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You are here: Home / Riveted by the sociological significance of it all

Riveted by the sociological significance of it all

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Waggish.com has some awesome Robert Bork quotes, mostly from his book Slouching Towards Gomorrah (via):

One evening at a hotel in New York I flipped around the television channels. Suddenly there on the public access channel was a voluptuous young woman, naked, her body oiled, writhing on the floor while fondling herself intimately…. I watched for some time–riveted by the sociological significance of it all.

Plenty of other good ones there too.

The greatest conservative legal mind of the 20th century, folks.

Reader Interactions

222Comments

  1. 1.

    Gin & Tonic

    Wow. Looked through some of those quotes, having never read the book, and for someone touted as a brilliant legal mind, they sound as if they were written by a not-overly-bright undergrad. Leaving the content of the ideas aside, just the syntax is really surprisingly pedestrian.

    Culture’s affecting the churches more than churches are affecting the culture. But you can see how for example, the abortion rate is higher among Catholics than it is among Protestants or Jews. I picked that because the church’s opposition to abortion absolute opposition is well known, but apparently it is not affecting the behavior of the Catholic congregations.

    “For the topic of my term paper, I picked blah blah, because…” Doesn’t that start off at like a C-?

  2. 2.

    Gin & Tonic

    Wow. Looked through some of those quotes, having never read the book, and for someone touted as a brilliant legal mind, they sound as if they were written by a not-overly-bright undergrad. Leaving the content of the ideas aside, just the syntax is really surprisingly pedestrian.

    Culture’s affecting the churches more than churches are affecting the culture. But you can see how for example, the abortion rate is higher among Catholics than it is among Protestants or Jews. I picked that because the church’s opposition to abortion absolute opposition is well known, but apparently it is not affecting the behavior of the Catholic congregations.

    “For the topic of my term paper, I picked blah blah, because…” Doesn’t that start off at like a C-?

  3. 3.

    arguingwithsignposts

    “riveted by the sociological significance of it all.”

    I hear too much of that riveting will make you go blind.

  6. 6.

    Baud

    The fact that men, who did not cry ten years ago, now do so indicates that something has gone high and soft in the culture.

    I think Bork has a point here. Exhibit # 1: John Boehner, consummate sobber, weakest Speaker in U.S. history.

  9. 9.

    RSA

    @Gin & Tonic: Add this as well:

    alt.sex is on the Internet. That’s a category. They have a variety of things under alt.sex, which is alternative sex. Particularly horrifying was this alt.sex.stories. I don’t know how to work the Internet yet, but I did that research. I found it written up.

    Too bad Bork never learned how to work the Internet; he might have become aware of some traditions.

  10. 10.

    Baud

    @Gin & Tonic:

    While I don’t generally sympathize with the wingnut 27%, Bork is regarded as a great legal mind, and when someone like that writes drivel like this, it’s not hard to see how the alternate reality in which 27% live was created.

  12. 12.

    gogol's wife

    I haven’t gone to the link, but these quotations have to be parodies, don’t they? Don’t they?

  14. 14.

    dmsilev

    @RSA: He isn’t even right about alt.sex==alternative sex. Back in the days of Usenet, alt.* was simply a catch-all for things that didn’t fit into the pre-ordained six or seven Big Categories, (comp.* for computers, sci.* for science, talk.* for random babble, plus a few others I’ve since forgotten), and in particular pretty much anyone could create an alt.* group without going through the fairly involved process needed to create a main-hierarchy group.

    alt.sex was simply a discussion group for matters sexual, both vanilla and otherwise.

  17. 17.

    RSA

    @dmsilev:

    He isn’t even right about alt.sex==alternative sex.

    Right–I knew that once but had to look it up again to check. I usually stuck to the rec hierarchy back in the day, but there was good stuff in some alt newsgroups; I was a regular reader of alt.usage.english, for example.

  18. 18.

    NonyNony

    @dmsilev:

    alt.sex was simply a discussion group for matters sexual, both vanilla and otherwise.

    To Bork, people wanting to discuss sex was alternative. Sex was to be between a man and a woman, both married, and nobody was ever supposed to talk about it.

    @Baud:

    The fact that men, who did not cry ten years ago, now do so indicates that something has gone high and soft in the culture.

    Let’s see – Slouching Towards Gommorah was written in 1996. Which means that Bork was talking about 1986. Which is a lie because the anti-feminists tell me that it all went downhill when men started crying in the 1970s.

  19. 19.

    Baud

    Canada, for example, one of the five richest countries in the world, is torn and may be destroyed by what, to the outsider, look like utterly senseless ethnic animosities.

    To our Canadian friends, we miss you. You were good people.

  21. 21.

    Baud

    A lot of people comfort themselves with the thought that this [rap music] is confined to the black community, but that’s not true — some of the worst rappers are white, like Nine Inch Nails.

    Radical individualism is the handmaiden of collective tyranny

    .

    I don’t even have a joke for this. Jesus H. Christ.

  22. 22.

    RSA

    @Baud:

    The fact that men, who did not cry ten years ago, now do so indicates that something has gone high and soft in the culture.

    Again, to Bork’s writing skill: Conservatives usually like high culture, in some forms at least, what with its classical roots. I guess only if it’s not soft.

  25. 25.

    AxelFoley

    One evening at a hotel in New York I flipped around the television channels. Suddenly there on the public access channel was a voluptuous young woman, naked, her body oiled, writhing on the floor while fondling herself intimately…. I watched for some time–riveted by the sociological significance of it all.

    lolwut?

    And to think, the rest of us straight guys would have just fapped off to that scene.

    To quote Lex Luthor: “Some people can read War and Peace and come away thinking it’s a simple adventure story. Others can read the ingredients on a chewing gum wrapper and unlock the secrets of the universe.”

