“Reasonable” conservatives’ latest crush (Huntsman) goes wingnut:
“[T]here is — there are questions about the validity of the science, evidenced by one university over in Scotland recently. I think the onus is on the scientific community to provide more in the way of information, to help clarify the situation.”
Ha ha, you stupid gullible motherfuckers.
MikeJ
Obscure object of desire? It’s almost as if two different people played Huntsman…
Gin & Tonic
I don’t get it. He has no fucking chance whatsoever, so why bother?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Just shoot me. Seriously though, I’m fine with him going wingnut, because he’s dangerous. He looks reasonable and sounded reasonable but would drive the US over the cliff at full speed just like the rest of the field. Thus he’s a bit less dangerous talking the nonsense that appeals to the base, as he can then frighten the actual swing voters.
C.J.
@Gin & Tonic:
I would assume he’s hoping his car is next in line in the fail parade.
Karen
Isn’t there a “Catch 22?” Huntsman has to get more insane to gain the love of the base conservatives but then he becomes less “reasonable.”
The stupid! It burns!
rikyrah
hee hee hee
I’ve been checking back at Sully to see him even acknowledge that his Hero Huntsman wimped out on climate change.
Mike G
“Now ask me how much scientific evidence I have that Jesus visited North America, God lives near a planet called “Kolob” and my sacred underwear has magical powers.”
lol
Maybe this will stop the left-wing love affair with Huntsman.
some guy
Western Afghanistan, Eastern Iran, opinions differ.
srv owes me a Cockspur and Coke
GregB
@Mike G:
For the win!
some guy
Polar Bears are capable of swimming. what is the problem? ice caps disappear all the time.
RSA
Yeah, the scientific community needs to provide more clarity to a Republican base that typically believes that the Earth is 10,000 years old, that a state-sponsored day of prayer for rain can relieve a drought, and that Satan is a living entity. More convincing science, that’s all we need.
Narcissus
Can’t wait til Andrew sees this.
amk
I toldja.
Hey sully, did your stupid head explode yet ?
Warren Terra
Huntsman has long been awarded the luxury of seeming too sane on select issues for the Republican base to tolerate, because he so obviously had no prospect of winning. Now that people have started whispering in his ear that he might have an actual chance, he can no longer afford to appear sane. And it’s logical that climate change would be the first vestige of sanity to go, and not evolution; the Koch brothers and other big money players don’t care about evolution.
Still, it’s worth keeping in mind that however much Huntsman has appeared to be the only sane one in the bunch, it’s all relative. He’s been shockingly rational on a few issues, but they’re fringe issues. His budget plan, on the other hand, is fncking nuts.
How nuts, you ask? Well, he wants to eliminate taxes on unearned income (capital gains, dividends), eliminate all credits and deductions, and greatly reduce tax rates for all brackets. The truly wealthy would pay no taxes, the top few percent would see a big tax cut, the middle class would more or less break even (it depends on the credits and deductions they currently can claim), and lower-middle-class families and the working poor would take it in the neck (tax rates mattering much less to such people than credits and deductions). Oh, and total tax revenues would fall, making the deficit worse. Some plan; some moderate; some sanity.
Villago Delenda Est
Excellent. I’ve got a volunteer to test out the Theory of Intelligent Falling, by being chucked out of a Blackhawk hovering at 1000 feet over a packed football stadium.
Have a nice trip, Jon.
Comrade Mary
I’m alternating between crying and gloating.
But then I look at Doug’s fucking awesome title and I just grin. Nice one, Doug.
mclaren
The term “reasonable conservative,” like “friendly rapist” and “kind torturer,” represents a self-contradiction. Politically speaking, such phrases violate the Pauli Exclusion Principle.
Mike in NC
Huntsman is nothing but the bored son of a Mormon billionaire who needs a hobby. He’ll soon drop this dalliance with wingnut politics for some other pursuit with a much better return.
some guy
Unless and Until the Polar-Bear Americans prove, beyond a reasonable doubt that their habitat is threatened there is no danger, despite what their shysters and suborned dirty hippies claim.
remain calm!
eemom
@Gin & Tonic:
aha! But now he thinks he DOES have a chance.
