Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

This blog will pay for itself.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

We still have time to mess this up!

Republicans do not pay their debts.

You are here: Home / Second Verse, Same As The First

Second Verse, Same As The First

by | 103 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

She’s ‘Enery the Eight she is, ‘Enery the Eight she is, she is…

She’s still blogging for the Post once more…

Thomas Perez, the person reportedly about to be named the president’s nominee for labor secretary, makes Chuck Hagel seem like George C. Marshall.

She’s been wrong eighty times before…

Does the leader of a critical division of the Justice Department that had to be warned to respect these basic principles of fairness and good governance warrant promotion to secretary of labor? I don’t think so, but since we have Hagel there are apparently no standards for confirmation.

She’s ‘Enery the Eighth, she’s ‘Enery! (‘Enery!) ‘Enery the Eight she is!

Oh, and for some reason, the daft woman believes that Mukasey/Gonzo-era Department of Justice problems in this month’s IG report are 100% Perez’s fault, where he was an assistant AG in the Civil Rights division.  Rubin’s complaint is Perez is too much like the Bushies, so he can’t possibly be nominated, and she’ll keep screaming CHUCK HAGEL for the next four years anyway.

Drinking time.

Reader Interactions

103Comments

  1. 1.

    RaflW

    I really cannot gin up even a dram of outrage over anything Jennifer Rubin says anymore.

    As you note, she’s wrong all the time. And I’d add, just plain stupid. I pity the WaPo for keeping her, but beyond that?

    Ignore her. Seriously, she’s over. Giving her arglebargle a mention, even to mock her, is too good for her.

  2. 2.

    c u n d gulag

    I bet that ever since she photographed him “enflagrante delicto,” that Fred Hiatt’s never gone anywhere near the goat pen again.

  3. 3.

    Zifnab

    So is it official? Is the former Republican Senator from Nebraska our new Hitler? At this point, I just have to assume the GOP is resigned to phone it in for the next two years. Replace the elephant with a giant middle finger and call it a day.

  4. 4.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    and IIRC she was hired to “balance” Ezra Klein, with his charts and graphs and numbers and pleas for people to be nice to Paul Ryan. and Rachel Maddow is just a mirror image of Sean Hannity.

    I’m beginning to think Katharine Graham drank heavily when carrying Donnie.

  6. 6.

    DLew On Roids

    @Jebediah:

    It was an old English music hall standard before Herman’s Hermits turned it into a novelty hit. For a while it wasn’t performed on stage as “She wouldn’t have a Willie or a Sam,” because “Willie” was too bawdy.

  8. 8.

    kindness

    Did Rubin drag Israel into the discussion anywhere? Rubin seems to be a one trick pony like Pam Geller.

  9. 9.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Damn, somehow someone needs to figure out a way to have a 24 ton weight accidentally drop on Jennifer Rubin.

  12. 12.

    The Moar You Know

    I’m beginning to think that Jennifer Rubin just doesn’t like the President very much. Am I crazy?

  16. 16.

    Michele C

    @Linda Featheringill: Please explain. I, for one, just don’t read J. Rubin, but I have noticed in my new job that my colleague truly believes that Bobo and “The Mustache of Wisdom” are actually imparting wisdom because their arguments seem so sensible that they lead her to their conclusions (facts be damned). This is why these “always wrong” types worry me.

    Sigh. I will admit to being in a particularly “damn-the-world-sucks” mood today. Woke up that way. Jennifer Rubin does not tend to walk me back from dark feelings. :)

  17. 17.

    Petorado

    Rubin’s slacking. No mention of why this is really bad for Israel and whether Perez is a friend of Hamas or not.

  18. 18.

    Suffern ACE

    @RinaX: O.K. what are these internet cafes? I think its a shame that a “charity” that raises almost 300 million manages to only have 2% go to charitable work , but what are the “Internet Cafes” they are talking about.

  19. 19.

