Since this hasn’t happened yet, it may be too early to declare that no one could have predicted (warning: Politico link):
Rep. Darrell Issa, the conservative firebrand whose specialty is lobbing corruption allegations at the Obama White House, is making plans to hire dozens of subpoena-wielding investigators if Republicans win the House this fall.
[…..]In other words, Issa wants to be to the Obama administration what Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) was to the Clinton administration — a subpoena machine in search of White House scandals.
[….]With little policy work to get done, Republicans would focus on fighting and investigating Obama.
If Republicans gain control of the House, there is no question they will attempt to impeach Obama, for SestakGate, for iPodGate, for Henry Louis GatesGate. I don’t think there’s any question that much of the liberal media will support impeachment too. I am pretty confident that the public will not support it.
demo woman
Nothing like a little bullshit in the morning.
Stroszek
Just so everyone’s clear on the standard liberal memes:
Investigations of Bush = unpatriotic witch hunts
Investigations of Obama = preservation of the rule of law
We can be confident that Peggy Noonan will no longer be so concerned about the mystery of life.
MikeJ
So the Republicans *do* have a jobs creation program.
Brachiator
The public didn’t support the impeachment of Bill Clinton. This still did not prevent mischief from being done.
And the long view here is that pointless legal attacks directed at Obama will also serve to keep alive the sentiments that he is an illegitimate usurper. This, by the way, ups the ante on some of the background to Clinton hate, that somehow he was just the wrong kind of person to be president.
MattF
I suppose they’ll investigate whether Bill Ayres ever wore a blue dress…
stacie
Part of why I didn’t support Hillary Clinton in the primary was that I didn’t want such a direct return to the Conservative psychodrama that was the 1990s.
I don’t know that there’s any campaign hay to be made by pointing out to middle of the road, independent types that GOP + House of Representatives = Non-Stop Drama, but it can’t hurt, can it?
Also, I love that phrase in the article: “With little policy to work to get done….” Kind of sums up the GOP, doesn’t it?
DougJ
@Brachiator:
Yes, that is right.
blackwaterdog
Well, after Charls Blow’s amazing psychological bullshit article in the NYT today – i have lost any shred of faith i ever had in the “Liberal media”.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
The liberal media will support the spectacle of it. Of course, that means endless dubious chyrons from CNN and Fox news ending with question marks. And I suspect, that since there have been armies of gumshoes of all types scouring the record for something to hang (pun) Obama with, all the House ghouls will uncover is devious doings of Obama as a liberal democrat. A political capital offence in tea bag circles, headscratchers for the rest of us.
And eventual clenched fist by most of the public that wingnuts are spending all their time doing what they did with Clinton in the 90’s. Which they didn’t much like, but it was a golden economic period. Now the shit has hit the fan on about everything, with a plethora of seemingly unsolvable problems affecting their daily lives not in a good way. They won’t be near as gracious as they were then, and blowback should make 2012 a better electoral climate than now for Obama and dems.
But the wingnuts don’t care about anything in the future past the 2010 elections. They have stared at the abyss of political death as a party, and all their focus, every ounce of it, is pointed toward stirring their 27 percent whackjob base to turn out to vote in Nov.. And after that, they will be owned by that base, and will do their bidding to conduct the mother of all witchhunts for the next 2 years in the House.
I really believe this is like a last gasp of a dying party. They have placed all their cracked eggs into the oppose Obama basket, on everything, just for this coming midterm, to do well because enthusiasm usually wins the day in these elections with historical low turnout, especially from the new presidents own party.
I wonder if the Whigs went out something like this. A bang, and then a wimper into the dustbin of history.
PurpleGirl
Impeachment is a two stage process: first there is an impeachment vote in the House of Representatives which parallels a criminal indictment and requires a simple majority; there is then a second vote in the Senate to convict and remove the person from office, this requires a super 2/3 majority. Clinton was impeached but not convicted.
