So Digby noticed the Iraq/fiscal austerity parallels 7 months ago (h/t Elia). At any rate, it is quite striking. Here’s Orrin Hatch (h/t AK):
Hatch (Utah), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, accused Obama of surrendering on the budget like Chamberlain surrendered Czechoslovakia to Germany.
“The United States is demanding a Churchill on the issue of deficits and debt, but the administration has delivered us a Chamberlain,” Hatch said on the floor Monday, in a clear reference to Chamberlain’s foreign policy of “appeasement.”
I want to be clear, budgetary problems are complicated, just as Iraq is. I do not support running huge budget deficits forever, just as I did not support Saddam Hussein. However, I do not support spending cuts in the middle of the worst recession in 70 years, just as I did not support an ill-planned unilateral invasion of Iraq. And whenever someone starts talking about Chamberlain and Churchill in the context of some situation that bears no resemblance to the appeasement of Nazi Germany, I reach for my revolver.
BGinCHI
I reach for Rubber Soul.
A Commenter at Balloon Juice (formerlyThe Grand Panjandrum)
Second Amendment remedies are the only way to prove your bona fides as a real American.
Turgidson
DougJ, it’s a good thing you made sure to note you didn’t support Saddam Hussein. That doesn’t absolve you of your duty to renounce Stalin, but it’s a start.
@BGinCHI:
Norwegian Wood ftw. Although, Teatards seem to harbor the illusion that tax rates are similar to those complained-about in Taxman.
Chyron HR
The people of the United States don’t want a Chamberlain appeasing them with entitlements! They want a Churchill to join forces with Stalin and obliterate their country!
Dennis SGMM
In view of the selfless courage shown by Senator Hatch’s party in not mentioning cuts to defense, ag subsidies and oil subsidies, that boy ought to just shut his pie hole.
MattR
@A Commenter at Balloon Juice (formerlyThe Grand Panjandrum): Is it wrong to root for a circular Second Amendment remedy squad?
Morbo
You forgot Poland.
Mnemosyne
I can’t figure out who the Hitler is supposed to be in Hatch’s construction that Obama is supposed to be protecting Hatch from. Old people? Poor people? Poor old people?
Ash Can
Hearing Hatch compare Obama to Chamberlain is just like being on the Bataan Death March.
MikeJ
@Morbo: No, he forgot Burma. Mission of.
Mark S.
Shouldn’t anyone who voted for extending the Bush tax cuts be laughed at when they start whining about the deficit?
Did Sully support extending the tax cuts?
harokin
Never mind that Churchill and his buddy Lloyd George pretty much created the modern British welfare state with their redistributionist 1909 People’s Budget and land tax proposals.
Hatch is an idiot.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ash Can:
Or liberating Nazi death camps from the safety of Camp Roach, Hollywood, USA.
Dennis SGMM
@Mnemosyne:
Obama is Chamberlain on even-numbered days and Hitler on odd-numbered days.
j low
Great. DougJ just shot Gabrielle Giffords.
Elia
If I ever have kids, whenever me and the ms. disagree about parenting, I’m just going to accuse her of being the Chamberlain to our baby’s Hitler. Dora the Explorer (or whatever kids’ll be watching in that futuristic time) will be Czechoslovakia. I figure if I say it enough, forcefully enough, I’ll win every argument and when I come home from a hard day in Luke Russert’s salt mines, my child will greet me as a liberator with flowers and candy.
piratedan
well we’re fast approaching the Meatballs “it just doesn’t matter” moment in American Political Discourse as far as Republicans are concerned.
youtube.com/watch?v=g3S_k1dRbXY
El Cruzado
Funny how it’s always Churchill vs. Chamberlain and never Roosevelt vs. Hoover.
aimai
The economy was in surplus just eleven years ago in 2000. What freaks me out about all this stupid deficit talk is the baseline assumption is that we can never get out of deficit spending except by cutting people’s throats. Of course we can. Raise the fucking taxes of the richest, tax corporations, charge them fees every time their behavior requires the taxpayers to monitor their behavior and clean up their messes. And stop fighting two wars. We’d be rolling in bucks and the deficit would be cleared in no time. This is not rocket science. Its simple math.
aimai
Sir Nose'D
@Turgidson:
I just finished my taxes yesterday. I made $70K in 2010, and my federal taxes were 8% of my income. WTF? I want my federal government to take more of my money. Because, you know, I get stuff for my tax money. I like roads. I like the National Weather Service. I like the mission of the F.D.A. (but have some complaints about implementation). I have legitimate concerns about regulatory capture, but that is no reason to drown the government in the bath water.
