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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

All hail the time of the bunny!

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

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You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute / Got to give it up

Got to give it up

by DougJ|  January 25, 20123:35 pm| 79 Comments

This post is in: David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute

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He’s a little late (early by Village standards), but this is remarkably accurate, coming from Bobo (h/t reader T):

To me, this whole race (the Republican primary) is now about manhood. Newt won South Carolina because he’s a bigger Alpha and Republicans want bellicosity, not politeness. Mitt looked soft and in the debates seemed unwilling to fight.

Bobo goes on to say all kinds of crazy shit in the rest of the piece, but I give him a lot of credit for coming out and saying that the Republican primary is all quien es mas macho.

Maybe it makes no difference to anything important, but it bothers me a great deal that the official commentariat usually insists on claiming that the Republican base is a bunch of good, moderate, Applebees-going Americans who just need a brave, wise leader to unite them…when the reality is that they’ve gone totally insane and their methods are unsound.

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Reader Interactions

79Comments

  1. 1.

    canuckistani

    January 25, 2012 at 3:37 pm

    Are my methods unsound, Willard?

    I see no method at all.

  2. 2.

    EconWatcher

    January 25, 2012 at 3:37 pm

    OK, “their methods are unsound” must be some kind of in-joke, but I just can’t keep up.

  3. 3.

    third of two

    January 25, 2012 at 3:38 pm

    I don’t see any method at all.

  4. 4.

    Linnaeus

    January 25, 2012 at 3:38 pm

    Hmm…what’s the word I’m looking for? Begins with “f”, I think?

  5. 5.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 25, 2012 at 3:39 pm

    I give him a lot of credit for coming out and saying that the Republican primary is all quien es mas macho.

    Of course, they don’t say it exactly that way, especially if they’re in East Haven, Connecticut.

    What they want is someone who will call Obama a ni*CLANG* to his face, on national television.

  6. 6.

    EconWatcher

    January 25, 2012 at 3:40 pm

    @EconWatcher:

    Sorry, Apocalypse Now. Google is my friend.

  7. 7.

    Waynski

    January 25, 2012 at 3:40 pm

    They’re bringing on the Brawndo. How can that be unsound?

  8. 8.

    Brachiator

    January 25, 2012 at 3:43 pm

    @EconWatcher:

    OK, “their methods are unsound” must be some kind of in-joke, but I just can’t keep up.

    Movie References 101. Apocalypse, Now. Very apt.

    The GOP claims that Real America(tm) is losing its prememinent place in the world because of Obama. But even old commies are laughing at the Republicans.

    Fidel Castro lambasted the Republican presidential race as the greatest competition of “idiocy and ignorance” the world has ever seen in a column published Wednesday

    That’s gotta smart.

  9. 9.

    Comrade Nimrod Humperdink

    January 25, 2012 at 3:43 pm

    “I saw a, snail, crawling along the edge of a straight, razor…”

    I do hope this means that Newt’s command is terminated with extreme prejudice.

  10. 10.

    fubar

    January 25, 2012 at 3:44 pm

    Dick fight!

  11. 11.

    Stillwater

    January 25, 2012 at 3:44 pm

    Hey soldier. Do you know who’s in command here?

    Aint you?

  12. 12.

    John O

    January 25, 2012 at 3:44 pm

    when the reality is that they’ve gone totally insane and their methods are unsound.

    Nice porcine lipstick job there. I would say they’ve been insane, forever, at the very least.

  13. 13.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 25, 2012 at 3:46 pm

    Captain Willard’s first words when the MPs come looking for him in Saigon are “what are the charges?”

    This tells you that he’s ideally suited for the sort of wet work that all those guys in the General’s trailer are looking for.

  14. 14.

    Angry Egilsson

    January 25, 2012 at 3:48 pm

    It’s cool to see themes bloggers have been right about for years migrate over to the beltway folks.

    Brooks writing about republican base’s obsession with “manhood” and “bellicosity” is almost like he’s a DougJ spoof in a chat, but he’s totally serious – and he’s right (and several years too late).