    Corner Stone

    @Scott S.: I also was amused. Cesca spent several paragraphs debunking statements not made in a less than two sentence tweet. And no paragraphs actually negating what was briefly stated.
    Seems a little obsessive, but that’s just IMO.

  20. 20.

    Scott S.

    @Michele C: I had some coworkers at my last job who fell hard for Friedman’s “The World is Flat” bullshit. Bugged the hell out of me, and it really annoyed me that, at the time, I didn’t have any good way to refute it aside from linking to Rude Pundit columns, which I wasn’t able to do because SWEARS. :/

  22. 22.

    Corner Stone

    All I know is, I wake up every day and thank the Lord for His benevolence that I am not named Mona Foad, M.D.

  23. 23.

    ? Martin

    Well, I think it’s pretty clear that as Secretary of Labor Perez will insist that Palestinians are extended a racial entitlement in Israel’s election process.

  27. 27.

    Cacti

    It boggles the mind that Jenghazi is actually getting paid by WaPo to cut and paste from the American Spectator.

  28. 28.

    Omnes Omnibus

    If she is getting paid to do this, shouldn’t she have the decency to put in a little bit of effort? Is that too much to ask?

  29. 29.

    Jay

    Thanks for this, Zandar.

    I have a learning disability-related question for y’all (well, it is, at least from my perspective): Is there any way to fit the Inspector General’s report into Readability or Instapaper?

  31. 31.

    Todd

    If everybody Obama names to any job is worse than Hitler, and Obama is worse than Hitler, then does Hitler get a pass on being Hitler?

  32. 32.

    burnspbesq

    @Corner Stone:

    Since you appear to have missed it, Cesca’s point is that Greenwald’s tweet was calculated to create outrage over a nothing-burger by pushing the right buttons in his army of flying monkeys. Of which you are one, apparently.

  33. 33.

    Corner Stone

    @burnspbesq: Since you missed it, Cesca’s point was exactly what I said it was. He chewed paper slamming a case that wasn’t made, neither implicitly nor explicitly.

  35. 35.

    ruemara

    @Corner Stone:
    Half a minute. You’re saying “Drone war and Drug war” married does not heighten paranoia? It was not calculated to fire up those who believe GG’s every utterance? Can you define what you read that tweet to be?

  37. 37.

    Southern Beale

    Apparently we have a theme. I give you the last graf of Peggy Noonan’s Wall Street Journal op-ed, because I guess comparing liberals and reformers to Hitler wasn’t strong enough:

    I once read an account of Anne Boleyn’s death. In the moments after she was beheaded her head was held aloft by her executioner, to show the crowd. Her nervous system was shocked, her neurons misfired, her head didn’t know it was severed from her neck. Her eyes blinked, her mouth moved crazily. Those critics who go on TV now to tear down what they don’t even understand: they are removed and unknowing. They are Anne Boleyn’s head.

    Holy fuck. What did they slip in Nooners’ risotto last night?

  39. 39.

    arguingwithsignposts

    It’s possible she’s losing it and just starting to rant because basically everyone at the WaPo outside Hiatt’s little shelter of RW noisemakers hates her and thinks she’s a wannabe.

    I hope she’ll flame out soon.

  40. 40.

    Pooh

    @Corner Stone: so we should be outraged by flying toy planes? Or GG didn’t want us to be outraged? Tell us what all good non-sheeple should think about this.

  42. 42.

    handsmile

    @Michele C:

    Tom Friedman is the “Mustache of Understanding.” (Of course, he possesses neither that nor wisdom.)

    For “Mustache of Wisdom,” I’d choose either Albert Einstein or Friedrich Nietzsche.

    Hope your day improves!

  44. 44.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Southern Beale: one of the umpteen zillion things that stun me about our political-media establishment is that Peggy Noonan is taken seriously. When I see her on TeeVee, I think that booze is the most charitable explanation.

  46. 46.

    patroclus

    I don’t understand how Anne Boleyn’s head marrying the drone war to the drug war with an expensive toy plane with a camera has anything to do with Jennifer Rubin, Chuck Hagel or Thomas Perez. Can someone please explain…

  47. 47.

    different-church-lady

    Isn’t more like “Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam, spam, spam, and spam”?

