Via Steve M, a brilliant idea:
If the battle between Republican Gov. Scott Walker and his GOP allies in the state legislature and the public employee unions of Wisconsin government is Ground Zero for the struggle for America’s future, where is Sarah Palin?
… Palin has an unmatched capacity to motivate millions of Americans to political action. If ever there was a time to make use of that resource and demonstrate to the nation that taxpayers will no longer be silent, Wisconsin is the place and now is the time.
Where is Sarah Palin? …
Scott Walker needs your help, Sarah. And a certain blogger with an unhealthy interest in your youngest child will praise you for it.
cathyx
She doesn’t like to interfere where she doesn’t belong.
dr. bloor
Duh. Wisconsin is in a budget crisis, remember? They can’t come up with her appearance fees.
Are there any five-star hotels in Madison anyways?
jwb
Bad link under “a brilliant idea.”
DougJ®
@jwb:
Fixed.
jwb
This from the teabaggers: “Teachers have closed down the schools. Union thugs have overrun the capitol and are damaging property, and carrying signs with crude abuse and threats. Meanwhile, instead of acting ‘presidential’ and calling for a restoration of the democratic process, civility and decency, the president and his Organizing for America are actually standing against democracy in Wisconsin.” Pretty rich from a group that was not too recently advocating second amendment solutions.
I’ll be interested to see how many folks the Koch operation can pay to turn out today.
Omnes Omnibus
@dr. bloor:
No. No, there are not.
morzer
I am surprised that La Palin hasn’t turned up as a special war correspondent on Fox yet. I’d have thought she would be a natural to denounce the Muslim-Soc.ialist hordes attempting to overthrow Gubner Walker as part of their great global conspiracy with Google.
PurpleGirl
She has spoken… on her Facebook page.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2011/02/sarah-palin-wades-into-wisconsin-budget-debate-.html
“You don’t have to kowtow to the union bosses who are not looking out for you, but instead are using you,” wrote Palin.
“Wisconsin union bosses want union members out in the streets demanding that taxpayers foot the bill for unsustainable benefits packages.”
ETA: And she mentions her family has union members, etc. She just doesn’t understand the issue from the union perspective. She makes her own koolaid.
CaseyL
It’s possible she offered, and Walker told her to stay the f*ck away. Her popularity among the Teatards is surpassed only by how much everyone else loathes her. Her presence could even make people more sympathetic to the protesters.
Joseph Nobles
She’s got a Facebook out about it this morning. She calls on her Union Brothers and Sister to stop being played by the Union Bosses. Do you need a link?
ETA: Purple Girl has it and linked. Oh, wait, that’s to an ABC story about it. Good move, PG!
Silly Sarah. The Union Bosses offered Walker the benefit concessions he had asked for. So much for “unsustainable” benefits. Must hire better writers!
Turgid Jacobian
Dan Savage writes: Writing about Representative Christopher “Craigslist Congressman” Lee last week on Balloon Juice — a blog I read daily — BJ contributor “Mastermix” said: “If we want to do something about the high divorce rate, we might want to get real [about] the role of a discreet, mutually-agreed-upon affair as a safety valve.”
beltane
@jwb: I am a strong advocate of First Amendment solutions as they are like kryptonite to the right. The sleeping giant of the Democratic base is quite a bit larger, younger, and more vibrant than the rent-a-mob teabagger hoards of retired shut-ins.
A populist left is the Koch brothers worst nightmare, that’s why the villagers tut-tut every time they catch a whiff of leftist rhetoric.
beltane
@PurpleGirl: What about Todd’s unsustainable benefits package from his union job? It’s not like everyone in this country gets to ride the wingnut welfare gravy train by being a pin-up girl for the right.
Oh, a message to Andrew Sullivan: Tory scum here we come!
PurpleGirl
@beltane: That’s right, Todd gets union benefits. Her father gets benefits from his teaching days…
But she makes her own kind of koolaid and drinks a lot of it.
