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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Early Morning Open Thread: Embracing the Ugly

Early Morning Open Thread: Embracing the Ugly

by Anne Laurie|  March 8, 20125:11 am| 42 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links, Open Threads, Republican Venality, Assholes, Decline and Fall

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(Mike Luckovich via GoComics.com)

In case anybody missed Gene Weingarten’s snarkalicious assault-by-pig-bladder on this week’s biggest pig:

Were you as gratified as I was when Rush Limbaugh finally admitted on the air yesterday that he has gotten rich and famous by “pandering to the prejudices and insecurities of marginally literate, unfathomably ignorant jackasses who have to be told what to hate”?…
__
The most interesting element of his mea culpa yesterday was his frank contempt for Republican politicians “who were without the testicular fortitude” to unambiguously criticize him for his unjustified, vicious, baffling, and falsehood-filled three-day-long sexually obsessed attack on the blameless Georgetown law student. Singling out Mitt Romney and John Boehner, Limbaugh surmised that neither of them dared to take him on because “they know I can turn the bucktoothed rubes and nitwits against them in a heartbeat, and bucktoothed rubes and nitwits are now pretty much the base of their party, which has splintered into competing posses of angry, intolerant, ill-informed pinheads braying at each other ungrammatically.”…

Much more at the link. And while we’re on the topic of coldblooded unregenerates, here’s Tom Junod of Esquire on Georgia’s own “Goodtime Gingrich”:

… At a hotel in a Cobb County shopping-mall-and-office complex that used to be the last word in suburban fancy, there was liquor, there were men and women of a certain age who had real-estate licenses, and there was Newt, as the voluble and surprisingly sentimental toastmaster. I had spent the previous day among Santorum Republicans in Gwinnett County, and now I realized that Gingrich Republicans are a more familiar breed, and at the same time a much more endangered one. The conservatism of Rick Santorum is a cult of renunciation, and so the men pray before they eat, the women are as modest as Mennonites, and the devil is always at the door. At the Gingrich victory party, the devil was not only already inside; he was right there on stage, with a red-dressed Callista at his side, and one woman slurred her determination to get on the floor and crawl through people’s legs if that’s what it took to shake his hand. There was no pretense that he had the ticket to some special claim of virtue; that his relationship to sin was anything but personal; that he was a particularly good man or even a particularly nice one. The only thing that mattered was that he was theirs, and that he would fight to keep the party — their party — going a little while longer, even if he had to grow horns and sprout a forked tail in the process…
__
I talked to one of them on my way out, after Newt and Callista had made their way through the cologne-and-cocktails scrum and out the door… I told him that if Santorum won in Ohio, it would change the party as well as the race, and make Newt completely irrelevant if he wasn’t already. He thought about that for a bit; then he said, “People like Santorum because he’s a conservative. Newt’s not a conservative. He just gives lip service to being a conservative because he has to. He’s a radical. If he gets to Washington, he’ll be just as radical as Barack Obama, just on the right side and with more respect for the Constitution. I like him not just because he thinks like me but because he has fallen down like me. I’ll tell you what I know about him — he’s a dirty dog. He’s still a dirty dog. He’s a reptile. He doesn’t have the same blood running in his veins that we do. I’ll get out there and get in people’s faces, but when they get in mine my feelings get hurt. That just shows I’m human. But Newt’s not human. He doesn’t have feelings. And you know what? That’s why we need him. Isn’t that wild?”…

“Evolution is overrated. Go old school — vote Reptile in 2012!”

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42Comments

  1. 1.

    JGabriel

    March 8, 2012 at 5:39 am

    He’s a reptile. He doesn’t have the same blood running in his veins that we do. I’ll get out there and get in people’s faces, but when they get in mine my feelings get hurt. That just shows I’m human. But Newt’s not human. He doesn’t have feelings. And you know what? That’s why we need him.

    Newt 2012: Because Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cold

    .

  2. 2.

    JGabriel

    March 8, 2012 at 5:40 am

    I’ll get out there and get in people’s faces, but when they get in mine my feelings get hurt. That just shows I’m human.

    No, dude. It just shows you’re an asshole who can give it, but can’t take it.

    .

  3. 3.

    amk

    March 8, 2012 at 5:52 am

    ugh, the two ugliest faces of the racist party.

  4. 4.

    Nutella

    March 8, 2012 at 5:54 am

    “radical” and “respect for the Constitution” don’t go together.

  5. 5.

    Calouste

    March 8, 2012 at 5:59 am

    @JGabriel:

    Too bad the site upgrade didn’t include a recommend button.