I make no predictions on how this would work for President Obama.
licensed to kill time
Makes perfect sense. Worst environmental disaster in American history, economic meltdown, 2 unfinished wars, etc. etc, and these guys want to play “Let’s Impeach the President Again!” because those other things are too hard to fix and would involve actually governing instead of politicking.
Amok92
Shoot Manute Bol died, RIP
Third Eye Open
Oh, I believe that Boner and McGillicutty are smart enough to know that this is a defacto, Mutually Assured Destruction.
I mean, if this were even sniffed by Rahm, do you think that he would allow himself to be put through JizzGate 2.0? He would have Holder and Panetta on the line PDQ figuring out who is the point-person on leaking all of the more salacious tidbits from the CIAs greatest-hits dossier.
MikeJ
@stacie:
And this is why there will be a GOP led witch hunt no matter who the Dems elect. You make a million accusations and even if they’re all baseless some portion of the public will say, “where there’s smoke there’s fire.” It’s not about Clinton, it’s not about Obama, it’s just another way to try to win.
Svensker
Sometimes I think they can’t be that fucking nuts, and then Rush Limbaugh comes on the radio and says poor kids should go dumpster diving to get their meals and I think, “yes, they are that nucking futs.”
BTW, shouldn’t someone in our “liberal media” ask one of Rush’s devoted Congresscritters if he/she agrees with Rush on this method of feeding kids?
Comrade Javamanphil
@Third Eye Open: Because the GOP has shown such great resistance to serving in or running for office when their crimes have been exposed (See: Vitter, David.) You underestimate the sheer nihilism and lack of shame that is the current GOP.
Chat Noir
On first read, this sentence just stuns me. This country faces a plethora of complex problems that need focused, smart, serious people to help solve. Then I remember the Republican Party is made up of petty, stupid, unserious psychopaths who want nothing more than to be in power to help their uber-rich buddies get uber-richer.
I often wonder what country I’m going to need to call home when this one implodes.
El Cid
We need to look forward, not back. Especially with regard to stopping that illegitimate Kenyonesian terrorist lazy Marxist in the White House.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
It should be noted however, that from 1994 until dems retook the House in 2006, the wingnuts controlled the House by slim margins> And that was during a time when their party brand across the country was the best it had been for decades, and not in the shitter as now. I think the apex of margin of majority was around 16 or 18 seats, after the 2004 election. Most of the previous ten years it had been around 10 or less.
Delia
Impeachment you say? Well, the evidence is right here: Obama & BP collude to create oil spill!
Good for at least six years of special prosecutor investigations.
Maude
Is Issa desperate for attention?
Kryptik
It’s amazing trying to slog through comments at Politico. It’s like a different universe, where the Bush administration was lynched at every turn, where the virtuous Republicans were stonewalled at every turn by vicious tyrannical obstructionist Democrats, and where Obama is the worst monster since Jimmy Carter.
The fact that they act like Politico is in the pocket of the Democratic party is just…cripes. And the saddest thing is, these are the jackoffs the media listens to all the fucking goddamn time.
cleek
@Maude:
if he gets any traction at all, he’d become a True Wingnut Hero.
jeffreyw
@Svensker: I’m in the middle of making your Turkish chicken recipe. There is some trepidation and the part of Mrs J due to the teaspoon of cayenne. We will manage. Yes, there will be pics.
Sheila
@blackwaterdog: Apparently, this is what comes of having the first emotionally-mature President in many years in a country with an emotionally-immature media. Is it a surprise that the perpetually-weak are unable to recognize a sign of strength when they see it? They must criticize Obama’s persona because it is the antithesis of their own pettiness. By the way, you are still doing fine work on that other blog. I don’t comment there any more, but I do check out your diaries when I can.
Stooleo
@Delia:
Ah, the wingnut is strong in this one.
Derelict
Frankly, I’m more than a bit surprised that Holy Joe Lieberman has not already begun such investigations.
However, it is absolutely guaranteed that the Republicans would go into subpoena fest if they win the House. They controlled Congress and the Presidency for 6 of the most crucial years in recent history, and proved incapable of governing. But, OOOOOHHHHHH! Do they love the sweet sweet taste of power!
