Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Fight them, without becoming them!

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

“Let’s not pretend [Trump] wants to engage in high-minded discourse.”

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

Let me file that under fuck it.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Another missed opportunity for Jamie Dimon to just shut the fuck up.

Democrats have delivered the Square Deal, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and now… the Big Joe Biden Deal.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

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

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

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Chicken

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Such a wimp:

When Christine O’Donnell won the Republican Senate primary in Delaware the other day Karl Rove said what a lot of Republicans were certainly thinking – that she didn’t have a chance of winning the election, was not qualified for the job and had a lot of, well, kookie ideas.

He apparently thought that the likes of Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh were, shall we say, rational thinkers. No, they are not. They launched into a collective tantrum and now Rove sees the light as they do. Yay!

These are the tough guys who talk about staying the course and standing up to the terrorists.

From their undisclosed bunkers or desks at Faux news.

Reader Interactions

84Comments

  8. 8.

    jl

    Rove still gets a paycheck from Fauxe for being an expert pundit, doesn’t he?

    If so, that would explain his quick education on the virtues of the tea people.

  10. 10.

    JR

    I’m telling you, if we do this right we can have the GOP establishment repudiate Boehner for Speaker in favor of Sarah Palin. All we need is one bellwether to lead the flock.

  11. 11.

    SIA

    These are the tough guys who talk about staying the course and standing up to the terrorists.

    Well, in Rove’s defense, The Palin/O’Donnell/Limbaugh triad are much skeerier than terrorists.

  15. 15.

    Martin

    Rove realized last night that Sarah Palin was going to keep stealing his lunch money. Decided to be her toadie instead.

    The next 2 years are going to be awesome for the GOP under the political direction of Sarah.

  16. 16.

    Ash Can

    He apparently thought that the likes of Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh were, shall we say, rational thinkers. No, they are not.

    Oh hell yes they are. They know they’re in the driver’s seat of the GOP, and no way are they going to cede any of their power to anyone. What they say goes, especially in the case of Limbaugh. I can’t think of any Republican who’s crossed Limbaugh who hasn’t recanted within a day or two.

    The Koch brothers bankroll, and Limbaugh calls the shots. The only consolation that I take away from this latest capitulation in the face of party leadership is the knowledge that Rove must have seen his whole fucking life flash before his eyes over the course of that phone call/knock on the door/back-alley meeting.

  17. 17.

    PanAmerican

    Eli Sunday: Beg for the blood!
    Plainview: [sotto voce] Give me the blood, Eli, and let me get out of here.
    [aloud]
    Plainview: Give me the blood, Lord, and let me get away!

  18. 18.

    Cacti

    Am I the only one who finds the alleged political genius of Karl Rove highly overrated?

    His “permanent Republican majority” had gone up in smoke in 6 years.

  19. 19.

    Christopher

    Did you ever see that South Park episode where Stan became a figurehead for Scientology? At the end, the head of the church was astounded that Stan believed a word of what he’d been told…He thought Stan was in on the joke, and was horrified when he realized Stan actually believed…Man, that was a good episode.

    Why do I bring it up? Oh, no reason…

  20. 20.

    General Stuck

    @eric: Rush gets 20 million viewers a week, and Malkin can quicken a coven of vampires with a mouse click, and then there is miss bouncy betty Sarah, pops up and cuts you in half any misbehavin’ wingnut. Ailes and Murdoch don’t run the GOP, they are faceless bag men who ultimately work for terrible triad. Rove doesn’t need Fox News, but he does need favor with the new masters of his domain from which he once perched atop as Bush’s Brain. No more.

  21. 21.

    TR

    @Cacti:

    Am I the only one who finds the alleged political genius of Karl Rove highly overrated?

    He’s a joke. He only did well in 2002 because of the shameless exploitation of 9/11. In 2004, he got Bush re-elected, but by the narrowest margin of any wartime president since Woodrow Wilson. And then he got his ass handed to him in 2006 and left his party in shambles in 2008.

  22. 22.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Trotskyites have nothing on the teabaggers as far as the enforcement of ideological purity.

    Rove made the mistake of acting like an actual political analyst instead of a propagandist, and he’s been slapped silly for doing so.

  24. 24.

    xochi

    Cowardice has become a defining part of modern conservatism, whether it’s climbing on to the Pam Geller bandwagon to keep a moderate muslim group to developing the Park 51 project, to fears that Obama is a secret Socialist/Muslim/Kenyan/Younameit, a big chunk of their (admittedly pretty vague) platform is about rustling up fear. Sadly, in politics it works pretty well, much better than pragmatism.