  26. 26.

    Baud

    Bork’s passing gives all of us an opportunity to reflect on the eternal, incontestable truth that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans.

  31. 31.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    He probably read Playboy for the articles. I know I did as a younger man. For some reason I never taped those articles to the inside of my locker when I was a soldier. Maybe I was confused by all that sociological significance stuff.

  33. 33.

    bemused

    Bork, LaPierre, Scalia, Adkin, yadda, yadda….after awhile the names all start to blur into each other, my head aches and I have to go cuddle a cat.

  34. 34.

    General Stuck

    The Wall Street Journal has a great behind-the-scenes look at how the fiscal cliff negotiations faltered.

    “Mr. Obama repeatedly lost patience with the speaker as negotiations faltered. In an Oval Office meeting last week, he told Mr. Boehner that if the sides didn’t reach agreement, he would use his inaugural address and his State of the Union speech to tell the country the Republicans were at fault.” At one point, Boehner told the president, “I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table. What do I get for that?”

    Replied Obama: “You get nothing. I get that for free.”

    Hardy har har!!

  35. 35.

    RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist

    One transitive verb passes and another comes into being. I heard ‘Riced’ on the radio yesterday. Apparently it means preemptively opposed before nomination. See: Borked.

  39. 39.

    gf120581

    @General Stuck: Obama channels Michael Corleone. And that was before the Drunk Weepy Oompa-Loompa shot himself in the foot Thursday.

    Is Plan B now Boner’s version of the dead hooker in Senator Geary’s bed?

  40. 40.

    gbear

    The oiled woman was making a very serious, thoughtful, statement that had never been made in such detail or with such care.

  41. 41.

    dmsilev

    @General Stuck: Please, please tell me that Obama followed that up with “Not even the fee for the gaming license, which I would appreciate if you would put up personally.”

  42. 42.

    Mike in NC

    The title of this prig’s book is all you need to know about what a know-nothing idiot he was. Good riddance to the scumbag.

  45. 45.

    RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist

    SCOTUS once decided it couldn’t define pr0n but knew it when it saw it. Apparently Bork failed that test.

  47. 47.

    Hill Dweller

    @General Stuck: I see from some of the WSJ snippets floating around on Twitter that the President sent a plane to pick Boehner’s ass up on Monday and bring him to Washington to verbally smack him around.

    Obama sold us out!

  50. 50.

    Citizen_X

    The fossil record is proving a major embarrassment to evolutionary theory.

    Christ, what an idiot. Good riddance.

  51. 51.

    ant

    I watched for some time–riveted by the sociological significance of it all.

    wait, wut?

    So Bork thinks that women didn’t masturbate until the 21st century?

    Or is it that nobody ever watched women masturbate before…..

    Now I’m curious what the context is of this quote. Kinda like rubbernecking a good semi-truck crash.

    And speaking of things off topic, I like this song….

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odpglvg_mW8

  52. 52.

    Hill Dweller

    Someone needs to cut and paste that article here. The snippets I’m seeing are hilarious.

    The GOP staff wanted Obama to offer the 2011 deal again, but he told them to eat shit.

    Paul Ryan prevented a larger deal because it didn’t make structural changes to entitlements. I think this validates the theory that Obama wanted to give the impression of being open to entitlement change for the Village without actually following through.

    Obama reacting to the wingnuts’ offer: “You’re asking me to accept Mitt Romney’s tax plan? Why would I do that?”.

  53. 53.

    Helen Bedd

    @Citizen_X:

    I had never heard of Michael Behe til just now…turns out the “research” that Bork was citing got tossed overboard by Behe himself…

    RationalWiki
    Behe’s second book The Edge of Evolution, published in 2007, abandons many of his earlier positions, to formulate a new idea of the intelligent designer as the “great mutator,” driving the mutations which drive evolution.
    http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Michael_Behe

  54. 54.

    General Stuck

    @Hill Dweller:

    Someone needs to cut and paste that article here

    None of the front pagers, save for ABL, has the courage to piss off their progressive betters. Maybe someplace online will later post the entire article.

  55. 55.

    Helen Bedd

    Going thru those those Bork quotes is just like reading comment threads full of stuff from Fauxnews watching teabaggers.

    Plus, a lot of it is simply endless variations on the theme of “Hey! you kids, get off my lawn.”

    If anyone cares I’m listening to the hippity hopping stylingz of Trent Renzor as I type.

    Next I’m going to look at sex gifs at Tumblr….I plan to watch for some time, riveted by the sociological significance of it all.

  57. 57.

    dmsilev

    @General Stuck: Another excerpt:

    After the debacle of 2011, Mr. Obama could have treated the negotiations as the art of the bipartisan deal that could set the stage for immigration reform and other second-term achievements. Flush with victory, he could have at least made a gesture on entitlements.
    __
    Instead, he has treated the talks as an extension of the election campaign, traveling around the country at rally-style events at which he berates Republicans for not accepting his terms of surrender. Grant gave Lee more at Appomattox.

    (I got to the article via this google link)

  60. 60.

    Honus

    “Irving Kristol was going through Romania back when it was a Communist dictatorship, and he learned that, of course, they banned rock ‘n’ roll on the grounds it was a subversive music. And it is, but not just of Communist dictatorships. It’s subversive of bourgeois culture, too.”

    Best justification of rock and roll I’ve heard in 50 years.

  61. 61.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Radical individualism is the handmaiden of collective tyranny

    Ayn Rand, Ron and Rand Paul…he’s talking about you and your cults of personality, you vile fucktards.

  62. 62.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @dmsilev: Thanks. Anyone who wants can try this link which has a google news mod at the end.