    The republican base’s id is that shallow and pathetic.

  15. 15.

    Frankensteinbeck

    January 25, 2012 at 3:49 pm

    I figured it was just that Newt was being vicious and tough, which they like. He got a bump for that. Then he got vicious and tough *and wildly racist*, and he skyrocketed to victory.

    At that point, I think ‘GOP Obama-hate is driven by racism’ has been experimentally proven. I didn’t want to believe, but the evidence is right there.

  16. 16.

    kdaug

    January 25, 2012 at 3:49 pm

    On occasion, when my wife is upset with me, I raise up claw-hands and say “Gar-gar-gar!”.

    Doesn’t help much with the wife.

    But describes Republicans to the hilt.

  17. 17.

    Katie5

    January 25, 2012 at 3:50 pm

    A lot of this is pure bs. There’s advance voting in Florida. A lot of people voted in Florida before the recent upsurge of Newt. So the polls and the bellicosity (for this state at least) are irrelevant.

  18. 18.

    Brian R.

    January 25, 2012 at 3:52 pm

    So the “party of ideas” is really just the “party of id”?

    Tell me something I don’t know, Bobo.

  19. 19.

    kindness

    January 25, 2012 at 3:52 pm

    What? Bobo said something accurate?

    Them’s Fightin’ Words!

  20. 20.

    EconWatcher

    January 25, 2012 at 3:54 pm

    Somewhat OT, but what do y’all think of the latest apocalyptic stylings of George Soros:

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/22/george-soros-on-the-coming-u-s-class-war.html

    Basically, he says absent some really dramatic and unlikely turn around, Europe is going down hard; we’re going down with them; and it’s really going to be Mad Max this time (2008 being just a feeble prequel).

    Soros is obviously both very smart and a tad eccentric, but I wouldn’t consider him to be a crackpot. Frankly, as Newt would say, this causes me some concern about our fundamental viability.

    .

  21. 21.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 25, 2012 at 3:54 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Well, to be honest, if he were white, the hatred would still be there, because as we’ve often discussed here at BJ, a Democrat is, by default, an usurper, and has been since the 1980’s. No Democrat can be a legitimate holder of the White House. The only way they get installed in the office is through massive electoral fraud, in Obama’s case, ACORN!

    The fact that he is melanin-enhanced only exacerbates the trend that’s already there. Then there’s his wife, who is even MORE melanin-enhanced. If anything, this has driven them even farther into the realms of madness.

  22. 22.

    wrb

    January 25, 2012 at 3:55 pm

    Their bodies demonstrate their relative virility.

    If Mitt gets up in the night wanting to dish himself some ice cream, he feel Ann glowering and comes back with four raisins.

    Newt looks like the kind of guy who snarfs a cold rack of baby backs while holding the fridge door open, smearing his face with sauce and dribbling it down his belly, then loads up three or four Krispy Kremes to carry back to bed. He drops trou’, leave them on the floor and smears sauce and squirts creme filling all over the pillows and sheets.

    Mitt drops trou’ and gets into bed, but hears Ann hiss and gets up and shuffles off to the hamper.

    Real America has had enough of oppression by the skinnies. It wants a he-man who will stand up for serious snacking.

  23. 23.

    Napoleon

    January 25, 2012 at 3:57 pm

    @Katie5:

    I thought the polls account for that. If you are called they ask you if you voted yet. If you have they ask who you voted for and enter that into the poll results.

  24. 24.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 25, 2012 at 3:57 pm

    @EconWatcher:

    Soros understands the trendlines, and the thing is, climate change will just take the existing trends and put them into overdrive.

    I’m not sure the global civilization that has been around for the past few centuries will survive past 2050 at this point. Too many idiots at the top who refuse to act, ahem, conservatively.

  25. 25.

    Mark S.

    January 25, 2012 at 3:57 pm

    Eh, I don’t know. I think the big thing is that 70% of the GOP electorate just can’t stand Romney. They don’t think he’s really a conservative and they don’t think he actually gives a shit about anyone who isn’t worth eight figures.

