I’m very curious about the dynamics leading to the O’Donnell hit piece in the Weekly Standard, and I am wondering what the angle is behind this. Have the folks at the Weekly Standard and AIPAC (redundant, I know), decided that O’Donnell and the teahadists are insufficiently servile to the state of Israel? Or are the concerned that the tea party may not be as militarily adventurous?
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cleek
this needs a “double-meta inside baseball” tag
dmsilev
Haven’t read the piece so I can’t say anything about the details, but it could just be as simple as the conservative establishment trying to derail an unelectable candidate before she loses them a Senate seat.
dms
Ash Can
Maybe they just think the Tea Party has become too difficult to control and must be reined in. Good luck with that.
beltane
It could be that O’Donnell and the crowd she runs with are too overtly antisemitic for AEI’s taste. Though I’m sure she’s up for bombing random nations of brown people if Jesus tells her to.
atlliberal
It’s not ideological, it’s practical. If Castle wins the primary, Republicans have a better chance to pick up that seat. Once he wins, they will make sure he votes the right way, or face a primary challenge next time, as well as face losing committee assignments. (Republicans are much better at discipline than Democrats).
O’Donnell must be stopped so they can gain a seat. The whole Tea Party thing is just a means to an end. You didn’t think they meant all that stuff did you?
joe from Lowell
You know what would make this post that much more awesome?
A link, so that I know wtf you’re talking about.
4tehlulz
Hasn’t she been linked with Lyndon LaRouche? For some reason, that seems to be stuck in my head.
gex
O’Donnell wants to tell straight people what they can and can’t do with their sex lives. That is a problem for the Republican establishment who have hookers, rentboys, diapers, bathroom cruising, etc. to protect. If she only wanted to tell gay people what to do, she’d be acceptable.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ash Can:
@atlliberal:
My guess is that it is a combination of your answers. The establishment wants to maintain control and it wants to win. In this case, there is no contradiction between the two. The more interesting cases are those where the two goals are in conflict.
MattF
Some of the tea partiers are, in fact, outsiders who actually believe what they say– and say what they believe. Strange, but true. For the Weekly Standard crew, this is simply outside the limits of political discourse.
JGabriel
joe from Lowell:
It’s very tricky linking to The Weekly Standard – you might catch contagious evil.
beltane
@gex: I don’t think they care about that. All the fundie Republicans want to control everyone’s sex life, gay or straight they want to regulate what goes on in your bedroom. O’Donnell’s problem is that she is another Sharron Angle running in a state that is far more Democratic than Nevada. Mike Castle is the only Republican who could have won that seat.
Omnes Omnibus
OT: The ad currently running on the top of my page wants me to download a pdf copy of Mark Neumann’s campaign booklet, Plans for Wisconsin. Should I go for it? Just for the giggles? Or will it pollute my hard drive?
TBogg
First you have to start by acknowledging that while Sarah Palin is fairly stupid, she is also a cynical grifter who is smart enough to know where the big bucks can be found and so is willing to play their game. O’Donnell, on the other hand, is flat out bugfuck crazy.
General Stuck
Neo cons need republicans in charge to start their wars for them. I think their calculation is likely the correct one, that the tea baggers are by and large unelectable in a general election, especially this one, where it seems you could dress up a potato, call it republican and win.
Omnes Omnibus
@TBogg: OK, I acknowledge that. Now what?
Omnes Omnibus
@TBogg: OK, I acknowledge that. Now what?
beltane
@Omnes Omnibus: Don’t do it, your computer might catch teh crazy. Asking people to download a pdf file sounds like fail to me, but I assume the teabaggers love this sort of thing.
Looking at your double-posts it would seem you caught something just from thinking about downloading that pdf file.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: Apologies for the double post. Mistakes were made, people responsible were sacked, etc, etc….
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: Apologies for the double post. Mistakes were made, people responsible were sacked, etc, etc….
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: People responsible for the sacking were sacked, moose’s nose wiped, etc….
me
@Omnes Omnibus: Have you sacked the people responsible for the sacking the people who were sacked?
me
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s toxic but that doesn’t mean some ratfucking isn’t in order come primary day though.