    Here’s some more:

    On Dec. 13, Mr. Boehner went to the White House at the president’s request, joking he was going to the woodshed.

    The president told him he could choose one of two doors. The first represented a big deal. If Mr. Boehner chose it, the president said, the country and financial markets would cheer. Door No. 2 represented a spike in interest rates and a global recession.

    Mr. Boehner said he wanted a deal along the lines of what the two men had negotiated in the summer of 2011 in a fight over raising the debt ceiling. “You missed your opportunity on that,” the president told him.

  63. 63.

    Full Metal Wingnut

    Much as I love to hate Justice Kennedy (motherfucker wrote the Citizens United opinion) guys a pinko commie compared to Bork.

    Also, didn’t burns allude to going to Yale Law? I had a professor at Cornell, John Blume, who was a Yale alum, and even he praised Bork’s brilliance (Bloom was and is heavily involved in death penalty stuff, a lot of appeals for death row inmates).

  64. 64.

    Hill Dweller

    @dmsilev: That excerpt, much like Woodward’s book, glosses over the fact Republicans were threatening to destroy the full faith and credit of the US. It is/was economic treason, but the Village rationalizes everything the Republicans do in order to blame Obama.

  65. 65.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Citizen_X:

    Funny, somebody just posted on FB the creationist explanation for how the dinosaurs died:

    After dinosaurs ate everything on earth, they dug deep into the ground to search for food. Sadly, they became trapped in the holes, which is why their skeletons are found underground today.

    I wish I were joking.

  72. 72.

    Triassic Sands

    Sociological significance, my ass.

    I have a friend from the DC area and he once saw Bork in a store — buying pornography (magazines). I guess he was just doing more sociological research. Once the scientist, always the scientist.

  74. 74.

    Uncle Cosmo

    I believe Mr Bork was using “riveted” as a technical term referring to an alternate method of penetration.

    “Riveted” is what geezers get when they are no longer physically capable of getting screwed.

  82. 82.

    Petorado

    @Honus:

    Years ago, a 70’s-era rocker was asked to define what rock ‘n roll is. He responded, essentially, that it’s whatever music pisses off one’s parents.

    Radical individualism is the handmaiden of collective tyranny

    I guess Bork hated us for our freedoms.

  84. 84.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @General Stuck: Search the headline How ‘Cliff’ Talks Hit the Wall in Google. The article should show up there. Click on it and you can get to the article. Comcast blows ass, but I can’t imagine they could screw that up.

  85. 85.

    West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)

    Strangely enough, just this last summer I was strolling a beach towards sunset when I discovered two naked young women swimming in a calm inlet. The sun glistened off their firm flesh, their tawny skin. I watched for long minutes as they cavorted, twining their legs around each other, their tongues eagerly exploring each other’s bodies….

    I stood their pondering the chances of the Rams winning the Super Bowl in 2014.

    I think Bork was probably borking off….

  86. 86.

    Chris T.

    @dmsilev: The “Big 7”: comp, news, misc, rec, sci, soc, talk. Add “alt” and you really had the “big 8”.

    This organization has apparently gone to seed:
    $ sed 's/[. ].*//' < .trn/active.newsguy | sort -u | wc
    3616 3616 23704

    The last ten, just for the heck of it:
    zixia
    zm
    zoo
    zoom
    zoomnet
    zpr
    zsu
    ztb
    zyxel
    zz
    zzz

  87. 87.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Peter:

    Which is, IMHO, a very good thing.

    The teatards really should be gathered together, shot at dawn, and a bill sent to their relatives for the ammunition expended.

  91. 91.

    arguingwithsignposts

    I’d hope the reflexive “he sold us out!” crowds are reflecting on their failings right now, but I know better than that.

    hahahahahaha. Okay, that was funny.

  93. 93.

    dr. bloor

    @West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.):

    Strangely enough, just this last summer I was strolling a beach towards sunset when I discovered two naked young women swimming in a calm inlet. The sun glistened off their firm flesh, their tawny skin. I watched for long minutes as they cavorted, twining their legs around each other, their tongues eagerly exploring each other’s bodies….

    “Dear Yale Law Review, I never thought I’d be writing to you…”

  95. 95.

    JGabriel

    Robert Bork @ Top:

    Suddenly there on the public access channel was a voluptuous young woman, naked, her body oiled, writhing on the floor while fondling herself intimately…. I watched for some time–riveted by the sociological significance of it all.

    In the vein of The Onion’s Ironic Porn Purchase Leads To Unironic Ejaculation, one must wonder: Did Bork’s sociological porn viewing lead to an unsociological, i.e. solitary, orgasm?

    .

  97. 97.

    zenster

    “Particularly horrifying was this alt.sex.stories. I don’t know how to work the Internet yet, but I did that research. I found it written up.”

    Heh heh. Sure, you knew about the internet but couldn’t “work” it yet. Wink-wink nudge-nudge.

  101. 101.

    gnomedad

    @Petorado:

    Radical individualism is the handmaiden of collective tyranny

    When wingers are against “individualism”, they want everyone to be Christian. When they’re for it, they want everyone to have guns.

  105. 105.

    ? Martin

    “You get nothing, I get that for free.”

    That’s awesome. Actually, Obama gets much more than that for free if he chooses to claim it.

  109. 109.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    Oh my god, Obama’s not fucking around with these negotiations.

    @Peter: Well, no, he kind of has been, but not in the way that most of the firebaggers would have you think. He’s been making offers, offers he knew that the Republicans could not accept because of who’s running the show (the Teabagger Comedy Klan Circus), and those offers were not made as sincere. They were made to show the American public, who are stupid, that he’s willing to give and that the Republicans would rather set fire to America than tax a person who makes a million dollars a year.

