Atrios has posted his 2nd and 1st Runners-Up to Wanker of the Decade.
I suggest that you think of them not as the runners-up, but the first and second losers in that grand competition;
2nd Runner Up: Andrew Sullivan. One wonders if this will net Atrios a Moore Award.
1st Runner Up: Fred Hiatt, more for his elevation of other wankers than anything else.
Open thread.
Corner Stone
Andrew Sullivan? Really?
Because when he’s good, he’s really good!
Napoleon
Are both Friedman and Brooks still available for the Wanker of the Decade?
Punchy
Wait…now BJ is linking to Atrios who links to everything and paints it blue and calls it a blog, one who Duncan needs to keep pimping is 10 years old like we give a shit? The mind reels.
I suggest we devote this comment thread as a tribute to Atrios. I’ll start:
Howdy! My toast is soggy!
WhoopTDu
“Dogged through the primary by his conservative challengers about his switch from being a pro-abortion governor to an anti-abortion presidential candidate, Romney honed his pro-life position, telling Sawyer he wanted the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.”
http://abcn.ws/HNC8c3
Same Mitt, different day.
Corner Stone
@Napoleon: It’s Lil Tommy Freedom.
There can be absolutely no doubt.
Corner Stone
@Punchy: But what does Sully think of that?
Veritas
Mitt Romney now leads Obambi in the latest Gallup Poll by 2 points! Together with his lead in the Fox News and Rasmussen polls, it looks like the momentum in this race is changing for the better…
David Koch
bobo and mustache (or NYT as a group) will tie for the top spot.
JGabriel
__
__
Here’s the complete Eschaton Wanker list so far, for reference sake:
“Winner” to be announced tomorrow
.
some guy
Soonergrunt gives all the BJ Sensible Centrists a sadz. How dare he link to Atrois, everyone knows he is
a)over the hill
b)shrill
c)has a comment section with actual people who give a shit
d)mean to all the wankers so beloved by the BJ sensible Centrist Coalition (see comment #1 above)
Zifnab
Sullivan is a wanker. But he’s a reformist wanker that takes baby steps towards being less of a wanker. I’m hard pressed to argue that Andy – especially in his post-Obama-endorsement, maybe-liberals-aren’t-so-bad – 11th hour conversion is really worse than the rest of Atrios’s stable of conservative pundit losers.
Part of me thinks he’s just at the top of the list because Atrios recognizes that Sullivan, of all the people he listed, should know better. Part of me thinks he’s just pissed that Sullivan’s an out-and-proud Canadian that continues to be joined at the hip with the anti-Canada party of America.
some guy
@Veritas:
Victory is ours, comrade.
let’s pretend the new CNN poll doesn’t exist, shall we?
Face
@Punchy: Hey Punchy! How’s your mom’s adjunct tutorialship? Pop my marker, yo! Code blue on the functional behavioralist.
IM
So it’s Friedman.
Zifnab
@Punchy:
I’m sorry, Punchy. That answer is incorrect. We would have accepted “Urban hell-hole” or “SUPERTRAAAAAINS!” Given a response like that, i’m forced to assume you don’t actually read Atrios at all.
WhoopTDu
“(CNN) – President Barack Obama holds a nine-point lead over Republican challenger Mitt Romney thanks in part to the perception that the president is more likeable and more in touch with the problems facing women and middle class Americans, according to a new national poll.
According to the poll, 52% of registered voters say if the presidential election were held today, they would vote for the president, with 43% saying they would cast a ballot for Romney
The survey indicates women voters back Obama over Romney by 16 points (55%-39%), virtually unchanged from an 18-point advantage among women for the president in CNN polling last month.
The poll was conducted two days after Democratic strategist and CNN contributor Hilary Rosen created a controversy by saying that Ann Romney “never worked a day in her life.”
http://bit.ly/Izu60H
Corner Stone
@Zifnab: Are you being ironic?
some guy
@Zifnab:
Racist warmongers are racist warmongers, then, now, and forever.
Veritas
CNN polls registered voters. Fox News and Rasmussen are polling LIKELY voters. As we all know the Democrat base is far less likely to turnout than our base…and with the new election integrity laws firmly in place, this will become all the more true…
pk
@Veritas:
Idiot.
IM
@Zifnab:
Sine then is Sullivan a canadian?
some guy
VICTORY!
eemom
@Punchy:
Also too, the whole thing is a shameless, low-rent rip off of the Salon Top 30 Hacks of the Year.
Which, badly as the rest of Salon sucks, was quite good.
Veritas
BTW, according to politico, a SINGLE DONOR last month gave over TEN MILLION DOLLARS to CrossRoads GPS–Karl Rove’s Super PAC. That’s over half of Obambi’s TOTAL donations that same month.
jwb
@Veritas: Several thumbs on the scale will do that.
Zifnab
@Corner Stone: What? No. Compared to Goldberg or Halperin or McArdle, Sully is a freak’n saint. Compared to Erikson (who didn’t even make the list), he’s an angel.
That Andrew even made the list is something of a shock. That he made spot number 2 really says Atrios has it out for him for reasons other than pure wanker-a-tude.
eemom
@WhoopTDu:
somebody should tell the various concern trolls that have been wailing and rending their garments over neverworkedadayinherlife-gate.
dedc79
The Atrios list generally isn’t a bad one (I wouldn’t put Sullivan nearly this high, as annoying as he can be at times), but I find his explanations pretty lazy and subpar, especially given all the material he has to work with.
chris
I hate to rule out Judy Miller, the Queen of all Fucking Iraq… but the Mustache of Understanding is beyond Duncan’s ability to ignore.