@Joseph Nobles: I Googled to find what she said at a speech given on Long Island this past week and the ABC article was first in the list. I know some people don’t like Facebook links so I decided the ABC story would be the link to send people to.
scav
Why do people pay the slightest heed to the castigations on the evils of collective bargaining as it drips for the lips of members of a body that can usually vote on their own pay raises? !
Davis X. Machina
@CaseyL: This is Walker’s baby, and he doesn’t want the PR credit to accrue to Caribou Barbie. I expect she’s persona au gratin* in Madison
The governor by all accounts is as numb as a hake, but someone on his staff is a Dennis Lehane fan, and knows how Coolidge came to the White House.
*heard this once on NPR, of all places.
Joseph Nobles
@PurpleGirl: Oh, absolutely. Why throw hits and links her direction unnecessarily? People can seek it out if they want it direct from the source. :D
cmorenc
@beltane:
Yes, the democratic party’s potential base in the electorate is larger than the GOPs, and demographic trends over the next decade or two are decidedly toward strengthening that advantage. BIG PROBLEM HOWEVER: As the 2010 election demonstrated, it’s the party whose base turns out most willingly in the greatest absolute numbers whose candidates and causes win elections, and therefore governing power. The dem’s potential base does no good unless they are motivated enough to actually turn out in greater absolute numbers than the GOP’s base. Otherwise, that potential democratic electorate is about as much good as the 50 million dollars that Nigerian fellow has in a bank account he needs your help to gain access to it. Demographically, the dems should already be breaking at least even in Texas, for example, but they’re not (yet) in actual electoral results, even taking into account GOP gerrymandering.
Southern Beale
Here she is:
Please. You didn’t really think she’d see the TV cameras and stay away, did you?
Evolved Deep Southerner
God in heaven, you guys are officially obsessed.
There’s a difference between a groove and a rut. This Sullivan obsession is way past tiresome. You guys are all starting to look a little pathetic over it, honestly.
Talk about an “unhealthy interest.”
Texas Dem
Gov. Walker needs Sarah Palin like a drowning man needs an anvil. She would alienate all those who are still on the fence, and polarize the situation even further. I’m sure that the labor protesters are praying that she comes to Wisconsin.
Omnes Omnibus
@Southern Beale: Here’s my new thought: If you want to tell people that they need to sacrifice, you need to nut up and show how you, yourself, sacrificed. In other words, lead by fucking example.
Tim
DougJ, one of the few things I admire about Sullivan is his willingness to keep a bit of a spotlight on Palin’s bullshit crazy lies, especially the Magical Miracle Story of how Trig’s labor went down.
He’s not obsessed with her child. He’s interested in the insanely, obviously bogus story she made up about his gestation and birth and questions why no one in the media will pursue it.
I think he’s right to do so.
Mike in NC
@Omnes Omnibus:
If not, how about a nice upscale mall, with a Neiman Marcus or at least a Saks Fifth Avenue?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike in NC: This is the most upscale mall in Madison. It has a Sundance Cinema.
Texas Dem
Exactly. That’s why we should welcome Bachman, Palin, Rush, Beck and the rest of the right wing lunatics as our best long-term recruiting tools. The potential Dem base needs to be properly motivated. Fortunately our adversaries are doing that for us.
MattF
I’m just tickled to see that right-wing battiness about unions is (finally!) coming to the fore. Even old sort-of-sometimes-rational Sullivan is showing his true colors. WRT Sullivan, don’t forget that he’s a Thatcherite– and the high point of Baroness T’s reign was crushing the coalminer’s union.
jwb
@beltane: I agree with you. I just think it’s funny to see the fucking teabaggers complaining about mass demonstrations being antidemocratic. I’m guessing it’s because the Wisconsin folks aren’t packing that makes them antidemocratic… And I really am curious to see what sort of counter demonstration Koch, inc. actually manages to manufacture today.
JCT
@Omnes Omnibus:
Of course, that’s the problem with her — she thinks she does. She probably thinks quitting her job as governor was a “sacrifice”. St. Sarah of the Put-Upon is quite sure that she has suffered mightily.
