Bill Keller’s latest clichée paean to the wonders of the teh political center is awful for all the reasons TNC mentions: there aren’t that many independent votes up for grabs, the ideal centrist fiscally-conservative-socially liberal voter that Keller describes is Keller himself, and so on. But here’s what gets me about it:
My hunch is that Romney will manage to shake off most of his extremist accouterments, because they never seemed to fit him. It is true that if elected, as I have written before, Romney would be obliged to tithe generously to the right, by choosing Supreme Court nominees of the Scalia/Thomas persuasion, for example, and by populating regulatory agencies with polluters and plunderers. But those concerns tend not to alter election outcomes. Even with pro-Obama super PACs painting him as a mean-spirited zealot, Romney should be able to recapture the old campaign aura of a moderate Mr. Fixit. He will certainly try. On entitlements and immigration, as Thomas B. Edsall has said, Romney has already incrementally adjusted course toward the middle.
In the Democratic Party, a battle for Obama’s teleprompter is now under way between the moderates and the more orthodox left. The president sometimes, as in his last two State of the Union addresses, plays the even-keel, presidential pragmatist, sounding themes of balance and opportunity. Then sometimes lately he sounds more as if he’s trying out for the role of Robin Hood.
The problem isn’t that the Buffett Rule is necessarily a bad idea. It isn’t that “social Darwinism” is a slander on Republicans. (Heck, it may be the only Darwinism Romney believes in.) The problem is that when Obama thrusts these populist themes to the center of his narrative, he sounds a little desperate. The candidate who ran on hope — promising to transcend bickering and get things done — is in danger of sounding like the candidate of partisan insurgency. Just as Romney was unconvincing as a right-wing scourge, Obama, a man lofty in his visions but realistic in his governance, feels inauthentic playing a plutocrat-bashing firebrand. The role the middle really wants him to play, I think, is president.
In other words, it’s okay when Romney spouts teahadist rhetoric because at heart he’s a responsible Daddy conservative, but when Obama speaks frankly about inequality that’s bad because people hate hippies.
More to the point, Bill Keller doesn’t give a fuck about transvaginal ultrasounds in flyover country or destroying the middle-class, because he’s a rich guy living in Manhattan. But if you threaten to raise his taxes…
(h/t reader D)
TruthOfAngels
If Yeats was a blogger, he would have written this post, perhaps.
Anyway, well played.
wrb
Gawd that’s revolting.
I fear he may be right about Romney’s being able to shed the association with a whole lotta right-wing craziness because, after all, everyone knows he’s insincere but
that final paragraph is sick.
Joel
Coates definitely nailed him:
Keller envisions himself as Voltaire, advising Frederick the Great.
JGabriel
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Bill Keller:
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Huh? What ‘Mr. Fixit’ aura? Romney has been elected to political office exactly once. He was a one-term governor who left office with an ~40% approval rating.
If anything, Romney’s aura was, and is, ‘delusionally ambitious nonentity who can’t win his own state’.
.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Very Serious People indeed.
It’s better to be wrong for the right reasons than to be right for the wrong reasons according to the VSPs(tm).
Yutsano
Wow. Just wow. Ten pounds of stupid in a five pound burlap sack.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Shorter Bill Keller: Everybody who is to the left of Mitt Rommey shouldn’t worry about what might happen if he is elected, because he isn’t positioned where you think he is, he is somewhere else instead. Which should make you feel much more comfortable, knowing just where he stands. Which is nowhere. But never mind about that. Bagels, anyone?
danimal
I hope the tumbrels and pitchforks are being readied. The Village still hasn’t learned the nice way.
catclub
“The problem isn’t that the Buffett Rule is necessarily a bad idea.”
This is called damning with faint praise. Keller actually knows it is a good idea, but cannot bring himself to say so.
And he does the same thing in reverse in the next sentence.
“It isn’t that “social Darwinism” is a slander on Republicans.” Which is how he says that Social Darwinism IS what the republicans are all about, but he does not want to admit _that_.
