Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

No one could have predicted…

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

The willow is too close to the house.

A Senator Walker would be an insult to the state and the nation.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

“But what about the lurkers?”

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

This blog will pay for itself.

You are here: Home / Music / Early Morning Open Thread: On With the Song

Early Morning Open Thread: On With the Song

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Garry Wills, in the NY Review of Books, on “What Romney Lost“:

… Many losing candidates became elder statesmen of their parties. What lessons will Romney have to teach his party? The art of crawling uselessly? How to contemn 47 percent of Americans less privileged and beautiful than his family? How to repudiate the past while damaging the future? It is said that he will write a book. Really? Does he want to relive a five-year-long experience of degradation? What can be worse than to sell your soul and find it not valuable enough to get anything for it? His friends can only hope he is too morally obtuse to realize that crushing truth. Losing elections is one thing. But the greater loss, the real loss, is the loss of honor.

(Thank you, commentor peorgietirebiter, for the birthday present link!)

Reader Interactions

107Comments

  1. 1.

    arguingwithsignposts

    Losing elections is one thing. But the greater loss, the real loss, is the loss of honor.

    Assumes facts not in evidence, i.e., that he had any honor to lose.

  3. 3.

    ? Martin

    Romney brought nothing to the debate. Obama and Hillary brought health care in 2008 – an issue that was barely even alive in the national dialogue at the time – carried the issue through the general (at a time that the country was distracted with other things) and then delivered on it.

    A losing candidate that at least brings something to the national stage can return as an elder statesman. I don’t see that Romney has anything to offer – no office to return to, no ideas to champion. His biggest contribution (and one he might be perfectly content with) was to lower the barrier to entry of Mormons to national office. That alone is a fairly noble thing, in fact. (I personally don’t find Mormons to be any nuttier than any other religious group – they’re all pretty nutty, so why object to one over the others?)

  5. 5.

    JGabriel

    __
    __
    Explosion in Indianopolis:

    A deafening explosion that leveled two homes and set two others ablaze forced about 200 people from a devastated Indianapolis neighborhood overnight. Authorities said one body was recovered after the flames were extinguished from the blast that shattered windows, crumpled walls and did other damage to dozens of other homes. …
    __
    “This looks like a war zone; it really does,” Hensley told The Associated Press. “Police officers and fire department officials remain at the scene searching for other possible victims. They’ve brought in search lights as they look through the ruined homes.” …
    __
    The cause of the explosion and fires wasn’t immediately clear, but Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard immediately squelched initial speculation of a possible plane crash. “It was so strong that it clearly had an effect for blocks,” Ballard said while grey clouds of smoke still billowed after the fires were contained.

    Sounds pretty bad.

    .

  6. 6.

    amk

    mittbot has got zilch political belief or ideology to be considered as an ‘elderly statesman’. His sole belief is money, money, money and power if he can get it. It wasn’t him that turned out the rabid ‘base’ in 2012, it was the blackety black and their visceral hatred for him.

  7. 7.

    freelancer

    What can be worse than to sell your soul and find it not valuable enough to get anything for it?

    Just thought I’d highlight what TBogg bolded earlier. Fucking brutal.

    Thoughts with Indy right now. Hope the feds are all over this bullshit.

  8. 8.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    Willard? Write a book? Don’t be silly!

    He has people that have people that would do that for him.

    But if Willard did feel the insatiable need to write a book, I’m sure it would be something along the lines of:

    “The Underpants Gnome’s Guide to Success”

    150 pages of “1. blah blah 2. ??? 3. PROFIT!”

    could be bestseller with the MBA crowd…

  9. 9.

    tokyo ex-pat

    Happy Birthday! It just happens to be my birthday too, though it’s coming to an end on this side of the Pacific.