    To be fair, the Dems tend not to practice that kind of politics of cowardice, but they engage in political cowardice by bending over every time a Blue Dog shrieks.

  25. 25.

    El Cid

    It’s understandable that Rove would change because he must have temporarily forgotten that the Tea Party movement is a totally grassroots revolutionary force which is only here to bring us back to the Constitution, stop all the spending, cut out the soshullism, and represent the Real America.

  27. 27.

    beltane

    Wow. This is just like the Night of the Long Crayons.

    Our only hope is that there are some other mega-rich monsters out there who are starting to become alarmed at the Koch brothers unbridled power.

  28. 28.

    meander

    I thought it funny that Rush cited Reagan’s 11th Commandment — “Thou shall not criticize other Republicans” (in public only, presumably) — in his take-down of Rove. After all, Republicans and Teatards had been viciously criticizing Castle during the campaign, going far beyond simple policy disputes, and that certainly contributed to O’D’s win. And Rush has never avoided criticizing other Republicans who don’t do his bidding. Perhaps the 11th Commandment only applies once someone is the final candidate in a general election AND there is a big fat Rush loophole…

  29. 29.

    Jay in Oregon

    Holy crap. Have I been asleep for most of today, or has this not hit the net yet?

    http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/09/unelectable.html

    Every candidate brings a certain amount of baggage — past indiscretions, misstatements, personal failings. O’Donnell has more than the usual share of these. Many of them are substantial — her anti-masturbation crusade, her misrepresentations of her college degree, her misrepresentations of her lawsuit against her last full-time employer, her misrepresentations of her personal finances, tax history and foreclosure, the gap between her advocacy of abstinence and chastity and her apparent living situation, her weird belief that 71-year-old Mike Castle hides in her bushes at night, her lack of gainful employment, her unsubstantiated claims of politically motivated burglary at her home. That’s quite a list — and there’s more where that came from — but that’s not what I mean when I refer to O’Donnell’s extreme behavior. All of that, separately or cumulatively, might be characterized as extreme, but that’s not the most extreme aspect of her behavior. So bracket all of that.

    The real reason Christine O’Donnell is unelectable is that she allegedly has violated campaign finance laws on a daily basis for years, enriching herself and her boyfriend with political contributions.

    O’Donnell’s home address — the one she lists on her voter registration — is the townhouse pictured above where she lives with her boyfriend (notice it doesn’t have bushes). That townhouse is apparently paid for in large measure by campaign contributions, as is her income and that of her boyfriend/aide.

    O’Donnell has thus far failed to explain how this apparent arrangement is legal.

    The problem, in other words, is not that Christine O’Donnell is too extreme in her policy views or that she has made every effort to alienate the swing voters she would need to be elected. The problem is that she appears to have broken several campaign laws — that she appears to still be breaking those laws. She is still living in a home allegedly paid for with campaign donations and matching public finances. She is still living on income allegedly drawn from those same funds — as is her boyfriend.

  33. 33.

    beltane

    @Jay in Oregon: She’s a mav’rick, you betcha’. With all the money she’s raking in with this campaign she can go on her own $100,000 Neiman Marcus shopping spree just like The Sarah. Silk boxers for her live-in lover, too.

  35. 35.

    D-Chance.

    Guess Rove didn’t want to get Liebermanned. After all, when you take an unpopular position, your party is soooooo welcoming to your “alternative” viewpoint. Big tent, and all that jazzola.

  36. 36.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    @Jay in Oregon:

    What I took away from that is that she’s a fucking hypocrite for living with her boyfriend, though she’s so deluded maybe they sleep in separate bedrooms.

  39. 39.

    Cat Lady

    Dismounting a tiger is tricky, and staying on is trickier. How shadenfreudelicious it is to watch that fat fuck Rove looking for his balls.

  41. 41.

    Steve

    I am still waiting for the first PUMA-type person to start lecturing us about how Christine O’Donnell is a serious person and we look like a bunch of liberal elitist snobs for mocking her Real American-ness. I’ve seen this schtick enough times with Sarah Palin that I just know it’s coming around the bend again. Maybe I should check Hillbuzz. Or maybe it’s not going to happen unless Obama gets personally involved in making fun of her.