    Imagine if Joe Lieberman were the “most electable Democratic candidate in the field.” A lot of us would have a hard time voting for him, and would flounce to various not-Joes.

  26. 26.

    Frankensteinbeck

    January 25, 2012 at 3:57 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    I agree that they would hate him as they hated Clinton, but the virulence is far beyond how they hated Clinton. I remember those days well, and the cooks freaked and Limbaugh said terrible things and congress acted like a bunch of pissy children, but this is an order of magnitude beyond that. When the candidate who finally goes whole hog and starts bellowing the least subtle racist tropes we’ve seen in decades gets a 20% jump in days, that means something. Not something small, either.

  27. 27.

    Angry DougJ

    January 25, 2012 at 3:57 pm

    @EconWatcher:

    A generally astute finance friend tells me Europe is indeed going down, but he thinks the effect it will have on the US economy is being vastly exaggerated.

  28. 28.

    dmsilev

    January 25, 2012 at 4:00 pm

    @Brachiator: You have to admit, Fidel Castro seems to have a keener insight into the GOP race than David Brooks does. Perhaps NBC could take him on as an analyst?

  29. 29.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 25, 2012 at 4:02 pm

    @dmsilev:

    Well, is Castro a polite dinner guest? Does he reach over you to get at the tiger shrimp? Does he pick out the blue M&Ms from the bowl in the green room?

    These are all fundamental questions that must be addressed.

  30. 30.

    merrinc

    January 25, 2012 at 4:04 pm

    I posted this yesterday but in a dying thread so here again is <a href="http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/01/22/2948763/sc-voters-say-they-opted-for-gingrichs.html&quot; a SC voter explaining his rationale for choosing Newt::

    Many voters said they liked the scrap in the former House speaker’s personality, his willingness to seek confrontations with his GOP rivals and the news media. That, they said, was what the GOP would need in the race against President Barack Obama this fall.

    “I think Mitt Romney is a good man,” said Harold Wade, 85, leaving a polling place in this picturesque seaside suburb outside Charleston. “But I think we’ve reached a point where we need someone who’s mean.”

    And Gingrich, he said, was the only one mean enough.

    (Emphasis added.) Sometimes I hate my fellow Americans. Especially those living just south of me.

  31. 31.

    wrb

    January 25, 2012 at 4:04 pm

    @Angry DougJ:

    Kinda like how Paulson thought the effect of a failure of Lehman Bros was vastly exaggerated.

    The failures possible in Europe dwarf Lehman’s.

    People don’t know how the system will react

    They do know that the remaining remedies are reduced. Not gonna get another stimulus to avert collapse of the US economy, for example.

  32. 32.

    trollhattan

    January 25, 2012 at 4:06 pm

    C’mon, now that we know Willard’s got the bigger bank account, doesn’t that make him muy mas macho in the village? Wealth=worth, amirite?

  33. 33.

    Angry DougJ

    January 25, 2012 at 4:08 pm

    @wrb:

    Kinda like how Paulson thought the effect of a failure of Lehman Bros was vastly exaggerated.

    Sure, but even so, the real problems here are from a massive housing bubble bursting, not from what happened at Lehman per se (the market for subprime-backed securities mostly stabilized, that’s not what’s killing us right now).

  34. 34.

    Delia

    January 25, 2012 at 4:08 pm

    Don’t the goopers have a large chimpanzee they could run? They could always nominate Dick Cheney as VP to do their really serious war-mongering.

  35. 35.

    Katie5

    January 25, 2012 at 4:09 pm

    @Napoleon: Get your point. But as far as I can read from the current polls, no they’re not asking that.

  36. 36.

    EconWatcher

    January 25, 2012 at 4:10 pm

    @wrb:

    Agreed on all points. They never built that financial wall they kept talking about to prevent contagion from spreading to Italy, Spain, and parts unkown if Greece does a hard default.

    How could we not be tanked if the financial system in Europe goes down?

