Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

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

Second rate reporter says what?

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

No one could have predicted…

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

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

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

You are here: Home / A new narrative

A new narrative

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That’s one way of describing it (Dave Weigel at his new Kaplan gig):

What followed was a discussion about spittle between me and President George H.W. Bush’s first chief of staff. Sununu argued that Cleaver had walked back his statement, and I pointed out that this wasn’t true — there’s a much-forwarded blog post that frames a punchy no-comment from Cleaver as proof that he was lying. I brought up this video of Cleaver walking up Capitol steps, reacting to something hitting him, and walking back down to confront someone in the crowd. That, said Sununu, wasn’t definitive — perhaps Cleaver was hit by something accidentally.

The segment ended there, but it’s the clearest example I’ve seen of Republicans doing something that Andrew Breitbart has been doing for weeks, attempting to disprove the “slurs” story and create a new narrative of Democrats smearing and slurring tea partiers. Has it worked? Getting the entire movement onboard with the push-back is a pretty good start.

It’s easy to fall back into the old habit of thinking that reality matters. But we’re living through the Pale Fire era of American politics and we all need to get used to that.

Reader Interactions

50Comments

  1. 1.

    Deb T

    Pale Fire? I’m sorry I never read much Nabokov. A little clarification if I’m not being too doltish.

  2. 2.

    Punchy

    Isn’t picking on teabaggers akin to poking fun at retarded people? Not sure whether to lampoon them, or take them inside, give them a warm meal, and allow them to change their soiled britches?

  3. 3.

    Brian J

    Is there really a rational person left who denies that the Teabaggers have the Republicans by their balls, or rather the Republicans have the Teabaggers’ balls over their mouths?

    Why is is so goddamn hard for these guys to say something like, “Hey, these guys are a very small part of the movement, and they don’t represent what most of the supporters stand for. Nobody supports behavior like that, and I encourage everyone involved in the movement to denounce such tactics”? Nobody would be invalidating their beliefs, such as they are, by saying something like that.

  5. 5.

    Dork

    I’m sorry I never read much Nabokov

    Nobody else in the NHL does either, and its the reason why the Sharks are in first.

  6. 6.

    adolphus

    Wow! Thanks for the obscure Nabacov reference. As someone who still doesn’t “get” Burkean Bells, it was a nice intellectual affirmation.

    Punchy: Your comparison would be apt if relatively powerful politicians were pandering to every mumble from said retarded people. I’d love to ignore them, but today’s teabagger incoherent and ill-informed rant is next year’s congressional investigation were they to win either chamber. (GSD forbid)

  7. 7.

    David in NY

    @jeffreyw:

    As long as you’re not this guy in the Times article, it’s OK:

    “Joe Catterson, the general manager of Alinea restaurant in Chicago, said that, increasingly, people can’t [resist the compulsion to photograph their every meal]. ‘One guy arrived with the wrong lens or something on his camera and left his wife sitting at the table for an hour while he went home to get it,’ he said.”

  8. 8.

    mistersnrub

    Funny, I remember a time when Liberals were the ones who were guilty of relativism.

  10. 10.

    MattF

    I understand the literary allusion, but I’ll note for the record that in days of yore, this sort of thing was called ‘arguing in bad faith’.

  11. 11.

    inkadu

    Judging from the Pale Fire wikipedia page, I’m guessing the reference is to a world where the commentary far outstrips the original text (aka reality) in both volume and importance.

  12. 12.

    jeffreyw

    @David in NY: Read that, I think it would bother me to eat at a nice place and have some guy popping flashes. I’ve trained Mrs J well, though. She almost never complains about her food getting cold while I fuss over f stops.

  13. 13.

    Scott

    From the first comment at “Right Now”:

    as to Congressman Cleaver “accidentally” being spit on…in your deep “investigation” did you happen to look at the FACES of what could only be described as a rabid crowd?

    you have to go back to the days of integration of the the high school in Little Rock to see hate filled faces like those outside the Capitol building that Sunday.