  48. 48.

    NonyNony

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    one of the umpteen zillion things that stun me about our political-media establishment is that Peggy Noonan is taken seriously

    I want to know what definition of “taken seriously” you’re using.

    Our political-media establishment don’t seem to take anything seriously as far as I can tell. Sports analysts seem to take the average NCAA (non-tournament!) basketball game more seriously than our media takes our presidential elections, let alone the routine tasks of governance…

  49. 49.

    Michele C

    @handsmile: Thank you!

    I suppose the “understanding” refers to his epiphanies while riding in taxi cabs, etc.?

    It is actually beautifully sunny here and I have cute cats and such, so I’m sure I can get my mood back up to middling.

  51. 51.

    NonyNony

    @patroclus: Nonono. Anne Boelyn’s head is going to be mounted to a drone and then married to the drug war. It’s all part of a secret Templar ritual that the Reptoids are using to kill the next candidate for the Fisher King before he can ascend to his throne.

  52. 52.

    Jay C

    @Southern Beale:

    Her nervous system was shocked, her neurons misfired, her head didn’t know it was severed from her neck. Her eyes blinked, her mouth moved crazily.

    “Ms. Boleyn? Fox News calling for you on Line 2; something about a job??”

  53. 53.

    patroclus

    @NonyNony: That USF-Seton Hall OT last night was very exciting! I don’t understand why either Dear Leader Greenwald or Nooners didn’t tweet about it…

    Go Hoyas!

  54. 54.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @NonyNony: Our political-media establishment don’t seem to take anything seriously as far as I can tell.

    You haven’t heard that the Deficit is coming to first rape and then eat your children? Well, you must have found something healthy and pleasant to do with your Sunday mornings

  55. 55.

    Suffern ACE

    @Southern Beale: That is one very tortured analogy. Peggy should retire and write SAT questions for a living. Critics:Anne Boleyn’s Severed Head = Fish:??

  56. 56.

    Michele C

    @Jay: For a specific device? My husband uses something called Goodreader on his iPad for PDFs. I can’t say much about it other than he loves it.

  57. 57.

    jl

    @Zifnab:

    ” So is it official? Is the former Republican Senator from Nebraska our new Hitler? ”

    No, relatively speaking, Hagel is our new George C. Marshall. A famous WsPo pundit columnist said it, so it’s “out there”. For keepsies.

    Rubin was pretty clever, pulling a few paragraphs from a 300 page report and smearing people with ambiguous quotes (or ARE they quotes?). I did a search for the graphs Rubin puts up. One is in a section that seems to mainly concern the New Black Panther Party controversy and the outgoing administration. Almost all of the incidents in the report predate Obama. I can’t find one of the graphs that Rubin quotes in the report. So, Rubin’s use of the report to spread insinuendos is suspect. So, I think Zandar has a very good point.

  59. 59.

    jl

    BTW, I would like to start a public campaign to get Dennis Rodman a pundit position at the NYT or WaPo.

    He is more articulate and reasons better that mooks like Rubin or Brooks. Having spent time growing up on a ranch, he is more in touch with real America. He has actual skills at doing something in the real world (basketball, obviously). he has more experience in international relations. He says “I guess” a lot when punditizing on his recent basketball diplomacy, so is more honest about how he reaches his conclusions.

    And, he schmoozes with a more interesting crowd.

    How can we get this done?

  62. 62.

    jl

    @Southern Beale: What did Noonan take with her risotto? She links to her own column critical of he RC Church, then damns others for being critical?

    Well, the other critics took on celibacy and gender discrimination in the RC Church. Both of which are hard to find in the Bible. What with St Peter complaining about the difficulty of handling expenses since he had wife to support and women being mentioned as leaders and teachers in the early church. But in Noonan’s book, touching those are Just Not Done.