R Johnston
@Zifnab: I think Sully is as high as he is in part because the lack of online archives for much of his stuff–atrios pointed this out in his Sully discussion–makes his early warblogging blur together with his past-decade stuff and similarly makes his early hard core fellating of The Bell Curve blur together with all the less-focused times over the past decade that Sully’s casual racism has resurfaced.
From the early 90s through March 2002 Sullivan was a phenomenal dick, and being the right hand of Marty Peretz is something that stains a man forever.
Satanicpanic
Atrios’ awards seem to be taking style into account with extra points for self-importance.
jwb
@some guy: VERITAS has been so excellent at calling these races this spring, it makes me very pleased that he’s feeling confident. He’s a regular Bill Kristol.
eemom
@Veritas:
sorry Humpty — all of Rove’s horses and all of Rove’s men ain’t gonna make Mitty a human be-in.
You’re fucked. Get used to it.
Zifnab
@IM: Ack, sorry. He’s British. For some reason I remember him talking about getting US citizenship and it logged in my brain as “Canadian”. I have no idea why.
Corner Stone
@Zifnab: So not only do you not know Sullivan is, in fact, not a Canadian, but you have absolutely no idea of the breadth and depth of Andy’s craptastic wankerism through the years.
If AS didn’t deserve his spot, then no one did.
Ok, thanks.
Violet
From Sully today:
Are Sully’s fee-fee’s hurt because Obama is insufficiently Oakeshottean?
some guy
Sullivan: racist promoter of other racists
Sullivan: unaplogetic warmonger who demonized non-warmongers
Sullivan: promoter of liars and frauds
Sullivan: Marty Peretz annointed propagandist who never met a corporate shill he couldn’t help catapult.
Sullivan:total fucking wanker
chris
…and really, I quit understanding why anyone continued to read Sullivan years ago. Anybody that obsessed with proving that black people are stupid deserves no serious consideration by any serious reader.
Chyron HR
@Veritas:
Aw, I wanted to quote your rant from last Thursday about how poll numbers are meaningless this far out, but it got nuked along with your ravings about the first lady being a fat “knicker”. That’s too bad.
P.S. When will Mitt apologize for the crude insults his advisors keep hurling at this poor housewife?
Davis X. Machina
@pk: tautology.
Satanicpanic
@Violet: Obama has always been kinda snarky, that’s one of the coolest things about him
Veritas
@eemom:
Remember when you thought there’s no way George W. Bush could ever be President?
Karl Rove made it happen, and that was without Citizens United and the power of unlimited corporate donations…
Soonergrunt
@Zifnab: Sullivan is not Canadian. He is an Englishman.
Schlemizel
@Corner Stone:
When is he good? Seriously, when?
jwb
@Satanicpanic: However much I despise McMegan, she should not have made this list. Atrios should have dismissed her with a simple: she’s a total wanker but in the grander scheme of things, she’s insignificant.
David Koch
@eemom: oh yeah, I forgot about that.
some guy
@dedc79:
plus, the portions are so small.
jwb
@Veritas: So you are admitting that Mittens has nothing but a shitload of money. You’re pathetic.
eemom
@Veritas:
why no, insect-brain, I don’t remember that because I never thought it.
Your desperate is showing.
Rommie
@Violet: Heh, the President has not yet begun to snark when it comes to the Mitt 9000. The fainting couches will groan under the weight of the hurt fee-fee’s.
Corner Stone
@Schlemizel:
Shit. When Andrew Sullivan is on, he is mofo’ng ON! And when he’s good, he is really good!
Napoleon
@Soonergrunt:
Actually isn’t he Irish that lived in England?
David Koch
@Violet: Oh, I get it. Sully must be mad because Obama made fun of Mittens saying “marvelous”.
Pffft.
I mean seriously. Mocking Mitten’s Thurston Howell III dialect makes him upset. What a joke he is.
Catsy
I always preferred “The 101st Chairborne”.
burnspbesq
@some guy:
I’m guessing that “Living in the Past” is your favorite Jethro Tull song. It’s rock’n’roll, dude, not Words to Live By.
jwb
@Corner Stone: And when he’s bad, he’s worse than crap. The problem is he has very sloppy habits of mind so he keeps repeating his mistakes: a step forward, a step back.
Veritas
@jwb:
A shitload of money, Super PACs, Karl Rove, and the Koch Brothers.
And there’s nothing you can do about it.
John Dillinger
It’s pretty well established that when the term “veritas” is used, what you are about to read is the exact opposite. It’s like they think that Latin hypnotizes people or something. It did’t work that way when you used it right before you got beat up in the 9th grade, did it?
Zifnab
@Corner Stone:
I’ve been on this blog since ’03 and (holy shit, I feel old) Cole regularly linked to Sully. So perhaps viewing Sully through the John-Cole-slowly-converts-to-radical-liberalism lens tainted my viewpoint, but Sully never really seemed to hold a candle to the rest of the online war cheerleaders and internet wankers.
Just take the list Atrios dropped under Haitt.