    America’s getting that, and they’re really going to get it when January 2nd comes, no agreement is in place, and Pelosi starts introducing one “Cut Middle Class Taxes” bill every week, which the Republicans will vote down repeatedly until even the dumbest denizen of the reddest of red states will have to admit that the Republican Party gives a shit about nobody save for millionaires and billionaires.

    This will wipe out the GOP in the long term.

    I have a feeling Obama’s a bit resentful that you can do everything he’s done in his life, including win the presidency, and still be called “nigger”, and that there’s probably more payback to come.

  110. 110.

    Keith G

    @Baud:

    I wonder if he ever got the chance to google Santorum before he died

    Quickly scanning the thread, I thought you had used the verb ‘gargle’. I was amused.

  111. 111.

    portlander

    It is not an organ of the mother’s body but a different individual. This cell produced specifically human proteins and enzymes from the beginning

    Just like cancer…

  112. 112.

    Amir Khalid

    @Alex S.:
    Somehow, I can’t see that many House Republicans voting for a Democratic Speaker. It might not sit well with the Teabaggers’ Purity Control. If there are three or more candidates, assuming that’s even possible, could Pelosi win by a plurality?

  113. 113.

    CaseyL

    @MikeJ: This made me think of Woody Allen’s “Whores of Mensa.” For another $50, you can get some ontological tautologies guaranteed to put the “X” in neocortex.

  114. 114.

    JGabriel

    @Alex S.:

    By the way, the Speaker of the House gets elected with a simple majority. So Pelosi only needs to get more votes than Boehner/Cantor/whoever.

    I just want to point out that I theorized this might be a possibility last night, before the news broke that some House GOPers were planning it:

    Let’s talk about those nimrods that are too extreme even for John Boehner and his Plan B. There were about two dozen who refused to support Plan B, in some part due to their repugnance for Orange Julius.

    My question is: What if they don’t support him for Speaker of the House either? Is it possible that Pelosi could end up winning the Speakership if the same group refuses to support Boehner?

  116. 116.

    Anya

    @Liberty60: This part is delicious, also, too:

    During one session in the Capitol with White House’s legislative liaison Rob Nabors, Mr. Loper from the Boehner camp asked, referring to a near-deal during last year’s debt-ceiling fight: “Can you get back into the zone of where you were in July 2011?”
    ____
    “No,” Mr. Nabors replied. “We were probably overextended then, and there’s no way we would do it now.”
    _______
    Mr. Nabors said if they couldn’t reach a deal, they should keep lines of communication alive. The typically serious Mr. Loper asked, “So, you’re breaking up with us?”

  117. 117.

    Peter

    I would never come down off my schadenfreude mountain if infighting in the GOP ranks between Boehner and Cantor while the Dems vote in a reliable block for Pelosi gave her the gavel back. I would become a schadenfreude hermit.

  118. 118.

    Alex S.

    @bemused senior:

    I can’t see any republican voting for Nancy Pelosi, so in that case we really need some missing congressmen or a split vote. I wonder if a Speaker Hoyer had a chance, though. If you wanted to split the GOP into the centrists and radicals, now would be the time.

    @JGabriel:

    I wonder who would be Boehner’s replacement. Paul Ryan would probably unite the GOP, Cantor… maybe. A Tea Party candidate like Louie Gohmert, well, that would be the death of the GOP.

  119. 119.

    Liberty60

    @Forum Transmitted Disease:

    I have a feeling Obama’s a bit resentful that you can do everything he’s done in his life, including win the presidency, and still be called “nigger”, and that there’s probably more payback to come.

    To extend the metaphor:

    “This isn’t personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business.”

    Cool, methodical, organized. These neo-Confederates are getting assraped by the man they consider so far beneath them as to not need to take seriously.

  120. 120.

    General Stuck

    @Peter:

    Me too, I’m just a bit in awe. I’d hope the reflexive “he sold us out!” crowds are reflecting on their failings right now, but I know better than that.

    Fat Chance. Krugman reads between the lines of the WSJ article, that just shows us more on how Obama sucks.

  121. 121.

    Low Country Boil

    I’m sure that, after a few moments of “being riveted by the social significance of it all,” he realized that he had a big mess on his hands.

  122. 122.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @Keith G:

    Quickly scanning the thread, I thought you had used the verb ‘gargle’. I was amused.

    “Gargle” is good. “Google” as a verb has already worn out its welcome with me. From now on I’m Gargling.

  124. 124.

    SatanicPanic

    This remind me of this priest that taught at the Catholic high school I went to for a while. He was unique in that he freely admitted to lusting after various movie actresses. Basic Instinct came out around that time and we asked him what he thought- “you know, some sex, some violence in movies is ok, but that movie took it way too far… I’ve seen it four times”

  127. 127.

    rikyrah

    ok, the image of this just cracked me up:

    Jonathan Karl @jonkarl
    One other detail: Obama sent a plane to Ohio to bring Boehner back to DC for their meeting on Monday.

    ………………………
    Orange Julius clutching the Jack Daniels, and gets a phone call.

    OJ: Yes.
    Phone: The plane will be there at 10 a.m., Mr. Speaker.
    OJ: What plane?
    Phone: The plane the President sent for you.
    OJ about to speak when he hears a ‘click’ at the other end.

  129. 129.

    Corner Stone

    I find it endlessly amusing that people who strenuously doubt reporting by Ezra and Kthug and others will so readily and happily dive in for a “behind the scenes” note from the Murdoch WSJ.

  131. 131.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Liberty60:

    These neo-Confederates are getting assraped by the man they consider so far beneath them as to not need to take seriously.

    DING DING DING DING DING

    They underestimate him constantly because, you know, he’s a ni*CLANG*.

    @Alex S.:

    So Pelosi only needs to get more votes than Boehner/Cantor/whoever.

