I remain puzzled by the complete obsession by our media, including much of the genuinely liberal media, about the minute-to-minute dynamics of Republicans and conservatives. Karl Rove said what about who? Snap! What’s Grover have to say? Does John McCain agree with the honorable Mr. Sessions? Jeb vs. Newt!!!
I don’t see what’s puzzling about this at all. Conservative politics is about escapism, it’s part Red Dawn, part Chronicles of Narnia, part The Kardashians, part Heavy Into Jeff. At any moment, a new magic bullet — the freedom agenda, the Laffer curve — could come along and save our society, at any moment, some sun-chapped prairie himbo could come along and steal Bobo’s heart. Tomorrow is only a wetsuit away.
Democrats aren’t even getting caught with hookers anymore, they’re relying on the Daily Caller to fabricate stories about getting caught with hookers.
If you take away the teahadists and the would-be-wonky conservative himbos and the Reagan corpse-fucking, American politics, like life itself, is pretty dull. Obama may be charismatic but he lives a staid life and is mostly focused on solving vexing, complicated, long-term problems.
Also too, Republicans love conservative drama because they’re in love with the various dramatic personae, Democrats love conservative drama because it makes conservatives look stupid and unelectable, and pundits love it because it makes them feel like they’re part of something important and exciting.
Roger Moore
Shorter: The Republicans are reality TV for political junkies.
mclaren
Your writing keeps gets better, Doug. Dynamite stuff.
Also, don’t forget the monkey-cage effect. Why do people gather around the monkey cage in the zoo instead of watching the lions or the pythons? Because the monkeys do such crazy wacky looney stuff.
Mark S.
Words to live by.
Scott
I, for one, keep an eye on them so I’ll know how they’re planning to further fuck up my life.
Pokeyblow
Tomorrow is only a wetsuit-inside-a-wetsuit away.
Hill Dweller
Why aren’t Republicans being asked to justify supporting a policy that leads to 750,000 job losses? We have 7.9% unemployment, but we’re stuck talking about wingnut intransigence…again.
MattF
Well, if political reporting isn’t going to cover policy or stuff with numbers, then all that’s left is speculation about unhappy childhoods.
mistermix
It doesn’t get any better than this.
mclaren
@Roger Moore:
Actually, I think it’s closer to “If politics is TV, the Democrats are CSPAN book hour and the Republicans are “Jackass.”
General Stuck
It is simply Human nature to care about what the gorillas are doing and thinking. You know, their plans, aspirations for destroying the country. Every hungry reporter wants to be the first to present news of the next hostage crisis, destroying the world economy, or fomenting civil war. These are career makers for the next Bob Woodward.
Steeplejack
Nicely turned phrase, but your D-string is a bit off.
/Grammar Police (Badge 4690)
“To correct and serve”
Maude
@MattF:
And that’s just so much easier and fun than stinky ole numbers.
Biscuits
They love drama queens?
Litlebritdifrnt
Not really OT but I found this line from a new book about Roger Ailes to be amusing, Obama was complaining to him about Sean Hannity hammering him every night on Fox Ailes told him:
He basically admits that Hannity is preaching to the choir and will never sway anyone’s vote. Priceless. The story is here
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/in-biography-roger-ailes-says-gingrich-is-prick
Maude
@Steeplejack:
We are waiting for rain and then rain snow. Who knows what will fall here in NJ.
You’re a great proofreader.
ranchandsyrup
It’s a tacit admission by the media that the game is rigged. That this is all some sort of WWE storyline with the GOPers as permanent babyfaces and the mean old intolerant demonrats as the heels.
shortstop
Can’t stand it when it goes from reel to reel to reel to reel.
piratedan
Reality TV? More like High School it seems. The Republican Party is acting like a bunch of spurned lovelorn teenagers. You know, where true pettiness resides and all the wannabees suck up to the rich kids to do their bidding instead of actually learning or doing anything. Plus/also/too, if it didn’t happen to them, it’s an abstract that has no relevancy. Because, you know, Lip Service, is all you ever give to me….