Are you really going to tell me that for every pro-war or insufferably self-aggrandizing racist entry published by Sully, I couldn’t find two by one of these other clowns? I mean, Bill Kristol alone filled an entire weekly newspaper with his bilge. Was Bomb’m Bill – another that didn’t even register on the Wank-o-meter – really less bad than Sully?
burnspbesq
Reminder: don’t wrestle with a
pigtroll. You end up covered with mud and shit, and thepigtroll likes it.some guy
@burnspbesq:
we can’t all spend our time working diligently for a tax free future for rich assholes, my friend.
Soonergrunt
@Napoleon: Either one is not Canadian.
Satanicpanic
@John Dillinger: The like it because Romans were a bunch of humorless fascists, at least towards the end. How they reconcile that with the fact that Romans killed Jesus is beyond me.
Napoleon
@Soonergrunt:
Agreed, I just figured just to accurate. He is likely thinking Frum for the Canadian thing.
Zifnab
@Napoleon: Actually, I did not know Frum was Canadian.
Is that why Canada is so full of polite people? They just ship us all the assholes?
Ash Can
@Violet:
“…With his skin tone,” he added silently to himself.
Dork
@Face: My feet hurt from the garage smoke.
David Koch
All this talk about the secret service and hookers prompted me to buy 10,000 shares of Consolidated Escort.
Corner Stone
@some guy: Why are you being such a hardass on our resident Duke alum burnspbesq?
Don’t you recognize a hard working freedom fighter when you see one? Of course, he’s working hard to tax free the profits and revenue from rich people to tax havens in the islands, but nonetheless. He’s a hard working freedom fighter for the peoples.
Peoples of significant wealth and means.
bemused
I love Obama snark.
rlrr
@pk:
The proper term is Shit for Brains.
Satanicpanic
@jwb: Yeah, it’s weird, I’m just spitballing what his reasons are for his picks
Steve
Tom Friedman is obviously #1. Didn’t Atrios coin the “Friedman Unit”?
jwb
@Veritas: Nothing pleases me more than your excessive confidence. The money will do little more than ensure that Romneybot 3.0 is not blown out of the water. My guess is the vast majority of it will go to try to hold the House and the state legislatures and make a go at the Senate. Here’s some basic math once money reaches saturation: there are only so many ad slots that can be bought and every ad bought for Romneybot 3.0 is one that can’t be used for other races. Plus if the TV is filled to the brim with negative political ads—and Romneybot 3.0’s team hasn’t shown that they are effective at making any other kind—I think people may even stop watching football this fall.
Cluttered Mind
I think Sullivan deserves his high position on the list because of his ability to be reasonable from time to time. If you’re a total moron like Jonah Goldberg or a pathological liar like Megan McArdle, you’re bad. If you’re a guy who has clearly shown the ability to recognize truth and reason but still can’t help but slobber over Paul Ryan and The Bell Curve, you’re the #2 runner-up. The fact that he knows better and still performs his wankery is what gets him his high position on the list.
Corner Stone
@Zifnab: I’m not going to get into a wank off here. I’m out of lotion.
But if we need to start with Sully, and run his tab from Peretz right up through the recent “Ryan Budget Debate” we can fucking do that.
General Stuck
Hahahahha
Looks like the wingnut’s white whale of Rosengate turned out to be a minnow on a three hour tour. Back to the drawing board,
SamR
@Corner Stone: Basically for the post-9/11 “the decadent left on the coasts may well mount a 5th column” stuff, as well as his continually returning to the theme of “shouldn’t we consider the science of whether black people are less intelligent than white people?”
As Atrios notes in his Hiatt writeup “this award is for wanking, not pure wingerism.” That’s why Diane Sawyer won an award basically on the strength of her interview the Dixie Chicks after one of them said she was ashamed Bush was from Texas.
Quaker in a Basement
Damn the slender odds. Two bucks on the Mustache.
Napoleon
@Zifnab:
I know Frum is far from perfect, and the fact he coined the phrase “axis of evil” causes some people to foam at the mouth, but when it comes to conservatives in this country he is way less of an asshole amd way more sane then most on his side.
Villago Delenda Est
@Veritas:
Try “likely voters with landlines”.
Who tend to skew rethug.
Nice try, shitstain.
driftglass
“One wonders if this will net Atrios a Moore Award.”
I doubt it.
For Sullivan, Liberals who were inconveniently right all along about all the shit Sullivan got (and still gets) horribly wrong simply do not exist.
His ideology cannot permit them to exist.
To Tory!Tory!Tory! Conservatives like Sullivan, Liberals have all seamlessly transitioned from America-hating “5th columnists” to “invisible”.
dmsilev
@General Stuck: You mean actual positions and laws espoused by a political party count for more than what some random professional pundit said? Seriously?
The horror.
Veritas
@Villago Delenda Est:
Libs have been babbling about the cell phone effect for 8 years now and nothing has come of it.
Catsy
The thing I love about all the trolls (concern and otherwise), wingnuts and assorted derps bleating about all the Citizens United money that’s going to go towards defeating Obama is that they actually think this is to their benefit.
Negative ads trashing Obama won’t help. Romney’s underwater favorables are just devastating, and he needs to raise them to have even a prayer at winning. But negative ads have been shown to raise the unfavorables of both candidates–people don’t like getting bombarded with that crap and they’re already sick of it from the early and protracted primary season.
Positive ads for Romney won’t help much either, in essence because the more people are exposed to Romney the less they like him.
So go ahead and drain the wingnut coffers for that sweet, sweet unlimited spending on ads. Please.