  37. 37.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 25, 2012 at 4:10 pm

    @trollhattan:

    Well, remember how George H.W. Bush was dogged by the “wimp factor” even though he’s got millions in the bank?

    There are some things that giant bundles of cash can’t buy, and a macho image is one of them. Such an image might be helped along by cash, but look at Steve Forbes. Definitely NOT macho.

  38. 38.

    Violet

    January 25, 2012 at 4:13 pm

    According to TPM, Mittens is back ahead in the polls in Florida.

  39. 39.

    trollhattan

    January 25, 2012 at 4:14 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I suppose you’re right, it’s just that I continually hear folks defend/defer to the uberrich by literally saying that they wouldn’t have all that money if they weren’t smarter and didn’t work harder than the not-have/looter/parasites. (Which harkens back to Betty’s post on all the miserable jobs Mittens never and could not have done.)

    Ironically, Mittens would easily beat Newton in a slapfight. Into the octagon with them, stat!

  40. 40.

    trollhattan

    January 25, 2012 at 4:16 pm

    @Delia:

    Bolton’s available and ready should Cheney’s battery run low.

  41. 41.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 25, 2012 at 4:18 pm

    @trollhattan:

    Simple test, visual only. Put a guy in a tux next to a lineman in sleeveless vest wearing a hard hat and show it to some college age women and ask them which is more macho to them.

    They’ll probably go for the lineman. Especially if he’s got well defined muscles in his arms and chest area.

  42. 42.

    trollhattan

    January 25, 2012 at 4:22 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    True dat, but I don’t see college age women voting for any current republican.

    Somebody should poll Liberty U coeds and see how they’re leaning. I’d be genuinely curious. “Ron Paul–he’s so

    dreamy.

    “

  43. 43.

    Judas Escargot

    January 25, 2012 at 4:23 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Here’s the funny thing: money is ‘imaginary’. (And that includes gold, Paulites– any value over what it cost to dig it up out of the ground is in our collective heads, too).

    It’s amazing just how willing the PTB are to let everything fail, crash, and burn, rather than just admit that this particular round of the Glass Bead Game is over, and move on.

  44. 44.

    trollhattan

    January 25, 2012 at 4:23 pm

    @trollhattan:

    If I could edit I’d have changed my BQ to ital.

    Tunch, Tunch, we needz yew!

  45. 45.

    Monkey Business

    January 25, 2012 at 4:26 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: It’s gonna happen, especially if Newt is the nominee.

    Newt is already the Governor from Blazing Saddles. He’s put his arm around our collective shoulders and taken us aside and gone “Can’t you see that man’s a ni…?”

  46. 46.

    Brachiator

    January 25, 2012 at 4:26 pm

    @dmsilev:

    You have to admit, Fidel Castro seems to have a keener insight into the GOP race than David Brooks does. Perhaps NBC could take him on as an analyst?

    Or CBS could install him as the chief pundit on a new Sunday show, Face the Fidel.

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Well, to be honest, if he were white, the hatred would still be there, because as we’ve often discussed here at BJ, a Democrat is, by default, an usurper, and has been since the 1980’s. No Democrat can be a legitimate holder of the White House. The only way they get installed in the office is through massive electoral fraud, in Obama’s case, ACORN!

    With Obama it is both worse and different. No one suggested that Clinton became president because of voter fraud. It was always that he was unethical, etc.

    No one ever suggested that Clinton was not a natural born citizen, ineligible even to run for the presidency.

  47. 47.

    wrb

    January 25, 2012 at 4:35 pm

    @Brachiator:

    No one ever suggested that Clinton was not a natural born citizen, ineligible even to run for the presidency.

    That could just be due to lack of tallent and imagination on the R side.

    It took Clintonistas, in the form of PUMAs, to come up with something as bold and off-the-wall as birtherism.

  48. 48.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 25, 2012 at 4:36 pm

    @Brachiator:

    No one ever suggested that Clinton was not a natural born citizen, ineligible even to run for the presidency.

    A fair point, but it’s all customized rationalization for the individual who is the usurper.