    While this is true, this means that some Rethugs will embrace the Bride of Satan herself (Pelosi is constantly demonized by the wingtards) in preference to any fellow Rethug.

    I don’t think that’s going to happen…if it does, it really is a sign that the Mayans were off in dating the end of the world, because such a defection will result in teatard primary challenges for any Rethug who does it.

    Unless it’s a teatard doing it out of spite, which I wouldn’t put past the mewling babies.

  132. 132.

    General Stuck

    @Corner Stone:

    Wow. Krugman and Ezra ought to count their coup for a corner stone endorsement. Maybe Krugman will retract his mea culpa just after the election that he was wrong and knows squat about politics. Especially regarding Obama. He has fallen off the firebagger wagon again, though, unfortunately.

  133. 133.

    Kropadope

    By the way, the Speaker of the House gets elected with a simple majority. So Pelosi only needs to get more votes than Boehner/Cantor/whoever.

    Will someone please explain the difference between majority and plurality?

  134. 134.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I think the point to this Pelosi discussion is that it doesn’t take an outright majority. For example, the voting could go like

    Tea Party guy: 100
    Boehner: 140
    Pelosi: 200

    And Pelosi would win by plurality. Correct me if I’m wrong, anyone.

  135. 135.

    Anya

    @Corner Stone: Ezra said a deal was finalized, did you see any final deal between the president and Orange Julius? If Ezra’s sources were correct, why did Boehner come up with his own failed Plan B?

  136. 136.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Spaghetti Lee:

    If a plurality wins it, what a Rethug split effectively does is destroy the GOP, because if they stay united, they select the Speaker. If they don’t stay united, it means they are, for sure, the new Whigs.

    I’m not up on all the history of the control of the House, but I don’t believe such an event has a precedent.

  137. 137.

    ? Martin

    @Spaghetti Lee: No, that’s exactly it.

    I mean, if the GOP can’t agree on whether to cut taxes for income below $1M and income below $250K to the point that their vote fails in the face of a guarantee that neither happens, then I don’t see how they reach unanimous consensus on Speaker, other than to say ‘fuck it, we’ll stick with Bohener’.

    I mean, if the candidate is a teatard, the moderate GOP will likely stick with Boehner as the new guy will be an even greater hostage taker than Boehner is. If the candidate is a moderate GOP, the teatards will worry that they’ll bring minority votes to the floor (as the speaker is supposed to do) and they’ll wind up losing all of their battles along a Dem/Moderate GOP votes. So they’re likely better off with Boehner as well.

    The problem here is that along many measures, the more natural parliamentary alliance in the House is Dem/Moderate GOP, with the tea party shoved in the coat closet.

  138. 138.

    PurpleGirl

    @dmsilev:

    Grant gave Lee more at Appomattox.

    Maybe that’s cause of our problems now… Grant was nicer to the South than he should have been.

  139. 139.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Anya:

    A deal might have been finalized, but Boner couldn’t deliver on his end. His negotiation position is dreadful, since he can’t be assured his caucus will support the deal he crafts with Obama.

    He’s seriously fucked.

  142. 142.

    Amir Khalid

    @Spaghetti Lee:
    Is a Democratic Speaker going to be able to lead a Republican-majority House? Especially one that wouldn’t take leadership from the Republican Speaker it elected? It’s hard to see Nancy Pelosi volunteering for that clusterfuck.

  144. 144.

    General Stuck

    The only way a deal could get done now, is a clean bill dealing only with keeping the tax cuts at 250 thou cuttoff, plus maybe UI, to pass a dem majority bill. I seriously doubt that if Obama gave the nutters everything they want, they would still would not pass that bill out of pure spite.

  145. 145.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Amir Khalid:
    Pelosi has shown that she has a mean, spiteful streak. She has manipulated votes for no reason but to make Captain Orange Face And His Two Hundred Clown Posse look like idiots. Yes, I think she’d take the gavel and with it the opportunities to humiliate the GOP further.

  146. 146.

    Mnemosyne

    @General Stuck:

    Wow. It’s pretty amazing how his commenters are still completely convinced that Obama wants to kill Social Security and it was just a coincidence that he failed. Again.

    “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times, it’s enemy action.” — Ian Fleming

  147. 147.

    Villago Delenda Est

    OK, how about this scenario:

    The teatards tell Boner he’s fucked. Boner goes to Pelosi, and asks for her help in retaining the Speakership. Pelosi proceeds to totally cage what’s left of Boner’s balls and Boner is in an even worse position, because he’s beholden to a block that will follow orders from Pelosi.

    Boner is still nominally “in charge”, but still is in a position where he can’t negotiate squat, because Pelosi pwns his ass, nothing happens without her approval.

    It’s as bad a situation as he has now, with the bonus of him being reamed by the wingtards as a craven traitor.

  148. 148.

    Amir Khalid

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    She has manipulated votes for no reason but to make Captain Orange Face And His Two Hundred Clown Posse look like idiots.

    True, but this is more easily done from behind the scenes.
    ETA: For example, in the kind of scenario VDE describes in #145.

  149. 149.

    dr. bloor

    @Villago Delenda Est: This scenario is, for all intents and purposes, already in effect. Last week pretty much made it obvious that Boehner can’t pass anything that has a chance in the Senate relying on R votes alone.

    And the wingtards already see him as being a craven traitor.

  151. 151.

    chopper

    @Liberty60:

    don’t forget the neo-confederates’ firebagger handmaidens, who are currently coalescing around the meme that the president’s successes in life are merely ‘luck’. anything to deliberately downplay the man I guess.

  153. 153.