Ash Can
Hey, speaking of Romney and wanking, I just spotted this gem reported by one of the wags in the LGF comments: Romney tells Obama to ‘start packing’ in interview with Diane Sawyer
LULZ0RZ
TooManyJens
@Veritas:
ahahahahahahahahaha….
Villago Delenda Est
@Veritas:
Well, there was 2008. You remember that, don’t you, cumstain?
Veritas
@jwb:
Speaking of football, I’ve heard that Karl Rove is going to be buying TONS of ad time during Steelers, Eagles, and ALL NFC North games this fall.
You won’t be able to escape it.
Corner Stone
@SamR:
Listen. I get he’s made some mistakes in the past. But he’s so open and honest in his writing! It’s true he sometimes takes a while to get to the right answer but eventually he always comes around to the right position. I just think anyone who writes so beautifully and with such open emotions on their sleeves deserves a break. I mean, he’s just so damned good when he’s good!
Veritas
Oh, and a RIDICULOUS amount of ad time during Browns, Bengals, Dolphins, and Jaguars games, too.
dmsilev
@Catsy: And the other thing which our pet trolls seem to forget is that negative ads are far less effective when people already have an opinion about the target of the ads. Barack Obama is not some Senator who most of the country doesn’t really know; he’s the sitting President and for better or for worse, the great majority of the country already knows him.
Catsy
@General Stuck:
Yup. The idea that this manufactured outrage over a poorly-worded comment by a random Democratic pundit would somehow make women and independents forget the GOP’s war on women’s health and rights was absurd right from the getgo.
Didn’t stop a whole bunch of people from wringing their hands over the so-called major setback to the very effective “GOP war on women” attack strategy.
Veritas
Essentially, half of the NFL will be transformed into an ad arm of the pro-Romney Super PACs.
Catsy
@Veritas:
Promise? Because I gotta tell you, there’s nothing sports fans love more than having a bunch of political ads rubbed in their face over and over again during the big game.
Satanicpanic
@dmsilev: Yeah, what are they going to bring out? They spent months harping on Ayers, Wright, etc. during the last cycle and no one could be bothered to figure out what they were talking about. What do they have now? Solyndra? Solynd-what?
Chyron HR
@Veritas:
Here’s a hypothetical scenario (that’s a fancy way of saying “pretend”): Geroge Soros uses some of his filthy Jew gold to flood every channel with non-stop anti-Romney ads.
Would that somehow make you not want to vote for Romney?
(If you’ve already abandoned Mitt the way you did Palin and Pawlenty, feel free to substitute the name of your current Messiah.)
General Stuck
Nuther new poll, to counter the Gallup daily nonsense.
Lights out Gracie, Americans don’t vote for a POTUS candidate they abjectly dislike, especially over an incumbent they do like. Even with the race factor factored in, this big a gap in favorables is simply lethal for the Romney crowd. Once you are disliked, it is nigh impossible to get folks liking you again, if they ever did.
asiangrrlMN
Eschaton put Sully on the list and that high? I may have to go back to reading Eschaton!
Martin
Ignore the national polls. We don’t elect presidents nationally. We elect them state by state. It doesn’t matter if Romney wins 0% or 49% of California, he wins none of the states Electoral Votes. Ask Al Gore if winning the national vote matters.
Catsy
@General Stuck:
Bingo. And flooding the airwaves with attack ads isn’t going to solve that problem–if anything, it’ll exacerbate it.
Mickey
Greenwald is doing everything he can to make that list someday….when he becomes a more relevant wanker I guess. And what a proud day it will be for him.
Veritas
@Martin:
And another liberal gets it.
WhoopTDu
http://www.pollingreport.com/wh12.htm
“Is in touch with the problems facing middle class Americans today”
Obama 51
Romney 33
jwb
@Veritas: And you think Obama is not going to be buying ads? Seriously, Romneybot 3.0 was barely able to make it past the impoverished seven dwarves of the GOP primary. What’s he going to do when he’s up against a smart, well-financed opponent?
In any case, more people than you think will decided to give up football rather than be bombarded by the political ads.
gbear
But Veritas will be back any second now to share his unlimited reasons to actually like Romney.
Hungry Joe
He can’t leave out Bobo and he can’t leave out the Mustache. It has to be a tie; there’ll be 11, not 10, on the list. We’ll nuke ’em all — it’s the only way to be sure.
David Koch
Move-On.org just posted ad attacking Tunch
http://youtu.be/pEYiyRXl19s
Corner Stone
@jwb:
Who are these people? And are the FEMA camps ready to hold them if they appear?
General Stuck
@Martin:
Well, technically you are correct, but in practice it rarely happens the way it did in 2000. And shouldn’t have then if Florida hadn’t been such a basket case for running elections. The screwup on the ballot in Broward county alone, with boxes not lining up for Buchanan next to Gore, gave Pat something like 20 thousand votes that should have been for Al. And there were other screw ups favoring Bush, ie Supreme Court, etc..
And even if you don’t look at national polling, and I agree it is too early to take those that seriously, excepting favorable numbers, most of the analysis gives dems and Obama a sizable electoral college advantage over the gooper, with current poll conditions state to state.
Amir Khalid
@Ash Can:
Delusional optimism. We all like that in a candidate, don’t we? Mitt’s still a transparent phony, his flailing when he tries to talk policy is painful to watch, his party is working flat-out to make everyone hate it. He’s consistently trailing Obama in the polls, his campaign org is nowhere near as organized as Obama’s, and I just don’t see how he’s going to make up ground.
