__
Let this be remembered as the day Erick “Voice of the GOP Gated Community” Erickson went full-metal Crazification Factor:
When you have a candidate few people really like, whose support is a mile wide and an inch deep, whose raison d’etre (a 4am fancy word) is fixing an economy that is fixing itself without him, and who only wins his actual, factual home state by three percentage points against a guy no one took seriously only two months ago, there really is little reason for independent voters in the general election to choose him if the economy keeps improving.
__
Seriously, putting it bluntly, conservatives may not like Barack Obama, but most other people do. And when faced with a guy you like and a guy you don’t like who says he can fix an economy that no longer needs fixing, you’re going to go with the guy you like.
__
If Republicans in Washington are not panicked and trying desperately to pull Bobby Jindal in the race tomorrow, or someone like him, the party leaders must have a death wish.Mitt Romney continues to run an uninspiring campaign only able to win by massively outspending his opponents to tell voters how much worse the other guys are. That may work in the primary, but it will not work in a general election where the President of the United States won’t be outspent 5 to 1…
__
Hello? Bobby Jindal? You paying attention?
My emphasis. Shorter Infinite Ericks: If we’re gonna beat the Brown Guy in the White House, we need a brown guy of our very own! (Because that worked so very, very well for Alan Keyes!)
***********
What other antic japes are on the agenda this evening?
BGinCHI
E sonofa E gets it right, though without putting his finger on it:
The Rich Motherfucker (Romney) can’t be dislodged because in the logic of the GOP, rich can’t fail. And so he will just spend and spend and there isn’t anything anyone can do. The 27% will have to leave the party, but it ain’t gonna give up Mammon.
daveNYC
What’s funny is that his second paragraph is very sane.
wenchacha
Oh, yes. Please. Bobby Jingle’s style is so charismatic that POTUS wouldn’t stand a chance.
It’s a given that you can lie on Leap Day, right?
c u n d gulag
I think Rep. Allen West is their man.
Vet.
Crazy.
Wingnut.
Teabagger.
General all-around loon!
And he’s black, too!
Maybe put Bachmann on the ticket with him, and you can get those disaffected PUMA’s from 2008, and the black folk who don’t really support Obama if given a good alternative – at least that’s what “The Whore of Babblin’ On” Palin and Herman Cain are tellin’ em!
PeakVT
The Republephant has a sad. So sad.
Tom Johnson
I really really don’t understand the appeal of Bobby Jindal. Someone needs to explain it to me. He seems nice enough…but Presidential? I really don’t get it.
I don’t get Mitch Daniels, either. The architect of the Bush deficits running as a deficit hawk? And not quite as Kenneth-the-page as Jindahl, but not that far off, either.
A few years ago, it seemed like the Republicans had a deep bench. What happened to it? I guess it was just guys like Jindal and Daniels and Tim Pawlenty (seriously: who was it who suggeted he was Presidential material?) were the bench, but they don’t look all that deep right now.
What is it about wishy-washy nerdboys that the Washington wise men find so appealing?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@daveNYC: Yeah, pretty much sums up my view of the election, with the caveat that the economy is better, but not good. How do you get form that reality-based analysis to “Bobby Jindal will save us!”?
Richard Vigurie, who I don’t think has the clout he used to have in the GOP, was on the Ed Schultz show walking back his No Romney, No Way, No How pledge, strongly hinting that only a VP Santorum would make Romney acceptable. I’ve been thinking that there’s no way the GOP would give Obama a Palin-sized gift again but who knows? OTOH, I think Romney is thin-skinned and resentful and would never take a rival on to his ticket.
priscianusjr
Anoniminous
Guess there are no such things as “filing deadlines” in Erick Son of Erick’s Universe. In this Universe, however, them things exist and they have long since become burst frothy bubbles in the Time Stream.
wvng
In the meantime, “my” Senator Manchin is giving support to the crazies. http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/joe-manchin-to-vote-for-blunt-contraception-bill
Linda Featheringill
I noticed that one of the commenters on RedState, responding to the column quoted above, said something to the effect that if the economy is in decent shape and if Osama Bin Laden is still dead, all on election day, then Obama will win.
Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill
@daveNYC:
I think he’s been scared into some serious sobering up. Erick sees some writing on the wall for the GOP, no doubt.
We’ll see if it sticks.
beergoggles
Has anyone seen Jindal’s long form birth certificate yet?
Brachiator
Needed relief from political crazification.
And so, had fun reading The Rodarte Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer
(lots of spoilers, just in case).
Loved this one comment:
Becoming, Part 2 no joke changed my life when I was thirteen. That whole “No weapons, no friends, no hope” exchange had a huge influence on me learning to identify as a feminist.
Sent this along to my niece, who is at the age where this may be useful.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Tom Johnson:
and the other side of the coin: Chris Christie. I can’t believe anybody thinks that nasty fuck can win a general, much less help Romney win it. I think Daniels, because American politics is short attention span theatre, would be stronger than Christie.
Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill
@Tom Johnson:
They were deep enough to stay the hell away from this oncoming disaster, so you gotta give ’em some credit.
Hell, even Palin decided early on she wasn’t playing this game.
Bulworth
I’m pretty sure this is a violation of the conservative teabag code of inethics. They can’t admit people might like their opponents.
Mike Goetz
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I can see Jindal as the running mate, as a sort of “smart” Santorum substitute.
Roger Moore
In response to the cartoon, I can only say “Jump, You Fuckers”.
trollhattan
Here’s something to rev up the Creation Museum staff.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/radical-theory-of-first-americans-places-stone-age-europeans-in-delmarva-20000-years-ago/2012/02/28/gIQA4mriiR_story.html
Heliopause
If Jindal entered the race tomorrow he would rocket to the top of the polls for a couple of weeks and then, as it became clear that he’s as nutty as the others, fall back to the pack. Somebody tell Erickson that their only chance for a non-Romney is to hope for a deadlocked convention, helicopter in the saviour, and hope to god that he can get through the following two months before the general without being revealed for the ideologue that he is. Really, people of Erickson’s bent should be keeping quiet about this until mid-late summer.
Rafer Janders
@Anoniminous:
The rules only apply to the other guys.
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
I used to enjoy Solu Trean on TV back in the day. Cool dancing and Don Cornelius was always sharp.
MikeJ
@Bulworth:
Did you note though that he goes on about how the economy is fixing itself? If Romney were president, he would be the one fixing it. Since Obama is president, the economy is “fixing itself.”
Chyron HR
@Tom Johnson:
Veritas.
trollhattan
@Heliopause:
Jindal/Paul (not that Paul, the other Paul) would be a great melding of exorcism and aquabuddha. Throw in some volcano research for good measure.
Make it so.
Rafer Janders
My favorite memory of Jindal was him mocking “sumthin’ caw-welled vul-cay-nah mahnutarin'” a few months before the Iceland volcano erupted and shut down virtually all air traffic between the US and Europe.
PeakVT
@trollhattan: Thanks for that link. The first settlement of the Americas is a fascinating topic.
slightly-peeved
I think the Republicans confused quantity with quality. No point in having 6 or 7 candidates and then forcing them all to spout identical rhetoric. If you force your candidates to wear a straitjacket, don’t complain when the only candidates you find are professional tricksters and the insane.
Rafer Janders
@MikeJ:
That’s the invisble hand of the market giving Republican candidates the finger.
Even the market, it seems, has a liberal bias…
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
Finding out Mister Solu was gay made it even more fun!
trollhattan
@PeakVT:
They keep pushing back the dawn of human settlement in the Americas, which amazes me. I’m hoping we can keep the angel Moroni out of the discussions.
bemused
I think the exorcism incident might create a problem for Bobby. Then again, considering the cuckoo GOP campaign show so far, he would fit right in.
Tom65
You know that shit’s gone irretrievably sideways when your Plan B is Bobby Jindal (or Sarah Palin, or Christine O’Donnell, or Jan Brewer, or whoever the Savior Of The Week is).
SiubhanDuinne
How in the world have I managed until today to not know about The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work by Belén Fernández?
