Had a good long ride today, and despite the crappy roads, it was still pleasant. There is something to be said about a long drive with Performance Today on the radio that helps clear the mind (or even better, sometimes no music at all and just the sounds of the road). Which, of course, made this piece on PRI’s the World all the more jarring.
I think sometimes we are so used to the craziness of the Republicans and the teabaggers and the neocon lunatics that we forget just how crazy it is, but when I listened to this, it reminded me how desensitized we have all become to their bullshit. They actually had a man (James Carafano) on who talked at length that the real problem was not saying the words “war on terror” and the reason for this was because the “left” hates Bush.
That isn’t a policy position- that’s warblogger masturbating. It’s insanity. They have no substantive critiques or help to offer, just insane rambling about what words we use. I can only imagine what the rest of the world thinks about us.
And to prove they have no idea what they are talking about, they can’t even tell you what the President has actually said.
It really is just nuts.
Farmer_Jones
crazy is the new sanity, haven’t you heard?
Notorious P.A.T.
Well of course the problem is the president not saying the right words. If your main concern is making your own reality, that is.
jl
I may be an old fogey, but if the country really wants to be “at war” maybe Congress should declare one. Until then, it is dangerous BS used to mislead and scare us all.
It would be interesting to read the proposed text for such a declaration of war, and ask some of these wise very serious goofballs what it meant.
scarshapedstar
These are the same fucks who decided that destroying our nation (as well as one or two little shitty ones overseas) was the best idea ever because it made us Look Strong.
Kobie
The whole notion of a “war” on a thing, a tactic or a concept is just ludicrous, and it never, ever works. You can’t declare a “war” on terrorism, just like you can’t declare a “war” on drugs (not a winnable one, anyway) or on poverty (we are always going to have poor people) or on anything else like that. It’s just sheer dumbfuckery of the highest order, and these morons seem to want to make it a fucking campaign plank.
Derelict
Unable to engage on substance, they MUST resort to engaging in bullshit.
Happily, I think most people who don’t pay attention to politics tend to hear snippets of GOP nonsense and take it as exactly that: Nonsense.
Joshua Norton
Two polls show Richard Blumenthal, the presumptive Democratic nominee to replace Dodd, leading all Republican comers by margins in excess of 20 and even 30 percentage points. The closest wingnuttia comes to admitting possible defeat is declaring it a “tossup”.
So it’s official. Democrats’ chances at holding on to the Connecticut Senate seat are clearly a possibility.
Duh.
jfxgillis
John:
As I imentioned elsewhere on the net today, in reference to Rudy kefluffle with Stephanopoulos this morning, that’s because it’s not argument, it’s not even a lie strictly speaking.
It’s all a liturgy. Look at the video above. Rudy is saying that stuff much more the way an altar boy serves a Latin Mass than even a liar or a con-man going after a mark.
mutt
Wingnuts stare into the Abyss. The Abyss stares back. There is NO END to these ugly fools……
http://blog.al.com/breaking/2010/01/bradley_byrne_says_every_word.html
Ash Can
On a day when Rudy Fucking Giuliani is saying that 9/11 never happened, there’s just no other way to put it.
This detachment (and drift away) from reality is the most damning commentary on the entire right-wing ethos — these poor sods can’t face a reality that tells them they’re wrong, so they’ve built their own, to protect themselves. It’s kind of pathetic, but it’s also damaging the country.
Montysano
@Derelict:
I’ll hope that you’re right, at least until one of my wingut coworkers starts repeating the latest meme that we never had a domestic terrorist attack during Dubya’s tenure. If I start hearing that, it’s time to buy sacks of beans, ammo, and then head for the hills. Because, as ya’ll know….. Brawndo does contain electrolytes.
Zam
OT, but this is floating around my friends on facebook, from what I’ve read it’s a lot of shit, but people who I’ve known to be intelligent and reasonable are siding with the author. It is really bothering me and I just want to see if I am missing something.
pcbedamned
No John, you seriously can’t. Nor do you really want to know what the rest of the world thinks. The worst thing that ever happened to America was the internet – it has allowed the entire world to see into the American psyche like a news clip or gossip never could. Whereas before Americans (mainly the far right) were just thought of as arrogant and/or ignorant, the internet has proven it again and again and again. Hell, the righties in your country didn’t even know that Canadians were fighting alongside America in Afghanistan (a la Greg Goober over at Red Eye). They think the whole world is socia*ist/com*ie, and that without the American military, everyone else would just fold up and die. (how many wars have you guys won since WW2? Oh, that’s right, ZERO; not to mention the 3 times that you tried to take Canada and failed – that’s right, 3). Anyway, this is not meant to be an Anti-American rant (apologies if it sounds like that), but you wondered…
Peace
Stooleo
sanity is the new black…
black is the new president..
the president is the new crazy..
