After spending the last few months listening to nutjobs like Jennifer Rubin and others tell us that Hagel is an anti-Semite and too out of the mainstream to be Sec. of Defense, we learn that Hagel may be too out of the mainstream to write for the Washington Post or the Weekly Standard, but perfectly within the mainstream enough to win Senate confirmation.
I personally have no idea what is mainstream anymore.
BGinCHI
The main stream now is when the GOP pisses on the American people and the beltway media tells everyone it’s raining.
John O
I’ve sent e-mails to some wingnutty pals that said in entirety, “Hagel? Really?”
I swear to FSM the GOP caucus is made up of people who never fucking grew up.
22over7
Just think what we get to look forward to if and when the President has to nominate a Supreme Court Justice…
schrodinger's cat
Never never never..
ETA: They have already found something new, the sequester.
jl
Ultra-cynical operators like Graham trying to save his neck in the next primary against some teabag nutcase is mainstream, and always has been in politics.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I was surprised to hear Mark Kirk held on with the dead-enders. Anybody know what he’s thinking? A primary? Illinois doesn’t strike me as Tea Party friendly, Joe Walsh notwithstanding.
Cris (without an H)
Do what now? Seriously, Mike, what evidence is this statement based on? The soft touch they used on Sotomayor?
BGinCHI
@Cris (without an H): Blame the victim. Another profile in courage.
Citizen_X
Sigh. To paraphrase one of your own commenters: Anything but what liberals like, updated daily.
jl
In order to ease Cole’s mind, or to get him out to BevMo to fill up his car with hard likker, I predict the next Waste of Our Time will be cynical GOPers criticizing how Obama handles the sequester (after having not done diddly squat themselves on either preventing it, or passing instructions on what to cut).
GOPers: Obama Freeing ‘Criminal’ Immigrants As Sequester Propaganda
tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/02/gopers-obama-freeing-criminal-immigrants-as-sequester-propaganda…
Edit: just checked. I thought BevMo was nationwide. Sorry Cole, will have to find booze some other place.
ranchandsyrup
Maybe the D’s won’t nominate republicans any more. I know, I joke too much.
chrome agnomen
mainstream: the deep water where wingnuts are in over their heads.
Cacti
So, the whole point of the confirmation hearings was…
John McCain needed to pull out his withered slab of bacon and give himself a public handy.
dmsilev
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Some parts of downstate are quite conservative. If it weren’t for Chicago and the surrounding suburbs, Illinois would be a mix of Indiana and Missouri.
Kirk’s not up for reelection until 2016 though (he came in as part of the 2010 GOP wave), so I’m not so sure fear of primary voters was a major motivator.
penpen
Got to admit, it’s a pretty sweet gig being a full-time reactionary.
dr. bloor
CNN–Hagel “bruised” by confirmation process.
As if any of the runny poo that Paul, Cruz or Closetcase were flinging had a chance of leaving a mark on the likes of Hagel.
Andrew
How to determine the mainstream:
1) Go to the offices of The Washington Post
2) Find the corpse of David Broder, which they’ve propped up like one of those gypsy fortune teller machines.
3) Insert a quarter.
22over7
@Andrew:
I don’t want to know where.
Villago Delenda Est
The ‘mainstream’ is whatever the Centrist Death Cult of the Village says it is. The narrative is sacred! The narrative shall not be questioned!
Make the world a better place. Annihilate the Village.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Tweety just dropped in to a little false equivalence, saying that Boehner is saying “no revenue increases until you agree to cut entitlements”. That is quite simply not true. Boehner is saying, no revenue, not now, not ever.
dmsilev
@jl: From your link, here’s Johnny McAngry:
Earth to McAngry: The whole fucking point of the sequester is that it’s a meat axe descending without discrimination across everything the government does. Of course it’s fucking moronic. It was designed that way so that you and your Neanderthal caucus-mates would be incentivized to do your fucking jobs instead of standing around and waving your shriveled dicks at the world. Apparently it didn’t work.
jl
The vile cynicism of the Benghazi nonsense was breathtaking. I can’t find it now, but I read a report that said a compromised CIA operation was involved in the attack, and that was main reason the WH was coy about what the nature of the attack, since parts of the investigation had to be secret.