Can’t win that power back at the ballot box? Well, just completely jam the gears of government! That’s a form of power. And besides, as their campaign platform clearly states, the GOP despises and wishes to diminish (if not destroy) the government of the United States.
jwb
@Stroszek: “We can be confident that Peggy Noonan will no longer be so concerned about the mystery of life.”
We have standards to uphold, after all.
Svensker
@jeffreyw:
I made the second batch with less (actually I was using crushed Italian red pepper, not cayenne) and it was a bit dull, so I added bit by bit to the mix until it was just right. If you’re worried about “too hot”, try that.
NonWonderDog
@Kryptik:
Not only that, but according to one of the commenters, Jimmy Carter should have been investigated or impeached for “deposing the Shaw[sic] of Iran.”
I can’t even begin to understand the kind of world view that would lead one to conclude that Khomeini was a puppet of Jimmy Carter. Where do these people come from?
Lowkey
@Third Eye Open: This is why I’m still happy Rahm’s still around. I’m not wild about triangulation, but at the end of the day, you have to get shit done. The thing I am wild about is that the President has an 800 pound gorilla that has his back, and that gorilla has wrestled this alligator before.
Third Eye Open
@Comrade Javamanphil:
Oh they’re fully aware of how it would look to bring investigations against a sitting president as pictures of raped Iraqis, videos of water-boarding sessions, and the diplomatic cables between Britain and the US ca. 2001-2003, are streaming on every Facebook page from here to Puxatawney.
Would Dems and GOP go down in the fracas? Of Course. But I would not bet against Rahm and Panetta pressing reset and letting the chips fall where they may. Which brand do you think would come out with more mud on them? If Issa tried to distance himself from the party and run with the investigations anyways, there would be GOP head-hunters digging through his garbageman’s garbage. Wetsuits for everybody!
MikeJ
@NonWonderDog:
I’d guess parody troll, but sadly some people really are that stupid.
arguingwithsignposts
@blackwaterdog:
I have lost a *huge* amount of respect for Charles Blow over the last couple of weeks. He’s become as big a douche as the other armchair psychologists masquerading as serious commenters on public policy.
jeffreyw
@Svensker: I can do that, thanks.
Polish the Guillotines
@blackwaterdog: Wow. Good to see you here at Balloon-Juice. Your photo diaries at GOS are about the only ones worth clicking on these days. It’s like the place has been overrun by sophomore poli-sci students who got their first taste of Das Kapital.
Bob In Pacifica
Issa, the guy who spent his youth stealing cars and who made his fortune helping drivers speed.
Ming
crushed italian red pepper is a far sight less hot than cayenne…
Polish the Guillotines
@Bob In Pacifica:
And his middle-age trying to steal the CA governorship.
PaulW
@PurpleGirl:
It’s not a question on if impeachment would work on President Obama. The Republicans will only care that they can use impeachment no matter what. Issa has made it known he will investigate Obama’s White House over the flimsiest reason, and there will be Republican underlings to ensure there will be reasons. Hell, they won’t even investigate the birth certificate: They’ll go straight to impeach over the birth certificate. And when the certificate is proven true, the Republicans will still impeach, again, and again, and again. Every morning will be an impeachment vote. Every afternoon an impeachment vote. Anything to stop Obama. Anything to delegitimize him. Anything to gum up the works. Anything to keep the
ReaganNixon Revolution going.This was going to happen regardless if there was Hillary in the WH or Obama: if the Republicans re-gain control of Congress, especially the House, this is what they will do. It’s not about right or wrong: it’s about might, pushed by their belief created by the Far Right Ideology anchored by
ReaganNixon that the Republicans deserve to rule uninterrupted for the next 200 years.Uloborus
@PaulW:
They really were counting on that permanent Republican Majority, weren’t they? It just HAS to be real. Karl Rove could prove it with numbers!
It’s the only reason I’m not confident the GOP is in its hideous and messy death throws. Demographics or not, Things Happen.