  6. 6.

    Citizen_X

    March 8, 2012 at 6:04 am

    I’ll get out there and get in people’s faces, but when they get in mine my feelings get hurt.

    I’d be hard pressed not to knee this guy in the balls in response. “Your feelings? How about your ‘nads?” “Huh?” WHAM!

  7. 7.

    Linda Featheringill

    March 8, 2012 at 6:04 am

    @JGabriel:

    Newt 2012: Because Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cold

    I can see Newt as the revenge candidate. Just wind him up and sic him on the target of your choice.

  8. 8.

    danielx

    March 8, 2012 at 6:14 am

    Well, newts are reptiles, after all. (Okay, technically they’re amphibians.) They aren’t known for lifetime attachments to a single partner either.

    NEWTICLES! Because this country needs a cold blooded dirty dog in charge!

  9. 9.

    Frankensteinbeck

    March 8, 2012 at 6:15 am

    he’ll be just as radical as Barack Obama, just on the right side and with more respect for the Constitution.

    The fantasy world these people live in is just bizarre. Newt has already discussed his intention to violate the Constitution by ignoring the Judiciary branch of government. At length.

  10. 10.

    Schlemizel

    March 8, 2012 at 6:27 am

    @Frankensteinbeck:
    I remember back in the 90s reading several of the talking heads who compared the slimy amphibian to Bill Clinton. There were a bunch of similarities. I think the goal was to teach us that ol Newtie was not a fire breathing Shiva out to destroy the world because they tended to talk about his more modest accomplishments as opposed to whated he said he want to do.

    But I think the big difference is what it always was. Decent humans like Clinton or Obama want power for what they can do for this country. The slimy amphibian wants power for self aggrandizement and enrichment.

  11. 11.

    c u n d gulag

    March 8, 2012 at 6:41 am

    The reptile brains is strong in Conservative gatherings.

    They don’t need fly-strips.
    Or appetizer trays.

    Their forked tongues just dart out, and any fly nearby’s the snack.

  12. 12.

    Frankensteinbeck

    March 8, 2012 at 6:55 am

    @Schlemizel:
    Oh, I am not remotely surprised by Newt’s desire to violate the Constitution. The man has a track record of being disgusting, corrupt, arrogant, and abusive a mile long. I’m just baffled by the fantasy Constitution conservatives cling to. It’s so utterly opposite of reality. Even during the massive hate-on the Republicans brewed over Clinton, this kind of imaginary world was fringe. I see it every day, and still I don’t understand how so many of them can so readily throw out these comments on the Constitution. Narcissists usually make up better excuses.

  13. 13.

    MattF

    March 8, 2012 at 7:04 am

    So, you see, for the most part, the electorate isn’t stupid– they just have needs that it’s not polite to talk about.

  14. 14.

    WereBear (itouch)

    March 8, 2012 at 7:06 am

    This is what comes of not watching enough of those old black and white horror movies.

    The mad scientist always thinks they can control their creation.

  15. 15.

    Privatize the Profits! Socialize the Costs!

    March 8, 2012 at 7:23 am

    But Newt’s not human. He doesn’t have feelings. And you know what? That’s why we need him.

    Hmmm… you don’t HAVE to be a sociopath to be a Republican…

    …but if you were a sociopath, which party would YOU vote for?

  16. 16.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    March 8, 2012 at 7:42 am

    @Frankensteinbeck: I’m baffled by the “Obama as radical” meme. I mean, in the world I grew up in, Obama is really what used to be called a liberal republican (think Lowell Weicker, before WWE). (We’ll never see a real left-winger in the White House in my lifetime; hell, I’ll never see another FDR or LBJ there.)

    The problem for these people isn’t that Obama is radical, it’s that he’s black. Not quite right, of course, but birtherism in as much about the wingers wanting to talk about the evils of miscegnation without actually, you know, coming right out and calling him a mulatto. Instead of being overtly racist, they just stick with the radical label.

  17. 17.

    Schlemizel

    March 8, 2012 at 7:51 am

    @Comrade Scrutinizer:
    All these memes have to do with deligitimizing the President. It wouldn’t matter if Barry were white, they’d find some reason he was not really the President & harp on that over and over and over. He would of course be a radical because in their world all dems are. Haven’t you noticed how as soon as a Dem is chosen he is always “the most liberal member of X”? Its what they do.

    That President Obama is black is just synergy for these guys. It plays so much easier because they know no colored guy could ever really be President of their country. The fact that his father was a Muslim was just gravy for them.