Maybe the commenters here who follow national security can give me a link.
Anyway, that explains some things, like why all these GOPers who were grandstanding skipped the briefings. They needed plausible deniability about their knowledge of what was going on.
So, the sheer cynical sliminess of the likes of McCain and Graham is disgusting.
balconesfault
I guess while the Jews might control Hollywood, they don’t control the beltway?
CarolDuhart2
@dmsilev: 2016 is a Presidential year, when turnout in the collar counties is high. Kirk would be vulnerable from the right in such a year, and if not, vulnerable in the General.
Tonal Crow
@John O:
That’s about the size of it. They’re still calling other kids “girls” and “fags”, building forts out of tins cans and hubcaps with signs saying “no librals alloud”, shooting their BB guns at whatever moves, and torturing small animals.
thardy
Jen Rubin just pooped her panties……
ranchandsyrup
Why can’t these knuckleheads stand athwart the freeway and yell stop instead?
Cacti
@22over7:
If it doesn’t tilt the ideological balance, it would just be the usual theatrics.
If Kennedy or Scalia (the two oldest R-Justices) kicked the bucket, all hell would break loose.
And on edit, is anyone else hoping that soon to be 80-year old, and 2-time cancer survivor Ruth Bader Ginsburg is considering retirement during the next four years?
patroclus
@dmsilev: And, Kirk suffered a major stroke two years ago and has NOT recovered very well. He is not the same guy he once was – I don’t know if he has mental difficulties but his walking and speaking abilities are not the same at all. As pretty much the only Republican with any statewide appeal in Illinois, he doesn’t want any primary challenge whatsoever because he would then have to campaign openly; which wouldn’t be a compelling situation. He might not even run, but others have shown (Tim Johnson) that one can be re-elected even after a stroke, but a difficult primary challenge against a tea-bagger is certainly somethinhg he doesn’t want. The Democrats will be out to win the seat too and have a good chance.
General Stuck
Being in the mainstream is never having to say you’re sorry.
Tonal Crow
@Cacti:
Yeah. The media would bang the “Obama must appoint a moderate conservative as a peace offering to reach across the aisle” drum incessantly, and people here would poo-poo calls to appoint someone as liberal as Scalia is conservative (e.g. Erwin Chemerinsky) as “wishing for ponies”. Let alone calls to appoint whom he really ought to: Anthony Romero.
Spaghetti Lee
@dmsilev:
Kirk is like Scott Brown: a Republican who won a fluky election in a normally blue state (he won his election 49-47 over a relatively corrupt machine Democrat in 2010). I think he started by tacking towards the middle, but realized what Brown did-that there are too many solid Democrats in the state he can’t win over, so he has to really whip up the asshole crowd if he wants to win. And I think it will work about as well for him as it did for Brown-there’s a reason Illinois has only elected 2 Republican senators since 1979, the other being one-termer Peter Fitzgerald.
Cacti
@Spaghetti Lee:
Wasn’t his opponent from a mobbed up banking family or something of the like?
Lurking Canadian
@Tonal Crow: A moderate conservative would be an improvement over Scalia.
Mandalay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I don’t hear that…
Boehner is being very careful to sit on the fence on revenue increases. I hope he doesn’t fall off that fence and hurt himeself. Sitting on a fence for too long can be harmful to your health.
Cacti
@Tonal Crow:
I’d prefer a Goodwin Liu. Only 42 years old.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Cacti:
I hope he nominates Michelle, just to see the fucking fireworks.
ETA Although Liz Warren would be pretty spectacular too.
dance around in your bones
@jl: My gal is red-hot! Your gal ain’t doodly-squat!
Yeah, I got nothin’ here. Fuck the Repubs.
Forum Transmitted Disease
Lost in the noise: Hagel touched the third rail and lived.