She’s an honest-to-G_d piece of work on all levels. And I love the way she is parsing her message to the union workers. If she would actually, you know, engage anyone outside her hand-picked venues, the obvious question is whether she supports Walker’s real goal — should old Todd give up his collective bargaining rights…..
morzer
@MattF:
Not really. The “high-point” was the victory parade after the Falklands, coupled with buying the next election with tax-cuts.
Chad N Freude
@Omnes Omnibus: She sacrificed the governorship of Alaska. By going to work for Fox, she sacrificed the opportunity to get her message out to liberals.
MattF
@morzer
Fair point– I was thinking of mentioning the Falklands War, but that would have distracted from the point I was trying to make.
Martha
OO is right, the best hotel in Madison is the Hilton overlooking Lake Monona and Caribou Barbie wouldn’t find it or the shopping up to her standards. The country club set goes to Chicago when they need real retail therapy.
But I wish wish wish she’d show up. That would be the anvil on Walker’s long term prospects in this state. We might be overweight and too nice, but we are smart and see through charlatans pretty well. Even out in the rural areas.
A Commenter at Balloon Juice (formerlyThe Grand Panjandrum)
So the GOP sweeps into power and right out of the gate the agenda is to bust unions and turn down federal money that supports blue-collar jobs? That is going to go over well in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin. You can’t make up how stupid these bastards are.
Omnes Omnibus
@JCT:
@Chad N Freude:
Fair points from both of you. Seriously though, I am applying this across the board. You want sacrifice? Fine. Put up or shut up. Buncha assholes out there. Piss me off. Fuckin’ jerks get on my nerves.
Davis X. Machina
That is going to go over well in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin.
Do everything you can to depress turnout, and go full God-Gays-Guns. Ask Senator Sestak.
McWaffle
The rumor here on the ground is that she IS coming. I’ve talked to good-guy organizers who said they could confirm it, but I’m not entirely sure. They’ve been setting up an official-looking venue though….
Omnes Omnibus
@Martha:When are you heading up to the Square? I am going to work out a little (trying to avoid the overweight thing), get cleaned up, and then walk up there.
jwb
@A Commenter at Balloon Juice (formerlyThe Grand Panjandrum): It will only turn out to be a stupid move by the goopers if people are paying sufficient attention to recognize what is going on. I wouldn’t call the American electorate stupid, exactly, but we are extraordinarily inattentive with very short memories, and we also have this stubborn belief that a simple solution exists for every problem.
Joel
Ah fuck Sullivan, he’s a Giant Pander bear.
nancydarling
@MattF: My theory on why Andrew is so enamored of Thatcher is that she has so much testoserone she has to shave and thus could grow a beard if so inclined.
Martha
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m meeting mr m at our office at 11 and we are walking from there. So we will enter the square by King St (Park Bank/Walgreens) around 11:20 I’d guess…
jwb
@Omnes Omnibus, @Martha: Hey, good luck today, and do report back when you get the chance.
morzer
@McWaffle:
Any sign of Maugrim and the dwarf who tidies away the Turkish Delight and looks after the sleigh and the reindeer?
morzer
@jwb:
I think that for many people the American Dream has become a dogmatic slumber.
Kevin
@Omnes Omnibus: Love the Showdown reference, I wonder how many BJers have ever listened to the “Rodeo Song”. Brief aside, we are experiencing weather like that up here in my hamlet in Northern British Columbia.
Cacti
@Joseph Nobles:
I mean, it’s not as though those dastardly union bosses are chosen by the union from among the union members.
Wait, nevermind.
Omnes Omnibus
@jwb: @jwb: Thanks.
Jeffro
The language in that “brilliant” article (from the Washington Examiner” is amazing:
(“Thugs”…there’s that word again!)
The whole thing is like Wingnut Buzzword Bingo
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/02/should-sarah-palin-be-wisconsin-weekend#ixzz1EQIGs4gq
Martha
@jwb: Will do. Must keep mr m away from teabaggers though…he loves to get into it with the Larouchies so these bozos would be red meat for him!
Cacti
So, when will the Koch’s be bussing in the black shirts?
Martha
@Jeffro: Wow. Just wow. Absolutely does not compute with what I’ve seen Thurs and Friday with my own eyes.