    Thanks as always for another Early Morning Thread that puts a smile on my face. I really needed it after talking to my mom this morning to discover how upset she was Romney lost. She wanted a change because the economy still sucks and rich people will buy things if Romney wins. Of course, she didn’t know how he would accomplish this, he just would. Sometimes I really feel we do live in two Americas, and it’s not the one Edwards preached–it’s the clued in vs. the clueless. SIGH.

    Anyway, cheers to getting another year younger! Mr. Tokyo is going to be opening a very nice bottle of wine to celebrate. I’ll raise a glass your way.

  11. 11.

    Robert Sneddon

    Just had the two minutes silence here in the UK, the BBC broadcasting the ceremony at the Cenotaph in London with no stupid commentary over the silence as is traditional and proper. Nice to see Phil the Greek back on his feet again; he’s been in and out of hospital over the past six months.

  12. 12.

    Warren Terra

    Thomas Friedman has a column up about Israel. It’s not actually that bad a column – basically, it’s an open letter to Netanyahu calling him out for the assho|e he is, for lacking any serious intention towards peace, and for becoming dependent on the American Taliban and the Teabaggers.

    Still, the part that I think will be justly mocked is this:

    there will surely be a new secretary of state visiting you next year with the umpteenth road map for “confidence-building measures” between Israelis and Palestinians. He or she may even tell you that “this is the year of decision.” Be careful. We’ve been there before. If you Google “Year of decision in the Middle East,” you’ll get more than 100,000,000 links.

    A rather unremarkable sentiment – until you remember that the man writing it is the discoverer of the Friedman Unit

  13. 13.

    JPL

    Happy Birthday! November is a banner month for those on the site celebrating their birthdays. Happy Birthday to all.

  16. 16.

    Mustang Bobby

    Happy birthday!

    Let’s also remember that today is Veterans Day by the calendar even though the actual holiday (banks and schools closed) is tomorrow. I’m old enough to remember it being called Armistice Day by a lot of people.

    Whatever you call it and whenever you mark it, thank a veteran. A lot of them — including my dad and his twin brother — signed up or were drafted to do something that was for the greater good rather than the one, and a lot of them still carry the burden of that service.

  17. 17.

    JPL

    @amk: Thank god!

    I woke at 5:30 and put on McLaughlin report and before coffee all I heard was blah, blah, blah. They were discussing whether or not the President had a mandate. Pat Buckyman did mention that those who voted for the President wanted free stuff i.e. food, education and medicine and of course, he had to mention the brown factor. Public education has been part of our foundation for hundreds of years and Pat is still bitching about it.

  18. 18.

    piratedan

    well as much as I loved Rachael Maddow’s reachout to the dark side, I’m still a bit dubious that anyone over there is still listening. Maybe we can continue to reach a few folks that will come to see that the Heath Care changes are a tangible good for folks and we can continue to improve upon it.

    That most difficult of tasks is puncturing that media bubble and bringing home some basics truths…

    1) taxes are not evil… they pay for services that we all need from roads to food inspection to national defense.
    2) if the debt was so goddamn important, why did the R’s not raise taxes to pay for the wars?
    3) If a fetus is so “sacred”, why in the hell are they so intent on defunding one of the best agencies to ensure that they are born healthy and whole?
    4) if the government isn’t worthy to “decide” about your healthcare, how in the fuck are your employer and their lowest bidder insurance company any better?
    5) if regulation is in place to ensure safety and fairness, why in the hell are they against those principals?

    and as a plaintive cry, why doesn’t anyone in the media ever ask anything like that?

  19. 19.

    JPL

    @piratedan: this

    If the republicans assume that they will win future elections simply by passing the dream act they are wrong. My under forty sons appreciate public education. They understand that climate change is real. They want their significant others to be able to control their own bodies and they want their mom to enjoy her retirement years without the fear that medicare will cease to be. Color might be a fun thing for the media to focus on but this election was about a lot more than that. The repubs are a pro-fetus party run by a bunch of white guys who believe in creationism.