    I won’t deny that what Obama has to put up with is basically Clinton hate turned up to 11. But it’s the same fundamental impulse. And that turning up to 11 has everything to do with the color of the man’s skin.

    Someone pointed out a few days ago here in comments that the fact that Obama is an intelligent man of color quite literally demolishes the world of the SC Republican primary voter. They can’t imagine that a black man, and African-American, can outsmart them over and over and over again. It simply cannot be. The evidence in front of them can’t be real.

  49. 49.

    Martin

    January 25, 2012 at 4:36 pm

    Yep. After watching Newt fall in the TPM polls, I can only conclude that the GOP preference poll correlates most strongly to “Who is the biggest asshole”. Newt wasn’t able to whip it out the last debate because the crowd was silenced.

    I think the entirety of the GOP nomination at this point is going to come down to the degree of audience participation is allowed in debates. If they can whoop and cat-call, Newt is the nominee. If not, it’s Romney. The tax returns and Fannie Mae connections are completely irrelevant, as are fidelity issues.

    This is the WWE brought to politics. Whoever brings the chair into the ring is going to win.

  50. 50.

    wrb

    January 25, 2012 at 4:37 pm

    fucking edit button

  51. 51.

    Angry DougJ

    January 25, 2012 at 4:39 pm

    @wrb:

    That could just be due to lack of tallent and imagination on the R side.

    Much of the war on Clinton took place before Al Gore’s internets were in wide usage. With the help of the world wide web, I think Republicans could have come up with more creative ways of foaming at the mouth about Clinton.

  52. 52.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 25, 2012 at 4:43 pm

    @trollhattan:

    Ugh. Just ugh.

    Another test might be to take the same man, put him in Army dress blues with a sword in a scabbard, with officer rank and plenty of fruit salad, then put him in battle dress carrying an M-16, and ask which is more macho.

    They’ll go for the battle dress, probably.

    Now, mind you, this is just a quick impression. If they’re looking for a lifetime mate, rather than a quick roll in the hay, they might use different criteria for making the call. The guy in the tux or the dress blues might be more the type they take home to mom and dad for approval.

    This campaign is to get the ni*CLANG* the fuck out of the WHITE House. They’ll go for macho, no matter how good OvenMitt’s shoulders look in a suit. They want a scrapper. Noot may have a body by Pillsbury, but OvenMitt comes across as a wuss.

  53. 53.

    Gust Avrakotos

    January 25, 2012 at 4:44 pm

    “…they’ve gone totally insane and their methods are unsound.”

    I don’t see any method at all, sir

  54. 54.

    hitchhiker

    January 25, 2012 at 4:52 pm

    Because I’m in Seattle where Mark Driscoll has been making a truly mind-boggling attempt to turn christianity into macho swagger, this feels like just another storyline about alpha males swaggering their mighty dicks all over the place as a sign of virtue.

    Driscoll, if you haven’t heard of him, is and endless source of humor & morbid fascination.

    From a recent interview:

    Driscoll: Do you believe in a conscious literal eternal torment of hell?

    Brierley: What has that got to do with the issue of women in leadership, if you don’t mind me asking?

    Driscoll: It does. It depends on your view of God. Is God like a mom who just embraces everyone? Or is he like a father who also protects, and defends, and disciplines? If you won’t answer the question, I think I know the answer.

    Driscoll is ALL about the discipline, baby. And he claims that young men are eating it up, because they just love a strong father figure to tell ’em what to do.

  55. 55.

    wrb

    January 25, 2012 at 4:54 pm

    @Angry DougJ:

    good point

  56. 56.

    Chris

    January 25, 2012 at 4:54 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    This is true, but the fact is that even if he were white, race would still be a part of it. Black Democrats are nig[DING!], and therefore despicable. White Democrats are nig[DING!] lovers, and therefore race traitors and almost as despicable, or even more despicable, depending on how you look at it. No matter what color their public face is, Democrats are still the party of These People.