Hunter Gathers
It’s the most expensive and hands down worst reality show in the Galaxy. The kicker is that more people watch re-runs of SpongeBob SquarePants than watch our shitty reality show government.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Hill Dweller:
You live with the Village Media you have, not the one you wished you had.
Ben Franklin
“I don’t see what’s puzzling about this at all. Conservative politics is about escapism”
You’ve become the Poster-Boy for redemptive self-awareness.
BGinCHI
Jake’s new show debuting on CNN:
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/jake-tappers-cnn-show-debuts-march-18
I’m guessing it’s called “Tapp That Ass.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think you need a comma before “That”
Roger Moore
@BGinCHI:
I don’t know whether to LOL or reach for a bucket of brain bleach.
Winston Smith
Nice.
For the culturally retarded.
c u n d gulag
To steal from the great Carol Burnett, Republican internal squabbling as a Soap Opera:
“As the Stomach Turns.”
Shrillhouse
I’m Canadian.
I enjoy watching the freak show from a distance. Sort of a macabre fascination for me. Mercifully, I’m not directly affected by the never-ending tragi-comedy that is American politics…
Mandalay
You are really on to something there. Last night I watched Laurence O’Donnell to see what he had to say about the death of Chavez. His opening “story” was having two buddies on to discuss what Ezra Klein had said about something Bill O’Reilly had said the previous week.
Three pundits opining about the comments of another pundit about yet another pundit.
Mr. Smug could not have been more pleased with himself about his gripping exclusive, which was far more important to him than anything going on in the real world.
Steeplejack
@Maude:
I was up until after 2:00 futzing around and looking at the snow. It continues to come down, but it’s only half-sticking to the pavement and is not piling up to the extent that was threatened (8-12"). Probably because the temp is 33°. Weather.com says we’ve had 6 inches here in Falls Church, but there is not 6 inches on the ground. A lot of it is melting right away. “Snowquestration” fail.
Xecky Gilchrist
pundits love it because it makes them feel like they’re part of something important and exciting.
Well, and because they’re paid to.
BGinCHI
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well played.
Steeplejack
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I would put the comma after “Tapp.”
Mandalay
@Litlebritdifrnt:
His comment about Newt Gingrich was a thing of beauty: “He’s a sore loser and if he had won he would have been a sore winner”.
eric
I think part of it is that the conservative belief paradigm is truly built on the “Great Man” as the mover of history and savior or Man. It begins with Christ and we see it with all their deification of Reagan and how they put forth Palin or Ryan — as someone transcendent and with abilities beyond mere mortals. When you rely on great men, as it were, the only point is talk about the meta-issues and not the nuts and bolts because it is presumed that the Great Man will simply handle “it,” whatever “it” may be.
Hill Dweller
Scott Walker is trying to destroy Wisconsin:
different-church-lady
And most of all Cable News channels love it because it brings eyeballs. And that’s what’s really driving the whole thing. If you took MSNBC, FNC and CNN off the air for a month, non-video traffic on the internet would probably drop by half.
Ben Cisco
I saw “B-Movie” and was hoping you’d go for the Gil Scott-Heron here:
Eric U.
if some of my relatives are any clue, being batshit crazy does not hurt the electability of republicans at all. Facts and logic need not apply. Unfortunately we have about half of the population that is either glad to hear the crazy or dismisses it for some reason, mostly tribalism.
I have to say that republican infighting is pretty entertaining. Reagan’s 11th commandment was pretty strong for a long time
handsmile
@shortstop:
In keeping with the proof-reading demanded by Sheriff Steeplejack above, there seems to be some debate on the Intertubes about that lyric. An alternative reading is:
“…when it goes from real to reel/Too real too real…”
(My own hearing of that punning lyric had always been “from real to reel to real to reel”.)
