Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

The willow is too close to the house.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Bark louder, little dog.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

In my day, never was longer.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

T R E 4 5 O N

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

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

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2012 / Very Good Question

Reader Interactions

74Comments

  3. 3.

    yeahyeahwhatevs (Studly Pantload, once upon a time)

    Can anyone quote this very good question? Employer’s filter blox Sargent.

  4. 4.

    Corner Stone

    It’s not actually a very good question. Republitico published a crank piece sourced by the Romney camp.
    Obama goes after people pretty straight. Axelrod torched into Perry on GMA, and there was nothing “insidery” about it. This “scandal” or “attack” on Romney was complete crap from inside his own camp and everyone in the Village knows it.
    I’m not sure why this is hard to understand.

  6. 6.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    I think it maybe the pundits see Rommey as one of the WASP ruling class, and don’t want to be reminded he’s really part of the multicultural change going on in America.

  8. 8.

    Ken

    @3: Politico quotes unnamed White House sources that an Obama campaign strategy will paint Romney as “weird”. Much pearl-clutching follows. Sargent says wait a minute – every speech Romney gives portrays Obama as not one of “us”. How does that differ?

    Personally I don’t see that it matters. All the Very Serious People are busy anointing Perry at this point, some with their tongues. Romney’s in trouble, even before the Massachusetts health care system became an issue.

  9. 9.

    Derf

    What about the stock market Cole? Put down your flour coated hands and write something about the stock market. I know you follow it and want to post because that is EXACTLY what you did when it dropped a couple hundred points. Here, let me refresh your memory…mmmmok.
    https://balloon-juice.com/2011/08/04/a-feature-not-a-bug/

    It’s not hard, just go to google finance and find the timeline with the worst looking slope and run with that.

  10. 10.

    Suffern ACE

    “What is space time like at the edge of the universe” is also a very good question. I assume that because the answer has nothing to do with the outrage junkies that we’ve been putting up with for 30 years whenever a Democrat is in power somewhere, the answer is probably enlightening and informative.

  11. 11.

    eemom

    I’m beginning to think John Cole has been replaced by a software program. I don’t actually know anything about how those work, but I’m guessing you can access the day’s online offerings, plug in search terms like “example of how the emmessemm sucks” “example of how republicans suck” and “why we’re all gonna die,” and use the resulting hits to generate these posts.

  13. 13.

    Jeff Fecke

    Last night at the teabate, Herman Cain explicitly questioned whether Romney’s Mormonism would play in the South. I thought it was pretty sneaky of Obama to get Cain to say that.

  14. 14.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @eemom: Replaced by? Didn’t you know that “John Cole, Blogger” is actually a significant part of Tunch’s PhD dissertation research?

  15. 15.

    Jenny

    Here’s another question.

    I remember in the summer of 2008, a tired Obama said at a rally, something to the effect, “they’re gonna attack me for being black” when he meant to say “they’re gonna try to paint me as the other” and the media went nutz saying, Obama was playing the race card.

    This week, Romney and Politico did the same thing, “they’re going to attack me for being black a Mormon”.

    So why wasn’t a village backlash triggered this time over Romney playing the religion card?

  17. 17.

    General Stuck

    They will do anything to win, or almost anything to win at this time, and they have little helpers in the media. This is cupcake stuff compared to what’s coming.

    Though Romney better enjoy his front runner status now, cause I doubt he will have it much longer. I suspect the WH is recalibrating their strategy as we speak, to deal with Perry. Wingnut primary voters would have likely gone with a yankee metrosexual if that was their only choice to beat Obama.

    But they will soak up a bible thumping southern shit kicker in a heartbeat, unless there are Texas size skeletons in Perry’s closet that make him unelectable in the general. They hate “Obamacare” with the passion of a thousand Shakespears, and “Romneycare” was the gawdpappy of that abomination in the lizard brain.

    They want to win, bad, but haven’t been out of power long enough, to do whatever it takes to win. And picking Romney was their best chance for that. At this tender moment, they will go with southern macho when it shows up.