  21. 21.

    eric nny

    @amk: To money I would add self-aggrandizement. It’s been obvious since his days as governor that he really doesn’t care about governing.

  23. 23.

    Kirbster

    Mitt already wrote a book called “No Apology” that was published in 2010, in preparation for his second run at the Republican presidential nomination. I think there was a revised edition in 2012. I guess he had to revise his “core principles” or something, a seemingly standard operating procedure for Mr. Romney. The book is probably still available and deeply discounted on the remainder shelves and in dollar stores across the land. The man has no reason to humiliate himself further.

    I’ve enjoyed gorging on the shadenfreude as much as anyone for the last few days, but it’s time to move on. President Obama is really no more “liberal” or “radical” than Dwight David Eisenhower, and I’m tired of the hyperbolic doomsday screeching of the Bircherites.

  24. 24.

    NotMax

    If ol’ Mitt was “shellshocked” by the events of Tuesday, wait until it sinks in that the party doesn’t provide a golden parachute for leaving losing his position as its hired chosen big cheese.

  25. 25.

    WereBear

    Happy Birthday!

    Mr WereBear quizzed me this morning on the “meaning of the holiday” and was happy I passed. He spent the night Facebooking pictures of tombstones in Arlington which did not have Christian crosses on them. I thought that was lovely of him.

    I have revamped my main site and am so pleased with it I must tell everyone. Ya’ll certainly qualify.

    Also, in honor of Steeplejack’s tale of how his cat renamed his documents folder, a recent post:

    Magic Behinds

  30. 30.

    mai naem

    Happy Birthday!

    It’s my mom’s birthday too.

    I need to put myself on a limited diet of schadenfreude everyday. There’s way too much stuff everywhere you turn. Anyhow this is the youtube piece – somebody posted it in last night’s thread. I think one of the FP’s should post it.
    A Dem going into Grover Norquist’s election partay to announce Obama’s reelection.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APFPu_l_E4E&list=UUqnNwDrVNb0_SQnJKXRz2_g

    I really need to stop this because this sheet is going to come bite me in the ass in two years.

  31. 31.

    MattF

    Is there a single issue or principle that Romney held on to? Is there a single person (outside his immediate family) who is a member of a Romney ‘constituency’? My old friends in the DC political-staff world regarded him with contempt as a weakling and a pushover: “He can’t even stand up to Newt Gingrich.”

  32. 32.

    JPL

    Now that the third woman in the Petraeus affair has been identified as someone in FL, I hope that it’s Limbaugh’s wife. IMO that would be a perfect end to Shadenfreude Week.

  33. 33.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    @piratedan:

    well as much as I loved Rachael Maddow’s reachout to the dark side, I’m still a bit dubious that anyone over there is still listening.

    Believe it or don’t, Frum is saying the same things. My wife’s been reading his “Why Romney Lost” e-book (which he’s obviously been working on for far longer than Romney was the candidate), and he’s calling for a return to sanity (by our definition of sanity).

    Yes, he’s still a neo-con, he’s still responsible for the whole “Axis of Evil” bullshit, but he’s also correct that the insanity of the GOP followership (as he calls it) is due to having been systematically lied to by Fox News, Limbaugh, and all the other usual suspects. He also pointed out that alienating and insulting large groups of people is a really good way to motivate them to vote against you. He’s calling out exactly the same bullshit that Rachel was calling out.

    Of course, Frum is now persona non grata in the GOP because he dared point out that the emperor was showing a little skin, so it’s doubtful his advice will be taken to heart, but he’s identified many of the problems plaguing the modern GOP and proposed reasonable solutions for them.

  34. 34.

    NotMax

    @ Hillary Rettig

    A bit more long in the tooth, so would have to rate the JFK win at the top in my book.

    The vitality, optimism and can-do attitude which immediately infused the zeitgeist was palpable, almost irresistibly infectious and non-transitory.

    I expect, for those who were there at the time, that FDR in ’32 was even more so.