    So, and extreme to total demand for celibacy that was instituted around 1000 AD, for a number of obscure political and economic reasons is sacrosanct and it is vulgar to question it.

    I read once that 20 years ago or so, an internal RC Church study recommended junking their extreme celibacy requirement for priests, but retreated in the face of opposition of bitter older priests who found that unfair, and weird old reactionary dudes, who are just weird. So, I apologize for reporting the frothing neurological reactions, writhing convulsing rictus, and projectile drool, of some severed heads inside the RC Church.

  63. 63.

    Todd

    @Southern Beale:

    Her nervous system was shocked, her neurons misfired, her head didn’t know it was severed from her neck. Her eyes blinked, her mouth moved crazily. Those critics who go on TV now to tear down what they don’t even understand: they are removed and unknowing. They are Anne Boleyn’s head.

    Sounds like Michelle Malkin or Pam Geller.

  67. 67.

    Corner Stone

    @ruemara:

    You’re saying “Drone war and Drug war” married does not heighten paranoia

    No, what I’m saying is you are incapable of reading simple text.

  68. 68.

    catclub

    @jl: Angle of Repose!

    Which I only remember because my dad was reading a book on the Panama canal which defined it. I have never read Stevens,
    or the book on the canal.

  69. 69.

    Mnemosyne

    @jl:

    IIRC, the Eastern Orthodox churches developed a slightly different approach to celibacy — married men can be parish priests, but if you want to move up in the hierarchy, you have to be unmarried (or at least widowed with grown children). Presumably this solves the problem that the RCC ran into of priests having children that they wanted to leave Church lands to (though the RCC unofficially solved that problem by having the bastard children of priests enter the church themselves as “nephews” and “nieces,” which is where the word “nepotism” originated).

  70. 70.

    Corner Stone

    @Pooh: I don’t think it’s a matter of outrage, except the manufactured effort by Cesca and those who apparently are incapable of reading less than 140 characters at a time.
    I’m not sure what’s so hard here? It’s simple, undeniable information. An LEO used funds/assets previously seized in drug cases to purchase a drone for simple surveillance. No one anywhere, with the exception of Cesca, is stating the drone is armed or would be used to blow up latte liberals in lesbian owned libraries.

  71. 71.

    Corner Stone

    @different-church-lady: That depends. Is it the kind of blanket I’d use for a picnic by the lake? Or the kind I’d cover me and my snuggle bunny with on the floor down by the fireplace on a cold Saturday?

  72. 72.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Pooh: Actually, the use of drones for surveillance by law enforcement does bother me. Quite a bit as a matter of fact. And I think this is wear a legitmate concern about drone use comes into play; the idea that a drone is going launch a missile at some dude sitting on the terrace of a Starbucks in Hoffman Estates, IL, is somewhat laughable. The idea that drones will be recording people’s movements is not.

  73. 73.

    different-church-lady

    @Corner Stone: Well, either Peter’s right, and you are this thick, or you’re just getting some kind of jollies out of playing thick.

  75. 75.

    ruemara

    @Corner Stone: My reading comprehension is fine. You seem to think insults are an answer to a question. What did you get out of GG’s tweet? It’s a pretty simple question.

  80. 80.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @different-church-lady:

    And, worse, it appears as if terrifying drones have been “married” to the (admittedly worthless) drug war. Drones and the drug war:

    From the article.

    @Corner Stone: “Drug War & drone proliferation” is pretty close.

  81. 81.

    jl

    @handsmile: thanks. Maybe not Wallace Stevens, then. But I saw some fancy writer use it, and figured that was good enough and have used it ever since.

  83. 83.

    handsmile

    @jl:

    [I was actually writing a reply to this earlier comment when the Wallace Stevens alarm went off.]

    Your second paragraph neatly summarizes why Dennis Rodman would in fact be disqualified from serving as a pundit at Kaplan Test Prep Daily or The Grey(ing) Lady.

    Even more importantly, however, he attended Southeastern Oklahoma State where students are not finely instructed in the distinction between a soup spoon and a bouillon spoon. Such ignorance would be mercilessly mocked in the Village salons.