I am glad I did not bother with reading the whole thing.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
“The Center” now has three parts: Lukewarm souls with no real skin in the game (ie totebagger types like Keller and TNC’s editor, who’ll do just fine no matter who wins– here, have a canapé). Those too uninformed (or frankly stupid) to have an opinion. And those who think that politics is just too icky to think about.
In other words, useless people.
Fuck the center: There are no solutions there. Only excuses.
FlipYrWhig
I don’t remember Obama promising to transcend “bickering.”
Tone In DC
Keller is as full of shit as the other Villagers (Rosen, Kristol, Will, Gergen, Kaplan Posts’s entire roster save Robinson and Bob Samuelson)
Mickey
Never heard of this clown but according to him it’s all about ‘teh (sic) teleprompter’….lol. Tells me all I need to know.
Anonymous P. Hancock
See, Romney pandering to the right wing base is exactly the same as Obama supporting broadly popular policies. Sensible Centrism is always exactly half as crazy as the craziest right-wing bullshit, which is only sensible.
redshirt
Awesome title.
I can’t really blame the Villagers for their insipidness. They know where their bread is buttered, and what type of butter it is. They are beholden to their Masters – as are we all who slave away for wages.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
David Broder said almost the exact same thing about John McCain in his penultimate column calling on Obama to turn the country over to The Man Who Picked Palin.
If only there were some sort of cultural institution with the power to point these things out and explain why they wouldn’t be good.
rikryah
tell the truth, why don’t you.
The President sounds a little desperate. no, the President sounds ON POINT, when he talks economic populism.
and fuck all those ‘Third Way’ mofos.
gogol's wife
Luckily my paper wasn’t delivered yesterday because the NYTimes is a dysfunctional organization, and I refuse to read it online. So I mercifully missed this. Until now. Thanks a lot, DougJ.
FlipYrWhig
@catclub: He’s saying that Obama has better ideas but sounds too mean in discussing them. Which is bad because the way to be moderate isn’t political, it’s tonal. That’s what all these pundit dickbags believe. They distrust anyone with fire, passion, or belief in things. Fuck em.
Anya
WTF?
gogol's wife
I used to get all excited and write to the Public Editor about this kind of stuff, but I’ve stopped, because he’s the same as Keller, and my blood pressure is much lower now.
gogol's wife
@Anya:
Right, Obama doesn’t have a brain, you know, he just reads what’s on his teleprompter. This is making steam come out of my ears. Literally!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@catclub:
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Tenents, ethos, etc.
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The really striking thing about the output from The Village these days isn’t how bad their writing is, how non-existent their thought process is, or how evil the consequences of their world view. It is that they are so freaking predictable. At this point I’m no longer convinced that any of these people are actually still amongst the living. They could have been replaced by not particularly clever AI programs a long time ago, and have been pulling an ELIZA on us ever since, and who would know the difference?
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Turing Wept.
trollhattan
Jesus, Keller hates him some Obama. Does this mean the grey lady will be working to make the election close? Does that sell more
paperspage hits?JGabriel
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So. Given that Fred Hiatt won 1st Runner Up for Eschaton Wanker of the Decade, what are the odds that Bill Keller will be the winner?
The list so far:
There are so many people who should be on that list missing from it, that I really have no idea who could be next.
Is it Keller?
Or David Brooks? Rich Lowry? Katherine Jean Lopez? Ross Douthat? John Tierney? Bill Kristol? Bill Donahue? That goat-blower from Slate whose name I can’t remember right now, Mickey Something-or-Other?
I’m assuming Hitchens is ineligible due to dead, Cheney due to undead, and George Bush due to officeholder not pundit.
.
dedc79
Keller’s
G-spotcenter sounds a hell of a lot like today’s democratic party.pragmatism
the presumption that Rmoney can “shake off” the wingiest of nuts is pure projection/wishing. there are not one but two candidates slouching their way toward Tampa to see how that effort goes who are primed to capitalize on the inevitable resentment that will occur once Rmoney shakes the etch-a-sketch. the village will do it’s best to soften the blow but the new age birchers are out and can’t be stuffed back in the poke.
Spaghetti Lee
Shorter Keller: Why can’t that mean ol’ real-life Obama be more like the nice one in my head?