  35. 35.

    amk

    media morons fighting over the carcass of gop.

    As moderates see it, the “conservative entertainment complex” of talk radio, Fox News, and right-wing blogs has an outsized and potentially fatal influence over the party, alienating Latinos with crass solutions to illegal immigration (“self-deportation”) and insulting women with disrespectful remarks about abortion and birth control.

    “If you look at the Republican Party over the last couple of years, it is a tail-wag-the-dog story with the power and the influence of the conservative entertainment complex over elected leadership,” Schmidt, the senior campaign strategist on Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, told POLITICO. “Ronald Reagan would have been appalled by this uncivil tone. Conservatism with a smile has appeal. Conservatism with a snarl is a voter repellent.”

    Far from accepting this premise, the far right is retrenching.

    yeah, fuck fucked up blockquotes here.

  37. 37.

    Cermet

    Happy unbirthday to all the rest of us!

    The party does not lose, it can only … or is that you will be … uh, I mean, you can only lose the … uh, not right. Damn, Rmoney is a fucking loser big time and the party is a group of stupid old white men like turd blossom that are all sucking off the party’s tits.

  38. 38.

    El Cid

    Mitt Romney is going to go back to a lot of the places he visited on the campaign trail to catch back up with the wonderful, grassroots conservatives he came to know, and love, and grow close with.

    Those aren’t the sorts of personal ties he wants to lose. And he’s really, really learned a lot about their struggles and hardships.

    I can’t imagine that he would be able to live with himself if he had just done all that on the campaign and not go back and do what he could personally to keep in touch and help them out.

    He’s that kind of guy, so caring, so approachable.

  39. 39.

    WereBear

    @El Cid: You crack me up :)

    Nobody listens to Frum… because he makes sense. It’s like telling someone they can get rid of the stink in the living room by throwing out all their furniture, because it was made of crap.

    They’re all, “But then I won’t have any furniture!”

  40. 40.

    Ash Can

    Happy birthday AL, and here’s to Mitt quietly disappearing into retirement, enjoying his extended family and his money and never darkening the political landscape again.

    As for Indy, it sounds like a hell of a gas leak. Those can be really nasty.

  41. 41.

    Phylllis

    Btw, Moore and Galloway’s follow-up to We Were Soldiers Once, We Are Soldiers Still is a $1.99 Kindle Daily Deal today for Veteran’s Day.

  42. 42.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @piratedan:

    Those are all excellent questions. The answer you’ll get from them is something along the lines of “socia1ism, shut up, that’s why”.

  43. 43.

    mai naem

    @JPL: Nah, it’s got to be that crazy astronaut woman who drove down to Florida with the adult diapers so she wouldn’t have to stop for gas. Even if she’s in prison, they probably give her access to a computer. Schadenfreude would be if the third person was Allen West.

  47. 47.

    leeleeFL

    I was 9 in 1960, so JFK was huge. But, the country was much more idealistic then, so I think this re-election is the greatest since FDR 1932. More people decided to be idealistic and cast their vote and their lot with the dream of America. That’s huge squared. We need to keep OFA in the fight for the foreseeable future. And getting redistricting by civilian commission in place, as well as fighting against voter-suppresion is now job one. Anytime a group of people are trying to make it harder to vote, they are the bad guys. That is aa message that needs to be driven like a Corvette thru the bullshit. Scadenfreude on a limited level is fine. But we need to keep our eyes on the prize.

  48. 48.

    JPL

    @Valdivia: It was on boing, boing or bloomberg, I can’t remember which. It did not provide a name though. I will look through my morning reads and provide you with a link.

  49. 49.

    mai naem

    I still sometimes think this whole thing was thought up by Romney as a massive grift. Part of the way Abramoff and Delay worked was that the donations came into a fake charity with a minimal amount of money going to charity work and the rest of it going to various administrative costs which would be the labor cost of family members of Republican congressmen. The campaign isn’t even a charity. The money could be going to shell corporations providing so called consultant services to the campaign. As long as the numbers look somewhat reasonable, I doubt the FEC looks at every subcontractor. I figure Mitt with his family could have taken home $150-200 million. And there’s no downside because if he did win he could have his family and friends get all kinds of government contracts.