    General Stuck

    @Mnemosyne:

    I ain’t that bright, but I know enough to know that a dem president doesn’t try to intimidate a republican Speaker of the House, by telling that Speaker what that dem president believes and is afraid of, but rather what the winger speaker believes and is afraid of. Obama has not let up for scrounging any bits and pieces of stimulus he could scrounge and get past the republicans. Despite public rhetoric on the debt, that is always couched in ‘long term’ terms.

  155. 155.

    burnspbesq

    No one who has anything resembling a clue would suggest that Bork is the foremost conservative legal mind of the twentieth century. He wrote one great book on antitrust law, and then coasted for the rest of his career.

    Get a fucking clue, Doug. Or outsource talking about law.

  157. 157.

    burnspbesq

    No one who has anything resembling a clue would suggest that Bork is the foremost conservative legal mind of the twentieth century. He wrote one great book on antitrust law, and then coasted for the rest of his career.

    Get a clue, Doug. Or outsource talking about law.

  161. 161.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @burnspbesq:

    Someone needs his snark meter adjusted.

    Doug’s sarcasm screams at me…it’s Bork’s moron fans who assert he’s some sort of great legal scholar.

  163. 163.

    Mnemosyne

    @dr. bloor:

    Last week pretty much made it obvious that Boehner can’t pass anything that has a chance in the Senate relying on R votes alone.

    And, as far as I can tell, that’s Boehner’s problem — he insists on only allowing votes that can be won without any Democratic votes being needed at all. I’m not sure if he made this decision to head off an open rebellion by the teabaggers or just because he’s a dick, but that’s the hill he chose to die on. Any bill that would win because a majority of Democrats joined with a minority of Republicans never even comes up for a vote.

    The Democrats would need 17 Republicans to vote with them to win whatever they wanted to. That’s why Boehner is so desperate to hold his caucus together — if he allowed horsetrading with Democrats, the whole Republican coalition would fall apart.

  164. 164.

    General Stuck

    @gogol’s wife:

    When did Krugman ever do any “reporting”? I don’t think even he would claim that he does reporting.

    I never said he was a reporter. And your point?

  165. 165.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @SatanicPanic: You in turn remind me of “Father C.,” a gray-haired Jesuit priest in a mid-size Pennsylvania city a bit over 40 years back, whose misadventures I heard about via my college GF (RC raised & schooled) who was from there. At one point, I heard, he totaled a large & fairly pricey auto (himself emerging unhurt) while under the influence. Problem was that the car belonged to his GF. In exchange for her not reporting the accident, the province bought her a new car out of pin money.

    I was up visiting one summer & we were driving around & she said, “See that guy over there? That’s Father C.” I said, “Why is he standing on the corner wearing a gold polo shirt?” She replied, “Probably waiting for his girlfriend to pick him up–I don’t think she lets him drive anymore.”

    Jebbies. Jeebus….

  166. 166.

    gogol's wife

    @General Stuck:

    I was attempting to support you by referring to Corner Stone’s reference to Krugman’s impeccable “reporting.” Sorry it wasn’t clear.

  167. 167.

    Corner Stone

    Unsurprisingly, the reading comprehension here is fail. I’m not vouching for the accuracy of any “reporting”, and my comment certainly does not imply that.
    Only that something you didn’t want to hear, coming from some people nominally on your side, was immediately pounced on and trashed. But an “article” by Rupert Murdoch’s WSJ, who has shown the ethical wall between reporting and op-ed means nothing to them anymore, is glorified to the point of orgasm, and for lack of a better term, swallowed wholesale with no question or provenance.

  168. 168.

    Amir Khalid

    @Mnemosyne:
    I suspect that by Teabagger notions of ideological purity, saying yes to Democrats on anything is unthinkable. The only acceptable outcome of any negotiation with Democrats is unconditional surrender by said Democrats. If Boehner brings Democrats on board for a vote, their thinking goes, he must have conceded something, i.e. sold out the Republican party. So in effect he’s not allowed to deal with Democrats, only to demand they surrender. But right now, Democrats have the upper hand and no reason to surrender.

    Boehner’s flailing is entertaining to watch, but his position is obviously untenable. I don’t see how he can hang on to the gavel.

  170. 170.

    Amir Khalid

    @Corner Stone:
    I was under the impression that the Wall Street Journal’s financial and business reporting has always been above reproach, and that their political reporting was at least rather less biased than their editorials.

  171. 171.

    General Stuck

    @Corner Stone:

    awwe CS is butthurt, poor ch’ld. Come on over for big ole Stuck hug, you task force ranger, you.

    edit – oh, and if the journal news desk has been corrupted by Murdoch, then why did they write an article making Boehner look like Obama’s bitch. duh

  172. 172.

    Corner Stone

    @lojasmo: Show me one on the record by Obama or Boehner, dipshit. Or go fuck off you stupid fucking troll.
    “a Wall Street Journal reconstruction shows”
    “according to notes taken by a participant”

  174. 174.

    Corner Stone

    @General Stuck:

    oh, and if the journal news desk has been corrupted by Murdoch, then why did they write an article making Boehner look like Obama’s bitch. duh

    Actually, as undeniably stupid as you are, I believe that is the first question that should have been asked when reading this “reconstruction”.

  176. 176.

    Corner Stone

    @Amir Khalid: That was how it started out. There have been a few defections from WSJ due to pressure to conform to what was being displayed on the op-ed pages.

  178. 178.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Corner Stone:
    False equivalency. Krugman makes up what he’s sure the president believes, and Klein reports that he knows a guy who knows a guy who says the deal might be X, then pretends it definitely will be X. They turn out to be wrong. That is the pattern repeated over and over, and by now their pronunciations on the ‘What will Obama do’ issue are treated as garbage.

    In this case, a claim of specific praiseworthy quotes from a source whose only bias would be in the other direct are taken, if not as gospel, then at least at a ‘that’s cool!’ level of enthusiasm.