    I haven’t actually seen a lot of pictures of the Teabaggers themselves at full rage during these events. Most of what gets photographed is the smug ones waving misspelled signs.

    It seems to me that publishing a few photos of purple-with-rage Teabaggers would do a lot toward re-marginalizing them…

  14. 14.

    David in NY

    @Scott:

    Yes. I don’t care whether the jerk who was yelling at Cleaver spat at him. He was totally out of control, and acting impolitely and aggressively. And he probably believes it would be appropriate to be carrying a concealed weapon while acting like this.

  17. 17.

    El Cid

    Where’s the Zapruder film of the sandbox reconstruction of the spittle incident, the one which shows the face of the Devil rising out of the smoke?

  19. 19.

    geg6

    Yeah, because it’s always been the case that when white people are accused of doing anything to black people, it’s always a lie. You know, because the slaves in the Old South liked their massas and were treated wonderfully. That Nat Turner was just like Obama and Cleaver, an angry radical who really had nothing to complain about.

  20. 20.

    Svensker

    I’ve heard a bunch of Repubs say that Cleaver was flat out lying and the whole thing was a Dem plot to discredit the Teabaggers. So, for the true believers at least, Breitbart’s strategy absolutely has worked.

  21. 21.

    SpotWeld

    Step 1) Create a cartoon parody of anti-war (and other “left-wing”) protestors and roll it out to the audience to prove that “we’re better than them”.

    Step 2) Give up the pretense and encourage said audience to act in the same manner as the cartoon parody (never mind why, just do it).

    Step 3) Deny any connection to the insanity of resulting mob “protests” and gin up a false equivalency between left and right wing protests.

    Result: Right-wing mobs get further isolated from the non-politicized and earn ridicule from the left-wing (justifying after the fact their false “righteous indignation”)

    Right-wing mobs seek out the only news outlet that coddles them

    Super devoted audience that believe what ever said media outlet tells them

    Profit!

  22. 22.

    Undercover FBI Agent DougJ

    I’m guessing the reference is to a world where the commentary far outstrips the original text (aka reality) in both volume and importance.

    Yes. It is also totally inaccurate.

  24. 24.

    Short Bus Bully

    What I have heard from other messageboards I post on is that the darkies “race baited” the teabaggers on purpose by deliberately walking through the crowd with cameras. Therefore anything that was shouted was simply in response to the overwhelming insult these nigras laid on the assembled patriots by:

    a) Being black.
    b) Walking.
    c) Having a camera.

    While there is snark in this post, the “race baiting” part is not manufactured. The wingers who come to that board see it as a legit way to explain those incidents. Here is a quote:

    Members of the Congressional Black Caucus intentionally walked through the crowd attempting to provoke an incident and when it didn’t happen they lied to the media who uncritically accepted their word for it because it fit their preconceived biases. As did you all.

    Is there a legitimate way to respond to that “argument”?

  25. 25.

    Pigs & Spiders

    I have to be honest, at this point, anything and everything that has to do with the Teabaggers just makes me hit the back button. PUMAs were amusing but these people are just insufferable and would just as soon ignore them into oblivion.

  26. 26.

    aimai

    Well, always look on the bright side of life, I say. At least this whole line of argumentation–lies, we used to call them–that the teabaggers are such nice people they wouldn’t resort to spitting and hysterical screams of rage implies that they are capable, on some lizard level, of knowing shame that they are, in fact, screaming and spitting on elderly legislators.

    aimai

    I guess I’d turn it around on Breitbart et al– I’d say “it must be really scary for the nice protestors to think that at any moment rabble rousing, racist, armed, spitters and screamers are taking over their movement. Perhaps you and other grown up members of the teabaggers might want to publicly disavow this kind of violent rhetoric and action to discourage those meanies from joining your group and making trouble?

  27. 27.

    Mayur

    @jeffreyw: Congrats! That’s my g/f on the front page of the Dining section.

    (And yes, it does annoy me when I have to wait to dig in while she takes food photos. But it’s a tiny camera, no flash, she forbears from doing so at inappropriate times, and it rarely interferes with conversation.)