  50. 50.

    Ash Can

    @Hillary Rettig: I too am 54, and as much fun as this has been, I have to say that 2008 was better IMO, because the Dems had the House too, which made it obvious that good things were imminent.

  51. 51.

    Schlemizel

    @Grumpy Code Monkey:

    I know we need a sane opposition party to have a healthy democracy but, right now emotionally, I hope the GOP does not catch on for a couple of election cycles at least. It would be nice to be able to dominate DC and start weeding out the infectious puss injected by 30 years of wingnut domination.

    It would be great to clean house at the state level in many places too.

    And it would be every so great to have Lamebrain, O’liely, Insannity, and all the others become foaming at the mouth basket cases as they try shrieking louder while watching their audience dwindle and the crazy-gravy train leaves them forever

  52. 52.

    Schlemizel

    @amk:

    Saw Alfred Hitchcock talk about scaring people. He said something along the line that a crazy killer is nowhere near as scary as a calm, rational, smiling killer.

    Thats certainly the case for St. Ronald; he was one scary mofacky, smiling and joking while he bled this country

  53. 53.

    JPL

    @Valdivia: Boing, Boing

    The WSJ’s late-Saturday story follows a love triangle narrative: the Florida woman’s complaint “alleged Ms. Broadwell was sending harassing emails to her about the nature of the relationship between Mr. Petraeus and the Florida woman,” and while no reporters claim to have seen the emails’ contents, “people familiar with the investigations said they suggested Ms. Broadwell suspected the other woman was in a relationship with Mr. Petraeus.” There is no evidence her suspicions were true, the WSJ adds.

    boing, boing

  55. 55.

    WereBear

    I suffered, more each year, for eight long years during the Bush Administration.

    I watched my country degenerate into moral turpitude, historic institutions treated like discarded tissues, blatant hate and manipulation… oh, and on a selfish note, my financial future run through the wood chipper.

    Now, finally, these evil shitheads are whining and complaining? Fine by me! I can’t get enough. I have a freakin’ AWARENESS deficit that has not touched bottom yet.

    Over Macho Grande? I’ll never get over Macho Grande!

  57. 57.

    hep kitty

    @Grumpy Code Monkey: That is so incredibly ironic since I remember when Rachel’s show first started and he was a guest on her show and he was incredibly condescending and rude to her.

    I’ve sort of loathed him ever since.

  58. 58.

    Schlemizel

    Happy B’day Anne and tokyo ex-pat and mi nyms mom et al.

    I’d also like to which peace and health to all the veterans. I know first hand the struggles vet can have in getting help and how little those who love to hide behind them are willing to do for them. Its dated a bit now but Kiplings “Tommy” makes the point pretty well:
    http://quotations.about.com/cs/poemlyrics/a/Tommy.htm

  62. 62.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Literalreddy: I’m seeing that column get a lot of love, but I’m not feeling it. So much of what she says about Obama (“Barry”) is predicated on the notion that he was a big do-nothing promise breaker for his entire first term. Like Stewart, she’d be a lot better on Obama if she weren’t hung up on the hipper/smarter/more Disappointed-than-thou schtick.

  64. 64.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    @hep kitty:

    You don’t have to like Frum to agree with him, or point out when he’s right (hell, the universe is big enough that I can agree with Pat Buchanan on at least one or two issues).

    We don’t have to forgive Frum his sins to acknowledge that he’s right on this issue (both in the diagnosis and the proposed treatment).

  68. 68.

    Mike in NC

    @JPL:

    Happy Veterans’ Day!

    I’m celebrating the fact that a preening buffoon like Mittens will never be Commander-in-Chief.

