These farkin’ people, again! Today, Charles P. Pierce at Esquire noticed another Republican revanchist shilling for his house brand of “bipartisanship”:
Of all the people pretending that they only worked for The Good George W. Bush — the guy who liked brown people, and education reform, and who could Work With Democrats — and not for the abject, thoroughgoing incompetent who sat in the White House for eight years while the rest of the country got frog-marched into the handbasket, Mark McKinnon may well be the most singularly annoying. Instead of taking himself off into the desert, with a water-skin and a staff, and while millions of Americans jeer and throw small lizards at him, to do penance for what he and his Texas bag-of-hammers did to the country, McKinnon has spent the last few years trying to jimmy the lock and slip back into political influence through the sliding glass doors.
His vehicle is something called No Labels, one of those faux-reasonable exercise in “centrist” wankery that argues that the principal problem with American politics these days is that there are too many politics involved… Today, on Morning Squint, McKinnon was on with the substitute cast of characters, making to case for his latest scam….
“Just over four months from now, we will elect either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney as president based on what they say they want to do. But America’s future will be decided by what our president can do in the years ahead. And increasingly, he can’t do enough. Almost 40 years after Congress began the post-Watergate roll-back of the “Imperial Presidency,” America’s chief executive now arguably faces too many impediments to enacting his or her agenda.”
These people have to be kidding. Were they alive in the past 40 years? Almost all of those “post-Watergate reforms” — which can be more accurately described as “post-Vietnam” reforms, since the price of the imperial presidencies in question was a few million dead Asians — have been repealed, gutted, or simply ignored… It may have escaped the notice of the scholars at No Labels, but the Supreme Court tossed into the spittoon all the campaign-finance laws passed subsequent to the Watergate scandals. A Democratic Senate gave McKinnon’s old boss his tax-cuts in 2000, rolled over and begged when he wanted a war in Iraq, and even when he was at the nadir of his power, he still managed to get his “surge” out of Congress in the wake of his party’s shellacking in the 2006 midterms. The current “chief executive now arguably faces too many impediments to enacting his or her agenda” because the opposition in Congress is a collection of crackpots and vandals, few of whom have any interest in governing the nation. The solution to that is for people to stop electing crackpots and vandals…
Much more information, and video, at the link.
Our own Dennis G has previously discussed Mr. McKinnon:
For those who do not know the name, McKinnon is one of the bottom feeders who helped to destroy America’s ability to solve problems. McKinnon is a hype master, a spin doctor, a bull shit artist without peer and a complete weasel.
It was McKinnon and his image making machine that sold George W. Bush to America. And while that alone should earn him his own circle in Hell, he is responsible for even greater damage. For it was McKinnon who took the virtue of learning—the skill to evolve your understanding of an issue based on knowledge—and twisted it into a liability. McKinnon sold the idea that a mind that could not learn-would not learn—was better than a mind that did. McKinnon sold the idea that stubborn ignorance is a virtue and that fear of knowledge should be celebrated. It was McKinnon who invented and sold the whole “Decider” line of bullshit. It was McKinnon who sold the idea that wisdom is a bad thing.The 2004 Campaign was McKinnon at his best. It was McKinnon who invented the idea of the “flip-flop” as a way to attack John Kerry’s willingness to evolve his thinking as he learned new details. McKinnon sold Bush’s prideful stupidity and rigid, incurious mind as virtues. It work. Now, any evolution of thought presents a new “gotcha” opportunity for an impressively lazy press corps and there is very little room for any politician, pundit or even citizen to admit that any new information or learning has led to an evolution of their thinking. The mere act of thinking has become a bad thing thanks in large part to the work of Mark McKinnon…
Further detail: Another liar finds his media borg.
Frank Rich at NYMag discussed the bad faith/dishonesty behind the “No Label” defense of the “underrepresented” independent voters back in September 2011:
One polling organization that regularly examines them in depth, Pew, has found that nearly half of independents are in fact either faithful Democrats (21 percent) or Republicans (26 percent) who simply don’t want to call themselves Democrats and Republicans… Another 20 percent are “doubting Democrats” and another 16 percent are “disaffected” voters, respectively anti-business and anti-government, angry and populist rather than mildly centrist. The remaining 17 percent are what Pew calls “disengaged”—young and uneducated Americans, four fifths of whom don’t vote anyway.
