After Bill Clinton was impeached for lies under oath (and terminal tackiness)…
I guess you could say he came into Washington and trashed the place with his tackiness, ehh, Noemi?
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
… gradually, and then suddenly.
I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.
Consistently wrong since 2002
Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.
“But what about the lurkers?”
Let’s not be the monsters we hate.
Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.
I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.
Fuck these fucking interesting times.
The choice is between normal and crazy.
The jury literally has a bell they can ring to force Trump to show up on command. Greatest thing ever!
I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.
Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.
Impressively dumb. Congratulations.
Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.
Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.
Let’s finish the job.
No Justins, No Peace
Everything is totally normal and fine!!!
Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.
Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.
Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.
The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris
Peak wingnut was a lie.
Face
Is he considered impeached if the Senate voted against it? Or am I wrong?
ari
Impeached but not convicted. Like Andrew Johnson.
4tehlulz
@Face: The House impeaches; the Senate tries and convicts (or not, in Bill’s case).
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Face:
Wiki. Total time to look up and read, 43 seconds.
You alright, man? You seem off your game.
RedKitten
Why doesn’t she just say “He wasn’t OUR kind of people” and be done with it?
calipgyian
Impeached for tackiness.
They don’t even try to hide it anymore, do they?
demkat620
And cowboy boots with the presidential seal weren’t tacky?
Jeez lady, grow up.
madmommy
How do the Villagers choose between their Clinton-hate and their Obama-hate? It must be quite taxing on their tiny lizard brains.
BTW, is there anything tackier that the Texas Tuxedeos the nation was subjected to for eight long years? I think not! At least Bill understood formal wear constituted both a jacket and trousers made of the same fabric, and that cowboy boots are never, ever considered proper footwear for formal dress.
JasonF
From the linked article:
That’s because for years now, those on the right have been perfectly content to make common cause with racists, nativists, and hate-mongers. When you lay down with dogs, don’t be surprised if the rest of us treat you as if you have fleas.
General Winfield Stuck
Amazing. Clinton gets impeached for lying about a blow job.
Bush and Cheney kill hundreds of thousands for no wmd and torture at their whim– they get away scott free, and Pat Buchanan opines on my teevee that Cheney has made the political comeback of the year.
Tacky? It’s America goddamnit!!
meh
I’ll tell ya, people aren’t buying this shit. My is a pretty conservative republican and she says these people are batshit crazy. If they are losing people like her, they can say all they want – all they’re doing is digging the hole deeper.
AkaDad
Bush wore Crocs. Need I say more?
woody
Jason, you defame the noble canine. Not all of them have fleas. Neither of mine do.
Edit:
“when you swim in shit, don’t blame the rest of us for holding our noses and declaring you stink.”
I didn’t recognize the author’s name, so I went to the link: The Weakly Standard?
Well, that was enough in itself. I had no need to read further…
Laura W
@AkaDad: I don’t mean to sound too very sycophantish and all, but you really need to pepper spray threads with your pithy one/two-liners more often.
You just crack
my assme up.smiley
Noemie Emery is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD and a columnist for the Washington Examiner.
I swear to gawd, this is the first time I’ve ever heard of this woman. Am I alone on that?
madmommy
@AkaDad:
No one over the age of 10 should wear Crocs in public. Ever.
kid bitzer
yeah, i kinda never heard of this woman before, so i don’t really know what to think about this.
granted, she’s doing a good sally quinn imitation, but the existence of sally quinn wannabes in d.c. is not news.
so there must be an angle here i’m missing, but i’ll be damned if i’ll give the weekly standard a click to find out what it is.
Unabogie
The “left’s” agenda is “high taxes, extravagant spending, laxity on crime”? Seriously? This must be performance art. So Bill Clinton did not lower the deficit, but Bush did? And he did this all while inheriting 9/11? Bush really was approaching to genius.
It must have been hard to be him.
But seriously, laxity on crime? Scooter Libby on line 2 wants to know if Cheney on line 3 shot anyone else in the face, and if so, can he get Abramoff’s lawyer?
eastriver
But what about the pets??? Are they affected? Do we have pictures of them affected? Or not?
(weeping with concern)
Drive By Wisdom
@AkaDad:
At least he wore a suit jacket in the Oval Office and was a citizen.
eastriver
@madmommy:
Unless gardening. With nothing else on.
edit: the adults, not the children.
WereBear
“laxity on crime” is so Nixon.
Which is not surprising, at all.
Nethead Jay
Ouch, nice catch. Don’t know this Noemi person from a hole in the ground but based on this she sounds insufferable.
@JasonF: That’s like distilled essence of wingnut. Dangerous stuff, can rot brains even in small amounts.
The Sheriff Is A Ni-
So Drive-Thru Witless is a birther. Well, the Klan that stays together and all that…
Unabogie
OT, but Digby has lost her fucking mind. In this post, she’s assailing Obama because Dawn Johnsen is not being confirmed and this proves Obama is torturing again.
Really, she’s saying that even though Obama appointed her in the first place, the fact that she’s having a tough time getting confirmed means that Obama doesn’t really want her there.
How can you beat logic like this?
General Winfield Stuck
@Unabogie:
Jeebus, I read that. If Digby has been assimilated, then the PUMA disease is unstoppable.
Max
@Unabogie: Don’t visit Talk Left because the folks over there are on that same path.
Speaking for me only. /snark
John Cole
@Unabogie: Depressing, isn’t it.
Earlier today our progressive betters informed us that Booman is nothing more than a “Obama supporter.”
Can’t wait till they go after Al Giordano and Aimai.
kay
You really have to read the whole thing. Democrats made the Sotomayor hearings about ethnicity. To Republicans, it was just about verifying basic credentials.
Pay no attention to the 5,000 wise Latina questions posed, by Republicans. “Wise Latina” is now on a t-shirt. Democrats made that phrase famous, to trap Republicans.
Unabogie
@General Winfield Stuck:
Well, it will never get me. I’m a died in the wool O-bot and…
Ack!
Urgh!
Guh!
Hello, Barack Obama is just like Bush. I think he wants to turn us into corporatist soc!alists.
Hillary is best.
Hillary is best.
Hillary…
SiubhanDuinne
Add me to the list of people who never heard of Noemie Emery before now. And if there is a loving and compassionate FSM, I never will again.
Comrade Luke
@Unabogie:
Would you agree that if the administration wanted Dawn Johnsen (for example) to go through they’d be tightening whatever screws necessary to get it done?
IMO their lack of followthrough implies that they don’t want to deal with “these types” of people anymore, either because they want to continue torturing or they just don’t want to have anything Bush did brought up anymore. IMO the latter is the real reason, but that’s just my opinion.
General Winfield Stuck
@Unabogie:
I will always have me Plastic Unicorn for stwength.
Dannie22
@John Cole
Al Giordano could care less if they go after him.
Hunter Gathers
@Comrade Luke: Obama could have used his magic powers to make Ben Nelson less dickish.
Unabogie
@John Cole:
Seriously, I am a very progressive person. But I have actually been accused of being some sort of right winger for trying to see things in broader perspectives.
I swear, tell me how this is different from being called an “America Hater” for criticizing Bush?
Same mindset.
Comrade Luke
@Hunter Gathers: Right, because working behind the scenes to get your nominees through requires magic powers.
General Winfield Stuck
@Comrade Luke:
I do believe it is senate wingnuts still putting a hold on her nomination. You gonna blame Obama for that?
It will take a cloture vote to break it.
And the idea that Obama may have something to hide and is working against his own nominee is just insane.
Midnight Marauder
@Unabogie:
It is pretty amazing how Obama has morphed into such a nefarious bastard in the eyes of so-called progressives. The emptywheel article that inspired Digby’s post is pretty rich in some of its depictions of President Obamarahm:
Which is why they nominated her in the first place, amirite? No, I’m not right, because she was just a pawn. But what would have happened if they had actually approved the pawn? Ha, that’s just crazy talk…
Comrade Luke
You know, reading the comments over at Digby’s, I think someone made a good point:
I wouldn’t be surprised if they dumped Johnsen in order to get Ben Nelson’s health care vote.
Unabogie
@Comrade Luke:
No, I don’t think that’s it at all. I think they have to deal with the people who are holding up the nomination, and they have to placate them in order to get other things done. On their list of priorities, she’s just one individual in a staff of hundreds. And going to bat for her, at the cost of dressing down an asshat like Nelson, just means he won’t play ball on things like, say, health care for 95% of the country.
Now, let me ask you, aside from us, does anyone else even know who the fuck Dawn Johnsen is? If not, why would he sacrifice real legislative goals so she can be forced through?
In other words, the downside is that his agenda gets blocked. What’s the upside, apart from pleasing Marcy Wheeler?
Leelee for Obama
@Unabogie: This is why we can’t have nice things, goddammit!
I don’t mind not belonging to an organized political party-really I don’t. But when the dysfunction reaches into insanity on our side of the frickin’ fence, I get just a little testy.