  69. 69.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Grumpy Code Monkey: case in point: Buchanan opposed Mr Frum’s splendid little war. But Frum raises another problem: the total amnesia of our political class wrt the Iraq War. Every time I hear a Republican talk about deficit and debt, even more so when I hear a ‘centrist’ pundit talk about Republicans as the party of ‘fiscal responsibility’, I wonder if a flash card that said “Iraq” would trigger any kind of synaptic response. And the cost of that war in dollars, on Veterans Day, should be fifth or sixth on the list of reasons it was, and remains, one of the biggest mistakes this country has ever made.

    Also, like hep kitty, I can’t get past that TRMS appearance. Frum reached a level of priggish self-righteousness and moralizing condescension–Rachel Maddow’s jocularity is the reason our politics are so bitter– that would’ve made Cotton Mather roll his eyes and say “Sheesh, what an asshole”. A little humility ought to be required of the author of not just the “axis of evil” speech, but of “The Right Man” why George W Bush is the most awesome president ever!

  70. 70.

    Paul

    @piratedan:

    2) if the debt was so goddamn important, why did the R’s not raise taxes to pay for the wars?

    Furthermore, if the debt was so important, why didn’t the GOP include the two wars in the debt? Why did they use supplemental funding? Don’t they want to make sure we include everything?

  71. 71.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    Happy birthday, Anne. May none of your presents be “practical” ones.

    Happy Veterans Day to all of my brothers and sisters who have served.

  72. 72.

    Svensker

    Happy birthday, AL, and other BJ boys and girls!

    Can I wait until tomorrow before I stop sloshing around in the tub o’ schadenfreude? All ten toes aren’t quite all puckery yet.

  74. 74.

    Anya

    @piratedan:

    1) taxes are not evil… they pay for services that we all need from roads to food inspection to national defense.

    On this point our side already won but the corporate media insists on advancing GOP talking points. Here’s the exit polls on taxes:

    Income Tax Rates Should Be…

    Increased for $250k+: 47%
    Not increased: 35%
    Increased for all: 13%

    As we all remember the president ran on raising taxes for $250k+ and 60% of the voters agreed. So, our side won that argument, we just need to repeat it over and over again.

  75. 75.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Again, this is all true. Point is, Frum is one of the few guys on the right who understands what’s really wrong with the GOP. It is ironic that he’s the voice of sanity in this argument, but there it is.

  76. 76.

    robertdsc-iPhone 4

    Happy birthday, Anne Laurie. :)

    As for the GOP, I despise them. But I did have some fun at work after Tuesday because I know there are some hard core Teabaggers on my delivery route. I laughed to myself at seeing them in their doldrums. Fuck them and their ilk.

  77. 77.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @PeakVT: Um…sorry, no. Or at least, no longer:

    The hand-picked successor of former Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords lost his tiny lead after pulling slightly ahead of his Republican challenger for the first time Friday….Results posted early Saturday show Democrat Ron Barber behind Martha McSally by 36 votes out of more than 250,000 cast in the 2nd Congressional District race.

  78. 78.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @NotMax: Since I was growing up in a Republican family at the time, I’d have to say no, the JFK election wasn’t a big thrill for us.

    Thinking back on it, I’d have to go with Obama winning the PA primary in 2008 as the best election result I can remember. It helped that I worked that one, too. For general elections, I rate 2008 as a bigger deal than this one. Tougher opponent and the result was indeterminate for most of the way. And just as important for the direction of the country.

  82. 82.

    PeakVT

    @Uncle Cosmo: Read down farther, idiot.

    Results posted late in the afternoon showed Barber with a lead of nearly 600 votes over McSally in the 2nd Congressional District race. Nearly a quarter-million votes have been counted but there are still thousands of ballots to count in the district that includes parts of Tucson and Pima County and all of Cochise County.

  83. 83.