    There is no hypocricy between the two judgments because they are applied to very different circumstances. There IS bias, but it’s accounted for in the system. If these quotes were proven to be false, we would shrug and go back to watching for what the final bill would be – since our faith in Obama has been consistently validated by those. The investment you think we have in this story does not exist.

  180. 180.

    General Stuck

    @Corner Stone:

    Actually, as undeniably stupid as you are, I believe that is the first question that should have been asked when reading this “reconstruction”.

    If your shut-in self can’t read plain English, it’s not my problem.

    Yer So cute when riled up. Kind of like a popped balloon in a phone booth. Santa won’t bring you nothin’ with this kind of talk.

  181. 181.

    Peter

    @Corner Stone: Your being an unvarnished shaft of bull penis is noted, citizen douchebag.

    (Not to break pattern here, but concern troll? Really? Do words not have meaning anymore? I’m not saying I agree with your position but have ~concerns~, I’m just calling you a dick. And now I suppose I’m calling you a dick who uses words he doesn’t understand)

  183. 183.

    General Stuck

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    The journal news desk is a quality operation, still. And I suspect one side or the other told them what happened and what was said, and the other side confirmed it before going to print.

    If not, and it only came from Obama’s peeps, or Boehner;s, then they would have stated as such. That is the basic formula for reporting that has been around forever. Otherwise, they open themselves up to all kinds of grief from cries of foul, that is bad business for a newspaper.

  185. 185.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Corner Stone:
    The Wall Street Journal? And? Again, their only prejudice would be anti-Obama, and that’s primarily from their editorials. See above – these quotes are not taken as set in stone absolute truths, but Klein and Krugman’s political speculations HAVE been consistently proven to be utter bullshit. Even if you dislike the WSJ, your false equivalence remains a false equivalence.

  186. 186.

    Redshift

    @General Stuck:

    oh, and if the journal news desk has been corrupted by Murdoch, then why did they write an article making Boehner look like Obama’s bitch. duh

    I don’t read it that way. It reads to me like they are doing their absolute best to make it sound like mean ol’ Obama was completely unreasonable and that’s why there wasn’t a deal. (I see from the Google search list that it’s being cited by a lot of wingnut sites, probably for that reason.) For example, they talk about how Republicans asked for X amount more in spending cuts which was rejected by the WH, but never mention that Boehner’s clowns never named a single actual cut other than gutting Medicare, they only offered target amounts and wanted Obama to name the cuts. In addition, Boehner’s staffer is quoted as asking for “help” from the White House in finding other revenue than raising tax rates, which in wingnuttia was presented as completely reasonable rather than a complete failure to offer an actual proposal.

    The fact that despite their straining in that direction the article paints a picture of Obama making Boehner his bitch just illustrates how completely he did it.

  187. 187.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Corner Stone:

    something you didn’t want to hear, coming from some people nominally on your side, was immediately pounced on and trashed

    But that happens a lot, and for good reason, because Some People Nominally On Our Side sometimes start interpreting and reading between the lines — because they think that’s what they’re good at — and then other people nominally on our side pick up on those interpretations and it’s off to the races. The Klein/Chait thing a little ways back, f’rinstance, was IMHO very clearly two wonkish sorts kicking around the merits of an idea, raising the Medicare eligibility age, in a sports-radio-like way: “we’ve heard that some people speculate that this is being discussed. If it actually happens, would it be a good move?” And then Krugman and lesser lights of the blogosphere got all excited: “I can’t believe Obama wants to make this bad move, and it’s all obviously a trial balloon, blaaarrggh.”

    It’s not “I don’t want to hear it.” It’s “What exactly did I just hear?”

    So, sure, you’re right to raise the question of what the audience for a WSJ piece is supposed to make of it. IMHO it’s supposed to make Obama look more combative and even arrogant, to reassure people that Both Sides Do It. (I bet the Halperin/Heilman/Scarborough types would take it in that spirit.) But Democrats and liberals and blandly pro-Obama lefties actually _like_ the idea of a combative Obama, so the message we take from it isn’t the message the WSJ probably hopes to promulgate.

  188. 188.

    Peter

    Bluh, my comment’s in moderation. The point is, Corner Stone is accurately described by a metaphor involving a bull’s genitals, and he apparently doesn’t know what ‘concern troll’ means.

  190. 190.

    Triassic Sands

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    As long as there are Republicans no one will ever be too old to get screwed.

    It’s like we used to say when I was in the military: It’s just not fair; I don’t have a sex life, but I’m getting fucked every day.

  191. 191.

    Corner Stone

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    The Wall Street Journal? And?

    And what? If you can’t read plain English it’s not my problem. There are no on the record quotes in that WSJ article.
    That means the piece is planted for effect. This isn’t hard.

  192. 192.

    General Stuck

    @Redshift:

    I don’t read it that way. It reads to me like they are doing their absolute best to make it sound like mean ol’ Obama was completely unreasonable and that’s why there wasn’t a deal

    That could well be. I still haven’t been able to access the full article, only the snippets provided here and elsewhere. From what I read, they were quotes by the participants, and if they were trying to make Obama look bad, or like some kind of bully, they failed miserably. Until I can read the whole article, I can’t give my overall impression.

  193. 193.

    Corner Stone

    @Peter:

    The point is, Corner Stone is accurately described by a metaphor involving a bull’s genitals, and he apparently doesn’t know what ‘concern troll’ means.

    I knows one whens I sees one, you troll.

  196. 196.

    General Stuck

    @Corner Stone:

    No, so? The overall tone and tenor of the writers is completely different than the accuracy of the quoted parts in the article. I don’t really care what the writers thought about the talks, just that they reported the quotes accurately. And the fact that neither side has complained, I think that speaks for itself. Now say something stupid and irrelevant.