Polish the Guillotines
@PurpleGirl:
All technically correct, but what it leaves out is how the GOP impeachment of Clinton hamstrung the entire federal government. It doesn’t matter whether or not the GOP could ever successfully impeach and remove Obama from office — that’s not the plan. The plan is to throw a pound of sugar in the gas tank and grind the car to a halt.
And while it’s also highly unlikely that the country at large would ever support such a witch hunt, the GOP/Teabagger base is practically demanding it, which virtually assures it will happen if the GOP should gain a majority — since they only listen to themselves.
Maude
@PaulW:
I don’t think this would happen with Hillary Clinton. She would be a total screw up as she was in her Primary campaign. She can’t make decisions, has a terrible temper and no sense whatsoever. The Repubs would love her.
Obama is intelligent. They hate him.
Alex S.
I don’t know…. the public interest will be too low for this without sex involved. But I am not sure if this is a good or a bad thing. I could imagine that the public simply turns away from politics all together when they can’t figure out what these investigations are about. And then they’ll wonder why the government doesn’t get anything done.
Obama is not Bill Clinton, obviously. Bill’s charisma carried him through all of this, along the lines of “If I was married to Hillary I’d bang my intern, too”. I’m afraid that the public would be too indifferent if Obama was faced with a couple of bogus scandals that gum up the works (I mean, it’s happening now already, with all the ridiculous reasons to delay the confirmation processes, the rope-a-dope tactics of republican Senators and the lunatic republican base).
jwb
@arguingwithsignposts: I almost wonder if someone has been spiking his coffee. That, or he’s under orders…
cat48
per wiki, my fav car theft charge:
Conservative political commentator Debbie Schlussel wrote a column calling him “Jihad Darrell”, charging that he sympathized with Hezbollah despite its being listed by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization.[13] Issa denied this; he later speculated that Schlussel’s column might have inspired an aborted Jewish Defense League plot in 2001 to bomb his district office in San Clemente.[
jwb
@efgoldman: There were also fewer pundits of national profile back then, and the media hadn’t discovered that it’s a lot cheaper to have people running off at the mouth than do actual reporting.
fledermaus
@Third Eye Open: ”
Oh, I believe that Boner and McGillicutty are smart enough to know that this is a defacto, Mutually Assured Destruction.”
The real question is are they strong enough to stop it. In the grand scheme of things the conservative forces outside of government wield more influence and power than elected republicans. The conservative movement has a plug and play political playbook that anyone can use to get elected. But they must always stick to the script and elected GOPers have very little control over the script these days and it has been putting up some crazy lines – we should apologize to BP – being the most resent one.
Svensker
@NonWonderDog:
Now, see, what you’re missing is that he was talking about Bob Shaw and his Chorale. Totally different stuff and, I agree, Jimmy should be investigated for screwing up the hymn singing over there.
jwb
@efgoldman: A lot depends on how the job numbers are over the next couple of weeks. The economy is really not at all where you’d like it to be at this point in the electoral cycle. By all rights, the Dems should be in a world of electoral hurt right now. The fact that they are not is evidence, I think, of how crazy the goopers are perceived as being.
Comrade Kevin
@Lowkey: Ah, but to read some people out there, Rahm Emanuel is practically Satan himself, come to Earth.
Svensker
@Ming:
I believe you are right (I rarely use cayenne since I get crushed red pepper in gallon containers). Anyone making the Turkish Chicken recipe, take note that the 1 teaspoon “red pepper” should be Italian red pepper, not cayenne, YMMV.
Polish the Guillotines
@Svensker:
Hey, Svensker…
Would you be so kind as to re-post the recipe?
TIA.
Svensker
@Polish the Guillotines:
I can do that.