    I have seen a few fraidy-cat progressives say “she could win this thanks to gobs of Citizens United money” or whatever but that’s not really the same. I will not rest until I see someone who is ostensibly on the left defend her on the merits, dammit.

  45. 45.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    Its like when I grew up in a small Oregon town in the mid 90s, in high school the biggest fundygelical douchebags were the biggest hypocrites when it came to being annoying in your face Christians, but I swear all of them graduated from high school without their virginity.

  46. 46.

    Davis X. Machina

    Palin, I have decided, is Pat Buchanan with tits.

    Appeal to one noisy constituency within a major coalition party.
    Make big noise (’92 NH primary, Houston convention speech, e.g.) in election.
    Take over an existing – or create a new — minor party solely for its fund-raising apparatus and general grift-ability
    Make more speeches.
    Go on TV a lot.
    Pull a paycheck from it all till the heat-death of the sun.

    Remember that at one point in ’92 Perot was level in the polls with Bush I and Clinton. How’d President Perot work out?
    The Tea Party is the Buchanan scam, all over again.

  47. 47.

    JPL(formerly demo woman)

    TPM has some additional information about O’Donnell

    Christine O’Donnell may have broken campaign finance regulations by operating for months at a time without a treasurer, experts say………………………………………………
    Her campaign committee, Friends of Christine O’Donnell, has seen three treasurers quit, and went more than a year without a designated treasurer………………………………………..
    Campaign committees are required by law to have a designated treasurer at all times in order to collect and spend money, according to experts. But, according to records filed with the Federal Elections Commission, she’s gone through several periods with no treasurer at all, including one of more than a year.

    Link

  48. 48.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    The crazies have wrested the reins of power from the Republicans. Limpbaugh, Mal(lignant)kin, insHannity and Rev. Beck own the party, lock stock and barrel. Rove made the mistake of thinking that he could tell the tiger to stay away from the red meat so it turned and bit him in the ass.

    Too bad he folded like an accordion, I was hoping they would find out what kind of countertops he has.

    The best part of the whole brawl is that his statements about O’Diddily on Faux can be used against her by Coons and the Democrats.

    If they are smart enough to do it that is.

  49. 49.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    Its like when I grew up in a small Oregon town in the mid 90s, in high school the fundygelical douchebags were the biggest hypocrites when it came to being annoying in your face Christians, but I swear all of them graduated from high school without their virginity.

  52. 52.

    beltane

    @Steve: Glenn Greenwald says it is elitist to criticize O’Donnell’s long history of financial irresponsibility. That must count for something.

  54. 54.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jay in Oregon:

    If we had a real media, this would have come out during the primary. Now all it’s going to do is let her go on TV and weep about how mmmmeeeeaaaannnnn the liberals are to her and not a single reporter will ever bother to ask her about, you know, the facts of the case.

  55. 55.

    KG

    @JR: you don’t want Palin for Speaker. They’ll start impeachment proceedings against Obama AND Biden, so that Palin could become speaker. Ain’t that grand?

  56. 56.

    MikeJ

    If (and right now, it’s still an “if”, not a “when”) the teabggers lose their races what will happen? Will a) the GOP establishment get control back to find somebody halfway electable for 2012 or b) the party will double down on stupid, insisting that they were still insufficiently pure, and if they just act crazier they’re sure to win over more people.

    I fully expect the republicans to nominate a fetus for president in ’12. It will have been in a jar since 1972 to get around the 35 year old rule.

  57. 57.

    beltane

    @Mnemosyne: the media and the Castle campaign did go after her for this. The evangelical zombies who voted for her simply don’t care how many laws she breaks or how much money she’s grifted from her campaign. Republican primaries are now a fact-free zone.

  59. 59.

    mellowjohn

    @TR:
    just in case it hasn’t been said before, i rather think it’s the other way around: rove is a human with a mouse brain. he is, after all, a republican.

  61. 61.

    KG

    Even when I was “on their side”, I never bought into the “Karl Rove is a genius” bullshit. 50%+1 is a stupid election strategy, and that seemed to be the entire basis of his campaign strategies. 50%+1 should be the last resort, not the first. It’s a terrible campaign strategy for a few reasons – not the least of the fact that our system isn’t well inclined to it. The other reason is that while it will win you an election, it makes it impossible to govern.

  63. 63.

    PurpleGirl

    @Jay in Oregon: I think Fred posted it late in the day. Most of his regulars are waiting for the next installment on Book 2 of Left Behind Series. I know I’ve checked Slacktivist numerous times looking for something new.