Comrade Luke
@Unabogie: Like I said, upon further reading I’m going with the theory that they did this to appease Nelson.
I’ll be interested in seeing if anyone else in the country (at least the voting public) even knows how the fuck their health care was improved with this bill, but time will tell.
Eric U.
@demkat620: how about croc socks with the presidential seal. It was like he couldn’t believe he was prez, and to be truthful, I couldn’t either. Bush the lesser was the tackiest man to inhabit the Oval Office, I’m sure of it.
to be fair, I’m wearing just about the ugliest crocs ever made as I write this; they are maroon and orange w/ a Virginia Tech logo.
General Winfield Stuck
The dems held up Bush appointees like this, and I believe it is still the case with the Judiciary committee, that they need at least one vote from the other party to move a nominee out to the floor.
Now that can be overruled by the majority leader, but it is a cumbersome and difficult process that takes up valuable floor debate time. Sounds like another progressive pony fit to me.
Unabogie
@Midnight Marauder:
This.
Midnight Marauder
@Comrade Luke:
OH SNAP, SON! The firebaggers are going to be PISSED when they hear about this.
Jack
OT:
…and in positive (and positively embarrassing for the US) news, Pakistan officially recognizes and establishes legal protections for a third gender:
http://duckofminerva.blogspot.com/2009/12/pakistans-supreme-court-recognizes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_%28South_Asia%29
Pakistan.
Long before…
…us.
Anne Laurie
@eastriver:
Lady, there ain’t enough
eyebleachsunscreen in the world!Max
@Leelee for Obama: The extreme’s on both sides exemplify why elections are won in the middle.
As much as the manic-progressives like to think they represent “the base” or the group that “got Obama elected”. It’s just not true. Black and brown people, along with Moderate’s, Indy’s and Obama Republicans got him elected.
I think it’s also worth noting that many manic-p’s live in very blue states. With our presidential electoral system, they can move the needle very little.
Corner Stone
@Eric U.:
You do know LBJ had meetings while on the porcelain throne, right?
He was pooing while he talked to Senators. Not like that damn Nigerian fuck on the plane either.
Unabogie
@Comrade Luke:
Don’t conflate a poorly sold health care bill with an obscure lawyer.
If you think that any lawyer, no matter how influential, somehow changes the debate, ask your nearest neighbor what they think of David Addington.
Then pinch him so his face doesn’t freeze in an expression of confusion.
Mnemosyne
I don’t get why otherwise smart people apparently just don’t understand that if Obama did start prosecuting people for torture, the entire fucking Village — not just the Republicans, but at least half of the Democrats and the entire media — would rise up against him in a campaign of fury that would make the Clinton impeachment look like a dodgeball game.
I can understand saying that it shouldn’t matter and the prosecutions should go forward despite the Village shitstorm, but completely ignoring reality so you can claim that Obama rilly rilly loves torture and has absolutely no other reason to not start prosecutions is idiotic.
Jack
@Mnemosyne:
And?
John Cole
It is just so fucking stupid. He nominated her after he won the election, not before. Why would he nominate her to placate the left after he was President unless he really wanted her? HE’D ALREADY WON.
I mean, christ. These folks are starting to sound like Red State diaries. How long before one of these idiots is asking for Obama’s birth certificate?
Corner Stone
@John Cole:
11-D Chess. The Long Game. Strategery.
You just don’t get it man. He’s out-thinking you all the way.
Unabogie
@John Cole:
It gets worse. These are the same people who scoff at the eleven dimensional chess concept, and yet here they are, claiming that Obama nominated someone he didn’t want in order to placate the left who wasn’t at that time even mad at him but with plans to scuttle her nomination when non-existent objections from Blue Dogs who weren’t even the magical 60th vote then came about at some future date.
Or something.
That’s like, more dimensions than eleven, is what it is.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: Personally I want all my executive and legislative decisions to be made by the calculus of political expediency.
But I hope TO MOTHERFUCKING GOD SAKE THE JUDICIARY DECISIONS ARE NOT.
Comrade Luke
@John Cole:
And I don’t understand the logic that progressive nominees are purposely being torpedoed.
So they nominated them in order to torpedo them later, knowing the nomination would be blocked?
That doesn’t make sense to me.
Corner Stone
@Unabogie: No, I called out the 11-D bullshit.
Scoff, scoff.
Mnemosyne
@Jack:
Hey, you’re on the side that’s arguing that Obama’s nomination of Johnsen was a head-fake and he never really wanted her to be confirmed at all because he loves torture. I think you’re the one who has some ‘splaining to do here.
Max
@Unabogie: You forget that Rahm got all the Blue Dogs elected, so that proves it!
As I said on an earlier thread, Oliver Stone’s got nothing on these people.
JD Rhoades
Considering that quite a few members of this so-called ‘base” were threatening to desert him and never vote for a Democrat again before he was even inaugurated, because of one of the people he picked to speak there, can you blame him?
OriGuy
I hate to point this out, but: Michelle Obama wearing Crocs.
Beeb
At some point, maybe Obama will get tired of having his nominees stalled and make some recess appointments. In the meantime, though, they are tricking through, a few at a time. If he withdraws her nomination, then perhaps some hissy fits will be in order, but right now, they’re just silly.
General Winfield Stuck
@Comrade Luke:
Torpedoed? By whom? It’s the fucking wingnuts holding this up. And the reason is that she said something goofy twenty years ago and the wingers are trying to make as much political hay out of it as possible. It’s politics with nominees and the dems do the same damn thing when the tables are turned. That is all it is.
John Cole
This past couple of weeks has been depressing. Was I just so blinded by well deserved Bush hatred that I failed to notice that a lot of the people I’ve been reading for years are actually an insane clown posse of butthurt and paranoia? I mean, jesus christ. Someone get these people a fucking xanax and a stiff drink.
Gwangung
@John Cole: Im disappointed but not surprised. The impulse toward partisan thinking exists in all of us; it needs to be guarded against in our selves, most of all.
AkaDad
@Laura W:
Sometimes I got nothing, but I’ll try to spray you more.
madmommy
@OriGuy:
Well, yeah. But those are cute! The original, Swiss cheese version should only be made in little kid sizes. The bigger they get, the uglier they get. Add in socks and the tack factor increases exponentially.
General Winfield Stuck
@John Cole:
Nope Cole, it is not you being blinded by anything. I never was a republican, but what is happening was why I was an independent, but liberal. And why I avoided politics in general. I saw this happen with Carter, and decided I didn’t want to be a democrat. This is what they do. And then wonder why they don”t win elections and give the wingnuts opportunity after opportunity to fuck up the country by helping to elect them with the pig ignorant circular firing squads. This is just the latest episode brought to you live by the new internets, is all.
Stay strong. BJ may be the next pol Alamo. Well, hopefully not that how it ended.
Anne Laurie
@General Winfield Stuck:
It’s the political form of Seasonal Affective Disorder. Which in American history goes back to — well, before ‘America’; that’s why George Washington Crossing the Delaware became one of our foundation myths. (And, I suspect, one reason coverage of Obama’s Hawaian vacation has been… less starstruck than one would expect from the celebutainment press.)
Corner Stone
DAL vs WAS…root for an asteroid?
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
Good luck finding any country on Earth whose judiciary is never influenced by political calculation. It took eight years to get Pinochet indicted at all, and 10 years to get him indicted in his own country.
Contrary to the mutterings in some circles (and, unfortunately, some fearmongering by the ACLU), the statute of limitations ain’t up anytime soon on those crimes. I realize that you want Obama to start prosecutions NOW NOW NOW but perhaps NOW NOW NOW isn’t the best time to get convictions given the shoddy record-keeping of the Bush administration.
Emma
John: Yes. Sorry about that.
WereBear
@John Cole: I know, but they used to make sense; because we were all against the same things.
Now, I’m thinking… Not for the same reasons.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: No, you don’t realize much of anything.
But thanks for playing.
RedKitten
@OriGuy: Could be worse — at least she’s not wearing the original ones, which look like bath toys.
General Winfield Stuck
@Anne Laurie:
If you are right, Then hurry up spring!!
Max
@Corner Stone: Cowboys FTW if you want me to bring any money into our pending nuptial.
SiubhanDuinne
@OriGuy #64:
IOKIYMO!
AhabTRuler
@Corner Stone: Oh god, yes!
And I say this as a lifelong Washington fan.
Midnight Marauder
@Unabogie:
It’s not even “or something”; that’s a pretty succinct distillation of the premise of emptywheel’s article that I linked to earlier in the thread. That is, verbatim, the belief that she is espousing. And it’s absolutely insane, from top to bottom, side to side. 100% insane.
These are people who have been beating the drum that Obama was so ineffective on health care and completely incapable of managing anything… except for when it comes to all kinds of creative and inventive ways to shit all over the left. But in those cases, somehow, Obama becomes this guy.
Corner Stone
@Max: COWBOYS FOR THE WIN!
