Democrats controlled Congress for the last two years of Bush. Bills got passed. Nominees got approved. State of the Union addresses happened without incident. When Bush needed Congressional Democrats to pass a hideously unpopular financial rescue legislation called TARP, the only major drama happened when the Republican presidential candidate parachuted in at the last moment and blew up the negotiations.
One could write a nice note to the editor and ask why Douthat needs to make up an imaginary mirror-image hypothetical world when his exact scenario just happened.
MikeJ
Because he generated page views.
Steve
Hard to disagree.
Wilson Heath
Dissembler’s gonna dissemble.
JGabriel
My own take on Douthat:
Riddle: You know how to tell the difference between Ross Douthat and an unwiped asshole?
Answer: Me neither.
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Mark S.
Yeah but one time the Democrats filibustered something and Robert Bork.
Both sides do it.
Jenny
I seriously can’t believe you guys waste time on Bobo, Sully, McMegan, and Chunky Bobo.
El Cid
The major hitch when the House was passing TARP was the Republican refusal to guarantee on their side a majority voting for it.
Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic leadership would not allow more Democratic House votes than necessary to pass it with a Republican majority.
The Republicans wanted Democrats to impale themselves alone upon the TARP pike.
Gingrich was running around screaming for his party to defeat the bailout.
This was an occasion in which Pelosi and the Democrats refused to allow Republicans to get their legislation and accept none of the blame.
So because of Republican desires to have TARP pass while Democrats took all the future hits, the morning vote failed. The market plummeted and reports are that the big money boys were calling rather frantically.
Gingrich by that very morning had heard the counts and reversed his position, now urging (just one day later) the bill’s passage, ‘it’s not perfect,’ etc.
The bill passed the 2nd (afternoon) vote with a majority of Republican House votes.
The Republicans in this case too were more than willing to blow up the entire economy over a single legislative vote if it meant saddling the Democrats with all the blame for the TARP.
General Stuck
Douthat is like a scribe for a former and long replaced junta, that still pines for the good old days when Dear Leader would bark out a few commands from the bully pulpit, and the Wingnut Duma would dutifully churn out his whims, up to a point. And usually with a few or more dems to make us feel all warm and cuddly in our little American nest.
I tend to cut the dems that went along with some measured slack from 9-11 to about 2005, as being some caught in the long shadow of that awful day, and falling spell to the neocons and corporate whores marketing it into all sorts of evil shit. Including a few bills like the bankruptcy bill, but certainly not everything on the GOP wishlist.
But you are correct, it is just without words pondering anything like what we’ve had being in any way similar to what we would have had with a Mccain presidency. And aside from greater use of drones I generally oppose, Obama has been a stellar foreign policy president, with both action and restraint of action. I suspect the ME, if not the world would now be running with the dogs of war under Mccain and The Wassilla Wingnut.
But like roadkill that twitches long after the end, folks like Douthat noodle about days gone by, and days not gone by, to make the winger branetrust think they are still relevant, as well their worshipped conservative theories. Unable to face the Zombie tea tards have taken over, and they don’t much care about theory or foreign policy. They have a gas can here at home, and rhetorical rope for some down home politicking. It is what Douthat’s former party is, and nothing like he describes it. And he is to blame, him and all the others.
driftglass
One has asked.
One has asked many many times.
In the absence of any rational reason why he (or Brooks or Friedman) exists and the presence of a Great Big Beltway Media Silence on the subject, once can only assume that:
A) The Sulzberger family has its own reasons for keeping an entire petting zoo of talentless Conservative/Neocon hacks on their payroll, and;
B) an e-n-o-r-m-o-u-s amount of money and/or clout is involved.
Elsewhere in America’s newspaper of record, David Brooks shows us on the Anatomically Correct Doll exactly where Noam Chomsky touched him — http://bit.ly/owZe6Y
Cat Lady
There’s nothing else that conservatives can talk about, because absolutely everything they’ve championed ends up being a cock up. So what’s a conservative with a high visibility column to do? Make stupid shit up that says the other side would cock it up just as bad in an imaginary world, if you don’t believe your lying eyes, or have a memory, or half a brain.
Anoniminous
2007 is sssssooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo far away we don’t have to remember what happened, anymore. Instead we can Make Shit Up.
JGabriel
The only thing I can remember Democrats attempting to block, and successfully blocking, during the Bush administration was his attempts to privatize Social Security.
That’s it.
Sure there was scattered opposition to the Iraq war, torture, deregulation, etc. But nothing else that the Democrats were unified on the way Republicans are unified on blocking almost everything Obama and/or the Democrats try to do.
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Mike G
Come on, you can’t expect a Repuke to remember anything that happened before January 2009.
For an ideology based on fantasy, magical thinking and Making Shit Up for their gullible authoritarian-follower sheep, history is what you choose to believe happened.