  70. 70.

    Annie

    @Jay in Oregon:

    Wait, she is living with a boyfriend? In separate rooms of course. And, I assume that the guy doesn’t go in the shower in the mornings and take care of business himself. That would go against her conservative traditional Christian values.

  71. 71.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Now that I think about it, I wouldn’t put it past the mind of the really hard core fundies. I remember from my time as an Orthodox Christian (really underrated as far as whacked out traditional views go) reading the lives of some saints, like the late 19th century Russian priest St. John of Kronstadt, who got married but lived a special celibate lifestyle with his wife, never consummating the marriage, only because it was expected of ordinary parish clergy to be married, or something like that. I wonder if O’Nutjob is a really devout traddie or conservative Catholic, or a Catholic in name only who tends towards Protestant fundygelicism.

    Arrgh, this is too religious for me. I need some wine and erotica.

  73. 73.

    PurpleGirl

    From her Wiki page, it seems she was raised a Roman Catholic but after a wild period during college became a fundy Protestant of some stripe.

  74. 74.

    TruthOrScare

    I dunno. Everyone seems to assume that Rove innocently stumbled into this mess. Call me a conspiracist but when did anyone ever NOT assume that everything Turdblossom touches is a stone-cold political calculation? I’d think a big driver of the $1 million plus she’s raised this week is Revenge of teh Teapeople fury at being ‘dissed’ by the establishment as represented by Rove. The RNC doesn’t want to flush its money down a rathole, but maybe in its cunning saw a way to make it appear from fundraising she’s actually some kind of serious candidate. It wouldn’t be a hard con to pull off and it didn’t cost the big boys anything but a 24-hour ‘feud’ to get the Teapeople to pony up the cash to polish the turd.

  76. 76.

    Admiral_Komack

    @TR:

    What I posted at weeseeyou.com:

    Somewhere, The Brain is laughing evilly.

    “My plan to take over the world is suceeding beyond my wildest dreams!”

    “What say you, Pinky?”

    “Narf”

  77. 77.

    Steve

    @beltane: There is definitely a class element in how the media regards Sarah Palin. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve ridicule, of course. But it’s not a ridiculous thing to believe.

  79. 79.

    Art Decko

    @beltane: I think we are already seeing push-back to Koch brothers by the Establishment Republicans. The Jane Mayer piece in the New Yorker was the opening shot. Reportedly, there are at least 3 other similar major media pieces in the works. Rove is just a front man for the television roll-out.

    Charles Koch is not a friend of the present Republican Party. It’s my guess that he wants a libertarian oriented Party to arise after the fracturing of the Southern Strategy/Evangelical coalition.

  80. 80.

    300baud

    @Davis X. Machina:

    Ignoring your main point entirely, I think the difference between Buchanan and Palin is that Buchanan is (or was, at least) a pretty smart guy, and one who by and large believed the things he said. Even if, as Molly Ivins said, his speeches sounded better in the original German.

    Palin, on the other hand only believes in Palin. She’s incredibly cunning, but anything she says is in the category of “not even wrong”. The words aren’t connected to anything deeper; she’s the human equivalent of one of those fake TVs you find in furniture stores.

    Plus, Buchanan used to hang out with Hunter S. Thompson; they’d drink bourbon and talk politics. That alone puts him in a class well above the the right’s now-popular loons.

  81. 81.

    goatchowder

    I finally figured it out. There was a whole generation of political douchebags who said and did crazy shit BUT WERE NOT CRAZY, they were just greedy, narcissistic bullshit artists, and cared only about winning. Rove is first among that group (see also Lee Atwater, deceased).

    Then there is a group of genuine crazies WHO ACTUALLY BELIEVE THE CRAZY SHIT THEY SAY! They’re not just trying to get a rise out of liberals, or make headlines, or get on TV, or win political battles by duping morons, THEY ARE THE ACTUAL MORONS THEMSELVES.

    This is what has happened to the Repugs. Vile scum like Rove exploited homophobia, xenophobia, racism, sexism, and American Taliban-ism, in order to win elections and get rich– not because he actually believed any of that bullshit. But now, the people running the Repug party are the dupes who actually did believe what Rove was selling, they are true believers, and they are patently insane.

    The Frankenstein monster is attacking its creator, and he’s not too happy about it.

  83. 83.

    Captain C

    No one could have forseen that when you train your dogs to crap all over the house and attack everyone that enters the yard, that they would actually do so when you let them out without a leash.

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