    Emma

    @Kirbster: If you’re tired now, wait until next year this time. They are going to howl, scream, and wet themselves into the wilderness, and we’re going to witness it. Whether we want to or not.

  84. 84.

    Steeplejack

    @WereBear:

    Your site makeover looks really good. Very clean and accessible.

    The housecat is beside me on her heated throw right now. She still likes to get on the keyboard now and then, but I’ve minimized the damage by setting up the password lock feature and activating it when I’m away from the computer. About all she can do now is turn off the computer, which is a minor nuisance.

  85. 85.

    koolearl

    Another thing the Republicans are going to have to consider is that the young white kids are not growing up as bigoted as many of their elders. We can all cite Arizona as a hotbed of anti-Latino bigotry, but from having JR high school aged nephews and nieces in AZ who are FB pals with their Uncle Earl, I can tell you that these kids are growing up with Mexican immigrants children, they hang out, listen to the same music, skateboard and play sports together and do not segregate socially along racial lines.

  86. 86.

    WereBear

    @Steeplejack: Thank you!

    I’m planning a future post on more such strategies, as the heated throw you are using, or my own plan where I set up a tv tray next to the computer desk, and RJ gets that.

    Must stay ahead of them! As I like to say, aren’t WE supposed to be the more intelligent one?

  88. 88.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Grumpy Code Monkey: @arguingwithsignposts: Did he ever apologize for enabling the Iraq war?
    And that, I guess, is my point. I don’t trust Frum, even if he’s saying the right thing about toning down the hate on abortion and immigrants, because you can’t fix things until you address the problem, and I believe (I only read him in quoted ‘graphs, because “The Right Man”) Frum still pimps the idea that ‘austerity’ is the way to go, and Republicans are just the guys to do it. IIRC, he said during the campaign that Romney had the right economic plan? As long as people like Frum are loudly and publicly flunking Econ 101, and being treated like they have earned the right to debate Krugman, mouth-breating independents are going to say that even though they disagree with the GOP on every issue, they’re undecided because of “the deficit”

  89. 89.

    divF

    This holiday has always had a special meaning in my family. It was my father’s birthday (he died in 2010), and as a career Army NCO it was doubly his holiday. Finally, his father, an Italian immigrant, became a citizen by serving in the US Army during WW I.

  90. 90.

    Literalreddy

    @Emma: True enough. But we’ll get the pony before most of the pundits completely abandon hippie-punching, both sides do it, and high school popularity contests in their commentary. I take what I can get from these people.

  91. 91.

    Paul

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    Did he ever apologize for enabling the Iraq war?

    No, he didn’t. He is not much different than Peggy Noonan, Friedman and all our other “wise” media pundits who were almost all of them cheerleading the Iraq war.

    He really should be ashamed of himself. We will be spending over a trillion dollars on the war he enabled. And no apology!

  92. 92.

    Steeplejack

    @WereBear:

    I have realized that cats I’ve had over the years have had different levels of “attachment.” Some just want to be in the same room with you, others want to be really close and in on the action, whatever it is. (And some don’t want to be bothered at all, of course.)

    The housecat isn’t really interested in a lot of different places to snooze. She likes the throw on the computer desk and she likes the bed (especially since I deployed the down comforter a week or two ago). Warmth seems to be a big issue for her. She was advertised as “old” when I got her (11-13 years, but she doesn’t look that old to me), and she is small and doesn’t have a lot of mass, so maybe it’s hard for her to stay warm enough. She definitely loves the heated throw. (It’s just a cheap microfleece throw from Target with an equally cheap heating pad folded into it.)

    . . . Synchronicity: This just in from my friend who works with ferals. An old lady and her cat.

  93. 93.

    WereBear

    @Steeplejack: Awww! That link has some fantastic photos of the companionship bond that is possible.

    Tristan is one who likes to Touch Base multiple times a day, while Reverend Jim will pin me to the couch, motorboat for a while on my chest, and then go off on his routines for several hours. This older woman and her cat have something like Mr WereBear and his Olwyn; she’s rarely more than a a few feet away from him. Ever.