Just taking it to the logical conclusion.
joe from Lowell
“War on Terrorism” instead of “War on al Qaeda” = Invasion of Iraq.
“War on Terrorism” instead of “War on al Qaeda” = bin Laden escaping Tora Bora.
Objecting to Obama’s concentration on al Qaeda means you want us to take our eye off the ball.
inkadu
I remember reading an Al Franken book around 2003 and being incensed. It wasn’t that anything was new in there — I’d been blogging for about two years at that point — but seeing it all presented at once just made my head pop. We have been desensitized. He have to be. I had outrage fatigue around 2006. I’m at the point where I won’t even looking at the immigration sites of foreign countries anymore — that’s how bad it is.
Nethead Jay
@mutt: Uuggggghhhhh. I’m sending that to a friend who escaped from Alabama and that sort of fundamentalism years ago. Bet it’ll inspire the usual formidable rant…
ellaesther
John Cole, you do realize that someone
/clears throat
uh, someone started a rumor that you and Ta-Nehisi Coates might be off saving the world/destroying the world/building a love nest together today? Exhibit A.
And that others have suggested that, in fact, you and he may in fact be the same person? Exhibit B.
It has been established that it would be irresponsible not to speculate.
(Oh, and yes, the Republicans are crazy. Yes).
jl
@jfxgillis: It’s like this with everything Rudy says. Have you ever heard one of his campaign speeches or motivational talks, even in the non 9/11 parts?
It is just a string of management jargon and motivational BS buzzwords. Like a guy repeating the first chapter of a management motivational speakers manual in an endless loop, cranked up on speed. That is also a kind of liturgy, and one many of us who have served time in corporate Hell have had to sit through and pretend was not a complete waste of time.
In his own insufferable way, Rudy matches Palin for dishonesty, fantasy, and ignorance step for step. But being a Very Serious White Man, is never called on it, since that would show an excess of political correctness.
Stuffynautalaus was disgusting in the interview. Couldn’t bother to even question one of the dishonest, fantastic or nonsensical turds Rudy popped out of his mouth. But very polished demonstration of his palsiness, familiarity and in-ness with such a Very Serious Respected Person.
ominira
Did anyone else catch Ted Koppel’s analysis on BBC News America? I found it to be a breath of fresh air.
Some excerpts:
ANCHOR MATT FREI: Ted, every action leads to a reaction. There’s been plenty of reaction to this particular incident on Christmas Day exactly two weeks ago. What kind of reaction do you think it’s been — how would you classify it, especially from the leadership?
TED KOPPEL: I would classify it as an absolute triumph for al-Qaeda. If you were to put this in a slightly different way, Matt, and ask yourself the question, ‘What is it that al-Qaeda had hoped to achieve, in its wildest dreams?’ you must conclude that they could not have achieved much more if the attempt had been successful, if the plane had gone down with its 290-something passengers. We have responded so intensely, that they they must be sitting there — wherever they are sitting these days, in their caves — saying, ‘Not bad. I mean, if we can do that with a failed attempt, just think what we can do with a successful one.’
FREI: But it didn’t go down, but it came perilously close to going down, this airliner. I mean, in this sense, the reaction — you call it an overreaction — is perhaps quite apposite.
KOPPEL: I think it’s an overreaction because we have spent hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars. It is all that our media has been yapping about. It is much of what Congress has been focusing on. The President himself has had to focus, visibly, his attention on it.
Ironically, Matt, I think the President’s initial reaction was the right one. I think his initial reaction was, you know, ‘I’m here in Hawaii. I’m still being President, I’m being informed, but I’m going to do it quietly, and I’m not going to overreact publicly,’ and he wasn’t able to sustain it.
FREI: This is a president who famously doesn’t get flustered, but he did get flustered on this occasion, didn’t he?
KOPPEL: I’m not sure if he got flustered. I think he got, in effect, psyched into doing more publicly than his initial reaction would have had him do.
…
FREI: But, Ted, what changes do have to be made, both from the security side and from the way Americans have to live their lives?