I look forward to the day when our elected officials can criticize Israel as freely as they do our President.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Cacti: She has to. Absolutely has to. I will not for the life of me understand why she didn’t last term. I understand thinking you’re important but damn, the welfare of the Republic’s at stake here.
Bobby Thomson
@Cacti: And that’s why he couldn’t be confirmed to the 9th Circuit.
Chris
@jl:
Feature, not bug. The reason Benghazi makes a decent source of conspiracy theorizing is that so many of the details will, by necessity, be classified. Ergo, the wingnuts will be able to continue screaming cover-up and conspiracy no matter what. Heck, they can even continue to claim that the administration is covering up facts that it’s actually given them behind closed doors.
General Stuck
Neocons and other MIC connected wingnuts are afraid that Obama is going to gut the super gravy train that operates out of the pentagon. And that he plans to use an anti war Vietnam Vet conservative republican to run interference for him. It is another potential body blow to the war party, having lost the national security edge to a skinny kenyan moooslim terrorist. So they had to go on record for a degree of opposition without blocking Obama’s pick, that would have been untenable for them politically, with regard to leaving the Defense Dept leaderless.
I think they might be right to think what they think, and paring back the post 9-11 bloated defense budget is very much on O’s mind, that is okay with Hagel as well.
In case you missed Obama’s speech today on the sequester, he has all his pol warpaint on for the wingnuts, and plans to squeeze more revenue out of the little shit weasels, come hell or high water. And I approve. The mindless no new tax cult has to be broken above all else, if we are going to run a country that keeps its promises to its citizens. The 99 percent ones.
Tonal Crow
@Lurking Canadian:
In the same way, uncontrolled diabetes is an improvement over end-stage leukemia. Yes, politics is the art of the possible, but sometimes the very act of reaching for a high goal aids in accomplishing it.
Tonal Crow
@Cacti:
From what I’ve seen, he’d also be a good choice.
MomSense
@General Stuck:
He was on fire today!
General Stuck
If you want a liberal Scalia on the SCOTUS, Harold Koh is your best bet. He is at least as ornery as SCalia, and as smart.
DFS
Rubin is losing her shit. It’s fucking amazing. She’s actually slamming AIPAC over this.
Apparently, though the Israel lobby doesn’t actually exist or exert any real pressure in American politics, she’s pissed that it didn’t put enough pressure on to knock out Hagel. Brilliant.
Viva BrisVegas
So, Hagel suggests that the Israel lobby is too powerful in Washington and the Israel lobby almost destroys his nomination.
Those 27 GOP senators who voted against him sure proved Hagel wrong.
Robin G.
@Forum Transmitted Disease: My guess on RBG’s lack of retirement was that she wasn’t ready in the first two years and didn’t want to face the Senate balance post-2010. There’s no doubt in my mind she’ll retire before the end of Obama’s presidency, but I’m willing to bet she’s got someone watching the 2014 midterm races very, very closely.
22over7
@Tonal Crow:
Ok, but say Obama did nominate a moderate conservative. What good would it do (see Hagel, C.)? Obama would have to nominate dead Robert Bork, and still they’d whine that he should have nominated him while he still breathed.
Then they’d confirm him, and set aside some money for air freshener in the chambers. This is the level of crazy with which we have to contend. It’s like half the republican party is Louie Gohmert.
srv
Is that response to the Malkin video done yet? I’m wondering what the BENGHAZI dance will look like.
Eric U.
@Chris: Whitewater was debunked multiple times and the repubs in congress kept bringing it back up and it eventually sorta stuck. A lot of people got hurt as a result, but that is the least of their concerns. Benghazi is more like the (Clinton-related) Mena “scandal” or the Vince Foster “scandal” — nobody cares but the republicans.
Tonal Crow
@22over7: Right. Thus, the futility of trying to “reach across the aisle” in hope of moderating Teh Crazy.
normal liberal
@Spaghetti Lee:
Kirk is unlikely to run again given his medical issues, and there will be a concerted effort by the state Democrats to field a good candidate who can run statewide. The Republicans have a stable of angry cranks who can win in the red counties (like mine, although Obama carried it in 2008), but will be toast otherwise, even in the collar counties.