One thing I’m confident about: come November 7, Mitt won’t need to pack for a move to Washington.
Mike E
Obama wins in a walk. And Living In The Past is a stone cold groove, my man.
driftglass
@Napoleon:
Frum is primarily a whore. Could barely be bothered to notice how nuts Conservatism had become was until they kicked him off the wingnut welfare teat and still makes it abundantly clear that he would happily jump back on the gravy train given half a chance.
Yes he “came to Jesus” a couple of inches…once he had no place else to go and after which Andrew Sullivan propped Frum’s site up for several months until they could find a place for him at the Daily Beast.
Lesson?
There is a Club.
You are not in it.
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2012/03/andrew-sullivan-sarah-palin-and-harry.html
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2012/01/gay-catholic-tory-expatriate.html
David Koch
@General Stuck: lot poles came out today.
MikeJ
@David Koch: Are they more likely to stay closeted?
eemom
@jwb:
Even I might give up football.
Ash Can
@Amir Khalid: This should be quite an election campaign. Mitt will keep saying stupid shit — he can’t help himself. And unless and until someone in the campaign throws a net over Ann and/or reporters quit shoving microphones in her face, she’s going to continue to exhibit all the grace of a rusty fire hydrant. On top of this, Romney’s going to be choosing a running mate (or, probably more likely, having one chosen for him). Considering the fact that all the Republicans who aren’t obnoxious charlatans are flat-out certifiably insane, that should add immensely to the circus. The debates alone are going to be sheer box office.
jwb
@Corner Stone: We’re building a camp especially for VERITAS.
But seriously I think if the ad buys go nuclear in the fall, that people will not watch—I think the networks and the leagues both know this and so will try to limit the number of political ads that go on during games. I’m not sure that’s possible.
Martin
@General Stuck: Actually, it happened 3 times prior to Bush/Gore.
But even so, the popular vote margin in 2008 wasn’t reflected in the electoral vote margin. Obama won the popular vote by 7% but won the electoral vote by 35%. And Obama came a lot closer to winning Texas than McCain did either CA or NY.
If someone can show me an EV path for Romney, I’d like to see it. I don’t see one – and Obama’s growing lead with latino voters is going to make states like Texas and Arizona harder and harder for the GOP to hold.
Culture of Truth
I knew Fred Hiatt would finish, very very high, but he’s not big enough to be number one.
For sheer consistency, volume, unerring, untiring, endless wanking, in both quantity and quality, it must be Suck On This
jwb
@Martin: I don’t think Obama will get close in TX, and at this point he will do well to keep the margin the same as 2008. I’m not hearing grumbling about Romney from my teaparty neighbors. I’ll be able to tell better once the political signs start going up. I’d be curious if any of the other Texans on the list sense a shift. If Obama does put Texas in play, it’s lights out GOP, because then the House will certainly fall and the Dems are likely to hold the Senate as well. In addition, the Dems would likely take back many of the state legislatures. Arizona might be very interesting. And their state legislature has been wingnutty enough that I wouldn’t be surprised to see the whole state flip.
General Stuck
@Martin:
There really isn’t a path right now for Romney to win the EV, to get the needed 270. As far as national polls go, they are at best a broad indicator of an early snapshot. It is the internals or crosstabs of these polls that are so devastating to Romney.
Sometimes, when he isn’t dutifully bloviating the wingnut foghorn, Allahpundit can do a fairly solid appraisal of politics and polling from a RW perspective, and he lays it all out very well, for the most part, in this post.
Corner Stone
@Martin:
Obama? No. Obama will not win either TX or AZ in 2012. That’s foolish.
In future elections will this matter? Of course. But Obama will lose both of these two specific states.
gogol's wife
@David Koch:
That is so mean! That almost makes me want to vote for Romney! (I have a lovely, adorable fat cat. I’m offended.)
David Koch
@MikeJ:
Unfortunately yes. Poles have a lot of trouble screwing in light bulbs and opening closets.
Corner Stone
@jwb:
Nope. Recently I teased one of the moms at my son’s school by calling her a “Santorum backer”, and when she demurred I said something about, “Well, Paul then?” and she laughed and said that no she was a Romney girl.
This was a couple months ago before it was so decided in the media who the GOP nom would be.
All the wingnuts in my area are just fine with Romney, and in fact are pumped about voting for him.
Alternatively, my dad lives south of Tucson and his wingnuts are also solidly in the Romney camp.
Both AZ and TX will go hard red in 2012.
Zifnab
@Veritas:
Nothing wins over voters like backing them into a corner and screaming at them for three months solid. Just ask California Governor Meg Wittman.
Martin
@jwb: I think he’s going to make a run for TX. There’s a senate seat open, redistricting has thrown a lot of incumbents up in the air, there’s a ton of idiotic state legislation to run against, and he’s got even more of the Latino vote now as he had in 2008.
The only thing Texas needs for Obama to win it is a serious GOTV effort. He’s got a ground operation there which is much better than he had in 2008, and he’s got more registered voters in his column than Romney has in his. If he can turn out Dems near the rate of Republicans, he’ll win. It’s really that simple.
gogol's wife
@Zifnab:
And Connecticut Senator Linda McMahon.
Martin
@Zifnab: God, that was horrible.
grandpa john
@Martin: You would think that by now some of these idiots would have learned that. Polls of individual states are much more important. RCP electoral vote map currently has Obama up 227 to 170 in EV. there are 11 toss up states, Romney currently leads poll averaging in 1 of them AZ.