    And of course, if the stars conspire to somehow let Perry win the GE, then my canoe is ready to set sail south and not stop till I see the penguins. Though a clutch of nekked native girls frolicking in a tropical lagoon could cause a course correction.

  19. 19.

    yeahyeahwhatevs (Studly Pantload, once upon a time)

    Hey, Cole, some cute little kid straight from Norm Rockwell’s small-town America naively asked a widely-known celebrity to help raise funds for his school’s science fair entry and the celebrity actually agreed to help and the story made the last 90 second’s of local newscasts everywhere. Why don’t you stop scooping Tunch’s litter box for a few moments and report about *that*, huh? Are ya chicken? Are ya chicken, you big ol’ Gloomy Gus, Cole? Start doin’ some *real* bloggering, why dontcha?

  20. 20.

    Corner Stone

    @Omnes Omnibus: Personally I just think DougJ is burned the fuck out and has got nothing left.
    He should wrap up his mindfuck experiment here and go to the next phase, and ultimately publish.

  24. 24.

    Corner Stone

    Know what else is a very good question? When those damn dirty apes started to “Rise” why didn’t they just gun them the F down? How many could there have been who could dodge 30mm incoming at several thousand FPS?

  27. 27.

    John Puma

    Two concepts:

    1) projection of your political bile onto others with the assistance of

    2) a fascist media

  29. 29.

    Jenny

    @General Stuck: It’s going to be fun watching Mittens and Parry bash each other. I think Parry is in a lot of trouble for saying Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional.

  31. 31.

    RareSanity

    I’ll wait for the trolls to give an explanation of this and how it is totally unrelated to race.

    Because we know that if anyone dare bring that up, they’re playing the infamous “race card”.

  32. 32.

    General Stuck

    @Jenny:

    I think Parry is in a lot of trouble for saying Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional.

    He will be in the general, for saying that. But GOP primary voters are carnivores. They hate government and are crazy enough to forget their own use of and dependence on government services.

  33. 33.

    trollhattan

    @General Stuck:

    Perry, the man biped doesn’t worry me much, but neither did Dubya. Perry’s potential for assembling a Dubyaesque machine does. They can polish this Texas turd ’til he shines like a new Lexus. A Lexus pickup, I suppose.

    And there’s no Molly Ivins to wave her arms and yell, “Yoo-hoo, y’all listen to this for a second!”

  34. 34.

    yeahyeahwhatevs (Studly Pantload, once upon a time)

    @Corner Stone: @Corner Stone:

    I had no idea I was bein’ too on-the-nose, but I guess I shoulda figured.

    With better trolls, the snark would have greater definition.

  36. 36.

    Corner Stone

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’ve long maintained the dude is mindfucking us as a long term socio/psychological case study.
    Nothing I’ve seen to date has dissuaded me of this conclusion.

  39. 39.

    RareSanity

    @Corner Stone:

    Strangely enough, that is the same question I asked myself the first time I saw the preview.

    I thought, did they evolve to have bulletproof skin too? If there is that much of a plot hole just in the preview, the full length movie can’t be any better.

  42. 42.

    Roger Moore

    @General Stuck:

    But they will soak up a bible thumping southern shit kicker in a heartbeat, unless there are Texas size skeletons in Perry’s closet that make him unelectable in the general.

    There has been lots of speculation that there’s a Ricky Perry-sized human being in Rick Perry’s closet, which might cause him some problems with the godbotherer wing of the party.

  44. 44.

    opie_jeanne

    @Jenny: Are you a contributor to ColbertPAC or just a fan of the show? Perry with an “A” because there’s no “E” in team. Heh.

  45. 45.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Suffern ACE: After I saw Pulp Fiction the first time, someone told me and my friends that following the credits they show what is in the briefcase. Obviously, we all had to go see the movie again in order to find out.

  46. 46.

    scav

    I hear that Mitt is an entirely not-weird Romney.
    I also hear that Brutus is an honorable man.

  48. 48.

    hildebrand

    OT – So, how long will the media be wailing about the ‘optics’ of the Obama family vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard? I made the mistake of listening to MSNBC earlier today, and Jonathan Alter was saying that this was really a major problem that the President needed to address, and perhaps he should just not go.