  84. 84.

    stinger

    There’s so much else wrong with Rubin’s column, and I hate to be petty, but… all right, then, I’ll BE petty. To say someone has been “named a nominee” demonstrates an embarrassing ignorance of the meanings of words. It’s like saying “the Rio Grande river”. How do people with so little command of the English language land cushy jobs writing for national media outlets?

  85. 85.

    Jeremy

    I really don’t get how a drone is different from technology we already have. And if someone is concerned about Drones being used for surveillance than you should also be concerned about satellites that can take pictures of license plates and used for surveillance purposes.

    The constant drone paranoia is tiring and annoying and the majority of Americans don’t see this as a topic of concern when we should be worrying about more important issues.

  87. 87.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Jeremy: How much does a satellite cost? How much does one of these little drones cost? A local law enforcement agency can’t task a satellite. It can conceivable acquire a few drones.

  88. 88.

    catclub

    @handsmile: Thanks! I hope my wandering description of the memories of a magpie, made it clear I was likely to be corrected on something.

  89. 89.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Corner Stone: Greenwald is adept enough to leave an impression that he can also deny when called out for it. “The Drug War and drone proliferation get married”: with those “war” words in parallel, the suggestion is not _accidentally_ that cops are or will soon be firing ordnance from drones at drug dealers. He could even say “Chronicles of the surveillance state” or something and be more accurate and still pointed. But it wouldn’t have the doubling of war and weapons.

    (Although the “married” part is odd rhetorically. Maybe it’s in the vein of “you love it so much why don’t you marry it” or something.)

    It’s a bit like Bush saying “the Kay Report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities,” which is carefully calculated to make you think “dozens of weapons of mass destruction, aaaiieee!” rather than “dozens of activities related to a program related to weapons”–while also not saying any of that outright.

  90. 90.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Jeremy:

    And if someone is concerned about Drones being used for surveillance than you should also be concerned about satellites that can take pictures of license plates and used for surveillance purposes.

    To be fair, Greenwald _is_ concerned about that kind of thing.

  92. 92.

    kindness

    Holy Batman, Robin and the new Pope!

    This thread got linked to by Good Ole Charles Pierce today.

    I don’t know about the rest of you Juicers but that is enough for me to go out and make fun of conservatives and fundamentalists of all stripes. What? Yea, so what I do that every day. Today is another good day.

  96. 96.

    Corner Stone

    @Jeremy:

    and the majority of Americans don’t see this as a topic of concern when we should be worrying about more important issues.

    Agreed. But, um, like what?

  97. 97.

    Corner Stone

    @Peter: You know, the first time you say such a thing I’m able to shrug it off. But that second time…that shit really hurts man.

  98. 98.

    Corner Stone

    @FlipYrWhig: Well, why shouldn’t we be wondering?
    Personally, I threw an enormous titty baby fit when my local city council tried to stick red light cameras at every intersection around here. I mean, give me a fucking break.

  99. 99.

    Corner Stone

    @Omnes Omnibus: My 8 yr old son and I have built 2 so far. I can fly them on station pretty much non stop if I wanted to and made my schedule to fit recharging times.
    Not sure why these guys are spending $44K for 90 minute hops.

  101. 101.

    Groucho48

    Bush stuffed the Civil Rights division of Justice with a bunch of ideologues who believed that the only civil rights being violated nowadays are the civil rights of white guys. When he left office many of them where slipped into civil service positions where it is almost impossible to dislodge them.

    When Obama’s appointees took over there were some clashes. They had the ludicrous notion that white guys don’t have their civil rights violated very often. This, of course, proves Obama is a racist who is politicizing the Justice dept.

  102. 102.

    AHH onna Droid

    @Corner Stone: The only scandal there clown is where the manufacturer gets a cut of the tickets. City owned has recourse and is more forgiving. The purpose is pedestrian safety but I know many motorists view ramming their death box through the roads as a right rather than privilege.

Comments are closed.