  18. 18.

    Ben Cisco

    March 8, 2012 at 7:56 am

    @JGabriel:

    Newt 2012: Because Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cold

    As per the old Klingon proverb.

  19. 19.

    Poopyman

    March 8, 2012 at 8:25 am

    Coming through the lobby at work a few minutes ago I saw Michelle Malkin on Fox. Mercifully the sound was turned off, but the chyron below her read “Is there a war on Conservative women?”

    I swear, you can’t make this shit up.

  20. 20.

    WereBear

    March 8, 2012 at 8:27 am

    @Poopyman: How can you have a war when Conservative women have already surrendered?

  21. 21.

    Poopyman

    March 8, 2012 at 8:32 am

    @WereBear: Well, since I didn’t hear MM (and would have run away had I had that choice anyway) I don’t know. But I’m sure us libtards are kicking them when they’re down, or something.

  22. 22.

    RossInDetroit

    March 8, 2012 at 8:37 am

    The Junod piece was great. As usual he found an angle from which to illuminate the subject so he could show something new. Newt’s fans are the liberated conservatives who had all of the advantages of mid century social change and now want to clamp down on everyone else.

  23. 23.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    March 8, 2012 at 8:47 am

    I would love for this to be an actual quote from Rush:

    pandering to the prejudices and insecurities of marginally literate, unfathomably ignorant jackasses who have to be told what to hate

    I would hang that outside my cube if it were, or anything closely resembling it.

  24. 24.

    Jennifer

    March 8, 2012 at 8:49 am

    Weingarten wraps up with the same point I made yesterday: Limbaugh’s slut-smear of Fluke was premeditated; in order to get to the point where he could excuse it (even by his & his audience’s extremely low standards) he had to build a scaffold of lies about what Fluke said in her testimony.

    I sure hope she sues the shit out of him.

  25. 25.

    merrinc

    March 8, 2012 at 8:51 am

    @RossInDetroit:

    I agree. This is particularly interesting:

    But we’ve had freedom for a long time. You know, I want to see speed limits enforced again. I like driving 60 in a 55-mile-per-hour zone, but I don’t like driving 75 and watching cops pass me by. I have a 16-year-old daughter, and it worries me that we live in a time when you can get away with anything.

    Scratch a conservative, find a hypocrite. They don’t REALLY want small government because they want the rule of law to save them from *themselves.*

    Also too, when I read that, I thought of my cousin, several years younger than me and still living in WV. His father retired from a local gov job (worked for the water dept) and his mom retired from a factory before it closed down. Our grandfather retired from the coal mines. My cousin is a huge Glenn Beck fan and only drives 55 on the interstate (speed limit is 70 through that part of the state) because he thinks any other speed would be too fast.

  26. 26.

    New Yorker

    March 8, 2012 at 8:58 am

    @Poopyman:

    I’d love to be Michelle Malkin’s therapist for one day, just to see if I can figure out what makes this woman hate herself so much. I’m not saying that all minority wingnuts hate themselves and their ethnicity (Herman Cain sure doesn’t), but Malkin clearly hates herself for being Asian and wishes so desperately that she could have been born a white southern woman.

  27. 27.

    redshirt

    March 8, 2012 at 9:07 am

    Did Rush really say those things, or is this a satire piece?

  28. 28.

    jibeaux

    March 8, 2012 at 9:08 am

    Hold the phone, the guy who shut down the federal government because he didn’t like his seat on the plane doesn’t have feelings? Hm.

    And I lurve, lurve Gene Weingarten. You all should check out his chats sometime. I don’t know if he still does, but he used to at least make a point of answering every email ever sent to him by a fan.

  29. 29.

    jibeaux

    March 8, 2012 at 9:09 am

    @redshirt: Rush couldn’t have said those things if he read them off the paper at gunpoint. There’s four syllable words in there!

  30. 30.

    Zagloba

    March 8, 2012 at 9:13 am

    @redshirt: RTFA

    All of his criticisms stemmed from the constantly restated falsehood, a total invention by Limbaugh, that Ms. Fluke – and here I quote Limbaugh directly (and accurately, for the first time in this post) —

  31. 31.

    RossInDetroit

    March 8, 2012 at 9:14 am

    @merrinc:

    Scratch a conservative, find a hypocrite. They don’t REALLY want small government because they want the rule of law to save them from themselves.