But I’m still good for Thailand either way.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
Uh-huh. Please present your argument for why Obama will suffer no political harm whatsoever from torture prosecutions so therefore the only explanation for his not pursuing them is because he loves torture.
Am I thrilled that torture prosecutions are not happening because of political reality? No, but at least I can recognize reality and don’t live in a fantasyland where you can put people beloved by the Villagers on trial with no consequences. Look at how they flipped out over Scooter frickin’ Libby’s slap on the wrist and tell me again that there would be no backlash.
bago
Ideology is always striving towards some goal, some dreamed purity, some perfection.
If people just accepted “less stupid” as a goal, a lot of these fights would be avoided.
General Winfield Stuck
@bago:
You are wise Obi Won Bago.
OhMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. :–)
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@General Winfield Stuck: It’s not the wingnuts holding her up. We have 60 votes in the Senate. Specter was holding her up before he switched parties. I never heard that he took off the hold. Also, Johnsen once did work for NARAL. That displeases President Ben Nelson.
mcd410x
Roy Williams is bloody worrhless. Carry on.
Comrade Luke
@General Winfield Stuck: The Digby post implies that they’re being torpedoed by the administration, which as I say doesn’t really make sense.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Mnemosyne: So we let Versailles decide what laws will be enforced? In that case, we are doomed.
mcd410x
Or even worthless
General Winfield Stuck
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
You didn’t read all my posts. Yes, they can do a full debate and cloture. But that takes up valuable floor time. But it is the repubs who are holding her up with holds out of committee and threatening to filibuster. Nelson is one democrat, and would not filibuster her, I don’t think.
Gwangung
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle: Suppose she was sacrificed for the sake of health care reform (a more plausible reason). good? Bad? Indifferent?
General Winfield Stuck
@Comrade Luke:
Ok then. I had thought you were defending her implications.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
Wait a second. I never said that, nor implied it.
Obama doesn’t have to be an advocate of torture, or any of that BS.
But please do not try to sell me some BS that Obama would be derided for following the law, or his AG would suffer some ignominous fate because he followed the law.
In absence of political expediency.
Fuck that. Did we just elect Nixon or some shit?
We all the time here say how small the Village really is, and how normal citizens really know nothing about 95% of what we get our panties bunched about.
Except when it counts. Then all you motherfuckers are like, “Holy Balls!@$%*()^%. If Obama wanted to follow the law like he swore an oath to do he’d be called names! They’d call him a Kenyan or some nasty shit! He’d be totally fucked and no Republican would ever vote for his HCR bill!…”
Give me a fucking break.
Corner Stone
@mcd410x: I sooo want to add worrhless to my dictionary.
Unabogie
@Midnight Marauder:
It’s just like the 911 Troofers. Somehow, George Duh Bush is supposed to be capable of pulling off the greatest false flag operation in the history of the world, and he did it with cameras watching the whole thing?
It takes magical thinking to buy that, the same as it takes magical thinking to believe that Obama didn’t want a public option and doesn’t want his own nominee to be confirmed because he’s afraid she’ll see what he’s really hiding.
Sly
@Comrade Luke:
There are no screws to tighten, friend. What the Forty want is for this country to get so fucked up that people forget how incompetent they are at governing and give them a second chance. They’ve had massive opportunities to get help for their constituents through ARRA, the budget, and HCR. Opportunities they eagerly took when there was a Republican President and majority.
And they chose to take themselves out of the process completely in order to stand in the way of everything. That people may reward them for it by voting for them, or not voting for their opponents, is the larger crime.
General Winfield Stuck
@Mnemosyne:
You are exactly right. Every ounce of political oxygen would be used up for any prosecution of Bush or Cheney. Nothing else would get done. That is the choice for now. Whether it’s the right thing to do or not, what Mnemosyne said is absolutely true.
And Obama would pay dearly for not fixing the kitchen table issues the country is expecting from this Bush made economic shit sandwich.
mcd410x
@Corner Stone: Auto correct is a worrhless thing.
Face
Total time it took to read response #2 and #3 — 7 seconds. Saved 36 secs. Game on.
JD Rhoades
@mcd410x:
Look, dude, the Tarheels losing to Texas was a huge disappointment, and yeah, we were sloppy in the first half against Marshall, but let’s not go off the deep end here.
Oh, there’s another Roy Williams?
MikeJ
@Max:
That’s some magic Jew.
Anne Laurie
@Jack:
To be scrupulously fair, the hijra “third gender” has a long established social history in the Subcontinent. Unlike… us.
There is a feminist argument to be made that those societies which recognize “third genders” have historically been very rigid about each genders’ proper role. Patriarchies can use the concept of hijras, religious eunuchs, ‘manly-hearted women’, and so forth to label non-stereotypical male / female behavior as being outside “normal” human experience. In Big Daddy World, it’s not that some men might enjoy household tasks and nurturing babies, or that some women might be good political organizers but completely uninterested in decent female tasks — it’s just that those few individuals with gender-abberant interests constitute a whole different third class of humans.
Not to dismiss the genuine pain American transsexual / transgendered persons have experienced, but even the Bush Regency couldn’t pass the national ID laws they wanted, because as a political society we’re still a lot further towards the “anything not forbidden is permitted” end of the scale than Pakistan.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: Jeesus. I feel so bad for you.
Anytime Stuck clumsily gloms onto a point it automatically becomes by default 100% wrong.
Better luck next time.
Corner Stone
@mcd410x: I got ya. But I just love “worrhless”.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
Good to know that Travelgate and Whitewater never happened and were figments of my imagination. Because, hey, they followed the law in both Travelgate and Whitewater, so the media and Republicans must have left them alone, right? There’s no possible way that those ginned-up investigations led to only the second impeachment of a president in American history — that would just be silly since the Clintons followed the law.
General Winfield Stuck
@Corner Stone:
Shut up dumbass PUMA dead ender. And if it was still operable, a HIllbot for the Hat Trick.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
In other words, you got nothin’. I get it.
General Winfield Stuck
@Mnemosyne:
He does have a big mouth. And a Keyboard.
edit – hissy fit 1….2…….
mcd410x
@JD Rhoades: I’d like to see Dean run a pattern across the middle.
mcd +2
Comrade Luke
@General Winfield Stuck:
I’ve always liked Digby, but I get the sense that even though she’s trying to convince herself that she’s not pissed off that Hillary didn’t win, her writing (perhaps subconsciously) says otherwise.
I’ve read her for years, but I can’t take it anymore.
srv
@John Cole: You know, x.anax is closer to the truth than you think.
Most of the people who did all the screaming during the Bush years weren’t pragmatic. They didn’t get up in the morning, listen to their own “pragmatic” allies ask them why they loved Saddam, or were so deranged about Bush, and take a x.anax. And neither were the folks on the right, who had a good, long run with unpragmatic ideology. 28 years or so, including a 1992 self-immolation.
If Democratic Congressmen and Senators are representative of the Dems I know, a good third of them are on anti-anxiety drugs.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: You are clumsily holding onto the idea that Obama is going to get the support/help of ANYMOTHERFUCKINGBODY.
Who gives one shit less what happened during the Clinton admin, and the BS you highlight?
He might as well run it straight, and run it honest, amirite?
Or maybe you’re pissing your panties waiting for someone to oppose Obama, call him a Sockulist, a Kenyan, a non-citizen, etc etc etc.
He’s going to take the brunt of their crazy anyway. Your argument is weaksauce unless you’re just scared of something the oppo is already fucking doing.
Sly
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
Senate Rules give extraordinary latitude to individual Senators when it comes to nominations. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee held up who knows how many of Clinton’s judicial nominations through holds. Trent Lott was responsible for many all by himself.
It’s changing those rules that requires 60 votes, and you will find very few Democratic Senators who are willing to give up personal privileges for party gains. Blowing up institutions for the sake of short term expediency has been more of a GOP deal.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: Poor thing. I hope you and Stuck are very happy together.
Corner Stone
@General Winfield Stuck: if it were possible to type out how hard I am laughing at you I would.
You’re a pathetic little man Stuck. Just sad.
The Republic of Stupidity
@bago
Hmmm… are you implying that stupidity, as we understand it, exists on some sort of continuum, a continuous nonspatial whole or extent or succession in which no part or portion of ‘stupidity’ is distinct or distinguishable from adjacent degrees?
Could there possibly be something such as Absolute Stupidity, the point at which stupidity reaches its minimum value? As implied by the laws of thermodynamics, this would mean that…
I’m not sure, but I think that Einstein said that last part… along w/ ‘Stupidity can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only change parties’.
Kinda like weight… if you’re losing it, someone, somewhere, is gaining it…
General Winfield Stuck
@Comrade Luke:
I like Digby too. And still do. And she is not the only blogger I respect on the left, getting a little unhinged about Obama.