I don’t know about y’all, but I can’t wait to read it!
butler
Take that Italy! Just 6 more wins and our head-to-head will be all square!
kay
I wish Romney would come close enough so I can go to one of his rallies on a work day.
I’m dying to get a feel for that, in an actual crowd.
They didn’t have any real enthusiasm for McCain here either, they had to fill dead space with high school bands at his rally, but Romney has such an awkward vibe I just think it would be great to see him live out here.
I have to get on his email list.
Jager
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Mitch Daniels has spent his entire life on the short list
Old Dan and Little Ann
I like Kenneth the Page. He’s got a lot of charisma.
The Other Chuck
@Rafer Janders:
Even before the Eyafullifillifripperfyflopperfloopifal volcano erupted, there was an ash plume thrown up in Alaska that was detected by the volcano observatory, and resulted in shutting down the nearby airports. I may not believe in God, but I think Gaia decided some geological-scale mockery was in order…
Nutella
@beergoggles:
He’s an anchor baby. That would be fun to remind the 27% about.
jacy
this is via my dear friend Anecdotal McAnecdotalson, but according to my college-age kids (who are even more liberal than me) all their staunch Republican friends (we do live in Louisiana and my son is a high school football coach here) are so demoralized they don’t even want to talk about it. How they sum up the Republicans, actual quote: “Bunch of fuckin’ clowns.” They’ve given up the race already.
As for Jindal — he has so gutted education and healthcare down here, that his support among young Republicans has cratered. You don’t want to hear what the Republican kids are saying about him. He’s well on his way to becoming unpopular in his own state. People used to say nice things about him in the grocery store and at the mechanics or the feed store, and now what they say about him is unprintable.
Surly Duff
Jindal? It is like this never happened
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
Napolean Solu, from The Man From Uncle was gay? Oh, my!
PeakVT
@trollhattan: Heh.
One sentence in the piece puzzles me. “If Solutrean boat people washed up on our shores, they suffered cultural amnesia, genetic amnesia, dental amnesia, linguistic amnesia, and skeletal amnesia. Basically, all of the signals are pointing to Asia” as the origin of the first Americans.
I don’t see why it couldn’t be the case that one wave of settlers simply didn’t survive. The Vikings didn’t last in NA or in Greenland. Or the Soultrean wave could have survived with a low population level, and then been killed by the next wave. It’s not like genocide is a 20th century invention.
Elizabelle
Driftglass and DougJ bait: Brad DeLong’s response to Bobo yesterday on “Possum Republicans”
Where were you in 1993, David Brooks?
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/02/where-were-you-in-1993-david-brooks.html
BC
@Tom Johnson: I think the reason that Daniels, Jindal, and Christie are put out as presidential material is because they are governors. It’s conventional wisdom that governors are in training to be presidents. And, after all, these governors have balanced the state budgets, so that gets them some vibes. All said and done, the Bush years were so yesterday, weren’t they?
piratedan
is it possible/plausible to request a RIP thread for Mr. Jones?
Southern Beale
BOBBY JINDAL WILL SAVE US ALL!
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
That is the BEST laugh I’ve had all day. Thanks for that. This isn’t … some kind of Leap Day joke is it? Like April Fool’s day?
schrodinger's cat
@beergoggles: I don’t think his parents were citizens when he was born. It shouldn’t matter really, but I think it does to the birthers. BTW, this law about the President being born in the US, has it always been in place or was it later addition? I am sure, that not all the Founding Fathers were born in the US, right?
ETA: I mean take for instance, Washington, when he was born US did not exist, so he was a British citizen by birth and yet he became President.
Rafer Janders
@PeakVT:
Something in me keeps wanting to read it as “the Soultrain people”….
pragmatism
piyush would tackle immigration as he tackled the BP oilmageddon–by building a massive berm on our borders.
John D
@schrodinger’s cat:
It’s not merely a law — it’s the US Constitution.
