Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Let’s finish the job.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

You are here: Home / The children’s table

The children’s table

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This (from Drudgico) belongs in a time capsule too:

But in this case, the tie goes to Republicans, according to operatives on both sides of the aisle — because the stakes were so much higher for Democrats trying to build their case for ramming reform through using a 51-vote reconciliation tactic.

“I think it was a draw, which was a Republican win,” said Democratic political consultant Dan Gerstein. “The Republican tone was just right: a respectful, substantive disagreement, very disciplined and consistent in their message.”

[….]

Republicans drove a hard bargain with the White House over the seating arrangement — securing a massive square table that put them on a visual par with the president — to underscore their parity and seriousness.

Republicans won because they got to sit at their own table.

But that measure, my sister and I won Thanksgiving for the first 20 years of our lives.

Reader Interactions

53Comments

  1. 1.

    Comrade Luke

    And yet this will be in tomorrow’s news cycle.

    Just following you from post to post now btw :)

  2. 2.

    Martin

    But that measure, my sister and I won Thanksgiving for the first 20 years of our lives.

    You should have filibustered. I bet you could have gotten a bigger phone book to sit on if you had.

  3. 3.

    Comrade Luke

    @Martin:

    You should have filibustered. I bet you could have gotten a bigger phone book to sit on if you had.

    You should have just threatened to filibuster, at which point they would have moved you to the big boy’s table.

    That’s how it works, right?

  4. 4.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    When I saw the square they were sitting at I knew it had to have been ‘negotiated’ by the Repugs but not for an appearance of ‘equality’ with the prez. It’s more likely that they didn’t want give Obama the appearance of being the head of our nation by having him appear at the head of a table with them surrounding it.

    Small difference but you can bet it was the driving factor. They don’t want to give the appearance of legitimizing him as the President and the leader of our nation.

    It came off to me as small and petty which fits in perfectly with what the Republican party has become, a party of small and petty people.

    I liked it when one nut (Judd?) said that the Democratic plan for HCR would “accelerate the bankruptcy” of our country. That line really made me laugh. We’re going to go bankrupt but this is bad because it will accelerate it!

    What a winning argument.

  6. 6.

    Mike Kay

    1. they use the loaded gop talking point, “ramming reform”

    2. they use Dan Gerstein as “the democratic consultant” — well Gernstein happens to be Loserman’s campaign manager. This is the equivalent of saying, “well, even the liberal New Republic agrees with Bush on invading Iraq.”

  7. 7.

    Shalimar

    “I think it was a draw, which was a Republican win,” said Democratic political consultant Dan Gerstein. “The Republican tone was just right: a respectful, substantive disagreement, very disciplined and consistent in their message.”

    You can always count on Gerstein to not only shit on his own party, but also fail to note that the Republicans’ consistency of message came because they were willing to lie over and over even in the face of proof that they were full of crap. Sociopath.

  10. 10.

    mcc

    Like a lot of things the last few years it seems like who this helps comes down to how many people wind up listening to the spinmakers and how many people wind up listening to the source material.

    The format of the thing may make the latter a little harder, though, unless people get really aggressive about getting stuff on youtube.

    Speaking of which, is that Durbin rant about tort reform anywhere on youtube yet? I keep wanting to send that to people.

  11. 11.

    Mike Kay

    It was such a route, the best they can do is call it a tie. As we know, if it was a even, they wouldn’t hesitate to lie and call it a “clear victory”.

    It was such a route, all they can do is crow that they got the WH to agree to a square table instead of a U shaped table. The reality is the WH couldn’t give a shit what the table looked like,

  13. 13.

    jenniebee

    I like it that they’re pushing what a hard bargain Republicans pushed for over the shape of the table. They conveniently forget that Republicans went into this asking for a vow not to use Reconciliation and an agreement to abandon the legislation that had already passed the Senate and obviously got neither, but Lord! what magnificent negotiators they were on the whole shape of the table issue! They really made the President look weak by winning that one, didn’t they?

  14. 14.

