Pierce rips into the odious Meacham (for the very same reasons DougJ did yesterday):
I have long proposed that every single major elite political pundit be frog-marched away from the buffet tables inside the Beltway and deep into the Blue Ridge Mountains, there to be confined to a re-education facility where they will clear trails, and reclaim swampland, and repair dams, and make life lovely for the furry little woodland creatures until every damn one of these hacks has learned not to look at the incredible universe of grifters and charlatans that is our current political elite and in them see the giants of the past. Comes now Parson Meacham, and I suspect he’s going to be working out in the woods until the squirrels up and bury him some winter.
I mean where in the name of god do I go with this kind of fanzine bullshit? (And you had to know Mike Allen would be wrapped up in there, too. With the advent of that promised e-book, we may be close to the event horizon of Washington suck-up-itude.) Meacham’s work here is what Walter Lippmann would’ve produced if he’d worked for Tiger Beat.
I’m in front of the stage cheering, with a lighter held high, and Pierce croons on:
Only Jon Meacham, who knows where they hide the Three Musketeers bars in every green room in Christendom, can look at this Republican field and not see it as being sui generis in terms of rampant, obvious crackpottery. Compare it to other larger Republican primary fields and to some of the losers in them. Michele Bachmann is not Jack Kemp. Rick Santorum is not Ronald Reagan. Herman Cain is not… well, he’s not a serious candidate, and he never was. Rick Perry is not even George W. Bush, Lord save us. Okay, maybe Jon Huntsman is a hyper-conservative John Anderson, and Mitt Romney is a hyper-disingenuous Bob Dole, but Huntsman’s polling in the Marianas Trench, and the entire party wishes Romney would die in a fire. And that’s something that Meacham, in his endless attempt to make chicken salad out of that which you cannot make chicken salad, loses sight of entirely. This field is a festival for fruitcake because so is the party to which it seeks to appeal.
FREEBIRD! FREEBIRD!! FREEBIRD!!!!
Yes, if you are unusually dim, or unusually badly read, or four years old, you may well re-imagine things this way. If you are not, you will recall that, not all that long ago, the Washington political class, with Newt Gingrich proudly (if ironically) in the lead, was in hot pursuit of a president’s penis. I think it’s safe to say that anyone who was alive then, and did not as a result drink himself into alcoholic dementia, still recalls that presidents can be both greatly liked and greatly disliked. The same, it should be noted, can be said for the music of ABBA and the taste of beets. So what? And if Meacham can find a single person not confined to a secure facility who thought it “absolutely certain” that Sarah Palin would be president, even for one day, I’ll let him off his work detail reclaiming the swamp for Christmas. President Palin remains as “unimaginable” a concept as is thoracic surgeon Charles Manson, M.D.
I just threw my panties on the stage.
Seriously, go read the whole thing.
Hunter Gathers
This one goes to eleven.
schrodinger's cat
The Beltway punditubbies are not dumb, they just know which side of their bread is buttered.
dmsilev
I believe I speak for many when I say ‘Too Much Information’.
Elizabelle
Here’s a comment I would have put on the Meacham TIME site, had I been able to get into my Gmail account to sign in.
Mr. Meacham: this is literally the dumbest column I have read all year.
Guess your purpose is to publicize the Mike Allen-Evan Thomas book that you have a professional interest in promoting? Is that where that unattributed quote about Gingrich as “Wise Man’s view” is from?
One giveaway is your “related topics” tag: Mike Allen and Evan Thomas, Politico, The Right Fights Back. (Interesting.)
This is purely drivel to attempt to equate “FDR” and “Gingrich” or “Romney.” Not going to happen.
You’d have a stronger column if you pointed out that this Republican field (of dwarves, you say?) is the worst assembled since World War II, or before. Calling many of them “dwarves” is an insult to the shorter folk among us.
Second, lots of nonsensical sentences. Example: “things that seemed absolutely certain one day are often unimaginable the next. (Remember President Palin?)”
Was President Palin ever an absolutely certain prospect? Maybe in a publication you were associated with, but never in real life.
Your column is a reminder of how far TIME has fallen, and how badly our “political journalists” serve the reading public.
Elizabelle
Comrade Mary
I can go either way on Abba or beets. Brilliant work as usual, nonetheless.