Any Declan MacManus mavens hereabouts care to weigh in authoritatively?
scav
Old, or least expected, News? Revealed: Pentagon’s link to Iraqi torture centres
Exclusive: General David Petraeus and ‘dirty wars’ veteran behind commando units implicated in detainee abuse
Villago Delenda Est
Seriously, is it no wonder that the hero of these twits is a shitty grade-Z movie star?
Joel
@handsmile: I thought that was a Grand Puba reference.
Hill Dweller
Senate Republicans just filibustered Caitlin Halligan’s nomination to the US Court of Appeals(DC Circuit)…again.
As Solicitor General of NY she argued a gun case the NRA didn’t like. That apparently disqualifies a person in wingnut world.
DougJ, Friend of Hamas
@mclaren:
Thanks, and that’s a good point about monkeys in the zoo.
Omnes Omnibus
@handsmile:
Source
piratedan
@handsmile: well they say that you have to be Cruel to be Kind, in the right measure…. but I only throw that in there because Declan already cribbed What’s So Funny About Peace Love and Understanding…..
eric
@Hill Dweller: plus, she might have lady parts.
Cassidy
OT: After the first openly gay MMA fighter was elevated to a prime time position, there is now an openly trans fighter. Unfortunately, it’s because she was outed.
amk
@Litlebritdifrnt:
shorter ailes – we got those rwnj idjits ‘surrounded’ in our pox news bubble.
different-church-lady
@handsmile: Screw the lyrics, I just wanna know how they got that drum sound.
different-church-lady
@Litlebritdifrnt: Yeah, but they ARE going to phone their congress critters every 14 minutes.
Even when he’s admitting something Alies is pulling slight of hand.
Suffern ACE
Ummmm. I think its not so much that they like the drama; its that they want them back in charge. We want to make fun of them, sure, so we like the circus. But the MSM seem to be treating the “future of the Republicans story” as if its an issue of vital importantance to our nation is what I’m reading. Who will be their candidate four years from now? Will Latinos love them? Will the south Asians love them again?
Who cares? We once went 70 years without a Republican party at all! I think we’ll survive somehow.
Tom
I live in Wisconsin and this morning the public radio had an hour interview and call in show with Amity Shales regarding her biography of Calvin Coolidge. Apparently, it is time to dust off his carcass and remind modern Republicans how to get back on top by repeating the Roaring Twenties. I think she may have been in tears by the end of the show. The host asked very gentle questions but the liberal hordes (God bless them) were relentless about the white washing of Coolidge.
aimai
I really think that Reagan broke something in the Media spine. Despite his obvious flaws and some minor pushback he was a generation older than the reporters who covered him and they submitted to his authority as a father figure, genial guy, older guy. They understood Reagan and they were not competitive with him. With the rise of Clinton I saw the rise of a kind of contempt for Clinton as an outsider (although as a governor he was classic presidential material), as a fat boy (the coverage at the start was all about his undisciplined thighs and eating habits), as a white trash southernor, and as a relatively young man. One aspect of it was that the media were either older than Clinton or his age–the older ones had contempt for Clinton as an “upstart” and the ones his age were pissed off at seeing the top job go to a guy just like them who had chosen politics instead of journalism.
With Obama I see a lot of the same age based jealousy in play. There’s a whole bunch of media personalities who really think that because they could have gone to school with Obama, or crossed paths with him socially, or are his age (but white) that they could totes do his job with one hand tied behind their back.
pk
@Litlebritdifrnt:
What I find annoying is that Obama is “complaining” to Ailes. If I was Obama I would consider even breathing the same air as Ailes to be beneath me.
Soonergrunt
“Tomorrow is only a wetsuit away.”
That needs to be a rotating tag line. Speaking of which, we need to bring back the rotating tag lines.
PeakVT
@Tom: Shales is an idiot. Even with the media on the Republicans’ side, it’s impossible to resurrect Coolidge without also reanimating his successor.
Omnes Omnibus
@scav: Not surprising.
Steele, if he is the guy I remember, had been one of Ollie North’s colleagues in Central America and went on to command of the 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment on the IGB in Germany. I met him a few times. He had medals out the ass and is probably the most charismatic person I have ever known. His involvement in Central America probably, and IMO rightly, kept him from getting a star.