  197. 197.

    Peter

    @Corner Stone: You apparently don’t, since you are calling someone who is just straight-up calling you a dick repeatedly instead of professing to agree with your position but citing ‘concerns’ a concern troll. Where is the concern in my troll? It isn’t there. I’m just a guy who thinks you’re a dick.

  200. 200.

    General Stuck

    @Corner Stone:

    Now say something stupid and irrelevant.

    You don’t disappoint

    How do you know you’ve even read all the quotes? Or the attribution for those quotes? Or the timing or context for those quotes?

  201. 201.

    zoot

    one good thing you can say about republicans is that they’re so bad at sex that some day evolution will have eradicated them.

  202. 202.

    Hill Dweller

    @Redshift: There is no doubt some of the quotes are an attempt to make Obama look uppity and intransigent, but the writer does talk about Obama moving towards Boehner a couple of different times on revenue and spending cuts. Also too, the Plan B fiasco was obviously Boehner’s attempt to avoid blame should we go over the curb, and it was done without any sort of heads up for the President.

    Ultimately, the article just reinforces Boehner’s weakness, in my view.

  203. 203.

    Corner Stone

    @General Stuck: I bow to your irrefutable logic. Not knowing all the quotes, sources or context is, indeed, stupid and irrelevant for rubbing one out to this WSJ article.

  204. 204.

    General Stuck

    @Corner Stone:

    @General Stuck: \

    I got yer “quotes” “sources” and “context” right here

    again

    The Wall Street Journal has a great behind-the-scenes look at how the fiscal cliff negotiations faltered.

    “Mr. Obama repeatedly lost patience with the speaker as negotiations faltered. In an Oval Office meeting last week, he told Mr. Boehner that if the sides didn’t reach agreement, he would use his inaugural address and his State of the Union speech to tell the country the Republicans were at fault.” At one point, Boehner told the president, “I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table. What do I get for that?”

    Replied Obama: “You get nothing. I get that for free.”

    It gets sweeter with each reading.

  205. 205.

    Mnemosyne

    @FlipYrWhig:

    But that happens a lot, and for good reason, because Some People Nominally On Our Side sometimes start interpreting and reading between the lines — because they think that’s what they’re good at — and then other people nominally on our side pick up on those interpretations and it’s off to the races.

    Yep. And unfortunately it does seem that some of those people have a built-in assumption that Obama is naive and/or is plotting to kill Social Security, so everything they see gets filtered through that assumption, which is why Krugman is apparently interpreting Obama’s discussing the options with Boehner using Boehner’s preferred wording as Obama actually preferring those options rather than Obama using language he knows Boehner will respond to.

    Krugman is a brilliant economist, and he’s very good at breaking down the pros and cons of actual proposed plans, but he really sucks at reading political tea leaves and predicting future moves of politicians. That’s fine, because that’s not what I read him for, but it does become a little tiresome to see people quoting his tea-leaf-reading as gospel truth without looking at his track record with that stuff.

  206. 206.

    Mnemosyne

    @Hill Dweller:

    If I were going to do some tea leaf reading of my own (hey, I can’t be any worse at it than Krugman), I would guess that the story was leaked to the WSJ by Republicans to highlight Boehner’s weakness and pressure him to step down from the speakership when it comes up for a vote in the next session. The Obama quotes actually are there to make liberals happy because making Obama look good and emphasizing how much he pwned Boehner will piss off conservatives and increase the calls for Boehner’s head.

    But, hey, I’m just some chick on the internet who reads blogs, so make sure to keep a salt block with you on this one.

  207. 207.

    Corner Stone

    @General Stuck: How about the actual part from the full WSJ article:

    At one point, according to notes taken by a participant, Mr. Boehner told the president, “I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table. What do I get for that?”

  209. 209.

    General Stuck

    @Corner Stone:

    irrelevant. You either believe the quotes are accurate and confirmed by the wsj, or not. I would say a participant is a pretty solid source. But a big league news desk is not likely to print something based on just one source, especially about quotes from the POTUS and Speaker of the House in an epic conference with an issue of such high importance.

  213. 213.

    Mnemosyne

    @sharl:

    We’ve had several cats that will play Fetch. The trick is to make sure they don’t figure out that you can just walk over and pick up the toy if they don’t bring it back, because then the game turns into Chase, where you throw the toy, they run madly after it, and then they turn to look at you from where it landed as if to say, “Okay, now throw it again from here. It’s too much trouble to bring it back to you.”

  214. 214.

    chopper

    @Corner Stone:

    Show me one on the record by Obama or Boehner, dipshit.

    I’m sure you said the same thing when anonymous leaks said Obama put chained CPI on the table.

  215. 215.

    opie_jeanne

    @Mnemosyne: She’s our first one to do this with us. Most of the rest did what you described, or else they just decide to play with the mouse where it lands.

  216. 216.

    opie_jeanne

    @sharl: She ran into a flimsy plastic box that came with bows and ribbon. Makes a lot of noise but it’s much softer than the walls or the furniture.
    She started this game when we were in bed a couple of nights ago, brought us the mouse and put it down and just stared at us, so mr opiejeanne threw it to see what would happen.

  218. 218.

    Corner Stone

    @General Stuck: I don’t trust any off the record source, I don’t care who is quoting it.
    The difference is that I evaluate those people and don’t just swallow the things I want to hear.
    The fact that you’re defending the WSJ is about as telling as it gets.

  220. 220.

    General Stuck

    @Corner Stone:

    LOL. Still butthurt? Get back to me when one side or the other disputes those quotes printed in the wsj. Otherwise, you should feel better when the swelling goes down.

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