R Johnston
People were wondering–or at least I was, but I know I’ve read some other people wondering the same thing–how Broder was going to be worked in after atrios announced that there would be no posthumous awards. This wasn’t how I predicted it, but it works nicely. Hiatt got a managerial wanking award so that Broder and the rest of the Post staff could all get a mention without dominating the list.
Amir Khalid
@David Koch:
To be fair, there’s not a lot of room to screw, in a light bulb.
Zifnab
@Corner Stone:
I don’t know. That depends on how the Hispanic vote swings, more and more. If Obama baits Romney and the Rethugs into another round of Hispanic bashing, it won’t be pretty in the Southwest states.
For all of Perry’s idiocy, he knows how the game is played. I don’t think Mitt is familiar with the game plan in browning states like Texas.
I’m predicting Texas will noticeably purple.
jwb
@Martin: No, Obama needs a lot more than a GOTV effort, even granting that the Dem GOTV has been pretty lame in TX. The state hasn’t been competitive for Dems since I moved here in the late 1990s. It will take at least two more election cycles. In 2020, Texas will be in play.
I think Arizona is more vulnerable this year. They’ve elected Dems to state-wide office more recently and their legislature has been more overtly wingnutty. If Obama was going to make a play for one of the states, I’d certainly think it would be Arizona. In any case, he doesn’t need either, and so if he is in a position to be going after one or both, it will mean that the GOP is in a heap of trouble.
Gex
@SamR: There’s also the “lets let Betsy the liar publish bullshit on health care reform, kill it for almost 20 years, and let health care costs nearly break the country because it is an “interesting intellectual exercise.”
Corner Stone
@Zifnab: Let’s be clear. TX will elect another GOP Senator for KBH and send their R House people back in, in some mix.
That’s a no doubter.
Obama will not win TX. I’ll take bets from anyone who wants to put real money on this.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@Veritas:
Yay! The People Must Be Crushed Underfoot! With MONEY!
VICToRY!
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@Veritas:
Yay! The People Must Be Crushed Underfoot! With MONEY!
VICToRY!
Raven
grandpa john
@Martin: Check Rubins article
in the WP, she is sure there is one to be found in her fantasy world.
dollared
@eemom: What do you like? What makes you happy?
Litlebritdifrnt
@Veritas:
Yeah there is, we can get people out to vote, all the money in the world can’t stop that.
TenguPhule
Uh yeah, we can call that hole in the middle of nowhere that. Now, where to bill the bullet to the pustule’s family?
TenguPhule
More proof that many rich people need to be taxed more, they’re too stupid to be trusted to spend it on anything useful.
satanicpanic
@Raven: I hope that’s a promise
lamh35
I just caught the video of the Tupac hologram. It was pretty awesome even on video. I wonder how it was in person.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zMjUeiCloOk
GregB
Mr. Romney, will you commit to expanding the NASA space program so that we can colonize the planet Kolob?
Patricia Kayden
I never read Andrew Sullivan or Charles Johnson when they were Rightwingers, so they’re cool with me now that they’ve converted to the bright side.
gnomedad
@Veritas:
Sorry, Friedman’s got a lock. Lobbying is pointless.
Chris
@TenguPhule:
I forget which sci-fi show it was where I got the line “wealth is too precious to be entrusted to the rich.” Wherever it was, it’s not a bad thought.
Shari
I heard David Cay on Chris Hayes’ show this weekend talking about how the Romneys were able to transfer $100 million to their sons and avoid any taxes on it. My head is still trying to wrap itself around it, so I’d welcome any simpler explanations about how this works.
We need an overhaul of the tax code and not just the Buffett rule – which was defeated by the Republicans today in the Senate.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/david-cay-johnston-romneys-were-able-give-s#comments
eemom
****breaking****
Ann Romney Courts the Dog Vote
bwaaahaaaahaaaahaaaahaaaaa
GregB
@Shari:
I thought that just giving people money that they themselves didn’t earn was a recipe for creating useless eaters, parasites and dependents?
dmsilev
@eemom: Heh. Nobody believed Mitt when he said “the dog loved it”, so why does anyone think that Ann would be any more believable?
Edit: Also, too,
Not, “No, it probably wasn’t a good idea” or “No, the dog should have been in the car with us”, but “it has turned into a political liability, so in retrospect I regret having given ammunition to my opponents and every comedian on the planet.”
Nice man, that Mitt.
Amir Khalid
@eemom:
What the fish is this woman thinking?
AA+ Bonds
Judith Miller
AA+ Bonds
BTW if anyone missed it, Judith Miller seems to still be at Newsmax
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dmsilev: “I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake!”
AA+ Bonds
I’d just be hard-pressed to name anyone in the opinion section who measures up to a likely co-conspirator in the Iraq fraud who pretty much made up a bunch of stories . . . and was printed as “news”
lamh35
@dmsilev:
If this interview was supposed to “soften” Romney it sure as hell didn’t. I really disliked McCain and Palin, but I didn’t “hate” them. But ugh, I really dislike Mitt and Ann Romney more than I disliked Palin or McCain.
Romney To Obama: ‘Start Packing’
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dmsilev: “I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake!”
AA+ Bonds
I’d just be hard-pressed to name anyone in the opinion section who measures up to a likely co-conspirator in the Iraq fraud who pretty much made up a bunch of stories . . . and was printed as “news”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dmsilev: “I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake!”