Alexi Giannoulias had the banking problem, but was also a terrible candidate; Kirk was a fluke.
Ben
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Kirk has always been hawkish on Israel/Iran, so I’m not surprised he voted with the Cruz/Paul caucus.
Trollhattan
@DFS:
Love it.
I’ll point out that always-wrong Jenny is keeping a WaPo opinonating chair out of McMegan’s equally competent hands.
Let’s hope they’re never in the same room at once–the universe would collapse into itself.
Wag
@dr. bloor:
I note that Sen. Paul of KY voted FOR hagel, along with 3 other GOP Senators.
BIPARTISAN!
Cacti
@Bobby Thomson:
Jerry Brown did the Lord’s work and put him on the California Supreme Court instead.
srv
@Trollhattan: The commenters are just hammering poor Jenny. 128-0 so far. McMegan at least had a bizarre fanbase.
Which reminds me, I need to go over there and tell her what a great job she is doing… if I could just remember where it was…
Baud
The GOP has been disintegrating since 2005. Their only hope was that the Democrats would disintegrate with them. We accommodated them in 2009-10. If we don’t do that again, they will have nowhere to go except further down.
Fax Paladin
Did I read correctly that Rand Paul wound up voting for Hagel?
Chris
@Baud:
Wanted: a system to get out the vote in midterms and not just in presidential election years. Unions and machines used to be the big tools for getting that done. Evangelical churches have served the same purpose for the other side recently. We need something like that again, and I’m not sure what our modern equivalent would be.
Gravenstone
@patroclus: It is my understanding that Kirk has fully mentally recovered from the stroke, but that he will face physical barriers for the rest of his life.
grandpa john
@dr. bloor: It’s CNN you expected thoughtful and reasoned commentary?
Baud
@grandpa john:
If it’s 140 characters or fewer, it’s CNN.
Baud
@Chris:
I was big into blogs in 2010, but they went AWOL, so I don’t count on them anymore. I don’t know if the new OFA will get into electoral politics, or if they will just focus on issues. Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of institutional actors on our side except for unions. The GOP still beats us in that respect.
grandpa john
@balconesfault:
what republicans are uneasy about is someone telling the truth about their sell out
Johnnybuck
@dance around in your bones: That’s just a whole lot of awesome there
Johnnybuck
@Fax Paladin: yeah, go figure.
wonders never cease
Lavocat
That would be because YOU are out of the mainstream, John Cole.
I think only the VSP get to decide what the “mainstream” is.
I’d actually like to find it so that I might be able to take a leak in it.
ChrisNYC
They are just such lame buffoons:
“[The sequester-is-bad narrative] is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury and signifying nothing!” Representative Tim Huelskamp (R., Kan.) tells National Review Online with a laugh. “I’m not a great Shakespeare fan, but it fits now here.”
Yuk yuk not that I LIKE that Shakespeare fella but….
This guy is an adult and this is his damn job, saying crap like this. How they don’t kill themselves or just sit in the bathroom crying, and moaning, “What happened!?” I don’t understand.
Litlebritdifrnt
@DFS:
When Pat fucking Buchanan is telling you that you are full of shit…
dance around in your bones
@Johnnybuck: Ain’t that the truth!
I get so tired of politics sometimes – even though I hang out on this blog (it’s cuz I love the peeples).
Yutsano
@dance around in your bones: We luvs ya too! And agreed on the tired of the politics thing. Especially since I just found out my union doesn’t have a flipping clue what they can do after it goes into effect.
Baud
@dance around in your bones: @Yutsano:
Make that three!
dance around in your bones
@Yutsano: Dude, that sucks. I hope you come out of it ok, in whatever fashion that takes. And I lubs you, too :)
@Baud: Really, it’s the commentariat that rocks, no? It’s what keeps me coming back, even as I slog through all the dreary political shit.