Omnes Omnibus
@me: No, the issue seems to have resolved itself. I retain, however, the right to continue sacking anyone for any or no reason.
Ed Marshall
She sued a Weekly Standard wingnut welfare outfit with a Title VII case….It seems pretty straightforward.
gex
@beltane: I know. I’m just having fun. They have no problem with that kind of hypocrisy anyhow…
Steeplejack
Cole,
O’Donnell’s name is misspelled in your headline and lead, and your link goes to Memeorandum, not The Weekly Standard. You haven’t fired all your copyeditors in a cost-cutting move, have you?
Here’s a link to the Weekly Standard story you appear to be referencing.
El Cid
@gex:
Let’s see how long it will be until O’Donnell’s sexual escapades and/or perversions come to light.
Anyone publicly crusading against sexual immorality is going to self-destruct fairly soon.
joe from Lowell
Just read the hit piece. What a wonderfully cynical bit of Straussian base manipulation.
That woman dared file a civil rights lawsuit overgender discrimination. She dared accuse an organization that supports traditional gender norms of oppressing her.
But like all such lawsuits, it’s a just a scam by someone who couldn’t succeed on her own merits and went to the courts to get special treatment.
It’s always fascinating to watch a master performing his craft.
catclub
@Ed Marshall:
Tell me more! Cat fight?!
bjacques
What it means is go long on popcorn futures.
The Weekly Standard’s hit piece is off target. To the Tea Party Movement, crazy is not a handicap. And if Castle’s campaign goes with it and Castle wins the nomination, O’ Donnell’s supporters will feel cheated and stay home. Party unity my ass!
dmsilev
Apparently, O’Donnell’s secret weapon is …PUMAs:
Awesome. Total Lunacy Convergence.
dms
John Cole
@Steeplejack: Looking at the hash you all made of this comment section and the comments to every other post on this site, I refuse to apologize for misspelling her name.
Ed Marshall
@dmsilev:
PUMA Pounce!!
El Cid
@John Cole: Thiss transkrison wull nit stend!
bago
Perhaps the wankers at the weekly standard had a problem with her anti-masturbatory stances. How else is Bill Kristol going to get off, if not tugging it to the tune of a thousand dead brown people?
beltane
@joe from Lowell: The piece really won’t matter. O’Donnell’s base is made up of semi-illiterate megachurch members who wouldn’t know The Weekly Standard from Worker’s World. These people listen to Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin and read nothing but Focus on the Family bilge. The right-wing intelligentsia has been rendered irrelevant by Fox News.
gocart mozart
@4tehlulz:
No, that’s the ‘dining room table’ that is running against Barney Frank as a ‘democrat’ Hah!
Bella Q
@dmsilev: @atlliberal:This is what I would have written, had it not been done for me.
John Cole
I’m actually eager to see if Omnes Omnibus is goingto try for the unprecedented quadruple post followed by the triple post apology.
General Stuck
@John Cole:
You lye!
Steeplejack
@John Cole:
No apology needed. Just the self-correcting Balloon Juice Borg working its way toward ultimate perfection. And misspelled stuff loses subliminal cred.
Plus when people link here from all across the wide blogosphere they won’t be laughing at us. And that’s important. That they not laugh at us. Ever. [Facial tic flaring up]
Steeplejack
@John Cole:
I think that was attempted once at FireDogLake and the guy was in the hospital for like six weeks. Pretty sure there’s a YouTube video of it somewhere.
gocart mozart
She is not ‘anti-semetic’. She is a big supporter of Israel because the jewish people are needed for their crucial role in the end times whereby in the third act, they are either all killed or find Jesus. This view has never been a problem before with neo cons.
me
@gocart mozart: To the Commentary crowd, those people are what is known as “useful idiots”. Kristol is just trashing her becuase she can’t win.
Omnes Omnibus
@John Cole: Don’t blame me for the technical flaws of your website.
geg6
@atlliberal:
This.
@joe from Lowell:
And this.
Zifnab
Dude. The math on this is pretty simple. If Castle wins the Primary, he waltzes into the Senate seat without much fight. If O’Donnell wins, the seat isn’t a lock for the Republicans anymore.