KOPPEL: I think we have to take some lessons from the Israelis, we have to take some lessons from the French. They have suffered enormously from terrorist attacks, and they respond the way that, I think, people should respond when they don’t want to give comfort to the enemy, and that is: by the next morning everything is cleaned up, the shops are open again. It is as though nothing happened. For us, it’s as though the world had changed.
aimai
Yeah, I heard a few minutes of the drive time shows here in blue blue mass this morning. It was some show where a woman and a man gab casually about the news of the day. The guy began by complaining–complaining!–that an important local stadium owner had received a ticket for parking his limo illegally in the fire lane in front of his stadium. The woman said, very mildly, that perhaps the laws should apply to everyone? But he just couldn’t see it. It was outrageous that an important man should have had to pay a ten dollar ticket! (she thought ten sounded low for a fire lane.) Then he began bitching about the muslim guy who was arrested for acting up on the florida flight. She read the news “guy arrested, dragged off plane, tasered twice” and he responded angrily that the other passengers should have “done something!” and that they should have “cut the guys head off” like he would have done if he’d been there. To which she responded nervously “cut the guys head off?” and he backed down and said “well, I wouldn’ thave cut the guys head off…but I’da done something…”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It was like he was struggling to be the macho, populist, take no prisoners kind of guy he knows talk radio wants, but he’s stuck with this rather mild mannered woman as his counterpoint, and she keeps reining in his fantasy life. Its like listening to some kind of walter mitty does Rush Limbaugh in his basement while taking calls from his wife for versimilitude.
aimai
Montysano
@mutt:
Ah, mutt, you’re hitting too close to home. This is a local story that was in our newspaper this week. In a related story, a commenter said:
vtinct
What scares me is that I can’t tell if they’re so addled they believe what they’re saying, or so mendacious they know they’re making it up. Is there another possibility?
Svensker
@Zam:
That’s been a meme on the right for a while, that the our society has been feminized and that males are undervalued. (Those guys never seem to have thought that our world was at one time masculinized and women were undervalued….hmmm…).
There have been changes in gender roles in the last 50 years that some people and institutions are having a hard time adjusting to. That could partly explain the silly “warrior” crap that the right (and some on the left) seem to need to strut to prove they still have enough testosterone and aren’t Girly Men.
But seriously? As an explanation for all our ills? Meh.
Kobie
@Montysano: Wh … wha … what the fuck? So because the Piggly fucking Wiggly in Ragland (?) won’t ban non-fundies from its store, this person wants to boycott it? Am I reading this right?
freelancer
@Montysano:
Sullivan linked to that. It’s fucking insane.
Notorious P.A.T.
@Zam:
It sounds like a lot of hooey to me.
Cain
@Zam:
Meh. I skipped to the conclusion, and indian american who plans on immigrating back to India (a somewhat socialist nation with high taxes) if U.S. continues to tax the 1% of the top earners 40% tax or some such drivel.
This is so that he can go to India and not pay his taxes there either.
While I’m complaining, some indian guy signaled me to come talk to him while I was waiting in line for Avatar and he wanted me to reserve two seats for him because he was afraid he wouldn’t get good seats. The only basis of which he had the chutzpah to even ask that of me is because we were from India. Lame.
cain
freelancer
@Kobie:
Chalk another one up for Real America.
Ailuridae
Its only a matter of time before Goldberg or Peretz or one of the execrable loons who turn all foreign affairs issues into black/white anti-Semitism claims that the reason he uses the phrase “war on al-Qaeda” rather than “war on terror” is that he doesn’t have a problem with Hezbollah or the PLO.
arguingwithsignposts
@Zam:
No, you’re not missing anything. It’s utter horseshit, like a gender-based “Bell Curve.”
For instance, this nugget (or, rather, steaming pile):
The author quotes that figure as if it is some sort of proof that women destroy the marriages. But he (and the horseshit essay he links to to prove his point) fails to explain why women initiate divorce. A husband who cheats on his wife is not likely to initiate a divorce. A husband who abuses his wife is not likely to initiate divorce. And yet in those cases, it is the male who “destroys” the marriage. The female merely initiates the formal proceedings.
what an asshat wrapped up in academic language. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was BoB.
inkadu
@Zam: This page is hilarious!! The second post, mourning the loss of pop-culture masculinity, holds up Randy ‘Machoman’ Savage and Jean Luc Picard as role models for men, then next bemoans the modern male archetyps as either “thuggish degenerates” or “effette androgynes.”
It also scares me that I’m getting so old that conservative jackoffs are pining for the halcyon days of the WWF and STNG.
jl
@Svensker: Good point. Too many women have been secretary of state, so now I guess diplomacy will be called a woman’s issue now.