There are still some grown-ups in the U.S. We wish to be addressed as “citizens” and not “taxpayers.”
Also, too. That is all.
scarshapedstar
VIOLENT RHETORIC, BOTH SIDES DO IT!!!
Hunter Gathers
Who gets to be Curveball in this scenario?
Loneoak
Yeah, but none of you have renounced Michelle Obama’s attempt to eliminate Medicare by forcing us to eat nothing but broccoli.
Do you renounce the broccoli mandate!? We have always been at war with brassicas.
Calouste
So what are you if you move the massive costs of wars off the budget and say “deficits don’t matter”?
A Quisling? A Pétain? A Mussert? A Mosley?
Bulworth
@Mnemosyne: ACORN. The New Black Panther Party. Code Pink. Non-teabaggers. People who want net neutrality. People who don’t know what net neutrality is. Young bucks with their T-bones and cadillacs. Muslim Brotherhood.
Superluminar
Well I’m not sure why people are even bothering to respond to what is clearly irrational quasi-trollery, but it’s appropriate to your lack of thoughtfulness that you’ve found the single criticism that has the least basis in fact imaginable.
joe from Lowell
Passive-aggressive historical irony is the fuhrerprinzip of liberal fascism.
BGinCHI
Come on, people, we all have to tighten our belts for the greatest redistribution of wealth upwards in American history.
Bulworth
Yeah, but that was when Clinton was busy “trashing the place”.
Also, too, that was before President Gore forced legislation down our throats requiring conscientious bankers to make wild and crazy loans to all the poor people.
Bulworth
Moore Award! Moore Award!
Lev
My theory here: librarygrape.com/2011/02/how-are-iraq-and-austerity-related-one-word-edition.html
I think it’s just another neocon crusade on National Greatness. Sullivan, despite his strides in recent years, is not immune to the Straussian persuasion. I’m not sure McArdle has ever reversed herself on neoconnery.
El Cid
Clearly the better analogy is Obama’s anti-colonialist hatred due to his Kenyonesian heritage.
MattR
@aimai:
It would also be kinda nice if we started building and/or creating things. Sure we had the Internet bubble under Clinton, but at least that left us with a better Internet when it burst. This latest bubble was built around nothing so when it burst we were left with nothing but debt.
Suffern ACE
@Mnemosyne: His voters. Hatch wants Obama to slash entitlements so that Hatch won’t have to vote to do the same and face his voters. His voters are Hitler in a rough sense.
Bulworth
@Suffern ACE: Since Hatch is about to get teabagged, Hatch probably does want to slash and burn through the budget and “entitlements”.
Steve
It takes a lot of chutzpah for the Republicans to claim a mandate for spending cuts after they won the midterm election specifically by accusing Democrats of wanting to cut Medicare.
Maude
That statement by Hatch doesn’t make any sense.
It is also wrong.
Obama had already outwitted the Repubs. They aren’t calling him a tax and spend Democrat.
Cat Lady
@MattR:
Legalize and tax marijuana, and then go long on Frito Lay also, too. Problem solved.
DougJ®
@Superluminar:
Ha ha, I always thought you sounded like Conor.
Citizen_X
@Superluminar:
A fucking United States Senator, the ranking Republican on the Finance Committee, spouts some risible bullshit about our national finances and this is somehow DougJ’s fault for noting it? WTF?
gene108
Recent Pew Poll showing few people are really interested in budget cuts.
I will always be amazed at how right wingers can so thoroughly dominate and shape political discussions.
DougJ®
@Citizen_X:
He was snarking on Conor F’s comments to me.
Elia
@gene108: Is it really so amazing though?
Also, too.
Citizen_X
@DougJ®: Oh. Sorry, Superluminar. I Am Not Aware of All Internet Traditions.
eemom
eh, don’t mind Orrin. The teatards are gonna eat him for breakfast next year. He’s toast.
Toast to go with the tea! Tea hee.