  28. 28.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @David in NY:

    increasingly, people can’t [resist the compulsion to photograph their every meal].

    Give these people a break. They just want to have a memento of the good times, something to show their kids later on, when they’re living under the bridge roasting sparrows over a trash fire.

  29. 29.

    Rick Taylor

    I thought I’d become jaded to the how unprincipled the modern Republican party has become, but I’m still a bit shocked when their response to their colleagues being threatened or spit upon is to insinuate they may have been lying.

  30. 30.

    Fergus Wooster

    @jeffreyw:

    I’ve got three more. This was a “dry-run” to see if I could get the braise-and-roast right. Next time I braise three a day or two ahead, then deep-fry to order.

    Needs a sauce though. The Germans use a tarragon cream sauce; I’m thinking something a little lighter and more piquant.

    Back on topic – I think it will be harder to maintain the “new narrative” as more arrests and acts of violence pile up. Not that they won’t give it a yeoman’s effort.

  31. 31.

    Peter J

    The republicans are the new whigs. It’s not a question of if, but when they will be succeeded by the teabagger party, which will be the new know nothing party, but this time it will actually be all about not knowing anything.

  32. 32.

    Kryptik

    I find myself amazed at the persecution complex of people like the Teabaggers. Folks acting like people throwing around the f-word and n-word around like water doesn’t happen, then simultaneously acting like simply calling people “Teabaggers” is somehow an equivalent slur. Then this crap about putting the “moral burden” of this shit on Progressives, LIberals, Democrats, etc. because….”Hey, they were asking for it, she was wearing a short skir-I mean, they were trying to be communists!”

  33. 33.

    demo woman

    Republicans continue to rewrite history..

    McDonnell said Tuesday that the move was designed to promote tourism in the state, which next year will mark the 150th anniversary of the start of the war. McDonnell said he did not include a reference to slavery because “there were any number of aspects to that conflict between the states. Obviously, it involved slavery. It involved other issues. But I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia.”

    Link

  34. 34.

    GregB

    As a New Hampshirite I’d like to apologize for the resurfacing of one the biggest douchebags on this planet. John H. Sununu.

    He’s pompous, mean, arrogant with a face to match those qualities. He’s back as the head of the NHGOP bringing all of his dink weeded goodness with him.

    -G

    There is also a new Brietbartian talking point that I have noticed making the rounds.

    “The worst thing possible is to accuse someone of racism.”

    That apparently tops accusing someone of treason, or of hating the US troops or apparently even being a child molester.

  36. 36.

    Zifnab

    @demo woman: The treason? The bloodshed? The horror?

    They’ll just look for any damn excuse won’t they?

    “We – uh – we just wanted to acknowledge the tasteful coloring of the Rebel Flag. Yeah. It was purely an interior decorating issue. That’s it.”

  37. 37.

    wilfred

    It’s easy to fall back into the old habit of thinking that reality matters.

    God forbid. So is this a hate crime, or one in the making?

    The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have shifted from encouraging attacks on the United States to directly participating in them, intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Tuesday.

    I mean the guy is brown, he’s a Muslim and he’s about to be carbonized, along with his family. What’s the thinking about this one?

  40. 40.

    Lisa K.

    Progressives have a bad habit, still, of thinking the facts speak for themselves.

    As long as fascist ideologues are allowed to frame the narrative with crap like this and it goes nearly unchallenged-ie, the establishment on the left stops being terrified of calling anyone a liar-that assumption is simply foolhardy at best and self-destructive at worst.

  41. 41.

    geg6

    TNC has a short and sweet post up about this shit today and I can’t think of a better way of putting it than he did:

    http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/04/proud-of-being-ignorant/38569/#disqus_thread

    This is who they are–the proud and ignorant. If you believe that if we still had segregation we wouldn’t “have had all these problems,” this is the movement for you. If you believe that your president is a Muslim sleeper agent, this is the movement for you. If you honor a flag raised explicitly to destroy this country then this is the movement for you. If you flirt with secession, even now, then this movement is for you. If you are a “Real American” with no demonstrable interest in “Real America” then, by God, this movement of alchemists and creationists, of anti-science and hair tonic, is for you.