Bush/Cheney never existed; if they were supposed to remember, Faux Noise would have told them.
Villago Delenda Est
I still insist that the best way to deal with dumbshits like Douchehat is a bat’leth to the gut.
Amir Khalid
Did McCain blow up the negotiations, or just add nothing to them? As I remember, House Republicans were hostile to TARP from the outset. McCain made a fool of himself trying to persuade more of them to vote for it, when he had no real influence in that chamber. In the end it took Democratic votes to pass it in the House.
DFH no.6
Doesn’t stop the fascists around my place from claiming that not only would the Democrats have been much worse to President McGrumpy than any Republicans have been to Obama, but that the Democrats were worse to Bush, led by that harpy Pelosi.
Liberals and conservatives live in different worlds.
Liberals in the actual world of empirical reality; conservatives in a sort of Through-the-Looking-Glass Wonderland where they believe six impossible things before breakfast, and words (and deeds) mean just what they say they mean. With the main question (as Humpty Dumpty put it to Alice) being, “Which is to be master – that’s all”.
I live and work and even play with them, but I will never, ever understand them.
Also, too, what JGabriel said, in comment no. 4.
General Stuck
@JGabriel:
They were united, save one or two with the Bush tax cuts, and why wingers had to pass them by reconciliation and a ten year sunset. They held them off ripping up the Arctic Wildlife Refuge drilling for oil. They tried many times to defund Iraq, and got within 3 or 4 votes of the 60 needed.
They passed the Med Drug bill with dem votes out of I think a deeper concern for seniors getting some help, at the price of more wingnut welfare for drug companies, and there were other things not tried cause of a certain filibuster.
But they gave up too much, I agree, especially before 2006. But really, a lot of it was the kind of compromise both wingers and dems once did to get things done, and the patriotic shadow of 9-11. That is all gone now, and there is only pol war, for the foreseeable future.
Haiwei
With every Douthat column, approximately 15 more trees die tragically.
Twice weekly moments of silence would be in order for this pointless waste of life.
kindness
Are we sure that is how history played out? I suspect if we go over to Wikipedia, that conservatives have changed many, many points on that historical time line. And if you go to Conservapedia… you’ll get a Trojan horse virus.
Tonal Crow
Propagandists gotta propagandize, or the Koch brothers won’t write their checks.
PeakVT
@Jenny: Bobo and Chunky matter because they have very prominent positions. McAddled matters because she is the perfect example of a pundit failing upwards. Silly, OTOH, doesn’t really matter now that he’s not at a magazine coasting on it’s reputation.
Haiwei
@MikeJ: Responsible adults would *never* click through to a column by Bobo or Bobo Jr.
existential fish
Democrats were necessary to pass Bush’s 2003 tax cut.
The GOP had the Senate 51-49, and McCain, Snowe, and Chafee rebelled. Three Demos crossed to get it passed.
So yeah, bullshit.
Turgidson
I thought the drama happened when Pelosi was a meanie and called the Republicans poopyheads, which caused them to decide they’d rather pout than stabilize the financial system.
Bruce S
Does anyone pay attention to Ross Douthat? He exists to bug liberals and give cover to some imagined “conservatism” as not having 100% devolved into the reality of a batshit crazy, socially nihilistic, utterly dishonest and cynical GOP. How many GOP precincts does he influence? Or “swing” for that matter. He’s an intellectual and political anomaly.
Pat Buchanan has more “gravitas” because he’s actually been deep in the shit for nigh on fifty years and is neither embarrassed by his pathologies nor particularly prone to provide a soothing masturbatory moment for “conservatives” who worry about their reputations in polite society or at the next Harvard alumni dinner. I’ll take the red meat grilled medium raw – with super-hot sauce for full effect – if I’m going to hang out at the right-wing good old boys BBQ.
(Paul Krugman is the only NYTs columnist who matters – and that’s just because he actually knows stuff.)
General Stuck
@existential fish:
Actually, it was two dems that crossed the isle to vote yea, Zell Miller and Ben Nelson, neither of which are much democrats. The final vote was a 50 50 tie, and Dick Cheney cast the deciding vote.
JC
This isn’t surprising, of course. Both Douthat, Brooks, basically need to keep their stance as ‘reasonable conservatives’, which, in this polarized environment when the Repubs are CLEARLY acting like RETHUGS, they have to lie.
Pretty much all the ‘both sides do it’ articles, engage in the same willful obtuseness, misrepresenting reality.
We just had the Rethugs BLOCK a jobs bill, then turn around and blame Obama for the economy slowdown.
We just had Rethugs willing to blow up the economy, by refusing to pay the bills we had already taken on, unprecedented prior to this.
And we STILL get ‘washington is broken’, without assigning proper responsibility to Rethugs, who are 80-95% responsible.