YOU GUYS!! YOU ROCK!! (guys to include ladies, too – of which I iz one).
JPL
@dance around in your bones: Definitely agree. The best thing that I did was rid myself of that pesky cable bill. The dumbing down of America..24/7 news.
mclaren
Starving grannies is mainstream. Ending social security is mainstream. Shutting down medicare is mainstream. High U.S. officials ordering the murder of American citizens without a trial or even accusing them of a crime is mainstream. Denying the last 80 years of economics is mainstream. Denying global warming is mainstream. Denying evolution is mainstream. Torture is mainstream. Mass murder of women and children bystanders in foreign countries at which we’re not at war by means of unmanned drones is mainstream. Recording the phone calls and emails and credit card transactions of every American citizens 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a years, is mainstream.
Citing the fifth and sixth and eighth amendments of the constitution, however, is a wacky fringe extremist position. Saying that the president of the united states has to obey the law is a far-out lunatic-fringe belief. Pointing out that the failed austerity economic policies of the Great Depression failed is a crazy wacka-wacka extremist position.
BruinKid
OK, how does this make any sense? Rand Paul voted AGAINST ending the filibuster, but then voted FOR Hagel once the filibuster was broken!
Baud
@dance around in your bones:
We do rock.
@BruinKid:
He was high.
Turgidson
@BruinKid:
He’s dumber than a box of hammers that had a lobotomy.
dance around in your bones
@JPL:I still have Direct TV but I only watch MSNBC (in the afternoon – no Joe Scar for me) – it’s Tweety (sometimes ok) Rachel and once in a while Lawrence. If I get too tired of it I switch to HGTV (I like to look at the Property Brothers and…..uh, fantasize a threesome.)
Gads, too much information!
burnspbesq
@Tonal Crow:
I loves me some Anthony Romero, but he’s unqualified to sit on the Supreme Court, and he can accomplish a lot more sitting in the seat he currently occupies.
Erwin would be an interesting choice, but if Obama really wants to put him on the Supreme Court someday he should put him on the Ninth Circuit like right the fuck now.
dance around in your bones
@mclaren:
mclaren, I am sorry – but even though you do make sense at times and even really good points? I find you so dreary and apocalyptic. Makes it hard to read your wall of text.
Not that I am some insightful commentator. I just hang around for the lulz. I guess I am shallow like that.
amk
@mclaren: Yes, let’s primary that ‘murkan killing fucker Obama with bernie sanders in 2016. Problem solved.
raven
@mclaren: Go back to talking about stereo’s you fucking douche bag.
MikeJ
@dance around in your bones: But he pledges allegiance to pie!
raven
@MikeJ: Good idea!
dance around in your bones
@MikeJ: Oddly, I have never pied mclaren. Usually I just scroll on by. Too much text and doom and gloom.
I love the pie, however – having contributed several pie offerings, I always feel a little thrill of authorship when I see one of mine in the pie filter.
MikeJ
@dance around in your bones: I actually waited a looong time before I pied, and it was the wall of text that did it. When he was pithy and stupid it wasn’t so bad. Hell, there were probably times I agreed.
While I’m no fan of the enforced 140 char limit, if one can’t get a blog comment down to under 300 words one should probably shut the fuck up. And I say that as someone who can easily ramble on and on for as long as you good people will pay me the honour of loaning me your precious attention.
Redshirt
I had a revelation! The Republican Party today is the 1980’s Young Republicans writ large! It works. Think it over.
Yutsano
@MikeJ: Brevity, soul of wit, etc.
dance around in your bones
@MikeJ: Heh. I spend a lot of time (uh, not really) keeping my comments brief and pithy. Perhaps not on topic? but pithy. I love the word pithy.
The people I send to the pie filter are those who just contribute nothing but crud. Perhaps it’s a subjective judgement. But hey! it’s MY subjective judgement!
Thanks again, cleek :)
sw
‘What is mainstream?” Well, I know that main stream archeologists are those stuffed shirts who are too stupid to believe in alien astronauts.