Corner Stone
@General Winfield Stuck: “My name’s Stuck and I gots nothing. I like to use The Easy Label because people who disagree with me scare me. They’re all so much smarter than me and I just can’t possibly express myself in a way to keep up. I like calling people PUMA because it makes me feel like a real man. I’m scared of the vagina. I escaped it once and I hopes to never see it again til the day I croak hugging my teddy bear.” – GWS
Brick Oven Bill
Bill Clinton is very Talented.
Midnight Marauder
@Unabogie:
It really is some of the craziest shit I have ever seen on the Internet, and I think we all know that the Internet contains a lot of (non-pornographic) crazy. I mean, if he didn’t want her to be the nominee, maybe he would have been better off NOT NOMINATING HER IN THE FIRST PLACE! And the idea that he nominated her only so that he could not fight for her, leave her dead in the water, and shit all over liberals–Why is he planning 11 months ahead to shit on liberals who weren’t even upset with him at that moment in time, because he was the newly-elected President of the United States? It’s just absolutely insane and it’s fascinating to wake up each day and see who is among the newly infected.
+3
General Winfield Stuck
@Corner Stone:
LOL right on schedule with the CS hissy fit.
Corey
Just stopping in to comment on how unhinged Sully is today. I mean Christ. I’m all for these Iranians kicking ass but he’s treating every development as if it’s going to topple an entrenched regime that people actually support.
I think he let a lot of the (well-deserved) press he got this summer go to his head.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
So he’s going to get impeached no matter what, so he may as well go down in a blaze of glory?
And I know you and Stuck have some kind of weird thing going, but I really don’t want any part of it. You two fellas have got to work it out for yourselves.
AhabTRuler
I guess it must be a day that ends in -y.
General Winfield Stuck
@Mnemosyne:
Leftovers from last years primary flame wars. Some folks just can’t get over Obama winning, no weirder than that.
but I will grant your wish and not comment on your comments anymore, to keep you out of it.
mcd410x
Success, thy name is Miles Austin.
freelancer
What the fuck is going on here?!
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: No – what can he do to mollify the opposition?
What action or inaction will satisfy them?
Nothing, right? Then why bother using that in the calculus?
General Winfield Stuck
@freelancer:
Balloon Juice is going on here. You know, hot air, politics, more hot air. Always been that way, though less so than it once was.
bago
Actually I was shooting for something along the lines of Zeno’s dichotomy paradox. There isn’t a theoretical maximum for stupidity, but movement away from it can be asessed. Of course the measure of movement in an n-dimensional graph is a tricky question.
Alas the health care debate has shown all kinds of idiocy afoot. You can draft a plan that moves in the right direction on the dimensions you claim to value, and have it criticized on those exact dimensions of the vector.
Brick Oven Bill
Bill Clinton received $31.4 million to shore up uranium mineral interests in Kazakhstan, the home of that movie.
Bill is no dummy. Windmill Believers do not acquire interests in uranium. Bill demonstrates that Talent, even in the absence of Virtue, still trumps Wealth and Birth.
Rahm only cleared $16 million in that Trust Fund deal he brokered with that guy he now put in charge of GM (Whitacre?; the lanky guy in the commercials). This was an AT&T deal. Axlerod only got $3 million for selling his interest in the word ‘astroturf’, none of this Axlerod money was for buying influence. The $3 million was for the word ‘astroturf’. Because there are no lobbyists in this Administration. ‘Astroturf’ is a really good word, you see. Clever.
But this one single Clinton deal alone cleared $31.4 million. This is really good. Bill is a professional, and not tacky.
freelancer
@General Winfield Stuck:
Thanks, Stuck.
Any new Charlie pics?
Midnight Marauder
@freelancer:
Shenanigans. Out and out shenanigans.
General Winfield Stuck
@freelancer:
Yup, from last thread. Hope this link works.
General Winfield Stuck
@Midnight Marauder:
teh cute. Thanks. I needed that:)
Steeplejack
@John Cole:
I think it’s (partly) the holidays, Cole. Even the tone of the commentariat on this blog has been crabbier and more dickheaded the last few weeks. People overreacting, overinterpreting political tea leaves, taking offense at the slightest provocation (or none at all), etc., etc.
Can’t we all just get along?
Midnight Marauder
@Steeplejack:
This is how Arianna Huffington would respond to you:
Because we need boots on the ground in London, you see.
cat48
Johnsen’s work for NARAL (abortion) is why they have holds on her in the Senate/both parties last time I heard. If they approve her, they are for abortion in their small minds.
K. Grant
@Corner Stone: If Obama prosecutes, the Village, already poisoned into believing that Obama is a bitter partisan, will never let go of that meme. In fact, the inside-the-Beltway crowd, the Village, and all of the GOP will dig a deep trench and drag the rest of Obama’s tenure into said trench. Nothing will get done. Nothing. It will be the black-hole of political memes, swallowing everything and allowing no other news to escape.
Or do you think that it is far more important to put Bush in jail at the expense of everything else that this country faces? If so, then you clearly need spend no further time on this site, as you will find that this collection of folks rather likes to actually get things done. Even when it doesn’t feel great to do so. But, you see, we recognize that this is politics, and not getting everything that you want is just the way things work.
Corner Stone
@Max: Please tell me I don’t ever have to root for the Cowboys to win again.
I’ll cover whatever bets you have…I just can’t go thru that again.
Corner Stone
@K. Grant:
I just don’t know what is wrong with people make this specific argument.
Nothing will get done? They’ll call Obama a partisan?
Have any of you mofos paid any attention at all to what just happened the last 12 months?
Fucking jackassery in extremis.
WHAT MORE COULD OBAMA DO TO MAKE THEM HATE HIM? TO MAKE THEM CALL HIM A TRAITOR, A NON-CITIZEN, A PARTISAN WHO CRAMMED LEGISLATION DOWN THE THROATS OF GOD-FEARING CITIZENS??
Fucking morans.
Brick Oven Bill
Obama only got one half of one million dollars for his quieted-up pre-inaugural book advance. One finds truth in numbers.
Although Barack’s $500,000 is more than zero, or the money any comparable President-elect has ever made off of a book-deal, $500,000 divided by $31,400,000 equals one point six percent (0.016, or 1.6%). This $31,400,000 was for one single Clinton deal.
Clinton is very good. For the record, Obama has not shared any of this $500,000 with his brother, but he cares about you.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Midnight Marauder:
And Amsterdam… don’t forget Amsterdam…
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
There’s a difference between mollifying the opposition and not giving them the weapons that they need to destroy you. Your argument is that since the right wing will never be happy with anything Obama does, he may as well start prosecutions right now that will grind the entire government to a halt and set off 24/7 denunciations in every media outlet. We’re pointing out that maybe we should get a few things done before we grind the entire government to a halt and set off 24/7 denunciations.
Midnight Marauder
@Corner Stone:
I think the answer we were looking for is “Launch a full-throated investigation into the
CheneyBush Administration’s torture regime.”The Republic of Stupidity
@bago:
In other words, “no matter where you go, there you are?”
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
If you really don’t think things could get worse, you have no imagination. There is no Peak Wingnut.
Corey
@K. Grant:
The substance of this moronic argument has been addressed so many times on these here internets that I won’t even bother doing that. I will, however, note the irony in invoking the dread “Village” when this is, in fact, the overwhelming Washington rationale for not holding people accountable for unquestioned war crimes.
ellaesther
@Corey: I must say that I disagree. I wrote this in an earlier thread (that wasn’t actually about Iran either!), but I’ll say it again here: Sullivan’s failing is that he too easily leads with his heart, investing his hopes with a little too much sense of established reality. He has acknowledged this a few times in the course of the day, to his credit I feel, but he is a person of passion and faith and when he’s wrapped up in something, well, he’s wrapped up! And that’s how he sounds.
But that caveat aside (and I really don’t fault him for it. These days, the punkest thing on earth is sincerity) these moments that he’s blogging about are, in fact, what make a revolution. Every little one adding up.
And these events are, in fact, not little — but huge. Sure, the government is supported by some, but I don’t know that we can begin to guess the percentages, and it has absolutely lost the veneer of holiness that it once had. I’ve been studying and writing about the Middle East for about 20 years, and here was my thinking from a week ago as to why I thought today would be huge; here’s a report from the NY Times about why it was, in fact, huge.
It’s huge, man. The government might not be brought down tomorrow or next week — they are, after all, the folks with the guns — but from what I can see, from where I sit, Iran as it was for 30 years is now officially a thing of the past. It’s now just a question of how long it takes to get to the next stage, and what that stage will look like.
Corner Stone
The vote was 60 – 40!
Fucking motherfuck me. Do none of you read the things Cole posts everyday?
Obama will never, ever get anything from an R.
Jeebus fucking Christ.
ellaesther
(And by the way, I’m sorry that the only two times I’ve commented today have been me going on and on about something that was entirely off-topic. I am mono-focused today, myself. Apologies all around for bad commenting behavior).
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
It’s not what he will get from Republicans. It’s the Democrats who will feel the need to turn on him to burnish their Village credentials, and the “liberal” media who just never felt right about him. Like Bill Clinton he may be impeached but not convicted, but we really don’t need that kind of media circus sucking up our oxygen 24/7. Again.