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
The people who were citizens at the time were grandfathered in.
dww44
@Tom Johnson: I so agree with everything you wrote here, particularly about the Presidentialness of both Jindall and Daniels.
schrodinger's cat
@Southern Beale: A perfect topic for Zandar (or Steve M) to concern troll about.
gex
@Tom Johnson: It’s the weenie men that are insecure about their masculinity and the male role in society that end up playing the part of alpha dog with that machismo and red meat that the base demands.
Strong men, real men, don’t have to act like those clowns. So any positive impression you have/had of them is all PR.
Rafer Janders
@schrodinger’s cat:
Well, to be technical about it, none of the Founding Fathers were born in the US. They were all born subjects of the British Empire.
But yes, most of them were born in one of the thirteen colonies that later became the US, though Alexander Hamilton was born in the West Indies.
schrodinger's cat
@John D: Doesn’t it seem strange for a country of immigrants to have that in the Constitution? What was the rationale?
Elizabelle
And I found the link to Prof. DeLong care of the very shrill Prof. Krugman today. Shrillness becomes him.
Looking Back with Shrillness
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/29/looking-back-with-shrillness/
Southern Beale
@schrodinger’s cat:
Oh c’mon! You know that’s only for DEMOCRATS! I’m so old, I remember when everyone was hot to amend the Constitution so Arnold Schwarzenegger could run for president!
Schlemizel
This might be good news! NPR says they are going to stop trying to be “balanced” & try to be “fair to the truth?
http://pressthink.org/index.html
New thing on BJ – I keep jumping in & out of mobile presentation, every time I click I get the opposite of the presentation I had =8-{D
John D
@schrodinger’s cat: Not really. They had just thrown off foreign influence upon their lives and wanted to make sure that they would determine their own destiny going forward. Doesn’t seem strange in the slightest.
trollhattan
@PeakVT:
Agreed. The odds agains human remains…remaining and being discovered are enormous even when someone’s actively looking. Hard to look carefully for something you don’t know exists. Now that they have tools and butchered animal bits, at least they can begin.
Thinking of how much we’ve learned since the “ice man” discovery, how many lightning bolts are still out there?
schrodinger's cat
@Southern Beale: Do you seriously think that the people who want to take their “Country back” really want to see the child of Indian immigrants in the White House? I seriously doubt it.
Brachiator
@Rafer Janders:
A little demographic background of those at the Constitutional Convention, (a good place to declare who were founders).
John D
@Schlemizel: If you go to https://balloon-juice.com, it stays with most current version of regular site. If you go to https://balloon-juice.com, it often displays an older version, and often displays the mobile version.
Zifnab
@schrodinger’s cat: The Europeans had a habit of installing European-born governors to rule over native born colonists. Spain, for instance, wouldn’t even consider you as a governor of your province if you were born in Mexico.
I think it was something of a big middle finger towards that kind of colonialism.
Patricia Kayden
Poor Bobby Jindal. What makes Erick think that he would fare better against President Obama? Just because he’s not White?
I hope Erick is right that the President will be reelected. But I am enjoying the Republican trainwreck. Crossing my fingers for a brokered convention.
PeakVT
@Rafer Janders: I read the word as “Soultrean” for the first couple of years after I encountered the term. My brain does that every once in a while.
Egg Berry
Just out of curiosity, as a political analyst, what office has Erick ever won?
schrodinger's cat
@Zifnab: Ok now it makes sense.
I was kinda thinking in today’s terms. If you pride yourself as a nation of immigrants then it doesn’t make sense to keep the most important office in the country closed to them. But may be the Founding Fathers did not see themselves that way. They just wanted to get rid of the British influence.
The Dangerman
Purple elephant kinda looks like Barney. DEFLATE THE AIRBAGS!
Rafer Janders
@John D:
It was also an attempt to prevent the leadership of the US being given to a foreign prince, as for example when the crown of Great Britain was offered to the Elector of Hanover in Germany, who then became King George I (grandfather of the George III of the Revolutionary era). If only a natural-born citizen could take office, it would prevent a foreign potentate from sweeping in.
MikeJ
@schrodinger’s cat:
It’s not in there now, depending on how you read the constitution. You need to be an American citizen by birth, but not necessarily born here. McCain wasn’t born in the US.
schrodinger's cat
@The Dangerman: Oh noes are you saying that the elephant is gay? No wait that’s not Barney that’s Tinky Winky.