Joseph Nobles
@Cacti: Exactly. Sure, you might be able to pull that crap on Trumka and the national apparatus rolling in to make speeches, but get down to the state level and the members start knowing each other.
Cacti
I wonder if Todd Palin gets “played” by his “union bosses”.
Nah, his union is made virtuous and wonderful by his mere saintly presence. Sort of like the right wing media and AFTRA.
jwb
@Cacti: That seems to be the rumor. I’m actually curious if Koch, Inc. will be able to pay enough people to make a respectable counter demonstration. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see agents provocateur make an appearance soon to allow the governor to call in the troops to break up the protests. All this talk about union thugs and so forth seems so much like projection.
morzer
@jwb:
I am pretty sure that some at least of those toting offensive signs were not genuine protestors but teabaggers trying to subvert the democratic rights of the people.
jwb
@morzer: Yes, the Walker=Hitler signs in particular seem so over the top that it made me wonder if they were plants—although they have for the most part been spelled correctly. But Hitler is just not the figure most leftists and progressives I know would go to in this situation. I’m actually thinking of violent agents provocatuer, folks who would try to incite the crowd to violence, which would then legitimate using force to put down the crowd. If Koch, Inc. is incapable of hiring enough bodies to make a respectable looking counter demonstration today, I’m expecting a crackdown to begin.
nestor
@Cacti: A half-dozen or so Freepers are slated to converge on the east steps around noonish.
There could be trouble…
johnsmith1882
@jwb:
I can’t wait to see that, either. Breitbart’s 50 paid teabaggers vs. 30,000 firemen, police, teachers, and students. If the media actually acknowledged this was happening, I think even right-wing morons would be able to grasp who’s in the right, and who’s in the wrong. Ok, that’s wishful thinking.
mellowjohn
to all in madison: please keep up the good work and keep us posted.
can’t wait for the “libral media” coverage of andrew breitbart leading his hordes of teabaggers on their medicare-paid rascal scooters.
Jeffro
@Martha: That’s what almost all of the commenters over there are saying, that if anything, there’s been an excess of good behavior on the part of the protestors.
Some have also noted that teachers, policemen, firefighters, etc are a) NOT thugs, but more certainly b) ARE taxpayers, too.
johnsmith1882
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
I would guess the Sullivan obsession is in regards to his recent right-hand turn. Until recently, he was the “reasonable” right-winger; you could actually read his blog and not immediately want to punch the monitor. Over the last month, though, he’s been less and less reasonable, his little fascist butt buddy Friedersdorf ran his blog for a few weeks and went even further right, and now that he’s back has shown his true colors regarding Wisconsin and where he stands as far as us vs. them. He’s them. I would bet that the front pagers here thought that he was us, and want to get a few licks in before retiring him off to his velvet-cushioned sunset.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jeffro:What I have seen there is a mixture of rage at Walker and the Republicans mixed with upper Midwestern politeness and camaraderie between the protesters. I watched, and participated in, several rounds of “Excuse me.” No, excuse me.” “No, really it was my fault.” as people bumped into one another. If we are thugs, we are apologetic and polite ones.
Mike in NC
@johnsmith1882:
A quick visit to the cable news channels this morning indicated they were hoping for something really “newsworthy” to report on, like maybe a riot complete with tear gas grenades and overturned burning cars. So much for our objective media.
piratedan
@Southern Beale: after all, the governor just sacrificed the State of Wisconsin’s revenue for the sake of fellating his corporate pimpmasters, so you union types must have to sacrifice a bit more, like everything that makes you relevant. Once we have that, we’ll tell you what other plans we have in store for you….
fasteddie9318
@johnsmith1882:
Shame on the front pagers, then, because Sullivan has always been one of them. He disagrees with them on teh gay homos and saw the light on torture. He sort of kind of came to his senses on Iraq but not enough to really recant smearing people who opposed the war from the beginning as traitors. On every other fucking thing, he’s been with them all along.
johnsmith1882
@Omnes Omnibus:
WI has hands-down the most polite drivers in America, too. As a Chicagoan, driving in WI is a little slice of automotive heaven; people actually get out of the left-hand lane when they aren’t the fastest drivers on the road. Go, you polite thugs, go! This is likely the most important event occurring in the world. We are behind you.