    I have some thoughts on cats and heat sources here:

    The cold weather cat

  94. 94.

    22over7

    Happy birthday, Annie Laurie! My birthday’s tomorrow, but since the spouse has to work tomorrow, today begins the week of gala birthday celebration.

    And no, I’m not finished drinking the tears. There was a wonderful bitter letter to the editor in my local fishwrap this morning, and it was so tasty. Maybe next week.

  95. 95.

    WereBear

    @Steeplejack: She was advertised as “old” when I got her (11-13 years, but she doesn’t look that old to me), and she is small and doesn’t have a lot of mass, so maybe it’s hard for her to stay warm enough. She definitely loves the heated throw.

    As they get older, it’s harder for them to run at the 102.5 that is normal for them. As for how old she looks, it’s been my experience that those dainty little girls will win the longevity sweepstakes, every time. You can be looking at another ten years, easy!

  96. 96.

    NotMax

    @ Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    Not trying to be contrary (really), but I didn’t interpret ‘best’ to mean thrilling.

    Rather my interpretation was more along the lines of impact. For example (and yes, anecdotal is not necessarily evidentiary) our veddy, veddy Republican neighbors at the time (they were still ardent and vocal Joe McCarthy believers) were disappointed (even perhaps devastated), but cognizant of and tolerant toward the mood I was attempting to convey. Whatever bitterness there was did seem to quickly fade to adopting the role of loyal opposition.

  97. 97.

    Steeplejack

    @WereBear:

    My previous two cats were a good-sized black female and a little Russian blue female, and they lived to 18 and 20, respectively.

    The housecat has a somewhat murky past. When I take her to the vet for a meet-and-greet, I’m going to see if the vet can estimate her age.

  98. 98.

    charles pierce

    Like any good Church historian, Garry Wills conducts the Cadaver Synod on the Romney campaign.

  99. 99.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I’m not going to defend Frum or apologize for him. I’m simply pointing out that he’s one of the few people on the right who’s correctly identified the problem with the GOP and proposed some paths forward that make sense, and that it’s in our interest to help spread his message to any Republican who’s willing to listen. Scarborough got it; it flew right over the heads of Todd and Gregory (who kept yammering on about “tone”), but at least Scarborough understood the thrust of Frum’s argument.

    He has grown a bit since that appearance on Maddow. He’s still a neocon; he’ll never apologize for the Iraq war and I will never trust him on foreign policy, his economic arguments run to the simplistic, but on this particular issue he’s right, and deserves some measure of support in getting that message out.

  100. 100.

    Brachiator

    @koolearl:

    Another thing the Republicans are going to have to consider is that the young white kids are not growing up as bigoted as many of their elders.

    On the other hand, one of the Gawker-related sites did a piece on the slew of racist Twitter posts coming from college and older high school kids. I agree that the young tend to be more tolerant, but there may always be a significant number of bigots in the country.

  104. 104.

    jake the snake

    What can be worse than to sell your soul and find it not valuable enough to get anything for it?

    As Norman Spinrad put it, “the saddest thing in life is not when you sell out, it is when you sell out and there is no one willing to buy.”

    “Selling out” infers that one has some principles to sell out, but I don’t see that applies to RMoney in any way.

  105. 105.

    jake the snake

    @jeffreyw:

    I think a lot of conservatives are falling in to the
    (apocyphal) Pauline Kael fallacy “Obama couldn’t have won, I don’t know anyone who voted for Obama.”

  106. 106.

    Ellyn

    That’s cold, but no argument here. He did prostitute himself to the scum of American society-racists, teabag hatetriots, crooks, liars and assholes.

  107. 107.

    Ellyn

    One more thing re: Romney. He’s not a valuable person even though he owns a lot of money. Aside from Obamacare he has done nothing to make the world a better place
    and lots to make it worse.

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