You may have heard that Erick Ericskon is on Colbert tonight. I assume there will be some clips available tomorrow morning, but here’s an early report:
Colbert just called out EE for calling Souter a “goat-fucking child molester” and saying Obama’s Nobel win was an affirmative action hire, among other things. Wow.
And commenter C writes in to say that
Republican operative, John Feehery, on CNN just now, said (I’m paraphrasing) that Erick Erickson should STFU.
He said that “it is appropriate Erick Erickson is appearing on Comedy Central (Daily Show) in a few hours because his is a joker”, and that “Erick Erickson gets all his publicity from attacking Republicans”.
This probably just goes to prove that I’m a lily-livered liberal, but I feel genuinely sorry for Republicans that they have to deal with Erick Erickson. Imagine devoting your life to a political party and then finding out all your candidates were kow-towing to such an idiot.
Ash
This is only semi-related, but I was disappointed in Jon Stewart’s bit on the Crotch Bomber. He mostly made me roll my eyes. I don’t like doing that. :\
handy
One might even call him the Jane Hamsher of the right, no?
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
I’m watching this baby when it comes on tonight. I wouldn’t miss a Colbert evisceration of Erikkk, Son of Erickkk for anything.
He’s a fuckin’ crazy redneck, loud and proud about it too.
danimal
Don’t feel sorry for them. They use the rabble rousers like Erickson to gin up controversies and do their dirty work without the candidates actually getting their hands dirty.
In other words, the Kossacks work for the czar, and the whole lot of them are beyond pity.
clone12
I can’t wait to see the gag gift choice Red State Strike Force will have for Colbert. Really expensive red wine because he’s a Frenchie?
r€nato
@handy:
You said it, not me. I was merely thinking it…
r€nato
@clone12:
yeah how did that ‘send salt to Olympia Snowe’ thing work out anyways?
YellowJournalism
@r€nato:
Her driveway has been clear all winter.
Cap'n Phealy
@danimal:
Ewickk
pwovidesprovides a valuable service to the sanity-based community, as anyone stupid, craven, or insane enough to treat him with anything but indifference or scorn is clearly someone who should not be allowed anywhere near the levers of power.Sly
@YellowJournalism:
I’d pay good money to see him send bundles of toilet paper to Mike Crapo.
S. cerevisiae
I posted this in the last thread, but I just had to say it again:
Erickson had the look of someone who suddenly realized the warm feeling they had was actually their own hot piss soaking their Dockers.
+ 6 Summit Scottish 90
FlipYrWhig
Meh. I didn’t see an evisceration. Pretty dull by Colbert standards. And not even one joke about mailing objects to politicians.
jharp
“He’s a fuckin’ crazy redneck, loud and proud about it too.”
So true. Yet oddly enough he didn’t come off like that. At least to me.
I was expecting him to look much worse. I hate to say it, but he seemed somewhat reasonable. Especially considering what a vile human being he is.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@FlipYrWhig:
With the baggage Erickkk carries Colbert must not have done too much digging. Maybe he is priming Erickkk for a future shootdown…lol
Calming Influence
No.
Lesley
Guess you haven’t seen this: Erick’s # 9 in The Washington Independent’s “The Resurgent Right: Top 10 in ‘10 Ten Conservatives to Watch in the New Year.“
jnfr
Colbert went really easy on him. But EE still looked like a nervous kid.
jharp
“But EE still looked like a nervous kid.”
Yep, clearly. And not as fat as I expected.
Glocksman
Shit, when I considered myself a right wing Republican I was fucking ashamed of being in the same hemisphere that Erick Erickson was, much less being of the same political alignment.
XM Radio had/has a political channel called ‘POTUS 08’ and EE was frequently on it.
It took awhile before I finally realized that the RW commenter they frequently had on for color commentary from the right was the abovementioned EE.
Other than from avoiding the screaming histrionics that Mark Levin is known for, he sounded just like ML’s clone.
JGabriel
r€nato:
We tend to forget that Erick, son of Erick (damn, being your own father is the ultimate in time-loop experiments gone awry in-breeding), sent his minions to purchase said salt from one his own affiliate sites.
Anyway, Erick, son of Erick, made $9.47* out of it. So, comparatively speaking, I guess it went well for him.
(*Made up number that I pulled straight out of my ass.)
.
JGabriel
handy:
No. Jane may be a little more confrontational than some people are comfortable with, but she’s not an inbred moron jackass.
.
Zam
@FlipYrWhig: Maybe he’s just recovering from the vacation.
Chuck Butcher
There are 149 with my name. I happen to know that there is one other with my middle initial and my suffix who in fact works in the movie industry – credits…
max
Imagine devoting your life to a political party and then finding out all your candidates were kow-towing to such an idiot.
George W. Bush
Tom DeLay
Bill Frisch
Strom Thurmond
I could go on.
max
[‘Erickson is probably a step UP.’]
Ruckus
@S. cerevisiae:
Thanks for putting the correct caption on the picture. Don’t know what the prize is but you win.
Glocksman
@JGabriel:
He must have a worse Oedipus complex than Jim
MomisonMorrison did.kommrade reproductive vigor
And Amazon is suddenly hit with five bazillion orders for plastic dog poo as Red State once again does its part to support China’s economy.
Ed in NJ
Just appearing on the show validates Erickson as a conservative pundit. It doesn’t matter whether he was eviscerated by Colbert or not. And from what I’m reading (I haven’t seen the show yet), he seems to have held his own, at least to the casual viewers outside this blog.
TR
It wasn’t an evisceration of Erickson, no, but Colbert still did a number on him.