Spaghetti Lee
@JGabriel:
I’d put money on Brooks. He is mushy Village faux-centrism, in human form.
Mike Lamb
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Here’s a question: if he’s going to nominate right wing Fed. Society types to the bench and appoint “plunderers” to beauracratic positions, how is that not right wing governance? Who gives a shit if he allegedly really doesn’t want to do it?
It’s like heat index vs. temperature–if it feels like it’s 105, who gives a fuck if the thermometer reads 98…
schrodinger's cat
Speaking of villagers, Andrew Sullivan, has a sad because Obama is snarky and that apparently does not suit him. It seems to me that AS and BK want Obama to sound not like a politician but like Morgan Freeman. Like God and above it all.
Yutsano
@trollhattan: Please tell me this was snark. Or rhetorical. They need a horserace. They need controversy, page views, ZOMG SCANDAL!! They ain’t getting that if the race is a cakewalk. So if Obama won’t provide they will just make shit up as they go along.
Joel
Let us not forget that Keller was born into oil money. The guy embodies entitled douchebaggery.
schrodinger's cat
@JGabriel: Friedman or Bobo.
MBunge
@trollhattan: “Does this mean the grey lady will be working to make the election close?”
The thing that has always worried me about Romney is that our elites look at him and see “one of us”.
Mike
JGabriel
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trollhattan:
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Nah. Keller’s not the Times’ executive editor anymore. Keller retired to calumny and left Jill Abramson in charge.
Edited to Add: Abe’s kid, Andrew Rosenthal, is in charge of editorials and the Op-Ed section, and as far as I can tell, he’s pretty much pro-Obama.
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slag
An interesting take. When I hear Obama say these things, I take it as a sign of confidence. Choosing to depict Rmoney as too conservative rather than a too flaky actually puts the focus on the issues at stake in this election rather than just playing out the standard personality theatre we would otherwise end up with. And while Keller is right that liberal talky talk isn’t necessarily going to win any popularity contests in the short term, I think it’s good for liberals in the long term.
To me, pushing these themes demonstrates that Obama feels he can win even if he goes a bit liberalish on the issues.
Confidence!Arrogance! Uppity!FlipYrWhig
@JGabriel: I’m going with Friedman, the recurring villain from the heyday of Atrios.
Anya
@gogol’s wife: Did you also notice how it’s okay with him that Romney will be “populating regulatory agencies with polluters and plunderers.”? That’s village for you. It’s all about I’ve got mine so can I haz my horserace. They are as psychopathic as any randian wingnut.
Peter Herb
Any doubt that the traditional print media will die with people like him at the helm has been completely dissipated. Obama is not desperate. He doesn’t have to be when Mittens shoots himself daily. The blinders this guy has on are some marvel of technology.
Schad
@dedc79:
It does, and therein lies the paradox of being a head-in-arse ‘centrist pundit’: if you encounter a political platform that is actually in the political center, but it doesn’t bring about the bipartisan utopia that you believe is possible, the only option is to dismiss its moderateness in a fit of willful ignorance. To admit that a politician or party is forwarding a centrist agenda yet partisanship remains a thing would be to undercut his entire worldview.
FlipYrWhig
@MBunge: Nah, the pundits and other press mandarins think they’re witty and cool. To wit, Richard Cohen chiding Colbert from the perspective of one funny guy tut-tutting another. They adored John McCain because of his unguarded, uncensored moments and his sense of humor. Even Dubya Bush was good at those. Romney is emphatically not. So he may be One of Us from one perspective, but he loses back a ton of points for being incapable of being loose. Gore and Kerry got savaged just the same way.
JGabriel
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FlipYrWhig:
My god, how could I forget Tom ‘Suck It’ Friedman?
Yes, of course, Friedman has to be considered one of, if not the, front-runner.
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jwb
@schrodinger’s cat: I can’t believe either Friedman and Bobo will be excluded from the list. McMegan is genuinely evil but ultimately rather stupid, and her reach outside the blogosphere is minuscule. Friedman and Bobo inflict more damage on society in one column than McMegan has accomplished in her entire career.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
as others have said, the teleprompter joke is a tell, but we already knew Keller was a complete douchebag:
You can click on the link, but you could almost play Meet The Press Bingo with that “large and estimable group”.