The very retarded retro nature of most of the talking heads I see on TV is striking. They are like laughing stalk sidekicks out of an early 1960’s sitcom, which were even satires then.
Jefferson and Franklin would be branded as feminized softies spending most of their time on feminized issues today, since they did not spend much time on real man warrior stuff.
Montysano
@Kobie:
Well, we are a military research hub, so I feel confident that, in some local garage, an engineer is working on a device to scan for the presence of the Jesus Fire.
Rick Taylor
I’m not desensitized; I’m stuck anew by it every day. And that critique wasn’t limited to that fellow; that Obama doesn’t say the word “terrorism” or use the phrase “war on terror” enough has become a major Republican talking about. It’s all about using the right words and phrases to them, with the appropriate emotional gusto.
__
As another example, you have their most recent candidate for President, someone with a reputation for reaching across the isle, who the true conservatives hate, making adds about how he’s saving the country from Obama’s extreme left wing crusade to bankrupt America.
SiubhanDuinne
Only slightly O/T: Rep. Eric Massa was just on MSNBC with Ed Schultz, and called the wingnut critics of Obama “mental chihuahuas,” and with particular reference to Dick and Liz Cheney, said that they were afflicted with “genetic Tourette’s.”
I am beginning to love me some Congressman Massa.
General Winfield Stuck
Yes, it does. And years ago in my relative youth when my head would get filled with nonsense, as it was wont to do, I would buy one of those Greyhound Bus tickets where you could go anywhere in the states. You get on a bus, and as long as you stay on the bus, or switch to another at the station you could go anywhere.
After about 4 or 5 days worth of traveling it was like getting a lobotomy, bad food, sleeping sitting up, and a steady stream of strange new friends made and you could barely remember your name and where you came from. If you’ve never ended up in the Memphis GB station at three in the morning, you have never seen the circus.
After a week or two managing to go the far reaches of Murrika and making it back in one piece, all the shit that had piled up and harshed my mellow was gone, and for awhile semi nirvana, till the next time. My friends and family thought I was nuts, and maybe they were right. But mental health self help can come in different ways. I haven’t done that in years, and don’t really need to these days. So I blog instead.
SpaceSquid
In Britain, at least, I’d describe our impression as 80% confused, 20% terrified out of our fucking minds.
Tattoosydney
@zam
The only bit you are missing is the bit where you write back to whoever sent you the link to that telling them you are defriending them because anyone who would send you such a stupid, incoherent piece of crap doesn’t deserve to breathe, let alone be your friend.
Zam
Yea, that’s what I thought. One of my friends was daring anybody to find something wrong with it, and after reading it I was more inclined to challenge people to find one thing right with it. As for facts every link in there is just to some right wing blogger, and most of the claims go without even that.
andy in nz
The English tend to thing you lot are cry baby, bull in a china shop types! Cheese eating surrender monkeys politely ignore you, both having been Empires previously they can read the tea leaves about where its all going.
Down here in the South Pacific we loves the USA,USA, USA!!! And your Muslim leader guy is pretty cool too.
We are having a Hillary love fest and the Kenyan guy is letting your play with ours again after 25 years, but don’t mention Afghanistan here cause its not so popular.
Season 8 of 24 will determine where our good friends the USA will go next with the War on terror and foreign policy direction, that is all we need. Go Jack, USA, USA, USA !!!111!!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
I think the rest of the world has its own flavors of crazy (do some reading re: the right wing in Japan for example). The difference is that most other 1st World states don’t allow their crazy people to get too close to the levers of power. We used to be reasonably good at that too, but sometime back (early 1990s?) we stopped being good at it. I think it is a symptom of a state of affairs where the US doesn’t face much in the way of existential threats that are external to us, which gives us the luxury of taking our eyes off the ball – a luxury that most nations don’t enjoy. We really are our own worst enemies right now, not just because we’re going nuts, but because they’re isn’t much left in the way of bears out there in the woods.
Mike Kay
What really pissed me off about Obama’s statement, yesterday—HE NEVER MENTIONED THE “PUBLIC OPTION”! NOT ONCE!!
Okay, seriously. For the past week wingnuts have been screaming Obama doesn’t say the word “terror” enough, and therefore it signals he doesn’t take terrorism seriously.
But ya know what, that’s exactly what the Firebaggers and their fellow travelers have been doing for the past six months. They would literally count the number of times Obama said “public option” and if he didn’t say it more that three times in a public event, they would scream, WHY ISN’T HE TALKING ABOUT THE PUBLIC OPTION. And then they would plunge into a hate spiral on how mentioning the public option only three times was secret code to his evil BIG insurance masters.