Simply by quoting some of his more insane comments — come on, a milquetoast moderate like Souter is a “goat-fucking child molester”? — he showed that the carefully crafted and well manicured persona that Erickson was trying to present on the show, of himself as a Mature and Thoughtful Adult, is nothing but a sham. Behind the mask, he’s a nasty nut, and Colbert pointed that out.
John Cole
I know I’ve tried to explain this to you all about 100 times, each time to jeers and what not, but I liked Erick a lot when I was at Red State. I still like him, even though his politics are not mine and I think he knows the damage he is doing whipping up the crazy train. He was a likable person.
SpotWeld
Is Erick a top-down follower of the GOP talking points, or is he his own brand of insane talking points?
Brian J
Oh, bullshit. I don’t mean to sound like an asshole, but they have a relatively easy choice: they can get into bed with clowns like E.E. and the Teabaggers or they can choose to try to win on a responsible, intellectual level. The latter might take more time, but it’s bound to be good for both parties, and the country as a whole. It might seem that people like E.E. are threatening, but they have no real power. I suspect that if they really wanted to, they could marginalize idiots like him pretty quickly. They decided not to do so, but instead bow down to him and go for the seemingly easier, faster path to power.
Cowards, each and every one of them.
The Bearded Blogger
@John Cole:
Does this make Eric a BETTER person than if he only unintentionally fueled division and hatred?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Brian J:
this
is exactly why they will never do anything that is good for “the country as a whole.” Unless it is good for the GOP only, and returns them to power, they’ll never do it.
Paris
To be fair, Colbert’s grand father or great-grand father was a goat ball licker (Daily Show’s ‘Indecision 2004’). He has some personal interest in people who have careers that involve goats.
Ash Can
@John Cole:
Then he should STOP DOING IT, goddammit. Unless by “damage” you mean “to the Republican Party,” in which case he can be my guest, if it hastens the shakeout of a party badly in need of a thorough scrubbing and disinfecting.
I for one don’t begrudge you your personal relationships, hell no. I too have wingnuts in my life of whom I think highly on a purely personal basis, and I’m not by any means an isolated instance. But when the side of EE the rest of us all see constantly is that of unmitigated asshole, yes, we’re surprised if he comes off on Colbert as sane in any way, shape or form.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@John Cole: You know who else was a likeable person?
Paul in KY
kommrade reproductive vigor, oooh, ooh I know this one:
Hitler?
Tom65
@John Cole: Other than pushing false memes and dragging poltical discourse down, I’m sure he’s a wonderful guy. Hell, I want to play poker with him.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
Eddie the Eagle?
Cartman
I thought Colbert nailed him pretty well. Simply bringing up the “goat-f****** child molester” quote is all anyone needs to do to discredit a creep like Erickson.
Dave Weeden
As I’m in the UK, I can’t see clips from the Comedy Channel. However, it’s on YouTube already.
dww44
I can sorta see how JC would admit to liking EE. As a recently elected member of our too large city council and as a frequent op-ed contributor to the editorial page of the once progressive, but no longer, local paper, he really is a big fish in a little pond. On occasion he comes across as quite reasonable and policy focused although he has no compunction whatsoever in exploiting the racial divide which is so clearly on display in our city council. He notoriously engaged a fellow council member, an African American female with years on the council, in a verbal war of words. His position at Red-State allowed him to get away with confronting a well-known local Black politician in the court of public opinion and, by and large, coming out on top.
On my local noonday TV news his appearance on the Colbert Report was big news and it was reported that the EE stood by his Affirmative Action remark about Obama’s Nobel Peace prize, but regretted the David Souter remark.
The question remains, which is the real EE? I vote for Erick the Red State editor.
MTmofo
I saw the Situation Room segment and heard Feehery’s comments. One specific phrase that I remember him saying was that EE is “over-noted and over-rated”. burn.
JGabriel
John Cole:
{Boggles}
Look, I like people with different political views too. And of course Erickson is likable. Anyone with even moderate political success must be. People don’t vote for people they dislike.
But to suspect someone is knowingly harming our discourse and whipping up dangerous levels of crazy, and still like them?
I’m a little confused by that one.
.
Tsulagi
Just saw a clip of the interview. Was surprised. Teabagger Commander EE looks just like I pictured him, and just as bright: Bubba Numbnuts.
This is the guy in several RS posts has said to save their network CNN should hire him to be on screen. Yeah, with a dazzling personality like Doug Hoffman, how could they lose?
Catsy
@John Cole:
The reason why people respond to this anecdote with jeers is because it’s has the distinct flavor of trying to apologize for a human malignancy by pleading, “he’s really a nice guy if you get to know him”.
Plenty of evil people are quite likable on a personal level. From all accounts, Bush was a lot of fun to hang out and shoot the shit with. I have relatives who are deep in the queer-hating, god-bothering right-wing mindset, and they are personally very nice people who are kind and generous to their family. Hell, I used to really like Moe Lane–as solid of a sci-fi geek as any liberal–until he took a dive into the deep end of the crazy pool.
There comes a point where one’s social courtesies and personal geniality cease to in any way mitigate the awful things they do–and that point comes when they start doing real harm to real people. Erick is a vile, contemptible, mendacious douchebag who is smart enough to know exactly how destructive his actions are. He is a willing agent of evil policies and evil politics. Stop apologizing for him by feeling compelled to note what a friendly guy he actually is, because it’s completely fucking beside any imaginable point anyone here is making.
Franz Liebkind
Not many people knew it, but the Führer was a terrific dancer.