Why has Mark “My Professional Label Has Been Thoroughly Discredited” McKinnon suddenly slithered back into the public airwaves? Could it be that those “disengaged” “Independent” voters are not buying the Republican argument about that mean, nasty President Obama and his “Chicago politics”?
As I have said before, these guys are Goo-goos, the farcical inheritors of yet another unlamented historical oddity from the original Gilded Age. The Very Serious People who pursed up their thin lips against the horrors of Tammany Hall were a mixture of robber barons out to destroy all competition, struggling small-town bidnizmin resentful of the post-Civil-War immigrants and industrialists stealing their captive markets and luring the smartest of their serfs and offspring away from the virtuous Heartland™ to the glamorous big cities, pious worthies fearful that technological progress would breed corruption of their sacred values, and the sharpies, grifters and conmen ever ready to part deep-pocketed fools from their money. Today’s Zombie Goo-Goos are no different, just more pathetic.
A century ago, the phrase “Tammany Hall” was used to conjure a nightmare image of ignorant, thuggish Irish immigrants from the teaming slums, trading their votes to whichever gangster-funded ward heeler would promise them day labor or a scuttle of coal. Today the phrase “Chicago politics” is used to conjure a nightmare of uneducated African-Americans from the public projects, trading their votes to whichever certainly-not-a-Republican politician promises them more public benefits at the expense of Heartland taxpayers(tm). The Republicans may scoff at “green politics”, and yet they are very diligent recyclers when it comes to ugly old tropes!
Villago Delenda Est
McKinnon needs to be put to a slow, painful death as punishment for what he has done.
mclaren
Goddamn right.
Lemme guess…this McKinnon asshole believes in (wait for it…) “compassionate conservatism.”
Stake him out in the desert and cover him with honey and wait for the fire ants.
SIA
I truly despise that little weaselly creature. He’s a tiny person. I saw him trying to dismiss Stephanie Cutter on Morning Joe. Didn’t work.
And by the way, Stephanie SMASH!!
Violet
The No Labels folks make me think of people who want to make designer labels go away. No Chanel. No Ralph Lauren polo.
The prophet Nostradumbass
Good post. BTW, it should be “teeming”, not “teaming” slums.
TT
Off topic but check this out..
Another tough hit on Mitt on tax returns.. this time from Moveon.org. It is going to start running in Ohio tomorrow. I see what the Obama campaign is doing. Every state Mitt is going to campaign, they are releasing an ad related to tax returns for that state. The local news has to cover Mitt visit as well as the ad. The same thing happened in PA today. The tax ad official Obama campaign released today was for PA only. Smart strategy by Team O to keep building the pressure.
Here is the ad..
http://front.moveon.org/breaking-new-tv-ad-asks-mitt-romneys-not-a-crook-right
danielx
Every time I read about the No Labels concept and then read about its leading lights, my immediate thought is “yup – the usual suspects”. As for Mark McKinnon…
Horseshit. Since Bill Clinton was elected the general view of executive power held by the Republicans varies according to the party of the President holding the office. If it’s a Republican, look out – the Unitary Executive Express is coming through and anybody in the way can either get on the train or get run over. If – disturbing The Way Things Ought To Be – it’s a Democrat, the goal is to get the interloper out of office ASAP, whether he be from Little Rock or Chicago. Failing that, the idea is to make sure he can do nothing of import, especially anything which might benefit the population at large.
Unfortunately, it generally works. Clinton was by today’s standards one of a vanished breed, a centrist Republican. Wall Street never had a better friend; can anyone imagine Harry Truman signing legislation repealing Glass-Steagall? However, Clinton still had a few Republicans in Congress who were moderate by today’s standards, plus he was an extraordinarily accomplished politician. And, leave us not forget, he was a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant with an extremely normal name – even if the Villagers did consider him and his inner circle to be a bunch of white trash
Today, well, the guy in the Oval Office is black and has a weird name by WASP standards, and the Republicans in Congress today are like rabid dogs. They detest Obama just for holding the office, and the newest Republicans in Congress aren’t interested in governing as such. They want to burn the motherfucker down, to use one of those lovely 60s slogans.
Mark McKinnon is as responsible as anyone for the current state of politics in this yere US of A, and for him to pretend otherwise is fatuous at best. Consider that list of attendees from 2010:
For starters, any business/political gathering that includes David Brooks on its guest list is automatically suspect. For another, that line about “moderates who have special permission to buck their party”? They aren’t moderates, they’re assholes, Joe Lieberman (George Bush’s favorite Democratic Senator) in particular. Also worth noting is that there were no Republican “moderates” mentioned, presumably because there are no Republican moderates – particularly after election day 2010.