Thus it makes perfect, paradoxical sense: the mirage of reasonableness that prompted the increasingly desperate, agonized [giggle] republican establishment to — as Amir so eloquently phrased it the other day — begin “sniffing cautiously” in his direction, is the first thing that’s gotta go if he is to make a serious bid for the votes of the lunatic base.
God loves us, I tellz ya. This ever-devolving Clusterfuck of Clownery that is the republican bid for the WH is PROOF of that.
Thank you Jesus. Thank you Lord.
eemom
@Warren Terra:
yeah. That.
some guy
morons say what?
Peter
@Comrade Mary: I’d love to see attack ads directed by Buñuel: all the Republican candidates, just walking down a long country road in a breeze, not talking, for several minutes.
some guy
In January, Tehran said its forces shot down drones in the Gulf. In July, it said it shot down a drone near the city of Qom.
suzanne
@Mike G:
If I was part of the 1%, I would TOTALLY give you my internet, because that was full of win.
AlladinsLamp
And I’ve always wondered, Governor Huntsman, why the conquistadors, the friars, and the colonists had so much trouble with the Mormon Christian native population?
Jenny
@lol:
/fixed
gnomedad
When in Rome, do as the
Romansinmates do.RinaX
I honestly laughed for two minutes straight at this.
handsmile
@MikeJ: #1
How Bunuelesque of you! A doff of the beret.
MikeJ
@handsmile: It’s one of my favorite movies.
Joe Buck
@lol: @Jenny: Jenny, your comment made me curious, so I checked what the people at FDL have been saying about the guy. About the only thing I can find was that they pointed out that Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman sometimes tell the truth to the Republican base, therefore they will lose. It seems hard to disagree with that. If anyone over there (other than a random commenter) expressed any love for Huntsman I don’t see it.
They quoted Huntsman’s tweet where he said he believes in evolution and trusts scientists on global warming, but as Ron Ziegler said, that seems to be inoperative. I guess he must be running for VP now.
shortstop
@RinaX: Me, too!
Suffern ACE
That scientific community. So secretive. Comes from living your life in the closet I suppose, constantly worried that your family and friends will disown you when they find out. If only they’d do some outreach. Let everyone know how normal they really are. Adopt a media strategy and the right tone. If only they had some way to get that information out to the public.
dogwood
The Huntsman love among the commentariat is proof that no matter how much bloggers rightfully mock the big time media hacks, they are just as easily influence by their bloviating as everyone else. People who think Huntsman is reasonable because he doesn’t have a history of homophobic/anti-science/birtherisms on his record don’t understand Utah politics. He’s a right-wing, son of a billionaire Mormon family. That was plenty good enough in Utah to get elected pre teaparty. Before Obama, rich, powerful Mormons didn’t have to completely humiliate themselves to win. The reason he never caught on with Republican voters is two-fold. He began with very low name recognition and he’s a lousy campaigner. Watch him on the stump. He’s as stiff and uncomfortable as Romney and less charismatic if that’s possible. His one advantage over the Mittster is that his ads and press releases are often clever and always less obviously hackneyed. As I see it, Huntsman is just another in a long line of Republicans (Romney, Perry, W, Quayle) that guys like Matthews think “real American” woman are going to swoon over. If Gingrich is “a stupid man’s idea of what a smart guy sounds like”, then Huntsman is an ugly guy’s idea of what a handsome man looks like. That’s probably a bit harsh. More accurately, he’s a middle aged white guy’s idea of what a president looks like.
Mnemosyne
@some guy:
Could be worse — at least there wasn’t a crew for the Iranians to capture.
Citizen_X
Yeah, if there’s one thing scientists suck at, it’s providing information. All those global warming papers are like, “Abstract: GLOBAL WARMING IS FOR REALS. Data: TRUST US. Signed, SOME UNIVERSITY OVER THERE IN SCOTLAND.”
MTmofo
http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/12/06/huntsman_on_global_warming_the_scientific_community_owes_us_more_.html
see his tweet-flop
eemom
@Joe Buck:
here we get into the subtle distinction between the FDL and Glenn Greenwald Schools of Ratfuckery.
FDL is more of a blunt ratfucking instrument. It trades on simple, brain dead, no frills Obama-hate. With a few notable exceptions — e.g., Lady Jane’s infamous Norquist dick-sucking episode and short-lived dalliance with the teatards — its collective zombie-brain doesn’t have the spare neurons for republican, um, “subtleties.”