As I said, mollifying your enemies and not handing them the tools to beat you with are not the same thing.
mcd410x
@The Republic of Stupidity: C’mon, how about the Pennsylvania Dutch? What are their demands? You know they hate our freedom.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: Why should they bother to work anymore when they have people like you ready to hand them half the fucking battlefield?
Please massah wingnut, don’t be calling me names suh. Don’t be making my life miserable where I can’t get any votes from you on a piece of historical legislation!
I’d really like it if I could please tailor my administration to make you happy, in such a way that won’t make you or any of your friends upset in any way!
Please, please tell me how that could be done. I mean, I’m a nominal Democrat with a nominal majority in both houses of Congress but please, please don’t shut the shit down on meh!
ellaesther
@Corner Stone: I do! I’m with you. They’re in this for the long-haul, and care not a whit for country over party (and personal venom). Time to move the fuck on from “bi-partisanship.”
(There! I was on-topic! Whoot!)
Steeplejack
@Midnight Marauder:
Jeezy-creezy. [Eddie Izzard voice]
ellaesther
@Corner Stone: (I do hate to say it — I do — but you appear to have mixed your accents. I believe you’ve got “field slave” mixed in there with “LOLcat.” Just, you know, sayin’. Ahem).
Corner Stone
Then why bother ever electing Democrats? Honestly?
Do you think Republicans would be having this conversation?
valdivia
@ellaesther:
what you said about Iran. All of it. Another plus of having the adults in charge is that our President is not bigfooting the situation and letting it evolve. McCain would have already flown there to be with them.
Corner Stone
@ellaesther: Whoot!
Yeah! Fuck the longhaul!
Wait…what?
Corner Stone
@ellaesther: I can never keep those two separate. Fuck.
The Republic of Stupidity
I have to say… it does leave an… empty feeling… to not have this happening. I can understand both sides of this discussion, up to a certain degree… both the political expediency of NOT doing a full-bore investigation, and the resultant disappointment in the fact that its not happening.
As Corner Stone has pointed out… fer cryin’ out loud… they’ve already been calling the man an Islamonazified Fascismaoistical-Stalinist Black Nationalist America Hater™, even before he was elected. We’ve been thru Pizzachefgate, Birthcertificategate, Dijongate, Foreskingate, and a whole multitude of other shocking scandals, and all in less than one year’s time. I’m not sure what else they could do to the man. We’ve had more filibusters this year than ever in the f-in’ history of the place.
And… I’m almost afraid to see the level of rage and indignity a full-fledged investigation would produce… and still… I’m disappointed. What an F-in’ mess.
Doesn’t help any when the resident admin in the WH keeps defending its predecessor’s positions, vis-a-vis detainee rights, or lack there of, or the efficacy and necessity of endless wiretapping, or the unacknowledged use of drones in S Asia…
Admins in the WH come and go… those disgusting Abu Ghraib sex torture pix on the intertubes? They’ll be there for all eternity. A fitting legacy for the Bush Years, no?
Violet
@ellaesther:
You’re absolutely right. A successful revolution can really only be seen in hindsight. In the middle of it it’s a complete mess. Today is huge and the killing of Mousavi’s nephew is going to have a massive effect.
People forget that the previous Iranian revolution, where the Shah was overthrown, didn’t happen in a day or week. It took a year or so. This one is happening in a similar fashion.
Sully is over the top, but he’s doing great work too. I love his passion, even as his “Obama should wear a green tie!” comments make my head spin.
Midnight Marauder
@Steeplejack:
Yeah, you didn’t see that coming, did you? I know we all say that 2009 was the year that people doubled-down on crazy, but dare I say that 2010 will be the year that people triple-down on crazy? Can you even do such a thing?
@The Republic of Stupidity:
I agree with this whole-heartedly.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
Dude. Take a chill pill. You’re going to give yourself a seizure.
I will explain it again, very slowly, and see if logic will reach you:
The Republicans are already intransigent, and have their own media to keep feeding their memes to the public.
We have many things that need to be done.
The statute of limitations for war crimes does not run out anytime soon.
Starting up prosecutions for war crimes is pretty much asking for the entire government to grind to a halt. Not just the lurching half-wound-down back-and-forth we’re dealing with right now where it takes a few months but legislation eventually gets passed, but that actual filibuster of Republicans screaming on C-SPAN 24/7 that you keep saying you want that means not a single bill can be discussed until they STFU.
There is plenty more they can be doing to gum up the works, but right now they don’t have the support of the media for doing it. Hand the media a nice juicy story that doesn’t take much thinking, like “OMG I’m being prosecuted for patriotism!” and the few grumblings you’ve seen about Republicans opposing everything turns into 24/7 flag-waving.
Is it fucked up that our political establishment is like a particularly cranky nest of hornets waiting to attack? Hell yeah. Does the fact that our political establishment is like this mean it’s a good idea to start poking at the hornet’s nest with a stick? I say no, you say yes.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
Yep. I, too am scared to death of what Nelson, Landrieu and Lieberman may demand of him.
Wait..those three got everything they wanted and voted with the other nominal Democrats?
Hmmm…this changes everything. I mean “nothing”! It changes nothing! You hear me Village! NOTHING!!!
Corey
Maybe I’m being a cold-hearted bastard, but isn’t this the third or fourth time since the original protests in June that things have flared up over there? And every time, it dies down and the Ayatollahs still rule.
My problem with the breathless coverage is that there’s no real way of knowing how many people are protesting and how many people support them. Sully printed an e-mail that was, in my opinion, quite right – this is different from 1979 in that the protesters have no clear vision of what they’d like to replace the status quo with. There’s a vague sense that they’d like to keep a reformed version of the Islamic Republic but to my knowledge no one has articulated exactly what that would look like.
The Republic of Stupidity
@mcd410x
Uh… I was actually referring to Morey Amsterdam… but now that you’ve broached the subject matter… indeed… what about those F-in’ Amish? I never did trust anyone who dressed in black all the time… and what’s up w/ those beards? Are they trying to hide bombs in them?
The Sheriff Is A Ni-
@Corner Stone: Because we believe in competent government?
As for why we haven’t seen any war crimes trials, it involves the words ‘President’, ‘Pardon’ and one of ‘Jindal’, ‘Pawlenty’, ‘Romney’, or ‘Palin’.
If you convict any of them now it would be a seven, maybe eleven year sentence. Heaven forbid a three year one because President Obama ‘dug up the past’ to ‘play the politics of vengeance over helping the people’.
The only way to stop these fuckers is to conclusively convict them in the court of public opinion.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: But they are already trying, and doing all this!
Do you remember this summer with the birth of the teabaggers? Where do you think they came from? Some nebulous place where politics don’t exist?
Your viewpoint is just not founded in any kind of the reality that we see every day here in our version of real life.
Tell you what – let’s back off for a bit and see how calm and easy shit goes.
I’ll give you another 12 months to prove your point.
Fair enough?
Violet
@Corey:
And he printed another one saying it is similar to 1979. I think only history will tell.
Yeah, it is the third or fourth (or fifth or sixth) time that things have flared up. But that’s how it worked in 1979. There were multiple demonstrations over months. As important dates came up, there’d be more demonstrations. That’s what’s happening now. Back then no one knew how it would end. We don’t know now. The first draft of history is messy.
Mnemosyne
@The Republic of Stupidity:
The fact that I’m (sort of) defending the decision not to prosecute right now doesn’t mean I’m happy about it. I’m hoping (and letter-writing) that things are being investigated for future prosecution.
As I said, there is no rational reason why people have to be indicted NOW NOW NOW and the impatience of people to get to the trials is kinda creeping me out.
Corey
@Mnemosyne:
Shorter Mnemosyne: let’s not have rule of law because I’m scared of wingnuts
Seriously dude, they already filibuster every bill that comes through the Senate. Zero Republicans voted for cloture on the healthcare bill – ZERO. Whether or not they get up and physically filibuster doesn’t change the legislative algebra one iota.
Corner Stone
@The Sheriff Is A Ni-:
BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!
***cough***
Oh, sorry. Excuse me but I was choking to death on the stupidity of this idea. My bad.
Annie
@ellaesther:
You raise excellent points. Iran is a case in point. And, nothing shows how biased and incompetent the media has become — e.g. giving Mary Matalin time to praise the Bush/Cheney administration — while events in Iran unfold.
Whatever his failings, Sullivan has stayed on events in Iran and provided us with news and insights that the mainstream media should be providing, but has not and has been failing miserably. Iran should be the story of the day, not Obama’s supposed visits to the beach and golf course. And, maybe I am wrong, but the administration is handling Iran just right. Giving space to Iranians to decide their own fate, where increasingly individuals are speaking out against the government, and where increasingly those in opposition are becoming a problem for the current regime.
Instead of advocating bombing Iran, the Obama administration is letting opposition to the current regime gain strength and ultimately decide its own fate. Which is exactly what US national interests should support. Obama has been measured, steady, and supportive.