Triassic Sands
The heck with Chamberlain, Obama’s budget is the equivalent of the Holocaust, plus Stalin’s mass murders, plus Pol Pot’s genocide, plus the extinction of the passenger pigeons — no wait, they were animals, animals have no right to exist on Republican Earth, so screw the pigeons.
And for those of you who have already forgotten, Orrin Hatch stood firm against Bush’s massive tax cuts for the rich; against the unfunded prescription drug benefit for lazy, old people; against both unfunded wars; and as recently as December, against the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. The man’s record is what one would expect of a towering hero, a fearless champion of fiscal responsibility willing to stand alone if necessary against the overwhelming power of tax and spend Democrat/Communists. Why he is a real life John Galt or Howard Roark. What a man! What a hero!
Damn, Republicans are horrible people.
trollhattan
@ DougJ(R)
I denounce Oral Hatch and Stalin.
I denounce Chamberlin’s haberdasher.
I denounce gorgonzola cheese.
BGinCHI
@trollhattan: Viva Maytag Blue!
Ash Can
@trollhattan:
Let’s not get carried away here.
Superluminar
@DougJ (I’ll use your real name as you don’t seem to have changed it in the last two minutes)
It’s not that I dislike anything you write, but I find it unhelpful in advancing the national debate, and frankly destructive of the precious little amount of comity that accompanies discussion of politics here. Whilst I have absolutely no facts or quotes to back up my position, I am pretty sure that the irrational and blatently strident tone of your remarks are wrong anyway. I also do not approve of the constant traducing of the gentlemen of the league in clear violation of their comments policy. I shall no longer engage with this hostility as I shall be debating instead with the superior intellects of NRO. All correspondence regarding this subject may be forwarded through my butler.
Dennis SGMM
If Obama is Chamberlain vs the debt then that means that the Bush administration was the Weimar Republic.
ericblair
I’m pretty convinced we’re not going to have a budget for the next two years, just (hopefully) a bunch of continuing resolutions to keep things limping along on autopilot until the House has a majority of members that are actually interested in governing instead of scoring cheap points. We’ve got the House’s Fuck Everyone We Don’t Like Budget that makes it clear that every one of the Repubs is either a looney teabagger or scared shitless of being primaried by looney teabaggers.
Being held hostage by a bunch of reactionaries with no grasp of reality is not a tenable position. Something’s going to give in the next couple of years, and it’s either the teabaggers, the Republicans, and/or the federal government. Usually my money’d be on the Repubs co-opting the loonies like they did with the jeezoid set, but this seems different.
Calouste
@Ash Can:
I could denounce Gorgonzola, but I could never denounce Roquefort.
Comrade Dread
Personally, I think we should jump on board the Reagan bandwagon and propose rolling tax rates back to the rates during his first term (top rate around 50%).
If it’s good enough for the Gipper, it should be good enough for the modern GOP.
Alternatively, we can try rolling back the clock to the glory days of the 50’s since the GOP seems to also revere that era. Of course, since half of them probably think of the 1850’s, maybe that wouldn’t be a good idea.
gbear
When I hear the word security, I reach for my shotgun.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@joe from Lowell:
If this line isn’t added to the set of BJ taglines pronto, then I’m going to sign a non-aggression pact with a suitably odious dictatorship, just to show you all that Nyaaah, Nyaaah, you’re not the boss of me.
kth
@Mnemosyne: Clearly, in the budget debate, there is a party that is intransigent, with whom “peace in our time” would be utterly illusory, whose talk of compromise cannot be trusted because of their palpable relish for any number of calamities over the tax increases that would necessarily form part of any fair and lasting agreement.
That party is bent on war, and any compromises it entertains must be seen only as retrenchment for a future war, the object of which is nothing less than the rollback of the entire past century. But I don’t think Hatch would like to hear the name of that party.
Calouste
Somewhat suprisingly, people actually demonstrate in the US Thousands Protest Wisconsin Governor’s Plan To Roll Back Union Rights.
Now, what are the odds on this actually getting a mention in the MSM?
Valdivia
@Dennis SGMM:
You win where do I send the prize?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@kth:
What’s wrong with the Native Sons and Daughters of America Party ?
Dennis SGMM
@Valdivia:
:)
Villago Delenda Est
@Superluminar:
OK, this trolling for a pundit job over at Daily Dish stuff should be actionable.