(And John, please do share where you get your pretty lacy things. I’m down to a slightly used pair of boxer briefs from Mark’s Work Wearhouse.)
Elizabelle
Pierce:
Tell it, Charlie Pierce.
burnspbesq
I will concede that Pierce belabors the obvious in a highly entertaining manner.
BGinCHI
Blog’s new title:
Charlie Pierce Juice
Linda Featheringill
I liked it. But then I also liked
:-)
Maude
@burnspbesq:
It needs to be said and repeated over and over again.
The Moar You Know
None of that shit off the new album.
The Dangerman
Huh. I had you pegged as commando. Oh, well, better late than never.
Villago Delenda Est
OK, now this is unfair to both Walter Lippmann and Tiger Beat.
More like Meacham is putting out some seriously bad Kirk/Spock/Harry/Draco fanfic, in which Kirk whines when he breaks his nails, Spock has emotional breakdowns every fifteen seconds, Harry runs a three card monte game just outside the Leaky Cauldron, and Draco worships the ground Harry walks on.
Poopyman
@dmsilev: Ain’t THAT the truth.
I’m guessing the panties went when Pierce made the DIAF reference.
Also too, as I said in an earlier thread:
is a keeper.
carpeduum
Only childishly simplistic views Cole would give up his panties over the blatantly obvious…just because it’s told in a bit more entertaining way.
So another beltway hack GOP fluffer said something sickeningly stupid. Just another day in the beltway.
metricpenny
Throwing your panties on a stage is all you got?
I just lit an entire pack of cigarettes.
Thanks for sharing.
Comrade Javamanphil
@schrodinger’s cat: I’m not sure those need to be mutually exclusive.
Poopyman
BTW, since this Meacham piece from last night, Pierce has produced FIVE other posts, including one about Fox news claiming the Muppets are brainwashing kids and one about our secret wars. Definitely read the one on our secret wars from a little while ago.
rikryah
you got me to LMBAO with the panties on the stage. my co-workers were like ‘WHAT ARE YOU READING’?
Bludger
Charles Pierce fucking rocks.
Jewish Steel
My psychologizing take on the two front-runners. I think that Newt will consolidate his hold on the base because he is the aspirational version of the Republican base. He is what the old white men I know want to be; they have money and they are comfortable but they wield no power in this world. They are powerless to stop the tide of brown people/sexting teens/mooslims that they see as an existential threat. Newt, for them, stands athwart this deluge and says, with authority, “STOP!” That’s exactly what they want to hear and he’s the unprepossessing troll they want to hear it from. He resembles the man they see in the mirror.
Romney, by contrast, is their more successful competitor from across town, or the next big town over. A soi disant Republican but, so the reasoning goes, corrupted by his undeserved wealth. Educated back east (Stanford and BYU in addition to faih Hahvahd), travels to Europe (speaks French? French? You gotta be shittin’ me!)And with Romney it is more than whispered that he as some sympathy with the ideals of a welfare state. He has an actual record to prove it. Too handsome as well. That is why he repulses the base.
I want it to be Gingrich so bad, these are the tales I tell myself.
Martin
Cole’s wearing panties now? Can we go back to the naked mopping visuals? I think it was more tolerable.
Calouste
When Dole was the GOP candidate, he was a 5th term Senator, 2nd term Majority leader, and a former VP candidate. Romney is a one term governor of a mid-sized state who didn’t run for re-election because he knew he was going to lose.
bemused
MSNBC regulars Meacham, Halperin, Chuck Todd are interchangeable twits. Thank goodness I haven’t seen vile Pat Buchanan in awhile. I don’t know why but wherever he is, I hope he stays there forever and wish the others would join him.
shortstop
@Jewish Steel: That was a mighty entertaining comment.
R-Jud
Look, I like the column and all, but “Better than Sex”?
Martin
@Jewish Steel: Do you think the GOP base will ever have that realization moment that they nominated a guy to be President who shut down the entire federal government because someone made him sit in the back of a plane?
Even if they agree with shutting down the govt, tactically that’s an attack ad campaign that is inexhaustible.
Schlemizel
Meacham just posted that the thing was tongue in cheek & thank gawd voters are not the commenters on the Time site.
If that post was sarcasm it is too well done by half.