  57. 57.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 25, 2012 at 4:55 pm

    @Angry DougJ:

    Oh, I don’t know about that “no intertoobs” thing, Doug. The Internet really got going in 1994 or thereabouts, and that coincides with the height of Clinton hatred. There were entire USENET newsgroups infested with Freeper types screaming about Mena, where supposedly Clinton personally greeted shipments of Cocaine into the country. True, the browser oriented web (which has come to mean “the internet” nowadays”) was in its infancy, but there were plenty of people who were participating in text media like USNET and IRC and screaming and yelling about Clinton’s perfidity.

  58. 58.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 25, 2012 at 4:59 pm

    @Chris:

    Chris, that’s a good point. After all, Clinton was often described as the first “black President” precisely because he very openiy considered African-Americans to not be subhuman.

  59. 59.

    Mnemosyne

    January 25, 2012 at 5:04 pm

    @Chris:

    No matter what color their public face is, Democrats are still the party of These People.

    Exactly. What’s driven the Republicans around the bend is that the actual president is now one of Those People.

    Throw in the fact that you can’t darkly hint about race traitors taking your stuff and giving it to Those People and have to come right out and say that That Man is going to take your stuff, and you have the miasma we have today.

  60. 60.

    qwerty42

    January 25, 2012 at 5:04 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    …This tells you that he’s ideally suited for the sort of wet work that all those guys in the General’s trailer are looking for. …

    And the clerk in the trailer is: Han Solo! or Indiana Jones.
    What a movie. So many good quotes from it.

  61. 61.

    Brachiator

    January 25, 2012 at 5:07 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I won’t deny that what Obama has to put up with is basically Clinton hate turned up to 11. But it’s the same fundamental impulse.

    No, it’s not.

    Even haters acknowledged that Clinton was the president. It was that he was the wrong man and brought shame to the office because he was unethical and trashy. Some of the most vile comments I see about the Obamas all have the same racist tinge, that he and his family pollute the White House by their presence, and that Obama is only pretending to be president, and must be voted out so that some kind of natural order be restored. By a white man. Or Sarah Palin.

    Similarly, the worst of these people don’t hate Michelle Obama because she is a strong, intelligent woman. She gave up the practice of law entirely, and obviously has not gone for even any symbolic job within the White House. But I read from the racist goons that Mrs Romney or Mrs Gingrich would be a “real” First Lady, simply because of their race.

    And of course, there are the trivially dismissive comments that anything that Mrs Obama wears is wrong, because clearly she doesn’t know how to dress, and so inherently (and this is important to the racist mind set) makes America look bad to the rest of the world.

    Someone pointed out a few days ago here in comments that the fact that Obama is an intelligent man of color quite literally demolishes the world of the SC Republican primary voter. They can’t imagine that a black man, and African-American, can outsmart them over and over and over again.

    It’s not just South Carolina Republicans.

    Bottom line, the subset of racists overlaps the subset of hardcore opponents to any Democrat. Similarly, there would be sexists who would go nuts had Hillary Clinton been elected president.

    I’m reminded again of a talk radio host, supposedly a moderate, who kept saying in early 2008, that America wasn’t ready for a black president. What he meant was, that he wasn’t ready for a black president. And I remember some liberals more or less admitting that they had a mental pecking order. First there would be a woman president, then a Jewish president, then a black president. Obama disrupted this order. Obviously, most Democrats, and most Americans came around. But there is this virulent fringe, that gets angrier the more Obama succeeds.

  62. 62.

    Linnaeus

    January 25, 2012 at 5:09 pm

    @hitchhiker:

    Yep; take a closer look and you find that Mars Hill, for all its supposed hipness, is old wine in new bottles.

  63. 63.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 25, 2012 at 5:10 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Brach, you’re forgetting that the entire “He’s not MY President” meme was born when that fucking Hillbilly ejected the rightful President in an epic ass kicking in ’92.

    They denied his legitimacy from day one.

  64. 64.

    kdaug

    January 25, 2012 at 5:15 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    but look at Steve Forbes

    No.