You are right. The story is huge. But our mindless media is focused on scoring points against the Obama administration and still giving time to former Bush aids who have failed at everything they tried to do.
GregB
Sweet Jesus.
There is a blowback tsunami under way.
We have the continued mayhem and recriminations in Iran which is still roiling from our actions there in 1953, 1979 and on.
We are now getting support from Russia to deal with Afghanistan which is just a karmic clusterfuck.
Finally Thailand is now ethnically cleansing the old CIA assets from the Vietnam war, the Hmong.
It’s getting crazy.
-G
Corner Stone
@The Republic of Stupidity: Personally I’ve always been more than a little suspicious of “rumspringa”.
Sounds a little too close to the dude who busted the nutbuster Nigerian.
I’ve got my eye on them fucking Amish I means to tell ya.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
Again, you’re saying that things can’t get worse than they are now, or that they’ll naturally get worse on their own, so we have nothing to lose by announcing prosecutions immediately.
I’m saying that hell yeah things can get worse than they are now, and there’s no reason to go rushing into things half-cocked because you rilly rilly want to get to those trials.
This is probably my biggest complaint about us lefties: we want what we want, and we want it now. Fuck strategy. Fuck gathering evidence. Who needs the court of public opinion? Just do it now!
We’ve got pretty good tactics, but Jeebus do we suck at strategy.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Midnight Marauder:
I read an article a couple of years ago that said the Clinton impeachment freak show was actually payback for Nixon, and also made it damned near impossible for Dems to try and impeach another Repub down the road… and zut alors… Nancy took impeachment off the table.
And now, GOOPers act like a gang of English soccer hooligans, all the time. I have no doubts whatsoever that the GOOP would try to impeach Obama on ANY pretense, should they be in a position to, down the road.
(I’ve secretly wondered for a looooooong time is Monica Lewinsky has a secret Swiss bank account w/ several million in it…)
Siiiiiiigh… sure wish the Dems would grow a pair and learn to fight mean and dirty, like the GOOPers do.
Mnemosyne
@Corey:
Shorter Corner Stone: Who cares if they all get acquitted because we didn’t take the time to build the case against them — I want my trials NOW NOW NOW!
Corner Stone
@Annie:
But wait a second – the Justice Dept hasn’t ever even considered starting trials against the Bush admin peeps. And yet this is happening? WTF?
I THOUGHT WE HAD A DEAL!!
mcd410x
@ellaesther: The pace of what’s going on is really cool. It’s almost completely under the radar here because we (mostly the media) can’t resolve things at such a slow pace. Very cool.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
Liar. I never once said I want them shot today. This is so much bullshit that it could be Rovian in nature.
NOW NOW NOW is only reserved for banker bailouts and other legislation they don’t want anyone to read.
Fuck you for trying to shove words in my mouth.
I want a real deal by the book investigation. I don’t care if it takes 10 years as long as it’s done right and the outcome is legal, whatever it is.
Why are you so fucking scared to let the system work? Why are you so fucking scared?
valdivia
@Corey:
Huh? The reason not to prosecute right now is that we don’t have to do it right now to get the best prosecution we can. To make a point made upthread: Chile got to function as a democracy for over 10 years without touching Pinochet. The people he tortured had to go to Congress and see him there. Are you implying that they too were scared and that is the only reason they waited to prosecute. You prosecute when you can and you are sure to win. I voted for Obama to get shit done not to satisfy a desire for immediate payback. I want accountability from those people but I want it done in a way that will endure. saying those of us who see the problem with doing prosecutions now is like we ignore the rule of law is being just as blind about political reality as the fucking republicans.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Mnemosyne:
I understand what you’re saying, just as I understand and empathize w/ Corner Stone’s frustration. I PERSONALLY feel frustrated at all of this.
OH christ… ***face palm…*** I’m… I’m… sounding like a Centrist…
Oh NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOES!…
I am afraid… as time goes by… the longer we wait… the harder it will be to do anything about this. Just sayin’…
I swear… if Bush & Co wanted to deliberately spike the joint, they couldn’t have done much better of a job… this is a catastrophic F-in’ mess.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: Why are you using something Corey said to put words in my mouth?
Because you got nothing else and are just balls up scared?
tgeb
JOHN COLE IS WORSE THAN OBAMA HE SNARKED US OUT.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
Funnily enough, that’s what I want, too. And I have this silly idea that if you’re going to investigate people who still have deep ties in the government, you shouldn’t trumpet it to the whole world so they have time to get rid of the evidence that you need.
So now I really don’t get what you’re so fucking upset about. Do you have some weird idea that if the investigations don’t begin within the first year in office, they can’t be pursued? What’s your problem? Because it’s really coming across as you being pissed off that the investigations were not immediately announced and Dick Cheney’s court date hasn’t been set yet.
If you’re willing to wait 10 years for the system to work, what are you having a hissy fit about?
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
Uh, no, because I read the name wrong. Sorry I didn’t actually conspire against you. I know you’re disappointed.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Corner Stone:
If “rumspringa’ makes you nervous, then, by all means, DON’T click on this link…
Corey
@valdivia:
The erroneous frame here is that prosecuting people for crimes is “payback” – a tit for tat, partisan reaction. It’s not.
Yes, sometimes it takes a long time to put together a solid prosecution, but no one has presented a cogent argument why these investigations aren’t happening now.
The President has shown that he’s emphatically not willing to upset the Village apple cart, and that’s fine, maybe that’s the strategic decision he needs to make. It doesn’t mean that progressives have to slavishly support it, though. I keep reminding people here that we’re not Republicans and that we’re not called to make excuses for our elected leaders.
Emma
Corner Stone: well, you have certainly inspired me. To leave the country as soon as you have brought the crazy Republicans back into power and we are all enjoying the rule of our home grown Taliban.
Were you in the United States during the impeachment of President Clinton? Because if I remember correctly Clinton could get pretty much sh)t all done for two years. And the Republicans in Congress in those days were considerably more reasonable than the baying hunt we have today.
It isn’t a matter of mollifying them. It’s a matter of knowing that if you are at war every minute of every day, you have to pick your bloody battles!
People like you will bring this president down. And then whine about how the perfect pure Republic On A Hill didn’t materialize right on time, as the Purity Manual said it would.
General Winfield Stuck
This would not be happening, only if Hillary had won instead of Obama. Those votes in Michigan and Florida was stole, and now we got the Kenyan impostor screwing stuff up/
Please come back Hillary, and be our presnit, so we can fix things the way they ought a be.
Run Hills Run, 2012 puhleeeease!!
ksecus
Im surprised anyone can actually read the weekly standard without a puke bucket nearby.
Annie
@General Winfield Stuck:
Thanks! I am now going to sleep laughing. Kisses again to Charlie. My two purring darlings are waiting for me to finally give up and call it a night.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: As far as I recall this started due to a disagreement over political expediency.
My concern is that the time will “never be right” to do the right thing and have the Justice Dept do their job.
ISTM as though you and others say – Hey, now’s not the time, we got shit to do and we don’t need the hassle.
But I see the opposition as a deadly, intractable enemy to our Democracy.
To me, this all started in the modern times with Ford pardoning Nixon “for the greater good”. Then came Ronnie and Iran-Contra and Bush I pardoning everyone in sight “for the greater good”.
Now we have something that our nation has to take action on. It doesn’t have to rush through to execution like we did with Saddam. We can take our time, use a real deal SP and get all, and I do mean all, the facts out there for a trial or whatever is called for.
But over and over again I see people saying silly shit like, “Now’s not the time because they’ll get pissed and gum it all up. We have an agenda and we dare not make them angry.”
But they are angry. And they will spread any lie and gin up any controversy to stop that agenda.
Yet the law is not being served. I’m not an angel, nor a neophyte. I know how business gets done.
But is this where we give it up? Is this the demarcation where we just agree that some things have more value than others under the law?
Torture, murder, lying into war, etc etc? And don’t tell me now’s not the time. Now is not the time for homo’s to get their rights, I agree with you there. Because they are fucking icky and they creep me the fuck out.
But if not now for the rule of law then when?
Ok then I guess.
valdivia
@Corey:
the whole point is that insisting this happens NOW is actually making it look like payback when it isn’t.
For a good investigation to take place you actually need people to collaborate you know? You think that is going to happen right now? Really? even more if Obama takes the podium and says he will start off an investigation such as this (no mind that it is the AG who decides that btw). One thing I just do not get is how a lot of people here really seem to think that political reality is irrelevant. The reason the Chileans finally succeeded in defeating Pinochet and then divesting him from some part of his hero status in some sectors of the country is because they waited until they had the political room to do it. The investigations at the beginning were not even done by the govt but by ngo’s and journalists.
My point is very very simple: knowing when you make a move like this is NOT equal to being a coward who is afraid of the wingnuts and ignores the rule of law. The now now now brigade just does not seem to want to learn at all from what countries who suffered even greater infringement of human rights have to teach you about how these prosecutions should happen and how they can be won. I guess American exceptionalism plays on both sides of the isle.