Yes, this is along way of saying there’s no difference btwn the Teabaggers and the Firebaggers.
Mike Kay
@SiubhanDuinne:
I wonder what he things of the Firebaggers?
inkadu
@SpaceSquid: And 30% fat. And 45% bad at maths.
General Winfield Stuck
I have just about stopped reading blogs, except this one and maybe Ezra and Booman some. And Political Wire and one or two others. I used to get up in the morning with a regular morning list to read, but there is just so much bullshit slung from either side of the pol spectrum. Wingnuts have gone totally of the rails, and it’s like reading dispatches from Dante’s Inferno, and lib blogs are going where winger ones were a few years ago, busy with the meme factory and a Mighty Wurlitzer of their very own. All staking out ideological turf where simple facts become part of the problem and not the solution.
More and more, I just scan for major world news, or national news. I hardly want to hear anyones elses take on things though. It’s like everyone is selling their own personal brand of snake oil. There are exceptions of course, and some of the commenters and bloggers here is where I learn, but even on BJ the bs factory seems to have applied for a franchise, abeit limited, for now.
SiubhanDuinne
@mutt #9
@Montysano #22
I think my very favourite part of the article was the wildly irrelevant note that Byrne was “standing in front of the collard greens.” Local journalism at its most picturesque.
schrodinger's cat
@inkadu: That’s more than 100%, I think we need a Venn diagram to see the intersection set.
Bubblegum Tate
This bit of crazy right here made me literally bust out laughing:
For extra comedy, the exact same person posted this seven minutes later:
Is there any reaction a sane person can have to this besides laughter?
Demo Woman
This is to funny not to share-from TPM
CNN, State Of The Union: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer.
Together at last.
J. Michael Neal
No open thread, so, WOO HOO!
For the first time in about 18 months, one of my job applications has led to an interview. It even looks like a job I really want. It’s just a garden variety accountant position, but the firm it’s with looks like one I would like to be a part of. They specialize in forensic and investigative accounting, rather than the usual public stuff. That’s the part of the field I’d most like to get into. It’s also a place where my statistics degree is probably a real plus, and even my time spent trading options isn’t the negative it is for most of the positions I’m trying to get. Fuck, the interview is even with one of the accountants rather than someone from HR.
I’m also pretty sure that someone from the firm came and spoke to my Internal Control class last semester. I was really sick that night and missed it, so I didn’t have a chance to impress anyone with my in-class questions. That disappointed me, because I’d been looking forward to listening to the forensic accountant. But, if I’m right, it also means that the program director is a useful contact for this opening.
I’m excited. I also really need a job, for social as well as financial reasons.
Nethead Jay
@Zam: Archetypical Men’s Rights Activist (MRA) blathering. As a man, it’s embarassing and makes me want to beat this idiot to a bloody pulp. I’d be surprised if one or several of the major feminist blogs haven’t done a thorough picking-apart of that screed, though Google is failing me at the moment.
ellaesther
(Really? No love? No love at all for the John Coles = Ta-Nehisi Coates meme? [see #18] Okay then…)
Elie
This is mostly demand and therefore income generation. If I say weird creepy stuff that hits a nerve on either side of the public debate on anything, where both sides are polarized and energized as we are now, I am going to get a reaction or readership or blog hits. Those who support what I say will tune in and those who ardently oppose it will tune in with even greater numbers. You can see how it favors many interests to keep the public discourse extreme and divided, therefore.
This is also the Republicans’ only shtick. They have no principled or serious policy alternatives to offer so the only way they get attention is through outrageousness — playing to fear, anger, bizarre paranoid ideologies, etc. If they had to talk content, they would be mute, since what remains in that party is ignorant, inarticulate and plain just nuts.
So as crazy as this all seems, it to me is the logical consequence of demand generation both for revenue and attention.
Roger Moore
@Kobie:
No. It’s because the owner literally stood next to (i.e. on the same stage while endorsing) a politician who isn’t sufficiently fundamentalist for them.
Nethead Jay
@Bubblegum Tate: That’s some quality crazeee there. No hating on the Right-Wing? Ahhahahahahahaha…
inkadu
@J. Michael Neal: Woo hoo indeed! Seconded on the HR interview. Hate those. HR people are extremely dense. They should just hand over a check list and ask you to tick off what applies. Its all they’re interested in, and they can’t tell if you’re bullshitting anyway. Good luck.
