This is more Dennis G’s beat and the story broke a few weeks ago, but it’s been stuck in my head: there was a rumor a few weeks ago that Donald Trump might choose Ralph Reed as his campaign manager. Turns out Ralph is busy with other Jesusy stuff…anyway, I don’t think Trump is running at this point.
As Dennis as ably chronicled, Reed has always been a grifter. I’ll just leave you with his one of his quotes, because it’s such a good example of how these candy ass scumbags fantasize that they are really Navy SEALs:
“I want to be invisible. I do guerilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don’t know it’s over until you’re in a body bag. You don’t know until election night.”
If Reed had led Trump to an improbable Republican nomination, you can be sure that the David Broders of today would be eating quail at his table and admiring the splendid landscape from the porch of his historic cabin and inviting him to Salzburg seminars…all the while railing against vituperative, foul-mouthed bloggers and the ultimate evil of blowjobs from interns.
When I began working on this post yesterday, I thought to write this is worse than organized crime, where the biggest sociopath rises to the top and is praised by all, because at least in organized crime, there aren’t endless sermons about morality. Then I realized that in movies and tv shows about organized crime, there usually are endless sermons about morality.
Who knows if that’s realistic or not, but sometimes the similarities between the two worlds are striking.
Linda Featheringill
Reed makes me nervous. He always has.
dmsilev
I have my doubts that Trump will actually run. He’s hit the piteous whining about the media phase of things. Can you imagine him actually releasing a financial disclosure statement?
MikeJ
@dmsilev: Politicians complaining about the media is like sailors complaining about the sea.
mr. whipple
Trump is toast.
cathyx
Stick a fork in Trump’s hair. It’s done.
BerkeleyMom
Rachel doing a take-down of Ralph Reed right now. Barney Frank in for the assist.
BGinCHI
Finally watched “Inside Job” last night.
If you don’t think the financial industry is organized crime, motherfucking literally, then you ain’t been paying attention. It even has the Economics professoriat sewed up like a mobster with his shrink.
Boohunney
Same with Newt….. can’t really run. Just collecting the cash.
hell's littlest angel
Oh, if only Republicans occasionally gunned each other down in restaurants and barber shops.
hell's littlest angel
Should I have ended that post with a smiley?
Bob Loblaw
Oh dear, and after bloggers went to all that trouble of talking about him every day for two weeks straight because the media told them they should be doing so.
But wait, does this mean that Donald Trump doesn’t explain everything there is to know about the future of the Republican Party and race relations in this country? Double oh dear!
Next you’re gonna tell me that the GOP will simply go and be boring and nominate their granola equivalent of Dukakis instead, lose the election, and have to overhaul their party in the wake of a rhetorically overwhelming counterpart. Bummer. “Third Way Republicans” are so much less exciting for junkie bloggers than racists in tricorner hats…
MikeJ
@BerkeleyMom: I always said Trump makes Boris Johnson look like a well groomed statesman.
ed
Trump was never (really) running.
General Stuck
Maybe Reed should dress up in a Corleone costume and travel around the country with the tea tard gay musketeers.
superfly
Um, yeah…
Organized crime is less hypocritical.
Spaghetti Lee
@Bob Loblaw:
I think people here and elsewhere talked about Trump because he’s fun to laugh at. I don’t recall anyone who seriously thought he would be the Republican nominee, although I’m kind of surprised at just how quickly his grift fell apart.
stuckinred
@Bob Loblaw: Hey dickhead, I saw you writing stupid shit on the Phoenix newspaper blog, you get around.
General Stuck
@Spaghetti Lee:
The way we are going, I wouldn’t rule out a Daffy Duck nomination from the wingnuts. Not Donald, but Daffy certainly fits the mold. The scurrilous quacker.
Doug Harlan J
@Spaghetti Lee:
Yes.
khead
I hate to sound all SNL….. but really? You started on this post yesterday? Really?
I need to start a blog.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
It’s been a big year.
bin Laden is at the bottom of the ocean.
And the Great Satan DBroder is in purgatory.
Bob Loblaw
@stuckinred:
Interesting. I was unaware I lived in Arizona though.