Dennis G.
It was a thing of beauty, especially that kicker:
Martin
@R-Jud: Remember, this is a guy that sleeps with two dogs and wears panties. I don’t think we want to even pretend to know where Cole’s baseline on sex is.
burnspbesq
BTW, Krugman is en fuego today.
MikeJ
@Martin: The GOP base thinks Newt is Rosa Parks because of that.
feebog
@ Calouste:
Bob Dole had a couple other things going for him; he was a war hero (Mittens was busy trying to convert the French to Mormonism and thus “missed” the opportunity to serve in Viet Nam. Bob Dole also had (and has) a sense of humour, something Mittens apparently misplaced in the eight grade and never found again.
martha
I really needed to laugh like this today. Thank you to you both Mr. Cole and Mr. Pierce.
Jewish Steel
@shortstop: Rlly? I blush
@Martin: If old white folks are ready for our own home-grown version of Burlusconi, a petulant, id-ful leader who express the frustrations they feel trying to make sense of a world that is spinning out of their control, then the GOP is ready to nominate Newt.
And I think the GOP is ready to nominate Newt.
R-Jud
@Martin: Yeah, I posted that and then remembered the many times Cole reports that he is off to “spoon Lily”.
Also, too: I hate the word panties. I don’t know why.
shortstop
@bemused: Speaking of Chuck Todd: I usually avoid Lawrence O’Donnell (Sorry! That’s “I…USUALLY…AVOID…LAWRENCE…O’DONNELL” delivered with a fixed stare and in mega-annoying slo-mo), but I happened to see old Chuck on there last night trying to be all badass after Trump responded to Todd’s slavish servitude with Trump’s usual idiotic bombast yesterday morning. Todd had had time to mull over his embarrassment all day and couldn’t wait to start sniping from the safety of O’Donnell’s guest seat last night.
So anyway, Todd averred that “Perry and Romney are the last ones still out” of Trump’s freak-show debate, which made me laugh out loud since Ron Paul has told Trump in no uncertain terms to go screw his carnival barker, conflict-of-interest self. I’m a super unfan of Paul’s, so this is no defense of him, but the dude is running a strong second in Iowa and IIRC has been doing so for some time. Of course the guy has no chance of winning the nomination, but he has a very good chance of doing well in Iowa, which was the venue Todd was talking about in the first place! I think Jon Stewart is right about the media’s bizarre pretense that Paul doesn’t exist. At least as far as Iowa is concerned, they’re having to twist themselves into knots not to see him standing there in the middle of the room.
Martin
@MikeJ: Oh, I realize that’s possible, but at some point someone in the party is going to utter the phrase ‘proportionate response’ in anticipation of Obama doing it during a debate as part of a rhetorical question about Newts temperament as leader of the free world. The GOP does not want to be the tail on that dog, not after Obama can run off his checklist of terrorists and dictators that are no longer part of the foreign policy discussion because he had them taken out.
Someone in the GOP is going to have to point out that winning 27% of the general election vote does not make you President, even if you are viewed as the next Rosa Parks by the base.
RossinDetroit
@burnspbesq:
Slapping Politico around and calling Ryan a lying fraud as a healthcare policymaker.
This would be remarkable stuff if it wasn’t so terribly commonplace.
Samara Morgan
i said, to Dr. Jim Manzi in 2008, that Palin would destroy the GOP.
And today, the party is sundering along the intellectual fault line that divides the elites from the base.
and if Cole would let me publish emails i could prove it.
;)
Martin
@R-Jud: Panties was always used in the context of little girls, not women, when I was growing up so it often seems creepy and inappropriate to me. Never really got past that.
Trinity
Woo…I need a cigarette after that.
shortstop
@Schlemizel: Meacham finally tries tongue-in-cheek, excels beyond all expectation on first attempt. Uh huh.
Samara Morgan
@Jewish Steel: it will be Gingrich.
you heard it here first.
Romney has a mormon problem, on top of his moderate problem.
Michael
I can personally attest that was spit-take worthy.
shortstop
@Michael: Some chicken farms actually feed their chickens chicken parts. So now I’m wondering if you could at least partially make chicken salad out of chicken shit.
carpeduum
@burnspbesq: Yawn……if you say so. More of the same old same old if you ask me.