Elie
@J. Michael Neal:
Wishing you the best, man. Fingers crossed, break a leg and all like that…
jeffreyw
@J. Michael Neal: Great! I have a friend that does forensic accounting. He’s kinda like a nerd James Bond.
Elie
@General Winfield Stuck:
Absolutely agree.. I cruise a couple of sites just to stop by and read the headers but make no comments or in depth reading. Just here.
We are in a strange place but times are hard and lots of folks have to make a living…by whatever means…
freelancer
Fuck Politico.
and
Fuck Drudge.
Montysano
@J. Michael Neal: Great news! Hope it works out. I thank the FSM every single day for my stable, somewhat secure job (secure until the company folds, which is not unpossible).
Comrade Mary
@J. Michael Neal: Yay! Good luck with this. You deserve a good job.
Digression: I can understand why a lot of people think “forensic” has something to do with dead bodies and other biostuff related to crime. But it still irritates me beyond reason when Global Television here in Canada plays a warning several times during Bones that the show features “graphic forensic content and may not be appropriate for all viewers”.
What especially graphic forensic content should we expect to see? Time billed in 0.10 hour increments? Lawyers changing their clothes? The Dancing Itos?
jl
Cole, Cotes, Shmotes, shacked up or whatever.
Commenters have conclusively demonstrated that the whole liberal blogosphere is a DougJ spoof, including trolls, concern trolls and assorted commentariate sockpuppets, all run by Tunch as executive manager.
My life has been very serene since I realized I was a DougJ spoof. I wonder what adventure he has planned for me next.
So, fool me once, shame on you, fool me… won’t be fooled again, I say.
Montysano
I’m just trying to survive until Sunday, when it’s supposed to be 36 degrees and sunny. I didn’t move to the Deep South to deal with 10 degrees (with a nice 10mph breeze) and snow. If my stash of single-malt holds out, I’ll be fine.
Comrade Dread
That sight could scar a child for life.
Kobie
@Roger Moore: Ah, OK. I couldn’t bring myself to read anything more than the excerpt. Busy night at work.
Cain
@J. Michael Neal:
Dude, congratulations to you. I wish you all the best karma in the world. I hope you get that job!
cain
mclaren
Here’s what startles me:
It’s been this way ever since Reagan was in the White House.
Am I exaggerating?
Making stuff up?
Nope.
Check the record.
Reagan spouted the most insane bullshit you can possibly imagine. And he did it every damn day for eight long years.
“Forest fires have produced more pollution than all the smokestacks in America.”
“I don’t think we have that long until the End Days.”
“In that case, we can just recall the missiles.”
“In my view, the choice is not between left and right — it’s between up and down. Up toward freedom, or down into the anthill of totalitarianism.” (This was in a speech where Reagan was describing medicare. As “the anthill of totalitarianism”!!!)
Reagan used to wander around the White House muttering “Klaatu barada nicto” and asking if people had seen the 1951 movie The Day the Earth Stood Still.
And for 8 long years, everyone just giggled and ignored it. “Oh, Reagan is a genius, these are just minor gaffes.” “He’s got everything under control — it’s his aides saying crazy things.” “The press keeps misinterpreting him.”
Insanity after insanity, and the American people just ignored it.
When Reagan hired an astrologer to time the announcement of his new cabinet appointments, everyone just looked the other way.
It’s morning in America!
Don’t worry, be happy.
This is what you get when the kind of insanity Reagan inaugurated and nurtured in the White House grew to fruition in the Republican party. You get Tom DeLay blaming the teaching of evolution in the schools for the Columbine shootings.
You get complete fiscal lunacy and irresponsibility after decades of having your brains dribble out your ears in the form of the long-debunked Laffer Curve.
You get hysterical fat white people jumping up and down with Hitler signs after 30 years of a very old very ignorant actor spewing crazy crap like “the Contras are the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers” when they raped nuns and buried ’em in ditches.
After 3 decades of assuring the American people that they could survive a nuclear attack if they just lay down flat on the ground as soon as they see the bombs explode and wear light-colored clothing, this is the end result — men and women shrieking “Get the government OUT OF MY MEDICARE!!!”
Dementia, if left to fester, ends in a complete psychotic break. Why is anyone surprised about that? Reagan’s senile gibberings represent the starting point…the teabaggers are the logical and inevitable end result.
ominira
@J. Michael Neal: Congratulations on landing an interview. Best of luck!
Svensker
@Bubblegum Tate:
Vomiting?
