Please make it stop:
With ten percent unemployment in this country, is it too god damned much to ask that some of the unemployed be pundits? Christ- nothing is news anymore. Everything is analysis, and usually half-assed.
Lemme guess- a Democrat is retiring. THIS MUST BE GOOD NEWS FOR REPUBLICANS!
mikefromtexas
No, it’s good news for McSame. Didn’t you get the memo?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
I read about that earlier. He has served I think for 3 or 4 decades and gives his reason as being bone tired. I just scribble on blogs and I’m bone tired from politics. I believe him, but that is not interesting, making shit up and putting it on my teevee is interesting, apparently. And why the fucker is rarely turned on these days. I am training my eyeballs to ignore this drek online, but that will take awhile, I suspect.
Kennedy
But it is so important that the very serious pundits explain such obscure concepts to us peasants!
Joe Lisboa
I am beginning to suspect that an angry John Cole is like a semi-sober me. I mean this in the best possible way. You know, when that justifiably righteous anger gets honed to laser-like precision with full-bore fury, rhetorical friendly-fire be damned. Again these are good, good things.
Gravenstone
Sadly, with Obey it is a big deal. If nothing else, he was a reliable foil and counterbalance to the execrable pig Jim Sensenbrenner.
Batocchio
Have the lambs stopped screaming, Clarice?
JGabriel
How has Obama failed you today?
.
beltane
Will the shilling never cease. There are few things on this earth as relentless as the US media hustling for the Republican party.
WereBear
One thing I do find cheerful is that they wouldn’t have to work so hard if there wasn’t a lot of instinctual resistance.
Fortunately, most people have to be pressured into being selfish rage-filled sociopathic idiots, and the minute the pressure lets up, people turn around and donate to Haiti or get indignant about animal cruelty.
An uphill battle, I tells ya.
schrodinger's cat
@WereBear: My kittehs are finally at peace, they are not fighting, they haven’t returned to being the great friends they were (there are occasional hisses and bottle brush tails) but things are definitely on the mend. Thanks for all your suggestions.
ETA: Oops sorry about interrupting the ongoing political discussion.
WereBear
@schrodinger’s cat: You are so welcome! And they can become great friends again. Time does heal.
Pigs & Spiders
Cranky John Cole is cranky.
And yes, it is too much to ask. It’s kinda why we invented this whole intertubes-y thingy.
Omnes Omnibus
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: He was elected in 1968. If he wants to retire, he can retire.
Opie Curious
You’re obviously right, but to be fair, in this case there seems to be an object lesson in Obey’s retirement statement.
Is anyone listening?
stuckinred
@Opie Curious: That’s how I felt after 5+ years at Firedog Lake!
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodinger’s cat: Still OT and we can move the conversation over to the Open Thread next door if you wish, but I must have mmissed what was going on with your kittehs.
El Cid
It will never, ever stop.
At least, not while the world is like what it’s like.
Quiddity
Obey’s retirement means that he won’t be in Congress next year. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what it means.
Cacti
The man was first elected to Congress when he was 30. He’s 71 now.
How many press hounds have been at their job for 41 years?
martha
@stuckinred: You lasted a lot longer at FDL than I did…but then you’re a lot tougher than I am. I’m glad you wandered over here.
On topic, Obey’s retirement really is the end of an era for lots of us. He is the “real deal” and there are too darn few of them left in politics. The rest of us don’t have the patience for fools. We’ll miss him, but I hope he enjoys his retirement or whatever he decides to do next…he’s earned it.
Omnes Omnibus
@martha: This, or as they would say in Blazing Saddles, “Harrumph.”
Mike Kay
since this is a safe dem seat, Greenwald should move to the district and run for congress.
Mike Kay
@martha: oh fuck obey. he voted for stupak’s amendment.
MikeJ
What’s the total number of Republicans retiring v Democrats? If I recall there are still more Republicans quitting.
stuckinred
@martha: Tough, I don’t think so but I’m glad to be out of there.
Brian J
I’m probably going to get raked over the coals for this, but I didn’t find anything wrong with that piece. There’s straight reporting, but it isn’t always called for. It certainly isn’t here. The situation–a popular if relatively struggling Democrat retires, opening up another opportunity for the Republicans in a tough year for the Democrats–pretty much requires analysis, which is exactly what this reporter delivered.
Is there something particularly wrong with what he said? Again, I didn’t think so, but maybe I missed something.