Keith G
Read it and learn (Doug and many others here), read it and learn.
One bright spot in the writing of bilious crap such as this is that it may key some of you off to the notion that if Obama wins this election, it will not be the comfortable trouncing of muddled Mitt that many here seem to believe.
,
In the end a pro Obama margin will be narrower in breadth than a pubic hair on Clarence Thomas’ Coke. There is no margin for error (thanks Ms Rosen) and there is no room for chest pounding and feel good friendly fire. We will need all the “us” that we can cobble together.
There is a large body of institutional/conservative(for lack of a better term) moderates who really like the politics of the old Romney and hope it has a chance to flower. We are in for one fuck of a fight.
Shalimar
@JGabriel: My guess given that it is Atrios compiling the list would be Friedman, though Brooks and Kristol are equally horrific.
qwerty42
After I read TNC’s post on it, I don’t think any of these guys (except Krugman) has any real idea how to interpret numbers. Not poll numbers, not surveys, not GDP, not anything. Faced with the numbers TNC describes, Keller opines some wistful, nostalgic, nonsensical garbage. I’m surprised he didn’t mention the “Salad bar at Applebee’s”. Romney “would have to tithe heavily to the right wing?” Sure! No problemo! After all, It won’t affect him.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@FlipYrWhig:
I remember Keller’s column on the 2000 race where he mentioned that his four year old daughter skipped around the apartment singing “Al Gore is a snore”
JGabriel
@jwb:
And yet one or the other must. Unless Atrios decides to award a group prize to the entire NYT Op-Ed stable of writers, minus K-Thug.
.
FlipYrWhig
@Anya: I think he means that it’s true, and bad, but in his opinion, fear that the bad stuff will come to pass won’t sway the election against him. People in media always think that politics hinges on language, tone, and showmanship, and that the public is too stupid to make policy-talk worth doing.
Freddie deBoer
Thanks for this. Bill Keller is such a piece of shit.
jl
The TNC link is very good. Hope people read that link.
The Keller column is, what Yutsano said.
Despite his strident radical centrism, ol’ Bill is pretty complacent about the extremists on the right. Somehow he just knows that Mitt is not really the righty extremist he has been playing for the GOP primary.
Abortion, should be discouraged but not prohibited, as if it were icky ill manners like picking your nose, and the centrists creed seems to leave room for the radical right GOP state houses as acceptable, since that is what they are doing, right? Who has banned abortion, they have just discouraged it, and the centrist who just wants a big daddy technocrat to fix things up and keep taxes low, does not worry much that the means will get a lot of women killed.
But the Buffett plan, that is scary radicalism.
I don’t see where Keller gives a lick of evidence for his field ID guide for the true swing independent centrist voter.
And from the TNC link, Keller might be a good example of the true unaligned swing voter independent centrist. Not a pretty picture.
Dave
@Spaghetti Lee:
That’s a sucker’s bet. No way Diane Sawyer makes the list but Brooks doesn’t. So it’s got to be him…
andrewsomething
@jwb:
I’ve assumed from the start that it would be Friedman for the win. It is atrios after all, but now I guess it’s going to be a Friedman and Bobo tie. There’s no way anyone can compile a wanker of the decade list and not include both of those two somewhere in the top.
Tonal Crow
@FlipYrWhig:
And the balance of the recent evidence on this question is?
Mickey
@Joel: Shocking, who’d a thunk.
jwb
@JGabriel: Or he will declare a tie: the yin and yang of faux centrist gobblygook. Each has what the other doesn’t and together they bring as much insight as a taxi driver taking fares around the Applebee’s salad bar.
