There have been better days. And I’ve really been slacking on the pet pics:
Don’t forget to vote for Bitsy (link on the ad to the right).
Archives for 2009
America’s next great pundit
I’ve got a bit of start on entering Washington Post’s “Next Great Pundit” competition. I decided to write as a crazed Liebercrat who is anti-Obama but is obsessed with the idea of appeasement. I need a lot of help. Ideally, the thing sound good with lots of little catchy sound bites, but make as little actual sense as possible. Also, is anyone willing to send it under their name? I have a friend here who will do it, but I’m not sure his profile is what they are looking for. Here’s what I have so far for my essay — it is *very* rough and only maybe a quarter finished. A lot you should be much better at this than I am, so please pitch in if you’re so inclined with suggestions, rewrites, etc.
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Slouching Towards Munich
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate
intensity” Yeats wrote a few years after the close of what was then
called the Great War. The war we are now engaged in has yet to be
given a name and is more Hobbesian all-against-all than Yeatsian
good-against-evil, but otherwise circumstances are much the same.
Obama is among the best, of that there is no doubt. He is reason
incarnate, silver-tongued, and unquestionably well-meaning. But there
is a lack of conviction. Abroad our enemies and ostensible
allies pay us little heed. North Korea and Iran are building nuclear
arsenals. Russia thumbs its nose at our proclamations about freedom
and free markets. At home extremists on both sides — birthers and
truthers, tea partiers and foul-mouthed bloggers, Keith Olbermann and
Glenn Beck — dominate the discourse as never before. In Congress,
unions and insurance companies control the fate of health care
legislation, while the administraion is silent and the fiscally
prudent are silenced.
Appeasement goes by many names and by any, it tastes as bitter…
More interested in apprehending Roman Polanski than Osama Bin Laden….
Ready, Aim, Shoot Yourself in the Foot
Me, about thirty minutes ago:
Next meme: Arnold is better than Obama. Begins is 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…
Little did I know that Sully was already on it:
The Californian Republican gives out-of-state marriages the full force of civil unions and signs the Harvey Milk Day legislation. He has more of a record on gay rights than Obama. And no one is telling him they can wait till 2017.
Obama- worse than Republicans on gay rights!
Clearly what we need to do is have Obama do like Gavin Newsom and just make it all go away. Because that has worked out so well for California- so much so that Arnold is now a gay hero! And if he doesn’t do exactly what we want when we want it by executive fiat, why, then he THREW US UNDER THE BUS.
And Arnold didn’t “give” them anything. He signed a damned bill sent to him by… GASP.. the legislature. Somewhere I bet someone has been arguing that instead of throwing spitballs at Obama, they should pressure Congress to act. You remember all those money bombs the progressive left organized to support Gillabrand after her amendment was floated. You remember all the pressure on the other Senators to make this happen, don’t you? Then again, flaming POTUS is so much more fulfilling and better for traffic.
And is Sullivan implying Obama would veto bills sent to him by Congress overturning DADT and DOMA?
That is it. I am done with this stupidity.
*** Update ***
How soon they forget:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a same-sex marriage bill Friday, the second time in three years that such a measure died on the governor’s desk.
Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar bill in 2005.
“I support current domestic partnership rights and will continue to vigorously defend and enforce these rights,” the governor said in a statement Friday.
In his veto message, the Republican governor said it is up to the state Supreme Court and then, if necessary, voters to alter Proposition 22, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman in California.
Yeah. He is so much better than Obama on the issue. Arnold for President.
Stuart Smalley Syndrome
I doubt it, but hopefully this will stop the insanity:
“That sentiment does not reflect White House thinking at all, we’ve held easily a dozen calls with the progressive online community because we believe the online communities can often keep the focus on how policy will affect the American people rather than just the political back-and-forth.”
You’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and doggone it, people like you. Now that we have our daily affirmations out of the way, can we stop lobbing grenades at each other? Hug it out, bitches.
Research, bitches
Halperin and Mike Allen are pushing the insurance industry’s paid-for research about how the world will end if we pass a health care reform bill. Jon Cohn debunks it here.
An industry thinks a bill is going to hurt the industry. So their lobby pays some accountants to write a study portraying the bill in the worst possible light.
And to Drudgico, Halperin, and Kaplan, that is big news.
What a world.
Update. Ezra:
The report was farmed out to the consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers, which has something of a history with this sort of thing: In the early-’90s, the tobacco industry commissioned PWC to estimate the economic devastation that would result from a tax on tobacco. The report was later analyzed by the Arthur Andersen Economic Consulting group, which concluded that “the cumulative effect of PW’s methods … is to produce patently unreliable results.” It’s perhaps no surprise that the patently unreliable results were all in the tobacco industry’s favor. He who pays the piper names the tune, and all that.
All that makes it a bit hard to respond to this analysis. Seriously engaging with its methodology probably gives it more credit than it deserves, making this seem like an argument between two opposing sides as opposed to a predictable industry hit job. But totally ignoring its claims means some of them might live unchallenged. So rather than a full tour through the “analysis,” here are a couple of its more representative moments.
Open Thread
I’m not even going to comment on what I want to comment on because I don’t want the flame war that will follow.
Oh, what the hell… I don’t know if I would use the term fringe, but I will say that people who freak out because the HRC speech was not up on the WH website fast enough are the photo negative of wingnuts screaming for Obama’s birth certificate. At any rate, here comes a couple more days of the circular firing squad as the internet gay activists and the HRC have their little proxy war at the expense of you, me, and the administration.
I’m going back to bed. Felt better yesterday, feel worse today. Heading to the doctor tomorrow morning.
Also, vote Bitsy.
We are all chunky Reese Witherspoon now
Ross Douthat writes the definitive respectable conservative Obama Nobel piece:
But by accepting the prize, he’s made failure, if and when it comes, that much more embarrassing and difficult to bear. What’s more, he’s etched in stone the phrase with which critics will dismiss his presidency.
Slick Willie. Tricky Dick. Jimmy “Malaise” Carter. Dubya the Incompetent.
And now Barack Obama, Nobel laureate.
All right, I understand that every member of the wingerati has to take a shot at this topic. But why did he leave out Ford and Reagan? And “Dubya the incompetent”? Has anyone ever said that? Not much besides this column shows up in the google searches.
Update. Steve M from NoMoreMisterNiceGuy sums up:
Drama Queen Obama just made a statement saying that he doesn’t think he’s earned it yet? That’s like saying you think you haven’t earned a flaming turd on your doorstep! It’s a ridiculous award! They gave it to Al Gore and Jimmy Carter, fer crissake! If it actually meant something, Ronald Reagan would have won it — eight years running!
Typical Obama — he gives the queen an iPod and now he has the bad taste and lack of manners to turn this into an international melodrama. Now the world will be focused on him next month when all these silly Scandinavians convene in Oslo and Diva Barack isn’t there!
It’s all about him — it’s always all about him.
We are all chunky Reese Witherspoon nowPost + Comments (136)