DougJ®
@fasteddie9318:
I never thought he was one of us. No.
Jeffro
@Mike in NC: I’m wondering just how confused Fox News is as to how to play this – you know they’d love to report it for all it’s worth, but the footage would run against their own narrative. Might actually cause a viewer to have to think for a second…
I’m guessing they’re going with lots of opinion and very little video.
But I refuse to change the channel, pop over, and check! =)
Nellcote
Didn’t Walker already threaten to call out the National Guard a few days ago when this all started?
johnsmith1882
@fasteddie9318:
Mos def. I obviously can’t speak for the front-pagers here. As for myself though, a lefty who occasionally read Sullivan to see what the “reasonable” right-wingers were thinking, that is my take on it.
jwb
@Jeffro: Fox will reverse the images. The big crowds: that’s the teabaggers. The 50 paid counter protesters screaming wildly and threatening violence: that’s the unions. That, or maybe they’ll substitute footage from the teabagging rallies from last year.
On the other hand, I can’t imagine that if Koch, Inc. has put effort into organizing a counter protest that they will let it fail. That’s why I’m curious if they can actually pay enough bodies for the effort not to look embarrassing.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@johnsmith1882: I gathered the “rightward turn” thing from reading the threads here. I haven’t actually looked at Sullivan’s actual BLOG in a while. I mean, fuck, every time I come here I feel like I HAVE read it. And even though I don’t particularly want to read his thoughts on it – I’ve never gone to his blog for left-right politics, that’s why I read Talking Points Memo and this blog – I feel like I have by coming here.
Is Sullivan just so fucking influential that we ought to give a shit what he’s writing about? Why can’t we look at it here for ourselves instead of using some other blogflake’s writings as a constant point of reference?
Cacti
I find curious the whine about public salaries “are subsidized by tax dollars”…as though public employees don’t also have state and federal taxes come out of their paychecks.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Here she comes to save the day!
Apparently an alleged IBEW membership allows her to insult people who actually work for a living by calling them brothers and sisters.
Nellcote
@Jeffro:
Aren’t Fox workes unionized too?
johnsmith1882
@Mike in NC:
Ha, right. The “liberally-biased” media owned and operated by mega-conglomerate corporations, who pimp 50 hoverround scooter-driving teabaggers as the “Voice of America”. Shocking, right? “Watch as WI firemen, police, and public schoolteachers burn Madison to the ground!…Or, you know, peaceably voice their dissent to getting metaphorically shivved in the gut. Only in the Situation Room!”
NobodySpecial
@fasteddie9318: Frontpagers here don’t endorse The Bell Curve, either. Drop the little racist out the window with a pair of tongs. People here who stick up for him are not to be trusted.
fasteddie9318
@NobodySpecial: FSM, I forgot about the fucking Bell Curve. How does he still generate discussion among reasonable people after that?
PurpleGirl
@Mike in NC: Do the stores in the Food Court have bendy straws?
NobodySpecial
@fasteddie9318: He writes purty, I guess. Me, I learned too well from Strunk and White to be a good blogger. Plus I’m not CIVIL.
patrick II
jwb
@NobodySpecial: It’s still worth asking what prompted Sullivan’s hard, hard turn to the right after his illness. I sense the illness gave him a view of his mortality, he’s angry about that, and his anger is taking form as a right wing politics blaming anyone but himself for his problems. In that respect, he’s really on the same page as the teabaggers.
fasteddie9318
@jwb:
But what hard, hard turn are you talking about? He’s always been an anti-labor austerity douchebag and, with the budget and labor unrest as the top story, he’s letting his freak flag fly. I don’t see the turn.
NobodySpecial
@jwb: If by ‘illness’, you mean his HIV+ status, I got no clue. The first time I ran into the little snake for an extended period of time on the tubes, he was fighting for the New Confederacy, and that ain’t nobody on the left I’d care to recognize.