Patrick Lightbody
I’m sure this has already been discussed, but can someone explain to me how people (Cheney included) are freaking out about “war on terror” when they themselves were the ones who renamed it GSAVE? So confused…
Corner Stone
@jl:
Honestly, the dude’s a genius. DougJ I mean.
I’m convinced this site is nothing more than a whole major mindfuck. DougJ is a psychologist or possibly sociologist running little mini-experiments with an overarching theme.
I think in years to come we’re going to know the extent to how deep the research went, when the actual DougJ publishes.
He’s fucking good.
Leelee for Obama
@mclaren: OK, I was gonna say something here, but you said it better, and now, after reading your post, I’m just gonna curl up in a ball and rock. Thanks, mclaren. I just spent the day not thinking about politics-this reminded me why that was a grand idea.
inkadu
@mclaren: Damn, dude, that belongs on the front page.
Mike in NC
Ted, a nation of bedwetters turns its lonely eyes to you…
Mr. Wonderful
@ General Winfield Stuck–
You’re reading the wrong sites. Every morning I read:
Sadly, No!
The Poor Man
alicublog
Tbogg
Instaputz
Fire Megan McArdle
The Hunting of the Snark
Roger Ailes
Whiskey Fire
…and BJ.
And I sit and laff like a loon until I can’t breathe. The comments as much as the bloggers. Believe me, you’ll learn everything you learn now, but have a thousand times more fun en route.
General Winfield Stuck
@Mr. Wonderful:
I do read Tbogg some, but soured on Sadly No. The rest I will check out. Thanks.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@J. Michael Neal:
Great news! I hope you get the position and I agree with HR interviews being teh suk and a waste of time. My sis is a CPA and does some forensic accounting herself. She has always been a numbers nut so I know how much someone can love doing that for a living.
Numbers nerds unite! ;)
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Corner Stone:
I have always called him the Professor of Spoof. He’s a natural when it comes to fucking with people. As they say, if you got it then flaunt it.
He does.
Now am I real or am I Memorex? ;)
The Republic of Stupidity
Sorry… I understand yer intent but I just CAIN’T abide bein’ lumped in w/ them…
When I make as big a fool of myself as they’ve made of themselves, you don’t have to be lumped in w/ me either…
J. Michael Neal
@The Republic of Stupidity:
So, I never have to get lumped in with you?
The Republic of Stupidity
All matters on how big of, and when you make a fool of yourself…
Cuts both ways…
valdivia
@J. Michael Neal:
excellent news and good luck on your interview!
Thadeus Horne
It’s not about politics anymore. It’s about class. It’s not democrat or republican…it’s about rich and poor.
The sooner we “poors” (328,000,800) figure out that the ” Richies” (1,200,000) have ripped us off for all our money, the sooner we’ll go take it back from them.
The Walton family (Wal-Mart) has more private wealth than the bottom one third of the wage earners in the USA.
Want to know where your money is going, Teabaggers,? Even you twits should be able to figure that one out. You liberals, too, for that matter.
Maybe one day the poor conservatives and the poor liberals will finally figure out who the real enemy is. It ain’t each other.
Joe Conservative from Nebraska and Yvonne Liberal from New York are not enemies. They both want the same thing…equality and the chance to thrive. The Richies don’t want that to happen. They see no reason for Joe Conservative or Yvonne Liberal to have that chance. They want it all.
As a child on the streets of west Denver, I learned two lessons:
1 Never let a bully have his way. Even if you have to lay in the dark in an alley with a two by four to set the prick up…
make the bully pay. They are usually not very bright and it’s easy to ambush them.
2 If you need money, go where the money is. Five percent of the population of the USA own Ninety percent of the private wealth.
Draw your own conclusions. I know what I will do.
We have a war on terror, we have a war on drugs, we have a war on poverty.
How about a war on the Richies?
TenguPhule
Get back in that bucket, Crab.
Mike G
These prissy pearl-clutchers swooning over the exact words used are the same assholes always sneering about “political correctness”.
Their nitpcking over language has nothing to do with accurate explanation. Words like “war on terror” are the conformist demands of ideological bullies, spells to be incanted to perpetuate their magical fantasy world.
Obama’s administration quietly getting on with the unglamorous work of imperfectly improving anti-terrorist procedures, or juvenile histrionics, fearmongering security theater and endless catty bitching from the authoritarian Repigs. I know which side I am on.
Mary
@J. Michael Neal: Good luck on the job from me too. You seem like a super smart guy.