Samara Morgan
Plus Beck vs Gingrich.
the war of the gargantuas.
did you juicers know Glenn Beck is a MORMON?
Tony J
I’m torn. A big part of me really, really wants Gingrich to stay out of trouble just long enough to make Mitt Romney cry a whole lake of salty tears by stealing HIS place on the podium at this year’s Lil’ Miss GOP Pageant. As a candidate he’d be.. Newt Gingrich. What more could the Obama campaign ask of the GOP?
But there’s another part of me, the kind that believes in unicorns and peppercorns with faces, that can’t get enough of the GOP base’s desperate lurching from one Not-Romney to the next. That part wants Gingrich to implode soon enough for someone like Huntsman or (Mithras willing) Ron Paul to get his time in the spotlight.
At some point, maybe when a brokered GOP convention actually holds a vote to put up ‘The Spirit of Ronald Reagan – As Interpreted Through Rhythmic Dance by Erik Erikson And A Husky Dog Called Murdock’ as the Party’s Not-Romney candidate, the MSM will have to admit that there’s not going to be much of a horserace to report on come next November.
But I’m sure the Opinion pages of the WaPo and NYT will find a way.
shortstop
@Tony J:
Nice.
JoyousMN
@Trinity:
Wanting a cigarette is so often my reaction after reading Pierce. I’ve even admitted it in the comments over there a couple of times.
I guess that’s when you know you’ve gone from dilettante to major political junkie.
Samara Morgan
@shortstop: do you mean conservative drench and ditch liquor?
where they feed their own waste back to pigs and cows?
but they had to quit that because of mad cow disease.
ImJohnGalt
As Schlemizel said, Meacham responds
MikeJ
@Martin: Republicans *hate* the idea of a proportionate response. Their belief is that if you cut off the head of someone who steps on your toe, people will go out of their way not to step on your toe. Anything less is viewed as weakness.
Being insane is not a negative in a Republican primary.
Samara Morgan
@Tony J: Romney can’t win the general and the conservative elite knows it.
what is their game? do they relly want 4 more years of the blackityblack kenyan mooslim usurper in the white house to smooth the path for rubio/jindal in 2016?
Catsy
@Villago Delenda Est: Wait, someone else read that one?
JenJen
#PIERCED
burnspbesq
@RossinDetroit:
You forgot to mention the amazing pun in the title of the post about the difference between GDP and GNP and why keeping that difference in mind is especially important where Ireland is concerned.
srv
I never thought the Fluffersphere’s oral efforts to Peak Wingnut would be so entertaining.
Perhaps Meacham’s performance should be soundtracked to some XXX score. Not sure which one.
Tony J
@shortstop:
I had to go there. FSM knows one of his opponents will.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jewish Steel:
Romney is from Shelbyville?
Martin
@MikeJ:
Yeah, I know that, but the rest of the country loves the idea of a proportionate response and find it to be one of our more exceptional virtues as a nation. If there’s a defense to be made for our indefensibly large military budget its that we can always afford a proportionate response because it’s backed up by the threat of an extinction event sized disproportionate response if it doesn’t work. The only excuse for a disproportionate response is that you’ve got no fallback if a proportionate response fails. That’s not us.
shortstop
@Tony J: Your preempting them is our comedy gain.
Martin
@Villago Delenda Est: It was called Morganville in those days.
Schlemizel
@ImJohnGalt:
Thanks – it didn’t occur to me to link to his excuse.
schrodinger's cat
Does Tunch approve?
Gin & Tonic
Since this is nominally about Newt — I’ve been doing a little research on the age issue, which bothers me. Someone asked here or on some other forum whether we ever (or often) trade in a younger president for an older one. Newt would be the second-oldest ever, in fact, just a year and change younger than Reagan was.
The only other presidents who were over 65 when they were inaugurated were W.H. Harrison, who died within a month of taking office, and James Buchanan, who is in pretty much everyone’s list of top-5 worst presidents ever.
In fact, the age difference between a President Newton Leroy Gingrich and President Obama would be by far the largest ever, at right around 18 years (Reagan was 13 years older than Carter.) We very seldom elect a president more than several months older than an incumbent; they are almost always younger. And when we do elect an older one, they often go on to have health problems (W.H. Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Ronald Reagan) or are of limited effectiveness (James Buchanan, Benjamin Harrison.)