AnotherBruce
@jwb:
It’s going to be Bobo that’s left off the list. I agree that might not be right, but Atrios has a pretty solid list of Wankers going. There are so damn many. If you notice there are several “liberals” on this list such as Klein, Saletan and Cohen. When I first started reading Eschaton in 2002 I was relieved to find out that I wasn’t crazy (Or at least others were as crazy as I was.) The liberal media really was rotten and something had fundamentally changed. So yes, the Grand Poobah of all
limousinetaxi cab liberal pundits, Thomas Friedman, will grab the uncoveted Wanker of the Decade award.Mickey
I imagine we will see professional ratfuckers like Arianna calling for Obama to give up now to avoid embarassment before too long. They are getting desperate for a horserace that is not materializing.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Friedman hands down. You don’t get a wankerific term like “Friedman Unit” named after you that survived for years and not make this list. Bobo doesn’t even come close.
Davis X. Machina
@andrewsomething: The Nobels are frequently split ex aequo to two winners both producing laureate-class work in the same or related fields.
You’d no more give one to Brooks and not Friedman, than, say, to Erwin Schrödinger, but not Paul Dirac…
FlipYrWhig
@Tonal Crow: Well, I think it’s a vicious cycle, where media cynicism and public can’t-be-bothered-ism amplify one another. But there’s no way to know what’s at stake tangibly and materially in an election if the professional media covers only the horserace and gaffes. As sour as I’ve been on The Daily Howler’s recent output, I think he’s largely right about how little the media even tries to discuss what politicians and governments have done, are doing, or promise to do.
El Cid
“Orthodox Left”, because anyone to the left of Ben Nelson and anyone subscribing to what used to be mainstream economic theory for the last 70 odd years is pretty much screaming “All power to the soviets.”
the Conster (f/k/a Cat Lady)
Not one single person who will vote in November will vote because of what Bill Keller wrote in April, so there’s that. All that he’s doing here is reassuring his paymasters that he’s not a nutjob Republican, just a nice polite Republican who knows how to speak in soothing tones so the nutjobs don’t come after him.
Svensker
I’ve mentioned it before, but our Wall Street friend said about the Iraq War, which he nominally opposed: “Why are you so upset about it? OUR kids will never have to fight.”
He’s been a Democrat all his life (NY Irish) but this year he’s going to vote for Romney because Obama, whom he hates, is going to raise his taxes.
So yeah, you nailed it.
El Cid
Don’t be an extreme right winger, but also don’t go out of your way opposing them, because that doesn’t seem very independent, which is an awesome thing to be.
David in NY
@JGabriel:
My guess is: ‘delusionally ambitious nonentity who can’t win [either of his] states’.
Suzan
I do like Friedman, but I’m going with Brooksie.
I’m guessing there will be a list of almosts.
Killer, er, Keller is evil personified in my lexicon.
He equates a dangerous purposive nonentity with those he trusts based on his pocketbook.
Brrrrr.
And this guy is the voice of reason at the Times?
Reminds me of why I rarely read it anymore (except for PK), and certainly not in the sections where Villager wisdom resides.
Love you guys!
S
pseudonymous in nc
The fucking “Goldilocks voter” mentality: “we think we’re smarter than we are, and we want someone who’ll pander to our egos.” I’m sure that Keller speaks for a certain subset of voters, people who think they have gut politics when what they have is indigestion, but fuck ’em.
FlipYrWhig
@Svensker: Your friend is a dick, but at one level it’s entirely rational to vote based on sheer, naked self-interest like that. It’s people who don’t stand to benefit from Republican policies voting Republican that needs to end.
rikryah
@Mickey:
that’s how I feel.
they want their Citizens United Money.
ps-thanks for calling Scarianna a ratfucker
David in NY
@trollhattan:
You (and maybe nobody else here) has read Times editorials recently, apparently. The other day they had one that was lifted straight off the pages of the Orange Satan. The editorial board, or whoever, is onto the crazy Republicans, and I don’s sense they exclude Mitt from that group.
Splitting Image
@JGabriel:
I would guess either David Brooks or George F. Will, but that would mean the other one failed to make the list at all, which is impossible.
Regarding the “Third Way” and the political centre: whenever I hear the phrase “Third Way” I take it to understand a belief that it takes three parties to disenfranchise the majority rather than two.