Jay
Am I the first to flag DougJ’s “Nothin’ But a G Thang” reference?
Way to make me feel old, dude.
Cacti
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
Because in right wing world…
“Limited government” is when a Republican governor and legislature try to strip your rights away.
Citizens attempting to preserve those rights are “Big Government”.
And up is actually down, black is white, and water is in fact, not wet.
jwb
@fasteddie9318: Yes, but he shifted in a number of other areas as well, and since he’s been back he’s been baring he teeth a lot more often.
jwb
@NobodySpecial: No, the recent illness that knocked him out for a month. No doubt, this latest bout was exacerbated by the HIV and that would have pushed the mortality to the fore, but it’s his most recent experience I’m thinking about.
Jay C
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
I realize that it is part of the standard right-wing anti-labor screeds to try to paint “union bosses” as a gang of mobbed-up, violence-prone thugs – Tony Sopranos with neckties – but I just have to wonder how utterly clueless Sarah Palin must be to try to put this BS over to those “Union Brothers and Sisters” – say the members of the WI Teachers’ Union. Isn’t far more likely that the officials of such a union (who DO have to be elected by the membership) are going to be folks just like them; i.e. career teachers – more Mr. Chips than Guido Mafioso?
And “serving” union members and their families? Even for Caribou Barbie, arguing that losing their bargaining rights and getting less pay and benefits (probably for longer hours for fewer jobs) is some sort of positive is delusionary beyond comprehension.
But I won’t hold my breath waiting for any non-blogospheric commentary calling her nonsense out….
PurpleGirl
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen: Apparently an alleged IBEW membership…
Hah. A clerks job at an electric utility during college, and an honorary membership. Phony, phony, phony. I’m the daughter of an IBEW (NY Local #3) member. Doesn’t count, at all.
Turgid Jacobian
@jwb: My theory is that he was receiving medical bills and was reminded too often of the lucky duckies on Medicare/Medicaid.
Corner Stone
@fasteddie9318: Please don’t forget AS’s publishing Elizabeth McCaughey when he was editor of TNR.
Fucking scumbag
It’s the same non defense he uses regarding the Bell Curve shanda. “It generated debate.”
Davis X. Machina
Mr. Chips than Guido Mafioso?
Mr. Chips is far more dangerous than Mr. Mafioso. He is interested in getting you to think. He is perhaps trying to persuade you that accumulation is possibly not the reason why you are here on Earth.
Mr. Mafioso, on the other hand, shares an agenda with the GOP, differing mostly in means, and in degree, not in ends or nature. He can’t rob on their scale, nor can he summon up the organs of state to give his getaway car a police escort. Other than that — not enough difference to worry about.
Mr. Chips has to be sent to the dust-heap of history.
You can do business with Mr. Mafioso.
Corner Stone
@Jay: I thought it went without saying.
Corner Stone
@fasteddie9318: He’s also never had the first clue when it comes to maths or economics in general.
Dude is clueless.
vtr
Does anyone think it queer that Scotty named his own father to be the chief of the Wisconsin State Police at about $106,000 a year, and then exempted police and firefighters union from anti collective bargaining hors hit?
Cacti
@vtr:
Not queer in the least.
The exemption of the police and firefighters union was an obvious quid pro quo for their political and financial support.
Davis X. Machina
@vtr: Dovete essere forti per la famiglia
NobodySpecial
@jwb: This is the guy who since scrubbed his famous comments on leftists…that they are ‘fifth columnists’.
He’s always been hard right. Superficially, it may seem like he’s reasonable, but he never has been, when you strip out all the flowery prose. He’s just a raging right-wing asshole.
Omnes Omnibus
I am at the Square now. Marchers are circling. Tea Party rally looks small, maybe 1000 people, Max. My fingers are cold so I will stop typing now.
Mark S.
Come on Union Brothers and Sisters! Seize the opportunity to take some Koch up the ass! Did I mention Todd’s in a union?
Seriously, Sarah needs to go to Wisconsin and give that speech. She’d be heading back to Alaska with a lovely new ensemble of tar and feathers.