    Yet another study shows a link between economic class and dishonesty:

    Our studies suggest that more positive attitudes toward greed and the pursuit of self-interest among upper-class individuals, in part, drive their tendencies toward increased unethical behavior

  32. 32.

    Boots Day

    March 8, 2012 at 9:23 am

    If he gets to Washington,

    That part made me LOL.

  33. 33.

    Frankensteinbeck

    March 8, 2012 at 9:48 am

    @Schlemizel:
    I don’t agree with the ‘liberal Republican’ thing, but you’re right that he’s not at all radical. He’s very moderate in everything, and at that point you’re just arguing about where to draw the line of the exact middle. The ‘radical’ line makes sense to me, though. Sure it’s wrong, but what they mean is that they’ve seen him effectively accomplish liberal goals and that horrifies them. It’s easy enough to misdescribe that as ‘radical’.

  34. 34.

    debit

    March 8, 2012 at 9:54 am

    I’ll tell you what I know about him — he’s a dirty dog. He’s still a dirty dog. He’s a reptile. He doesn’t have the same blood running in his veins that we do. I’ll get out there and get in people’s faces, but when they get in mine my feelings get hurt. That just shows I’m human. But Newt’s not human. He doesn’t have feelings. And you know what? That’s why we need him. Isn’t that wild?”…

    This guy obviously watched Glengarry Glen Ross and saw it, not as a cautionary tale, but as template for life.

    See this watch? That watch costs more than your car. I made $970,000 last year. How much’d you make? You see pal, that’s who I am, and you’re nothing. Nice guy? I don’t give a shit. Good father? Fuck you! Go home and play with your kids. You wanna work here – close! You think this is abuse? You think this is abuse, you cocksucker? You can’t take this, how can you take the abuse you get on a sit? You don’t like it, leave. I can go out there tonight with the materials you’ve got and make myself $15,000. Tonight! In two hours! Can you? Can YOU?

  35. 35.

    virginia

    March 8, 2012 at 10:16 am

    As someone who had to deal with Newt and some of his constant demands back in the day I can attest to the fact that the guy is a user, a creep, and a crook. Nothing new in any of that. So, yeah, he fits right into the landscape of those looking for reptilian revenge cuz they ain’t got nothing better to do. Calista is straight out of central casting and doesn’t appear to have done him much good on the PR front.

    Limbaugh is toxic sludge. He’s doing the right no favors so here’s to hoping he keeps on yammering and attempting to school the rest of us out of his infinite treasure trove of bat shit crazy. Glad ProFlowers pulled out because I make frequent use of their excellent services.

  36. 36.

    Nutella

    March 8, 2012 at 10:52 am

    Look at this: Charles Murray came out in favor of something good and sensible – getting rid of unpaid internships that favor the rich.

    He does neglect to mention that the very common unpaid internships that infest the employment market are illegal now.

    via @mkapor

  37. 37.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    March 8, 2012 at 12:17 pm

    I’ll get out there and get in people’s faces, but when they get in mine my feelings get hurt. That just shows I’m human. But Newt’s not human. He doesn’t have feelings. And you know what? That’s why we need him. Isn’t that wild?”…

    Thank you for your opinion old man Simpson but screaming at the kids to get off your lawn isn’t leadership.

  38. 38.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    March 8, 2012 at 12:27 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I don’t agree with the ‘liberal Republican’ thing, but you’re right that he’s not at all radical. He’s very moderate in everything,

    to these people that’s radical liberal. Remember in their minds Bill Gates is a communist.

  39. 39.

    Arclite

    March 8, 2012 at 1:51 pm

    If he gets to Washington, he’ll be just as radical as Barack Obama, just on the right side and with more respect for the Constitution.

    In what universe is Obama in any way radical?

    OH, radical = black.

  40. 40.

    Mike G

    March 8, 2012 at 3:21 pm

    Repukes love assholes. They celebrate them, and openly cheer for assholery for its own sake, above and beyond any operational effectiveness it might have.

    They know the asshole is a lying, cheating sack of shit ripping off everyone else (and they don’t care), but are just stupid enough to think that they’re in on the con, inside the fence running the con alongside the asshole and reaping the benefits, because they’re much too smarterer and special to be conned.

    And this is the party that likes to grandstand about how superiorly moral and righteous they are over everyone else.

  41. 41.

    Nan Mccall

    March 8, 2012 at 4:58 pm

    If he did say these things it is because he was satirizing what the left thinks of his audience, i.e. that they are buck toothed fools and he is now enjoying the fact that everyone here fell for it. It is pretty much what he does when ever I have listened to him.

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