    This. I put it on my Facebook page. Can’t wait to see all the secret Teabaggers slip off the masks and start screaming. I’m guessing at least 3/4 of my high school classmates that insist on tracking me down there.

    And we have Edit in addition to Reply now! Cole, you rock!

  42. 42.

    Fergus Wooster

    @jeffreyw:
    Actually this needs to be eaten on the bone for the proper barbarian experience. There’s less meat than it appears, due to the knuckle at the base, so you’d get maybe one sandwich out of it.

    Now smoke a good shoulder and braise in vinegar sauce, on the other hand. . .

    And congrats again on getting your omelet in the NYT!

  43. 43.

    Joey Maloney

    @Short Bus Bully:

    Is there a legitimate way to respond to that “argument”?

    Laughter? A derisive snort? A slow, sad headshake? Turning away in disgust?

    I mean, no, there isn’t a legitimate way, if by “legitimate” you mean a rational argument. It’s not a rational position and as Ben Franklin said (or at least it’s attributed to him here and there on the tubez) “You can’t reason a man out of a position he wasn’t reasoned into.”

  45. 45.

    jake the snake

    @Kryptic

    I find myself amazed at the persecution complex of people like the Teabaggers

    I call it “oppression envy.” It is the kind of delusional victimization mentality behind the “War on Christmas.”
    They complain about this group or that group claiming
    oppression. Now, by God, it’s their turn to be oppressed.

  46. 46.

    Zuzu's Petals

    Cleaver has nothing to “walk back,” really. He was pretty clear about things right off the bat:

    Cleaver told me: “I said to this one person, ‘You spat on me.’ I thought he was going to say, ‘Hey, I was yelling. Sorry.’ But he continuing yelling and, for a few seconds, I pointed at him and said, ‘You spat on me.’ ” …………………………………………………………………………………….
    “I would prefer to believe that the man who allowed his saliva to hit my face was irrational for a moment,” Cleaver said.

  47. 47.

    Zuzu's Petals

    It seems like they just can’t help themselves when it comes to running with a meme.

    For instance, at the opening game interview, Rod Dibble asked Obama who his favorite White Sox player was growing up. Obama explained he wasn’t a Sox fan until he moved to Chicago as an adult, but as a kid in Hawaii he was an Oakland A’s fan.

    The headlines:

    OBAMA CAN’T NAME A SINGLE WHITE SOX PLAYER ! ! ! PHONY ! ! !

    ————————————–

    Edit: Caps are hyperlinked.

  48. 48.

    Anne Laurie

    @Brian J:

    Why is is so goddamn hard for these guys to say something like, “Hey, these guys are a very small part of the movement, and they don’t represent what most of the supporters stand for. Nobody supports behavior like that, and I encourage everyone involved in the movement to denounce such tactics”? Nobody would be invalidating their beliefs, such as they are, by saying something like that.

    Knowing Sununu? Because he, and the cabal of Rethugs he associates with, plan to use the ‘Tea Partiers’ (“the common clay… you know, morons”) as shock’n’awe troops against their enemies, mostly among the Democrats but also any Republicans who dare challenge the Sununu/Rove/Spencer Abraham wing of the party. These guys are the non-Jewish equivalents of the neocons, proud ‘Platonists’ who believe that it’s the duty of a tiny secret band of ‘intellectual aristocrats’ to keep the rabble in line with a combination of fairy stories and threats of violence. And a key part of establishing that ‘Platonic republic’ is the double-think denying that any given act of violence (like spitting on a congressman) has even happened. Sununu wants us Very Unimportant People to understand that if we offend The Powers That Be, not only will terrible things be done to us, but those terrible things will not even be acknowledged as having been done; as all fascist regimes know, “disappearance” is more effective as a weapon than openly torturing political enemies.

  50. 50.

    Honus

    It will be an indictment of our age that of two Russian post-revolution emigres, Ayn Rand is a household name and Nabokov is obscure.

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