    Mike Kay

    the stoooopid — it hurts.

    Can you imagine if they didn’t show up and cited the shape of the table as their reason!?!? The public would have laughed at them…. for years! The party of IKEA!

  15. 15.

    Anne Laurie

    From the Lexicon:

    Dangerstein – Dan Gerstein, rightwing political strategist, whose self-penned website bio brags of his years as “the chief architect of Lieberman’s high-profile values agenda”. Someone who, while posing as a Democrat, has never met a Republican attack on the Democratic Party that he couldn’t embrace (and help publicize). If there were a German word meaning ‘a face that cries out for a fist in it’, that word would be illustrated with Mr. Gerstein’s photo.

  16. 16.

    mcc

    I didn’t… I couldn’t really tell what shape the tables were, from the C-SPAN feed. All I got were closely cropped frames of legislators.

  17. 17.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    Attribution is kinda weak. How about:

    “I think it was a draw, which was a Republican win,” said Democratic Joe Lieberman’s former campaign manager and political consultant, Dan Gerstein. “The Republican tone was just right: a respectful, substantive disagreement, very disciplined and consistent in their message.”

    Fix’t. Kinda.

    Properly translated?

    Obama kicked ass and didn’t bother taking names. He came prepared and without a teleprompter he took their talking points and fed them back to them. The Democrats sounded like they had issues to talk about and the Republicans sounded like an endless looping of preprogrammed sound bites.

    All in all I would say that while I admire the fact that the Republicans actually showed up for this, that’s about it. I heard that they actually practiced for this? Is that for real? If this is the case I find it humorous that they would want to practice their lines so they could stage the play properly. That they care so much about putting on a good show and are willing to leave out messy details like statistics and realistic data to do it shows the true commitment they have for their party and base.

    The rest of us? They could care less what we think. I do have to say that their delivery was stilted and wooden, lacking in real compassion for people in need and totally tone-deaf to the realities our nation has to face. It’s clear that they just don’t care about anything but power, winning is everything to them and to the victor goes the spoils.

    Unless the victor is a Democrat.

  21. 21.

    Redshift

    When Dangerstein dubs the Republican disagreements “substantive,” it’s obvious the only “substance” he’s familiar with is the one that comes out of the place where his head is stuck.

  23. 23.

    Zuzu's Petals

    Republicans won because they got to sit at their own table.

    But criminey, did you see the chairs they had to sit in for all those hours?

  24. 24.

    JGabriel

    “I think it was a draw, which was a Republican win,” said Democratic political consultant Dan Gerstein.

    And every time Dan Gerstein is called a Democrat in the media, an angel’s wings burn in hell.

    .

  26. 26.

    Ogami Itto

    Republicans drove a hard bargain with the White House over the seating arrangement — securing a massive square table that put them on a visual par with the president — to underscore their parity and seriousness.

    Massive Square Table (R-DC) is now a rising star in the GOP. Suck on that, Scott Brown.

  27. 27.

    JGabriel

    Ogami Itto: Massive Square Table – I sense the birth of new tag, for when Republicans “underscore their parity and seriousness” with “visual par” instead of workable policy.

    .

  29. 29.

    TR

    David Gergen was pushing this stupid line about the Importance of the Square Table on CNN, too.

    What a bunch of fucking morons.

  32. 32.

    Some Guy

    The epitome of American politics today: they all sat respectfully and at a table of their choosing. It matters not what they said or what they have (not) done on policy. The optics made them look like they aren’t f’ing nuts and dumb as a board to boot. WIN!

  33. 33.

    Robin G

    Wait. I’m lost. In what possible way was this a win for the Republicans? I didn’t see much of the summit (I was busy going through thirty million diapers for my newest charge, who was finally born a week ago), but I caught the closing remarks, and the Republican leadership looked like it wanted to slink under the table. Bohner honestly seemed to be near tears in his humiliation. Was I watching something else entirely?