If, however, you’re looking for more surgical-precision level ratfuckery, Greenwald’s your man. Pretensions to “principled” libertarianism……above-it-all scoffing at party unity of any kind……Citizens United cheerleading……suck-uppery to scum ranging from Ron Paul to fucking Sarah Palin on the alleged basis of “principle”……yep, he’s got ’em all.
Mark S.
How reasonable was he to begin with?
Following the link, he says he wouldn’t do anything while the economy is in the shitter.
Calouste
The University of East Anglia is btw about 300 miles outside the Scottish borders, or further than NYC is from DC. You’s think the name would give some kind of clue as to whether it is located in Scotland or England.
The Raven
Flippety-floppity here they come…
Viva BrisVegas
@Calouste:
And Huntsman is supposed to be the Republican with foreign policy nous.
What does it say when the best and brightest of the Republican Party can’t tell the difference between England and Scotland? What was the land of his ancestors, Albania?
different-church-lady
I’m telling you people right now: they’re running out of shiny objects, and Huntsman is going to somehow be shiny before this is all over.
Omnes Omnibus
@lol: What left-wing love affair with Huntsman? I think people have confused a discussion of how Huntsman has seemed more reasonable than the other GOP candidates with an endorsement of Huntsman as a candidate or as a suggestion that he may be a viable alternative to Obama. For the most part, this is a mistake. For me, Huntsman has always seemed like a traditional, old fashoined Republican: sane, with a world-view that I can comprehend without a near fatal dose of mescaline, but not someone with whose world-view I agree and not someone from whom I would ever vote.
Tony J
Huntsman? Meh. He hasn’t done anything good since he played Count Krolock in The Fearless Vampire Killers.
Cheryl from Maryland
Kudos to all, especially Mike G, for great breakfast reading.
Thanks to BJ, I didn’t read WaPo yesterday, and I haven’t started it today, although the article about Gingrich in debt because of luxury airline charters is tempting.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cheryl from Maryland:
Look at it this way, if the article is good, someone will front page it or, at least, link to it.
Lojasmo
@Joe Buck:
Lady Rothschild has been fluffing Huntsman for a while. Fire bagger extrordinaire.
lol
@Joe Buck:
It’s not so much support for Huntsman himself as sympathy for the “He’s a reasonable Republican we can work with” viewpoint that bolsters the “Both sides are the same” mentality that they use to justify not supporting Obama.
JG
@eemom:
Suck-uppery to Ron Paul and Sarah Palin? Either you are being willfully deceitful or you have poor reading comprehension. The fact that he (GG) agrees with Ron Paul on various issues related to foreign policy and civil liberties (as do many posters here) is now a sign of suck-uppery?
The partisan mind is truly amazing.
Rommie
I live in Michigan. I’ve seen up-close the results of a “reasonable” conservative in the executive chair. Huntsman would be just as bad as any of the others in the GOP clown car.
Perhaps even worse, because all he’d have to do is sit on his hands and let Congress do the dirty work, while those who thought he was the moderate one all go “But, but, but…NOOOOOOO!”
daveNYC
So now that we’ve established what he is, we’re just negotiating over the price?
The Moar You Know
@eemom: Uh oh, you done kicked the hornet’s nest now.
That every word you just wrote happens to be 100% true isn’t going to slow that crowd down one second, sadly.
schrodinger's cat
@rikyrah: He is too busy conducting a deep sociological study about nudity in locker rooms.
eemom
@JG:
kiss my amazing partisan ass.
Greenwald praised Sarah Palin for being a “Washington outsider” who “made it on her own” — which adds “fact challenged moron” to his other sterling Ratfucker credentials.
eemom
@JG:
ah, I see Mr. Purity is kicking off his “annual fundraiser” today.
Go on, get your ass over there. Show us how that old “fools and their money” thing works.
John M. Burt
@Peter: Or maybe staring into the camera in silence, walking away, and chucking a rock into a pond?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rZdAB4V_j8
Peter
@John M. Burt: That’s awesome, though it looks like he can’t decide whether he’s doing “Blue Steel” or “Magnum.”