew Rockwell, etc.)

    3. Support for throwing women back into the Dark Ages, and general religious fanaticism (see: Operation Rescue, anti-abortion groups, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, the entire religious right, etc.)

    4. Support for anti-science bad craziness (see: creationism, climate change denialism, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, James Inhofe, etc.)

    5. Support for homophobic bigotry (see: Sarah Palin, Dobson, the entire religious right, etc.)

    6. Support for anti-government lunacy (see: tea parties, militias, Fox News, Glenn Beck, etc.)

    7. Support for conspiracy theories and hate speech (see: Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Birthers, creationists, climate deniers, etc.)

    8. A right-wing blogosphere that is almost universally dominated by raging hate speech (see: Hot Air, Free Republic, Ace of Spades, etc.)

    9. Anti-Islamic bigotry that goes far beyond simply criticizing radical Islam, into support for fascism, violence, and genocide (see: Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, etc.)

    10. Hatred for President Obama that goes far beyond simply criticizing his policies, into racism, hate speech, and bizarre conspiracy theories (see: witch doctor pictures, tea parties, Birthers, Michelle Malkin, Fox News, World Net Daily, Newsmax, and every other right wing source)

    And much, much more. The American right wing has gone off the rails, into the bushes, and off the cliff.

    I won’t be going over the cliff with them.

  55. 55.

    Maude

    @Cris: I was close wasn’t I?

    Zinfab, Clinton clobbered the poor and those trying for disability coverage. I was harmed by his actions and I’m not just calling him names. He out Reaganed Reagan. (sp? it looks wrong) Raygun, that’s better.
    He was just another benefit himself during his presidency type.
    I don’t excuse Dems either.

  56. 56.

    Zifnab

    @cleek:

    the pain is inevitable, once you start down the road of deregulation.

    It’s not. That’s the joke. At least, not for the elect. The guys at Goldman get to make $30 billion in profit this year. The folks on Medicare aren’t going to lose their Plan D prescription drug coverage or their Social Security checks while we continue to inflate the deficit. And government contracts will continue to flow to fund government contractors. Food stamps keep getting issued. Unemployment keeps getting paid.

    Sure, things are bad, but they could be a whole lot worse. And in the mean time, people can continue doing what they’re doing, so long as they can keep their heads above the water line. Tighten your belt and trudge on.

    And the higher you are on the economic food chain, the less you feel the pain anyway. So I’m making $80k rather than $100k? I’ll live. I’m not going to give up on Reaganomics just because that evil colored President ruined my economy.

    @Maude:

    Let’s play Red Queen and Off With Their Heads.

    Good luck with that. We can’t put Bush Administrators on the dock for actually breaking the law. And you want to punish folks that technically followed the rules (they just made up as they went along)? Ha.

  57. 57.

    Svensker

    @Mark S.:

    Do they constantly need reminders from their president that we are the bestest country in the world?

    I think a big chunk of the country does. American exceptionalism has been drilled into us by this point. See how far you get in any discussion with almost anyone — Repuke or Dem (except Libertarians or Far Lefties) — if you seriously suggest shutting down some of our hundreds of bases around the world. You will be dismissed as Not Serious. Why? Because we are the biggest and bestest and shut up that’s why.

  58. 58.

    licensed to kill time

    I’m just glad we have a Fallows mask so we can get some oxygen on this ship of fools.

  60. 60.

    aschup

    Has anyone ever delved into the comments section at the Politico? Jesus fuck, it’s like freerepublic 2.0

  63. 63.

    Elie

    Maude and others:

    We on the left tend to complain that our values and issues never get to be front burner in the US. That is so true but we are as much to “blame” for it as anyone.

    The union movement has been allowed to become corrupt and to be broken into pieces over decades as workers received less and less and states allowed “right to work” laws to undermine the political and financial power of the worker..

    We have too often relied on top down approaches to leadership rather than educating and brining along young folks at the grass roots. Very few of us have been active in community organizing. We have used antiquated and ineffective tools such as marches instead of down in the grissle organizing to get things done for real people where folks would see and appreciate what progressivism and liberalism meant for them.

    In our community very recently, 2 progressive council people were kicked out of office for some right wingers with a lot of money from the outside. In the whole mess, there were 4,000 votes that could have easily swung the election, from an important constituency, the gay population, that were not adequately made aware of the need for their votes and why. The 4000 precious votes went only for the single partner issue since these folks did not vote for anything else. Missed opportunity but also poor planning and outreach by the left/progressives…

    This is community stuff. It doesnt happen at the national level first. The national follows what happens at home, over and over.

    If we want progressive and liberal policies and values to again become central, we are going to have to build it from scratch from the bottom. Over time, our elected leaders will reflect that perspective and have the population support to actually carry out those initiatives. Until then, we are asking them to reflect what we can’t give them in enough numbers to protect them and our interests politically.

    Anyway, those are my thoughts on this

  64. 64.

    Christine

    DougJ,

    The Politico’s meta-narrative piece combined with a double shot of Cheney makes me feel like I’ve been kicked in the gut

    Please. Remember I live on the same street as Ben Smith in Brooklyn.

    Mow your damn lawn Ben!

  65. 65.

    catclub

    Elizabelle @ 53

    That list, except for perhaps 6 and 10, is and has
    been SOP
    for the right since forever.

    If you replaced ‘Support for’ with ‘Core Value is’,
    in all item in the list,
    then you get Charles Johnson’s actual problem
    with the wackalooon right.

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