Now I’m old myself, so I don’t believe I’m being an ageist; it’s that I know my concentration and energy level aren’t up for a demanding job like POTUS, and I’d argue Newton Leroy’s aren’t either.
catclub
@Martin: “Do you think the GOP base will ever have that realization moment that they nominated a guy to be President who shut down the entire federal government because someone made him sit in the back of a plane?”
Jewish Steel effectively answered that they will be saying:
“Fuck yeah!”
Villago Delenda Est
@Schlemizel:
Another hallmark of Villager vermin: a pathetic attempt to retroactively change his blow job into a pie in the face.
No one is buying that, scumbag.
Tony J
@Samara Morgan:
Speaking from outside the US I don’t see Obama losing to anyone next year. It might be tighter than 2008, or it might be a blowout, but there’s no one in the clown car with a chance of stitching together a large enough Republican coalition to win in the General.
So yeah, the GOP elite have written off 2012, and are more than willing to let Mitt partially self-fund his own vanity campaign if that’s what it takes to keep a True Believer off the ticket and limit the defeat to McCain type levels.
Chris
@Jewish Steel:
Don’t forget the professorial attitude. As much as they hate intellectuals, I’ve known quite a few of those “powerless conservatives” who simply LOVE to lecture. I’ve sat through entire dinners where the only conversation was one conservative explaining to everybody, in half-remembered Fox News slogans and Bible verses, just How The World Really Is. And it really does sound like “a stupid person’s idea of what a smart person sounds like.”
Newt Gingrich just gets to do it on national television.
JoyousMN
I think we should add a meme that says the second-to-the-last refuge of a scoundrel is, “I was just JOKING!”
bemused
@shortstop:
Bizarre pretences…it’s what our media does best.
Tone In DC
@metricpenny:
Oh, AYUH.
General Stuck
@Jewish Steel:
teehee, wonderful comment!!
Mike E
@Dennis G.:
The Great Unfinished Bizness of the GOP: to dig up the corpse of FDR; reanimate him to defeat him in a state that they know would be the only way to defeat him (FSM knows they couldn’t do it in Life); set him on fire, dancing around the blaze; and, grind up his bones so as to snort the powder of a hooker’s/lobbyist’s ass.
Well, at least in their mind’s eye…
Samara Morgan
@Tony J: i unnerstand why the GOP elite would buy into that….but why do pundits like Nate Silver?
Calouste
@Gin & Tonic:
And yet, since 1972, Bush II was the only GOP candidate under 60, and John Kerry was the only Dem candidate over 60.
gelfling545
@rikryah: I’m trying to explain to a 13 year old why she needs to get me a paper towel to mop up the spewed coffee. She doesn’t seem to be buying “something funny on the internet” as justification.
Rihilism
@Schlemizel: I’m a bit surprised that Meacham deigned to sully himself by responding to the rabble….
I always found Meacham insufferable and was very glad that Pierce used that exact word.
OUCH! Gawd forbid I should ever find myself at the receiving end of Pierce’s acidic wit. And everyone must take a look at the photo of Meachum that accompanies Pierce’s take-down. Highlarious!..
Ruckus
@The Dangerman:
It’s possible this says more about you than many of us want to know.
Tom Q
@Villago Delenda Est: Considering that Mecham, the day after Obama won a 7+%/365 EV victory with substantial Congressional majorities, was on TV warning him to remember this will always be a center-right country, I don’t see why anyone should have been expected to read this latest as spoof.
Calouste
@Tony J:
They have. Just look at the candidates, only three of them currently hold elected office, and none of them are Senators (first time since 1928). And of those three, Paul is an outcast and Bachmann is at risk of being redisticted out of her seat. Perry is the only one out of the eight candidates who could be considered to have an active political career with some prospects, although those prospects have evaporated after he started opening his mouth in the debates and it became clear to everyone just how dumb he is.
Ruckus
@Martin:
Someone in the GOP is going to have to point out that winning 27% of the general election vote does not make you President, even if you are viewed as the next Rosa Parks by the base.
Hope they don’t point this out before the election!