Turkish Circassian Chicken
Take 4-6 chicken breasts and poach them gently in chicken broth. Let the breasts sit in the warm broth while you make the sauce. In a small saute pan melt chunk of butter and saute 1 small onion chopped and 2 garlic cloves chopped, until soft, then add 1 tablespoon paprika and 1 teaspoon ground red pepper (I used Italian red pepper NOT cayenne, which is much hotter) and stir until fragrant. Put in the blender or food processor 1-1/2 cups walnuts and 2 slices bread dipped in the chicken broth. Add the onion mixture to the blender, then pour in a bit of the hot chicken broth and blend, adding more broth to get the sauce loose enough but not too loose—should be consistency of a runny hummus. Taste for salt and add some if needed. Remove chicken breasts from broth and shred or cut into bite size chunks. Toss with the sauce and serve garnished with walnut halves and chopped parsley. For the coup de grace, melt a spoonful of butter in a pan and stir in another teaspoon of paprika, until the butter turns a brilliant orange—then drizzle that over the finished dish. Just unbelievably good.
cat48
@Comrade Kevin:
Those counting on Rahm to help will probably be disappointed. He is expected to depart at the end of the yr. That job has a high burnout rate. I have no idea who would replace him.
jwb
@Uloborus: “They really were counting on that permanent Republican Majority, weren’t they? It just HAS to be real. Karl Rove could prove it with numbers Diebold!”
Fixt.
Uloborus
@fledermaus:
Oh, yeah. I knew the inmates were running the asylum in early 2009, when a string of GOP ‘leaders’ publicly disagreed with Rush and had to immediately apologize.
Martin
Impeachment drama, regardless of merit, equals page clicks.
Unemotional competence in governance does not.
That’s pretty much the entire formula you need to know to determine where the media will land on this.
Polish the Guillotines
@Svensker: Copied, pasted, and saved. Thanks!
jwb
@Alex S.: No, there’s a difference between gumming up the works as the goopers have been doing and impeaching. Impeachment would backfire spectacularly.
Stroszek
Meanwhile, that liberal New York Times is fluffing Haley Barbour for “showing leadership” by, uh, lying about the state of the Gulf.
Third Eye Open
@fledermaus:
Astute observation, but the key is which elected representatives are still in office when the reset button gets mashed. The GOP needs dependable foot-soldiers, not a gaggle of reps who are beholden to the conspiracy-theory of the week, and I suspect that the large donors don’t want to be dragged through the mud along with the incumbents when there is no obvious payout, other than some nebulous, “we are going to make things difficult” plan. Imagine having to rely on 10 Pauls to perpetuate niche military contracts and farming subsidies.
mai naem
I wish Darryl and Darryl all the luck in the world with this impeachment thing. I think Darryl thinks he’s in the Newhart show and thinks he’s going to wake up in 1996 with the GOP in power with the Clinton bimbo eruptions going on and all this black Kenyan usurper in the WH stuff is just all one big nightmare.
Seriously though, if you want Obama to win in 2012, y’all would be wishing Darryl lotsa luck with this too.
stuckinred
Just pulled the chicken off the water smoker to go with the sweet potato salad and real maters off the vine!
mclaren
You’ll recall I predicted this 6 months ago.
Look at the generic polls, then run the regression analysis and you’ll discover that Republicans have a huge lead coming into the November 2010 elections. They’ll take back the house, and when they do, it’s non-stop global warming denail “investigations” and phony “hearings” on alleged “corruption” in the Obama White House.
Like Whitewater, it’ll all be pure bullshit, but that won’t stop the mainstream media from eagerly playing along. NBC and CBS and ABC and the New York Times and the Washington Post and CNN will all gravely announce in 70-point scare headlines that “there are serious questions about the viability of the Obama presidency now that their dog has been shown to be groomed by someone with a questionable green card,” or some such twaddle.
All legislation in Washington will grind to a halt. Every effort to pass any kind of reform will shut down. DC will become consumed with non-stop phony scandal, 24/7/365.
And when the public becomes unendurably disgusted by Washington’s inability to do anything about the ongoing economic collapse or America’s chronic dependence on foreign oil or the out-of-control military spending that’s bankrupting us or the out-of-control corruption of our financial system or our out-of-control lost foreign wars that never seem to end, in despair the American people will vote for someone who promises (falsely) to end all the chaos…Sarah Palin.