Corner Stone
@Emma: What size diaper should I buy you?
Since you piss your pants like a little baby and all.
digby
A couple of things:
I updated my post, which was inartfully written. I don’t think “Obama is torturing,” but I do think there is something odd going on in the administration with respect to the civil liberties questions. I suspect it’s pressure coming from the military and the intelligence establishment to keep a lid on any transgressions.
I also believe he’s being successfully mau-maued by the conservatives into not fighting for things the liberal base wants. Some of that is understandable, but it’s becoming dangerous. This economy sucks and there’s probably going to be an incumbent backlash next fall. The Democrats need their base to turn out. I’m worried about it and I think he needs to do something to stop this.
Finally, I didn’t vote for Hillary and didn’t endorse her so the idea that I’m feeling some sort of anger at Obama because of that is fallacious. I shudder to think how awful the political environment would be if she were in office right now.
I do admit however that I have never been an Obama groupie either — but that’s because I stopped feeling that way about politicians about 20 years ago. He’s turned out to be more or less as I expected, although I thought he’d handle the politics a little bit better.
valdivia
@Corey:
Not to cut our discussion off, I am happy to continue this chat tomorrow in case you reply, but I am literally crashing from exhaustion.
I do think it’s a point very worth debating. This country has never tried a former president for crimes against humanity, and other illegal activities (that I know of). Successful trials of former presidents are very very hard to do and very very rare. Other countries have been successful at doing them, so why not take a page out of their book instead of insisting that we know it all? The lesson in almost every case is that these prosecutions take at least a decade. Just to get the ball rolling takes years precisely because of governability issues which are real and important.
More tomorrow if you are still interested
The Republic of Stupidity
@valdivia:
That really is a big part of the problem, innit?
Thruthfully?
None of us know what’s really being said, or done, behind closed doors at the WH. Is the Obama Admin playing it cagey and biding its time, or do they intend to run interference for BushCo and let those SOBs slip away into the night?
We can argue all we want, and there’s simply no way to know…
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
So because people are making you mad on-line, we should rush into prosecutions to make you feel better?
It’s not like there are no ongoing investigations. AG Holder started one in August. The fact that he’s not moving quickly enough for you isn’t a reason to start up a second, noisier one.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
So because people are making you mad on-line, we should rush into prosecutions to make you feel better?
It’s not like there are no ongoing investigations. AG Holder started one in August. The fact that he’s not moving quickly enough for you isn’t a reason to start up a second, noisier one.
Mnemosyne
Great, not only did I make a duplicate post, I can’t edit and delete one. Feh.
Emma
Corner Stone: I’ve got more balls in one toenail than all your ancestors put together. When I was twelve I was stood in front of an auditorium full of screeching communists, students AND teachers, who screamed at me for two solid hours for being a traitor and I spit in their eye.
Match that, and then we’ll talk guts.
You, sir, are the equivalent of the Puritans. And you are already baying for the blood of those who do not conform to your dictates.
The Republic of Stupidity
Lest anyone remain unclear as to where I stand on the issue…
I would DEARLY LOVE to see certain parties strung up by their balls and beaten w/ hardwood sticks until they piss blood for months to come here… just sayin’… for the official BJ record.
freelancer (itouch)
Meh. A pox on this thread.
Mnemosyne
@The Republic of Stupidity:
That’s one of the reasons the healthcare thing got so nasty: everyone is reading the tea leaves right now and making declarations based on that. If Obama didn’t strongly back the public option, he must also be blocking torture investigations, QED.
I think it has more to do with the fact that the Bush administration completely fucked up the evidence trail with the Guantanamo prisoners and probably a lot of other places as well, so just assembling enough documentation to figure out what happened is going to be a hell of a job, much less figuring out which actions should be prosecuted and who should be prosecuted for them.
Corner Stone
@Emma: I’ll tell you what ballsy – I’ve had a gun stuck in my face on two separate occassions and told in words to the effect of “It’s your time.”
Not some random asshole shooting at me which I’ve had more times than I can count, but one on one where it was up to me.
So you and your little chums really don’t add up to much. Sorry.
And I’m not “baying” for anything more than the rule of law to actually work. Equal justice for all, no one above the law.
Corner Stone
@freelancer (itouch): Oh touchie! Why you gotsta bees like that dawg!
General Winfield Stuck
@The Republic of Stupidity:
As we speak, there is a special prosecutor quietly gathering facts about what happened. The announced reason was to investigate excesses to the Bybee and other memos outlining the Bush torture program. But to do that all the relevant facts have to be looked into. And it is being done without using up valuable political oxygen needed to get things like HCR done.
I call that smart politics. Others want the full show on national teevee 24/7. And when nothing else gets done because the nation is fixated on the spectacle of one party trying to put the other party in jail, the true progressives will be howling why we can’t do climate legislation, or HCR, etc….
I don’t know if Obama or Holder plans to prosecute the neo cons for their war crimes later, or at all. But finding out what happened has to happen first. And saying nothing is being done on this front is false, but good for wanking on blogs, I suppose.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
AHHHHH!! Listen to me, please!
I am not screaming for NOW NOW NOW, and never have!
I am arguing against the mindest that we can’t do anything lest we piss off the opposition and the Village!
AHHHHHHHHHHHH.
mcd410x
Green balloons. GREEN BALLONS!
mcd410x +4
Midnight Marauder
@The Republic of Stupidity:
You don’t know the half of it when it comes to the official BJ record.
+5
Corner Stone
@Midnight Marauder: 37?
I’m going to guess 37.
mcd410x
@freelancer (itouch): lol. Nice.
Yutsano
@freelancer (itouch): Personally I’m breaking out the popcorn. This bloodletting getting nowhere is pretty awesome I must say.
Corner Stone
@Emma:
Communists…heh.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
Good, then we agree, because that’s not what I was saying either. I was saying that because the Villagers are like a bad-tempered nest of hornets, we have to decide the best time to poke them with a stick, not just start poking ’cause we’re tired of waiting around.
So what the hell are we arguing about?
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: I love you. I love you? Yes, I love you!
ETA – which is to say – I hate you! No. No, I love you. But don’t tell Max. I still want to take her to Thailand.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
And just in case you missed it the first time: there is an ongoing investigation. Right now. It started four months ago. What exactly is it that you want?
General Winfield Stuck
Tonight’s debate zen
You can’t get a dead ender to ride a Unicorn, if it don’t wanna, and never did.
Emma
Corner Stone: Justice? You don’t want justice. You want what you want NOW and if it fails, well, at least your instructions were followed to the letter. Because a failed presidency and eight more years of republican insanity are a small price to pay for your so-called justice. You keep saying you’re willing to wait as long as it takes, but at the same time you parade your immense, ineffable commitment to law, order, and the Cornerstone way.
We have an insane Congress, a media that is bought and sold like potatoes, and a packed Supreme Court. But you want Holder to walk out in front of the microphones tomorrow and announce full prosecutions just so you can feel better.
A gun to the face is easy. Black and white, live or die. Having to live in a society that doesn’t conform to your demands? Not so great in that department.
Corner Stone
I’m just against the argument of political expediency vs. rule of law.
The guilty party will always be against the right side of the argument, and will never give in for one second. There will never be a “right time” to do the right thing.
That’s all.
Corner Stone
@Emma: Do you post here under another handle?
Because that was about the stupidest fucking sermon I’ve ever heard, and has no basis in reality of anything I’ve ever said.
But keep on rolling yo.
Midnight Marauder
@Corner Stone:
Meh, I’d say that’s about 1/4 of the official BJ record.
Corner Stone
@Emma:
Now I need the diaper as I am peeing myself from laughing so hard.
Yep, society not agreeing with me scares me so very much.
Jeesus.
Corner Stone
@Midnight Marauder: That was a Kevin Smith’s “Clerks” reference.
I know you’re killing it dog.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: I want my pony goddammit!
And I want Stuck to continue posting the stupidest shit under the sun, forever.
General Winfield Stuck
@Corner Stone:
No pony for you, grasshopper.
Yutsano
I can haz open thread now plz? Kthxbai!
bago
@Corner Stone: Why don’t you ask Lincolon and Kennedy that question.
Corner Stone
@General Winfield Stuck: Well at least I got half of what I asked for.
Midnight Marauder
@Corner Stone:
I actually think the official record is something like…36.
Corner Stone
@bago: Because they’re dead?
I don’t know. Is this multiple choice?
freelancer (itouch)
Apropos of nothing:
Bruce Wayne: The bandit, in the forest in Burma, did you catch him?
Alfred Pennyworth: Yes.
Bruce Wayne: How?
Alfred Pennyworth: We burned the forest down.
Yutsano
@freelancer (itouch): Well played, sir. Well played.
Corner Stone
@Emma:
HAHAHAHA! “Communists”? For God’s sake, Communists??