Chuck Butcher
Bobby Jindal would appeal? On WTF evidence? Yeah, there’s one real exciting guy…
You might fall asleep over your keyboard and string out a bunch of characters but it’s hard to vote like that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Oh my god. Tweety and Kelly O’Donnell have equated Ben Nelson and Olympia Snowe as “moderates” about seven times in three minutes. And for the icing on the bullshit cake, Tweety laments the loss of “Johnny” Breaux.
Elizabelle
In light of last week’s ESPN headline kerfuffle, an interesting headline at the WaPost website:
It’s true, the guy is incredibly talented and a great communicator.
But I kind of stared at the headline … am I just being a scold? Black hole is livelier than vacuum, but just something about this one …
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-leadership/post/astrophysicist-neil-degrasse-tyson-fills-a-leadership-black-hole/2011/04/01/gIQAN8UNgR_blog.html?tid=pm_national_pop
Southern Beale
That little dweeb James O’Keefe has sued Keith Olbermann, David Shuster and Current TV for saying he was convicted of a felony and accused of rape.
This should be fun.
Warren Terra
In the Obituaries at The New York Times, by far the most kick-ass woman you’ll read about this week:
Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity
@Egg Berry: Macon, Georgia – city council.
Quit halfway through his first term to land a radio job.
Anne Laurie
@schrodinger’s cat:
Some people say Alexander Hamilton was the target (/snark). More seriously, the whole “democracy” thing was such a new experiment in the world, there was a genuine fear that a later, less resolute generation would succumb to the old European habit of importing a younger son from one or another royal family to start an American kingship. Remember that Britain, at the time, was ruled by the (clinically insane) son of a German immigrant who’d never even bothered to learn the language. The whole we-are-a-new-race-springing-from-the-soil-of-a-new-continent was important to men who, in point of fact, were the offspring of exiles, remittance men, failed businessmen & indentured servants attempting to legitimize a whole new form of government in a dangerous wilderness on the edge of the civilized universe.
Schlemizel
It was turd blossom, the GOP Gee-knee-yus. Timmy wanted to run against Wellstone & the ultimate POS Coleman was going to run for Gov. I think Rove knew that Mr. Pasty needed seasoning whereas the empty suit would look better on the TV and be easier to control in the Senate.
Both those losers will be sucking wingnut teat now.
DanielX
Bobby Jindal? Did I read that correctly? Bobby Fucking Jindal? The same Bobby Jindal whose response to Obama’s first State of the Union address sounded like a Saturday Night Live sketch, and not a very good one?
With sage advice like this, what could possibly go wrong?
Guys on the Republican National Committee have to contemplating retirement or mass suicide right about now.
Suffern ACE
@elizabelle- once you get sucked into the leadership black hole, you are never heard from again and all information about you is destroyed. It sucks being a leader.
ShadeTail
Not entirely off-topic: Dr. Krugman shrilly points out that he is shrill.
Bokonon
What Krugman said in his NYTimes blog post today was justified. But the problem goes deeper than the Republican Party. The party doesn’t MAKE people crazy so much as it channels the craziness of the people.
The Republican Party isn’t some sort of parasitic fungus. It reflects its constituencies. And if the Republican Party is destructive, narcissistic, irresponsible and deranged … then a very sizable portion of the American public (including a chunk of its business community) is also destructive, narcissistic, irresponsible and deranged. And it has been like this for a while.
Witness the last decade of this nation’s life.
Schlemizel
@John D:
I went to www even hit the tagline hyperlink which always worked – I have had the old version thing but never the mobile version thing.
trollhattan
@Southern Beale:
Have they heard of “discovery”? I don’t think he wants to pursue this, given his shady past.
uptown
@Rafer Janders:
The founders probably were worried about the Loyalist coming back into the country and trying to take over through political means.
Great Britain could have easily installed a puppet government when they invaded in 1812, if those words weren’t in the the Constitution.