At that point, a nation poised on the brink of the final descent will take the plunge.
If you own a home, sell it. If you have a job, quit. Get a passport. Pack your belongings. Prepare to leave this dying country.
jeffreyw
@Svensker:
This is what I came up with, Svensker. Does it look right to you?
stuckinred
@jeffreyw: Looks good to me!
Lowkey
@mclaren: *sob*
McLaren, things are grim. People are dumb. The glove of idiocy, wrapped around the fist of the old guard, is looking to strike a killing blow.
But that’s no reason to be so grump-a-dump gloomy Gus on us! Come on, man, this is the community of fun-lovin’ party curmudgeons around here! We’ll never leave this country. We’re too fucking cool to let these losers have their way.
Geeno
@Amok92: That is kinda sad. I liked Manute Bol back in the day.
Keith G
Making the rounds on the inter-tubes is this gem of a performance by VPOTUS.
A textbook example of how to communicate with clarity and conviction at a press conference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABToOl-xbHE&feature=player_embedded
Enjoy.
Lowkey
@Comrade Kevin: That’s because wingnut trolls and magical sparkle unicorns are afraid of *pouty voice* big mean ol’ gorillas.
mclaren
Gloomy? You think I’m being gloomy?
I’m not being gloomy.
This is gloomy.
Keith G
@Lowkey:
He/She can’t help it. He/She is a new school liberal. That’s how they roll.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@mclaren:
Hells bells Mclaren. About everybody and anybody with a pennies worth of knowledge predicted the dems to lose a lot of seats, maybe even the House of Reps, though I still doubt the wingers will do that well. It is no great work of insight to predict something that has happened in nearly every first mid term of a first term president since we started having elections here.
Tomorrow morning I will crow at predicting the rise of the sun in the east.
Ming
@Keith G: That was a sweet thing. Thanks for passing it along.
Geeno
@Ming: Cayenne ….. hmmmmmm…..
Seth Owen
@Third Eye Open:
The same thought occurred to me.
The mere suggestion of impeachment shenanigans might be sufficient motivation for this administration to stop worrying about “looking forward, not backward” and let the chips fall on some real (internationally recognized) crimes committed by members of the previous administration.
Given the thin gruel the the GOP House will find compared to the hard evidence of appalling criminality that even a cursory legal probe will reveal about Bush torture, rendition and warrantless spying it would be unwise for the GOP to go down that road.
Ming
@Svensker: forgot to say — thanks for the recipe! it looks DEEElicious!
mclaren
6 months ago, when I pointed out that current generic polls and historical regression analysis showed that Repubs would do very well in November 2010 and possibly take back the house of representatives, I was called “insane” and “demented” and “in need of therapy” and “off my meds.”
Now, 6 months later, my prediction is called “obvious” and something that “anybody with a pennies [sic] worth of knowledge predicted.”
Standard stuff.
Incidentally, people who ridicule Daryl Issa and exhort him to “try his best” need to be reminded that Daryl Issa is the guy who brought down the Democratic governor of California and succeeded in installing the Republican Arnold Scwarzenegger as governor.
Daryl Issa is not somebody you want to underestimate. If Daryl Issa succeeds in doing for Washington D.C. what he did for California…watch out.
Cat Lady
@Keith G:
Great stuff. Joe for the TKO. He really is the perfect complementary big heart to POTUS’ big
packagecerebellum.Ming
@Geeno: Heh. I take it you like it hot?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@mclaren:
Nah, that was for all your other crazy shit. This prediction was a tiny island of sanity in your Sargasso Sea of permanent tragedy.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@cleek: He already is, for bringing down Gray Davis.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Take heart Obi Won. Most geniuses don’t get the recognition they crave until decades after they’re dead, sometimes centuries. You ain’t even dead yet, Are you?