I also apparently have a twitter account
http://twitter.com/#!/rwbrinso
an empty blog page
http://thebobloblawlawblog.blogspot.com/
and a fondness for Two and a Half Men
http://www.listal.com/list/bob-loblaws-episodemeter
Let’s see what else I don’t know about myself.
Doug Harlan J
@khead:
I did, yes. I write stuff down and then I finish it later. So sue me.
joeyess
I can’t think of anyone I’d rather punch in the neck than Ralph Reed.
Bob Loblaw
Why, I also have a photoblog (pretty mountains yay!)
http://www.panoramio.com/user/474633
a job at Pole Position Marketing
http://www.polepositionmarketing.com/about-us.php
and 25 linkedin pages
http://us.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Bob/Loblaw
Man, I truly get around.
eemom
damn it. Had to google. : (
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
It’s odd to return to commenting after weeks of no commenting with the words “I’m speechless” but:
I’m speechless.
Gus
@ed: No shit. I can’t believe anyone really thought he was. It was obvious that it was a ploy to get ratings for his shit show from the beginning.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Doug Harlan J: We only want the first thing that pops into your without revision or consideration. Or spell-check. Anything else is just cheating.
MikeJ
@eemom: With DougJ, always start with the Stones. If I weren’t so lazy I’d analyse his post titles, but I am, so that ain’t happening.
khead
@Doug Harlan J:
LOL. Sorry man. No lawsuit needed. Just getting in a dig at the fact that I doubt you needed 24 seconds to dwell on that post – much less 24 hours.
I know y’all have pages and threads to fill, but Trump was never running and most folks here already knew it.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Bob Loblaw: I know you’re really Omer Asik.
In fact, you’re posting from the bench right now. Head in the game, dammit!
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
/fix’d
Just Some Fuckhead
Christ, you jackals climb down off of DougJ’s nuts. If he wants to write about combing and brushing My Little Pony, it’s his fucking privilege.
Doug Harlan J
@khead:
I don’t think it’s so simple, if Trump’s poll numbers hadn’t dropped I think he might have actually run. I was always in it just to make fun of him, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have run if he got the urge.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@MikeJ:
Ah, another classic Stones lyric.
Doug Harlan J
@eemom:
I can’t recommend Beggars Banquet highly enough. It’s their second best album.
fhtagn
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel):
We call that “going matoko”.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
Uh-Oh.
Someone let Fuckface out of his cage.
here comes 30 obsessive compulsive posts on how much he hates obots.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Doug Harlan J: You thought about doing any Bob Welch or is he too tenor for ya?
cat48
@Doug Harlan J:
Since you love writing about GOP candidates, this info was new to me; don’t know if the “values” voters will be happy about:
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Doug Harlan J: Exactly. My expert analysis is that he wouldn’t have run, because it wouldn’t have panned out, because he was bound to flame out, but if he had felt he had a genuine chance — sure he would have run. Arrogance that towering (no pun intended) isn’t swayed by anything but flat-out failure. Which is what POTUS handed him, by gum.
(I realize my logic is circular and messy. To quote a blogger I’m familiar with, “sue me.”)
Doug Harlan J
@cat48:
No reason a work out fanatic who loves motorcycles would ever lose interest in women for a few years, right?
fhtagn
@cat48:
Well, isn’t that what Arabs like Mitch Bin Daniels normally do? Wife-swapping? Or do I mean porcupines like King Solomon?
JCT
@eemom: I had to ask my music-obsessed teenage son. So I had to put up with him knowing something I didn’t. Sigh.
khead
@Doug Harlan J:
Well, when Marianne Bannister told me during the 5 PM news a while back (before his poll numbers crashed) that Trump would be announcing his plans at the end of Celebrity Apprentice, I figured that was enough for me.
El Cid
For pop versions of true mafia culture, I’d check out Roberto Saviano’s Gomorrah about the Camorra syndicate of Naples. The reality of such crooks, says the journalist who went undercover into the Camorra and now faces constant threat upon his life, isn’t the “Godfather” evil knighthood, but a bunch of cheap shits who beat up elderly women and ape the styles of whatever cool movie has recently come out.
Or they sell filthy polluted baked bread to unsuspecting locals so that children can pile up toxins in their bodies.