It’s different than when the media takes one random fact, creates a false narrative, and then runs with it endlessly. That’s not what happened here. The reporter took a very basic event–a decision to run (or in this case, not to run)–and described the background of the situation.
Brian J
@MikeJ:
Even with Obey’s retirement, there are still more Republicans retiring than Democrats. I understand that there are individual circumstances involving each one of these guys. Some, for instance, are just old and want to move on. But that’s not the case for all of them, which makes me wonder if it’s really going to be as good of a year for the Republicans as possible. If it was going to be, wouldn’t more of them stick around?
me
@Mike Kay: He’d be pretty bored unless he likes to hunt deer.
martha
@Omnes Omnibus: My husband was in a foul mood for the rest of the day. Obey’s served almost his entire life and was his parents’ favorite congressman (and not even theirs).
You know this, but people outside of WI don’t understand the make-up of his far-flung district and how remarkable he was, as a Democrat, to hold it that long. It takes a–gasp–pragmatist.
cleek
or so says the blogger.
SpotWeld
Pundit Thunderdome…
It may be the only way to thin them out
PeakVT
All I do know is that there has to be more to life than explaining the ridiculous, accountability destroying rules of the Senate to confused, angry, and frustrated constituents.
Oh, snap!
I can’t blame him, though. He’s probably been hanging on for a while now, thinking “Oh, if only we could get the House and the Senate and the Presidency…” And then, when the time comes, Presidents Lieberman and Bayh and Nelson and Lincoln rear their heads and start trying to kneecap the President at every opportunity. I’d be annoyed, too. In fact, I am annoyed.
kay
@Brian J:
It’s going in the right direction, which is “reverse”. I didn’t think they could sustain that spit-flecked rage for a full year. They’re elderly people, generally, Republicans, right? :)
This is Gallup, today:
Democrats stayed the same.
I’m sure they’ll find something to get all riled about between now and November, but health care reform anger seems to have run it’s course on the rage-o-meter.
Michael
@SpotWeld:
Sadly, with the Punditdome, it seems like two assholes enter and five assholes leave. They breed like cockroaches.
“We don’t need another hero
We don’t need to know the way home
We don’t need another hero
Punditdome…….”
Brian J
@kay:
I’ll say it before and I’ll say it again: losses are inevitable, but they don’t have to be monumental.
4jkb4ia
If the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee retires in a year where voters are telling pollsters about being anti-incumbent and anti-spending, that is one very big data point.
But the article did not deliver what all this “meant”: it simply described how Duffy was challenging Obey.
Splitting Image
I’m not even convinced they’re inevitable, just highly likely. There are a few Senate seats that the Republicans just don’t seem incompetent enough to screw up. (North Dakota, for example.)
I know what all the polls say would happen if an election were to be held right now, but I honestly don’t see the Republicans having the wind at their back. Mostly they seem to be doing the same thing they were doing in 2008: burning their party’s capital in order to stay afloat in the week’s headline race. It didn’t work then and I don’t see it working now.
Granted the Democrats in 2008 were led by a highly skilled campaign team. This year they’re not. That’s about the only thing the Republicans have going for them.
maus
Fucking feedback loop of filth. There’s obviously been no new news in the last ten years, so let’s fucking metatalk about people that should never have their names remembered. Circlejerks shouldn’t have salaries, unless you’re a professional whore.
maus
All apologies to any insult applied to sex-workers in the comparison to pundits.
tfitz
Susie Madrak is ‘unemployed’ and a blogger. http://susiemadrak.com/
Brian J
@Splitting Image:
I meant more in the House than in the Senate. Things may not be great for the Democrats in the fall, but it’s almost impossible for us not to lose seats, barring something unusual, because we’ve got such a huge margin now. So it’s really all all relative. A loss of 20 seats or less would be awesome, because a strong campaign in 2012 could make up for most of those losses. But if you double that, which isn’t completely outside the realm of possibility, we’ve lost the House. Then, there’s also the chances they could win even more than 40 seats.
As for the Senate, I guess it’s likely we will lose North Dakota, but why can’t we make up for it with Kentucky or Arizona? And why can’t we just pound the pavement every single goddamn day in Delaware? It’s not a big state, and the man whose old seat Coons is running for, Joe Biden, faced similarly long odds when he first ran. The positive ads write themselves, for fuck’s sake.