HRA
OT? Sorry if it is so.
Just read where Willard said for the president to staart packing in an ABC interview today. Made my bp rise and I donated to the Obama campaign within minutes.
What a smug SOB!
Egg Berry
@dmsilev: Shades of his illegal immigrant gardening response, if I recall. “I can’t have this – I’m running for office!”
lamh35
@dmsilev:
If this interview was supposed to “soften” Romney it sure as hell didn’t. I really disliked McCain and Palin, but I didn’t “hate” them. But ugh, I really dislike Mitt and Ann Romney more than I disliked Palin or McCain.
Romney To Obama: ‘Start Packing’
Kiril
Sorry folks, I just don’t see a road to victory for Brooks. It has to be Friedman. From Suck. On. This. to the Friedman Unit to Third Way wanking, it’s got to be him.
Egg Berry
@dmsilev: Shades of his illegal immigrant gardening response, if I recall. “I can’t have this – I’m running for office!”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Raven: I knew it! I knew Obama’s pose of compromise and caution was a secret plot to get Ted Nugent, a hugely important guy! Many people between the ages of 40 and 60 remember his music, some younger people have seen him on that show where he shoots things, and nearly 1% of country may well have seen him on Sean Hannity. That sneaky fuck Obama plays a long game.
Kiril
Sorry folks, I just don’t see a road to victory for Brooks. It has to be Friedman. From Suck. On. This. to the Friedman Unit to Third Way wanking, it’s got to be him.
Schlemizel
@Corner Stone:
So he has never been ON? I mean I did ask when. Even when I find his opinion appears to agree with mine his thinking is more how he can justify his already formed opinion rather than any examination of the evidence or arguments. He is shallow, artificial and pompous.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Raven: I knew it! I knew Obama’s pose of compromise and caution was a secret plot to get Ted Nugent, a hugely important guy! Many people between the ages of 40 and 60 remember his music, some younger people have seen him on that show where he shoots things, and nearly 1% of country may well have seen him on Sean Hannity. That sneaky fuck Obama plays a long game.
R Johnston
@jwb:
It’s already been built. He gets the lower cell.
lamh35
Ann and Mitt proving class has nothing to do with how much money you have.
If this interview was supposed to “soften” Romney it sure as hell didn’t. I really disliked McCain and Palin, but I didn’t “hate” them. But ugh, I really dislike Mitt and Ann Romney more than I disliked Palin or McCain.
Romney To Obama: ‘Start Packing’
Can anyone imagine if in ’08 how wingnut head would have exploded if candidate Obama had said this when asked what he had to say to GWB? ugh, these people have no class.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Raven: I knew it! I knew Obama’s pose of compromise and caution was a secret plot to get Ted Nugent, a hugely important guy! Many people between the ages of 40 and 60 remember his music, some younger people have seen him on that show where he shoots things, and nearly 1% of country may well have seen him on Sean Hannity. That sneaky fuck Obama plays a long game.
Schlemizel
@Corner Stone:
So he has never been ON? I mean I did ask when. Even when I find his opinion appears to agree with mine his thinking is more how he can justify his already formed opinion rather than any examination of the evidence or arguments. He is shallow, artificial and pompous.
R Johnston
@jwb:
It’s already been built. He gets the lower cell.
R Johnston
@jwb:
It’s already been built. He gets the lower cell.
lamh35
Ann and Mitt proving class has nothing to do with how much money you have.
If this interview was supposed to “soften” Romney it sure as hell didn’t. I really disliked McCain and Palin, but I didn’t “hate” them. But ugh, I really dislike Mitt and Ann Romney more than I disliked Palin or McCain.
Romney To Obama: ‘Start Packing’
Can anyone imagine if in ’08 how wingnut head would have exploded if candidate Obama had said this when asked what he had to say to GWB? ugh, these people have no class.
Lolis
New thread, please.
eemom
@dmsilev:
yep, just like when he said he wouldn’t hire an undocumented immigrant because “I’m running for office, for pete’s sake!”
I mean fer fux sake. I’m beginning to think he’s a DougJ spoof.
Lolis
New thread, please.
Another Halocene Human
@R Johnston:
Bingo. That occurred during my formative political years and I’ve NEVER forgotten.
Ever so often I check in on Androgen Andy and find that he’s just as self-absorbed and lazy as ever, so I have seen no need to modify my appraisal of him.
priscianusjr
@Chyron HR:
priscianusjr
@Chyron HR:
eemom
I’m beginning to wonder if Mitt is a DougJ spoof.
eemom
I’m beginning to wonder if Mitt is a DougJ spoof.
Peter
OT: A friend of mine just had to put her dog down. He was diagnosed with acute leukemia. She needs money for the cremation and the vet bill, and any donations would be appreciated. This is my first time posting anything like this, so I hope that I’m not out of line.
The post with information about the dog.
eemom
I’m beginning to wonder if Mitt is a DougJ spoof.
lamh35
@HRA:
Ann and Mitt proving class has nothing to do with how much money you have.
If this interview was supposed to “soften” Romney it sure as hell didn’t. I really disliked McCain and Palin, but I didn’t “hate” them. But ugh, I really dislike Mitt and Ann Romney more than I disliked Palin or McCain.
Romney To Obama: ‘Start Packing’
Can anyone imagine if in ’08 how wingnut head would have exploded if candidate Obama had said this when asked what he had to say to GWB? ugh, these people have no class.