Weekly Standard is putting it’s thumb on the scale, because it thinks a $10 Op-Ed is going to save the GOP several hundred thousand dollars in Delware Senate Race ads next month.
SiubhanDuinne
OMG, y’all. They’ve done it again. Guess the name of O’Donnell’s campaign manager.
Go on, guess. (It’s so easy, when you think it through.)
His name is . . . Matt *MORAN*
I am not making this up. It’s right there in the Weakly Substandard article. Worth linking to uncover that rich nugget.
Dan
the constant allusions to AIPAC controlling everything are getting a bit tiresome. Is there something to this other than that the weekly standard wrote something critical? are you just joking?
Ash Can
@SiubhanDuinne: And irony didn’t even go through the trouble of leaving a suicide note.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dan: Your concern is noted.
joe from Lowell
beltane, if they’re one thing the Republican establishment really excels at, it’s getting the message out to the base. We’ll see this on Fox News.
Zifnab
@joe from Lowell: There’s going to be blowback, though. It’s not like the Tea Party O’Donnell backers are just going to sit on their hands while Bill Kristol and Bill O’Reilly causally smear their favorite candidate.
If Castle wins, you’ll have a few anti-social wingnut fringers who blame FOX / Weekly Standard. If O’Donnell wins and the right doesn’t immediately kowtow to the reigning queen, you’ll get sour grapes on all sides.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ash Can #52: Heh. I see what you did there.
SRW1
Can’t contribute anything to that mystry. But I’,m sure it would have been a fascinating experience to be a fly on the wall when bloody Bill Kristol gave the piece the go-ahead. Wonder whether he gave Sarah advance notice that they were about to exercise a kneecap on one of her proteges.
joe from Lowell
@Zifnab:
You could well be right. Should Castle pull this out, I an easily imagine a third-party candidacy for O’Donnell.
DougJ
I actually don’t think that AIPAC is as linked with Weekly Standard as some might think. Brooks and Kristol have their own crazy reasons for wanting to start wars all over the Middle East. They aren’t the same as the reasons AIPAC wants to (and I’m not even sure that AIPAC wants to quite as much as Kristol wants to). People underestimate how out there neoconservative beliefs are. They can align with what some lobby group wants temporarily, but they’re not coming from the same place when you dig down.
LanceThruster
Can’t say much about candidates I am unfamiliar with, but considering the glowing press Madame Palin regularly gets, I’m terrified of the possibility of someone so ethically challenged and with so little between the ears getting elected to higher office on the basis of nothing other than saying nice things about Chosanistan.
Talk about a one issue lobby. She could go on record for eating the poor even if she pushed to outsource the processing into lunchmeat, but if the Z-team gave her a thumbs up, she’d be considered a “serious” candidate by the media and all that entails. Also.
Joel
Simpler than that.
They’re worried that O’Donnell won’t win in the general.
LanceThruster
@Dan: The constant control is getting annoying (and the tendrils are far reaching as with the Megaphone project and sayanim).
I think there is also a “hidden agenda” plain to anyone paying attention. The beginnings of a “great purgeā seemed to be taking place on 9/11 at The Huffington Post. I had just gotten an immediate ban after commenting to former Amb. Marc Ginsberg that he was just tacking on a new enemies list to get more mileage out of 9/11 blood.
see: 9/11/10 ā Unfinished Business Take #9 ā http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amb-marc-ginsberg/91110ā-unfinished-busin_b_712982.html
This is a site that allows sweeping generalizations of Arabs/Muslims on a regular basis, but to offer an honest take on former Amb. Ginsberg’s “hit list” is to be deemed unworthy to comment any longer in their public forum. HuffPo is definitely PEP (Progressive Except for Palestine) but they get the keep their “progressive” bona fides because fanatics such as Pam Geller (Atlas Shrugs) provides them cover by stating that the site is awash in anti-Semites.
Marc
in my ideal world there are three party races in Alaska, New Hampshire, and Delaware. Preferably after long, bitter recount fights in the latter two. With the tea party fanatics as the republican nominees, of course.
ricky
My guess is the author of the WS piece has never spent a lonely night on his couch getting winked at by Ms. O’Donnell over the TV airwaves.
Either that or she has him on tape and it is part of her lawsuit.