Normally the political centre is where you find the electorate’s genuine conservatives. The “left” and the “right” each have a direction they want to take the country in and the centre is made up of people who aren’t sure they want either one. Most of the time this is most of the country. If a fringe position starts to make sense, the “centre” starts to embrace it. See the history of gay rights to see how this works.
The idea of the “centre-right” nation comes from the fact that a party advocating radical changes to the country’s institutions has marketed itself for decades as “conservative”. If it were remotely true, a continuing alliance between the “centre” and the “right” would make sense. As it happens, the actual political centre in the U.S. leans left on many issues and right on some others. As stupidly as many voters seem to behave, I think most people do try to vote in their best interests as they see them, and the fortunes of the “left” and the “right” depends on how well each side is able to gauge public opinion as a whole. The Free Market in action.
In theory, if neither the “left” nor the “right” is able to capture the votes of the centre, there ought to be room for a third party to move in and capture the middle. The whole “Third Way” movement, as I see it, is actually designed to stop that from happening. You can think of them as market regulators who see their job as making sure the current players maintain their existing market shares regardless of how poor their service is.
That’s certainly how Brooks and Keller see it. They are not interested in doing the market research and finding out what exactly people don’t like about the two parties’ platforms. They simply write down their own wish list and claim that the “centre” supports it. Polls show a lot of disaffected Democrats think Obama should have been harsher on the banks during the mortgage crisis. Other polls suggest many Republican-leaning voters agree. David Brooks sees this and says that maybe both groups could be persuaded to vote for a Mike Bloomberg/Olympia Snowe ticket to pass the Simpson/Bowles plan.
It’s tempting to dismiss that as the ravings of a lunatic, but Brooks writes what he writes not just to draw a paycheque, but to stop somebody else from drawing a paycheque for saying that voters should put more people in office who are willing to be tougher on the banks. The whole Third Way business comes from the recognition that there are many people out there who want to see changes that neither party is providing, and the only way to stop it from happening is to make sure that any potential third party builds its platform from the least popular parts of the other two.
David in NY
@AnotherBruce:
I gotta go for Friedman or some other warflogger. Atrios, bless him, has not forgotten the villains of 2002-03. The Decade-Wanker list is stuffed with them so far, especially at its upper levels. Friedman’s “suck on this” will almost certainly carry him over.
gogol's wife
@David in NY:
The editorials are completely fenced off from the rest of the paper. Everything not on the actual editorial page (and that includes the Op-ed page, except Collins and Krugman) is fluffing Romney and snarking about Obama, 24/7.
Corner Stone
“economic populism”? This is what Obama is standing up for now?
Sheesh.
Brachiator
@JGabriel:
I keep hearing this from various people on political talk radio shows in Southern California. What this really means is that people are projecting their hopes onto Rommey because he is not a scary black man. There is also the idiotic belief that since Romney is fantabulously wealthy, he must therefore know how to fix the economy.
What the Beltway pundits and a whole lot of other people are missing is that no matter how Romney flips or flops, it is almost a certainty that he will passively sit back and let the war against nonwhites, the poor, unions and women go on without opposition, at the state level.
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor:
This kind of stuff is both totally false and totally useless.
Pundits like Keller are too lazy to do any actual journalism to investigate what voters want, and why; so it’s easier to fall back on standard BS like “the base,” centrists, and left and right, which tell you nothing about the Occupy Wall Street movement, the pushback against Scott Walker, or why some voters insist on identifying as Independent, among other trends.
And assuming that people who don’t believe like you do, or who don’t immediately rally to your cause must be stupid, is tantamount to courting political suicide. Are you assuming a landslide in favor of Obama? Do you really think that there is no need to persuade voters to vote for the Democrats?
I know that there are some progressives who yearn for the purity of defeat, but I just don’t see the point in it.
Since centrists are going to vote, what is the point of writing them off?
Corner Stone
@Davis X. Machina:
Ha! Now we know you’re serious!
Villago Delenda Est
@Joel:
He could not be more mistaken.
Keller most assuredly needs his own tumbrel ride. He’s no Voltaire, Voltaire was not a vile Villager courtier.