Uloborus
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
I’m still not sold on ‘Republicans will take back the House’. I’d have bought it if the Republicans weren’t so really bloody insane right now.
ruemara
@mclaren:
Mongrel genes? Yeah, about that link, next.
cat48
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
That Gray Davis thing didnt really work as planned as he planned on being Gov himself and along came Arnold during Issa’s campaign.
wrb
@blackwaterdog:
That’s it. I was wondering why I felt nauseated and despairing all day. It started when I read that appalling wankoff this morning
Martin
Congressional Generic Ballot
42.9% DEM
43.5% GOP
Put the incumbent advantage (strongly favoring Dems) into the mix, and the GOP stands to pick up seats, but no where enough to win the House. By comparison, in 2006 Dems had a 16 point advantage at this point, a 23 point advantage later in the year at their peak, and an 11 point advantage on election day.
That doesn’t mean that the GOP can’t win the House, but the generic ballot isn’t the place to look for evidence of it.
cat48
Those who are predicting the House races say the Dems will lose 30 to 40 seats. The repugs need 39. It will be close.
QuaintIrene
Truth
Nick
@Brachiator:
Nor did it prevent the Republicans from winning complete control over the government for six years shortly thereafter.
Martin
Jesus, you’re stupid. Issa dumped all that money into the recall effort to install himself into the governor’s mansion as he was aiming for higher office for quite some time with no success. He figured it was a cheap way to rewrite the electoral rules – and it was. He didn’t count on Arnold showing up to spoil the show for him. It was a complete fail on his part.
maus
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Which is, of course a massive weight of passive support, especially in the “24 hour” cycle.
CNN can check the twitterverse’s opinion!
mclaren
@General Crackpot Fake Name:
You really don’t have anything to add to this forum aside from calling people “mentally ill,” do you?
That’s your whole shtick. All your posts could be replaced by the claim that anyone who disagrees with you is insane.
Go back to the Tea Party, kook.
QuaintIrene
Jesus, was it November already? There’s quite a few months worth of God-only-knows-what of events between now and Nov. I thinks it’s pointless to predict what the elections will bring.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@maus:
Gawd, you are right maus. Stunning, this thread is simply filled with genius.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@mclaren:
LOL, usually it only takes me a single cast to bring out the above. I must be slipping. Carry on you big wizard lunatic.
So your real name is Mclaren. So Yo momma didn’t give you a first name. Explains a lot.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: Sorry maus. Your comment didn’t deserve this snark of mine.
maus
@MikeJ:
There’s no such thing as a parody troll on Politico.
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: Eh, no biggie.
jaleh
If that happens, we should get a few million people and go to Washington for a march?
The Other Chuck
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
A bit like that, yes. They kept electing presidents who had the bad manners to die in office a short time after, only to be succeeded by vice presidents who eviscerated the Whig agenda. The first of these (Taylor) they actually booted out of the party. Needless to say this wasn’t exactly a boost to party unity. Fillmore was a dedicated Whig, but an ineffective one, and pretty much the last one of any note. It’s worth noting that the death spiral of the Whigs started when they became a southern regional party, with many of the rest joining the ill-fated Know-Nothings.
Thank goodness for the GOP there’s no parallels there, eh?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@The Other Chuck:
LOL, thanks. That little tidbit of history made me smile.
Bernard
with Democrats like Obama, who need Republicans. and assorted friends, Ins rep Lieberman, and the infamous Landrieu, Nelson, and the rest of the Blue Dogs, who of course will vote to impeach Obama.
still the problem of getting out the Democratic vote. all those groups thrown under the bus, hmm. will they vote for Obama after the warm and loving accolades from Rahm.
will be most interesting to see how the “active voters” go.
Bostondreams
@Bernard:
Yup. And then, because they refused to vote, or lodged a protest vote, or sat home and whined about how Obama was just as bad as Bush and how he threw everything good and holy under the bus, the Republicans win the election, and these principled voters get to complain for four more years (minimum) about how this country is so bad and how we keep voting for crazy people, and they just don’t know what they can do.