Tony J
@Samara Morgan:
Silver goes where the numbers lead him, and he has a record of being pretty much right a lot of the time in a business where most pundits don’t. If he’s saying current numbers show Romney as the most electable of the Gopper candidates in the here and now I can definately see how that might be. Ranged against the menagerie of fruit-loops, Godbotherers and grifters comprising the rest of the the GOP offerings he’s almost bound to come off looking like ‘the sane Republican who people might not be too embarassed to say they might vote for’.
And it doesn’t mean a thing until next year. The only person in the race so far is Barack Obama, and so far he’s winning.
Tony J
@Calouste:
Agreed. It’s the great unspoken truth of this Presidential election as far as the MSM is concerned, the boring reality they get paid to ignore while they write their fanfics. The Republican Party clearly does not think it stands a chance of winning the White House in 2012. If it did, they’d put up a serious candidate.
I mean, forget Gingrich, Cain, Perry, Bachmann, and all the other wannabes, at one point Donald Trump was prospective front runner for the Republican nomination. Everyone else who has since donned the Not-Romney Cowl of Inevitability was once second choice amongst Republican Primary voters to Donald Trump.
Yeah, they’re not even trying.
Samara Morgan
@Tony J: Nate wont talk about the Mormon Factor.
He’s too PC.
John Casey
@Tony J: As Barney Frank said, paraphrasing, he didn’t think he’d been a good enough person for God to give him Newt Gingrich as the Republican candidate.
shortstop
@Tony J:
This is an excellent time to mention that unlike Mr. Nate Silver, I predicted every single state correctly in the 2008 election!
Of course, since I didn’t provide (or, in many cases, have a clue about) supporting evidence for my predictions, and since I forgot Nebraska splits its votes and didn’t include Omaha’s on the Obama side, my achievement falls under the heading of “got totally lucky.”
Ben Cisco (mobile)
Man, that’s SHRILL!
Schlemizel
Interesting – there were two replies to Meacham’s excuse, mine & another one – both were pretty scathing & both have disappeared.
Sackless as well as a suck up
eemom
but IIRC, it ain’t a party until you’ve stuck your dick in the mashed potatoes.
You slay me Cole, honest you do. You are one of an exceptionally unique kind.
harlana
you made me read Meacham again how do you sleep at night?
Wilson Heath, Maj. Depression in the War on Chistmas
Cole has clearly earned a Moore Award nomination here.
jwalden91lx
Two words for Mr. Pierce: FLAWLESS VICTORY!
Frankensteinbeck
@Samara Morgan:
He doesn’t have to. That is how statistical science works. ‘Why’ doesn’t matter, only what the math spits out.
El Kabong
Ok, Mr. Cole. Isn’t it about time that Charles Pierce (or The Esquire Politics Blog) gets listed in the blogroll in BJ’s right-hand margin? Who’s with me?
mclaren
No, Pierce is wrong on one point. Rick Santorum is actually smarter and more competent and more reality-based than Ronald Reagan.
Folks, you all seem to have forgotten just how clueless and demented the Great Prevaricator actually was. Ronald Reagan gibbered clueless drivel that makes the current crop of Republican candidates look like Thomas Jefferson by comparison.
Just consider:
“Forest fires have produced more pollution than all the factories in America.
“Klaatu barada nicto!” (Reagan constantly muttered this while wandering the White House hallways as a justification for his crazy Star Wars missile defense scheme — in case aliens decided to attack the earth!)
“Facts are stupid things.”
“The end times are not far away.” (This, to the prime minister of Japan at a state dinner!!!)
“Well, then, we’ll just recall the missiles.” (To a Soviet ambassador who warned that Reagan’s militarism could set off WW III.
Seriously, people…has there ever been a woolly-headed fool running for the White House as demented and ignorant and unserious and incoherently witless as Ronald Wilson Reagan…?
mclaren
@Frankensteinbeck:
And you are provably wrong. Bayes’ Theorem tells us the probability that our causual hypothesis is correct. Statistical reasoning can indeed tell us why, and when applying the chi-squared test, Students’ distribution and Bayes theorem, we can in fact get a reliably accurate test of the accuracy of a causal hypothesis.
Paul in KY
@burnspbesq: That’s quite a stipulation there, counsel ;-)
Paul in KY
@John Casey: I don’t think I have either.