  65. 65.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 25, 2012 at 5:22 pm

    @qwerty42:

    Well, the “clerk” was a full colonel (you can see the chicken on his collar) but yeah, Han Solo or Indiana Jones. The civilian guy is implied to be CIA or someone from the White House there to supervise the entire thing…Kurtz has become a serious embarassment, after all.

  66. 66.

    Chris

    January 25, 2012 at 5:30 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Even haters acknowledged that Clinton was the president. It was that he was the wrong man and brought shame to the office because he was unethical and trashy. Some of the most vile comments I see about the Obamas all have the same racist tinge, that he and his family pollute the White House by their presence, and that Obama is only pretending to be president, and must be voted out so that some kind of natural order be restored. By a white man. Or Sarah Palin.

    As VDE points out… the “not my president!” meme was alive and well in the 1990s. The “our first goal is to make sure the Democratic President fails” meme dates from 1994, when Gingrich told his fellow congresspeople that the guys on the other side of the aisle were not colleagues but blood enemies. All the militia/survivalist paranoia, the your-government-is-coming-for-you-prepare-for-war memes, date from that era.

    Heck, they spent most of the 1990s looking for a reason, any reason, to remove him from office, and were so desperate towards the end that they actually tried to use the Lewinsky blow-job as their excuse.

    It’s been said many times on Balloon Juice and elsewhere, but modern conservatives do not consider government by Democrats legitimate, period, no matter how moderate the Democrats may be, no matter how they got into office and no matter what they look like. As far as they’re concerned, Reagan consecrated the White House as Holy Republican Ground in 1980, and any Democrat who’s taken it since then is essentially a foreign government, to be treated as such.

    True, Obama offers opportunities for racial hate that no white man would… but I don’t believe for a second that they would’ve accepted a Hillary Clinton presidency as any more legitimate.

  67. 67.

    Montysano

    January 25, 2012 at 5:31 pm

    What are they gonna say about Newt? What are they gonna say? That he was a kind man? That he was a wise man? That he had plans, man? That he had wisdom?

    Or was he just a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas?

  68. 68.

    Martin

    January 25, 2012 at 5:39 pm

    @wrb: So that’s where it went. You mind giving it back when you’re done with it?

  69. 69.

    Brachiator

    January 25, 2012 at 5:45 pm

    @Chris:

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Brach, you’re forgetting that the entire “He’s not MY President” meme was born when that fucking Hillbilly ejected the rightful President in an epic ass kicking in ‘92.

    I’m not forgetting this at all. That’s is not the same thing at all as the notion that Obama is not anyone’s president. I have no idea why you are fighting this, or trying to insist on some kind of false equivalence that the Obama bashing is just a variant of hatred of Democrats.

    Again, you appear to be looking for a single unified reason for opposition to Obama. But it’s not either/or. It’s both/and.

    And again, Clinton was attacked because of his supposed lack of character. On the other hand, we saw Donald Trump come out with the sleazy accusations that Obama was a foreigner and a beneficiary of affirmative action. This went beyond the idea of attacks on character or politics, or the idea question of legitimacy, and got to the core racist beliefs that all black people are inadequate.

    And obviously, this vile nonsense was not limited to the Republican opposition. What was Geraldine Ferraro’s excuse?

  70. 70.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 25, 2012 at 5:45 pm

    @Chris:

    True, Obama offers opportunities for racial hate that no white man would… but I don’t believe for a second that they would’ve accepted a Hillary Clinton presidency as any more legitimate.

    Or Bradley, or Edwards, or Kucinich, or whoever with a (D) behind their names.

    It’s cranked up to 11 with the near guy, and it’s more obvious and ugly, but I contend the illegitimacy is based on that (D).

  71. 71.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 25, 2012 at 5:52 pm

    @Brachiator:

    And again, Clinton was attacked because of his supposed lack of character.

    No, that was the pretext. The entire Whitewater mess was all pretext. The facts of Whitewater were that the Clintons’ LOST MONEY on the deal. They were in fact the victims of what could very well be called a scam.