Yutsano
@dance around in your bones: I can’t really word this without sounding snobbish, but I don’t pie anyone. Not even Special Timmeh. Fortunately I’m nowhere near that delicate. I just talk around them and watch them demand I pay attention to them. It’s much moar fun. And they all jump on it like a duck on a June bug.
dance around in your bones
@Yutsano:
That doesn’t sound snobby. I rarely use the pie filter, except for those whose comments send my blood pressure skyrocketing. I don’t know, it’s a weird thing – some people I am able to scroll by, even though they annoy me, but others? Pie!
INMEDIAMENTE! No se porque. Like I said, it’s subjective.
danielx
You know better than that – mainstream is whatever David Brooks says is mainstream.
This is all you need to know.
Alex
“We have two parties: the Hagel Democrats and the pro-Israel Republicans. Only one party considers national security serious enough to place it above loyalty to the White House.”
-Jennifer Rubin
Redshirt
@Alex: That’s an actual quote?
xian
@MomSense: and everytime the wingtards whine that he should “stop campaigning” he should turn the screw tighter.
xian
@Wag: he wants to cut the Pentagon
xian
@Alex: I think she means, “Only one party considers national security serious enough to place it above loyalty to the United States.”
Alex
It’s from her latest rant – washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2013/02/26/hagel-confirmed-58-41/
The one where she praised the “Concerned Women for America”, who you might remember for criticizing Chelsea Clinton for marrying a Jew.
mclaren
Hounding to death our best and brightest citizens like Aaron Swartz who try to make publicly-funded research available to the public is mainstream.
Calling someone a “fucking douchebag” for pointing this out is mainstream.
Screaming with hate every time someone takes note of the United Snakes of Amnesia’s accelerating collapse is mainstream.
But saying that Barack Obama now asserts powers to murder his own citizens without explanation that not even William the Conquerer dared to assert? That’s a goofy kooky wacky fringe position, not to be taken seriously.
And noticing that the more sadistic and incompetent its leaders become, the more surly and brainless the American people grow as they applaud like trained seals? That’s a far-out nutty extremist position.
Quoting the fifth amendment, that’s the ultimate insane wacka-wack extremist crazy belief in 21st century America:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be
deprived of life, liberty, or property, without
due process…
We now return you to the regularly scheduled convulsions of foul-mouthed sadism and hate, otherwise known as the Balloon-Juice commentariat.
Evolving Deep Southerner
@Redshirt: Actually, that does explain a lot. A whole lot.
Evolving Deep Southerner
@dance around in your bones: I know what you mean. I have never used the pie filter, and probably won’t, mainly because the people other people find so damn enraging are interesting and/or entertaining to me.
Like Ted&Hellen. Yes, sometimes seems like s/he has a one-track mind, but s/he’s not illiterate. Seems to give as good as s/he gets. I’m made to understand there’s some backstory – somebody told me where all the “Timmeh” and the “pedophile” insults originated one time, but I can’t remember – but I’ve never seen where the rage comes from. If it’s an objection to monotony, God damn, there’s a bunch of people on here guilty of that.
Brick Oven Bill. Kola Noscopy (who was so similar to T&H that s/he may be the same person.) Matoko-chan. Fred/Derf, Political Observer and all their sockpuppets.
I’m sorry, the damn blog wouldn’t have been the same without these commenters. And these are just the “consensus trolls.” Hell, I’m probably a troll to somebody.
dance around in your bones
@Evolving Deep Southerner: Well, the one cool thing about the pie filter is that you can unpie somebody with a single click if you just have to see what they are saying.
But some peeps are just easy to scroll on by.
I do kinda miss Brick Oven Bill, even though he used to piss me off mightily. He was creative, at least – as was Matoko-chan.
Cud-lips!
BruceFromOhio
@Evolving Deep Southerner: Whoa, flashbacks at 7am make me wheezy. (holds chair)
ETA: VICTORY!