    Honestly.

  49. 49.

    General Stuck

    @Ian:

    They passed on him last time around

    That’s because it was John McCain’s turn. Wingers have a kind of seniority system, and most of them that end up getting the nom were once also rans. I don’t think it is anybody’s turn this time in the field of candidates, such as a Bob Dole. They will pick the one who makes them most whole as a right winger, like a George Bush. Because a born again wingnut brings the jeebus right wing faithful off the couch in the waiting room for death and heaven, which of course is life itself.

  50. 50.

    Roger Moore

    @hildebrand:

    OT – So, how long will the media be wailing about the ‘optics’ of the Obama family vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard?

    Until the Right Wing Noise Machine provides them with a shiny new talking point to repeat. SATSQ.

  51. 51.

    RareSanity

    @Corner Stone:

    Maybe the movie is a huge Obama troll. There must be a black President in the movie that took everyone’s guns. So they were powerless, powerless I say, to defend themselves against their primate overlords.

  52. 52.

    SensesFail

    The Republicans know that they need to distract everyone away from the fact that they have absolutely no policy ideas beyond “lower taxes” and “deregulate”, both of which have proven to fail.

  53. 53.

    yeahyeahwhatevs (Studly Pantload, once upon a time)

    @hildebrand:

    In all fairness to Alter, he’s got a point. Times bein’ tough, an’ all.

    Hell, when FDR needed a break from the White House back in the Depression, he and Eleanor would just pack the ol’ Desoto and camp out at Yosemite Nzt’l, like regler Muhricans. M’be stay at a Howard Johnsons along the way.

  54. 54.

    Suffern ACE

    @Corner Stone: Apes got their shit together and plan things out. In fairness to the police of San Francisco, there probably wasn’t a whole lot of training for a situation that gets out of hand rather quickly. I mean, if you were manning the 911 call center and someone called and said “Help. We’re being attacked by hundreds of chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans!” would you know what to do?

  55. 55.

    RareSanity

    @General Stuck:

    That’s because it was John McCain’s turn.

    The more I think about McCain, the more I understand why he is such a bitter, angry man. In the mind of a wingnut how bad must it be, to be the one that lost to the man that went on to become one of the worst Presidents ever, AND the first black President?

    Oh man, to the wingnut mind, can it get any worse?

  56. 56.

    SensesFail

    The Republicans have clearly brought more crazy rhetoric than the Democrats, especially when it comes to attacks against President Obama. This accusation from the Romney camp helps to support the “BOTH SIDES DO IT!” Villager/MSM meme.

  57. 57.

    Corner Stone

    @Suffern ACE:

    I mean, if you were manning the 911 call center and someone called and said “Help. We’re being attacked by hundreds of chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans!” would you know what to do?

    I’d start by shooting a motherfucking chimp in the fucking face. Then go from there.

  58. 58.

    RareSanity

    @Suffern ACE:

    I mean, if you were manning the 911 call center and someone called and said “Help. We’re being attacked by hundreds of chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans!” would you know what to do?

    Maybe not specifically, but I’d be pretty sure it would involve guns, lots of them.

  59. 59.

    Suffern ACE

    @Corner Stone: Since liberals want their public parks and pristine old growth forests and suburbanites want their tree lined streets, the apes are more like the looters of London. They’re not actually trying to take over those stores and apartment buildings. They’re looting them and leaving rather quickly before the police can assemble a force. Those tree huggers ‘ave just made it so the apes can move about swiftly without being noticed.

    Just move about in numbers sufficient to briefly disable whatever security guards and beat cops happend to be nearby, quickly raid, and move on before the team with the machine gun gets there. It’s San Francisco, so it’s not like everyone is armed.

  64. 64.

    yeahyeahwhatevs (Studly Pantload, once upon a time)

    @Anya Derf ate too many paint chips as a kid. It’s kindest not to stare.

  65. 65.

    Cat Lady

    @Anya:

    Derf and m_c are a two person virtual dadaist Asperbergers performance troup, tag-teaming BJ. Think No Exit meets Snow Crash.