Just sayin’.
Villago Delenda Est
@Calouste:
Depends on how many attractive blonde 20somethings have been kidnapped by sharks this week, but low, nevertheless.
JP Stormcrow
I’m not sure what role this quote during the ACA debate assigns to the ridiculous Mr. Hatch in his analogy. Not a good one.
Suffern ACE
@Dennis SGMM:
As bad as that Administration was, if that was our Weimar and now is our totalitarian fascist period, I think we might make it out o.k.
You can come out now, Canada; we won’t be annexing you any time soon.
trollhattan
@Superluminar:
Human butler or monkey butler? Because monkey butlers RULE.
il.youtube.com/watch?v=YE92fL95WyY
agrippa
When you have the facts, you pound the facts. When you have the law, you pound the law. When you have neither the facts nor the law, you pound the table.
Those people are not serious. They are not serious about the deficit; they are not serious about governing. They do not know how to govern.
jwb
@Villago Delenda Est: I would say Superluminar is just DougJ trolling himself, except that DougJ would do a better job of it.
jwb
@agrippa: And yet we’re losing to these people.
Superluminar
@jwb
I am concerned that you think I would do a better job of it
Superluminar
@trollhatten
I have a robot butler, wallah.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@jwb:
Apparently around these parts the furniture votes, and by golly but would you know, the table really does enjoy a good pounding.
Mnemosyne
@Calouste:
It’s nice to see that Walker’s divide and conquer tactics aren’t working as well as he hoped they would:
Nellcote
@trollhattan:
What fault do you find with Chamberlin’s attire?
Jeffro
This is what happens when Big Money owns one party outright and half of the other, I guess. Time to start eating the seed corn…
DougJ®
@Superluminar:
Ha ha. I like it.
Major Kusangi Kudlip(superluminar)
@76
Thanks. I’ve been called all kind of names on the web but “Conor” is a bit harsh.
gbear
@Calouste: The story may wind up in the sports section; The Green Bay Packers are supporting WI state employees.
agrippa
@jwb:
There is a large faction a significant part of the electorate – that donnot actually want good governance.
those reasons when I heard them.
They do have their reasons; but, I did not think much of those reasons when I heard them.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
Churchill’s greatest accomplishment was fighting on the same side as Roosevelt and Stalin. In fact, his country was doomed were it not for their help. In light of this, if anybody can explain to me why conservatives revere him like none other I’d be grateful.
Mike G
@El Cruzado:
Funny how it’s always Churchill vs. Chamberlain
A clever misdirection from the Repuke Party’s appeasement, if not sympathies for and collusion with (vid. Prescott Bush) Hitler in the years leading up to WW2.
Svensker
@Superluminar:
DougJ, did you just give yourself away?
Who else (other than matoko) says “wallah”. I should remember.
Omnes Omnibus
@gbear:Go! Pack! Go!
Wile E. Quixote
@Shoemaker-Levy 9:
And let’s not forget that Churchill seriously fucked some shit up. Gallipoli anyone? And how about pulling Wavell out of Egypt to support the Greeks in World War II, which allowed Rommel to get a foothold in North Africa.
Sly
Apropos of nothing, in 1945 Churchill ruined his political career by going on the radio and accusing Labour Party leader Clement Attlee of wanting to be a dictator, all because Labour proposed policies moving Britain toward a full employment economy and creating the NHS.
Labour nearly won half all the votes cast and picked up 239 seats, mostly from the Tories. This in spite of the fact that Churchill was considered by all but a few to be a national hero.
Sometimes being a dickhead doesn’t work out so well.
Anne Laurie
@Shoemaker-Levy 9:
He wore custom-made pink silk underwear “for his very sensitive skin”.
Not quite as Republican as two wetsuits and a dildo, but then, Churchill was only Amurkin on his mother’s side.
acontra
I really don’t understand the deficit mania. The worst case scenario is that we have to ask Uncle Ben for forgiveness, i.e. monetize the debt. This will cause some inflation, but as long as it also comes with wage increases, inflation would be a good thing right now because it would relieve private sector debt and lower unemployment. win/win/win, unless of course you’re a bankster.
mds
@Sly:
Oh, how I miss those days.