Uloborus
@Just Some Fuckhead:
…dude. My Little Pony is the BEST GOD DAMN CARTOON in years. Once Avatar ended we got hit with another round of ‘But South Park *must* mean people really like stupid cartoons!’ That we’re emerging from that Hellhole and the cartoons are better than ever delights me, so I for one welcome threads about combing and brushing ponies!
fhtagn
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Trump would never have run because he would have had to reveal just how far he is from being solvent, never mind a billionaire. Damn it all, the man can’t even afford Romney Hair, like a serious person.
Martin
Yep, Donald Trump: Fuck you, I got mine.
I think the GOP may start loving this guy again.
fhtagn
@El Cid:
I hope Haley Barbour isn’t getting ideas from you for make great glorious Secessionism of Mississippistan.
Splitting Image
@General Stuck:
Are you serious? Daffy is black. He’d never get past the South Carolina primary.
Mike in NC
Work for Trump? Never.
But sign on with Santorum, Huckabubba, Gingrich or some other blowhard from the religious right? Quite possibly.
General Stuck
@Splitting Image:
I forgot about that. I guess they’ll have to settle for Newt Gingrinch instead. Second tier, but what’s a wingnut to do?
Dr. Loveless
Has anyone ever seen Ralph Reed and Charlie Sheen in the same place together?
Joel
the collapse of Trump’s numbers indicates to me that a significant number of Birthers actually believed their crap. I always thought it was just a rhetorical weapon, but I guess if you repeat a lie long enough…
Asshole
@El Cid:
This. The American branch isn’t any better. Roy DeMeo used to sell child pornography to turn a profit, when he wasn’t running a $250,000-a-week car theft ring. Or selling kilos of cocaine. Or shooting 19-year-old girls in the face because their dead boyfriends were informants and they might’ve become informants too, and then ripping their halter tops off so the police would pursue a rape angle. (The boyfriend, of course, was chopped into little pieces and thrown out in trash bags, same as most of the other 70-200 people DeMeo killed or had killed.)
Or we could talk about the sometimes-glorified John Gotti, who had one of his neighbors kidnapped and chainsawed in half because the man hit Gotti’s kid in a tragic car accident. He also had a mentally disturbed man tortured and then murdered because the man fired a pistol at the window of his social club.
America loves mobsters. America loves thieving sociopath murderers who fuck over every American they possibly can in their quest to gain themselves an extra nickel or two, be it by price-gouging or fraud or extortion or murder.
And you know what? These thieving butchers call themselves “soldiers” and “captains,” too, so the military pretensions were still there. Who they’re supposed to be at war with- besides the entirety of civilization, and with other gangs of thieving murderers- is unclear.
But rest assured, most of them are also socially conservative family men, eager to moralize against homosexuals, Hippies, Commies, or wives demonstrating even the slightest tendency toward the types of marital infidelity they pursue habitually.
Jennifer
In the last or next-to-last episode of the Sopranos, where Tony’s crew was warring with the NY crew and Tony & his surviving crew members were about to go into hiding, he tells a worried Carmella, “don’t worry – you know the rules on how this works. Family members don’t get touched.”
Compare and contrast with Karl Rove: “Wilson’s wife is fair game.”
You insult mobsters by comparing them to the likes of Rove.
Redwood Rhiadra
@cat48: Cat, “values” voters don’t give a flying fuck about divorce or adultery (if it’s a Republican, anyway). Look at McCain, Gingrich, or any of many, many other GOP candidates supported by so-called “values” voters despite being serial adulterers and divorcers.
Hell, the fact that she came back and remarried him might even be a bonus, showing her to be a “true Christian wife”.
Yutsano
@Uloborus: Hope shall never die as long as there is Phineas & Ferb.
cckids
@Yutsano:
Oh yes. What are we gonna do today?
stuckinred
@Bob Loblaw: Here’s the article in question.
ornery curmudgeon
@Jennifer: “Tony & his surviving crew members were about to go into hiding, he tells a worried Carmella, “don’t worry – you know the rules on how this works. Family members don’t get touched.”
Compare and contrast with Karl Rove: “Wilson’s wife is fair game.”
Except that Wilson wasn’t part of The Family.
Barry
@cat48: “No big deal really, but I’m not a gooper “values” voter.
What do you think?”
The day that GOP ‘values’ voters reject hypocritical sanctimony will be a cold day in the Infernal Regions.