  66. 66.

    James E. Powell

    @RareSanity:

    In the mind of a wingnut how bad must it be, to be the one that lost to the man that went on to become one of the worst Presidents ever, AND the first black President?

    That’s easily explained. The liberal media swooned for Obama. From the minute they met him in fact. And as soon as Sarah Palin showed up, they spent all day every day attacking her. How could anyone function in that hate-filled atmosphere. Well, the liberals got what they deserved. Their president retroactively caused the recession and all the debt that the United States government has accumulated since the founding.

  69. 69.

    Arundel

    It’s a good question, but then he says, ” I thought its sourcing was pretty clear and that it was well reported, probably conveying insider chatter accurately.”

    I don’t see how anonymous sourcing is “pretty clear”. It’s oxymoronic. To say that the article was clearly sourced, well reported, probably accurate, when Sargent has no fucking idea who the anonymous sources were- well, what sort of faith-based assumption is that?

    It seems like the faith-based assumption of yet another journalist keeping his career options open. I personally suspect that Politico might have made up the whole thing, the anonymous sources seem to be saying something plausible, right? But they’re anonymous. And after making a very good point about how Romney is free to attack Obama for his identity, beliefs, to actually smear some caricature idea of Obama.. Sargent goes and gives a triple compliment to the Politico article. That it’s sourcing was “clear” (was it?), it was “well-reported” (so vague and value-neutral as to be pointless) and “probably” conveying iside chatter accurately.

    Well, what if they just fucking made it up? OBAMA TO ATTACK ROMNEY”S RELIGION is the whole point of the piece, and sorry, Sargent seems eager to lavish praise on Politico’s reporting on this… phantom rumor. Imagine, a WaPo reporter log-rolling for Politico! Ugh, Sargent’s article wasn’t some brave questioning, it was re-enforcing Politico’s story that Obama’s team would attack Mormons as weirdos. What sound reporting! Pointing out that Romney attacks Obama’s identity doesn’t change the fact that Sargent is lavishly praising the Politico article that seems utterly based in vaporous rumor and speculation. I honestly don’t know how it’s even possible to praise “reporting” like that with not a single named source. “Excellent rumor-mongering there, chaps-it sounds likely!. May I doff my cap to Politico for their very fine work reporting on this unsourced rumor!”

    Sargent’s there at WaPo to give a semblance of balance, but often he’s just window-dressing, for appearances sake. Even the framing of this “liberal” objection- that Romney’s been mean about Obama, too- presumes that anyone should actually give a shit about Romney, that Romney is A Figure of Importance, Our Next President Perhaps. Vague criticism of Romney here counts as liberal “counterpoint” here, so WaPo can get on with their relentless pro-Republican angle in everything else, and still pretend to be “objective” journalism.

    When the WaPo is talking about how Romney’s been critical of Obama’s identity, it means they’re not talking about the other 45 fucked-up things about Romney and his past, especially in his business life and his time as a Governor. Politico’s pre-emptively making it about his religion, where he will surely moan about it in the coming year. ALL of this is distraction and changing the subject.

  70. 70.

    lethargytartare

    a better question would be to ask Mr. Sargent why he can’t bring himself to play “the “media double standard” game,” even while describing a blatant double standard in exquisite detail…

  71. 71.

    Ken

    @James E. Powell: So if I read you right, you’re saying that the anonymous (but probably Rove) Republican quoted by Ron Suskind was correct; Republicans do create their own reality. Only in their heads, admittedly, and as a classic form of psychological denial, but it happens.

  72. 72.

    Derf

    Where are the people posting poll numbers. Someone is always posting poll numbers with the Dems/Obama is down. Why no poll numbers lately? Hmmmmm could it be because they are not bad?

    Nah! Couldn’t be.

  73. 73.

    Corner Stone

    @Arundel: Kind of why I said this earlier:

    It’s not actually a very good question. Republitico published a crank piece sourced by the Romney camp.

  74. 74.

    WaynersT

    government of the peoplecorporations, by the peoplecorporations, for the peoplecorporations, shall not perish from the earth.”

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