If the media continues to give Rethugs cover, and you are a Rethug, wouldn’t YOU continue to use the same technique? If it works, why change?
kindness
You know what is really funny/terrible about the state of conservative discourse now days? Makes me miss Bill Buckley. I almost never agreed with him but he at least had consistency & a touch of integrity. Modern day conservative wanks…not so much.
Tonal Crow
@Bruce S:
Chunky Bobo, Bobo, and the like are the most dangerous of all GOP propagandists (“GOPagandists?”) because they polish their shit to a high gloss. This makes it appealing to the majority of Americans, who lack the free energy, native skepticism, and/or rudimentary skills to look beyond the surface. You see the worms, but the majority of Americans see flying unicorns and pots of gold at the ends of rainbows.
Turgidson
@JC:
FTFY. It was the GOP alone who was responsible for the debt ceiling shitshow, and Senate GOP filibusters of any legislation to the left of Jim DeMint’s preferences, along with the teahadist House stop damn near everything else.
JGabriel
@kindness:
… a reasonably diverse vocabulary and competent grammar.
I can’t really get behind the assertion about consistency or integrity on Buckley’s behalf. We’re talking about a guy who supported Jim Crow in the 50’s and 60’s and wanted to tattoo AIDS victims in the 80’s and early 90’s.
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JC
The thing is, why get upset about it, right? Keep pointing it out, of course, maybe we can get NYTimes to do something about it – but the columnist himself?
Grifters gotta grift, scorpions gotta sting.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@DFH no.6:
Courtesy of James Fallows (in his aricle re: the Gates speech) I found the following article regarding the rise of the new Confederacy, which has a very good explication of the epistemic differences between our side and theirs:
I highly recommend that folks read the whole article.
JGabriel
Tonal Crow:
It’s not just the high gloss. We wouldn’t give a shit about Douthat’s or Brooks’ polished turds if they were being published in the Weekly Standard or American Spectator.
It’t the platform at the Times and the size of their audience that matters. It’s infuriating that such miserable mediocrities have such a wide audience.
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trollhattan
Quasi on topic: Lech Walesa is going to visit OWS?
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/lech-walesa-occupy-wall-street-6513557
It will be interesting to see how the Right Thinkers marginalize a guy far more responsible for the Iron Curtain’s collapse than St. Ronaldus, once he sullies himself with DFH cooties.
kindness
@JGabriel: He was still a bigot when he died. He learned to be quiet about it.
KG
@General Stuck: how is that possible? I thought you needed 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate?
(side note, many years later, I still can’t read the word “Senate” without hearing it said by Nute Gunray… yeah, I’m pretty much hopeless)
General Stuck
@KG:
Fiscal legislation like a tax cut can be done via what is called ‘reconciliation”, the same thing that allowed dems to complete the HCR. Where a simple majority vote in the senate can circumvent the filibuster. If it passes AND raises the deficit after 10 years, then it can only be in effect for that long, which tax cuts certainly do raise the long term national debt. The ACA did not, and even lowered it a bit, on paper, so it could be permanent.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
What are you talking about? We all know the only person who might possibly have been more important than St. Ronnie is St. John-Paul II. This Walesa guy was a Union leader, which makes him about two steps worse than any commie.
eemom
@JGabriel:
I saw a video of a Noam Chomsky interview shortly after Buckley died — as you may know, they debated each other several times in the 1960s.
Asked to comment about Buckley upon his death, Chomsky responded, in typical deadpan Chomsky manner, something to the effect of “His intellect was admired by some. I wasn’t one of them.”
I love that guy.
Villago Delenda Est
@trollhattan:
Ronald Reagan LOVED Walesa…as long as he kept his labor union shit outside of the United States…
Tonal Crow
On a related topic, today’s Atlantic teasermail has Conor Friedersdorf emitting this cloud of GOPaganda:
With a tease like that, I have no intention of reading the article.
KG
@General Stuck: oh, I know… I was just being a smart ass about the whole thing.
Bruce S
#29 – Whatever else might be said of them, “the majority of Americans” give a shit about neither Douthat or Brooks. And the New York Times has done worse shit than publish those clowns. Thomas Friedman – perceived as a non-ideological sage, rather than a total moron – is actually a bigger menace in pushing bullshit among the Times core readership. Dare I mention Judy Miller? Liberals love to wring their hands over bullshit and revel in petty irritations. Example – how many posts here worry over Andrew Sullivan? Who could possibly give a fuck about Andrew Sullivan?
Bruce S
#21 –
Actually, I’d wager that Sullivan’s blog was key in building the Atlantic’s online presence, for what that’s worth, not vice versa.
The Atlantic has long been a mixed bag as a magazine – I love Fallows and Coates, but The Atlantic’s journalistic “reputation” is way overblown and that crap “ideas festival” of theirs in Aspen is a monstrosity. It’s like “Morning Joe” on steroids.