RareSanity
@mclaren:
This may be one of the most awesome things I’ve read in awhile.
Well done.
gene108
@Hill Dweller:
Because government jobs are a drain on society…duh…
You see the only way government jobs exist is by the government taking money from productive members of society and giving it to people, who do unproductive things that do not generate profits. Therefore we will be better off with fewer government workers, thus allowing us to lower taxes on productive people, because we do not need to support those government workers.
@PeakVT:
I don’t get her obsession with Coolidge. He did no harm, mostly because he was riding a bubble economy that burst, shortly after his successor took office.
Tom
@PeakVT: The interview really had the feel of “Mrs. Lincoln, besides the ending how did you enjoy your night on the town?”
ed drone
@Steeplejack:
So the snow isn’t sticking? Something else global warming must answer for!
So the denialists say, “What difference is a degree or two?” Now we know. One or two degrees Farenheit make a big difference to your driveway (and heart condition, if you shovel your own).
Ed
Chris
@eric:
Yeah. It also explains the rage at liberals supposedly turning Obama into “the Messiah.” They have no problem treating politicians like that, they just hate that the treatment is being given to other politicians too.
Chris
@scav:
Yeah, Rumsfeld loved his little black operations that reported directly to him and were personally loyal to him. Also, this deserves its own thread, IMO.
mary@
DougJ, that was easily the best, most creative,flawless, seemingly effortless snark-a-thon that I have ever read. I feel like I need a cigarette.
PeakVT
@gene108: Well, Coolidge did do harm by letting the bubble develop. I assume he didn’t intend to do harm in that manner because for the most part people didn’t understand the nature and danger of bubbles back then. (And, no, most people still don’t understand the danger today. There’s not much of an excuse, though, since the knowledge is available.)
Paul in KY
@Scott: very prudent :-)
ericblair
@Shrillhouse:
It’s Meech Lake on auto-repeat every two weeks here.
Paul in KY
@aimai: Racism is at play too with Pres. Obama.
Paul in KY
@pk: All you have is their word that he was ‘complaining’.
I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them. Written or spoken words.
slag
This is true. And explains why I can’t stand Republican drama. It’s just further evidence of our collective failure as a species. Depressing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Paul in KY: From what I’ve seen, Obama’s “complaints” tend to be presented with a studied exasperated humor, like the whole mind meld thing. My guess is he teased Ailes at the White House Xmas party. Bad Roger is a grandiose delusional, remember the stories from a few years back about how Murdoch as to provide him with elaborate security because Ailes thinks he so important.
shortstop
@handsmile:
I don’t believe I’ve ever seen that word hyphenated.
Paul in KY
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I get a bit exasperated at times with people who just take what these liars say at face value. That fucking book was wriiten by that POS Zev Chafets, a thoroughly loathsome creature.
Chris
@slag:
Red Dawn is awful (not even talking about the remake I haven’t seen), Narnia is actually fairly okay, the Kardashians are conclusive proof of humanity’s failure as a species, and I don’t know what that other thing was.
Jim
But they continue to be happy and to be smarter than us and to make more money than we do, and that’s what really pisses me off.
Keith G
The media obsession with this centers around the reality that there are more social and personal friendships between powerful media types and Republican insiders. This is not an accident. Republicans do a lot of things worse than Democrats. Cultivating the media they want is not one of them.
flukebucket
@Litlebritdifrnt:
And the choir just keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller.
SiubhanDuinne
@aimai:
I think you’ve really put your finger on something here, Aimai. I can remember my mother in 1960 in quite some distress because the new President-elect, JFK, was only a couple of months older than she was (even though she liked him). It can be disconcerting for anyone to come to grips with the idea of authority figures who are younger, whether doctors or policemen or US presidents. But most of us are able to get over it; much of the Fourth Estate, apparently, is not.
dance around in your bones
@mclaren:
I love it when you are pithy.