Satanicpanic
@JGabriel: Group prize. He did basically that today. Bobo, Douthhat, Friedman, Modo, maybe even Kristof. Or everyone except Blow, Rich and Krugman.
Mike in NC
@JGabriel:
I hate seeing this smug, odious woman on my TV. I could never quite put my finger on it until I read that she got her start working for Nixon. Typical Village Idiot.
Davis X. Machina
@Corner Stone: It’s not that esoteric a usage….
David Koch
I. Told. You. The. Times. Sucks.
Suffern ACE
@Schad: Perhaps he doesn’t see how the desire to plunder exhibited by his class and the one above his class undermines that partisanship. I mean not every upper middle class well-networked man in a nice suit in DC and Wall Street can be guaranteed a place at the trough. Heck, there’s only so many $500,000 per year in adviser and speaking fees positions out there for our elite and their children. Someone has to care who gets those.
That and the ability to turn a 200K per year job into millions via insider trading – those jobs just don’t grow on trees.
jazzgurl
I have come to the conclusion that most of these idiots savant have been conditioned in some little repub hole,convincing themselves that what is real is not! Most of these scribes should be ignored for their falsehoods,asI don’t believe they quite believe what they write!
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@Brachiator:
I thought it was clever and quite accurate, myself, but I could be somewhat biased. Thank you for your input, however. Consider me appropriately shamed and chastened.
BTW, name one idea from ‘the center’ that addresses a single problem we currently have. One idea that neither left nor right agrees with. Just one.
Here’s a hint: You can’t. Because there is no true ‘center’ in American politics anymore. The R’s won’t let us have one, because they keep moving the goal post to the right whenever the left tries to meet them. Obamacare was supposed to be the ‘centrist’ solution to health care reform. See how well that turned out?
Because I’m fresh out of compassion for superstitious idiots who consistently vote against their own interests.
Hungry Joe
@jwb:
Agree. Mustache & Bobo will then squabble about who gets to take the trophy home first.
catclub
another quote from this crap, via Yglesias: They “are looking not for a checklist of promises but for a type of leader—a problem-solver, a competent steward, someone who understands them and has a convincing optimism.”
The last three years of the presidency seem to be just that.
But then he finds a way to see Barack Obama as none of those.
Funny that.
Brachiator
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor:
We largely agree on this point. And it is not just that the GOP have moved the goalposts. They have purged moderates from their party. However, this should not be confused with voters and their attitudes, which is not quite the same thing.
RE: Since centrists are going to vote, what is the point of writing them off?
What does compassion have to do with anything? Do you want the Democrats to win in November, even with centrists you apparently disparage, or do you just want to stew in the juices of your dissatisfaction with them, no matter what happens in November?
lovable liberal
Nostalic SAT analogy:
Bill Keller : New York Times :: Larry Summers : _______
A. Harvard
B. Dept. of Treasury
C. World Bank
D. his own ego
AA+ Bonds
‘teleprompter’, what the shit, that means Keller doesn’t even care if moderates like his column
everyone knows that’s a dogwhistle, especially the Village
AA+ Bonds
‘The center’ as far as I can tell is pro-technocracy and anti-bureaucracy, which is about the most deluded and harmful POV America can muster right now
Don’t bother calling them ‘the center’ – they have an ideology, which is that the private sector is the only model for the public sector
AA+ Bonds
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
In news archives that phrase went away real quick in 2009
liberal
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Yep. Among their other sins, they ain’t too bright.
mclaren
There. Fixed that for you.
Obama the Great Betrayer can’t run on “hope and change” again because he knows no one will buy that. He lied out his ass in 2008 and people bought it, but they’re not dumb enough to believe the same lie twice.
So now Obama is trying out some faux populism in a frantic bid to get himself re-elected.
After he gets re-elected, watch Obama send U.S. troops into Iran and sign into law and warmly endorse as a “moderate sensible realistic plan to return America to true fiscal responsibility” Paul Ryan’s psychotic starve-the-grannies budget after Obama.
Or, alternatively, watch Romney get elected and…send U.S. troops into Iran and sign into law Paul Ryan’s psychotic starve-the-grannies budget.