David Hunt
Serious Answer? I think that Erikson simply likes Bobby J so he assumes that the rest of the Republican Base will like him too. He’s succumbed to a disease that is endemic to the TV gasbags commenting on politics: he’s assuming that his personal views/prejudices are highly representative of the general population…at least the general Republican voter population. Add to this the fact that Jindal hasn’t had to withstand the scrutiny that even Republicans have to endure if they want to be President. If he had, I’m sure that a few zombies would emerge from his metaphorical closet. Normally they’d be skeletons, but he’s the governor of Louisiana, afterall.
Riilism
If he wrote this at 4 a.m., I believe he was thinking of chocolate covered raison d’etre, followed by some tortillons au fromage, all washed down with some rosée de montagne…..
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@ShadeTail:
That was a Krugman I can support writing from his high perch.
And this is absolutely a true fact. We aren’t seeing random events spiraling the GOP toward the molten core of the earth. It’s an end to a long hike, probly along The Appalachian Trail, north to south.
geg6
BWAHAHAHA! Poor Erick Son of Erick, he haz a sad. His tears are delicious.
And for those who were around this morning, my John got through the double knee replacement surgery fine. He was in a lot of pain when he got back to his room, but some very good drugs took care of that by the time I left the hospital. They decided not to get him out of bed tonight as they said they might, but he’ll be set upright in the morning. I’m exhausted. We had to be at the hospital by 5am and he got back to his room and finally drugged enough at 2:30. And I was stuck waiting all day with his brother. WHO NEVER SHUT UP THE ENTIRE TIME.
Whew. Thanks, BJ, for letting me get that out.
MikeJ
@trollhattan:
Falsely accusing someone of a felony is in most states de facto libel. Discovery isn’t an unlimited fishing expedition. If his case rests on having never been convicted, that’s a matter of pubic record and he should easily be able to quash any requests for anything unrelated.
Anniecat45
Weird as this may sound — odd as it feels to write it — Erickson has a point about Mitt Romney. Born there; his father was governor; huge investment of money and effort; he should have won the Michigan primary by ten points.
Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity
@Southern Beale: He was, in point of fact, not convicted of a felony.
Diseased twerp gets a payday. Another item I can add to the extensive list of things I loathe both Olbermann and Shuster for.
uptown
@John D:
I’ve started getting the mobile version at www. Not every time though.
Surly Duff
@MikeJ:
Even if a retraction and apology clarifying the mistake is issued as well. I would assume that once Shuster corrected the incorrect comments, the libel issue would be invalid.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Bokonon:
And this is also true, imo. But a lot of those fine white GOP voters aren’t the malevolent shitheads we see with the 27%ers. They are viewing the world through a blinkered lens, that has more to do with tribal security than anything else. They look at the rainbow nature of the dem party and hesitate at the lack of familiarity, and then talk themselves into voting GOP with all sorts of nonsensical reasoning. They may well not even be racist, as voting is sacrosanct, imo, meaning ANY reason to vote one way or another is legitimate, racial, whatever.
This is a tough nut to crack through, because it is primal in origin, the familiar, the tribal. With democrats messaging having some impact, but only to a point, to where deprivation in the fundamentals for comfortable living begin to erode and minds begin opening. From Mostly loss of econ security and other bennies the middle class in this country is used to. Too bad American heads are so thick and loyal to those who are stealing from them, even though they have the same cultural and pale roots.
Jay C
@Anne Laurie:
Minor correction: George III (who in 1789 was merely dull, not loony like he later became) was brought up thoroughly British: it was his grandfather George I who was plucked from German obscurity and placed on the British throne by dynastic happenstance – without, apparently, ever learning much, if any, English).
andy
Finally had our first big snow of the year up here in Brainerd, Minnesota, and I think a lot of us could use a Snow Whiskey powerup like in a video game parody one of the peeps posted on the YouTube.
Bubblegum Tate
@Tom Johnson:
True story: One wingnut I know was a staunch T-Paw supporter, but she says he “lost her” when he refused to go Full Metal Birther. The same wingnut then moved on to Christie, until he OKed rules against fracking. Now she’s got a lady boner for Romney, of all people. I don’t get it, either.
dimmic rat
LOL I’ve seen four ads for Newt in the last hour here in Mississippi. What a weird place to commit resources.