Peter
OT: A friend of mine just had to put her dog down. He was diagnosed with acute leukemia. She needs money for the cremation and the vet bill, and any donations would be appreciated. This is my first time posting anything like this, so I hope that I’m not out of line.
The post with information about the dog.
lamh35
@HRA:
Ann and Mitt proving class has nothing to do with how much money you have.
If this interview was supposed to “soften” Romney it sure as hell didn’t. I really disliked McCain and Palin, but I didn’t “hate” them. But ugh, I really dislike Mitt and Ann Romney more than I disliked Palin or McCain.
Romney To Obama: ‘Start Packing’
Can anyone imagine if in ’08 how wingnut head would have exploded if candidate Obama had said this when asked what he had to say to GWB? ugh, these people have no class.
Peter
OT: A friend of mine just had to put her dog down. He was diagnosed with acute leukemia. She needs money for the cremation and the vet bill, and any donations would be appreciated. This is my first time posting anything like this, so I hope that I’m not out of line.
The post with information about the dog.
lamh35
Ann and Mitt proving class has nothing to do with how much money you have.
If this interview was supposed to “soften” Romney it sure as hell didn’t. I really disliked McCain and Palin, but I didn’t “hate” them. But ugh, I really dislike Mitt and Ann Romney more than I disliked Palin or McCain.
Romney To Obama: ‘Start Packing’
Can anyone imagine if in ’08 how wingnut head would have exploded if candidate Obama had said this when asked what he had to say to GWB? ugh, these people have no class.
the fugitive uterus
nightmare fuel.
i don’t know anything about this site and i am not in any way promoting it. i was just poking around trying to find stuff on megachurches. the videos melted my brain.
Peter
OT: A friend of mine just had to put her dog down. He was diagnosed with acute leukemia. She needs money for the cremation and the vet bill, and any donations would be appreciated. This is my first time posting anything like this, so I hope that I’m not out of line.
The post with information about the dog.
Peter
OT: A friend of mine just had to put her dog down. He was diagnosed with acute leukemia. She needs money for the cremation and the vet bill, and any donations would be appreciated. This is my first time posting anything like this, so I hope that I’m not out of line.
The post with information about the dog.
eemom
blog is broked again. : (
Another Halocene Human
@eemom: Glad it’s not just me. I got one bounce and thought about what I might have said to get banninated. Then I saw all the DPs.
dmsilev
Echo, echo, echo, echo
(watch this comment get repeated a dozen times…)
Keith G
Cool, nothing like seeing a bunch of Democrats getting all pleased with themselves about how the GOP is in more jeopardy than an armadillo moseying across a Texas interstate. This is overly optimistic if not a slight bit delusional.
Yeah, right now there is a breeze at Obama’s back. Right now. But I have heard the song about the Republicans being down and out before. More often than not, they weren’t. Taken as a whole, Americans can be as dull as dirt. This gives Romney more than a reasonable chance to close on the President. He will. There is quite a fight to be had ahead.
If Obama wins in a walk that means that I live in a wonderful world that is nearing perfection, but I ain’t celebratin’ yet. There is too much work to do.
Peter
Ugh, I feel like an asshole with that comment reposting all the time. I didn’t mean to, I swear!
Just Some Fuckhead
Sheets!
Frivolous
Atrios picking Andrew Sullivan for 2nd runner up is something I snort and roll my eyes at.
I’ll continue to ignore Atrios as something not worth reading or paying attention to.
Another Halocene Human
@some guy:
Tax-free rich assholes are people too, my friend.
I wish the rich people in my family had been tax free. Then I could quit my job and Occupy full time, like a true trustifarian!
(Being unfair here as all the Occupiers in my town seem to be long-term unemployed, not trust-fund kiddiez. That what I liked about OWS… it wasn’t just trust-fund kiddiez. It was a nice change. Still enjoy mocking the kiddiez, though.)
Another Halocene Human
@Mickey:
WINNING. He wanks so hard, too.
Another Halocene Human
@jwb:
It’s called illegal streaming feeds.I mean, no such thing exists. I guess everyone will give up football.N W Barcus
I used to think that Andrew Sullivan was something that had budded off Camille Paglia and Christopher Hitchens when they had been been bound together too long to the same tree, but now that Sullivan’s withdrawn all his previous writing as “deriving principally from the silky folds of my capacious rectum”, apologized abjectly for the willful ignorance and racism that led him to promote The Bell Curve, delivered Marty Peretz, George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and Donald Rumsfeld to the Hague for prosecution of war crimes, and pulled off his own testicles in Zucotti Park as a ritual sacrifice to Moloch and Barbara Bush, I find that I can now read his learned dissertations without retching more than thrice, and twice more in the hour afterwards.
PoliticalHack
I confess I like Sullivan’s blog. I know he had initially rah-rah’ed for war, which he later backed down from and apologized for. I was somewhat surprised to see him so high in this list.
However, had I read Sullivan when he wrote some of those things as a commander of the fighting 104th keyboardists, I might also consider him a waste of electrons.
Rogers
Mr. Black could have saved himself a lot of trouble by merely listing the Dead Tree/TeeVee savants who might conceivably qualify as NON Wankers. Let’s see, there’s Krugman, and then,ummm, Krugman again, and then…Aw screw it.
Ruckus
Sully’s problem is not being a bad writer, and sure sometimes he comes around to be almost reasonable, it’s where he starts from and how long it takes him and what he does with it in the meantime.