    Honestly, though we have to see how the spin plays out, I can’t imagine how this won’t be anything but a clear-cut victory for HCR. Not the least of which will come from the fact that now the Dems, scared little chickens that they are, might feel that Obama’s got their backs (by which I mean they’ll get to blame him if things go wrong).

  35. 35.

    Legalize

    I didn’t think much of the table arrangement while watching the proceedings. Mostly because we got mostly tight shots of whomever was speaking, with the occasional over-the-shoulder / reaction shot of the president. In the few wide shots it looked like the president was at the head of a large table, flanked by the leaders of each party. Big deal. If the GOPers won the Great Battle Over the Table, Obama won the actual battle over substance AND the battle to give the Dems political cover to pass the damn bill.

  38. 38.

    Mary

    Silly me – I thought the summit was about finding solutions to America’s health care problems. I didn’t realize it was a competition.

  39. 39.

    Mike P

    Time to link to George Packer again:

    Broder wasn’t analyzing Palin’s positions or accusations, or the truth or falsehood of her claims, or even the nature of the emotions that she appeals to. He was reviewing a performance and giving it the thumbs up, using the familiar terminology of political journalism. This has been so characteristic of the coverage of politics for so long that it doesn’t seem in the least bit odd, and it’s hard to imagine doing it any other way. A couple of weeks ago, the Times ran a piece by its lead political reporter, Adam Nagourney, about a Republican strategy session in Hawaii: “Here in Honolulu, the strains within the party over conservative principles versus political pragmatism played out in a sharp and public way, especially as the party establishment struggled to deal with the demands of the Tea Party movement.” The structure of the sentence, and of the article, puts the emphasis entirely on tactics and performance. This kind of prose goes down as easily and unnoticeably as a glass of sparkling water, with no aftertaste. Readers interested in politics drink quarts of it every day without gaining weight. And Broder and Nagourney are at the top of their game.

  41. 41.

    Waynski

    @Mike Kay

    It was such a route, the best they can do is call it a tie.

    This. The Village idiots so desperately want to keep this story going that they were planning to give this round to the Republicans, but it was such a route, as you say, they had to call it a tie. I think it’s Obama win. He proved once and for all these dicks want to do nothing but kill the bill. As Cole alluded to yesterday, only a moron would buy “start over” and “clean sheet of paper” as anything other than disingenuous BS. I just hope this gives the Senate enough stones to PTDB.

  42. 42.

    Bill Rutherford, Princeton Admissions

    Laugh all you want – John McCain didn’t have a square table for five years.

  44. 44.

    Gregory

    @Robin G:

    Wait. I’m lost. In what possible way was this a win for the Republicans?

    Well, for starters, NPR interviewed only a Republican Congressman — who claimed victory because the summit finally gave the GOP a chance to make their case heard.

    Not another dime to NPR from me.

  45. 45.

    PTirebiter

    @Gregory: Yea, that chapped my ass too, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by NPR’s subsequent coverage. For the most part, they’ve gotten out of the way, letting the Republicans expose themselves. I guess they’ve were too busy looking for ways to give Toyota a discreet reach-around.

  47. 47.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @Mike P:

    Time to link to George Packer again:

    I saw that the other day and thought to myself:

    “hmm, self – what does this mean? Oh, I know! When even a lifetime Villager like George Packer notices that our press is totally fncked up, it means the water we’ve been taking on below deck has made it all the way up to the 1st class dining room. Perhaps a short stroll to check on the lifeboats would be in order at this point in time.“

  50. 50.

    Silver Owl

    Republicans could be drooling, doped up, pooping their pants and not even speaking coherently and the pundits will always say “the republicans win.” The white conservative can never ever be wrong. Ever.

  51. 51.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @Nellcote:

    The table talk keeps giving me flashbacks to the Paris peace talks to end the Vietnam war.

    Also, the armistice talks at the end of the Korean War were delayed by seemingly endless haggling for months over the size and shape of the table.

    Apparently tables are really important.

  53. 53.

    Comrade Kevin

    Apparently the Republicans wanted to be like the North Koreans and insist on a setup modeled after the negotiating room in the DMZ.

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