Bob Munck
As a proud graduate of that Rhode Island school, I’m sorry to report the cupboard is bare; Jindal is the only conservative graduate we have. Interesting fact: Ken Miller, a popular professor at Brown, is a well-known critic of creationism. Jindal majored in biology at Brown, but never met Miller.
Bago
Level3.com is the apparent cdn hosting this blog, and as far as I can route trace, Comcast is the ISP. But, if you want results, send a complaint to level3
Lurking Canadian
While we’re on the subject of natural born presidents, why doesn’t the 14th Ammendment, with it’s language of “any person born or naturalized” take precedence?
PeakVT
@Lurking Canadian: There’s nothing I can see in the 14th that supersedes than the birthplace requirement. Amd14.S1 addresses equal protection under the law for citizens, but the Constitution is above everyday law. So if there’s some kind of inequity explicitly listed in it, that would have to be explicitly eliminated by amendment.
Hal
Haley Barbour have an amazing, full throttle endorsement of Romney on All Things Considered today.
One, he said Romney isn’t “Haley Barbour” conservative, whatever the fuck that is, and that Romney is not Obama. So, vote Romney.
He and other ‘pub talking heads also things people will magically coalesce around Romney.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@Tom Johnson: I don’t get Mitch Daniels, either. He’s one of the dullest guys in the world. The only man I can imagine being duller was Mitch’s wife’s second husband. The one she left Mitch for and then left and returned to Mitch!
Mnemosyne
@MikeJ:
O’Keefe is a public figure. To prove libel, he has to prove that the statement was actively malicious and not an error.
He wanted to be a big boy media player, so he can’t now try to change the rules and claim he’s a poor, innocent private citizen.
Mnemosyne
@geg6:
Yay for coming through surgery okay! I’m assuming they gave you the whole list of instructions.
We found out at 5 am three days after my knee surgery (ACL) that I have a bad reaction to Vicodin. It turns out that some people have a lovely side effect where you start vomiting uncontrollably. G had to run out to the pharmacy to get some Emetrol so I could at least stop heaving. Good times, good times.
Mnemosyne
@Mnemosyne:
Here’s the relevant entry from Wikipedia — O’Keefe will have to prove actual malice (which means something very specific under the law) to win a libel case. As long as there’s no smoking gun e-mail of Olbermann saying, “Hey, I know he only committed a misdemeanor, but let’s call it a felony to make him look bad!” O’Keefe’s got no legal case.
Tom Johnson
@Schlemizel
It is interesting if the Jindal bublet started with Rove. I always wonder how one well known guy like Rove can go around talking someone up and it eventually it becomes “people are talking about…” We got a glimpse into how it works with Bill Kristol and Sarah Palin. Kristol started talking about her and all of a sudden she was a star.
Tom Johnson
@Mnemosyne
The standard for libel will be higher for O’Keefe, since he is a public figure who thrust himself into the spotlight in a particularly controversial way. He would have to prove, basically, that Olbermann had known he hadn’t been charged with a felony, and that he went ahead anyway and repeated the falsehood, and then did not correct the falsehood later.
On top of that, he would have to demonstrate it was not satire or poetic license. Remember: Larry Flynt said Jerry Fallwell had been born to a hooker in an outhouse. The court found against Fallwell because satire on a public figure is protected speech.
So it’s a pretty high bar O’Keefe has to clear, and if he does that he still has to prove the libel caused damage to his reputation. Since most people figure he’s pretty much a jerk anyway, proving that Olbermann talking to a minuscule audience caused damages is going to be tough, too.
Why, it’s almost as if O’Keefe is suing just to make trouble.
SectarianSofa
@Warren Terra:
Some great links in this thread. Thanks.
rachel
Orly? Here’s a verbatim quote from my conservative-wingnut dad re Obama: “…, but I can’t help but like the guy.”
replicnt6
Just posting a comment to see if the desktop/mobile problem goes away as someone suggested it might.