Am I supposed to practice huddling under my school desk next?
Fucking Communists?
God I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time. (Excepting of course every time Stuck posts 4 paragraphs others would use two sentences to say something he thinks is serious and weighty and on point. Those times are by law ruled out.)
tomvox1
My favorite quote:
Not something I would ever feel comfortable writing but you go with it, Noemie…
http://www.ils.unc.edu/~bwilder/inls111/georgewashington/images/emery.jpg
freelancer (itouch)
@tomvox1:
2nd black prez is a darkie for realsies. Bad fer Clenis. You Betcha.
+4
rachel
We have two seasons in American politics: the silly season and the cranky season.
mcd410x
This thread needs an enema.
freelancer (itouch)
@mcd410x:
Lol, Nicholson joker.
mcd410x
Here’s to Cesc. Played 28 minutes today and showed more class on the pitch than most players do in an entire game — or two. Amazing.
4 points out. Game in hand. Up the Arse!
The Republic of Stupidity
@Mnemosyne:
Yeaaaaaaaah… sounds ’bout right… goes to show just how strongly people feel about The Issues At Hand™, huh?
Expectations have NOT been met in some quarters and some are feeling a bit peeved, shall we say.
Martin
I haz a sad.
In an argument with my mom, I inadvertently agreed to read Palin’s book. I’m still not sure how I let that happen, but it’s my mom, and I can’t go back on my word.
Any suggestions on how to get through this? I’m thinking I’ll just read it +8.
Yutsano
@Martin: Losing a bet I could understand, but seriously dude? We’ll try to help you through the inevitable pain.
Martin
@Yutsano:
My mom interrupted our argument (we do that a lot to cool things down) and said she got a new book for Christmas and liked it and thought I should read it. I said, “Sure, I’ll read it”. She usually plows through King and similar novels. I figured it was one of those. She hands them down to me all the time. I’m a fast reader and can get through a typical King novel in a weekend on the patio between my usual activities. She said “Promise?” That should have been the big clue, but it just slipped past me and I said “Sure”. I tried momentarily to back out of it but she threatened to buy me a subscription to the Weekly Standard if I did. Reading a book that’s already been bought seemed better than sending a subscriptions worth of money to the retards at Weekly Standard. I was trapped. Now I need to make good.
On the plus side, I can probably knock it out in an afternoon. I’m expecting it to be something of an extended Dr. Seuss. But I’m still somewhat in shock that I screwed up this badly.
Yutsano
@Martin: I guess on the plus side it means you’re not directly supporting her. Knock the thing out (if you can bear it) then hand it back without comment. If she tries to get you to discuss it, say that will only happen if she agrees to cover your therapy bill.
Theodore Geissel is high literature compared to that dreck.
EDIT: The bizarreness that is Firefox spellcheck never ceases to amaze me, Somehow dreck is not included. I’d swear it’s been around the English language for some time now.
freelancer (itouch)
@Martin:
I suggest printing out Mudflats posts of the book and reading them concurrently. In the end, when you present the book report, counter with some big think. Aka, why would a book that is supposed to vault this woman on the national stage, that is supposed to support the premise that this woman is worthy of being leader of the free world. Why would it propose NOTHING? Why instead, does it choose to shit on everyone she ever worked with? If this is how she operates, then who the fuck in their right mind would ever want to be in the employ of her presidential campaign? Etc. Don’t approach it right vs. Left. Do it as one ambitious person trying to garner the most votes of most Americans vs. Sarah Palin’s ghost-written words.
Martin
@freelancer (itouch):
My mom knows I absolutely detest dirt-dishing. She knows that I’m going to grind my teeth at much of the book.
Our arguments can be interesting. From a policy angle, she comes from a weak conservative angle. She’s very partisan against Democrats, however, and can’t seem to work out if she’s attacking from the left or the right. Today she was calling Obama a soshulist and decrying him for not pushing Congress to regulate drug prices. I had to stop and ask her what the fuck she was talking about – she can’t accuse the guy of failing to intervene in the free market and then demand that he do so. I think she realizes when I call her out that she doesn’t have it all sorted out, but her instinct to attack Democrats simply overpowers her reasoning.
She knows I don’t defend Democrats – I defend policy. The book review and discussion will be interesting given that.
Tattoosydney
@Yutsano:
hmmm. I’m guessing we’re not getting an open thread any time soon.
How you?
Pictures from Amsterdam. http://m.flickr.com/#/photos/45957530@N02/4221754440/
Will repost when wifey is around.
Plus gratuitous dog pic in stream sent by our flatmate. I miss my doggie.
Midnight Marauder
@Martin:
You do realize that is going to be the worst afternoon of your entire life, right?
Anne Laurie
@rachel:
And this year, both at the same time! I blame global warming.
@Martin: What works for me is reading the foul thing with an eye towards turning it into a series of SNL skits or MAD magazine parodies. When all else fails, I’ve been reduced to using the old Chinese-restaurant-party joke and adding “… between the sheets” to the end of every sentence.
kay
I don’t think this indictment and conviction holds up on even a cursory level.
Just follow the link and read.
It starts with the statement that Rahm Emanuel is “scapegoating” Greg Craig for his inability to get the Obama nominees through confirmation.
But there’s a completely contradictory earlier admission that, “as a threshold matter”, Bob Bauer will be much more effective in “ramming through” nominations because he is a “partisan warrior”.
So Rahm Emanual isn’t “scapegoating” Greg Craig, after all, and Greg Craig had “management problems” and couldn’t get nominees through, and Bob Bauer will be more effective at that.
So, what changed between the recognition of Greg Craig’s “management problems” and today?
How did Johnsen’s confirmation problems go from being attributed to Greg Craig’s management failings to Barack Obama and Rahm Emanual’s duplicity and deliberate scheme?
Forget actually speaking to the people involved and collecting facts. The narrative they’re building inside this little bubble isn’t even consistent internally.
I have to say, too, I just love how each of these wholly speculative stories about the secret intent and motives of the Obama Administration ends with a call for an investigation.
It is now incumbent on Obama to disprove each charge leveled, or he’s hiding something. When did that become the rule?
He can’t even choose his own lawyer without 1. wholly speculative charges that he’s acting dishonestly on a whole range of tangentially related issues and 2. an elaborate theory about why he fired one lawyer and hired another, a theory that (apparently) changes monthly.
He can choose his own lawyer without prior approval by “the blogosphere”, and Craig is his lawyer. He doesn’t have to justify or explain why he fired one lawyer and hired another. It’s his counsel, and “loyalty” or adherence to ideology has nothing to do with that relationship.
kay
How they got from “Obama fired his lawyer” and, later, “a nominee didn’t get through confirmation” to “Obama is torturing” is beyond me, but once the narrative takes hold, the facts just write themselves, I guess.
Let’s hope there’s a higher standard used in the “investigations” that are now called for nearly daily than that used when leveling the various criminal accusations.
The Sheriff Is A Ni-
@Martin: Crow and Tom Servo puppets.
Steeplejack
@Martin:
Since you and your mom seem to have a “political debate” channel open, I see a win-win outcome here: read the book, but read it closely and critically, both with an eye toward demolishing your mother’s arguments with quotes and/or faulty logic from her presumed heroine Palin’s own book (“The Devil can quote scripture for his own ends”) and with the idea of doing a précis for us Juicers (“I read this book so you don’t have to”). We love to laugh at her, but sometimes I think that we do it in too much of a content-free context. I don’t think there is much content there with Palin, but it’s good to check sometimes to make sure.
And you’re a stronger man than I. I haven’t even been able to buy my mother the copy of Bill O’Reilly’s Steaming Pile of Humanity that she wants, much less read it myself. [Shudder]
Jack
@valdivia:
The taking a bath to prepare for a shower argument, you have.
Jack
@General Winfield Stuck:
You don’t go after Bush or Cheney.
You go after some midlevel State or HLS official. Who deals up hard and fast to avoid Congressional testimony and 100 years in the clink.
I know, I know there aren’t any global examples from which to work…
*
It’s like there’s a core of Obama loyalists who, like Bushians, will defend whatever he does, in any available terms.
Enjoy carrying water, Stuck, et al?
kay
@Jack:
It’s like there are a core of all-knowing liberals, who, having failed to accurately count the number of votes in the Senate for a public option, are now failing to accurately count the number of votes in the Senate for Johnsen’s confirmation.
If you keep failing in the Senate, and you do, why not look at some of your assumptions about the level of support you have there, rather than going right to elaborate conspiracy theory?
Count the votes. Stop assuming there are 50 liberals in the Senate, when the number is closer to 30. Is Joe Lieberman a civil libertarian? Is Dianne Feinstein? Is Jim Webb? Webb is on record as opposing detainees to the US for trial. Are these the 59 Senators you’re counting?
How many times are you going to get hung up in the Senate before you’ll count the actual votes before announcing another conspiracy theory?
Jack
@kay:
Huh?
The JD is dependent on the Senate?
Basic civics, maybe?