Corner Stone
@DougJ®: This blog is littered with you pre-forgiving Sully.
johnsmith1882
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
Personally, no, I don’t think it’s so much that Sullivan is that influential, it’s that until recently, he was a “reasonable” right-wing voice that could be used as a counterbalance for reading a steady diet of TPM, ThinkProgress, Driftglass, Hullabaloo, etc (my blog rotation, including this one, which I only discovered recently). I could say that I agreed with Sullivan about 60% of the time, which for a lefty like me is about as often as it’s going to get with a right-winger. This all changed after the shootings is Tucson. Sullivan and his fascist butt boy Friedersdorf started the right-hand turn then. It’s disheartening to learn that there is no one on the right with any political integrity, no one on the right who wouldn’t spit in a schoolteacher’s face and shove her down the stairs in the name of “belt-tightening”. I shouldn’t have ascribed this feeling to the front-pagers here, but that is what I have seen from Sullivan recently, as I have become disgusted with him as well.
Corner Stone
@johnsmith1882: 60%? On what, the pictures from people’s windows?
Sullivan is a gutless coward.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Texas Dem:
Fix’t.
johnsmith1882
@Corner Stone:
This I now know. I’m new to political blogs (three years or so). The Sullivan I read the last few years was anti-torture, anti-Know-nothings like Palin and her ilk, pro-human rights (or so it seemed), pro-Obama, etc. I didn’t read him when he called us Iraq war protesters “the third column of proto-fascism” or whatever it is exactly he wrote. I should add to my post 104 “no one on the right who wouldn’t laugh behind their hands about a Congresswoman getting shot in the head”. Sullivan is indeed a gutless coward, and I should have known better than to think that a conservative could be anything but.
Sebastian Dangerfield
@Corner Stone:
Indeed. His defense of the Bell Curve pimping is of a piece with his effort to wish away his support for McCaughey’s lies. The only difference is with the latter, he made it worse by admitting that he knew there were flaws, but Peretz bullied him into printing it.
When one remembers these things, Young Conor’s apprenticeship makes a lot of sense. As another BJ thread today documents, that’s how he’s defending his fact-and-logic-impaired pimping of the Pigford nonsense.
These are simply a bunch of ratfuckers. Their job is to try to make the racebaiting and other odious right-wing appeals to the lizard brain respectable. Fuck them.
Sully’s guilt-pangs about torture and belated realization of the Iraq War fraud do nothing to redeem him. The torture jag is just his conflicted Catholicism acting up. On Iraq, he didn’t jump off until it became painfully obvious that it was a quagmire. He has never re-thought any of the underlying habits of mind that led him to embrace the wars and other odium — including his compulsive bandwagon-chasing tendencies.
Uloborus
@jwb:
No, no. Accept it – we have our loonies and our people who use ridiculously overheated rhetoric, too.
We don’t EMBRACE and INSTITUTIONALIZE that kind of behavior. As a whole we think Hitler comparisons are tacky and exaggerated, and most people here are wincing at the thought of a sign with a target on a politician’s head. As opposed to screaming our support.
Everyone has nuts to pick. But they have an entire movement that loves the crazy.
Mark S.
Why hasn’t Nick shown up to tell us that now Breitbart has shown up, it’s all over and the most important thing is to accede to all of Walker’s demands. It was foolish to ever stand up to the Republicans because they always win.
He could then tell us the most important thing in politics is to never fight for anything you believe in or try to persuade people to come to your side. The art of politics is to stake out a position one millimeter to the left of Sarah Palin, and then cave in and give up when Rush Limbaugh says something mean about you.
BD of MN
@vtr:
Just to clarify, it’s not Governor Scott Walker’s father, it’s the father of Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald…
just want to make sure we’re getting our rather blatant displays of nepotism correctly pointed out…
DougJ®
@Corner Stone:
To be candid with you, I focus on the Atlantic because sometimes I am able to get them to respond. I’m bored with both them and the Reasonoids, though, so I would like to find a new establishment outfit that is susceptible to my brand of irrationally hostile quasi-trollery.
asiangrrlMN
BJ Cheeseheads! Take pics. We are all Badgers today.