TenguPhule
Logic is for little people without the money to buy their way out of reality.
Mary
I’m heartened that the best argument that these yahoos can come up with on their signature national security issue is that Obama is not using the right words. They’re losing their touch.
General Winfield Stuck
@Patrick Lightbody:
It was folks in Bush’s administration that named it that. When George got word of it, he threw a hissy fit and that was the end of that.
Corner Stone
@General Winfield Stuck: Listen, we get it. You used to cruise bus stops for vulnerable young male runaways. You’d criss cross the nation looking for guys with low self esteem you could convince to do things to you/with you.
You don’t have that kind of cash anymore due to your exorbitant knee-pad spend.
So now you troll sites looking for your next desperate soul.
It’s pretty obvious to us all.
General Winfield Stuck
@Corner Stone:
It’s curious the oft need to express your homoerotic fantasies, just sayin’ – la Kidney Stone.
Thadeus Horne
@TenguPhule: I have no idea what the fuck that means.
WaterGirl
@Corner Stone: So what’s the deal with you and the general? Is the hateful back-and-forth something you just do for “fun” or is it for real?
Ash Can
@Bubblegum Tate:
I have an urge to run and get a butterfly net, myself.
Yutsano
@Ash Can: You’re chasing fairies?
General Winfield Stuck
@WaterGirl:
I wouldn’t call it fun, but not hate either, least for me. I do seem to affect some folks that way. Don’t know why, prolly some kind of Alpha dog thingy, mixed in with politics. Anyways, it began back in the primaries, I was for the winner, or Obama, others were for Clinton and still are.
ruemara
@Zam:
You have silly friends. Case closed.
ruemara
@J. Michael Neal:
I will think you getting a job thoughts, very, very good luck to you.
bob h
One would imagine that these people would be impressed by the toll of militants the ramped-up drone attacks in Pakistan are taking. But that reality is not what counts-you must talk the war on terror talk. Talking about terror is more important than deeds.
sloan
The world of competitive wingnutting is a strange place.
I used to find it amusing, and would listen to the talk shows or read the kook blogs but now it’s just bizarre and depressing. The talkers are deeply paranoid and the blogs have become unreadable. The election of Barack Obama has broken them. Fistblogger Jim Hoft for example, used to write a garden variety wingnut blog. He went off the rails with Alex Jones-style ranting about our American Nazi government in early 2009 and never looked back.
Now he’s leading a race to the bottom, spending much of his time promoting a story he calls “Fistgate”, in which he accuses the Obama administration of promoting pedophilia and child fisting in schools. It’s just so disgusting and creepy I honestly can’t believe a grown man is writing this stuff. It makes Ann Coulter look classy. How is he not embarrassed?
But guess what – it works! He now writes for a conservative religious publication called First Things. The loudest, craziest freaks are slowly but surely becoming the public face of modern conservatism. It does not occur to them that screaming about child rape and Nazis is a turn off.
Back in 2003 there was a lot of Bushitler stuff on the left, but it was on the fringes. Liberals generally understood that Hitler references were counter-productive, and the Democratic Party wanted nothing to do with it. Dem leaders wouldn’t be caught dead in the same room with the Dixie Chicks, let alone attend an anti-war protest.
This crap is worse than any of that and it is being mainstreamed into conservatism and the Republican Party. GOP leaders proudly march with fistbloggers and teabaggers. We knew the Right would go crazy with President HUSSEIN, but we’re less than a year in, with 3-7 years to go. This is tame compared to the stuff we’ll see in the 2012 election – and if Obama wins, the conservative movement will devour itself.
bob h
The fact that Al Qaeda militants in Pakistan-Afghanistan are being killed outright by Hellfire missiles at an increasing rate and are decamping for other countries is of no interest to these people.
Austin Dad
@arguingwithsignposts:
Women do not initiate 90 percent of all divorces. The figure is approximately 70 percent. It climbs higher when children are involved and as the couple’s income and education rises. It decrease in childless marriages and lower socioeconomic strata.
Studies in which women were asked why they initiated divorce indicate Infidelity, violence, addiction are all cited less frequently than feeling unappreciated or unloved, feeling dissatisfied with communication and “drifting apart.”
It’s also worth noting that men’s risk of suicide approximately triples following divorce or separation, especially when, as in the vast majority of cases, the woman initiates the split. It’s difficult to estimate the number of men who die each year by their own hand after divorce. However, it is likely approximately equal to the roughly 1,200 American women killed by intimate partners — primarily male — each year.
What are we to make of this?