No Labels, my aunty’s butt. No Labels means Republicans – the Tea Party without the foaming at the mouth. These days somebody would have to be a charter member of Stormfront.org to be considered too extreme for the Republican Party, and I’m not too sure about that.
Narcissus
I just want to be the first to say Fuck Joe Manchin.
With a chunk of clean coal i mean
danielx
Also, too – off topic but oh so good.
http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2012/07/17/missed-it-by-that-much/
TBogg is a precognitive marvel.
The Other Chuck
Tut-tut Dengre, those sound like *labels*!
Carl Nyberg
The 1% have rigged the game.
The POTUS is plenty powerful to enact policies that benefit the 1%.
It’s getting the routine, useful stuff done that Republicans have made impossible unless they have their guy in power.
And of course, putting a Republican in power means huge giveaways to the 1%.
Hill Dweller
@Narcissus: What did he do now(aside from his usual back-stabbing)?
AnneW
@TT:
I read some of the comments. Wow, what a bunch of hand wringers!
JenJen
Oh, I couldn’t have hoped for a better “piercing” of McKinnon. He’s one of those stealth cats so he easily slips past dunces like Scarborough, despite how obviously craven his entire act is.
#PIERCED
Damn, this has been a fun couple of weeks, politically. And to ice the cake, this is my first Balloon Juice comment posted from my sweet new Google Nexus tablet. Squeee!
Yutsano
@JenJen:
Please to ensure His Lordship doth not go chewing on new toy?
JenJen
@Yutsano: You have no idea how concerned I am about that eventuality. Wait… yes you do!!
Narcissus
@Hill Dweller: I’m still pissed about the DNC convention business.
also he’s just a punchable d-bag
mai naem
I can’t stand this guy and I can’t stand his buddy, Matthew Dowd. No self respecting Democrat should treat these two with any decency. Both Dems who switched parties to deliver GW Bush and his cronies to the WH. Fcuk ’em. They both conversions around 2007-2008. And, oh, I hate the stupid scarves he wears. They look dumb. Just about as dumb as Tucker Carlson’s bow ties.
The prophet Nostradumbass
I think I have found a pretty good description of the typical Republican voter.
Hill Dweller
While Obama destroys Willard’s purported qualifications for being President, I hope he starts explaining to the American people the reasons recovery has been stalled for the last couple of years. If not, too many people are going to think he had unfettered power to enact his agenda and it didn’t work, which was obviously isn’t the case.
As an aside, why does seemingly every 80’s movie have saxophone solos throughout?
Hill Dweller
While Obama destroys Willard’s purported qualifications for being President, I hope he starts explaining to the American people the reasons recovery has been stalled for the last couple of years. If not, too many people are going to think he had unfettered power to enact his agenda and it didn’t work, which was obviously isn’t the case.
As an aside, why does seemingly every 80’s movie have saxophone solos throughout?
Yutsano
@JenJen: Nah, he’s a good puppeh. I don’t recommend leaving it in reach of those big paws of his though. :)
Frankensteinbeck
@danielx:
This is funny, because when the movie was made, the idea that Romney would be the 2012 Republican candidate was laughable. Romney? Really? One of politics’ biggest losers? Sure he was on the list, but someone remotely competent would step up and crush him along with the other bugs. No one stepped up.
But I do think Limbaugh’s right that the movie will make the less intelligent voters think Romney is even more evil. It’s a pleasant coincidence, in my mind.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
charlie pierce
in case anyone doesn’t know how to get there on their own.
balconesfault
Austin Lounge Lizards pegged McKinnon perfectly years ago with “Maverick – a Love Song”
http://www.madmusic.com/song_details.aspx?SongID=15873
brantl
They also need to change the rules in the Senate, to stop enabling the crackpots and vandals. This is major.
debbie
Wasn’t McKinnon the guy who “accidentally” mailed the Bush debate book to Gore headquarters and then tried to frame them as cheaters, only later to claim when it was traced back to him that it was all a mistake and that he had thought he was mailing a returns package to the Gap?
McKinnon. Blodgett. The real decay in our civilization is that guys like these even get a second chance.
Ben Cisco
@danielx:
Better still.
Haydnseek
@@balconesfault: Another Austin Lounge Lizards fan! One more good reason to be a juicer.