    Also, keep in mind, even when Ken Starr himself found nothing in Whitewater that could be used against Clinton, he was told, in no uncertain terms by various Republicans, to go back and find something, ANYTHING, to pin on Clinton or his wife or his daughter or Socks the cat. ANYTHING.

    Clinton was considered illegitimate from day one. He was not “THEIR” President, and they searched for ways to legitimize their hatred…so they settled on character. With Obama, it’s easy…he’s got too much melanin. He’s got a funny name. He grew up not in Theodore Cleaver’s neighborhood, but somewhere across the ocean.

    Clinton’s true crime was the (D) behind his name. With Obama, he’s got that AND his skin color, which means that none of his accomplishments are real because it’s obviously just white guilt and affirmative action from the day he was born, the location of which has not been established, but by God it was not in the USA!

  72. 72.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 25, 2012 at 6:01 pm

    @Brachiator:

    And obviously, this vile nonsense was not limited to the Republican opposition. What was Geraldine Ferraro’s excuse?

    She had none; pure racism on her part, to her eternal discredit.

    I won’t deny the racial angle on Obama, it’s obvious, it’s loud, it’s real.

    But it’s just another example of how something is used as cover for the fundamental problem: the (D).

  73. 73.

    wrb

    January 25, 2012 at 6:20 pm

    @Martin:

    Maybe, but couldn’t say when I’ll be done with it.

    It’s mighty satisfying, having an edit button.

  74. 74.

    wrb

    January 25, 2012 at 6:22 pm

    Here, as soon as we were done it started talking about its hair.

  75. 75.

    WaterGirl

    January 25, 2012 at 6:23 pm

    @Martin: I read somewhere today (can’t recall where) that Newt said he wouldn’t participate in any more debates where the audience doesn’t get to respond to the debaters while they are on stage.

    So I think Newt would agree with what you wrote.

    Edit: changed a couple of words so I could test the edit feature. Yay edit!

  76. 76.

    Brachiator

    January 25, 2012 at 6:52 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    But it’s just another example of how something is used as cover for the fundamental problem: the (D).

    We fundamentally disagree here. I saw a lot of the racial anxiety over Obama arising in people who are largey apolitical.

    And obviously it makes no sense to say that Geraldine Ferraro was “just another example of how something is used as cover for the fundamental problem,” since Ferraro was also a Democrat.

    I don’t see that you can reduce things solely to the political dimension. But then again, while I believe in fundmental particles, I don’t think many things can be boiled down to root causes or fundamental problems.

    But maybe we have to wait until there is a black woman Republican president to put it to the ultimate test. Maybe even a black gay woman Republican Mormon.

  77. 77.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 25, 2012 at 6:59 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Well, we’re talking past each other.

    For Rethuglicans, generically, it’s about both.

    Obviously for others, it’s his inherent nearness.

    In that I have no doubt. It’s a perfect shitstorm of qualities these bigoted asswipes don’t like that override whatever intelligence they may actually have.

    I contend that for the Rethugs, they’d be just as intransigent with anyone with a (D) behind their names. Hillary, Edwards, Kucinich, doesn’t matter.

    Me, I’m one of the ni*CLANG* lovers, I don’t give a rat’s ass about skin color, I’m concerned with the content of character and the ability to get the job done and also for being the sane one.

  78. 78.

    lol

    January 25, 2012 at 7:27 pm

    @wrb:

    Clintonistas didn’t come up with birtherism. You have to remember how it originally started with that original WorldNetDaily article: it was a smear against *Clinton* that she was tarring the reputation of this model African-American with these ridiculously false claims and isn’t that sooo typical of them, etc, etc.

    Once Obama became an actual threat, then they decided the claims they had gone to great lengths to debunk were actually true.

    Of course, PUMA-types desperately latched on later on, but it was the right-wingers who came up with it.

  79. 79.

    Paul in KY

    January 26, 2012 at 8:45 am

    @Villago Delenda Est: The blue m & m’s are the ones that will fuck you up. All stars know that.

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