Brachiator
@DougJ:
RE: The public didn’t support the impeachment of Bill Clinton. This still did not prevent mischief from being done.
One of the few things that I enjoyed during the impeachment mess was watching the GOP become increasingly frustrated as they watched Clinton’s popularity increase the more they pressed impeachment. I knew that they totally lost it when I heard some GOP grandee insist that the citizenry were too stupid to understand the importance of impeaching the Big Dog.
SNL, on the other hand, clearly had the public mood nailed. There was a short but sweet skit, post impeachment, that had Darrell Hammond as Bill Clinton, in the Rose Garden, make some remarks mocking the GOP’s failed efforts. He walks off, then returns to the microphone and declares,
“Next time, best bring some kryptonite.”
Nick
@Bernard: Alright, this is definitely snark, right?
BlizzardOfOz
How about transferring 27 trillion fro the treasury to crooked bankers gate? Oh sorry, this is the BJ alternate universe where that didn’t happen.
Uloborus
@BlizzardOfOz:
Does anyone even know what he’s talking about? Given there isn’t that much money, and all?
arguingwithsignposts
@Uloborus:
From this:
I’m guessing purity troll or firebagger.
Yutsano
@Uloborus: I actually know where this is coming from. If every single loan that every single Wall Street bank had made had failed and the US government had to back every single one of those up, then the total is around $27 trillion dollars. In other words, it’s a convenient fantasy that has no basis.
(edited for clarity)
Uloborus
@Yutsano:
Ah, the liberal Amero.
Yutsano
@Uloborus: Yep, pretty much. In fact the amount TARP has ended up costing the US government is running about zero. Our Wall Street titans sure can be efficient can they want to be.
Oh and just as a side point: who authorized the whole Wall Street bailout again? I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t the current occupant of the White House.
Smedley
@PurpleGirl:
It was the Ken Starr porn show in the House that tied the Clinton administration in knots. It was never really probable that the Senate would impeach. Same is true now(assuming a Republican House in 2010). It will just be a way to hamstring the White House answering an unbroken string of subpoenas;
with the added flavor of a potentially hostile SCOTUS.
sunsin
@NonWonderDog: Their curious reasoning comes from the fact they do it in reverse to sensible people. They start from the conclusion, and then work back along any attractive pathway for the “proof.” That’s why they are so oblivious to the contradictions and self-contradictions that litter their positions. The “proof” isn’t anything more than trimmings when you start by knowing the answer.
Svensker
@jeffreyw:
Just back from a friend’s party (packed house, 90 degrees, and no A/C, I’m just hosed) — but yes, looks exactly right. How’d it taste?
Uloborus
@sunsin:
Okay, but let’s be fair. It’s Rationalization, a basic human function – the dominant and natural way the brain thinks – and unfortunately we get any number of liberal trolls using the same thing.
Of course, we’re supposed to be able to grow out of it because we’re thinking animals, and we don’t have an entire bloody 27% movement based on this garbage and leaders who are currently extolling it as superior to logic.
Zuzu's Petals
@Martin:
Yeah, I still remember his teary-eyed withdrawal from the race. Now THAT’S a deal that might be worth investigating.
Mnemosyne
@mclaren:
Wait, it’s already November 2010 and you’ve been proven right? That’s so bizarre, my calendar still says June 2010, which would mean that your predictions haven’t actually come true yet.
Have you traveled back from November 2010 to tell us what will happen, or are you prematurely declaring yourself Absolutely Right four months before the election actually happens?
Pundits were declaring Barbara Boxer’s re-election in doubt because of the generic ballot. Now even Rasmussen is showing her well ahead of Fiorina. So much for the generic ballot.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Amok92: I remember an interview with him when he started with Les Boulez; he talked about how he had the front seat removed from his SUV and sat in the back to drive. Such joy and enthusiasm.
liberal
@Derelict:
I don’t think Lieberman and Obama are at odds with each other. Wasn’t Lieberman some kind of “mentor” to Obama when he first came to the Senate?