Until kitteh arrives and chaos rules the Cole household. Again.
Archives for February 2013
I only get my rocks off when I’m dreaming
I’ve been reading a lot of death-of-the-GOP articles. Conservative commentators like Ron Fournier and Josh Kraushaar believe that the party may split in two (Fournier brings up the possibility that the Democratic party might split too). Some liberal commentators and ostensibly nonpartisan commentators think it’s more likely that the GOP will enter a longterm minority status, as it did from 1932 to 1968.
Prediction is hard, especially about the future, but the party split seems like the stuff of fantasy. Bull Moose! No Labels! Americans Elect!
I don’t see why the longterm minority status prediction is crazy though, because I don’t think the GOP is interested in governing at the national level. They like to fuck around with stuff in Kansas and Michigan, but they have no interest in dealing with important national problems like longterm health care costs and the effects of climate change.
There’s two kinds of national conservatives: there’s the ones that like to wear tricorner hats and yell “Wolverines” and there’s the “centrist” kind that likes to find Very Serious reasons to concern troll whatever it is that Democrats are doing. Both are advocating doing the opposite of whatever liberals want, only in different ways. Both like to daydream more than anything else — teatards dream of gold, the Revolutionary War, and the apocalypse, Boboites dream of Hayek, Churchill, Reagan, and the hunky conservative pin-up du jour. Why should any of these people be all that concerned about getting enough votes to have actual political control? Mo’ votes, mo’ problems.
I only get my rocks off when I’m dreamingPost + Comments (93)
Asphalt jungle
Bieber help me, I do like stories like this:
In a meticulously planned heist that took barely five minutes to execute, armed men disguised as police officers drove onto the tarmac at the international airport in Brussels Monday night and stole diamonds worth around $50 million as they were being loaded onto a plane bound for Switzerland, officials said.
What are the best theft movies ever btw?
Fat Boxer! (Open Thread)
She’s getting a bit portly. Time for the “healthy weight” kibble, I guess. Please talk about whatever.
Jane Hamsher Saves the Internet
TBogg was all set to deprive us of his wit and bassets, but Ms. Hamsher talked him out of it. As far as I’m concerned, that makes up for the unfortunate Grover Norquist thing. Well done, Ms. Hamsher.
Early Morning Open Thread: Gosh, However Did That Happen?
(h/t commentor Comrade Mary)
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The lead Media Village Idiots at Politico (h/t commentor jamick6000) are very, very wounded by President “Puppet Master” Obama’s refusal to get more intimate with them:
President Barack Obama is a master at limiting, shaping and manipulating media coverage of himself and his White House.
Not for the reason that conservatives suspect: namely, that a liberal press willingly and eagerly allows itself to get manipulated. Instead, the mastery mostly flows from a White House that has taken old tricks for shaping coverage (staged leaks, friendly interviews) and put them on steroids using new ones (social media, content creation, precision targeting). And it’s an equal opportunity strategy: Media across the ideological spectrum are left scrambling for access.
The results are transformational. With more technology, and fewer resources at many media companies, the balance of power between the White House and press has tipped unmistakably toward the government. This is an arguably dangerous development, and one that the Obama White House — fluent in digital media and no fan of the mainstream press — has exploited cleverly and ruthlessly. And future presidents from both parties will undoubtedly copy and expand on this approach.
“The balance of power used to be much more in favor of the mainstream press,” said Mike McCurry, who was press secretary to President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Nowadays, he said, “The White House gets away with stuff I would never have dreamed of doing. When I talk to White House reporters now, they say it’s really tough to do business with people who don’t see the need to be cooperative.”…
Eight years of accusing the Clintons of every possible crime, up to and including large-scale drug running and multiple murders, followed by eight years of dutifully promulgating whatever bullshit and phantasms the Cheney Regency invented, and the Very Serious Media is shocked, shocked that President Obama would rather “spend way more time talking directly to voters via friendly shows and media personalities”. Or that “Obama’s aides are better at using technology and exploiting the president’s ‘brand.’… [T]hey are obsessed with taking advantage of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and every other social media forums, not just for campaigns, but governing.”
You’d think Tha Meeja would at least admire the Obama administration’s deftness in beating them at their own game, but… “The president’s staff often finds Washington reporters whiny, needy and too enamored with trivial matters or their own self-importance.”…Oooo, burn…
Early Morning Open Thread: Gosh, However Did <em>That</em> Happen?Post + Comments (81)
Open Thread
Is it wrong that the Buzzfeed political section doesn’t piss me off? It’s the same kind of over-the-top or insider bullshit as Politico, just more honest. Buzzfeed isn’t pretending to be anything other than a link-baiting/link-whoring enterprise.
At any rate, check out this one from Buzzfeed. Bless your heart, Ben Smith…